I’m. Over. It.

I wake up every day, but today I really WOKE UP. We broke up … again. You’d think I would be used to it. You’d think it would hurt less each time. You’d think I’d have some coping strategies in place by now. You’d think it would be less shocking. You’d be wrong on all counts. So – here I am picking myself up from Round Three, shaking my head in wonder and asking myself what in the world is wrong with me then I realized that when I woke up today something was very different. I’ve been climbing the hill for so long with my head down I didn’t realize I’d summited and was on my way down the other side.

I’m. Over. It.

Trusting your heart to another human being is the most heady, risky, crazy thing that we do in our lifetime and it is the one thing I think we must do – over and over again. It is how we live. We live to love. We risk much in the process but we gain much too.

This chapter is closed but there is something on the horizon and I am … ready.

Blur

I read four books at the same time, have to listen to music when I am doing practically anything, write while I am watching television and don't normally sleep more than five hours a night. My friends have grown accustomed to me constantly changing the topic mid-conversation as if it is the most normal thing in the world. (I'm not usually aware I've even done it.) Though I try to be present in each moment, pay attention, and “be here now” … I sometimes experience life as "blur". I zoom in and out on things, people, and thoughts like the lens of my NIKON, constantly shifting focus in an effort to zoom in on foreground and block out the background 'noise' around me. It's my attempt to make sense of what is happening around me. Sometimes it seems the more I focus the less I see. It has always been hard for me to pay attention to only one thing at a time. Throughout my life I've tried unsuccessfully in fits and starts to do one thing at a time and pay attention to the thing that is in front of me with relatively little success. Why?, because I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The story of how I came to be diagnosed with ADHD at the ripe old age of 35 is a long one but suffice it to say it was one of the best days of my life and I am forever grateful to my neurologist for figuring it out. We are certain I’ve been ADHD my entire life.

People have lots of ideas and beliefs about what ADHD is and is not - it is a hot topic among parents with school-aged children, to be sure. At the end of the day, what I have found to be true (in my experience) is this: people either believe that some of us have brains that are wired differently and this different wiring sometimes requires medication to help us function in a more meaningful and productive way or they don’t. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground here.

People tend to either fall into awkward silence when I tell them that I have ADHD and take medication for it or they are terribly curious about it and want to know what my life is like. I can deal with either reaction, frankly because it is what it is.

Being an adult with ADHD is much the same as being a child with ADHD except I'm a grown up with bigger consequences if I don't properly manage it. Children with ADHD lose track of things all the time - so do adults with ADHD. The minute I get home I put my keys on a hook on the back of the front door because I've spent an entire DAY looking for my car keys when I put them someplace else. Trust me, this is not a fun call to make: "Sorry, I can't come in today, I can't find my car keys." ADHD kids are notorious for having bedrooms that look like a hurricane literally blew threw them (more than just the average kid) - it is amplified for an adult with an entire household to maintain. I am still fighting this battle in my home and losing more than I win, to be truthful. Many times, I won't let anyone come over because I'm so ashamed that I can't keep a tidy home like a "normal person".

You may be wondering how misplacing things and not keeping a neat house makes me different than anybody else, why is that ADHD?, why isn't everybody ADHD?, plenty of people have trouble with these things. These are only a few examples of how ADHD shows up in my life, there are many more. All normal individuals exhbit some of the symptoms of ADHD occasionally - the diagnosis is given when the symptoms are present from childhood and persistently interfere in functioning in multiple spheres of an individual's life.

Being ADHD for me is an interesting contradiction that requires me to embrace the counterintuitive parts of myself in order to actually make my life work. For example, I need noise to concentrate when other people need silence. I sleep five hours when other people sleep eight - I feel just as rested at they do. If I have a big deadline or project due - it helps me to do something that is physically taxing before starting the work so I am less distracted later. Photography calms me because it requires my complete attention and is the thing I do to stop my mind from racing. The first rule of managing ADHD is to know yourself.

Loving yourself for who you are means understanding where you are strong and where you have challenges and embracing all of it. I get distracted, I make a mess, I'm not always on time (okay, I'm late most of the time) - but I'm also very creative, funny, and interested in changing the world through a kindness revolution. .... if I can just remember where I left my notes. *sigh*

You’re Welcome To The Other Half…

I miss my old friend Civility. I’ve been thinking about putting up flyers around my neighborhood to see if anyone has seen her. I used to bump into her everywhere, she lurked in hallways and corners but she also hid in plain sight in the ‘good old days’. Civility held the door open for the person behind her. Similarly, Civility allowed the person in line behind her to go ahead of her because they only had three items in their shopping basket and she had twenty-nine billion in hers. Civility didn’t not lay on her horn one nanosecond after the light turned green because the car in front of her didn’t bolt forward like a NASCAR driver in pole position. Civility was … really … kind.
More and more I notice that we seem to believe that any space we inhabit entitles us to treat it as if it is our personal space, we own it and can do as we like. Well, a funny thing happens when Civility enters a room, even for a moment – the dynamic changes. I want to be more like Civility – she’s one cool chick.
I was at Barnes & Noble last week sitting at a table (for two) with my laptop when a gentleman walked by with his laptop. Seeing no available table (and clearly looking for one) he settled on a chair by the window. I find it ridiculously uncomfortable to balance a laptop in my lap and assume that others feel the same way. I was only using half the table and there was an empty chair across from me as well. A table for two and I only needed ONE half the table and ONE chair. I thought to myself, what would Civility do?
“I don’t need the whole table, you’re welcome to the other half if you’d like to sit here,” I turned to him and said.

He replied, “No thanks you, but thanks for the offer.”

“If you change your mind you’re welcome to join me.”

Ten minutes later – he came over and joined me at the table. I think it surprised him that I offered the other half of the table to him because most people don’t.  As one thing leads to another he thanked me and introductions ensued, which led to conversation that pulled the woman who had been taking up an ENTIRE table behind me (and watched me invite him to sit with me) into our orbit making a table for two a table for three. Business and contact cards were exchanged and for a span of almost an hour, in the corner of a bookstore – three strangers’ worlds collided, expanded and were made a bit better for awhile on a cold wet night as we all waited for someone we loved to finish something somewhere.
Never know what will happen when Civility enters the mix, huh?
Give it a whirl and tell me your experience.

Walking my walk

On the surface, everything about my process is wrong. I appear to be a walking, living example of what you shouldn’t do and yet somehow things seem to miraculously go right in my life – over and over and over again. The Christians among my friends attribute it to God, my Buddhist friends say it is the net effect of the causes that I’ve made in my life, I don’t need to tell you what the Atheists think and my Agnostics don’t have an opinion one way or the other. No, I have not ever put all of them in a room together – it is enough that they comingle peacefully within the virtual space that we call Facebook but that is definitely a post for another day. There is a reason I steer very clear from religion, sex and politics in any public forum – I’m a walking lightning rod. But I digress, which by now should surprise you little if you are one of my Twitter friends.

I have experienced some pockets of great success in my life but none of it has happened in the ‘traditional’ sense. I live my life very intuitively. I attribute this largely to my parents – specifically my father, Dennis, the hippie. The truth is, you are not going to listen to Malcolm X’s “The Ballot of the Bullet”, have the choice of calling your dad by his first name or anything else you like AND be able to call a ‘family meeting’ anytime and not come out of the experience a little … intuitive. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Truth is, I thought everybody’s family was like mine until I was a teenager, for real.

My entire childhood was absolutely not mood rings, bell bottoms, peace, love and Soul Train, trust me. I experienced some real trauma as a teen that also rounded out my intuitive way of approaching the world (also another post for another time). It has taken me years to fully understand, trust, and yes, even embrace MY process. Over a period of fifteen years I read voraciously most of the “modern masters”: Deepak Chopra, Dr. Wayne Dwyer, Marianne Williamson, Iyanla Van Zant, Eckhart Tolle, Dr. Steven Covey, Don Miguel Ruiz, Paul Coelho to name but a few. As theories began to comingle and one name replaced another, I began to understand that the real master of my life is ME and the only process that works for my life is my own.

I travelled far away from my original destination to get back to my starting point. Isnt' that always the way?

What has turned out to be most ‘right’ for me, in all things in my life, has been what felt most right to begin with. Every single time I’ve followed my instinct I have made my highest and best decision and that is the truth. Make no mistake about it, this ‘follow your instinct thing’ is not a tremendously respected modality of going about the business of operating one’s life. In fact, it is regarded as reckless, chaotic and even irresponsible by many. My response is that an intuition-based existence has worked tremendously well in MY life.

So what I am teaching my teenaged daughter? Do what in your core – that space midway between your heart and your gut – feels most right and authentic to you. I know some of you reading this just took a deep breath and wondered if I just said what you think I said. Let me clarify that I did and I am. Am I giving my daughter tacit approval to *whisper low* HAVE SEX? … I suppose I am. Let me be clear that this is certainly not what I am encouraging or hoping she will run out and do next Friday night (or any other night of the week for that matter) until she is fully ready to accept all the responsibilities of this behavior but I do understand what I am saying to her and all of its complicated implications. I accept the responsibility of my behavior all of it, I always have. 

Can I hear the din of the crickets now even before I publish this? – YES.
Am I still going to publish it? – YES.
Why? - because intuitively I know that it is the right thing for me to do.

Why? - because I have to be honest, my kind of honest and that admittedly might not be your kind of honest (but come on, admit it, that is why you’re reading this blog isn’t it? I’m a different kind of train wreck!). I am not going to make up a lie to be the mother people want to think I am. I have to be the authentic mother that I am to honor my relationship with my daughter and there is no shame in my game. Period.


Walking my walk means that if it feels right to run, I run. If it feels right to love, I love. If it feels right to say no, I say no. If it feels right to say yes, I say … yes. And so it is.

Some of my friends say I've been ‘blessed’, others compare me to the proverbial cat with nine lives (I’m not sure which one I’m on), still others feel I’ve been the gifted with extraordinary luck.

On an intuitive level – I have a feeling they are all correct and it’s ALL good.

“It wasn’t messy, it was f*@%d up.”

 

When I stumbled on that line in the movie ‘The Kids Are All Right” it struck a chord deep within – very deep. How could one line in a movie capture so perfectly all of the craziness of my last romantic relationship? I’ve been wondering for months just why it is that my one post about how my heart was broken when I got dumped via text message continues to be the most frequently read post on this blog. A very wise friend of mine posits that people like this post because it is an experience many people can identify and connect with but are loathe to talk about or share.

I continue to be amazed at the clarity that comes with distance and time.

What looked like love was not. What I thought was a connection that defied any I’d ever had with another person was chemistry mixed with a shared passion for jazz and Impressionist art. We see what we want to see and we hear what we want (and need) to hear. It isn’t love if it isn’t reciprocated. It isn’t love if you’re not really both in it – all the way in it. We weren’t equally invested. I knew this from the beginning. He was hesitant to even start the relationship but would rather have tried than to have lost me completely. The irony of course is that he did end up losing me and I lost the him that I never really had to begin with.

So what is next? I really don’t know. We are getting ready to do our strange dance again – this time purely as friends, which is where it all began so many years ago for us. I don’t know if you can ever really reset a relationship with someone with whom you have been deeply intimate. We shall see. I’ve decided to start dating again as a sort of counterbalance to this awkweird situation that we now find ourselves trying to create. (Yes, I just made up a word: awkward + weird = awkweird). The backdrop of our first meeting will be an art gallery in D.C., of course.

What will be different this third go round? ... everything and nothing.

Into the woods

Words have always been my refuge. I started reading when I was 3-years-old and that was long before “Hooked on Phonics” or “My Baby Can Read”. I can not remember a time when the heft of a book didn’t make me want to curl up in a corner and do nothing but read from the first page to the last. Writing has come as naturally to me as reading. I will write on anything, anywhere, anytime. So imagine my surprise when I realized last year that there is another way that I can frame my world and give it meaning, depth and dimension. I discovered my 'inner photographer' and my life is forever changed.

One of my dearest friends, Rachel, is my own personal superhero (yes, I really call her that). There is practically nothing that Rachel can’t do but her eye behind the viewfinder of a camera is truly something to behold. Rachel, my daughter Bryton, and I have taken a number of photo safaris around the DC metro area over the past couple of years and it amazes me to watch Rachel frame a shot and to observe what captures her attention. I coveted her camera for several safaris, haunted my local Best Buy every weekend playing with the DSLRs and finally, when I was practically dreaming about it – purchased my Nikon.

The day I bought that camera something clicked in me.

Let me just disclose for good or for bad that I don’t read manuals. I keep them but it can take months (sometimes years) for me to actually read a manual for something I've purchased. I prefer to just jump in so I began snapping pictures the minute I took that camera out the box. I don’t know one technical thing about any of the photos that I take – not one. I know what I’m framing in my mind’s eye and I know which lens will capture it best but that is about it. I've managed to capture some amazing shots that I can’t begin to talk intelligently about as a photographer, what I can tell you is how I feel about each and every photo I shoot and what was happening when I took it. I like to think that if I've taken a really good picture I don't have to say anything because the picture speaks for itself.

I often seek refuge in my “Thinking Place” - Great Falls Park in Great Falls, Virginia. I rarely take anyone with me because I go there to mull things over, to find answers and enjoy the quiet of the paths juxtaposed with the chaos of the ever changing and turbulent falls in the background.  I never, however, go there without my Nikon because the camera has become my third eye.


This photo was taken  on a snowy trail that hadn’t many footprints on it in Great Falls Park. I sensed a presence before I knew what it was and turned my head to the left. There only a few feet away in a sparse clearing of trees stood this beautiful young doe. We spotted one another at the exact same moment and because I’d been shooting a bald eagle in a nearby tree, I had my long lens which made this shot possible. If I’d had to fiddle with switching out lenses I might have lost her. There we stood in a silent faceoff, the doe in the woods - me on the path. Slowly I raised the camera,  framed the shot (all the while hoping that the whirring and clicking wouldn’t spook her) and held my breath. Her brown eyes locked on mine, I began to shoot. Click, click, click. Neither of us moved. Whirr, click, click. She bowed her head deeply and slowly looked back up at me holding my gaze again. Click, whirr, click. I whispered “thank you” and walked away. I turned back for a last look to find her still standing behind the tree watching me. I smiled. She ran. At that moment a couple stepped out from behind a clump of trees to my right and I nearly jumped out of my skin. We all laughed and they told me that they’d been standing watching me with the doe. They were afraid that she would run if they continued on the path so they stood and watched us instead. The man (with a ridiculously awesome Canon around his neck) explained to me that he’d been trying for months to get close enough to a deer in Great Falls to get a photo and it has never happened. I have to admit, in all the visits and all the hours I’ve spent there, I have never seen one either. This was my lucky day.

I didn’t bother looking at what I’d captured – I knew there would be no second chance to get the shots and if I’d gotten nothing I frankly didn’t want to know until I was finished. When I got home and began uploading the photos I was shocked. Looking into the doe's eyes in this photo takes me back to the moment and our connection as if I were back on that snow-filled path, holding my breath, finger poised above the shutter. Click ... click ...click. Breathe.


THIS is why I love taking pictures. When I’m shooting all I am focused on is what I see through that tiny viewfinder. The constant din of thoughts, narrative, melodies, and lyrics that usually create my internal soundtrack go quiet, everything slows down and I becomes one with my camera and what I am shooting. I rarely experienced anything like it. Photography is a new language for me.
 

Am I ready to say that I’m a REAL photographer? No. I'm someone who bears witness to and captures amazing and beautiful moments, people, animals, and things.



Now if only I could remember where I stored that manual.

**I shoot with a Nikon D3000 using either my Nikon 18-55mm or 70-300mm lens and Nikon Speedlight SB-600 flash.**

Flying Solo

When I said I was going to Paris for Thanksgiving week last year my friends and family smiled and nodded their heads. Sure you are, they thought to themselves. I can’t say I blame them, I’m full of grand plans that seem to fall through for some reason or another. What they didn’t know was I had no intention of letting anything come between me and Paris. Everyone was surprised when one by one the pieces started falling together. I purchased my airline ticket two days after my father’s funeral and after copious research booked a hotel room and made arrangements for my daughter to stay with family and friends while I was gone. What started out as a proclamation became a real trip.


At the back of everyone's mind was: Who flies across the world to a place where they don’t speak the language and don’t know a soul during the Thanksgiving week holiday? I do and it was one of the very best decisions I made in 2010.


On the eight hour flight from Washington, DC to Paris, France my mind raced with questions: Was I crazy? Why hadn’t I listened to my Coffee Break French podcasts with more discipline in the months leading up to the trip? Did I have enough money? What if I got sick while I was there? At some point, I just gave in and let my thoughts wander to nowhere.


This is when my journey truly began and I woke up in FRANCE!


There is no place on earth like the city of Paris. I fell in love before I even got out of the airport. As a photographer, I could hardly see the city with both my eyes since I was nearly always peering through the lens of my camera framing one shot or the other. The Champs Elysees became my outdoor dining hall and after my first night I abandoned restaurant dining to in favor of Nutella and banana crepes dusted with powdered sugar, mulled wine, and foie gras on warm baguette, among other culinary delights considered to be 'street food' by the locals.


There are few places on the planet that have as dense a concentration of the art masterpieces as Paris. The Musee d’Orsay, Museum L’Orangerie, and of course the Louvre house works by Monet, Manet, Gaugin, Rodin, Picasso, Renoir and a host of other artists... As much as I thought I was ready to see these famous pieces, I have to admit I started to practically hyperventilate before I entered the Musee D'Orsay. I couldn't believe I was actually there.

Paris overwhelmed me everyday in the best possible way. The Arc d'Triomphe. The Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame. The Sacre Coeur. I didn't miss a thing and I was awe struck at every turn. It is a fantastic thing to be in a state of wonder at 43. When we become adults I think we forget to just allow things to overwhelm our senses and take us for a grand ride. Paris took me for a ride and I enjoyed every second of it.

I reveled in the freedom that comes from having no plans and somewhere on the journey I found myself. I learned much about myself in the week that I spent alone in another country. A stillness descends over you when there is nobody to talk to and you have time to be alone with your thoughts. Sitting in the Museum L'Orangerie one afternoon in front of one of Monet's 'Water Lily' panels I was overcome with emotion at the realization that I'd really come so far, that my father was dead, that it was Thanksgiving Day in America, and that within the reach of my arm spread out across an elliptical wall was an artistic masterpiece that I've admired all my life ... in books. There was not a minute of my time in Paris that did not delight me in some way.


My desire to spend time in a place I'd never been where I didn't know anybody and didn't speak the language stemmed from a need to test myself. I felt a tremendous restlessness after my father's death and need to push myself to be a little uncomfortable because that is when I always grow ... and learn.


I noticed some things about the French people on my journey ...

• The French wear scarves and they wear them with style. Not big bulky heavy woolly things, but sophisticated, almost ethereal ones that appear to be ever-so-casually draped around their necks, but mind you - the French do everything with care.
• The French do NOT walk around the streets drinking their coffee. They drink coffee sitting in cafes because it is the civilized thing to do. However, they think nothing of eating warm baguettes whilst walking down the street or a sandwich for that matter.
• You can actually eat food and drink beverages on the Metro in Paris! This was a real shock to me since you risk being sent to solitary confinement after you are arrested and handcuffed to a trashcan by one of DC's finest if you so much as eat a KitKat on the Metro in DC.
• The average meal in Paris lasts upwards of two hours in a restaurant. If you think that you are going to sit down and get in and out in less time than that - forget about it. In fact, you might appear rude. This is a place where you have to slow down and you should. The food is fantastic and should be savored. There is no rush.
• Crossing the street in Paris is a death-defying act not to be undertaken by the faint of heart. Stepping into an intersection just because it is 'your turn' might just get you hit. My strategy? - always wait for someone else to step out first. (Hey!, I had a 14-year-old to get back home to.)

Without exception, every single person I met was unfailingly kind to me during my visit. My French leaves much to be desired - no really, I am not being modest, but I really tried hard. I was able to get by without too many mishaps (we won't get into excruciating detail about my 2.5 hour trek from the airport into the heart of Paris via the Train and Metro - let's just say I definitely know my way around the Metro now and leave it at that!) People will help you if they see that you are trying. That said, I observed some truly atrocious behavior from some of my fellow countrymen and each time it happened, I pretended to speak no English (no,  I don't think that was wrong in the least.)


Will I go back? Absolutely! I'm now practicing my French in earnest as I am determined to be able to have at least one conversation the next go round. Travelling reminds me that for all that separates us as human beings what brings us together is greater - a smile, holding a door, sharing a good meal, getting lost in the smile of a baby, helping someone in need.


The barriers are in our minds.


A' la prochaine!