Happy New Year 2012

In 2012 everything is going to be ok, because everything is just as it's supposed to be in this moment. Imagine that!

October 2, 2011

I have been paralyzed by my past (again), and am picking it (the old trauma) back up in a difficult relationship in the present. (Again.) Brilliant, right? 

Sorrow
Artist: Lauren Brodeur

It's OK, I suppose, as long as I learn and grow from it, not just whine. I keep going back to the same type of person and same type of relationship so that I can keep learning and eventually get this particular karma burned through.


The details aren't important, but the lesson is. There are a few reasons why I don't feel ready to let go of being pissed, namely:

• I don't feel that you are really sorry for your part in this.
• I'm not convinced that you understand how badly you hurt me.
• I am still harboring resentment for some of the other ways you have hurt me in the past.

Here’s the opportunity: Forgiveness is a gift I can give to myself.  It's a choice to release the burden of anger and pain. If I choose to forgive, I choose to live in the present instead of the past.  It does not mean I have to forget but it does mean I'm going to  release and go on.  


Forgiveness isn't going to happen on its own, I must choose to forgive. If I can let this go I can move to a happier place and then we can have a long and healthy friendship.

March 11, 2011

I’m always moved by the music of the Decemberists 

It’s so beautiful and gruesome.  One blogger writes, “They write ye olde precious indie music, reveling in aggressive usage of literary devices and folksy interpretations of encyclopedia entries, and their twee performances overflow with corny vaudevillian banter, to the delight of their insufferable teacher's-pet following” 

We’ll get back to this in a minute. For now, we go to White Center. Here are our food bank homies:

These days I’m listening to stories told by people who were born in other lands.

I’ve heard some amazing stories from my White Center friends. Stories of:

• Crouching in a river holding your three little kids around you because Pol Pot’s soldiers are in your house. One of those kids will die before you get out of the refugee camp. Your husband was already executed. You are 19 years old.
•  Fleeing Sarajevo in the night with the clothes you’re wearing: leaving your life’s savings in the bank, and leaving your (grown) son in the hospital where he recovers from having his foot shot off by a sniper.
• Watching your parents run a numbers game,  trying to keep one step ahead of the bigger mafia so they can send you to school.
• Your mother putting poison in the family dinner for her, you, and your six siblings to ingest because she couldn't take the American (we call it the "Vietnam") War and its toll anymore. (She stopped short, btw, before everyone ate it. She threw the food away and the family went hungry that night. But they lived, she lived, through the desperation.)
• Successfully operating a profitable import/export business throughout the Khmer Rouge regime only to be crushed by the Viet Cong. So you leave everything behind and give birth on the way to a refugee camp. (Maybe I’ll cover some Latina, Iraqi and Somalian tales in a later post.)  

Those stories are intense, and they mean so much to me. To my friends I say, thank you for the honor of including me in your telling. 


My story, like that of so many white people, is lost. Or, more accurately, I only have this one story (and I’m sick of it), so I'm trying to patch together all these random stories about "me" and figure how they are mine.

My ancestors fled their Welsh homeland when Christians were killing Druids in the 12^th (?) century and it was obvious that they were next. Within a few generations they were identifying as English. In the states they hacked, slashed, burned and murdered their way west, that’s how long we’ve been here. First conquering Missouri, and eventually kicking ass in the Rockies and landing in Idaho.

My stories are myths, and I have to stitch them together. And I’ve got a long way to go.

Now, I don’t have kids so this might be where I get into trouble but here goes: as a parent what stories do you want your kid to carry?  Do you want your kids to know about the night in the river or digging food out of the garbage? Or do you want to shield your kids from the pain, because you don’t want them to pity or disdain you? What do you teach your kids about the bonds of ancestry?

(For the record: yes, my mother also got our food out of the garbage can for a time in the 70’s, and the only, tired story I have is, “My name is Sarah and I’m an alcoholic…”)

Since I’m not a parent I’ve got to try to understand so I listen to these stories. Here's the one the Decemberists (white, U.S. born people) tell that I like: 

The song

YouTube: Sons and Daughters

The lyrics

Sons and Daughters by the Decemberists

When we arrive

Sons & daughters

We'll make our homes on the water

We'll build our walls aluminum

We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now

These currents pull us 'cross the border

Steady your boats

Arms to shoulder

'till tides will pull

our hull aground

Making this cold harbour now home

Take up your arm

Sons and daughters

We will arise from the bunkers

By land, by sea, by dirigible

We'll leave our tracks untraceable now

When we arrive

Sons and daughters

We'll make our homes on the water

We'll build our walls aluminum

We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now

(We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now)

When we arrive

Sons and daughters

We'll make our homes on the water

We'll build our walls aluminum

(Sons and daughters)

We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon

(We'll make our homes on the water)

We'll make our homes on the water

(When we build our walls of aluminum)

(We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon)

Here all the bonds they fade away (x20)

January 17, 2011

I am very pleased to meet you, Prema

My favorite teacher was in Portland last weekend so I took the train down from Seattle to hear her. I had exchanged emails with her in the past and heard her teachings on cd and dvd, but it was a different thing altogether in the flesh. Lively, engaging, bouyant, and wise: I'd like to be these things too.

Kids can dance, too

I was especially inspired by the way she taught the Tara Dance to the children, she was very clear and obviously had a great time with it. This is something I could do, it’s got all the things I’m passionate about: kids, Dharma, yoga, dancing, social and emotional development, Tara Dhatu. I need a dozen eight year olds right now, please.

But a problem arises...


Well, I missed my train home from Portland by about four minutes. OMG was I pissed and sad. They wouldn't let me camp out at the station, which closes overnight so I had to come up with and unplanned for wad of cash to pay for an extra night in Portland.  Since I was in town for a teaching on : "Tara, Remover of the Eight Fears," I had no business getting that upset. 


I called Joe and he helped me calm down (like he always does), so fortunately I got over it quickly and just chilled out.




Obstacle and lesson
One of the things Prema shared with us is something she learned from Dogma Kusho, who is also a teacher I love deeply and admire greatly. Damala told Prema and Prema told me/us, “The bigger the obstacle, the bigger the blessing.” 

What is the lesson?

What I’m trying to get at here is “What is the lesson?” as in, I vow to learn from this unpleasant situation, but I don’t yet know how that’s gonna look.  Its the intention that matters.

January 2, 2011

Too much at once
In 2010 I had a relatively new (and very challenging) job, a new housing situation following 20+ years in my previous place, my mom got cancer and I got slammed with a giant unexpected bill from the IRS. I also got a couple of cute dogs, made some really cool new friends, had a few gratifying successes at work, and spent lots of time with people I love.


In October or so, I started to have some physical reactions to all the stress that was going on, but even that didn't stop me .

Screwing up at work
It wasn't until I started losing notes that I'd taken at various meetings that I finally cried uncle. Something I'm going to look into: it seems more than a little dysfunctional to me that my own heart palpitations don't bother me as much as screwing up on the job. 


I will change this behavior
So I will do a couple of things to remedy all that.


First: I love yoga, so that tops the list. Teaching this year.

Second: I'm not even going to comment, it just makes me giggle and then I feel better. She's gonna be my new guru.

December 3, 2010

Duh!

My sponsor K reminded me that its my clean and sober birthday. How do you forget something like that? 




I think the reason I forgot about December 3 is because I'm going to another city for a quick overnight trip next weekend to get my birthday coin with my sister and my aunt. It's a big deal cause it's Janie's ONE YEAR of clean and sober. And we all know that's a challenging year.

Gratitude

Because, after all, if I hadn't given up the opiates and the alcohol there's no way I'd give a shit about much else.

Dec 1, 2010

This is hard to do 
Learning Vietnamese has been one of the most humbling experiences in my life. And I mean humbling, not humiliating. I've been humiliated a time or two, but in general tasks, hobbies, educational efforts and athletic pursuits have come easily to me. Outside of getting my ass kicked by semiprofessional modern dancers in the 80s when I moved to Seattle to dance, I can't think of any other huge challenge like this. The difference is that then I quit dancing post haste (because it was hard) and took up soccer (which was relatively easy).  


Specifically, I struggle so with Vietnamese because it comes so SLOWLY and I'm used to picking things up quickly. It takes me forever to learn all the vowels and to type and to look up the words and forever and ever and ever to translate the assignments that Master Kim gives me.  I haven't given up yet on the Vietnamese. Yet.




I continue the effort
The reason I stick with it is the whole point of the VuiLong blog (http://vuilong.blogspot.com/): the learning of Viet is a metaphor that helps me to understand myself and my life. 

For some reason, drilling the alcoholism and PTSD down to these really complicated and subtle Vietnamese pronouns and verbs has been profound for me.