Limits

How much can a human being handle?
I mean, in regards to stress.
I decided to blog right in the middle of what feels like an incredibly stressful day to me. I'm at my limit - I feel.
All of the things most important ot me are being either nominally or extremely threatened. That makes me go into fight mode - to want to protect what I'm connected to.
My blood is pounding, I feel very close to tears and ... here is my essential issue, I'm breathing shallowly again.
What is it with life and breathing?
They are so (this seems obvious) interconnected.
Why is the first thing that I'm willing to sacrifice - breathing- the thing that is essential to my "getting through" the struggles.
I wonder if I'm alone in this.
Are there people who, when feeling stressed, immediately begin breathing deeper so as to help them cope better?
I should learn how to do this.
I'll bet it helps with thinking more clearly.

Evidently writing helps too.
I'm starting to calm down.

Jimm

When asked as a teenager, what kind of guy are you attracted to, I said dark.

Dark hair at least with very dark eyes.

I also said that I wanted a man with hair. Not some smooth, boyish type.

I wanted a real man.

My roommate in college told me that I should meet this guy who was on the yearbook staff. She said I'd like him. She said he was blond, blue-eyed, and super nice.

"Not interested" I said, but politely cooperated with her efforts to be nice to me.

He was very blond, very blue-eyed, and was wearing a very creamy yellow sweater.

"Maybe I'm interested" I said to myself and promptly asked him if I could borrow his sweater sometime.

He said yes.

I stained it.

He asked me out anyway.

Our first date was a lovely mess.

He did everything wrong. Not on purpose - just a bad night for him on the suave front.

We were both into theatre. He liked blond women in old movies. Marilyn Monroe and Princess Grace. He tried that night to make me look like Marilyn.

He burnt my forehead with a curling iron.

We reinacted the murder scene from "Dial M for Murder".

He broke my window in the process, with his bum.

Before the night was over, he had broken the knob off the TV, the handle off the fridge door, and we had fallen in love.

In my opinion, love doesn't require perfection. The boldest love feelings that I possess are for the 2 most beautifully imperfect people. My daughter, of whom I've spoken before and my husband, Jimm.

The way we began is the way we live. We stumble and bumble, we laugh, we get frustrated, and we don't take ourselves too seriuosly. We help each other with the breathing and with the being human part.

I still want a real man - the one I have will do very nicely.

Something wonderful

The most human thing I've ever done is give birth.

Actually, when my daughter came into this world it was apparent that she was in no hurry to arrive and my body was not of the mind to give her up so easily. They had to do a c-section and extract her from her safe (albeit snug) place.

There is something so visceral - so primitive about birthing. Even if I would've wanted to control how this birth went, it wasn't possible. Creation takes over.

There is such intensity of physical pain and emotional pleasure all mixed up together - with the goal of producing something wonderful. The funny thing is, what we as humans produce is more humanity! Wonderful?

We sweat and toil and hurt and plead and cry and laugh and when we're finished - there's a smaller version of us- crying and complaining and growing.

It must be wonderful then. Maybe the reason most people love babies so much is that it gives them a chance to hold humanity close. To care for a little one is also caring for ourselves perhaps; touching that very human part of us and saying, "It's ok to be weak and out of control. Somehow - we are ok."

I loved that time - holding my little girl and at the same time holding myself.

Community Organizer

The following is an article I wrote after my first attempt at being a "community organizer". In my effort to be truly human, I recognize my need for a neighborhood - a community that surrounds me, watches me, includes me, is nosy about my business, and let's me in on their needs as well. Yesterday, I felt as though my need was met in such a tangible way.

Thank you East Ross Street!

It’s 8:30pm and I can still hear the giggles and shouts of the children taking advantage of a blocked off city street. Today was “block party” day here on East Ross. According to the long-time residents of this block, this was a first for here.
One grandmother said, “We didn’t have to plan such events back then because we were always out – walking up and down the street, sharing porches and sharing life.”

Maybe some of us longed for the “way it use to be,” so 2 months ago we got together and decided to see if we could make it happen. Oldtimers, newcomers, the curious, and the politely dutiful, all sat through meetings hammering out details. None of us had really ever done a block party before so there were no specialists among us. The Mayors Office of Special Events was contacted and graciously gave us permission to hold our event from 4 – 9:00 pm on September 20. Flyers were passed out and the neighborhood started buzzing.

It was a good buzz.

The excitement was tangible.

This afternoon at 4 o’clock, I sat back and watched doors open and residents from my street begin to, one by one, bring rice and beans, grilled hotdogs, pasta salad, banana pudding, and apple pie to the community table. Even a soft serve ice cream machine made an appearance. Gleeful little ones raced up and down the yellow line in the middle of the street, just because they could. All of the older ones became the parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts to every ones’ children. Young and old danced together under the late summer sun, to the DJ’s songs. As if by magic, butterfly’s appeared on the cheeks of little girls and stars on little boys. The line for the face painter was long and patient.

There was limbo, water balloons, dodge ball, and as darkness fell, a sheet was hung between two trees for a movie before bedtime.

As I watched popcorn in Ziploc bags being passed down the rows of gathered movie watchers, I felt good. Perhaps just then I was experiencing a connection with days gone by on East Ross. I also raised my Popcorn bag in hope, as a toast to a more connected and community oriented future.

Breathe ...

I've decided it's time for me to come out and declare my humanness - my need to breathe, and to do so deeply.

About 2 years ago I started a new job and discovered about 6 months into it that I had stopped taking breaths, at least in the proper sense. I was only shallowly taking in small bits of outside air, as though I could survive without it. I began to understand that perhaps, in the metaphoric sense, this is how I exist.

Maybe I think I don't need help to do this thing called life?
Maybe I'm super-human and can do it all alone?

By breathing in and out, I am acknowledging my utter need for help - even Divine help.

My friend Andi once spent a week in a Benedictine monastary and he told me he was given breathing lessons. He said that it was wildly intoxicating to realize that such a divine thing like the breathe of God was entrusted to - and blown into us, as humans. We should care deeply for such gift.

So I am on a journey. I'm learning that maybe to be able to breathe more of God, He would like me to be more vulnerable, to inhale and exhale, and to just be human.

This blog is about learning to breathe.