My Daughter's Quote of the Week

"My teacher says that we shouldn't kiss the boys, but just blow them."..... (Kisses that is)

Humanness

Rant for the Day: I don't know about you, but I am so very tired of hearing about politicians' sex lives! Why anyone would ever want to run for office is beyond me. Having all of your human flaws picked apart publicly has to be a worse form of self-inflicted torture than even hanging yourself by flesh penetrating hooks in trees (People do that, you know. CRAZY!). It is hard enough being a human and making mistakes the way humans do without having everyone in the world knowing about it and giving their opinions. In fact, it is our purpose in life to learn from our mistakes and therefore become better human beings. Why is anyone shocked to find out that politicians make mistakes too? Heaven forbid!

The Nature of Addiction

My mother quit smoking twenty years ago. Last month she quit Nicorette Gum. She always told me that nicotine was more addictive than heroin. She also told me that if I ever used heroin it would end up killing me. These cautionary words discouraged me from ever trying heroin, but parent modeling is stronger than words of wisdom; so for a period of my life I did smoke.

I fancied myself a social smoker; I smoked when I was out drinking with friends. I also smoked when I felt down or depressed, which made me feel even worse, both physically and emotionally. It allowed me to wallow deeply in a smoky cavern of self-loathing.

Call it denial, but I never considered myself a real smoker. I could get away with it, because whenever I felt myself getting sucked into the addiction, I quit. It usually took a few days with a migraine headache, but I was able to quit repeatedly without too much torture.

I would know it was time to quit when one of two things happened. One was when I started to have asthma attacks. I know you probably think it is crazy that a person with asthma would smoke in the first place, but the allure of that modeled bad/cool girl behavior was too tempting. I think that kids’ brains get subconsciously hardwired to do stupid behaviors like smoking when they are teen-agers if they have grown up around it. Of course peer pressure is huge, but I think parent modeling is even stronger.

The other way I knew it was time to quit was when I noticed my every thought being taken over by plans for having my next cigarette. I realized that I was expending an exorbitant amount of mental energy thinking about smoking. When was I going to have my next cigarette? Where was I going to smoke it? Will other people be able to smell it on me if I do it? Should I change my clothes or brush my teeth? Do I need to buy some more? Should I have just one or two? How about just one more? Etc, etc, etc ad nauseum, literally!

I realize now that this is the thing with addiction and I don’t care what the addiction is to; it could be to heroin, to food, to nicotine or even as the song says, to love. The thing with addiction is that it takes over your mental life. Ultimately, I found that fact more disturbing than the physical manifestations of addiction. I just thought that there were so many better ways I could spend my thoughts. Even if I didn’t actually smoke that often, I didn’t want to use up anymore mental space thinking about it.

So when my mom was agonizing over chewing her last piece of Nicorette Gum, I shared with her my thoughts on addiction and the mental space it takes over. She found this perspective illuminating and helpful and she suggested I blog about it. So here it is. I just hope that the cycle of addiction in my family is now broken, for my daughter’s sake.

That's It!

Okay, that's it! After viewing those poor sick cows being brutalized on their way to the slaughter house on the Today Show, I am giving up red meat! I can longer bury my head in the sand, because of my love of steak or salted pork product. I can not consider myself a vegetarian yet, because I do not think I am ready to give up chicken or fish, but for now I will not let beef, pork, or sheep pass my lips. I have always known it was the right thing to do, but we do not always eat with rationality. If that was the case I would never finish a pint of Haagen-Dazs in one sitting. So for the sake of the environment, for the sake of the prevention of animal cruelty, and for the sake of my health; I am pledging to not eat red meat for the time being, until further notice. Care to join me for some ice-cream?

Resolve

So, I was reading Allure magazine while getting my hair done yesterday and I came across this article written by the hairdresser who gave Jennifer Aniston her famous look. Turns out he has struggled with drug addiction for the past decade or two. He decided to write about his experience in hopes that it might help someone else, as well as him, to stay on the straight and narrow. He talked about his esteem issues and how having positive feedback about the work he was doing helped him to be in denial about how his addiction was affecting his life. This led me to start thinking about my own insecurities and need for positive feedback.

I was wishing that I could just do anything in my life without looking for any kind of reassurance or acknowledgement from others and I thought what a great challenge that would be. This could be a new year’s resolution or what I would give up for lent, if I was Catholic. I thought how great it would be to announce this plan in my blog, which would kind of force me to do it. That is, not seek out positive feedback on anything for a period of time. Let’s say 7 weeks, since that is the amount of time it is suppose to take to make anything become a habit.

Now, I have to admit that I have already broken my resolution as of last night. I went about 4 hours before succumbing to the need to get feedback. It was a struggle. I am taking a painting class and last week I completed my first watercolor painting. My mom had come over last night for dinner and I wanted to show it to her. I realized that in showing it to her, I was hoping she would say that she liked it. I was completely conscious that I was breaking my brand new pledge to myself and yet I succumbed. This is going to be hard!

I am declaring that my pledge was not official since I hadn’t posted this blog yet. So, I am starting fresh today with new resolve. My hope is that I will learn to find inner satisfaction in the things that I choose to do and that I will find that to be enough to satisfy my ego. Ultimately, I envision building true self-esteem and soothing my soul. I will let you know how it goes.

Faith

I lost faith in 2007. Ironically I probably attended church more this year than in any year of my life. When we moved to Savannah in 2006 one of the first questions people asked us was, "So where do y'all go to church?" Worrying that they might invite us to theirs we figured we better hurry up and find ourselves a church.

This was no easy task for my husband whose father was Jewish and whose mother was born a Baptist, and converted back and forth between Episcopalian and Unitarian more than a few times, nor for myself whose father was born a Catholic, but proclaimed to be an atheist during my formative years and whose mother was born an Episcopalian, but practices Buddhism. So, we started our search for a church, more for the purpose of wanting some form of religious education for our daughter, which we both found lacking in our upbringings, and less for the purpose of having an answer to the question, "So where do y'all go to church?"

Despite my lack of religious education I always have considered myself a spiritual person. Ultimately, I believe in a higher power (I don't care what his/her/it's name is), I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe in Karma. I don't believe in exclusionary dogma, which I find many religions to practice. So, I was particularly alarmed when my daughter came home from school the other day and asked, "When God comes to Earth, does everyone die?"

I have to say that this question has led me to feel a great sense of panic. I wondered whom the source of this information was and I knew that if it was an adult, there would be Hell to pay! I had visions of marching to down to the school, righteously indignant, because one thing I had learned, was the separation between church and State! Turns out the source was a classmate. Welcome to the South!

Now, I knew that in moving here I was going to risk my daughter having exposure to many ideas different from my own. And I knew that my best line of defense would be to raise her with a strong moral compass and sense of compassion. In knowing this, I think she should be alright, whatever religion she chooses or doesn't choose to subscribe to. So I won't bother telling all of the details of the conversation that followed, but I will say that I tried to get her to understand that I didn't believe that a loving God would leave people behind who believed in God by another name. While covering her ears and looking out the window she asked, "Can we stop talking about this now?"

This experience made last night's lecture by SCAD's visiting painter/professor Steve Locke particularly poignant. He is currently working on a body of work called "Rapture". Part of this work includes paintings of gay men engaging in sex acts where one of the partners is no longer there because he has been chosen to go with God and the other partner is left with a puddle of clothes knowing that he did not make it to the Kingdom of Heaven. He also juxtaposes these images onto anti-homosexual religious propaganda. It is very powerful work and speaks to part of my struggle with religion. Check out his website at: www.stevelocke.com. He has several socially relevant powerful projects that have inspired me greatly. I feel very fortunate to have met him and learned about his work.

I know that in telling this story I haven't explained why I lost faith this year. I don't want anyone to worry though. I don't think I have completely lost faith, but maybe I have just misplaced it temporarily. I promise to explore the topic more in another posting.

Self Acceptance

If I have felt naked when showing my artwork, then sharing my writing feels like being naked on my most bloated, broken out, inflamed psoriasis, bad hair day. When I show people my photos I am saying, "I think this looks cool, how bout you?" And the worse someone could say is "I think it looks stupid or ugly, or I don't like it." When I share my writing I am sharing my thoughts and feelings. If someone doesn't like what I write it isn't just a matter of aesthetics, it is a rejection of me.

So why do it? Why put my writing into cyberspace to be judged by an audience? Why not just continue to keep a journal? Yes, blogging is a creative outlet, but is it also narcissism or egomania? Or is it just human nature to want to communicate with other human beings by any mode possible?

Until I started this blog I had forgotten that as a kid I wanted to be a writer. That dream was squashed when I failed the college placement essay test. My ego was too fragile at the tender age of 17. Hundreds of ego deaths later, at the vulnerable age of 41, I am willing to risk again. I am using this creative outlet to express myself to anyone who cares to be bothered. I hope that you like it, but what is most important is that I like it. I wouldn't put it out there if I didn't. What a great gift to myself. I value my thoughts and feelings enough to put them out there! That is something special. Like it or not.