What Anxiety Means to Me

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ANXIETY!

Can I confess to having a heaping share of anxiety lately? It comes and goes like LA traffic. Sometimes you’re cruising right along on the 405 and then suddenly, often for no fathomable reason, the cars all back up on each other and tension seems to rise palpably. Other times, you know traffic’s going to be a snarl and you just take a deep breath, grit your teeth and merge anyway. Seeing my credit card bills come due is like merging onto the 10 at rush hour. The anxiety hits, you know you can’t really avoid it and you just keep going.

So anxiety is both certain and unpredictable. I know it’s hanging around because of big life events going on. I’m not generally an anxious person. Worry, sure (I’m a mother). Obsessive, on occasion. And sometimes I can be a little perfectionistic. The anxiety is specific to this time and won’t last forever. In the meantime, I try to breathe, call girlfriends and my mom and listen to guided mindfulness meditations from an app called Headspace. The 10 minute bits on Headspace are led by Andy Puddicombe, one of the company’s founders. I feel a little bad for what I’m about to say since Andy is a fully ordained Tibetan Buddhist monk, but here goes.  Andy’s hot and he’s got a great voice.  Love the English accent. Let’s just say that I’m mindful of why I chose Headspace over other sites. But the meditations do help. I’m reminded of techniques I learned years ago that just sort of fell away.

I’m freelancing and it’s going pretty well.  New opportunities are turning up all the time, but this is still unfamiliar for me. Working full time, being single, co-parenting and having the financial responsibility in this way are all new to me. I get scared. I feel strong. I want to feel sorry for myself sometimes. I get angry, sad, hurt, happy. I feel terribly competent and then terribly anxious.

Anxiety = Fear. Fear is primal which means you can’t reason with it. You just have to recognize the bastard and keep going anyway. It also helps to listen to Patti Smith really loud in the car with the windows open when you’re on the freeway with traffic good or bad.  Singing helps because it forces you to breathe regularly. The right song will let you enter someone else’s heartache and leave yours behind for about three minutes. I like Patti Smith for these moments because she may have been afraid to get up and sing, but you’d never know by the raw growl and power of her voice. She’s bad ass. Since it’s looking like I won’t be a rock star, I’ll shoot for bad ass.

How do you handle anxiety? I’d love to hear your ideas, experiences and tips.  Please share!

photo credit: 27147 via photopin cc

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Poetry & Parenting: Courage

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Courage by Marie Howe

Sorry for the lapse in having a Monday poem.  I’ll extend one little day into May if no one minds.

Here’s a piece by Marie Howe. I don’t remember if I thought it or wrote it here on the site, but lately I’ve been poring over her book, What the Living Do. Those poems recount her brother’s death and touch on family history, other friends, marriage. None of them was exactly right for this project, but it is a fabulous book. This poem, Courage, comes from her next book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time. It takes me back to the days when the girls were little and we spent time at the park. Also the way little kids discover and use language.  Enjoy!

Courage
by Marie Howe

I’m helping my little girl slide down the pole next to the slide-and-bridge
construction
when a little boy walks up and says, Why are you helping that young person
do something that’s too dangerous for her?

Why do you say it’s too dangerous? I say
And he says, She’s too young.
And I say, How old are you? And he says, four and a half.
And I say, Well, she’s three and a half

When he comes back a little later he says, I’ll show you how it’s done, and
climbs up the ladder and slides down the pole.
Then he says, She’s too young. What happens is that when you get older you
get braver.
Then he pauses and looks at me, Are you brave?

Brave? I say, looking at him.
Are you afraid of Parasite 2? he says.
And I say, What’s Parasite 2?
And he walks away slowly, shaking his head.

photo credit: Seattle Municipal Archives via photopin cc

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Poetry & Parenting: Grace

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Grace by Deborah StamblerThis Friday I’m featuring one of my poems again.  It’s called Grace and I don’t really know what to say about it…but I hope you enjoy it.

Grace
by Deborah Stambler

i.

The cat has come in squeaking and calling.
It’s his signal that he has something
he wants us to see.  A bird or a moth.
Something he has hunted, caught.  Usually,
these prizes are still flapping or crawling
and we set them free.  The cat forced
to relinquish his prowess.

It may be that I confuse grace with mercy, but it seems
that you can’t have one without the other.

Once I nursed a boyfriend through
a horrible flu.  His fever high. He sat
in a lukewarm bath.  He came out shivering.
Then wrapped in a blanket and crying, he told me
that his mother loved God more than she loved him.

There are times when grace is our only mercy.
The flicker of dignity in the sick and dying.
My grandmother reliving  a mumbled collage
of stories before she passed away.
My friend Wade asking that I close my eyes
while helping him into a fresh hospital gown
after his fourth surgery  for brain cancer.

ii.

Grace.  The white kouros in the museum.
Luminous from solidity to fingertip.
Mercy. The tree bending in the wind.
But neither is static.  Both have known longing.

Slow, and slow to let grace form the page.
Let mercy read these words and nod in quiet assent.

iii.

My daughter asks if writing poems ever
makes me feel sad.  Yes darling, I feel sad right now.

I do too, she said.  Listening to you read that new poem.
It’s sad except for the part about the cat.

Then she asks if people who are dying, the ones who can
no longer talk, use sign language.  She starts signing
the letters to spell ‘I love you.’

She wants to know how to sign the letter ‘Y’
and asks if I am crying.  Almost,

but not because we were talking about death.
It was gratitude for the grace she gives the poem
that I couldn’t manage on my own.

photo credit: John&Fish via photopin cc

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