I am a woman, I have been trained since birth: Poem for my friend's tears

I am a woman

I have been trained since birth to pay attention to the subtle, the unspoken

I will notice when the passionate kisses turn to pecks, the I love you to I care about you, the gazes to glances.

I will fight to hold back the silent tears when urgency gives way to indifference, and humor begins to speak in whispers of mocking

I am a woman and I have been trained since birth to pay attention to the subtle

I will watch with a heavy heart, as gestures of romance become acts of vanilla kindliness,

As passes are by-passed, and my why don’t we's are met with maybe later's

I am a woman and I have been trained since birth to pay attention

You may dismiss my quiet weeping as silliness when stock words of acknowledgement suddenly fill Valentines or anniversary cards

You may respond with annoyance when I ask if you love me

You may tell me it’s all in my head

But I am a woman and I have been trained since birth

Even if no man had ever left me,

I would know.

I have watched men turn and walk away from

Friends

Sisters

Strangers

And I know that the final good-bye

The closed door

The empty room after

Was always sung in the

Missed kisses

The silenced I love yous

The averted gazes

Dear Scruffy

Polly, my dear friend, my sister-from-another-family, lost her canine companion Scruffy yesterday. When I saw her post about him, I started to cry.  These furry, cuddly beings aren't pets...they are part of our families.

So for you, Polly, here is my letter to Scruffy...

Dear Scruffy:

I heard last night that you had left Polly's side to cross the Rainbow Bridge.But before you join friends and family on the other side of the bridge, I hope you have a moment to listen to what you meant to those of us here.

When I met you, I was uncertain about Yorkies.  One of your distant cousins had nipped me as a child -- he was a nervous unhappy Yorkie.  But I didn't know any others....until I met you.

You were one of the sweetest, happiest, most loving little beings I've ever met.  I will always remember taking turns with Cat and Rachel to hold your leash on outings, and being greeted with your fuzzy kisses at Jazz Brunches and Flashback dinners.

On camping trips, we were always happy to see your family arrive, but you were that extra little shot of fun, scampering around on your tiny legs, anxious to join in.

I know Polly will miss you.  But we will too.  So as you head over the Bridge, take with you our love.  I've sent good thoughts ahead of you to my own much loved and much missed doggie friends Misha, Christopher, Pastchio, Cindy, Penny and all my wonderful kitties...I hope they will welcome you.  Tell them I said hello.

Love,
All of us

To Everything There is a Season...and Sometimes That Means New Blogs

Austin at Sunset ©Lindsay Shugerman 2011 All Rights Reserved

For now, my season is to be in Texas.  Sure, I'd rather be in Florida.  And I hope that things will work out so we can return home, sooner rather than later.  And I plan to make MANY, MANY trips home in the meantime, to see my friends and my family and my beloved places.

But I have to face facts.  For now I am here, in Austin.  And I can make myself miserable, or I can learn some new things, meet some new people, and work on myself while I'm here so that the person who returns home will be better, more interesting, more sure of herself and have greater depth than the person I was when I left.

This is hard for me.  If I find joy here, I feel like I'm being disloyal to home, and to those I left behind.  I worked hard to get back to Florida after so many years away.  I reconnected with those I had missed for so long, and I met new kindred spirits who also loved South Florida and called it home.

Sailing off Miami ©Lindsay Shugerman 2010 All Rights Reserved

But now I am in a place I do not love.  Where there are no precious memories or dear friends with whom I can reconnect.  I lived other places over the years...and each time, once the dust had settled, and the excitement of exploring a new city, a new state was past, that old familiar call home would begin.  But during those "honeymoon" days or weeks, I had built some connections, found some favorites in the new place.

This time, the excitement never happened.  So now I need to learn a new way to see the world, and my location.

No, it's not going to turn around over night. I will still be homesick, I will still call Florida "Home." But I need to work at finding some reason to like it here, even if "love it here" never happens.

One way I am going to try and make that happen is with some new blogs.  One, which I started in November, focuses on the details I see in the world.  That one will allow me to bring in images I've collected throughout my travels, as well as new things I find here.

The second one will be about Texas style in decorating.  I love texture and aged finishes, and if there's one thing Texas is excellent at, it's aging finishes.  Think of this blog as shabby-chic meets Texas practicality.  I am looking forward to working on that one.

The last one is a family project, and will be all about Austin and the surrounding area.  We've been working on that one, and are almost ready to launch.  By the way, if you're an Austin-area blogger, we will be looking for guest bloggers on that one.

I will still keep this blog, because this is where I share my thoughts, my joys and my sorrows.  I've been neglecting this blog because I was too sad to write, and got tired of seeing my own whining. So  I wrote and deleted, wrote and deleted, without ever hitting that publish button.  Time for that to end.

Watch for links to all three new blogs next week.

2011 -- A Bittersweet Goodbye

It's time to say goodbye to 2011.  And this year, it's a bit harder than usual to say so long to the old year.

It's not that it's been a good year...it's been difficult.  But there were some things in 2011 that are now gone forever, and that makes it hard to crack open the bottle of ginger ale and toast to the new year.

In January, my mom passed away.  Our relationship went from rocky to none, and we never got to say goodbye. She chose to not have me around at the end, and that remains incredibly painful almost a year later.   But even with all of that, I am sad that she will not be on the planet to see the arrival of 2012.  She did a lot of good for a lot of people in her lifetime, and it should have been longer. Knowing that 2011 was the last year she would see makes seeing it go even harder.

2011 also saw the passing of an uncle I had become close to after years of not seeing him,  I am grateful for the chance I got to finally live close enough to feel that we knew each other, but sad that the time was cut short.  He was great guy, with a dry but always ready sense of humor and a love for Hershey Chocolate bars and black licorice.  Like my mom, I wish he was around to great the new year,

2011 was supposed to be the first full year my new husband and I would have together...a chance to learn about each other and build our marriage.  Instead, he had to take a job out of state, while I remained in Florida to ready the house for renters and wait out the school year.  The result was 6 long, stressful months apart.  The coming together again was wonderful, but we are still recovering from each others absence and the unique stresses it caused for each of us.

And even the reunion was bittersweet, because it meant leaving behind my beloved home state of Florida, where I have dear friends, family and a lifetime of memories.  The move to Texas meant no more late night suppers on the patio of Flashback with Polly and Karen, no more snorkeling trips with Jimmy and the rest of JAC, no more lunches with friends from work who had become such dear friends, no more driving past my high school every day on the way to work, no more running into old friends at the grocery store, the mall or a concert.  Yes, change can be good, it's also difficult when it's not chosen.

So forgive me, 2012, if I don't greet you with open arms and a cheerful countdown.  I need to hold on to every last minute of what will never be after 2011 fades away. 

The need to share

Let me say, I am not an eavesdropper. But sometimes you can't help but hear something....

I overheard a man telling another about some sad news he had just received...a member of his extended family had been killed in a car accident.  I wasn't trying to listen, but from where I was sitting, it was impossible to not hear.  After he shared the news, he explained his relationship, shared a couple of memories of the person. The other man listened, and said he was sorry to hear, and that he understood how hard it is to get news like that.  And then they parted.

The whole exchange took maybe 2 minutes.  But it reminded me how very much that kind of sharing is hard-wired into our lives as humans.  For as long as we can go back in history, there have been funeral rites of one kind of another.  And mourning.  And however it's couched in terms of the next world, the fact is the process is really for living.  It's a way to share and to be comforted in that sharing.

Decades ago in our culture, the exchange I overheard would have been unnecessary. People in his community/town/neighborhood would have known the relative.  And they would have gone to him, to express their sympathy.  Odds are, they would have known the relative who died, too, so everyone would have shared their stories and memories.

It's much harder now.  We have to find someone to share with...a coworker, a friend, an acquaintance.  Our blog readers. Or even a stranger, like I did when I started to cry in a restaurant a couple of weeks after my mom passed and the waitress sat down and listened.

I've found myself in that "stranger who listens" role a lot lately.  I've been giving away some furniture using Freecycle, and people are sharing their stories of why they need the items I have to offer.  I haven't asked...but I hear that they need to share, even though we are complete strangers. So I listen, because I can tell that these are stories they need to tell. And I am touched that they are trusting me with these pieces of their lives.

A few years ago, I wrote a post about how isolated we've become, and how most Americans have on average only about 2 people in their lives they can really talk to about important, soul-touching things.
So we share our sorrows -- and our joys -- in little pieces with whomever we find who will listen.

The question is, is it enough?

Getting back into the game

I haven't posted on this blog since late December.  Since then, a lot has happened in my life. 

My new husband had to take an out-of-state job, so we are to be apart for several months of this precious first year.

My car developed serious electrical problems, and I am still trying to get them fixed because buying a new car isn't in the cards right now.

My daughter is still struggling with daily health issues, and we still don't know why or what is causing them.

And in mid January, my mom passed away. 

So with all of that, just keeping up with the blogs and other things I write for work took every ounce of energy I had.  I opened this page a dozen times, but no words came out...until now.

I am tired. Stressed.  Sometimes scared.  Bruised. But I can feel that there is life beneath the surface, like a river that is starting to move again beneath its winter skin of ice.  It's hard to see the change -- in fact, some days a cold, hard freeze seems to put me right back where I was. It could be a sleepless night, or a hard day at work, or something like today when I went to get my car, and found that it was not yet fixed...again.

But the freezes aren't lasting as long now.  Even when they hit, I am feeling that trickle of movement underneath the icy surface...that hint of springtime.  Not yet visible, and yet something I can sense in the air.

Spring is coming.  Maybe not today or tomorrow or even next week.  But it is heading this way. And then the words will flow again.

The right song for the day....

Driving to work today, feeling dispirited about things happening a work, feeling my experience and expertise is being dismissed as something anyone could learn overnight.

I tried to keep it in, but failed miserably. A long and tearful talk with Lance last night helped a lot, but I was still feeling pretty down. I knew he was right when he said that work was not how I should define myself, but it's tough when you absolutely loved your job, and suddenly it's changed into something completely different and everything you loved doing is now being done by other people.

This morning I dropped my daughter off at work early. Usually I would immediately go over to work, but today I felt no desire to put in extra hours. So I decided to sit and read and get some tea. Just as I pulled into a parking space to go into Starbucks to get my tea, this song came on. It reinforced everything Lance said last night (thank you, my love) and reminded me of the lessons I've tried to master over the past several years.

I am not a Christian, but this song transcends any one religion. And I am grateful that it came on when it did. And now I get to share it!

When it's too painful to write

When you're not sure whether things you believed with all your heart and soul are true...

When the possibility of the things you always believed would be a part of your life might never happen...

When you've given your all to hope and to trying "one more time," only to have it fail yet again...

When you just can't think of anything except the things you had or thought you had, and can no longer imagine looking forward with real excitement for more than a day or two...

David sang out to G-d at times like these. I cannot even find the words for that.

Dealing with failure

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett



I think from the time we're young, we're warned NOT to fail. Whether it's unspoken, as in rewards for A's, while C's, D's and F's go unmentioned, or clear and overt with shouts, threats or put-down's, the message comes across.

Succeed, and you are good. Lovable. Worthy.

Fail, and the world begins to look like Caspar Friedrich's painting* above...dark, threatening, maybe even hopeless. We BECOME failures, and wear our mistakes as labels.

That's why Beckett's quote jumped out at me.

It was not yet another empty platitude, telling us that success awaits our efforts. No, he acknowledges that the result of trying again may be to fail again.

But in an amazing bit insight, he give two kinds of advice. First, never mind the failure. What? Fail without BEING a failure? Is that possible? Our culture would say no, but is it right?

The second bit of advice is even more radical. When you fail again, "Fail better."

I would love to hear what you think he means by that. How can we "Fail better."? I have some ideas, but I would like to see what you think.

Is his advice good? Is it healthy? Let me know your ideas?


*Man and Woman Observing the Moon, 1824, Berlin

Upon seeing a photo of an Iraqi mother and her dead child…

We have never met
But even in a photo flashed across the tv screen,
I see your tears
and feel the pain that cannot be expressed in words,
the deep bottomless sorrow too much to endure.

Your child is gone.
Lost to this senseless invasion
Small arms that only yesterday wrapped round your neck,
Still and broken
A tiny cheek that pressed against yours as she last drifted off to sleep,
Cold and crushed
Eyes that looked to you for love
And safety
And a reason for the reasonless bombs,
Now stare sightlessly upward
As though focused where just a day before a roof sheltered her from the rain

Now the very sky cries for her
And for you
As you cradle her fragile body
Wondering why you survived and she did not
Asking of God why people came from so far away to take your child’s life

A world away, helpless,
I cry too

Seeing what people are searching for...

I have a statistical program on this blog that lets me see how readers find me. It shows me the search terms people type into Google or Yahoo when they come here because of a search.

It's interesting to note that most people who find me because of searches are searching on the terms Anam Cara (soul friends), Bashert (soul mates), loss of love, or saying goodbye to a friend. These terms seem to resonate with readers across the globe. And I can't help but wonder what this says about us as people.

So why those search terms? I think a few recent studies may hold the answers:

A recent study suggested that most people in the U.S. have about 2.08 people to whom they can talk in a crisis or about matters of deep importance. Putting aside that intriguing partial person that appears in almost all statistical studies (have you ever seen .08 of a person walking around? Why are they and their decimal or fractional twins always in studies but never in our neighborhoods?), that is a very very sad statistic. And many, many people reported they had NO ONE in whom they
could confide. Think about that for a moment...most people have only two people in the entire world with whom they can share the big things in life...the big fears and the big joys, the secret dreams, the "I-just-need-someone-to-talk-to" stuff. And so many are all alone, facing life without a single confidant.

And in another article, I read that calls to help lines and postings on advice and prayer websites are at an all-time high. Although there is no proof of the connection, it certainly appears that people are turning to annonymous voices on the end of a phone or the ultimate annonimity of the internet to take the place of close friends and close family.

So in our loneliness and isolation, we are searching online for advice on how to handle the loss of a love, or how to say good bye to a friend -- because there is no one there in the family or the neighborhood who will listen and share our pain. After all, we meet our dates online. And we join clubs and special interest groups online. Why not search for that elusive "someone who cares" there too?

And we search on the terms soul friends and soul mates in hopes that somewhere out there in the virtual world, there is someone who will tell us exactly how to meet someone who will finally understand us deeply and completely. (There are websites and books that proport to do exactly that, by the way. A step by step wikihow type guide to meeting the people the universe and G-d want us to find. Do we really believe G-d needs instructions to get our soulmate to our door?)

Have we (and by "we" I mean everyone on the planet) reached the point where we have to substitute typed messages and calls to strangers manning phone lines for genuine face to face contact? And most important, can we reverse it?

Had the quote, found the man behind it

Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn't hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.

-- Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog, 02-14-2003

A few months ago, I found this quote while I was looking for something else entirely. It stopped me cold. It said in a very few words, all I wanted to be able to do when someone I care about (or maybe even someone I just met) needs to talk.

I made the quote part of my signature, replacing a rather sarcastic Douglas Adams quote, I think. Or maybe it was Terry Prachett. In any case, I removed the witty barb, and added something that became a goal. A standard. But I had no idea who the author of this quote was.

As I was driving to work this morning, the quote popped into my head. Along with:

"Look up the author."

It was as clear a message as if someone had said it. No, I am not hearing voices...it was a direction in my mind. A strong one.

So I came into work and looked it up. And I found the quote and the Standing Room Only weblog. But no entries more recent than 2006. So I searched again. I found a website that did not seem to be related and started reading that -- RealLivePreacher.com. Very cool site. So I added it to my blog list and went back to reading. And then I found it...information about who Hugh Elliot is. Where he is. And best of all, where I could find him online!!

Hugh Elliott, besides being a talented writer with a knack for saying exactly what needs to be said in an amazingly clear and unique way, is a man living with AIDS. A man who has, by his own report, lost his family because of his disease. A gay man who, in his new blog, is reading the Christian Bible -- not as a Christian, but as a person who is curious and wants to understand what it says. No agenda to prove it right (or wrong, for that matter.) Just a reader.

Check out his observations and thoughts as he reads. And don't miss his conversation with G-d. We could all learn something from that one.

Saying Goodbye to a Friend

There are many ways to lose a friend...

Sometimes one person moves far away, and despite promises to stay in touch and visit often, the days and weeks and miles come between. Conversations become shorter and the times between them longer. Then one day, without anyone realizing it's happening, the two go from "friends" to "someone I used to know."

Other times some one comes between the two, and loyalties are challenged. A new love interest, a new spouse, a new baby...and suddenly there is no time or energy for the way things used to be. We may be sad, but we understand that people change and that sometimes a friend for one season may not be the right friend for another.

Sometimes there is a parting of ways because of a betrayal, and try though they might, the chain of trust has been shattered. And friends become strangers or even enemies.

But the hardest to take is when one never really knows what happened. One day the person is part of your life. You talk, you visit, you make plans, you laugh. And then in what seems like an instant, the other is gone. Calls are refused. Visits cease. And in the online world, your IM's are rejected. You search your heart, trying to understand what you did, what you said. You talk to friends. You go over and over in you head, trying to imagine what went wrong. But still you have no answers. If you do see the person, your questions remain unanswered. You want to know if there is something you can do to make it right again. They don't want to talk. You have ceased to exist for them.

For one of my friends, I have ceased to exist. At some point in the past few weeks, he decided to end the relationship. To close the door. And I cannot understand. But I have to accept.

I wrote early on in this blog about my efforts at non-attachment. And my limited success. And so, in the spirit of learning that spiritual skill, I offer this post. Good bye my friend. I have learned much from you and I am grateful to have had you in my life for the time the universe allowed. The door will always remain open on my side, should you ever wish to walk back through it.

I wish you well in all that comes your way. May your path be one of love and happiness and peace.

Non-attachment and Starting Over

I've been studying Buddhism for years and years and years. Although my faith lies in the basics of Judaism, Buddhism is an integral part of my daily practice.

One aspect of Buddhism that I've been working on is non-attachment. For those of you not familiar with Buddhist practice, this is basically reaching a point where we can let go of objects, personal goals or even people in our lives with a minimum of regret. More of just an acknowlegement that they were there and now they are not.

It's a lofty goal, and one I thought I was doing well in moving towards. I had given away hundreds of books, calmly swept up the remains of once precious collectibles without a thought of replacement or sadness. Lost books, pictures, mementos and other objects without a backwards glance. I walked away from a big house and moved in a small apartment. Left the relative finaincial security of a troubled marriage to go out and try to make it on my own with my daughters. I still wasn't ready to display this level of non-attachment to people, but I thought I was well on my way and quite frankly, doing amazingly well.

And then my friend's house burnt down. He lost everything. All at once. Only his children and his friends left, he now faces the daunting task of starting over at 54 years of age. With 4 children to care for. And in a instant, I realized that my achievements in non-attachment were zero.

I have been giving away what I choose to give away. Yes, I hold on to far less than I did, but the choices have been mine. And the the few things I lost or swept up in pieces...they were small, one-at-a-time losses. Nothing major. Nothing huge. Certainly not everything at once. I have thus far been spared the loss of everything.

Some people who have been through a devastating loss like my friend's have come out months or even years later feeling that it was the best thing that every happened to them. A re-birth, although they all say they did not recognize it at the time. Nor would they have appreciated anyone trying to tell them that at the time. They needed to work it out for themselves...this was a very personal cleansing.

Perhaps for some, it is a process, this non-attachment. And for others, it is a test...something they have to learn all at once as a fire or flood or hurricane strips away all they believed they owned.

All I know is that there is some order here, somehow. And that I pray my friend will find it. And that I will continue to try to learn, again from scratch, what it means to let go.