7th kindness: self-quarantine

I woke up sick. Sickly sick, with a red, scratchy throat and a stuffy nose. I feel as though someone cracked open my head and filled it with cement. Stuffed cotton balls in my ears.
Glazed my eyeballs with a blowtorch. It’s misery, absolute misery.

I calculated my average niceness: 5 point something. So, according to Cassie, I have to beat my average by next Tuesday... Any suggestions?

My good deed today: going home early and sparing students what could very well be the next bubonic plague. 4. The image above is from a beach walk on Sunday... to remind myself of happier times (sob).

meeting

At seven we went to a meeting, and as always, I heard exactly what I needed to hear.

This is what was said:

If I take the right action, my heart and mind will follow.

Whatever you envy – that is exactly what you cannot have for yourself.

Comfort is a want not a need.

6th kindness: funny

I am no longer imprisoned by the bondage of self.

Me in my natural state: I am impulsive, I am rash, I am passionate, and I am NOT prone to logical, rational thought. I have a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Party time.

Now, in my second life, I do things differently. They say that to change you only have to alter one thing - and that's everything. And not with out pain and suffering – and not with out truth and joy.

I think everyone reaches this point. Some of us call it a spiritual awakening – others call it growing up. Strum und Drang, Midlife crisis, Existential thought, Psychotic Break… the list continues ad infinitum.

One of my dear friends said something the other day, and like many of this person’s comments, it keeps rolling around in my head. This is how the conversation went:

Me: so you’ve been checking out the blog?
Person: yes, it’s very you, overly expressive.
Me: in the most charming of ways
….
Person: It is emotional for me to see you doing well. I feel like we went down together, and now we can go up together, too.

When he/she told me this, I felt so supported – even loved. I felt inspired and grateful.

I am no longer imprisoned by the bondage of self. I’m not free… but I’m a hell of a lot closer than I used to be.

my good deed: cutting out comics from the new yorker, pasting them into cards, and sending them to random addresses! 7 - it took me awhile.

5th kindness: carnations = filler flowers = best effort

Today I couldn’t think of a kindness. Code for: I was lost in my own BS.

I spent the day with a dear friend of mine, sharing with her my heart and my head. But despite her generous support, I couldn't shake the feeling - just one of those sundays.

Good ideas to ponder when we head into this new week! Enjoy the last of your weekend hours, everyone.

I did, finally, figure out a good deed.

A scrooge lives across from me - I despise this platinum blonde, silicon boobed, scratchy voiced woman. For good reason! When Sampson was just a puppy (aw, tear) we left him in his cage - no, sorry, his "house"- for five hours. We were at a baseball game, what could we do? I guess he was barking the entire time, because we came home to a note on the door:

PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOUR DOG. HE HAS BEEN BARKING THE ENTIRE DAY. OTHERWISE I WILL HAVE TO REPORT YOU TO ANIMAL SERVICES.

My blood boils when I type this. I was so ashamed! ASSHOLE. Breathe, Robin, breathe.

So today I bought a bought a bouquet of flowers and left them at her door, attaching this note:

before you start thinking, "that robin, what a saint!" I must inform you that I gifted her with pink carnations. I TRIED not to pitch a little spite in there... but alas, I am who I am.

I give myself a 6.

4th kindness: support public radio!

today is Sampson's birthday! he is one year old. more on this tomorrow, when the party is officially over - but let me just say, i DID let him into his toy cupboard, and when I say "let him in" - well... 

on another note, my good deed today was donating to npr. half my paycheck. rating: 5. (my paycheck ain't that big) 

3rd kindness: garbage woman walking

This afternoon Sir Sampson and I took a leisurely stroll. What better time to practice good deeding than this? I grabbed a Publix bag (ok, Ralphs) and picked up litter as Sam trotted beside me. At one point he snatched the makeshift garbage and tore off running – I sprinted behind him yelling, “Sampson, come on! That’s my good deed! Sampson!” An old man walking towards me shook his head, grumbled a few shucks and damnations, and changed direction. 

My rating: normally a 4, but old man’s shaming and Sampson’s obvious need for another training class boost me to a 5. 

Happy Friday! 

2nd kindness: big tip at the parlor

today i left a big tip for the teenager who served me my soft serve. she was nice with a high pitched giggle- i felt she deserved more than the nickels and dimes filling up her "college fund" jar. rating? i'll give it a 4. 

THE EMPEROR OF ICE CREAM 

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

-- Wallace Stevens

i also want to add, this month is Sexual Assault Awareness Month - just another reason to keep this kindness project rolling!

1st kindness: hanging out with ernie

i spent the entire day learning accounting-stuff with the bookkeeper of my former employer: sixty year old ernie. 

i don't necessarily need this job. and i get the feeling ernster doesn't necessarily need my assistance. 

but i do know this: he lives alone and he is excited to pass his skills onto someone young and foolish enough to learn them. he elected me a few months ago, but i always presented an excuse. now that i quit my job, guess what? no readily available excuse! 

it is kind of him to take me under his wing. we spent 1/4 of the day working and 3/4ths eating pumpkin pie (sugarless) with cool whip (low fat) and gossiping about our coworkers. 

when he was fiddling at the computer i watered his plants. i'm almost positive he didn't notice. so this is my first deed of the month! 

rating: 5*

*rating system is 1 through 10, 1 is cruel and 10 is mother teresa. 

big grin

I have decided to merge all of your wonderful, creative suggestions. The theme for April is rated kind acts. I want to make people smile. Myself included :) 

daily: 

1) do something nice for someone else - and if I am discovered it doesn't count (inspired by  1218 and  kim )

3) post pictures of/representing aforementioned kind act (jess)

4) rate my days as cassie suggested.

5) work on champion macaroni sculpture garden - what Tom refers to as the "lost art" 

6) collect junk and garbage and glue them to a piece of furniture... (is this what you meant, mother??)

would anyone* like to join me in my quest? take on one, two or all six of the items on my daily menu?

*Cassie & Jackie: since you are kin you are required to join me. Especially since you have me rating my days now, Miss Casserole!!) 

 

thinking

i'm thinking of a project for april. any medium, just a project. any ideas? 

31: reflecting

One image to pay homage to the past,

No matter the state of your garden, as long as you care for your garden yourself, it is never too late to claim that which has always been yours.


Breaking up - breaking up the pair, breaking up the relationship, breaking up the little bubble you've inevitably created. I miss the bubble. I miss the boy – I miss his humor, his kindness, his steadiness – and I miss the boy’s family.

In December we – his family and I - went for a little jaunt to Central America and frankly, I couldn’t take the pressure.

I miss the Boy’s mother – she has this uncanny ability to understand people, and to draw conclusions and realizations from seemingly impossible situations. She can look at something and see through it – and tell you about it after. In the most gracious, and thoughtful, way. His father is hilarious, and unapologetic ally kind. For a long time I felt supported by them, and by the boy – like I had jumped down the rabbit hole and awoken in a fuzzy cocoon of warmth and Midwestern nice.

But. But there’s always a but. Everything changed, and that’s OK too.

another image to welcome the future - and the summer!

a night for remembering those weve lost

March is a difficult month for my family. Years ago we lost three family members to the same disease I have. This wasn't the first time for my family at large, but it certainly was for my sisters and I.

To honor them, I want to finish March with honesty ... and let someone else say what can be found in my heart.

Months ago I met Joe at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. “Hi sweetheart, how ya doing,” is his line. Usually to my sponsor, not to me.

Before tonight I knew this about him:
1. He’s very handsome- in a boyish, charming way.
2. He got sober at 16 because he fell off a bike and scared his mom. He didn’t want to become his Dad, so he joined AA.
3. He recently celebrated 25 years.
… And the real old-timers, men and women with 30, 40 years, always tease him for being a wimp (playfully, of course, and with respect.)

Tonight he sat next to a woman, Doreen, who shared about her husband’s recent death. After a week of not being able to find him, she came home to a voice message: the coroner had called. Her husband had died the night before in a motel 6. She identified his body this morning – when she shared she was shaking, and sobbing, and screaming – she found him in the bathroom, splayed out among bottles, vomit, feces… he had been there for 20 hours before anyone discovered him. He had 4 years of sobriety, and relapsed a week before, because he wanted to “show them.” Resentments are our greatest foe, says the big book, and I believe this to be true.

After she spoke Joe raised his hand. As always he introduced himself: “Joe, alcoholic.” But this time he turned and stared at her. He said,

“Hi Doreen, I’m Joe. I want to tell you something. Last year, eleven months ago, a car hit my fiancée. She had just received twenty years of sobriety. She was rollerblading, on the sidewalk, and a car swerved off the road. It was a freak thing – game over. I’ll never forget that night – I went to the hospital, and she died, dead, she was there, dead. She still had my ring, her ring, the ring that promised forever – on her finger.” He was still staring at Doreen, looking her dead in the eye. “So I walked out of the hospital room – numb and shocked and confused – and there was my sponsee, standing against the wall. I don’t know why I said this, and I have no idea where it came from, but I said, ‘Now you watch me. Now you watch closely. Look at what alcoholics anonymous does. Look at what I do and what I am, and see how alcoholics anonymous works.”

He can’t remember much after that, everything was a blur. But he stayed sober through it - he maintained his grace, his dignity - and kept his head high through what could have been his demise. I know this because every share after him was from people who had been there. People who helped him, and held him, and supported him in every step.

All I could think was: what a privilege this is. What a fucking privilege. To be able to sit here, listening to these people- not only to listen to them but to watch them walk through the pain and the tragedy – so that I, my sponsor, my fellows – we can walk through it later.

And just as these words were going through my head, a young woman shared almost verbatim the same thing.

This is what it’s all about.

reflecting on costa rica

Boy and I had been disintegrating for a month or two. I had given him my last effort: my sobriety. Note! He did NOT ASK ME TO DO THIS. This is about me, not him. But the point is that I TRIED to smoke weed, I tried to be “normal”. I tried to give him the twenty-something life society tells us is “fun” and “hip” and “thrilling”... But normal isn’t normal for this little alcoholic, unfortunately, and by the time we had jetsetted down to Costa Rica, I was in deep water.

I won’t divulge the gory details. I will try to concentrate on the present. But to summarize: I relapsed almost to the point of no return – I didn’t drink, but I did everything else. And I broke something I had been building, with or with out my knowledge, for two years.

30: sunday reds

today i need to be lifted up, so i reread a message written to me for my birthday.

here is part of it:

"...love, strength, hope, happiness. I picked peace in the end because it is what I want for you & me & our relationship. Because you will always be my best friend and I don't want to waste anymore time..."

after a few deep breaths and a few kind words, i feel better.