Tell the Truth, Tell the Truth, Tell the Truth.

This was the inscription in someone’s book I read once, quoting someone else. I’ll have to look up who. But it occurs to me this morning.

So, it is true that by vomiting out my thesis and the actions therein that I have opened up lines to things that I didn’t have access to before. This morning, I got to see one of them.

A while back, I’d written here about an "individuation meditation" I’d done regarding my mom. It was an exercise out of that Calling in The One book, and it was helpful and powerful and sad, but freeing, then.

This morning as I went in to meditation, I thought to go one place, and instead was drawn to go elsewhere. So, I did. I ended up at Ocean Beach, basically the end of the continent hemmed in and eroded and maleated by the wide Pacific Ocean. There stood a large figure. It was my dad.

I’ve written some here about his ability to throw me off course, with his demands that I live according to his ideas of what is right, or with his pure denial of facts about his life and our mutual familial past. Maybe I’ve even glanced at some of the violence that occurred when my brother and I were young. But I don’t really talk about it. Hence, the title.

The truth is, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what I hear in others' lives, and I discount and play down the ability that man had to scare the … nearly scare the life out of me. He is a large man, at 6’3”, with a larger voice, fiercer eyes, and my brother and I would tense at the sound of his car pulling into the driveway, as if getting ready for battle defenses.

There is a story that I've been told, that when I was about 7 or so, in the middle of an altercation, I turned to my dad and said we were too old to be hit anymore. – No seven year old should ever have to say or feel that. And my brother at 4, then, shouldn’t either.

These are, granted, my own interpretations. But, my father, abandoning physical violence, started in simply using his voice to holler. And his hollering shook the foundation of the house. -- Although there are some poignant moments in my past when he took up that old tool of intimidation again. … He was not a pleasant man – though you may not know that in public. You probably sense you don’t want to cross him, but he’s like that Scorpion in that legend – it’s in his nature to bite.

And then, too, it’s not in his nature to bite. He’s scared. He never had proper fathering, never knew how, had his own shame about being a bastard child, and then hated his step-father. He grew up in the army. Learned how to make beds and keep time and everything in a row and in order.

Children are not on time or in a row or ever in order. This frightened him. I know that now.

But, in my meditation, the phrase that I repeated several times, as I sobbed a bit in real life, was, You don’t have the power to kill me any more.

…

See, because, last night, I wrote a mini G-d letter, and asked for some guidance on earning income, what I should do. And the letter back asked, What do you want to do? I cannot produce vagueness.

What a novel question: what do I want to do?

And so when I went in this morning in meditation to find some answers within myself to this question, I found myself face to face with my dad. My dad who has wanted me to live life to his rules for a very long time, even though it’s years since I’m out of his house. I still feel the stamping thumb of a demand for “normalcy” or whatever his idea of the “right” kind of life is for me.

So, that’s what this morning was about. Of course I haven’t really been able to consider what it is I want to do in my life, if I’m continuing to struggle against what his ideas are for my life. My therapist has tried to instill this in me over several years – Molly, this is your life. It hasn’t made sense to me. I haven’t known what that’s meant. When I’m trying to struggle against the idea that I might be swatted or, as the fear puts it, killed, of course I don’t have the time or wherewithall to consider what I want to do with my life. First things first, right? Survival.

To move from the stance of survival to the stance of growth means to move out from under the fear of elimination. It’s a “fancied” fear at this point – but it makes my heart flutter and tells me to stay hidden and to stay safe. Which is what I’ve done for a while, and doesn’t fucking work for me.

I invited him to leave. I told him, as the exercise in the book suggested, that I was sorry I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be, and that I forgive him for not being what I want him to be. That without his anger, he’s just a scared old man, and a scared little boy. I have compassion for the little boy. And I need to learn some right-sizedness around the man. To begin to step into my own britches is to believe that they belong to me. In the face of anyone else – good or bad decision, right or wrong, lost or found -- this is my life.

I don’t know how to do that yet, but inviting him to stop throttling me is a good start. 

Cacophonous Joy

Yesterday, I finished my draft of my poetry thesis. It is dark, and humorous, and sad, and scared, and thoughtful, and loving, and aimed toward health. It represents a period in my life, which I’m glad to recognize as not current, even though the feelings may arise as current.

This is a memoir of sorts. It chronicles a period of time which, I see now, I do have a degree of distance from, in order to be able to write about it so fully. I know too it leaves gaps and holes, but I don’t mind – it’s show, don’t tell, right?

Yesterday, I sort of fell apart around 3pm, as I knew I needed more time to edit it, little visual changes and some word sorting here and there. But, I was also supposed to be at class from 4-6:30, and be at a poetry reading/open mic at 5:30 – 9. How was I to be in so many places at once?

Well, I couldn’t. And the reality of that fell on me at about 3pm. I made some phone calls; I was told that my main job right then was to finish my thesis – perhaps you remember some of the craziness when I hadn’t turned one in, and may not have been graduating in May? Yes, the thesis was my main job – all other things were secondary.

I spoke briefly to a few friends, wrote emails of apology to my class teacher and to the organizer of the open mic, and got back to work. I was not to use the club of self-flaggellation on myself, I was told. I was not to think that I’d done it again and over-booked, and I’m a bad person, and here was this opportunity to put my work out, and I’ve missed it.

I had one job. Thesis.

So, I left those internal critic voices at the door. Strangely enough, when I did, something miraculous happened.

I finished my thesis. I sent it in multiple document formats for maximum readability; I cc’d and bcc’d to ensure maximum accountability of the documents. I sent it off. It was now out of my hands.

I called two friends, let them know that I had sent it, as I’d told them 3 hours before that I would. And I felt relief. I felt relief as though it were that cartoon image of someone getting hot, and the thermometer level inside them fills up with red from the bottom all the way to the top and bursts out their head. I felt swallowed with relief.

I told my friend, Now, I’m going to drink some water, make a nice healthy meal, and watch a Disney movie. – That was going to be my celebration. She found that hilarious: “I’m going to drink … some water.” How times have changed.

So, I did, but as I was cooking my chicken and broccoli and yummy organic pasta, I had my iPod on shuffle, playing my joy into the kitchen. And Metallica came on. And for why, who cares, it was that moment. I began to bob and jam and jump around as I stirred that chicken. Then I abandoned the chicken to just rock out in my kitchen to the raging flare of electric guitar and passion.

The song finished. But I wasn’t done. I placed my delicate, hearty, thoughtful meal on a plate, and went into the main room of my studio apartment. I proceeded to happy dance. That thermometer level radiated out of me and I DANCED – I shimmied and kicked and ska danced and booty danced and jumped as very high as I could. I waved my arms like a lunatic and smiled till all of my teeth shone bright.

This was more than relief at finishing a project for school. This was pride and gratitude incarnate. This was my joy at having released a clog in my emotional arteries. I’d moved something. Something big. And I danced until I couldn’t dance no mo’.

I have released something big here – truth, despair, hurt, trauma – I’ve let it go. And I’ve opened it to you. I’ve let it have its own purpose outside of my experience. I’ve given it, and myself, life. It feels like I’ve surrendered something I’d been holding on to. The clogged artery metaphor feels pretty apt. But more, it was my throat, my voice, constricted by these stories – and now that they’re out, birthed, something new can be said, or seen, or felt.

I am humbled by the process of putting this out into the world. I do hope people enjoy it, or get something out of it, or find their own voice through reading it. But the personal gift I have gotten, I could not have predicted: the grin of sheer bliss as I tucked into my bed last night. … and woke up with again this morning. 

Toodling Along

So, perhaps it’s the marked decrease in my caffeine intake, but I feel pretty good. I’m about a 3 or 4 cup-a-day girl, and have been for a very long time. But, since Monday, I’ve been trying to make… 1 cup a day. I’m supplementing as much as I need with black tea – but that’s been not all that much. And although I was in bed at 8pm on Tuesday, and had a massive nap on Monday, I’m wondering if the worst is over or not?

Partly, this is a health thing, partly this is a vanity thing – I read a few message posts from people saying their skin cleared up without caffeine, and as embarrassing as it is to say, I still have mild to moderate bad skin on my back and shoulders, and have since I was a young teenager. In fact, when I was about 13 and at summer camp, I was so embarrassed to take of my shirt at the pool that I made up a story that my best friend had recently drowned and now I had a fear of water. … I don’t think they bought it, but I never had to go in. I will say, at this point in my life, I've given up the hiding - it is what it is, and I do my best, but c'est moi.

The health thing is pretty obvious. Despite the copious amounts of water that I drink a day, it was recently suggested that I’m still not hydrated enough – Whaddya want me to do, mainline it?? Caffeine is one of the main culprits in cancelling out my hydration level.

And so, here we are. It’s an experiment, and we’ll see. But I liked reading things like “I don’t crash at 3pm anymore” or “Once I was past two weeks, I felt fine, like I had energy throughout the whole day.” I’ll let you know.

Other things that may be contributing to my general sense of calm or low brain activity may be:

I’m almost done with my poetry thesis draft, and will hand it in TONIGHT! It’s basically a book, is what we have to turn in, and although there are some things that may be objected to (“It’s not long enough”), I’ll take my chances with what I’ve got. I actually -almost- like it. Although I’ve been washed overboard by some of the emotions it arises in me at time, I’ve also found a few moments when I’ve actually been able to look at it like an editor – with a mildly detached eye from the content, and more to the flow, what works, what's extraneous, etc.

That brings me a great amount of relief. And maybe was/is what this whole project was about. To allow me to get to a place of detachment, not rejection or dismissal, but of curious observation. Hm, that’s an interesting poem. Or, yes, I remember that – I’m glad it makes a good piece of work now. Sure, it’s still my experience, and at the moment it’s still got the capacity to chuck me off my groundedness, but, I’m learning to dance with that a little.

Coincidentally, I’m using the “20 minutes on – 5 minutes off” technique I learned when I was training to be a live art model, although I didn’t pursue that. But the technique works for writing for an hour (or an hour and 15 minutes, to be exact). Enough time to get into the work, but not long enough to get mired by it. And then, 5 minute break. Sometimes I’ve just sat and stared, glassy-eyed and spun for the 5 minutes. Mostly, I get up, make tea, use the bathroom, move around a bit. It’s been a useful technique.

And just to round us out, other things on my mind are pretty positive: I am reading at a poetry/open mic on campus tonight – although what I’m reading I have NO idea, and I haven’t advertised or invited people mainly because I’ve been so concerned about what on earth I’d read – not sure if I want to read from my thesis or not, in a 3-5 minute slot, but I might. But I’ll be happy to be up and out there again.

Also, today is the day that I perform my monologue for my acting class. It’s Dennis Shepard’s speech from The Laramie Project, about Matthew Shepard’s murder in Laramie, WY back in 1998. I still remember when it happened, a few folks in the class do, but most are too young to know about it, being 10 years younger. But the teacher chose this play, and we each chose a monologue, and I’ve actually, SURPRISE!, been practicing and reading it over the last two weeks – as a marked difference from previous auditions when I tried to cram the few days before.

And last, just to say, my very best friend, whom I’ve written about here before, is coming out to visit from New Jersey in just two weeks. I’m really excited. Also a bit nervous. 5 days in a studio apartment with anyone is a lot, but I’m sure it’ll be alright. I’ve learned that Enterprise Rent-a-Car is actually cheaper than Zipcar if you need it more than 4 hours, and it also takes a debit card, so we'll be some mobile cats around this fair city.

So, that’s about it. Feeling generally good. A mite nervous about what on earth I’ll read at tonight’s open mic, but I’m sure it’ll work out just fine. (I’m even bringing my old chapbooks from last year’s Art Show to sell – who knows!) 

Judgy McJudgerson

or “Spiritual Arrogance”

Through some inventory work I’ve been doing lately, digging out the past-prime labeled items in my psyche, and assessing what I’ve been holding on to long past its due date, I’ve been getting to see that I am spiritually arrogant.

Now, no one likes to admit this, certainly not me, but it’s been coming up more lately, much more front and center, and I thought I’d try to parse it out a little bit as I (hope to) come to a place of letting this character defect go.

It takes one of two courses: I happen to know you’re not doing the same arduous work that I’m doing, and therefore when you complain and bemoan your troubles and your life, I get to sit in moral superiority, knowing that if you were only doing what I was doing, you’d get better.

Yummy, isn’t it … More like sour, I tell you.

Or, it looks like well, no, basically, that’s it. It just takes several more devious forms from that.

For example, you have success in your field, but I happen to know that you’re not tending your spiritual garden with regularity. I feel affronted. And self-pitying. Why do YOU get the goods without the work??

Or, Why do YOU get to go on vacation to Barbados when you’re still so messed up in all these other areas that you don't even see how messed up you are??

Basically, it’s another form of jealousy. And laziness. I want what you’re getting without doing the work. But when I don’t do the work, I get all kinds of cuckoo from it. When I rest on my laurels, or feel, hey, you know what, I’ll keep my internal stockroom filled with rotting fruit, I’ve got a good job now – well, it usually turns out badly. The fruit turns nuclear.

The other side of this spiritual arrogance toward others is the idea that I have any idea what the path is for other people. When I sit in my head and judge others by their continuous and bile-vomiting cycle of pain, it’s not doing them, or me, any good. It’s none of my business if someone is attached to their pain cycle.

It’s my business that I am.

It’s been said that anything negative we think or say or act toward others, we are 10 times as harsh to ourselves. What we say or feel toward others is just a reflection of the internal dialogue we have.

So, when I’m sitting in judgment of others, I do know that I use the same sword to bludgeon myself. Why aren’t you doing better in your field? Why aren’t you going to Barbados? What is so wrong with you that you have to do this continuous daily work?

Sounds pretty shitty, doesn’t it?

It’s not always that vocal. It rarely is. Moreso, it’s the undercurrent – the underground stream that runs with poison, and I drink from that well.

Spiritual arrogance – the belief that I’m somehow better because I do the work, but at the same time, must be worse because I need to do the work.

Perhaps … as I read yesterday: Humility makes us whole. Perhaps, I am no greater or less than anyone around me. Perhaps I don’t have to mark my situation against someone else’s like the height marks on a doorframe. Perhaps I can simply keep my eyes on my own road, and let other people’s paths be their paths. If I’m jealous, go do something about attaining what they have. If I’m judgy, remember the times when I’ve been a screaming sobbing pile of self-pity. If I’m arrogant, remember that, truly, we are all fucking equal, and the lessons that I would have someone learn in this lifetime are not necessarily the lessons they’re here to learn.

So, for today, instead of wielding this double-edged sword, perhaps I can have compassion for others, and a bit of action toward my own lessons and goals.  

G-d Letter.

Hi folks, I share this today with vulnerability, and the knowledge it may turn some people off. But, it's the truth, so here goes.


There's a spiritual tool I sometimes use called a "G-d letter." In essence, I write a letter to G-d, all my fears and questions and ... fears. Then I turn the page, take a breath, and write a letter back - from G-d. I was skeptical of this tool - *very* skeptical - and then I tried it. I've been using it at moments of extreme emotional distress since then. 


With the hope you may get something from it too, here's today's "letter back."




Dear Child,

I'm glad you're here with me. I see your despair and I have compassion. You are on your path. There is no other road to go or seek. I have dotted your path with synchronicity and it will make itself evident, if it hasn't already -- just look around. You are carried and cared for. You are loved and lovable. There is nowhere else to be. Can you trust me? Can you trust my angels here on earth?

Will you let them guide and chisel for you a path? What is the next footprint, Molly? The very next thing to do? Just do that.

I love you, and I cherish WHO YOU ARE, not just who you will become. Because you are already who you will become, you just need to see it. I am here. I am loving. I am listening and I am guiding.

Be still and know that I am G-d, and that joy is here, right here for your taking.

My everything, Your Creator,
G-d. <3

Just Dessert.

So I literally don’t know if I came up with this, or read or heard it recently. I’ve tried going through the last few pages of the books I’m reading, and can’t find it – but, no matter.

“It’s like putting our gifts up on a shelf, and then saying, alright G-d, what’s your will for me?”

That’s what’s occurred to me. No no no, not those old things – they couldn’t possibly have anything to do with what I’m supposed to do with my life. Those are just, well, hobbies, or qualities I have, or secret things I like to do – they certainly aren’t Worth While. They certainly don’t mean anything with regard to a Life Purpose.

Hmm. I like it – the simplicity of it. I’m a fan of believing I can pause things till I get a handle on them. I’m also a fan of half-finished projects, trouncing from one interest to another, so as to not get too invested – and therefore (fear) disappointed by the end result.

The problem with any of the things I consider as gifts or interests is that I do abandon them, and then have very plausible reason for saying I can’t pursue them, or that they’re not a viable option. Of course I can’t sing in a band – I quit taking voice lessons. Of course I can’t play in a band – I quit taking guitar lessons. Of course I can’t use my writing as a stream of income – I haven't submitted anything.

Oh, clarity. How my fears hate the light of day. And, granted, it’s just the light of today – likely, I’ll forget all this sometime later today or tomorrow – until I’m once again presented with the pang of jealousy toward people who are doing the things I want to do.

You sing in a band? You edited a published book? You sold a painting? You went on a vacation? You traveled in Europe? You live in a warm climate? ;P

That last one – well, we’ll leave that alone for now. Although I will tell you, my Magic 8 ball tells me that I won’t be here in the Bay Area at the end of the year. … Truth be told.

One of the great things about some of the folks I’m now in with is that I watch and hear how they turn jealousy into action. That’s the thing about jealousy for me, at least. If I say to myself, “I could do that [better, is implied],” then what I’m really saying is I want to do that.

I remember back in college, I would feel visceral pangs of resentment and jealousy when I would walk into an open mic night to watch other people play. Sometimes I had to in fact leave because I was so pissed that I (as I understand it now) couldn’t let myself try.

So the phrase sparks something new – a new awareness of the patterns of my dream abandonment. I have these nudges, but I discount them and the qualities they could bring to my life as not valid. I thereby stand at the smorgasbord of life and say nothing looks good. Basically, I say that the cake and cookies are for other people – not for me. I need the limp kale to get along in life.

As a metaphor, I would like the cake and cookies. I would like to understand that anything that I consider “play” is actually a way in which I’m informing myself of where I’d like to go and what I’d like to do. Instead of discounting my interests, maybe I should follow them. Instead of turning back, or judging others, or dismissing my desire for the fun – maybe I should let myself sink into the gifts and interests that I have.

After all, as they say: Life is short – Eat dessert first. 

Stay Cool, Boy

“Cool.” It’s something I want. Something I want to be, but it’s not an acquisition piece.

Cool and Brave were the two things that came up in some writing yesterday – qualities that I want to be or have more of. Both require similar levels of self-assurance and self-acceptance.

I went into the word “cool” for myself – what did I mean by that? What does it mean to me? Well, cool, to me, means being calm, confident, not boastful, involved in a variety of activities, engaged in the world, having a sense of ease about oneself and place in the world. Cool means knowing you have a right to be where you are. Cool means a lack of self-consciousness. And a lack of worry or fear.

Similar to brave, I imagine.

A few months ago, I fell in desperate infatuation with a black leather jacket. This is how I want people to see me. This is how I want to see myself. This piece will make me cool.

See, but it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t buy the jacket on the spot, and instead received it for half the store price from an online site as holiday present from my dad. I got the jacket in the mail in December, and it sat in my closet.

I was scared of this jacket.

What it would mean of me, or of what I projecting into the world. Can I own this jacket? Not in the possession way, but in the dominate way? Instead of the jacket wearing me, can I wear it?

The jacket stayed in my closet until earlier this month. I would take it out occassionally. Fawn over the delicateness of the leather; the instant cool it gives. But was it me, or was it the jacket?

Finally, I wore it. I felt both impostor and proud. I felt both seen and the desire to not be seen – can you see through me as I wear this? Do you know that I don’t have many tattoos or a Ramones album?

Over the last month, I’ve worn this jacket a few more times. And each time, it does for me what I hoped it would – it’s helped me to embody the coolness that, somewhere, I do believe I have – if we define “cool” as I have above – as a calm sense of self-assuredness and place in this world.

The jacket is becoming a tool, not a costume.

I struggle with my own feelings of worthiness around many things in this world, including obviously a black leather jacket. But owning this piece of clothing, this visible statement to the world, helps me to feel like I’m approaching a different place in it.

No longer content to hide from it. No longer content to hide who I am in it. Yes, I am that girl in the black leather jacket. And I might even have heels on, too. 

We have Lift-Off

So, on Wednesday, I called my girl friend from school, and my first words on her voicemail were, “I need help.” She called me back immediately.

I asked her if I could just come over to work on my thesis in her presence, just to have another human around as I was attempting to compile and sort and order my poems into a cohesive whole.

I used to do this as a kid, have a parent just sit nearby – I didn’t need their input or help, just needed a person there to help me feel calm enough and supported enough to do the work. She said sure.

So I went over with snacks, like a good Jew, and actually, she did begin to read it. Some are poems she’d seen before, some are new. She really liked them. Moreover, one of my concerns is that because my thesis is basically about me and my story, was it too “myopic,” too personal to reach anyone else besides me? She said no – she said, in fact, reading my own stuff helped her to think about her own – she said it was important, and that she liked how it was written.

She had some good insights and points about how to make it a cohesive whole, and although my innards scream, “REALLY?!?! YOU LIKE IT???,” she did.

Yesterday, I went to a coffee shop with everything I’ve got and began to edit some of them, and to look at the few edits my friend made. It was interesting. She’d suggested that I consider, as I’m editing and working on this, to remember that this isn’t “my” story, this is a work I’m giving to others. That perhaps that could help to take some of the emotional charge and swept-awayness out of it. Because it’s the same as most “selfish/self-less” work – I get the benefits of sharing this and someone else gets the benefit from hearing it.

I tried to keep some of that in mind yesterday. But mostly what I was struck by was, indeed, how much my writing has changed over the last year. It was a year ago around this time that my professor “accused” (she says still slightly burned) my writing of being melodramatic and cliché.

So, I wrote in reaction to that comment, and began to write in the most “non-emotional,” facts only way that I could.

Turns out – it’s good. My friend asked me this week if I knew that my strength lay in minimalism – I said no, I had no idea! I had no idea this writing, this style would come out of me or this master’s program. But it has. And I like it. She said, she likes that it’s snarky. And indeed it is. I like that that comes across. It’s quite tongue-in-cheek. Very "lay this out in front of you without any affect," because the affect is in how you are absorbing it, what it arises in you – When someone tells you something horrific in a flat tone, you think serial killer. Well, it’s sort of something like that. The non-emotionalism is allowing me to tell the story.

Perhaps, one day, if I choose to come back to this content, I will flesh it out or approach it differently, but for now, this is the only way I can let you know what happened without freaking out. And you don’t need to know how I felt. Your reaction is likely the same as mine – and that’s the important part for this writing, or maybe any. To get the reader to feel something.

So, as I sat, surrounded by other people, my safety blanket, at the café yesterday and began to chop off whole parts of my earlier work, I began to see that this body of work may actually work, and that perhaps my writing is worth while. 

Creativity and Spirituality

I got two emails yesterday. On suggestion from a friend who knows the woman who runs it, I’d submitted my resume to a tutoring company in SF. She said that she just hired an English mentor, but would love to keep me on file. And that she loved seeing the "mixture of spirituality and creativity that seems to be the hallmark of your professional life." (She also asked if perhaps that also echoed in my poetry, to which my answer is, not yet. But reminds me I want to read more David Whyte.)

I was surprised by her summation of my resume, which to me reads as: secretary, secretary, secretary. – And not in the sexy Maggie Gyllenhaal way. But, as I look at it from the outside, she’s not far off, and that makes me happy to see that despite my self-identified squabbling for a place in this professional world, I’ve been apparently creating a space for myself at the cross-road of topics that not only interest me, but which continue to be places where I do more seeking and reading and learning. Perhaps what I like to do does intersect with my professional life.

The second email I received was a reply to my resume submission for a job with Kitka, the non-profit organization of vocalists who travel world-wide. This was the job earlier this week I’d received from my friend out of the blue, and which I’d immediately dismissed as underpaying, overworking, and non-profit = non-stable/sustainable financial flow.

But, I applied anyway, despite my protests and whining. And I got a call back.

So, we’ll see. I would like to continue to apply to jobs, as it felt like an exercise in willingness and letting go of my ideas of where I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to do in this world. Besides, as I’ve heard quite recently, which I love to death is: “Sometimes you shake a tree looking for apples, and oranges fall out.” Aka – who knows? The Universe is pretty creative and wise, and likely has my best interest in mind.

Plus, it was actually nice to update my resume and take a look at what I’ve done since arriving on this here coast. The second half of my resume is “extracurricular work” and lists the volunteer or creative work I’ve done over the past few years. This includes my position as facilitator of the creativity and spirituality workshop I did last year… and will do again this year.

So, want to hear some cool shit? So, this Dr. Palm Reader/chiropractor I’m going to now (as a result of woo-woo coincidence), well he has a space in the basement of his office building (it’s an old Victorian house) that I’ve noticed gets used for yoga classes and the like. It occurred to me as I consider marketing this workshop to a wider audience than my college (where it’s been held) to ask what the deal was with that space – is it available for rent, etc?

Guess what? It is. And for relatively cheap, and the space is gorgeous, and perfect for my needs, and I’d get a key, and a lease for 6 months on the space. WHAT?? You want to trust me with a key to this wonderful place? Well, yes, they do.

I haven’t pulled the trigger yet – but it’s totally looking like a viable option for me – and I really wanted an accessible place in SF for people to come to. It’s in Hayes Valley; super public tranport accessible; and just super cute space with hot water and tea provided by them!

I’m humbled just thinking about how amazing and grateful I am for the a) idea; b) opportunity.

Lastly in this vein. I met with my professor who has been helping me to organize the version of the workshop that will be held at school next month. A workshop which I’ve been planning with and through her for several months. And it looks like it’s coming to fruition. I love the idea of having the opportunity to do the workshop for free as a “test run” and to help me get a clearer idea of what works and what doesn’t. Surely, there’s a lot I’ll learn as I go along.

But here’s the thing: this is a workshop I’d want to take. These are topics I’m passionate about. I’ve realized that sort of without my knowing or planning it, I’ve been preparing to do something like this for a few years. And my professor reflected back to me that people want this. Many people are looking for ways to tap into their creativity, for a way to get still, or for a roadmap to try. Ways to access what their intuition is trying to tell them, to access their internal nudges.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, you will know that’s precisely what I do and have been doing - however haltingly. Trying to get closer and more attuned to what I want in my life, who I want to be, and how to do that.

Here’s my last story: I have a friend who was a very well paid CPA (Accountant). She was financially rich, but felt spiritually bankrupt. She hated her feelings of single-minded material acquisition. So, she gave it all up. She threw her hands up, sold most of her everything, and went to India for 6 months to live as an ascetic Buddhist. There, she found herself to be spiritually abundant, but materially bankrupt.

And then she returned to the U.S. This is not the land where materially bankrupt works. So, she knew she had to find a balance. How to be able to hold financial and spiritual health. She began to do a lot of work, research, reading, healing. Finally, she realized that the work that she was doing, the research she was doing for herself, and the knowledge she was finding would be of value to others as well. Her own life’s path could be of service to someone else.

So, she started her own business, and now coaches others on finding their balance in holding the material and spiritual. She loves it; she is fed emotionally and financially by it; and others find help through her.

This is a model of what I’m realizing is happening for me. I know I can discount it and say, Oh I’m just rehashing what I’ve learned from xyz books and workshops myself, but as my professor said yesterday – people will pay for that summarization. They may not have the time – so I can offer to them what I am and have taken the time to find out.

So, we’ll see. I’m feeling more optimistic and confident in what’s happening and what’s next. And that feels pretty good. 

Savage Beauty

(if you haven’t read it, you may want to glance at yesterday’s blog for continuity)

(p.s. I have to say, I love the double meaning of "savage" as the colloquial for totally awesome)

So, guess what? I went back “down” today to find out who that woman in the other penguin habitat was. Yesterday on my way out, I’d assumed it was Depression, because of the scene around her.

On the lower left end of the enclosure, a woman stood, her back to me. She stood on what looked like the dangerous rocky shore near a nasty storm-driven sea. Above, the sky/wall dripped in large blackness. She wore a tattered dress, and her hair, too, was wild and matted.

Yesterday, I simply backed away from this woman, partly because it was time to leave (the drumming on the tape indicates when it’s time to return), and partly because her anger or darkness scared the shit out of me, and I wasn’t ready to investigate further.

But, it wasn’t sitting right with me since then that she was Depression. It just didn’t make sense to me. I thought maybe perhaps she was Loneliness, but I wasn’t sure; I just knew that whoever she was, she was mad as hell, and wasn’t going to take kindly to me yet. So, I began to think that whoever she is, perhaps she herself isn’t a “negative” emotion, maybe she’s just surrounded by that.

Turns out, my curiosity, despite my fear to explore further, took me back. I listened to the tape of the shamanic drumming again this morning, and went to go check it out. And, as you might have guessed from the title, indeed, she was not Depression – she is Beauty.

I have a lot of mixed … experience when it comes to honoring, holding, acknowledging, or accepting my own beauty. I am not surprised at how impersonable she is, or how raging, fuming dark and mad she is. For me, since the (first set of) braces came off, the contacts replaced glasses, and I got my first set of make-up near the age of 15, suddenly, I became visible. The ugly glasses, the frizzy hair, the gawky tall figure, these started to fade, and suddenly, people – boys – saw me.

I have used my anger at this “suddenness” for quite some time -- why didn't you see me before? Is this all you want from me? I have had this interpretation reinforced by my own behavior, and by the behavior of others. I have wielded my beauty as a double-edged sword, slicing those who acknowledged it, and thus slicing myself.

I didn’t trust anyone to see me for who I was, and because now all they saw (so I inferred) was my outside, I spent very little effort or time discovering who I was on the inside. At the formative middle-teen years, this was a tragic oversight.

It now meant that my beauty was a Siren song. I would lure you in, and crash you upon the rocks. I didn’t care how you felt, or felt about me. I wanted you to know that my visage was all you would get, and when we were both done using it, I was done using you – on to the next.

I know this pattern of mine is not unique, but it has dictated my behavior and thought for a long time.

When I was outside her exhibit today, I didn’t go in. Her anger frightened me, and I still don’t know how to hold or approach her/it/my beauty. Mostly, I hide it. Because of the pain inflicted from self and others in reaction to how I look, I’ve decided it’s best to turn away from it – to turn it down. It comes out occasionally, but it is rare.

And surely, there’s not much I can do to “turn it off” altogether. I am who I am, and p.s. I am grateful for it. I know this is a gift I’ve unrightly used. However, I can hide it, minimize it, hunch over it, and protect it, I suppose. Which I have done, for a while now.

A few months back, I wrote about wearing this fabulous new skirt to class, and later to a party. I wrote that I felt “embarrassed” or something like it. I suppose, I can see now, I felt that duality of defensive, and brazen – offensive. I don’t yet know how to just let it be. To understand that my beauty is not to be wielded at all. It just is.

The lack of humility – of “rightsizedness” – I have around it. It’s just another aspect of me, like my humor, or my intelligence. Which, both, I will admit, I do much the same hiding of.

Rather you make your own inferences and be wrong about me, than to show you who I truly am, and have you judge me.

The problem with the beauty thing is that I was/am defensive/insecure even when you judge me positively. Because of the trauma that has come as a result of being an attractive woman, and largely in my development, a drunken attractive woman, the idea of showing you how I look or can look feels like a dangerous risk.

After standing outside her “cage” for a little while, and asking what I should be doing, I remembered a suggested question we can ask when in meditations like these. How does she feel about you? How do you feel about her?

I feel mistrusting of her; she feels betrayed by me. Great relationship, eh?

So, in the end, I left. But I get it. I don’t trust my beauty because it has brought me physical, mental, and emotional pain. She feels betrayed by me because I haven’t used her rightly, and have then locked her up.

She’s mad as hell – and she’s not going to take it anymore.

That said, I believe some kind of reconciliation will need to happen – an understanding – before we can both move forward. It’s not like, just let her out. She’s too pissed, and I’m too wary. So, what can I do? I can slowly begin to shed my hiding. I can slowly, and safely, begin to reintegrate those items in my wardrobe which make me uncomfortable, and attract attention. Not like booty shorts, but like “nice” things. Pretty things. Things that make me feel beautiful. This won’t be a hurling of myself off a cliff into a different way of being; this will be a slow dance toward intimacy and trust.

Which sounds like a great way to support myself as I look to build that with others. 

Savage Love

This morning, I couldn’t get quiet in meditation, tried a variety of different techniques and styles, and then decided, fuck it, I’ll just do a journey. A “journey” is a shamanic journey, and how I do them at home is via a tape of drumming on my ipod that I listen to. I’ve mentioned some about this here before, and believe what you will or won’t, but it’s one of the surest ways I find to get in touch with whatever’s going on, and to find clarity and, potentially, resolution. 

NOTE: I feel that describing a journey is much like the way some people tell others about their dreams - they're fascinating to the dreamer, not so much to the listener, so feel free to read on or not. 

I usually shy away from doing journeys at home (as opposed to when I do them in a group), because they are so powerful for me, and usually provide a level of information that is hard to sit with when I’m by myself.

It was none too different this morning.

Back in January, when I was on the women’s retreat up in Napa, we were talking a bit about how people get to the various places of these shamanic “worlds,” and I mentioned that every time I go to the “lower world,” as I go down, I pass through this room that’s like the indoor penguin enclosure at the zoo. I usually just walk right through to the exit door, and on down to the lower world, but I was curious as to what that room was about, if it was just a “silly” fluke of my brain or what.

I’d never really looked around the space, having been told early that I was supposed to be getting to a place in nature and if we hit a man-made environment to just keep going. This space has always been there during my journeys; it's a dark room/hallway, with that eerie blue lighting that happens in those enclosures as it lights up the exhibits and penguin habitats and water.

It was suggested in January that I take a look at the nature of the space, that maybe it is trying to tell me something. And, if you’re with me so far, your suspension of disbelief will be needed further. …

So, today, in the journey, I head down, and when I get to this room, I stop and pause. I walk through and go out another door, but I just walk into a whole mess of large leafy plants, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t the “right” way. So I walk back inside.

Then I walk up to one of the two exhibits, lit behind its glass, to see what’s inside. It’s not penguins. Perched on the craggy, bird-shit stained fake rocks that you normally see, is a woman, naked, and hunched over herself. Her head over her bent knees.

At this point, I call up one, then two of my teachers/guides, cuz I’m starting to get a little anxious, and I ask them who she is. This dirty, matted hair naked woman is Love. She is the part of me that is love.

I ask what I should do, and it’s indicated that I go and approach her, so the glass in the exhibit between me and her disappears, and I walk through, and up onto the stained rocks, and crouch down to approach her. She looks up at me. Her eyes are wild, fearful, non-linguistic, but meaningful nonetheless. She ticks and jerks, like we imagine cave-people did, like savages did. Moving without grace, and in non-self aware spurts.

I ask her what she needs. She “says” she’s cold. I put this enormous fur coat around her I’d gotten previously (like a prize in a video game I can now cash in). It’s warm, and filled with love and calm. I give her some pajamas.

-- She throws herself on me, supplicant with gratitude, but this strong, muscular woman is crushing me with herself. With her love. Her thanks are out of proportion with the gesture. And she wants to hold on to me with such force.

She, is Savage Love.

I ply her off of me, and don’t know what to do, where to go, if I should leave. Instead, I take her to this safe place I have, this desert – the cave of the penguin exhibit fades and we both find ourselves in the wide, open, dry, sunlit desert.

I don’t really know what to do with her – this force that is too big, doesn’t know her own strength, and once is shown affection wants to consume the giver, to keep it.

I bring in my little 5 year old self who likes to hang out in this desert, drawing at a picnic table. I sit my primitive, wild self down with her to draw, and she makes a whooping and hollering mess of stabbing the crayons onto the page. The 5 year old self tries to tell her no, that she’s doing it wrong, and messing with her space, and quickly, she has had enough, and gets up to go to the sandbox, an elsewhere safe place.

Savage Love is furious, rampant in her rage at this rejection, at being chastised and rejected. She is dangerous.

I call on someone else, a woman who represents adulthood to me, who isn’t me, but surely, as these all are, is of course me.

She comes in, and holds the untamed woman. Like a mother calming a child. The differences between a toddler and a savage aren’t much. And that’s when I realize that’s ultimately what this woman is. She’s an adult in form, but in her manner, reaction, and action, she’s very like a small child – you give me something nice, I want it all and more, and I don’t care or know if it’s crushing you or more than you can give. If you reject me or chastise me, I’m enraged and destructive.

This part of me does not know or have boundaries. She doesn’t have language, or common sense. She has been in a sealed glass cage for nearly a lifetime – of course she doesn’t have “people skills.”

And, to get “real” for a moment, I resonate with these reactions and actions she portrays as I consider my own actions in situations of love. If you show me affection, I will drape myself over you, and become dependent upon you. If you put up a boundary or behave in a way I perceive as rejection, I will shove you away and cause as massive chaos as I can doing it.

As you can imagine, today's journey has caused a great deal of self-reflection, but is bringing about a great deal of self-compassion. This part of myself has not grown up and has remained in reactionary patterns of behavior that in the end cause isolation and solitude.

When I had to leave, which, by the way, I was considering the entire time during my interaction with her – how can I get away from her – which is interesting… well, I left her with the adult woman comforting her, calming her. She was calm. And she will learn.

But, on the way out, reluctantly, I took a look in the second penguin-like exhibit, to see who or what was in that one.

It was Depression.

And I backed away, knowing that would need a whole ‘nother day of work.  

Chaos Theory

Chaos, perceived order, chaos, perceived order.

I won’t say “order,” because I’m not sure that’s exactly what it is, but it sometimes looks like order, in that things seem to make sense, and life is calm or happy, or the check comes in time, or the person you were just thinking of appears, or the trains all arrive just as you step down to the platform.

Order? Maybe.

My ferret brain is currently perceiving chaos. And terrified, gnawing on its own limbs in visceral worry, that there will never be order, even of the perceived kind.

I know that this is part of the pattern of life – I’ve watched others go through it, I myself have gone through it – but each time the chaos occurs, it’s like order never existed; faith, calm, ease, joy, never existed, and never will again. We’re at the end of days, and time’s up, and meter’s run out, and you’re screwed.

Do you ever get that?

Fear brain is in hyper-drive, and so the small action steps I’m supposed to be taking are all the more important. My fear brain is stuck in the gear of “you have no income, no prospects, no job, no career, no ambition to a career, you’re lost and will never be found, and get used to asking for handouts…again.”

Silly brain. I feel it. I get it. I am thrown by it, and sometimes owned by it. Like today.

But, there are a few chinks in this armor of fear, and one was an exercise in the Money Drunk, Money Sober book: "What would it feel like to let go of desperation? Explore."

Hmm. Let go of desperation? Well, as I wrote in my Morning Pages today, it’d feel like freedom, calm, availability, faith. It’d feel like being open to what’s around me, the perceived order where coincidences do happen, and help is available, and guidance is sure and strong.

To let go of desperation, would mean letting go of smallness, isolation triggered by fear and financial insecurity (or fear of financial insecurity). You know, “No, I can’t join you at that awesome event, I don’t have any money.”

I was sent an email from a friend who I’m in irregular touch with, so, it was rather unexpected. It’s for a job that my closed-off brain says is too low paying, sounds too overworking, and is in a non-profit, which usually means (or has meant in my experience) that half the time, if not more, is spent on trying to beg funds from people.

I do that enough in my real life, eh?

That said, one of the other suggestions I read last night in that book was: Step 1: Get. A. Job. And, hello, applying to something is not the same as taking anything. And it would be good for me to get off my high horse/pity-pot and just start to apply to shit.

Cuz…here’s the fear brain ferret’s mantra: You don’t have rent for May.

Here’s the recovery brain’s mantra: Next right action.

I have rent and all expenses for April, covered. I have shelter, clothing, food (though in my typical pattern, I’ve scrimped on getting to the grocery store this month, and thus have spent much more in eating out than planned). I have this internet connection, hot water, shampoo, coffee, art supplies, happy yellow rain boots.

Plus, I have all the resources of friends and fellowship that I could want, if I avail myself of them.

There’s a line from another book which states something like the following: Given the choice between going on to the bitter end, blotting out the reality of our situation, and accepting help, we often balk at the choice. Stall, hem and haw, measure our options.

Options: go to hell in a handbasket – OR – take an action step. Hmmm…..

It is as much perceived chaos as it is perceived order. There isn’t chaos here in my life at the moment – there’s a tantrum. And a choice. I can give myself the gift of clear direction, and let go of desperation by taking action. Or, I can continue to pin abundant affirmations to my walls and discount unexpected emails.

My best ideas continue to send me to the edge – may I now please accept a different solution?

Scatterbot

I dunno why. Sounds about right. Scattering parts of me hither and thither. My apartment reflects that disarray most of the time. And as I’ve written, the disparate parts of me are scattered. And my thesis, scattered.

I mention it today, as one of my action items is to print the last 9 pages that I’ve written and consolidate them into the whole. This isn’t like tacking them on to the end, that’s not the way my thesis is written – not linearly. It is more like a collage, and I have to figure out what makes these disparate pieces a whole.

As you can imagine, this is as - if not more - metaphorical as it is literal. And I’ve been stalling. Not long, just a few days, but long enough to notice. I went to the local library to print out the 9 pages, and a woman was on the computer, so I waited about 5 minutes, and left. And, it’ll be time for me to do that again today – but, uh, stay this time, and print them out.

It’s like … gluing an old vase back together. You’ve hung on to the pieces because you couldn’t bare to chuck them; and so you’ve lost some of the little bits that used to create the whole. But I notice the missingness of the vase.

I’ve asked a girlfriend of mine from school to take a look at it once it’s in order, and to read it with an editing, writerly eye. She’s agreed, and I feel safe and comfortable showing the work to her – she’s been in workshops with me, and I trust her eye on my work – she gets it. Plus I respect and love her writing, which is helpful in a partnership of this sort. So, I’m supposed to get something – by my own deadline – to her by Friday. The end of Spring Break – which, doesn’t look much different to me than any other week, except I’m not on campus two days this week.

The other thing I have to unscatter for tomorrow are my numbers – I meet with someone weekly to talk through financial clarity and do some work, and it’s my self-imposed deadline to load all my numbers into my spreadsheet before I meet with her – as when I was only doing it monthly, it felt too vague, like I really didn’t know what I had to spend or had spent in the categories I’ve designated.

I also have an “action partner” now. It was suggested to me last week that I get an “art action partner,” but as I was talking with my friend last night, we agreed, they’re pretty much the same thing in our lives. So, I have someone who I’m emailing now daily the tasks I’ll do today – like the printing and the numbers – and then, theoretically, I’ll email her tonight to let her know what I’ve done.

We’ll see how it goes. We’re playing the structure of it loosely, but I know I need a daily list at the moment. My fear is causing my lack of structure to dissolve into procrastination and paralyzation. (The three “P”s, I’ve heard are: Perfectionism, Procrastination, Paralyzation.) So I’m trying to head the cycle off at the pass by creating a structure where babysteps are acknowledged and doable… and accountable.

It is by baby steps that I won’t fuck it up, basically. Inaction has the same result for me as too much or big action – taking an outsized step, and falling, and then feeling like See, I can’t do it. When in reality, it just was an outsized step for where I am in my development, and I’d set myself up to fail.

I’m looking forward to some of this structure, because I feel like by standing on the foundation of it, I feel supported, and like I’m taking estimable acts.

Scatterbot, powering down. Gathering time, commence. 

Arrangement

One phrase a single woman should never utter: Cat, stop eating my flowers.

I bought myself flowers this week, as I now do periodically, and the man at the flower stand, who went off on a very long monologue about the upcoming new year for his religion, which I believe I gathered was Russian Orthodox, told me that he’d been thinking about me. This older gentleman, who I didn’t believe worked at the stand the first time I saw him there, and I waited for the woman who I normally interacted with. I thought he was some sort of flower stand hanger-on, or the woman’s husband (which he is), but a person who didn’t know much about flowers or flower arrangements.

That time, he began to randomly pluck flowers from their black watery bins, and show them to me, “This? … This?” and as I shook my head, I became more convinced that he did not in fact work there.

Turns out, he did, and he does, but that first time, I waited for his wife anyway, and walked away with a beautiful spray of day lilies – the kind that smelled, as many in California do not, I found out from the woman – that the kind that do, come from places where the land does get cold in winter – like back in New Jersey, where we grew them along the side of my house, and every summer the whole length of the house smelled of day lilies. So, I always hunt for the ones that smell.

This week when I went, it was just the man, and his strange information about seven things that they put on an altar for their new year, including hyacinth and some sort of branch, which he said is why he’d been thinking of me – that it was all very beautiful, but not as beautiful as me. … Now, I play along, I’m charming, and he’s very delightful to have made up this story on the spot, or maybe it was true. But it was a strange ending to this long religious info session. And I walked away, with my bunch of flowers.

These flowers, this arrangement, is not pretty. It’s got some spiky, scaggy deep purple sprays of some sort. An anemone-looking orange one that probably eats live things in its other life. A stalk of not-so-fresh looking sunrise flowers. A few branches of pussy-willow, and one stem of day lilies – the smelling kind.

It sort of looks, overall, like a thanksgiving/fall style color palette, and it is not pretty in the conventional way that I usually like my flowers to be. But, it is beautiful in its own way. It is not something I would have chosen.

I suppose I’m moved to write about it, them, this interaction, because it sort of speaks to a few things for me. The first is that, when someone compliments me, I assume it’s bunk. That it’s to get something from me, like more business in this case. The second is that I knew I wasn’t liking the arrangement he was making, but because of his compliment and certainty in his work, I let it go, and took what I was being given. And third, of course, not all beautiful things are pretty.

The third, I’ll accept. It’s true. Things in this world are to be marveled at, but they’re not always attractive in conventional ways, and you may have to squint to see its beauty. So, this is partly about letting go of my ideas about things in general. My proscribed black-and-white, good/not good, thinking.

To the second, I ought to have said something. Just because I was complimented doesn’t mean I have to take what’s being handed to me. I am glad I have the flowers, but I do wish I had asked for something other than a handful of motley and slightly craggy plants. This, speaks to many things in my life and how I’ve lived it up to now.

And to the first, about dismissing compliments, well, that’s back to the accepting support thing that I’m working on currently. To believe that I am worthy of notice, support, love, and encouragement. And that perhaps people aren't pulling my chain, or trying to get something from me, that perhaps I have something genuine that people like and are attracted to. To believe, as it were, that not every rose has its thorn … 

Occupy Life

Don’t worry, this won’t be a political diatribe.

As perhaps you’ve been garnering from some of the recent writing, I’m becoming more open to be available to my own life. To occupy it, as it were.

This has happened slowly, and is still a work in progress. But I remember back to the “Life of an Asparagus” blog, about beginning to sense that some of the seeds I’ve been sowing over the last few years are beginning to peek through, and show me their colors and flavors.

I’m excited by this prospect, and still, afraid of it. Will the asparagus be green enough? Tender enough? Snappy enough? Will I, as I begin to show you more of who I am, and what I have to offer, be enough?

The un/fortunate truth is that I don’t really have a choice to pull the emergency brake here, and say, WHOA buddy, let me make sure that this is all kosher and “molly-approved” before I put it out there to you.

When I’d been contemplating The Cousin (*not my cousin*) a while ago before we ended, I said to a friend that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a shelf, to pause him and our romance. I wanted the time to figure myself out, get “well,” get fixed, and then take him back down and continue the romance, with me as a whole, well person.

Problem is, life isn’t like that, and people aren’t like that. I don’t get to put anything on hold – others, myself, the world, school, my finances, time – so that I can get a better handle on it.

It’s a constant game of changing the tire while the car is in motion.

Constantly evolving means being willing to give up control; to give up the demands for the future.

In all of this “lifeness” that’s going on, however, things are changing, and have changed, and I find myself at a different place than I had been, having arrived here somewhat circuitously, but somewhere where things are, where I am, different.

I haven’t had to pause the world for me to get here. I’ve had to, in fact, jump on board with the fact that this train is leaving and will continue to leave, and I can ignore the fact it’s moving, or I can enjoy the view. And more than that, I can let myself be shaped by its movement.

That “letting myself be shaped” has been the hardest part. Or one of them. To accept that I’m not exactly sure what I’ll look like, who I’ll be, and if I’ll or you’ll like me on the other side of it. But keeping my eyes closed to the brilliance that is outside and inside, well, it’s kept me pretty lonely and forlorn. And in the end, it’s not fair.

Who am I to shut my eyes to what I’ve been given, what others are offering me? To the love that is being offered me – the help, and the hope, and the encouragement, and the desire I’m told for more… of me. Who am I to deny that?

I begin to think about this, and write this today, as I start to recognize this new path of thought and action. One which, although I may not be taking all of the action steps that are suggested, I’m becoming open to taking them ;) I see their merit – I see that these actions are helping me to fill out my life, like an underinflated balloon that could be buoyant and loved, if it only let itself get full.

Perhaps that analogy fell flat. But, I think I’m understanding what it means! It means that I’m changing. It means that I’m becoming more available to my life, and to my gifts, and to others. It means that I’m beginning to choose community and vulnerability as opposed to contraction and “safety.”

I’ve had to tell a few more people a little more about what I’m doing, and what I like to do, because those were the indicated responses. (I write, I sing, I act, I paint.) Every time I tell someone one of these things, there is the reactionary twinge of fear and the cavernous echoing “NO!!!” … but, I do it anyway, now. And every time I do, I’m staking one more claim to my own life, and allowing it to open up to me as I open up to it.

And so, she falls.

I am in LOVE. This is no mere crush.

The feeling that the very molecules of your DNA have rearranged themselves, and that the world has possibilities where there were only plain corners. That by standing on the back of this wave of pure inspiration, I too can achieve great things and greet the world with an untrained eye, a new eye, an unfettered, welcoming, curious, open eye.

Yes. I am in love. With Jeanette Winterson and her writing.

She was only just introduced to me by a friend who happened to be reading Jeanette’s latest memoir. My friend said she had a quote about poetry to send me, I said great, not really thinking much of it. And then I read my email.

The quote was like walking into the room and locking eyes with the person you will later have a torrid, fiery affair with. I was lit by it. And so I followed it, her trail, to her website. And began to read the excerpt from the book, the first chapter. I was mesmerized.

Like listening to someone on a first date describe what they do and are interested in, but you actually care. You’re actually hanging onto every word as if it were laden with the truth of the Universe and a single dropped syllable will leave you dangling off the cliff of sanity.

I read the chapter like my life depended on it – like the meaning of my life depended on it. And I followed her to Amazon. And to the public library.

And yesterday, I captured her. I caught up with her in the school library, in the stacks, far in the back, while students ticked away on papers and palms jutted into their weary faces.

There she was, nestled among others I had no eyes for at all. Glittering gold and the miasma of the universe could have split open around me, and I’d see nothing but Jeanette. I grabbed her. I went to the other section where she was, and I stock piled her. I pulled her out and on top of me. I melted under her weight and was levitated by it.

I radiated purpose and joy. The sense of purpose only pure love can bring. The moment of Ah Hah, the moment of clarity. The moment of infinite future, and complete finite utterly lostness of the present. Just here. In the musky scent of pages and binding. I gathered her up.

I absconded with her, like a Sabine woman, this taut, witty, tawdry, brutal, reluctantly tender woman. I ran with her out into the fading light of dusk, and I opened her up to me.

I ployed with her skin, brain cells fainted in her wake overcome by the fullness of witnessing her. And by witnessing her, I witnessed myself. I witnessed the magnitude of the human experience. I watched her dissect the grand Truths of the World into aching wisps of language that got tangled in my hair and singed my eyelashes.

I ingested her the way only lovers can do, wholly, boundlessly, allowed her to come inside and rearrange my organs to her pleasure. To kick my heart out of my lung and into my throat, to choke on her brilliance. I lay submissive to her steer-branding of every blood cell, let myself be mottled by her, cleaved apart by her, and culled back together with the mortar of her.

Yes, I am in love. And I am different for it. 

Family Planning.

(oh, who doesn't love a little tongue in cheek!)

I spoke with my mom yesterday. It’s a new record. Twice in 6… well, more like 9 months. It went well. Better than with my dad at least, but I know part is that she was simply excited to talk on the phone with me and so was on "good behavior."

I’ve had to watch my balance between "maintaining boundaries" and silent scorn/punishment. Because I can tend to tip the scales toward the latter, still making my parents make up to me things they don’t know need to be made up, and punishing them for things they do naturally, as if punishing someone for breathing.

But, it’s becoming, and had become, time to step back into our relationship, and hope that this is a dance floor not a boxing ring. I’ve needed to time to cool off, to solidify my ability to say things like “That’s not my business” or “I’d rather we didn’t talk about that.” And, as yesterday at least was proof of, I am becoming better at it.

This isn’t to say there weren’t the few tinges of the same old, but, they were few, and I wasn’t thrown by them, as I’ve been so easily thrown into the drama of despair and self pity that my family is nuts, always has been nuts, and ever thus shall be, amen. Including myself.

There’s been a lot of need for differentiation work. My life being mine, and not a carbon copy of hers, or dictated by the mandates of my father. Coming to believe that the life I’m living is actually my own … well, it’s been harder than … it is for some people.

It’s something I’ve been repeatedly told over the last few years. Don’t you understand that you are the one doing the living? Don’t I understand that these are my decisions to make?

It’s been hard to take that ownership. To believe that I actually am the captain of the ship, or the one doing the breathing of this body. When much of early life is focused on the needs of others and falling in line with those desires, the questions as, “What do I want?” take on magnum proportions.

Although the aim of school was to accomplish a number of goals, one of them was to really do what I wanted. This decision, let me tell you, was NOT supported in some corners of my nuclear family, and they were very vocal about that. About telling me that I was making a wrong decision, that I was making a mistake. That I couldn’t have what I wanted. And that I was stupid to think something I did want was a viable option. … Only the first two were actually stated – the others were interpreted by me, and my fear brain which loves to tell me much the same thing.

I will here state, however, my mom has always been in my corner around school. She hasn’t always understood what I’m doing creatively, she hadn’t always supported it (or been aware of it, is more accurate), but she is now. And she has for a few years.

And part of my untangling my knot of self-sabotage is to begin to see the support in my life around my creativity – and although it’s a “nice to have,” not a “need to have” that she supports me, … well, it’s *really* nice to have.

She’d contacted me earlier this week, perhaps the day after I had my activating conversation with my dad, to ask about coordinating for the graduation – my graduation. And, so, I told her I’d call her. And I did. And we talked, and when it was getting a little maudlin, I kept it light and aimed toward getting off the phone. And when she mentioned her retarded work schedule (by which I mean 12 hours straight with no breaks, so that she sits with clients while eating a Clif bar as lunch… <-- no judgment there, eh?) I didn’t tell her what I thought. I didn’t make suggestions. I didn’t, in fact, tell her she was doing it wrong.

The thing which I so despise being told.

There were a few other minor things like that, where I wanted to say, WOMAN you are marvelous and talented and beautiful and intelligent and hilarious and creative and brilliant – OF COURSE you can find something nice to wear for the graduation day. Of course you deserve to treat yourself better than your work schedule. Of course … Well, Of course I love you.

Which I suppose is what it boils down to for all of us. All of us, in this nuclear family, and all of us, us.

So, yes, it is nice to be having my mom coming out to visit. To celebrate. She agreed she and my father (and his fiancé) will be cordial, and that’s all they need to do.

I’m looking forward to putting that phone call in my experience bank, diminishing the deficit of my negative thinking around both of our “brokenness,” and letting myself live my own life, as I begin (continue) to let go of hers. 

Talking Alarm Clock Meditation

When I sit for meditation, if I’m timing it, I set my alarm clock to the setting where it plays back a recording. I can record whatever I want, 8 seconds long.

I bought this little clock before I set off to teach English in South Korea in 2004, and had my mom record herself telling me to wake up, so that I could hear her voice on the opposite side of the earth.

At some point the recording got recorded over, I accidentally pushed the recording button, and it got erased, so I’ve gotten the chance to have it say whatever I want it to.

For the past few years, I’ve recorded and rerecorded myself saying “Thank you,” so at the end of my meditation time, instead of an alarming beeping as it’s set to wake me up, I hear a soft voice repeat that phrase till I hit the stop button.

Today, I accidentally erased that recording, and went to say “Thank you” again into the little microphone in the back, but instead, I recorded myself giggling. ;) And I played it back, and it giggled, and I giggled back at it, cuz it’s so silly but infectious, and at the end of my meditation time this morning, it giggled at me. And as I reached to shut it off, I giggled too. It’s very silly.

And yet, I’ve been hearing and reading more about the power of laughter and smiling. A friend of mine’s been participating in a heart-smile meditation with a friend at school. She said basically, they just sit around for an hour … smiling. She said it feels weird, but sort of funny and cool, and that the facilitator/friend of ours said that you have to actually smile with your face, you can’t just smile inside.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this. In fact, I think I probably read it first in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love during her sojourn to Indonesia and to the Balinese medicine man, who told her to smile “even in her liver.”

And in another book I’m reading, they talk about the healing power of laughter. About the frequency that gets emitted when we laugh, about how it can heal us, about how we can change our current thoughts, simply by laughing.

I haven’t done the meditation, although I’m curious, and probably will sit in with those girls sometime soon. But, something this morning – well, I just didn’t want to record the staid “Thank you” again. I wanted something lighter. Laughier.

I think this whole “power of positive thinking” thing has its merit. And I’m also getting to notice the needed balance between magical thinking or “visioning” or collaging with the very earth-oriented action steps that I’m having to take. I believe there’s a dovetailing of these two actions. Visioning and taking action.

If I don’t use my imagination to concretize or even vague-itize what it is I want in this life, I will be a 50 year old secretary. If I only spend my time “manifesting,” creating collages, or being in my magical accidental thinking, then nothing will actually change.

However, I need the basis of those visions, those dreams, desires, callings, whatever people are talking about when they say “follow your bliss,” in order to figure out what the hell my bliss is.

Of course, the second part is the action. And luckily, I’m at a moment in my life when I’m becoming more open to the baby steps that it takes. These look small this week. But, they’re not.

I called my credit card companies to close my current accounts. I called those store credit cards still listed on my credit report which I haven’t used, or seen, in years (Mandees anyone?). I have one more “hard” call to make. I have a collection agency on my report, with initials below it that are the same as one of the hospitals I was in when I was 21. I don’t know if that's what it's referring to, or if I still owe money to them or not. But, clarity is better than fear or vagueness.

Other action items of this week are to let you, and my other communities, know that I’ll be participating in a reading at school at the end of this month as a part of an open mic/party night. I told this to someone on Sunday, and she insisted that an action I take this week is to LET PEOPLE KNOW. To continue out of my hiding and isolation, and to let people know.

In that vein, I’m to work on a chapbook for the reading. Basically, a small collection of my poems, so that I might be able to sell them there. It’ll be about the same time my thesis final draft is due, and I should have a good portion of work at that point.

Putting my work out there; putting myself out there; closing up these holes of old accounts and fears. These are what enable me to move a mountain one spoonful at a time. And if a giggling alarm clock helps me get there, so be it. 

Gaslight

*spoiler alert*

Gaslight is an old black and white suspense movie in which a wife is tricked into thinking she is mad. Things disappear from her dressing table. The lamp lights in her room dim and brighten without her touching them. And her husband tells her she’s crazy, and says here’s your purse, you left it x, even though she could have sworn she left it y. She is basically told that the things she thinks are happening, which we as the viewer see happening, are not, in fact, happening. This, one can imagine, produced fear, worry, self-doubt, and eventually a crack-up. This is gaslighting.

It’s funny that I’d been telling someone else about that term yesterday morning, which made itself into regular parlance (like “catch-22” from the book title) or at least made itself into my mom’s parlance from whom I learned it, because later that day, I was gaslit.

On the phone with my dad, who’s wanting to coordinate about my graduation, etc., as you may recall, I’d been anxious about him and my mom being at the same place at the same time. So, I let him know this. I told him that I know that he and my mom don’t have the most communicative relationship, but that I hope we can all show up with a spirit of celebration. I told him that I was anxious about them being here together, and that I hope they can get along in a civil way.

He said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

He said their relationship is fine; there’s no hard feelings; that I must have gotten the wrong idea, and that, in essence, I was wrong and there’s nothing wrong.

I reminded him of asking me to tell my mom about his mother’s passing because they “aren’t talking,” and he had no recollection of saying this. I said that he asked me to tell her, but I said I didn’t feel comfortable doing so, and he said okay, Ben can tell her.

He has no recollection of this.

So, I got defensive, feeling like I was being told that what really happened hadn’t happened. And he got defensive feeling, I imagine, that I was attacking him for behavior that he doesn’t recall. I got a little offensive in my "lightly insistent" reminder of his recent behavior, and he got a little offensive accusing me of making things up.

And, so we got off the phone after reverting to the “everything’s fine here” light, fake, cover-it-up tone.

I’ve never been divorced. And it became, now, less about my parents’ interaction than about my interaction with my dad. This is usually how it goes – it’s either, Everything’s fine, or it’s antagonistic. It’s either, Gee my life’s swell, or it’s Oh wait, I’m not in control, I better use my vast resources of rage and anger to intimidate it back into order.

This is the way it’s always been. To varying degrees of each. He can barely ask a waiter for more water without it sounding like a threat.

But, I’m also hyper-attuned to it, as his daughter.

So, moral? I told him what I hoped could happen at graduation, he said things will be fine. So, needs voiced, needs heard. 

I know what my experience has been, and I know the truth of things as I see them. And I have to have enough value in my own experience that it doesn’t matter whether it’s verified by him, or anyone else. It is not my job to break through someone else’s denial; to instill in them proper manners of communication that do not swing from hot to cold; it is not my job to change my dad. It’s just my job to not be gaslit by him; to allow the conversation to hold contradiction, not have to “be right,” and to let it go.

Not sure I have all of the “moral” here yet today, but I’m pretty sure this is a lifetime process.

Next, it’ll be time to tell the same thing to my mom. … I may need to do some work before I take that phone call on! ... Or maybe I don't need to call her on this at all. ?