The Spiritual Douche

Okay, so before I begin the heart of this post, let me just put a little disclaimer here about the word "douche."  Because if you know me in person, you know that I'm sort of fond of swearing, and that the pejorative "douchebag" is in heavy lexical rotation (along with the douchebag's primary mode of transport, the "douche canoe," which is usually an oversized, over-equipped, heavily-stickered vehicle).

I know N. wants me to replace "douchebag" with "dick sock" and M. wants me to not say it at all, I think because it reinforces the sense that women's bodies and fluids and processes are icky/gross/disgusting and that's not great for feminism.

I'm a big fat feminist, so I get it.  I'm thinking about not saying it anymore, even though I feel ambivalent because sometimes that word is just the right thing to say about certain people.  And sometimes I don't like word policing, though sometimes I do.

But this post is about reclaiming the word "douche" as something positive, in all of its wet feminine stickiness, so hang in with me for un momentito.

I don't know if it's that my girlfriends and I are finally mostly in our forties, and it's introspection time, or maybe this is one of those seasons in one's life where you look around and wonder, what the hell, or maybe you feel a little bored or in a slump and the color has gone out of things.  Whatever it is, I've been talking with a bunch of women lately who are feeling maybe like they've lost a sense of who they are.  They'll tell me that things are kind of good.  But they also feel a little like a slog.  Sometimes things feel a little blah, even when on paper it seems everything is okay.

The culture seems to call these moments "mid-life crises," which for me conjures up images of balding dudes in porsches with young blonde dental assistant second wives.  Maybe the stereotypical version for women is dating a younger man, a la Stella Got Her Groove Back.  In actuality, probably the intense and massive consumption of wine on the part of middle-class women is a response, too.  I think a lot of us are numbing out.

But maybe there is a different way.

Maybe that way could be called the Spiritual Douche.

The Spiritual Douche, in my world, looks like intentionally making choices or adopting practices that put you back in charge of your life.  I think we spend a lot of our 30s getting things on auto-pilot, as we're raising kids and getting our careers going, and we're just trying to survive.  And then in our 40s the auto-pilot gets a little...dull. We forget that we have choices.  We forget that we can, as Anna Kunnecke puts it, "declare dominion" over our day to day existence.

Holy shit, have I been there.

But here's the thing.  We can decide, through steps big and small, to get renewed, baptized, cleansed, "douched," remade, rejuvenated, in ways that bring the color back into our lives.  There are lots of ways to change how we think about responsibilities and obligations and duties.  There are lots of ways to, whoosh, start over.

For me, the Spiritual Douche takes a couple of different forms.

• It has meant renegotiating my relationships to the objects in my world, largely with the help of this amazing free program.  I can't overestimate how awesome this has been for me.  It has helped me in so many areas, from how I live in my home, to how I dress, to how I spend money, to how I spend my time.  Next time it rolls around, sign up.  You won't regret it.

• You could also read this little book and try some of the stuff in there, or this big, beautiful book, which is about style but also so much more, and has provided me with tons of clarity.

• It means making sure I spend time with the people I love in intentional ways and in beautiful, natural settings.  It means finding a way to move your body outside with people or animals you love.  I have a few groups of friends who I have to fly or drive long distances to see.  Money is tight, but we all make the effort to get together.  We hike or swim or bike together.  We drink.  We work.  We talk.  We laugh.  The effort is always, always worth it.  I come home to my family in much better shape, always.  Find your tribe, and then do what you need to do to be with them. Whatever rules you have in place that say you can't leave home or work, look hard at those rules.  You're probably the only one who is really enforcing them.  As Jenny Holzer says, "You are a victim of the rules you live by."  That's a quote from this book, which you could also read, if you wanted to change your shit up.

• Natural settings, by the way, are key.  Because nature itself is the master douche-meister.  She will clear you out, in all the best ways.  Get out and hug a tree (for reals).  Lay on the ground and "look at the cwouds," as my 2-year-old niece would say.  Go barefoot.  Get into a park, go to the beach, grow some basil in your windowsill.  I cannot tell you what a difference this makes in terms of getting clear.  It only takes five minutes, and you can do it in any outdoor setting available to you.  

• It means making different decisions about how I spend my time.  I work really hard.  I sometimes work long hours.  I have projects I feel passionate about and some degree of clarity and success in my work life.  I have kids, and a husband, and I try to move my body every day.  But I also have erred sorely on the side of workaholism and anxiety and stress.  I have had times where my to do list has ruled my life.  I have had times where things have been profoundly out of whack, and I have made myself sick.  But guess what?   There are other ways of doing things.  And they don't have to be big!  I used to worry that I should be like those people in the women's magazines who left their day jobs and started a custom tampon delivery company and are now millionaires.  I just don't have the appetite for doing that.  But there are daily micro-practices I can easily implement that profoundly improve my life.  Try The Break Changer, if you want another amazing, fun, free program.  If it works for you, you can try the month-long one.  My money is on you being amazed at how making small changes can make a big difference.

• It means meditating.  Which I know, you're like, whatever.  Yadda yadda.  But Christ on a crutch, it really effing works.  Here's a free 21-day program to try, which runs about four times a year and is fantastic.  Get the app.  You have to suspend your cynicism about who runs it, if you are a cynical type.  I have been a cynical type, though, and let me tell you, it didn't get me very far.  Cynicism is the easy way out, if you ask me.  The Spiritual Douche asks you to be willing to try some stuff you aren't used to trying, suspend your disbelief, and be willing to laugh at yourself and experiment.

• In other words, it means trying different stuff, and really questioning your excuses.  Most of the things I linked to above are free or humanly-priced programs.  Most don't require much time or skill.  And you don't have to do all of them.  These are just ones that have worked for me and been fun, and haven't set off cheesy alarm bells, and have really fucking improved my life, for cheap.  

I guess my point is that things don't have to feel dull.  Things don't have to feel like a slog.  We can choose something else.  We can pay better attention.  We can choose to flush what doesn't work and make room for better things.  

And I think when we move small things, big things also start to shift.  I don't know why, and maybe it's magic, but that is how it seems to be.  So start small.  Try one thing.  See what happens.

Trailer Park Honeymon

We all know we're supposed to write thank you cards, and my mom even gave me 300 of them, along with my gift list from my wedding.  I kept meaning to write them, and meaning to write them and after 2 years, I thought, "Now, it's probably just rude to send them."

I know I was wrong, it just seemed to get away from me, and I was too embarrassed to correct it.  I thought maybe if I didn't send any thank yous, people would assume I already had.  Forgive my asinine rudeness.

As my 20th anniversary approaches, (we're at 18).  I plan to rectify that mistake, I even plan to chronicle it in blog posts to come.  Consider this the first in the series.

We definitely didn't have an exotic honeymoon.  We weren't even going to take one at all.  Josh and I got married at 20 and 19 respectively.  We were both living at home with our parents, but we had put a down payment on a house the April before our wedding, and were figuring out mortgage payments, saving to replace carpet, stripping paint from kitchen cabinets, and with our plan to avoid debt, there looked like no possible way for us to miss our paychecks for a week, let alone spring for a tropical beach.

When my grandmother heard we weren't planning on taking a honeymoon, she came to me and said, "Angela, how much do you and Josh make in a week?"  I told her, and she explained that as a wedding present, she would pay Josh and I what we would have made, if we agreed to take the week after our wedding off, and spend it in our family cabin.  I started to argue, and she said, "Either way you're going to have to pay for groceries for the week, you might as well spend some time alone together."  I was touched and we took her up on her offer.

I should explain that our family "cabin" was really an ancient single wide trailer, on a lot with other trailers and cabins just off the highway in the mountains.  My grandparents, people who lived simply their entire lives, saved for this little "place" in the woods.  There was a large deck all the way around it, covered with hummingbird feeders, and sparkling and iridescent garden decor.  My grandmother had decorated the inside and kept it immaculate. In the back was a bedroom large enough for a double bed, the next room was a tiny bathroom, then kitchen, then living room.  The entire thing was probably 25 feet long by 8 feet wide.  My family and I loved going there growing up, and the prospect of any vacation sounded amazing to Josh and me. 

That week we marveled at the humming birds coming to eat from my grandmother's feeders.  We read Silence of the Lambs aloud to each other, naked in bed.  We watched The English Patient, and dined on extravagant dinners of Kraft Deluxe Mac n Cheese.  We draink Ice Reisling wine my mom had given us to toast our marriage, because we weren't old enough to pick out or purchase our own alcohol, and Josh held my hair as I threw up that wine and Mac n Cheese. I screamed at the frogs that came up through the pipes in the toilet and bathtub, and Josh laughed at me.  We made love on picnic blankets in the woods.  It was a glorious, glorious honeymoon.  I wouldn't change one single thing about it. We hardly left that cabin all week.

We didn't need an exotic locale, or tropical beaches, or fancy drinks with umbrellas, we needed the pure, unadulterated bliss of being alone together, drinking each other in, celebrating this life we were about to embark on,  and getting to know each other in ways we never thought possible.

We needed to look deeply into each other's eyes, we needed to be together without distractions.

I'm so grateful, that instead of the beauty of some place, I was gifted with the beauty of my husband.  I was gifted with the magic of what we can be together, and when our marriage is hard, and I'm struggling, I go back to that week, and it helps me hold on.

Thank you Grandma Leola for our gift.