7.28.2017

Pura Vida

There are many things I loved about Costa Rica, the coffee not the least among them. I have a case shipped in for Christmas every year.

People will talk about the rhythm there – the Pura Vida – and it’s all true. But what they often don’t mention is that the keeper of the rhythm is the rain.

The sun wakes you before your alarm can, no matter how late you were up, and it shines straight through to 1:00ish. Just bright, hot sun.

 From 1:00 – 2:00, its beautiful blue skies dotted with innocent white clouds. It’s beautiful. It looks the sky over a prairie, not an ocean.

At 2:00 it rains just like it’s raining tonight – heavy and loud and straight down like someone has a giant watering can just above you. Everything is soaked inside of 2 seconds, if you stayed outside (the locals stay outside, and by the end of the week so do you). It starts like someone turned a faucet, is amazingly steady & monotonous for 30 minutes, then turns off like a faucet between 2:30 & 2:45.

The rain stops and the sun is out within one minute. Bright as Dawn. Within three minutes, anything you left out is dry.

The sun shines till sunset, no clouds to be seen.

Every. Day.

That’s what tonight’s rain made me think of. The rain in Costa Rica, and its inherent & blessed predictability.

I want this for my life. I think, in any given day, if could just squeeze all the bullshit into one hour and know that the other 23 would be golden, I could do it. I would so prefer this to 2 minutes of bullshit every hour. Because it’s not the 2 minutes of bullshit, it’s the 20 minutes of seeing it coming and dreading it, and the 20 minutes of being pissed about it after, which leaves like eight minutes to not be annoyed. If I could do that ONCE a day instead of TEN TIMES a day, just for longer – sign me up. I can plan around that.

That is, unfortunately, is not the way rain works in my life.  This week, it’s like just barely shitty enough to keep you inside, but not so crazy as to offer you a decent excuse for it. My life has been drizzling for weeks. I want a 40 minute downpour, and be done with it.

6.19.2017

June of Jeanine becomes July of....?

So what is June of Jeanine? Well, its morphed a thousand times, and its only June 19th.

At its core, June of Jeanine is being good to myself – doing what feels good. That’s included AM yoga instead of a cigarette & coffee, but sometimes it also includes Taco Tuesday and barhopping with my guy. But what it requires more than anything is honestly.

Because yoga feels good. And beer feels good. But that doesn’t make them equal.

The key is honesty. I come from a long line of people who are very talented at lying to themselves. The superpower of Denial runs strong in my veins.  And there isn’t a day I couldn’t convince myself that beer or wine is just what I need. June of Jeanine is about creating the space to think about that – what REALLY feels good? Downward Dog, or a hangover?

A buzz feels good, and I haven’t denied myself that.

Reading a good book on my lunch break feels good, and I haven’t denied myself that.

Half pigeon feels good, and I haven’t denied myself that.

Quitting smoking doesn’t feel good, and I’ve made strides. But alas, smoking cigarettes feels good, and I haven’t entirely denied myself that.

The point of June of Jeanine, succinctly, is that I have not denied myself ANYTHING. I have put self above all – some would call it selfish. I’ll go with that whole “put your own oxygen mask on first’ thing.

The promise I made myself in late May was that June of Jeanine would NOT be about judgment. The overarching message was “make the next best choice”. Don’t big picture. Day by day.
By not having a strict plan to follow, here’s what I’ve gained: I’ve woken up to do yoga first thing 17 out of the last 19 days. I’m certain if I made a strict rule, I’d top out at ten, cause that’s just me.
I’m down to 3 cups of coffee a day, none after 3:00pm, which is a marked improvement.

I’ve drank, mostly socially, 5 times in 19 days. That’s down from, roughly, 18 in 19 days.
Its not perfect. I’m not the juicing, detoxing queen of sitting Lotus. But I’m  not a hot mess, either.
So what does July hold? If June was about gentleness, July is about ass kicking. July is about challenging myself – sweating every day, upping my miles & my weight, lifting, running…so, yes, July is gonna kinda suck. But June laid the groundwork for relaxation, for daily (almost!) meditation, for the self love I was missing that will make July possible.


It will still be day by day, minute by minute, choice by choice, because I’ve discovered ‘rigid’ just doesn’t work for me. But while June was about being gentle with myself, July will be about kicking my own ass. 

Wish me luck.

5.01.2017

Mom's Birthday

                In my twenties, I decided I didn’t believe in an afterlife.
                In my forties, I lost a parent.

I was taught early on that principles are only principles because you stick with them even when it’s hard. You’re anti-death penalty? That means you may find yourself fighting for the life of a rapist murderer. You’re pro-choice? You stand up for women who have had 5 abortions in 3 years, and you don’t ask them why. Love the first Amendment? Then you fight for the KKK’s right to march.

All of these examples are outliers of course, none are in any way representative of the bulk of what these principles protect. But protecting the outliers protects the center. So that’s what you do.

Losing a parent is an outlier, in this example.

The afterlife is so….prevalent. Omnipresent. “Look for signs from the Universe! She’s always with you.”  “Happy Birthday to your Mama in Heaven!” “They are running that 5K beside you.” The super weird & creepy idea that you should be good, so you can be reunited in Heaven one day (conversely, don’t be bad, you’ll go to Hell and be alone forever).  That’s a head trip.

Not believing in an afterlife, it seems, is pretty lonely.

Sometimes when I hike – often, actually, in a way that feels contrived by my brain or my heart or the aforementioned Universe – I see butterflies. And not just fleeting away out of the corner of my eye – they’ll loop around me twice, or follow me on the trial for a half mile. How does one NOT assign meaning to that? Butterflies were my Mom’s thing. Well, first they were my Aunt’s thing, and my mother took her passing very hard, and they became my Mom’s thing. Much like her things become my things. But…pictures of butterflies. Calendars. Little 3-D butterflies with one-sided tape for her bedroom walls. And now it seems they find me far more than they used to, and they like to stick around, and it’s weird.

Do I welcome them? My heart welcomes them as my mind rails against them. (Lois would know this, so if she did have a hand in it, touché Mom). Even that comment feels like…a dangerous slip into self-soothing at the cost of truth, at the cost of my soul that is me.

So…I’ve read all there is to read on Grief. I get it all…it’s like ocean waves, it’s a bottomless pit, it will always be there but it will change, it will lessen, it won’t lessen but it will become more bearable, you will grow, you will shrink, you will purchase luminaries and wear pink ribbons, you will HATE luminaries and pink ribbons, you will become more of a mom and less of a daughter, you will become less of a mom because you’re less of daughter. It’s all there.

I want Grief to be linear. My Dad is sick, turns out, same disease different place. And my mind wants to unpack, categorize, re-pack, and bury all the boxes of Grief for my mother. I need to make room, you see. For my boxes of Grief for my father. There’s no space here for both.

Maybe it’s like having babies. You have one, you think “I could never love another the way I love this one.” Then you have another baby and realize your folly.  Maybe Grief is the same way. Maybe there’s an endless capacity for it. Maybe the reason your heart can grow enough Love for more babies is the same reason your heart can grow enough Grief for all that you’ve lost.


 I don’t know yet, I don’t have to know yet. But I like my buried boxes, they’re tidy and out of the way.