A Gentle Reminder to A Beautiful Writer and A Big Hearted Tough Guy WhoAre A Bit "Shine-Shy."

It's been a heavy couple weeks, I won't even try to sugar coat. I worked at least fifty hours on my "MemoryKeeperMovie".  Grief, confusion, doubt, need to escape, (which I am this weekend-alone!) embarrassment, fear, inspiration, pride..to name a few emotions that were present.

Last weekend, I hadn't slept in 40 hours and got to bed around 1am. Then, I got word at 2:02am that my dad's brother was flying to Europe where his son died suddenly at thirty-two.

In the past few days,  I've reconnected with some family and more than anything, I'm heartbroken for those left behind, including siblings and parents burying a son. The worst thing that could happen as a mom in my book.

This is why I was so compelled to write this today after receiving an email from a new friend. She is an amazing writer for an awesome online magazine force and voice of authenticity. Hers is an analytical yet emotional voice of rational thought that I've been admiring. This is for her. It's also for my tough guy friend, and Julia (sorry, Juju.. What do you care?)


For you : Cut the shit. Seriously. Cut it right in half because I'm tired of hearing it all together. Do people love to see others fail? YES. Does life crack you wide open for the world to watch you bleed, and soak it up as nutrients only to further your demise? Well, no. Now, that's dramatic....

You've all shown (in action or words) that it feels "phony" and "fake" when you try to be filled with love. Yet, all three of you...and so many more than I ever could have imagined believe me when I say I am, always have been.

Why? Because I live in reality. I'm not all light and puffery and sing-song and flowers in my hair. (Though, I'm pretty obsessed with that lately.)

Here's the deal. I'm dark. REALLY dark sometimes. This whole life-falling apart, being humiliated and persecuted by people who shouldn't really give a fuck what I'm doing with my life got me down.

Down is an understatement. I lost weight, cried, contemplated everything, cried more, and wrote.
Then, I started to realize if "they" are all expending so much energy punishing, hating, judging (insert other nasty verb+"ing") why the hell am I going to do the same?

Ask yourself the question: " How can I contribute to that brutal, close-minded, un-self-aware consensus that says I'm no good, what can I think of to add to that dialogue to really give it to me?"

If you read that out loud in the first person. You sound stupid. Truly. Not at all as if you have an inkling of psychological, emotional, or basic understanding. Right? Right.

So you guys do that. You do. Bullshit. You do.  Here's how. By allowing ANYONE'S perception or ascribed value to you have ANY correlation to who you actually are.  Hey, I did it too. I believed some of that stuff. I looked inward, and sat with it. I climbed into the dark corners and creaky scary places of myself and what I stand for. Then I laughed. I laughed called Julia, we laughed, and I laughed some more.

You see, some people are either unwilling or incapable of loving and having the kind of hearts we do. They don't ever, would never, and aren't going to look inward.  They shrug and grimace when you say: "Get home" in themselves and truly excavate that ugly shit. I'm talking the sludge that we know we have. We acknowledge it, we label it, we apologize for it, call ourselves out when we let it sway our decisions or reactions. THEY DON'T!!!!

If they did, they wouldn't be throwing daggers and hate. They'd be asking themselves what is the core root feeling making them act/speak/behave that way. No, they grab other, like-minded lemmings to concur and validate them. It's natural. I bet all of us did it for years in varying degrees too.

I know this: I am NOT better than them. I am NOT better than ANYONE. I'm sure as shit different and able to say those three sentences, not sure if they can. (honestly.) It's getting weirder by the day, but I'll take it. I'd rather give, serve, and be love. I'd rather smear compassion over their craptastic judgements. That kind of anger and need to punish or alienate comes from either HURT or FEAR. Both of those things come from love. A love never given, or taken away, or overused, or taken advantage of. I get it.

Fake? What was fake was me pretending I was ok with my lies and deceit and half-living sense of delusion that "I've had it tough. Life has been hard, so I have some unhealthy patterns, or need for outside validation and a low self esteem." LOL. That's fake. It's brilliant. Just ENOUGH truth to skim by, but not have to do any of the work.  I still cringe looking back, and then I want to hug her and tell her that she's soooooo close, and that she will be fine, better, even amazing some day!

Cheesy? The picture I took for you all (below). YES, that's cheesy. You're welcome. See the difference? The concept of loving instead of judging and spreading negativity is NOT FAKE. Say it with me: "Zero F's Given."

True. REAL. Legitimate? Is the undeniable fact that I love big. I've been trashed and judged, nicknamed, ostracized, criticized for being open...I'm actually certain there are old "friends" of mine gagging at the praise and compliments my writing, that video, and my sites get.

I'm human, I've played all those conversations out in my head. (forget the empathic component) Just guessing (knowing)  how those conversations go I could fall apart all over again. I could let them steal this, my success, my self-love, my fortitude to collect, protect and do what's right and loving for my family and the people I love.

Meh. I won't, though. They can't have it. They don't deserve it. Let them talk. They have every right based on some of my actions. Facts! I'm not even talking about the BS spun to make me sound like a sociopathic monster.

On facts, I do deserve some judgment. I deserved to be dealt the hand I got. It taught me to really learn, to listen, and to level myself in order to rebuild with my core beliefs and authenticity.

Most people (who won't admit it) think "filled with heart" or "spreading love" or "love-infused words" are contrived, used, and felicitous to the cheesy, non-bright, unscientific, hippie, new-age idealists. They say: "I'm a realist." or "I'm sorry, (passive aggression-because they aren't sorry!) If I don't think everything can be healed with love."

Say this to them...say it to YOURSELF:

"Fuck off, too bad, I love you. I'm going to UNLEARN the limiting belief that I am good or bad, light or dark. I know for a fact that I posess both positive and negative. Just like every other balanced organism in this universe. My capacity to be mean, dark and sad is matched by the radiance in me to shine."

So that's that. I think you all are phenomenal. I actually fully understand your hesitance to come over to the "Bright side." Drop it. That noise is all lined up with what you THINK people will THINK of you, or some "perceived" credibility you'll lose. Say in my son's voice: "Look at MEEEEEEEEE!!! Come over here." I send love and light to the meanest of them in meditation. I ponder with empathy what might make them say/think/act that way.


I know this: How on earth could throwing genuine fully aware and deliberate love do any damage? It actually makes me feel better than returning the anger, judgement or disdain.  It throws some balance in the mix.

If love is silly, and fake and phony, and not able to heal, or work things through, or bridge to understanding then you better look at this list and call them "Idiots":


Walt Whitman
Mother Teresa
John Lennon
Gandhi
Rumi
Oscar Wilde
Shakespeare
Hemingway

Ok. You get it. You're wrong. I'm right. I love you enough to let you feel right a little longer, but cut the shit. Let them call us dreamers, idealists, romantics, silly, goofy, etc. Some pretty amazing things got done with those "Crazy notions." Plus, somebody has to counter balance all their muckity muck. Why not me? Why not you? Who's in?

Love and light and big huge crazy-heart-shaped beams of the real-deal kind of acceptance and positivity to LIFT you up. You deserve it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Shimmer with a smile. Life is hard, bloom anyway."

The Huffington Post

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Introduction for a Series Called "The DDD- The Dead Dad Day. The DayDadDied. The Triple-D."

Introduction for a series: “The DDD-The dead dad day. The day dad died. The Triple-D." 

I’ve attached a page with an excerpt from a post I wrote in my old blogging days. 

Click here if you’d like to read it first: (I’d recommend it.) 
"Dead Dad Day Post From Lulu in 2008" 

So. I have been meaning to document that fateful day and I plan to in the next few days. It's cathartic, I haven't done it, and this year has truly been about him so far, so it makes sense. 

I find myself in a precarious situation in life. I’m getting divorced. I’m a social pariah in my bubble-town, and simultaneously, my writing career is blowing up, and my creative abilities are dynamic and overpowering. It’s a bitter sweet thing, to have a life that is seemingly falling apart, and also a dream of mine being realized, slowly and without question. 

Losses always rekindle the memories of other losses. This is a time in my life that I would have leaned on my father. He would have walked around quietly with his hands in his pockets when my husband moved out. 

He would have fought back his constant need to state the obvious, and listened more. He was so amazing in the clutch moments. I think it is what balanced out the dichotomy of him. 

I miss him more now, than ever before because I’m learning so much, risking so much and finally doing all the things he had meant to say but were hidden in the spaces between the things he said. He wanted me to be independent. He wanted me to live passionately and he wanted me to write- Always wanted me to write. 

In the past few days leading up to the DDD, I find myself reflecting much more on his humanness. The wounds and the defenses that were a huge part of him. I recognize similar wounds in people I love and have hurt, or built up. I have had far many more epiphanies than I will share here but the main thematic emotion is fear. How fear has driven, and still drives so many of us and how debilitating that is. The other side to that is trust. There are volumes and volumes I could write on the matter, and I will, but for here…I will say, if he speaks to me now in events, or strange happenings, I feel it. 

 If there is anything I feel he has been trying to convey it is to 

“TRUST YOURSELF” and “FEAR NOTHING.” 

These two things are so ironic because as a hard-headed teenager, those were my messages to him. Constantly, I pushed him and deliberately put him in uncomfortable conversations, situations and emotional traps to corner him into admitting his vulnerabilities, his fears, and his huge heart. I saw in him all that I was scared I’d become. Irony. 

It’s all beautifully elliptical and curving back into itself. I see that now. He was a huge-hearted lover and had deep passions and incredible perceptions. They felt super human, actually, but he was also very controlled and stoic. As for the latter, I am neither; nor will I ever be. 

I am coming to realize that he had suffered so many deep losses that he subconsciously closed himself off to all of these beautiful emotional gifts. He chose instead to silently (and sometimes it seemed to be gross negligence or inadequacy) be removed in order to be present. To truly feel (like I do) or allow himself to let all the beauty, good and incredible empathy he possessed would also allow for him to feel how hurt he was. He would not be able to deny or suppress how alone he felt, how betrayed and lost. I understand that more than ever. 

It has never been more clear to me that he was so complex and….hurt. In this new stage of life I have gone to the extreme of authenticity. I’m rather hard to be around, abrasive and brutally honest. I just can’t tolerate surface banality right now,  nor will I mince words or speak indirectly. It’s a polar opposite from how I was living this “core lie” and ended up tangled in my web of half-truths, hopes, charades, and roles I played. I was always without filter, and self-effacing so I know I will normalize in the middle somewhere. Until then, it has helped me to be more self-aware than ever. 

I am quick to admit if I’m wrong, or unfair. So quick, that people repel it as sarcasm when I say: “Oh, that’s totally my fault. yes! I’m doing that. Sorry. Shit. That sucks.” or “I’m probably being selfish or inconsiderate…” and they think I’m being passive aggressive. Who would have thought? Pure honesty, unabashed and straight forward communication now gets lost in the “translation of other’s stuff and perception.” I won't give up, though. I am teaching myself patience, and better listening. 

I listen to words I remember from my dad. I hear better, the messages he presented either consciously, or in his defenses. I want to hold him and grab his chubby bearded cheeks and look him dead in the eyes. I want to hold his attention with intensity of myself now, coupled with the nurturing of my maternal love for my kids. 

I want to say to him:

You are an amazing boy, your childhood story is fascinating and inspires me but mostly I’m in awe that you grew to be such an incredible man. Your worth is decided only by you and those of us that love you for YOU- as you are. I’m proud of how you dealt with so much pain and loss and rejection but still found ways to laugh, work hard, build a family and beyond that, Dad, you recorded memories. You thought of and executed on creating gifts that we still enjoy now. The tapes of you reading us stories before bed…these are priceless, a snapshot in time. 

The never ending spools of film and 8MM and videos and printed pictures? Amazing.Or how you went back on the 8MM and dubbed my sister and I narrating... That was foresight. That was a huge give away as to how much love capacity that heart of yours (that you hid so well) was built with. 

I’m sorry you had to hurt so much and for all the mistrust that kind of pain creates.  I wish I could go back to when you were alive and snap you out of some of the self-created cocoons you stuffed your emotions in. I could help, I could listen because I’m in awe of you. You did what you knew. You pushed us. You believed in us. You believed in the idea of ever-growing, ever-developing.  No, you weren’t the most emotional guy/father. I can count how many times you said “I love you.” on my two hands but you spoke in action. Your love was a testament of the rare trait these days: unconditional dependability. 

You were always, I repeat, always THERE when we needed you. That, dad, was something you never got from anyone. No, the world disappointed, your parents left you in one way or another to fend for yourself. I can only realize now, that boarding school and living alone at fifteen must have seemed like a spa-day compared to what you endured. At sixteen you literally watched your mother die in your arms after an accident. 

You had no back-up, no fail safe. No call to make knowing you'd be scooped up, saved and given more chances. No one was there to hash out your feelings or console you on lonely nights in Zanzibar when you were left to oversee the house while the rest of the family went back to Arabia to escape the revolution. 

I see why you were always paranoid. I see how you trusted no one. I want and wish I could have told you how much you could trust me. I would do nearly anything to ease your mind, validate your deep and so very sad scars. These things happened TO you. You were given few tools to process them.  As every parent wants, you pushed us to be better. You pushed yourself to create a life for us that required less suffering and survival. You, instead laid out a world in which we could thrive. That, I’m sure was a tricky dance. 

I’m certain you felt we were not grateful and that we had it “easy.”  (I think my kids are spoiled and a bit light in the way of experiences compared to mine.) I can only imagine how painful that was, the conflict of wanting better for your kids, but then somehow being sad for yourself and for all the comforts you never were afforded. 

I see you. I see all of you, now. It was you who planted these seeds in us. You, who showed through action, not self-puffery or money what strong looks like. You made mistakes, and you failed all the time, but you never quit. You never, not once gave up on anything, more over you never gave up on US. That is the most valuable. That, and trust. 

Both your daughters new without hesitation that you would appear hell or high-water if we needed you. That is trust. I am doing all I can to right the wrongs of my life thus far, part of that is forgiving people and myself. My heart breaks that you seemed never to forgive yourself. 

I forgive you, I know in the deepest places of my soul that you never needed forgiveness because accidents happen, and people die, and the entire journey is mysterious, but fault and blame are not part of it. You, dad, are the best thing that ever happened to me. Even in your death, you teach me, you shine light on the parts of myself that need to be reminded to fight. I will say to you, what you were never told enough, what you sought in your escapades and empty attempts to seek it. (Not unlike I did.) 

I love you. I love you with the thunderous power of a million storms over the sea. I love you with the white soft acceptance of  a love persistent through knowing all your worsts but seeing your best. I love you with the nurturing heart of a mother who only wants peace for her children and to keep in them, their birthright, to love themselves wholly.

I love you because you are, were, and have always been the north star, the ocean’s rhythm and the sparkle in my eye that let me be who I was, am, and am trying to be. I love you, eternally and fiercely because you, I realize now, feared loving, you feared feeling it too, and you had every right. We all do.

 I love you more every day because I understand you and see so much more about all of us. I realize that nothing has to be mutually exclusive. That you can be a terrible husband, and a great father. You can be successful and completely disappointed in yourself at times. That you can live fully and still have regrets.  You can be scared and show only power and control. 

I see you. I love you, and I send so much love out into the universe for you, on your behalf and from knowing that I am so grateful to have gotten YOU as my father, my friend and my forever soul mate. My love- I hope you glide in the wind of it, cutting glass-like water with your board….My love kiss blown to carry you fast and forever from the beauty of the woman you created in me. The beauty in a child's love and recognition bending time and memories backwards to never stop telling you how much you are loved. 

Ive never missed you more. I wish I could hug you again and force the awkward embrace until you relaxed into it, I have no fear now.  Ive never been more sure that in loving myself, I am, indeed, loving you. 

As every parent knows, evolving is ideal, but more important is the gift of our children loving themselves like we do them. I love you like I love them, and myself. Thank you. 

While you're listening, thank your mother too. I credit her for the love and foundation of your heart to be true. I credit her for helping me, in some small way see all of this now. 

Bye for now. 

Lulu

Continued in  the second installment: "DDD- Dead Dad Day: Worst One Yet. Best To Be Honest About it. The day, like he, was never what I'd expect."

A Letter To My Children For When Life Gets Harder: “So you know..."

I wrote this on May 5, 2015 because I think it’s important enough to be said and read. Maybe you think I’m clueless, annoying, embarrassing, bossy...all valid on all kinds of levels. 

But, I have watched you since birth and I have lived fully before your existence, during it and since. You are the greatest thing I’ve ever created or been a part of and you still evolve and grow and teach me. I’m always here. I have never loved anything more than I love you three.

You are always valuable. You are never alone. You are precious. Seek no one’s permission to be you.  These are four  truths I try to help you learn every day. 

"So you know...”

To my incredible, inspiring, beautiful, unique and precious children,

There are going to be days that hurt and hollow you out. Those days are the kind you sit staring at a computer, at the wall, or out of a window, just looking but not seeing anything. You can’t think, you can only feel your chest expand and rise to inhale and then purse your lips to exhale slowly. Each breath feels no better than the last but you know, somewhere deep within yourself that you have to just keep on doing it.

There are going to be nights when you lie on your back, and tears slip out the sides of your eyes without permission. They stream, cold and chilling on your neck and you lay frozen. The sadness has a weight words cant carry. The mind can’t quite decipher how much loss you feel, how broken and tired your heart is. Below the surface, deep behind the horizontal heart that keeps beating and bleeding out, there is a spark that flickers. It is so faint, you can’t even acknowledge it, but fumes from it’s attempts to light sneak into your senses.

There are going to be mornings when the sun doesn’t bother to beam past the grey, heavy clouds spilling rain and rolling like the pain and fear from your tears. You find you thrash from your left side to your right, as if arguing a silent point against yourself. The strength to throw the corner of the top cover down to get up is equally matched by the strength of your resolve to roll over and hide in the cool warmth under down feathers and darkness. Without committing to either urge, a voice without noise pushes you to abandon the fight and start the day.

There are going to be weeks that drone on as if to torture and test your absolute capacity to absorb disappointment, shame, shock and alienation. It will feel so much like personal assault from the universe that you will drop to your knees in a visceral scream just because you can, and nothing else feels like it will help. The echo of it, and the strange and unexpected confirmation that you are indeed still alive, mobile, able to be heard, and very present soothes an ambiguous wound you can’t identify.

There are going to be people who make you feel small, weak and inferior. You will let them rule your thoughts and their version of you will create a negative rhetoric inside yourself that poison your spirit and deflates your self worth. But strangely, as you listen more to them, you’ll start to see the fissures in their false confidence, you may even start to pity their own darkness that needs to hold you down to create an illusion that they are higher up. You might even start to believe that just because someone says something, and just because you may believe it temporarily, it is not necessarily the truth.

There are going to be events in life that shake you to your core. Huge, life-altering cracks in the ideal or comforts of a life you think you built. You will fall hard, crashing into fragile pieces of the glass perception that existed before you hit the bottom and saw, slowly, that you are more beautiful as a mosaic, than a perfectly packaged projection. Something feels more comfortable and empowering about refitting yourself and holding the most sacred, albeit once broken, parts of yourself together with the mortar of self-discovery and the solid embrace of yourself as you truly are.

And then…. the unimaginable happens:

The days feel more vibrant, more full. The clarity of sunlight on the leaves of a tree feels like putting on prescription glasses for the first time.

The nights become a ritual of comfort and gratitude for the days giving’s and the emotional intelligence to simply be without expectation or disappointments of what you “thought” the day was supposed have been. You accept what is. You cherish it.

The morning feels new like a fresh cut grass scent, a glass of coffee, a clean slate of glowing white to be colored and painted however it will present itself, and you take a deep breath with full heart and open eyes, happy to have slept well.

The weeks fly too fast because the precious and the fully lived moments are so bursting with presence and life it all happens too quickly. Perhaps you start creatively recording them better, through pictures, words, stories, or some sense of passion performed through art form to slow it down.

The people in your life are fascinating and enrich that deepest part of yourself that you didn’t even realize was so big, loving and deeply affected by the magical palette of differences the human condition allows for.

The events, you realize now, that change and shape your life are all gifts to bestow a lesson, a message or a hint to something deeper and deliberately woven into exactly who you are meant to become.

This is your life. This is ugly, and sad and hard and messy and at the very same time it is the most incredibly multi-petal flower blooming to rise and expand only as yours can. No vein in a leaf, no pollen of potential spread will be the same as yours because each beauty is owned in itself, and the love for all blooming things is a universal truth that few, but more and more are beginning to recognize.

Bloom. Bloom big and spread your beauty as you grow. You are loved, always have been and everything is here now, and has existed specifically to get you to exactly where you are. Trust it, let go, and unfold into the beaming light that shines on you. It always has, you just had to fight the mud and elements to truly appreciate and understand what type of amazing power you possess to push through the dirt and rain.

You are here, in all your splendor and the entire light, love, energy and universe conspired to let you find yourself, blooming, right now.

With all my love (which is limitless and paralleled by NO ONE, except....maybe, if I’m lucky, yourself! Love YOU  like I do, 

Your mother. 

A weekly series: Friday I'm in love.....Poems (about Poop) and loveletters from the LoveBinder. Vol. 4

"Friday I'm In LOVE" Weekly series!  I missed last week, because, well...my life collapsed and exploded, but today, is a new one.  Happy Friday!!!!!

The previous "Friday I'm In Love" posts are here: Vol. #1 Vol. #2. Vol.#3
( If you need to catch up)...

The story is funny and spins in those types of circles love and life twist and fly within.
Where we met: A Tony Robbins seminar. (both of us begrudgingly sent by our parents)
How it started: He emailed a very restrained and dry email, and I replied with 400 hundred words in lights...shimmering.
What it was: A beautiful, well-documented fledgling  love between two writers, a cynic (him) and a muse(me) bouncing and reflecting each other's light and darkness with words and passion and discovery. We spoke of life, university, truth and our fathers. (both now, passed on.) Life is strange, and good, and exactly as it should be.
Where we are now: Both married (to other people) with kids, and budding writing careers. His, more than mine as he has a screenplay "in sales" mode and wide circulation. We spoke last night, 16 years after the first email was sent....All is right and fascinating.

Things of note: 

• He ended every email with a movie quote, often started out by saying: "I only have a moment to text" and then wrote pages. 
• I ended every email with an original poem. 

This Friday: The discussion is about POOP. Yep. POOP. I had always indulged an irrational fear of needing a bathroom. Usually, if in standstill traffic, or anywhere there is not one readily accessible. I'm the girl that watches "The Bachelor" and when a beautiful helicopter comes to swoop the would-be love birds up and whisk them to some breathtaking island in the middle of no where, I think: "Oh hell, no." I'd sprint away, tagging off with a different girl. So, in this particular letter I had just confessed. He took it like an absolute champ! 

Friday, August 20th, 3:36pm, 1999:

I ended my email with a poem (or 2) and horrible spelling and punctuation. So it goes. My love of hockey players evident-"Puck head." I also love seeing the three-ring punch hole in the top left corner from the Binder of Love.

Friday, August 20, 5:21pm, 1999:

His hilarious response is below. He was perfectly self-deprecating, disarming and funny while showing pure acceptance. 

Friday, August 20, 7:30pm, 

I must have been out for the evening, as I didn't respond. Below is what I like to call a "Re:Re" as shown at the top of emails you respond to more than once. (without reply from the other party.) I am infamous for doing such. Ugh. His letter is incredibly sweet, none the less. Love is intoxicating and whimsical and all consuming at this stage in the process.

My responses, and more silly love-drunk poems will have to wait until next week... 

LOVE. BELIEVE. 

BEHOLD IT'S BEAUTY IF YOU HAVE FOUND IT. 

IF NOT, 

BE BRAVE AND TRUST IT WILL COME AGAIN.