Just like my post about choosing a word, Andi Fisher is likewise and entirely to blame for today’s post. Because she just sent me the most extraordinary book. I highly recommend it for women AND men, really. It’s called

Plus, authors Elissa Stein and Susan Kim make such a point of talking about how no one talks about menstruation (except me) and how it’s so taboo that even the ads that sell products for it don’t actually mention the word. Nor do they utter the words: vagina, ovaries or blood. Which is like talking about writing without discussing words, pens, paper, computers…you get the point. Anyway, as a result, I felt compelled to climb up on my blogbox and shout MENSTRUATION at the top of my lungs.

Aren’t you lucky?!!!

Note: this post is not just about menstruation, though I’m thinking I could just change my tagline to “WRITE WHERE YOU WANT TO FLOW”, but—in this post—menstruation does serve as my, er, petri dish.

Did you know that doctors and scientists still don’t understand everything about menstruation? It’s 2010 and they don’t know exactly why women menstruate (not all living things do, you know, though all living things manage to reproduce ~ think about that for a minute) and they don’t know how menstruation works, exactly.

See? I told you. Bamboozled. No one knows. Because:

• It’s a woman thing. So who cares?
• It’s so extraordinary and miraculous and mystical, it can’t be known.

I’ll let you do the math.

It has also become abundantly clear that we (people) have become solely focused on the portion of menstruation that we can, um, see. (Well, some of us, anyway). Which would be the ‘messy’ part. The part that is external. So focused on this, we are, that menstruation has become synonymous with ‘getting your period’.

Yet, however, though, wait a second and back up folks—menstruation is not just 4-6 (on average) days of bleeding. It never stops. There is no petits vacances. Every single moment is part of the ‘cycle’.

Yes, Julie. We all know this. We didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.

Yeah, but have you really thought about it? From ages, let’s say, 12 to 50, a woman’s body is doing extra work —either building up or tearing down, preparing for a party or taking down the decorations—a vast, complex, mysterious work. Never stopping (unless to do something relaxing like growing a child or producing 100s of gallons of milk).

No wonder we get cramps, no wonder we bloat, no wonder we’re exhausted, no wonder we get a little fucking bitchy.

And writers, artists, masterminders? For as far back as I can remember, my imagination has been working overtime. Writing stories in my head about people I see walking down the street, babysitters, teachers, what I want life to be. From, and I’m estimating here, about age 5 until I die, my body has done and will continue to do extra work—either building up or tearing down, preparing for a party or taking down the decorations—a vast, complex, mysterious work. Never stopping (even while growing a child or producing 100s of gallons of milk or ______. Please, insert your own pursuits).

No wonder we get cramps, no wonder we bloat, no wonder we’re exhausted, no wonder we get a little fucking bitchy.

In both cases, though, creating. All the while.

Image credit: recycled stardust

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It’s car-specific. I’m either driving or riding in the passenger seat and I Constantly, Continually and Compulsively switch from radio station to radio station. These being the 3C’s of the RSSC.

If I happen upon a song I like, I stick with it for a little bit. But after about 30 seconds, I get that feeling again and I have to swing through the other stations–even if just lightening-quick, before I land back where I was.

Sometimes, to my detriment, I leave a perfectly good song to swing through many, many perfectly bad songs. And by the time I get back to the perfectly good song, it’s over and I’ve missed it. But, at least I tried. At least I made sure there was nothing better. See how this works?

The feeling can only be described as the Darwinian itch to, wait for it, see if there’s something else out there that would behoove me more.

Wait.

Did I say that it was car-specific? Of course it isn’t. Nor does it have anything to do with music.

I’m a movement junkie.

I sat on a bus to NYC a month or so ago next to a lovely lady who unabashedly watched me work for awhile. She stared, goggle-eyed. And then, finally, remarked on my multi-tasking abilities, and my speed.

“I have to go this fast,” I told her. “Otherwise, I’ll fall asleep. Or run off to the circus.”

So…it’s a good thing for a freelancer juggling a zillion writing and web projects along with the chaos of social media. But, there’s another place where it gets a little sticky.

By definition, being a movement junkie means that you have a hard time sitting still, just being…with what is. Metaphysically, emotionally, cognitively. I’m practically the anti-Buddha.

• Head hurts? Drop something on your foot!
• Feeling empty? Call an old boyfriend and open up a can of worms, crap, whoopass.
• Tired? Make a list of all the things you have to do.
• Totally content and at peace? No problem, we’ll find something that itches or needs to be dealt with.

Wherever you might be, whatever you might be feeling? No worries. The movement junkie will find a way to something else.

Some people might see this as a negative. There’s agitation, there’s dissatisfaction, there’s an endless search. Some days, even I see it as a negative. I just want to be. For once, I don’t want to feel compelled to do.

Truth be told, it’s a very uncomfortable feeling to not be able to just sit and observe your state without doing everything you can to scramble out of it—primarily because it feels so damn uncomfortable to just sit in the feeling in the first place. Which is, duh, why we do everything we can to hop out. Immediately, if not sooner.

It doesn’t matter if the hopping out lands you somewhere worse. Victory is yours because you aren’t where you were. Again, see how this works?

But. (and that’s a big, bold but) There’s also, artistry, determination, energy, thrill. Change, growth, development, adventure, newness, opportunity. Granted, some of those words are rather vanilla and certainly overplayed. Yet, they’re what live in this compulsion. They’re what push the movement junkie on.

They’re what we find, quite frequently, when we jump to a different station.

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The conversation continued on, and I with it, but my brain was busy flying backwards around the earth, trying to reverse time so that I could figure out what I’d said right before their faces looked at me like I was a martian. (and not the good kind).

As soon as I could the next morning, I asked…because I just couldn’t figure it out on my own. I thought maybe my friend would ask me what in the world I was talking about, proving that this was all in my head, but instead her reply came out readily—sharp and blunt.

“It was because you self-disparaged,” she said. “And it was in such sharp contrast to how you normally hold yourself, how you talk about things you love—your writing, your passions, so many parts of yourself. Then, you sneak in these horrible tidbits of self-loathing where you cut yourself down. It’s jarring to witness. To be honest,” she said, “I felt embarrassed for you.”

Embarrassed.

I felt embarrassed for me, too. And humiliated, ashamed, emasculated. This friend does not mince words, and ‘to be honest’, this was a blessing.

When I heard my voice/actions/message shot back at me like an echo in a 2 x 2 torture chamber, I actually heard it all for the first time. And that was it all it took. I stopped self-disparaging. Right then and there. Once I’d experienced it, I was ready to never set eyeballs or eardrums on it again.

Fat singing

Imagine creating a masterpiece—let’s say a beautiful song. Many people love it, they ooh and ahh over it, they want to hear it again and again. But you just walk amongst them, interrupting their reverie, shouting things like, “I WAS SO FAT WHEN I WROTE THIS SONG!” What is your point? Who are you hurting? What are you hoping to accomplish?

After I stopped, I would still feel horrible diatribes about myself, my body, my work, my parenting well up in my throat, but I’d just let them out with the carbon dioxide and used air, without letting them take shape as words. And soon, the internal parade of mean started to get quiet.

Mind you

To Not Self-Disparage does not mean that you gloat, boast, show off or wax poetical about how great you are—these are not its antonyms. It simply means that you don’t say mean things about yourself.

I noticed a monumental difference in myself and my life and my way of being immediately. As it turned out, my self-disparagement had been following me around like Pigpen’s dirt cloud. Constant, smelly, blurry-making to the point that neither I, nor those around me, could even see me clearly anymore.

Without it, the good bits could shine.

Me: Wagon: Floor

And so it went. Until a couple of months ago when I relapsed in the typical fashion—I’ll just try it once, I can handle THAT, I said to myself, and then, quite quickly, the self-inflicted barrage came tumbling out in a lurid gush. About nine months worth.

You see, my original Sober-inducing Environment was filled with people who didn’t respond to, “I suck” with “No! You’re wonderful!” It was filled with people who cringed and thought about walking away. Now, the Relapse-inducing Environment was filled with people (okay, just one people) who was telling me how wonderful I was in an unbridled, unprompted, unaskedfor, onaregularbasis way.

So, like any good addict, I thought, hmmmmm….I’ve been dieting for quite some time…what if I just have one bite? Before the question was even fully formed, I started rolling out the insults, shamelessly begging to be absolved of my self-manifested fat/ugly/worthless/mean/bad sins.

It worked like a charm. My self-loathing was turned into beauty and perfection at every turn by this ‘one people’. Sometimes, I’d even double dip—emphatically shrugging off the first compliment-ridden rebuttal just loudly enough to get another dose/hit/high.

Too aware

But, dang, my conscience. It knew what I was doing was wrong. And it told me so. My own self now capable of stopping dead in its tracks, for only a millisecond, but with enough weight to make the look it threw my way both palpable and pertinent.

And with enough weight to help me fill the air around me with blessed silence once again.

Image credit: Raizo

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The first point for anchoring was the place where the body connected to the ground, and so it changed depending on the posture set. For instance, in a standing posture, it would be your feet. Inverted, your hands or head. Prone, your pelvis. You get the point.

But the second point of stability never changed, it was always the engagement of the core. Physically speaking, you could qualify ‘core’ as ‘abs’ – but it’s really more involved than that. It requires a deep lifting up of the perineum*—as if you were trying to lift your pelvic floor towards your navel—at the same time that you are pulling your navel back to your spine.

After the postures, when they were quite comfortable with this feeling** of engaging their core, I’d have them stand up and face a partner, palms touching about shoulder high. I’d tell Partner A to relax these new found core muscles completely. Then, I’d tell Partner B to push them over–which they did instantly.

Then, I’d have them come back to face each other once more, and I’d instruct Partner A to engage the core this time. When I gave Partner B the ‘go’ signal, Partner A simply couldn’t be moved. S/he was like a rock…or tree…or mountain (something that was seriously grounded and immovable).

Their reaction involved a lot of head smacking and disbelief. “That’s it?” they’d ask all accusatorily-like. “That’s all I needed to_____???” Be strong, stand my ground, get some balls, believe in myself, have a life, not be a pushover, feel secure, etc., etc. and on and on—just fill in the blank.

“Just about,” I’d say. And to this day, I use that first point of connection to the ground and my core muscles when I run, bike, blade, swim, write, talk to people, network, work in general, need to stand up taller, love, do hard things, do happy things, etc., etc. and on and on—just fill in the blank.

Try it. On your next business call or when you walk around the grocery store or when you call customer service to get your damn money back. Connect some part of the body strongly to the ground, pull your perineum up and your belly button back towards your spine. Your chest will lift and your shoulders will drop down automatically. The crown of your head will reach up and away leaving your neck long and open. See how your voice sounds, notice how you feel, evaluate the outcome of your task.

But there is a catch. Because there’s always a catch.

The connection to the ground is always available and your core is always there, in your body and , therefore, wherever you go. BUT, you have to remember to use them. That part is up to you. Just like Dorothy…who had the power to go (up and) back—all along.

Image credit: Stephen Mitchell

*if you don’t know, your perineum is the place at the absolute bottom of your torso, your ‘south pole’ if you will. Sometimes, in the locker room, it’s called the t’aint (cause it’aint your good bits and it’aint your bum – but somewhere right in between). And that concludes the anatomy portion of this post for today.

**fyi, when you practice this engagement a lot (and especially at the beginning), it can cause a lot of sexual energy to bubble up because it involves your pelvis and everything your pelvis contains. I’m just sayin’ – and I’m not responsible. So there.

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Typically, Jack works with paper and pen. Sometimes crayon, the occasional pencil. Watercolors and a brush also serve him well. But this was his first foray into sand.

Note: The first group is relatively similar—they offer a smooth, plain surface on which you draw with a handheld tool. But, the sand and no tool—this is a new world.

With just his finger, he created an exact replica of his picture. He’s gotten so good at this image, that he can produce it, apparently, wherever and whenever. He navigated shells and seaweed, the downward slope of the beach to the water, passersby, seagulls, differing degrees of sand wetness and firmness, not to mention encroaching waves with great aplomb.

He stood back and surveyed his magic like a seasoned artist. His bright, blue eyes narrowed. His white blond hair crazed on head.

__________________________

I was talking to a friend and colleague last night, as she prepares for an interview for a new gig. And we were talking about resumes. They seem so passé at this point, but they’re still necessary as they document where you’ve been and what you’ve done. Even though, likely and hopefully, the details/juice/meat of that work will get pulled out during the interview.

My suggestion was to lead with what she can do and how she does it, let the ‘where’s and ‘with whom’s fall to the bottom of the list. Because, while they prove you’re legit, they’re just labels,  just platforms. Like paper, pen, brush, paint, canvas.

What we really want to know is, can you take your skills, your know-how, your perspective, your signature—and make the leap onto the sand?

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Do I need to back up a little? Okay, for those of you who don’t know, Susan, one of my very best friends ever, is a shepherd. She followed her passion from big, fancy, network TV job to dirty, muddy, sheep & goat-filled farmer life. But, this isn’t just any farm, it’s the world’s first natural fiber CSA. You buy shares, you invest in the farm and you get wool. It’s brilliant. It is a knitter’s slice of yarn pie.

And so is Susan’s blog. A blog that, on Friday, let us all know that there was a mule on her way. (It’s odd to me that the mule is a girl, in my mind, mules are boys…but it turns out these animals are super goddess-like. Who knew?). Her name is Aberdeen. Was there ever a better name for a she-mule? I don’t think so, either.

When you think mule, I’m guessing you get the same image that I get: unattractive, frumpy, stubborn. Basically, your run of the mill Aunt Bertha with a longer nose and bigger ears.

But then I saw Susan’s mule:

That’s Aberdeen on the left. Erin is feeding her. (I love Erin because, besides just being a great gal who once scaled my house and jimmied open a window because I was locked out (and too chicken to do that myself), one of her favorite snacks is butter and sugar. In a cup. With a spoon. I could do without the sugar, but I totally get it. And admire her greatly.)

My point, about Aberdeen, is…well…look at her! She’s a beautiful little equine. Though, yes, her ears are a little big.

After I saw the picture, and my mind started to turn away from the ugly stereotype, I followed Susan’s lead to an article in The New Yorker by Susan Orlean about, yes, mules. Are you ready for this?

A mule is entirely nonpartisan about the contents of its load. It will carry as much as three hundred pounds, seven hours a day, twenty days straight, without complaint. (Right, we all knew that part, but listen to this:) On the other hand, a mule knows its limits. It is a characteristic of the breed to have an inviolable commitment to self-preservation, which is often misinterpreted as stubbornness. The mule’s commitment to survival is interesting in a Darwinian context, because mules—the hybrid result of breeding a male donkey to a female horse—have mismatched chromosomes and are therefore sterile. Yet mules are probably the most successful and enduring hybrid, with the beefalo coming in a distant second.

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Because I don’t have time to get sucked into his vortex.

But today, I forgot that that is what I usually do…dang it…and I opened the email.

And I found a talk by a writer named Elif Shafak. The synopsis:

Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.

I’m a sucker for anything about stories—specifically those that leap. So I opted in and watched. And Elif told an amazing story. And it leapt.

She told a story about her Turkish grandmother who performed miracles for villagers with uttered words, rose thorns, red apples, circles and dark ink. Quite literally, people came with warts, blemishes and the like, and she would stab the apple with the thorns—as many thorns and stabs as there were warts and blemishes—and then make a circle around them with the dark ink.

When Elif asked her grandmother how she healed people in this way, her grandmother replied,

Beware of the power of circles. If you want to destroy something in this life, whether it be acne, a blemish or a human soul, all you need to do is surround it with thick walls. It will dry up inside.

I instantly grabbed my pen and started jotting down things I wanted to destroy. Not because I’m evil. I mean, I didn’t have kittens on the list or anything.

My list had bad things on it—bad things I wanted to destroy in order to make the rest of my life better. Which was when I realized that I also needed to write down the good things that weren’t doing so well…and to look at them. Closely. To see if they were dry. To see if they were encircled by thick walls. Or even just dark ink.

If you want to watch Elif’s TED talk in its entirety: click here.

Image credit: The Truth About…

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4:23 when I woke up.

5:05 when I started running.

700 milliliters of coconut water steadily poured down my gullet.

1 lovely, elderly couple that I flagged down and asked to ‘ferry’ said coconut water down to the end of that first long, long road so I didn’t have to lug it with me. Because, ironically, I was too lazy to plant the water along the course and can now proclaim that carrying it is a bad, bad idea—does ugly things to the stride.

9 wild (and likely crazy) turkeys.

2 big, beautiful, brown bulls.

4 ducks—one mama + 3 duck-a-lings (pronunciation per Jack and Sophie)

6 young, small, male, vibrant red cardinals (unless it was the same bird that followed me the whole way? But I doubt it…).

3 stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean via the southern coast of Martha’s Vineyard under the early morning sun.

6 hot biking dudes (or at least they looked hot in their gear) that said hello.

1 hot biking chick who looked and sounded (we exchanged ‘hellos’ as well) a helluva lot like Debra Messing.

3 writing/content ideas for later.

12 cars that piloted voluptuously around me.

1 car and asshat that did not.

4,793,281 drops of sweat.

300 ish steps to the beach, post-run.

5 minutes spent soaking my legs in the cold ocean.

5 minutes spent scanning said ocean for Great Whites (they are currently infesting our waters, seriously, look it up on Google).

22 teeth you would see right now if you were here with me…because I can’t seem to close my mouth for all the smiling.

13.1 miles run.

1/2 Marathon checked off the list.

5 roads.

2 legs.

1 me.

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So, why, in the last couple of weeks, when I’ve been asked about doing a triathlon or running a road race, have I immediately and definitively replied, No way. Not interested. ???

If you write or art or play music or do anything creative, then you know that the creative process does not come in a bottle. It does not pay attention to time. It does not spurt on demand. And this characteristic is both maddening and magical. You never know when the well will be dry. You never know when something wonderful will surge up and out of you.

So we just keep showing up.

As some of you know, I don’t believe in writer’s block. I believe in time. I believe that if you write something else, start in the middle, go for a run, talk to people, move your body and go about your business (without staring at the keyboard or the clock), the words will show up. A watched pot…and all that.

Have I written on demand? Yes, of course, it’s part of my job description. Is it, sometimes, exhilarating? Yes. Is it also pressure-filled and does it make my skin itch? Yes. So, I try not to let it happen.

Imagine a marathon. A real one, with a finish line and thousands of people. These people train for ONE day. They are, in effect, running on demand. They train for four plus months or years for ONE day. What if they wake up that day with a headache? the flu? elephantitis of the big toe? or they just start running and feel like crap? What happens is this: they’re screwed. And the perception is one of failure.

All because of One Day Syndrome

I’m going to run a half-marathon and then I’m going to run a full one. By myself, on my island. No fanfare, no crowds. Just me and my trusty google pedometer charting the perfect course. And some stashed coconut water along the way. And my own awesomeness at the end.

Oh, and no pressure, no ‘on demand’. If I plan it for Saturday the #th and it doesn’t happen, I’ll try again the next week. I’ll find the right day and the right body state. And I’ll do what I set out to do. On my terms. Because lots of things are on someone else’s—but not this. I get this one.

I can hear some of you now, “But part of the challenge is getting through whatever comes at you on that THAT day!” And I will—it’s just going to be on my day. Come on. Of course, I’m not saying that I’ll give up at the first sign of discomfort, you know me better than that. But I don’t really like prescriptions. Look at New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day and Prom. And I think there really is a reason that animals struggle to mate in captivity. Whatever happened to following an urge…all. the. way. up.

This blog—my terms, my space, my domain— is ‘the way’ my fingers write best. And, I think it will also be the way that my legs run best. I just don’t want it to come down to one day, one chance.

I want it to come down to one me.

Image credit: horizontal integration

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Because:

• Kelly Diels is a goddess, clearly shares part of my soul and knew that I would love it.
• Vanessa Hidary is a writer and woman SUPREME.
• Therefore, she should be celebrated.
• I applaud all people that say what they mean to say in a way that says what other people mean to/wish to/want to say but never, ever would. Like Ani DiFranco, for instance.
• I think a few people will learn/benefit/catharticize from it.
• It’s Saturday.
• My birthday is on Tuesday.
• It’s really, really hot and humid where I live.
• Well, quite simply put—and said with the same verve that Meg Ryan says, “They’re my bags” in French Kiss, one of my favorite movies with one of the best on-screen kisses ever (yes, the one on the train)—this is, after all, my blog and I can.

Warning! Do not watch this video if any of the following apply to you:

• You don’t like the P word.
• You don’t like the F word (specifically when people use it instead of something prissy like ‘intercourse’)
• You are my father.
• You are my mother. Or mother-in-law.
• You still think I’m eight-years-old (ie. you are either of my older brothers).
• You have a problem with strong women that speak their mind (in which case, why are you here exactly?)
• After watching it, you think to yourself, “Peru sounds rather nice.”

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