The Beautiful Answer

A Breakthrough

In the eleven months I’ve been keeping this blog, I’ve begun to notice a few things about the way the mind works. How it strives to keep things looking bleak, perhaps so that when joy occurs, it will stand out by comparison. 

Then there are those days when you’re able to break through a pattern that has been so much a part of your life that it’s become like a second skin. Over the years I have raged at it, coaxed and cajoled it, even tried to reason with it as I attempted to move toward some sort of final releasing point, where I could finally be rid of it for good. Today, I stood up for myself in a way I have never done before. And it wasn’t really like anything I expected. 

Most people picture fighting of some sort when you say you’re standing up for yourself. They imagine swords drawn, defensive battle postures, grimacing faces. Not that I didn’t get irritated — I suppose sone of that is required before we all reach our limits and set an impermeable boundary. I did, a little. And then I got tough. 

It’s not something I can talk about in detail because it’s still ongoing, but suffice it to say that I have been offered several great career opportunities since my book Searching for Sassy came out. I’ve had agents circling, publishing companies interested in putting it out on their own labels, and film and television producers vying for the rights. It’s all been pretty heady and confusing at times, even though I have a pretty good working knowledge of how these things work, since I’ve been employed in both the publishing and film industries in the past. 

The thing is, there are all kinds of people, in each of these businesses. There are your sharks, who want to dominate you (and the conversation, apparently), even if no money is actually yet changing hands. There are your artist wannabees, who will never get quite as close to writing a book as sitting across from you on an expensive couch, and those who crave power and influence, to somehow affect the culture at large. You meet enough of them, and they all start to look the same. 

But I’ve learned that breakthroughs seldom come when you’re trying to make them happen. They tend to creep up on you, waiting to strike when you’re not expecting it. So you have to be ready to walk away from something if need be, even if the very thing you’re being offered is the thing you want most. 

I did that today. I was ready to walk away, even though it was painful, and I ended up winning. It required absolute nerves of steel. And even though this may not happen all the time, or even most of the time, just the act of standing firm and saying no made my legs and little stronger underneath me, and my connection to the earth all the support I needed to move forward. 

Inside Out & Upside Down

I have a tattoo on my left wrist, of a clown standing on his head and sticking out his tongue. The design came from a toy I used to play with while we were living in the South, a clown made from a painted spool for a head and a cloth body. When you rolled it down a slanted board, it would flip over and over and over, balancing and re-balancing.  It was my first tattoo, gotten when I was 21 in London.

At the time, I just wanted a tattoo. I didn’t think about it as long as perhaps I should have. People kept tasking me if I would want this on my wrist when I was 80, or if I’d be able to find a job once I came back to the U.S. That makes me laugh these days, when tattooed people are found in all walks of life, in all areas of the work force. But not as much then.

These days, I’m happier than ever that I chose to get this tattoo. It’s faded a lot, isn’t by the best artist, and could probably use some color. But I have a bit of the clown in me. I love to laugh, but also see that being the clown is a definite responsibility, to say what others can’t, and to bring joy to the community.  It’s a calling, not a job.

The tattoo also reminds me to reframe, before I even knew about what concept. It teaches me that it’s always possible to look at any given situation from a different angle, and get a new perspective on what’s happening. Even in intensely emotional times, there’s a different way to look at it.

That continued today, when I was in the post office. An older guy wearing a bright orange t-shirt struck up a conversation about my tattoo, as people sometimes do. He was tickled to find out that my tattoo makes me laugh, and reminds me not to take myself so damn seriously all the time. He thought it was amusing that it was a clown, and asked if it was Mr. Bill (um, no).

Then when I was leaving, he told me that I had inspired him to change his perspective on a recent hip injury, which had made him somewhat feeble and dependent, not to mention depressed. Check me out! Reframing the lives of others, without even trying. Sah-weet!