No Safe Distance

Coming Back from the Mountain...

I have long been a fan of David Whyte's poetry. He has recently released a new collection of poetry set to music. Here is a sample track that I am sure will resonate with some of my faithful readers...

I love you beyond my human capacity to do so.

I said that to Michael not long before he died and I meant it in all its seriousness and weight.

This was not a gushy, mushy profession of adoration. No infatuation was involved. There wasn't anything romantic about it. It was just a fact of my existence...the culmination of the work we had done together over the years preceding his departure. It is what he, his quadriplegia, and his mortality, taught me how to do.

I know the scientists and critical thinkers among you might try and dispute my claim, citing my inherent human status and that, as such, anything I do or say or think or feel must necessarily be within my human capacity. I'm just saying, I've known myself for 48 years. I know not only my actions but I know what I really think behind them. I know when I'm in alignment and when I'm not. I know when I'm passive aggressive. I know when I'm manipulating. I know when I'm on top of the world and how genuinely good I can be. I know when I'm at the bottom of my barrel and how cutting I can be. What I saw myself doing in my relationship with Michael overrode so many of my instincts and derailed so many of my games it was mindblowing. I was better with him, particularly as we got close to the end that I ever thought I could be capable of.

And I haven't been that good since.

Train Wrecks, Backward Miracles and Life on the Other Side, Final

(Go here if you want to take it from the top.)

As we approach the 1st anniversary of my Dad's death, his house is now on the market. So is Michael's. Now that my sister's kids are getting out of school, I can pass the baton for the house on to her and her family. For the first time in a long time I am settling back into my own space without the feeling of anything else hanging over my head. I've had some of that "Rip Van Winkle" feeling before, but this is the first time I'm really getting the mental and physical space to look at what it means for me to be here on the other side of these passings.

Who am I now that I'm not a caregiver, no longer have a business or income and haven't had a "Friday with Michael" in over eight months?

The Psychic

This goes out to the poor guy who didn't get to hear it, since I love the song, too, and I feel a little bad for busting Brad Roberts' chops because I don't know what made him so bitter and what battles he might be fighting that have turned him into such a whack job at this point in his life. So, here's to hoping there is some light in his future ...

Lighthouse

You all deserve a little Antje Duvekot this morning while I work on finishing up the latest blog post series.

Train Wrecks, Backward Miracles and Life on the Other Side, Part Three

I do know that one imploding musician does not mean all live shows are akin to visiting various levels of Dante's Inferno but I'm glad the Crash Test Dummies scared me into thinking it might because I really don't have the money for that kind of thing anymore.

That is a crazy thing to say at close to 50 when you used to make a darned nice living, but that's where it is.

And no, I'm not looking for a job right now. I'm not coaching either.

What really happened to my practice? Lots of little and not so little things. Even after ten very good years I was never very well defined. Honestly neither were most of my clients. They were mostly "fish trying to live in trees" and so was I, as it turns out. I loved my clients but over time the kind of work I was doing was not bringing in enough new clients when the economy started to tank and people just didn't have the discretionary funds for personal development type coaching. I could have tried to retool in order to appeal to a more economically resilient area of coaching but all those roads seemed to point to marketing or business development and related areas and coaches like that are a dime a dozen. My established clients were great people that I still have a great fondness for but sessions were winding down for most everyone just as my caregiving for my Dad was heating up. I was getting in deeper into my own life issues and just had to pull back so I let it go.

Now here I am on the other side of so many leave takings...my Dad and Michael being chief among them.

And I've been very silent here ever since.

I thought as the torrents descend again on Chicago (so glad I didn't spend money on mulch this year as my garden gets washed into the marsh...), I thought I'd attempt a little bridge building for you.

My sister said my aunt wanted to know how I like "not working". I don't know what answer my sister gave her. What some people mean by "not working" is "not earning an income". I'm working all the time and I have been for the last year and a half since I earned my last penny. (No, not this Penny.) Whether the work I am doing would qualify as such in my aunt's eyes, or my family's, or even yours for that matter, I have no idea.

When I need a quick answer to the question, "What are you doing now?" I joke that "I'm living off my man now" but even that is too simplistic. Remember, he works with disabled children. Do the words "school budget crisis" mean anything to you?

Neither one of us chose our careers because they would make us wealthy. We both grew up poor and for some reason neither of us fell in to that, "I'll never go without foie gras again, as God is my witness!" mentality that many do.

Does that mean I like not having money? No, of course not. We're not adding to retirement right now. We're self-insured. We drive old cars (paid for).  I really AM paying for our food by selling some of my stuff on eBay.  We have no credit card debt at all, so the fact the eBay is keeping our bellies full and we're not losing ground by adding debt is something I really appreciate. Not everyone is as fortunate as we are.

I also know that even a smallish crisis could change all that quickly.

Train Wrecks, Backward Miracles and Life on the Other Side, Part Two

In short, the Crash Test Dummies concert was awesome, in an "I'm scarred for life but I wouldn't have missed that for the world" kind of way.

But back to my fantasies of wanting to see all my favorite musicians play at SPACE...

We were listening to Shawn Mullins recently and I said to my husband, "Oh, I would love to see him play at SPACE. Seriously, that would be excellent."

Very soon after, the SPACE email arrived in my inbox announcing upcoming shows.(I promise you I open this quicker than anything any of you ever send me, because I'm that crazy for it). You already know that Shawn Mullins is on the schedule because you are psychic like that. (And no, Brad Roberts did not sing The Psychic, no doubt seriously disappointing his most vocal fan that evening.)

I have no money. I am ebaying my worldly possessions to buy groceries. I will come back to this point (and yes that is true).

Food, Shawn Mullins, food, Shawn Mullins at SPACE for the love of God...

I looked at Scott, who, as you know, indulges my every whim to no end. "It's $28 a ticket. Add service charges to that. Then add gas to get down there, dinner, drinks..."

I let it go, sort of. We settled in at the end of the evening and turned on TV. It was my night for the remote so I flipped to the Office and there was Michael Scott in his office listening to...wait for it...Lullaby.

He was blasting Shawn Mullins not five minutes after Scott had me look at the reality that I can't support my music habit right now.

I glanced at Scott. He did a little "there, there, you have survived worse" sort of thing and didn't magically reveal to me that hidden stack of money just sitting around with which I could feed my live music jones.

I knew he was right but I wasn't sure having a Shawn Mullins song playing on The Office right then wasn't a sign from God so my mind kept working...what to sell, what to sell...

Train Wrecks, Backward Miracles and Life on the Other Side, Part One

So, there we were sitting just a few feet from Brad Roberts as the Crash Test Dummies took the stage at SPACE a few days ago.

Now, I know it's been quite a few years since God Shuffled His Feet came out (1993) but I love that album. LOVE it. Brilliant lyrics, pithy humor, quirky sound...it's a regular part of our musical rotation here even after all this time. And while I'm not one for wanting musicians to host a "Garden Party" ala Ricky Nelson, it was my love of the album that made me leap at the chance to get tickets when I saw they were coming to town. I had no idea if I would even know any of the songs they would play but I was willing to roll the dice since the SPACE venue is so amazing. We had seen Antje Duvekot there recently and that was all it took for me to start fantasizing about all the musicians I would like to see there (like Tracy Chapman did when I saw her at Red Rocks). (Here is some Antje music for you.)

Now, being an old album, I knew the musicians would be older.

Sadly, even my time-lapse imagination did not prepare me.

What to Say, What to Say...

Let's start here for now:

Backward Miracle
By Kay Ryan
(from The Niagara River: Poems)

Every once in a while
we need a
backward miracle
that will strip language,
make it hold for
a minute: just the
vessel with the
wine in it —
a sacramental
refusal to multiply,
reclaiming the
single loaf
and the single
fish thereby.

Every Girl Wants a Tiny Lion

I just couldn't resist. Here's my knee-high girl in our local leash-free prairie...