wait for it

May 20, 2010 I am waiting. Not patiently, though there's not a choice, really, when nothing happens. No signs of life, no email, no recognition that I have made a contribution in the world and it is missed. Did I anticipate the end? I always felt like the other shoe would drop some day. But at the same time, I was damn good at this job, it thrilled me, it gave my life meaning. I made a difference. A touch of drama there, but I was hurt. Ten days before, I had run away from my job as night supervisor of a women's homeless shelter. Run, not walked; the end had come not as I had always suspected it would, some broken glass held to my face, maybe, or an attack around midnight. Instead, a final confrontation with a new supervisor, an anomaly among the stellar staff, made me see that I was not safe there. I was questioned and threatened by the woman who should have had my back. I would not return to my shift. This journal, which I began with the job, ended with this entry, where t...

Friday, November 21 5:30pm Scheers and friends at Stella’s Lounge in downtown Grand Rapids, choosing menu items involving bacon. Bacon fat popcorn, jumbo bacon-stuffed tater tots, bourbon bacon doughnut holes, burger (bacon inside). 8:30pm Scheer family on living room floor. One opens mouth, decides talking is too much effort. Saturday, November 22 Amy remains sole victim of bacon hangover. Decides, for maybe first time ever, to do cardio. Boxing, jumping, pushups and mountain climbers. Understands whole “seratonin thing” now. Monday, November 24 Mr. Barbell, thinking Amy broke up with him, lays on the guilt trip. Leave me alone , says Amy, who is a little sick still and knows to keep things light. Stalling, I mean talking, she spends an entire half hour getting from the front door of the Y to the cardio room, a place she takes clients but where, if she exerts herself, people come running to ask what’s wrong. Tuesday, November 25 So much time has passed si...

Me, fuming, barefoot--the setup was the same. Second time, I'm in a dress. Or rather a short, flowing brown skirt, avocado blouse strung through with muscled, veined arms swinging. I beat my chest. I actually beat my chest, but with just the one fist. The left one, nearest my heart and making my point. Is this what they'll remember? In a year filled with funerals of loved ones, I get to wondering what my kids would say about me if given the opportunity to summarize. Would the above stories of my confronting neighborhood sins be told, and would they appear in or out of context? As in, "My mom was crazy enough to stop a drug deal barefoot, and ended up holding hands with the perpetrator and crying?" Or, simply, "My mom was crazy"? Kids, let me help you out here. (Greg, I'm trusting you to report on your package deal with accuracy.) Children. I have encouraged your creativity, no? And not in the ways the parenting books suggest. Yes, I keep the ...

"This has got to go," I said, trading Katy Perry for Metallica at the stereo before loading on some plates. The music might be as important as the weight for this man, whom I had only spent an hour with prior, and way last week, so who knew? Motivation is not the same for everyone. But he had mentioned offhand his wish to bench 300 by a milestone birthday, which would occur on Sunday. This was Friday. I was planning to make it happen. And I did. And I'm proud. But I'm a little embarrassed at how much so. Some people I bragged to were impressed to the point of disbelief. 55 pounds? Yes, he hadn't ever lifted more than 245. He'd done it five times, but that doesn't necessarily equate to a higher 1RM. It'd be me who'd train those additional motor units to fire. Me who'd know which music to play and what to say. And I did it. And some people don't care. I noticed this morning that the pastor, like most, worked backward from his text, ma...

"I don't know if I'm up for this, Bobby. My triceps are fried." "Good thing we're not using our arms, then, Amy: it's deadlift day." Flip the speakers, and the exchange could have taken place between me and one of my personal training clients. With them, I'm kind but firm, finding their limits and pushing, pressing or pulling our way past them. Instead, Bobby was pushing mine, zeroing in with his trainer's eye on the gap between my work capacity and insecurities. It would go like this: he'd ask me to do something; I'd say no; he'd say yes you will too; I'd point to an old injury; he'd get in spotting position; I'd make a face; he'd say go; I'd do it. Seven sessions together, and this scenario played out each and every time. A nice, inspiring end to this story would include success in these moves, but I'm here to say that some of my initial attempts--cartwheels, somersaults--were kind of ugly. And that...

Some of you have said that my June Project , now complete, inspired other creative ideas on how to teach the discipline of showing up. That's the point. Of this blog. (To get you thinking.) But it's really wonderful when I actually hear about these things rather that y'all just stalking around. And it was really great to watch this idea succeed right here at my house. Spoiler alert: both kids are still keeping up with their projects, though it's now July and no schedule is enforced. Simon is reading and blogging away, and you really should stop over there, comment, and make his day . Theo continues to write, though, true to his nature, a hundred new ideas have sidestepped him. That's okay; the drawings he's producing are worth the segue. I put my reading on somatic psychotherapy to the side for a time, though I did manage to strike up an email conversation with the author of the book I studied. Later, I found out that this is a pretty big deal, as she's ...

Extended bolus, square waves, IOB... today's pump class was a vocabulary lesson, somewhat of a review and yet revelatory, too, as we've been with pump for just over a month. Life with the t:slim is comfortable enough for Theo to program in a meal with one hand--the other holding down the page of a book he's caught up in--and yet breathtakingly stunning on a regular basis, like the saturated red of a sunset on Lake Michigan. The decimal points astound me daily; the pump, unlike injections, can deliver .0X units of insulin. Previously, meals needed to be rounded up with a goldfish cracker, say, or half an ounce of milk, to meet the insulin pen's half to whole unit requirements, along with scores of mathematical equations. Now, no longer: whatever Theo will eat, the pump will count up, divide and deliver. At any time. And whatever amount he needs to bring down a high, the pump will give, when we ask it to. Like this morning, when I was determined to sleep in: I armed Simon...

Identifying traumatic triggers is one of the great challenges of trauma therapy. Stimuli from the environment can inadvertently set off a traumatic reaction in a client. Often the client is left with the reaction but has no idea what caused it. Tracing the reaction back to the source, the trigger, can be an important task. To that end, body awareness can be a useful assistant. ---from The Body Remembers , by Babette Rothschild. In a chapter titled "The Body As Resource," Rothschild tells of a client with chronic hip pain, which had come on a year after her husband's death. Their time together in therapy typically focused on the woman's grief, but one day, in attempt to address the pain, Rothschild employed techniques to develop body awareness. As the woman focussed on her hip pain, her heart rate soared, and she became fearful and anxious. Rothschild asked her to sit with her emotions for a bit, notice them, and as she did so her right foot pressed solidly into...

Now I have a name for what I did when a knife was held to my face, and when a man thrashed at my rental car and no one else was around: dissociation . "It is possible that dissociation is the mind's attempt to flee when flight is not possible," writes Babette Rothschild in The Body Remembers , which, you'll remember, is a book I'm studying throughout the month of June. Fight, flight, or freeze are t he autonomic nervous system's responses to perceived threat. Whereas those bunnies I mentioned in an earlier post run when the dogs walk by, the mind, during dissociation, finds its own method of getting away. The process of dissociation involves a partial or total separation of aspects of the traumatic experience... One person might become anesthetized and feel no pain. Another might cut off feeling emotions. Someone else might lose consciousness or feel as if he had become disembodied.  (page 65 in The Body Remembers ) Taken to an extreme, this separation ...

And today, the somatic nervous system (SomNS) in brief, again with a focus on psychotherapist Babette Rothschild's writing in order to understand the connections between trauma and exercise. Think of this as the notes I take for myself--an amateur study of one woman's life's work. There's so much more to these concepts than I can flesh out here, but I want to try to grasp the scope of the theories before diving into the part I'm interested in most. (See "june project" label for previous entries.) "The autonomic nervous system... directs blood flow away from viscera and skin to the muscles for the duration of fight, flight, and freezing responses. The somatic nervous system directs the musculature to carry out that response." page 53 of The Body Remembers . Rothschild points out that the SomNS operates via neural impulses, making any contraction of muscle an active state. "Relaxation, usually thought of as an active process, 'Hey, jus...

It is fitting, perhaps, that today's foray into the workings of the nervous system was interrupted repeatedly with jolts out of the chair. "Bunny!" "Chipmunk!" "Two chipmunks!" Our yard is a veritable zoo, which never ceases to overwhelm us with its cute factor. Even the slimy frog that visits my kitchen window is soooooooo CUTE. But anyway: these times are lessons on how to stay motivated on day 5 of a monthlong project, even when you're not really feeling it. My study of muscle tension as therapy in Babette Rothschild' s work needs to begin with nervous system response, even though I keep flipping to the really fascinating stuff in the book that finally arrived from the UK. Okay, can't resist. Here's one to tie you over (from page 5 of The Body Remembers ): A woman whose 3-year-old daughter had died four years prior was recalling, in a therapy session, a medical visit that had been particularly challenging. The details eluded he...

A recent article in a local paper instructs us parents to "stop the brain drain!" and "keep kids' brains engaged until school starts again." To that end, the writer suggests such non-parallel tips as "Read" and "Educational apps." First one: done, done, and done some more. My kids read, and I've grown weary of explaining why this is not a good thing Any benefit to their brains is outweighed by the decrease in lifespan caused by sitting all day, if I'd let them. Another good tendency gone bad in same kids is the abandonment of a fine idea after a short burst of effort. Maybe most kids are like this, but I can only speak to the brilliance of mine, who, if they'd follow through, would be president by now, or at least a relatively unknown yet respected indie filmmaker. Knowing my children, then, and wanting to "stop the brain drain!", I suggested we undertake together what would become known as The June Project. We...

Two memories: one, twenty minutes into meditation at a Buddhist temple, thinking, "Jesus, my legs hurt," and two, seeing stars during a session of Christian contemplative prayer. Pulsing, color-changing stars, so fascinating that I knew I was about to either go unconscious or fall over; I opened my eyes and there was the teacher, sitting up but fast asleep. Meditation, prayer, relaxation--each person holds their own interpretation, but typically, these would involve quiet and calm. If I say I'm stressed, you say take a day off and sit by the lake. If I'm stressed and want to exercise, you say yoga. Indeed, these activities contain qualities that would soothe the maddest of souls; I've always thought that the primary reason people come out of a yoga session feeling wonderful is not due to the downward dog, but to the deep breathing. Who takes the time to breathe fully during a busy day? But as my memories indicate, I've never been good at traditional calmin...

In Everything Cat: What Kids Really Want To Know About Cats , Marty Crisp writes that "a cat facing illness or death is aware only that he is being threatened. He cannot find the source of the threat, but the instinctual response is to hide." This is the beginning of a response to the question "Why did our old cat disappear forever?" Crisp adds, "Unfortunately, you can't hide from death." I considered mentioning this children's book in an intellectual setting last week. At the Festival of Faith and Writing, I moderated a session on the task of writing on trauma and loss, and this cat fact seemed relevant. In what ways do we hide from death? How is loss felt as a threat? But memoirist Shannon Huffman Polson and National Book Award nominee Andrew Krivak were articulate panelists, and we had plenty to talk about without the mention of cats. Krivak's book The Sojourn had been described by The Washington Post as "packed with violence an...

We met at a Mexican restaurant, her choice but she'd never been there. "I heard it's good," she said, adjusting her pink hat and rosary necklace. The necklace was the only thing not pink about her, and I'd never seen her like this, with earrings and bright clothes. The last time we were together there was snow, and she wore five pairs of socks. Boots, knit cap, sweatshirt, all dark, drab colors, and just a hint of a smile. Today, Patty was smiling big. Patty used to be homeless. She stayed at the homeless shelter where I worked, though not when I was there, and we namedrop like old friends. I never knew her boyfriend, who died on the streets, but I can picture her, I must admit, as one of  them. And now she's in a category that doesn't have enough members. She's off the streets. She has an apartment. She's thriving as best as someone with limited resources can. And what she told me over her burrito and my tacos is that she's never going...

A heavily-muscled man in my department told me his birthday is this Friday, and that he asked for "something heavy." For my birthday, I had asked for Muscle and Fitness magazine, which tells you how to lift something heavy, and apparently I added "not the women's version." Now, each month, I receive a magazine so teeming with testosterone, it's all I can do not to throw it down and beat my chest. But today, I was again reminded that not everyone feels as I do, especially not women. The usual scenario presented itself at the gym: I'm loading 160 onto a 45-pound bar, and a pair of chattering women are doing chest presses, curls and tricep extensions with five-pound dumbbells. They will leave this room and head to childcare, where they will lift their 30-pound children with one arm, balancing an overstuffed totebag in the other. Never does it cross their mind that they need to pick up more than they're used to carrying in order to get that body they...

While my grandfather laid still in the funeral parlor, some years back, what bothered me most was not that a man I knew all my life was dead, but that the loudest man in the room was quiet. Arguably there is a part missing inside me, one that triggers deep attachment, but this is how I've always been: the dramatic is missed more than the familiar, initially, the known taking its time to lodge inside and register its loss. Today I learned of the death of an intense man I knew just well enough to miss. He's been gone a couple months now, which doesn't seem possible. I had just been reading about a woman whose sister was given three months to live, and who died three months later, nearly to the day. I took on the age old question: what would I do if I knew how much time was left? We pose such hypotheses thinking we'll start doing the thing now, just in case. But I wouldn't; not without that license. And so life churns on, indefinitely until it does not. I looked ...

"I found myself inhaling the pages of this book, surprised by the suspense and humanness of it all. Redemption hovers everywhere, not a sentimental redemption but a raw and real redemption. This book is well worth reading.”   Jerry Sittser, Professor of Theology, Whitworth University and author of A Grace Disguised and A Grace Revealed Information on how to purchase FRAMES: a picture of death, drugs and forgiveness coming soon, right here. Email me at amy AT gregscheer DOT com to get on the mailing list.

I wasn’t ready for this book when it first came to me. I had sat for hours and hours listening to a man talk about his wife's death and the only thought I had was if I wrote this book, it would be cheese. And I couldn't do cheese. Kevin had been assigned to me. I'd been writing for his college's alumni magazine for years but was feeling swamped with other work, so I respectfully passed on this young widow's story. But the boss would not accept that answer, and offered me a raise I couldn't refuse. I called Kevin, we talked for an hour, I wrote an article. At the end of the process he offered up this: a feeling he'd had to do something more with his story, and would I be interested? We agreed to meet over a weekend and record the unabridged tale. Mornings and afternoons, we'd sit and talk, recording his story in two, three hour intervals. I knew that Marilyn had died when a car crashed into hers at a toll station, but Kevin hadn't yet walked ...

This morning, I dropped in at a new gym I've been enjoying only to discover it was One Thousand Reps Day: any exercise(s) you want, ten reps at the top of each minute. For 100 minutes. And so I completed 500 deadlifts and about 450 Bulgarian bag halos (when the halos became taxing, I threw in some overhead presses). The math works out to more than 60,000 pounds, and yet I came out of this thinking not so much about my strength, but my endurance. The mental kind even more than the muscle. I've never had much of either, and though I never hit the wall today, I had to fight the demons of comfort, persistent as my children, asking me to please, please, promptly halt the suffering. At 200 reps, the challenge seemed an impossibility. At 500 there was celebrating but a long road ahead. 700, more folks left. The music was turned down, the fans off, only the door open to the snow outside cooling down the room. We lifted to the bell and to the sound of our own bodies. Lose Yourself c...

Every once in a while, I finish a personal training session and think, Yes. I've learned a lot. And when I try to pin that wisdom down, I sound just like a self-help book. But it's all true. Those simple tips you read in magazine sidebars or thin pop psychology books? Try them. They work. I didn't set out to become a guru, but by naturally responding to the job I'm in, these traits are coming along. I used to think I had some of this down, but now I see how young I was; now, at 43, I'm settling in with some of the qualities I needed back in my other jobs, and maybe had a smidgeon of, but now I'm in deep. Sometimes just treading in that water, but often floating with calm. I love it. Let me try to tell you what others have been saying for years. Set boundaries. I fired my very first client. Before I could even begin this trade, I had a client--actually, the mother of--who tested every boundary I didn't yet have. In the interest of professionalism, I w...