Tell about your neighborhood, past, present or future.

Yep, I think I’ll just go home, take a nap, go over to Thelma Lou’s later, and watch a little tv.
Yep go home, take a nap, over to Thelma Lou’s, watch a little tv.
Yeah I think I’ll go home, take a nap, go over to Thelma Lou’s and watch a little tv.
~ Barney Fife talking on Andy’s Porch. The Andy Griffith Show

I started to make a list of all the neighborhoods I’ve lived in during my life, but I don’t have all day. A quick mental count puts it somewhere around twenty-six. I think I’ve missed a couple in there somewhere. One day I’m going to sit down and make two lists: one that references every job I’ve ever had and one that lists every place I’ve ever lived. At first glance, it’s a truly mind-boggling, staggering use of ink. And on one level, definitely kind of funny. I mean, seriously. Before I moved across country last December, one of my friends apologized for not making it to my going-away party: “But look at it this way, I made it to the last three out of four. . . “  On a deeper note, those places I’ve lived and the journey between them represent my life. It may seem a little neurotic, scattered, or confused from the outside but well, it is my life. I make no apologies and I strive for no regrets.

Over the past 5 months I’ve gone from a wooded beach community on the east coast to Los Angeles, arguably one of the biggest neighborhoods in the world, to residing in an above-garage apartment at the top of a quarter-mile driveway shared with three other houses, situated 2.5 miles outside a Southern California mountain town with a population of about 8200. What I’ve come to realize is that while I’m not necessarily destined to be a metropolitan city girl, I’m not quite ready for the country life, either. As much as I love me some solitude, a little bit of MeTime goes a long way, and too much of my own company is about to drive me crazy.

I’m not new to the country, having lived both in the the mountains and the farmlands of Virginia while growing up. I have fond memories of playing at the creek (or to be entirely honesty, in the creek) with my sisters and the one or two friends that lived nearby, but even then I preferred the small town atmosphere of our hometown. That is where I felt connected, and that is where I felt I belonged. Neighbors close but not on top of you, your friends and the general store for a Coke in walking distance. People who know you. Hey, if I could live in Mayberry, I would.

So it should come as no surprise to me that over the past couple of months I’ve begun to miss my  ‘hood, nestled between the inlets and marshes of a state park and the Chesapeake Bay. Walking distance to the beach, the gym, grocery store, coffee shop and restaurants. Fourth of July festivals, oyster festivals, the Santa parade, Halloween parties, courtesy of the neighborhood civic association. A bike path travels the length of the community, winds through the state park, continues to the oceanfront several miles away, connects one street to the next and makes walking to your friends’ houses or any of the above destinations a breeze.

And then there are my neighbors. These people, before they even knew me well, spent a better portion of the middle of a Saturday night, while I was out of town, chasing down my two escaped hound dogs. They quickly became so much more than just neighbors. Any given night, you could walk out the door and invariably end up at a bonfire, on the beach, or just sitting on the porch across the street. If you hung on the porch often enough, you were dubbed a Porch Hor. We celebrated the November Nor’Easter by candlelight and had wine and s’mores and bongo drums around the fire pit more nights than I can count. Several times I walked across the street to say hi, only to be invited to stay for dinner, and there would always be something for me, the resident vegetarian. They even threw me my very own goodbye Christmas party, complete with snow. I love my neighbors.

Which is one of the reasons that I’ve realized I don’t want to continue this LA adventure anymore. I keep looking for home and I keep wanting to belong, but I’ve continually held myself at a distance from the people and circumstances that make up exactly what it is I profess to seek: I’ve held myself at a distance from my life. I’m so glad I did this, but I am ready to go home.

With luck I’ll end up back in the same neighborhood. Hey, if I could live in Mayberry, I would.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

Talk about an item of clothing that has special meaning for you.

I am a collector of memories. Pictures, letters, and dates of significant events, I keep them all. At one time I had over 20 t-shirts with special meaning ~ shirts I couldn’t just clear out at the end of the year because I hadn’t worn them once in the past 365 days. Among them was the 1985 Madonna concert, the Solomon’s Island sailboat race in 1991 (an overnight race up the Intracoastal Waterway) and the first fundraising shirt of the then non-existent ODU football team back in 1988. We won’t talk about the countless tees that were special simply because I’d “worn them when . . . ”

All the subsequent moves to LA and back and to LA eventually resulted in a hardening of the sentimental heart for saving every single moment of my life (though I have a chunk of the porch off my childhood home . . . but that’s another story). Light travel and space became the priority, and it always feels good to give something to charity when I am so blessed, anyway.

Somehow, one t-shirt has managed to hang in there ~ a vintage Tabasco tee, circa 1988, brought back by my parents from their first trip to New Orleans and Mardi Gras. Laissez les bons temps rouler on the front, Let the good time roll on the back. For some reason I cannot get rid of this shirt. I was actually offered $50 for it at the Cajun Festival in Town Point Park, Norfolk, good money for a college student, and I turned the guy down.

The pictures and letters I keep represent meaningful, pivotal times in my life. They hold the hearts and the memories of people I’ve loved, places I’ve been, like a journal, another record of a life hopefully well-lived, and definitely well-loved. I think I keep the shirt because when my stepdad came along, life took a turn for the better, and though of course, hindsight is always 20/20, this little piece of clothing sends a message for the present and the future as well. Enjoy life. Celebrate the miracle that it is, embrace all the people who love you, and go for your dreams.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

Retirement? Are you kidding me?

I’ve had no less than 43 jobs in my 45 years of life.

I can’t really even begin to think about something as conventional as retirement.

I’ve always felt that a job should be synonymous with life’s purpose.

Only I haven’t figured out that purpose yet.

Figuring Out.

That has been my career.

Researching, excavating, discovering.

What brings me joy? Fulfills my passion? And pays my bills all at the same time?

I’m so much closer to knowing that now than I ever was before.

Which is good, because time is running out.

So maybe retirement is a feasible concept after all.

Irregardless, let’s pretend.

Retirement would be like, job number 45 or 46.

I’ll own a small shop.

Maybe a restaurant, maybe a storefront that sells chocolate and wine and music and coffee.

Something nurturing.

Off the back of the store will be a yoga studio.

On every wall of the shop will be space to hang photography and other creative work by local artists.

Exactly where local is, is yet to be determined.

Just one more thing I’m working to figure out.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

The Living Out Loud project is designed to bring writers out of their box by writing about things that are either new, personal, uncomfortable ~ or all of the above. This month’s topic, way out of my comfort zone, is about my relationship with alcohol. The Living Out Loud project is a monthly writing exercise open to all writers with a willingness and desire to Live Out Loud.

While not quite the same volatile intensity as my past relationship with food, beer and wine and a little Crown Royal have been my teddy bear, my blankie, my pseudo-strength and my downfall at one time or another. I was pretty innocent and sheltered, and except for one can of beer down Party Road before school my senior year, I really wasn’t much of a drinking kid. So I have very few experiences to share.

I really don’t recall the first time I drank. It could have been with four friends on New Years’ Eve 1980, or it may have been the night of my first real “car date” several months later. The guy I was with brought out a bottle of sloe gin, drank enough to make himself sick, looked over at me and said, “I’ve gotta retch” and proceeded to puke his guts out the car door. I was so naive and so self-conscious that I went to school and told my best friend he’d called me names (as in, wretch) and gotten drunk because he didn’t enjoy the date.

I vaguely remember getting drunk at a party and spending the night at my best friend’s house so she could drive me home the next morning (though she can remember that better than me, of course) and I recall quite clearly my first encounter with grain alcohol in the form of Purple Passion the year after graduation: watching the world spin, getting sick, the hangover and headache that lasted for two days.

I’d like to say that never happened again but I’d be lying. During my 30s, the pace picked up a bit. Ironically it centered around my time as a personal trainer in our local gym. We had lots of parties and Margarita Wednesday and because I was in a funky relationship at the time, the gym people became my escape and my extended family. But my tolerance level is low: I’m short and small and there just isn’t much space for a glass or two of wine or a shot or two of liquor. So there isn’t much wiggle room between a few giggles and doing the stupid things. Yes, I’ve drunk and dialed, but that’s harmless enough if you can get past your own embarrasment and humiliation.

What I’m talking about are the judgment calls that have as their basis no judgment. For instance, driving home late at night, plastered on wine, with one hand on the wheel and one over an eye so you can see the road. I almost wiped out some poor guy that I recognized from the gym turning left at an intersection that way. I can’t recall which hand I used to roll down the window, wave and yell, “HEY! I know you!” Maybe funny at the time, but seriously. Seriously. I could have killed someone, if not myself. And I was an adult.

Along with a low tolerance lies the propensity within my family gene pool to turn to something other than our own good sense or innate spiritual perfection as a compass. It’s so easy to turn off the GPS of good sense after the good feeling starts to hit and it’s so easy to navigate the same course over and over and say you’ll learn the lesson next time. But that’s just plain bullshit. Fortunately I didn’t have to physically maim or murder another human being to realize that there needs to be some buffer between the booze and me. I was lucky enough to just lie to and majorly disappointed my best friend about something I’d done when tipsy.

The act itself was silly and innocent enough ~ sending an email to someone I’d professed to put behind me, waking up the next morning knowing that was a stupid thing to do, and throwing on the veil of denial that it ever happened. But while I wore the veil to hide from myself, I was also letting her think I’d passed a milestone, and we had numerous conversations over the next two weeks that, as she rightly pointed out, were based on circumstances that didn’t exist and were a waste of her time, energy, direction and friendship. I merely didn’t want to deal with myself in the mirror but honestly, that’s a pathetic excuse. Bottom line is, my relationships, whether they are with myself or another person, deserve nothing less than to be based on and balanced upon respect and trust and what’s real. If I can’t give that after all the work I like to think I’ve done, well then, I’m an idiot and I’m here to say it out loud.

She was honest and brutal and it was a kick in the gut I deserved and needed and it hit, square on, the target. Bulls eye. I never, ever again want to hear someone I love tell me that I hurt them because I chose to. What I choose is to pretty much consistently keep in touch with me, stay on solid ground, be in at least sober, if not intellectual, control, of my own choices. So while I do like a good glass of wine or a cocktail, I won’t be the life of the party or the one in the corner texting uncontrollably. Nope, I’ll be standing right there, glass in hand, cutting off the refills. I count because I’m accountable to me. And you’ll know right where I stand.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

The 2009 Christmas season has been an unusual one. Instead of the traditional parties, getting together with friends, and full-on house decorating, most of my time has been spent going through everything I own and weeding it down to the 4 or 5 plastic tubs that will fit in my car. You would think after having moved so many times this would not be an issue for me but somehow, like everyone else, I manage to clutter up my house and my life with more things and more clothes than I can ever use or even need.

This cleaning out of the house has lead to a little cleaning out of the head, too, and that’s a cool thing. Aside from my clothes, my camera, my journals, some music and my dogs, there isn’t much more I’m inclined to keep right now. It’s disturbing to notice how attached I’ve become to things, simply because they were given to me by or belonged to someone special, and I realize that I am a packrat of memories and a hoarder of my past. All that holding onto what’s over, what isn’t and what sometimes never was, has left me feeling weighted down and a little suffocated. Don’t get me wrong ~ I honestly envy those friends of mine who are settled in their homes, surrounded by stuff, and comfortable in their lives and content with their families, and I want that too. It’s just that instinct has been telling me for a long time now to let go and follow this direction, this move to LA, and I know in my heart that what I want within my life waits out there for me. I know that in a way I cannot explain. And I know these things can be replaced.

Yet even without the usual Christmas festivities, this holiday season has been more memorable than most. It snowed the first weekend of the month, and I’d driven up to Louisa to sell my photographs at the local Christmas festival and parade. Though the exhibit turned out to be a bust, the afternoon that I spent with the OBX gang over lunch and coffee was a blast. After driving to my parent’s house in the falling snow, I was greeted with a lighted Christmas tree waiting for decorations, and the evening was spent with wine, dinner, great music, a roaring fire, and my mom and dad. That felt like Christmas to me.

Back at the beach, I’ve had 3 or 4 small goodbye parties and our annual work Christmas dinner. In the past two days I’ve seen three dear friends I haven’t been able to connect with in over a year. And today, while mom and stepdad enjoy another snowstorm 150 miles to the west, it’s pouring rain here and I’m home filling boxes for donation to the women’s shelter and sorting out which framed photographs to give to which friends ~ because they aren’t going with me.

On the day after Christmas, after spending the holiday with my mom and Hosa and their two dogs, LolliPop and Daisy and I will have breakfast and head west. But before that, we’ll have Christmas dinner on the 23^rd, and our usual oyster breakfast at my sister Janet’s house Christmas morning. If I’m lucky all of my nieces and nephews will make it home and my grandmother, affectionately known as Big Mama, will be on the good side of her Alzheimer’s, meaning that even though she’ll forget six times that it’s Christmas, she’ll be happy and smiling instead of belligerent and nasty and enjoying every minute of that.

Janet and I can share a glass of her Evan Williams egg nog before bed and maybe visit our friends the Chaney’s. Suzanne and I practically grew up together, as her dad and mine, before he died, were state troopers together. Every Christmas Eve, Jerry would go running outside with his gun and pretend he was shooting Santa. Yes, it sounds horrible, but it was truly funny, once you were old enough to know he wasn’t really shooting poor Santa. And I’m from the country, so if the skies are clear, I’ll get to see a billion stars shining overhead before moving to a city that has it’s share of stars, but doesn’t quite enjoy the same view.

My neighbors are having another dinner party tonight, but right now, I have candles lit, a glass of mulled wine, and A Charlie Brown Christmas playing on the stereo, and I’m listening to the dogs snoring in their sleep. Last Saturday evening, after Lolli injured her back, I took all the covers off my bed and curled up on the floor in the living room next to her and fell asleep to the tune of Christmas Time is Here. I had the best nap of my life. It’s been a busy day, but I’m pretty content as I sit here for a few moments, doing absolutely nothing. Right now I’m between here and there ~ and that’s a peaceful place to be.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

My four year old daughter, Maggie, hums herself to sleep. She says she hums because it keeps her bad dreams away. I find this pretty amazing. She was born in China, thousands of miles between us and I too hum myself to sleep. (Must be that red thread . . .) I hum the same song winter, spring, summer, or fall, every night, and it works. . . .

I’ll let you in on a little secret, I’m a Christmas-a-holic. I love everything about it. When I hear people complaining about last minute shopping (mine’s not finished, either) I laugh. When they say they’ve gained weight over the holidays, I look down at my own little pooched out belly, and I smile. When they stress over not finding that perfect gift for that certain someone, I sympathize, but not much.

You see, I am a worrier, and from January through September, it’s chronic. But then October arrives, and all of my problems and worries are miraculously put on the back burner by Christmas magic. It’s only October. My kids say I’m a Christmas nut.They tell me to stop flying my holiday “freak flag”. They look at me wearily if they need to ask me for a ride because they know they will be listening to Elvis singing “Blue Christmas”. And each CD after will be playing more holiday tunes. Changing the station isn’t up for debate. You need a ride, you listen to Christmas carols . . . They laugh, they roll their eyes, they huff and puff. Maggie and I ignore this and count how many houses we see with Christmas lights until we reach our destination. I can’t explain it, but the music brings me comfor. . . . and joy? Yep, and joy. LOL.

My house smells delicious like apples and cinnamon. I smile at the tacky holiday cling-ons stuck on my windows. I say they are for Maggie’s enjoyment, but I love them, too. The lights, the music, the decorations, I love it all. I try to instill my love for Christmas in my children. I hope it works.

The “25 Days of Christmas” on tv is reserved solely for me. The kids get the tv for 339 days of the year, and they think this is unfair! Why on Earth should Mom get to watch Christmas specials in guady holiday pajamas for 25 days?! Maggie’s with me in this though; she’s still wrapped up in the magic of christmas, an innocent child untouched by the ugliness of the outside world.

I sit back with a cup of eggnog and watch “Santa Buddies” with Maggie. When it’s over she states “I think they ( the Santa Buddies) learned Christmas is about giving.” And I think maybe that’s what makes me feel so at peace. It’s the one time of year when people do take the time to love, and listen, and give of themselves. I feel safe in this holiday happiness.

Kaylyn, my 20-year-old daughter, gave me a wonderful gift last month . . . (OCTOBER)!! Late for work, she was running out the door when she stopped, turned around, and said “Mom, can I borrow your Elvis’ Christmas CD?” It’s ONLY October I replied. You’ll have to get it out of my car . . .

Tonight I will smile as I think of that, as I’m drifting off to sleep humming to myself the same ol’ song I’ve hummed for years, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. . .”

Merry Christmas Everyone and may your hearts be light!!

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

When I was in elementary school I wanted badly to be an astronaut or an archeologist. By day I dug for fossils and dinosaur bones and at night I’d pull the telescope out under the stairs and aim it for the moon.

By the time I hit high school I really sort of lost all hint of aspiration and I entered the college years with no clue of what I really wanted to do. Winning the award for Most Jobs Held Since Graduation at my high school reunion wasn’t exactly an honor as much as a joke. But I’ve never lived a linear life, and having practically as many jobs as I have years is proof of that.

I went back to college because I felt the need to be a “somebody.” I busted my ass through fulltime coursework and a fulltime job and graduated with a high GPA. But I still didn’t know what I wanted to “be” and I still wasn’t a “somebody.”

For awhile I thought being somebody meant fitting into the corporate mold, having a high-powered career. And for some people, that may be true. But I felt like a kid playing dress-up in my suits and pantyhose. I was in someone else’s skin. I wasn’t good at being a “somebody.”

So I decided to do what I liked: movement, physical exercise, fitness. I always went back to them when I needed to be in touch with myself. I wasn’t making much money, and lots of my clients were “somebody”, but I found I was a lot more comfortable in workout clothes than career-apparel, much more at home in a weight room than a board room.

That realization freed me to lighten up, take a chance and rediscover the things I’d loved when I was a kid, mainly writing and photography. I’ve pulled those things together, fitness, photos and words, and now, in one way or another, I do what I love and I love what I do.

Am I what I want to be when I grow up? Not by a long shot. But, I’m still growing up. And its who I am that matters more than what I am. And I’m definitely a somebody. And I’m still digging. And I’m still aiming for the moon.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

I wanted to be happy. I used lots of things to try and make believe I was happy. In these ventures I didn’t succeed. I guess I didn’t really want to because I saw people who had many accomplishments and still were not the definition of the word happy. I then found the greatest way to pretend I was happy.

The greatest way to pretend I was happy happened to be reckless abandonment. I drank, did drugs and stayed out all night. I did this until everything I had was gone. Then, I moved back home, with my mother. When I had a job, a car, and money, I did it all over again.

The last and final time I moved back home was different. I got a job, a car and a boyfriend. I managed to keep them for months without my loved ones seeing my addiction. I did drugs at work, at home, just about everywhere. Of course, it eventually caught up with me. I couldn’t function without the drugs. And eventually I knew I couldn’t keep masking the truth: I didn’t want to be numb anymore; I wanted to care about my reality.

I don’t have a job anymore. I can barely pay my bills. I live with my mother. I stayed a short time in a detox facility, and I learned about so many people who were similar to myself. Now it may seem that I should be extremely saddened at this point in my life. However, my life is the complete opposite. You see, I found something better than drugs and possessions. I found the will to live; and that, makes me very happy.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

When I grow up I want to be a mommie. I want to experience the undeniable love of a child, to see pure innocence, and hear uncontrollable giggles. I want to watch my babies grow and learn, and go off to college and become doctors and lawyers. I want the whole “mommie” experience. I want to see them in the Christmas pageant, help them catch lightening bugs, and watch them reach for the stars. I want to watch them when they win the spelling bee and make their favorite desserts. These are all the things I want to experience when I become a mommie.

 I am 42 years old. I have raised 5 children. Number 6 is four. I have changed millions of diapers, cleaned up vomit, made numerous visits to the ER. I have heard uncontrollable crying and seen pure innocence lost, never to return. I have seen college days end before they began. I have seen the disappointment of a child lose her spelling bee. I have seen them heartbroken and heard their obscenities muttered under their breath when they were angry with me. I’ve watched them reach for stairs, and I’ve seen their stars fall. Being a mom, I’ve learned hard lessons. It’s the hardest job in the world. Yes, you’re loved unconditionally but you love them unconditionally as well, and sometimes that hurts. You make lots of mistakes, and you share in not only the good, but also the bad. You have high expectations and you have dreams for them. But your dreams aren’t always theirs. Your expectations aren’t always met, and you realize instead of making your mistakes, they made their own, and when you think they’re not listening, they are, and when you’re so fed up you swear you’ll never help them again, they crawl back into your heart asking for help and you do help – to an extent. Because you watched them learn to crawl, to walk, and to run. Now you guide them to fly. But unconditionally, you still love them. No matter what.

So, when I grow up – I think I want to be a grandma.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

Listen to the headphones on my office computer, and you’ll usually hear one of two things: the Eagles, or 70s music. If I could have been a “grown up” (whatever that means) in any time other than my own, I would have been an adult in the late sixties and early seventies. The now-classic rock, disco and pop ~ a combination of evolution, revolution, funky, sappy tunes ~ are the soundtrack mix of my formative years.

Julie Do You Love Me supplied me with my first taste of longing and heartbreak and an almost pathological crush on Bobby Sherman at the tender age of six. Ricki Don’t Lose That Number (Steely Dan) put music to real life in the form of the first man I ever loved from afar, a fellow 4-H camper named, of course, Ricky. And the Doobie Brothers’ Black Water will forever place me in the backyard of our Nelson County home, pumping the handles and pedals of the whirly-bird with Janet, spinning in circles to the beat of a purely southern tune from a cheap radio on a gorgeous southern mountain summer morning.

In the eighth grade, Nick Childs would sing Brick House every time I walked into English class, and though I was embarrassed then, to this day I think of that and smile. I mean, really . . . I was short, had tortoiseshell glasses that were bent from a horseback ride in the woods gone awry, and my hair . . . let’s not even go there. Nick was probably the first person that pointed out something I didn’t see, and wherever ya are, Nick, I thank you. We Are Family conjours sitting on the porch with Margaret while she writes in my yearbook the usual blahblah along with hilarious and insightful comments on our classmates. And Queens’ You’re My Best Friend is musical affirmation of  a 35 year friendship that has not only lasted but gotten stronger over time.

And of course, there’s Hotel California. That mysterious tune with the haunting, symbolic and often misunderstood lyrics has seeped itself into my blood, thought it wasn’t until 1993 that I first heard its music with my heart. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Yes, how true that has proven to be for me. The first time I realized I was actually heading to LA . . . understand I did not so much make the decision as it made me . . . I awoke in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, pulled out of dreams by one thought: oh. my. god. I’m. moving. to. Los. Angeles.

It is in the early hours of the morning that fear finds me the most. That time when all is dark and quiet and still is the time when my soul speaks the loudest, when dreams and desires mix with doubts, when who I am joins with who I wanna be ~ I used to avoid listening to avoid the confusion it created. That didn’t work.

So I began rising early and sitting in the dark. Just sitting and breathing, and listening, letting all that fear and all those thoughts come up, come out, be ghosts in the room, swirl around, electric-charged energy, this part of me that had to be released, allowed to flow, reclaimed again. Over time I become aware of and in tune with the me behind the emotion, and I trust her.

This morning I sit in the dark, coffee in hand and sleeping dogs at my side, wondering what in the world I’m going to choose as my song. I glance at the little rose quartz buddha on my coffee table, quietly staring back at me, and I hear, softly, learn to be still.

I travel from the east coast to the west, in search of me. This confuses the people who love me most. It is not a path I choose lightly to tread, well-worn as it may seem to be. It is, however, what I feel in my heart is my course, and I have come to this place of acceptance that will no longer let me deny it with attempts to just be. I Learn To Be Still so I can learn to be me.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

On a recent trip to Nags Head, I got the crazy idea that I wanted to, no, ~ had to ~ sing karaoke. I’m not much of a limelight type gal, so this whole strong urge thing kinda confused me. I was going with its flow, though ~ I’d been practicing in the car, and I sounded gooo-ooood.

So after a great seafood dinner and two shots of tequila, my girlfriends and I moved to the bar, and Jose Cuervo and I got up and sang our little hearts out to Born to Be Wild. Quite honestly, I sucked. And there’s a video to prove it.

Then my friend Pam goes up and nonchalantly belts out these heartfelt, gusty, soulful renditions of I Will Survive and other disco-era hits. We were floored. She shrugged off the compliments and explained that she’d done a lot of public speaking in her job.

I can do it, she said, because I’ve learned to listen to my own voice.

Huh.

And here I am at 45, having spent the better part of my life looking for ways to keep a gag on it.

Somewhere along the way, a long time ago, I picked up the notion that thinking what I want to think and doing what I want to do were somehow hurtful to someone else and therefore wrong.

Somewhere along the way I decided it was easier to try to stifle the voice that screamed to be heard than to deal with the change and chaos and guilt and fear that came whenever it managed to whisper its dreams to me.

Somewhere along the way I tried to pretend there was no voice and I was happy being settled and safe in the familiar like everybody else.

Somewhere along the way, I really tried to just kill that damn voice.

But somewhere along the way the voice decided it was stronger than me and it wasn’t giving up without a fight.

It didn’t care that at 21 I’d married someone I knew I’d divorce later.

It didn’t care that it took me three tries to get through college.

It didn’t care how many times I dropped my life and moved out west.

It didn’t care that I tried to beat it, suffocate it and drown it to death with shitty relationships, food and wine.

It just kept right on talking, and it made damn sure I listened.

The first time it spoke was at the end of a week-long bulimic binge.

In the middle of dinner with friends I was hit with a massive wave of nausea and spent the night on my bathroom floor vomiting exorcist-style. Every eight minutes for the first hour, then every 15, then every 30, until dawn. I was alone, wracked, dehydrated, painful and filthy. And I hate being nauseous more than anything.

I laid my head against the wall and truly wanted to die.

From a far corner of my mind I heard someone say, You like throwing up? You wanna do it again? And again?

So I did what anybody would do, right? I answered it.

If I live through this, I will never throw up again.

That was February 6, 2004. I can’t explain it and I don’t take credit for it.

All I know for sure is, after 17 years, the urge to eat and vomit my guts out simply, quietly, vanished.

Even in the midst of a stomach illness that kept me feeling bloated and miserable for months ~ a bulimic’s worst nightmare, a little black, ironic humor ~ it just wasn’t an option.

The second time I heard the voice, in the fall of 2005, it spoke loud and clear.

I was just back from 6 months in LA. One of the things I loved about the city was that I tended more toward hiking boots than wine bottles. I’d become quite the little vino connoisseur before I left Virginia Beach.

When I came back, I fell into old habits, and one Friday night, fell out of a local bar. I told my friends that things were gonna change. Or rather, I was gonna change.

And that night, as I was walking up the stairs to my bedroom, I heard it.

You need to sleep with a rock.

Yep.

Just an unassuming thought like the ones that pass through your brain about a 1000 times a day:

I should stop at the store and get coffee.

It’s time to feed the dogs.

I think  I’ll go to New York on vacation.

You need to sleep with a rock.

So I looked around and picked up a little rock that sits on my shelf.

I picked up the rock and I climbed into bed to read and I put it on my chest, which was as good a place as any.

I was reading James Frey’s controversial recovery memoir, A Million Little Pieces. After about 10 minutes in, at around page 99, he described a recovery graduation ceremony for two of his friends.

They have done their time . . . . they are ready to rejoin the outside World.

They both received a Medal and a Rock.

The Medal signifies their current term of sobriety,

the Rock their resolve to stay sober.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt connected to rocks, stones and crystals. I study their healing qualities and will keep certain ones with me at times. I found this rock in the mountains a few years back. One of three that form a larger stone that somehow divided neatly, I keep it now because of what it represents.

However, I tend to move a lot and I lean toward light travel. I can give away and throw away and work with whatever fits in my car. Things are replaceable. And to be honest, it isn’t the rock that I value, it’s the message. The rock was simply the conduit. It holds no special power.

So call it intuition, call it a message from the universe, or call it crazy.

But finding your voice isn’t about throwing back shots of tequila so you can sing out loud.

It isn’t about doing things you’re ashamed to tell yourself, let alone your best friend.

And it isn’t about spending 30 years depressed because you’re hiding from life and using every mechanism and every excuse in the book to do it.

It’s about believing in yourself, your creativity, your writing, your photography, your smile, your laughter ~ whatever it is.

It’s about believing in what you want to do and what you have to say even if the folks in your audience are laughing and booing and walking out the door.

It’s about being authentic and grounded and real.

It’s about trust.

Mostly, it’s about listening.

Dropping the last of my defenses leaves me feeling raw, exposed and a little bit vulnerable sometimes.

So what?

You get to choose the road you follow.

Welcome to your life.

It’s that simple.

The Rock.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

My name is Karal. It rhymes with Meryl. It rhymes with Jeryl. Heck, it even rhymes with barrel.

When I feel the need to make things simple or if I know it’s going to be butchered when screamed over a loud speaker, I spell it Carol. It’s only 5 letters and I personally don’t see what’s difficult about it. Only five letters shouldn’t be hard to screw up. But it’s a proven fact that if there’s a way to mispronounce it, somebody’s gonna go there.

If personality, attitude, and all around life destiny are determined by the name we’re given at birth, life as I know it – or would have known it – was radically altered by a last minute decision and the stroke of a pen. I was supposed to be Kara, but my mom decided that seemed too blunt and “softened it” by adding the L at the last split second.

I know of only 3 other Karal’s. One I met while working in the bath department of a shop in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, (where? . . . exactly.) One was was a losing contestant on Jeopardy, and the other is writer and well-know specialist in American culture Karal Ann Marling. She’s good company.

I never even gave thought to it’s uniqueness until I was 8 and the choir director at my stepdad’s new church greeted me with an overly enthusiastic smile and a “. . .  you must be Corral.”  With images of penned horses swirling through my mind, I surely didn’t know about  WTF back then, but I’m confident the look I gave her conveyed that message loud and clear.

Since then I’ve answered to Carl, Karen, Karla, Kuh-Rall. I answer to the pause and questioning look, and yes, I even answer to Corral. During a rebellious stage, if it wasn’t pronounced right, I wouldn’t answer at all. I didn’t think so, but some part of me, obviously, identified with Karal, and defended her, too.  Terms of endearment are Kurl, started years ago and continued still by my best high school friend LeeLee; K.K., my childhood name (it goes with a song, “little K.K., woo-woo of the world” . . .) and K-RAL, bestowed by a boss everyone else considered a crotchety old man, but who had a fondness for me, and continued by my friend, Jen.

I have a deep emotional bond with my last name, but when I say the two together, it tends to sounds like a growling dog, or a person talking with a mouthful of mashed potatoes. So I place a pause between my first and last name, letting it lilt and flow smoothly: karal . . . gregory.

When I was 5, I wanted to be Sally — but I think I wanted to be Charlie Brown’s little sister more than I wanted to actually take her name. I like my name. I like it precisely because of the way it’s spelled. I like it because it’s different, unique, almost exotic in a Russian spy sort of way. It’s feminine, it’s creative. And it’s not typecast. You won’t buy an off the rack key chain, and you won’t find it in any baby name lists.  At least not human babies.  I did find it on a list for dog’s names once.

Karal doesn’t show up easily in those history of names websites either, but I did find an indirect link. Karal supposedly derives from the German name Karel, and means “free man.” That, however, is considered a man’s name. On the other hand, Kara, a variant of the Latin name Cara, means “beloved” or “friend.”

The name Carol is also listed as meaning “free man” depending on where you look.  But I don’t identify with Carol or Carole as being my name, even though other people have often labeled me as part of a duo when there was a(nother) Carol(e) in the office. I was always happy to be “little Karal”, though honestly, “big Carole” was only just a little taller. I have friends who are Carol and Carole, but I do not feel that Carol is me (and Carol in San Diego actually identifies best with her nickname, Stella).

Whoever she is, I identify with Karal.  Searching, sensitive, life is passion, to hell with convention “free man” Karal. But ironically, I identify with Kara too. My inclination is to express too bluntly my thoughts and emotions, but I’ve learned to move to a softer place before I speak.

LeeLee told me recently that she showed a picture of us to her sister-in-law. Joy wrote back to her an emotional and honest message:

What I see in Karal’s eyes is truly a pure love that doesn’t
judge, and a faithfulness to those she loves that is immovable.

God I love that. Yeah, Kara’s in there too.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

I don’t know if I can answer the question, “Where are you from?” by taking a mental trip “home.” Because I’m still sorting out for myself what I think home actually is, and whether I believe the mainstream ideal of home ultimately exists, and because I’m still sorting out for myself where I think home ultimately exists if it does in fact exist, I’m afraid this could be a bit of a bumpy journey.

I always wanted to be one of those people who lived in one place their whole life. A part of me envies the friends I have who grew up in my small town and stayed. I envy the sense of belonging I imagine you must feel in order to remain satisfied there. I envy the contentment, the feeling of being settled, of being in the center of your universe. I know I couldn’t have done it, but still I wonder  . . . is that home?

Geographically, I am from Louisa, a little southern county about halfway between Charlottsville and Richmond, VA.  The house I most consider “home”  – we moved there when I was several months old from a rental down the road – was probably the third house built on what was then a dirt road in the town of Mineral, surrounded on all sides by a thick forest of trees.  The town of Louisa, where I was born in the local hospital in 1964, was a sidewalked lane of old-west type buildings and a courthouse in an area about two blocks long. It had one grocery store, two drive-in movie theaters, and one drug store.  Mineral wasn’t much different, only smaller, and as kids we could travel a path through the woods to visit a friend or walk up the road to the one store in town for a brown bag of penny candy and a Yoo-hoo in a matter of minutes.

When my dad died in 1969 and my mom remarried, we moved, first to another area of Louisa and then up to Nelson County (I went to John Boy Walton’s elementary school!).  For the next fours years I was a mountain kid and did what mountain kids do: played in the creek behind our house, joined 4-H, and reveled in telling the tourists who stopped at the apple packing shed across from our house that there really was no such place as Walton’s Mountain and they should just pack it up and go home.  After 4 years my mom and two sisters minus the stepdad and the dog did just that, moving back into our house in Mineral. Though it now sat on a paved street called St. Frances Avenue and was surrounded by other houses, it held memories of my childhood and memories of my dad, few though they were. We spent the summer cleaning and restoring it back from the disaster our renters had left.

It was 1977, I was 13 years old, and it was the first time I felt connected . . . rooted . . . grounded . . . like I belonged. It wasn’t just the house, though. I’d left a place that pretty much required you to have either a horse or an orchard to fit in and returned to an environment and friends that were familiar to me in an almost nostalgic way; in my short lifespan the years we were gone seemed a lot longer than they actually were, and reconnecting with my past was reconnecting with me, with my dad, and was somehow sort of setting things back on course.

The day we moved from the house permanently, in 1980, I developed a headache and nausea so bad I couldn’t raise my head and was in bed for 3 days. From there my mom and new stepdad moved to an old house in the western end of the county and then to the old farmhouse where they’ve lived in for the past 27 years.  I graduated high school while there, moved briefly to Tennessee and Kentucky, then to Norfolk for college. I’ve lived in Los Angeles. I live in Virginia Beach.

When I think about that house in Mineral, I find myself thinking of the front porch. This is the front porch my dad stands in front of in the photo below. It’s the porch where my mom and my sisters Margaret and Janet and I sat talking late one hot summer night in 1979, a rare occurrence ended all too soon when Janet interrupted the peace of crickets and fireflies to innocently ask, “What’s a period?”  This is the porch I painted brown while listening to Charlie Daniel’s sing, “Devil Went Down to Georgia” on a hot summer morning. This porch is the first place I sat and talked with one high school love and it’s the last place I sat to break up with another.

It’s also the same porch that the ambulance backed up against to take my dad to the hospital when he lost a battle with leukemia, and that house has given me my share of nightmares. My first vivid dream left me no doubt that I dream in technicolor. A big black and white wolf stands on his hindlegs outside my parent’s closed door, and he’s going in, but before he does he turns and looks at me. His teeth are white and bared, his lips, bright red.

The second was of my sister and I being chased though the house by an old man.  I try to crawl down the hallway and get away from him, but he grabs me by the back of my pants. I struggle free and make it to the living room where his old wife is sitting on a footstool between me and the door, ready to snag me as I pass. I find myself outside in the backyard climbing the clothesline pole to get away but the old man is once again pulling at me from below and I can’t get loose.

For a long time I had a repetitive dream of being locked inside the house at night, its doors and windows slamming shut and refusing to let me out. Now I dream that I visit the house, and each time I walk through it has been remodeled, barely showing evidence of its former self. In an attempt to stop the dreams I once went by to ask the current owner if I could walk through, but no one answered.

As someone who spent a good portion of her life moving past being the kid who’s dad died, and as someone who spend a lot of time moving and looking for home, I haven’t quite decided if I believe that where I’m from determines who I am. I think we choose unconsciously to hold onto some pieces of our experiences and to let go of others. I think if we’re lucky we realize that where we come from and what we experience don’t have to be who we are and at any point we can consciously pick and choose what we want to pack in those boxes and take forward. I think we form perceptions of events and places from our past based on our own point of view, but that point of view may not be based in actual reality . . . so I think we get to write the book, so to speak and can rewrite it if we so choose.

I don’t know quite yet what, or where, I consider home or if I even think that home as a geological, physical place exists. It just keeps going back to that porch, and from it there are two directions: Going back in the house isn’t an option, as I know that as much as I envy others the comfort of familiarity, I’m not feeling those warm snugglies. As it stands the places that have served to provide the stability, peace or sense of belonging for me are varied and may or may not include the actual presence of the family and friends I love: my parents backyard on a summer morning before anyone else has gotten up; driving cross country on old back roads with nothing familiar in sight and the unknown up ahead; a friend’s backyard at nightfall, surrounded by trees and silence; a bench high atop the hills, overlooking Los Angeles clear out to the Pacific Ocean, and knowing almost no one,  well,  . . . except for me.  As porches go, the view ain’t so bad.

My dad standing next to his porch.

The house in Mineral as it looks now.

My parents' backyard in the morning.

My bench atop the Hollywood Hills.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

Me and The Pocketbook. 1990.

Living Out Loud Volume 5: Your Personal Folklore

Not too long ago my family collectively decided to defy convention and stand up in the face of consumerism, commercialism and card-company holidays. In other words – we quit buying each other gifts just because the calendar said we had to.

I can’t speak for everyone else but I felt freed. I love getting presents just like the next gal, and I enjoy giving a good gift. I just want to give it on my terms, and not because I’m obligated. Never having been one of those people who had all their Christmas shopping done in August, and never planning to be, this works for me. And because I tend to move a lot and travel lightly (hello Salvation Army!) this works for me.

There is, however, one gift that has been grandfathered into the agreement, and that is The Pocketbook. The Pocketbook has been around since approximately 1977; back in the day when my mom would hand my two sisters and I $5 to spend on each other and then set us loose in KMart. Janet, the youngest, found Margaret, the oldest, a beautiful burlap bag painted with the blue-light special interpretation of Balance, the zodiak sign for Libra. Holding the scales was the Greek Goddess of Justice, Themis. When Margaret, preppy, stylish, and 17, opened her package on Christmas morning and came face to face with Themis, she burst into a cackle of uncontrollable laughter, and Janet, shy, awkward and 10, burst into a cacophony of unstoppable tears. The Pocketbook became a makeup bag and was eventually demoted to clothespin holder, shoved in a corner of the laundry room, and forgotten.

Until the day I got married. Somebody, I think my mom, found The Pocketbook and thought it would be a fun thing to wrap up and give to me as a wedding present. Since we opened our gifts at our reception, it was hilarious. The Pocketbook went with me on our move to Tennessee. A couple of years later I unloaded the husband on the US Army and The Pocketbook on my stepdad, Hosa.  And a tradition was born.

There are no rules for exchanging The Pocketbook, but there are suggested guidelines. My parents took The Pocketbook to Disney World and had their picture taken with it along with Goofy and Minnie, so we now try to include a picture of the bag in some “exotic locale.” She’s been to Florida, Colorado, Los Angeles and China.  And it’s best not to give her to anyone under the age of 20 or so, because young kids have a tendency to actually like her, and we’re afraid we won’t get her back.

It doesn’t have to be a special occasion to be honored with The Pocketbook, though birthdays, anniversaries (my parents 25th), graduations and moves tend to rank high. She once ended up crammed in the bottom of an unsuspecting victim’s laundry basket waiting for wash day. I’ve been given to her at a wedding, a going away party to LA and at least one birthday. In the pictures here she was wrapped up and presented to me as a birthday gift from my boss, Denny.

The Pocketbook has even been to hell and back. Janet’s house burned to the ground in 1994, taking The Pocketbook with it and ending, we thought, our legacy. Thanks to Michael’s Crafts and a little artistic flair, she was resurrected a few years later and continues her journey around the family tree. I have a feeling she may very well outlive us all.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

This month’s Living Out Loud Project required us to make a video explaining, telling, describing, something about our lives. I pretty much haven’t felt like I’ve had one, thanks to the belly. But then something happened that made me take a second look, get off my ass, and reclaim what is mine.

I almost didn’t do the project, and for a month, came up with nothing. Then, at 12 in the afternoon of the day it was due, I came inside from where I’d been sitting on the patio, hunched over a box of old pictures I’m organizing for a reunion with 4 high school friends in Nags Head NC later this month. I walked through the kitchen, threw my coffee cup on the counter as I passed by the sink, and the beginning of the idea formed. One of the things I like best about writing is that it doesn’t exactly come from me. I start it, and something else takes over. Of course, I’m the one that becomes obsessed for the next 7 or 8 hours till it’s finished, but hey, that’s creativity for ya.

I need to figure out what I’m doing for this LOL Project due Sunday.
Really, I need to get a life in the next 2 days so I can video it.
~me, the Friday before deadline.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.