Birthdays and Catastrophe

I'm hoping I've been pre-disastered for a while. In the week before my birthday, I had what could only be described as severe unpleasantness involving a writer at the last conference I attended, I was robbed and had to cancel my credit credits, checking and savings accounts, and put a fraud alert on my Social Security number. My neighbor passed on the same congratulations he received when somebody busted into his truck. "Congratulations. You are now a Portlander."

On my actual birthday, not one member of my family called to wish me a happy day, and since they say things happen in threes, I thought that was it. But then I went into my Yahoo mail only to find that somebody hacked my account and sent out something funky and nasty in my name. Fortunately, I had everything canceled and alerted a few days before due to being robbed - at least the thief who busted the window of my truck and took my pack had excellent timing. But it was not looking like the new year of my life was off to an auspicious beginning.

But I had a good party, and for that I am grateful. It was the first party I threw in my apartment, and in Portland for that matter. Put to good use the Japanese dining table and throw pillows. I finally broke in the fireplace I've been yearning to burn wood in since I moved in. Friends made in massage school and at Breitenbush, as well as one connection from Juneau made it a lovely birthday. It was all very cozy and bohemian and I'm really starting to believe that starting over is a good thing and I can build a good life here. Now, that is much more like an initiation I care to remember.

It really is all about the finish. This last week really sucked, but today I'm only filled with the warmth and good feeling from last night.

CHICKEN!!!

And back to the writing... or at least the conference aspect of it...

Just got back from an Unnamed Conference at an Undisclosed Location for the sake of covering my ass if not for the sake of protecting the innocent. I must say of all the conferences I've been to in the past, I had the most fun at this one. I ran into 2 different women I met at previous conferences and met a few others. The Chicken incident happened at the peak of the conference, the banquet on Friday night.

Unbeknownst to myself and Lisa, we sat at the table holding the winner of the Fiction category of the writing contest that year. Christine was sitting with two other women who were friends from high school. Amy was pitching a book - Good Ones are Gone - about all the good single men being taken and her weekend cross country odyssey to see if that was true, complete with "man map" and everything. Denise was there pitching a book she wrote and she hailed the "Twilight" series as one that changed her life. She said reading those books made her realize how much she hated her life, which of course motivated her to change that and pursue her dreams. She said she was on a blog with several other women who had also started making major changes in their lives - like one woman losing 60 pounds - due to reading that series. Although I'm not a fan of the Twilight, I respect anything that has such a dramatic positive effect on other people. So bravo to Stephanie!

Now back to the Chicken Incident... The Unnamed Hotel at this Unnamed Conference was not on top of their game in so many ways this weekend and that banquet was a perfect example. They were serving buffet style and giving certain tables the nod when to go and get their grub. Everybody in the room was pretty tanked that night, and after a while we started to feel oh... hungry. We were at one of the tables in the middle of the room and looking around we noticed that just about everybody was served but us and after waiting a little longer, we finally got our nod. So we get in line, more than a little impatient to load up our plates because the collective stomach was growling. The empty salad bowl was an ominous foreshadowing. There are plenty of potatoes and pasta, but then we get to the main course, chicken with a honey lemon thyme sauce to find the platter empty. We stand in line with the space carved out for the chicken to wait for empty to be replaced with full, and wait some more. Servers pass by and we point out the empty chicken and wait some more. Then the dining room captain asks us to go back to our tables while the hotel deals with this and will bring the chicken to us.

So we've all but polished off our plates by the time we see one of the head waiters arrive with a plate stacked with chickens perched over his shoulder. But he doesn't slow down. All I can think of is "chicken," and it comes out of my mouth. He's passing our table. "Chicken!" I call out a little louder. And then it's clear that he's heading for the table of drunks who are more important than we are and I screech "CHICKEN!!!" and he turns and smiles with a nod and keeps going. In the meantime, my table starts laughing and echoes "CHICKEN!!!" which became the running joke of the night. The rest of the night was spent in the bar, and Christine called her husband and told us to shout "CHICKEN!" into the phone when we did.

Personally, I was relieved, not to mention grateful. I knew I just made an ass out of myself but fortunately due to the support of my table managed to get away with it. That doesn't happen very often. I suspect I gave voice to the ravenous hunger of everybody else. When we finally got our chicken - baked and without the honey lemon thyme sauce - it was rather dry and we wondered if they popped them into the microwave just to get us served.

But it doesn't end there. The next night, we Chicken Girls picked a table right next to the door where the buffet would be served, so we would not be left behind. Yet the first table to receive the nod was the unlucky table where we sat last night! The rumblings of discontent began immediately, but we remained cool, watching for how many rounds it would take before we got our nod. A few waves and we were not called to join. Server came up and asked if we'd like coffee, to which we snarkily answered that we'd like to eat first. Finally, Amy said: "Okay, if we don't get the next nod, we're going with the next wave." Sure enough, more people walked past and we did not get our nod.

"One, two, three," said Amy and on the last word, we stood up en force, a determined wave of women that would be well fed, and hit that line. The servers noticed and gave us these looks but they didn't dare tell us to get out of line. That would require audacity and who has that for those who refuse to be told what to do? Later, the same head waiter that walked past with a plate of dried chicken the night before came to our table, his manner gracious as he asked us if we got what we needed.

Chicken was on the menu again that night, along with pasta, potatoes, and wild salmon. We took as much as we wanted. The chicken was all right, but we all agreed the pasta was delicious.

My Last Walk With Scout

The meadow is blooming. I'm still buzzing from the pond lilies making unexpected sunbursts in the murky pool of water I saw moments ago. Stalks of lupine waving blue violet call me from the path in the woods to make my way through the long grasses and I answer.

Scout is more than willing to follow. I am one of many aunts and uncles that have adopted this dog from Kake - a Malamute, Husky, and possibly Labrador mix that was so popular in Southeast. Whenever Paula - Scout's official keeper - was at work, which was often, she had Scout in the car and left the door open. When he was a puppy, she was encouraging when it came to me taking her dog out for a walk. Now he's nearly a 100 pounds of Alaska dog, but Scout still thinks he's a puppy and hasn't become the bully he'll be once he knows he's bigger and stronger than other dogs. I can still walk him without a leash and he bounds along the ground, both soft and uneven. Scout bounds ahead, but always comes back to meet me.

Breathing deeply, the air is fresh, some sweet, a bit of spice, a hint of salt, and the meadow is filled with hidden flowers. The shooting stars are the hot pink of 70's slut pants, as well as the bright purple of Floridian 80's New Wave Faux Punk. But both of those images are far from my mind on this hike with a friend's dog. Wild irises are the royalty here, the deep purple with golden hearts delicate in the breeze. The chocolate lilies are a surprise, the rich brown almost vivid in vicinity to the bursts of color in the expanse of hay colored grass. The tiny blooms point to the ground, like most flowers that must thrive in the rain to protect their reproductive organs. But this day is sunny and cool, a day to be grateful for.

Scout and I make a steady rhythm and I feel the bliss coming on. My boots sink into the murky ground with each step, the dog and I stay in tune with each other. Scout bounds ahead while I maneuver my way through the lumps and bumps of water and grasses, the dog never getting too far from me. I lose myself in the connection to all around me - to Scout, to the ground I'm treading, the flowers blooming bright spots amongst the grass and inspiring bits of awe in me - and that brings me to peaceful ecstasy.

And finally the stretch of meadow is over at the cabin. Instead of heading to the rocky beach and the sea, I take the left trail down the side of the cabin and into the woods. It's rare to find cedar this far north of Ketchikan, but the closer we get to the lake, the more present it is. Scout and I still make our steady progress in harmony with each other's rhythm. My pace picks up because I want to get to the lake that much sooner. I'm praying the lake will be deserted because it's warm enough for a swim. It's gratifying when Scout and I get there and nobody else is.

To his confusion, I put the leash on Scout and tie him to the tree. I feel bad, but I don't want to worry about the dog running off during my swim. I take off my clothes and jump in, taking hard strokes to mellow the shock of the water. Then the cold becomes refreshing cool. I would be happy if Scout wasn't yelping in high pitch. I've never heard him sound like that. He doesn't even bark. I call to him that I'm all right and to calm down. I'm only swimming, but he chews through his leash in minutes and jumps in after me. I had no idea Scout had such problems with separation anxiety. I think it's fine to swim with the dog making his way frantically towards my head until he doesn't turn, but swims on top of me, his paws rudely scratching. The necessary flaw has come to humble the perfection. The balance of Yin and Yang has been restored. I make another attempt to bind the dog to have the swim, but he only chews through it again. The mystic moment has come to an end, the spell is over.

The walk was still memorable, however. I had no idea it would be our last and neither did Scout. But Paula got nervous when he became aggressive, saying it wasn't such a good idea, and he was her dog after all. Every time I walk by her car, Scout looks at me with hope in his eyes that I will open the door and take him out again. It always breaks my heart a little to move on without him.

Adolescent Sea Mammals and Kayaking

School should always be this much fun. They say good things come to those who wait, and I must say this time it was true. Our highly esteemed kayaking instructor who rashly canceled our original trip due to stormy weather (we all think he had a hot date and blew us off, the weather was quite calm) rescheduled our sea kayaking camping adventure for this past week-end.

Ooh baby! The makers of Prozac would go out of business if the general public were inclined to do such things. The first night we camped in the woods behind Berm Beach after leaving from Echo Cove - nice, but no big deal. The next day we kayaked to Benjamin Island. Pretty basic stuff until we reached the north end of the island. Dan and I shared a kayak because I was too much of a wimp to kayak alone, but I'm grateful to him. He showed me how to make kayaking a pleasure, encouraging me to not fight the water and work so hard. He set a pace that was easy for me to keep of a slow, steady rhythm, and that was when I fell in love with kayaking.

Right around the time I was exceedingly aware of how hurt my back, how tight my arms, how sore my shoulders, we became even more aware of a gang of sea lion bachelors. Brock compared them to a gang of teenage boys when they slithered into the water and bobbed their torsos, greeting us with barks and grunts, flipping around in the water and approaching us as we watched them.

It must have been a boys' week-end in the animal world - on the other side of us were a pod of bachelor humpbacks swimming along the opposite side of the channel. They exhaled through their blowholes and showed us lots of tail as they went in the opposite direction. According to Brock, the women whales in Hawaii don't want anything to do with them yet because they're too young too date - kind of like my little brother when he was twelve approaching seventeen year old babes and asking them their age. When they responded, he'd say "What a coincidence! So am I!" They'd laugh, ruffle his hair, and move on. Between the whales and the sea lions, it was tough to decide which way to look. Because the whales were in the distance and the sea lions right next to us, they won my attention.

Well, I guess that's the way of testosterone in all male animals. I think the sea lions got competitive because they followed us and did quite a performance of aquatic ballet. They swam with us alongside our kayaks, leaping out of the water like dolphins and flip-slapping the water while following us to the southeast side of the island. Most of them stayed behind, but a couple followed us, watching while we set up camp. I forgot I was exhausted from the magic of that moment.

The Dancing Symphony

Feeling the rhythm of the sea as the tide comes in, feeling the lull when the ocean pulls away and then comes in with more force. Even with the changing tides, the ocean does a strip tease with the shore line, coming in soft before coming in with force. Lying on the rocks, watching the rising and falling of the pale jade liquid against the rocks opposite, where the water is eroding and reshaping the stone a bit at a time, I redefine my concept of orgasm and recognize that sexual ecstasy can be long and slow, the subtlety of it lingering long after the coupling is over. No wonder so many people associate sexuality with the ocean. The sea catches me unawares and drenches me with a sneaker wave.

It is a dance and a symphony. Stepping on the rocks, I want to get closer to the point where two flows of the tide collide at the low point of the island of rocks interrupt the shore. The tides come in slow and easy and their embrace is just a peck on the lips. But then the current builds up and they collide in an explosion of foam. The love gets deeper as the tide coming in, crashing droplets of salty froth rising to meet me and sometimes above me. When it gets too much, I step away. My rubber boots - Extra Tuffs of course - doing a silent stomp against the rocks as I wave my arms, circle my hands, and twirl my fingers. A flamenco in the rhythm of the ocean, the waves booming against the rocks in a crescendo. Suddenly, I know for certain how dance came to be. People felt the rhythm of the world around them and started moving their bodies. I suspect music started in the same way, hearing the world around them and calling, clapping, stomping in response and in audio play. Wanting to play with the world around you and reveling when the world played back.

I'm fascinated watching the sea change. The music of the sea grows louder the further the tide comes in. The music of the ocean is louder, the rhythm faster, and the scenery only grows more devastating as time passes.

"This is fiercely beautiful," said Terina. And it is. A flock of pelicans fly over the waves - watery emeralds as they reach their crest and falling over in a crash of sea foam. The light is changing as the sun falls behind the clouds that are rolling past, sending beams of light across the sky. The sea is lavender slate at the horizon and I can see the waves rolling and crashing in the distance. The clouds don't touch the horizon, leaving the path clear for the sun to drop right in front of us. It's a ball of fire in the distance, making shadows of the birds flying across, the sea meets rock and shatters in silhouette, the drops of froth dark in the light of the sun behind them.

There are times I resent being dressed, wanting to feel the wind and take in the salt air through my skin. I compromise and take off my shirt and dance in my bra before the waves crashing in front of me until the sea gets aggressive and sends me back for warmth and safety. We're standing in a formation of rocks that make a bowl in the distance. The tide is coming in past us, running around the rocks on either side of us, the waves are crashing and rising high above us. But we are safe, in the back of the bowl, spits of ocean coming up the blowhole before us each time the sea rolls in.

We've been there for over five hours, bearing witness to the spectacle that happens at Yachats all the time. But it is especially beautiful on this day. Many others have come and gone, but we stayed. That piece of the Oregon Coast belonged to us for those few hours until we knew it was time to go. The sun has fallen and the sea is asserting its way to the shore to get in as far as that high tide will allow. We are exhausted and exhilarated as we leave, covered with salt. I can taste the ocean on my fingers.

Putting Their Stink on You

Let's talk about Shame.

This doesn't have much to do with writing - at least not directly - but since I'm pretty much in a holding pattern of waiting and more waiting when it comes to what I've already sent out, there's not much to tell anyway. But I think Shame has the potential to permeate all aspects of our lives, including writing. I definitely had an experience with an agent recently that applies...

This yoga class I'm taking, "Yoga and Body Image," was the last thing I expected. I thought it would be mostly yoga and some talk. But it's shaping up to be group therapy with a little yoga thrown in. And last night, we talked about Shame and how it is the center of our addictions and all we struggle with. Sarah Joy showed the cycle of Shame in addictive behavior. It was very insightful, and I think resonated with most of us. But what the angle that made me say AHA!!! was when she referred to times when others Shame us.

"Shame is not a feeling," she said. "It is an ongoing state of being. When others Shame us, it has to do with their own Shame."

In other words, the flaws we're accused of may have to do with their own. Or when you are doing well and reaching for something higher, how many times did somebody shoot you down? I was shocked at the way I was treated by my so-called "friends" when I came back from my book tour road trip. ** See freedomjunkiefables.blogspot.com **

I really wish I had this class around that time. I might have bounced back much sooner. As it was, I was devastated for three years and had to do the geographical cure to get to the next level. And even then, I needed to do the hermit and lick my wounds for a year before I felt ready to be myself again. The example Sarah Joy mentioned was Person A has a desire to be the center of attention - which we all do on some level or another - but Person A was taught in childhood that to be that and want that means self-absorption and narcissism. So Person A sees Person B as the center of attention. And even if Person B is not self-absorbed or narcissistic, just being themselves as they are, Person A is going to assume that and put that Shame on Person A as soon as they get the chance.

Here's my question, however. Given that Person A is the one with the deep rooted Shame, even if Person A succeeds in hooking into the hidden Shame in Person B and bringing that state of being out in them, what does Person A have for the long term? Is it a sense of victory or does the Shame come back to them and last longer?

As far as I'm concerned, this is one shit putting their stink on another. But is it effective? In my experience in the last ten years, I'm prone to writing letters to those who have done me harm describing - often times in a state of rage and sometimes in a clear state of mind - how their treatment made me feel and the effect it had on me. In other words, I sent the stink back and one memorable instance did not read the Shit's response. It was such a strong feeling I had to not open the email because I knew it would be horrible. So I deleted it without reading it and felt this tremendous sense of relief. And that's when I came up with the conclusion that when somebody does that to you, they're trying to put their stink on you.

So don't take the stink. And whenever you can, send it back to the Shit where it belongs.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading.