The Moment is NOW

For the past several weeks, I’ve been consumed by two major projects – my recently published novel and my upcoming course. It’s what’s on my mind, and therefore, it’s what makes it onto the page.

I recently learned about my beloved Godmother’s serious health scare. It diverted my attention, and my activities, but when I returned to what was in front of me, all I could hear were the words of my dear friend Alexandra Franzen during our time teaching together in Vancouver a few weeks ago:

Don’t die with your story still in you. (Adapted from several spiritual teachers, including Wayne Dyer and Todd Henry.)

This is a sobering suggestion. All those dreams of giving life to what’s inside you might never come to pass.

That is my greatest fear, really. That all my grand ideas and my calling to enlighten and heal could vanish in an instant. It’s sobering, and inspiring at the same time. It makes me hop out of bed in the morning to race to my computer and get it all out of me. It keeps me up at night, divining the best way to deliver my ultimate message about living a life where the practice of satisfaction is made sacred.

I share these thoughts with you in the hope that you won’t waste one more minute. Mine the gems you hold inside, spend the time to carve and polish them until they gleam, and then offer them freely and liberally to the world’s open arms. It doesn’t matter if you feel like the world doesn’t care. If you care, then that’s enough.

We can never know how our offerings will trickle into the eyes, ears and hearts of the people who most need them.

I send you strength, and the awareness of the beauty of your gifts. I can see them… isn’t it time you did too?

May you sparkle with abandon.

P.S. Just below, I’ve included an excerpt from Fish Tails & Lady Legs. Please enjoy, and know that I made it for you.

P.P.S My Godmother is doing great, thankfully.

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Lying is done with words and also with silence. – Adrian Rich

I wanted it all to work, although the unlikelihood was staring me right in the face. The crazy hours Jeff and I were tied to were not conducive to the round-the-clock care a baby needed, and tensions built quickly about our respective responsibilities.

Jeff was taking on more and more at the hospital, and even traveling to train other doctors and speak at conferences. He was proud of how well he was providing for our family, even if not in person. Although my culinary star kept getting brighter, it didn’t mean any fewer hours for me either.

“It’s time for you to leave your frivolous career behind and stay home to take care of our child, Monique,” he eventually said.

That’s when I stopped speaking, so overtaken by betrayal. Jeff grew more and more insistent, my suffering apparently not a consideration. How could I leave the only thing in my life, other than my daughter, that filled my heart with joy? Yes, it was an enormous amount of work, and yes it brought in nearly no money and was very stressful and time-consuming. But it was my life. It was how I defined myself – I was a chef, before anything else. How dare he demand I leave my career?

He grew louder and I grew silent. He grew larger, and I shrank into my two unsatisfying worlds of mother and chef.

Silence became my husband’s lover. A lifetime of meticulously chosen words, and a short period of incoherent raging, left me mute. No need to wonder what happens after one screams so violently that the voice fails. Silence, of course.

Whose hand is over my mouth, I wondered, powerless to move my jaw.

By not speaking, I could bear the dishonesty. By feigning agreement, I would keep the peace. By locking my jaw, I could stop being force fed his chilling torment.

Silence cooked for him, silence slept with him and silence hung on his arm, right alongside the Rolex, neither making even a tick.

Maybe I had used up my quota of words. A bit soon, I thought, but not impossible. Or maybe, by using words like weapons, which I had done with so many others, I had broken some covenant and been banned to the land of the speechless.

Be seen and not heard, resurrected from childhood. Silent AND deadly.

How much venom could be produced with a wordless gaze, a tight-lipped grimace, a rigid backed response? A nearly fatal dose, I came to understand, without the need to bare the fangs locked behind the prison of my mouth.

Everyone could see the cause of this strange symptom, the locking of my jaw. But I dared not even think the thought – my life was sealing my lips shut.

What would I have to admit, about my own part in the tragic farce, to say – “He did this, and I let him?”

Silence was the price for security, the counterfeit for connection, as valuable as any of the constant lies. Whether spoken or not, dishonesty was our secret code.

I would win this one. If shutting up and shutting off were the rules of engagement, I would be the silent victor.

“You won’t talk to me,” he would say. No shit, I thought, and that was that. I won the round, again.

But he changed the rules, so quickly I could not veer from the strategy – to manipulate him into acquiescence. I rounded the bend to find that he had left me, emotionally.

Unable to bear the hypocrisy, or the silence of lies, he stopped playing mid-game, took his heart and left. The only pleas were silent as I realized it was my own hand over my mouth.

When lies are all you tell, what is the value of your word? When the truth is too hard to bear what is the value of your life?

Fill the hole with whatever is around to keep it busy, or seal it so tightly for no trespassing, I told myself. Breathe, moan, whisper, cry, scream, laugh. But speak not or forever hold your peace.

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