High Clouds Kill Runner

High Clouds Kill Runner.

I keep imagining this as the headline in the paper when they find my body.  High Clouds Kill Runner.  It's the lesson of this winter so far.  Or one of the lessons anyway.  

I've headed out several times in the last few weeks to run, bundled as much as I can stand -- gloves, beanie, tights, two shirts.  I run for freedom, so being bound up in winter-weather-wear -- well, it's anathema.  

I go out the door and start on my way as the sun is coming up.  The skies are clear.  The morning is coming alive.  It seems full of possibilities.  And then.  High.  Clouds.  All hope of warming temperatures...gone.  The idea of sunny rays penetrating those frigid mornings...gone.  The only thing alive is the reality of miles ahead in the dimmed light of a muted morning.  What was once full of promise turns to something that merely exists.  And what was anticipated -- a run in the sunshine of a new day -- becomes something more like work -- logging miles because miles need to be logged.  I'm sure I'll freeze to death.  Hypothermia.    

So what keeps returning to me is this:  High Clouds Kill Runner.  The haziness of life.  The in-between.  The undefined.  The lack of direction.  The failure to set a sight.  The haphazard wandering.  The absence of a plan.  The point where clear-sightedness succumbs to the high clouds.  Vision suffers.  Energies are spent.  Movement without going anywhere.  Life loses purpose.  Temperatures drop.  The body takes the brunt of the reality, but the spirit and mind are not far behind.  

And then a friend sends this article about searching for happiness versus searching for meaning, and I'm reminded of the value of purpose in one's life.  And I'm again remembering the hazard of high clouds, hazy vision, lack of clear-sightedness.  

I remember reading one of the books referenced in the article -- Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning -- a few years back.  The book was a product of his time as an inmate in a concentration camp in World War II.  It's serious business about the nuts and bolts of humanness -- what allows us to survive, persevere, make it through impossible conditions, difficulties, unimaginable horrors.  

I read it  at a time in my life when I was in the midst of the redefinition of self.  It feels lonely in those times when all the usual landscape has lost its markers.  When your life has high clouds.  It seems as if the great expanse of unknown will surely drop you into the abyss.  You'll never be found (by yourself or anyone else) again.  You'll lose you.  

And I remember a passage from the book...Mr. Frankl recounts a cold, dark nighttime journey.  While he marches through the darkness, he remembers his wife.  And as the sun comes up, and darkness turns to light, and hazy vision gives way to clear-sightedness,  he finds purpose and joy and contentment even amidst those most horrible of conditions.  He writes, "Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."  And it isn't the romantic kind of love.  It's the giving kind of love.  And if he can find it there, in that minute, in those conditions...I can certainly find it here in my high clouds.

And so I'm reminded that even my days of nearsightedness or farsightedness or no-sightedness will give way...I bet to an Orange Sky. 

Providence

I write best in the early morning.  NOT the middle of the night.  This is unfortunate as I've had more than enough middle-of-the-night awake hours, and hardly any peaceful early morning hours.  You can imagine all the raucous ruckus a house of four boys brings in early morning hours.  There is an overwhelming bounty of non-sensical noises and an equally impressive utter and complete lack of peaceful quiet.

Perhaps I should've raised them with religion.  Then we could have practiced morning devotionals.  In silence.  

So all the words, well, they just sit inside unrecorded.  Except for these.

The miles have been passing quietly.  I crave intense silence these days.  Gone, for now, are the days of blaring music.  I want to hear the measured pace of my breathing, my footfalls, that chorus of welcoming nature sounds out there in the dirt.  I'm going down my mental checklists as I trot along...where are my arms?  Am I moving at the elbow or the shoulder?  Are my shoulders back?  Head upright?  Am I relaxed?  These questions are such a welcome relief from the questions of life.  They're easily answered.  Corrections can be made.  It's simplicity.  And I'm clear, these small corrections, these details make me able to endure longer hours and more miles with less effort, less energy expended.  It's like an equation for living, not letting this life energy slip out in sloppiness and inattention.

And I signed up to endure -- 25K -- so these miles have been spent training to do just that.  Peacefully, quietly, happily.

I found I grew increasingly introspective, reflective, quiet as race day approached.  All the places I look for inspiration, support, encouragement...well, there was a block there.  My house was quiet.  My boys gone.  All except one.  The day before the race was rainy.  I worked -- typed -- quietly, surprised at the depth of my need for solitude.  At some point, I suffered a crushing paper cut and thought this was sufficient reason for pulling out of the race.  In some minutes of quiet, the head can come up with the most absurd ideas that seem completely logical.  Which is why this girl occasionally needs to break the silence.  Get input from outside.  And before this race, this is what that outside grace sounded like:

If for some weird apocalyptic reason I could only have one song to accompany me on this life journey, especially this running odyssey, I'd want it to be this.  It is my life anthem, I think.  I'm sad I didn't write it.  From its opening, it makes me perk up and pay attention.  I am that person, out the door, going forward, not in a straight line (my life has taken turns), all the while a chorus of voices (perhaps mostly in my head) signing their disapproval.  I am the girl with long hair coming down my shoulders, tired, feeling so much older.  

And my life, it has come down to the women for survival.  Don't get me wrong, boys and men are fabulous.  I love them and think they're great, but in my life, I look around and easily see the profound efforts of women carrying this society along.  How could I not?  I'm a midwife.  I watch women all the time dig deeper than they ever knew existed inside their very own selves and come up with making the impossible possible.  I see them in the midst of the truly singular journey surrounded by their loves, but accomplishing something that only they can accomplish.  It's humbling to bear witness to such strength and perseverance in the face of doubt, exhaustion, fear.  It's more humbling still to see the results of their efforts.  And it's even more humbling to stand in their presence after their transformation...from woman who didn't believe to woman who did.  

Quite logically, you can see how these women are my inspiration and my drive as I pass the miles, take the next step, continue on a path that seems impossible.  I hold them close to me and carry them along the miles.  They are better than any sports drink ever.  They are my aid stations.  

So as I drove to the race -- this 25K race -- I wondered to myself why I run.  The answer seems to evolve as the days pass.  I add new answers as I grow up and grow older.  I run for relief, for solitude, for fitness, for spiritual rearrangement.  But I had to ask myself the other morning, do I run for penance?  It was rainy, cold, muddy.  The run promised to be harsh.  And for what?  Was I running as a form of amends for trespasses against others?  To reconcile trespasses against me?  Was I running from?  Was I running to?  

And I had to admit, I run to leave things behind.  I leave behind those bits of me, the aspects of living, the ideas that hold no more promise.  I leave behind the sadnesses and the heartbreaks.  I leave behind the the seeds that have no hope of sprouting flowers.  Surprising things happen out there as I shed the obsolete.  A new world opens and for everything I leave behind, I replace it with something plucked from along the path, something creative and life-giving, something reliable and sure, something new and steady.  

And so this is what I found on the trail that day, as I hiked up wet, slippery hills, got pelted by rain, and endured the wind:  I'm running WITH these days.  I'm running with me.  I'm running with life as it is.  I'm running with certainty in uncertain conditions.  I'm running with peace.  I'm running with quiet.  I'm running with people -- the ones I carry inside, and, surprisingly, the ones running alongside me.  I am there, a part of a whole and whole being apart.  

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.  

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have 

occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, which no one

could have dreamed would have come their way.  

                                                                                        -- W. H. Murray

Letting Go

People have asked me about this blog -- what it's like to write it, why I'm so sporadic, how much I edit.  I can honestly say the most difficult part of writing this blog is the repackaging of my life in a way that protects my (and my boys') privacy while also maintaining the flavor of what our lives are all about.  It's a fine line.  I cherish my anonymity, my space, the safety of a life unknown.  So it takes time for me -- sometimes a few weeks -- to come up with the right words to express something without revealing too much of me.  I'm sure this is what separates really successful expose bloggers from largely unread bloggers like myself.  But when the right words come that express the events, the feelings, the realizations I let them flow.  I'm writing all the time in my head.  Rewriting all the time.  I'm prone to errors and mistakes.  I make typos.  I redo.  I undo.  I do over.  It's not much, but it's me.


So in that spirit, I offer this.  It's difficult at best to speak about the shifting nature of my foundation right now. But I'll try.

Good-byes are not my strong suit.  I hold on.  I'll admit I oftentimes hold on long after I should have let go.  I'm saying good-bye to a phase of my life, and welcoming in a new chapter.  As the seasons change, so too does life.  So it was not surprising to me that the other day, in my life's travels, out in the middle of nowhere, I happened upon a message from the Universe to remind me that some letting go was in order.  It was no penny.  It looked like this:

Oftentimes I feel unprepared for what life is asking of me.  Quite honestly, it seems like the people around me know something I don't.  Perhaps they've read some sort of manual or life's question answer book.  I particularly feel like this when I realize my kids believe that I know something they don't.  They see me as the leader of this pack, the head of this house.  I act as if.  But inside all I can think is that surely there's someone else more qualified for this position.  They have no idea that I know less every day.  They have no idea I'm as uncertain as they are.  Especially in the good-bye department.


But my find the other day reminded me not only that letting go is part of life and necessary, but also that I have the tools to do it, and do it gracefully.


I said good-bye to all my boys this week.  I cried every day until they left.  The thought of being without them seemed overwhelming and distasteful.  It was something I wouldn't really choose for myself.  But I didn't choose it for me.  I chose it for them.  I tried to plan ahead, fill my days down to the minute so I would be busy and accounted for, stay out of trouble and get things done for a change.  


What's interesting to me is what's happened since they've departed.  It's interesting to look at what I've chosen for myself in the absence of others.  Most notably, silence and solitude.  Every day I think, I'll put a movie on.  Every day, I somehow fail to.  I think about listening to music.  I try.  I turn it off.  I think about tackling the to do list.  I sit in silence instead.  The dishes are still in the sink, the laundry's still not put away, the beds still dressed in questionable linens.  


I've loved running this week.  There is such a difference to my stride when I'm not haunted by what I've left behind or frightened of what I might find on my return.  I've added in biking, just because I have the extra time.  I even tackled this hill again with surprising ease.  What seemed an enemy just a few months back, now appears to be a friend.  Where I was weak, I have grown strong.  Where I have surrendered, I have gained.


Much of running for me is the internal conversation -- debate, really -- between my head, my heart, and my body.  My head believes in quitting before I even start.  My heart is anxious to get started.  My body resists the efforts I put forth.  But running that trail, biking those miles, climbing to the top of my favorite hill -- well, it's a commitment and a surrender all in the same second.  I let go of the voice that tells me I'm no good, I look ridiculous, I can't do it.  I grab on to the silence, to the next step, to the sound and feel of my own breath.  


The good-byes these past few weeks have been life-changing good-byes.  The kind of good-byes that are definitive when you look back on your life.  The ones where you say to yourself, "And that is the day my life went this way instead of that.  Right there.  That day.  That minute."  They're profound good-byes.  Good-byes to abilities, capabilities.  Good-byes to homes away from home and people who've become family to us.  Good-byes to a time and way of life that, for years, has felt steadfast and sure, and is now my history, our history, the past.  


All I know is what the song says, I feel it all. 

From the Archives

I wrote this in November of 2009...I remember the day like it was yesterday.  I bet the mom, whose birth I missed by minutes, remembers that day, too.

I am a student midwife apprenticing with a midwife in my community. Recently, she asked me to begin documenting the births I attend in whatever way seemed most appropriate. A few days after she made this request, she called in the middle of the night to let me know one of our moms was in labor.  I knew intuitively that I would miss the birth. My mind wondered why I shouldn’t go back to bed, save the gas, and the energy. But my intuition told me to go forward. In the end, I might have missed the birth, but I think I found the lesson.

How Birth Is Like A Country Road

It occurred to me today that there are a life's lessons in the travel to a birth. We are often misguided in the notion that the birth is the event we are attending to. We fail to realize it's actually the moment that will be our teacher. 

So country roads, damn country roads. Never fails. There they are. They look so different in the dark, dark night.  Even if you've traveled them numerous times in the daylight, their night life is like a long lost identical twin -- the exact same, but totally different. 

I think childbirth classes are like the general driving directions: cross streets, landmarks, things you'll pass along the way, the signs that will point your direction.  Your mother's story, your best friend's birth, the story of the mother of the brother of the sister of your co-worker's neighbor are just the same: merely guideposts along the way.  When you see the stop sign, stop; the yield sign, yield.  Markers, posts, landmarks. 

But here's the thing: in the cold, dark night on a country road, you can't necessarily see the things that people have pointed out to you to guide your way. Your field of vision is limited to the spray of light shed by your car's headlights. Even when they are turned to bright, it's not necessarily any more illuminating. There's more glare and perhaps more peripheral vision, but not really any more sense of what lies further beyond. 

No, on a country road in the dark, at some point you realize that the only information to see you through is the few feet in front of your car as you travel forward.  In a somewhat meditative process, the music that seemed to be your friend on the journey is quieted so you can focus more on the road ahead, the next contraction. Just as much as you need to know, need to see is available -- a gentle hand, a warming word, silence.  That's what we get and that's what we give -- just enough for the now. 

The potholes always catch you by surprise, even when you're ready for them. There is something about the way the light plays on the landscape that makes us incapable of perceiving every pitfall in our path. It's only as we survey our trip in retrospect that we think, "And then I hit that hole right near the sycamore.  Remember it's there on the way back through next time."

Along the road, somewhat lost, not able to rely on our usual senses we find that our sight and hearing have been supplanted by that internal sense of direction.  We may continue to reach out the way we know how -- phone, knock on a door ("Can you help me? I'm looking for a certain house."), perhaps even a co-pilot. Invariably, there is only one person able to put foot on gas pedal, hands on steering wheel, eyes on road. Only one person who will birth that baby. Invariably, the cell phone connection will be lost; the kind neighbor will give inadequate directions; the co-pilot will remain 16 inches away in her own seat. It's a singular journey.

At some point, when all else is exhausted, there comes a time when the only way down the road is...well, down the road. A surrender is made.  "I feel really lost. I'm not sure this is the way. I've done the best I know how. I can only keep going. What other choice do I have? Stop and wait for daylight? A rescue?" 

And in that minute there is no more noise, no more second-guessing, no more wondering if you took a wrong turn. There is only intent mindfulness on the next indicated action, movement, lurch forward. Commitment. What falls away is the belief that there is only one way down the road, to the house. What becomes apparent and entire is that right there -- in that moment, at that time, hands on wheel, foot on pedal, eyes closed -- is that we're moving toward something.  We are going somewhere. 

I believe there is a second time when along the road we submit to the minute. We say to ourselves, "I'll do whatever it takes to keep going forward." We say it to ourselves in a way that doesn't even sound like speaking. It is an intense, full-bodied knowing and display that we will go, we will do, we will be whatever and wherever we need to make progress. Squatting, walking, rocking, crying, silent, rhythmic.

That last effort or instinct on our part, in my experience, is most often met by the surprise find of the exact house you were looking for. It's like in a split second you see the house, think to yourself, "There's a house," then wonder what in the heck a house it doing way out here, and then remember that that's where you were headed in the first place -- exactly like the first time a mother touches her baby's head as it is emerging. That connection is complete.

Opening the door, walking the walkway and crossing the threshold -- you're finally there. You have arrived. In that minute, you have arrived at the destination. The pieces are finally in place and the jigsaw that was the reality of just a minute prior now fuses to make a perfect picture. Baby on belly. 

But here's the thing I love the most about the drive and about the road. The birth will take time, the labor, the welcoming, the checking, the mothering, the cleaning -- and then you'll get back in your car. It will be light; hours will have passed. 

You'll back your car down the road and start for home, but what you'll see is that the entire landscape has changed. Your vision is no longer limited to the destination. Your eyes will no longer be riveted on the few feet in front of the car. What will happen is you'll raise up your head and witness the trees, their colors and their leaves in the wind.  You'll realize you are nestled in a valley or on a hilltop, not just at the end of the road. There will be endless heavens above and fields around, the animals and plants will be coming alive with the heat of the sun. And there is it is: life all around, inside, outside, throughout you and everything, everyone. Motherhood everywhere. 

And that's what happens. You arrive at the place you think is the destination, and once there, you finally see that there is so much more to behold on the journey. 

Self-Defense

I saw you yesterday.  I was thinking about writing you all morning.  I needed to hear your counsel, but then I got quiet enough and heard your voice in my own mind.  And then I realized I didn't need you after all.  You'd already taught me what I needed to know about the situation I found myself in.  

Running couldn't wait yesterday.  For two days in a row, I came upon a minute when I knew I needed to leave the house and be on my way.  The cacophony of ruckus in my own mind was too loud, too continuous, too debilitating.  I needed the quiet and calm that comes from the open road.  The rhythm of the road has a way of knitting me back together in an orderly way, so I can recognize myself again.   

I realized yesterday that in this world there are door-lockers and non-door-lockers.  I'm definitely I'm a non-door-locker by nature.  If I do lock a door, it's a decision.  A conscious decision followed by action.  It's nothing I habitually do.  I don't ever have the sense that I need to protect the things on the other side of the door.  I may protect the people on the other side of the door, but I'm generally not a protector of things.

But here's the thing.  In my life, I'm attracted to the door-lockers.  Like opposite magnetic poles attracted to the door-lockers.  And not just one -- my life is full of door-lockers.  People who take measured steps to ensure their safety and the soundness of the insides of their homes.  I walk around in their lives like an observer at a zoo, seeing how they set up barriers to entry, protect their inner sanctum.  And it's foreign to me.  

I've always thrown my door open, really with reckless abandon.  I welcome in all sorts of people and invite many of them to take up residence inside my very own heart.  For the most part, it's worked out well.  People have come and rearranged my insides, the furniture of my being, with and without my permission, and in the end I was better for having the inner makeover.  People have come in and made my heart their home, and I'm delighted that they've stayed.  Some people, however, do have larcenous souls, and their stays beyond my unlocked doors have proven costly and upsetting, like vandals and thieves.  

I've enjoyed learning from the door-lockers though.  They take steps to care for themselves, offer up the simplest of resistances to unwanted entry.  One of them told me once that safety is no accident.  He was aware of what his end goal was -- safety -- and how to get it -- keep the doors locked.  The simplicity of this idea eludes me.  Just like other simple ideas.  I was in my 20s before I learned that it's easier to keep your room clean than get your room clean.  I was in my last semester of college before I learned the classes were there to be attended, not avoided.  I didn't understand the value of a made bed since it would just be unmade later, until someone told me by that logic, I should never eat again because I'd just be hungry again later, too.  

But the simple ideas of this world are sinking in.  They're growing in their appeal.  It's tough work cleaning up after vandals and thieves.  Door locking might be in order. 

And that's what I heard when I got quiet enough.  I heard you say I shouldn't be surprised at the state of the state because I'd invited it in.  So I went straight home.  And locked my door. 

Really Ideal vs. Ideally Real

I am an anthropologist by training.  Among other things.  I'm fascinated by people -- individuals and groups -- what they do, how, and why.  There were incredibly helpful lessons I learned when I learned to study people.  One I'm thinking of today is the difference between real and ideal.  We, as humans, are so hellbent -- for no good reason -- on projecting our ideals, when the reals just seem to sneak up on us and bite us.  You know what I'm talking about...really, you do.  But if you're struggling, I'll give you an example:  Taxes.  I tell myself every year that I'm doing them early.  Every year, I believe it.  And every year (it's the very end of March now and I haven't started them), I'm surprised -- sincerely surprised -- when I find them undone come mid-April.  That's the difference between my real and ideal.  


Perhaps, procrastination isn't your issue.  Maybe ideally, you believe you exercise five times a week -- as recommended -- but in actuality it's once, maybe twice.  Maybe you classify yourself as honest, but you fail to clock out for lunch every once in a while, essentially stealing some money from your boss on occasion.  I'm not even going to get into the deception we employ with ourselves in relationships at this point.  Just know that relationships are prime breeding ground for the divide between what we believe about ourselves and how we really behave.  We have a difficult time telling the truth about ourselves, assessing ourselves accurately.   


So here's the post I want to write, my ideal:


A few days ago I went for a run.  I ran one of my usual loops, but ran it backwards.  It includes a tiny bit of trail running up a hill that I know and love.  The rain and warm weather have been kind to my area and the wild grasses are as tall as I am.  I love running through the grass, not really being able to see where my feet will land, feeling the wisps of feathery edges as they pass my face and legs.  


But I ran it backwards.  I couldn't quite find where the trail started.  It seemed to start and then stop.  I slowed my pace.  Doubled back.  Tried again.  Found some more trail.  Dead end.  Doubled back.  It seemed like I needed to be over a few yards, like I could see the outline of a trail on the horizon of tall grass, so I headed that way.  Only when I got there, that wasn't the trail either.  So I abandoned my efforts at finding a trail altogether and just blazed straight up the hill.  Through the thistles.  Ouch.  But I wouldn't stop.  Burrs in my shoes.  Scratches on my legs.  And I kept running.  To the top, to one of my favorite views.  It was soggy out and by the time I reached the summit, my shoes were heavy, my shorts were soaked and my legs were sufficiently poked and prickled with red marks.


It was a great run.  Exactly what I needed.  

So yesterday, I ran the loop again, but the usual way this time.  And as I ran, I wrote in my head.  I analyzed my previous run.  I marveled at how by merely reversing my usual course -- running the exact same route I always do, but backwards -- I could completely lose the trail, lose my way.  And I realized how vital perspective is to any situation.  Shift it 180 degrees and the entire terrain becomes foreign even though it's the same exact terrain as every other day.


How often conflict between two people takes this form -- same event or time or space, two perspectives, decidedly different -- opposing -- and boom, conflict.  


Thinking about the trail, the value of shifting perspectives, the challenges of re-viewing a situation from another angle, another's sight, another vantage point...well, in the moment it was profound.  The bumps and bruises I received while on that previous run seemed like the cost of being willing to try something new, accept a different way, forge a new path in a familiar landscape.  Those bodily scars seem a small price to pay for being alive and responsive and stepping outside the norm.    


And here's what I need to write, the real:


And so I traveled along yesterday, enjoying my way, the usual loop...the miles I've tread so often.  Up the hills, down the hills, up more hills, to my familiar trail, to my view of forever -- the place where I can see the intersection of my past and future.  And. I. Got. Lost.  


The grass had grown more.  The paths -- even when I knew they were just there -- weren't there.  I couldn't even see over the spot where I stood to see where I should be.  And the thistles.  Again.  And the pokes and the prickles and the scratches.  Ouch.  


And most ouchy, the loss of my theory.  Because it's not just when I'm trying something new, seeing something from a different perspective, venturing outside the norm -- it's not just then that life is challenging.  I can lose my way even when I'm on certain ground.  Bodily scars can happen even when I'm walking down the path I've walked down countless times before.  


Let me repeat, bodily scars can happen even when I'm walking down the path I've walked down countless times before.  


There are no guarantees.  The usual landscape of my life can become unrecognizable in a minute.  I can shift.  I can change.  I can see differently.  People can leave.  People can stay.  Nothing can be different and nothing can be the same.  I can be lost in a sea of familiarity.


How true this has been in my life of late.  I have the scars to prove it.  How frightened and fragile it can make me feel in my humanness.


And as I continued on my path back home, I noticed as the divide between my ideal and my real grew wider and wider.  Until it disappeared.  

The Gift of Sixes

Birthdays are interesting.  One thing that people fail to recognize is that the day is really a celebration of the preceding year -- not really the upcoming one.  When your child is one, it's because she successfully lived through her first year of everything on the planet, not because she's about to venture into her first year on the planet.  It's recognition that you've made it through, you've persevered, you've overcome the obstacles that life has thrown into your path and you've survived to see another year.  Hopefully.  


But that first birthday...that's a day to celebrate, for sure.  There are all sorts of hazards to be had those first twelve months.  In that first year, our dependence on others for mere survival is incredible.  Others feed, clothe, house, challenge, and encourage us.  Others soothe us, nurture us, and care for us.  And in our society, we are led to believe that at some point we stop depending on others for survival.  I'm not sure that's really true.  We just become interdependent in other ways.  It's no longer about the food and housing that others provide, but about the perspective, outlet, inlet, and space we offer to one another.  Without it, I'm not sure life would be so exquisite.


So this year, for my birthday, I received an incredible gift from a dear, dear friend.  A phone call.  A birthday wish.  For almost 20 years this friend has remembered my birthday.  And this year, he told me how.  "Your birthday, two and four," he said.  


"Uh-huh," I replied.  


"It makes six."


"Uh-huh," I replied again.  


"Add two more sixes and you get..."


"Eighteen?" I thought to myself.  


"Six, six, six.  The number of the devil.  You were the devil to me for a while.  Satan."


"Oh."  Followed by laughter -- billowing, guffawing laughter.  Not because I'm uncaring, but because I get it.  I was the devil to him.  "Call me Beelzebub," I said. 


Why I was his own personal Satan is a story for him to tell.  And I'll let him if he wants to.  But I knew exactly what he meant without him explaining it.  We all have our devils in this world.  Most often it's people (in my experience) but sometimes, I'm sure, it could be a job or a situation or an illness.  The list is infinite.  


For this girl, though, my devils are usually people.  People who don't do what I think they should, don't behave in the way that's best for all concerned.  People who leave, who never show up.  People who confuse me, disappoint me, anger me.  People who don't give me what I want or take away what I think I need.  


However, the devils in my life -- like most things I'm finding -- are dual-purposed.  They are like sheep in wolves' clothing.  They're the key to my life lessons.  And the lessons they bring are like March -- they come in like lions and leave like lambs.  


The discomfort and disappointment, sadness or despair I feel in relation to these devils, in the end, always requires me to look at me.  I always end up having to take stock of my own character assets and liabilities.  But only after considerable waltzing with these maniacs.  Only after I've exhausted every alternative.  I'm a person who has to look at something from every angle, the Underworld included, before I make a move.  So I tend to stew with my Satans.  Until I can't any longer.  


When enough is finally enough (I can't ever seem to predict when that will be), I have to take stock, and be willing to grow new bits of me, improve aspects of myself and address my shortcomings, or lose bits of me altogether if they've lived their useful life.  And in this way, those harsh, abrasive, sad and uncomfortable times my devils bring help me to uncover my strengths, my insides, my truth.  


Many of my Satans still live in my life.  There is no getting rid of these people, nor would I want to.  They are my loves, my friends, my breath.  But some have had to exit.  In the final analysis, it was them or me.  And I chose me.  


I'm not proud that I've been the devil to others.  But I know enough that I'm thankful for my own Beelzebubs and how they've required me to grow, have ushered in my person.  So I'm hoping my dear friend will see the silver lining in the cloud I brought to his life.  And I'm hoping he'll maybe VISIT me on my next birthday.  


A girl could hope.