More Bounty than I Could Reasonably Expect

I'm reading the eighth book in the Iron Druid series, Staked, here in beautiful Costa Rica. I love this Kevin Hearne series, especially the premise of the last living Druid, Atticus O'Sullivan, who draws his powers from the earth and uses organic bindings to effect magic. He is mostly protected from others' magic by his cold iron amulet, bound to his aura—the Fae hate iron. It's such an original premise and the characters are so well drawn, that I wish Mr. Hearne published more than one novel a year. Thankfully, he gifts us with always-fun short stories in between novels. By this point in the series, there are two more Druids, Atticus' apprentice and girlfriend, Granuaile (which is such a great name—up there with Hermione) and his ArchDruid, Owen, who was trapped on an island where time stood still for 2000 years and is having some difficultly adjusting to modern life, for which he blames Atticus. This latest book is written from several perspectives, including those of Atticus, Granuaile and Owen, and when the point of view shifts toward Owen, it's a hoot. In one scene, Owen is having a particular fine day—he is gifted with a magical weapon, the anticipation of being able to train a group of apprentices and the promise of some afternoon delight from his ladylove. Life is good for Owen and he remarks to himself that, "It's more bounty than I could reasonably expect—more than I ever enjoyed in me old life. I really owe [Atticus] for days like this, damn his eyes."  What a wonderful thought—even with cursing the one who provided such abundance. It got me to thinking about bounty and what we expect from life.  Here in Costa Rica, I've been enjoying the magnificent meter of the crashing of waves on the shore, the intense colors of the early morning and late afternoon skies, the healing capacity of rest and surcease from responsibility. The power of nature and beauty to encourage insight and harmony, the pursuit of which I often find to be beyond me in my quotidian life, is bliss. And I must agree with Owen—that this is more bounty than I could reasonably expect.  Not everyone gets this quality or quantity of abundance. And while some of it is most certainly a function circumstantial luck over which I had no control, including the accident of my birth to affluent parents who provided me with many opportunities, some of my current bounty is the result of choices I've made to be grateful, mindful and purposeful. I've chosen to see the glass half full in many instances, and, as a result, my life is full as well—meaningful, powerful, insightful, thoughtful, and fulfilling. In fact, my cup runneth over. Cultivating these qualities is the work of a lifetime in pursuit of living an awakened existence. Turning on our autopilot and jumping through other people's expectations is an easier, softer way, of course. But it often results in a empty glass and an empty life.

These contemplations beg the question of what makes life worth living and what constitutes a life well lived.  In a different scene in one of the Iron Druid short stories, Atticus remarks that it is all the little pleasures of life that make his long, long existence worthwhile. He loves spending time in nature with his loving—and talking—hound, Oberon (one of the great fictional human/animal relationships of all time), and he loves the many conveniences of modern life—especially toilet paper—which makes sense if you've lived without it for millennia.

If we are able to appreciate the little things, which are really the big things, life is sweet and overflowing with bounty at every turn. More bounty than we could reasonably expect.  And what do we expect? I'm not sure about you, so I'll speak for myself, but I've found that my happiness and perceptions of abundance are in direct inverse proportion to my expectations. When I expect, I tend to be disappointed. But when I can be surprised by the plenitude in my life and take my prosperity where I find it, I can thrive behind my wildest dreams.

It can be hard for me to put aside the perceived burdens of my life to the joy residing just outside the circle of my demands. I want, I want, I want... as I've written about before and it doesn't much matter—whatever I want that I don't have that supersedes my gratitude for what I do have—that is exactly what I will never get, or if I do, will never truly appreciate, so it won't make me happy in the end.

If ornery old Druids can learn new tricks and allow the sunlight of the spirit to shine down upon them, then so can all of us. We can be in the moment and find bounty of some sort or another – even if it’s only for a moment. In yoga, during challenging poses, my instructor will often exhort us to find a place in our bodies that doesn't hurt—the tip of a finger or a spot on our cheek, for example. She will tell us to turn our attention to the parts that feel fine, asking us to magnify our pleasure and breathe through our pain—not to ignore it, but to give more attention to that which does not hurt. It's good advice for learning the difficult art of appreciation. And for feeling that we have more bounty than we can reasonably expect. Enjoy.

Needs and Wants

It’s been too long since I've been able to read an entire book in a day. I'd forgotten the sheer joy of being caught up in another world for hours at a time. I've been on vacation in spectacular Costa Rica (again! Lucky, I know!) and the living is easy. We came back to the place where I originally had the idea for this blog, and its magic continues to work for me and in me. I'm so grateful for the healing sounds of the surf and the fire of the sun, fueling my creative spark. It's heaven on earth. But I'm digressing, again. For my first selection, I chose Patricia Briggs' latest Mercy Thompson novel, Fire Touched. I enjoy this series, and I love how the characters are developing over the course of the stories. This book was no exception, and a particular area of development was the relationship between Mercy and her mate/husband, Adam, the Alpha of the local werewolf pack.  At one point in the story, Adam has reached the end of his rope concerning how some in his pack have treated Mercy, and calls his wolves to task. In a beautiful speech, Adam tells these wolves that Mercy doesn't need him to put food on the table or a roof over her head—she can do that herself. She doesn't need him to defend her or protect her—again, she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. "She doesn't need me to do anything except love her. Which I do." That speech pretty much melted my heart. And my first thought was, "Wow! I wish someone would make a speech like that about me." But my second thought was that it wouldn't be possible for anyone to make such a declaration about me because it wouldn't be true. I wish I could say that all I need or have ever needed from my husband was for him to love me, which he does. Unfortunately, as I thought about it, I seem to have needed a lot more from him over the years—and much of it was not appropriate to ask for, much less expect, as I clearly did. I think many of us get confused between the needing and the wanting. I think we also get confused about appropriate expectations with respect to our mates. Adam's stirring speech about Mercy made me think about all that I've thought I needed over time, and how misguided much of my perceived needs have been. And how much of a burden they have needlessly placed on my mate. Sobering thoughts.  One of the things I thought I needed from my mate was self-confidence. Mine, not his. I wanted him to love me enough so that I could love myself. I wanted him to think me beautiful—or at least beautiful enough for him, when I clearly did not believe this to be true. One of my best friends has a daughter. This girl has more self-confidence than Kanye West, without any of the narcissism or sociopathy. Neither my friend or I are sure where this unshakable belief in her own beauty and awesomeness comes from, but damn if I don't wish I could get me some of that. That lucky girl will never need a husband to validate her looks or her mojo, like I clearly did. The tragedy, of course, is that no one can give that to you, so to ask that of a partner is a fool's errand. Sad but true.

I was also convinced I needed security from my husband. I needed to know early and often that he loved me and wasn't going to leave me. Abandonment issues much?  Yep, might as well have had a sign on my head reading, "Insecurity-R-Us."  My poor darling told me many times a day how much he loved me and assured me of his fidelity and staying power. I only started to believe him about a decade into our union, after which time I worried that he would die—thereby leaving me. Rather pathetic, I know. Not to mention terribly off-putting. It's a wonder I didn't drive him away completely with my ridiculous insecurity. He was going to stay or not. He was going to live or not. And my attempts to control him and his actions almost became a self-fulfilling prophesy because of my distorted efforts to get something I needed but which he sadly could not deliver—because I needed to feel secure in myself rather than look to him for it.  Our mates cannot give us the love we needed from our parents. That ship has sailed. They cannot feed the hole in our soul that needs filling by the Divine. They cannot provide the distractions we need to anesthetize the pain of life. They cannot ameliorate the crushing weight of grief, even when we feel we need the relief so badly we demand it from them. We feel we need to be protected from the sting of failure, the discomfort and fear of illness and the work of life, sometimes. But that is not the role of a mate. 

A partner should not do for us what we should do for ourselves, even when we think need them to. No one should do that. And yet we foist these expectations on our unwitting spouses and then wonder why we are disappointed. How refreshing would it be if we only asked for love? How happy would our partners be if they could fulfill our needs and be the man (or the woman, as the case may be) we only need to love us?

When I thought about how lovely it would be to be the recipient of the speech Adam made about Mercy, it didn't occur to me until much later how amazing it would be to be able to give such a speech. What would that be like?  I can hardly imagine, but now that I've heard it, I can't unring that bell. I love the goal of only needing love from my husband, and vice versa. I may and do still want other things, but not getting what I want is a whole different ball game than not getting what I need.  One is negotiable, while the other is grounds for despair.

My goal is the former not the later – and I will work on that.

Use It or Lose It?

I'm reading Cherise Sinclair's Eventide of the Bear, the third in the Wild Hunt Legacy series. This book is about a bear shifter who is unjustly banished into the forest, only to return to civilization several years later. As the story develops, we learn that Emma had been a bard before she was banished, but she'd been living alone in her bear form for over three years by the time she is integrated into a new community. She doubts her ability to sing anymore, and declines the invitation to entertain and educate the local shifters with her music. She explains that she is out of practice and no longer has the capacity to serve as bard, an honored position in the clan. The leader of the clan rejects her reluctance and assured Emma that she could no more lose her capacity to sing as she could lose her ability to breathe. As he explains to her, "A tail does not disappear, even if it is not wagged."  I had to think about this statement, and I'm not sure I agree with it. I'll lay out both sides of the argument and you can tell me what you think in the comments. At issue is the idea that inherent parts of ourselves do not evaporate into thin air, even if we don't utilize them. As the clan leader stated, the tail still exists, even when it doesn't wag. And that is true as far as it goes. But the question is, if the tail never wags, do the muscles that allow it to wiggle back and forth atrophy to the point where it can no longer move? I'm not sure about tails, but I know that the use it or lose it principle applies to lots of other things.

Toward the end of my mother's life, I watched her come to the unwelcome realization that all of the activities and behaviors necessary to health and wellbeing were no longer available to her. She spent years, decades, probably, intending to start her diet the following Monday, or begin an exercise program or a physical therapy regimen at some point in the future, when she had "more time" (this from a woman who was retired for twenty years before her death.  Have you ever noticed how incredibly busy and unavailable retired people are?  It astounds me how little time for useful or productive activity these folks have. But I digress). That time never seemed to come. In fact, I remember laughing, although it was more sad than funny, when my mother decided that she would adopt the habit of eating a piece of dark chocolate each afternoon, because "they" said it was good for one’s health. When I pointed out that "they" also touted the significant health benefits of exercise, adequate water intake and an avoidance of refined sugar and starches, my mother wanted nothing to do with that aspect of what “they” had to say. She died from neglecting her health until it was too late to help herself, even if she'd been willing to do so. Use it or lose it.

And what about other elements of life?  Must we use them or lose them, too? What about our cognitive capacity?  I've read numerous studies that suggest our mental abilities are very much in the use it or lose it basket. While our brains might not disappear, their ability to function well does. And while I've often heard that the resumption of intimate relations after a romantic lull is like riding a bike, it seems to me that certain parts of our anatomy benefit greatly from regular use.

Just because a part continues to exist definitely doesn’t mean that it works well or at all. I think I'm going to have to conditionally reject the premise of the clan leader in Eventide of the Bear. In most cases, lack of use means loss of access to capabilities. There might be a couple of exceptions to that rule. First, there is probably a time component, as with my mother and her unhealthy habits. We can resolve every January 1 to walk three miles a day, or get to the gym several times a week. But the longer we don't act on our resolutions, the more we increase the risk of having our choice in the matter taken away. I think that we could not use it and not lose it for a while, but eventually we cross a line that represents an event horizon. At some point, and each situation and circumstance is different, there is no going back.

The other exception relates to an inherent talent or an intrinsic part of ourselves. I think this is what the clan leader meant when he convinced Emma that her identity as a bard was in no way diminished by not exercising her talent. Art is like that. It is a part of us, whether we express our creative abilities or not. I am a writer. As I described in an earlier post about why I write what I write, I've known from a very early age that I am a writer. The fact that I didn't write creatively for many years did not detract from my inherent being as a writer. In my essential self, I wrote. Sometimes, it just didn't come out on the page. But my writing expressed itself in my devotion to reading, in my love of words and my ecstasy in the presence of a beautiful turn of phrase, or in my ability to be transported beyond myself through the magic of others' writing.

It's taken me a long time to come back to myself and to write again. At this point, I write for the love of it, more than for an audience, although I am deeply grateful to everyone who reads my offerings to the Muse. And if I never wrote another word, I would still be a writer. It's who and what I am. It is more integral than a tail, more necessary to the fabric of my existence than many of the other threads of my personality.

So for some things, the most important things, the things that make us who we are at our deepest level, use or disuse is immaterial. We don't need to use it not to lose it. For some aspects of ourselves, we can no more lose our abilities than we can stop breathing. Perhaps I won't be a writer in the next life. But I don't really believe that. It's too ingrained in my soul, and I don't think it can be lost, no matter what. What do you think? Is there an aspect of yourself that cannot be lost? I’d love to hear from you in the comments, or shoot me an email.

I Want What I Want

I want what I want when I want it. When this refrain buzzes in my mind, I quickly walk to the other side of the street to avoid it. This kind of contemplation is bad for the soul and dangerous for the psyche. Why dangerous? Because many of us only think we know what we want, and the rest of us have no bloody clue. But we won't admit that we don't know, not even to ourselves, and thus we pursue our "dreams" to extremes, convinced we must attain them or be miserable and unfulfilled. What a sad mess. Why am I thinking about these potential tragedies? Because, as I discussed in my last post, I've been contemplating the content of my favorite paranormal HEAs. And I think I've discovered a common theme among them: every one of my favorite female characters ends up with an HEA that is significantly different from what she thought she wanted. Mac Lane begins her story hoping for a white picket fence and a genteel southern life complete with a husband and children. Sookie Stackhouse thinks she wants a nice Civil War vampire to have and to hold. Pia Giovanni just wants to hide and live out her life as anonymously as possible. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But in each of these cases, the authors—Karen Marie Moning, Charlaine Harris, and Thea Harrison, respectively, take their heroines on a journey of discovery about what they truly desire. Turns out, the truth does not match the fantasy for any of these fictional heroines.

I'm convinced that life imitates art in this instance: I'm predictably similar as so many of us when I say that the pursuit of what I thought I wanted didn't get me where I truly longed to be. In the end, I spent too much time listening to what my parents told me I wanted, what the media told me I needed for fulfillment and what Madison Avenue insisted I needed to be happy. I think most of us let others dictate our desires, and then we are lost and confused when we're not as content as we were assured we’d be, if only we could get all those things we’re told to seek.

It's quite the letdown when all that we ever thought we wanted is finally in our grasp and we still feel flat and numb—like someone spiked our celebratory champagne with Novocaine. We got the big diamond, large house, and the impressive title while maintaining a small waist, maybe even after a pregnancy or two. We worked and we schemed and we prayed and we bargained. And we made it, by God, we made it.

So now what? Nirvana, bliss, the Golden Ticket, you name it, it's ours for the taking. Except it's not.

What happens when all of that fails to fulfill?  Then what? Some of us refuse to acknowledge our empty reality and pretend to be satisfied with the trappings of ostensible happiness. We become plastic people with rictus smiles, reflecting the dead feelings inside us.  Others among us decide that we need to fix ourselves, and quickly, because the only explanation for not being happy with what is certainly making everyone else envious is that we are majorly damaged and in need of some serious psychological counseling. Misguided thinking for sure, but it keeps the therapists in business.  And then there are those poor souls who somehow don't get what they thought they wanted, and so spend their precious time pining for things that are not to be. I know a woman who wanted children desperately, but married too late to have them and then could not get past it, despite valiant efforts to convince herself and others to the contrary. She reveres all mothers, and is convinced her life is just not what it could have been. This is true. But it’s also true that she could have given birth to a child with developmental challenges, like one of my friends, or lost a child like another. These two mothers might sometimes envy my bereft, childless acquaintance.

We use the failure to acquire that which we think we desire as an excuse for compulsions, mediocrity, underachievement, loveless marriages, immoral and unethical behavior, sloth and procrastination. When we don't get the clothes, or the guy, or the kids, or the looks, the wealth or the health, then we can absolve ourselves of responsibility for our misery and justify our wallowing in it. I hate when I see that in others. I despair when I realize I've done it myself. 

So who are the lucky ones in this dismal picture I've painted?  Well, we have our favorite fictional friends, of course. We have Mac, Sookie and Pia, all of whom are young but wise.  They are able to adjust their perceived desires to accommodate the reality that all but bites them in the face. They each realize—over the course of many delicious novels, thankfully—that what they thought they wanted didn't fit the bill at all. And they were able to shift their perceptions to recognize their dreams and embrace them, finding their HEAs in the process. We can learn a lot from these paranormal people.

As soon as we even suspect that we've been chasing the wrong dream, it's time to make a course correction. Similarly, when it becomes painfully clear that whatever we thought we wanted is definitely beyond our reach, we need to let go of that fantasy and adopt objectives that are more realistic. If we must let go of a dream, by all means, mourn. But then move on.  We also need to tune out the cacophony of voices telling us what we want and what we don't want. Plug your ears and just say "no."  We must take the time to discern what we, ourselves, actually want, no matter that it's not what others think we should desire or seek to attain. Our true desires are rarely reflected by the two-year-old screeching in our heads, "I want it now!"  We need to go below that insatiable inner child to the essential part of ourselves that speaks more softly. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it – maybe not right now but usually when it’s right.

We're Working on It

I've been married for more than twenty years, and with my husband for almost a quarter century. That's a long time, although not, of course, by immortal standards, where a millennium of togetherness is the expectation upon mating and marriage. I literally can't imagine. And I've been thinking about all of the HEAs in my beloved fantasy books, and the countless centuries of intimacy that each and every one represents. As anyone in a long term relationship knows, the honeymoon eventually ends, and much of the intensity of the passion fades, as does our tolerance for the many differences between our partners and ourselves. I've written before about how opposites attract, and that has certainly been true for me and my spouse. But even if we partner with someone who seems very similar to us on the surface, we all have shadow selves that are uniquely our own. In a lasting lifetime partnership, how do we accept the dark side of our mates, and how can we ask them to do the same for us? I'm not sure, but I know we're working on it. Whenever I think I'm terminally unique or that my relationship is different from those of others, I have but to read one of my favorite fantasy books. Pia and Dragos, Mac and Barrons, Sookie and Sam, and, most recently, Mariketa and Bowen all deal with the beasts within and the necessary accommodations each must make to be part of a couple. Over the course of their stories, each of these pairs learns to come to terms with the creature beneath a beautiful body as they struggle to become a twosome. And maybe it's the GQ looks that each of our heroes possesses, or the alpha male charisma, or their profound devotion to their women that makes it seem easier for their wives.  But any way you slice it, these guys got game—of the animalistic variety. Talk about a dark side. And their women have their own weaknesses and shadows that give depth to their characters and interest to the readers.

But how does this relate to the rest of us? If we ask ourselves honestly, do we truly accept the shadows of our mates? Have we revealed our own inner demons? I'm pretty sure I have, as my demons aren't quite housebroken, and come out to play even when I've told them firmly to stay inside. But they don't listen, and the mess they make can be epic at times. So my husband is well aware of the shadows lurking in my heart. Most of them, at least. But what about his? Can I embrace the darkness in him even as I demand his light? I tell myself I can, but sometimes my actions belie my claims.

In our wedding ceremony, the officiant spoke of the three elements of our union: my husband, our marriage and me. She talked about how we were two complete individuals coming together to create something distinct—a new entity. We had discussed this concept with the minister before the wedding, and she was able to write beautiful prose around our desire to avoid the two halves of a whole trope. I'd been to weddings where that was the theme—where the bride or groom represented the "missing puzzle piece" for the other, like the lyrics of that simpering Katy Perry song about being a teenage dream. I'd also read about this approach to love relationships in the historical romance novels of my youth in the 1980s. In those early bodice rippers, the hero and heroine were always two peas in a pod, two sides of the same coin, an incomplete soul waiting for its other half. Gag me. 

My husband, good man that he is, would never introduce me as his better half. The way I figure it, if I'm only half a person waiting to become whole through the addition of another, the half I'm likely to be is the good part—after all, who would want me (or anyone) if they represent the half that lives in shadow? No one, that's who. So if I'm half a person representing the good stuff, then when I come together with He Who Shall Complete Me, we're gonna generate shadows, not light.

Instead, when I was at the point where I was open to a lifetime partnership, I was looking for someone who would intensify my light and my strengths but also be able to live with my darkness and weaknesses. After all, the advice I give to all couples thinking about marriage is this:  take your intended's worst qualities, magnify them 1000 times, and decide if you can live with what that looks like, it's a good match.  Because if you're going in with the hope of change, as they say in my hometown, fuggedaboutit. 

So for me, and for the fantasy fictional couples I love, we're working on it. All of it. Making sure all of me loves all of my mate and vice versa. It's the work of a lifetime, and a labor of love. We have to take the dark with the light, the beast with the beauty, the good with the bad. Whatever the case, I'll take it all. 

Ease and Effort

I'm struggling with the balance between ease and effort. I'm reading a lot of self-empowerment books, practicing yoga, meditating, and journaling up a storm, and it keeps coming down to the same thing: do we build on our strengths and follow our bliss or do we pay our dues, fight hard for worthy causes, and strive toward that brass ring so that when we get it, we can appreciate it?  I have no clue. Is this a false dichotomy? Probably. So much of life is so much more integrated and less steeped in duality than most of us can appreciate. But that is the subject of another blog. Today, I'm focusing on a scene I just listened to in Kresley Cole's Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (a cringe-worthy title that has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of the story—sigh). This book is about Bowen and Mariketa, about whom I wrote last time. They are discussing her strong magical capability and she is bemoaning the fact that she finds controlling her powers difficult. And Bowen assures her that it is her arduous struggle that brings greatness, because what is easy does not prepare us. Immediately after listening to this fictional interaction, I saw a graphic on Facebook that said, "A smooth sea never made a great sailor."  True enough. But what about the other side of that coin? The one John O’Donohue spoke of in his poem, Flow: I would love to live/Like a river flows/Carried by the surprise/Of its own unfolding. Do we go with the flow or swim upstream?  Seems like a silly question. Who wouldn't want to go with the flow, enjoy the ease of having the river or the tide carry us along?  In yoga class this morning, my teacher read a poem by Danna Faulds called Let It Go that told me to, “Save your strength to swim with the tide."  Another of my personal gurus, Danielle LaPorte, tells us to do what's easy. All of these exhortations toward ease sound so good, but are they true? I want to believe but I’ve been conditioned to think that it’s all about the hard work. I’m so confused.

I've mentioned before that I am the mother of fraternal twin boys. My sons could not be less alike. For one of them, intellectual and academic achievement has always come easily, while his brother has had to work assiduously for his good grades. Fast forward to their sophomore year of high school:  the work is harder and the expectations are higher. My son who's never had to toil too much is now struggling because he has no idea how to work, while his twin is continuing his hard working ways to great effect.  Seems to me that a habit of ease is not fabulous under these circumstances, and a lack of hard work is beginning to bite him in the butt.

And what about the concept of value?  Do we truly value that which comes easily?  I think not. I think we discount what we don't work for and take it for granted. Back to my kids—we are asking them to earn (or work toward) the cars they so desperately want when they get their provisional licenses this summer. They've pointed out to us that many of their friends are getting expensive new cars the day they are eligible to drive them. I asked my boys whether these kids whose parents buy them whatever they want have strong characters. They tell me no. They are spoiled brats in many cases. No one likes a brat, and my kids understand that making them earn what they want will benefit them in the end (even though they grumble quite a bit). Incentives and disincentives.  Works every time.

So, perhaps between ease and effort we must find balance, as in all things. Too much effort can make us fall into despair and burnout. Too little effort leads us to be frivolous with things that should have value. Finding the balance is the tricky part, of course, but it's gotta be there. With balance, we get the wounded healer, the successful failure and even the failed success. With balance we get an ugly duckling who turns into a swan, and the child who struggles in school who ends up developing the theory of relativity…maybe. I reassure myself that it sometimes works out that way.

Perhaps balance can be found in the sequence of things—maybe the bad must precede the good, so that struggle comes before triumph. It seems much more difficult to go the other way—riches to rags is always a tragedy, whereas rags to riches is a triumph. So when Bowen explains to Mariketa that it is her struggle that will help her to be a great leader, I think he's right. I remember learning to pilot a hang glider. A large part of the instruction is how to respond to worst-case scenarios. It's actually relatively easy to fly a hang glider when everything is going smoothly. But if the wind shifts direction or intensity, if an obstacle suddenly appears (like a truck crossing your landing spot), or the plane pulling you up suddenly disconnects you, who you gonna call?  No one, that's who. You have to solve your own problems at 5000 or 500 feet.

And maybe the balance is between pursuing that which comes easily—areas in which we have innate talent and passion—and hard work in equal measure. If we are exercising our talent, maybe it just doesn't feel like work because we are enjoying it. Maybe it’s just that easy. Or maybe I need to struggle some more with this dilemma.

Third Eye Open

In the fourth installment of Kresley Cole's outstanding Immortals After Dark series, Bowen, a werewolf, is convinced that his long-lost mate has been reincarnated as a young, powerful witch, Mariketa the Awaited. One of the reasons he is hopeful that Mariketa is his beloved reborn is that his Instinct, which has been silent since her death, is suddenly guiding him again. Bowen is thrilled with the return of this important aspect of his psyche—the voice in his ear providing direction, validation, and the comfort of certainty. I envied him his Instinct and fantasized about what it would be like to have a similar beacon illuminating my path.  I figured it was almost like being able to conjure my own personal burning bush whenever the need arose. Seductive.  On the other hand, we humans are animals with instincts. I remember reading somewhere that the only true instinct humans are born with involve the urge to suckle and an innate fear of falling. Seems like a weird combination, but there you have it. So we don't have the Instinct like Kresley Cole's werewolves, but we have something else. Something better, perhaps: intuition.

Intuition is the inner knowing, the gut feeling, and the quiet voice in our heads that seems to understand the truth, even when our minds are less than clear. Our intuition is associated with our third eye—the one between our actual eyes—all-seeing and all-knowing.  And if the mystics and the psychics are to be believed, all of us come into the world equipped with that metaphysical ability.

I struggle sometimes to know the right thing to do, the right path to take, the best choice to make. It can be quite daunting to decide based on incomplete information, or conflicting desires. And it can be excruciating not to know—sometimes until much later, if ever, whether I made a good decision. How much easier would it be to know—with certainty—that what we are doing is what we are supposed to be doing. 

And that is where intuition is a lot like Bowen's reawakened Instinct. The major difference is that we humans need to cultivate our intuition, whereas Kresley Cole's werewolves have it at their fingertips (unless they've suffered major trauma, like Bowen). The problem for us is multifaceted. First, we can't hear our inner voices (unless, of course, we hear voices, in which case we may be in need of some serious meds or maybe even a padded cell, but that's another issue entirely). Secondly, we don't always trust our inner voices, even when we can hear them. We seek external validation for that which we know—deep in our hearts—to be true. Lastly, even when we hear and trust our guts, we don't want to do what we know we should—for whatever reasons, although mostly those reasons come down to good, old fashioned fear.

In our age of distraction, we can't hear much of anything. We have buds stuffed in our ears, music blaring from our cars, television, movies, video games, overworking, excessive play, and the constant rush, rush, rush of the busy modern life. Who amongst us gets quiet enough or still enough to hear that small whisper within? There are so few Hortons among us to notice the tiny, "Who?" coming from that speck of dust. To attend to our intuition, we must listen. Meditation is good. Long walks are good. Staring into space and contemplating the vastness of the cosmos is also acceptable. And while mindfulness, yoga, TM and other forms of meditative spirituality are gaining traction, not enough of us practice enough to make a discernible difference in the level of intuition being accessed in our busy, busy world.

On top of our perennial busyness, many of us have come to distrust ourselves. We get so many messages from the media, our friends, our parents, our employers, our politicians, etc., about who we should be and what we should think that we dare not trust that small, inner voice without checking with our peeps, or our favorite taking head, or our therapists about whether they think our intuition is correct. We behave as if we've been betrayed, stabbed in the back by our intuition, when that isn't possible. Our intuition is always right. On the other hand, when we listen to our egos masquerading as our intuition, we can go seriously wrong, and begin to believe that we can't trust ourselves. But that is just our delusion talking.  Deep down, we know the difference between ego and essential self. We just choose to ignore that difference some of the time. 

Which leads to our third and final problem with intuition—when we don't like what it's telling us, we reject it. Outright. We say, "I hear you, but I'm not listening, nah, nah, nah!"  We know when a relationship is bad or going south. We know when a job is sucking our soul dry.  And we know when we are making poor choices and willfully deciding to make them anyway. Because we are afraid of what will happen if we follow our inner knowing. What if people won't like us? What if we risk our job or our marriage? What if we won't get what we think we want (because someone else told us we should)? What if what we really want is so far off the reservation that we may never find our way back again?

Intuition is just hard. It makes us work for wisdom that we sometimes wish we didn't have. Truth is like that sometimes. Quiet. Uncomfortable. Difficult. But fighting our truth, closing our third eye, is a road to certain unhappiness and lost fulfillment. Keeping our (third) eye wide open is the best way to see the truth. Even in fantasy novels.

I'm Not Listening

I've just started John Hartness' Bubba the Monster Hunter stories. I'm still not entirely sure if this is a novella series like Quincy Harker or more of a collection of short stories, but no matter.  I'm digging Harkness’ style mightily, and I love that he moves these plots along in a timely manner, rather than dragging them out over three hundred pages. You go, John Hartness! Your efficient storytelling style working for me. But, enough literary critique. The topic at hand is the phenomenon of things that go in one ear and out the other. I would love to say that this is an injustice that has been visited on me while my own auditory skills remain wholly unaffected. That would be a bald faced lie (although you know what they say—lie big or go home—you know, like Donald Trump—oops, did I say that out loud?!). What, they don't say that?  I must not have been listening. My bad.  And that's the point. It is my bad.  And yours, and pretty much everyone else's. I started thinking about how little we listen to each other as I was reading about Bubba and Skeeter (fabulous names, by the way) in Hartness' collection (or "Season One" as he calls it) entitled, “Scattered, Smothered and Chunked," which sounds truly unappetizing.  In an exchange between our monster-killing heroes, Skeeter (the brains) explains the current assignment to Bubba (the brawn). It's a last minute explanation, delivered immediately before the action goes down.  To the readers, Bubba explains that Skeeter never tells him anything about a case "until it was time for the killing." Apparently, like many of us, Skeeter doesn’t like repeating himself and Bubba readily admits that he usually only "about half listened" to Skeeter anyway. What a friend, I thought to myself.

But then I thought to myself some more, and I had to retract my sarcasm (I love it when that happens—yes, I'm being sarcastic). Don't many of us "about half listen" to our friends and loved ones? Don't we listen with half an ear, or let others' voices roll off of us like ball bearings in an ice rink? I'm sure I'm guilty of that, and I know absolutely that my husband and kids are repeat offenders.  In fact, the problem is so pervasive that in almost any lecture or workshop about how to communicate better, or be a better partner, friend or employee there is always a section on active listening. I'm pretty sure when I was growing up it was just called "listening." As in you pay attention to what I'm saying and I'll give a shit about whatever you're blathering on about in return. No, I honestly don't mean that. But that used to be the social exchange and the currency was our attention. That all seems to have changed.

These days, when I'm "actively listening" to someone, maintaining full eye contact, making an effort to ask intelligent questions, leaning in and trying to appear as if I'm hanging on your every word, I've often been accused of being "aggressive" and "offensive."  We've watered down our presence and attention to the point where when someone gifts us with the full Monty, it's uncomfortably overwhelming. And how sad is that? It's so sad that when Bubba throws away a line about not fully listening to his partner—you know, the one trying to keep him alive while Bubba hunts the things that go bump in the night—it's meant to inspire a smile, not condemnation. I feel like a geezer bemoaning the state of our youth these days. Gag me.

What's going on here? Why does this happen?  I have a few theories that involve denouncing the state of our society, the world at large, and the like. But I think the epidemic of ADHD (a problem I suffer from myself, in fact), the hyper stimulation offered to all of us who are reasonably affluent and living in the developed world, and the constant competition for our attention are a big part of the problem. And then there is the incessant background noise. One of the things I love and crave about our home on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay is the spectacular sound of silence. In the morning, when I get up before anyone else and watch the sun come up over the water, there is nothing to hear except an occasional bird and sometimes the gentle lapping of the water against the shore. It is bliss.

On the other hand, the cacophony of TVs, radios, iPhones, boom boxes, video games, sports announcers, little kids, dogs and cats, colleagues, bosses, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, ambulances and other noise pollution is deafening. Literally—most of the baby boomers and now the Gen Xers are losing their hearing as a result of all the racket. No wonder we protect our ears by only lending half of then to all the voices vying for our notice.  So I get it. I do it. But what about when it is important for us to listen?  Have we basically lost the ability to separate the auditory wheat from the hum of chaff that surrounds it?  I fear that we have. I rarely feel fully attended to—it isn't often I know that my family members don't have one ear on one of their many electronic devices. It's off-putting and hurtful and can lead to one of two equally unfortunate outcomes—I get louder, or I get a serious case of the f-its. As in FU, I don't want to talk to you anyway.  This does not make for healthy or happy relationships. Nor for long-lived ones. So I "gently" point out to my distracted family that I'm feeling ignored and they respond with their undivided attention. Mostly.

So, let's not follow Bubba's example, even though I seriously like the dude and he kills zombies with battle axes, so he's got to be cool, right?   But I'm afraid his relationship skills leave something to be desired, and his listening skills flat out suck. Let’s give each other the gift of attending. Let’s lend each other both of our ears, instead of just one, or fractions thereof. Please don’t tell me, in any of the myriad ways there are to say, “I’m not listening.” It would be a tragedy of Bubba-like proportions.

Thank You, Thank You Very Much

"Thank you," I said to the woman who held the door open so that I could walk in ahead of her. Our pupils collided and I offered a small smile that made it to my eyes. It was an insignificant exchange, one of many I enjoy. I'd say I thought nothing of it, but that would be a lie. I think a lot about these random connections to strangers, acquaintances, friends and family alike.  These simple contacts mean a great deal to me, and I go out of my way to create, foster and nurture them throughout my day. Not so in the world of the fae, as I've read most recently in Kalayna Price's latest Alex Craft novel, Grave Visions.  In this book we learn, as I've read before, that to thank the fae is to acknowledge a debt that must subsequently be paid, rather than to express appreciation. And I started to think about a world in which I couldn't let my grateful heart shine through. What a dystopian reality, where I needed to stifle my instinct to be thankful.

I'm a gratitude junkie, as I've written about before. The blessing of a grateful heart is a joy in my life, and I love to be able to say and mean those two lovely words, "thank you." The phrase is so much more than letters strung together.  For me, an expression of gratitude is never cursory or perfunctory. Well, almost never—I am far from perfect, of course.

Some of my earliest memories are about gratitude. When I was quite young, I wanted to watch a TV show, but I didn't have my glasses with me (they were new and I wasn't used to wearing them all the time). My friend ran home to get them for me so I could watch. I still remember the feeling of being so thankful to her for that kindness. The feeling was so visceral, my heart so full that she would do that for me (she was asthmatic, and the run cost her lungs, but she did it anyway—that’s true friendship). I remember my gratitude toward my first grade teacher for intervening in my behalf with my mother so that I could go on a field trip my mom had decided was inappropriate for me (which was irrational on her part—it was a school trip, not a day at the casino). Anyway, my point is that my memories of feeling thankful have lingered long and deep, because it feels wonderful. 

When I chronicle the chapters and events of my life, I often think in terms of all the wonderful love and support that has been offered to me over the years. It seems that a deep sense of gratitude is associated with every situation and milestone of my life. When my father died, one of my estranged friends, whom I'd treated shabbily, showed up, despite my bad behavior. When my mother died, and I was away from home without appropriate funeral and mourning clothes, a sales lady in a large New York department store literally took my hand and clothed me from my underwear on outward, so I could meet my responsibilities to bury my mother in a manner she would have applauded. There is no way I would have been so put together without that woman, who didn't know me from Eve, but whose compassion I will forever remember with thanks.

In the Jewish religion, every aspect of every day is an occasion for gratitude toward God. In the Orthodox tradition, there is a blessing for each element of the day, including a satisfying bowel movement in the morning and sexual satisfaction with one's spouse. It's a beautiful tradition to be aware of the many occasions for gratitude throughout the day and throughout our lives. 

While I know that such expressions of heartfelt thanks benefit the recipient, the real winner in theses scenarios is me, the gratitude giver. It would be such a supreme shame for me not to be able to say and express my thanks, if I lived among the fae, for example. How awful to think that any declaration of gratitude engendered indebtedness. It is true that when someone does a kindness it is natural to want to return the favor. But that is a desire, not an obligation.

There are, of course, unfortunates who despise "owing" someone for any kind of benevolence, even when the person offering the consideration wasn't expecting anything in exchange. For some, being in someone's debt through an unreciprocated act of altruism is almost as bad as being the target of malevolence. Poor, misguided souls. They might as well live in Faerie with Alex Craft. I am grateful that I am not amongst those inhabitants and want to thank Kalayna Price for reminding how selfish and great a mere ‘thank you’ can feel – even if it is gratitude for a common courtesy such as holding a door open.

Eye of the Beholder

I'm halfway through the new Alex Craft novel by Kalayna Price, Grave Visions, and I've been struck by the many questions her central premise raises. Magic abounds in these books filled with witches, faeries and the realm of the dead (sounds like a weird combination, but she's making it work). I read the earlier books in this series a number of years ago, and I didn't remember most of the details (which happens often and doesn't speak well of my memory), but Ms. Price does a good job of summarizing past action, which I appreciate.  One of the more interesting aspects of her world-building involves the liberal use of glamour, which is the ability of the fae to change their appearance at will, about which I've written before. In this case, a putative suitor for Alex's hand in marriage morphs his shape to look like one of her old flames.  Neat trick, I thought. Then I proceeded to pull that string until the whole structure collapsed.  I'll explain. At first, I thought it would be über cool to be able to transform into my ideal of beauty. I could look like Natalie—Portman or Dormer, they will both do— and feel confident and secure in my physical charms. Or, I could have the ultimate makeover and look like my husband's dream girl—Meg Ryan before she was ruined by plastic surgery (let us note here that I look absolutely nothing like the young Meg Ryan, which begs the question of why my husband was attracted to me in the first place. On the other hand, he remains interested 23 years later, so I guess it's not worth thinking about. But I digress). Or, I could be the ultimate femme fatale and radically change my appearance as often as I change my hair color. Could be fun, no?

Maybe. But maybe not. If I spend some time wearing the face of one of the Natalies, how will I feel when I need to don my own visage again?  Kind of like the morning after a big night out—eyes puffy, hair on end, with black eyeliner making me look beaten up. Not my best look. But not my real look either, more of a passing disaster. But if I was wont to wear another's face, would I begin to feel that mine was the passing disaster, and would I start to avoid wearing it in the same way that I avoid extra-late, wine-fueled nights more than a few times a year? That would be sad. Not to mention highly faux. And we all know how I feel about fake. Fake is not fabulous.  If all of us could wear glamour, surely many of us would never wear our real selves on the outside. Which tends to lead to faking it on the inside as well. Kind of like how power corrupts, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. The mind follows where the body leads, etc. What would that mean for the pursuit of authenticity?  I'm sure there would be some who would put a premium on being au naturel, but the pressure to be beautiful would likely be immense. And without the price – in terms of both financial and physical risk— of needing to undergo needles or surgery to look different than we are, wouldn't many of us be tempted to "improve" our appearances to some degree?  I think so.

And what would that do to the health consequences of bad choices?  Currently, if we do the crime, our faces and bodies tend to do the time. When we eat poorly or in excess, our weight shows our inability to eat wisely or well. If we smoke, not only do our lungs feel the pain, but the grey tinge to our skin gives us away every time. When we overindulge in alcohol, our eyes, noses and cheeks often sport the broken capillaries that are the hallmark of excess drink. It's hard to hide our bad choices without magic.  And if such glamour were widely available, wouldn't someone, or more than one someone, quickly come up with a way to pierce the veil of illusion?  Surely they would, because all of us would wish to "see" the wizard behind the curtain, so that we could make judgments based on truth, not fantasy. So in the end, what would be the point?  Would it make the world any prettier, or would we simply grow to understand the truly superficial and ephemeral nature of beauty?  Would we appreciate inner beauty more than outward appearances? Would we finally, finally stop putting a premium on physical perfection and begin emphasizing health, strength, flexibility and endurance?  One can only hope.

If everyone were objectively beautiful, would beauty cease existing in the eye of the beholder and shift to the subject? And if that happened, would it change anything? Would it matter if we were beautiful to our mates, or to our children? Would beauty stop being used as the preferred currency? And wouldn't that be something?

I have no answers to these questions, and it probably doesn't matter, as we don't live in such a world. But I'm grateful to Ms. Price for sparking such interesting food for thought and proving to me once again that there is profundity in fantasy and truth to be found in digging into supposedly frivolous fiction. 

Helping the Parentals

I’m intrigued by adult authors who write so convincingly about being in high school.  Personally, I’ve blocked out a lot of what I went through during those years. But it came flooding back to me as I read John G. Hartness’ foray into YA lit, From the Stone (New Knights of the Round Table, Book 1), a re-imagining of the King Arthur story where the characters are the geeks and freaks of our teenaged memories. Mr. Hartness captures the gestalt of that phase perfectly—the camaraderie, the debilitating insecurities, the ubiquitous stereotypes walking around masquerading as originals, because no one at that age really wants to be original—even the outsiders trying to be original do so in distinctly unoriginal ways.  You remember, right?  It was a nightmare. I love it when an author nails the teenaged zeitgeist, mostly so I can be grateful that I’m well past that particular circle of Hell (Dante failed to write about that one—it’s the eighth circle, I’m pretty sure). It’s a clever story, and my only complaint is that I have to wait for the next one to come out—hurry, Mr. Hartness, hurry.   In one scene, Gwen, one of the protagonists, responds to her mother’s concerned questions by assuring her worried parent that all was well, when it clearly was not.  In another scene, Gwen tells her parents that she’s dating Rex (aka Arthur) even though they’re friends not lovers, so that they won’t be so afraid she will grow up to be a crazy cat lady.  When Rex asks why Gwen had been so untruthful to her mom and dad, she responds that, “It's all about helping the Parentals make it through these difficult teenaged years, right?”

I will say that when I was a teenager I was in no way concerned about sparing my parents' feelings or helping them deal with me in all my hormonal, angst-ridden glory. They owed me for having the audacity to bring me into the world. All the responsibility was on them, not me. Mature, I know. But I wasn't, no matter how much I thought I was or wanted to be. 

The relationship between young adult children and their parents is tricky. It's a time of significant transition and one that often goes disastrously wrong. Parents often have a hard time letting go and kids often overestimate their ability to thrive in the real world without the direct and indirect support of their elders. Even when parents are prepared to let go to an appropriate extent over time, it's almost impossible to know where to draw the lines between encouraging independence and establishing necessary boundaries, no matter how earnest the efforts. I know this from first-hand experience.

I also understand the concept of managing one's parents.  I definitely did that, all the time, in fact. It wasn't for their benefit, but for mine.  A complacent parent was an unconcerned parent. Moreover, I always equated parental management with the strategies of ancient Roman administrators; it's all about the bread and circuses, dude. Feed the 'rents a steady diet of good grades and entertain them with the bullshit they want to hear about how much we want to succeed and go to a good school and get a good job and give them grandchildren. Problem: solved. But it mattered not at all to me whether their motivation to stay out of my biz was because they felt authentically calm and confident about my future, or because of my uncanny knack for lulling them into a false sense of security with my razzle dazzle. These are not the ‘droids you’re looking for.

In short, I didn't care at all about my parents' feelings. It was of no concern to me if they worried about the job that they were doing; I was a very typical, self-centered teenager interested mostly in what I could get away with. My strategy was to keep the focus firmly on my brother and his issues—thus keeping all eyes off me. I was not above convincing my brother to wear eyeliner like Mick Jagger and then pointing out to Mom and Dad that their son was wearing makeup and might be gay—and yes, back in the day, there would have been something wrong with that for my parents, sad to say.

As demonstrated by my willingness to impugn my brother’s reputation, my primary approach to dealing with the Parentals was to lie.  All the time. About everything. I'm told that that's the best way to pass a lie detector test (although I don't actually think it’s true).  By lying constantly, I completely lost sight of the line between harmless exaggerations and little white lies  (like Gwen telling her mother she was dating Rex) and soul-sucking deceptions that obscured my identity and corrupted my essential self.  Such lies are destructive—self-destructive, mostly, although they don't do anything for the target of the deceit, either. But back to Rex, Gwen, Lance and the gang. As I thought back on Gwen’s comments, I had to acknowledge that maybe the reasons for her misdirection concerning the nature of her relationship with Rex were self-promoting, but I don't think so. These kids seemed genuinely concerned about assuaging their parents' fears, which struck me as sweet.  I hope that if my kids are going to lie to me, it will be with similarly generous motives, misguided though they may be. Mostly, I just hope they’re not like me at that age.  That would be the ninth circle of Hell.

Everyone's a Winner

Welcome to my faithful followers and to all my new friends!  I am so excited to unveil my new site—(big shout out to Jamie Higdon at The Balanced Biz for all of her help!), now powered by Word Press, with an all-new look and a lot more functionality.  I’m grateful that you’ve joined me so far, and I hope you will continue to walk with me on this amazing journey.  It’s definitely been a road less traveled, and I’ve been delighted with the companions I’ve met along the way, including and especially YOU! Thank you and ENJOY!! I've just started digging into Elle Boca's latest Weeia novel, Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia. Fortunately for readers everywhere, this series is getting better with each installment. This most recent offering starts with a bang and hasn't let up.  Anyway, the bang that opens this novel got me thinking--and you know what that means!

As the book begins, Danni, our kick-ass protagonist, is preparing to take her field exam to progress to the next level as a Weeia Marshall. As we learn later, Danni has her share of detractors who don’t believe that she belongs at the Academy. In fact, her unpopularity with certain factions has led someone to play a cruel prank, sending a note saying the exam had been pushed back by two hours. Luckily, Danni has some good friends among the student body (and the faculty, as it turns out), and she arrives to the exam late, but nonetheless able to pass with flying colors. Her victory is clouded, however, by the malevolence of her peers and the desire of some to succeed based on her failure. For this faction – you know the type, they exist in truth as well as fantasy – someone has to lose in order for someone else to win.

I take issue with this zero sum view of winning, as does Elle Boca, if the characters she writes are any reflection of her life philosophy (which I believe they are, as I've written before).  And I've been thinking about these very concepts since I just saw a great quote on Twitter that said, "I don't believe in competition. I want us all to win."  

Before I get a slew of irate comments and emails about the fallacy of giving all participants participation awards and the annihilation of merit-based promotion, not to mention the equality of everyone, let me say I hear you and I don't necessarily disagree. It's foolish and delusional to insist that there are no such things as winners and losers in this world, Little League trophies for showing up to the contrary. But that isn't what I'm talking about.  Clearly, we can't all win at everything.

What we're talking about here is the ugly underbelly of competition, the one Ms. Boca illuminates with the fraudulent note intended to ensure Danni failed her test, leaving more slots and better assignments for others. That kind of competitiveness depends on the fallacy of insufficiency--that there is not enough--of anything--to go around. Of course, there are a limited number of Americans who will be our nation’s President, and as each election cycle teaches us, many who want the job. And, as we know from 50 years of Super Bowl games, not every team's members will get one of those coveted rings, which always makes me a little sad, as they seem to mean so much to those folks. And as I watched my family and friends watching the Super Bowl, they were focused on the winners and their platitudes ("I'm just grateful to have played; I couldn't have done it without my teammates," do these guys read off the same script?!), while my eyes were on the team that didn't win and feeling sorry for their loss.

One of my favorite museums in Washington, DC, is called the Newseum, a museum of news. They have a gallery where all of the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs ever taken are displayed. They are all arresting, but one that particularly caught my eye was a photo of the 1992 Nigerian women's track and field team, after the 4x100 meter race. While all the other photographers were training their lenses on the winning American team, one photographer captured the moment when the Nigerian women realized they had won the bronze--third place--medal. Their incandescent happiness was infectious and the photo is a joy to behold. No losers there.

When I was in graduate school, I studied for my PhD comprehensive exams with two fellow students. The experience of studying together created an incredible bond, despite the fierce competition between us. In the end, when the exams were graded, each of us had passed, which was a relief, but on top of that, each of us had "won" in a way: one of us had the highest scores on an individual question; one had the highest score from the first reader; while the last of us received the highest score from the second reader. We all had a claim to fame, and it made the shared success that much sweeter.

That's what I want, for everyone to win. In Elle Boca's book, Danni has a similar attitude, and she's dismayed when others don't share her generous view of the world. I feel her pain. Why can't we all be happy for each other's wins, big and small?  Why does someone need to lose for someone else to win? Does it count if we win on the backs of our fellows? Not to me. I want the world to celebrate my successes, as I celebrate everyone else’s. And yes, I will take off my rose-colored glasses very soon. But the world is so lovely when it's blushing. Just ask Danni.

Contempt and Doubt

'm having an interesting problem, to which I alluded in my last post. It’s one of the main reasons I don't read much straight fantasy. You see, I started with the best; I read all five books of A Song of Ice and Fire and was blown away. I lived in Westeros for month after glorious, enthralling month. I never wanted to leave. But when I finally finished the last page and realized how long it could be before there were any new works from George R. R. Martin, I was devastated. The best was now behind me. What was the point of reading other fantasy if it couldn’t compare?  Right now, I'm feeling the same way about my beloved paranormal and urban fantasy; I feel like I've read all the best, and now I can only wait for new books to be published. So when they are, I don't want to read them, because then I won't be able to look forward to spending time between their pages in the future. My sublime reading experiences will be over and leave me bereft.

o, as I’ve mentioned, I'm reading Burned again instead of Feverborn. And I'm reading very, very slowly. I'm pacing myself and allowing myself only a few minutes of paradise at a time. Luckily, I have a new idea for a blog post every few pages of Karen Marie Moning's books. Today's topic is self-doubt and self-loathing. Fun stuff, I know. But necessary to contemplate, and conveniently addressed by Mac Lane, one of my all-time favorite characters.

In Burned, Mac has gone from MVP to bench warmer in the quest to save the world, fight the Fae, and right injustice. She has good reasons to ‘ride the pines’ Mac is compromised by a monster inhabiting her body, who continually tempts her to acts of extreme power—and destruction. So she needs to lie low. Unfortunately for Mac, her fallow season has coincided with an impending, multi-faceted apocalypse. Timing is everything, now isn’t it? Anyhoo… being benched and prevented from action makes Mac frustrated, to say the least. To say the most, it's making her not only doubt herself, but also hate herself. As she says, "I do nothing. And my self-contempt grows."  I can relate. 

Obviously, I'm not being called on to save the world. Good thing for the world. But I do have responsibilities.  And I have the calling of my desire—that which I want to do and accomplish and achieve. Problem is, I often find myself where Mac is. I do nothing. And my self-contempt grows. Except when those feelings are eclipsed by my feelings of self-doubt.  Self-contempt presupposes I can do something, I just won't.  Self-doubt undermines this assumption with persistent thoughts that I won't because I can't. Sucks any way you slice it. 

I want to write books. Originally, this blog was intended to be a book written in thousand-word increments.  I thought I was pretty clever. The blog book would be my first offering. My second effort would go beyond the first, and dig deeper into all that I've learned about being human from my non-human teachers within the pages of my beloved fantasy books. My third tome – predicated on people actually reading my first and second - was to be my foray into fiction. I want to be like my writer rock stars—the authors I yearn to emulate, including, of course, Karen Marie Moning, as well as JR Ward, Thea Harrison, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, Jeaniene Frost, Patricia Briggs and Faith Hunter. I want to join this club so much it hurts. 

But I do nothing—or almost nothing—or at least not enough. And my self-contempt grows. As does my doubt. Who am I to seek to join these august ranks? I've never been much of a fiction writer—just an avid reader—so what makes me think I can don the mantle in middle age?  If it were going to happen, wouldn't it have done so already? And if I can't even produce a non-fiction book when I have more than 500 pages of material, what does that say about my chances of being a published fiction writer? I know what it says about my chances for drinking too much.

The mind spins and the brain boggles. I'm paralyzed with contempt and doubt. I don't have a demon inside tempting me to destruction as Mac does… or do I? Maybe my demons are the doubt and insecurity that plague me and tell me I can't. Maybe those demons are in league with the others that tell me I'm shit because I waste time on Facebook or staring into space or watching paint dry instead of writing. Maybe I'm exactly like Mac with enormous power within, but too afraid of the destruction that could attend it.

Maybe I think entirely too much and I should just shut up and freaking ‘do it’ already. And maybe I should also consider that like Mac, doing something can sometimes look like doing nothing.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to stand down until the time to act is right. Maybe my expectations of what ‘doing something’ looks like are incorrect, and I'm doing more than I think.

And there I go, thinking again. Maybe I need to shut my brain down for a while and see what flows.  Maybe then I won't be consumed with contempt and I can stop drowning in doubt. It could happen… I hope.

The Four Faces of Fear

've decided to savor my “to be read” list, so I'm saving the cream of the crop for my next vacation— if I can wait that long. The excitement is just about killing me. I’ve got two offerings by Thea Harrison, a new Iron Druid novel, and, of course, Karen Marie Moning’s newest book, Feverborn, which I’m positively salivating to read. To keep the hunger pains at bay for now, I’m rereading Burned, which I've only read once (unlike the first five Fever books, which I've read at least five times each). As you know, I live in abject fear that I will run out of great paranormal urban fantasy books, leaving me bereft and desperate. I'm sure there's a name for this, like aneobibliophobia—fear of no new books. What do you think?  Can we start a meme? Anyway, my fear that I will run out of amazing stories in which to immerse myself got me to thinking about fear generally.

As I've written about several times, it was Ms. Moning who taught me that hope strengthens, fear kills. True enough. But what is it about fear that makes it so commanding?  In the beginning of Burned, we read about the Unseelie King, an entity so powerful, so vast, that nothing threatens him. He knows no fear until he loves. At that point, he becomes vulnerable, as we all do. Then the king knows true fear: the fear of losing something he loves more than anything.

The fear of losing something we have is one of the four faces of fear. It is the counterpart to being afraid that we won't get what we want in the first place. These fears, in turn, go hand in hand with our fear of not being enough, and the terror that there won't be enough—of anything—to go around; the fear that we won’t get our share. The first two aspects of fear are specific— we know what we want and we are scared we won't get it or we’re scared we'll lose it. The second set of fears is more existential and diffuse. Together they can leave us running for our lives, belligerently fighting against fate, friends and enemies alike, or paralyzed with dread. Fear leads us to flight, fight or freeze. It never leads to anything good.

There was a time when my whole existence was mired in fear. I felt like a puppet whose strings were being controlled by my extreme reactivity to all that frightened me, which was pretty much everything. I was afraid of people and also of being abandoned and left alone. I was afraid of nature and scared in the city. I was afraid of failing and I was afraid of succeeding. I was afraid of being seen, and afraid of being invisible. I was afraid of being used, and afraid of being ignored. I was miserable, mired in the suffocating web of my paranoia.

But fear is a funny thing. Turns out we can overdose on the stuff and become desensitized to it. If we are in a constant state of panic, eventually the panic recedes to the point where we can become sufficiently sentient to realize we have neither died from what we feared nor has the fear itself killed us. At least not yet. It's why I'm generally only terrified in the beginning of a plane ride. The takeoff finds me gripping the armrests, or, on occasion, my traveling companion, whether I know them or not. By the time we level out at 35,000 feet, my panic is easing, and when the flight attendants are coming around to take drink orders, I'm getting bored.

Maintaining a specific fear is generally unsustainable. We can rally for a new source of terror, but consistently being fearful about the same thing gets old. For example, when our twins were babies, I used to check their breathing incessantly while they slept—to make sure they were alive. My husband was actually very happy about that, because it meant that I had stopped checking his breathing incessantly while he slept (which invariably led to his not being able to stay asleep). But the constant checking got old, and my fears about something happening to my family while they slept peacefully in our home slowly abated.

Fear is no fun. Fear causes us to live in the wreckage of our future where the fearful event will take place (where we lose what we currently have, or never get what we currently want and don't have).  Fear is always about what will happen later, because we can't be afraid about the present moment--either we have what we want in that moment or we don't. We don't need to be afraid about it; we can be sad or mad or happy about an existing situation, but we can't be afraid about this exact moment, only what will happen in the next one.

So, while hope can strengthen and fear can kill – it’s not always like that.  Fear reminds us of what we value, that which we do not want to lose, and also of our strength – flights and nights that we lived through – and how to prioritize our time.  If we keep fear in its place, we can use it to go after what we want, work to keep and protect it, and not take it for granted once we get it. Many, although not all of my fears are shadows of their former selves, thankfully. I’ve learned to live with most of them, and I’m at the stage where I’m being asked, “Coffee or tea?” by a friendly flight attendant. So, I will say, “Thank you, Ms. Moning, now please get back to the keyboard… my aneobibliophobia is acting up.”

Great Expectations

went to a yoga retreat with one of my closest friends in Costa Rica, one of my favorite places. I love yoga; it's changed my life. So

I was expecting fireworks. Ecstasy. Inner transformation and killer abs.

Bliss, right? Well… not so much. This trip was nothing that I expected. It's possible it was everything I needed, but that remains to be seen, and, frankly, I'm doubtful. Moreover,

I was there a freaking week and only got one book read

, Darynda Jones'

Dirt on Ninth Grave

, the latest in the Charley Davidson series. Thankfully, it was excellent, although it wasn't anything I was expecting, either. Sometimes that's okay, and sometimes it's not. In yoga, they talk a lot about letting go of expectations. Unmet expectations usually create suffering. I can testify that this is true.

Suffering takes us out of the present moment

, which is not a good thing. My friend noted several times that I didn't seem to be in the moment during my yoga retreat. Kind of ironic. I came on this retreat to be more present in time and space. And I totally blew it. Because the whole experience didn't meet my expectations. So basically, I put myself in a revolved half moon pose—you know—twisted and off balance.

But I couldn't help myself. I tried. I did. But with twenty people, most of whom I didn't know, there were constant distractions.

Clearly, group travel is not in my future.

Good to know, I guess. And I felt like Goldilocks—the ocean was too rough, the humidity was too high, the massage therapist missed each and every trigger point on my body. Yes, I know that I sound like an ungrateful idiot princess who didn't get her way and can't appreciate all the blessings and abundance in my life.

Except that isn't true. Or, at least, it's not entirely true. But I struggled mightily with my unrealized expectations the whole trip. Also, it was a retreat, and, as I've written about before, it wasn't supposed to be entirely comfortable. Just enlightening. Which it was, I think. But that is fodder for another post. Today we're talking about expectations. I found myself wishing, repeatedly, that I were more like Charley Davidson as the retreat progressed.

In Dirt on Ninth Grave, Charley has lost her memory and is living in upstate New York, working as a waitress. The amnesia thing is a problem, because she is The Grim Reaper, and souls pass through her and onto the other side (up or down, depending).  But regardless of her extraordinary status, in this book she is clueless, scared, and confused. But none of that negates her true nature as a deeply caring, morally good, if slightly flighty, person. In addition to that, one thing I noticed about Charley as I was reading and cogitating on my own unhappiness over my unmet expectations, is the fluidity with which Charley lets her own expectations roll off her back. She's a duck. In several passages, Charley (who doesn't actually remember her own name), encounters an unexpected situation, takes note that it wasn't what she expected, and simply moves on.

Interestingly, I used to believe I was just like Charley. Flexibility and Spontaneity were my middle names, followed by resourcefulness when situations weren't what I'd predicted or assumed. I was, or so I thought, a ‘roll with the punches’, ‘turn on a dime’, ‘silver lining’ kinda gal. Just like Charley. But in Costa Rica, that chick was nowhere to be found.

Instead, she was replaced with Nervous Nellie, Debbie Downer, and Goldilocks, for whom nothing was ever just right. What happened?  Damned if I know. (Well, I might have some thoughts on that, however, they need to coalesce a bit before I share them). I will say this: expectations become a major problem when the stakes are perceived to be high. It seems the greater the expectations, the greater the suffering associated with their remaining unfulfilled.

Unlike my last retreat, where I had no clue what to expect, I had a lot of expectations around this one. I expected to enhance my yoga practice. I did get into Crow pose, but beyond that, I'm not sure I advanced. I expected to have deep and meaningful conversations with my fellow yogis and yoginis. Except for my close friend and travel companion that didn’t happen.  It's hard to create intimacy among strangers. I expected to go deep, but I found I couldn't get there with the schedule, and the people and the chitchat and the expectations of others weighed heavily on me, despite my best efforts to ignore them. Tough to ignore the energy of so many interconnected people. Perhaps if I were more enlightened, it would have worked better. But I'm just not there yet. I had expectations about directed conversations, about leadership and about the activities that were based wholly on my imagination. Apparently, my imagination, about which I sometimes despair, is working just fine. The trouble was my inability to find truth in any of my fantasies in Costa Rica.

None of this is to say that there weren't moments of happiness, joy and freedom. There were. There were moments of ‘ground-ed-ness’ in the sands of the beach and the waves of the ocean surrounding me. There were moments of authentic connection with people I'd never met or didn't know well, which was nurturing. And there was the inspiration of great natural beauty that always uplifts me. I just wish I could have strung a few more of those moments together, into say a whole day or even a week.

Then I had a weekend alone in Houston to contemplate all of my great expectations and my great disappointments thanks to an unexpected blizzard. All in all, life is good and my memory is intact, unlike poor Charley. And I had a weekend to myself to read, write and do yoga. Sounds like a great retreat to me. Namaste.

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Newton's Third Law

I'm not much for science. Haven't studied it since high school and did not excel at it even when my brain was younger. But it turns out that sometimes what we learned in high school math and science can be useful, contrary to what we thought to ourselves (or even dared say out loud) during Algebra II, "This is so DUMB! When will I EVER need this in real life?"  Come on, all of us said it. We were wrong. Today I'm contemplating Newton's Third Law of Motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This holds true in real life, and it more or less applies to my beloved paranormal and urban fantasy novels. Even in my make-believe worlds, what goes up, must come down. 

This truth in fantasy is what separates the high octane from the decaf among authors, in my opinion. I love it when writers offer a pseudo-scientific explanation for the paranormal quirks and characteristics of their characters.  In John Hartness' Quincy Harker series, Q is the son of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murry Harker, both of whom served as snacks for Dracula. Apparently the regular donations affected the DNA of Quincy's parents, resulting in a human child with a little something extra in the magical ability, strength and longevity departments. Another example, Lynsay Sands' Argeneau vampires, are the product of scientists on Atlantis mixing nanobots with mitochondria, giving them long lives, superhuman strength and vitality in exchange for replenishing their blood through ingesting that of humans. Cool stuff.

But I digress. I know you're flabbergasted. Back to Newton's third law and how in the real world it posits that you cannot create something out of nothing. Nor can you do something without some sort of karmic retribution, whether of the positive or negative variety. Karma's a bitch, baby, don't you forget it. 

This truth also holds in the paranormal and urban fantasy arenas. In most of the books I read, balance must be maintained. The most explicit expression of this is in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward. In her world of vigilante vampires protecting their kind from soul-less humans intent on their destruction, everything comes with a hefty price tag. Save your beloved from death by disease? Okay--provided you forgo the possibility of children. Bring a ghost back from the dead? No problem, if your mother is willing to sacrifice her most prized possession. Obtain the power to inhale the life force from your enemies? Piece of cake, as long as you understand that it will taint your own life essence in the process.

It turns out that Goethe got it right--if you want an extra serving of whatever earthly delights tempt you most, you gotta make a deal with the devil. As I've written about before, there ain't no free lunch. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We need to obey gravity, you know, because it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

So where does that leave those of us who ride the see-saw of life going endlessly up and down?  Well, to begin with, we shouldn't be surprised when the other shoe falls-- we tossed it to the sky in the first place, after all. What goes up must come down. Secondly, we need to savor, savor, savor the high times, knowing they will inexorably be followed by the inevitable lows. Whatever is happening will stop at some point, and whatever wheels we set in motion will continue to turn -- until they don’t (which may actually violate Newton's First Law of Motion, but I'm not sure--I think I mentioned I wasn't a science geek).

Sometimes, however, it appears as though the world doesn't really work this way. Some people seem to have a disproportionate amount of grief and trouble, while others seems to perch on top of the world and remain there. For me, I always think that these instances of putative inequity might not be what they seem. Alternatively, we may all be living out our karma from past lives or alternate universes. I don't really know, except to say that on most days, I prefer to think there is a big weighing scale with two side-by-side plates, racking and stacking our actions and responding with equal and opposite reactions. Anything to believe that it's not all just random chaos out there. That would be depressing. 

So for today, I'm going to choose to give credence to karma as if it were dogma--I believe in the power of balance; I worship at the bottom of the apple tree where Newton was inspired to articulate his Third Law of Motion; and I will continue to read fantasy books that reinforce my concepts of truth.

Forced Intimacy

hristie Brinkley has been all over the news lately because although she is 60 years old, she looks 30 in photographs. And while she's best known for being highly ornamental (which is my least favorite thing for a woman to be known for), she's also been in the news on other occasions, such as when she and her then boyfriend, Rick Taubman, were in a helicopter crash in the Colorado mountains. After the crash, Brinkley married Taubman and gave birth to their son, only to get divorced eight months after the wedding. Why am I discussing a former supermodel's love life?
 
It's because I've been thinking about high adrenaline situations that lead to a false sense of intimacy, which in turn leads some to mistake what should be only a moment for forever. That's what happened to poor Ms. Brinkley. It's also happened to some of my favorite fictional friends. The whole near-death-experience-leading-to-happily-ever-after is a common trope in paranormal and urban fantasy, and one I'd like to explore. So come on in and sit for a spell while I contemplate crisis-based communion.

I'm just finishing John Hartness’ Quincy Harker novella series (I know… they’re short… but life has a habit of getting in the way of pleasure – aka reading and writing). In the second book, our favorite demon hunter saves the life of his favorite nemesis and sometime partner, Detective Rebecca Flynn, using magic. By doing so, Quincy opens an irrevocable mind link with the detective. So not only do they share an extreme situation that results in Quincy healing Rebecca’s mortal wounds, but now they're permanently in each other's heads. It doesn't get much more intimate than that. 

As an avid fan of the proverbial HEA, I've been expecting them to ride off into the sunset together ever since, even if they remain snarky as they lope along to their HEA. But so far, my expectations have been dashed. Grrr…I have about 45 minutes left to read in the final installment, and I'll update you if things change, but it seems that Quincy and Rebecca’s relationship is unusually restrained given the mortal wound scenario they conquered – together. Even Q acknowledges that the particular chain of events could lead one or both of them to misconstrue the intense emotions around the unfortunate occurrences as true love. Yet, they are rational enough enough to understand the resulting mind link has led only to feelings of warmth and affection, where perhaps they hadn't existed before. But not to passion. There’s not a sex scene in sight, more’s the pity.

Contrast that with the experience of my very favorite paranormal couple, Dragos and Pia Cuelebre. In their original story, Dragon Bound, author Thea Harrison throws our protagonists into all sorts of harrowing situations, including a car crash, kidnapping, imprisonment and subsequent escape. These plot twists serve to cement their adrenaline-fueled feelings for each other fast, leading to satisfactorily steamy and intensely emotional sex scenes and an eventual HEA (after more harrowing, near death experiences, of course). 

And because this is fantasy and not truth, Pia and Dragos don't get divorced after a few months. Instead, they commit to an eternity together (which for practically immortal beings is a BIG freaking deal). But because this blog is called Truth in Fantasy, let's see where we might find some reality amongst the rainbows and unicorns. 

It's true that stressful or critical conditions can create a crucible in which artificially intense emotions may brew. It's why so many workplace romances develop. When people work together meeting deadlines for demanding bosses, sparks ignite and things can smolder pretty quickly. Sadly, such short-term intensity can mask underlying fissures in compatibility, values, and the ability to communicate in ways both can understand. Then, sex distorts everything further, rendering vision and common sense collateral damage. We've all seen it happen to our colleagues. Hell, we may have seen it happen to ourselves.  It's rarely pretty. 

Except when it works.
 
Early in my relationship with my now husband, we had a crisis. Long story short, my ex-fiancé, the Green Beret, figured out that I was seeing someone else and he was angry. He had no standing, mind you, as we were definitively broken up, but that wasn't his perspective. To add insult to injury, my new boyfriend was driving my old boyfriend's car, which I still had. Needless to say, we didn't want the Special Forces officer to find out his replacement was driving his car. It’s bad enough to be supplanted – but the car was the dangerous cherry on top. It was not a good scene. I was terrified of my ex's anger. My then-new boyfriend also had a healthy respect for the damage his predecessor could do. We were co-conspirators in a made-for-TV movie, trying to figure out how to hide my new boyfriend's identity from the old boyfriend (we considered removing the name plate from the newbie’s office door as a good first step), and get out of Dodge ahead of the shooter. The whole ordeal culminated in my new boyfriend and me going away for our first weekend together -- taking the relationship to the next level.

Almost twenty-three years later, we're still playing kissy face – this time in our own car though – so it all worked out. Perhaps not like in Dragon Bound, but better than it did for Christie Brinkley. Sometimes truth and fantasy are more of a journey than a destination, which sometimes works out just fine. 



 

A Hostess with the Mostess

'm still enjoying the Quincy Harker novella series by John Hartness. I especially like Quincy's irreverent attitude and general ‘badass-ery’.  Maybe a novel length Harker story would be too much of a good thing, like when Dave Barry turned his hilarious columns into a book-length rant, but it's possible I would enjoy this character in a more developed plot with additional back story and maybe a bit of romance thrown into the mix.

Make it so, Mr. Hartness. Pretty please?

Anyhoo, now, onto my point, which is the plot of book two in the series,

Straight to Hell

. In this novella, Quincy must avert the end of the world by preventing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from riding off into the sunset and triggering Revelation in all its glory. Q and his team deal with Pestilence and Famine pretty handily, but War and Death give them a run for their money.  It's all very exciting. And, along the way to averting Armageddon, there was an interesting subplot involving the Sword of Ares’ search for a new host to be the incarnation of War.  

Turns out, incarnating War involves a fair amount of anger.

When the Sword scanned Quincy for the requisite environment in which to thrive, it found him wanting. In Quincy's words, "I felt the magical essence of War search through my soul, and eventually decide that I was lacking. I wasn't the avatar War wanted."

This got me thinking, naturally. What, you don't contemplate becoming an avatar for War, aka Anger?  How about Lust?  Sloth? Greed? Gluttony? Pride? Envy?  Have I covered the bases? Did any of you see the movie "Seven," with Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey?  At the end of the movie Spacey exhorts Pitt to kill him, urging Pitt to embody Anger. It’s a brilliant and very disturbing movie because of one of its core questions; would we make an acceptable host for any or all of the Seven Deadly Sins? If so, is there any desire to become less accommodating and hospitable?

I seem to be an excellent hostess for the scourge of Pride, and I make a cozy hangout for Envy as well. I'm not proud of my affinity for these mortal sins, and I'm envious of those whose heads and hearts are better protected from these invaders. But my chemical makeup seems to beckon Pride and Envy like mosquitos to ankles in high grass at dusk. I'm riddled with the stuff. 

For me, being a good host to Pride means that I don't fight the urge to ride high on my righteous horse.  Most of the time, I'm certain I know it all, and I'm positive that what I don't know isn't all that interesting or important anyway.  I'm the one who said, when asked by my boss why I always act like I'm the smartest person in the room, "Because I am." I've written about my pride before. It precedes the fall each and every time, but I'm a slow learner. I’m not proud of that.

There was also a time when War might’ve found me a comfy home. Those were not good times. But I got over my Anger, and settled more securely into Pride and Envy.  For me, Envy is about wanting something to be other than it is. Envy is paging through catalogues, imagining myself wearing, using, and buying whatever crap is being peddled. It's reading People magazine and fantasizing about what it would be like to be Princess Kate or Jennifer Lawrence. It's thinking about acting, looking or being something I'm not and likely never will be. I don't just make a decent hangout for Envy, I'm putting out home-baked cookies on my best china to welcome it this particular wickedness.

I wish this weren't the case (Envy again). I'm not holding my head high (Pride in its alternate guise of self pity).  I actually strive for self-awareness and to show the door to Sins when they come to call ("What's your hurry, here's your hat."). I meditate, journal, practice yoga and gratitude. And I've definitely made progress. But I can't say with any certainty at all that any Sins would find me lacking. I'm desperately afraid they would find me all too willing to make me their vessel. What does that say for the state of my soul?

I have no idea. But, if Quincy is sufficiently morally ambivalent (what with acting as judge, jury and executioner for a wide variety of human and paranormal baddies) that if his soul is not in danger of being an acceptable avatar for War, mine is probably not any worse than most – especially as I neither judge nor condemn anyone with any actual authority behind my adjudication. So maybe I'm just a garden-variety sinner, nothing more than another bozo on the ethical bus. Which strangely enough hurts my pride and makes me envious of those hosting the big Sins. Guess I'm not the hostess with the mostess after all. Probably a good thing in the long run.  I’ll let you know.

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