Good Medicine

I’m writing this from our back patio right now, while I’m considering going inside to get a sweater or a blanket. And it’s August. In Las Vegas. And it’s all because of the storm that blew in this weekend.

I first heard it during the night, when the rain on our patio roof woke me up. It was perfect – just loud enough to let me know it was there, but not so bad to keep me awake. I fell back to sleep, cozy in bed.

Today I woke to the smell of the rain and cooler morning temps, although the sky above our house was bright and sunny again. That’s how Vegas is – storms often pass through but only show themselves to sections of the city instead of the valley as a whole.

Today I was feeling a little down; my week had been stressful, and my husband was working on what is usually our day off together. So when I heard a few drops outside again I immediately turned off the TV (I was about to sink into an afternoon of mind-numbing Hallmark Channel movies), and went outside with George. The wind was picking up a little, and one whole section of the sky was dark grey while the other part was blue with white fluffy clouds. The few raindrops on the roof sounded like popcorn.

George jumped onto the back of the outdoor sofa where I sat, and I leaned my head against him. My heart wasn’t feeling great. Recent stress was causing the symptoms of my MVP (an annoying heart condition) to flare up a little, and my heart felt tight. In fact, it felt worse than normal. I sat and tried to make my stress go away by taking deep breaths like in meditation. Focus on the breath, ten counts in and twenty counts back out. It didn’t seem to loosen the anxiety in my chest but I did it a few more times anyway.

Then I realized I shouldn’t be sitting under the patio; I should be out in the rain – should get out in nature and let it fall down on me. So I walked around the yard a little bit, raised my face to the sky in time to get a raindrop right in my eye, and I wondered why raindrops aren’t dangerous, since they fall from so far. I liked feeling the rain touch me.

Soon the rain came down more quickly, the drops big and fat. I headed for the sofa again and pulled George onto my lap to get warm during the sudden chilly wind. He and I sat and watched the downpour – it was indeed a downpour – the type of rain that brings people to windows to look outside, the kind that sounded like tympani were being played on our patio roof.

After about ten minutes or so of watching the rain fall in a diagonal toward where we sat, it gradually calmed down again, and slowly the sounds of our neighborhood resumed. A few birds flew by, chirping. A car drove by on a nearby street, its tires sounding wet on the pavement. The rain had stopped everything, had forced all to stop, to sit and observe.

And I realized my heart wasn’t tight anymore. The rain had taken away the tension. See, now, why I love the rain?

Misperceptions

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t care for the word “nice.” Part of my reasoning is that niceness often comes with a price. “Nice” isn’t genuine…it is something we often are in spite of how we truly feel underneath. We’re nice to the guy who is rude to us, just to get him to stop. We’re nice to our unfair boss so we won’t get fired. We’re nice nice nice, smile smile smile, fake fake fake.

When I lived in England, I learned that Americans are very different in this respect. We tend to be instantly friendly and nice , immediately welcoming and wonderful, then after we know someone we move on to gossiping and judging. The opposite seemed to be true with my English schoolmates. They were fairly standoffish at first, then after I knew them they were friendly and nice, and it seemed more genuine. Which is better? While I do appreciate American hospitality, I hate the fakeness we’ve all been bred to emote, like toothy, smiling cheerleaders telling a nerd she’s pretty.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe we should be polite, and yes even nice, especially to strangers. We all need to give some positive energy, to put aside the fake crap and give each other the benefit of the doubt.

Those “reserved Englishmen” aren’t actually reserved. They just seem that way to outgoing Americans. Americans’ perceptions don’t make it so. It doesn’t make the judgment true.

The mean teacher you had in high school may have actually been a wonderful, caring, warm person, but at that point in her life was going through a divorce. Does that make her a bad person?

Pride and Prejudice provides an excellent literary illustration of my point.

When someone is mean to me, disappoints me, angers me, or misunderstands me, I tend to withdraw, making me seem quiet, cold, and distant. Does that make me a cold person? To that person, yes. They have no idea that inside I’m hurting. They will go on thinking the worst of me. Does that make their perception of me the truth? It’s true in their world.

We can’t change others’ perceptions of us. Survey a random handful of my acquaintances and I’m sure you’ll get several descriptions of the person I am. Nice, helpful, friendly, reliable, or selfish, cold, rude, disrespectful. I can’t change how they see me. And honestly, I don’t care to.

The trick is not to let other people’s perceptions, or misperceptions, define us. How do we do this? Retreat to the only person who truly knows you: You. Only you know the whole story. That is the only perception that counts. Inside, are you a good person? Are you loving and kind? Only you know the truth. We must find the strength to be satisfied with that knowledge.

So, it’s been a stressful week. And it’s interesting that my last blog post was about handling stress. I think I’ll go re-read it, make a list, and then go to bed. Again.

Crazy Chicken

How do you handle stress? I have always felt I’ve been fairly good at it, ever since my Mom helped me deal with teenage stress when I was a kid. She helped me make a list of everything that bothered me, and then we went through it and decided what could be done about my stresses, if anything. She also taught me to keep a diary, and by now I have tons of them, some with happy entries, but many written when I needed to unleash all my anger or sadness or frustration, and I felt the tension release with the flow of my pen. A diary doesn’t judge or react; it just listens.

Other stress-relievers? I’ve found that attacking a home project, like pulling weeds or painting a room, can be fairly cathartic, and it has the additional plus of marking something off my To-Do list when I’m done. Another method is to create…to paint, write, draw, or do something to get into my work and out of my head. Sometimes I’ve gone to a movie by myself; being by myself with the characters on the screen is comforting. And finally, if all else fails, I could use another method Mom taught me…just go to bed.

I was pretty stressed this Sunday morning when I was out of the house early. The tension of recent events, combined with a fierce case of PMS, caused me to find myself in tears. I’ve always been a crier; it’s another good way to release tension – Mom taught me that, too. But this time, I had nowhere to go. We have a houseguest right now, so I couldn’t go home and cry. My husband was at work and unavailable, so I couldn’t call and vent to him. And faced with the prospect of just sitting in my car and crying, I called my girlfriend, woke her up, and asked to come over.

She greeted me in her pajamas and sleepy face, then escorted me to the kitchen for apple juice and Kleanex, and we spent the next hour on her back patio enjoying the breeze and the warmth of the sun on our feet that stuck out from under the patio cover’s shade. Thank God for friends.

Then as I drove away (I finally felt good enough to go write at Starbucks), I received a phone message from another girlfriend who moved away a couple of years ago. She mentioned that she had been “running around like a crazy chicken” and that’s why she hadn’t had time to call or write recently. Her phrase made me laugh, because I assume she meant “like a chicken with its head cut off.” And yes, lately I too have been a crazy chicken who needs to sit back, make a list of everything that is going wrong and stressing me out, and see what can be done. Then I’ll go to bed.

My Muse

This week was particularly stressful – not because anything specific happened – I just had trouble handling Life this week. And I think this is the reason it took me forever to come up with a blog topic. I mean, everything I came up with was negative (topics inspired by work or my uncharacteristically depressed outlook)…and I don’t want this blog to be a downer!

So, as always, I looked to George for inspiration. Yesterday he went with us for a ride in the car – to the car wash which scared him a little – and he was in heaven, riding with his head out the car window the whole way there. And for a moment I envied him. I mean, the most stress he ever has is when he’s scared of the vet or doesn’t want to go to bed. The rest of his life is full of excitement (going for a walk!), satisfaction (belly rubs), and eternal optimism (a crumble of bacon could fall from the table at any time!).

What is the human equivalent of a dog with his head out the car window? A ride on a motorcycle? A ride on a roller coaster with your hands in the air? A ride down the ski slopes with the cold air in your face?

Or maybe it is just living in the moment. Grasping every possibility and enjoying the experience to its fullest, no matter how small.

So, as I try to come out of my stressful week, I will try to follow George’s lead and appreciate the small stuff. It’s a trite cliché, but it’s overused because it is so important, right?

Now, who do I know that has a motorcycle?

Resolutions

A new year, another list to make! I love to make lists - of things I need to do, places to go, books to read - a list on paper is a visualization of possibilites.

I also use lists as a way to get information out of my head so I can quit stressing. Why give yourself the pressure of trying to remember things when you can easily put it on paper? Mom taught me this valuable tool when I was a stressed-out teenager who couldn't sleep due to...well, whatever teens stress about. One night I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling, and when she asked me what was stressing me, I said in tears, "Everything!" So she sat on the edge of the bed with a pen and paper and made me list every single thing that bothered me: tests, rehearsals, an upcoming speech, an insensitive comment from a friend. And once everything was on paper, I saw that it wasn't so overwhelming after all. We looked at the list and determined whether or not I could do anything about any of the items. And after it all was out of my head and onto paper, I could sleep.

And boy does it feel good to mark off things as I accomplish them. When I was a kid and hated to clean my room, Mom used to write a checklist of jobs to help me complete the sometimes huge task. At the top she wrote "Shannon's To-Do List," and then drew boxes next to each item. I got immense satisfaction in putting a checkmark in each box as I put all my books on the shelf or put my stuffed animals on the bed. Lists made the job bearable.

I have about eight resolutions on my list for this year, and I predict that I will complete three of them. But that's okay. Some are difficult (finish my book, eat better) and some are easy (walk George to the park instead of driving, take my vitamins every day) but either way, when I accomplish anything I will be happy in the mere knowledge that I am bettering myself in some way. I'll find happiness in any small success.

Tonight my husband and I are going to watch the movie Patton, because we are making our way through the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best movies of all-time. When it's over, I will cross out the word "Patton" with a bright blue highlighter and bask in the satisfaction of another accomplishment.