circles.

Ideas about the nature of time in a panicked person. The changing ideas of time in a person moving beyond panic into purpose.

It always ties into music for me. 

Jason Mraz’s song “Details in the Fabric.” I love the whole song, but will sit through the entire thing in anticipation of the very last lines.. 

Everything will be fine
Everything, in no time at all
Hearts will hold. 

I don’t know what Jason Mraz intended with this lyric, but my heart makes of it what it needs. Hearts will hold. It’s okay. There is time for this. For someone who feels so dependent on grace, someone who for some reason frantically feels as though peoples’ grace for me is about to run out, who often feels as though the thread of life which holds me to this earth is about to snap, it is a balm. All things are process. Things take time. Hearts will hold. Calm down, deep breaths. Everything will be fine. There is time for this. And hearts will hold. 

The first movement of Saint Saens’ Violin Concerto in b Minor opens with a nineteen-measure allegro non troppo on the G string, wailing from top to bottom of the string. It later cools into an andantino passage on the second page, which is eleven measures long. Yet even though the allegro is nearly twice as long as the andantino, the andantino takes twice as long to play. Time feels stretched and compressed between these two tempi as the music leans forward, pulls back, gallops toward the finish only to draw out to a barely-held-back crawl.

Classical sonata form demands that the opening theme circle back and reappear at the end of the first movement, but lead to a different key the second time around. So many times the lead-up to the key change is exactly the same, note for note; all it would take is one missed note – F sharp instead of F natural – and the soloist would be playing the beginning of the piece while the orchestra/accompaniment is playing the end: the same energies from two different times grappling for a single frame of air, sharps and naturals clashing against the ear like a scream.

When I was an almost comically (at least now) darkly-brooding high schooler, one particular teacher wanted me to work on a piece of music to which I couldn't automatically relate, where I’d have to reach for the emotional connections. He'd become frustrated with my lack of connection to practically anything in a major key. Don’t get stuck, like an actor who can only take on certain roles!! he'd squawk in his dusty living room. He suggested Haydn’s Violin Concerto in C Major. In one of my other classes, I was simultaneously tackling the first movement to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the piano. Its ebb was deep, and drawing each chord from the keys felt as though I were pressing each one forward from my own chest, and, at the time, it suited me better than the Haydn. I memorized the Beethoven in four days, on an instrument I hadn't touched since I was seven - I lapped up the rich melancholy like cream, and I never finished the Haydn; I believe I tore the pages in thirds and used it for decoupage. 

The problem with Haydn’s humor is that there’s never the remotest sense of darkness or snark or defiance. I think he lived too long, too happy, true to his nickname “Papa Haydn.” He wrote too many sonatas, trios, quartets, concertos. I prefer composers whose lives were snuffed out prematurely, like Tchaikovsky or Schubert, who made the most of too little time. Or composers whose lives were miserable to the point of desiring death, like late Beethoven or like Schumann. There is a sharper edge in my relating to composers whose troubles light the way to the eternal. I wouldn't presume to call Haydn’s music easy; it’s challenging. But emotionally, it was boring. A happy little piece, full of frustrating musical jokes I didn't understand. At least there’s a little bit of darkness in Mozart:  even Papageno, the comic figure in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, tries to hang himself. 

The nature of time, and the displacement of experience in a traumatized person, and setting things back into an order that never was. The way pain never sits still, circles around to attack you from behind. Is time ever strictly chronological in the way it’s lived? I don’t think so.

I think of music as a means of beating back time, making it expand or contract at will, making things feel longer or shorter than they actually are. My sheet music betrays my tendency to rush, is always full of handwritten slow down, breathe, hold back, linger linger linger. Haydn’s challenging music makes me feel like I've got too much emotional time on my hands, and for a person who finds difficultly when her hands lie open, a person who always feels as though the circle is about to come around full: it's just not going to work out. It's not you, Haydn; it's me. 

No.. time is never strictly chronological in the way it’s lived. Musicians know this; anyone who has ever suffered grief, loss, or a broken heart knows it too.

foreplay. no, wait, foodplay. no, wait.

[reposted from... I don't know. a few years ago, a few jobs ago. just trying to get everything in one place. bear with.]



I appear to be back on the road to skinny.

So far, it’s all happened by accident. I was a slightly chunky little kid who became a depressed, moderately overweight teen who became a more depressed, almost-skinny young adult who became a happier (read: medicated) good lord, I gained it all back and then some? older young adult who is now an I’m too busy and tired to eat and I work with food so I hate the smell of it why are my pants falling off? thirty-mergh-year-old.

I think my love for food is changing from “food tastes like this ooh yummy I love cheese” to “food as medium.”

I giggle to write that, because I, by no means, am skilled enough to be the kind of artist with food that I’d like to be. I’m a straight-up wannabe, still wearing my pillowcase pants and puffy hat to school, occasionally bumbling around the kitchen like a puppy, and ogling the work of the more advanced. I’m on my way, but I’m not there yet – just enjoying the shift in perspective.

As with most things lately, I think this shift is related to my job. There’s such emphasis on plating and appearance; I’ve never appreciated a beautifully-plated dish as much as I do now that I’m responsible for creating them. I view pictures of plated dishes differently; instead of taking in the whole beautiful picture, my eye is drawn to the details: a tiny pile of chopped capers playing off the same pickled berries in steak tartare, a graceful arc of olive oil against white, the dark-green exterior of steamed asparagus graduating inward to the most perfect, calming moss; the bright corals and greens of sushi; flecks of black truffle suspended in cream; the vibrant, fluffy frill of microgreens in any setting. Oh, yes – I am a total microgreens addict. I don’t care if it’s trendy and on its way out. I’m a goner.

I feel so lucky sometimes. I have this fantastic foundation from which to make fantastic food, and now I’m treated to an education in architecture using the building blocks I’ve learned to make. It’s amazing to me, sometimes, how multi-layered this education can be.

And besides all that, learning to plate beautifully just woos me more deeply into this love affair. Food is about so much more than just eating, with palate or eyes. Whether cooking for friends or family, or plating dishes in what can seem like such an impersonal restaurant setting, it’s all the same: Eat at my table with me. Let me treat you to everything about this experience. Let me feed your eyes and soul.

Food is a diverse medium. And for the chef (or maybe for this chef) – food is, among other things, a medium by which to communicate love. I’m tempted to relegate this belief to the neurosis of the chunky little girl, but I really don’t think that’s the case. In what more profound way can you love someone than to nurture them at the most elementary physical level? Eating a meal together is an intimate, primal experience – before there was love in language, there were groups of people crouching around the firepot together in skins, sharing. The forethought and effort of a beautiful meal, set before a likeminded person, can captivate, loosen cares while focusing the senses. In what way can you most vividly paint your love on a plate than to do just that?

If I were to associate the effort of a beautifully-plated dish with foreplay, would that be too much? to quote Pat Conroy, who was most certainly not discussing food - to talk about how "we set down feasts for each other and treated our love with tongues of fire?"

Probably. But I’m leaving it there.

My pants keep falling off anyway.

I started writing about how much I love chuck roast...

Do you ever contemplate pain, and the relationships between wounded people? 

Pain is pain, regardless of how it settles on a person, and people who have experienced deep pain can often spot each other immediately. We peek over walls and connect at first glimpse of body language or restrained eyes or that slightly condescending, over-compensatory kind of interest that practically screams I know what it’s like to be hurt by people! It’s an unfortunate fraternity, an instant, uninvited, incomplete intimacy that’s sometimes refreshing, sometimes uncomfortable and unwelcome, but real all the same.

The wounded person’s recompense to a wounding world on behalf of their pain is often the balm that their own scars require, and is often applied recklessly, passionately, because deep wounds cut to the primal core of a person and it changes their eyes – the wounded person can never shake free of that part of the soul which glimpsed the world in animal black-and-white, and often, a person’s passions flow from that place. I think they’re often mistaken for darker emotions. And I think that, if you learn a person’s passions, you’ll learn their wounds, whether or not they ever speak them aloud, whether or not they want them known.

Sometimes we wounded can inflict more pain on each other than anyone outside the unfortunate fraternity, because we recognize the pain and need in each other, but in doing so, we can’t escape the vulnerability of knowing each other’s eyes, even with our own eyes closed. Maybe we can gently challenge each other with a little immunity because we know the landscape, but sometimes we only step gingerly around each others’ lives instead, not wanting to intrude, wanting even less to risk intrusion: so afraid to experience grace without truth, which is merely empty charity; to experience truth without grace, which is stark cruelty; or love with no grace or truth, which will always lack. 

I don't think there's any way we can administer meaningful, painfully-refreshing grace to each other without knowing the truths of each other's lives. I don't think we can ever know each others' truths if we don't offer each other the safety of grace in which to unburden and know the tenuous headiness of new vulnerability. I don't think we can even care enough about anyone, without love, to offer grace or invest in truth. What real value do any of them have, separate from each other?

Grace is most manifest in the face of the piercing truths of the human condition, and joy unspeakable awaits those who delve deeply into the truth of what's in front of them. You find yourself there, in the truth – everything that’s missing, everything that aches, everything you hold at arms’ length, everything that swells inside your chest, everything that you were made for and the entire story of your life is waiting for you, in the truth. You find others in the same condition, in the truth. All of us tentatively sticking our toes into the depths, hiding from each other and ourselves, accepting empty grace like sugar on the tongue and calling it “nourishment” and "relationship," fleeing from bitter, unmitigated truths because they hurt us, and rightfully so. Hiding from real love because that's where the in-between tension resides: that's where the real work begins, and that's where the true rest is found. 

The more deeply you delve into the truth, you gather to yourself more and more opportunity to administer complete grace to those around you. If you want to be a positive force in the world, you owe the world a complete picture of grace, love, and truth – and it starts with administering grace to yourself in order to embrace the truth of your own life. Beginning to end. The truths are bitter, but there is grace, and love really does abound. And the world has enough fakers.

I don't know the truths of your life, or to what degree you allow grace or love to interact with them. Sit down and work it out. Stay with it. Breathe through the pain. Labor with it for the hours necessary to birth something brand-new. Gather it to yourself, and let it change you forever.

jason mraz knows what's up.

Grief [from multiple sources]: the reaction to loss, as opposed to bereavement (the state of loss); anguish over affliction or loss; a multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond has been formed. 

Change begets loss.

I, as a terminal optimist, cringe a little at how dreary that statement sounds.

But it's true: there's an element of loss in every major life change.

You sell a house, and don't anticipate the jarring, off-kilter state that follows. Or you move across the country to chase a job opportunity, and, once there, you can't put your finger on why you're so tired and just sad. Or you get married, and reprimand yourself sharply for tiny backward glances at singleness. Or you have a baby, and nothing about the experience matches your expectation. Or you end a relationship, a decision which, in itself, demands different levels of self-reflection.

Or.

A housefire destroys nearly everything you own. Your mother suddenly passes away. Your beautiful baby is born with problems you didn't anticipate. Your husband is diagnosed with cancer. You're mugged at knifepoint, or raped, or stalked.

And maybe, on the outside, eventually, everything looks as though it's worked out. After a year of chemo and radiation, your husband is now in remission. You were able to save a box of precious family mementos from your charred basement, and insurance will cover all your financial losses. Maybe you adapt quickly to parenting a special-needs child, or maybe you're willing yourself to go through the motions, praying that your efforts begin to feel genuine - fake it 'til you make it. Maybe your mugger is caught quickly, your purse is returned, your rapist is brought to swift justice, your stalker moves on without physically harming you. Maybe you smile over at your brand-new spouse and guiltily squelch the longing you feel for the days when you could stretch out to all four corners of your own bed.

And maybe, it looks like you should be okay. Happy. But maybe, you're not.

And maybe, none of it looks right to the people around you.

Her husband is doing so well; why is she still so touchy? Because I know nobody lives forever, but I never had to brush so closely against what it would be like to be without him. Because I feel like I can't ever be as carefree and secure in our relationship as I was before I had to envision losing him. How can I ever be the same kind of "okay" I was before I was so terrified of the heartbreak in my future? 

He has an awesome job; why isn't he happy? Because I miss my family; because I never knew what it was like to be physically separated from them. Because I'm afraid I made the wrong decision. Because I'm afraid this was the right decision, but I don't know how to feel so alone. Because nothing feel as easy as it did when I was surrounded by the people who have known me since I was a baby. 

They made a killing on that house sale; I would be thrilled! But I tiled the kitchen floor myself; my husband and I conceived our babies in that bedroom; our girls ripped the ceiling fan out of the guest bedroom ceiling in 1996, and we never did patch up the hole correctly; the hallway walls still bear the dings and scratches from my mother's wheelchair. The love of, and for, my family breathes in those walls, and nobody will ever sit inside them and know it like I do. 

Why isn't she excited to be a mother? She has such a beautiful baby! But I never expected it be like this. I was bonded to my ideas for my future; my heart was wrapped around my plans, but the reality I'm facing looks nothing like the plans I had every right to make. Oh my god, how do I do this? What is this? I'm so exhausted. I'm so in shock. I'm so afraid. 

S/he's so lucky to be alive,and people have been through worse things; why isn't s/he happy? Because I am utterly heartbroken at the way the things I saw have changed my priorities from "outreach" to "preserve" against my will. Because the person I was before is dead. Because the world I knew before is gone. Because, when I'm still, I have no idea what to do with my hands. There's no way back, only forward, and I only know who I was, not who I am now. 

When your life undergoes a change, your perspective is no longer what it was before the change occurred. An interpretation of this idea is often referred to, in Christian-speak, as the age of accountability or the age of awareness - when a child becomes aware of the world on an adult level and, therefore, sheds his/her childhood and moves into adulthood (I'm omitting any discussion of sin or right/wrongdoing, for the purposes of this particular train of thought). Once you're aware of something - once your life has, for whatever reason, been changed - you can never go back to being a person who didn't know what it was like to move through that change.

And sometimes - not always, but sometimes - as you try to move forward within a new reality, the ties of your previous experience do not gel whatsoever with the new life in front of you. The shock numbs you; the rage sears your skin; these ties to your previous experience stand upright in front of you and demand that you acknowledge their absence before you proceed without them.

Whether the change you're facing "should" be a joyful one, or whether it's a somber or tragic affair:

Everything will not be perfect.

But everything will be fine.

Hearts will hold.

It's true, whether we believe it or not.

ideal and lesser: a manifesto.

I'm told that I can be terrifying. 

Most of the time, this amuses me and also makes me a little proud, and a little self-conscious, in equal parts. I like knowing that people see me as assertive, and I've found that some people just naturally consider an assertive nature "terrifying" (oh, well). I like exercising my leadership skills, which include listening to and supporting people. I strive for mild, unless the situation calls for fierce. Generally, I balance it all well. Except for when I don't. 

__________

There's something about people doing terrible things to you which prompts a reevaluation of your relationship with yourself. When someone treats you badly, you become aware that, aside from the pain and resulting anger resulting from mistreatment, there is a real sense of injustice involved. Some of it is tied up in the inevitable why would this happen to me? kinds of questions, but in a way, your sense of injustice at mistreatment is a pretty accurate barometer with regard to your self-relationship: your sense of injustice at having been mistreated is directly linked to your sense of personal worth. 

Sometimes, you may find that your sense of offense is linked to an inflated view of your own worth. 

Sometimes, you may find that you've been figuratively beating the hell out of yourself, but didn't realize how wrong it was until someone started figuratively doing it for you. 

Figuratively. 

So as I continue to process the (figurative) puke-inducing horror-fest that was 2012, I had an epiphany. Not a big whoooa kind of epiphany - more the kind where I'm left thinking why in the world did it take me so long to give myself this permission? 

I, as a woman, have denied myself a fully-developed sense of worth. I have allowed myself to shoulder the burden of other peoples' expectations, limitations, narrow perceptions. Guilt has been my bedfellow. Shame sings songs at me. My eyes are too small. My hands are not pretty. I'm too fat. My hair is impossible. There's that one tooth. That would look terrible on me. And that, and that, and that. I have to be perfect at what I do, or I'm otherwise worthless. Tell as little as possible about yourself, because once the questions start, how could you ever explain? I can't be cutesy. I hate myself. I'm too complicated, and not in a humble-brag kind of way. Who would ever want me. I don't fit with these people, or these people, or these people. 

Do you hear all that crap? How does that crap get into someone's head? I wasn't born with it, that's for sure.

And I - as a woman who was sexually abused in childhood, who was sexually assaulted as an adult, who was programmed with all kinds of ideas about her body as a child, and is now subject to seemingly nonstop onslaughts against her physique as an adult, from religious institutions which claim I should fill a lesser role than that of a man, to secular media and advertising which profits from cultivating dissatisfaction and perceived shortcomings, to a dating culture which is just filthy with shallow self-centeredness - I am issuing a manifesto. Right now. Listen up. 

I am tired of allowing myself to shoulder blame for the fact that I'm not seen as anywhere near "ideal." 

I am not a fat chick; I am not aw, she's so pretty, if only; if I weighed one hundred and five pounds, I would not be dang, she's hot, holla holla holla, I can ha yo numba. 

I am incredible. I am the best friend you've ever had, whether we're friends or not. I am smart as hell - quick, and witty, and I can read you like a book within the first five minutes of our meeting. Whatever happens, I want what's best for you. My brain is fantastic, and sometimes really dumb-nerdy, but always fascinating, and I am downright sexy for it. 

I am far from perfect, as I also have a horrible temper (lately), and am impatient, and I'm prone to abandoning everything on a whim to take on ridiculous projects, and I'm a perfectionist, and I hate to be interrupted, and my room is always a mess, and, lately, I procrastinate like I'll finish this sentence tomorrow. 

But. 

I am fantastic, and gorgeous, and quality. I am made up of all the qualities that last. 

I am a vital agent in this world, a force behind which good, strong, lasting things come about - not a blight, a trophy, or a potential trophy.

I don't fit in a crappy culture. 

Any man on earth would be lucky to have me, were it a goal. 

And I don't apologize for knowing it.

And I'm tired of downplaying it. 

And if that's "terrifying," then live in fear. 

Because all the stupid rules that apply to situations with these kinds of expectations? I reject them outright. 

You are not allowed to define my worth. 

Yes, you. Right there, sitting in your chair. You. 

I don't care whether I know you or not, whether I love you, or respect you, or have ever met you, or will ever meet you. I don't care if you're a teacher, friend, peer, acquaintance. 

You are not allowed conflate my value as a person with what you make of my sexual appeal.  

You are not allowed to evaluate my worth via my sexual behavior. 

You are not allowed to think less of me as a person because I do not meet your standards of what is acceptable. And if you choose to do so, you may expect me to willfully not play long. 

You are not allowed to impose standards of "acceptable" on me which are related only to what you can see with your eyes. You may hold those standards if you must, but when your disgust crosses my threshold, you and I are gonna scrap. Count on it. Because how dare you reduce all the incredible that I am to that. Who do you think you are? 

You are not allowed to dictate my perceived potential via my gender. And I have a reached a point where I am absolutely finished with quiet politeness over the issue; I am no longer willing to assume that a person who perpetuates inequality has good intentions. I don't care what your intentions are.  

You are not allowed to expect any of your attitudes to affect my happiness or worth. 

From today forward, I will continue striving to be a better person, every day, but I will never again penalize myself for my not meeting shallow expectations set up by - by who? Who even says that I have to adopt an air of apology or inferiority (or else risk being known as A Bitch) for not meeting some arbitrary standard with no origin? Who sets up these kinds of rules? Who demands that I know my place? 

I know these things as truth, more now than ever before. 

And if I tell you that I know these things, maybe you can know them for yourself, too. 

And my nieces, in seeing me walk replete in the knowledge of my worth, can see my permission to know it for themselves. 

I would love it if they could see you know it, too, reader. Man or woman. Whoever you are. 

Because, you see, this is more than just a Lisa Is Pissy On Her Own Behalf kind of thing. I am helping to raise three tiny forces of nature who take no crap because they're unaware of the crap that's out there, and are unaware that they are, culturally, expected to take it. They are charmed little watercolor crystalline sparklers, and they are growing up in a world full of industries that profit from their personal unhappiness, a world full of little boys growing into men who learn to be charming, so that they can use their insight to prey on women for cheap thrills, instead of vulnerable in ways which create true intimacy - a world which narrows the definition of "beauty" to tits, ass, cheap fame, and vapidity. 

You should know that if you are reading this as a person or industry who is party to any of these sins committed against humanity, men and, in particular, women - it is a personal thing, for me. Not just because I am a woman, but because when I gather my girls close, and we chitchat about days, or play science games, or read stories, or laugh at toe humor, and I know that they will lead lives far away from my arms, for years to come, these incredible little world-changers - your sins are personal. You commit them against my girls, and all girls, and boys, as well; you stack the deck against babies who have never considered concepts of "lesser" based on criteria that does. not. matter. 



If you play by these rules, you unleash a lion. Today, and every day. 

Live in fear.