Taking (Guilt Free) Stock of My Goals - How I'm Doing Fighting Racism and Writing a Book

In the past year or so, there are two tangible, specific goals I've shared in my blog:  1) That I am working on a book about grief and 2) That I made a pledge through my church involvement to help end racism.

On these two goals, I give myself a C.  My inner school marm gets a lot of satisfaction out of giving grades.

So, I'll just get it out there - I have not finished the book, nor made much progress on it this year.  And while I feel I have taken some tangible steps in racial justice and equity work, I know I have more to do.  From a purely measurable outcomes assessment, this is where the C comes from.

However, because I talk with people all day most days about their hopes and longings and failures and goals (and other things too), I think that sharing both the outer process and the inner/emotional process (what I've learned) might be useful for some readers -  who in some of the long hours of darkness at this time of year, might also be taking stock of 2018.

First, the book:  In late 2017, I started writing a book about grief - anecdotes of my work in hospice and as a grief therapist, connecting it to my own life experiences. I've tried to illuminate what I've learned about bodies, inadequacy, selflessness, illness, despair, hope, and courage.  It's really difficult for a person like me who is more naturally drawn to writing poetry to write prose in such a long format.  I'm impatient.  I like to see a finished product, which is why both poetry and the blog can be so satisfying.  So, I attempted to do that with the book - creating small chapters in an A-Z format, i.e., A is for Afterlife, etc.

Yet, writing a book is big and cumbersome; it's easy to get bogged down even with short chapters.  And when I shared the 75 pages or so that I'd written with other writers or people who I admire for their brains and point of view, I think they liked it but they didn't have that 'click' we feel when we read something we can't put down and just want more of (of course this is the kind of book I want to write).  The general encouragement was - 'this is good - keep writing, but you might want to change the format as you go along - the A to Z might just be the hook to get you in to the meat of the book.'  (I thought 75 pages was pretty meaty).

And when I take the most objective look at the writing that I can...I agree!  In fact, in writing workshops, one typical saying is 'Kill Your Babies.'  Most writers and artists get ego- attached to some phrases, scenes, introductions, or whole pieces of writing; but sometimes you have to edit that stuff.  Get ride of it, change it, 'kill it.'  That A-Z format probably needs to go.

And as I wrote more and more, I set weekly goals for myself - pages to write.  And I began to find that  I resented the writing time.  That's a red flag for sure.  I find that if I am not doing something with some degree of joy, I probably should not be doing it.  But I wanted to understand myself honestly, if I were going to take a hiatus from the book project.

One of the inner lessons I've continued to learn this year is about limitations, boundaries, and bringing the right amount of reverence to the meaning of Time.  And here is the truth that I began to feel and accept more fully:

I am a single mom and I own and run my own business, which I try to do with care, integrity, and competence.  I am responsible for my home and to some degree, three human beings (including me) and a dog.  I like to have friends and spend time with them.  I like to exercise.  I like to try to do a little bit of volunteer work.  I like to pretend to try to date or at least 'put it out there' in the universe that I might like to date 'some day' (whatever that means, but you know...)

It would be realistic to see that I am already working toward goals that are important to me - raising good human beings, being a responsible, productive adult human myself.  And, I need to be humble in a good way and prioritize my time appropriately and in a way that fits my values.  Like all of us, I am at my best when balanced - responsible, ambitious, and also having fun and relaxing.

So, I gave my self permission to GO SLOW with the book.  I don't have to chuck it, but I changed my process and mindset.  I became respectful of my own time and energy.  It is not that I am saying 'I can't do it,' but I am allowing myself limits and boundaries.  As I heard in an Al-Anon meeting one time - 'it's not that I can't do it.  But if I can't do it without hurting myself, then it's not the right thing right now.'  I will trust that when the time is right for me, I will have the words, make the time, and experience the pleasure of that writing and I believe it will shine through in what I write.  And I can pick it up and write a few pages here or there whenever I want.

Now...on to the goal/my progress in helping to end racism.

Here are some things I have done:  I've had more conversations about race with more people across a variety of formats.  One on one conversations with white people and people of color.  People I've known for years and people I've just met.  I've introduced myself to people for the sole purpose of making these connections.  Some of these conversations - maybe half - have been with white people who seem to disagree with me about the state of race relations in our country and the need for equity.  I've communicated in social media and also in private emails.  My intent for my words and my listening are to be a part of a process of truth, justice, and hopefully peace.

I've made conscious choices to buy goods and services from businesses owned by people of color.

I've written publicly about my involvement in this issue.

I've written a letter to my local city council about hiring concerns.

My kids and I communicate about these issues on an almost daily basis - analyzing how we get our news, who tells us our information, and what biases we have that inform how and what we believe.

I have learned a few things about myself as I try to be part of something that feels dear. What I've learned is that I am not much of a warrior.  My primary drive is not rage or outrage. I have appreciation for some people's passion and rage.  To create change, I think anger is often needed.  To overcome injustice, anger is a necessary human emotion.  It's not that I don't get angry about injustice, I do.

What I've learned is that we all have innate gifts and skills that we use to navigate the world and one of mine is translation/communication.  I've also learned that my energy is best spent places where I feel effective and I feel effective in matters of racial equity when I use my words and whatever ability I have to translate so that people hear one another in different ways.  I hope, in ways that open minds and hearts.   Maybe this has to do with being a writer (most writers are observers as much or more than participants).   Maybe this has to do with being raised by parents who were civically minded but always worked within systems, rather than from the outside?  I am sure there are other influences.  I check myself...am I just staying in my comfort zone?  Am I afraid?   I'm sure that's some of it too.

Maybe it isn't particularly universal to write about my individual goals/ resolutions.  But I know that it is universal to assess where we are in different ways and in different facets of life.  (It strikes me that my time of life is particularly an assessing one - I see this in my clients from about 40 years old to 60).  Am I where I want to be in general?  Am I where I wanted or hoped to be a year ago.  So not only is it the time of year that is reflective, it is my time of life.

One thing that makes me feel sad is when clients say to me, "But I'm already at THIS (take your pick) stage of life and this is all I have to show for it!"  I wish I could take that away from them.  Whatever that self-flagellation and guilt is, it doesn't help because it discounts all the life experience that got you HERE.  Here might not be what you imagined, but it's YOUR LIFE.  Each day takes a different amount of courage to live, but sometimes it takes a lot of courage.  And what we do, even if it is folding laundry, uses both time and energy.

A client asked me recently what kind of therapy I do and it made me step back and think about it from a fresh mind.  I hadn't thought about that question in a while in quite that specific way.  Logotherapy is what Viktor Frankl named therapy that helps people create and understand the meaning of their particular life. I guess that's what I do.  I do that with myself too.  The meaning of my life (or yours) - to my way of thinking - isn't bestowed on me by God or forced on me by life circumstances.

We have life circumstances and we choose what the meaning is.  It's very powerful.  Making goals and pursuing them and seeing where they take you is part of making the meaning of your life.

In this weird time we live in where we have other people's achievements, vacations, jobs and lives marketing to us on social media, I think we do too much comparing 'where we are' to others. I always hope that my sharing my experiences - both hiccups and joys, will help normalize being human. 

A friend and mentor (I call her that not because we work in the same field but because she is just an AWESOME lady and that's another goal I aspire to) used to write me emails of encouragement as I worked on a rather fundraising project for church a number of years ago.  She'd always close with one final word, a word that strengthened my heart to take the next step forward.

Onward!

what we do to survive

Kelefa Smith's article in this week's New Yorker, "Word", www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/12/06/101206crat_atlarge_sanneh about the poetics of hip-hop, has me focusing on poetry as a mechanism of survival. Among other rappers, this piece uses Jay-Z, who just published a book of his lyrics, Decoded, as representative of hip hop culture and lyrics. Of particular interest, according to Smith, are his anecdotes and footnotes - a collection of the ideas, thoughts, situations that inspired him. He began his 'career' selling crack, before he seriously started writing rhymes. I imagine there was an instinct to survival both in what brought Jay-Z to selling drugs and what led him to start and pursue writing and rapping.

So, my life and Jay-Z's are not and have not been real similar if you look from the outside, but that doesn't stop me from feeling kinship with him when it comes to writing, and possibly, when it comes to an instinct toward survival that has a creative impulse.

Of many "life-changing" experiences for me, working as a home hospice social worker for six and a half years is one of the primary ones. I began this work when my oldest child was six months old. I remember that my first day out, shadowing a nurse, we visited an impoverished young mother dying of cancer and being cared for a by her young adult son, a elderly man who lived alone, but had visits and some help from family, and a mentally ill woman , cared for by her parents, who was dying of a disfiguring and cancer of her face and throat. Every day at work was an intense experience. I had to improvise my way through helping people in ways that I never imagined - answering questions like "what is going to happen to me when I die," holding trash cans for near strangers while they threw up in them, rocking a teenage girl in my arms while the funeral home workers took her father's body away. All this while I was raising babies (our second child came along after a couple years). My husband travelled a good deal. I was exhausted physically and mentally so much of the time. I felt a simultaneous sense of deep appreciation for my life and a sense that I was close to laying down to die myself. This is when I started really writing poetry. When I say really writing it, I mean I was compelled. I got up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning for years, because that was the only quiet time of my day and I wrote. I took workshops. I read other people's poetry. I had to do it, in a way. Looking back, I think I had to do it to survive.

Where does mental health figure in to this? As humans, we have a lot of choices of what we can try to do to survive. I am not saying I have never had a self-destructive impulse. I've bought and "snuck" cigarettes lots of times over the years because I somehow felt I 'deserved' a cigarette. And that's one example, only. There's a line from the Bruce Springsteen song, Devils and Dust, something like, "when what we do to survive kills the things we love/ fear's a dangerous thing/ it'll turn your heart black you can trust." I agree that fear is a dangerous thing. So, I wonder about the impulse and choice toward positive, life-affirming, creative survival instincts. How can we all develop these, search for these, love something in ourselves (our spirit, if you will) and then create rather the quash or destruct? If you are reading this and find yourself in a place that feels desperate and you find yourself coping by means that you know are self-destructive, I challenge you to look for something creative, something that brings you some pleasure and even if it is in the secret of the dawn, because you are worried you're not "good" at it - just do it.

In that spirit, I am attaching my very first hip-hop lyric I ever wrote. Yesterday! It was for one of the teens in my teen poetry group. I don't think it's 'good' in a critical sense, but this is about taking chances and creative means of survival. You can laugh if you want, I can't hear you. Take care, everybody.

For G

I am the cool cat,
the top cat,
the cat in the cradle,
the everlasting cat,
the cat in the hat.
I am the cat of all trades,
the cat's pajamas,
the mad cat,
the sad cat,
the feral cat,
the domesti-cated cat.
I step with careful paws.
Beware - claws.
This is my caterwaul.
My rage, love, fear, longing - raw.
Humpty Dumpty - he broke in his fall.
Not like me;
this is how I arrive.
Feet first, head up.
Nine lives.

The beginning...

This blog is something I've been interested in doing for a while and I am ridiculously nervous to sit down and write my first entry. What's my intention? Why Thirteen Ways? What is going to happen here?

I'll start with Thirteen Ways; it's from the title of Wallace Stevens' poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird , which is one of the first poems I ever loved. One aspect of the poem that is important to me and that I hope to generally convey here is that a blackbird can look like and mean and be many things. So can a poem. So can a life event. So can a person. So can mental health.

I hope this blog will be a vehicle to share, briefly, my own thoughts about - for lack of better words - "mental health," to sift through a little bit of media that I've found meaningful and that makes comment on the human condition. I'd like to encourage dialogue about the aspects of life that hold particular interest for me - creativity, compassion, working for peace, and spirituality.

In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki the prologue states, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." So, let that be about all I'll say. This writing project is full of possibilities and I hope you enjoy the journey with me.

To finish up this entry, I'd like to make a book recommendation: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman . It's a young adult book that won the Newberry Award in the past couple of years. It was given to my son as a Halloween gift and luckily I took a close look at it and realized it was too scary for a first grader, but just right for me. I love the hero's journey and this book adds to that tradition, creating a world that is full of magic, fear, kindness, courage. Hope you like it.