Contemplating My Navel (Personal Blog)

Running Into Umbrellas (October 17, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

I gained almost 15 pounds this past summer, owing to two conflicting influences.

The first was sort of an existential, indulgent temper tantrum over the life changes dictated by my hands. Although the miracle of daily beet juice is controlling the pompholyx eczema to an amazing degree, some of my routines will never be what they were. My two favorite forms of exercise, vinyasa yoga and Russian kettlebell drills, are now a part of the past. The friction is just too much for the delicate, raw skin of the palms. I’ve learned over the years that even if I’d prefer to speed the process, mourning is a course that runs on its own schedule. And so it was that three months elapsed before I finished stomping my internal feet and endeavored to formulate a new plan.

The second and far more pleasant reason for the weight gain revolved around summer fun: travel, outdoor festivals, family gatherings with tons of delectable food, office outings, champagne. After the torturous slog that was Chiberia 2014, I grabbed ye olde summertime by the balls. No regrets.

But now it’s fall. The weather has turned colder and with the recess of summer’s frivolity came a long, hard look in the mirror. A step on the scale confirmed that I weighed more than I have since dropping 60 pounds over 10 years ago. I’ll never be 25 again, but it’s also clear that I can do better than self-defeating eczema protest and unchecked hedonism.

And so in recent weeks, the gauntlet was thrown. What’s it going to be Rebecca? I chose pants that fit.

A three-point exercise strategy developed that involves minimal use of the palms: Tae Bo (I love the 90s!), Pilates (minus The Teaser as the tailbone still can’t handle a full body weight load) and running. The third of these activities I have always practiced in fits and starts. But without the yoga and kettlebells, my muscle tone evaporated. So portfolio diversification it must be.

It’s been a rainy fall in Chicago thus far, the kind of season that breeds lethargy, hot cocoa and fireplaces. But it’s one of my conflicted character traits that once resolve is formed, I’ll let nothing short of death or dismemberment get in the way. There’s no jail or societal prohibition big enough to contain the will. This personality feature is the reason I made it out of childhood intact, yet it’s also proved trying for those who dare to love me. I’ve come to accept the tradeoff. The committed ones have too.

Last week was a more precipitous one than usual in the city. But my favorite way to run is outdoors. The treadmill will do for the winter, but I want to people watch and soak up that precious Vitamin D as long as possible. And so early on a drizzly Monday evening, I tied my laces and hit the streets.

Years ago I told my friend Kelly that the first two blocks are always the hardest. The desire to quit infuses every plodding step. It gets easier when a regular stride develops and the breathing pattern settles. Until then I’m half choking, red faced and irritated. This passes and I become steady, sweaty and single-minded. The finish line. Nothing better break my cadence.

As I approached a familiar crosswalk, I saw the back of a man ambling slowly through the drizzle, carrying a large umbrella. It was apparent from a half block away that I had to slow down and maneuver around him. Failure to do so would result in a human fender bender. There was plenty of time to adjust.

But I didn’t. Not one whit. And we know what happened next. I collided with the rear edges of the gentleman’s parasol. There was no doubt this was purposeful. I’d viewed it as a calculated risk worth taking to protect rhythm. After blinking for a few milliseconds to shake transferred water droplets from my eyelids, the man paused briefly to turn and look at me. Still jogging, I braced myself for a deservedly irritated comment.

Instead, there was a surprise. He said, “Goodness. I am so very sorry.” This did it. The single-mindedness was broken. The stranger was owed something for his decent humanity.

I replied honestly. “You have nothing to apologize for sir. I’m the one who ran into you.” This was the truth, and a wave of shame washed over me, soaking the soul more than the rain ever could. Had I really been rude and fool enough to plow into an umbrella on purpose? Was the delay of two seconds to change pace and work around the man’s personal space more abhorrent than practicing courtesy and common sense? Seems so.

As I resumed running, chastened and more deliberate, it became clear that the scene of moments prior offered an appropriate metaphor for most of my adult life. I’ve been running into umbrellas forever.Seeing collisions approaching with obvious clarity has been no deterrent. Earlier this week, I repeated to Dr. T the questions I’d wrestled with since the incident forced a reckoning. Was I a person destined for road blocks, as I once believed of a seemingly cursed existence, or did I smash into them by choice, despite a variety of clarion alternatives?

There’s no doubt I was born holding an unlucky hand. I’ll allow myself that much. I had no decision in parents or they way they took care (or rather, did not) of my sister and I. But I allowed circumstances to determine the future for far too long. I grew comfortable in the role of long-suffering martyr, the fixer, the burdened, the only adult in the room (even when I was 12). That’s who I was. Woe was always going to be me, right?

Wrong. I had, and have, other options. I don’t need to be the dependent control freak who tries to save other damaged people from themselves. As Al-Anon tells people like me, get your own house in order – with love.

Automated survival mode served me well as a youth, but it’s just stupid now. The threats have long been neutralized. So I am going to leverage that dead-eyed resolution toward something more positive. I will shed that 15 pounds this season, along with a bad habit of running into umbrellas.

Are We Still Ready for Some Football (October 9, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

It happens each time I pull out my Chicago Cubs-branded debit card to pay for a transaction, especially if traveling somewhere outside of Illinois. The look of disgust, a glance of pity, perhaps even an outright laugh from the bolder amongst them. I’ve come to regret having ordered the damned thing from Bank of America in headier, more optimistic days.

As any member of Cubs Nation well knows, ours is a long-suffering lot. It was 2008 the last time the Cubbies made the playoffs, 2003 when we came close to the World Series (still so painful to recall) and 1945 the last time we actually appeared. And with the recent conclusion of the 2014 season, it has now been 106 years, longer than anyone living could possibly recall, since the Cubs won the World Series. As a child growing up in the 1980s, the whole “Lovable Losers” thing was all in good fun. But that’s also when bleacher tickets cost $10, and youth permitted indulgence of the “Wait ‘Til Next Year” fantasy shared by fans.

Many broken hearts, one upwardly mobile corporate takeover of the Friendly Confines and an elimination of David Berg hot dogs from the concession stand later, I found myself in search of a new fix for sports cravings. It wasn’t just the Cubs latest post-season embarrassment that broke me in the fall of 2008. It was years of corrupt performance enhancing cover-ups, the mid-90s strike which led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, etc. Baseball felt used up and broken.

I started paying closer attention to the NFL during the 2006-7 season, the last time the Chicago Bears made a trip to the Super Bowl. True we were humiliated in epic fashion by Payton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, but at least we were there! And of course many native Chicagoans of my generation are still huffing the contrails left by the glorious 1985 Monsters of the Midway. Some denizens of this fine city may never recover from the pinnacle of the Ditka/Ryan era. ‘Da Coach, a near Illinois Senatorial candidate in 2004, remains a Christlike figure wherever he travels across the state.

Bear fever aside, I wasn’t sure football could hold my attention. To begin, the game is insanely complicated. My track record for staying engaged in activities I don’t understand is rather spotty. I’ve been a devoted Sunday disciple for eight years and I still only comprehend 60 percent of what takes place on the field – on the best day. But the good news is I learned that I really don’t mind. The promise of future expertise gives me an ideal for which to strive.

Secondly, I can’t see the players’ faces during the action. This may seem like a bizarre reason for avoiding a sport, but as a writer, critic, former youth stage actress and singer, emoting is an important part of any experience. I need to feel it. My favorite childhood baseball moments: former Coach Don Zimmer kicking dirt at umpires while yelling his face off, the usually calm and professional outfielder Andre Dawson tossing equipment onto the field from the dugout after being unjustly ejected from the game, Ricky Henderson’s not-so-humble “I am the greatest!” proclamation.

For me, baseball was all about the passion, the commitment..until it wasn’t. Though the sport is trying desperately to recover from two decades of fake records created by cynical, juicing bastards, it may have forever forfeited its special status as “America’s favorite past time.” And as I grew up, it became clear that Cubs ownership knew it was sitting on top of a sellout goldmine, so why spend money on trying to win? Schedule a game at the Wrigley Field, one of Chicago’s biggest tourist attractions, and they will come. Not exactly a great way to treat loyal fans left pining for competitive respectability.

At this point some of you may be thinking to yourselves: “Way to jump from the money grubbing frying pan to the fire Becky! The last time I checked the NFL was hardly a nonprofit operation, and they have plenty of violent, scandalous and cynical troubles of their own.” All true. I shall not disagree. My point is this. The 2014-15 NFL season is starting to look an awful lot like the MLB of the early aughts: a gut check moment of internal assessment and criminal player purging, leaving many a loyal fan wondering if all the concussions, abused women and children, bullying and weapons violations are worth it.

I can’t stand the Ginger Hammer of bald-faced moneymaking, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. He’s a huge part of the league’s current PR problem. Similar to the follies of the MLB, he’s been willing to look the other way at a laundry list of disgusting behavior until fans and the media alike were brought to attention by a disturbing video of Ray Rice punching out this then fiancée. But dollars decide and as long as Goodell continues proliferating them for league owners, he’ll remain in charge.

Rehabilitation of the NFL’s image is not off to a smooth start, but if the league wants to avoid the fate of previous favorite American sport, baseball, this season’s high ratings suggest there’s still time. We await your next move Ginge.

Not Sari (October 5, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

I was in the middle of managing an NFL Sunday iPad media center when I came across the news item. The 21st Century’s answer to the society pages, Facebook, unveiled the conclusion to a suspenseful mystery I wasn’t necessarily looking to solve. For a split second, time and reality were suspended. I broke out in a flush and gave in to the stomach drop, the momentary equilibrium imbalance.

I suppose that the acceptance of an event as inevitable is not quite the same as being prepared for it when it actually arrives. As I started to reclaim my bearings, I admitted I’d been nursing a delusion that I was unforgettable. There might be a second act but it would never be the same. Staring at the photographic evidence, I realized I’d been right in ways unimagined. Whatever else it is, it’s more than cultural expediency. There’s an ease and confidence we never had.

I’m trying on some new ideas in 2014. One is a world in shades of gray as opposed to the black/white, right/wrong, good/evil conceits that long served as a ready, but terribly flawed approach to categorizing human decisions and behavior. Including my own.

The second concept I’m engaging is that accepting tumult and working through it organically causes a lot less longterm damage than pretending, of trying to enforce arbitrary logic. Soldiering through like a drone until reality catches up and the inevitable breakdown ensues is the sad, tired narrative arc of a repetitive emotional story. Finally seeing that strategy as the loser it is created some fear. I have to be OK with not feeling the “right” things, perhaps even laying down and rolling around in the ugliest ones for longer than feels morally comfortable.

But a little experience in staying still and letting the storm blow through, as opposed to running futilely away from the inevitable, has proven a painfully reliable precursor to recovery. So I took the album out and showed it to all the people who’d been asking for three years or longer to see it.

I told the stories that go with the pictures over and over again, and didn’t try to tidy observances that I looked unhappy, lonely and lost. I didn’t wear the shame of secrets and untruths surrounding those days, and refused to cringe from a highlight reel of denial. We all did the best we could with what we had at the time. It was a tour de force effort in trying to fit mismatched pieces. That was what we needed to do then. There was also genuine love.

I opened the suitcase and consulted someone with experience in this sort of thing. It’s time to unwrap, to quite literally unload the remaining baggage. Those colors were never mine and I’ve stopped letting people dress me. But as I smelled the uncased scents of the past, I had to own that I was more than willing to serve as mannequin, a tabula rasa, and a good deal of my previous resentment was unjustified. How I expected people to know what I’d want and fight for it under pressure, when I was clearly unable to articulate and defend those needs. It was too much to ask.

It’s a fuller, more hurtful and dizzying view when I look at the world in 360 degrees. But when the spinning stops, its easier to shake off the vertigo and notice other opportunities. To see a different path that I couldn’t before, one that’s crooked and unconventional, but apparently the right road for this journey.

Two weeks of funnel clouds and the storm receded. Things are as they should be, as they must always have been. The next time we meet could be the last. With no regret, snark or ill-will, and as briefly as possible, genuine good wishes. Then keep moving.

37 Summers (September 1, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Today, Labor Day 2014, marks the unofficial end of my 37th summer on the planet. I don’t remember much about the first given that I was just a blob of drool and other bodily functions, having been born in early August. During the second, I was trying to get a handle on that walking and talking stuff. Many cognitive psychologists believe that memories won’t fully develop until one has the language to describe and store them for later recall.

And so it was during the third summer, shortly after the arrival of my baby sister Jennifer, that seasonal reminiscences began to coalesce. Another August child, my first strong recollection is of being pulled from a friend’s backyard pool to visit little Jenny. Then, as now, I did not like the party to start or stop without me. If you’re now envisioning a 1980’s toddler precursor to Ke$ha, well that’s embarrassingly accurate.

Happily, my father knew how to manipulate my stormy baby moods and let me have control of the radio on the way to the hospital. I had strong (positive) opinions about the canon of Christopher Cross as a young lass of two years and three days old. Thus I belted out “Ride Like the Wind” through drying tears, sort of a joyous prompt for the complete awe that would dominate when I finally beheld the newborn girl. That summer I learned that it might not always be a bad thing to get out of the pool before you’re ready.

Summer is my favorite season, for a multitude of reasons. The hardened Chicagoan’s stoic survival of harsh Windy City winters begets frenzied exultation at three months of beaches, sidewalk seating and outdoor exercise. The melancholy writer struggles with seasonal affective disorder and craves Vitamin D furnished by 14 hours of daylight. The anarchist within adores the sense of limitless possibility. And for the student of life, there are always lessons and wisdom to absorbed as people literally and metaphorically throw off their coats.

It was during the summer of 1984 I learned that the arbitrary work of a moment, a face first implant into a living room radiator, could affect every moment thereafter. Self-esteem, opportunity, even the literal shape of a jaw went on another trajectory after an accident that took 25 years from which to fully recover. I also learned that even if I’d been born cute, I might not always be so. Looks can go at any time. Decency, intelligence and hard work became unconscious driving forces as the meaner kids mocked my crooked teeth and thick glasses.

During the post-Communism heat of 1994, I left the U.S. for the first time, and learned that the world is a large, diverse yet strikingly level place. Journeying to Russia and Poland on a cultural goodwill tour with the Chicago Children’s Choir I added the following essential truths to my life book: underage traveling without parents is awesome, there is no amount of dirtiness or fatigue that can prevent a teenage crush and everyone likes Ace of Base.

I wrapped up high school with another CCC tour in the summer of 1996, this time a five-week sojourn to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa. It was there I became aware that family can be chosen, appearances can be deceiving and that the summit of Table Mountain is a great place to use a pay phone.

Ensuing summers taught tougher lessons. 2009 was the summer of prematurely burying friends and coming to understand that desire alone is not strong enough to open a heart that’s closed. The warm months of 2011 were the season of illness that doesn’t make you appear sick and the crippling realization that two people in love can be genuinely, horribly toxic together.

But as I move into my late 30s, the conclusion of my 37th summer, the instruction remains poignant, and the circle is opening more fully. This was the season of horse back riding, wedding singing in Spanish, running races in Canada, hiking, outdoor music, bike rides through the forest at dark, murder mystery theater, new friends and fedoras. It was the summer of saying “yes” to everything external after Chiberia 2014’s confinement and discovering the joys of other terrain besides the concrete jungle.

It was also the season of writer’s block. Or was it? Is the living I’ve done over the last three to four months fodder for more exciting, experiential work? Perhaps I’ll find out next year. Because another lesson my 37th summer has taught me is that I don’t need, or maybe even want, all the answers today. The rewards is in the search, not the explanation.

Nonlinear Equations (July 24, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Several years ago, my therapist gave a name to the lifelong inability to express myself coherently in the midst of tense, impassioned conflict – “emotional flooding.” When pressured to engage with a loved one/nemesis (sadly, often one in the same during childhood) in situations where I could not possibly be heard (not that I could find the words anyway), where no good could come from the discussion, I’d become panicked and hysterical, triggering an immediate, disturbed flight response. In addition to these episodes leaving me feeling crazy as a loon, it’s safe to say that the reaction was decidedly unhelpful in resolving the struggle. You can’t really negotiate with someone howling in pain behind a locked door. But you can’t continue tormenting and bullying them either. I guess that was really the subconscious point.

Hundreds, if not thousands of hours of individual and group therapy later, I’ve come to understand the pattern and how to avoid it – for the most part. Step one involved cutting the toxic people from my life, or if not feasible, sharply reducing interactions with them. This was a long process, one that also involved replacing those dysfunctional relationships with healthier, more fulfilling ones. As I review the long list of people with whom I regularly interact and communicate today, each and every one, without exception, adds fun, meaning and love to my world. None of these people are perfect and I’ve not emerged from the chrysalis a symmetrical butterfly either. But we misfit in harmony.

Step two required me to get to know the warning signs before an emotional flood: the flushed face, the racing heartbeat, the rapid fire negative thoughts, a growing sense of dread and alarm. Now when such symptoms are triggered, I am far more successful at backing away slowly, rather than precipitously, and asking the other party for a timeout. When I’m deliberate with my responses, I come closest to saying what I actually mean. This has always served me well as a writer, so it stands to reason that the principles apply to other forms of communication.

The final step was learning how to reapproach the subject and the individual without aggression, despair or a sense of persecution. “I love and you and I don’t want to fight with you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to articulate my feelings better earlier, but I’m ready now if you’re willing to listen.” Two simple sentences have taken so much tension out of so many conversations. Or not. And when they don’t, I walk away. Not in panic or fear but with the confidence that I’ve done all I can to facilitate a rational discussion, laced with something like pride in acquitting myself decently. I’ve come a long way.

But personal progress is nonlinear, as Dr. T is fond of saying. And recently I experienced a minor setback with a dear friend. We had a misunderstanding and frankly, I shouldn’t have picked up the initial call. I was walking up the driveway to an extended family party: late, flustered and somewhat apprehensive. The sledgehammer symbolism of regressing on the property of my kin could not escape me.

I knew what this friend and I were going to discuss and it deserved a longer, calmer conversation. This is a clear loved one, definitely not a nemesis hybrid. I felt the flood coming, too late to do anything to stop it. Thus what should have been, “Can we talk about this later when I’ve had some time to think?” became, “I’m sorry you don’t like or accept me for who I am!” I promptly disconnected the call, utterly sorry and ashamed but with no time or bandwidth to address it immediately – which was probably for the best.

Though my behavior left the impression that I’d stepped into a time machine and traveled back to 2008, the ongoing work I’ve been doing in Al-Anon reminded me that there is no situation that can’t be improved, and I always have choices to make. Yes, I’d blown it. But I could also keep quiet for a couple of days and return to my friend with a mea culpa and a fresh dose of perspective.

Thankfully, as mentioned above, I now have people in my life who understand human error and forgiveness. I’m no longer held to impossible external standards by anyone, which in and of itself encourages reengagement and keeps fear of rejection in check.

Conversation number two went infinitely better than the first. Mistakes were owned and apologies were offered on both sides, as were assurances of love and friendship. It’s my belief that both of us left feeling understood and appreciated, and that particular misunderstanding is unlikely to recur.

But there will be other hiccups with other people. And I won’t get it right everytime. But I’ll get it better, in my own looped and rounded manner.