I Went To An Art Party and Ended Up Getting Baptized. Again.

Posted on May 23, 2014 by megpoulinindeed

There is a certain feeling you get when you are around a person that is self-possessed and fully expressed. A person who is not arrogant or tightened inside, but open and fluid. They have a different energy about them, a softened look behind their eyes. They lack self-conscious defensiveness that others carry when afraid to be fully seen, fully themselves.

Photo Credit: Gardner Edmunds

I adore these people.

I think most of us do… they are the ones that make you feel instantly more at ease, safe in their presence to unwind a few notches and take a breath. They attract people like a light bulb surrounded by moths, clamoring to be near. Sometimes, they are hard to find. Most of us are wound up and covered in armor, desperate to be seen but not seen. We are busy trying to impress, trying to hide, trying to find the perfect balance of control that will make us not appear to be total asshats.

Last week, I was lucky enough to attend a party called Creative Cocktail Hour with a lovely friend, a local artist. Rick and I both adore Stefanie and her husband Carl, because they both have this light presence, and when they are together it is even more inspiring to witness.

We went to Creative Cocktail Hour with a friend of hers… both of them attend these monthly parties faithfully… It is a gathering of local artists and art-lovers at Real Art Ways, a space designed to showcase and support local art and the art community in Hartford.

I was scared.

My inner introvert shrinks like cojones in an ice bath at the thought of meeting and chit-chatting and mingling at a large party of “cool” people. People who probably know how to talk about art. I am not sure that unused Elementary Education degree I earned was going to come to my rescue when I needed to find an intelligent contribution to the small talk. Unless somebody wants to talk about making homemade playdough sculptures.

That scared, uptight, insecure voice inside me was worried about being seen as a scared, insecure, uptight gal in a sea of self-expression.

And that is exactly what happened… at first.

We were greeted at the door by a huge, barrel chested man named Tito, whom Stefanie and Greg hugged first. When I extended my hand in introduction, he swallowed me in a hug, declaring, “No one shakes hands here!” in a deep bellow. A tall thin man rode up on a bicycle with a spatula taped to the back end of his helmet and dismounted. He also hugged Tito, and then we all made our way into the building, passing an older couple in their late 60’s wearing hats made of disposable picnicware.

There was no visible commonality in this gathering. The variety of ages, clothing style, hair style, gender expression, sexual expression …was astonishing. It appeared that every kind of person from all walks of life had come out to hug and chat and dance. There was one golden thread of detectable similarity there, and after softening into the night I began to see it. I wanted to belong there too.

So I was baptized that night.

It was my second time being baptized, in fact.

The first was a religious affair… one of the most important moments of my life as an LDS child remains a gauzy, soupy memory I can’t quite access. But this I know: I was eight, I wore a white dress and people hugged me and shook my hand and told me how proud they were of me for making the only right decision there was to make… to be baptized by immersion for the remission of my sins. So I could belong. When I came up out of those waters, I emerged fully committed to do my best to become the person God wanted.

At Real Art Ways, I was baptized by immersion again.

Immersion in a scene filled with people who were all unapologetically themselves.

To be exposed and immersed in this unadulterated authenticity was not for the remission of my sins, but a remission of my armor. The crowd pulsed with this free energy, the acceptance of people as they are. Simple. In a gathering of people all devoted to becoming, every day, more freely self expressed, the beauty of humanity is a palpable force. It existed in the art on the walls, in the music the brass band was gifting to us, in the air that surrounded us. It entered me with each breath, and then right through the pores of my skin. I felt it move to open the hardest places inside me… this collective energy has one message:

You are supposed to Be exactly what you are.

The immersion will not be an experience I will soon forget. It was a moment of experiencing the possibility of being free from sin. And, I am coming to more fully understand what sin really is. Sin is the armor of self-protection we wear… to make ourselves appear formidable and fierce and brave. We put on this armor so that we can go out and be seen, without exposing our most tender places, without being vulnerable to the pain of rejection or loss.

We cover ourselves up and hide in the open so we do not have to hear the message we dread:

Be ashamed. You are not enough.

Stefanie, the friend who brought me, is less covered by this armor, and by being more freely expressed, more authentically her, I sense the safety in being me. I realize, where they gather, these people who are figuring out how to move through it and lay down the armor – love is less diluted. It is more easily accessed and felt… it is the golden thread that binds us. We ALL belong already, we just have to take off the protection and express who we are… and others will see that golden thread too.

Photo provided by Stefanie Marco, KiNDSPIN DESIGN

So go out and find those people, the ones that carry themselves with that spark of authentic presence. It is not hard to recognize the lightness they possess, their loving energy is more free to flow. Immerse yourself in their authentic lightness, in the generosity of spirit that surrounds them… in that spirit, there is no fear. Only love.

When I emerged from this second baptism, I came away not committed to becoming… that commitment is the sin. The armor.

I emerged more willing to Be.

Unapologetically, just as

I am.

Photo Credit: Gardner Edmunds

The Sounds of Our Crisis: Living with Misophonia

Posted on January 23, 2014 by megpoulinindeed

Everyone has a trigger… that one thing that will make you go apeshit. The emotion you just can’t cope with. The monster you were sent to slay.

Mine is feeling silenced, my voice stolen. Muted. Dismissed.

So naturally, I have a child that hates the sound of my voice. She suffers from misophonia, which makes her go crazy if I talk in the car while she is in the back seat. She can’t stand to hear me talk on the phone, or converse with Rick downstairs on the couch while she tries to fall asleep.

Is that irony? Divine cruelty? God’s stab at satire?

Maybe. But it also gives me clear direction…it demands that I find a way. I have a little corner here, my own piece of the internet, and all I can do is write about what is happening with honesty.

I’m scared. Driving home with my girls squabbling in the car, the fear creeps in. It makes me angry and I am yelling at them before we have hit the driveway. We have been together for 4 minutes.

We are emptying the dishwasher, setting the table for dinner. Lydia stomps down the stairs, on the defensive. She is singing loudly, slamming things to the ground, shoving chairs into the table, she crashes through the kitchen… the fear grabs me by the throat, and I struggle to maintain calm.

Lydia hisses at Carly as we sit in our chairs, and jumps to her feet quickly, almost knocking over the chair, slopping water out of the glasses. About five months ago, Carly was added to the growing list of things that provoke Lydia’s misophonia meltdowns. I take in a few gulps, the panic I feel tightens every muscle in my neck, strangling me. She grabs her plate and kicks the swinging door in, stomping. She grits her teeth but it doesn’t muffle the furious screech. We all freeze in place. I put my hand on Carly’s back, and the small gesture of compassion breaks her composure. She whimpers, and then grunts angrily. Rick hands me Lydia’s fork and napkin. I snatch them from him and storm into the kitchen. I try not to throw them at her. She is cowering in the corner, plugging her headphones into her iPod, turning it up so loud I can hear Bruno Mars damaging her eardrums. She looks at me with disgust.

It hurts. I can’t help it. I feel wounded by her posturing. Her revulsion. Her aversion. It’s an old wound now, scarred over and reopened by her sharp looks and high-pitched screeches over the last 18 months. It’’s raw right now. Because she is triggered by Carly too. And every time she hurts my adult feelings, every time I must reach deep into the best, most mature part of myself to process this hurt and turn it into much-needed compassion for my glowering daughter, I think of Carly. Her inability to process. Her young spirit, and what this rejection must be teaching her about herself. The complexity of the emotions swirling around our dinner table is nauseating.

I retreat to the dining room, and we eat, minus one. While we eat, I struggle to pull my mind out of the next 10 years. How will we survive this? What will this do to us? What will happen to my little girls? To me? I look at Rick, my eyes communicating my desperation. He tries to ground me into the moment. “Take a bite. It’s just dinner,” his eyes say, pleading.

It doesn’t feel like just dinner, it feels like our whole lives are being swallowed by this crazy, mysterious misophonia.

Sometimes, I can not keep the monstrous fear at bay and I lose it. Most of the time, it looks like anger. I rant. I watch Stella’s eyes widen as she hears, “I’m so damn sick of this shitty behavior!” The words taste terrible as I spit them out, aware of their sharp edges. This extra loss of control must do wonders for all three of my girls’ already tender, aching spirits. Their appetites. Being angry with Lydia is like being angry when a wounded animal snarls at you. She is hurting, I know this.

Sometimes, the tears just roll, drip into chicken orzo pasta, and everyone acts like they don’t notice.

Sometimes, we pretend it isn’t happening. We spend the meal sharing things we are grateful for in a clockwise, orderly fashion. Stella gets up, runs to the kitchen, and makes Lydia lift her headphones and give her grateful words so she can report to the group. The grateful list is building up, the room tightening with tension.

After dinner, when the clicking of the silverware against the plates stops, when the sight of Carly chewing her dinner is gone, when the sound of me taking a sip of water is over, Lydia goes into sweetheart mode. She is throbbing with guilt and shame, she is not oblivious to the pain she is causing. She snuggles up to me, she brings me school papers with great marks, she sweetly engages with Stella, offering to help her get her pj’s on. She tries to make Carly laugh. She leaves us love notes, to smooth out the hurts.

I often find Carly sulking in bed. The rejection is getting to Carly. Normally so passive, so unexpressed, so quiet and easily content, Carly is beginning to show her pain. She is frustrated and pissed off, she cries in an angry fit, kicking at my attempts to hold her.

“She HATES me! She thinks I am disgusting! And I am not doing ANYTHING!”

She folds her arms defensively, growling at me. I try to explain. But the explaining doesn’t soothe. I know that, as I ache too. I feel rejected. I feel terror about how Lydia’s life will unfold, how she will manage. I feel the weight of the damage she is doing to her sister, unintentional, but real, slam me in the chest.

Oh my GOD, what are we going to do?

It is not breaking my heart…it is eating me alive.

I think about all the families out there, trying to hold on. Carrying their own burdens. Their own hurts. I am grateful for the health we do have. That my girls are doing well in school. They enjoy sports and friends and music and movies. I think of people I know. People I know who have children with closed head injuries. Autism. Feeding tubes. Wheelchairs. Brain damage. Schizophrenia. People I know who have to liquefy their child’s meals and feed him through a straw. Or are acting like their son’s pancreas, spending sleepless nights on his bedroom floor, praying the numbers go up, one hand ready to summon an ambulance.

These thoughts do calm me. I do feel genuinely grateful. I feel relief that it is not me. And then I cross my fingers, knock on wood, send up a half-hearted prayer.

And please bless that will never be me.

But it does not drain me of my fear. It does not help me feel capable of handling my own life. My own daughters. My own burdens.

I used to have a recurring dream, showing up when I was a small child. It has haunted me for most of my life. In the dream, I am going about a normal day, when I notice that a tooth is loose. And when I wiggle it, the tooth pops out in my hand. Horror fills me as I realize that the tooth has come out. My permanent tooth! I tell someone… whoever is with me in the dream. They seem unconcerned. I dial the dentist’s office. And while I scramble to tell people what is happening, or make an emergency appointment, my teeth become loose and fall out, one by one. I feel completely out of control. Helpless and panicked. Permanent damage is being done, and there is no reaction, I can’t stop it, I can’t find someone who can stop it.

I haven’t had that dream for many years. Maybe because I have climbed inside of that nightmare. I am living in it now. That feeling of helplessness and desperation. We are living with something no one has heard of. There is little known about it. Our doctors haven’t heard of it. Psychologists. Therapists. The few that know it, can not agree on what it is. A psychiatric disorder? A neurological disorder? A hearing problem? A sensory integration disorder? An autism spectrum-symptom? A behavior problem? The sensation of absolute helplessness is paralyzing. I have no control. I have no where to turn.

Why I am writing this? This private, personal account of what really happens at our house, around the dinner table?

During the summer of 2012, misophonia had already slithered its way into our lives. It’s presence a snake, coiled and waiting. Watching us. I had a sense it was there, but only that unease that comes as a premonition before the strike. When it struck, here, and here, I did what most sane, reasonable parents do. I turned to the internet. And there, I found almost nothing. The info that I did find was less than encouraging. It still haunts me, the things that I read that summer. About families that can not live together. About kids who leave home and never come back. About mothers or fathers or siblings that are lost to each other, unable to overcome these tiny, imperceptible, everyday noises that scratch at Lydia’s brain like nails on a chalkboard.

There was a blog, I wish I could remember the name of it. One blog. And the mom who wrote it, posted about her son, and his misophonia. All of the things they had tried. All of the medication, and therapies and specialists that were not helping. About dinner time. But what left the lasting impression was one sentence.

“We are in crisis over here.”

It was the most comforting thing I have read about misophonia. I think of her often, and her willingness to admit it. The crisis. “Me too,” I thought.

Knowing I was not alone was everything.

We are trying things. We are draining our energy, our time, our savings account, trying to find help. On the outside, we look like a normal, everyday family of five. Mini van, soccer cleats, playdates, preschool art projects, birthday parties, piano recitals. On the inside, if you came to visit, you would see a functioning family. Home cooked meals, sibling squabbles, love notes, piles of laundry, homework unpacked on the coffee table.

Maybe we are a normal everyday family of five.

And everyone has something that makes them feel out of control. Helpless. Terrified. Alone.

Are we all there? Walking around with our teeth falling into our palms? Clinging to the stories of the other people? Gathering gratitude like seashells in a bucket, talismans of the burdens that we don’t have to carry?

The one thing I can do is step forward. Use my voice, and say it when I can.

Me, too. Me too.

To learn more about misophonia:

This NY Times article

misophonia.com

The today show segment, here Warning: trigger sounds are played.

Fear is Not a Monster to be Conquered

Image

I didn’t fall away from the writing, let it drift into obscurity. My confidence had been seriously wounded, my spirit had taken a beating in the last several months of 2013, but I was fiercely fighting.

It was a sudden snap, a clean break.

A good friend of mine borrowed my set of white dinner plates we had got in our wedding for her Thanksgiving feast, and the handle on the bag ripped the bag open as she was returning them to me. The plates shattered. All but one. Boom.

That same evening, Rick called around 10 pm from his indoor soccer game. I answered and he calmly tells me that his Achilles tendon “popped.” His word… he uses it because that is the sound it made. It snapped in half. Severed. Connection of foot to leg, gone. In one loud announcement, we moved into a world of crutches and immobility and surgery and a long, long recovery.

The outdoor christmas lights Rick and I had labored to hang on our house just days before stopped working. And in my newly designated role as “person who does anything requiring movement,” I went to investigate. Someone had cut our christmas lights. Snip Snip. The connection had been cleanly cut.

Coming in from the blowing snow after shoveling the porch and sidewalk, I fumbled my phone from my pocket, dropped it on the cold hard slate of the entryway tile, and shattered the screen. For the past 6 weeks, I have been scrolling and peeking around the spiderweb of cracks. The replacement can not happen till February.

Then I got my first flat tire. Flat as a pancake. The tire had two matching wounds on the tire wall, big holes that had given way to the pressure and left the wheel a flapping, deflated mess. I spent a day watching YouTube videos about how to get the spare tire and jack out of my Honda. How to use a jack. I spent an afternoon in freezing temps kneeling in the slush of my driveway trying to get those stubborn lug nuts to budge. I spent dinnertime in a discount tire with three hungry, tired children.

During this time of domestic madness, I let my stay-at-home mom status rule supreme and tried to quiet the constant tagalong nagging of my writer’s shadow jabbing at me. I made cookies and gingerbread houses, bought toys and made picture calendars and did laundry and felt absorbed by the tasks at hand. I gave myself permission to set it down…this need to write, this pull to create, this desire for a career. While wrapping a mound of presents, ordering Christmas cards, and tearing the house apart to find the hidden gifts I had squirreled away I thought about how I could just do THIS. I convinced myself that I should just carry on as a stay at home mom. No need to add more to my plate. I enjoy baking cookies and making chili and watching soccer. Nothing else in necessary.

But now it’s January 10th. The festivities are over. The kids are at school. I can hear the clock on my wall counting the passing seconds. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I have been staring at this blank screen for days. For weeks, there has been a constant, nagging tap on my shoulder. “Fix it. Go back. Restart,” the manic little creative monster on my shoulder whispers.

Why has this month been full of pops and tears and severs and deflation?

Why have I allowed myself to totally disengage from my dream? Am I defeated? Whatever tenuous hold I had on my dreams broke inside of me…the past few months have proven to be too much strain.

Pop.

It’s haunting me…

Rick asked me, point-blank, the other night as we brushed our teeth in our tiny bathroom. “What is the real reason you aren’t writing?”

I fled the bathroom and began straightening the bed sheets before climbing in. He may as well be holding me by the throat. But the answer floated to the surface without a lot of digging.

“Self doubt.” It came out louder than expected.

I snapped off the light after he got settled into bed.

“Fear. It’s always fear,” I whispered into the darkness.

And that is the truth. I feel my heartbeat against my vocal chords as I bare this awful truth. I am terrified. Not of failing. I can write something. And at least six of my closest family members and friends will read it. I can write the book that is literally eating me alive from the inside out.

And when I do, it will be.

But then what?

The fear surrounding that question…whether I can survive the rejection that comes with daring to reach for my dreams….that fear is paralyzing.

The only thing that got my fingers moving on the keys today, is the belief that everyone feels this way. I am not alone in my fear. Fear is not a monster to be conquered. I can not get rid of the fear. This is not war. I can not beat it down or fight it off or make it submit. I can not hide from it or hold really, really still and hope it doesn’t see me. Fear is simply the absence of light. I found myself in the darkness, and it is normal to freak out. To run and thrash and panic…a good way to draw blood in total darkness. I got hurt, so I curled up in a ball and did not move. But only in calm stillness can I spot a tiny spark of light to nurture. I can only breathe in and out, in and out and know that fear is allowed to be. That every person who has ever dared to reach for something, work for something, create something, free themselves from something, has had to breathe through the same fear. In and out, in and out. The pop…the snap, the severance, comes from the strain of fighting it. Fear of rejection, self-doubt over came me. It happened.

But.

I ordered new dinner plates. I removed the vandalized lights and replaced them with new ones. I learned how to change a flat tire. I will replace my cell phone. Rick’s surgeon carefully stitched his achilles tendon back together, and bound his leg in a cast to let it heal. And I will begin again. Breathing in, breathing out, letting the fear be there. My new mantra helps me begin to move once again.

Only through the deepest Fear will I find the deepest Joy.

Einstein: Harnessing Love in Your Hands

Posted on November 26, 2013 by megpoulinindeed

“Man’s concept of his world built on the experience of the five senses is no longer adequate and in many cases no longer valid.”

-Shafica Karagulla, M.D.,

a Turkish-born psychiatrist

I am a white witch. DId I fail to mention this? True. I did away with secret temple rituals and went straight into sorcery….

I don’t share this with people. Because when I tell people that I see and manipulate white light, and it magically puts screaming babies to sleep, their eyes narrow, they nod politely, and take a few unsteady steps back.

I made a major exception to my undercover sorceress policy just over two weeks ago, when a lovely mother began to open up to me on the playground of the elementary school. She told me she was feeling desperate about her son, who would not go to sleep at night. He was an anxious and sensitive seven-year old and he was getting up multiple times at night, fearful and tearful. She was at a loss, and feeling trapped.

So I told her my white witch story. And she laugh with nervous disbelief, but I could tell she would try it out… something told me that she needed this story.

Her son went to sleep that first night…and every night since then without trouble. She laughs gleefully when we bump into each other every afternoon as we pick up our kiddos. She high fives my sorcery as a powerful white witch.

But it’s not voodoo.

It’s science. It’s quantum physics. Energy.

When Lydia was about 9 months old, she began screaming all night long, every single night. She had been an easy sleeper, a point we clung desperately to, since the day time Lydia was perching herself precariously on every tall piece of furniture, eating vaseline and toothpaste and generally finding ways to defy death at every turn. At first I thought the night crying was just a growth spurt, but she wouldn’t take more milk. And I tried everything to get this kid back to sleep. I bought every sleep book I could get my hands on, I implemented every method with exactness, desperate for rest and bewildered by the sudden change in her sleep. Or lack of.

And the screaming. Endless screaming.

I changed her diapers. I bought a new brand of diapers. I bought heavier pjs. I cut the feet off her pjs and put on socks. I bought her flannel sheets. I put a fan in her room for white noise. I played low, classical music. I rearranged the furniture in her bedroom. I hung a mirror in her room. I tried different night lights. I left the lights on. I taped black paper to her window, and bought black out curtains to block the moonlight.

I read a story about a lovely mom who examined her screaming baby only to find a long hair wrapped tightly around a purple, throbbing toe. This story tortured me. I stripped her down, looking for a rash, a bite mark, a bruise, a purple toe.

I took her to the doctor, and they stubbornly refused to give me baby tranquilizers or sleeping pills and insisted that Lydia was healthy and thriving. No cause for medical alarm.

Except that I was going apeshit crazy. I have never experienced that level of sleep deprivation. Even with two babies, just 15 months apart. I thought about sleep every single minute of the day. Like a dying man crawling in the desert for the mirage of a deep, blue pool, I crawled into my bed every night, and it began again.

The only thing that would make her stop was to sit upright in a chair and hold her while she slept. In fact, she would pass out into a deep slumber, punctuated only by her shuddering hiccoughs, within 60 seconds of being in my arms. Even submerged into dreamland, if I tried to put her down she would wake and scream, clawing at my chest. After four months of this endless struggle, half dozing in a chair as she slept and my arms throbbed painfully, I realized with sudden clarity, what it was. The answer seemed to actually hang, fully formed, in the dark of her small bedroom.

Fear.

She was terrified.

The fear, once I recognized it and gave it a name, seemed as tangible as a snarling tiger in her crib with her. As menacing as a fire, creeping up the curtains.

WHY? Understanding it was fear did not help me solve our problem. It became more distressing to realize that my baby was traumatized each night by agonizing terror. And what could she possibly be afraid of?

Her life was filled with Cheerios, Barney, twirly skirts and my constant loving presence.

Why is it that so many of my life’s lessons come only after I have a complete mental breakdown?

So.

I had one.

A breakdown. Hysteria.

My brother was visiting. Rick and I had gotten through bath and bed time with ease and Rick had left for the library to study. Gard and I had just settled into our tiny living room for a relaxing chat when Lydia’s screams began. Several hours earlier than usual.

I freaked.

The frustration and severe sleep deprivation and paralyzing failure took me down to my knees. My brother let me rant and my building hysteria matched Lydia’s upstairs. And then he handed me a box of tissues and told me to sit down. He told me take a few deep, calming breaths with him. Then he held his hands out, almost touching each other…. and taught me to feel energy. This may seem far-fetched, it certainly seemed crazy at the time.

He told me to sit with my hands close together, and feel the heat there… energy. He told me to imagine that energy as a white light, gathering in my hands. I used my hands to “press” this warmth, this “white light,” this energy in my hands. And slowly we moved our hands further apart, concentrating on building the energy in our hands into a big, warm, ball of light. He told me to gather all of my love for Lydia, all of my fierce feelings of love and protection, and put it into this huge ball of light. My hands began to prickle and tingle, the heat in my hands was tangibly growing, even as I moved them further apart. We sat side by side on my brown sofa at the foot of the stairs, eyes closed in meditation, our hands open to “hold” our energy spheres.

Upstairs, Lydia was choking on her sobs, she sounded like she would vomit soon.

Then he told me to visualize Lydia, screaming in her crib. I was to visualize myself walking over to the crib with a my ball of white light, and place it over her head, letting that light wash over her. He would do the same with his energy.

I felt crazy.

But I felt shredded by her cries.

I did it.

She stopped crying within ten seconds of “giving” her our light.

Tears of relief and disbelief dripped off my chin. I hugged my brother in gratitude for the moment of peace for both Lydia and I.

He left with the instruction to do that every time she woke.

I got pretty damn good at feeling energy with my hands, and gathering a large amount of it for Lydia quickly. Every night it worked, I felt shocked that it worked again. And within two weeks of energy meditation, Lydia was back to sleeping through the night, and the crying stopped.

Lydia, now eight, still asks me for light when she is upset or scared or is having trouble sleeping. It has never failed to help calm and soothe her. I am teaching her that she can gather this light herself, but there is nothing like a mother’s love.

It seems like life is handing me some pretty concrete experiences before I read about it in this E squared book…the timing is pretty amazing.

Because after counting 3 orange cars the first day, and 4 purple hats the second day, in my VW Jetta experiment, I read experiment #3. Pam Grout’s words are in red.

Lab Report Sheet

The Principle: The Alby Einstein Principle

The Theory: You are a field of energy in an even larger field of energy.

The Question: Could it be true that I could be made up of energy?

The Hypothesis: If I am energy, I can direct my energy.

The rest of the experiment is laid out to help you see how you can direct energy using a simple device made of a coat hanger. But I absolutely know that this is true, and was provided a great way to see this work for someone else, even before I read the chapter in this book.

If you still think I am a witch, you are missing out on a pretty handy, powerful tool in your tool box. If you want to give it a go, but need some direction, go get this book and follow her experiment, The Alby Einstein Experiment.

After all, I’m gonna need some sorcery, and a more than a little white magic to get these sweet girls to adulthood…

Don’t we all?

Onward.

The Neverending Story

Posted on August 23, 2013 by megpoulinindeed

“What I’ve started I must finish. I’ve gone too far to turn back. Regardless of what may happen, I have to go forward.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

I’ve been MIA, I know. I have a million legitimate excuses for you. I have three kids, and it’s summer. We’re making memories. Building castles.

Finding treasures.

Having sleepovers, with serious bedhead consequences.

Letting watermelon drip from our chins.

You know, summer stuff.

Also, I witnessed a woman birth a beautiful baby boy, and become a mom (wipes tears). I had to recover for a week after skipping a night of sleep to see this baby born.

AND… I had a birthday, and turned (gasp) 35. Yep. And my hubs had a birthday two days later, and he turned (much bigger gasp) 38. And we went to the beach. Twice. Which was marvelous, because it helps me appreciate the beauty in where we live now, rather than shrivel with homesickness.

And we rearranged the bedrooms in our home to give each girl their own bedroom…Carly and Lydia have their individual space now, and my creative haven has been dumped into a massive pile of plastic bins in the attic (sob) and replaced by Stella’s Minnie Mouse action figures.

But.

Also.

I posted about the magical underwear, and have been waiting to be struck down. I have been going through some sort of big, dramatic, face-your-fears panic. I had an excruciatingly awkward, heart-beat-through-your-chest phone call with my mom. Where she really stepped up and tried to be understanding. And said in not so many words, “If you must, you must.” And. “But its so sacred.” And “What is coming next?” And that question has me curling up in the fetal position right now.

It is a moment of true recognition, how hard this is going to be. It certainly is not unreasonable, my mother’s fear. Her hesitation. And my parents are trying so hard to love and support me. But I know that I may cause them pain, create tension in their lives, make things even more challenging in their family relationships, point out parts of my life that were not-so-great and stir up guilt or anger in them. It’s big…a huge, life-swallowing , monstrous FEAR in me. And it’s so… public. Surely this crippling fear is not original to anyone setting out to write memoir. But whew.

On the way home from the beach, on my 35th birthday, my kids watched The Never Ending Story in the car.

A movie I could recite almost word for word. The Rock Biter. The secret place in the elementary school attic. Morla. The swamp of sadness. Is the sound track playing in your head right now too?

Rick was driving, and I stared at the road ahead, grappling with the demons that have me in this dead stall.

The fears that threaten my ability to just keep moving.

And in the midst of my reverie, Lydia calls out from the back seat, “What did she say? What? I can’t understand her!”

Immediately, my mind brings up the scene… I see the Empress, sitting on her broken rock, floating in oblivion, her pearl quaking against her forehead delicately, her eyes red rimmed…

“Bastian? Why don’t you do what you dream, Bastian?”

I paused the movie, and translated her rung out cry for my eight year old, then backed the movie up one scene so she could watch it again, and hear her plea.

“Bastian? What don’t you do what you dream, Bastian?”

Go ahead. Play out that scene in your mind. Any child of the 80s can.

There’s nothing like a giant flying cockerspaniel-dragon to snap you back into your life. Bring you back your dreams.

I won’t be chasing anyone into a dumpster anytime soon, but I will continue, despite my serious anxiety.

Because the Dream is so much better than the Nothing.

Watch it. You know you want to.

Skivvies and Damnation

Posted on August 7, 2013 by megpoulinindeed

“Ordinances and covenants become our credentials for admission into [God’s] presence. To worthily receive them is the quest of a lifetime; to keep them thereafter is the challenge of mortality.”^{– LDS President Boyd K. Packer}

I better just get the underwear thing out of the way. I am not sure that the necessity of special underwear in order to find eternal salvation is something I can just zip on past. It’s a topic that needs addressing. Not just because people in general are fascinated with the idea that mormons wear secret underwear, (they do) but also because it was certainly a huge part of my overwhelming unhappiness as a mormon woman, and a painful hurdle to overcome.

But.

I dread it….writing about this part. Because it’s absolutely sacred to the mormon population. And while I will poke fun, be irreverent, and unafraid to talk about the church’s darker, more damaging side… it is not my intention to hurt or disrespect LDS people.

I don’t believe in the church anymore. And the secrecy surrounding many of the beliefs and teachings were damaging and hurtful to me, and many others. There is so much secrecy, and so much fear in talking honestly and openly about real experience. There is no safe forum for mormon people to express their feelings of doubt or fear or disagreement. I have been filled with much hesitation to share some of these more sacred elements out of respect for the LDS people, out of my desire to not feel hated and condemned by them, my own family members especially. I squirm in my seat as I write this. It has taken me a long time to arrive here, to this moment when I believe that I deserve to share it, to own it, to call it out, just as they will spread their message and try to find people to blindly follow their faith.

I will share the sacred parts… the temple, the underwear, with intention…not to desecrate something holy, but to own my story and shed the shame and propensity to hide behind propriety at the cost of my soul, my spirit. It is all I can do.

l love mormons.

I was one. I am married to someone who was molded and shaped into an incredible father and husband by the LDS faith. I was a fifth generation mormon, and almost all of my ancestors and living relatives are still faithful LDS people. Mormons are some of the most generous, caring, loving, and thoughtful people you will meet. They are resourceful and energetic and loving and they will bring you a casserole and a pan of brownies, help you move, jump your dead battery on the side of the road, or visit you when you are sick without pause or reciprocation.

So. Deep breath.

To start with the basics, yes, mormons do in fact wear special underwear. Mitt Romney? He wears the undies. So does his wife. Any faithful, active adult member of the LDS community with a church resume like the Romney’s must wear the garments, or they would be deemed unworthy of holding those important church positions. Children do not wear garments…you must be 18, found worthy, and go through sacred and very secret rituals and ceremonies in an LDS temple in order to purchase and wear garments.

-Denver, Colorado Temple. The temple I first received my garments.

Mormons believe the underwear is absolutely sacred and is not supposed to be shown to others or spoken about to outsiders. The underwear is worn to keep one modest, serve as a reminder of the promises made to God, and when worn faithfully and correctly can be protective. There are hundreds of stories floating in mormonland and even shared over the pulpit about people who were physically protected in accidents or fire by wearing the garments. These are the stories that confirm the notion to outsiders that mormons wear “magical underwear.”

Mormon underwear is all white, a symbol of purity. The men wear a basic white shirt, and the bottoms look like white boxer briefs but the legs are lengthened to a few inches above the knee. There are secret symbolic markings embroidered into various places on the bottoms and tops. The markings are small, white and not very noticeable. The women wear tops that look like tank tops with capped sleeves. They come in a variety of neck lines, but they all come up high enough to modestly cover indecent cleavage exposure. For women with bigger breasts, the tops are sewn with boob pouches, of sorts, so that the top will fit smoothly over all the skin. The catch is, women must wear the sacred garment under the bra. Ladies will understand the supreme discomfort that this may cause the well endowed LDS. I don’t care how smooth you try to make those boob pouches, they are simply not good enough to prevent bunching, puckering, and movement of the bra in all the wrong places. The bottoms look like white spandex, that go down to a few inches above the knee, to prevent scandalous immodest flashing of the upper thigh. The female garments have the same markings as the men… a strange phenomenon of equality within the faith, not often replicated.

Thankfully, the design has changed over time, as they used to be one-piece numbers, with long sleeves, long pants…and a crotch flap. These beauties may still be available for worthy purchasers. Awesome. The one-piecers were a piece of history my mother loved to remind me of as we commiserated about the hot misery of those boob pouches. And despite our shared discomfort, the sacred power of those garments held tremendous control over our lives. The influence the underwear has in daily LDS life is hard to articulate, and the guilt and perceived wickedness over letting them go was immense. The decision to slip on a pair of good ol’fashioned bikini briefs caused almost paralyzing anxiety at times, paralleled only in my emotions now, as I let go to the fears associated with writing about the underwear.

Releasing that fear was a challenge, when I am going to burn in hell for writing about this. Actually, I don’t think most mormons believe in “burning in hell.” Hell is called outer darkness, and is rarely spoken of.

I have come far enough to have let go of that belief, the idea that the kind of skivvies I wear is important to God, or a measure of my worthiness as a human being. Can there be a heavier weight, a more taxing exercise, than a continual critical measuring of self worth? The memory of that measurement still makes it hard for me to breathe, it presses in on my throat, my voice disappears.

Floating out here in the “outer darkness,” I feel so much lighter. And I marinate in this idea:

We are all worthy.

Always.

The worthiness is brilliant and it’s still flowering within me.

The projection of strength, faith, and sacrifice is paramount in the mormon community, and even within the family circle there can be a thick communication barrier. It’s a barrier that still snakes it’s way through me, coiling around my darkest places, the most raw fears. I know that LDS people will feel disrespected and offended by the things I write here, about my own personal experience as a mormon woman. I see the fear in my mother and father’s eyes when I tell them about the things I will write here, for the world to read. For their family members to read. But their discomfort it is unavoidable,…inevitable, if I am to accomplish what I have set out to do…to find my voice and be unafraid to use it. That voice has been bound and gagged for too long by the remaining vestiges of mormon unmentionables. I have set out to peel away the layers of my self, to discover what is underneath, and scrape that away too.

When all the layers are gone, the only thing remaining will be what is at the core of us all.

God. Love.

My hope is that my willingness to be raw, naked and condemned by people I love will help someone else find the God within themselves too.

I will send this small nugget of release into the blog-iverse with the promise of more details to come. The next layer must come off. I’m just going to catch my breath first.

To be continued.

Gratitude bites

Posted on August 5, 2013 by megpoulinindeed

Change is the very basis of our life, not to be fought, to be welcomed and tasted, to be seen for the gift it truly is.

~ Brenda Shoshanna

Well. It’s sunday. I have just returned from a glorious trip to my beloved Colorado. People, Colorado is heaven. There are no words, for the beauty, the glory, the loveliness of my home state. The air…it is so dry, light. As in not wet. The horizon, it is so open and full and distant and colorful. Not a green tunnel. The houses, they were so large and spacious, the plumbing, the roof tops, so… vivacious.

Yesterday, we flew as a family of five, a family containing a three-year old person (God Bless Us All) from my glorious Colorado after a long visit, to our home in Connecticut. I proceeded to apply every ounce of any people pleasing, energy-sapping, procrastinating, doubting, lonely and fearful energy to the road ahead, as we bounced down the runway. We arrived home, and instead of breathing in our home, taking in the charm, the soft light, the artistic nuances, the brilliant color, the fresh familiarity and promise… I picked a fight with Rick, pouring every particle of fear and heaviness that the months ahead will hold for us into making him feel inadequate, making our home look rundown, making my spirit feel small.

Not good.

It is now that gratitude is necessary. In the moments when gratitude bites, and everything feels impossibly fickle.

A year ago, we moved here. That word, moving, does not capture what we went through. Or maybe it does. Move. Ing. Movement. Motility. Mobility. I know that many, many people in the world experience this excruciating transforming, called moving. From the old, to the new. The fossilized, to the green. The roots were dug up, and we found ourselves in pain. To be dug up is painful. It was an acknowledging, that our lives needed new movement, as much as we resisted that change.

We arrived here in the northeast a year ago. I found myself facing monsters, unearthed from a vault I was no longer able to keep locked. The August air here was as thick as my fear. My daughter became ill with a bewildering affliction. The cracks we had spackled over and repainted in our marriage became fissures threatening to render us in two. The acknowledgment of my powerlessness was paralyzing, the idea that I was not strong enough, capable enough to withstand a “silly move” across the country filled my body with cement. I found myself facing a spiritual crisis larger than I had ever known.

I fantasized about walking out of my life.

I found myself weeping into a cardboard box, with a new and passionately destructive mantra:

This is not my life. This is not my life. This is not my life.

I shocked myself with the depth of my misery, my weakness. When you choose to move, change, transform something in your life, every problem that has not been addressed, every injury, every insecurity…it will rise to the surface, reveal itself to you for acknowledgement, for repair. And it did. Viciously, and without pause.

Apparently, I had been standing on a volcano of suppression, and it erupted at our taunting…our invitation, by moving our family to Connecticut. I am still in the process of digging out. We hit our one year move-iversary and while things seem more familiar here in Connecticut, the repeat seasons, the fact we have spent an August here before… the humidity, the rainstorms, the unpacking of suitcases, it floods back to me in giant waves of panic. Like post traumatic stress disorder. My scalp has been itchy as the memories barrage me (did I mention that we all got lice during our move?) A certain sight or smell or taste will trigger a powerful rush of memory of my misery just a year ago. The site of the weeds in the yard, growing taller than me. The organizational nightmare of our garage, still housing trashed cardboard boxes. Or the smell of wood smoke wafting from the eighty-four year old chimney after a rainstorm. I am randomly overcome with the remembering of my absolute undoing.

Two days ago, at my parent’s home, we had a dinner with the people closest to us in Colorado. We ate and drank and reminisced and took pictures. The kids made messes in the dress up box and turned dinner into a combined game of duck duck goose and musical chairs. Periodically an adult would snag a child and trap them in a hug without their permission and the impending close to our visit would loom larger. And then we said our goodbyes. Again.

I wiped the tears of my children with the palms of my hands, I buried their heartbroken sobs into my belly and rubbed their backs and soaked in their sadness. I kissed my nieces and nephews and hugged my brothers and sisters just as we had last year, on the front lawn of my parent’s house.

Yesterday, we hugged Grandma and Grandpa in the early morning chaos of the airport and flew back again, to the place where the moving must happen. It is happening now, as I write this, with a lump in my throat.

As we made our final descent yesterday, I held Stella’s dimpled three-year old hand in mine and felt the airplane speed up to meet the fast approaching ground, and then slow…speed up in a burst, then slow again. It felt choppy and unpredictable as we dipped lower toward the ground. I was afraid we would land too hard, the inconsistency would prove to be a danger to our arrival. Despite the unsteady approach, the ground seemed to rise up to meet us, and we eventually bounced to a roll, roared to a lull, and found ourselves safely…Home.

There has been changes, monumental, and minuscule, in our movement from one place to the next. But mostly, the change is in the mantra, which has been unearthed from the rubble so far.

This is my life. This is my life. This is my life.

And the universe will rise up to support me.

Today I am grateful for:

-a family worth missing

-the softness of Stella’s hand

-the healing properties of spackle

-the reassuring step from the threshold of an airplane on to solid ground

-movement

Bottoms up, Sister Poulin

Posted on July 31, 2013 by megpoulinindeed

Freedom – Our True Essence.

After the decision to leave was made, after we let our intentions be known to our bishop, after I began an honest and open investigation of the place I had centered my life around…

Rick and I stood together, muddling through day-to-day life. But it was a life that had lost it’s definition, and our marriage had lost it’s boundaries, and our parenting had lost the written manual. We were still hiding from most of our loved ones. We lived in California at the time, and my family lived in Colorado, Rick’s in Vermont. We did not need to tell them quite yet, about our radical decision. The ability to secretly flounder our way through those first terrifying months was a factor so gratifying I was both weak with relief and completely wild with the task of hiding the chaos that we had unleashed in our lives.

We had to redefine everything. The names we go by (Brother and Sister Poulin), what we ate (I still love green jello and funeral potatoes) what we drank, and where to charitably contribute now that 10% of our income was not being poured into building more churches. We had to take a look at the kind of art we hung on the walls, the kind of cheap summer t-shirts I filled my cart with at Target (hello tank tops!!!) and even the kind of underwear we wore. (It took me 8 years to buy ANYTHING white again).*

Most importantly, we had to discover what we would tell our children about God and their divine nature, what life is all about, what happens when we die, and who they really are… after all, my stories had just turned to ash in my hands. Luckily, they were still so little, just twenty months old and five months old. They had no idea what was happening to us as a family, though they surely felt the shaky trepidation that filled me countless times a day when the question “what if I am WRONG?” rose in my throat like a bubble and burst in my brain, sending waves of panic and visions of outer darkness (mormon hell).

As babies, they surely sensed my rage and deep sense of betrayal as I explored my entire past, my heritage, the doctrine … with freedom and a more open mind, and found things that made me question every conclusion and idea I had ever had about the nature of Heavenly Father, the prophet Joseph Smith, and all of those Book of Mormon stories. I thought I was just leaving our religion, but mormonism is a culture. A way of life. Of thinking. Of filtering the world.

To lose one’s cultural roots and orientation along with one’s definition of God and the purpose of life was a process, not a simple matter of walking away.

Several months into our life outside of the chapel doors, I was aching to share my fears with someone, but Rick remained adamantly opposed to talking about my research. We did talk a lot about the rules that had been governing our lives. Mormons live by a very long list of rules. They undergo interviews to determine how compliant they are, and whether they are worthy enough to enjoy certain blessings that are tied directly to eternal salvation. Chastity, paying 10% of your income as tithing, and following the Word of Wisdom are crucial for earning entrance to the celestial kingdom (the highest degree of heaven). Additionally, there are a more complex list of cultural rules that are tiptoed around and wrestled with in mormon life. Rules about tattoos, body piercings, the color of shirt the men wear to pass the sacrament, length of hair and facial hair for men, dress codes, the kind of t.v., movies, books, music and magazines you enjoy, the language you use, the activities you engage in on Sundays…. it goes on, and on.

Together, we began to pick through this pile, sorting what stays and what goes like a giant garage sale. It was tedious, and the discussions left us squirming and scared. After a several months, drinking alcohol was brought up.

I had very little experience with drinking in my past, before we had met.

My parents told me my whole life that alcohol was sinful, it would destroy my entire life, and if I took one sip I would certainly be an alcoholic, since I had a few in my family tree. I would unleash a demon that could not be tamed if I broke the Word of Wisdom (the code of rules that includes a forbidding of coffee, tea and alcoholic beverages). Mormon people can not marry in the temple if they do not diligently follow the word of wisdom. It is a strictly enforced rule, and people follow it because it is an easy choice… go to heaven, or have a latte. I was absolutely terrified of alcohol.

Being the stalwart rule follower, I had not had a drink of any kind until my 21st birthday. My boyfriend at the time slid it across the bar table at me. A Killian’s Red. On that same afternoon, Salt Lake City was hit with a destructive tornado, right in the heart of the city. A tornado in the Salt Lake valley surrounded by enormous mountains was an unheard of weather phenomenon, and the mormon girl in me shuddered as I sipped that first beer. It was a sign.

Rick on the other hand, was a seasoned pot head back in the day. As a devotee of the law, this knowledge always shocked my innocent mind.

wallpaperswide.com

His stories of graduating from college and moving to Lake Tahoe with his buddies in order to engage in a year submerged in skiing, video games and surrounded in an ever-present cloud of skunky smoke made my head spin in confusion. When Rick would talk about his past, it always left me completely mystified. I had only known the mormon version of Rick, the return missionary. His “before the church” Rick stories did not merge with the man I knew. At all. I felt like he was making it up entirely. The disconnect seemed so distinct, I simply could not understand how a pot smoking ski bum could also be my straight laced math-geek husband who wrote me hand written love letters, went to four hours of additional church meetings on sundays (regular church service is three hours long) with a smile on his face, and made sure we never watched a rated R movie.

Rick grew up with beer in the fridge and did not think twice about it. He probably had the same perception of it as I did with caffeinated sodas…a can of pepsi was an adult beverage in my childhood home. (A lot of mormons will extend the Word of Wisdom to caffeinated beverages of any kind, but this delineation is left for personal interpretation).

Rick never really liked drinking either, which is why weed had been his choice activity in those pre-mormon days. But Rick had given up his pot, alcohol, and coffee, to be a mormon man (amongst other things not related to the word of wisdom). He did it happily, and enjoyed the changes it brought into his life. He told me he never missed it, longed for it, or felt tempted by his past. It is obviously a more healthy way of life, to be free from addictive substances, and it was no problem for him to leave it behind.

Our long discussion ended one night, when Rick put a six pack of Killian’s Red down on the couch between us, and we stared at it silently.

Do we dare?

Fear made my heart pulse in my throat as he handed me one. It felt necessary. Like swinging an axe uncomfortably close to an appendage in order to break the chains. A shedding of controlling beliefs, an opening towards our own ability to choose. The most recent material I had read in my research of the church fueled my boldness. I would not let a church sitting on that newly unveiled foundation control me. We each picked up a cold bottle from the cardboard carrier, clinked them together in the world’s most awkward toast, and headed into purgatory with a few cool gulps…

A Killian’s Red. (Ew).

We each drank one. It felt scary to put the unopened bottles in the fridge next to the bottles of breast milk and applesauce. It felt like we were already raging alcoholics, as I buried the empty bottles in the garage with the dirty diapers. We went to bed, Rick still wearing his garment top as we lay together. He leaned over and kissed me, and I tasted it in his mouth…the Killians Red lurked there, under the toothpaste.

What have I done?

My brain screamed…I have unleashed an unpredictable monster!

Mayday!

Mayday! It’s Pandora’s Box! Evil!

Danger!

I know mormon Rick. He was a guy I chose to marry. I did not know the Rick that existed before the mormoness. And I had asked him to strip away those mormon pieces. The armor will come off, the rules and regulations will be chipped away…but I did not know what I would find there.

What if he becomes someone completely unrecognizable to me? A stranger? A stranger I can’t love?

What if I became a woman unbearable to Rick? If I lost control of myself entirely and was unable to make these choices for myself?

We kissed, and he tasted cryptic. I pulled off his mormon garment top to touch the real man beneath that cotton barrier, a part of me vowed to pour that evil beer down the sink first thing in the morning. The other part of me, only a tiny bit stronger, softened into the fear and the mystery and freedom of becoming something new. Or perhaps, we would not become something new, but simply discover what we were underneath… once the fear was shed.

*Active, devoted mormon adults wear unique underwear. You must gain a temple recommend, be deemed “worthy,” and go through a secret ritual in a temple before wearing the underwear. The underwear is referred to as garments. It is always white, and considered sacred. Both men and women wear garments, and by design restricts certain kinds of fashion, including sleeveless tops. You must be worthy and wear the garments at all times except to shower, be intimate with a spouse, or swim. in order to enter the highest degree of heaven.

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fell Down

Posted on July 17, 2013 by megpoulinindeed

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

Living within the restricted confines of the mormon faith was like camping in the beautiful Rocky Mountains and being too afraid to leave the tent. The tent offers a false sense of security and safety, a feeling like the whole entire world exists within the dome structure of nylon and mesh. There is no need to set foot outside its confines where the dangers are fierce and unforgiving. The LDS church warns people that if they leave the tent, they will get attacked or hurt or worse… lost forever. So everyone holds hands and sings hymns and basks in the safety of being together in a community, having faith that they will be delivered from the tent and into a more glorious existence after the camping trip is over.

Leaving the confines of this familiar and loving space is terrifying beyond measure. To step away and start breathing the fresh air and view the fulness of the landscape, vast and wild beyond imagination is exhilarating and disorienting. The level of vulnerability is bewildering and the visual stimulation and open air can shut you down. Some dive back in, and declare to the group that it was horrifying and scary and they will never leave again. Some venture out for a while, but return, unable to feel safe without the controlled environment they were nurtured in for so long.

I had been outside out of the mormon tent once before, a year or two prior to meeting Rick. My first attempt to leave was after years of actively trying to stifle my inner voice and grow my faith in the life within the space I was born. When I stepped out of that tent, I had felt cast out, rejected and unable to trust in my family’s love. I had wandered aimlessly and ached for acceptance. In that short time outside, I never turned to inspect the tent I had been dwelling in. I did not need to know what it looked like to know that I did not want to live there. The few glimpses I took at the LDS church from the outside filled me with a fear so complete, I could not investigate further. My avoidance was a result of a lifetime of conditioning. The LDS people are taught that reading, listening to opposing views or examining material that is not “faith promoting” or church approved is a temptation straight from satan. It is evil and corruptive and to be strictly abstained from.

Eventually, I dove right back in. I sought comfort, safety, and most importantly, the look of affection in my father’s face, my mother’s unbelievably soft hands in mine, and the feeling that they still wanted to know me.

And I fell in love. First, with being a part of my family again and then, with a gorgeous LDS missionary…Rick.

Years later, Rick and I emerged from the bishop’s office, on this night, and found ourselves unzipping that nylon tent door, taking deep collective breaths. And together, we gathered our little girls into our arms and we took a step, just outside the tent. I gulped in the fresh air and kissed him fervently, trying to communicate my gratitude through those kisses. I squeezed his hands tightly in mine, and I promised him we would not trade my happiness for his. If he could not bear to be outside the tent, we would re-enter together. I would not leave him, and I would not want him to be unhappy. It was me that was changing the rules. The anxiety I felt in taking action, the idea that he may resent me, or secretly think I was a bad person overwhelmed me so completely, I could barely move. Rick was stiff and unnatural, unwilling to engage or talk any more about what was happening… but his love for me was soft and liquid in his eyes, and it kept me calm enough to breathe in and out.

Eventually, I turned and let go of his hand, wanting to move from the threshold, and for the first time, allowed myself to examine the place I had devoted my entire life to. I knew this time I would need to know where I had been.

I was shocked beyond belief.

I had been confident that I knew the LDS doctrine, the scriptures, the history, the prophets. Even after stepping out, I would have balked and bristled at the implication that inside those walls a cult was thriving. Or that my people were not Christians. I would have fought tooth and nail with anyone that implied such treacheries.

Being a mormon simply did not make me happy, and I was unable to explain why. Until I allowed myself to look at it with open eyes. The tent was constructed out of only one material.

Fear.

And in the details of that fear, came such shock and alarm, I felt newly shattered. There is no bounds to the betrayal I felt in the things I discovered about the place I had called home my entire life.

I begged Rick…

Come and look!

Did you know this?

Did you have any idea?

Why did we accept this?

How did we allow it?

Can you fathom how deep these deceptions run?

But he did not want to look. For him, he had been out in the world, searching for safety and sanctuary when he entered the LDS faith. Inside, he met me, the most beautiful and intelligent woman he had ever laid eyes on (ha, couldn’t resist!) He would step back out to save me, but he did not wish to soil his glowing feelings about a place that had brought him so many blessings. It was the place we had discovered each other and had woven ourselves together in the most deeply intimate ways.

So I circled the tent, and really investigated all that it is. White hot, acidic anger liquified my insides. I was unprepared for the way it pulverized me. I had not recognized how my LDS faith and culture had infiltrated every thought and action and belief…it was the material I was made of. Upon examination from the outside, the whole structure seemed to burn to ash, along with my entire sense of identity, my culture…my tribe. The discovery turned me to ash too.

Rick, unable to watch me howl with rage and torment alone, tentatively stepped again to my side, and ever so slowly he let me share the betrayals and shocking discoveries with him. The anger lit a fire under me and we ran for it. Deep into the mountain terrain, fueled by fury and a sense that I no longer existed at all. It felt as if I had just witnessed my own death, and the disembodiment was astonishing.

I marinated in this anger for a long, long time. It still flares in me when I nurture it. But Rick did not understand it. He was not spoon-fed these stories and emotionally manipulated since he was in diapers or had fear infused into his every cell since birth.

The vast differences in how we processed our new, open-air surroundings left us staring at each other as if we had just met. It was a bizarre mirroring of the first time we met as strangers on top of the Empire State Building. Back then we had a year of snail mail letters and a shoebox of audio tapes sent back and forth in the USPS, a relationship born in a mailbox. When we came together we were unknown, and yet deeply known to each other.

We found ourselves strangers once again. We were in the wilderness without the safe confines of shelter and a long list of rules to measure ourselves by. Unknown to one another, but with four years of history and two baby girls between us. Our temple marriage, the vows we took…they were cremated too.

And the phoenix is our love, still rising from the ashes.

IndeedIAm

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. ~Rumi

Tag Archives: fear

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