Posts from — January 2008

The kind that kicks ass here on earth.

Me, many years ago–early 80s. Plus a lot of muscle.

This is for you, Davee.

I usually don’t play music when I write–too distracting. With one exception. When I want to get serious, I put this on repeat and listen to it over and over. I don’t know why but for me it’s perfect–perfect tempo, perfectly spacious. Love.

From the “Diva” soundtrack from about 20 yrs ago.

sentimental-walk.mp3

Just started “following” a woman on Twitter (this is not like stalking, you’re supposed to follow people) who blogs about stepmothering. Her stepkid is little, mine is 21. When I married his dad, he was 11 so I’ve been part of his life for a fair amount of time. There have been super-high pros and super-low cons. But—and I’m not just saying this in case he might someday read this—the highs have totally outweighed the lows.

Some chronology:

1994 He is 8. I start dating his dad (Duncan), who is separated from his wife of 18 yrs. By all accounts, son (Duncan Jr.) bursts into tears every time my name is mentioned.

1994-1997 Awful divorce proceedings; situation deemed too fragile for us to even meet. So we have no relationship although I shop for his Xmas presents and do his laundry. Wonder if I’ll always be the maid. They’re a family. I’m not in it. Girlfriends counsel retreat. I hang in.

1997 Our first meeting. Lunch with his dad, him, and his best friend. For safety. He’s 10. I have no idea what to wear. We get a moment alone and I tell him, “Look I know your dad really wants you to like me and your mom really wants you to not like me. (Believe me, this was no secret.) All I ask is that you make up your own mind. I hope you’ll like me but if you don’t, I’ll deal with it.” He looked at me real serious and said, “OK.”

1997-1998 The 3 of us gradually begin to spend time together till it’s a regular thing. He kisses and hugs his dad and I try to make it okay for him to just wave at me. His dad is tormented about whether or not he’s handling the situation well. He is desperate about his son’s happiness. I understand, but also know he’s a bit less desperate about mine. It must be so; I am a grownup. I feel like a second class citizen because I am one. It’s absolutely clear that this relationship (father-son) takes precedence. I understand and even support this. But it still hurts.

1998 We get married and my stepson is best man. “What do I call you,” he says. “Susan,” I say. One of my vows to my husband, “I vow that the love I feel for you will include your beloved son.” I didn’t know how to do it, but really meant it. I liked this kid a lot. And he handled the whole wedding thing like a prince.

1998-2003 He shakes and shivers his way through middle school and then high school. It’s obvious that he’s an artist. It’s obvious that he’s NOT cut out for high school. He freaks out from not getting good grades. His parents don’t know what to do. They start to freak out. Suddenly he’s 6’ tall and weighs 120 lbs. He gets many zits. He grows dreadlocks. They look awful. Zits begin to disappear. He gets a buzz cut and is transformed into a majorly handsome guy. Grows more confident as an artist. Starts picking up my books about Buddhism and develops a real interest. Hey! Guess what? I’m a writer! I’m a Buddhist! We have the exact same interests. Our conversations get deeper. I think he can talk to me maybe a little easier than his parents because step-mothership conveys some distance. By this time, I love him but still my stomach doesn’t walk out the door with him as his parents’ do. The natural cool between stepparent and step kid (relative to birth parents) turns out to have value. This step-parenting thing is pretty okay, I think to myself.

2003 Is it? Time to test. His mom moves to another state. He comes to live with us full time. He’s unpacking his stuff and gets a little choked up. We hug. Over his shoulder I see a photo on our hall table: him as a baby in his father’s arms, his grandfather’s arms around them both. Three generations of Duncans. Can’t protect him from the shifting tides of time. But I can hug him.

Thus begins a year of major adjustment. Unwashed dishes. Wafting smell of pot. Strange inability to make toast without crumb-bombing the kitchen. Inscrutable teenagers watching TV in the living room in the middle of the night. Hey, I don’t remember signing up for this.

2004 He graduates high school and goes on a month-long meditation retreat. He comes home for a week or so and then goes to a week-long workshop with his artist-ideal, Alex Grey. During the workshop he’s surrounded by fellow-artists for the first time. He sees that life isn’t like high school. Alex and his wife Allyson adore him, support him, encourage him. It is the summer of Duncan. He comes home a changed man. He tells me he loves me. I love him too.

2005 He gets rejected from Mass College of Art, his first (and only, basically) choice. Reason? Portfolio: good, grades: bad. He attends community college to get his grades up. Crumbs are still everywhere.

2006 Reapplies. He is accepted. SWEET. Joy throughout the world. He moves into an apartment with a roommate.

2007 My parents are up for a visit. He draws their portrait. He asks if he can call them Grandma and Grandpa. Tears flow. We’re a family.

I am one of the luckiest people alive because I have some amazing friendships. Like the guy mentioned above who e-mailed me those comments about Dylan. I mean how awesome is that.

This morning was talking to another friend who said, when I was telling him about trying to become a better, more disciplined writer, “Sometimes the energy of self-hate disguises itself as helpfulness.” That stopped my mind. Then he said “Self-hate can masquerade as tough love.” Stop again. I told him that there’s some part of me holding a gun to the head of the part of me who writes. He said, “If someone was trying to tell me something, no matter how helpful or beautiful, if I saw they had a gun to their head, I wouldn’t want to listen to them.” Yikes. I don’t know if this makes sense to anybody else or just to me because it’s such an apt description of my insides.

Everyday I struggle with discipline. To get done all that I want on any given day (write, meditate, exercise, cultivate opportunities, blah blah) a schedule seems paramount. All the books say so. I even say so! But I can’t do it. The only time I can (and it’s heavenly, HEAVENLY) is when I’m on a meditation retreat. I feel so grateful to the schedule for providing such perfect containment for my energy, for everyone’s. Yet I can’t do it at home. Believe me, I’ve tried.

I’m giving up. Uncle.

My “process” (sounds so pretentious) seems to be absolutely non-linear. As an experiment, I’m going to go with it. This looks like working on something for 20 minutes and then working on something else for 2 hours and then going back to the first thing and then making 5 phone calls and then starting something brand new and then taking a nap and etc, etc.

Thank you to my friend who pointed out that some writers sit down at 9A sharp and work until noon come hell or high water and some go out and get drunk and just before passing out, work on their book. I’m really going to aim for the middle road here.

Wish me luck.

Whenever I find myself in a conversation about interpersonal difficulties (“My boss is a screamer,” “I can’t get my boyfriend to ever be on time,” “My sister cannot  commit to anything”) I always ask, “have you ever heard of the enneagram?” I get one of four responses:
1. No. Not interested in that kind of hoodoo.
2. Isn’t that some kind of personality test? That stuff is all bullshit.
3. Yes, I’m a six.
4. I haven’t. Please tell me all about it.

My favorite is person #4. Here is what I tell them.

To say the Enneagram is a system of personality typing is like saying Bob Dylan is a singer-songwriter. It just goes waaay beyond that. Among other things, it is a pitch-perfect illustration of your own and others’ blind spots, of what we do over and over to cause our own problems, and of how we hurt others simply because we misinterpret their actions according to our own type.

The Enneagram is the best system I ever heard of to explain the differences between people—in a way that increases self-knowledge, understanding, and patience–and teaches how to relate to others without difficulty. It is an extraordinary system that is crazily subtle yet totally useful in real life. It enables you to communicate effectively with anyone.

Here is a true story about putting the enneagram to use at work:

Once I was working on a project with someone. It was fairly complicated and I often ran into problems putting our ideas into play. But whenever I would say to him, “I’ve run into a bit of a problem on thus and such and I’d love to discuss it with you,” he’d hem and haw and make excuses for why he had no time for such discussions. This left me feeling pretty much like a loser and I’d beat myself up for not being able to accomplish things that he obviously thought should be straightforward. Stewing further, I’d start to curse him for insensitivity and arrogance. I began to avoid him and he then began avoiding me.

Then I realized his enneagram type. He was a 7. 7s avoid pain and problems. Their focus is almost exclusively on possibilities and options. They view problems as bummer dead weights around their necks that prevent them from being visionary. For my type (4),  we view problems as a sign that the truth is finally coming out and now we can really get to work. For better and worse, a 7’s gaze is continually pulled toward the horizon, toward what could be. When circumstance asks them to stop looking into the future and instead focus on the present, they become querulous and discombobulated: why would anyone want to do that?? Especially if it involves relating to problems. So the next time I had a problem and stopped him in the hall, I said “I have an idea and would love your feedback.” His eyes lit up and he made time for conversation on the spot. Then I told him my problem, but languaged as an idea. This simple switch took out all the BS of he likes me, he hates me, I hate him, I suck, etc, etc–and we could instead simply focus on task. This is the brilliance of the enneagram.

Then I say to them that “ennea” is the Greek prefix for nine and the system defines nine personality types. Each is simply called by its number. (People have made up names for each point on the Enneagram, but I think they’re more confusing than helpful, so I’m just going to stick with numbers). At this point their eyes narrow. Is this person going to try and pigeonhole me, they wonder. I CAN’T BE DEFINED BY ONE NUMBER, they say to themselves. YES YOU CAN, I say to myself.

Click here to read the rest of my completely unauthorized thoughts on the subject.

Click here for a super detailed Excel spreadsheet depicting aspects of the Enneagram.

Was e-mailing with a friend yesterday about the kookiness of trying to make a living as a writer when he said this:

Being an artist is a risk. Risking non acceptance. Art has an interior dimension. One is groping for what has profound MEANING. Then to present that sense with integrity is vital. But it is a risk because it may not resonate in current time and space with the public/audience. That can hurt.

Fear of that pain can derail art. One begins to game the audience. The vision in the mind’s eye of the artist becomes poisoned and refracted by these tensions.

Look at this passage from a 1966 Playboy interview with Dylan:

PLAYBOY: Let’s take one last dip back into the material world. What about an artist’s relationship to money?

DYLAN: The myth of the starving artist is a myth. The big bankers and prominent young ladies who buy art started it. They just want to keep the artist under their thumb. Who says an artist can’t have any money? Look at Picasso. The starving artist is usually starving for those around him to starve. You don’t have to starve to be a good artist. You just have to have love, insight and a strong point of view. (My highlight) And you have to fight off depravity. Uncompromising, that’s what makes a good artist. It doesn’t matter if he has money or not. Look at Matisse; he was a banker. Anyway, there are other things that constitute wealth and poverty besides money.

This is in reponse to Kirby’s comments on this posting.

Kirby, hi and thanks for writing. When you say you’ve been typed by experts, what does that mean? Have you met with enneagram teachers or taken classes? Just curious.

You’re right, the books really contradict each other. And so do many teachers. That’s one reason why, when it comes to enneagram typing, your hunches are most important. Second most important is to locate a teacher you really trust and read his or her work thoroughly. The two I value the very, very most are Helen Palmer and Eli Jaxon-Bear. Their books are my favorites and I’ve re-read both many times. However, what I got the most value from were Helen’s audio book and Eli’s audio book. I’ve had both audio sets in my car for probably 5 years and I listen to them over and over, randomly. Or when I’m about to meet with someone I feel nervous about, I listen to the tape about them when I feel confident I know their type.

I agree with you that thinking of your young self is very important when trying to type yourself. This is when your responses and aspirations were less processed. Soif young Kirby seemed more fourish, I’d count that as another vote for 4.

I can’t really say that any particular test typed me more accurately than another. It was more of a cumulative thing. And then I made friends with someone who knows the enneagram very, very well and he helped me type myself with confidence. So, again, it’s really a combination of factors: reading, taking tests, and trying to talk with people who know the enneagram. Once you know it, it’s not so hard to tell who is who. Although it’s very important to always, always, always leave room for doubt. No one wants to be ghetto-ized as a number and it can be harmful to do that to others or to yourself. So keep doubting.

If you can find your subtype (or instinctual variant), that can be helpful in defining type.

Enneagram numbers are like flavors of ice cream. You can’t quite explain what strawberry tastes like, but you know it when you taste it. It’s similar with the types–often, I don’t know exactly why, but I’ll feel certain that this one is an 8 and that one is a 2. It just feels a certain way to be around them.

Woke at 530 am. Was nervous about meetings today and after much thought and study, devised the following step-by-step strategy:

1. Feel nervous.
2. Rouse good cheer and trust in my own intelligence.
3. Drop all of that.
4. Click in with the atmosphere of the meeting and allow it to affect me.
5. See what happens next.

Strategy was inspired by this line from a Trungpa Rinpoche talk: “Having confidence that you have prepared well, get out of the way.” I think this is awesome advice.

So that’s that. Now it’s a wait and see game.

Unlike fiction writers, we non-fiction, self-helpy people don’t submit books, we submit book proposals, a lengthy outline of an idea. Good news: The book is sold before you start writing it. Bad news: creative direction is subject to group-think.In writing 4 books, I’ve screwed this creative direction thing up every which way. I’ve acted the know-it-all and ignored valuable input for making my work better—and, hugely to my chagrin, I’ve taken advice I knew was crappy but failed to reject due to lack of confidence in my own judgment.

So I have the benefit of having made big mistakes and the knowledge that I’m truly capable of great misjudgment. These may not sound like great advantages, but they actually are. I’ve really learned from my errors.

The book I’ve proposed is called “The Wisdom of a Broken Heart.” It’s about the power and soulfulness that are to be gained from heartbreak. I’m talking about relationship-related heartbreak, the kind that turns you into a wretched, obsessive toothpick of a human being. That’s the bad news. The good news: when your heart is broken, the vessel has shattered. Whatever you thought your life was, whoever you thought you were supposed to be, these things are gone and instead there is tremendous not-knowing. In wisdom tradition, this is considered fortunate. The book is about how and why it is.

I discuss new ideas with publishers with a bizarre mixture of perkiness, shame, and hope. I mean I like my ideas, but I don’t really expect anyone else will. Or won’t. I know I’m supposed to be supremely confident, but I’m not. Other people’s points of view have great impact on me. They can make me feel very inspired or very defeated.

One piece of feedback I’ve gotten is that the book would be better if it were about loss in general, not just romance-related loss.

I think I like this idea. I’d like to write more broadly on this topic. In fact, maybe that’s what I really want to write about in my heart of hearts.

Whether directly or indirectly, what I write is based on the language of Buddhism. The thing that attracted me to Buddhism in the first place, especially Shambhala Buddhism, which is what I practice, was that it taught profoundly intelligent ways to meet your own emotional intensity. I needed this. If I could write something that was useful to others who may also need it, I would be extremely fulfilled. I would get to devote myself to studying these teachings in order to be of benefit. I can’t imagine a better way to spend my time.

Since I’ve been a little girl, I’ve heard things like why are you so negative, don’t be so serious about everything. WTF. It’s not negative to consider painful emotion. It’s not bad to want to look as sharply as you can into your own life. I’d be delighted to act as spokesperson for confusion, sadness, and somberness—feelings our world tells us are signs of failure. They’re not. They have value. And PS, in greatly counter-intuitive fashion, tremendous, radiant joy results from opening yourself to them, but this is another story.

On the other hand, I still really, really think a book about getting over a love affair is legitimate. The pain is so real and so difficult and there aren’t very many soulful books out there about relating to this particular situation.

So regarding new book idea, the bad news: I think I’m still not clear enough on my own idea and could get run over by another’s certainty. The good news: My lack of clarity makes me vulnerable and therefore tender and open to the wisdom of the moment.

So we’ll see.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Student: You often criticize a film by saying that it is too aware of the audience. But when people make films, especially in the West, the point is to entertain people.

Chogyam Trungpa: If you are completely confident in yourself, you don’t have to think about the audience at all. You just do your thing, you just do it properly. This means YOU become the audience. What you make is entertainment, but that needs a certain amount of wisdom. When an artist does a painting for commission, there is a good likelihood that his painting will be one-sided because he is aware of the audience and he has to relate to the educational standards of the audience. If he presents his own style without reference to the audience, they will begin to react and automatically their sophistication will develop and eventually will reach the level of the artist….You see, we have the responsibility of raising the mentality of the audience. People might have to reach out with a certain amount of strain, but it’s worth it. The whole civilization then begins to raise its level of sophistication….The beautiful thing about Buddhism, if I may say so, is that Buddhists don’t try to con you. They just present what they have to say as it is, take it or leave it.

From “Visual Dharma: Film Workshop,” in the COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume Seven, pages 644-645.