Buffalo

I am in Buffalo, staying with good friends who make me feel so very welcome and taken care of. I am comfy and comfortable. The added bonus at Robbie's is Mouse, the sweetest dog in the world. I often fantasize about a dog but stop myself because of the small place I live in and the time I spend at work. Someday I will cave and give in. Sunday I got to see where my daughter works, in her gladiator kitchen as she calls it and I ate at her food truck on Old Falls Street. Yummy tacos. We took a walk over to the falls, and talked about how the draw and gravity of the water draws you in. I actually got light headed. Sunday we hung out most of the day and then wound up at Milk and Rahwa's for dinner, courtesy of Milk grillin ribs and chicken. A great day. I did smoke a bit with Milk but just a bit, and did not "binge" eat after. My sugar level was normal this morning. Did not ask for some to take with me or to buy and today I have not thought much about it at all. I was with LC Sunday because I went to the Ujima play. But again did not crave it or think about getting it. And the first time Milk offered it to me, I said nah I'm good. But then later after dinner I had a lil bit. So that is progress. I went swimming this morning at the BAC. And I have been eating healthy. No chips. It is easier to be healthy at Robbie's because she practices what I do, and all the food in the house is super healthy I'm good. It is rainy and cold today. Tonight I meet the Ambush crew that I work with on Friday.

I am so looking forward to working the event for Terence. A..I am happy that I am here to help my friend. and B I am so happy to be doing what I love so much. It was good to be at TheaterLoft for the Ujima show too...kind of that back where I belong, like the song says. Or maybe back where I have a sense of belonging.  Lorna gave me my old director's chair that has been in storage there for, well ten years All I could say over and over was omg. It felt like I was looking at a museum piece of my own life. So although ten years has gone by, there are still parts of me here in my home town, that people know and recognize. I am sure that will soon be over. But for this week, I will enjoy it. Every minute.

kindness of strangers

It was a beautiful hotel. The former Union station for St Louis now the Doubletree Hotel was where we stayed for the conference. Once the world's largest and busiest train station, it saw 100,000 passengers a day on 22 different rail lines. What is now the "lobby" features a gold-leafed Grand Hall, Romanesque arches, a 65-foot  barrel-vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows. I spent as much time as I could in that grand lobby soaking in it's beauty and good energy...meaning I felt female energy and much of the motif of the Grand Hall featured female imagery. Later I discovered through some research that the "Grille" restaurant located there just off the Hall, was Fred Harvey's original restaurant that transformed rail dining with the "Harvey Girls."  I guess I was feeling their pioneer energy. St Louis was a beautiful city with very friendly people, and I felt completely at ease. It reminded me of Buffalo in many ways, architecture from the turn of the previous century, remnants of a time now gone, and the residents who remain making their way with the burden of a city infrastructure too big for those who live and work there now.  I made a friend in Robert, the young queen who worked the coffee shop in the lobby. At 5:50 every morning I was in the lobby waiting for him to open. He was very kind and always gave me coffee before he was officially open, and then took my money later, not making me wait for my morning fix. He must recognize that look in people's eyes doing the work that he does.
During my trip I definitely experienced the kindness of strangers, and felt buoyed by it. There is a freedom from self that one can experience when you travel and no one really knows you but accepts you as a stranger anyway. Travel without character baggage. There was an elation in strangers acceptance of me and I was delighted to enjoy it. When I left, Robert who kidded me about the "girls in Detroit" and his knowledge based on viewing Judge Mathis, hugged me when I checked out. This morning, although glad to be home...I am wondering about Robert and his morning, the beautiful girls on the walls ...
Sunday I am traveling to Buffalo for the week .. I am going home to see Kate, and to help Tee with her Ambush party before Pride. I am hoping to get through the week with my good intentions to stay on track with good food choices and exercise. Best way to do that is to plan and prepare. Have to find a place to work out before I get there...staying with Robbie the food choice part will be supported by Robbie and the close location of the food co-op. I also need to stay away from pot while home and I am feeling strong about that. I am focused on how good I will feel when I get back home if I can stay on track, and come home having achieved all of that.

spell check

There is a dilemma this morning.
 I misspelled "organic" in Mostly Organic. All these many days of logging in and I never saw it. I saw but didn't see. I saw what I expected to see not what was there. Aye there's the rub!

Why today...today I see it when I have not seen it before? What window in my brain opened? What does this mean? That I didn't use spell check? That I am old and senile and can no longer spell? That I am poorly educated? Need new glasses? That I often don't see the obvious because I am down in the details looking for clues? Do I figure out a way to correct the misspelling or do I just accept that I made a mistake?

Accept it. OrAganic....

Peggy

It is mother's day, or it was when I started this post. That is a picture of my mother when she was 21. I now see her so differently than I once did. I understand her and respect her in ways I never did when she was alive. But I remember trying, trying so hard to break through her walls and get to her, but I never really did. She was different from many other women of that time..I think she was always trying to fit into a world in which she felt very insecure in many ways despite her large and in charge personality. She fought. She drank. She had strong political opinions, and they were a rebellion from her parents conservative opinions. She lived at a time when the roles for women were very limiting and oppressive. I will never know what her unhappiness was really about, what happened to her as a child or a young woman, she never shared her unhappiness...just her anger.  My father would try and tell me that she loved me that she really cared, that she worried about me. I didn't believe him, she had been so cruel so mean and so angry and could be really abusive that is was impossible for me to comprehend that she could be both at the same time. I now can see that she did love her children as best she could. She cared for us the best she could. I still regret that those walls of anger kept us a part. I know now that what she wanted most, like for most of us, is right there within reach but we do not get to it. We lament and regret and wish...like I do now.

never ending

Maybe it is because I am accustomed to feeling ashamed. I have probably written this before, I am sometimes surprised reading old insights forgotten in my old journals..."oh I did know that before. How did I loose it?"  It feels as I keep looping back through bad behaviors to relearn again and again what I already know.

I just came of (one day now) a great big old fashioned binge of food and pot. It was a doozey. Smoke 1.5 ounces of pot, have the residual cough and shortness of breath that goes with it, and I ate and ate and ate. I even ate dairy which I have not eaten for more than two years. I ate potato chips my oldest friend and favorite and I drank cosmos, many cosmos...meaning maybe 8 in month. Since I don't drink, usually at all, that was a big increase. I ate fake ice cream, I ate cheese, I ate burgers and fries and more fries, bread with butter, and pot stickers and chicken wings and pizza...another old and good friend. No portion control. Just eat whatever I want whenever I wanted. That is me saying fuck you to the world, telling my mother I will do what I want, no matter she has been dead more than 20 years I still find time to tell her off. And I stopped working out. Completely just stopped. Stopped testing my sugar no need to know I know I am fucking up royal. Even failed to take my insulin a couple of nights I was too stoned to remember.

Now my pants are too tight and I have put on weight. That quick I can feel crappy after feeling so good.

Was it just the build of loneliness, or Trish's visit or what? What was the trigger? I think the only way I will ever find all the triggers is to stop smoking pot. To ride through the absence of it. Face the feelings that I am trying to numb out and away from.

Yesterday my boss bought me a personal gift. A beautiful scarf. It was a thank you for the party last Friday. It was very nice of Laura. She is a kind person, very kind. I am lucky.

freedom

I love the early morning when it is dark outside, and inside it is me and the cats and coffee. It feels safe and I feel safe at this time of day. No one can have any expectations of me. I am free. I can do what I want, experience the world the way I want. Dream awake.
 I always return to the same place. The fields and woods around the farm on Bayview. I walk those same paths over and over and I can remember every tree and plant and bend in the creek.

 If quiet I can actually make myself believe that I am hearing the creek waters move.

make life a lot easier

Here is a list of 15 things which, if you give up on them, will make your life a lot easier and much, much happier. We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be stress free and happy – we cling on to them. Not anymore. Starting today we will give up on all those things that no longer serve us, and we will embrace change. Ready? Here we go:

1. Give up your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?

2. Give up your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu

3. Give up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.
“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle

5. Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!
“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle
6. Give up complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.

8. Give up your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.

9. Give up your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell

10. Give up labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer

11. Give up on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

12. Give up your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.

13. Give up the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

14. Give up attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another,  attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.

15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves.  You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.

visibility

I love ice tea in a mason jar with a lot of ice, ice cold with fresh lemon. I drink it all day long May through September. I make my own, at home and at work. I quit diet soda back in February, and it is now May. Nice. Tonight talking to Alison we talked about recognition and identity and visibility. Alison suggests that my "take" on A2 should include that there is very little "mirroring" in A2. But in Buffalo, more like the east coast cities, East Coast people are more in your face. Midwest folks are more reserved. I feel invisible because no one is mirroring me. If I ditch the need for recognition, I will have my spirit. My core. That is a tall drink. That means that no matter who is next to me or what environment I am in. I am just me.

good moment

Yesterday started my new class R.A.C.E. dialogues. There are about a dozen of us. I stayed present, I was quiet and an active listener. I enjoyed being in the room with the group, and one of the facilitators was a woman I met years ago. She was stranded at the gas station and I gave her a ride home. She remembered, and then after some prodding I did too. That was a good moment. I have talked about how I feel a need to explain who I am to folks, because this place is not my original home, this is not a place where my reputation enters the room before I do. But last night for that moment someone in the room knew me as a kind person. Felt good.

certain light and well worn clothes.

Certain light can transport me like a time machine. I know that memory can more often be triggered by scent, because of the neighborhood proximity in the brain of memory and sense of smell. But for me it happens when a certain kind of light hits me, and my memory film starts to run in a very detailed and visually graphic way. No foggy or blue smoke memories. These are vivid and powerful.This early bright white spring light that we have now is transporting me back in time. Yesterday the light took me to Etta Asbury. To her farm, her body, her well worn clothes, household interior, her hair, her voice, her kindness. I never knew her young, only aged, and spry and funny and smart, damn she was smart. When she laughed she threw her head back and let it out like a bell ringing...then she would drop her head just forward enough to make perfect eye contact to end the joke and get serious again. Etta had been in the women's suffrage movement in Canada, she was the treasurer. She was a complex and independent woman. A widow, she kept her small farm solvent. Raspberries arbors lined on of the fields. She sold raspberries in little quart and pint boxes she left on a little table, with a box for money. Honor system. Etta liked telling stories and I liked listening. Etta was a good cook, and I loved watching her cook. Etta welcomed my constant presence. My mother shunned it. Being with Etta was a treat. She adored my father and respected my mother. I loved her like a grandmother. Etta changed the storms on her farm house windows herself, every spring screens, every fall storms. Tough work. She was 5' tall, with long reddish whitish hair gathered in a large bun. When feeling fancy she would braid it then wrap it as a bun. Etta taught me that any woman could take care of herself and be safe and happy in the world. She was practical. She had two forms..her social go out and be social outfit involved lipstick, powdered face, braided bun and a flowered dress with thin matching belt at the waist, and a hand bag.. For work clothes she kept her husband's work clothes, and wore them till they wore out. I remember her well worn clothes and how comfortable she was wearing her dead husband's clothes. The color of the light on my own well worn work clothes made me think of Etta and the raspberries and twinkle smile.  Etta died in 1977, she was 85. I loved Etta, and whenever I think of her I smile.

triggers

Looking for pictures is a good stall to writing. Triggers. I had a trigger yesterday or maybe it was the evening before and I resisted a whole day. Now I am enjoying a lost weekend zoning out and away. A departure. Friday night loneliness might be it. I would rather do something social on Friday nights. I could always have something planned so that that trigger isn't released. Or was it the phone call to B who sits next to B who had an hour to kill...and could provide delivery, was that the trigger? Are certain people automatic triggers? Was it that I stayed put. I didn't ride my excitement out of dodge but stayed and visited the saloon instead? . Could it be that? My mom was an every day without fail beer drinker cigarette smoker, ending her days in a frozen state of non-response. Absent, gone, not there, very quiet and unresolved. Peg woke up loud. Loud created agitation, agitation created need, need gave way to frustration and anger, and door slamming or drawer slamming, which made her thirsty for beer, and she drank until she found silence and calm at day's end. Unresolved. My journey through all those emotions -the same emotions-as we are both very much products of our time but women. As women my advantage was education and therapy. My never ending quest for presence and acceptance for self care and compassion of self.  That is my target, that is what I aim for. Happiness is not a state to arrive at but a manner of traveling. As a woman her value was found in who she married, and once all children were grown, and it was just mom and dad, she reverted to wife and was happier. I never saw my mother in a "happy." I think that is why I always tried to make her laugh, so I could see her smile.

foot off the pedal

I had to talk myself out of it. I had to have a serious conversation with myself. I wanted to jump in the car and drive 5 hours to Bflo, surprise everyone and support T. I fantasized about it, imagined it all in my head. Imagined the scene where I show up and everyone is happy to see me. That is so attractive. And seeing T and saying I'm here to help. Feels good to imagine it. And it does feel really good when it happens in real time, not just my head. It was even fun to imagine it. Talked my self out it, and stayed put. I have had insomnia all week, sleep this weekend is essential.  But the usual pressure of another Friday night alone with cats didn't cut it. So I went out with friend to an outdoor concert. The band was great. My response to being here is changing. When I go out now I see folks I know and folks say hi to me and use my name. That was a big change for me when I came here, hearing my name called out to me..for most of my life. People who do not know you say your name differently. There is little warmth or familiarity in the tone. Trish said my name like she knew me in an intimate and important way.

Our comfort with each other is increasing, me and the new place. Went to the lesbian softball game Wednesday night. Had a good time, met two women who have been together since 1965. I spent the entire time talking with them, story by story until we knew each other pretty well. They are in their mid80s so they made me feel young. Later, speaking with a 33 yr. old woman about to graduate with her BA in Criminal Justice I felt old. It depends who is standing next to me. Next to a high fem I feel butch, nest to a butch I feel fem.

 And so it goes...6.5 years here in the new place, it took me a long time to allow any of it in, I armor myself against it. When I want  I put my foot on the pedal and drive home to Bflo.  Armor off. Foot off the pedal I stayed put. Called a friend and went out for an evening of music and food. I made the effort to stay present with my surroundings and soak it in the presence of it. I felt still an outsider observing but at least I was observing the place around me.

That ability to imagine and then actualize with a response to make it happen is one of my strengths and survivor skills. I would daydream out the window in grade school about being in the woods around my house. Then I would go home, change clothes and run out the door to the woods or the creek by myself. I was hiding from forces greater than me. When high school approached I imagined being away at a boarding school by reading the NYTimes Sunday Magazine. One small text only ad and 5 months later I was living at an all girl boarding school in the mountains of central PA.. Safely hiding from forces greater than me. Opposite of the fairy tales the woods around both places made me feel safe.

 I imagined myself divorced and did it. I imagined raising my daughter alone and I did it. That was not always what I had imagined in any way. It was a naïve decision in many ways, one I may not have made had I known all that lay ahead. But I held to the decision and all is well. I imagined moving to Mich and I did it. But my foot seems to have come off the pedal. When I daydream what I might do next I keep drawing a blank.

dreams

I am remembering my dreams
the ones when I sleep
the others when awake make me sad
and feel impossible