Don’t Throw Yourself Out (Blog #1037)

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What a day. What a productive day.

I’ll explain.

A few days ago my parents’ garage door broke. And whereas it took me a while to figure out what the problem was because the door itself was fine and the motor was working, it ended up being a shattered plastic gear. (The motor turns the gear, and the gear turns another gear that moves the chain). Anyway, this afternoon I took the motor down from the ceiling and fished out all the broken pieces, six in all. Then, in hopes that I could buy a replacement gear, replace it, remount the motor, and call it a day, I called two local garage door companies. Well, nothing’s ever easy. Both companies said, “Unfortunately, that motor’s older than God, and no replacement parts are available.” And get this shit! The guy at the second place said, “The manufacturer doesn’t want you to fix your old motor; they want you to buy a new one.”

“How much will that cost?” I said.

“$375 including parts, labor and installation, and tax,” he said.

Turning my feet toward the front door, I said, “I’m gonna have to pray about that.”

Determined to find another solution, when I got home I went to work gluing the gear back together and thinking of ways I could reinforce the spokes with nuts and bolts. Then I decided to take another look on eBay, even though I’d searched earlier and couldn’t find a gear designed anything like mine. And whereas I still couldn’t find an exact match, I found an acceptable one, the difference being that my old gear turns a smaller, separate gear, and the one I ordered turns a smaller, built-in or attached gear. Anyway, considering it only cost $20 and can be returned if it doesn’t fit, it’s worth a shot.

Fingers crossed.

In order to detach the garage door motor from the ceiling, I first had to go to the hardware store. I needed a socket/socket wrench, which I had, but I wasn’t strong enough to turn it (the screws were in studs). So I went to Lowe’s to get an adapter that would allow me to connect the socket to my power drill. This did the trick. All this to say that the adapter caused me to get very excited about all the different-sized sockets lying around in my Dad’s and (dead) Granmpa’s respective toolboxes. I kept thinking, Now I can use those! So this evening I organized both toolboxes, including all the sockets and socket wrenches. Then, because one thing leads to another, I cleaned out and organized the drawers in our garage, the ones that we’ve been throwing all our random screws, nuts, nails, and washers into for the last thirty years.

Of course, this has made it a pain in the ass to find anything.

But not now. Now it’s all organized. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this. Not only did I throw away a bunch of crap we’ll never use, but I also found a bunch of crap I never knew we had. For example, in my Grandpa’s toolbox were all kinds of files, wedges, hex wrenches, and plumbing tools. Stuff that will definitely come in handy!

Grandpa used to say, “You take care of your tools, and your tools will take care of you.” Along these lines, I’ve been thinking about how we’re so quick to throw things away, but when we simply take care of our stuff, it continues to serve us. Sure, there are times when a garage door motor goes kaput and it’s time to start over. But how often do we start over when we really don’t need to, just because a salesman tells us we should? “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” they say. More and more I’m learning it’s worth checking into other options. It’s worth being persistent and creative and searching for answers. It’s worth taking care of your stuff.

Your body is capable of a lot.

Likewise, it’s worth taking care of your health. For the last six years and especially the last three, I’ve been focusing on just this. And whereas I’ve hit a lot of rough patches along the way, I feel like I’m really starting to make progress. Despite what well-meaning doctors (like me and you, they’re doing the best they can) have told me about certain diagnoses being irreversible (“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” they say), I’m convinced my body is capable of healing most anything. Indeed, after decades of dealing with mental, emotional, and physical problems, I’ve beginning to see many of them disappear. So it will forever be my encouragement to anyone who’s struggling on the inside or outside to hang in there and don’t take no for answer. Get a second opinion. Garage door salesmen don’t have all the answers, and neither do doctors. I’m not saying you’re never going to die (you’re GOING to die), but your body is capable of a lot.

Don’t throw yourself out just yet.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Our burdens are lighter when we share them.

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To Breathe Deep, to Laugh, to Cry (Blog #1036)

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Last night I went to bed at two in the morning. And whereas I’d intended to get five and a half hours of sleep, I only got three and a half. Alas, shit happens. This being said, un-shit happens to. What I mean is that although life is full of trauma and drama, it’s also full of healing and comedy. Yesterday I re-started working on a 1000-piece puzzle, and I imagine I’ll be working on it for a while. But then one day, the final piece will slip into place, and it will be done. Over. Likewise, with this blog. Two months from today I’ll type my final word, make my final edits, and hit publish. Just like that, with the touch of a button, I’ll be on to something else.

Along these lines of healing and being done, this morning I had one of the most profound healing experiences I’ve ever had, thanks to a therapist who practices a method my therapist doesn’t (and whom my therapist encouraged me to see). But here’s the catch. I’m not allowed to talk about the experience until tomorrow. “Talk about anything else you want,” the guy said, “but don’t talk about what happened here until you’ve had a chance to sleep and let your body process.”

“Okay,” I said. “I can talk about what I had to drink for breakfast.”

Now, I realize that this may seem like a tease. Not the breakfast part, but the profound experience part. I’m sorry. I’ll get around to it later. Or at least I think I will, since I never know what I’m going to write about until I do. Honestly, I only mention it at all because I don’t have anything else to talk about and I promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t bullshit myself or anyone else on this blog. That is, if I were to pull some self-help lesson out of my ass right now and try to apply it to my day, I’m sure it would come across as disingenuous. And wants that? Certainly not me.

So what’s left to say, Marcus?

Well, currently I just finished breakfast and plan to wrap up this blog while chugging coffee. (Remember, I didn’t sleep much last night.) Then I’m going to spend the day shopping and running around with a friend, and tonight we’re going to see a show. Really, I can’t tell you how excited I am. Not simply to run around, but to be awake and alive not just to think about and overanalyze life, but to actually live it. So that’s the deal. I’m taking the rest of the day for me. To breathe deep, to laugh, to cry if I feel like it. To not miss one thing. To remember that there’s a time for planting seeds, and there’s a time for harvesting and celebration. To remember that deep healing is possible.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Take your challenges and turn them into the source of your strengths.

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This Is Your Spiritual Journey (Blog #1035)

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A few months ago I started a new 1,000-piece puzzle. And whereas I got most of the border completed, the puzzle has honestly sat unloved and unattended to ever since. Until today. This afternoon I plopped my read end down on our futon, hunched over our coffee table, blew the dust off the puzzle box, and went to work. For five solid hours I labored, putting the border back together (someone–my father–recently knocked the puzzle off the table), hunting for pieces with similar colors, looking for perfect matches. Aren’t we all looking for perfect matches?

Now, did I get finished? Hell no. But I certainly made progress.

This evening I helped a friend publish their business’s website. Over a month ago we designed the site but got stuck because we ended up renaming their business during the design process. Well, this meant we needed, or at least wanted to, pick out a new .com address, and that’s always a pain in the butt because most the good ones are taken (.com names, not butts). For example, marcuscoker.com is taken (by me), so if you wanted a website named marcuscoker.com, you’d just have to think of something else. Maybe marcuscoker01.com or marcuscocker.com, which is what all the telemarketers call me. (Of course, it’d be weird for YOU, someone who’s NOT named Marcus Coker, to have a site named after ME, someone who is.) Anyway, my friend and I got together tonight to brainstorm website names, and for over an hour we were like, “No, that’s not it. Uh, close, but no cigar. Crap, what are we gonna do?”

Finally, my friend suggested something, and we were both like, “Yeah, that’s it. I really like that.” Then we checked to make sure the domain name was available, and it was. So they bought it. Then, after a good while chatting with tech support, we got the site published. Are there still changes to be made and work to be done? Sure.

But we made a lot of progress.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about endings and beginnings, I guess because this blog will be ending soon (two months from tomorrow will be my last consecutive post), and another project–I’m guessing–will begin. Yes, something else will begin. Something always does. Indeed, I already have a few projects up my sleeve. I just don’t know which one will call mostly loudly for my attention. That’s the deal with creative endeavors. More often than not, you don’t tell them what’s up, they tell you what’s up. For example, I’ve made it a practice to sit down and write every day, and–yes–I have certain parameters I work within. (Like, I talk about me and my therapist. I don’t talk about celebrity gossip or cornbread recipes.) But within these parameters, what I write about is usually dictated TO ME.

What I mean is that I have an internal creative compass that points me in this or that direction, tells me when I’m on or off center. It says, “No, that’s not it. Start again. Delete that paragraph.” It says, “That’s it, you’re done. Don’t you dare write another word.” As strange as this process may sound, it’s not. We all know when a night out with our friends is over, or when a relationship is. We don’t even have to say we’re done (because the other person knows too), we can just start packing up our things. More and more, I can’t advise listening to this inner wisdom–your inner wisdom–enough. In essence, this IS your spiritual journey, learning to follow your own divine compass. That still, small voice that tells you, “Go here, don’t go there. Do this, don’t do that.” The one that tells you when pieces fit, when pieces don’t. The one that tells you when something’s a perfect match or not.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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There is a force, a momentum that dances with all of us, sometimes lifting us up in the air, sometimes bringing us back down in a great mystery of starts and stops.

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Marcus and the Search for Happiness (Blog #1034)

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It’s been raining nonstop. Nothing too heavy. Just the steady downfall of a cold, gray January day. Yes, today the rain has been reliable. Consistent, like an old friend. And whereas I’d normally describe a day like today as murky or dreary, today I’ve thought of it as enveloping or comforting. Peaceful. For the last few hours I’ve been sitting in my chair, reading, next to my window. Besides the occasional whoosh of a car driving by, there’s been the pitter-pat of the rain. The soft, kind, let-me-wrap-my-arms-around-you pitter-pat of cleansing water. Nothing too heavy. An old friend.

This afternoon I went to Northwest Arkansas to see my upper cervical care doctor. First, however, I went to a used bookstore to sell, or at least try to sell, some books for my parents. And whereas the store later told me I could have parked right in front and avoided getting wet and paying the parking meter, I said, “Too late. I already did all that.” They had a look on their faces like, what a shame, but more and more I prefer what is. What I mean is that could-haves and should-haves are fantasies. I COULD HAVE parked in front? What a ridiculous notion. No, I couldn’t have, no more than I could have flown to the shop. Why? Because I parked somewhere else, and because I DROVE there. Could the sun have risen in the west this morning? Not in reality. In your head, maybe.

Yesterday in an effort to finish my leaf raking and bagging project before this morning’s predicted rain, I worked well past dark. This required a bit of strategery, meaning that as the sun was still up, I bagged the piles farthest away from the house. Then as the dark set in, I bagged the ones closest to the house, where my client had turned on their porch lights. Anyway, I kept thinking about how some people might be miserable bagging leaves at night but how I wasn’t. After all, I love the dark. Looking up, I could see the moon. I could see Venus. Plus, it was still, quiet. It was peaceful, like it is now by my window. Just the rustle of leaves and the sighing of my breath.

And the occasional groan.

After we exchanged pleasantries about our weekends, my upper cervical care doctor told me my graph looked fabulous today (which means he didn’t give me an adjustment). “It’s as good as I’ve ever seen yours look,” he said. “Maybe you should do yard work more often.”

Everyone’s a comedian.

“I’m not sure my ankle agrees,” I said, since my ankle and a number of other body parts have been sore today.

“Well, your body’s trying,” he said. “Just give it time. It’s old.”

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

This evening I read a delightful book I couldn’t resist buying at the bookstore this afternoon, Hector and the Search for Happiness by French psychiatrist Francois Lelord. A modern-day parable about one man’s (Hector’s) quest to find happiness, the book doesn’t ultimately propose a formula for lasting joy. It does, however, list a number of ways to increase joy in your life. For example, by spending time with those you love, or by doing something that makes you feel useful.

One of my favorite observations that Hector makes is “making comparisons can spoil your happiness.” Breaking this wisdom down, he says that we rob ourselves of happiness when we compare ourselves 1) to an imagined future, 2) to a remembered past, or 3) to someone else. For example, I could have really made myself miserable last night while raking leaves had I 1) wished I’d been inside drinking hot chocolate instead of stepping in dog shit, 2) thought about how much faster and more efficiently I COULD HAVE worked had I not screwed up my knee last year, or 3) looked at Facebook and pouted about the fact that I wasn’t on vacation in Cabo with MY hot boyfriend.

Which I don’t have, by the way.

That’s ANOTHER fantasy.

More and more I see how we make ourselves miserable by comparisons. It rains, and, because we compare this present moment to a memory we like better, we think the rain shouldn’t exist (and yet it does). Just like that, there goes your happy afternoon. There goes your chance to experience the peaceful pitter-pat. We wish our bodies looked different, felt different, behaved differently. Consequently, we miss out on how they DO look, feel, and behave. Despite all my sinus troubles and headaches, last night my body helped me make money, and this afternoon it ran me all over town. This evening it allowed me to read. Never once did it ask anything in return. I tell it it’s not good enough, but it continues to serve. It’s consistent. Like an old friend. If only I could be so faithful to myself and others. If only I could move through life like a gentle rain. Nothing too heavy. If only I could wrap my arms around this present moment with all it’s glory and terror, and then, when it is over, let it go as gracefully as a tree lets go of its leaves.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We're allowed to relabel and remake ourselves.

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After (Blog #1033)

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Two days ago I blogged about raking and bagging leaves in a client’s backyard and how I kept stepping in dog shit. Well, because the project was too big to finish in one afternoon, I returned today for more manual labor. And, apparently, to step in more shit. Seriously, my client’s dog acts like the whole backyard is her toilet. Fortunately, this time I came armed with plastic sacks to put my boots in so they wouldn’t dirty up my car, Tom Collins, on the ride home. Additionally, I brought slippers for wearing inside my client’s house and for driving home in. Then when I GOT home, I cleaned my rakes in the shower and my boots in the sink. Then, just to be safe, I took Tom to the car wash and cleaned him too.

He didn’t say thank you, but I know he appreciated it.

Finally, and lastly, I cleaned myself. And whereas I’ll spare you the details (I’m assuming you know how showers work), it felt fabulous. No kidding, if you ever really want to enjoy a shower, rake and bag thirty large trash sacks worth of leaves first. Just be sure that while you’re working you step in plenty of dog shit. That really makes a shower great.

You know, life is about contrast.

While raking and bagging leaves today, I listened to a glorious book by Rabbi Steve Leder called More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us. And whereas I’ve read a lot of books about self-help and spirituality, I’m not sure I’ve ever read (or listened to) a book more human or full of compassion than this one. Indeed, I often had to stop working in order to fully take in Leder’s wisdom on pain and suffering, kindness and humility, and forgiveness and hope. More than once I cried. Not because the stories Leder shares are so heart-breaking (although many of them are), but because I felt that I was meeting a long-lost friend. Not Leder, mind you, although I’m sure we’d get along. Rather, I felt that I was meeting, or at least being being drawn closer to, my own good heart and soul, those parts of me that would gladly endure pain and suffering (again and again) in order to grow personally or help another.

One of Leder’s contentions is that at some point in life we all go through hell. Our bodies break down. Our relationships fail. Our friends and family die. Maybe we just have a bad day. We step in shit and don’t have our slippers with us. These are the facts of life. On planet earth, we suffer. But Leder says, “Don’t come out of hell empty handed.” That is, don’t let your suffering be in vain. Don’t let it isolate you. Rather, let it transform you and connect you to others. Both with my therapist and on this blog, I’ve talked a lot about my traumas–the fire when I was a child, my dad’s going to prison, my breakup with my ex–about the experiences that have shaken me up and turned my life upside down like a snow globe. And yet for all the stress and distress these events have caused, I wouldn’t be without them even if I could. (I can’t; you can’t.) Because they’ve brought my fears to the surface and given me a chance to face them. Because they’ve encouraged me to (get my ass to therapy and) heal. Deep down where it counts. Because they’ve left me more beautiful than before.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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For me, it's important to hang on to this idea that no matter how bad they are, your circumstances can turn around, to believe that if an elephant can show up in your life, it can also disappear, to believe that just as the universe full of big problems, it is also full of big answers.

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On Crooked Pictures (Blog #1032)

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Last night and this afternoon I read two children’s books, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (say that three times fast), both of which were delightful. I’m not sure how I missed them as a child. Perhaps this is the purpose of adulthood, catching up on things you missed before and–if you were a way-too serious and anal-retentive child like me–being delighted. Not that my childhood wasn’t oftentimes filled with magic. It was.

It was just alphabetized magic.

I’ve spoken before about being an extremely neat child, about my need both historically and presently to have things just so. I mean, it’s gotten better, but it’s still a thing. According to my family, it all started after our house burned down when I was four. “That’s when you began lining up your stuffed animals according to height,” my aunt says. I can only assume that I felt out of control, that being hyper-organized was my way of keeping the monsters under the bed.

It’s weird how habits that start when you’re a child can last into adulthood. Thirty-five years pass, and one day, maybe every day, you find yourself still being afraid of loss, still grasping for control. I remember shaking, crying when I was a child when I’d get new toys for my birthday and not have a place to put them. Everything has to go somewhere, I’d think while lying in bed. There’s just not enough space in my room. Now as an adult I’m living in that very same room, sleeping on that very same bed. And whereas a few childhood photos and keepsakes remain, everything I used to be so worried about have a proper place for is now gone, given away or sold at one of half a dozen yard sales. And yet I still worry about finding the perfect spot for all my material possessions. I still spend way too much time making sure that my books and knickknacks are sitting in the “right” place and that my clothes are arranged by color.

Pro tip: this process goes faster when all your shirts are blue or black.

I guess it bothers me that at times I still get twitchy when things aren’t just so. This evening I worked on framing two brooches and nearly went into fits because I couldn’t get either one of them perfectly centered. Or because I scratched one of the frames. Honestly, it doesn’t matter why. Having worked on creative projects before (including this blog), I mentally KNOW that nothing is ever perfect. There are always flaws. And whereas it remains my contention that it’s better to create imperfectly than to not create at all, I still experience a high degree of stress emotionally when creating. I think, What if it’s not good enough? It’s like there’s this belief that if I can exactly center my projects and perfectly align the pictures on my wall, everything else will perfectly align and–somehow–prevent bad things from happening. Prevent loss from happening. From happening again.

Of course, this is only a superstition. Caroline Myss says that all compulsive rituals (like the need to have everything perfect) is about the belief that you can hold your world in place. But you can’t. Fires don’t skip your house because your books are alphabetized. Tornados don’t pass you by because they see how organized your sock drawer is. (Mine, by the way, is pretty organized.) In short, monsters come out from under your bed whenever THEY want. They don’t as YOUR permission.

This sucks, I know.

So what, Marcus?

So we enjoy our lives and our possessions exactly the way they are right here, right now, or we don’t. We see the magic all around us, or we don’t.

In terms of things having to be perfect (even now I’m thinking about starting ALL OVER on this evening’s brooches or just throwing them away, like, fuck it, what’s the point?), it occurs to me that nothing in life is perfect (and the point is fun). I’ve spoken a lot lately about how everything falls apart, and this is what I mean. All creations are essentially like sandcastles on the beach. Only here for a moment before they’re washed away. No matter how beautiful they were, no matter how ugly or off-center. Along these lines, it also occurs to me that just as I find flaws in my projects, I find flaws in my friends and family. And yet I love them wholeheartedly. Indeed, their flaws make them lovable. So more and more I’m realizing that something doesn’t HAVE to be perfect in order to bring you joy.

Crooked pictures have a certain charm about them.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If you want to find a problem, you will.

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Landmine (Blog #1031)

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Today I raked leaves, sixteen bags full, for a client who has a dog. Y’all, I stepped in so much shit. It was like walking through a landmine, bombs going off left and right. You should have seen me slipping and sliding. Crap was all over my shoes, my gloves, and God knows what else. And whereas my client apologized, their dog did not. Rude, I know. Thank goodness I had my poop boots on.

Poop boots are the best.

That being said, it did take me fifteen minutes to clean them in my client’s bathtub before I left because they (my boots, not my client) have deep grooves.

Think about it.

It’s gross, I know. Some things in life are.

Despite all the shit I stepped in today, I actually had a good time raking leaves. Sure, it was manual labor, but considering all the peanut butter I’ve been eating lately, I needed the exercise. Plus, it’s good to be employed, especially at a job where you can work, listen to a book on tape, and get paid all at the same time. This is why I told my client, “It’s okay, the poop is just part of the job.” Not that I loved all the odors or having to clean my boots and gloves later, but it’s not like I didn’t know it was going to be a dirty job. My client told me their yard was full of leaves and poop. Well, in my world that sounds like cash, so I agreed to brave the wilderness.

My point being that since I agreed to the conditions, why complain? Even if I hadn’t known what I was getting myself into, let’s face it. Dogs shit, people step in shit, and shit happens. No matter who you are, no matter where you go, no matter how well you plan. Sooner or later you land in something gross. Life is messy. Okay. This is why God invented soap.

Along these lines, this evening I’ve been thinking about how we so often want our lives to be pristine perfect, anything but messy. But they aren’t. In fact, they’re way messy. For example, for over three weeks (and a good part of my life) I’ve been fighting a sinus infection. And whereas I’ve felt better today, for all I know I could wake up tomorrow sick again. Or fit as a fiddle. Either way, at some point I will feel better and then turn my attention to all the things I’ve let go while feeling gross–my diet, my gym-going, my stack of papers. This is the way of it. We make a mess, we clean it up, we make a mess again. Here on planet earth, nothing stays one way (clean, messy, healthy, sick) for very long.

To me, the idea that nothing stays one way for very long sounds like hope. So often I get discouraged about my health and/or finances. And it’s not that things are so awful right here, right now. It’s that I convince myself that things will never get better. That they’ll just rock along at “blah” level until the end of time (or until the end of my time). This is ridiculous, of course, like thinking that you’re going to step in shit every hour of every day for the rest of your life. Please. There aren’t that many dogs in the world. Even if there were, they’d be no match for a good pair of boots, a bar of soap, and the right perspective. A perspective that says, “I can do this. I can make it out of this landmine alive.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Some things simply take time and often more than one trip to the hardware store.

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All Bad Moods Pass Away (If We Let Them) (Blog #1030)

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Today was a repair day. What I mean is that I spent the afternoon fixing things around the house, broken this-and-thats that have been crying out for my attention for quite some time (help us, help us!), but–you know–you’re not always in the mood to fix a leaky toilet. So you let it drip, drip, drip into the bowl. All day and all night, the water runs. Slowly, but it runs. Your utility bill goes up. A little, but it goes up.

One thing leads to another.

Along these lines, I didn’t MEAN to fix two lamps, a sink, and my parents’ leaky toilet today. I just got on a roll. I started with one lamp and kept thinking, Well, while I’m at it. One trip to Lowe’s and two trips to Walmart later, it was all done. No more lamps with faulty sockets. No more leaky toilet or kitchen sink.

Now we can see, pee, and clean debris (from our plates).

After I finished fixing one of the lamps today, my mom expressed her gratitude by telling me a story, about our friend Randy who used to travel once a year from Baltimore to visit his parents in Arkansas (he doesn’t anymore because both he and his parents are dead). “Randy said each year he’d find more and more things in his parents’ home in disrepair,” Mom said. “As you get older, you just can’t keep up with everything that breaks. Take that lamp you just fixed, for example. If it weren’t for you, we never would have used it again.” And whereas I appreciate my mom’s appreciation and am happy to put things back together, what I’ve been thinking about this evening is the fact that everything, by design, falls apart. Even if you take care of your stuff and have a live-in handyman, sooner or later all material objects (and people) go the way of the dinosaurs.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t take care of your shit or patch the holes in your jackets. You should. I’m just saying, you’re fighting a losing battle.

One thing that occurred to me tonight is that just like our physical things eventually dissolve or pass away, so do our mental stories and emotional states. Who hasn’t had the experience of being totally pissed off one day and waking up the next day (or week) completely fine? Looking back, you think, What was I so upset about? Well, where did you bad mood go? Down the toilet, that’s where.

All bad moods pass away.

Unless–and perk up here because this is my major point–we keep “fixing” them. What I mean is that if you’ve been carrying a resentment or holding a grudge for one, two, or thirty years, it’s only because you’ve been “repairing” it, nursing it back to life every time it starts to die. Once I had a dear woman tell me that for decades she’d be laying one particular concern at the feet of the cross. I didn’t say it at the time, but I thought, Why do you keep picking it back up?! Of course, I do this too, not only with my judgments about other people (and they did this, and this, and this), but also with my judgments about myself and what’s possible in my life. I think, I’ll always be this (too sick too poor) because I always have been. And yet that’s just a story I’ve told myself over and over again, a fairy tale that would gladly slip out of my hands if I’d let it, a fable that would naturally fall apart if I’d only stop putting it back together.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Life is never just so. Honestly, it’s a big damn mess most of the time.

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On Soulmates and Congruency (Blog #1029)

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Today I went thrift shopping with a friend. Y’all, we hit–let’s see–ten stores (and two restaurants) in six hours, and I came home with one brooch, a belt buckle, a paperweight, four books, and five picture frames. Talk about popping some tags. (That’s a Macklemore song reference, Mom). I can’t tell you how delighted I am with my purchases. And all for the bargain price of $12.50. And whereas I don’t know WHAT I’m going to do with everything I brought home (the belt buckle, for instance) I’m convinced I’ll figure out something sooner or later. For example, I’ve been sitting on an angel frame for over a month now, just waiting for the right brooch to pair it with. Well, the brooch I bought today was “it.”

It’s like every frame has its soulmate (broochmate), and you just have to be patient enough for them to meet each other.

Along these lines, lately I’ve been thinking that although, yes, some things are just ugly, most decorative items simply need the right background or environment. The above brooch, for example, just wouldn’t stand out the same against a yellow background, or in a frame three times as big. To put it succinctly, in terms of the final product, relationship is everything. A word/idea I think about a lot is congruency. Applied to my currents arts and crafts obsession, congruency asks, “Are all the involved parts working together to form a cohesive and eye-pleasing result?” If they aren’t, if the frame, background, brooch aren’t “meant to be together,” I don’t force it.

Setting them aside, I say, “Sorry, you just aren’t soulmates.”

This being said, I’m convinced most of us have the wrong idea about soulmates. Recently my mom and I were watching a tv show on which a man told his girlfriend he thought they were soulmates. The girlfriend, however, said, “I love you, I want to get married to you and have your babies, but I just don’t think we’re soulmates. I think my very first boyfriend was my soulmate.”

“Ouch,” I told my mom. “That was the wrong thing to say.”

Tact aside, who knows if these two are cosmically entwined? Hell, if they’re dating seriously, they probably are. At least in some respect. (No one comes into your life by accident.) Does this mean they’ll have butterflies for each other the rest of their lives? Doubtful. But then again, I believe that they could end up hating each other and still be soulmates.

I’ll explain.

There’s an idea in self-help and spirituality that your soulmate isn’t the person who makes your heart pitter-pat the most but is rather the person who causes your soul to GROW the most. This means the person who crawls under your skin, the one who’s got your goat, and the one you have the hardest time forgiving could very well be your soulmate. Could very well be the soul to whom–on the other side of the veil–you’re most indebted. I think about this a lot, since the older I get the more people there are with whom I’ve experienced conflict. And yet with each person and each drama, I’ve been challenged to find my voice or mature in some other way. And whereas from the outside it may have looked like a splitting off (please don’t call me again, Nancy), from the inside there was actually a coming together. That is, anytime you listen to and follow your inner guidance, you become more congruent. First with yourself AND THEN with another.

Along these lines, this afternoon at one thrift store I walked up on my friend while they were talking to the owner. He’d just handed my friend a piece of jewelry, and my friend said, “Did you make this yourself?”

Pausing ever so slightly, he said, “I did. Back in the 70s.”

Immediately I thought, He’s lying. Later my friend told me the man had said the jewelry was real turquoise, even though it was clearly just “turquoise colored.” And whereas it’s nice to have this confirmation, my point is that my intuition was talking to me, so the congruent thing for me to do was to not trust him to be honest, to not engage with him. Later, in another store, my gut told me a store owner was full of shit, so I literally walked away while he was talking to me. Normally the people pleaser in me wouldn’t have allowed me to do this sort of thing, but I thought, We know what happens when we let people verbally vomit on us because we’ve done that a hundred times before. Let’s see what happens when we take care of ourselves.

Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I walked away and I felt great. Absolutely fabulous. Then I ate this burger and felt even better.

Byron Katie says that a no to you is a yes to me. That is, when you listen to and follow your inner guidance, the answer is always yes. Yes, this brooch and this frame do (or don’t) go together. Yes, I know you’re lying to me. Yes, I’m walking away now. My therapist says when we respond honestly and authentically to people, we not only give ourselves a gift, but also give them a gift. “Even if we’re telling them to take a hike?” I say. “Even if we’re telling them to take a hike,” she says. “Because so many of us are lied to constantly. So it’s good to hear the truth for once, even if the answer’s no. Plus, whenever you’re authentic with someone, you give them permission to be authentic too.” Today my friend said, “How did you walk away from that rambling salesman so easily?”

“I’m not quite sure,” I said. “I just did it.” Looking back, I realize that something in me said, “Move,” so I moved. For once, I listened to me. For once, I was congruent.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Beating yourself up is a far cry from self-respect."

On What’s Gained In Between (Blog #1028)

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Last week I replaced a headlight in my car, Tom Collins. However, before I did, I replaced THE WRONG headlight in my car. That is, I replaced the high beam on the driver’s (my) side rather than the low beam. Because under the hood it was and is the easiest light to get to, the most obvious. Of course, the high beam didn’t need replacing, and so after I changed it I still had a light out. Y’all, I was so frustrated. I checked fuses and everything. Thankfully, I finally figured out 1) I’d changed the wrong bulb and 2) where the right bulb was located.

At which point I changed that one, and everything was fine.

Well.

Last night I noticed that my passenger’s side blinker was going out (you know how your dashboard indicator light will flash, flash, flash, and click, click, click real fast when there’s a problem), so today I removed my passenger side taillight assembly in an effort to change the turn signal bulb. So. The assembly has three bulbs, and I guessed the blinker was the smallest one. Wrong. Then I guessed it was the one next to the smallest one, and that was it. However, I didn’t have a bulb that was the correct size. Only one that was ALMOST the correct size. So my sweet mother got me the correct bulb at Walmart (she was going anyway), and I changed it.

And things still didn’t work.

What the hell? I thought.

Finally I realized my car, like all cars, has TWO passenger-side blinkers. One in the back and ONE IN THE FRONT. Oh, THAT’S the one that’s out! I thought. Duh. So I changed that one.

And everything worked fine.

Despite the fact that I often get upset in these situations–like, why didn’t I figure things out sooner?–today I’ve been thinking about how nothing is ever truly a waste of time. For example, a few days ago I framed this fleur-de-lis brooch.

And wheres I told myself I only had one shot to get it centered correctly, I screwed it up. That is, I drilled a hole in the backboard (an old book cover), and it was a little to the left. Crap, I thought, crap, crap, crap. Well, ever persistent, I made the hole bigger, until it was centered. Or almost centered. Then I invented a new way to “hang” the brooch. It’s a little hard to explain, but usually I use a screw and a nut and “set” the brooch pin on the nut. Well, because the nut would have held the screw off-center, I left the nut out and instead used a screw and a washer. This ended up being the perfect thing. Without the nut in the mix, there was a little wiggle room, just enough space for slipping the brooch pin in between the washer and screw head and holding the pin in place, on center.

I hope this explanation makes sense.

Even if it doesn’t make sense, my point is that with each brooch framing mistake I make, I’m learning. Likewise, each time I replace the wrong bulb in my car, I’m learning. As a recovering perfectionist, I wish I could get all things right the first time, but still. Next time, things will go a lot faster.

As far as I can tell, this “mistakes are required for learning” thing applies not only to car repair and arts and crafts, but also to relationships and healing. God knows I haven’t mastered those things yet. But I’m willing to keep trying, and I think we have to be. To ask for help when we need it and to keep getting back in the ring with our friends and family and our chronic problems. (And yes, I realize your friends and family may BE your chronic problems). Anyway, more and more I’m realizing that the point isn’t a quickly changed lightbulb or perfectly centered brooch. The point isn’t perfect relationships or perfect health. Rather, it’s the learning. It’s what’s gained in between the falling down and the getting back up again.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Sometimes life can really kick you in the balls and make you drop to your knees.

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