Anxious Visiting/Waving It Buh-Bye

Barbara: On Tuesday, I sat down to write my Wednesday blog-post, and as you may have guessed by my “unexpected” Wednesday Five Crazy Things, I ended up getting sidelined by life. There were monumental glitches in the work I was doing that needed incredible focus and patience to overcome and deal with, there was the fact that I had my original Wednesday blog-post half-written and then DISCARDED IT!! (accidentally) (let’s just assume it was likely the most insightful, articulate, epiphany-inducing piece I have ever written and now it is lost in the cyber-garbage and we will never know), and then there was the subtle but pervasive thrum of worry because my daughter was due home from her stay in Paris and there were major travel snafus along the way. She was scheduled to arrive home at 2pm, and we brought her into the house from the airport at exactly 10:30pm!

The irony is that I had been starting to write about a recent lesson (or re-lesson, as this is one of those I need to keep learning and learning and learning) about dealing with anxiety.

The other day, a friend entertained and delighted us with a great motto when it comes to dealing with anxiety—or really problems of every kind. 1. You see the problem. 2. You acknowledge the problem (yes, this is an important step). 3. And then you wave it buh-bye as it recedes into the distance.

And not only is this sound “anxiety advice”—I will draw your attention to this post where Deb utters the magic words: “Don’t go there twice” (you live the imagined worst-case scenario once when you imagine it, and then again IF it actually happens)—but it is also sound “problem advice”. Why? Because truly every horrible, terrible thing that happens to us does eventually recede into the distance. We can only deal with issues when they happen, do the best we can, and, yes, carry on. Either way, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we hold on to our pain or not, the event does recede into the past. So the nutshell of acknowledging it and waving it buh-bye is an effective one—for me, certainly.

But, ironically, as I was trying to write this piece the first time (you know, the version that is absolutely mind-blowing and breathtaking, but gone), I was nursing an insistent, burrowing worry around my daughter being in hiccup-plagued transit and not home, safe and sound with me (as she is now, quietly watching a classic musical on TV in the other room). That anxiety made waste of my day, causing me to not solve problems in a timely or reliable way, and probably caused the tragic accident of hitting the delete button on what may have been my life’s opus. Oh well. Lesson relearned.

Deb: Barbara, as you know I have lived these scenarios and I totally subscribe to the old and well-worn phrase, “these should be our only problems”. Don’t get me wrong, dear readers, we LOVE our blog and our bloggie community, but I have to say that we know after these two and a half years, that when we mix it up, we know that you guys instinctively know that we have a good reason. Even if that reason is to have a conversation and cup of tea with our child.

Going To Seed

Barbara: Hey everyone! I’m back! And because there’s so much I want to say to you, I’ve decided to not just focus on one single “topic of discussion” today, but to ramble a bit in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way. You guys can pick which of my ramblings you want to speak to in the comments section below.

First of all, I just LOVE you all for your wonderful, ingenious, and thoughtful musings last week on the blog. I mean, I always love the stuff you say, but there’s something truly special (as I discovered) about being sequestered in an airport for 3 hours with nothing to do but troll the ‘net and realizing (as I did) that there’s a week’s worth of loveliness on the blog that could entertain me, and then immersing myself in this—our—world and reading every post again and then every comment. Here’s what amazed me: how this community of relatively like-minded friends could also have such surprising and disparate views and ideals and dreams of the world. I mean, I know this is true in fact, but to read the details of individual experience as they play out, one commenter at a time, is really refreshing.

Okay, and here’s the other thing that really amazed me—and this thought might even be worthy of a whole post on its own—is the responses in the 5 Crazy Things posts. Did you notice that so many of you had alternate lives choices that ran the gamut from introvert to extrovert? It seemed to me as if we were all channeling that yin/yang thing within us that wants (and maybe needs) to represent both sides of reality: the quiet, cerebral thinker (or horse whisperer or writer or scientist) to the flamboyant noisemaker (or actor, or actor’s friend (that one made me laugh), or stand-up comic, or Nathan Fillion girlfriend). I think for all of us, one type or the other probably predominates, but still most of us could at least imagine—and maybe covet—an “opposite” kind of life.

And last and possibly not least, I come to the title of this post. “Going To Seed” is a play on a recent theme in many discussions I’ve been having lately about “Going Fallow”. Have we talked about this here before—I can’t remember??? A number of people in my life have brought up the notion that for each of us, a period of fallow (as in the farmer’s field “fallow” where they let their fields run wild—without purpose—for a few years to regenerate nutrients in the soil) is extremely important and invaluable. This time of not thinking, not creating, not planning, conceiving, or seeing-through, allows us to come back to our work later with much more power.

Well, as you know, I was gone for my holiday for the last week and this, if there ever was  perfect time, was the perfect time for going fallow. After all, I had spotty internet and Deb had offered to be here full time on the blog. I couldn’t really Facebook or email, certainly couldn’t phone. I had a real chance to fully wallow in the fallow. But I was also really keyed up to do some revisions on a novel I’m working on (it’s a psychological thriller that I need to get just right before I send it out in the hopes of landing an agent and/or publisher).

But if I’m revising a novel, I’m not really going fallow, am I? And hence, we come to my play on analogies: I decided in the end to “go to seed”. I would let everything else go and I would see if the peaceful environment and lack of responsibility would provide me a clean slate to (let the buds that have blossomed for me keep growing and) do those final tweaks. I mean, no meals to cook, no groceries to buy, no house to clean, no laundry to do, no phones to answer, no auditions to prepare, no computer to cater to. Phil was busy most mornings till early afternoon (pursuing his passion: diving):

... and I could do as I would with my time:

So here’s what happened. I did grow my flowers, but I did it in as gentle and free way as I could. I’d eat a very early breakfast with Phil and then go to a quiet pavilion in the beautiful gardens with a cup of tea and my paper manuscript. I would read and tweak until I got too hot and then I’d swim and think. As I bobbed in the water, soaking up the sun, amazing insights would come to me. I’d let them “go to seed” and waft around me. I would admire or dismiss them. Later, I would incorporate some of these discoveries into my story. It wasn’t work at all. Believe it or not.

So, yup, I think that’s it for my ramblings (and hopeless analogies). Hope you can make some sense of this—holiday brain is sure to be playing a part in what I have (or don’t have) to say!

Out Of Sight, Out Of My Mind

Deb: I am fascinated by a quirky bit of business I have going on inside my noggin. I have thought about it and analyzed it. I have laughed about it and dismissed it. But it has reared its head again so I put it to you for thoughts, opinions, and maybe empathy? I guess I am looking/hoping to trade ideas with someone who shares this quirk.

Here it is: When the boy is living in another city/province/ country, I do not think at all about his comings and goings. Seriously. I think about him with love and with longing to see him, but I don’t fret and worry at all about whether or not he is safe or when he gets home on any given night. I don’t focus on it. BUT ... and this is a big but ... when he comes home to our family home, I worry. Is he safe?

“Luke if it’s late, take a taxi!”

“That’s okay, Mum, just going to subway it.”

“Oh ... ahhh ... great ... ahhh, will the subway still be running??”

“Yeah, Mum.”

“Oh ... then ... good ... great ... yep ... okay.”

And then I worry. I wake up in the middle of the night when I have gone to sleep without hearing him come in, and I stumble to his room, push open the door with sleepy foot, and gaze until I spot his sleeping lump. But yes, the good news is, I do actually go to bed and sleep. It’s not as bad as the first time he came home and I would ram twenties into his paw and say, “For a cab, dear God, for a cab!” And then I would proceed to sleep in front of the TV ‘til his key turned in the door. I am much better now … and yet ...

Why? Why am I doing this to myself? I went through many possibilities and this is the closest I can come to maybe explaining it. I figure I cannot control his life outside this city/province/country. But I can control it here at home. And yet, the truth is, I can’t! But I guess it comes from a place of him being a little boy in this house and, as such, the house is filled with years of Mum panic. It hangs in the air like baked salmon and lives in my pee like asparagus.

So ... do I have three dogs: Fanny, Bairn and Pavlov’s? Is it just trained behaviour? I hope so. And I hope the fact that he, grown man he, will be living here for a stretch, that I will evolve in this too, like every other letting go stage of his life.

To my credit though, I say nothing to him and let him live his life.

 But in the meantime ... fascinating, is it not?

Barbara: I can’t believe you’re writing about this, Deb!! Since Michele has come home, I’ve been asking myself the exact same question: Why am I suddenly so concerned about her comings and goings???

Like Luke, she is responsible and savvy and street-smart. For the last school year, she has wandered unchaperoned and unchecked-upon through a large and busy city.  But suddenly, now that she’s home, I’m all about the, “Why don’t you call when you get there?” “Make sure you send me a ‘I got here safely’ text.” “Where are you going and who’s going to be there?” I swear I didn’t worry about these things for one second when she was gone (well, okay maybe a few times near the beginning there), but I am consumed by it now that she’s back in the house.

Like you, I’m also trying to make my questions to her sound innocent and offhand, trying not to burden her with an idea that I suddenly don’t trust her anymore or want to lock her up. But I have been finding myself worrying when she’s out. It is very … weird…