Yes, Virginia, It'll Happen To You

Forty-one arrived earlier this month like a meal with too many beans. At first it was yummy and fabulous, and then later ...

I don't physically feel older, but let's just say I'm noticing some things that have probably been there for awhile. Case and point: the sagging breast.

Gents, feel free to stop reading.

Ladies? Here's my truth. I've never been one who was really jazzed about having a large chest. I'm always amazed women pay for such an inconvenience (shirts don't close, back pain, shoulder pain, chest pain, bras that have more steel in them than the Brooklyn bridge). I appreciate mine because without them I'd look like a pear, but since I never wanted children, their biological purpose never mattered to me. I wanted to check a box on the way into this world -- NO. Won't be needing breasts this time around. Thanks anyway. Want to be able to wear strapless things. Want to once, just once, go out in public without a bra without looking like I should have a can of Pabst in my hand and chewing tobacco between my lips.

But Something. Has. Happened.

My bras hurt. I can't wait to get out of them. I am burned by the straps, pricked by the closure. I thought I must have changed sizes, though I haven't had any weight fluctuations. A few weeks ago, I reached the point of almost taking my bra off in the middle of Cost Plus because it was driving me so insane. It had been a little over a year since my last bra fitting, so I thought I should give it another shot.

"These trying economic times" have taken away my Lane Bryant store from the mall. The only store in town where a woman with a chest larger than a 36C can enter and know she'll be among sisters. But it closed last year, and those of us who require bras be functional not decorative, are left proverbially flapping in the breeze. If I lived in a larger town, there'd be more options, but in Prescott, well, I'm left with the perpetual youth and size 2 that is Victoria's Secret.

The Victoria's Secret in Prescott is nothing like the Victoria's Secret in an urban area. Here, the mannequins are in cute PINK pajamas holding tiny stuffed dogs. Down in Phoenix, the mannequins are splayed open in the display window, red and black push up bra and thong advertising what they're selling. But even here, in a store about sleep not sex, a woman knows whether or not she belongs in Victoria's Secret. I do not. But I was at a crossroads. I'd have to venture into the girly-girl pink store and find a bra fitter.

Flashback to fifth grade. I'm the only girl who has to wear a bra. Not because I want to. Because I have to. I learn to cross my arms over my chest. I learn to slouch. I learn to wear shirts with necks up to my chin. I learn to be embarrassed of my own body.

Girly-girl pink. Fifth grade. And, lo and behold, a bra fitter who's in the fifth grade. Really, I'm sure she's at least eighteen. Well, seventeen. I'm sure she's at least an A cup. 34" around? Maybe. After she's had a cheeseburger at least. Or three.

"Ma'am?" ugh. "Do you need help?"

She's adorable. She's eager. The yellow measuring tape is longer than she is. She has the body type I've always wanted. She has no idea I want to squash her.

"Yes. My bras are driving me crazy. I wanted to get a bra fitting."

She whips into Bra Fitting Professional and whisks me off to the back of the store.

Ladies, I've got to tell you -- I want a bra fitting from a woman who has to actually wear a bra. I want a bra fitting from a woman ten times my size who knows how they pinch and hurt and squeeze and don't fit right and can tell me honestly which style is really going to work and which one is going to feel good for a week and then begin its slow torture. Which ones won't make the dreaded uniboob, and which ones won't create that boingy-boingy bounce that makes you feel like you should stuff dollar bills down your chest.

But this was not to be. The only other person working in the store was also very young. Very petite. If I ever own a bra store, I'm staffing it with women who wear 50F cup sizes. No one will be intimidated to walk in my bra store. But I digress.

When I was about ten, my grandmother and I went shopping. My grandmother is the only family member to also have a large chest. We were in the fitting room and I accidentally saw her without her shirt on. I will never forget. Never. I remember clutching my hands over my new breasts and begging them not to ever do that.

Age and gravity are the great equalizers.

The very young very small girl is efficient and sweet. "38DD." She smiles like she just gave me a cookie.

"Are you sure? That's the size I'm wearing and nothing fits."

"Ma'am." ugh. "You know that over, um, time, they move."

Yep. Just like all those beans I had for dinner.

You little girls best be gettin' out of my way.

And One Day There Was Nothing Left

the center of the backyard patio

The clearing out began in my twenties with money. Credit card debt. A job that really didn't pay much at all. A shrieking loneliness that seemed to be filled only by the transactions in the stores, the exchanges with the clerks. It wasn't the objects I purchased that I craved. It was the conversations. Phoenix was so terribly lonely.

The clearing moved on in my thirties with grief work. Jungian analysis. Movement work. Yoga. Writing. Healing. Returning to stuffed pain and yanking it free, sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter. Learning to be in relationships again -- my friend Carol Anne, my friend Gus. Letting people into my house again after swearing that following the abusive relationship I had in college, I would never ever ever (not never, not no how, not never) let anyone into my space again. My space would be safe.

Before I moved to Prescott, Gus helped me clean out my dark hidden room. He had to kick the door down to get into it. I'm never terribly subtle in my work. We moved out boxes and boxes and boxes. I recarpeted the house. Tiled the kitchen floor. And then moved.

Then, the body called. Excessive weight. Imbalanced food. Sticky painful shoulder that made me feel sixty five, not thirty five. High blood pressure. Bleeding gums. Yoga moved in then, and over years, stretched me. Made space. Breath moved in. Friends in Prescott: Carolina, Cain, Revital, Grace -- helped me feel part of a community. Helped me find openings where I thought were only fences. Keith came then, and from the first conversation we had in his old truck in the parking lot of Outback, I knew he was my partner.

Then, the joints called, which sent me back into the body, learning qi gong, joint opening, abdominal massage, kettle bell training, and shaking. The more I shook, the more the fire stoked in my belly. The more the fire stoked, the more the earth, which is my dosha, my constitution, began to crumble and move. The more the earth moved ... well, you know that song.

Clearing out the body made room for the writing. There were books. There were teaching opportunities at amazing places in the country. There was a window to a world I didn't think I could touch.

The body called again, and this time the spiritual journey was cleaning the house. And finally, the outdoor landscaping was finished yesterday on my 41st birthday. I've never cultivated an outdoor space. I've been sitting in the patio with my tea and watching the birds and yellow jackets and butterflies come to the plants. I look through the trimmed alligator juniper to see not just the moon, but the birds making a nest in the branches. I talked to the flowers. Touched the velvet leaves. Bought a hose attachment that would let me water lightly, not in my usual forceful way. Wrote down the names of the plants -- the ones that would come back next year and the ones that wouldn't. Cain chiseled a hole in the fence so the water would drain and not stagnate in the patio. We dug a hole and put in river rock along the wall and out into the common area so the water had a place to flow. The whole house began to move.

I am tired. And even though I just got back from New York and could attribute the fatigue to the trip, I know that's not what it is. I am tired from carrying everything and holding everything for so long. I am tired in that great way you are when you finish a workout. The good exhaustion that says, yes, you worked hard and now, my sweet, it is time to rest. The good exhaustion that leaves you loose and flexible, not tense and rigid.

I'm a little unsteady without all the weight, but that's OK. My house can hold me. My earth can hold me. My friends can hold me. My writing can hold me. And without the heaviness, I will find ever higher places to fly as my heart remains rooted with those I love, my center grounded, my unsteadiness as perfect as wind.


back patio before the work





view of the backyard patio now



front yard before the work



front yard now




rock formation for rain drainage







Each day, let something go.

I Can Win A Pre-Paid Cremation!

Historic cemetery in Davidson County, North Carolina

Somehow, in the Great Junk Mail Computer, which is so obviously a PC and not a Mac, I have become switched with my father. It happened when I moved to Prescott. I began receiving targeted junk mail about social security, AARP, Medicare Plans A,B,C,D and huh?, life insurance offers with the cute Snoopy on the front, invitations to refinance so I could live out my golden years in luxury, and notifications of the senior citizens' early bird buffets (which, in Prescott, are bountiful). I finally figured out what had happened when I received something from AARP preprinted with my name and birthday -- Laraine A. Herring. 01/20/41.

Nope. That was my dad's birthday. And, incidentally Great Junk Mail Computer, he's been dead 22 years. I know. Windows Vista sucks, doesn't it?

Today I received an envelope with a big blue banner on the front: Win a Pre-Paid Cremation! I had to open it. It's not every day a 40 year old woman gets a chance for something that spectacular. And it's only Monday. What could my Pre-Paid Cremation prize entail? Fireworks? Tony Orlando singing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree"? Ice sculptures or a personal eulogy from Clinton Kelly telling the world how fabulously I put outfits together? Alas. None of this could be mine.

The personalized letter contained seven punctuation and spelling errors. I would not entrust my mortal remains to a company that misuses an apostrophe and believes that there is such a thing as closure in the grieving process (facilitated, of course, by pre-buying a cremation plan.) A girl has to take a stand. Furthermore, is this the kind of mail I can look forward to as I age? Makes those viagra junk mails look better. If I complete the reply slip, I can even be entered in a monthly drawing! Oh my. I had no idea life was going to get this good.

I believe in the right to die. I don't want to hang on for months or years on life support. I believe in the right to die on one's own terms, and I believe each person has both the right and responsibility to ensure there are provisions for the disposal of his or her body in a way that feels comfortable. I also understand that this company has a right to sell its product. It's the Ed McMahon You Might Already Be A Winner! tone of the letter that got to me. That, and, for me, the idea of cremation in the first place.

I love the earth, and I want to go back to it. I don't want to be cremated. I don't want to be scattered. I don't want to be inhaled by someone else. I want to be under a tree -- a big one like the ones I can't find here in Arizona. One with roots that go clear to hell and branches that go straight to heaven. Preferably with moss and birds that are red and yellow and orange and green. And maybe a rabbit. Definitely a squirrel. And lightning bugs. Hopefully a cat or two.

Cremation, like beer, is for other people. Not me. Even if it's free. Even if they pay me. I go back to mushy, muddy, Southern earth. How else am I going to hang out in the branches and haunt everybody?



a handful of earth

cries aloud

i used to be hair or

i used to be bones



and just at the moment

when you are all confused

leaps forth a voice

hold me close

i'm love and

i'm always yours

- Jalaluddin Rumi, translated by Nader Khalili



Cat guarding Chopin's grave in Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris

Domestic Vision Quest

A big PSHAW to those of you who think you need the great outdoors and bright sun and bugs and no indoor plumbing or showers to have a vision quest. Pshaw. You can do it in your very own home! All the elements are there, and you can go to the bathroom indoors and take a shower whenever you get too icki-fied.

Here's how it starts. You go to see your teacher and friend (you remember the one -- the one who somehow convinced you to eat quinoa and barley and swing a 27 pound iron kettle bell around your house) to talk about bizarre happenings in your body. Turns out, all you needed was to get more white fish to balance out the orange fish in your living room. :-)

Seriously, your teacher comes over to your house and politely doesn't mention the pile of shoes in the living room (there was nowhere else for them to go!). He spends several hours in deep contemplation at the state of your house. You suddenly see your house as someone else might (as opposed to the "well, it was so much WORSE when you lived in Phoenix" lens.) You realize that indeed your house is choking, and that's really a shame because you love your house, and it probably doesn't know how much you love it since, well, you've been strangling it.

He tells you that you've lost 30% of your body mass in the past two years. Your house needs to lose at least that much. He tells you to imagine that the house is shaking. What would it get rid of? He tells you to look at each space in the house (yes, corners, drawers, and that Dark Place Where No One Knows What Lives There) and ask it if it can breathe. Take out what needs to go for that space to breathe. He leaves you with incense and a promise that he and his wife will come back and help you create a space outside the house as well. (You are She Who Kills All Things Green and know you can't manage that part alone).

You, being you, having remained stuck, suddenly erupt with a fire in the belly and spew out everything that's clogging the pathways. You work for 4-1/2 days straight. You haul car load after car load off to the dump or Goodwill or the battered women's shelter. You make piles of things for friends. You give things to Keith's children. You burn burn burn for three hours in your backyard chiminea journals from high school and college. You burn your therapy notes. Your therapy art work. Your notes and letters and pictures from things that don't matter. You find bank statements from banks that don't exist (and didn't exist long before this year of The Dead Bank). You find mortgage papers from a house you actually never owned (this one's a mystery still).

You touch every book. Every article of clothing. You try on every garment you own. If it doesn't fit, it goes in the bag. If it's too big it goes away (you're not going to be that size again). If it's too small, it goes away (you were actually never that size). You sort your jewelry by color and pass on what others might like. You pare down your scarf collection from oh, say, a hundred, to thirty.

Time loses meaning. You don't know if it's Friday or Sunday. You eat when you're hungry. You take a shower when the dirt and old energy is too much to keep holding. You become loopy from lack of sleep and your internal censor vanishes as you babble. You wonder who will emerge from this journey.

You hit the proverbial wall on Saturday when you enter your office. This room has (had) things in boxes you just carried from apartment to apartment in Phoenix, to your house in Phoenix, and then to your house in Prescott without opening them. You know (or you think you know) what's in them. You open them and you find something different from what you expected. You thought you'd find your younger self and that you'd want to keep her. Instead, you found the baggage of your younger self, and you realize you don't need that. Your younger self is not in the boxes. She is inside you, and she whispers, "Yeah, it's been 25 years. It's done." And you know it's done, and though you cry, you also dance. You give thanks.

You find pictures of yourself looking like you never remembered you looked. You find transcripts and letters of recommendation and handouts from every class you ever taught before everything went electronic. You find expired medications and cosmetics.

Empty space used to scare you before you felt what space felt like in your body. An empty wall used to feel like fingers scratching on a chalkboard. This is not true anymore. You now know every single thing that's in your house. Down to the silverware and socks.

You call your teacher and tell him to bring it on. There's room for the next thing.

(Side Note on Soundtracks: I chose a pandora.com station I created called "I Will Survive". It played disco hits from the 70s and 80s. The thump thump and familiarity of the songs helped keep me moving. Do NOT choose a soundtrack of, say, Leonard Cohen. You'll end up drinking yourself to death and pushing everything back in the closet.)

Some sample pictures:

The living room.




The corner of the living room towards the kitchen.





The corner of the living room going up the stairs.




The bedroom closet!!




My desk with my fabulous Mac.




The corner of my office.





And finally, the bottle of wine Keith and I will share tonight at the Thai House.

Natural Talent

It happens every semester. The student creeps up to you in the very last breath of your office hour. Or she waits until the rest of the class has gathered up their backpacks and water bottles. Sometimes he's shy. Sometimes she's bold. Sometimes he poses it as a challenge. Sometimes more of a prayer.

"Do I have any talent?"

For a writing teacher, this question is the equivalent of being asked to reveal state secrets to the Taliban. And, fortunately, I've honed my Special Forces resistance skills over the years to where I can keep a poker face and provide the only answer that is ethical. "I can't answer that."

The reason the poker face is needed is because I'm still a human being. The students I work with present a wide range of abilities. I have personal tastes that I try to keep out of the classroom, but are still a part of how I see literature.

I'm convinced people ask the question because they want to be validated. My job is not to validate. My job is to help my students grow as writers. Think about it. The last time you asked someone if your butt looked fat in those jeans, did you really want them to say "actually, yes it does." Likely not.

I am not the Talent Police, nor am I the Talent Judge. I don't think anyone can be. Relax, though. Talent isn't the crystal ball of writing. Perseverance, a commitment to learning the craft, writing writing writing writing writing, studying grammar, reading reading reading reading reading -- these things can make a writer successful. I can't even tell you with certainty whether or not a piece can be published. So much of publishing is changing and out of our control that we can't possibly say with definitive authority -- no, it'll never make it. Or, yes! It's a bestseller. No one knows these things. Please don't ask us. Ask questions such as, "Who can I read more of to learn more about plot?" or "What are some of the different ways I could have approached that character conflict?" or "Where do you think the work fell into cliche?" Ask concrete developmental questions about your work. We can answer those. The work will improve. And the rest will go where it will go.

I think of talent as the magic bean. All of us got a handful of magic beans, but none of us got the same assortment of magic beans. All of these magic beans were not programmed to sprout at the same time. Sometimes they lie dormant until the circumstances arise for them to bloom. Sometimes they are nurtured from early childhood. Some people publish a book in their early twenties. Others not until their eighties. Everyone didn't get the same set of circumstances, so talent cannot be measured in an Excel spreadsheet. Talent can't be ranked, quantified, or implanted.

I also know that since all people are not given equal gifts that all people cannot accomplish the exact same things. No matter how much I want to be a blues singer, it just ain't happening in this life. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy music and singing, but it means the open mic or karaoke night is as far as I'm going to get with my musical ability.

Some people do have more writing talent than others. (Dare I say it? It's like porn -- you can't define it but you know it when you see it.) If you're in my class, I'll never ever tell you whether I think you're talented enough because I only see part of the picture. I can't know enough to tell you what you want (or don't want) to hear. I don't know how badly you want it. I will tell you if individual sentences, or stories, or poems sing. I will tell you how to make a piece stronger.

But only you know when the door of your reality opens and you realize that you can enjoy singing (or writing, or dancing, or swimming) your entire life, but you'll never be a professional. Remember the joy comes in the value of the relationship you have with your art form. Don't lose sight of that joy comparing yourself to the writing of others.

Do your own writing. Study. Read. Read. Read. Write. Read. Push yourself. Don't get complacent (oh, I already know how to write dialogue) -- I'll bet there's something new you could learn. There's something new all of us can learn. Be a constant student whether you're in class or not. Be in service to your art. Listen to it. Walk with it. That's the relationship that will get you wherever you and your writing are supposed to end up in this crazy world.

But talent? Don't worry about it. Your job is to use the magic beans you've been given to the best of your ability. Don't waste them comparing your beans to everyone else's beans. Your commitment is to your growth with your art. Nothing more and nothing less is required of you.

You may never be able to string together clauses like Faulkner, but that's OK. We've had one Faulkner. What is it that you can do?

Attachment and Aversion

My natural tendency is to avoid change. If left to my own devices, I will find ways to work within situations that are blatantly unworkable (like 25 years of living in Phoenix) rather than run the risk of doing something different. I want friendships to stay the same. I want the places where I lived to stay the same. I want my job to stay the same. I even want my phone number to stay the same. My dad wrote birthday letters to us every year, and in one of mine he wrote that I resisted change more than anyone he'd ever known. I was eleven.

It seems also that my natural tendency is toward worst-case scenario. Yes, today's situation might be less than ideal, but we better not do anything about it because it could be much much worse. When we first moved to Phoenix, our family attended a free program at the Glendale library about personalities. I was a melancholic. Yes. At twelve. (Many fine writers, I went on to research, were also melancholic. So there.)

I am working on the "attachment and aversion" chapter in The Writing Warrior, and my first thought about those concepts is, yeah, well, so? Although I know they're the twin sisters of suffering, I still stomp my feet in defiance of the reality of change.

When I was very young, I had a baby blanket that I loved. I slept with it. Carried it around the house. I had planned to take it to school when I started kindergarten, and I remember telling mom I was going to have it at my wedding. What I loved most about the blanket was its smell. I don't remember that it smelled dirty -- it just smelled like me -- which likely was dirty if I'd had the blanket four years.

One day, mom told me she was going to wash the blanket and she gave me a new blanket. The new blanket wasn't the same as the old blanket. It was thicker, a different shade of white, and it didn't have the fraying ribbon edge that I loved to rub between my fingers. It turned out mom hadn't planned to wash the blanket. She threw it away and I guess hoped I wouldn't notice. To be fair, mom and I hadn't known each other long enough for her to know I noticed everything -- but more importantly, she couldn't have known yet that once I loved something, I loved it forever. One blanket can't be replaced with another blanket. Not no way. Not no how.

I don't remember how I found out, but I know she ended up getting my blanket back out of the trash. I'm sure there was loud screaming and stomping of feet. I'm sure she thought it was time I got rid of the baby blanket. I'm sure she was right.

But I'm sure of this too. At 40 and ten months, I've still got that blanket in my nightstand.

Transparency

Ever catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and not recognize who is looking back? Ever wander through the halls of an old school you attended, or an old neighborhood and felt familiar eyes hanging out in the trees, only when you turned to look, there was nothing but a breeze and a blue jay? Or how about this one -- you walk into a room or into a different city and you know that you could have been here if you'd made other choices. You don't know if the end result would have been more pleasant or less pleasant, you just know that the road you travel could have brought you here.

I think sometimes that I spend a good portion of my psychic energy chasing the illusions of myself. I love all these ghosts hanging around me, so they hang all around me. I love imagining what could have been, and so I do. I love, perhaps most of all, the idea that possibilities are limitless -- that all I have to do is step one foot in a different direction and everything will be different.

Except there'll still be that transparent Laraine hanging out. The one who is always just a finger's length away. The one who whispers things and hides things, only to reveal them at the most inopportune times. Transparent Laraine won't be my friend. That's not her job. Transparent Laraine just reflects. I'm the one who chooses what I see -- gosh, is that another wrinkle under my eye -- gosh, my butt really does look fat in those jeans -- or gosh, those eyes are the same eyes I looked at when I first held up a mirror. My soul is untouched by sagging skin or tired joints. My soul, my truth, has nothing to do with the image. How hard to remember that!

Perhaps the practice is to see what is unchanging in the reflection, not what is changing. Through that which is unchanged, perhaps change can be accepted with a bit more grace. By touching the part that doesn't move, the hub of the wheel, then one can move freely with the spokes.

I want Transparent Laraine to be my friend. I want her to show me in her image that nothing is changing, that I'm 18 again, that I'm not aging. I want Transparent Laraine to reach her hand through the window and be with me all the way through to whatever happens at the end.

But I get this sneaking suspicion that when I reach the end of the line, she'll turn and walk away, and I'll be left to move forward with all I ever had that was real -- the first thing I ever saw when I looked in a mirror, long before I attached a storyline to the rest of my reflection.

I see you, Transparent Laraine, and I guess when the day comes that I don't, I'll put on my traveling shoes (which will be fabulous and sparkly) and move along.