It’s All How You Look At It

Recently I watched a fascinating documentary on elephants. There was an alarming escalation of elephants rampaging through Indian villages, trampling people to death. Generally speaking, elephants are peaceful, but something was changing them, and this filmmaker was seeking to unravel the mystery. He was able to trace back the beginnings of most of these rogue elephants, and what he found was striking. All had witnessed their mothers being murdered by a poacher when they were babies, and that seemed to have imprinted violence onto them. (There’s your proof that elephants do indeed have a long memory.)

Sometimes it just came down to the fact that an elephant had endured years and years of torture by it’s trainer/captor, and finally snapped one day. Aside from the heartbreaking subject matter, what really struck me was how these abusive captors kept the elephants from running away – they simply tied a thin string around the elephant’s foot. Of course an elephant could easily break this string, but he doesn’t believe he can. You see, the sad truth is when the elephants are babies, the trainer keeps them chained by the foot. The elephant is beaten into submission and can’t get away. After a while, he stops trying. He becomes so conditioned to his captivity that a simple string tied around his foot makes him believe he is powerless.

I thought long and hard about that. I think the people who end up going on murderous rampages are the ones who could never break those strings. And aren’t we all, in some way, living with a string tied around our foot? I mean, for the majority of my adult life I lived with the limitations imposed on me in my childhood. My childhood no longer exists, my circumstances are completely different, but I was still attached by that string. I believed I was powerless, that I didn’t have a right to speak up, that I wasn’t a deserving person. Thanks to a good therapist, and the support of my husband and friends, I sawed through that string…but it wasn’t easy.

Still, other strings remain. A biggie is fear of failure. Right now I am standing on the precipice of so much possibility … but I’m afraid to jump. I’ve finished my book and am about to start sending it out into the big wide world, and I have some other things in the works, things that are new and therefore scary. I’m having nightmares every night, giant snakes swallowing my ponies of optimism, ants invading my body, and, strangely, Cameron Diaz stealing my jewelry (have no idea what that was about). I don’t know why I should fear failure, I mean, I’ve failed fantastically in the past….many times. I failed to the point of bankruptcy, and I’m still here. So what’s the big deal? I might fail? Who cares.

God, it’s like when I was watching that documentary and I’m screaming at the elephant through the TV screen…just RUN! And then I imagined him looking back at me with a bubble over his head: Look who’s talkin’!

I think it’s time for me to break that string…

Pandora's Book

Yeah so I finished writing my book last week. No biggie. Just eight grueling years of my life; two where I couldn’t write at all, several spent in intensive therapy, and this year, working like a woman possessed, until finally last week….I completed it. Got my first rough draft printed out and sobbed in Kinko’s when I held it in my hands. The sheer weight of it… I wrote all that? I was on a giddy high for about a half hour. I did it! I wrote a book!

Flash forward to a half hour later. Completely depressed and hand-wringing. All this work, what if nothing ever becomes of it? What if I’m not inspired to write anything more? Then what will I obsess over? Oh the misery….

For three days I couldn’t bear to look at it. It sat on my desk, taunting me as I paced circles around it. My husband said he was so proud of me, he wanted to tell everyone. NO! I shouted. Don’t tell anyone!

Uh…isn’t that the point of writing a book? So people will know about it, and uh…read it? He was right. But I couldn’t bear to let anyone know. I have no idea why.

That Monday, I vowed to face it. I would start at the beginning and read it all the way through. I took my manuscript to a café, and sat on the outdoor patio with my editing pen and a glass of Chardonnay. It felt like a very writerly thing to do. I put my reading glasses on, took a deep breath and cheerily started in on my final edits. Chapter one…

By chapter two I was convinced I’d never be a writer. I’d either have to scrap the whole thing and start over or just quit writing altogether. What was I thinking? Eight years of my life? I put my head in my hands, feeling hopeless. Then out of nowhere, a flying beetle the size of a Hummer started dive-bombing me to the point where, after ten minutes of relentless attack I had to leave the café, practically in tears. On the way out I slammed my sandaled foot into the corner of a door and was bleeding all over the place. As I limped, bleeding, into the parking lot I was hustled by a six foot two junkie that looked just like one of my brothers (who is a junkie). At this point I was so stressed I screamed BACK OFF. He actually took three giant steps backward, his hands up in the air and said “Sorry Ma’am”. Just then my phone rang. It was my kid’s summer camp calling to tell me my son was vomiting. After I got home and held my son’s head over the toilet I tossed that damn manuscript in the closet and slammed the door shut. And I haven’t let it back out yet.

Like Dr. Frankenstein, I fear the very thing I have created. I feel like it has a power of its own, like Pandora’s box, or as my husband called it, Pandora’s Book. It’s as if writing the memoir of my childhood has released all these scary ghosts. I mean think about it. My septic system backed up into my yard, crazy people started threatening my family, my kid keeps getting sick, all these issues from my past are being dug up, flying beetles attacking me. It's almost apocalyptic! I don’t know. I’m getting a little freaked out and superstitious. I do believe that words are powerful. Powerful enough to bring a curse on me? Or am I just being neurotic? I swear I can almost hear that thing banging on the closet door, rattling the doorknob to get out.

My stomach is wretching. I grab my side and bend over. This must be what they call writer’s cramp. And then, my angel-friend Amy calls (who is a brilliant, much more experienced writer), and I tell her how insane and neurotic I am. I tell her about my crazy behavior. Is this normal, I ask?

Oh yes, she says calmly, absolutely normal. And you’ll go through it with every book you write. I sit down and exhale.

Congratulations on finishing your book, she says happily, and welcome to the writer’s life.

I slowly open the closet door….

Cruella De Pill

I have this little voice in my head, a really awful, toxic bitchy voice who doesn’t like me at all. I like to call her Cruella. Well I don’t like to call her anything, but she’s there, so….

Let me tell you, she has taken up a lot of real estate in my head for a lotta lotta years, and she hasn’t paid a dime. She’s this miserable, gripey unwelcome houseguest who leaves towels on my floor and then tells me what a lousy housekeeper I am. Do you know her?

Yeah, I thought maybe you did.

So just the other day I’m doing this writing exercise and it tells me to, get this – let the inner critic have her rant for ten minutes. Go ahead, let Cruella scream and yell at you and write it all down. (Yikes!) Let her tell you all the ways that you are going to fail and all the ways that you should be full of fear and how much you suck, generally speaking.

So I did. I raised my hands over the keyboard, shaking with fear, and I let her rip.

This is what she said. (I’m warning you, she’s really awful)

Why the hell are you wasting your time blogging and writing a memoir? You’re not a celebrity. What gives you the right?

NO ONE will care.

It is ridiculously self-absorbed.

Your stories are too depressing.

No one will believe you.

Everyone will hate you.

Your family will disown you. Well, even more than they already have.

Oh and need I remind you that you’re a college DROPOUT?

You aren’t a writer! Ha! You don’t even have an MFA!

No one will care.

You have failed at everything; your music career, your nonprofit, oh and the clothing line you had that bankrupted your family, remember that one?

You are wasting time writing while you could be working a day job and bringing some real money into the house.

What will you do when its done?

NO ONE will publish it

NO ONE will read it.

NO ONE will care.

This is just another of your artsy-fartsy hare-brain projects that’s going to land you in the poorhouse. AGAIN. (oh, the patience of your poor long-suffering husband…)

You spend your time writing while your house is a pigsty, well, no surprise there. I always said you were a lousy housekeeper.

Thank God I only gave her ten minutes because believe me, she can really get going when she’s on a roll. I told you, she’s awful.

But there must have been a method to the madness in that writing exercise, because after I wrote it all out, Cruella actually lost a little power. The next time she started yammering away at me I just rolled my eyes and said yeah, yeah, whatever Cruella…. and you know what? Suddenly I wasn’t so afraid of her anymore. Whadda ya know. All that time I was keeping her secrets in my mind, I was actually protecting her and giving her free reign! Crazy, huh?

But now… I’ve outed her! And you are all witnesses. And I say we all go after her with pitchforks and torches….Yeah!

Or, maybe not. Cause the more I think about it I realize Cruella is just a scared, insecure girl that doesn’t want to let go of the woman I am now. So let me try it this way. Gray toxic mold can’t grow in bold sunlight, right? So I will keep this light laser-focused on her, continue to tell her secrets and expose her. Sorry Cruella, but you’ve had your day. It’s my time now.

I’m not saying she won’t keep trying to rear her ugly head, I mean, if anything that girl is persistent. But every time she starts up with me I will simply say “go into the light Cruella, go into the light…”

And if she ever comes to visit your beautiful minds, I hope you do the same.

Fear and Loathing

One of my greatest fears is the fear of rejection, so why then, have I chosen the arts as my life path? I was a child actress, then a singer/songwriter, and now a writer. Doh! (Insert image of me slapping my forehead). Rejection is a daily part of life in those careers. I guess you could just call me a glutton for punishment.

Go ahead….say it.

Even when I worked in the corporate world, I was in sales. I worked on commission, had to do cold calls, the whole deal. Why couldn’t I have chosen a nice cozy stable career? Wait. Let me just fantasize about that for a minute. What would it be like if I didn’t have to worry every day whether I was good enough, if I’d ever work again, or if I’d even get paid? Funny, I can’t even conjure up the fantasy of anything different.

Fear of abandonment is my fatal flaw. It threatens to annihilate me, like that one location on the Death Star, where Luke set his missiles and he brings the whole thing down….Okay, I am also a Star Wars geek. One of my favorite quotes from Star Wars that I try to live by is:

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda

Pretty awesome, huh? I'm trying to be more Yoda-like these days.

But back to the fear issue. I repeatedly put myself in a position where I am subject to being rejected, and being rejected feels like abandonment by the pack. Let’s face it, we humans are pack animals. Acceptance is crucial to survival. Loners get weird and become outcasts of society, like the Unibomber- or writers.

Maybe I repeat this pathological behavior for the same reason that people go skydiving or bungee jumping. Perhaps it’s what compels people to risk their lives and lose fingers and toes to frostbite climbing Mount Everest. I think that just maybe its because we want to feel that we are bigger than the fear we carry.

Right now, I don’t know that I am. I feel dwarfed by my fear. It stands over me like a big fat bully, threatening to sit on me and squash all the hope out of my very being. (flashing back on a moment from 6^th grade where that actually happened. If you’re out there Lewis Seiden, I have not forgotten, and I will be avenged.)

So, in moving on from my terrible disappointment yesterday, I don’t know exactly what direction to head in, but I will try to be bigger than my fear. I will throw my arms wide open and take what comes.

I am embracing uncertainty, because it’s the only thing I know for sure.