Poem for Wednesday

It’s not this bad for me, but this poem spoke to me tonight

Jean Rhys
BY ELLEN KENNEDY
I’m preparing myself for an extended period of loneliness
That will begin very soon I think
I’ve illegally downloaded two new depressing songs
I’ve placed a copy of Good Morning, Midnight under my pillow for easy reference
I’ve printed out the tablature for every Morrissey song I know so I can sing them to myself
Alone in my room
Just a few things are needed really
To make me calm
While I figure out a simple, clean, and effective way to kill myself,
With minimal stress for the person who has to find and dispose of my body
But I’ll probably never think of a way
Because I’ll probably never kill myself
I’ll just lie in my bed suffocating myself with my pillows
While listening to the four songs you said were your favorite
And maybe burn myself a little with the iron
On special occasions
And the next time I’m in a subway station,
I’ll stand a little further on the yellow line
Or maybe the next I’m at your apartment
I’ll try a little harder

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238674

Shoes are a good distraction

Today I am thankful that I wore an 11-year-old dress today and got more compliments at work than I’ve ever gotten before.  The dress is very Mad Men – a sleeveless gold and brown tweed sheath, below the knee, with a funnel neck.  It was part of the Great Shop of 2000, when Daniel bought me so many beautiful clothes before our wedding.  He wasn’t intending to buy me a trousseau, it just happened that way.  I last wore that dress four years ago, maybe five.  (I’ll post a picture eventually — I’m too tired now.  UPDATE: Found a picture, with a matching coat I didn’t know existed, on ebay.  The dress looks tired in the picture — mine’s tidier.)  I thought it was hard to wear, because I couldn’t reconcile the heavy wool fabric with the lack of sleeves — I thought I would be constantly cold or hot.  But today, I was fine.  The dress gave me some backbone.  Daniel thought I looked beautiful.

So let’s stay in the comforting realm of appearances, shall we?  I had determined to buy myself a new pair of boots when the project I’m working on came to an end.  It may never end, and it will not likely end well.  But I’m going to ignore that for now, and ignore the fact that I can’t afford either pair of these boots.  Which ones do you recommend I get?

Option A:

Classic, a chic brand, can easily wear forever.  I’m a little concerned about the yellowness of the shade (I’d prefer a darker brown), and the squatness of the heel (I like more sculptural, less chunky heels).  I wouldn’t go wrong with these, but would they make my heart sing?  (See more views here).

Option B:

These are truly insane, no? The gray part is wool.  I am not sure that wool winter boots are a good idea.  The heel is too high for all-day wearing, they look awkward, even ridiculous, on the model on the website (too fuzzy, too wooly), I am not sure I have anything to go with these boots, and yet… I am head over 4-inch-red-suede heels in love.  If these go on sale, I’ll be sorely tempted.  More views, although a different color scheme, here.  They also come in an attractive black-on-black.

I think the photography works to Option A’s disadvantage (it’s much more elegant from other angles) and to Option B’s blinding advantage (see again the shot on the model on the website –goofy looking, also goofy from the top view).

Opinions welcome!  It’s like shopping with friends!

Blue normal

Today I should be thankful that life returned to normal after the holidays.   I have not worked a full week since the end of September.  I’ve been working very hard, but sporadically.  I appreciated the holidays more this year just for the interruption (because I’ve been working so hard), but it’s always nice to return to the rhythms of normal life.

Except today it wasn’t.  I am feeling vulnerable, sad, valueless.  I am feeling like a non-success — not even as flamboyant as a failure, just a steady, perduring, non-success (did you know wordpress’s spellcheck recognizes “perduring” but not wordpress?).  Daniel and I have had a long, difficult spell.  Prior to this, we’ve had episodes, even fast-cycling episodes, of explosion and reunion, but this time there’s been neither explosion nor reunion.  Just a long gray period.  Unlike other periods, this one seems dangerous because I can feel how easy it would be to stay in it, or rather, how hard it seems to find the energy and will to fix it.  This is how “we just grew apart” starts.  I am looking it in the face.  Daniel likes the dog more than he likes me right now.  So, a flurry of date nights ahead: Saturday, Tuesday, Sunday — babysitter booked, plans made.  Efforts to be exceedingly cheerful and peaceful (not a natural combination, but, like chocolate and sea salt, really super if you can do it) upon arriving home launched, with only a small wobble.  The pretty dresses pulled out of the closet, yoga pants eschewed (although my ass looks great in yoga pants).   Will it be enough?  And can I steadily ignore the itch of “it’s not fair I have to do this while Daniel stays mired in a bad mood and is unkind more often than kind”?

I really don’t want to blog about this, but not wanting to blog is a sign I need to blog.  I don’t want you to dislike Daniel because his unkind:kind ratio is really bad at the moment.  I have raised it with him, most recently yesterday.  And he was very sweet for an hour or so.  November 17, I propose we go back to marriage counseling.  I have been wanting to to this for weeks and weeks, but there has always been something else to get through: work deadlines, holidays, a series of important deadlines and out of town conferences for Daniel.  November 17, we are both finished.  Maybe I’ll wait till November 20 — my mother will be staying with us through Nov. 19, and Daniel and I will argue about marriage counseling, and I’d rather not have my mother here while that happens.   But, Nov. 20th or bust.

Work, which I usually love, is deeply unsatisfying at the moment.  The project I am mired in remains off the rails and I feel incompetent because of it, even though no one is suggesting it’s my fault. And the project I had been looking forward to after the current one will be fraught and unpleasant, I learned today.  That makes me sad.  I thought I had a chance to do something great, but this will not likely be that chance.  I will find another one, but this looked like very pretty one, and I’m sorry to see it slip away.

Last week, I was floating on the beauty of the world and the wonder of every day, so I know it’s possible.  And even today I noticed the changing leaves and the beautiful morning mist and the pink and silver sky.  I only have to open my eyes to see those things.  They are there for me.  This is a period of difficulty, but only a period.  The feeling is temporary, the breath is permanent.

Yesterday was a very good day

Oh, I really should have written yesterday.  I intended to, but frittered away the time instead.  Yesterday I was feeling great in unexpected ways.  I’ll see if I can recapture it, or write my way back into it.

Since Rosh Hashanah, I’ve been trying to be more directed (for lack of a better word) in my feelings.  So, in situations that normally would lead to a fight with Daniel, I am choosing to focus my attentions elsewhere.  Daniel and I have been fighting without any good resolution, just swapping recriminations and picky complaints, and it feels rotten.  Not fighting feels so much better, and it’s a revelation to me that I can choose, in some circumstances, not fighting.  I worry, sometimes, that I am doing myself a disservice by not pursuing a resolution to our fights or not pressing the case for perfect justice in the marriage.  But the choice I’m making is not between withdrawal and a great outcome.  It’s between withdrawal (and calm) and repetitive, draining, fruitless fights.

I’ve also been more calm about work.  The project I’ve been working on (and blogging around) for months and months hit a tremendous pothole last week.  I’ve never worked harder (the bar exam was less taxing), and it could end up as a complete disaster.   But I’ve decided that all I can do is learn from this potential debacle — failure is a really efficient teacher.  This is a huge change for me.  Once again, being angry and frustrated and self-recriminating doesn’t feel good.  Being curious, and analytical, and calm, and focused on doing things differently and extracting all the many lessons from this situation does feel good.  (Or at least, all this feels good until I talk to my boss about this project tomorrow — he’s been out of town for several days while this project has hurtled towards the abyss.)

And this is the funniest thing — or at least it was yesterday — I am really enjoying not shopping.  I am really enjoying not racing after the Talbot’s sale (60% off this past weekend) or the Lands End Canvas sale (hit or miss, but some cute dresses), or hurrying to spend my JCrew gift card.  Having new clothes feels like an interruption.  I don’t want more to manage. I don’t want something to interfere with this burst of creativity I’m having in my closet.  I may be dressing better this fall than I have in a long time.

Now, all that said, I did buy a new skirt (similar to this — the print is somewhat simpler, and it’s cotton, not silk) today in a consignment shop, or rather, I traded some credit on account for a new skirt.  I dropped off some items to consign myself, and couldn’t resist trying on some pretty things.  It’s a Zara skirt, and I’m curious about the brand.  I love the way the clothes look, but worry about the quality.  This seemed a good way to try them out.  And I did buy a new dress last week while on a business trip — packable, washable, lovely, professional, happy-making, in a color I don’t have and rarely see.  How could I not?  Still, I’ve relaxed my pursuit of the perfect pieces.  I had wanted to be a shopping scientist — analytic, crisp and correct.  Now I don’t.  I like having the extra space in my head that was once (and will be again) focused on shopping.  I also like spending money on other forms of enjoyment.

My closet is one manifestation of my feeling of enjoying what I have, rather than being avid in the pursuit of what I don’t have.  Yesterday, I was rapt with delight at the change of seasons, the evening light, the morning walk with Milo and our new dog.  I wasn’t dragged down by weeks of insufficient sleep, or the fact that those morning walks have made my morning yoga practice impossible and I haven’t found another time to practice.   It was surprising, delightful, and completely unexpected.  My efforts to choose happiness and turn my back on distress usually don’t work so well.

Um… and now there’s today, and the tiredness is catching up with me, and Daniel is cranky, and Milo has strep and I have to miss another day of work this week on top of two days for the holidays, while my project crumbles around my ears.  So today was less good.  I knew the goodness would abate, and that knowledge perhaps makes me readier to grasp it again.

(A small and very gratifying thing just happened.  My computer froze up, and I had to force my browser to shut down.  I thought I’d lost this post entirely.  But wordpress has a sufficiently punctual autosave feature that I haven’t lost anything.  That’s enough of a turning point for me!)

If you see something, say something

Never feel that a comment is unimportant.  New commenter normalwasnotmygoal noted that in this post I had a surfeit of “shoulds.”   Her comment led to a wonderful realization about openness, grace, and acceptance that made Yom Kippur especially rich and meaningful for me this year.  Thank you very much for seeing and saying.  That’s what this space is for.

Notwithstanding my Yom Kippur insights, it’s been a very rough few days.  I hope Sukkot, which starts tomorrow night, brings some peace.

I wrote this note to myself in a Moleskine notebook I threw in my bag before a business trip yesterday.  (The word that’s cut off is “breath.”)  The glare from my gel ink (sparkly purple! wheeee!) may obscure the rest as well.  But I’m posting this anyway, as a reminder to myself that I have cleverness, and creativity, and imagination, and resources, and hope.

Yom Kippur 5772

I don’t usually read Tablet, but I did today.  I was intrigued by this piece.  I was deeply moved by this one.  I never dare to think like that.  Maybe I’ll decide to repeal my habit of submission by starting at the very top.  I only wish he’d taken out the silly pop cultural references.

I look forward to this holiday being over.

Poem for Wednesday

Today I am thankful that I had a really enjoyable day at work.  I forget how much I am affected by stress.  It robs me of joy.  As I think about my next career move, I have to remember this.

My favorite holiday, Sukkot, is next week.  Sukkot is a blast.  We spend the holiday at home, not in Bay City.  We are surrounded by our friends, in our synagogue, in our own crazy, over-the-top sukkah, which looks like the set of a Bollywood movie.   People think that Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas.  But Sukkot is really a closer equivalent.   (Hanukkah is actually a very minor holiday).  The sukkah is like a Christmas tree you can eat in.   We rarely invite people to Shabbat dinner, but we are grand hosts for Sukkot.  We serve six big meals (lunch and dinner for the two days of the holiday and the Sabbath), and every year I make the same two soups to serve our guests.  They aren’t fancy — the lentil soup from the Moosewood cookbook and a tomato soup I found in Parade magazine (my secret vice: Parade magazine).  I make them in advance, usually, and tonight is the night I make the soups.  This is a welcome change — I am focusing on something other than work in the evenings.  I am creating, I am nourishing, I am hanging out in my kitchen, and I am delighted.  I feel like myself.  Or like my best self.

Potato Soup

BY DANIEL NYIKOS

I set up my computer and webcam in the kitchen

so I can ask my mother’s and aunt’s advice

as I cook soup for the first time alone.

My mother is in Utah. My aunt is in Hungary.

I show the onions to my mother with the webcam.

“Cut them smaller,” she advises.

“You only need a taste.”

I chop potatoes as the onions fry in my pan.

When I say I have no paprika to add to the broth,

they argue whether it can be called potato soup.

My mother says it will be white potato soup,

my aunt says potato soup must be red.

When I add sliced peppers, I ask many times

if I should put the water in now,

but they both say to wait until I add the potatoes.

I add Polish sausage because I can’t find Hungarian,

and I cook it so long the potatoes fall apart.

“You’ve made stew,” my mother says

when I hold up the whole pot to the camera.

They laugh and say I must get married soon.

I turn off the computer and eat alone.

Poem copyright ©2010 by Daniel Nyikos.

A better, but deeply imperfect, beginning

Rosh Hashanah was much, much better than last year.  If it had been equally as bad, or worse, I would have had to consider leaving Judaism, at least during the High Holidays.  It was hard, but hard in a manageable way.  Hard because it’s hard to spend six hours (or more) over the course of two days examining your own life, wondering how to mend what’s broken, wondering how particular things went wrong, and assiduously ignoring the fertility drenched aspects of the holiday.

Daniel and I were quarreling, but we couldn’t quarrel outright because we didn’t have enough privacy for that, so we were tense and staticky for most of the weekend. The holiday was Thursday and Friday, and then there was Shabbat, so it amounted to three days of unplugged house arrest.  It’s nice in theory, but not in practice when it’s someone else’s house.  I missed my friends, my food (my sister in law is a stranger to soy milk and almond butter), the smells of my own kitchen.  I fretted about work and the broad direction of my career (am I stalling out?  Do I need to do something different? Am I headed for a dead end in 5 or 10 or 15 years?  If my boss — who adores me– were to be kidnapped by space aliens tomorrow, would I have a job?  Do I have the skills to remain employed until I’m 70?  Can I remain employed, yet have enough flexibility to take care of Daniel when he’s old and dependent?  Or retired and footloose?).

On the way home from Bay City, I afflicted myself with a terrible case of comparison poisoning.  This happens to me when I’ve been at my sister-in-law’s house.  I compare myself to her incessantly, and always in ways that harm me.  And then I get on a roll and start comparing myself to anyone else I can think of, and always in ways that harm me.  I was making myself sick and unbearable.  I didn’t realize how bad it was until I woke up Monday morning feeling rigid, tense, and exhausted from all the bullshit in my head.

My sister-in-law, even when she is lovely, as she was this weekend, completely scrambles me.  When I tell the story of my life to myself and certainly to others, I lead with my weaknesses and vulnerabilities.  I tell people, “you should like me because I’m friendly and unthreatening, and kind of a goofy mess.”  I have the facts to tell a different story, in which I am a triumphant ass-kicker, brave, creative, and always landing on my feet — or recovering from a bad fall with a stunt-woman like roll and leap — but I can’t bring myself to tell that story.  Either I don’t believe it, or I’m afraid others won’t believe it, or I’m afraid they will believe it and won’t like me.   I learned early on that leading with my strengths would make people not like me, and when they didn’t like me, they’d hurt me.  (I am haunted by junior high — still!)

Shanna, my sister-in-law, leads with total invulnerability.  All her stories are of special treatment, incredible success, adoration, and how important she is to other people.  She looks 10 years younger than she is — this matters immensely to me now because I feel myself looking distinctly middle aged and I’m ashamed at how much that bothers me.  It shouldn’t be a bad thing to look middle-aged when I am middle-aged.  But I would prefer not.  She asks for the moon and she gets it.  No one tells her no.  (No one tells me no, either, because they don’t have to.  I assume their “no” and act accordingly.)  She has facts that complicate this story, even falsify it, but she ignores her bad facts like I ignore my good ones.  She was out of the workforce for 20 years and has re-entered with a great job, at which she is very very good, with a salary that is far higher than mine.   Her house is impeccably maintained — not a pile in sight.  Her clothes are expensive, flattering, new and perfect.

I am incapacitated with jealousy, and I don’t know what to do about it.  So I flip out.  I can’t bear to struggle with this emotion, or distance myself from her story. I was an only child for so long, and my brother and I are so different, that I have never addressed sibling rivalry.  Shanna has been in Daniel’s shadow for her whole life, and she knows all the work-arounds.

I would like to delete these previous paragraphs, but I need to face this.  I have written around the edges of this before, but I need to face it head on.  It’s remarkably unattractive, isn’t it?   I should learn from her.  I should find safe places to play with her attitudes and entitlements.  I should experiment with being huge and not caring.  I should experiment with voraciousness and taking up all the air in the room.  Um… yeah.  And how exactly would that happen?  Wouldn’t someone tell me I couldn’t?  Shanna never believes someone will tell her she can’t — or if she does believe it, she never lets on.  Okay, so maybe the more realistic option for me, at the moment, is to breathe through it, decline the comparison poison, and hold in my head the possibility of leading with my best facts, not my worst ones.

(I so badly want to delete this post.  This post is a wine-driven cliche.  A wine-dark sea of blah blah blah).

Shanna is a free spender, perhaps even a compulsive spender.  I wish spending money on myself wasn’t so gratifying (then I would be less jealous at her ease at spending lavishly on herself).  I reached another milestone in this work project that has been hanging over my head for most of a year.  I celebrated by spending $30 on goofy organic beauty products.  And it felt great.  It felt great to reward myself by spending money.  Then I loaded tons of shoes onto my Amazon wish list, and pledged to buy a pair when I finally complete this project, and that felt great, too.  I did also appreciate the gorgeous day outside, but it was really the prospect of a couple of new tinted lip balms that put a spring in my step.