Christian Zombie Killers Handbook

What I love about Christian Zombie Killers Handbook is that its author’s voice is clear, direct, and passionate.  In the introduction, his words paint a graphic depiction of what the dark side of human nature truly looks like and how it functions in our lives.

Organized into 12 episodes—laying out the leading theories for explaining for zombieism (sin).

I was initially concerned about the wisdom of building an entire zombie mythology as a metaphor for sin; however, the author nicely balances each episode, first with a story based on the zombie metaphor immediately followed by relevant, Biblically/scripturally-based discussion questions.

What makes the discussion questions so good is that the author doesn’t pull any punches.  He uses extreme phrases and word pictures like “moral insanity, ” “soul-crimes,”  It’s this use of visceral language that will make it appealing to teenagers and young adults.  The questions are really appropriate for teenagers who are sifting through everything they’ve heard and read, beginning to firmly establish the beliefs and opinions they’ll carry into adulthood. 

Christian Zombie Killers Handbook was provided to me as an advanced reading copy by BookSneeze.

My salvation Psalm

Even though I was raised in a church-going home, it wasn't a Christian home as the church we went to didn't teach about salvation through Jesus.

When I was a teenager, my Mom was born again. I wasn't. I got really angry at God and left the church. I was mad because we switched churches and all of the kids at the new church acted all holy on Sunday but were crappy to me at high school during the week.  I had many friends who were Jewish and, if God didn't want them in Heaven, I didn't want anything to do with God.

Also, Mom was super zealous.  She came at me really hard with the Bible stuff.  Instead of building a bridge, it built a wall between us.

My 20's were moderately wild and I made most of the poor choices that a person can make. In my 30's, I tried Buddhism for a few years but found it to be empty--but, whenever I drove to the Buddhist temple, I passed a Calvary Church.  There were all these smiling people having coffee.  I was still mad at God so I felt like giving them the finger as I passed by.

When my Mom sensed any softening towards God in me, she'd push me towards Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.  But I didn't want to accept God because she'd come at me hard and smother me like she did when I was a teenager.

Still, I couldn't get that church out of my mind.  And, when I went to Barnes & Noble, I started picking up books by offbeat Christians (Anne Lamott and Kathleen Norris) and was intrigued by this Jesus. But, it wasn't me wanting the books. It's like I was drawn to these books in spite of myself. Now, I know it was the Holy Spirit.

Shortly after that, I moved to Aliso Viejo and decided I should get involved in a church. I let my fingers to the walking through the yellow pages and found Pacific Hills Church. Pastor Danny taught on Psalm 19 and it answered all of my teenage rebelliousness. Sitting in the back row of the church I prayed, "God I can't go another day without you." 

So I always think of Psalm 19 as my saving Psalm.  One other tiny thing that links me to this Psalm is my love for reggae.  "Rivers of Babylon" by Jimmy Cliff blends Psalm 137 and Psalm 19:14.  Even before Ibecame a Christian, I loved these BiblicIal references that pervades reggae.  No matter where it shows up, the word of God is sweet.

Dear Dad

I miss you today.  Your face smiles at me from a photo on my kitchen wall.  It's 15 years ago and you're in your late 60's.  It's some random family holiday and you're wearing one of my handmade basket on your head. 

You've got a fabulous smile that reaches all the way to your hazel eyes.  You're not just smiling for the camera--you're twinkling at the person behind the camera, probably Mom.  I compare it to a more recent photo and I see how much Parkinson's Disease robbed you over the years.  It stole your ability to laugh and smile and twinkle.

When I think, "I miss my Dad," I think I miss two things:  the man in the photo with the dynamite smile and the opportunity of sharing the little achievements of my life with you.  It's hard to know that I'll never make you proud ever again.

I would never wish you back.  You're in heaven now, the man God originally made you to be.  But I miss your face, Dad.

111 days

My Best Leadership Experience

In one of the courses for my project management certification, we're learning about leadership.  The teacher asked us to consider our best or worst leadership experiences.

I have a couple areas in my life where I’m a leader.  I lead a team of writers.  I lead a scrum team.  I’m a leader of the Junior High School kids at church.  I’m part of a panel of speakers who teach Orange County law enforcement officers about mental illness.

Short-term leadership experiences are much better than long term.  I’m not cut out to be a long haul leader.  I lose inspiration unless I’m doing something that really inspires me.

One of the best short-term leadership experiences is when I volunteered to help teach 1^st and 2^nd graders at my church’s family camp.  We had to come up with curriculum and crafts.  I chose the 23^rd Psalm because it’s familiar and because it lends itself to easily dividable lessons.

As I researched the Psalm and broke it into lessons, I actually learned new things about it and God that I never knew.  I learned that, in nomadic culture, that if you were dining with someone and they were attacked by enemies, you'd defend your guest as if they were your own family.  God defends me against my enemies like I'm his own kid.  Very inspiring. 

I worked to create activities that would provide a sensory experience to really instill the lessons into the kids.  We planned a night hike with glow sticks when we studied “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I’ll fear no evil.”

But for the actual camp, I’d only signed up to help—not to actually teach.  And yet, when it came to the actual event, the lead teacher bailed and I was left to lead 20 young kids.  I had no experience.  I was terrified but I did it anyway.

The very first day, I was exhausted by lunch time.  All I wanted to do was to clean up the craft supplies and have lunch.  But, just as I finished picking up the supplies, two little girls came wandering back into the room, sat down and began to color.

I was irritated but I just kept cleaning another area of the room. I listened to the little girls talking.  One asked, “Do you live with your Mommy or Daddy?”  The other answered, “I live with them both.”  The first girl replied, “You’re lucky.  You don’t have to choose who you love better.”

Those last words just slayed me and my irritation evaporated.  This little 7-year-old had to face a world where she had to make an impossible choice.  It let me empty myself and enjoy serving the kids for the rest of the week.  And it gave me a love for Briana and Susana that endures to this day.

Why am I learning the harmonica?

Well...about a decade ago, my boyfriend learned to play the harmonica. We even went to jazz harmonica concerts (Toots Thielemans). It gave me a passing interest in learning to play but I held off because I only had a casual interest and didn’t want to push up on my boyfriend’s new hobby.

A few years later, my boyfriend and I parted ways. I took a one-evening class on learning to play the blues but I didn't learn enough for it to be useful so I gave up.

Last week, when I was doing some serious cleaning, I found my harmonica. I decided I needed to either learn to play or throw it out.

I searched YouTube for lessons. They helped me get started, but it was difficult to figure out a systematic way of learning.   As I ranged around the Internet, I found the Harmonica Academy. I liked it because it's structured.

The downside is that I want to skip all the beginning lessons, hurry ahead and play songs. I don’t want to take the time to learn technique. BUT, so far, I’m restraining myself and dutifully learning single notes and scales.  (Okay, I admit that I downloaded the tabs for "How Great is Our God" and practice it daily...and that I researched how to turn sheet music into harmonica tabs...but that's it.  I promise.)

I'm giving myself 30 minutes a day (or as many minutes as my lips will tolerate) for the next 30 days to see if I love it. So far, it's awesome! My hope is to be good enough that by next year I can play with the worship team at church.

I firmly believe that you've gotta try the things that pique your interest (within the bounds of legality/morality) because it opens a brave new world.  Makes life interesting.

Creer

My friend, Randi, teaches fiber arts at Creer.  It's been a cool program where she has taught knitting, crochet, weaving, and dyeing to men and women in San Juan Capistrano.  Her desire has been to empower people and help them gain confidence through learning new skills and creative expression.

I am so proud to have had just a tiny part in this endeavor by contributing yarn to the students.  It's amazing and delightful at how the students "catch the fiber bug" in the same way it's caught me and Randi and all of the other knitters and weavers we know.

I look at the happy faces in these photos and it's a reflection of how I felt when I made my very first garter scarf.  I must have knitted and ripped and knitted and ripped the first 10 rows over a dozen times.  But when I was done, all of my frustration was forgotten because I had made something beautiful with just two sticks and a piece of string.

Woot!

Dirk Hamilton

In college, my friend, Martha, turned me onto Public Radio and awesome music. We'd go to At My Place or the Sweetwater to catch rising stars. One of my enduring favorites is Dirk Hamilton.


He's got amazing charisma and raw sex appeal but what remains with me decades later is his ability to turn a phrase. To call him a musician barely does him justice. He sees into daily life as a poet does. He bends words until they paint the picture he wants you to see. He's been compared to Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, which is fitting because they're of the same age. This reviewer gives a great history of Dirk's career.

Dirk first captured me with "Meet me at the Crux." Somehow the suggestion to "explain to me in detail how your urine hits the sink" has remained in my brain for decades.


Dirk's raspy voice and acoustic guitar are the perfect vehicles for describing the angst of modern loneliness in "Billboard on the Moon."


I'm also intrigued because his lyrics contain many passing references to people or events of the Bible. In "How Do You Fight Fire?" he talks about how "one righteous man could save a city" and it brings to mind when Abraham bargained with God for the sake of Sodom and Gomorrah. I really hope Dirk has a saving knowledge of the Bible. I surely would love to hear him for 10,000 years in heaven.



If you ever get a chance, Dirk is worth a listen.

I'd planned to see him this Thursday at the Lounge in Hermosa Beach, but the venue has been cancelled.  It kinda solves my Stress Groove, but I'm kind of bummed.  I'll hafta make do with digital so I ordered a fresh copy of "Meet Me at the Crux."

Always every age I've ever been

Today when I was chatting with Melinda, I mentioned that it’s weird to be closer to retirement than I am to my graduation from college. It almost came as a shock at how close I am to being done with my career.

I think the shock comes from the fact that there’s a part of me that never ages. Sure, my face has wrinkles and my sable-colored hair is getting shot through with gray, but I’m always every age I’ve ever been.

In my mind, I can transport myself back to my high school graduation when I stood in the middle of campus and thought, “For 18 years, people have told me what to do, where to be, and how to act. Now what do I do?” I felt scared and excited all mixed together.

Thirty years later, as I walk towards the end of my career, I have that same sense of fear and wonder at what the future holds. For 25 years, I’ve had the structure of working in an office, having a boss and co-workers, and achieving steady professional goals. What will I do when I retire?

My soul still feels as wide-eyed, eager, and adventurous as I did when I was a kid. There’s so much more to learn and do. And I love this timeless part of my heart because it tells me that God is really there because he put this sense of eternity in my mind.

God had a plan for the 18-year-old girl I was. It’s faith that tells me he has good plans for the career woman I am now and the 65-year-old woman I will be.

Rowing!

Over the past month, I've become intrigued with rowing. After church today I went wild and had my first lesson. It was amazing. As I sat out there in the little boat on the big Newport Back Bay, I realized why the disciples woke Jesus up when they were out on the ocean and a storm came up. (If I was them, I would have screamed and shaken Jesus awake.)

Also, the most amazing thing happened. There was a flock of hundreds of tiny sandpipers skimming over the water. They broke formation and streamed around us. The sound of all of those wings beating in harmony was magical. It's the kind of awesome beauty that makes you hold your breath and feel everlastingly grateful to God just to be able to experience that moment.

What Comes to the Surface

Assignment is to take 10 minutes of “quiet” and “see what comes to the surface.”  The meditation is “what should I be doing with my non-work time?”

Hanging out with friends and even expanding my group of friends.  This is hard because I’m not a very good friend.  I’m not useful to know.  I think I’m pretty guarded.  I don’t think of myself as reliable.  I think I can be kind.  I’m not really generous.  I’m funny and well-meaning.  I don’t know that I look for what I can give.  Mostly, I want people if they want me.  Not everyone is that way. 

I think I should expand my friendships because…I love that I can share bits of my life and bits of my heart with Jan and Mary and Melinda and Helene.  And yet, I’m not even out there with these people.  My thought is that, the last people I dropped my guard for were Bric and Sifu.  I got burned and even burned other people because of them.

I need support but can my friends rely on me for support?  Maybe.

I should be doing something enriching.  Learning a language (but for what purpose), learning how to invest my savings (boring).  I should pray but I feel false and unskilled and a little scared.  I should knit for charity but I don’t really, really care.

What would I do if I had no fear and had money, money, money?  This is a question I want to glide away from.

I think I want a fiber studio but I hold myself back from it sometimes.  It’s like I make the space but won’t take the risks because I don’t want to fail and be wrong.  That I’ll make something ugly.  That I’ll devote myself to something and it will be ugly.

Time’s up for today.

Remembering Homer Anderson

March 30, 1929 – July 11, 2011

Today, I come here not to mourn my Dad’s death, but to remember his life.

Dad was born March 30, 1929, in Burwell, Nebraska.  He always claimed that, instead of a pat on the bottom to get him to take his first breath, the doctor held him outside the window in the freezing winter air.   That’s enough to make anyone yell.  He also claimed that incident had something to do with him losing his hair, but I’m not sure how that works.

He grew up on a farm and took care of the livestock, starting at a very young age.  In the warm summer sun, he sometimes worked shirtless.  His Auntie Jum remarked that he got as brown as a berry.  After that, he carried the nickname of “Brownie” for many years.

He was a tailback for his high school football team and graduated from Burwell High School in 1948.

During the Korean War, he proudly served his country as a radio operator in the U.S. Army. The men he served with remember him as a quiet and dedicated soldier, fighting together with them in several battles on Heartbreak Ridge. For his service, he was awarded the Korean Service medal, United Nations Korea Medal, and two bronze service stars.

After leaving the Army in 1953, Homer worked as a mechanic and telephone linesman.  One day, after repairing a telephone line in the bitterly cold Nebraska winter, he climbed down the pole, immediately quit his job and moved to sunny Southern California.

In 1957, he began driving a bakery truck for Helms Bakery.  After work each Thursday afternoon, Homer would open his truck for the neighborhood kids so they could feast on leftover doughnuts and treats.

In 1961, he met his bride, Darlene Canny.  My sister, Pam, was their matchmaker, telling Homer that her Mom really, really wanted to see “Gone with the Wind.”  The rest is history.  They married on September 3, 1961, in Las Vegas, and lived happily ever after these past 50 years.  Even in his last days, he told his caregivers that “Darlene really lights up a room like sunshine.”

When Helms Bakery closed in 1966, Dad became a letter carrier for the Postal Service where he was known by his co-workers as “Andy.”  As a letter carrier, he walked 10 miles a day for 33 years, carrying a satchel over his shoulder and wearing polished shoes and a crisply pressed uniform.  He cared about having a professional appearance and shunned the shorts and knee socks letter carriers wear today claiming that they leave just enough knee exposed to encourage dogs to bite.

He loved to come home at lunchtime and have Mom make him a good meal.  During the evening meal, he told us stories about his co-workers and about all of the pets and people he met on his route.  He worked hard and his patrons always remarked that they could set their watches by the timeliness of his mail deliveries.

There were times when Dad would have to work a second job to provide for our family but he did so gladly because he loved us.  He wasn’t always a perfect Dad but he took his role as father and provider seriously and he did his very best.

He seldom took a sick day but he enjoyed taking vacations.  He has traveled extensively through the United States (including Hawaii and Alaska), to the Holy Land, Europe, Korea, and Japan.

Dad loved to work and loved talking with people, so, when he retired in 1999, he volunteered at Long Beach Memorial Hospital.  He was a service room volunteer for ten years.  He said the hardest task was taking little kids for tests when the kids had no one to be with them.  His very favorite task was to help discharge families with newborn babies.

Homer loved Jesus and was an active member of Grace Church where he had the privilege of serving as deacon and, more recently at First Baptist Church of Lakewood, where he served as an usher. Whenever he met someone new to the church, he would point them at Mom knowing she has a special way of making people feel welcome.

He was friendly and could approach anyone, anywhere. When I was 16, my parents and I went to Hawaii.  After we landed in Honolulu, Dad saw someone familiar in baggage claim.  He didn’t know the guy’s name but walked over and asked, “Do you go to such and such church?”  No.  “Do you square dance?”  No.  The man was the actor, Kurt Russell.  And I love this story about my Dad because it speaks to the sense that his heart was still small town where you know everyone and you greet your friends whenever you see them.

Many have said how Homer touched their lives.  He adopted many people into his life and heart and is thought of as a father and grandfather to so many more than his immediate family. His love for pancakes with real maple syrup and strawberry ice cream are legendary.  He had a funny sense of humor and often made us groan with his puns.  He was a simple man and lived his life without an ATM card, cell phone or computer.

If you want to memorialize my Dad in some way, he would tell you to keep your money.  Instead,

·         Be an usher at your church

·         Take your dog for a walk and enjoy the common things you see
·         Goof around with your kids and grandkids until you laugh
·         Be devoted to your spouse and always send a mushy, romantic card on special days
·         Continue to extend love and grace to family members even if they don’t love you back
·         Have a nice stack of pancakes or a big dish of strawberry ice cream
·         Fly the American flag
·         But mostly, ask Jesus into your heart. That way, you can be sure to see Dad again someday

Good-bye Poppy. I love you and I miss you.

Love KJ (Kelly Jean sweetheart, your tiny baby girl

Saturday

Today was one of those "lost in a haze" days. And yet, I got my hair cut, bought and set up an all-in-one printer, and scanned all of my automotive-related and HOA-related documentation for the past 10 years.

One thing I am finding is that I'm starting projects and not following through on them. I have the same problem at work. I probably should have held off on the scanning project until I got the bathroom painted...but dealing with all of the paperwork was sort of related to getting started on Quicken...yet another partially completed project.

Still, for the most part, these projects give me hope for a better future...an organized living space and automated monthly payments.

I'm proud of taking these steps.

Happy Birthday to me

Today I clock over to 49 years old. I celebrated the day quietly working on my home, my truck and my finances.

My home suffered with years of neglect during my darkest depression--and it looks it. Slowly, my life, my health, and my home are being rebuilt.

For my home, I unclogged a sink that had been clogged for nearly 5 years and replaced the lens in my florescent lights. This allowed me to reclaim an area of my home that's been "out of order" since 2005/2006.

For my truck, I emptied 4 bags of garbage I'd been carting around in the bed of the truck for about that many years. It's incredibly freeing. I don't have to be ashamed every time I get into my truck anymore.

For my finances, I took the time to take a look at my annual social security statement and the savings in my 401k. The good news is that I only have $100k more to go until I'm fairly set for retirement. $10,000 per year for the next decade.

This is not the way anyone else would choose to spend their birthday. But I so wanted to start the year with a clean slate. I didn't do a "perfect" job of completing all the tasks I needed to do, but it's enough to get started.

I'm studying Ezra these days...learning about how the Jewish people were allowed to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity in Babylon...and they had the freedom and finances to rebuild their temple. I feel their same joy and freedom...the hope that comes with the process of rebuilding. Amen.

At Home with Venetia in Kyoto

A couple of weeks ago, one of my knitting friends turned me onto a TV show on PBS called At Home with Venetia in Kyoto. It didn't really sound like something that would interest me, but she raved about the show so enthusiastically, I decided to overcome my own negativity and give it a try.

After just one show, I was entranced. The show is simply about the life of Venetia Stanley-Smith, a British expatriate, who has lived with her husband in Kyoto's Ohara district for the past 30 years. Kinda grabs you by the throat, right?

Venetia's life is measured and thoughtful. Each week, Venetia tends to the herb garden of her rural home, makes handmade gift for her friends, and visits one of the artisans who live in Kyoto. So far, she's visited the Rakuten Bamboo Shop, the wirework shop of Tujiwa Kanaami, and a defunct factory for a milk-based drink sold during the 20's and 30's. Also, the pianist who composes music for the show, Mine Kawakami, stopped by to visit Venetia and wrote an impromptu composition about the mint tea Venetia brewed for them.

Some of Venetia's handmades have been oatmeal and lavender bath bags, jasmine and sandalwood face cream, and lavender vinegar.

The things that draw me in most are the ways Venetia lives her life: a slow, measured pace, extending thoughtfulness towards her friends, mindful of reusable and renewable sources. She expresses her creativity through making small gifts with the herbs and plants she grows herself. Watching Venetia's mindful life, listening to the lovely accompanying music leaves my mind as relaxed as a bit of quiet yoga.

Happy New Year

Tommorow I turn the big four-nine. Over the past year, I've considered various topics for the blog: lost arts, spinning rare wools, and walks in my neighborhood. I figured that a one-topic blog was the only way to go.

But, I've decided to have the Kelly-topic blog and to write whatever pleases me.

Community Emergency Preparedness Graduation

Over the past 8 weeks, I've participated in the Community Emergency Preparedness Academy. It's an interesting look at the knowledge and skills needed to face a community emergency.  We learned CPR, how to size up a structure after an earthquake, how to administer first aid, and how to fight small fires.  All in all, a cool adventure.

Cheese Chronicles

Cheese Chronicles is a wonderful read. Thorpe's youthful enthusiasm and passion for cheese leaps off the page.  With almost a rock n' roll attitude, she describes her own journey in becoming a cheesemonger for the world famous Murray's deli. She educates the reader in the different classifications of cheeses and describes the growing trend of specialty cheese making farms in the United States, which sort of parallels the rise of microbreweries in the 80's and 90's.

It's not a book I could read cover-to-cover in one sitting--mostly because it gave me the cheese joneses so bad that I frequently had to stop reading and go purchase cheese just to make it through a chapter.

The writer in me loves the author's voice and passion. The chef in me enjoyed having my mind opened to many unfamiliar types of cheeses. The nerd in me dug on learning the history and nomenclature of a delicious, groovy human subculture.

Cheese Chronicles is a difficult book to classify.  It's not a cookbook or book on how to make cheese.  It's more like a textbook on learning to love cheese.

However you slice it, Cheese Chronicles is definitely worth a read.

Cast Away Your Worries

Cast all your worries upon me because I care about you. (1 Peter 5:7)

It’s a fact of life that people worry, but we’re not designed to carry around big bags of anxiety.  It drags on our health and gives us heart attacks and strokes and wrinkles.  But even worse, it robs us of the coolest things in life—like hope and joy and kindness.  Who can afford to be kind when they’re worried about how to pay the bills?  Who can meet the day with a song in their heart when they’re crushed by deadlines at work?

For people with mental illness, worry is a real enemy.  When your mind starts chewing on itself, it can leave you raw with symptoms like insomnia and irritability.  Your moods start to swing and it just makes the situation worse.  So what’s a girl to do?

Cast away your worries.

This solution came to me one day when I was overrun with the anxiety of appointments, deadlines, and chores.  Even fun stuff—my beloved hobbies—seemed like a burden to me.  I sat at my desk, frozen and unable to begin the day because I had no idea of where to begin.  I was sitting under an avalanche just waiting to bury me.    

I couldn’t carry it around any more.  I wanted to reach inside my own brain and empty it out.  I wanted to open my calendar and empty it out.  I felt so anxious I wanted to run or hide or scratch off my own skin just to escape the feeling of being trapped.

So, I cast away my worries.

I got out a blank piece of paper and titled it “Cast all your cares on me.”  Then, I wrote a couple of words to represent each of my worries.  I drew a circle around each “worry” to tether it to the page.  No worries are allowed to escape!

I didn’t use a nice piece of paper, a spectacular pen and beautiful calligraphic handwriting. Perfect presentation wasn’t the point.  The point was emptying my brain onto the page and creating something (a container) that would hold my worries for me.

I took a little time with this.  I wrote some cares, did a little work, surfed the Internet, had some coffee, and wrote some more worries.  I couldn’t do write them down all at once because, as I opened my mind to what was worrying me, I felt nervous, worried, and overwhelmed.  But, over the course of an hour or so, I chipped away at it until I’d written down all of the projects, appointments and deadlines that made me feel all snarled up inside.

I filled up a notebook page and it looked like this:

[Insert a little doodad that shows what my page looked like]

I felt a little better.  All of my worries were confined to a page of notebook paper.  But, I knew they wouldn’t stay there for long so I needed to work on solutions for each of them.

So, I looked at each worry and thought,

§       Do I even need to worry about this?  Is it something I need to worry about?

§       Is this something I need to take action toward today?

If yes, then I circled them with a highlighter.

§       Can I tolerate the consequences if I don’t take any action towards this today?

If no, then I circled them with a highlighter.

§       What’s one step I can take towards solving this worry?  It doesn’t have to be a GIANT step, just a step.

I wrote one sentence under each worry.

§       What’s stopping me?

All kinds of things stopped me:  money, time, the size of the task.

Then, I wrote the steps for all of my worries onto small Post-Its and assigned them to a day in my calendar.  I use colored Post-It's because they're happy.  You can do what makes you happy.  It looks like this:

[Insert a little doodad that shows what my calendar looks like]

No fair assigning the action step for every worry to today or even to this week.  As you’re assigning the worries to your calendar, be kind to you.    Create the kind of task list you’d make for someone you love.

So, why should you take the time to cast away your worries?  Because you are loved by God...by your family...by your friends.  Casting away your worries is the path to the freedom of being loving and kind and filled with joy.  

Give it a rest

Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

[I want something here about the restless nature of life.  There's a push to go more, do more, have more.  It seems faster now, but it's always been there.]

One of the first things my doctor wanted me to work on in living well with mental illness was regulating my sleep.  She said that my moods would improve dramatically if I could find a way to get 7 or 8 contiguous hours of sleep.

I thought she was full of it, but I was desperate to be well.  I committed to work on it.

At that time, my life was terrifyingly stressful.  The IRS was after me for unfiled and unpaid taxes.  The DMV had suspended my license.  Even a person with normal brain chemistry would have a rough time sleeping in those circumstances.

And yet, I still wanted to be well and whole and able to do more than just get by.

I tried going to bed at 10 p.m.  Sometimes I couldn’t get to sleep until 1 a.m. Sometimes I fell asleep but awakened after 3 or 4 hours—not drowsy, but as awake as if I’d slept the night.  It was as though the stress of my daily life was robbing my brain of its ability to regulate itself.

I started to experiment with the common advice for getting better sleep.  I made sure I had a comfy bed, pillow and jammies.  I gave up caffeine after lunchtime and exercising in the evenings.  I tried supplements and over-the-counter sleep medications.  I did anything and everything I could to start sleeping regularly.

After a few months, I felt the positive impact of solid sleep.  I stopped feeling like an exhausted raw nerve all of the time.  I had more focus and energy.  I could function at a higher level.  It was awesome.

Now, nearly a year later, I’ve still got solid sleep habits.  I guard my precious sleep carefully.  There are times when I’ll stay out late with friends, or stay up late reading a great book, but I know that the cost will be a day of super low energy and inactivity.  So, the times when I sacrifice my sleep are few and far between.

There are also times when sleep is contrary.  It just won’t come.  On those days, I let the sleeplessness go—but, on the following night, I do everything, everything to get sleep. 

To play around with my sleep, to take it lightly is the path to instability, hypomania, depression, and chaos.

Monday, May 17, 2010 7:47 a.m.

Monday, May 17, 2010 7:47 a.m.
Glenwood & Aliso Creek Road
Aliso Viejo, CA

Light Drizzle 59 °F
Humidity:77 %

Today is one of those days when the air feels wet but it’s not quite raining. I walk to my car, my face and glasses are speckled with small specks of water. As my truck slices through the morning, my windshield is streaked with water.

While waiting for the signal, I notice a young rabbit eating the grass on the parkway greenbelt. Suddenly, it leaps up, shimmies from head to tail, and does a few zigzag hops. I feel vaguely sorry for the bunny. Outdoor dining in the drizzly air would make me shimmy and hop all around, too.