It’s 4:30 a.m.  Couldn’t sleep, but thought it would be better to get up and get on with it than take a valium.  I feel so strange.  The situation has made me tense, but it has some of the “scared but excited” aspect to it that has always been a sign of good things to come.

June 22, 1994

Going in today.  Tense.  It could happen today.  Need to untense, let if flow.  Let it go.  Let what happens next, happen.

June 23, 1994

This is hard.  Woke up dreaming about finding a consulting niche.  Mary says “you’ll be tested.”  Great. 

Can I really trust the universe to provide?  Especially to provide in abundance?  Want to.  Don’t want to take a boring job at less than I was making, which doesn’t fulfill me, but does nonetheless eat up all my time. 

Just (this minute) started my period. 

The fear is sometimes palpable.  The one good moment yesterday was when I thought, “maybe I can get a song out of this.”

June 24, 1994

It happened.  No matter how much notice, there is no way to really be prepared.  It hurts.  Mary told me all these things to say.  I couldn’t say anything, because I knew I would start crying.  Which I did plenty of after I left.

Have to go in this morning and find out my options.  I’ll either be done today or I’ll stay for a transition period.  Last night, the latter sounded OK.  And I expected to wake up feeling pretty good.  I don’t!  I feel like shit.  I look like shit.  Right now, the humiliation of continuing seems horrible.  We’ll see.  My thoughts yesterday were that it was best to work things out, not to leave.  Well, we’ll see what they offer.

Songwriting seminar starting Sunday.  I am really looking forward to it.  Have a feeling it could be the thing that gets me into the realm of writing a great song. (I write a good song now.)

This is OK.  This is going to be great.  Yesterday after my daily papers I sat outside and breathed, read Deepak Chopra, swam, then went in and faced it.  They gave me six months and my bonus.  When I got home there was a check for my stock options.  Chopra’s formula seems to be working—just make your intentions clear to the universe and then follow up on the opportunities.  Could it really be that easy?

Said to the Human Resource guy, “Your job must be very painful.”  He said “It is and I don’t have anyone I can talk to about it.”  Then I told him I’m feeling pretty burnt out on the job and maybe it’s for the best overall.  And it is.

Then I celebrated my firing with shopping at Neiman Marcus and having a great lunch with Mary.   Said “I’ll pick up the tab because I got fired most recently.”  I’m really testing Deepak now!

These books are so wonderful (Artist’s Way and Chopra), I want to keep reading, but I think it’s time to start creating, living, acting.  I’ll read more in Catalina next weekend.

Mary thinks writing the daily papers does something physiological, that she doesn’t feel as good if she stops them.  I guess I felt that too.  Once you start feeling peace and love inside, it’s easier to spot the other.  Like when I fall into criticism.  We were discussing that if I hadn’t read all this and this firing happened, I would be a wreck and getting sick.

Altogether yesterday I felt like a class act.  Thanks Deepak & Julia & Louise & the Universe & the God-like energy I’m sharing with my trees & roses & earth & dogs & friends & family.  God-like?  God-given?  I don’t know.  Creative Force?  OK.

Andre Gide said something like, to go on a great journey, you must be willing to leave the shore for a long while.  Here goes!  Watch out for that little rock.  Whee!

June 26, 1994

I weighed myself this morning.  My God, I am 45 pounds overweight.  Once before I weighed nearly this much.  Said it would never happen again.   Oh well.  I remember, because I went out to lunch with Mary to explore the topic!

I felt so tired yesterday.  Needed a nap.  Rough week, all right.

Yesterday at the songwriting seminar, Nik Venet said two important things that tie together my songwriting with everything I’ve been reading.  One:  you’re an artist.  Treat yourself like an artist.  Produce great art.  Two:  don’t chase your career.  Write great songs and your career will chase you.  Well.  If the latter doesn’t sound like Deepak, what does?

That, and he said to use metaphors and tap into the truth.  He wants a sentence of truth to be the touchstone for each song.  What is it you really don’t want to reveal, not even to yourself?  Say that.  Dig deep.

Yesterday’s blazing insight.  The reason Mother made life such a misery for all of us is that she was a blocked artist.  Absolutely.

When it’s my turn to perform a song in this seminar, I feel I must try to accompany myself on the piano.  A new first. 

Wow.  Just listened to a phone message from Nik Venet.  I had sent him my poem/metaphor that flowed out of his seminar.  He said it was the biggest leap forward he’s ever seen from one of his seminars.  And the feedback he gave me was exactly what I had hoped for.

Life is getting so exciting I can hardly believe it.  Yesterday, Ed and I signed up for 3 months office space with the people we ran into at a multimedia seminar.

Face in the glass of my desk.  Looking down you see all the wrinkles, bags.  Ugh!  The page below stretches out like a desert.  Not doing well on losing weight.  In fact, I’m up two more.  Ugh.  More page to go.  Have to keep moving, otherwise I’ll just stare into space trying to think of what to say.  Katie & Shawn in the room with me.  Shawn sleeping.  Katie playing with tennis balls, her endless pastime. 

I’m afraid that my trust in the universe handling the details is misplaced and that I’ll be just left hanging out there.  I told Mary to have faith—guess I should too.  What if it isn’t true?  Well, then I’ll still have my severance money and I’ll just handle the details myself.  What I’m about to do makes sense either way, yes?  Thank God I’m done with this page!

Katie poohed on the rug, so that made this book my second order of business.  I don’t like the idea of anyone else reading this.  Wonder if I just toss it out after a while.  Is that Ed up?  Yes.  He just came in the room holding a bottle of glue and said, “As Elmer says, stick with me!”

So after I cleaned up the pooh in the living room and dining room, I cleaned up the new vomit on the patio of the food I had just fed Shawn.  Really.  Of course anyone reading this would be absolutely bored to tears except for a very occasional goody.  Very occasional.  Life is like that.  Wading through a lot of shit to get to a few good Fred Astaire numbers. But that daily stuff can also contain the peace and beauty.  I refer here not to dog pooh and vomit, of course.  I refer to a simple walk through my garden, looking out my window now and seeing my tree friend. 

I should get a pretty desk lamp.  I should get art on the walls, another rose on the desk, a nice pen.  Pretty rituals for start-of-day focus.  I like that idea.  This writing eases the nonsense.  How long can you write about dog vomit before you want to move on?

I’m focusing on the multimedia as the primary occupation.  But in my heart, I want to be a singer/songwriter.  Just had to suppress, push back, a negative thought:  but I’m too old and fat!  Am I ever getting over that?  As I write that question, the answer comes.  The way to get over it is simply to be a success anyway—go for it anyway and learn firsthand that it won’t matter.  The way you overcome any fear is simply by doing.  OK, Louise.

Or, as Ed says, if you want to make an omelet, you have to kill a few chickens.

Funny--digging deep hurts.  Literally.  I wrote a poem about Mother.  Not a nice poem.  A brutal poem.  And the way my heart feels now isn’t bruised and open like I did before, it’s shut up, icy.

 ●

MOTHER

How you must have hated that cage.

Whereas I only knew it as home.

No roaring here, just pouncing.

Cold, fast, hard.

Skin torn off with a few well-chosen words, well-placed.

Blood stains hidden in the wall-to-wall.

Cold, cold.

But look now how you come.

Hot, panting, stinking of animal,

Starving for the warmth you deny us,

Jealous of our youthful beauty.

You turn, red dripping mouth wide with fangs,

Invading us with quick, cunning eyes.

Hot, hot.  Breathing hot.

Throw in some meat.

Something that pleases.

Tiptoe, tiptoe.  Draw the blinds.

Don’t wake the wounded mother.

No wonder that when I left the cage I closed the door behind me.

I guess I must have loved you once.

I forget.

 ●

Last night, I dreamt I was back at work.  Walking through.  My final walk, if you will.  People were saying some things, avoiding saying things, but basically saying:  we like you, this hurts us.  I was close to crying, but being brave.

Then I turned to the president of the company and said, ‘So, you work your butt off and this is what you get?  It’s not right.  It’s just not right.” 

So that’s the truth, isn’t it?  Even though it’s a gift to be gone in so many ways, it wasn’t what I chose, wasn’t what I sought, it hurts and I feel betrayed.

Yesterday I spent nearly a whole day on a song—canceled my piano lessons to work on it.  Went from idea to metaphor to word-smithed poem to song, and ended up with crap.

Then this morning, 4:30 a.m.  after I awoke from my dream, I’m thinking, OK, let’s write about my firing, but as a love song.  Let’s search for a metaphor to express the story line as if it were a divorce.  Wrong.  Talk about hiding behind a metaphor!

The truth is that I was fired.  And I’m scared.  Never been here before.  Maybe divorce feels like this.  Don’t know.  But I know what being fired feels like and that’s the well of pain that needs writing about.  That’s what’s in these papers.  The first page, a little over a month ago, was the morning after Mary shocked me with the rumor.  So maybe I was well-prepared, but Jesus, it hurt.

Maybe the chorus is “It Just Isn’t Right.”  You know how hard I’ve worked.  I cared.  I set everything else aside.  I gave everything I had and more.  It just isn’t right.  Maybe my dream has given me the sentence of truth.

Also there is this loss of power.  The terrible feeling that there’s nothing you can do about it.  And there isn’t.  I thought it was bad once before when I didn’t get a promotion. 

And then there’s the loss of a whole set of friends, a lifestyle.  The shock of time on your hands.  The hard part is that there is so much to do and yet no one to tell you to do it, no one to reward you if it’s good, no feedback.  You get so used to that.

Cashed my final check yesterday.

Worked hard and long on a new song yesterday.  It still isn’t quite right.  I was telling Ed I didn’t understand why I’m so tired when I’m just relaxing.  He pointed out that rising at 5 a.m. and working hard on a lyric until noon is not just relaxing, it’s working for seven hours!  Oh yeah.  That.

The lyric needs to be perfect,  in that place where it all flows, no jarring hits.

I do wish that the dogs hadn’t poohed in the living room again.  Now there’s a thought that flows.

I had a fairly dark day yesterday.  Mary had mentioned that -–five bright ones, two dark.

Time to face the body weight. Should try that meditation book.  How about livable guidelines:  exercise at least 15 minutes, try for more; maximum 3 glasses of wine; no sugar, low fat; no snacking but carrots.  Maybe some fruit?  Simple, understandable.  Let’s do it.  Yes.  Is that a decision I hear?

But how will that work today?  With company coming over?

August 1, 1994

Performed “Wounded Mother” at the class yesterday.  I felt a little funny because I played the piano ultra-simply.  Hey, let’s stop here for congratulations.  Yesterday was the first day I played the piano in front of anyone.  And I did it!  And without too much anguish and only one mistake.  And it wasn’t bad.  Didn’t really enhance the song, but didn’t really detract either.  Although the music side does definitely need more development.

My song was well-accepted.  Some of the class comments should definitely be discarded, but there are 2-3 lines which probably should be rewritten—I had wondered about them myself.

Little Brian called—can I come swim, Grandma?  What a cutey.  So when I left for the seminar, Ed was doing flips off the diving board and everyone was laughing and having fun.  Felt good to see.  Ed is really healing.

August 3, 1994

Wrote a poem I may use as the basis for my song on the corporate world.

 ●

The Silence is Killing Me

Pin-stripes instead of black leather

Lashing tongues in place of whips

You sit at vast mahogany tables

In civilized Park Avenue penthouses

And decide the fate of millions

To get you more millions

And we the little people wait to see which direction you will point

Who will live and who will die

Will it help to lick your boots?

But I am not little

I am not nothing

I have a brain, a heart

A voice to cry out, to be heard

I can no longer sit silent

In fact

The silence is killing me

With shaved head and thin pajamas

I march barefoot to my training session

To learn how better to serve you

How to dip and defer and salute to mammon

How to dress and walk and talk

In blind, mind-numbing conformity

How to mine the human resources for their gold teeth

And I have only the power not to disgrace myself through my actions

And this is a lot

Of course, this isn’t really happening

I exaggerate

This is not a camp

And that smoke is from a factory, not an oven

And you wouldn’t really shut down a whole town just to raise stock prices

You wouldn’t take away health insurance just to make a little more profit

You wouldn’t fire someone after years of work just before retirement

I know 

I saw a show on TV that said you’re good,

great even

“Tough but fair”

What would happen if we ripped off your mask?

What would happen if we showed the monster underneath?

Nothing 

In fact, it happens all the time 

You’re so rich and powerful it can’t touch you

Not unless everyone decided that truth and beauty matter more than wealth

So really, I speak up only for myself

To fight my fear

To respect myself in the morning

To see truth and strength in the mirror

And because the silence is killing me

 ●

August 8, 1994

A really nice thing happened at the songwriting seminar.  There’s a woman I really like, Porter.  Porter sat next to me and was really friendly the first day.  In the work she’s performed for the class, I really like the music—and what a voice!  Last week, Porter talked to me about my music—that she really liked—loved—the “Wounded Mother” song, but she gave me some very good suggestions on the music.  Yesterday I said I thought she and I could have fun working together.  After some hesitation she said, “Last week I took your lyric home to show my husband, then I wrote music to it.”

So she’s going to call me to set up a time to come out here and play the music.  Nik had talked about how great it was that artists inspire each other to make their work better and better.  True.  I’m very excited to hear Porter’s music to my lyric.  I hope it’s great.  But this does not relieve me of continued study to become the best musician I can!

I think I’ll pursue an insane asylum image for corporate life, as opposed to the holocaust image.

August 9,1994

Porter’s music to “Wounded Mother” was wonderful, perfect.  The lyrics of that song are at a level which surpasses my musical ability at this point—especially when I heard what she did.  It is perfect.  It gave me chills.  Plus she sang it wonderfully.  It was thrilling.

And the lyric is done.

 ●

Don’t Wake The Wounded Mother

Lyrics by Carrie Hart, Music by Porter Hansen

      Caged mothers will eat their children

      Mother, mother may I be somewhere else

      And close the door behind.

Verse 3:

      Love-starved mothers will eat their sons

      Cloak their passion in a loving kiss

      Girlish blushes and low-cut dresses

      “Do you think that I’m too old for this?”

      A red silk nightie for Mother’s day      

      At last a guy who won’t get away

            Tiptoe, tiptoe.  Draw the blinds.

            Don’t wake the wounded mother.

 ●

August 10, 1994

Yesterday went to a computer consulting interview.  It felt so free and wonderful to be on my own, saying what I felt was right with no mental second-guessing.  I felt relaxed and confident—it went well.  Told them I would get them a proposal this week.

Felt so good about all this, I went to Neiman Marcus and bought a suit.  Better get to work to pay for it!

I don’t understand this, but my inclination is to give Porter the serious songs which are coming out of me to perform, and for me as a performer to see what I can do on the blues circuit.  Does this sound good?

The day before yesterday I said to myself, we ought to move the BBQ further away from the window.  But did nothing.  Yesterday the window broke.  So what else am I telling myself and ignoring?  Need to listen to the thoughts that just float in—not the thoughts that come with a rush of fear.  The floaters.  Try to make fertile ground for them, be receptive, then pay attention, then act.

A friend once told me she was on her way to the London airport, booked on the flight which exploded over Scotland.  She changed her mind on the way, just a casual thought, gee, why don’t I stay a little longer and see more of London.  Didn’t go.   

It would be interesting—and impossible—to know if the other passengers had flickers of misgiving they ignored.

We put a stone bench in the lower garden.  Sat there for a few minutes this morning—it’s right in front of my friend, the tree—and the roses.  Lovely.  My spiritual center in this beautiful, spiritual space.

Katherine and Mark and the kids came to help move the bench.  Brian brought a little friend and all the kids and dogs were noisy and hectic and fun.  Sweethearts.  As she was leaving, I told Katherine that having them here is like one big adrenaline rush. 

Ed is a sweet man.  And I love to see him playing with Brian in the pool  He jumped off the board holding Brian-—but my favorite is his forward flip.  I’m always begging, “Do a flip, Ed, do a flip!”

OK.  Dropped five pounds.  There we go.  Sure would like to keep this trend going.

I’ve written a very pretty (Porter says beautiful) love song, “Being with You.”   I was toying with other love song ideas, and may return to these.  But I have a yen to tackle something deep again.  Root around, open wounds, watch it flow—ugh!  Why?  Writing about love is so sweet!  Actually, it hurts a little too.

 ●

Being With You

Lyrics by Carrie Hart, Music by Porter Hansen

Verse 1:

Verse 2:

Verse 3:

 ●

Anyway, so I said to myself, what’s a truth I don’t want to face?  And last night I came up with one—I’m afraid to let myself believe in a God who will take care of things.  I’m afraid to rely on anyone else to take care of things.  I know I can always count on me.  I’m smart and able—and I care.

I read somewhere that our view of God was an image of our family.  So I told Ed that my God, if he’s there at all, doesn’t care.  And Ed said, “My God cares, but he’s just too busy.”

September 5, 1994

I have this little niggling jealousy of Porter getting to be the singer—but I know she’s the right one for the material.  Nothing in the world to stop me from using my new skills to write really good bluesy stuff too, is there?  Julia Cameron said jealousy is a sign for us to follow through on our own dreams.  True, true.  Let us not settle.

My system is so screwed up.  Yesterday morning I was burning up—and absolutely gripped with fear.  Tried to talk to Ed—eventually did, but only after arguing.  And I was saying, I don’t want advice, I know what to do and I’ll do it—I want sympathy!

Anyway, I finally said, I think it’s hormonal, it’ll pass.  Later in the afternoon I got the chills, then cooled down and felt normal.  But I was so tired I took a nap.  Ed was very nice to me, kept giving me hugs—and held me nicely all night too (until early morning when I started heating up again).  I think I’m OK right now—the air feels a little chilly on my skin and I feel as if I could actually do things.

The world sure looked dim yesterday.  God, that was hard.  So I sort of lost a day, except I seem to have gotten a good song out of it.  Out of the day, that is.  “Pray for a Graceful Twilight.”  It’s about time & youth & age, but it’s nice.  I like it a lot.  I’ll ship it off to Porter this morning and see what she has to say.

Last day of 1994.  Quite a year.  I got fired, Ed got another health problem, couldn’t work and became uninsurable, I turned on to Julia Cameron & Louise Hay & Deepak Chopra & spiritual explorations in general.  Porter and I met & became collaborators and I wrote the best lyrics of my life.  I forgave my mother, I learned about multimedia and started to stretch my newfound writing that direction, developed computer game concepts, teamed up with Mary to sell them.  Ah yes, in the first half of the year, when my life was still dedicated to my job, I successfully completed a major computer conversion effort.

Well, that’s all quite something.  And son John got left at the altar and moved back in.  And we got Katie – mustn’t forget our strange, wonderful pound dog.

So, 1995.  What would I like to be saying about 1995?  That I lost thirty pounds (fifty would be wonderful, but…) and kept it off, that Ed’s health improved and everybody got jobs or whatever they want.  That John gets a job and a new girl.  That my songs sold and were a great success and we were launched that way.  That the games sold and eased the financial pressures and we were launched there too.  That my 50^th birthday bash was a great success and I was doing more singing again.

Well, let’s see what the universe sends me and I’ll respond, I guess.  So ’95 will be good.  Exciting.  Unknown.  A year of true uncertainty lying ahead, with adventures to be had.  And a tree to help.  And loving friends and family.  Maybe I’ll have the ladies for a weekend this summer. ’94 was OK.  Go ’95!