Muchness and Light

In the garden of memory, in the palace of dreams, that is where you and I shall meet.

Since my thyroid radiation in July, I’ve been struggling with still feeling like general crap. Fatigue and brain fog have been intermittently worse. A pretty leisurely two-mile walk with Rango and the boys recently wiped me out for two days. My bloodwork shows wildly-swinging levels of thyroid hormones, indicating that the regrown tissue is indeed dying off, though it may be months before it normalizes.

With that has also come more weight regain and self-recrimination and outright self-loathing.

I have tried to get back into the gym even semi-regularly. It’s hard enough to juggle work and school and kids successfully, and trying to find even six hours a week for myself in that is sometimes unmanageable. Of course I know the exercise will actually help me to feel better, but the fatigue that comes with hypothyroidism can be unimaginably oppressive.

Recently I started a series of virtual races through Yes.Fit. Of course I chose the Alice in Wonderland themed races. After I complete so many miles, as tracked by my Misfit activity tracker, my medal is sent to me automatically. As of today, I’ve completed three of the six Alice races, totaling more than 60 miles.

As it does every day, Facebook was kind enough to remind me this morning of memories from this day in previous years. I find it interesting to see how life has changed over the last few years, but I tend to face those reminders with some trepidation. I love the pictures and funny quotes from my boys from their younger days. Sometimes the memories are useless or now meaningless, or sometimes even too painful, and I’ll delete them. Sometimes I leave the painful ones, knowing those ghosts will haunt me again next year, because I’m either not ready to deal with them or I know they’re so important that I will need the reminders again.

But today, there were two things, from 2010 and 2011. Not surprising, there were pictures from a 2010 concert, of a band I loved then and love now. It was the second in a series of shows that were seminal for the changes that would come over the following two years. A year later, it was the memory that was down 99 of the 115 pounds in total weight loss. Yet another year later, I’d just separated from my now-ex-husband.

All of that has fueled my writing since 2010, which began with the realization that I’d lost my muchness--just like Alice in Wonderland.

I have said repeatedly over the last year that, for a variety of reasons, I felt like I was back in 2010 and didn’t know why I was reliving such similar circumstances. Regardless of the logistical changes and strides I know I have made, I have replayed the past in tandem with the present and come up with only confusion and emotional failure. I have continually grappled with figuring out which choice I didn’t make or should’ve made differently. I’ve tried to re-learn whatever lesson I obviously needed to repeat.

But somehow, I keep sliding farther and farther into the past. Where 2010 may have felt like a rabbit hole, 2016 is feeling more and more like the other side of a looking glass. Where then felt new and exciting and rebellious, now feels reflective and reversed and exhausting.

What is it? What did I miss? What do I need now that can only be retrieved from then?

It just so happens that Alice Through the Looking Glass comes out on DVD this week. Of course I saw it in the theater when it opened--how could I not?--but I really didn’t love it as much as I did the first one. It was beautiful, and I looked for the clues to my missing lessons, but the torment of Time was unsettling to me. I could willingly believe in a lost young woman traveling to surreal place and conquering her fears, but it was almost impossible for me to suspend my disbelief as the same woman mended old wounds.

But maybe that’s it. Maybe my path has been a big circle, and maybe the obstacle is an unturned stone.

Certainly I can pinpoint errors and mistakes and regrettable decisions, but I feel like I have done everything in my power to apologize and make amends for those actions. I would say I have done my best to move on, but I damn well know there are frozen moments that continue to haunt me.

I don’t know what it is, but there is something. It is maddening, appearing and disappearing, always just out of my reach.

So I’m starting back at the beginning, at Alice. I am literally retracing my steps, one foot in front of the other, until I can find a way to the next landmark on this destination. I don’t want to believe that I am personally destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over, that there is literally no way to avoid spiritual repetition. I’ve already seen the White Rabbit, I just passed the Cheshire Cat and am making my way toward the Mad Hatter. There is still the Caterpillar and the Queen of Hearts.

After that, I’m seriously considering the Pac-Man races, where I get to eat a series of brightly-colored ghosts.

I do all I am, and it's all I can do, but I'm true.

This is my 100^th blog post on Muchness and Light.  I felt like it should be something retrospective.  The blog, and the writing that came over the last year, were all triggered by a line from Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), when he tells Alice, "You used to be much more... muchier.  You've lost your muchness."  That quote sent me on a search for my own lost muchness.  While it's been an amazing year, I've already written about regaining some of my muchness, and I didn't want to be too repetitive.

The search for my self has led me down an incomparably twisted and tumultuous path.  Time and again, I've gone back to the idea of my life being about the journey and not the destination.  DH pointedly asked me a few months ago, "How can you get anywhere when you have no destination in mind?"

I've often set out with a goal in mind, it's hard (and sometimes counterproductive) not to.  But I like to be flexible enough to allow for a change of course when necessary, whether for literal or figurative reasons.  I'm still moving forward, but to what end?

Finally, a few weeks ago, it hit me: the ultimate destination is ME.

The end result of all of this trekking is the truest, most absolute version of Stephanie Quinn Jackson.  One of these days, my heart will stop and play its final beat.  When that day comes, I'll know I've had my heart broken and my pride stolen, but the only person I'll truly have to answer to is me.  I'm the only one who can make the final judgment call as to whether or not I did everything I could to be true—to myself, to my loves, to my life. 

There are days and times when my choices fly in the face of everything and everyone around me.  It's not always easy, and it doesn't always make me or anyone else happy, but sometimes being true, and being Truly Me, is hard.  The easy path from Point A to Point Me isn't always the true path, and I've absolutely been known to take the easiest way possible.  I've had to backtrack from that a bazillion times and go on the way I should've gone to begin with.  What I found, each and every time, is that I would've been much happier, more fulfilled, and gotten just as far, if I'd just gone the right damn way to begin with. 

So I'm not a finished product yet, and I'm glad about that.  If I were done, if I were all Stephanie could be, there would be no point to journeying onward; I could finally sit my not-as-large ass down and just see what passes by me.  Instead, I'm continuing forward and see what I pass by. 

I'll be sure to send a postcard (or a blog post) or two along the way.

 

 

12:51 is the time my voice found the words I sought.

DH and I have had a couple of conversations recently about the purpose of my blog.  It's definitely a personal blog (as opposed to a corporate or organizational blog), meaning that I'm reflecting on what I think and see and feel.  Originally Muchness and Light started with a definitive Alice in Wonderland slant that shifts my writing from time to time, but I quickly realized I had more to say than what Lewis Carroll or Tim Burton could directly influence. 

I don't run ads, with the exception of my links to Zazzle and my Amazon aStore.  If you purchase products through those links, I get a small percentage, which helps cover my blog and domain services.  I've debated setting up an agreement with an ad service, but I don't really see the necessity or the long-term benefit.  There's already enough going on on my page.  I don't want to clutter it further with unrelated content or pretty pictures.  I can handle being scattered without any help from the outside. 

I don't write a lot about the day-to-day facts of my life, though I'm likely to mention them on my Facebook fan page.  Most days for me are a mundane mix of errands and chores and momness.  Sometimes, something exciting or extraordinary happens.  If I'm inspired, I'll write about it.  If not, I'll keep it to myself.  But I always try to find something more to say than just what I'm thinking and feeling. 

There's always the issue of what the reader adds to my words.  You aren't me, you aren't in my head, and you may or may not know the impetus for a piece I've written.  You certainly don't know the thought process I went through, jumping from one point to the next.  But you bring your own experiences and moods and expectations to your reading and that will undoubtedly influence your own perception of my writing.  That's what's expected of the audience, and I think that's what makes feedback interesting. 

Sometimes I'll discover that someone has read something and totally missed my intent.  It can be frustrating, making me question whether my words were effectual.  I have to remind myself that I'm also not in your head.  I'm a reader in my own right, and I know there have been many times when I've reread something, perhaps for the dozenth time, and realized I was interpreting it in a completely new and unexpected way. 

Every so often, I'll go back and read something of my own—an old post or random writing—and be surprised to see context and meaning I hadn't noticed before.  I've written specific things that were intended to be about one thing and ended up being about another, only recognized in hindsight.  I've been in one mood when I wrote, then in a juxtaposed frame of mind when I reread it, and seen my writing in a completely different way. 

I guess that's part of the fluidity of the written word.  It can say so much or nothing at all.  I'm sure I have days (and posts) where I do both. 

But, like me, Muchness and Light is a process.  My voice is on a journey of its own, and I'm excited to see where it takes me.  For the first time perhaps in my entire life, I feel like there are other people who want to hear me and who value not only what I'm saying, but the fact that I'm saying it at all.  It's simultaneously humbling and gratifying, knowing that you've made the choice to read this—that you have sought me out and want to see what I have to say, even if it seems like I'm only talking to myself.

 

(Yes, I know it's a Strokes song.  So does Adam.  But he's the one I love the most, not them.)

Climb on down the rabbit hole, tell Alice that Elvis wants his crown back in his grave....

I get off on experience.  Rather, in understanding an experience fully.  No matter how minute it may seem to someone else, I like to delve into the intricacies of something and get a complete perception of the thing. 

Boredom can set it quickly with me, though, and I often abandon the something when I feel like I know it completely, or if I feel like I can see the end of the ride.  It takes a lot to hold my interest for a long time.  It takes even more sometimes just to capture my attention. 

Even Alice (Lewis Carroll's original Alice) wasn't so interested in the talking White Rabbit; she didn't find him to be curious in and of himself.  It's only when "the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet.., she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge."

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

She jumps down the hole, curious about the things she sees as she falls—the cupboards and bookshelves that line the walls of the passage, the empty ORANGE MARMALADE jar that she refuses to drop because she doesn't want it to land on anyone below her.  And she doesn't look down, doesn't watch for what's to come, because it's dark and she can't see what's there. 

Honestly, I'm attracted to rabbit holes.  There's something alluring about the experience that looks like not much of nothin'.  From the outside, from the onset, it's just a hole in the ground.  There may be a rabbit.  There may be a snake.  There be just a hole.  But you can never know until you look inside. 

For Alice, the inside of the rabbit hole opens up a fantastical world of imagination and nonsense, of life lessons and epiphanies, but she does nothing with that.  She wanders from place to place in Wonderland, questioning everything but never coming to any real understandings.  Interestingly, the White Rabbit appears three times in the story, ushering Alice from one mad situation to another.  He's not the reason she does anything; he's simply a catalyst to move her from place to place. 

Eventually Alice becomes maddened by the surreality and wakes from her dream, having learned nothing about herself or life or anything.  "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"  She is, after all, a child.  And it's Alice's sister's thoughts that close the story, hoping that Alice will keep her girlish whimsy and be able to share her curiosity with other children when she's a grown woman.

Conversely, Tim Burton's Alice—the grown, almost-adult Alice—is the one who doesn't leap down the hole.  Instead she sees the White Rabbit (Nivens McTwisp) running through the garden and is immediately captivated, chasing him in an attempt to flee her own surprise engagement party.  Just when she loses sight of him, he grabs her by the ankle and yanks her off her feet.

She was falling down the rabbit hole.

This time Alice is looking around as she tumbles, scrambling for anything that will help her make sense of what's happening, that will help stop her fall.  She again grabs the empty jam jar, but this time she drops it without thought of who or what may be below her.  She keeps falling, "...down and down and down into deeper darkness, where there was no longer anything to hold on to."

McTwisp still appears to help move Alice from one absurdity to another, but his role is much more intentional than it was for Carroll's Alice.  He reveals that he had gone above ground to actively seek Alice, to return her to Underland (Wonderland) to fulfill her destiny of slaying the Jabberwocky.  He does everything in his power to help propel her toward her eventual conclusion of self-revelation and self-acceptance, though he's still not a major character in any traditional sense. 

Almost Alice's journey into the hole is not of her own doing, though it's certainly her choice to chase the rabbit that led her toward the discovering of it.  Once inside, she again battles her own preconceptions to make sense of everything around her.  Even though she seems to forget this third trip into Wonderland, she is left with the revelation of self-confidence that she didn't have before.  She returns to the garden where she first saw the White Rabbit and finds herself clinging to the edge of the rabbit hole.  She pulls herself up and out of the hole and returns to the party to share her insights with everyone else. 

I tend to be a hole jumper.   I often seek out the rabbit holes and go sometimes head first into them, just to see what's lining the shelves and to explore the possibly-unimaginable that I might find inside.  I'm fascinated by those new things, no matter how dusty or potentially frightening they may be, because it's an opportunity to understand something in a whole new way. 

Sometimes I'm dragged down the hole, pulled in by my own White Rabbit, and I'm more likely to tumble, to not be able to get my bearings until I hit the bottom.  Hard.  But I will eventually find a way to upright myself and take a look around and try my best to make sense of it all, even if it ends up making sense only to me. 

The biggest fear, of course, is that it's not a rabbit hole at all, but just a hole, that there is no experiential advantage to be gained.  In that case, I pull myself up and out, and I keep moving forward along my own garden path until the Rabbit rushes past me again, leading me on to my next discovery. 

 

 

Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy

 

I'll never, ever be able to express how fantastically awesome Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy is.  I'd seen it years ago (the X-rated version) and recently got the R-rated (think "Skinemax"), which we finally got to watch last night.  It's so ridiculously, amazingly funny. 

• Humpty Dumpty can't get it up until Alice comes along to help.  There's a whole song-and-dance sequence about getting his "ding-a-ling up".  It includes sing-a-long bouncing dots. 
• The 9 7/8 on the Mad Hatter's hat ain't his hat size.
• This Red Queen might be the best one ever.  "Give me her head!" takes on a whole new meaning. 

It's definitely for adults.  It's not for the faint of heart or anyone who will be offended by the considerable sexual license taken with Lewis Carroll's original stories.  It was produced in 1976 by Bill Osco, who produced some of the first mainstream adult films, including Flesh Gordon.  The music was actually done by Peter Matz, who was nominated for an Oscar for 1976's Funny Lady.  Matz also won several Emmy awards, including music direction for The Carol Burnett Show.

It's a crazy, crazy little addition to the Alice universe.  Music, sex, and Alice: what's not to love??

Alice In Wonderland Themed Restaurant

Ever wished you take that hot date on trip to Wonderland? You know, the place with those crazies that Alice got sucked into? Well if you happen to be in Tokyo any time soon you can. That’s right; Alice of Magic World is an Alice In Wonderland-themed restaurant full things straight out of the Lewis Carroll classic.

Playing card dining tables, a magic forest and heart-shaped chandeliers make this place the trip you’re looking for, without the need for those troublesome hallucinogens! It’s the fourth in a series of restaurants focusing on the fantasy theme and it looks incredible. It may not be the classiest food spot around — Cheshire Cat tail pizza on the menu doesn’t help that — but it would surely make for a fun night-out.

via 929dave.radio.com

Go to Mara Davis's blog at 929dave.fm to see the rest of the photographs. This restaurant in Tokyo is amazing. It's almost worth a trip for me just to go see it.

I'll be back again before you know it.

If you've been down the rabbit hole with me before, you know I love Alice.  Quite often I will go back to the Lewis Carroll stories, because that is, of course, the origin of all things Alice.  But it's the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland (2010) that is my true Alice inspiration.  I know Carroll fans probably hate that, but I think it's a really spectacular film and an equally wonderful story.  Burton and screenwriter Linda Woolverton did a masterful job of combining the two Carroll works, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and finding the best parts to bring forward in an updated journey. 

One of my favorite relationships in this version is between Alice and the Hatter, played by Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp.  Alice is a burgeoning woman, and Hatter has been waiting for her to return to Underland for years.  He recognizes her as the right Alice upon first sight, almost instinctively, when no one else seems to believe it, including Alice herself. 

Adventure begins immediately for Alice and Hatter at the tea party.  Stayne the Knave of Hearts shows up looking for the Alice rumored to have returned to Underland.  Hatter does his best to protect her--hiding her shrunkenness in a teapot, making her a new dress, and transporting her in his beloved hat.  Early in their travels together, Hatter reveals to Alice the reason he hates the Red Queen so much, how she destroyed his village and murdered his entire family.  When he's captured and taken to the Red Queen's fortress, Alice is determined to rescue her friend. 

Alice infiltrates the castle, posing as the overgrown, large girl Um from Umbridge, and comes face-to-face with a maddened Hatter, bruised and beaten and shackled and without his own hat.  He begins to spiral into a bit of madness while talking to the Queen and is risking his own head.  Alice sees the difficulty and is able to snap him back to reality with the drop of a word.  (Okay, so it's a fake sneeze of "HATTER!")

Hatter is taken away to a work room, to begin creating hats for the Red Queen's enormous head, and Alice returns to the castle garden to find his beloved lost hat.  Whatever it took to save the Hatter, she'd have his hat waiting for him at the end.  She finds Hatter and returns the bedraggled top hat to its rightful head.  Again, he has a moment of madness and Alice snaps him back to reality before leaving to execute her plan of rescue:

            "We'll go to the White Queen together," she said, taking his other hand.  They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, and Alice found herself wishing she weren't quite so absurdly large.

            The Hatter grinned ruefully, evidently having the same thought.  "Why is it you're always too small or too tall?" he asked.

 Eventually Hatter escapes captivity and meets up with Alice again at the castle of the White Queen:

            Alice's eyes went straight to the Hatter.  His clothes were bright and happy, reflecting the delight on his face.  She ran up and threw her arms around him.  "I'm so happy to see you!" she cried.  "I thought they were going to--"

            "So did I!" he interrupted her enthusiastically.  "But they didn't."  His voice started to speed up again, and he clutched her hands as if he might never let go.  "And no, here I am...still in one piece...and I'm rather glad about that now that I'm seeing you again...I would have regretted not seeing you again...especially now that you're you and the proper size...and it's a good size...it's a great size...it's a right-proper Alice size..."

            "Hatter," Alice said kindly.  He snapped back into the moment. 

            "Size, Fez...I'm fine," he said, blinking strange eyes at her.  And it was true, he was fine, even though Alice had been afraid she'd never seen him again.  She felt too full of happiness to say what she really wanted to.

            "Where's your hat?" she asked.  She curiously touched his curly red hair.           

            [The Cheshire Cat returns the hat.]

            As the Hatter replaced it in its rightful place on his head, he glanced at Alice again, and they shared a smile that said more than any words could have.

Of course Alice goes on to slay the Jabberwocky--you know, the metaphor for her own insecurities and self-achievement.  The Red Queen is defeated and banished to the desert with Stayne.  Hatter is ecstatic and breaks into song and dance.  By this time, Alice remembers her original journeys to Underland/Wonderland, and recognizes that she has really been in this amazing place, not dreaming at all.  She is given a vial of Jabberwocky blood, what she would need to return home. 

             Alice lifted the vial, but stopped as the Hatter put his hand on hers.

            "You could stay," he said, his gaze warm and full of promise.

            "What an idea," Alice said softly.  "A crazy, mad, wonderful idea."  She looked around at all the strange and wonderful beings she'd met in this wonderfully strange place.  She imagined what it would be like to stay--to talk to animals every day, to ride the Bandersnatch and explore Underland, to dance the Futterwacken with the Hatter whenever she chose.

She explains that she has to return to her home, that she has things to do.  She promises to never forget Hatter and to return.  She drinks from the vial and is back in the meadow outside the garden party she originally fled.

 

That's all sweet and wonderful.  But then she approaches the garden party to decline everyone's offers of how her life should be.  Her adventures in Underland were gone from her memory, but the self-confidence remained.

WTF?!  Seriously?

The thing about this Alice and Hatter story is that they could love each other.  Personally, I think Hatter does love Alice, just a little bit, and that Alice knows she could probably love him, too, if her circumstances were different.   It's something that happens quickly because they interact in these intensely intimate situations.  It's something that happens because they just click and find an unexpected connection with each other. 

I get why Alice would choose to go back to her real life.  Living in Underland would make just about anyone a little nuts from time to time.  And, okay, she has her family and her aspirations to attend to.  It's the promise of returning, of remembering, that makes it okay that she leaves Hatter. 

And then the bitch forgets anyway?  Come on!

I know, at the end, she's sailing and Absolem appears to her.  She recognizes him, and she's this amazing, confident thing who's off to conquer the world with the full support of her family and business associates.  But what about Hatter?

We don't know if Alice goes back to Underland.  I'm sure there will likely be a sequel at some point, so maybe we'll know how this plays out.  Alice will be a little more wizened, and maybe Hatter will be a little less mad, now that he's had time to get his head on straight. 

But what if Alice did go back and forth, regularly, between her world and Underland?  What would that do to Hatter? 

It would have to be incredibly difficult to try to go about your dailiness and constantly have the tease of that potential love weaving its way in and out of the fabric of your life.  Maybe Hatter goes back to making beautiful, exquisite, ornamental hats--expressing himself through his art--and then suddenly Alice appears, in all of her muchness.  I imagine it would be a bit upending to have her constantly coming and going, a distraction no matter how enjoyable at the time.  Would he stop everything to give her his full attention?  Probably.  But then what, when she goes back to her real life?

You know what?  He'd probably go a little mad.  And she probably doesn't even realize it, because apparently she's forgetting everything about her time in Underland, except that it makes her feel strong and confident. 

I don't know that I like this, the more I think about it.  I want Alice to remember, to fully recognize the bittersweetness of the choice she made.  It's okay that she goes on to explore her world and herself, really, but I'd like to know that she's cognizant of the fact that her decision had this impact on Hatter.  That way, if she goes back to Underland and sees him again, she does so fully aware of how that will affect him and act accordingly.  She doesn't need to turn his word upside down before she leaves again.  They should be perfectly capable of sharing a cup of tea and a walk through the hedge maze without her having to snap him back to reality.  They should be able to Futterwacken wildly together and smile and be done when the music ends. 

So I hope that, with a little time apart, Alice will drop back into Underland and seek out her friend.  And I hope Hatter will have had some rest and spent some time finishing his hats.  I bet he'll have made a few just for Alice, and I hope she takes the time to try them on and enjoy them.  Because, after all, they were made out of love.

There are questions I have to answer. Things I have to do.

DH (Dear Hubby, for anyone who doesn't know) told me a few nights ago that my mother-in-law had really enjoyed my most-recent blog post, the Cycle of Life moment one. 

"Wow," I said.  "I hope she didn't read the one before it."  You know, the superhero power one. 

"I'm sure she did," he replied. 

Uh-oh.  But really more for her than for me.  By that same token, uh-oh for my mom, or even my dad, if they read something that might surprise them. 

In fact, I recently sent my mom a message to not read something I'd written.  I wasn't embarrassed by it or ashamed of it.  Most of the things I talked about, she already knew, though I certainly addressed them in very frank terms.  Mostly I was concerned that it would make her uncomfortable.  Same for my MIL, my dad, my brother, or anyone else who may be less forthcoming about personal issues than I am. 

This is the same problem I had (and a lot of my friends have had) when I got the dreaded Friend Request on Facebook from the parental units.  Egad!  Do I really want them to see all of that?

 

My parents aren't clueless about what a wild child I was.  I had a very colorful youth, mostly during a ten-year span from the ages of fourteen to twenty-four.  Generally, my friends and I were very careful to 1) not get caught, and 2) not get into trouble.  It didn't always work out that way, but we survived a lot of craziness with hardly a scratch.  The parents know some of what transpired, and perhaps more than I think they do, but I know damn well they would be mortified if they knew the whole truth--the kinds of things that would make my grandmothers die just so they could roll over in their graves. 

Recently my dad became privy to a few details, unexpectedly, when my friend Mo and I were having a grown-up sleepover.  Good friends, Jack Daniels, and a chat with your dad are probably not the best combination, even after you've grown as fully into adulthood as you'll ever get.  There was perhaps a little too much honesty, but it's nothing I was ashamed to have him know. 

I rail often about my unapologetic nature, about being truly and completely who I am regardless of what others think.  But I'm not so self-absorbed as to believe that everyone wants to know everything about me, either.  I don't walk up to strangers and discuss my checkered past any more than I drop an f-bomb in my mom's house.  (Okay, so both have been known to happen, but I try to keep it to a minimum.  Seriously.)

But what to do when you're writing publicly about your journey from Point A to Point Me? 

I thought long and hard about this when I started the blog, and even before that when I started the book.  There are a lot of things that would have to come to the forefront, would have to be openly discussed, if I were to really step out on this path.  The Truthiness of Me couldn't be full of half-truths and slant rhymes; it had to be exactingly veracious. 

And if the elder adults in my life read these confessions, would it change how they thought of me?  Ultimately I decided that it didn't matter.  My life is no more about pleasing others now than it was when I was fifteen and petulant and dressed defiantly all in black.  (Says the girl whose Emily the Strange t-shirt is in the dryer as she types.) 

So, Mom, Dad, Mom-in-Law, Brother--whomever you may be--be aware that you're likely to see a lot of things you don't know and might now want to know.  But these are things that make me Stephanie.  Good or bad, they're part of my history and my journey and my story. 

I also recognize that you may not want to know those details, and that's okay, too.  It doesn't hurt my feelings (and might even make me a little relieved) if you choose not to read my stuff sometimes.  You didn't always like my hair or my music (and sometimes you still don't), but they are my choices and I stand by them fully.  I'm no sweeter or easier now than I was when I was a little girl. 

All I'm asking is that you remember that I grew up.  I get to make these choices and decisions myself, and I accept the responsibility for those choices. 

Ultimately, I did accept the friend requests from family members, and I'm pretty sure at least a couple of them have hidden me from their Facebook News Feed.  That's okay.  (I've hidden a couple of them, too.)  Just because I may not like some things they say or do or think, that doesn't mean I love them any less.  They're adults who've been on their own journeys and have made their own choices.  We all get to turn a blind eye when we need to.

Sometimes it's just best to close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, and la-la-la-la-la! at the top of your lungs.

 

If it ain't Alice, it ain't dead.

In December I was really struggling with the first part of my fiction project.  I wasn't sure where I was going with the story.  I had plans and character sketches and outlines, but I was really second-guessing myself.  I didn't know if I was going to stay that course or move on to a less cumbersome path. 

When I was in the midst of my crisis of confidence, I compared it to Alice facing the Jabberwocky in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.  She isn't sure she'll be able to face her fears and do what needs to be done, to do what has been foretold in the Oraculum.  In the midst of convincing herself her tribulations are all a dream, Alice is informed by Bayard that the Mad Hatter has been imprisoned by the Red Queen.  She's determined to free her friend:

        "We're going to rescue him."

        The bloodhound shook his head.  "That is not foretold."

        "I don't care!" said Alice.  "He wouldn't be there if it weren't for me."

        Bayard stood up, his fur standing on end as he shivered anxiously.  "The Frabjous Day is almost upon us.  You must prepare to meet the Jabberwocky."

        "From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole, I've been told what I must do and who I must be.  I've been shrunk, stretched, scratched, and stuffed into a teapot.  I've been accused of being Alice and of not being Alice.  But this is my dream!  I'll decide where it goes from here."

        Bayard's claws dug into the ground.  "If you diverge from the path--"

        "I make the path!" Alice shouted.

Alice does her best to help her friend by infiltrating Salazen Grum, the castle of the Red Queen.  Unpredictability ensues, and eventually Alice takes refuge at Marmoreal, the castle of the White Queen.  She's overcome with self-doubt (as she's wont to do), and Absolem helps her remember who she is and what she needs to do.

I took a moment to quiet myself and my fears, thanks in part to the encouraging comments of friends and readers.  (And also to an ego-boosting phone chat with Absolem.)  In the stillness, I was able to listen to the characters and let them tell me where they wanted to go.  I stayed on the tangled, difficult path, but I threw the map away.  I knew there were landmarks to pass, certainly, and I managed to stay on track to those destinations.  I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I didn't have to let the journey be as complicated as I had originally envisioned.  I wasn't finding these characters; I was creating them.  Their whispers in my mind were really my own, reminding me that I knew how to do this.

I finished the first, rough draft last night.  127,381 words.  All mine, with the exception of a couple hundred that are quoted song lyrics.  (It'll all make sense when you read it.  I promise.)  Today I got the first printed and spiral-bounded mark-up copy to start editing.  I've read and reread most of it on my laptop screen several times now, but I need a hard copy to peruse and illuminate.  I was taught how to be an active reader, and I'm trying to be an active writer, as well. 

I still have a lot of work to do, both on this piece and on the rest of the project.  But I feel elated to have accomplished this milestone.  The Jabberwocky's head has definitely rolled to the side.  I think I'm going to keep the armor for a little while longer and keep slaying while I can.  I'd rather be polishing my Vorpal sword than drinking tea at a boring old garden party anyway.

 

I'm Alice...but not that one.

I had a conversation a few days ago with a great friend about my ass.  Specifically, about how I hate my ass, along with a lot of other parts of my body.  Too much of it, absolutely.  I know in my head that I have battled hormonal imbalance and metabolic issues for years, that Hashimoto's thyroiditis did a number on me for nearly six years before it was gotten under control, and that I spent the summer of 2010 steroided-up and barely moving because of two ruptured lumbar discs. 

Finally, by the first of October, I'd had enough of feeling like crap all the time.  I realized that refined, added sugar was causing all kinds of problems for me.  So I quit, cold turkey, just like when I quit smoking in 1999.  It was hard as hell for the first few days, but eventually the sugar worked its way out of my system.  I also started working out a lot.  Not obsessively, mind you, but at least five days a week.  For Christmas, I got a gym membership, and I started with a personal trainer two days a week.  I've lost thirty pounds and feel unbelievably better, at least physically, than I did three months ago.  I know I'm healthier and happier. 

But I still hate my ass. 

So, of course, I go looking to Alice for some explanation and inspiration.  I love all different versions of Alice, but I went back to the 2010 Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland, which I think is a remarkably beautiful adaptation and extension of the Lewis Carroll stories.  She's also the burgeoning adult Alice, and it creeps me out to think of a 7- or 9-year-old Alice in the same terms of body image consciousness, though I'm well aware that it's already an issue for some little girls of that age.

Burton's 19-year-old Alice is first seen in the carriage with her mother, on the way to Lady Ascot's garden party (where the unremarkable and boring Hamish will propose to her).  Her mother is fussing at her because she isn't wearing a corset or stockings, because her hair won't stay pinned back.  Helen Kingsleigh is appalled at what everyone else will think of Alice not being properly dressed.

 

                "Who's to say what is proper?" Alice said, with that maddening streak of impossible logic she'd inherited from her father.  "What if it was agreed that 'proper' was wearing a codfish on your head?  Would you wear it?"

                Helen closed her eyes.  "Alice."

                "To me a corset is like a codfish," Alice said.

At the garden party Lady Ascot immediately looks Alice up and down, noticing her fashion faux pas.  Alice notices that everyone who is immaculately dressed looks horribly bored and acts generally bored, as well.  Alice's sister, Margaret, reminds her that her pretty face won't last forever, that she needs a man to marry her to be fulfilled.  (Unbeknownst to Margaret, of course, her own husband is kissing another woman in the bushes.)  Alice panics at the thought of marrying Hamish, and she chases after the White Rabbit, right down the hole. 

As soon as she lands, her issues with growing and shrinking begin.  While she's trying to adjust her size to get through the door, she hears the Dormouse and the White Rabbit, watching her from the other side, discussing whether or not she looks like she's the right or wrong Alice.  She manages to shrink herself to the proper size for the door and steps into Underland, dragging her skirts behind her.  

The Dormouse, the White Rabbit, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and even the flowers with human faces argue over whether or not she's the right Alice.  The White Rabbit insists he spent weeks looking for her and that this is the right one, but no one is convinced, even Absolem, until she gets to the tea party:

                But the man, who was called the Mad Hatter, had another reaction entirely.  At the sight of Alice, he bolted upright.  His whole being seemed to brighten; even his clothes perked up.  Transfixed, he moved toward her, stepping directly up onto and over the table, as that was the shortest route to reach her.  Alice shiver a little as he came closer, staring at her intently.  There was something in his face that made her anxious for him.  She knew she couldn't possibly deserve the delighted look he was giving her. 

                "It's you," said the Mad Hatter.  He reached toward her golden hair, then pulled his hand back before touching her.

"No, it's not," the Dormouse snapped.  "McTwisp brought us the wrong Alice."

The Mad Hatter shook his head.  "It's absolutely Alice!  You're absolutely Alice!  I'd know you anywhere.  I'd know him anywhere."

 

When Stayne the Knave interrupts the party in search of the Alice who's rumored to be in Underland, the Mad Hatter quickly has her drink the tea to shrink herself.  He hides her in a teapot until Stayne leaves.  Before he releases her to a moment of safety, the Hatter makes a new dress, "a miniature ensemble for Alice out of the tea cozy, a doily, and a swatch of her old dress."  Alice finds herself more comfortable in the dress made by a mad man from a land of strange impossibilities, than in the dress her mother had chosen for her to wear to her own surprise engagement party.

She eventually makes her way to the palace of Iracebeth, the Red Queen, who has an enormous head, both literally and figuratively.  The Red Queen surrounds herself with courtiers who adorn themselves with falsely large ears and noses and stomachs so they will be admired and liked by the Queen.  They do their best to be like her, although they (like everyone else) plainly loathe her.  In her hurried attempt to grow to a normal size, Alice eats too much cake and is suddenly an enormous girl, naked before the court of the Red Queen--you know, the place where everyone is overly obsessed with how they look.  The Red Queen immediately adores Alice, alias Um, because of her largeness, and tells her, "You'll be my new favorite."

Alice goes through some adventures, a bit of this and a lot of that, before getting back to her normal size at the castle of the White Queen, Mirana.  Alice finally proves to herself and everyone else that she is the absolute right Alice when she dons the armor of the champion of the White Queen, to face her own doubts and slay the Jabberwocky.  In the end, Alice chooses to return to her regular world, rather than stay in Underland. 

                Alice found herself clinging to the edge of a rabbit hole.  She pulled herself up and out of the hole.  Grass was tangled in her long hair, and her clothes were wrinkled and torn.  She shook her head, trying to remember what had happened.  How odd.  Had she fallen asleep?

                She stood and brushed off her skirts.

She returns to the garden party a disheveled mess, looking "as if she'd been through a great battle."

                "You look a frightful mess," Lady Ascot sniffed.

Alice turned to Hamish.  Her adventures in Underland were gone from her memory, but the self-confidence remained.  And there was a lot she needed to say.

Alice goes on to tell everyone why she can't be who or what they demand that she be.  She realizes that to be the right Alice doesn't mean she fulfill anyone else's expectations; she simply has look at her true, inner self and be that person on the outside.

I had a blogging rant just a few days ago about how I'm all about this Verisimilitude of Self.  I really don't care if you like me or not, though of course it feels great to be liked.  Even though I am confident in my talents and abilities, admittedly with days when I question myself, I am often plagued by self doubt surrounding my body images issues.  How I see myself, my ass, will often change how I approach the world around me.  More often than not, I assume that it affects how other people see me. 

I try to remind myself of all the amazing things this body has done for me.  It has brought me through thirty-eight years, all the good and bad.  It has borne and nursed two amazing children and stayed strong enough to begin the process of raising those two amazing young men.  It has laughed and loved and loathed and gone from point A to point ME, and I should be thankful for that. 

Even when I'm told that I'm beautiful or fabulous or full of muchness, I can't help but doubt the veracity of those claims when I look in the mirror.  I see so many flaws, a mountain of imperfections, that it can be staggering.  If there is a niggling little fear that I have, it's that I'm not good enough because of my body.  It's been an issue since my teens, certainly, though no one knew that metabolic issues were combined with my general Amazonian build until my mid-20's.  By that point, I believed everything I'd heard from everyone else.  That I just wasn't good enough because I had a big ass.

Then, sometimes, I see the Mad Hatter looking at me, and I get a little anxious.  It seems impossible that he could be so delighted that I'm absolutely me.  There is always, always the lingering doubt in my own mind that I am the right Alice, that I really do need the corset and the stockings to make people accept me. 

It's times like this when I need Absolem to blow a little smoke in my face and remind me that I ought to know who I am.