by Jenny Rose | Apr 13, 2017 | Emotional Intelligence, Fear, Feelings
Last week I came down the steep stairs from my little attic aerie, sat in a chair in the living room and cried while I asked my partner if he thought I would ever have a less effortful experience of life.
It’s not that anything was really wrong. What I was feeling was an old, familiar feeling of trying to manage my life and myself as efficiently as possible and feeling worn out and unsuccessful.
Photo by Bradley Wentzel on Unsplash
Trying. Manage. Efficiently. What am I, a machine?
I was tired that evening, and worried about diminished workflow and subsequent diminished paycheck. I wasn’t seeing a way out of my work/income situation, which is a place I’ve been in for several years.
One of the things I did last week during a work shift devoid of work was join She Writes, an online community for, obviously, women writers. I’d been procrastinating about doing so for a long time.
For years, I’ve been trying to find a writing community, both locally and online. I’ve joined a professional local organization, but their programs are rarely offered up here in Central Maine, as Portland is their headquarters. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to find beta readers for my first book. I put up an invitation to start a writer’s group at the local library and didn’t get a single call. I tried a give and take partnership with another writer so we could read one another’s work and provide feedback, but my partner had other priorities and needed to drop out.
And, of course, I need to work for that paycheck, so my time and energy are largely gobbled up by my financial needs rather than the joyful work of my life. This produces a chronic background tension that grinds away at my soul.
Anyway, I decided the time had come and I was ready to join She Writes and see what possibilities might open up through that community. I had to apply to join.
I knew they wouldn’t take me.
They accepted me (probably some kind of mistake) and the day after I sat in the chair and cried, I had another shift with no work and began exploring She Writes. I came across a blog post titled “The Only Reason to do Anything is Love,” by Bella Mahaya Carter, and had an epiphany.
Engaging with life from a place of love rather than fear is not a new idea for me, or probably for anyone reading this. It’s the kind of thing we hear and read all the time. I would have said I do that. It’s always my intention to show up in the world with love, which is to say kindness, compassion and respect.
The wording of Carter’s post, however, indicates motivation, an internal thing, not external action. Make choices with love, not fear. Decide what to do based on love. Do nothing for fear.
Right, I thought. I treat others and myself well. Of course.
Why?
I treat others well because I think it’s effective and I’m afraid of violence, hatefulness, rejection and just plain crazy.
I treat myself well because I’m afraid to be unhealthy, unable to earn a living and/or unable to be independent.
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash
It’s all for fear. It’s not for love.
Furthermore, treating myself well doesn’t equal loving myself. I caretake my physical form like a good property manager takes care of a rental. I exercise, eat well, brush my teeth, wash my body and take care of injuries.
What I think about myself is that I disappointed my parents, drove my brother nuts (not literally!), failed two marriages and made unforgiveable mistakes as a parent. I think I’ve never made a successful career or had a good enough job. I think I’m ridiculously hard to live with. I think I eat too much, use too much hot water in the shower, like obnoxious music, try too hard and am too sensitive. I think I’m unattractive and few people want to hug or touch me. I think I’ve spent years writing a 300,000-word book that, for all I know, has less value in the world than a roll of cheap toilet paper. On sale.
Those are some of the things I’m conscious of. When I look at my fear-based choice making, it appears I also think if I don’t hold my own feet to the fire at all times I’ll become a lazy, irresponsible, selfish slacker; demanding, mean, dishonest and greedy.
Carter’s post made me realize I could hardly think of a choice, any choice, whether important or mundane, that I haven’t made based on some kind of fear. Ever. From earliest memory.
The greatest motivator in my life is and has always been fear.
Not only that, but I’ve created a whole pantheon of idols I obsessively and ceaselessly worship in order to avoid the vengeful, punitive God I’ve made out of fear. I make daily bloody and brutal sacrifices of time, energy and life to appease them, but insatiable fear just gets more and more powerful. Here are some of the idols:
I read that post on Friday. There and then I decided to start making choices based on loving and believing in myself rather than fear of consequences and see what happened.
Without leaving the chair, I asked myself what the hell I was doing messing around with a job that wasn’t meeting my needs and I was unhappy in.
On Saturday I applied and tested for a job as an independent contractor to do transcription for an online company.
On Sunday I applied and tested for a job as an independent contractor to do transcription for a second online company and was hired on the spot. I also wrote the publisher of She Writes Press and asked for help with the next step for my book manuscript.
On Monday, when I ran out of work, I began getting qualified (via testing) to do various kinds of transcription through my new job and looked up the resignation process from my current medical transcription job.
Yesterday the second online business hired me.
This morning She Writes Press wrote me back with support, suggestions, a recommended professional who might read the manuscript, and what it would cost.
The fear is not gone. In fact, it’s louder than ever because I’m challenging it on so many fronts at once. The difference is I’m not standing nose to nose with it right now. Playing with the new toy of making choices based on what’s loving for myself gives me another option, which means now I can make a real choice.
Fear is not a bad feeling. We need it to survive. It’s just that mine has grown bloated and swollen on all the power I’ve given it over the years. The bigger it gets, the more space it takes. At this point I’ve become its thing. It thinks it can do as it likes with me.
It’s wrong.
I’ve had a belly full of life based on doing things out of fear. It’s exhausting, demoralizing, joyless and hag-ridden. It doesn’t work well and I’m sick of it. When I think about it rationally, I know I don’t need to beat myself with a stick through every day for fear I’ll become lazy, selfish, etc., etc. If I was going to turn into any of those things I would have done it long ago.
How would it be if I used regard for myself as a motivator and refused to do or not do out of fear? What might a life based on doing things out of thinking well of myself look like? What if I stopped giving anything to fear?
The funny thing is life looks much the same. The difference is largely in the outwardly invisible motivation behind my choices. Am I going to relax with music or a video and stretch because that’s the right and responsible way to treat my tiresome physical needs after a long day sitting in which I earned inadequate money, or am I going to do it because I love the way it feels after a tiring day in which I worked hard, whether I earned money or not?
Life is crazy right now. Everything feels like it’s in transition. I hardly know what to concentrate on in any given moment, there’s so much on the table. Even so, now when I run out of energy in the afternoon I spend a few minutes writhing between making a choice between demanding more from myself out of fear or doing something pleasurable and relaxing. So far, every day I’ve managed to choose rest and relaxation after another wild day.
It appears I’ve begun a new practice. I didn’t know that evening I sat in the chair and cried I was standing on an important threshold. I didn’t know by the end of the week I’d have not one but two new jobs. I didn’t know I was going to finally get serious about putting my manuscript into a professional’s hands and risk failure and rejection. I didn’t know in just a couple of days I was going to begin making a habit out of rolling out of bed and stepping into the day’s embrace with curiosity and a resolve to think well of myself as I navigate, rather than wondering fearfully what would happen next and whether I would manage it adequately.
So far, so good.
Nothing more for fear.
Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash
All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Apr 6, 2017 | A Flourishing Woman, Creativity
Walking on our 26 acres, my path winds around open fields and keeps me out of heavy woods and brush, where ticks are waking. It’s grey and overcast, not raw but damp, a combination of snow and rain coming down and turning my already wild hair into a mad woman’s wig. The surface of the snow is glazed hard in most places, but when I get close to the tree line or streams that trickle down to the river, I punch through it and sink. Walking on the thick layer of leaves under and among the trees is like walking on a sopping sponge. My socks are sodden inside my winter boots.
I see thickets where the deer have slept, melting the snow with their warm bodies, lying out of the wind in the shelter of trunk and branch. I imagine them rising to their feet, squatting in their awkward way to leave pellets and a splash of urine, and then stepping away through the snow with those delicate hooves and legs. Their spoor is everywhere.
Photo by Teddy Kelley on Unsplash
The medical transcription business is wildly unpredictable. One seesaws between frantic pleas from supervisors for overtime because of a sudden flood of work and the dreaded “no jobs available” message upon logging in. As I’m paid by production, no work means no money. Since the new year, work has been slow in the company and transcriptionists and supervisors alike are feeling the stress.
I’ve been thinking about my fear of not enough these days, and how small it makes me and my experience of life. One of the reasons I like to go out and walk is because it pushes against my tendency to curl up in corners and play hours of solitaire while I make up stories about living under bridges and berate myself for NOT PULLING MY WEIGHT and WASTING TIME.
The river is still ice covered, the edges yellowish and slushy. I see animal prints in the snow over the ice, but I wouldn’t dare try to walk on it. As I lean against a tree and look down at the ice-bound river, I hear a nesting pair of barred owls calling to each other, though it’s still early afternoon.
Photo by Vincent Foret on Unsplash
The truth is my medical transcription job is nothing more than a means to an end. It’s all about the paycheck. I take some modest pride in my ability to do an accurate, fast job, but I’m just a pair of skilled hands and ears. One day, when the job and I are finished with one another, I’ll leave no remnants of myself, no track, no scent, no spoor. It irritates me that it has so much power in my life when it means so little.
Water drops tremble on bare twigs and tree branches. The pussy willows are beginning to bud. Cloudy light washes the willow buds and water drops the same silvery grey and I have to draw near to tell the difference.
We’ve lately found a local lawyer to help us update our wills and take care of end-of-life paperwork. It’s made me think about all the fragments I’ll leave behind me, the furniture I’ve loved and polished; the mirror I’ve looked in since I was a child; the books I’ve handled and read in cars, in bathtubs, at tables, in beds and chairs and waiting rooms. All these things will be sifted through, separated, sold, passed on. What money there is will be divided and wind up in other bank accounts or hidey holes or cast back into the flow somehow. Perhaps whispers of me will cling to a few objects, but for the most part no one will ever know I passed this way.
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We have an old shed on the land and snow slide off the roof has blocked the door and partially pushed it open. I’m just able to squeeze in over a thick layer of ice on the threshold, formed by melting snow dripping off the roof.
We cleaned out and swept the shed last fall, but I find pages of paper blown all over the floor, pages of the first draft of my book manuscript. Last summer we had visitors who used the shed, and I’d hoped they would read and give me some feedback. They didn’t, and I’d never found the manuscript when I looked for it after they left, but the winter currents and drafts discovered its hiding place. Perhaps the wind read it as it ruffled through the pages with chill fingers.
It’s odd to see those scattered pages on the cold, splintered floor. The sight of them gives me a desolate clarity. Those written words are the most important thing I have. Working or not working, large paycheck or vanishingly small paycheck, all the objects I love and use and call mine — none of that is really who I am. None of it really matters, though it takes up space in my life. None of it contains the smell of my breath, the taste of my pain or the spoor of my love the way my words do. It’s as though it’s me lying there, discarded, damp and wind strewn, unseen, unread, unwanted. It hurts me.
As I gather up pages, I note where the snow has drifted through gaps in corners. Wrinkled beech leaves lie on a discarded futon, whirled in through the broken window above it. I open a ramshackle cupboard and find a roll of shredded toilet paper and evidence of mice at work, making the most of an unexpected bonanza of nesting material.
I find a bottle cap and cigarette butts on a window sill. More leavings. I know who stood there, smoking, looking out the window. I stood where he’d stood and picked up the butts, knowing his lips were around them, his long-fingered hand had carried them from pack to mouth and then stubbed them out in the bottle cap, a tiny ashtray. I wish for the nose of a wild creature so I could search for the cold, lonely ghost of his scent.
He was here. I am here. Deer crisscross this land we call ours. Mice go about the business of ensuring more mice, and the barred owls carry on their early spring conversation about mating, nesting, eggs and all those mice. We are so caught up in jobs and money and things. We give them so much meaning. The days go by and we alternately struggle and dance through them. But one day we’ll be gone, and we’ll all leave spoor behind, a scent or sign or footprint uniquely and simply ours.
These words are my footprints, my scent, my lingering warmth in the places I came to rest, my spoor. They are signs of my passage and the truest things I have to leave behind when I’m gone.
All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Dec 8, 2016 | Power
I’m thinking about money today. This is not new. Sometimes I think most of my life has been consumed by thoughts about money. Well, not thoughts so much as panic, guilt, shame and worry.
Photo by Teddy Kelley on Unsplash
There’s a heavy snowstorm here in central Maine. I’ve just been standing looking out my attic window, watching it fall on the huge elderly maples, bare as old bones, and the grass and the street and our little black Hyundai car in the driveway.
We found out this morning the car needs about $1,300 worth of work. Almost exactly what it’s worth. Time to make choices.
We went out to walk, my partner and I. I didn’t cover my head, and when we got home my hair and eyelashes were clotted with wet snow. My son, who had gone out to run errands, was backing into the driveway as we came home. He’d been meditating in a ditch, not being able to get in touch with us, after sliding off the extremely slick road and into a guy wire securing a telephone pole. Some kind soul drove by and pulled him back onto the road. Fortunately, my son wasn’t dented, but the car was. This, needless to say, does not improve the resale value!
Photo by Caley Dimmock on Unsplash
I also took time this morning to buy Christmas gifts, so I’ve been absorbing all the jingle bells, merry merry and buy buy online. Quite a contrast, all the glitz and glitter, deals and special buys and impossibly joyous advertising, to the silent world outside the window, grey, smoke blue, brown, dark green and the ivory snow. Over the years, I’ve done less and less gift exchange for Christmas. There are only two people left with whom I do it, not because I don’t love giving gifts but because of financial stress and my resentment of the pressure to consume.
I’ve always had a dreadful relationship with money. My earliest understanding of what it was became inextricably tangled with anguish, fear, rage and power issues. As a child, I was always afraid there wouldn’t be enough. As an adult, I was locked in a belief that money defined me. To have money was to be successful, and to not have it was to be a failure. There was a well-known and well-defined path to follow: Graduate high school with top grades and scholarships, obtain a college education in something employable and lucrative, get a job with benefits, and never NEVER touch the principal. If you must borrow, pay off ASAP and stay out of credit debt. Save for retirement, own your own home and pay off the mortgage, take vacations and have a nice car.
However, during my lifetime the world has changed considerably. The middle class from which I came has all but vanished. I didn’t want to go to college, but did it because it was expected. I didn’t get a good scholarship and felt guilty every day I was there, and my guilt was made worse by the fact that the only subjects interesting me were religion, literature, history and the like. After two years, I dropped out. (Note: Dropouts are NOT successful. Ever.) I’ve been working ever since.
Then I got divorced (credit card debt), saved for retirement but cashed a couple of those accounts for emergencies, lost all my investment money to a crooked contractor, never took a vacation or even a plane ride out of my own pocket, and never in my life bought a new car. Retirement? You must be kidding. What are the chances there will even still be social security by the time I’m 65?
This is in no way a remarkable biography, I realize, but for me there’s a red stamp across every page of it that says FAILURE.
I’ve only in the last two years really understood how much power I gave money to define who I am and what I’m (you guessed it) worth. The idea of monetary value, like sexism, is embedded in our very language. There’s no escaping it. In my culture, the failure to make and spend money in ever increasing amounts is unpatriotic, unattractive, unsuccessful and sometimes illegal.
This is all wrong. I feel like the little boy who said out loud the emperor had no clothes. Everyone was appalled and shushed him, lest the emperor hear and be offended.
I know myself to be an intelligent, heartful, creative, empathetic, honest person. The numbers in my bank account have absolutely nothing to do with those qualities.
The most important things in my life are my healthy relationships. Again, the numbers in my bank account have no influence over my ability to love and be loved and connected. (Hint: A relationship dependent on money doesn’t fit my definition of healthy. Just sayin’.)
Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash
My ability to be present, entertain joy, laugh, create and learn has nothing to do with money.
My enormous talent for life has nothing to do with money.
Unfortunately, our broken system does require money for health care and the necessities of shelter, food and water. To be human is to need these basics. Not having money for them is the experience of increasing numbers of Americans and the vast majority of others in the world. I myself don’t have the money to buy health insurance. Does that mean we’re all failures?
Of course not.
Not only that, but we’re exhausting our global resources and when no amount of money will buy food and water we’ll all starve together, regardless of our bank balances.
So, yeah, we’re going to have to figure out what to do with the car. We’ll have to get a loan and work on finding a good used vehicle that can deal with our weather. It will mean a monthly car payment. No idea how we’ll do it, but I know we’ll find a way. Before that, we may have to do some work on the Hyundai in order to get top price for it.
But none of that is about me, or what I’m worth in the world, or what I can do or be. It’s all just static and distraction. It’s not failure or success, it’s just that cars age out and need to be replaced. If I could go out and buy a brand-new Subaru, it wouldn’t be failure or success, either. It would be CONVENIENT and LUCKY.
Here are a couple of Christmas presents from me to you. The first is a quote and the second is an old wisdom tale from the Hindu tradition, one version of which is in More Ready-To-Tell Tales from Around the World, edited by David Holt and Bill Mooney, and told by Jim May.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
–Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Ruby
A holy man awoke, as usual, in the hour before dawn, on his mattress of grass. A warm wind moved across the land, bringing the scent of dust, animals, early morning cooking fires and blossoms, fresh and sweet in the cool morning.
The holy man was beginning his morning prayers when an excited young peasant ran up to him. “Master, where is it?”
The holy man raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“I had a dream,” said the peasant, calming himself. “In my dream, I met a holy man at the edge of the village. And here you are! The holy man gave me a precious jewel.”
“Ah, yes,” said the holy man. He bent and pulled from beneath his mattress of grass a ruby the size of his fist. “You must mean this. I have no use for it.”
He handed it to the peasant, who had never held more than two copper coins in his hand. The peasant raised the ruby between himself and the rising sun and his awed face was washed in red shadow. He walked slowly home, his eyes fastened on the ruby. He entered his simple hut and sat down on the dirt floor with the ruby before him.
All day he gazed, enchanted, and dreamed of what the ruby could buy him. He forgot his morning prayers. He didn’t eat, bathe, or take care of his livestock. He didn’t scythe grass for hay. When night came, he didn’t say his evening prayers, make a meal or lie down and rest. He sat before the ruby, worshipping.
The next morning the peasant took the ruby in his hand and went out, searching the fields for the holy man. When he found him, he handed the ruby back to him.
“This is not the precious jewel I want. Teach me what you know that made it so easy for you to give it away.”
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Sep 1, 2016 | A Flourishing Woman, Body
Last weekend I took my own advice and surrendered to the now of my life. Two big, heavy wooden doors opened like wings and I came home to dance between them.
One of my dearest friends introduced me (kicking and screaming all the way) to dance more than ten years ago.
“No,” I said, “I can’t do that.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t know how.”
But she, in her infinite female wisdom, nagged and niggled and poked and prodded until at last I agreed to try it. Once. Just to get her to shut up about it!
So I tried it and found myself there, waiting. I rarely missed a dance for years afterward. Ours was a small group of dancers, ebbing and flowing over the years, but the core group remained remarkably the same. Sometimes there were only two of us. It didn’t matter. It was a safe place, a place to be with myself in candlelight, a place to be in my body without thought, shame or responsibility. Everything happened at dance. We raged, we sobbed, we hurt, we lay on the floor. We shouted and clapped, farted, belched, giggled, played, pounded on the walls and danced until we drooled. It’s one of the few places in my life where I’ve felt I belonged.
Leaving my dance group was the most painful loss when I left my old life and came to Maine. I knew I could never replace it, but I hoped to find another place, another group, another dance.
The farmhouse I live in is more than a hundred years old and that means the ceilings are low. I don’t need a lot of room to dance by myself, but I do need to be able to move freely. I did dance a couple of times the first winter and spring I was here, but I had to make myself small so I didn’t scrape the ceiling with my hands and my heart was filled with what I’d left behind. It was so painful I didn’t want to face it again.
In Colorado we danced in a yoga studio. It was a beautiful space — clean, high ceilinged, wood floored. Perfect. Our little town was safe after dark. The studio was easily accessible, heated, had a bathroom available, and for most of us it was less than a five-minute drive to get there.
Since I’ve come to Maine I’ve searched for a local group. I’ve talked to several women about dance. Some have been intrigued, but they’re busy, or they have partners, or we don’t live very close together, or there’s no place to get together and do it. You know.
Here, the nearest town is twenty minutes away in good weather. I’m sure there are places in town we might use, but I don’t know where. Or who. Or how. I’m intimidated and overwhelmed and it seems ridiculous to try to find a suitable gathering place when there’s no dance group to use it.
So I stopped trying. Too painful. After all, now I have a partner to hang out with in the evenings. I told myself I’d keep thinking about it, look for openings, and eventually, maybe, be able to start another group. Or even find one. One day. When we had more money. If we moved somewhere else. If we had a better car that could actually deal with driving on winter nights.
But this summer there’s a lot of movement and change, not all of it comfortable. I’m learning a lot. I’m feeling a lot. Writing is good, and so is swimming, but dance accesses something deeper. I’ve known for a few weeks now I need to find a way to get back into those depths for my sake and for the sake of my loved ones.
So I decided to quit playing games with myself and figure this out.
Naturally, an old farmhouse in Maine comes equipped with a barn. Ours is a total of 
four stories, a typical New England nineteenth-century barn. There’s a bat colony in the top of it and it’s an apartment house for rodents. It’s constructed of gorgeous beams and posts with high ceilings and huge blocks of stone in the foundation. Windows look across the tops of the trees and over the river valley, most of them without glass now. We have six cords of hardwood stored in the driveway level and miscellaneous stuff on the top two floors. The spirit of the building is in the cellar, though, which is accessed through two huge heavy wooden doors that are permanently propped open in the back of the building. This area is mostly underground and the stone foundation can be clearly seen. There are old pens and animal stalls built by hand from the plentiful wood here; not boards, but logs and saplings, rough cut. The mowed area in front of this lower floor is not visible from house, driveway or road and is surrounded by trees.
So, I built a playlist of good music, a mix of old familiar dance tunes and some new discoveries. I swept and raked, picked up trash and got rid of some impressive spider webs. I found an old rusty tin can, filled it with dirt, and stuck incense in it. I put on a skirt and some jewelry, found a pair of light shoes I thought would work (I’ve always danced barefoot), grabbed a yoga mat to sit in the grass and stretch on and went to see what would happen.
They were all there, my dancers. It seemed to me I could almost reach out and touch them. They mingled with the ghosts of animals who once lived in this barn, long dead; generations of birds, now flown from empty nests in the rafters; and the dirty lace of old cobwebs. My feet felt clumsy and heavy in shoes and it wasn’t night, but my body remembered how to move and my brain remembered how to lie down and rest. The music swept me up, pushed me with sharp elbows and knees, shook me by the scruff of the neck, played with me and soothed me. I danced with my expectations, my stories, my fears and limitations and loss. I danced with my disappointment and grief and rage. I threw down my rigidity, refusal and denial and danced in their blood. I danced with the joy of coming back to myself.
I danced in an old barn, in a new life, but not alone. The past is still with me, the dancers I knew green and supple in my memory. The pain of change is not, after all, too great to bear. I don’t need money. I don’t need a better car. I don’t need anything that hasn’t been here all along. I don’t need to wait for anyone else or anything else. I just needed to surrender to what is now.
So this one’s for you, my dear Bobbi; for you, Jill, in all your beautiful sensitivity; for you, Rena, who taught me so much about strength, courage and being real; and for you, Pat, who brought essential balance to our group and allowed us to dance with a playful small boy.
Half a world away, you all still honor my dance with your presence.
**************
We based our dance practice in Colorado on the work of Gabrielle Roth, and I still follow this template. Please see my resource page for links. Also, here’s a wonderful piece about the power of dance.
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Aug 18, 2016 | Authenticity, Emotional Intelligence
Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash
Do you ever wonder what you’re doing wrong? I do. I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning telling myself I will NOT be stressed and overwhelmed. It’s not working
So I’m going to go with it. I’m going to allow myself to be stressed and overwhelmed. I’m going to stop running away from the feeling and embrace it, drooling, like a spider with a plump licorice fly, one of those big slow sticky ones you can’t bring yourself to swat because — you know, guts!
The thing I most hate about days like this is that nothing is really wrong. There’s not a crisis. It’s just life. Everyone deals with life. My life is far, far easier than the lives of many others. Why am I such a jerk that I can’t deal effectively with a perfectly normal day? Why do I have to make such a big deal over everything? Why can’t I suck it up, stop whining, pull up my panties and put big girl socks on?
I own a little black Elantra. I bought it used, paid it off, rarely drove it in my old life because I was in a small town and walked everywhere. I kept it clean, kept it serviced and loved it.
Then I came to Maine and it became the only household car. That’s okay. My partner is a great driver and he’s reasonably neat and tidy. It’s not like having complete control of the fan, the AC and heat, the radio and the windows, but I can live my life without complete control of the car. I’m an adult. I can share.
Then my two adult sons came to Maine. They came in a U-Haul. Without a car.
Just to be clear, they’re both well over six feet tall. I’m talking about a Hyundai Elantra.
They also work at a local organic farm that raises vegetables, pork and dairy.
Now the four of us share a car.
Sigh.
I love my sons. I really, really do. I keep telling myself that.
The car Kleenex disappeared because one of them caught a cold. The lid to the wet wipes came off and when I unearthed them from under the seat they were all dried out. I pulled down the mirror on the passenger side to put lip balm on and the mirror was splashed with dried blood. (“I was playing with my girlfriend’s puppy, and his tooth caught my nose and ripped it, and there was blood all over and it was the only mirror I could find — sorry, Mom.”) The cloth grocery bags wound up on the floor under work boots caked with…uh…farm stuff. The back seat is covered with dirt because they had to haul potatoes from a far field back to the house. There are assorted Gatorade and plastic water bottles rolling around in every stage between full and empty. The seat and mirrors are never in the right place for me, but as I rarely get to drive anymore, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Don’t even get me started on the issue of gas! (“There’s enough to get to town Mom. I swear to God!”)
Then, two days ago, we got a call from them at a time when they should have been safely and gainfully occupied weeding and harvesting in one of the farm’s massive gardens. You know, earning money to buy themselves a car? The front passenger wheel on the Elantra started making a terrible noise and they pulled over.
So, everyone knows the drill, right? You arrange for a tow, pick a garage or mechanic for a destination, adjust your schedule, find a ride. We did all that. Then you wait, if you’re me, with dread for the diagnosis, obsessively moving money from here to there in your head, wishing you hadn’t bought that expensive thing last week, calculating your next paycheck, figuring out where the money is going to come from and what bills can be late.
In the meantime, we all complained about all the things we were going to do in the next couple of days. What about work? What about the laundromat? What about cashing checks? What about groceries? What about my swimming day? All of a sudden, sharing a car seemed like a piece of cake when compared to having no car at all.
Then came the list of diagnoses, the bottom line dollar figure, the realization that we were half way there and might as well take care of everything that needed taken care of. It’s not as though there’s ever a good time to fix a car. Nobody sits on the side of the road and says, “Oh, good! This is the perfect time to have the car break down! I just happen to have a spare few hundred dollars right now!” At least no one does at my income level.
Then we waited a little while and the phone rang and it was fixed. But we couldn’t go get it because it was in the shop and we were at home.
We’re in rural Maine, so we called a local cab. (Item: On the dashboard a sign with the fare price, including “Puke charge $100. You clean it up.”) Fortunately, no one puked. We got to the shop. We wrote a check. We got the car.
All that was yesterday. So why, I ask you, was I lying in bed awake at 4:30 in the morning agonizing about it all? The car was right outside the window, parked in its spot, fixed and paid for. True, I paid for it out of my mortgage money and now I’ve no idea where the mortgage is coming from. On the other hand, the mortgage isn’t due until September 1, so there’s time, right? I’ll figure something out, or my partner will get a client, or something. Also true that the upcoming day (today) was complicated. I wanted to take my weekly swim. We all had things we needed to do, most of them involving using the car. I had this post to write, in addition to working on my book. My brother is coming to visit Friday, so I wanted to clean a little, change the sheets (hence the laundromat), etc. We all work on Friday, so today was the day to GET ORGANIZED.
Stop it, I told myself. Sleep. It’s not even light yet. We’ll figure out what everybody needs and
Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash
make a plan. It will be fine. Don’t think about the mortgage now. Stay in the moment. Breathe, dammit! RELAX. Whatever happens, you’ll get to swim. Think about that. The car is fixed. Your brother doesn’t care what the house looks like. Just think about the pool, cool, quiet, the rhythm of stroke and breathing. A locker room filled with women! Not a guy in sight. You’ll figure out what to blog about.
But what WILL I blog about? What can I write that’s intelligent, sympathetic, well thought out and interesting? I know, I’ll write about…no. No, that’s no good. My mother will read that and be hurt. Well, then, I’ll write about…no. If I write about that the kids will take it the wrong way. Oh, I’ve been wanting to talk about…mmm uh-uh. My friend will read that and she’ll feel bad.
Oh, good. Back to people pleasing, are we? You know you can’t write around that. Might as well give it up now. Hardly anybody reads the damn thing, anyway. It’s a waste of time and it’s not income producing and the car just cost $300…!!! WHAT ABOUT THE MORTGAGE? What am I going to do?
So I got up. At 7:00. And I hated myself because I wasted three hours tossing and turning when I could have gotten up and WRITTEN THIS POST.
“Honey,” said my partner, “if you feel overwhelmed, write about that. Write where you are. It’ll be brilliant.”
So we had breakfast, organized the troops, gathered up the laundry, synchronized our watches. I had a narrow window to swim in, but we reached the laundromat, got the laundry going, and my partner settled down with a book, I jumped in the car, raced joyfully to the pool, free at last, and found a sign. “Pool closed until Monday, August 22 due to construction.”
There was no Kleenex in the car, and I needed some.
It’s a beautiful afternoon. The laundry is strung on the line, waving in the breeze. My sons,
Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash
shirtless, are going lovingly over a used red (some of the red is paint instead of rust) truck they just bought, trying to figure out what it needs to pass inspection. A mechanic in town is going to look at it at 4:30. I haven’t vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom, written a word of my book or made my brother’s bed yet. I still don’t know what I’m going to do about the mortgage.
But I’ve written this post.
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Jennifer Rose
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