It is exactly 11:37. On my clock, which is relative. I should meditate. Run tomorrow. Maybe that is what I will do. Or should I journal, look for jobs. Another one bites the dust. I lost my massage job today. So Tino, Elias and I went to the park. I made him go to the park with me, he almost bailed on me. I can't lose my job and come home and clean the house. Sit in the house. This is something I needed. Maybe. It is necessary to tell oneself such things in these kinds of times. But it certainly is making forward moving moves more difficult. Of course, I have felt that I have been peddling hard and fast, and getting nowhere. This is proof of that. So, whereas I initially felt that I had a lot of shit to work out, that this was journal time... I don't feel so much that way at this moment. Occasionally I will remember and feel sick to my stomach. But that has been going on for awhile. I have been wrestling with being a crooked person, aware of a dark, dark cloud that seems to have attached itself to me. It is coming between me and the world and makes me see things darker than they are, and to appear to others as darker as I am.
These cloud things can and do exist.
Tino told me today that he met one of our friends on the street. She asked if he had been able to land a job yet and he said no. She got a tear in her eye, and he laughed when he told me the story, "I just couldn't tell her about you too!"
It does have its humorous part too.
Well, I have been crooked, I have doubted myself, questioned myself, been creepy, and fiercely negative. I may have been able to make choices that would have made life easier, but it certainly is about what I do with these choices, and I haven't been proving myself worthy of the blessings so far. This must change. Something is shifting, somewhere between acceptance and perseverance, I am finally learning to be a strong woman.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
baseline
Think, indicate, then move.
Just follow those simple directions, and we will not have the couple's drama in the car every time we go home.
I found tonight that I was not able to simply close my eyes, release, and have faith that my husband would get me home safely. I had to annoy him with my directions, suggestions, and exclamations. How could I have come from such a lovely day, gotten in the car and turned into a monster? Of course, it was all resolved just fine, but on the 57 freeway, I was working very hard to try to find the peace within.
Instead, I found another picture entirely.
Just follow those simple directions, and we will not have the couple's drama in the car every time we go home.
I found tonight that I was not able to simply close my eyes, release, and have faith that my husband would get me home safely. I had to annoy him with my directions, suggestions, and exclamations. How could I have come from such a lovely day, gotten in the car and turned into a monster? Of course, it was all resolved just fine, but on the 57 freeway, I was working very hard to try to find the peace within.
Instead, I found another picture entirely.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Issues...
I never know where to begin. That is one of my issues.
I want to do it all, and say it all, but I find editing cumbersome.
Did someone say they were a little down in the last email? Possibly.
So, although our boy is the epitome of fun, and opened up the bedroom door today and walked all the way down the stairs by himself, at 13 months, smiling broadly the whole way, I will focus on the me this time around.
Uh, guess what? I have problems in my marriage. It isn't perfect. Ok, so now that the cat is out of the bag, the answer to the question, is that yes, it is partly cultural. It's cultural, and it's him, and it's me. There are some cultural stories I could tell, and I wish I had been telling more all along, but there were just so many! And sometimes, so many, it was just kind of embarrassing. Of course, I embarrass myself by saying such a haughty thing, but that is when I go back to saying, sometimes it's him, and sometimes it's me.
Usually, my husband's patience, quiet calm, unwavering goodness and dedication to family, and the fact that he responds to my outbursts with forgiveness and a back rub, or distance and a considerate chore, or quiet that ends in him sitting me down and telling me how it really is, using Swahili proverbs and simple truths. I see him as someone who has two filing drawers: on that will go directly out the window, never to be heard from again, never to be bothered by again, and the other, goes into feeding his soul. If it is not strengthening, he does not seem to use it. That is how I see him. Obviously, an oversimplification of my husband, but still, I do mean to emphasize the simple part of it.
Simple because that is what I longed for. When it came to relationships, I had begun to feel too judgemental, to doubtful, to insecure. I felt that love needed some basic ingredients, and after those were met, it was simply an issue of not letting the doubt come in. Doubt out the window.
So I fell for him, and decided, it was crazy, but we could make it happen.
Sure, that may be the case, but I have been absolutely riddled, RIDDLED I tell you with doubt and regret and longing for something else. Although I asked for precisely this. I asked for challenges.
There is so much material here that would do me well to explore, will I do it on the blog? Perhaps, what is nice is that it is safe, safely stored in the blogosphere where I can reach back in time and check in with my own progress, without having to organize my notes, or back up my files. I would like to think that most of the readership that I had created has fallen off to the wayside after my posts became sparse, and more or less boring.
Anyway,
how about a story?
A story at Tino's expense? Haha. Surely he will get over it....
So he got a car. That is the background. I was totally resistant, and the purchase of the car for a jobless man, married to an underemployed woman seemed totally fucking backwards, impractical and wasteful, and I was diametrically opposed, but he got it, and I said, ok.
One of the first nights he had it, he went out bowling with some neighbors. I ran off to my work to make some quick copies, and when I was driving back down my street, I saw a cop car had pulled someone over. The first thing I thought is, wow, maybe I will read about this in the local paper, I have never seen someone pulled over on this street before! As I pulled past, I noticed Elias's ball in the back seat of the car that had been pulled over. Tino! I stopped and wondered what to do. You can't just interrupt these things. But neither could I just drive on. That is when the second car, backup!, pulled up. I couldn't believe that they had called back up on him! Oh my god, are they taking away the car? are they taking away my husband? deportation? At this point, I got out of the car, and asked a police officer if I could approach, I was the wife, and thus I witnessed Tino performing a drunk test.
He wasn't drunk, though, no. He had been bowling with Evangelists, and had just come from ice cream. He couldn't have had a more wholesome night out, and here he was... DRUNK?! Well, as it turns out, he had been pulled over for, not having his lights on, getting lost and driving erratically, and not pulling over for the cop.
And he was sober.
Was it cultural? Oh, I admit I have had my run ins with bad driving, but the whole thing just felt so very kijiji, as I, once again, used Swahili for lambasting. But in reality, this time, I wasn't even that upset or embarrassed.
Well, that was a fun story, and of course, I promised I wouldn't tell anyone, so I told a friend of mine who lives far away, and I just posted it here, on the blog, for all who look to see. But like a tree falling in the forest, I think the secret is safe with us, right?
I want to do it all, and say it all, but I find editing cumbersome.
Did someone say they were a little down in the last email? Possibly.
So, although our boy is the epitome of fun, and opened up the bedroom door today and walked all the way down the stairs by himself, at 13 months, smiling broadly the whole way, I will focus on the me this time around.
Uh, guess what? I have problems in my marriage. It isn't perfect. Ok, so now that the cat is out of the bag, the answer to the question, is that yes, it is partly cultural. It's cultural, and it's him, and it's me. There are some cultural stories I could tell, and I wish I had been telling more all along, but there were just so many! And sometimes, so many, it was just kind of embarrassing. Of course, I embarrass myself by saying such a haughty thing, but that is when I go back to saying, sometimes it's him, and sometimes it's me.
Usually, my husband's patience, quiet calm, unwavering goodness and dedication to family, and the fact that he responds to my outbursts with forgiveness and a back rub, or distance and a considerate chore, or quiet that ends in him sitting me down and telling me how it really is, using Swahili proverbs and simple truths. I see him as someone who has two filing drawers: on that will go directly out the window, never to be heard from again, never to be bothered by again, and the other, goes into feeding his soul. If it is not strengthening, he does not seem to use it. That is how I see him. Obviously, an oversimplification of my husband, but still, I do mean to emphasize the simple part of it.
Simple because that is what I longed for. When it came to relationships, I had begun to feel too judgemental, to doubtful, to insecure. I felt that love needed some basic ingredients, and after those were met, it was simply an issue of not letting the doubt come in. Doubt out the window.
So I fell for him, and decided, it was crazy, but we could make it happen.
Sure, that may be the case, but I have been absolutely riddled, RIDDLED I tell you with doubt and regret and longing for something else. Although I asked for precisely this. I asked for challenges.
There is so much material here that would do me well to explore, will I do it on the blog? Perhaps, what is nice is that it is safe, safely stored in the blogosphere where I can reach back in time and check in with my own progress, without having to organize my notes, or back up my files. I would like to think that most of the readership that I had created has fallen off to the wayside after my posts became sparse, and more or less boring.
Anyway,
how about a story?
A story at Tino's expense? Haha. Surely he will get over it....
So he got a car. That is the background. I was totally resistant, and the purchase of the car for a jobless man, married to an underemployed woman seemed totally fucking backwards, impractical and wasteful, and I was diametrically opposed, but he got it, and I said, ok.
One of the first nights he had it, he went out bowling with some neighbors. I ran off to my work to make some quick copies, and when I was driving back down my street, I saw a cop car had pulled someone over. The first thing I thought is, wow, maybe I will read about this in the local paper, I have never seen someone pulled over on this street before! As I pulled past, I noticed Elias's ball in the back seat of the car that had been pulled over. Tino! I stopped and wondered what to do. You can't just interrupt these things. But neither could I just drive on. That is when the second car, backup!, pulled up. I couldn't believe that they had called back up on him! Oh my god, are they taking away the car? are they taking away my husband? deportation? At this point, I got out of the car, and asked a police officer if I could approach, I was the wife, and thus I witnessed Tino performing a drunk test.
He wasn't drunk, though, no. He had been bowling with Evangelists, and had just come from ice cream. He couldn't have had a more wholesome night out, and here he was... DRUNK?! Well, as it turns out, he had been pulled over for, not having his lights on, getting lost and driving erratically, and not pulling over for the cop.
And he was sober.
Was it cultural? Oh, I admit I have had my run ins with bad driving, but the whole thing just felt so very kijiji, as I, once again, used Swahili for lambasting. But in reality, this time, I wasn't even that upset or embarrassed.
Well, that was a fun story, and of course, I promised I wouldn't tell anyone, so I told a friend of mine who lives far away, and I just posted it here, on the blog, for all who look to see. But like a tree falling in the forest, I think the secret is safe with us, right?
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