I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night

I'm finishing up the Real Vampires series by Gerry Bartlett and contemplating a common vampire trope:  the newly turned vampire raring to explore new powers and heightened senses. These newbies are usually a foil for older vampires to demonstrate their wisdom and their restraint or an opportunity for the protagonist to be a hero/heroine. These are always fun scenes. In the Real Vampire books, we have Israel Caine and Sienna Star, neither of whom were too happy to become vampires. In the Sookie Stackhouse novels, the lovely Jessica is turned and goes hog wild with her new abilities. There are others, but the plot points are similar. These new vampires (or werewolves or faeries or witches) are a group of young people (no matter their chronological age) who want to rock and roll all night, and party every day (well, except the vampires who are dead until dark, naturally) and a group of elders who want to curb their enthusiasm. The problem—for me, at this point in my reality—is that the elder statesmen rarely have much luck curtailing their "children."  Not what I wanted to hear right now.  I have one son working to embody Kiss’ classic song and one who is enjoying the role of elder statesman (despite being 90 seconds younger). I'm not at all sure what to do with my wayward son. I've explained that he's free to carry on (I'll try to stop now), but that there are consequences to all of our choices. Like Glory and Jerry in the Real Vampire series and Vampire Bill in the True Blood series, I'm walking a fine line (with his father, of course) between enabling our son and pushing him so far away he won't listen to a word we say. Not only is that line mighty thin, but my eyes are going anyway, and I can't really see it clearly or follow it accurately. Arrgh!

What to do, what to do?  Some would say, "Have faith and let it ride."  Others tell me to get all up in his business and take control of a kid who doesn't know how to control himself. A third party heard from might suggest bigger carrots with commensurate sticks. Military school has been mentioned. I've entertained thoughts of moving to Nepal until his adolescence is over. I'm not sure any one of these strategies is the right one. I'm not entirely sure there is a strategy that will work. I am sure that the situation is aging me in a way vampires never do.

I have friends who delight in reminding me of my own misspent youth.  They tell me to chill the hell out and that my boy is just doing what boys do (which, they say, is a lot better than what I did). I'm reminded that my son has a path that differs from mine, but that he will find his way. I'm not so sure. He seems so very, truly adrift. And his choices seem so meaningless and devoid of a moral center, or the recognition that to the victor go the spoils. It's not enough to want to be successful, one has to work to achieve anything. My wayward one seems to have missed these messages.

Others tell me that I'm making the problem worse by not coming down harder on him. They say I should take away his social life, electronic devices, and even his driver’s license when he earns it this summer, all in an effort to control his misbehavior. I know from my own experience, though, that such tactics just produce liars and children who take unnecessary risks. So I don't think I'm going to go in that direction either.

I've read oodles of parenting books. They talk about incentivizing kids, which, in my day, was called bribery. I'm actually all for that; I don't work for free and neither should kids. By the same token, they don't get money for nothing (see, I didn't extend that line, so I'm not in dire straights). My kids have to earn their allowances. The problem is that we've tried that. In spades. We've dangled huge carrots as well as Damocles' Sword. Nothing seems to motivate this kid. So scrap yet another strategy.

My husband and I are lost. We don't know where to go from here. In my beloved books, it's only the threat of final death or years of torture that seem to get the fledgling vampires under some semblance of control. I dread the thought that jail or bodily injury (or worse) could be the only road to redemption here. But the truth is I have no control at all. Over my son's behavior or anything else for that matter. It truly, deeply sucks – and not in a bloody, satisfying way. It sucks in that helpless, pouty, powerless way that all mortals and immortals despise.

So I will suck up that suckiness. Resistance is futile. We'll continue to navigate the turbulent waters of teenage angst and hope none of us drowns. Because we're not vampires and we need to breathe. Deeply.

To Have and to Hold

I've just finished another in the Real Vampires series by Gerry Bartlett, Real Vampires Say Read My Hips.  In this installment, our heroine, Glory, has decided to marry her vampire sire, Jerry, and live together as forever lovers. Yippee. About freaking time. However, there are those who don't want Glory and Jerry to get their HEA, foremost among them Glory's family. Woe is Glory – and Jerry. Thus, the couple must jump through some pretty major hoops to get to the altar. At several points along the way Glory is sure that Jerry will abandon ship and leave her to her solo fate, seeing her as more trouble than she’s worth. But, as our HEA demands, Jerry never wavers, forcing Glory to confront her fear and let it go once and for all. I can relate. I think many of us can. Who hasn't felt that we were unworthy of love and steadfast devotion?  Or maybe we wouldn’t be if we let our partners see all of us—so we hide and sublimate. But there are guys out there who mean it when they say, "To have and to hold for better or for worse."  It's easy to stick around for better, harder to hold on when it's worse. 

Two years ago a friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer after only six months of marriage. It was so unfair. She is still struggling with many of the after effects of her treatment and she remains quite sick and debilitated. Her husband has stuck with her, being supportive and steadfast. She feels bad for him, claiming, "This isn't what he signed up for." When I told my husband about this conversation, he corrected my friend (to me) and said that actually, this is exactly what my friend's husband had signed up for when he married her. Those marriage vows are pretty comprehensive and they are very explicit about the "in sickness and in health" thing. 

I have another friend whose husband lost his job resulting in a serious financial reversal. She stayed with him and is helping him rebuild.  She is proud that they kept their family together. Yet another friend has never considered leaving her husband, who suffers from a mental illness that manifested after the wedding. For all of these loyal spouses, it can certainly be said that this isn't what they signed up for. But it is, and it is the luck of the draw that they got fewer good years to offset the more predictably difficult "golden years" that come when we're older.

My own husband survived years of my ill health —years that were no fun for anyone.  At one point I begged him to leave me. He refused to even think about it.  He told me he'd meant his vows. On the other hand, we have the 48-hour rule for him: he gets to be sick for 48 hours, during which time I will play Florence Nightingale, and after which time, he needs to get the hell out of bed. Just kidding. Mostly. But I can only hope I would be as loving, patient and supportive of him as he was of me for such a long time.  I definitely felt that I was more trouble than I was worth.  Thank God he didn't agree.

I had no real idea when I married—late, too (I was 30)—what a lifetime commitment meant. I had no idea how important my choice would be to my happiness and general contentment with life. Probably a good thing. But 20 years into it, I have a better sense of what it means to have a forever lover, like Glory, and I can even sympathize with her that it took her 400 years to make a decision.  Not a choice to be made lightly. 

On the other hand, marriage and divorce is so ubiquitous now that it doesn't seem like such a big deal. There is always an easily accessible escape hatch and many avail themselves of it. Many don't want to do the work of marriage. It's easier to scrap the old model and start fresh with a newer version. Moreover, there are some who just keep rotating their stock on a regular basis—like Donald Trump. Yuck. So in theory, there shouldn't be such a thing as more trouble than he/she is worth. In practice that is a tough road to hoe and not everyone makes it. There is also something to be said for the idea that if we aren't happy in our union, life is short and death is long; why not embrace the chance for future happiness by letting go of that which no longer serves us?  Oh, boy, another of the "should I stay or should I go" dilemmas. I write about them a lot. Because discernment is so freaking hard. Marriage vows should mean something. But carpe diem means a lot too.

I have no answers.  Only questions.  I think Glory's reticence to marry may have been a tad excessive, but I get her perspective. I have one more book in the series to find out if she's developed buyers remorse.  I hope not. I'm so grateful I didn't and neither did my guy. We're having and holding, together against whatever comes for better or worse. 

Motivation and Ambition

I've been thinking about motivation and ambition lately. Mine, my kids', my husband's and some of my friends'.  The two concepts are close, but different. Ambition embodies our desires, while motivation gives us the fuel to put forth effort. Sometimes, ambition exists without motivation, and not much happens. Alternatively, motivation without ambition can see us mistaking activity for accomplishment.  We need both. I was reminded of this fact as I finished the latest installment of the Real Vampire series by Gerry Bartlett, Real Vampires Know Size Matters. Finally, after ten books or so, our full-figured heroine, Glory St. Clair, decides to marry her long-time love and find it in herself to want more out of life—generating ambition backed up by the motivation to make it happen. And not a moment too soon; I didn't think I could take another book where Glory remained ambivalent and victimized. It was time to take charge and live large.  Which of course got me to thinking about those who choose to live small. There are lots of options out there, in fact. Some of us are content to be big fish in small ponds. Others strive to live as small fish in big ponds. Then there are those with no ambition who seek to live as small fish in small ponds. Clearly, I have some judgments about those three little fishies. But maybe I'm the one in need of judgment. Is ambition all it's cracked up to be? I have one fish who is über ambitious. He works his ass off, both on the field and in the classroom. He has friends and a girlfriend, but his work and sports come first. His twin brother loves to play and is content to achieve less as the opportunity cost of having fun and maintaining his social status at the top of the high school heap. Both are ambitious, actually, but for different things. And their respective worlds are differently sized as well. One son's world is very focused—smaller, by definition, while the other son casts his net wider. Neither is better or worse, and both are happy with their choices. Which, of course, may change, as Glory's choices evolved over time. Evolution is a good thing.

In another example, I have a friend, who I've written about before, whose life I see as quite small. She doesn't do too much and often stays close to home. But her life is filled with such joy; she revels in the small moments of her small life in her small world. In countless ways, she's much more content than I who aspire to big, bigger, biggest. Who's to say who has the better approach?  Being a big fish in a big pond involves a tremendous amount of work and stress. All of which takes a toll—in my case, the cost was my health and most of my sanity. Was it worth it?  I'm not sure. But I know that I couldn't have been content with a smaller world if I hadn't experienced the bigger one first. We can only enjoy our choice of pond if, in fact, it’s an informed choice, not a default position where there is no plan B.

In this latest novel about Real Vampires, Glory finally wakes up to the fact that she's been in default mode for most of her 400-year existence, which is a major drag. She finally finds the fortitude to flip a switch and decide that less isn't really more – that more is more and she wants it. That is one way we can evolve—finding the desire to upgrade our pond and our position in it.

Or, we discover the opposite—that we've moved into a stage of life where less is more and we want to downsize. In either case, our inner navigation system shifts and our world changes dimensions and we need to reorient.  We may feel lost or overwhelmed when we move into larger digs. Or we may feel claustrophobic at first in more restrictive spaces. Regardless, there is an adjustment period that can be uncomfortable. After that, we may have a different perspective on our space— if we're moving from a small pond to a larger one, we may be a bit star struck. If we're moving in the opposite direction, we might feel more jaded.  And once we adjust to our new circumstances, we can look back and see whether the grass really was greener on the other side. Hard to tell when we're in the thick of it sometimes. You know the feeling when it's not until the headache goes away that we become aware that we were in pain? Like that.

In the end, it all comes down to what we want and what we're willing to work to achieve. These are not simple questions, at least for me. For my kids, either, and, I suspect, for many of us. I was listening to the radio the other day and I caught part of an interview where the guy was talking about the "I want" song at the beginning of most musicals, a song that sets up the central motivating factor for the lead character. It was an interesting concept I hadn't heard before. And it's true.  "I want"—and our ambition to get it— is what creates motivation. But a desire for, and contentment with a smaller life is not necessarily a lack of passion, motivation or ambition. Just like Marie was a little bit country and her brother a little bit rock and roll, there are different strokes for different folks. My judgment be damned.

So I'll get off Glory's case and perhaps have more respect for her previous decision to swim in shallow waters. And in the remainder of the series (I was several books behind, and I have at least two left), we'll see how she does as she dives deep, into a bigger pond.  And I'll try to stop judging others' choices too. What do I know? Only that a lack of desire is fatal—because desire, regardless of its object—creates ambition, motivation and evolution. Without it we’ve got nothing to live for.

Boon Companions

I've been contemplating a quote from Feverborn by Karen Marie Moning lately that states, "Want and responsibility are rarely boon companions." True statement. It is rare that what we need to do coincides with what we want to do. The whole cultural meme of "TGIF" and working for the weekend says it all. We fantasize about winning the lottery so we can kick our jobs to the curb and tell our bosses to stick it where the sun don't shine. And then there are domestic jobs—my personal seventh circle of hell—the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry and the never-ending scheduling and chauffeur duties (I loved that David Beckham, when asked what he'd been doing since retiring, admitted he'd become an Uber driver for his kids—I can relate). On top of all of that, we all tend to fill our lives with "have to's" instead of "want to's". And how sad is that? Plenty sad, I'll tell you. And why? Is MacKayla Lane right that want and responsibility are not often found in the same zip code? I think for most people, she is totally correct. We are all taught to do what we need to do before we do what we want to—obligation before desire.  And meeting our responsibilities often comes at the expense of our wants. Which sucks. Because, at least in our fantasy lives, we all want to relax and recreate, rather than work and be productive. We work and save (well some of us save) for retirement, that blessed state where we can do what we want, when we want and how we want it. Burger King has nothing on retirement. Or does it?

We complain about all of the "have to's" in our lives. One of my favorite movie lines is Steve Martin in Parenthood when his wife asks him if he really has to go to some meeting or other, and he looks at her and snarls, "My whole life is have to."  Powerful and depressing. And universal. My kids are already feeling the soul-sucking effects of “have to” and "not optional."  Homework?  Not optional. Summer job or volunteer position?  Not optional. Hanging out with friends, shooting hoops, taking a boat ride. Not an option. My sons are 16 and the party is definitely over.

The question is, though, is this as bad as we tell ourselves it is?  On the one hand, unlimited freedom sounds good in theory and also in practice at six o'clock on Monday mornings when we'd rather sleep. On the other hand, responsibilities are often clearly spelled out, making it easy to follow the path. Desires are much more difficult to pin down, making them more challenging to fulfill.  Meeting our obligations gives us a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. Pursuing our dreams, assuming we know what they are, is a lot harder. And the success rate is much lower.

Of course, many of us believe that we would make excellent use of more time— time that is not promised to our day jobs, if only we had the paycheck without the daily grind. We know that our wants are often the opportunity costs of our responsibilities. And while we can contemplate blowing off our responsibilities in order to pursue our wants, how many of us actually do it?  Or would really want to? We fantasize about it, but as most women will readily admit, what we fantasize about and what we want to occur in real life are often two wildly different things. 

Responsibility involves a commitment to others, while pursuing our wants makes us true to ourselves. A truly tough choice. Do we want to be the person who abandons our families to hang out in greener pastures—or at least in grass that looks greener? In the end, it comes down to the kind of person we choose to be. The one who meets our commitments or the one who indulges our desires? We know who Jerricho Barrons is. Of more concern, and perhaps less clarity is who we are.

And while want and responsibility are rarely boon companions, that doesn't mean it never happens. That may be the definition of heaven on earth. Responsibilities tend to limit our choices, whereas wants tend to expand our horizons. When we can have the box in which we exist also be the limits of our horizons, life is wonderful. 

We all make choices. There is no such thing, in reality, as have to, except dying; we all have to do that. But even taxes, contrary to conventional wisdom, are optional, if we are willing to face the consequences of our actions. And that is true for every single "responsibility" versus "desire" out there. Much of our view of reality depends on our perceptions. If we perceive an unpleasant task as a "have to," as Mac does in Feverborn, then it is. But it's not, not really. She didn't "have to" go into that house where her sister's memory haunted the hallways. Mac could have turned right around. It was her choice to perceive her options as limited. Just like Steve Martin in Parenthood. Just like us.

Want and responsibility can be boon companions if we choose to open the aperture of our vision. I know it sounds cliché, but our reality is what we make it. Have to versus want to, it's all in our attitude. Just ask Mac. Or maybe we'd be better off asking Barrons. 

Compare and Despair

I've recently rediscovered a series by Gerry Bartlett that I started years ago. Her Glory St. Clair series about Real Vampires is clever and entertaining thanks in large part to a voluptuous vampire named Gloriana and her on-again, off again vampire lover, the Highland warrior, Jeremiah Campbell, aka Jeremy Blade (Glory calls him Jerry—a play on the author's name). I like the series, although Glory's obsession with not being a size four and her inability to commit to one lover over the course of ten books has grown tedious (although it makes for good sex scenes). But the biggest problem I have with Gloriana St. Clair is her propensity to compare herself to others and come up wanting. After 400 years, you'd think she would have figured out that to compare is to despair.  One of the banes of modernity is the over abundance of information that tells us we don't measure up. There is so much data available to show us that everyone is prettier, thinner, smarter, more successful and richer than we are. On the other hand, we have reality television to make us feel better about the lives we do lead. Everywhere we look, we compare and despair. Just like Glory, except we don't have the same number of years of experience to teach us not to be so stupid. Regardless, we should know better.  When we compare ourselves to others, only two outcomes are possible, both unpleasant: we’re either inferior or superior to ‘that’, ‘him’ or ‘her’. And, whether we feel one up or one down, what we don't feel is equal or connected. Instead, we exist on a continuum that encompasses both doormats and dictators, see-sawing between the nausea of two extremes. It’s a vile existence whether it’s for 40 or 400 years.

By definition, comparison is dissatisfying. When we compare, we can't be happy with the gifts we've been given—we want someone else's or a better version of the ones we have. When we compare, we feel we must keep up with the Joneses or the Kardashians or whomever pop culture declares our role models at the moment. If we happen to be the standard by which others are judged, we need to not only keep up, but exceed expectations. If last year's holiday party was a blow out, next year's must be even better, so that by comparison, it measures up. Once the beast is unleashed, it must be fed. Continuously. That genie is never, ever going back into the bottle. Sad.

So we chase a finish line that keeps moving farther away. We measure ourselves against metrics that are either grossly exaggerated (e.g. Photoshop) or flat out lies (e.g. the false perfection of so many celebrity marriages, right before they devolve into divorce). What we need to do instead is walk carefully away from the ends of the see-saw and hang out in the middle, where we're balanced, and where we can embrace our individuality and also enjoy everyone else's personality. We need to stop comparing ourselves to everyone else. Particularly as we tend to compare our insides to everyone else’s outsides. Apples and oranges, folks, apples and oranges. Because the unhappy fact is that we’re trying to measure something that cannot and should not be gauged. There is no absolute benchmark for true beauty, or intelligence or achievement. Sigh. I would think that a 400-year-old vampire would know this. In the seventeenth century, a zaftig woman, as my beloved father used to say, was considered beautiful and desirable. Similarly, I would think most 50 year-olds would know that comparisons are specious; as late as the the early 1960s, Marilyn Monroe's size 12 figure was the epitome of female beauty –today we’d put her on a diet before we gave her movie parts. So not only shouldn't we compare, we should remember that beauty, success, wealth and intelligence have been measured quite differently, depending on time and place. It’s silly to pin ourselves down as either an utter failure or complete success. Today's triumph could be tomorrow's defeat. And vice versa. In the end, we’re all just Bozos on the bus, doing our best with what we've got. If we waste our time comparing and despairing, it's just another way to squander the gifts we’ve been given. Which is depressing – especially as most of us don’t have 400 years to figure it out.

Mother May I?

Another Mother's Day and I can't resist writing about one of the highest callings out there. It's been said that motherhood is the hardest job you'll ever love. This is true. And while not every woman is a mother, and while motherhood is not for every woman for a wide variety of good and valid reasons, it is the path I chose that also chose me. Not all who yearn are gifted with the blessings of motherhood. And not all who are gifted were willing recipients. But regardless of whether we are mothers ourselves, we all have one, or did at some point. So motherhood is a universal construct that affects us all. As so often happens, my reading reflects the current themes on my mind. I always reflect on my mother and the mother that I am at this time of year, Hallmark Holiday or not. I'm not above using artificial constructs to spur my reflections and introspection— New Year's Day is no less artificial and we all celebrate that with gusto.  Milestones mark time, and all of us need to pause along the path and check our directions, look back on the road already traveled and make sure we like the route forward. 

So Mother's Day is about mothers. And so are my two latest paranormal fantasies, A Witch in Time, by Robyn Peterman (who must have a difficult mother, as this is a recurring theme in each of her series), and Real Vampires Know Hips Happen, by Gerry Bartlett. In both books, our protagonist suffers the neglect or destructive attentions of a less-than-stellar maternal unit. As you know, I can relate.

Zelda, the Witch in Time, about whom I wrote earlier this week, has a mother incapable of love. Glory, Gerry Barlett's hefty heroine, discovers her mother is an Olympian goddess in this installment of the series, who gives new meaning to the word "controlling."  But delinquent or authoritarian, difficult mothers make an impact. For Zelda, her mother's lack of love resulted in stunted emotional development and self-destructive behavior. Glory missed out on having a mother during her early years (which she didn't remember anyway), and the list of her issues is too long to enumerate in a post this length. Suffice to say, she would give Drs. Freud and Jung plenty of grist for their mills. 

Today I thought I'd let these shadow teachers point the way toward positive parenting tips and tricks. It's easy to point fingers, criticize, and play Monday morning quarterback on all that our own mothers should or could have done. Or all that we should or could have done better, would we have known. But what about parenting that inspires? What does a good mother look like?  Of course, it would be grand if I could peer into a mirror and know what good motherhood looks like. And on some days I can. Like when my sons write heartfelt cards about what my support and belief in them has meant over the past year. That feels awesome. A good mother is always there to pick up the pieces, wipe away tears (surreptitious ones, in the case of teenaged boys), assure our children that what they are going through is normal and that it will end.

But that's the catch, isn't it?  Kids don't have the perspective or experience to know that everything comes to pass and nothing, not even heartbreak of the overwrought, adolescent variety, lasts. But that is such an important message in this age of increasing teenage suicide. Good mothers keep track of what's going on with their kids. Even when those kids would prefer to fly under the radar we hunt for the signs of impending self implosion.

And what about that?  We have more and more tools to know what our kids are doing, who they're doing it with, and where they are doing it. But utilizing all of those tools makes us more Big Brother than good mother. Unless there is a compelling reason, such tactics don't appeal. There needs to be a certain amount of mutual trust, which is hard to achieve when today’s moms are making like Mata Hari on a mission. Spying is not cool. Being informed is. It's not OK to take "I don't know" for an answer. Neither are one-syllable responses to questions asked. I understand that boys and girls, once they reach a certain age, would rather grunt at us than talk to us. Tough shit. Real answers are de rigueur in my home.

For me, being a good mother means getting down and getting dirty. It means being rejected over and over again, and growing a thick skin, not to mention a big, brass pair to be able to take these teens head on and be firm in the conviction that "no" is a complete sentence. Good parenting also means sticking to my guns, something that can be hard for me. Saying "yes" can be so much easier in the short term than saying "no" and listening to all the bitching and moaning.  Consistency is good too. Hard to achieve, but good. 

Being a good mother means that in just a couple of short years, my chicks will fly from the nest, never to return in the way they belong at home now. All our hard work, if done well, means we will lose them to spouses, jobs, friends, lives that don't include us, except tangentially.  And that is the natural order, the way of the world. I know this, and I celebrate my sons' independence. But it's a hard pill to swallow, knowing that many of my actions are making me unpopular at exactly the same time I feel like I should be pandering to their every desire, lest they forget me and leave forever when they go off to college. But I resist those urges to bribe them for their love and approbation. I've always said that if the cost of raising them right is their good opinion of me, so be it. I fervently hope it won't be, but I owe my children the best parenting I can manage, which is often the path of most resistance. 

But all of this is hard, hard, hard. It's hard to walk the line between discipline and punishment. Not to mention treating each child as an individual, which, from their perspective, can look unfair or biased (I get that a lot in my household). It really is the hardest job I've ever loved.

All that limit-setting is as hard on us as it is frustrating to them. So, I hope that you were good to your moms this weekend. If you are one, you know that it's a tough road to hoe, and that our own mothers probably did the best they could. Although I doubt that my own mother rose to her best parenting self, a dubious distinction I share with both Zelda and Glory. Life imitates art. Or art imitates life. Or maybe both. 

Fix Me Quick

It's a bleak and rainy here in Annapolis, Maryland. The weather reflects my mood of late. Nothing is going very well. Yes, I'm aware that my first-world problems are embarrassingly frivolous, so I try not to complain. Much. But knowing my problems are paltry compared to the genuine suffering of so many others just makes me feel guilty on top of being depressed. Sad sack Sally, that's me. So imagine my delight, as I sat on my ever-expanding ass, eating chocolate and reading the latest Robyn Peterman book, A Witch in Time, when I laughed out loud at the silly, clever and hilarious hijinks of my favorite witch, Zelda. She is as shallow as the kiddie pool at the local community center, but she makes me guffaw, something I don't do often. I love her madly (her author is pretty clever too). Just what the doctor ordered—a light and entertaining read to brighten my dreary day. And then, as so often happens, I found the depth beneath the veneer and I began to appreciate the book, and Zelda, even more. Turns out, I see a lot of myself in Zelda (I see a lot of myself in so many characters in my beloved fantasy books; either these authors are writing about universal truths or I'm a flaming narcissist—your call). Zelda has more issues than National Geographic (an old joke, but it still makes me laugh). I can relate. And she's looking for the quick-fix cure—the magic wand she can wave to solve all her problems (she is a witch, after all).  I can relate, even though I'm just a bitch, not a witch.

Zelda has commitment issues, abandonment issues, self-esteem issues and a serious case of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Check, check and double check.  Could we be twins separated at birth? Zelda is uncomfortable with emotional intimacy, and she tends to run at the first sign that she might be developing feelings—Goddess forbid she should actually give a shit about anyone or anything because that leads to vulnerability and pain. ‘NFW’ is what Zelda has to say about that. Except somehow, she didn't run fast enough, and her heart seems to be forming attachments, much to her horror. But Zelda is not a quitter, so she does the only logical thing to be done—she decides to subject herself to a marathon therapy session so that she can be cured. She wants the quick fix for all that ails her.  I envy Zelda’s solution.  I'm all about short-term pain for long-term gain. I can take it— whatever it is - for a while. I'm willing to go to any length—as long as I can get there by next Thursday. In fact, I'm in the middle of a quick-fix strategy right now that's working as well as most of the other fix-me-quick schemes I've tried in the past.  This eight-week class is designed to help me wake the hell up—in fact, the class is called "Awakenings," and the idea is to energize each of the seven chakras, opening them up and allowing the energy of the subtle body to flow unimpeded. Great concept. And it only takes two months of once-a-week classes. Easy peasy. Except I'm not sure it's working. For me, anyway. There are others in the class who seem to be having truly transcendent experiences. Sadly, I'm not one of them.

And to be fair, the instructor warned us that unless we practice, practice, practice, we’d be in danger of going back to sleep. She told us we can have transformative experiences that integrate mind, body and spirit and help us heal the fragmentation of our beings, and that we could still go back to sleep. So, despite my best hope for the efficacy of magic wands, apparently magic is not strong enough to affect lasting change. Only persistent practice is. Bummer.  I was so hopeful that I could be fixed quickly.

But then I started to think more about the assumptions beneath both my and Zelda's thought processes. Thinking we need to be fixed presupposes that we each believe that we are somehow broken. One of the most authentic and poignant scenes in A Witch in Time involves Zelda delineating her many, many flaws to her hunky wolf shifter boyfriend, with the thought that she would drive him away with the truth of her underlying defects. He was having none of it, of course. But she was utterly convinced that if he truly knew her, he'd run screaming from the room and out of her life.

I did exactly the same thing to my sainted and beloved husband when we first started dating. I knew I loved him, and I knew he thought he had feelings for me. But I wasn't in the market for a serious boyfriend at the time, so I figured that I would hit him with both barrels of my eccentricities and character flaws. That way, he could come to his senses and leave sooner rather than later. And, my thinking at the time went, if he stayed, it wouldn't be because he had stars in his eyes. I wanted him to see me, warts and all. Well, want is a strong word, but, like Zelda, I wanted him to get out of the kitchen toute suite if he couldn't stand the heat.  He's still hanging out in that kitchen. And I adore him for it.

Wonder of wonders, my husband doesn't think I'm broken. He doesn't think I need to be fixed—quickly or otherwise. He's all for self-improvement and he supports my many efforts to leave my comfort zone, learn new things and evolve as a human. And I love him for that, too. But, if you ask him, there's nothing broken about me, and it's clear that Zelda's mate feels the same way about her. What's less clear is why she and I are so convinced we need fixing—enhancement, enrichment and evolution, sure, we all need that. But fundamental repair, not so much.

Maybe I can reframe my self-perceptions and see my work toward personal betterment as augmentation, not rehabilitation. That would be a wonderful thing. And on my good days, when life feels easy and I'm engaging more in accomplishment than activity, I can see through that particular lens. On other days, I'm with Zelda, and marathon therapy sessions start to sound like a great idea.

It Was on Fire When I Threw My Will on It

Have you ever wanted something so badly you were determined to do anything to get it? Have you twisted yourself (and others) into pretzel shapes in order to achieve specific goals?  Do you wonder whether an abundance of obstacles is the Universe's way of telling you to take another path, or a message to try that much harder?  I've done it both ways: trying—and often getting—my way through sheer force of will; and also letting the flow of life take me where it will and accepting reality the way it shows up. The second path is almost always better. I don't always get what I thought I wanted, but I've learned that doing it the hard way is rarely the right way. Too bad it took me so long to figure that out.  Why am I thinking about all the times I've taken the bull by the horns and held on like my life depended on it? Because I've just finished Shadow's End, by Thea Harrison, and I recognized this aspect of myself in Graydon, the protagonist of the latest in the Elder Races series (one of my all-time favorites, as you know). His plight and actions caused me to reflect on my own experiences, as my beloved books so often do.  Graydon lived his impossibly long life throwing his will all over the place.  And in the end, he got what he wanted, but at a price he almost certainly wouldn't have paid if he'd known the cost in advance.

That's the thing about throwing our will around. We can do it. And if we're persistent, and we stay the course, as Graydon did to earn the right to be with his love, Bel, we can often get what we want, as he does.  And it's good to get what we want. The mate, the job, the kids, the stuff—don't forget the stuff. It's all good. And we want it all. Or at least I did.

But sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd lived my life by following it as it unfolded, rather than pushing the water ahead of me and striving to make it flow upstream. What if I trusted the Universe to provide for me—not just sitting on my ass and waiting to be handed a life, but to embrace the life I was given, rather than pursuing the one I had to have? I’m not at all sure what such a life would have looked like. But a few things are clear—if I'd done that, I almost certainly wouldn't have had biological children. We had to work for years, with a lot of help from medical professionals, to conceive.  Finally, we circumvented nature and I gave birth to two beautiful boys who I love beyond measure or reason.  But the cost exceeded my wildest expectations. And I can't say that knowing the price ahead of time, I could have agreed to it in good conscience. Just like Graydon.

In another example, I fought for years against the increasing cacophony of my inner guidance telling me it was time to leave the national security field. Why didn’t I listen to the Universe and work toward a goal guided by my inner self? Because I wanted the fulfillment, the ego satisfaction, the excitement and the exclusivity of the job. So I stayed. Knowing that if I were in flow with the current of my life, I would have recognized the end of that season when it occurred. Instead I left years after the fact, when my resources were spent and I was forced to spend precious time in recovery rather than engaging in activities that helped me to grow and thrive.

As I look back, there are so many examples where I dictated rather than received. When I talked incessantly, telling the Universe what I wanted rather than asking what I was being called to learn and to do. Just like Graydon, who spends two hundred years stalking his prey to try to ensure the outcome he wants. And there is something to be said for this kind of behavior; it often results in our getting what we want. But another thing I’ve learned recently is that I haven’t always been in touch with what I truly want, because I didn’t know who I truly was, as I’ve written about here. This realization has been a recurring theme lately, and it's infused much of my recent writing. But that's OK. All of us process lessons differently, and this is my way. So now I look—actively—to see where I'm tempted to throw my will around, and I work to refrain from doing so. I work hard to not work so hard. Ironic, huh?  Because it's so much easier and more pleasant to see where life takes me, and to walk through doors that are already open, rather than bashing them in with the force of my will, despite my considerable door-bashing skills, honed over a lifetime of throwing my shoulders into the activity.  As I Look back at those disparate doors, the ones I beat down with my will and those that beckoned me through, I'm wondering if I've been focusing on the wrong skills all these years. One skill I want to cultivate now, courtesy of Shadow’s End, is to accept that I did the best I could with the information I had, and to accept the costs of my actions and decisions. To do less is to discount or negate the price I paid, which would be the ultimate waste. So, like Graydon, I will live my life and learn my lessons as a way to honor my past and move toward my future.

Obtaining the Unobtainable

"What is your shameless vision?"  So began the class I just started, where all 26 of us sat in a circle and bared our souls. Glare and share at its finest. Thankfully, I was toward the end of the pack, so I had some time to formulate my answer and listen to those of others. The question was framed quite specifically. It assumed the existence of a vision for ourselves.  It also assumed that this vision was somehow obscured by shame, the malignant growth that cripples many of our dreams and much of our reality. Often, we don't feel worthy of our dreams, and so we abandon them like toddlers bored with their toys.  But we weren't bored, just too afraid to hope, too scared to act, too defeated to go on. When that happens, our dreams, visions, and hearts' desires get relegated to that most depressing of categories—the unobtainable. And everyone knows it's worse than futile to pursue the unobtainable, because we won’t get it. No one wants that. Well, no one except Graydon the gryphon in the latest installment of Thea Harrison's Elder Races series, Shadow's End. Apparently, he didn't get the memo. So when he has an opportunity to go after the unobtainable, he does so with gusto. And defies the odds to get his HEA. Who would have thunk it? Well, me, of course, and probably you, too. But that's okay; reality is stressful so I want my paranormal fiction to end with smiles, not tears.

Graydon is told that Beluviel is, for him, the definition of unobtainable because they come from radically different worlds—not quite Romeo and Juliet, but close. But he doesn't care. As I read about his willing suspension of disbelief with respect to this fundamental truth, I envied him. For most of us, it's viscerally difficult to put aside our inherent feelings of unworthiness long enough to even think about chasing our dreams. We don't feel we deserve to achieve them, which acts like saltpeter on our deepest desires. Shame is a corrosive emotion. And every single one of us suffers from some form of it.

I recently heard shame described as an acronym for "Should Have Already Mastered Everything."  Good one. Because while it’s ridiculous, we persist in our belief that if we’ve not mastered something, or everything, we are unworthy. How sad. For all of us. But this false sense of failure conditions us to think that our visions are unobtainable, the idealistic ramblings of immature psyches. Eventually, we decided to put away these childish notions and assume the mantle of adulthood, with its weighty responsibilities and never-ending hamster wheels. We commit to paying our dues, doing our time, and hope to live long enough to enjoy society-sanctioned sloth, aka the golden years of retirement. Yikes. How shameful is that vision?

We deride the dreamers and the visionaries. But those dreamers who persevere in their reverie and tack a little action onto their visions are among the most creative, productive and happy individuals in the world. The problem is not that these special people tried to obtain the unobtainable; the problem occurs for the rest of us when we stop just shy of getting where we want to go. Unobtainable is just another word for hasn't happened yet.

Unless we listen to the asshole in our ears. You know, the one who keeps telling us, "You can't have that.  You're not smart, strong, skilled, lucky, talented…whatever enough…for that."  We tend to listen to that asshole. His greatest tool is the shame that lives in our cells, the shame that was created when we traded our dreams for a specious sense of connection to ‘the real world’. When we denied our authentic selves, the ones with the shameless visions for our most radiant futures, we nurtured that shame, and thus the vicious cycle began and was perpetuated.  So what, you may ask, was my shameless vision?   My vision—without the shame or self-doubt that usually attends it—is to unleash my passionate creativity and become the writer I yearn to be. I want to create characters with whom I want to spend my time, and stories that engage my wild imagination, in worlds whose rules I determined. In my fiction writing, I finally get to be queen and be the puppet master I've always wanted to be, creating worlds in my image of how things should be according to my values and philosophy. That is my shameless vision.

Sure I can name my shameless vision but I'm not sure I'm ready to pursue it just yet. I need to silence my inner critic. I need to strengthen my inner guide and remember that the Universe doesn't plant deep desires that are not attainable; with the desire comes the ability to achieve it. God wouldn't be so cruel. I think. I hope.  In the interim, I'll continue to read about Graydon and Bel, and watch them both obtain the unobtainable.  While I continue to coax my shameless vision to shadow's end where the sunlight of the spirit shines on all of us.  Thankfully, the book – and my class – have just begun to teach me their lessons.

Through a Glass Darkly

I've been thinking a lot about self-image. I'm still being inspired by Kresley Cole's latest Immortals After Dark offering, Sweet Ruin. In the book, about which I've written previously, the protagonist, Rune, is limited by self-imposed restrictions because he can see himself only in one way. He has not been able to break out of the prison of his own self-image and is therefore crippled in what he believes he can and cannot do. As with so many of the characters in my beloved fantasy novels, art imitates life, and Rune's dilemma mirrors that of so many of us. I’ve written before about how others see us, but today I'm contemplating how we see ourselves, and the myopia within which it can cage us. Our self-image is a construct of the messages we receive… from society, the media, our parents, our peers and authority figures like teachers and counselors. Unless we are introspective and prepared to do the work to uncover our authentic selves, we will be who others tell us we are. And what a mess that is. Women are told we need to be femme fatales who maintain bikini bodies, while breaking through glass ceilings (it's on us to break them, not the idiots who put them in place to remove them). Then there’s the expectation that we become supermoms—who neither hover nor neglect—and perfect wives. Are we living in Stepford? Or amongst pod people?  If not, no can do on all of this. These mixed messages come from everywhere but inside ourselves. They are not only crazy-making, but impossible—and ubiquitously pernicious. 

And how sad is that? Not only do we not know who we really are, we aren't even encouraged to look!  And if we have some inkling that there might be something underneath the expectations of others, like rippling muscle under layers of unsightly fat (that any number of gurus are eager to tell us how to eliminate), we are too afraid, lazy, skeptical or apathetic to do the work necessary to unmask those muscles.

Our self-image is created through distorted mirrors—mirrors that exaggerate our weaknesses or our strengths. What we see is not necessarily what's there. To take a simple example, when we've over eaten, we tend to feel fat the next day (I have fat on the brain today, can you tell?). It's probably not possible that the chocolate cake I ate yesterday has already plastered itself to my ass by today, but it certainly feels that way. Or take an opposite example—just because our parents (well, your parents, not mine, but stay with me here) tell us we are special and we're gonna change the world doesn't make it so. We have to want to change the world, yes, but we also have to take the action to make that happen. Yes, stupid is as stupid does, but that applies to smarts, too. It's not enough to be smart, or to see ourselves as smart—we've got to put in the time—intelligently. Smart is how hard smart works.

One of the most difficult tasks of a life well lived is to know thyself. I'm all about authenticity, but it's impossible to be authentic if we have no idea who we really are, which possibilities are available to us. And which aren’t.

One can simply look around to notice those who clearly think well of themselves (without obvious reasons) and those who don't (again, erroneously to the outside observer). I would dearly love to understand what creates true humility—the ability to embrace both our strengths and weaknesses with neither false modesty nor hubris. If someone could bottle that shit they'd be gazillionaires.

We tell ourselves stories—or, more accurately, someone tells them to us, and then they become our truth. We may not realize that it’s a false truth for quite some time, if ever. When I was little, I often heard my mother tell anyone who would listen how uncoordinated I was. She made me take ballet lessons to help me be more "graceful."  Turns out, I'm not particularly uncoordinated—but I believed myself to be for so long that I eschewed activities that might highlight my clumsiness.  And while I doubt I would ever have been a star athlete, I missed out on even trying fun things I might have enjoyed because I internalized what someone else decided was true about me. 

I have a mug that says, "Imagine what we would do if we knew we could not fail."  It's a sobering thought. What bullshit do we tell ourselves about who and what we are that stops us from being who we want to be and doing what we want to do. In Sweet Ruin, Rune sees himself first and foremost as a whore, very much the same way Zsadist sees himself in the Black Dagger Brotherhood books. This false self image dictates almost all aspects of their beings. For Rune, he can't see himself as anything but a spy who trades his body for secrets. Zsadist can't get over feeling dirty and unworthy, because he was a blood and sex slave.  As a result, both almost lose the loves of their almost-immortal lives.

What have we lost or almost lost through a distorted self-image? What could we do if we stopped believing we can't? Which doors do we close off from ourselves because we refuse to turn the handle and walk through? These are the thoughts swirling around my brain these days. Along with the fat, of course. For now, I see through a glass darkly. But I'm always searching for the light. 

Tactical Considerations

I arrived in my Yin yoga class agitated and distraught. This is not the preferred state of mind for aspiring yogis. I know this. I couldn't help it though. Shit is hitting the fan, chaos reigns supreme, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… okay, maybe there wasn’t actual human sacrifice, but this week has been wrought with emotion. It started with one betrayal bomb, which I wrote about here, and the hits kept coming. If circumstances allowed me to focus on cleaning up the fallout I’d be relieved. Instead, I find myself ducking and covering as new bombs explode around me. I’m under fire on several fronts. And it sucks. So, back to my mat. My consciousness was streaming. My heart was imitating Eminem's snare drum. Not the best place from which to practice meditative yoga of the restorative variety. But lo and behold, the miraculous occurred (and yes, I get that this is the whole point of Yin yoga, but who would've thought it could actually happen to yours truly?!). As I was stretching to touch my forehead to the floor in final obeisance to my teacher and mouthing my Namaste, a thought popped into my mind. The thought was miraculous - clean and clear of stress and negativity. After class, this blissful musing settled into my muscles and sinews, becoming ground truth.

My thought came straight out of Dragon Bound – one day I will count how many blogs this one book has inspired. It whispered in my ear, "You have no problems today. Just tactical considerations." Despite how hard life seems right now, and how dejected I feel or how fragile my faith in humanity may be… I have no problems today. I do have, as Dragos described his thought processes around Pia, a lot of tactical considerations to consider. Nothing of the strategic variety, mind you, just the concrete, immediate kinds of issues that we know are fleeting, nothing to get too worked up over. Nothing that I need to get attached to (lots of preposition-ending sentences going on there—Mrs. Fowler, my seventh grade English teacher, is rolling in her grave—Sorry, Mrs. F, ya can’t win ‘em all).

So, if I’m not ducking and covering from emotional ordinance, I can consider—in a tactical way— what I need to do about these people who turned on me. I don't need to hate these people, nor do I need to help them in any way. It's not abandonment if they do it first, right?  They are doing the best they can, poor deluded souls that they are. They deserve my pity. Yes, they hurt me. But I'll get over it. They have to wake up and be themselves tomorrow. And the day after that too.  I've been reminding myself that things aren't going according to plan, but so what?  As Pink declares in one of my favorite songs, "I'm still a rock star," and I have no problems today. We plan, and the Universe knocks us on our asses. You know, just to keep us on our toes—and yes, it's harder to be on my toes when I'm flat on my ass, but there you have it, it’s how the world works. I'm sure it will all make sense when I can grill God and ask her what the hell she was thinking. I also need to remember that what's in the way is the way. That is a particularly hard one for me.  I have the way all mapped out –GPS has even shown me two alternate routes, but the one I'm on wasn't one of them. How can this be the freaking way? I'm all about the road less traveled, but this way is a fucking obstacle course. How can I find my way when what's in the way is the way?  Does that even make any sense? Unfortunately, I know it does.  I just don't like the sense it makes. I guess the in the end, like love, the sense you take is equal to the sense you make. Or something profound like that. Who the hell knows?

Not me; I'm dazed and confused. And afraid. I'm not sure what's happening, and my fear tells me, "Your luck has turned. The other shoe is falling.  Prepare for catastrophe."  I’m trying not to listen to my fear. But it is surely an annoying buzz in my ears. And even as I turn away from that fear, I sneak a peek back, like Lot's wife, and we all know what happened to her. Eyes forward, ears closed to the negative noise—find my edge. I can do this. 

I want to focus on what's important, and not what's distracting me from it. I need to be resourceful, resilient and flexible. I want to bend, not break. I want to adapt, evolve, conform to reality, not live in delusion. I want deep peace—so that the waves of my emotions crest and fall upon the surface, but don't churn the waters underneath. I want to be righteous, but avoid the pitfalls of self-righteousness. On the other hand, perhaps I need to focus less on what I want and more on what I'm being called to do. I need to ask, "What have I learned?"  Because sure as Kim Kardashian's boobs are eventually going to hit her knees, the Universe will keep sending me these ‘learning opportunities’ until I've learned what I need to know. “Beauteous”, as Tricks would say.

So far, all I’ve learned is that I have no problems today, only tactical considerations. I need not fear the Reaper nor shoes falling from a high place. All is well in my world. Truly. I just need to keep re-reading Dragon Bound to remember that – and to pick up my messages from the Universe.

Betrayal

I feel gutted. Flayed. Filleted. I've been betrayed, and there is no worse feeling. It is painful.  Sick. Wrong. At various points this week, it's been hard to take a deep breath. My eyes leak constantly.  I'm angry. I'm hurt.  I'm filled with self doubt. How could she be that awful? How could I be that stupid? In the midst of all this upheaval, I haven't known how to arrange myself to find comfort.  Even my skin seems tight around my muscles and bones. So, what to do?  Whine? No, read. I made a beeline for Dragon Bound, my very favorite binky-like book, the one that soothes my jangled nerves and calms my restless heart.

And what did I find, almost on page one of Thea Harrison's most wonderful creation? That the "inciting incident" -- as novelists in the know call it -- was the main character's betrayal by an ex-boyfriend, a man she'd thought she loved, who she thought she knew… but who had sold her out to the highest bidder. As Pia experienced it, "she couldn't get over the knifelike sensation in the pit of her stomach."  And that is exactly what it feels like, isn't it?

Who among us hasn't been subjected to this particular brand of nasty?  Lucky is she who has missed this roller coaster ride, and if it's you, kudos. Do let me know how you managed it.

For the rest of us, join me in the comments section and tell me all about your particular hell. Misery loves company, as I've written about before.

Being betrayed affects so many things—our feelings of worth, our confidence in our own judgment, and our trust of other people. We get to experience the vulnerability of being a victim, my least favorite thing to be, with its attendant loss of control—or even the illusion of it. We have to wonder where else we've gone wrong, who else is a wolf in sheep's clothing? And when the betrayal hits particularly close to home, it's a double whammy of vile emotions. In the past, I've been betrayed by friends and lovers. These days, it's been more professional colleagues, and most recently, a former therapist, which truly sucks eggs.

In Dragon Bound, Pia wonders how she could have been so lacking in judgment, taste and sensibility. I feel her. In fact, I'm feeling quite a lot of this negativity of late, especially the necessity to sit with all these emotions and thoughts, experiencing, deep in my psyche and my body, the trauma of betrayal. And now that it's taken up residence, I need to find a way to move it out, leaving only the scars and impressions of the experience to guide, but not dictate, my future actions.

But how?  I'm sure that forgiveness is key. I must remember that forgiving does not mean forgetting. But forgiving the one who betrayed me is vitally important to my own well-being and has nothing to do with her. I can see her as a damaged, broken individual in need of compassion, pity and help. I can provide the first two, but not the last. That's not my job, although it's hard to know where my job begins and ends. It wasn't my job, for example, to control her behavior. She made the decision to act badly all on her own. I don't have to carry that water. But it's hard not to take responsibility for others' malfeasance. At least for me. I coulda, shoulda, woulda seen the signs, questioned her actions and words, scrutinized her inconsistencies or paid more attention to the warning signs and red flags, which were abundant -- in hindsight.

Becoming sadder and wiser is also key. It is so important, but also so difficult to avoid bitterness and resentment.  I want to balance good judgment with maintaining my faith in humanity and not letting one or even several bad apples poison the entire bunch. It turns out that some people are just bad. Or they descend so far into moral relativism that they cannot distinguish morally acceptable behavior from morally bankrupt actions. I find that when people behave immorally, like my betrayer and Pia's ex-boyfriend, such behavior is always attended by an intense sense of entitlement whereby someone else's needs always take precedence over mine. Or yours. Have you noticed that too?  For whatever reason in these folks' heads, they believe that they always deserve the biggest piece of the pie, whatever that pie entails.  This represents a very skewed world view.

Another pitfall to avoid after we've been the victim of betrayal is becoming paranoid and creating self-fulfilling prophesies. I'm having to watch myself here. I don't want to become Captain Queeg of The Caine Mutiny fame, who sees liars and thieves all around him and whose paranoia manifests in the very mutiny he feared – and which did not exist before his fear tainted his crew members.  Fear is toxic in any incarnation and can ruin a good thing faster than Usain Bolt can run the 100 meter. As Karen Marie Moning reminds us, ‘fear kills, hope strengthens’. She is right. But it is oh, so hard to fight the fear.   I'm doing my best. Not sure how I’m faring in this battle.

Once again I’m amazed and comforted by my beloved paranormal fantasy books. Because while I may not be battling with dragons and unicorns, the demon of betrayal sure feels mythical in scope. I’m glad I have Pia and her ilk to teach me how to fight.

Finding Gratitude

I'm having trouble finding gratitude right now. I've written before of how I used to pray for a grateful heart because there was a big hole in mine where my gratitude should be. I believed that I'd gotten over this problem; worked through my issues and found what I'd been missing. Except it's missing again. Not entirely, and not the way it used to be. I don't have a gaping crater in the center of my chest, feeling like the mouth of some dried up volcano. Instead, I feel the gratitude for my wonderful life—I don't need angelic visitations to remind me of the fact that I'm blessed beyond measure with health, love and abundance. But I can't seem to go deep, to dive in as I often do, and swim in the warm, enveloping waters of my intense gratitude for this existence of mine. I'm sure you are familiar with the litany of my complaints—my Cadillac problems, as a friend called them:  I have the drama llama inhabiting my workplace; my kids spend all their time bickering, messing with their phones and telling me the sky is green just because I said it was blue; my house is a bottomless money pit; my writing isn't going well. I need to lose five pounds. Maybe ten. You know. We've all been there. And in that messy morass of the muck of life, I can't find my touchstone, my gratitude. I called a friend. She listened and then said, "Okay, I hear you and all your problems. Now tell me something good."   I was stumped. Which is ridiculous of course. That same friend said, "Well, what are you reading?  Surely there is something there for you to ponder. And write about. That will help."  She was right. I'd just finished the latest installment in the Dragon Fall series by Katie MacAlister. Dragon Soul, tells the story of Rowan, who morphs from a human, known as the "Dragon Breaker" (and not in a good way), to being a dragon, and the leader of his sept, or tribe, as well as that of his dragon mate (and the only current member of his sept), Sophea. Rowan's problems are of the Ford Fiesta variety—if you suddenly find yourself in a world filled with dragons, demons, alchemists and mages, of course. Poor guy needs to adjust, quickly and unexpectedly, to his transformation from human to dragon in human form, with all the intensity of emotions and spontaneous combustion that entails.  A bit trickier than my first world issues. 

And how does Rowan, who now roars, somewhat uncontrollably, deal with his difficulties? He finds the gratitude, that's how. Sure, he can't control his fire and throw rugs everywhere are imperiled. But aside from ruining floor coverings, there are positive aspects of being a fire-breathing monster. Rowan quickly realizes that he's gone from being despised among the dragonkin, to being a member of the band. And with that comes the real prize—Sophea, a mate to call his own, a woman he loves beyond all reason. For him, that's good reason to be grateful for his abrupt metamorphosis.

So, as I often look to my fictional friends for life lessons, I'll take one here:  if Rowan can do it, so can I. So what if work is a total drag right now?  The drama will unfold and then get folded up and put away. My kids will eventually grow out of being sixteen, and I will no longer be completely ignorant in their eyes. Our house will eventually run out of projects or we will sell it and let the next owners worry about them. I will finally finish these horrific labor pains and eventually birth this piece of writing that is attempting to be born. And I'll either lose those five pounds or figure out how to hide my ever-burgeoning muffin top. One way or another, this too shall pass.

And what will be left?  My beautiful, if bickering family. My eternally loyal and absolutely remarkable friends and our rock-solid friendships. My health, hopefully, albeit in an aging package. My sanity, if I'm careful and lucky. And my gratitude for all of the above. I'm rich, rich, rich beyond measure or merit. And I'm grateful for it. 

Thanks to Katie MacAlister for helping me find my gratitude and my truth in fantasy.

Surrender, Dorothy

Why is it so hard to let go?  I’ve written about this quandary before, but I I'm still thinking about it, so there must be more to say. And, as often happens when I contemplate these questions, I find my thoughts mirrored in the words of the mighty Karen Marie Moning. In Feverborn, we are told that Jada, "simply couldn't let go. She'd let go of the wrong things." Letting go in the past of the wrong things a good reason not to let go, which made me wonder about some of the others. Previously, I’ve explored what it means to let go. But I didn't give a lot of thought to why it's so hard and how the explanations for these exigencies could help us facilitate the process. If we know that letting go is what we need to do, why do we continue to hold on?  In many cases, we don't let go until the pain of holding on is greater than the pain of letting go. Why do we do this to ourselves?  Over and over? Baffling.  But maybe not. I think we hold on for a lot of reasons, previous decisions being one of them. If, like Jada, we have let go of the wrong things in the past, we might be reluctant to let go of something presently. People often talk about "the one that got away."  If we have someone like that in our lives, a lover, a friend, a mentor, a protégé, or even a job opportunity, we might apply that situation to the choice at hand. We can relive the great Tom Cruise film, Top Gun, where leaving his wingman results in tragedy, so you know he's never gonna do that again, right?  If we've made bad choices before, we want to learn from that behavior and not repeat it. The issue is that we sometimes have trouble distinguishing between apples and oranges. Just because we took the wrong fork in the road previously doesn't mean we should reflexively take the opposite path this time. Each situation must be evaluated on its own merits, but this can be a Herculean task because past experiences can create tunnel vision.  Another reason it's hard to let go is because we almost always prefer the devil we know. This is illogical. It’s equally plausible that a new set of circumstances will be less bad than our current ones as they will be worse. But we usually assume the worst and decide that the devil we know is better than the unknown quantity on the other side of letting go. We just don't do well with uncertainty, do we? It's one of the main considerations when we are tying a knot in the rope to try to hold on just a little while longer.  An uncertain outcome is in many ways more upsetting than a certain bad outcome. Again, this defies logic. It's the old bird in the hand is worth two in the bush adage. Unless we are exceptionally tolerant of risk, and most of us are not, we will avoid uncertainty, and therefore we’ll hold on longer than warranted.  We’re also wary of all change, another factor in keeping our death grip on whatever it is we are reluctant to relinquish. 

Change is hard. It's uncomfortable. We don't like it when someone else moves our cheese. We prefer it not move at all. So we hold on and avoid letting go. Which is, of course, the classic definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Some of us get better with practice.  I'd like to think I have; the Universe gives us as many chances as we need to learn our lessons. So if we can't let go in one situation, we will be given another opportunity. It took three serious relationships that lasted way too long for me to learn when to hold them and when to fold them in love. Luckily, fourth time was the charm. I also tend to hold onto jobs longer than I should. And employees. I've been told by professionals that this relates to my dysfunctional childhood where I incorrectly assumed responsibility for others' inadequacies in order to avoid facing the truth about my narcissistic mother (children have a hard time admitting their parents may not be fabulous). Jung would be proud of me for working all this psychological garbage out. But it does explain my previous inability to let go when it's appropriate to do so.  And if my childhood was messed up, it was nothing compared to poor Jada's, so she definitely gets a free pass from Dr. Jung. But she is working on her issues, as we all are, hopefully. In the interim, she's holding on for dear life. One can only hope that in the next installment of the series she gets her HEA. Because that's what we all want, and we hold on or let go when we think it will help us get where we want to go. We're just not always right. 

My Achilles Heel

I have something in common with MacKayla Lane. Thankfully, it's not that I'm the vessel for unimaginable evil. It's our soft underbelly, the place at which we are most vulnerable, a congenital character flaw that leads to serious weakness. It has to do with idle hands being the devil's workshop. Specifically, as Mac says so eloquently, "Purposeless downtime has always been my Achilles Heel."  Mine too. Like right now, in fact, as I struggle to find purpose, productivity and meaning in a few spare minutes between the myriad activities that punctuate my life.  As I contemplated this continual thorn in my side, I tried to unpack Mac's insight. What, exactly, is "purposeless downtime?"  Does such time include minutes and hours that are unscheduled, where we have no responsibilities to dictate our actions? Such moments are rare and precious, or should be, but, historically, they have always filled me with dread. Why?  Before we explore the deep unease I share with MacKayla, let's think about the phrase "purposeless downtime."  I suspect such a juxtaposition is actually an oxymoron along the lines of yoga competition.  So, does downtime have a purpose beyond rest and surcease from doing?  I love it when my yoga teacher says, "Let go of all doing," at the end of class as we prepare for Savasana. But there's a reason they call Corpse Pose the hardest pose of yoga. It's hard to let go of all doing and just be. At least it is for me. Always has been. Because we judge ourselves and others by the doing, not the being. I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but here in the good ol’ USA, we’re taught to achieve. To get the A's, make the team, hit the home run, win that yoga contest and all competitions, for that matter. How many times have you heard someone say, "I'll rest when I'm dead?"   But in wanting to know how we can repurpose our purposeless downtime and make it purposeful. we are missing the point.  As does Mac Lane.  The purpose of purposeless downtime is to be purposeless. To recharge, refresh, relax and rejuvenate. To fill our gas tanks so that we can get to our next destination. The purpose of purposeless downtime is to be a human being instead of a human doing. That proposition scares the pants off many people. MacKayla and I used to be among them. I'm not anymore. I’ve learned to embrace unscheduled time and to make friends with my interior self. Why is purposeless downtime such an Achilles Heel? Well, part of it is the guilt of feeling purposeless and unproductive. But the real kicker for me, and also for Mac, is what we choose to do with that time. Most of us have no idea how to relax in a meaningful way—we watch TV and play video games, both of which are highly stimulating. We sit for too long in positions that stress our bodies. None of this is truly relaxing for our physical, mental or emotional selves, we just think it is. Moreover, in the name of R&R, we engage in excess drinking, binge eating, comatose-like activities where we make like vegetables for days on end, or hit the town and stay up for days on end, pub crawling or dancing till we drop. Again, this is not relaxation. Or downtime.  When faced with purposeless downtime we often get into trouble—deciding to paint our living rooms, only to get distracted when we've only finished one wall, or to plant an herb garden, only to make a big pile of dirt that serves as an eyesore in the front of the house. Or maybe we decide to butt into someone else's business, or take an unwelcome interest in our children's lives.  Perhaps we decide to clean out our closets, and we end up just making a mess. But any way we slice it, we tend to ruin our downtime with ill-thought-out activities because we cannot tolerate inactivity. It’s hard to be a human being. Downtime should be just that. A time to be still, turn inward, focus our gaze softly on the horizon, or into the fire. We can pet the soft fur of our dog, or experience the delicious warmth of a fleece blanket surrounding us on a cold day in early spring. We can listen to the wind, or take a leisurely stroll outside and breath in the scents of the new flowers about to bloom. We can think about all the beautiful aspects of our own lives, and send positive thoughts to those who we know are struggling. We can enjoy a warm bath, or let our kids grow heavy as we count our blessings. We can read a book and engage our imagination, or listen to music that soothes our souls. Downtime is just that, a time to wind down, not up. A time to experience the yin in lives filled with an over abundance of yang.  We can all benefit from purposeless downtime. And we need not be afraid of it. An empty gas tank isn't going to get us anywhere. Unscheduled, unstructured time is also where our wellspring of creativity is located. When we let go of the conscious mind, we are able to access the infinite and to be inspired.  There's a reason the major western religions advocate a day of rest, and why gospels enumerate all the activities that should cease on the Sabbath. Being with ourselves is not an occasion for discomfort; it's an experience of peace and tranquility. In a famous quote from the Bible, God exhorts us to, "Be still and know that I am God."  It's in the stillness that we come to know ourselves, too.  Given that she is possessed by a sentient book containing the most powerful magic in the universe, I understand why Mac might not want to go deep. But that doesn't hold for the rest of us.  So go ahead. Find some purposeless downtime and be still. Relax. Find purpose in being purposeless. It’s worked for me, I've turned my swords into plowshares and my Achilles Heel into my greatest strength.  

The Brass Ring

I couldn't sleep last night. I was up from 2:30 AM until sunrise. This could have been a major disaster, and sure, I'm a little tired today, but who cares? Not me, because I had recently started Sweet Ruin, the latest in the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole. So I just moved to another bed to avoid keeping my husband awake with the light of my Kindle, and settled in for a deep dive into an awesome book. And I was not disappointed. Moreover, I have ideas for several blogs, and I had time to write them all down, so life is very good indeed. Sweet Ruin is the story of Rune and Jo. He is a Dark Fey with poisonous blood and body fluids, and she is a rarity, part vampire and part phantom, immune to his poison. A match made in heaven. There is a catch, of course, and suffice to say that Rune has some major commitment issues, to say the least, which creates the central conflict in the story. But Jo knows what she wants, and she's willing to hold out to get it. For her, nothing less than the brass ring will do, no matter how determined Rune is to deny her. I loved the character of Jo. Her philosophy is to squeeze until something breaks. Boo-yah!  She's a call-them-like-you-see-them kind of gal, and she knows what she wants. And what she wants is Rune. Forever. She wants monogamy, a wedding, and maybe little Runes running around someday. He thinks she's got the immortal equivalent of puppy love and anyway, he's not a one-woman kind of guy, no matter how amazing that one woman is, and why can't she that?! Rune decides that Jo has idealized and romanticized their relationship and has used an unachievable ideal as the "template for her love life."  Clearly, she is misguided, uninformed, and too young to know her own mind. Besides which, he's not a one-woman guy for a variety of reasons that are valid in his eyes and bullshit in hers.

Why has this storyline captured my attention so completely?  Because, as she has done before and will do again, Kresley Cole has taken a well-worn trope and turned it on its head. I love when she does that. In one of my favorite posts of all time, I wrote about how Ms. Cole puts the kibosh on slut-shaming by celebrating her female protagonists' sexuality and ridiculing the men who think women should be virginal. In a similar way, in Sweet Ruin, Kresley Cole abrogates the unfortunate motif of the needy woman dragging the long-suffering man to an altar. This is a theme I find particularly distressing, mostly because I think men are as likely to crave marriage and monogamy as much as women, but also because I fell into that particular hole myself, and it took a while to get to where Jo begins the whole process. Let me explain.

Before I met my husband, I had three long-term relationships. All three had a similar trajectory:  I fell hard and wanted a commitment from each of these three men who personified commitment phobia. I used to joke that if I were blindfolded in a room with 100 men, I would find the one who couldn't make a commitment.  Turns out, I was the one with serious commitment issues, which was why I continually chose emotionally unavailable men. But that is a subject for another blog. The point for today is that I must admit to feeling pathetic, unlovable and defective during all three of those relationships. What was wrong with me that these men didn't want to commit? I fell into the "what if" trap. What if I were prettier, smarter, sexier, wittier, yada, yada, yada? Looking back, I cringe at these memories. 

But I didn't have the self-confidence or self-esteem to think it was them and not me. I was sure the fault lay in my perceived inadequacies, and if only I were more, more, more, I would get the brass ring—or the diamond ring, as it were. After three relationships like that, I began to believe that ring would forever elude me, and what's more, I probably didn't deserve one anyway. I got to a point where I was like Woody Allen—if there had been a man who wanted a commitment from me, I would have wondered what his problem was.

Thankfully, I eventually crawled out of my self-hating hole and figured out that these losers were just that, losers. After all, they could have had me—and I was a total prize—even if I didn’t realize it at the time. I eventually clawed my way to the place that Jo inhabits effortlessly, lucky girl that she is.

I love, love, love Jo's attitude about making Rune see the light. She never questions her own worth, and she never wavers in her desire to have what she knows she wants. She is steadfast in her belief that she not only deserves Rune's heart and physical fidelity, she never doubts that he will come around to her way of thinking—because she is just that fabulous.

Kresley Cole does not portray Jo as some poor little woman trying to "land" a reluctant groom. There's no faux pregnancy scares like in An Officer and a Gentleman. There is no manipulation and no subterfuge. Jo wants Rune—and why not? He's the smartest, sexiest, most accomplished man she's ever met, and she knows that when he loves, it's with all his heart. Moreover, she knows her own mind and her own heart, so his protestations that she is too young to make such decisions are lame at best, patronizing at worst. Jo is the epitome of a strong woman who knows what she wants and goes after it. She will get it or not, but there is nothing pathetic or sleazy going on there, just an honest assessment of desire and the determination to do her utmost to fulfill it. 

So while Jo was encouraging Rune to the figurative altar, she wasn't dragging him, and she wasn't tricking him. Big difference from the usual marriage-minded heroine of days gone by. I think we should all take a moment to appreciate Jo and also Bob Marley who tells us, “If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing. If she's worth it, you won't give up. If you give up, you're not worthy." Boo-yah.

Bad Mojo

I'm still thinking about relationships. What makes them work, what makes them healthy, what makes them fail and what makes them dysfunctional? And I'm about to commit heresy, so read on only if you have a strong stomach. You know how I feel about Mac Lane and Jericho Barrons, right?  Swoon city. I want to be Mac and I want to be with Barrons. Or I have until now. But a seed that was planted in book six of the series, Iced, which germinated in book seven, Burned, has begun to poke through the soil in book eight, Feverborn. I think Mac and Barrons have a bad relationship. There, I said it. Let the death threats commence. But really, let's look at the facts dispassionately (if such a thing is possible), and see what there is to see. As far as I can tell, the only thing Mac and Barrons do well is mind-blowing sex. Which is great for them (and us), but generally not enough to make a good relationship. Relationships require work, of the non-thrusting variety. 

The work of any relationship is, first, to be scrupulously honest about what you want and need, and second to be able to live with it—or not—when our partners can't, or won't, give it to us. That second part of the work of relationships requires a determination about whether what our mates can't or won't give us is a deal breaker. Sometimes it is, and we stay anyway. Sometimes it's not, and we can learn to accommodate without (much) resentment or ugliness. And sometimes we must move on, because something necessary to our soul is being ignored or discounted, and we find we can't be who we want to be in partnership with that person. 

Usually when I read paranormal and urban fantasy, I engage in hagiography, as I've discussed previously. These fictional characters live lives I want to emulate and engage in relationships on which I want to model my own. If I had a dollar for every time I asked my long-suffering husband why he couldn't be more like Vampire Bill, or Eric Northman or Dragos or Raphael, we'd both be rich. But I don't think I've ever asked him to be more like Barrons. And I wouldn't want our marriage to be like Mac and Barrons' relationship.

Mates should trust one another, not keep secrets.  Mates should have a fair amount of confidence in one another's fidelity, not wonder whether he or she is straying because we aren't "enough" for them. Mates should know about each other's favorite foods, not wonder about the biological origin of our partner's preferred meals. Mates should not order each other around, nor should they take compliance for granted. Mac and Barrons fail in each of these areas.

Now, I'm all for great sex. It's a necessary component to any strong relationship. Sex and making love join us emotionally and integrate our physical bodies with our feelings of connection and contentment. Great sex includes lovemaking involves trust, comfort—with ourselves and our partners—and a sense of adventure and fun. Admittedly, Mac and Barrons have most of that—all but the trust. Which means that Mac and Barrons have sex—they don't make love. And while there are those who like to separate the two, and yes, of course, they can be different experiences, it is possible to have mad monkey sex and make love at the same time. But it doesn't always work that way. Unfortunately.

So, while Mac and Barrons have sex that is combustible, I don't find it compelling. Not like Pia and Dragos, for example. I thought one of the hottest sex scenes of all time was in the novella Dragos Goes to Washington, where he and Pia make mad, passionate love after discussing the laundry. As far as I can tell, Barrons doesn't think about laundry. And he and Mac have not made a home together. They live in roughly the same space, just not together.  Bad mojo, in my book. 

And while I get that once Mac had Barrons there was no going back, I wonder if she will ever come to regret the death of her earlier dreams of a husband like her Daddy? Will she be like Sookie Stackhouse and eschew the pleasures of vampire sex for the comforts of a real home and family? I'm pretty sure I would, over time. I'm not sure about Mac, but I am wondering how she will reconcile her upbringing with her current relationship. I’m also wondering how she will reconcile her essential identity with the self-perception that she needs Barrons to basically fuck her back into herself. I’m not sure I would want to rely on anyone for that, personally—the idea that could I lose myself if I can’t get it on with a particular man? I think the bodice rippers of the 1980s are calling and they want their plot points back.

On the other hand, most of us wouldn't want anyone else's partnership.  We look at other couples and think to ourselves, "Well, I guess that works for them, but that would never work for me." And others look at our unions with the same skeptical eye. And that is a good thing in real life. In my beloved fiction, on the other hand, I want to relate more to the choices of my favorite characters. I want to scream at Mac, "Why are you putting up with this shit—he barely makes an effort!  It's my way or the highway with Barrons. Move on! Figure out another way to find yourself!"

She doesn't appear to be listening, though.  Which is OK, of course.  But I don't have to want what she has. I can—for once—appreciate what I've got as being much more desirable.  

The Wall

I've just finished the very deep, very excellent Staked, by Kevin Hearne. He provides so much food for thought and material for this blog, that I am very grateful to him. In the character of Granuaile, the Fierce Druid and ladylove of the Iron Druid after whom the series is named, Mr. Hearne contemplates emotional wholeness and the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving such balance. While Atticus, the Iron Druid, is over 2000 years old and has worked out most of his emotional angst, Granuaile is a brand new Druid and is only in her early thirties. She's got lots of baggage to unpack, and I can relate to almost all of it. In this installment, Granuaile goes after her stepfather—a man who openly disdained and dismissed her, leaving a very wounded inner child behind. As Granuaile determines how to resolve her hurt feelings, she suspects that most people have someone in their lives like her stepfather, "a person who is standing between who you used to be and who you want to be, guarding the wall and proclaiming that you shall forever be imprisoned by their expectations and obligations."  I suspect that she is right.

As you know well if you've been following my blog, the person guarding that seemingly impenetrable wall for me was my mother. Until she died, I could not become who I truly wanted to be, although I was able to move toward that goal to some degree. It is very difficult to heal the wounded inner child inside each of us when the perpetrator of those wounds is still around and is still hurting us. At some point—much too late I'm sorry to say—I learned to stop giving my mother the rock she used to hit me upside the head. She still lashed out, but I no longer provided the weapons. I also learned to stop showing my hurt to her, as that just added fuel to her fire. But her fire has been fully extinguished since July 2013, and my life has been the better for it. I've finally been able to scale that wall and experience the freedom and joy on the other side. The view is a lot nicer from here.

I've been shocked to see how much I've changed since my mother's death. I had worked so hard to overcome my dysfunctional childhood and be the woman I wanted to be. I thought I'd gotten over defining myself purely in terms of "not my mother."  I also thought that I had ceased taking actions according to my shadow teacher—She Who Taught Me What Not To Do. I had a brief moment of regression when my children were born, and I was blindsided by the realization that a mother could do to her child what mine had done to me. As a mother myself, I wanted only good things for my children. My love for them was so visceral, I almost couldn't contain it. But I got past my disbelief, and in the last decade of hey mother's life, which roughly correlated with my forties, I believed I'd moved beyond needing her approval or fearing her disapprobation. I was wrong.

When she died, as her parting shot of nastiness, she left a maximally hurtful and divisive will. My brother and I haven't spoken since a month after her death. She succeeded in ensuring we would never get along by playing to weaknesses she'd been responsible for generating. She incentivized my brother to behave badly, and she knew I wouldn't be able to get over his behavior. Beyond the viciousness of her will, however, her legacy is over. And in her death I discovered that the wall separating who I used to be and who I've always wanted to be had come tumbling down. 

In Staked, after she'd confronted her stepfather, Granuaile decides to be an active warrior for Gaia, using her Druidic craft to rid the earth of polluters and the machinery of burning fossil fuels. She sees such a becoming as the apex of her life's calling, even before she became bound to the earth as a Druid. In the same way, one of the first things I was able to do when my mother passed was to start this blog and begin to express myself as the writer I am. I could admit to the world my love of paranormal smut (although the Iron Druid series has precious little sex to recommend it—please get on that, Mr. Hearne) and begin to share my deep thoughts while reading vampire porn. I can't imagine writing this blog when my mother was alive; I would never have wanted her to know this much about me (apparently, it's OK for strangers to share this level of intimacy—Ijust not my mother).

I've also been able to deepen my spiritual exploration and my connection to the Divine. Maybe I have more of a sense of balance in the Universe, now that she is no longer here to cause me to doubt that God exists. Maybe it was that there was so much grace around her final demise; at every turn of her death and the subsequent activities, including her horrible will, there was the unmistakable hand of fate, guiding what occurred. Maybe it's that I'm more at peace and better able to be still and listen for that which is greater than myself, offering the direction and guidance I certainly never received from my corporeal mother.

Now that the wall is down, I'm more comfortable in my own skin; there is no one out there telling me I'm as far from enough as one can be. I have learned to like and value myself in a way I could not achieve when my mother occupied the same time-space continuum. I am at peace at a level I'd never before imagined, much less experienced. Harmony rules my world much more so than it used to.

And the poor, wounded little girl that dwells in my heart has finally been able to heal. It took some doing, to coax that scared, sad child out from under the piano where she used to hide from everyone and everything because the primary emotion that overshadowed everything was fear. But once I was able to assure her that ding, dong, the witch was dead, she was able to learn to smile again, and make up for lost time playing and finding joy. In turn, my previously wounded inner child has become a strong source of inner strength and intuition, a resource I've come to rely on almost as much as my five senses. What a blessing this healing has been. 

I was quite moved by Granuaile's description of what happens when we scale, leap, walk over or somehow get to the other side of that wall. I will repeat it here for you, just in case you need any additional motivation to climb your own wall: "I am light and free and my path ahead is smooth and wide through a land of burgeoning promise."  Amen, Sister. Can I get a "Hallelujah!"?