"Love as Burrito" or "This, or Something Better"

Grateful to my friends who gave me feedback, I texted the okJew yesterday morning that I was a fan of getting to know someone before getting physical (I couldn’t help but hear Olivia Newton-John as I typed it), and if that was something he was interested in, then I’d love to continue getting to know him, and if not, no hard feelings. He texted back to say that, in fact, he was looking for something else, and didn’t know how that fit in with me or not.

So, I got to sit with that. Tall, attractive, well-built Jew? What’s not to like? Oh, unavailable. And, I did sit, I questioned, I turned inward for a few minutes to test that option, and ultimately, gratefully, I said I was looking for something less tenuous, and good luck.

Then …

I sat and stared at a wall of books.

I was shocked, honestly, at how “air out of a balloon” I felt, without all that funny noise it makes. It made me realize that I still do have some work to do. I identified very clearly the feeling of a crash after a high. I could almost smell the cigarette smog and late 90s radio.

Hm. Love as Drug. Huey Lewis has a song about it. And, duh, it’s not “love” as in Love. It was intrigue. Oh, Intrigue!! – when’s the next text, what do I wear, how flirty do I be, funny do I be, do I invite him in, scheduling plans, etc…etc…etc… Something to think about, and then the plug was pulled yesterday mid morning, and I sat deflated and comatose for a few minutes on and off till lunchtime.

When I went and bought a burrito. My friend texted me to say that it’s normal to feel feelings, and we get to let them pass. I said my feelings now feel like a burrito in my belly ~ Real feelings TBA. And that much was true. How much easier it is to feel full, or to buy something to feel better – not better, to just feel different. My burrito accomplished both of those. Better to eat, feel full (and mildly grossed out that I ate a pound of tofu and salsa flesh), and to get the thrill that I spent money on lunch when I had a perfectly decent one in the fridge at work.

Cuz, what do I feel when I’m not caught up in the nonsense? Fear. I feel fear about money and work and job applications and directionlessness. Who the hell wants to feel that?? No one. But, better to feel those feelings, and thereby get into action around them, than to stuff them with something else, and continue avoiding the elephant in my psyche.

There’s another okJew who I’ve been talking to – and I’m not entirely sure that I want to pursue it at the moment. I met up with some of my new “relationship/emotional intimacy” folks last night after work, which was a very good use of my time. I’m so glad I’ve chosen to fall in with them – and they were talking about dating, and showing up, and boundaries, and desires, and how to be honest. These are things I want. I want to have desires – I have no … desire… to be celibate, or nunnish. I am a hot-blooded woman with hot-blooded needs, and a great big bag of tools that don’t work.

That said, I obviously do have more tools than I used to (burrito coma aside) – because I did let this dude know what I was available for, and he said he was glad we got that worked out early – and it’s true. I know plenty of times when I’ve let my “fear of looking needy” keep me from speaking up about my discomfort at the level of murk in a relationship or sexytime companionship. Once, it took me almost a month, and when I finally broached the subject with the dude, he said he wasn’t available or looking for more. So, I said, great, and was glad to know, and left his house feeling better and confident in my ability to state my needs, and let go of the results.

Sure, I didn’t “get what I want” in that situation – who doesn’t want the person to say, of course, I’d love to continue to get to know you and see if there’s something substantial that can come from this. But … as my “sugar crash” yesterday proved to me, there’s more work to be done. It’s not at all fair to place that amount of expectation on anyone – because they’re not really being asked to be themselves, they’re being asked to fill something in me, or distract something in me, or fix something in me. And, that, my dears, is an inside job.

When I said a few days ago, that if relationships are Miracle-Gro for your character defects, then surely they are/must be for your spiritual growth – this is why. My defect here being the desire to run away from the reality of my professional and financial situation – and when someone says they can’t be that for me, I’m left simply with my situation all over again, like the ugly step-sister you lock in the attic. Still here.

So what do I do? Well, firstly, I meet up with folks and I ask for help. Done, and will continue to do. Secondly, I continue to work on the job front. I was invited to go camping this weekend, and had accepted, as I love to camp, and getting out of dodge sounded so very nice. But last night, as I was compiling job listings into an email draft so I could take a look at them in my spare moments at work… it occurred to me that perhaps going camping was not the best use of my time at the moment.

This temp job will likely end in the next week or two, and after that is a blank horizon. It’s time for me to assist in coloring it in.

Lastly, I offer myself kudos. I made my intentions known, quickly. I listened honestly to what another person was telling me about their intentions. Which I didn’t take personally at all (a thought, I recognize, is also huge progress, but seems so “of course” now). I can try to treat myself kindly with how I treat my body and not go food coma on myself.

I showed up. I got in the ring. I made out. And, I can be confident that what’s available for me is “This, or something better.”

Progress, Not Perfection.

So, I did not sleep with my okJew on the second date. We did however come back to my place, and have a rather heated make-out session.

It was lovely. But. I feel today no better. I realize today that even though we didn’t sleep together, which was something I didn’t want to do, knowing him so briefly, that I still feel a sense of sadness around it. And in writing some about it, I realize that it’s sad because I still don’t fully believe in my own inherent worth – that I’m more than my body.

Even when we were making out, however fun it was – and it was, and I’m sure that if we ever do have sex, there will be no problem in that regard – but I felt not fully present. I felt a little disconnected – and, really, I was. I was disconnected from the emotions that can come when you are making out with someone you know, like, and maybe even more than like. I was only acting from one part of myself, not all of me.

And, knowing that, I notice the desire to pack “Beauty” back up behind her glass terarrium, and say, see, you can’t be trusted. But really, it’s not her fault. I didn’t have to come back to my place – it could have been a short date. I didn’t have to have the extended make-out session – I could have ended it earlier. But, I did. And this is where “progress, not perfection” comes in. Because I really could beat myself up here, and retreat back into isolation, and a position of “See, you really don’t know how to hold intimacy and sexuality, so you better pack it in.”

Yes, I could do that, but I don’t think that’s the point here. The point is that I realize that heavy teenage-like petting is a little more than I want to do on a second date. I realize that I still want to feel known more than that, and have more of a connection before getting so physical. I have so much f’ing evidence of how much sex before emotional intimacy is the cart before the horse, and so, yes, I can beat myself up for not having learned that “well enough,” or I can be glad that I didn’t have sex when I didn’t really want to, and be glad that I let him know it was time to go, and didn’t interpret his erection as an obligation, as I wrote yesterday. (But, … Whoo-ee! … anyway…) ;)

So, there’s that. Of course, I begin to go all the way to, now I better let him know what I’m looking for before there’s a third date, and another round of, okay thanks, bye! That I need to explain what I’m available for, and to ask if that’s what he’s available for.

Some of this sounds valid, some of it sounds unnecessary. I tend to be an oversharer. I don’t think I need to do that, or at least, I don’t need to do that today. I won’t see him again, likely, for another week or so, as he’s busy during the week, and I’m camping this weekend, so I have time to let some of this dust settle and ask some women, and see what happens.

We did have a good date, overall. In fact, it was a great date. But I feel overshadowed by my remorse.

Again, it comes back to choice. I can choose to see this as a failure, and head down to self-flagellation, and I’ll never get it, and how come you don’t get that you’re worth it – that makes you so not worth it. (A lovely circle of reasoning, that one.) Or. Or I can choose to see this as an opportunity, as I spoke so much of yesterday. An opportunity to notice my growth and change, and also to be happy (or at least contented) that I do notice how I’m feeling, and how I was feeling last night. I wasn’t feeling present, and that I wasn’t feeling present is a good thing. That I noticed it. Noticing it is the first step, I think. Then I can work on doing something about it.

I’ve written a lot of poetry about not feeling present during sex. Now, I know that that can extend to making out if I’m not properly known by someone, and they’re not known by me. This person is nearly an entirely unknown entity – of course I don’t feel intimate.

So, I can choose to take this as information for next time – whether that’s with this person, or someone down the line. I can choose to allow myself a little bit of affirmation over keeping my pants on. I can choose to acknowledge that I’ve come a long way to be so present with myself to notice these even slightly off-kilter parts of me.

Forgive the reference… but, in the final Twilight book (spoiler alert?), the main character, Bella, throws an invisible defensive bubble out around herself and her family during the cumulative battle. Imagine it almost like a Bio-Dome, to mix pop-culture metaphors. In the book, Bella can feel as one of the opponents pokes into the various places of her bubble, looking for a weak spot – testing the defenses, and seeing how strong it is. I feel very similarly about this work with dating/physicality. I feel that my bubble is being poked and prodded, and I’m getting to see where I still have spots of weakness, or places that can be firmed up.

I am sad that I don’t yet feel that I’m worth more than my body, or that I could be wanted or acknowledged or “seen” for more than my physical self. But, this is simply a place of “weakness,” a place where I could use more care and strength and affirmation, and behavior that will support the idea that I am more than that. So, I am glad for the opportunity. I’ve been shown where there’s work to do – and if that’s not what relationships are for, then I’ve got the wrong game. 

Opportunity Knocks

So, first, some news – Remember the “SOLD” blog when I asked all y’all to pray for my childhood home to sell so my dad and his fiancé could move to Florida and retire? Well, 10 days after that blog, the house sold :)!! Thank you ALL for your prayers and kind wishes! I’m really happy for them, even though my dad is still shocked he didn’t get the price he wanted… Oh dad, you can’t win em all.

Next on the horizon, date # 2 happens tonight (this is the first 2nd date I've had in almost 2 years), and lord have mercy, I’m trying to ground myself in every way possible. Stop tripping out. Remember that I’m worthy of love and am able to give and receive love in an appropriate way. Stop trying to script or plan. It’s not about “him.” I mean, it’s not about wanting this person or not. It’s so much more about how do I show up and stand in the experience of something new, trying something new. To stand with integrity, and self-esteem, and awareness, and that fair and balanced view thing that keeps coming up.

I don’t need a person to validate or complete me. I need to be able to allow myself to stand without armor. I had a pretty funky meditation/shamanic journey this morning. Unexpected, but right on track. About my ability to receive love, and the melting of my resistance toward it. Overbearing or absent were the ways that I learned love could show itself. Overwhelm or rejection. I’ve carried out that pattern with my own partners, and with myself as well. I’ve believed, and have stated in the past, that my fear is that my needs are too great – that my needs are like a barely held back tidal wave, and that to let them go, even in the slightest, to let them out, would be an invitation for drowning – particularly, drowning someone else. So, better to keep the dam contained.

It all comes back to what is the evidence for that today? Is there evidence of that today? And again, back to, I’ve never let myself try, or others try, so really, I don’t know. Again, I could be more capable of a thousand things, but having stopped and shunted them all, I’d never know.

I am grateful for this “obstacle to practice on,” as is written in a lot of the work I do with a woman one-on-one in the city. But I said recently to someone else, that I think I’m going to begin using the word “opportunity” rather than “obstacle.”

For a while, when I began writing that phrase with my friend, it tasted so bitter and awful in my mouth – obstacles, fuck obstacles, I don’t need no steenkin obstacles. I was pissed. How many more f’ing obstacles did I need in my life, I asked her. And she told me that it wasn’t up to me. It wasn’t really my choice. These were being presented to me, whether I wanted them or not, and it was my choice on how I chose to use them for practice.

She was right. What do I know about my path? I want to get from A to Z, but the “path” needs me to stop at H, J, and O on the way to garner skills and friends and love and esteem. So, I wrote it. Thank you, G-d, for this obstacle to practice on.

But, be it the “law of attraction”ish believing part of me, or simply a framing shift, I don't want to see or write them as obstacles anymore. They’re not. They are opportunities.

These are opportunities for me to choose – Turn Left, toward freedom and serenity, or Turn Right, to well-worn misery. These are all mental paths, psychological paths really. And in my phone right now, on my cover screen, I set the display to read, “Turn Left.” It’s a reminder to me that in every given moment (what a phrase! “given moment,” these moments are given, even gifts, if I can see it), at any time, I can remember that I have a choice. I have the choice to obsess about tonight or not. I have the choice to believe in my inherent worthiness or not. These are all choices. And my choices are reflected back to me in real time.

I’d like to choose to not obsess, to remember that I am talented and worthy, and don’t have to sleep with people I don’t know well, and that my house can still be off limits even though I said I was cleaning it to make it “guest appropriate.” I was told that I am the czar of my own experience, and further, my own body. That I don’t owe anyone anything. Repeat. I don’t owe anyone anything. A date is not a promise. A date is not a sexual invitation. It is an invitation to get to know someone better. To vet each other for each subsequent date. A friend once told me that a first date is just an interview for a second one. And so on they go. That’s all.

So many years of believing I was promising something I didn’t want to deliver, or was obligated to do because he was hard. Not my problem. Sure, don’t be a tease on purpose, but he’ll live. An erection is not an obligation. 

This is an opportunity for me to hear that and feel that in a way that I haven’t. For me to try to see that I have assets beyond my physical self. And for me to allow those assets to be shared and seen. Dating can start so physically, and that part is critically important, but physical attraction is a dime a dozen, really. (I mean it’s not exactly that easy, as I’ve realized that too) – but sex itself is a dime a dozen. I don’t want that. – as in hell yes, I want to get laid, like every other hot blooded person on this planet, but I don’t want only that, and my experience has taught me for sure that when I go to that part too quickly, I undermine myself every time, and I quash any ability for me to learn that I am worthy for more than my looks and my pussy.

So, here’s to an opportunity to try something different. To try to believe something different. And I am excited for tonight, and that’s all well and good, but I’m also going to pay attention to my own music stand, and Turn Left toward the tasks I have ahead of me right now.

Wish me luck. 

Modern Family

Yesterday could not have been more marvelous. Oh, San Francisco friends ~ How I miss you!!! And how I don’t realize it until I see you.

Having lived in SF for almost 5 years before moving here to Oakland, I had the (I can’t even think of the proper word – I don’t think I know it) intensely fulfilling and soul-affirming opportunity to meet and grow with a pack of women. Many of my desperately favorites were at my friend’s Memorial Day bbq event yesterday.

The feeling of guts relaxing, smiles expanding, hearts sighing, that’s how it was. I can’t stand it.

But I could, and I did. I was there, and present, and helped, and talked, and listened, and laughed, and sun-baked (beneath a generous layer of SPF), and hammocked, and cherry picked, and peach picked, and dribbled little lines of peach juice down my chin, and made children laugh, and they made me laugh, and caught up, and shared, and understood, and was understood. Oh, this family gathering. This is my family, part of it anyway. And how good it was to be back with them.

So many things have changed. The children are bigger. One is moving to Japan. One got braces. One got certified. How many things change when we aren’t looking – or in communication.

The phone works, sure. The bridge works, sure. But how me and this particular group of women met, and shared, and grew, it was in person. It was by witnessing monumental and incremental growth over weeks and weeks which became years and years.

Yes, I’m feeling a little sappy. But I can’t help it. I love them. And, they love me. This is a section of people who know me in a way few do, who have witnessed my own growth and change, and who like me, accept me, are fond of me. As I do them. What a miraculous gift. What a fucking gift.

I don’t know quite the solution. Does there need to be one? The ache that I realize was there? I felt the same way when I went to a workshop run by the same woman who hosted this barbeque – the workshop was in January, and I arrived and saw two women I hadn’t seen in likely a year or more, and again, my guts sank down from somewhere behind my ribs, where they'd been benignly pinching my lungs and inhibiting my breathing, they sunk, phoom, back down to where they belong in the grounding, rooted, centered calm.

It was at that workshop that I realized how much I missed them all. This won’t be another diatribe on how I don’t feel connected to the East Bay as in the “Exile” blog. I do feel connected, more connected, than I had, with more women than I had. I feel friendships, and activity partners, and women to share with. But. … I’ve only been here a year and a half, almost two. That’s not 5. That’s not in the same way.

Things change. They must, and they have to. Can I change with them? How do I balance? How do I maintain – or if change is necessary, not “maintain,” then, but evolve? How do I evolve with the reality of distance?

Because I won’t always be here in the Bay. That much is likely true. And what happens then? I have a dear friend who moved to Brooklyn last year, and we speak on the phone maybe once every two months, with some smatterings of texts, but we’re not nearly as close – this woman who was once as close as my heart.

How do we do this?

I’m not sure. I know that I obviously missed these women more than I knew. I missed the way I feel when I’m around them – known and loved, exactly as I am, for who I am. Women who know me well enough to jibe at me, laugh with me at myself, and poke into parts of me that need to be poked for movement to happen. These are women… for christ’s sake, I can’t stop gushing.

What now? If I’m aiming to be responsible and adult in my life, to take action where I’ve taken none, to believe that no one is coming to change or live or make my life for me – then, how do I incorporate this knowledge? The knowledge that I want more of that – that I want those connections kindled, or renewed?

I love my new friends – they are buoying me in ways they don’t even know. But I miss my old friends. I miss so much of what’s happening. Life is so damn short and quick, and things move so suddenly. Someone moves to a new town. Someone to a new country. Someone is engaged, or married, or pregnant. Someone is in a break-up or new relationship. Someone is changing careers, or expanding a business, or taking a new class, or forming a girl’s band (yes, that’s me and my friend with plans to jam with her drums and my bass, here in the east bay).

I want. Terrible words. But, I do. I want – I want what I had, but in the present. I want what I had yesterday – the gut-release, the warm bath, the mild pleasant smirking at the familiarity of us all.

I want. In the present. And how. 

Miracle-Gro

I have heard it said that Relationships are like Miracle-Gro for your character defects.

If this is true, I realize this morning, then Relationships are also Miracle-Gro for our spiritual development. One must lead us to the other if we aren't to fall into a pit of fire or stagnation.

A few years ago, I was engaged in a clandestine dalliance with a man. I was titillated by our connection and conversation, but “nothing” had happened so far. So I did what I do in circumstances like that – I went to G-d, or Higher Power, or Magical Sky Faerie, or Inner Wisdom -, obviously “G-d” is just a great shorthand, so please read it as such.

I wrote one of my “G-d letters,” a letter to my HP with all my questions and fears and excitement, etc. about this man. And then I turned the page, and wrote a letter back, in theory from G-d, or from my higher wisdom. In this letter, I was informed that, great, have fun, be titillated, but whatever you do, Molly, don’t forget Me. Don’t forget my HP, and like yesterday’s blog, don’t forget to do those practices which help to keep me on balance and on my side of the street.

Relationships are like Miracle-Gro for my spiritual development. I have not always used them as such. Or viewed them as such, but I believe I’m really understanding that more now.

The more involved I may become with someone else, the even more firmly and strongly I need to involve myself with “myself,” or those wise, calm, serenity-producing, others’ welfare-focused parts of myself.

I’m not in a relationship – but I have a second date with the okJew on Tuesday. We confirmed this yesterday, and so it is. But, today is not Tuesday. Today is Sunday, when I’m heading with my girffriend and her bf all the way out to Discovery Bay for some sunshine, barbeque, potential pool and hot tub, but mainly, to fellowship, camaraderie, catching up with friends I don’t see nearly that much now that I’m in Oakland, not SF. Today will be a day for me to be present with who I'm with and where I am, as well as a day, potentially, to rest by the pool, and do some of the writing I need to have done for tomorrow.

Today, is not the day to obsess. I will not obsess on what I will wear on Tuesday. I will not obsess about wanting to text this guy and let him know that I won’t be having sex with him on Tuesday, so he can back out if he wants – because obviously, says my story (see above character defect reference), men only see what’s on the outside, and that’s all they want. Today I will not obsess about planning to get STD tested, or whether I have up-to-date condoms, or if my feminine lady time is coming right now and will preclude sexual encounters anyway.

Today, I will not obsess that I should have been paying more attention to working out, or to a lack of firmness in any part of my body.

Today, I will not obsess that my home isn’t clean enough, or decorated enough. Today, I will not obsess about what will happen on Tuesday, about whether I’ll be able to stand firm at my boundaries and decline the obvious sexual attraction from being consummated.

Today, I’ll get ready for my friend to pick me up (in 30 minutes!!). Today, I’ll pack a beach towel, and some sunscreen, and sunglasses. Today, I’ll put on shorts, and sip the last of my decaf. And that’s really as far as I need to see today. There are plans to go cherry picking, there’s likely going to be barbeque and food. There may be time to catch up. There may be social awkwardness. It may not all be about me.

As far as I can see today is the next 30 minutes. Those are pretty easy.

Oh, and I can recall to not forget G-d. 

Mind your own music stand.

Several years ago, about 5 or so, I was dating a wonderful man. I was also in therapy. These things were and were not related ;)

One day, my therapist and I stumbled across a metaphor that I’m reminded of today – when I get into relationships, it’s as if I’ve been the conductor of my own orchestra, and ultimately, the highest ideal and intention is that my partner, boyfriend in this case, have his own orchestra, and that the two sounds mix and meld in a way that increases the beauty of both, without losing the integrity of either.

Surely, you may have your own metaphor for this, as there are many, but that’s what came to me then.

The “problem,” as it were, is that I was noticing my tendency to want to begin to conduct his orchestra. That if his oboe were a little more resonant, or his triangle more tingy, we’d sound better together. The result of this peeking over onto his side, was that I began to neglect my own. In beginning to mind someone else’s business, I forgot to mind my own.

When this happens, things like self-care, integrity, and reason begin to go out the window. I become more interested in making sure you’re doing things “right,” and that we “sound good together,” that my whole balance of living gets thrown off.

That was then. This is now. Will it be the same?

When, before I began dating that man, I asked a trusted friend if she thought I were ready to date – as he would become the first person I’d date while sober – she said that if I was ready to handle the emotional twists of a relationship without drinking, then go for it.

And so I did. I learned a lot, and ultimately, it didn’t work out, but I learned so fucking much. I learned how to try to love, how to try to be loved. I learned how to be honest with another person. I learned to look at the clouds and see shapes and animals again. I learned how to relax a little.

Yes, these are things I can learn “on my own,” they are. And I get more of that now than I did then. But, too, there are some things that can only be learned in communion with someone else.

I notice that that big hunk of manic-depressive wild-haired meat that I call my inner manifestation of Love is “up” right now. As when I met her on one of my shamanic journeys, and she threw herself on me after I gave her one bit of kindness, she is not yet one who knows balance. When I pushed her off of me, she got rageful and went Neanderthal.

This is part of my pattern. Show me some kindness, and suddenly, I light up like Times Square and drape myself on you, my needs, expectations. Show me that you can’t possibly meet those demands, and I will turn to ice quicker than an eskimo’s piss.

There’s more to this. As there usually is. If you’re not meeting my demands, and I’ve turned cold, you won’t really know it. It’s subtle closing off and shutting down, this Elvis leaving the building. We’ll have sex, but I won’t be present. I’ll still try to use it as a way, the main way, to connect, but it doesn’t really work when I’m not there.

Also, as I recognized last night on my surprise-last-minute okJewpid date, before I know more or better or have a peg on the situation, sure I’ll be outwardly as gregarious and charming as always, but... I felt it – I felt my shell.

Perhaps this is “normal.” You’re meeting someone for the first time – you of course have some guards, maybe. But, I’m just so much more acutely aware of how scared I am. How scared I am to allow that shell to melt, because inevitably, in my past, it has meant a descent right into that enormous sigh of relief that you are here, that I can now relax, depend on you – and make a few adjustments to you while we’re at it.

When I let go of this shell, I start a pattern that leaves me alone, sad, and feeling pretty childlike. Not womanly. Not adult.

So, I keep the shell. I’ve kept it for years now. Better to avoid the whole game than to try to play it differently, acknowledging and using the new skills for living and being that I have. I could have garnered a whole fleet of new tools and attitudes, but fuck if I let them out of the gate. They’re like a trained – well, I was going to write “army,” but I’d rather leave the military out of my love life, thank you – they’re like a well-trained dance company. Having rehearsed for years, perfected, practiced, fallen, and learned – but … me, their manager, I will never and have never let them perform. They are a lost art. They are a lost gift, because I’m too scared of how they’ll be received, or of if they’re really ready for the big show.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but with the Cousin, I said at one point (not to him) that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a shelf, and “fix” myself, or get better, and then, only then, when I were better, then I could take him down, and we could have a wonderful life together. Life.Does.Not.Work.In.Darkness. It does not work in absence, and it does not work without my active participation.

I may be the world’s best anything, but I’d never know it.

And so, it’s time to see if my conductor skills, my dance company, my emotions have learned things that I may not know they’ve learned.

Because my date was awesome. And, likely, I may want to date again. 

Melting Boxes and Falling Cards

I may or may not have a date this weekend with a jew I met on okCupid. We had made tentative plans for Sunday, but I had double booked and asked to meet up on Saturday instead, and haven’t heard back yet. We’ll see. I’m talking with another CupidJew; jdate, I have a coffee date aligned for next Friday, but I’m not entirely enthused on this one – and let another thread fall when I realized I wasn’t really interested in meeting this other dude. 

Who knows. It’s like the job applications. Send stuff out – see what sticks. I do feel like I’d like to apply to more teaching jobs though. It’s really funny. Maybe 6 or so months ago, I met with a girl friend who works with Expressive Arts Therapy, and she asked how "teaching" felt in my body – to make a motion or movement – that would express what being “a teacher” would mean to me. Then, I contracted and constricted my body, on the tack that teaching is a sedentary, stoic, geographically uninspired profession.

Surprisingly or not, I don’t think I feel that way anymore. Maybe I’d express it a little more wiggly now – maybe because it is a little more (or a lot more) wiggly than I’ve previously boxed it in. I also would like to apply outside of the Bay a little more. I know that moving costs a lot, and yadda yadda, but, in the spirit of “what do I know about Fate,” I’m willing to throw my net wider, and my seeds farther, and see what sprouts, … or is caught. … You get the idea.

What a concept – pushing my ideas out of the proscribed boxes in which I’ve held them.

Interestingly, my mom comes to mind. “Mother,” lord, what a “concept.” What huge, enormous expectations and qualities we – or I – hurl upon such a word. My ideas were formed way back when – she’s crazy, unavailable, manic-depressive, and dying of her own neuroses – and these have kept pretty calcified over the years. She’s better now (G-d bless medication), but it’s hard for me to allow that. If she’s not crazy, if I don’t mistrust her, where are we? How do we engage? Obviously, similar questions can be brought about my dad, and even my brother. … and more broadly, myself, you, the world, etc. Boxes. Boxes with a label, Discard After 1987, or maybe after 1996. Certainly, way past their due date by 2012.

I think of this about my mom today in again reflecting on the agingness of my parents – having seen them both two weeks ago for my graduation. They’re getting older. They’re not going to be able to do or go or share or be what they had been. And so, I wrote my mom an email yesterday I titled “If you build it, they will come,” and in it I simply wrote, “Sometime in the not too distant future, you and I should go to Paris. That is all. Love, Molly.”

My mom has never been, nor have I. I’ve been clicking on this contest prize for a trip for two to Italy for a few weeks now – because, you gotta buy a ticket if you want to win the lottery, right – and I realize that there are some things that if I want to do with my mom, I better start to do them now. Sure, I have no idea if something like a trip to Paris or Italy, or anywhere, will take place, but the time is getting shorter when they’d, she’d, be able to really traipse about. Traipsing is a young people’s – or younger people’s – pastime.

I am glad that the boxes in which I’ve held my parents are disintegrating like so much wet cardboard. It’s a little scary. But, rather, it’s not scary, as much as new.

I wish I could let the boxes around myself melt as much. One of the dudes I’m talking with on the dating site is very encouraging and interested in my bass playing, though I keep on telling him it’s really a lack of bass playing, and a lot of me being silly and denying myself (although, surely, I didn’t put it quite that way – impressions, you know!) ;)

But, it’s another box. My girl friend I was supposed to speak with about her bass playing, our phone call didn’t happen, and I haven’t rescheduled. Although I am having two info interviews around theater next week. One in person with a friend of mine who is an active actor (but has a “real” job, too), and the other by phone with my former acting teacher at school, who is the casting director at a local renowned theater company. So, there’s that.

There’s a lot. And as I was telling someone yesterday, a house of cards must be taken down very slowly and carefully. Not all at once. I don’t think I’d much like being shaken all the way down to my bonsai tree nubs. Or pruned, I suppose would fit that metaphor better! But point being, that dismantling old beliefs and behaviors takes patience, practice, and an ability to leave it alone for a while.

It’s not some jenga game I have to finish in a proscribed period of time. (I’m ripe with metaphors today! ha! enjoy or apologies, either way!) There are time-sensitive matters – my parents’ aging, obtaining employment so I can feed and house myself, but even that one is a little fluid right now, although surely top of my mind - I do have this temp work I’m doing, which I’ll be doing for likely another 2 weeks. I’ve been applying, and we’ll see. I’d like to apply to different avenues, and we’ll see. I plugged “jewish” into my searches on the dating site, and we’ll see.

“…and action is its key word.” Amen. 

Bloggus Interruptus

Hey Folks! Please return in the afternoon for the daily blog.

A biento!
M.

Sans Cape

For an unemployed person, I’m mighty busy, and double booking, or booking right after another.

So, I was honest with the painter yesterday and simply emailed her to tell her that I was feeling a little daunted at the thought of modeling for 3 hours after working a full day – I’ve been so tired, guys, normal people hours are weird – I almost wrote “wired,” which I suppose they are too. My caffeine reduction experiment tanked last week at the temp job with a return to 3 cups a day, but I’m trying again, and yesterday was only two.

A friend of mine said, when I told her on Monday night that I was thinking of canceling Tuesday’s modeling gig, that there was no way that I could cancel with this woman, the artist, that I had made my commitment, and that it was less than 24 hours notice, and that it would affect my “reputation,” and that if I didn’t want to model ever again than it was fine for me to cancel.

Whoa.

So, considering that this woman is someone I go to for council in other matters, I took what she said, not to heart, but to left ventricle maybe. But it didn’t sit well in my left ventricle. I am/was tired, and was not really going to be emotionally or physically available to do what needed to be done. This date was set up over a month ago, when I had no idea I’d be working 9-5 in SF. I went to sleep on Monday night contemplating lying to the artist, and telling her that I had a stomach issue, and couldn’t make it. Then, I let it go, and went to sleep.

I woke up, and decided to just be honest. So, I wrote the artist an email, said obviously I made my commitment to her and would be there, but was there another way.

You know what she said (of course you do), she said, NO PROBLEM. “I’ll paint instead.” And we rescheduled for a weekend evening next month. “No Problem.” Once again, I’m shown that when I’m 100% honest, it usually goes better than I could have imagined. I tried my very best to let go of the results after I sent the email yesterday morning – I brought all my modeling gear with me, and said to myself, if I have to, I have to, and I will – … then I habitually, compulsively, checked my inbox to see if there was a response. Then… I remembered that I was “turning it over,” letting it go, and I was actually at another job that was needing my attention.

And so it went for about 4 hours. I even left for lunch. Ha! I even let myself take my little breaks and walk around downtown, to relieve my poor spine of compression for a few non-sitting minutes. I let myself take care of myself, basically, even though I didn’t know what “the future held.” That’s sort of new. Usually, I’ll clamp down – I don’t know what’s going on, what’s happening, what will happen, I better stay here, worry, consume, agitate.

Nope. I took a walk. I wore a dress yesterday even, I think I’ve worn it once since I bought it, and I looked nice. I looked presentable. I looked Molly. Only nicer ;)

I come back from lunch, there’s an email from the artist, and, I guess I spoiled the surprise already, but, NO PROBLEM. I can’t stress enough what a relief that was. I was able to leave work and go to meet up with some of my peeps for an hour, we even sat in some 15 minute meditation, which was unexpected. I was able to come home, play with my cat, … attempt to get to bed at a decent hour.

I haven’t told my friend who chastised me for considering canceling that it all went well. I know that she’s human, and as another friend said to me recently, We can only see as far for others as we can see for ourselves. And, I “get” what she meant, that it’s not okay to cancel last minute – or rather, it’s not ideal, but it had to be asked. So, I will have to tell her – and maybe when I’m done with this set of work I’m doing with her, I’ll move on – she is helpful in a lot of other ways, and again, she is human. She has her own history, and beliefs and patterns. Whatever it meant to her to arise such a virulent reaction, really doesn’t have much to do with me, honestly. I’m glad I’m able to see what was mine, what was right for me, and do what was right for “Human Molly,” not “Super Molly.” I may look good in tights, but the cape is a little much.

One of the reasons I didn’t want to do the gig yesterday was that I wanted to continue to apply for work in the evening. I didn’t do that yesterday – I sat on my couch and read this book I’m reading. Man Seeks God. It’s actually hilarious, and informative. But one thing that came up at my workshop on this past Saturday was my answer to my question for the group – What, honestly, is your favorite creative block – or put another way, what is your favorite thing to do instead of being creative?

In the past, I’ve written facebook, or t.v., but this time, I think I got a little closer to the heart of it: Reading about other people’s lives instead of living my own.

Yep, that pretty much fits about all the manifestations of what I do instead of living my own – that’s what facebook provides, this book I’m reading offers, it’s what t.v. or movies do. Let me witness someone else’s life, instead of participating in mine.

Sure, there’s a time and place for it all – I’m not going Luddite. But I’m glad to be more focusedly aware of what it is I’m doing when I decide to read for 3 hours, instead of send out one resume.

That said, today, I commit to creating a teaching resume, and sending out one job application.

I also commit to taking a spinal decompression walk. ;) 

We Have All Overpacked

hey dudes. burning candle at both ends, with early work commute, and late night job hunting, so, please accept this poem in place of today's blog. it's what I read at the "spiritual send-off" graduation ceremony two weeks ago. imagine me being emphatic. xo,m.

                     * * *

There is a train departing shortly.

All the people in this room will be on it.

This is lucky because you have overpacked.

You have brought

scarves

and sweaters

and knitted hats.

You have anticipated your journey

will be wintered

and icy

and hard.

Your neighbor has also overpacked.

His suitcase is filled with

stilettos,

and boas

and a katy perry mash-up.

He has anticipated his journey

will shimmy with ease

and levity

and laughter.

As you look around this room,

each person comes here overpacked –

with ideas

with plans

with scars.

Each person with

a dream,

or prayer,

or plea.

Each of us comes here hoping

we’ve prepared for our journey properly.

Hoping we’ll

have enough or

be enough or

do enough.

Hoping that everything

we’ve put in

and gone through

and let go of is enough

to move on from here.

But, I am sorry to tell you,

we haven’t got everything we need.

See, I need your feathered boa

to remind me

not take myself too seriously

 – and that glitter is a verb.

You need my winter boots

to help you walk through that one

moonless night.

The person in front of you would like to know

if you have a bandaid she could use,

or a book that you love,

or a love that you lost.

The person behind you would like to know

if she could borrow your arms for a minute

so you can enclose her in an embrace

-- something none of us can pack.

There is a train departing shortly.

All the people in this room will be on it.

And this is lucky because we have all

overpacked.

May 2012

Turn Left.

Feels like another “toodling along” day. I actually don’t know if that’s a known phrase or word, or if my mom made it up – but, generally, I suppose people know what I mean if it’s not. Or, for all I know, it’s a well-known high-fallutin’ word. … Yeah, I just wanted to write “fallutin.”

Feeling generally optimistic today, or rather a lack of pessimism, so that’s a good start, and a decent change. I’ve been presented with the opportunity to think about choice, a few times in the last 24-48 hours or so. Particularly, the idea that I have the opportunity to choose my perspective. And more than that, I have the choice to do a lot of damn things.

Basically, I’ve been given the power of choice, and I’m recognizing what might be better ways of using that grand choice. That privilege of choice.

I was talking with a friend yesterday, and she was telling me about some places where she was feeling hopeless, and I offered that she does have a choice here. That we are indeed at places where we both can choose to turn right, and go down the all too familiar well worn path of despair, crumbs, victimhood – all the way back to the dry well. Well is dry. It always has been. But sometimes I, and she, like to see if maybe today there’s just one drop I can squeeze out from it. Nope. That well is dry, but I have a choice to still go there if I want.

Or… I can choose a different way. A different way to look, approach, feel, be. Think. I believe part of this is owning that mantle of adulthood – recognizing that we have the power of choice, and are in some ways the steward of our own fates. Sure, Fate sometimes intervenes, Divine intervention happens, and sometimes we are stripped of choice, but, for the most part, nearly everything in my life at the moment, and how I choose to see or hold it, is a choice. I have chosen to engage in despair. I have chosen to stay small. I have chosen to reject responsibility, and then I get to complain about my meager finances. Or romances.

It’s not all as simple as turning on a light switch, but sort of, sometimes, it is. It needn’t be some massive, monolithic effort, or commitment; sometimes, it seems to me now, it’s just a simple shrug, and a turn left. Not so heavy, or burdensome. Not so daunting or scary. Just a left turn. Toward something … not new. It’s not new – I mean, it is and it isn’t. I don’t quite know (obviously) all that’s down a path of Left, but I’m familiar enough with occasionally taking that route that I do know some of the milemarkers.

Peace. Calm. A sense of well-being. These are quite obvious particularly in contrast to the milemarkers on the way to the dry well.

Today, I can choose. I have a choice to see myself roundly, to see my life roundly. I can choose today to notice the assets, to notice where I have a choice – a choice to write my teaching resume. A choice to send it. A choice to decide whether I want to do some live drawing modeling tomorrow, or if I’m feeling a little too tender for that.

I have a choice to buy eggs, instead of eat popcorn for dinner. I have a choice to make a nutritious meal – like the one I’m eating now ;) I have a choice to dress properly today, in a way that makes me feel professional, but myself – not a drone or clone, but not defiant. That may seem like a “silly” thing to think of as a choice, but it’s not.

Last Tuesday, to my second day back to the temp job, I dressed in all black, with my black leather jacket and my fuck you attitude of, I can’t believe that I have to do this work in this office, sitting for all these hours… yadda yadda, fuck you, I’m wearing black. ! Yes, That was a choice. Luckily, that was also the same day I had my wonderful conversation with a friend about whether or not I want to be an adult.

So, today, I can wear something that says, I’m still me, with my quirks and style, but yes, I respect this workplace, and am grateful to be here.

I also have the choice to pack my lunch instead of buy it. To meet my friends later instead of isolate. And to remember to breathe.

I have a lot of choices today. And the well is still dry. 

What Ifs – A Response

What if I thought more of others’ happiness

What if I were grateful for what I have

What if I took good care of my possessions

What if I took good care of my body

What if I allowed myself to receive love from others

What if I allowed myself to receive my own

What if I believed I was alright

What if I were grateful for my coffee mugs, 

                                                 gifts from kind friends

What if I were grateful for the furniture in my apartment, 

                                                 free, all of it

What if I were grateful for the electricity

                                                 clean water

                                                 hot water

                                                 a refrigerator

What if I allowed myself to fill my refrigerator

What if I allowed myself to believe in my inherent goodness

What if I believed that I was more than my wants

What if I believed that I was able to carry more than I ever have

What if I thanked others for their kindness

                                                 What if I meant it

What if I let myself feel love for other people

What if I let myself feel generosity of spirit

What if I thought there was enough for everyone

What if I thought more about everyone

What if love was a gift

What if I let myself breathe 

                                                 when I hug people

What if the smell of children’s hair was enough

What if I let myself believe in my dreams

What if I let myself support them in an adult way

What if I opened to hearing your praise

What if I opened to hearing your guidance

What if I opened to hearing your story

                                                 without thought to improve, correct, enhance

What if you were enough.

What if I were enough

What if I let myself stop 

                                                 worrying

                                                 being small

                                                 hiding

What if I believed it were safe

What if I believed you were safe

What if I believed that I were

What if I let myself be

What if I were more generous with my gifts

What if I were more generous with my affection

What if I were more generous with my laughter

What if I could relax

What if I could relax.

Romance & Finance

The Third Thing. That’s what a woman told me yesterday, after I met up with this new group of folks who, apparently, talk about intimacy, relationships, and habitual avoidance of (or indulgence in) such things.

I was telling her that for years, I’ve been trying to find a balance between Betty Crocker and the Vixen, to find the middle way between them. And she said something I’d never heard before – that likely, whatever it or I turn out to be, it’s probably neither of these – it’s a Third Thing.

I’ve said sometimes, that I don’t like the analogy of “living in the gray,” you know, the balance between black and white – between black and white thinking, all or nothing. Some people call this middle, attempting to live in the gray area. But to me, that sounds pretty awful, like living in a fog bank (looking at you, San Francsico!). And so, I’ve said that instead of the middle of black and white being gray, I call it color. That something other than black, or white, is color. And so, “the third thing” thing makes sense to me (she said it’s a Bill Clinton quote, and g-d love Bill – I’ll have to look it up).

Romance and Finance. I hear so often that these are the things which so often plague, worry, or motivate all of humanity. I’m reading this book on the art and history of Europe (“for the traveler”), trying to get some more info, things I slept through or didn’t care about or was too worried about the aforementioned “ance”s to listen. I have a few books on European travel on my desk, and this one is giving me the history, the why and wherefore of how come art and architecture look like they do. And here’s what I’ve learned: people, throughout history, have fought and been motivated by romance and finance. Kings marriages, new religions, revolutions. Many have been about who has what, who doesn’t have what, and how they can get more.

So, I’m not alone, apparently, in the grand scheme of these issues. Of working on them, and my own grating relationship with each.

This is good. And there is a solution, but as Jung said, (I think I’ve mis/quoted him here recently!), You can’t solve a problem on the level of the problem. And the problem here is that I have only my well-worn resources, patterns, and behavior to help me "solve" these problems of romance and finance. So it’s time to look for help.

My romantic life as having fallen in either Betty Crocker or Vixen territory is very much like my relationship with money. I’m either restricting, meagerly existing, and isolating – or I’m burning money to quench and balm the pain of all that restriction. Binge, remorse, restrict. Repeat. Many people can notice these traits in anorexics or bulimics, and so far in my life, knock on every piece of wood and mock-wood in the vicinity, that has not been an issue for me in that particular way. My binge and restrict is with emotions, money, and sexuality.

And if the middle way is not indeed the “middle,” then I have to keep coming back to those who know a different way, and can help me to get there.

This morning, I queried in my Morning Pages about this desert I go to in meditation. How was that desert, I asked. I hadn’t been there in a long time, and it was a place that I’ve gone to occasionally in my meditations for years, and one which I was encouraged to solidify in myself and my brain while I was doing some EMDR work with my therapist earlier this year.

She said it was interesting that I chose a desert as my “safe place,” that many people choose cozy small place, places where they feel protected. But, no, for me, I want a wide wide field of vision. There are no surprises, no sneak attacks, I have full view of every single thing for miles and miles. It’s a desert like those you see in the southwest, with ocher colored mesas in the distance. And the flat, flat, cracked earth expanse of dirt and dust and a hawk flying lazy circles in the bright, expertly clear sunlight.

This, is safe to me.

I suppose I’m reminded of it today, as I am going to be needing to touch into places like this – safe, calm, where I feel almost in charge. There is nothing hidden, nothing freaky, nothing to shake me or scare me or surprise me. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of surprises and shakes and scares as I begin to dive into this romance stuff. This emotional intimacy, undoing this very deep pattern of all or nothing. And so, it’s time for me to strengthen my base, root within my safe places, and get the hell out of the way.

This is like a geyser, this work. Or maybe it’s not, what do I know. What I do know is that I am grateful for the help I have available to me, internally and externally. I was asked in my meditation from my Feminine, as I reported the other day, if I was ready – I guess I was being asked if I was ready to work on this stuff – because she/I have reawakened, and is powerful as fuck. It is no wonder to me, then, that it’s taken me as long as it has to come to this place of beginning to integrate and work on my sex/relationship/intimacy stuff – I’m going to need all the resources I’ve acquired, and many I have yet to discover.

Here’s to an assault on old ideas, however that looks as it is coupled with a cosmic cease-fire. 

Delicious Evil

Today’s a day off from the temp gig, but not a “day off” for me. I slept later than I have this week, which is nice though. I have to meet some folks throughout the day, and I have a teaching resume to write, and some jobs to apply to, and some other writing that I need to have ready for Monday. Also… my workshop is tomorrow in SF, so I should likely prepare for that!

So, “day off”, but full. It’s alright, I likely need full right now. There’s a lot of chaos in my brain. Luckily, it’s found something else besides imminent poverty to latch on to, but what it’s latching on to is sending me to the bottom of something else. And for that, I’m going to go meet up with some new folks today and see how they deal with some of this type of mental obsession and compulsion.

Turn over a rock, and there’s another rock.

Basically, my discomfort at my financial situation, as well as some recovery around it, is revealing a set of behavior I thought either long dormant, dead, or just not my problem. I was wrong. Resurrection is an ugly beast.

I find myself engaging in behavior that, well, makes me feel uncomfortable. And intrigue and thrill … however lovely they are to experience, they’re waving hot pink lures down a path of self-destruction.

I think it makes sense, honestly. I’m coming to a place where I’m beginning to take ownership of myself and my life, beginning to want to do so, starting to try to be the woman I want to be – one with a job, and hobbies, and some self-respect. And, “suddenly,” I find myself being derailed and side-tracked by a whole new set of “issues,” things which chop all that good work off at the knees.

Oh, silly Molly, it’s not right to feel good or proud or accomplishy – let’s give your brain this poisonous chew-toy instead, and see what happens. Let’s maintain the small, hamstrung, going-nowhere-fast Molly. That’s the familiar and easy one.

I’m a little surprised at the voracity of the new behavior. It’s a twist on some old ‘going for unavailable men’ behavior. And again, I thought that I’d sort of let all that go, somehow. But, apparently not. And, like a snake at rest who strikes suddenly, I’m bitten, poisoned, and fucked.

Luckily, in this case, not literally.

It ain’t fun. It ain’t fun to talk about, admit, or lay claim or words to the behavior that’s causing me discomfort. Unavailable men have meant many a thing in my past, though usually over the last several years, that has meant emotionally unavailable. I’m taking it to a new level this time, and I’m hitting a bottom around it.

Because I don’t want to stop. I do. I vehemently and vigorously do, want to stop. Engaging, intriguing, contacting, … flirting. But, oh that part of me that doesn’t. That part of me that makes that slurping delicious… ha. I just remembered. “Delicious Evil.” That’s the phrase, the face, the action, the feeling of this behavior. Delicious Evil, you can taste it on your tongue like chocolate velvet. With an afterburn of horror.

When I moved to San Francisco 6 years ago, I was ushering for a small theater company downtown, then, as now, trying to keep my toe in the acting world, or the periphery of performance. I was a few weeks sober. There was a cast party that night that I’d been invited to. And as I went to the restroom to weigh that option, I was putting on lipstick, and caught my eye in the mirror. I gave myself that hypnotic, lightly cruel, lip curling sneer of a smile, the look that says, we’re gonna do bad things tonight, and it’s going to feel great.

I stopped.

I know that look. I know the results of that look. I knew that if I went out that night, I’d drink, I’d flirt, I might sleep with someone I barely know, and I’d feel like shit afterward.

I knew whatever happened at that party, Delicious Evil was on the menu.

And I didn’t go. I felt like an asshole, like a loser, like a party-pooper, and not a little bit strange/aloof/confounding to the actors – but I didn’t go. I’d been to that party before. I know how it ends.

For all of this/that knowledge, “playing the tape,” knowing the results, having been down roads like this before, I find myself unable to stop the careening wheels of this mining cart. Plumbing further into the darkness, away from all that I’m working for and toward.

This is a hot stove. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot.

It is.

And so, today, I’m going to try to do something different, and seek out folks who maybe know the way to slow, and even stop this cart.

Because I have been walking toward the light, toward respect, responsibility, toward adulthood, toward love of myself, and I’ll be goddamn fucked if I allow myself to be buried all over again. 

Sucker

Dear Folks,

My new “normal people” hours are conflicting with my ability to write this with coherence, and eat, shower, become fully conscious. So, forgive its in/coherency, if it is so.

I had two phone calls yesterday that sort of count as informational interviews. One was with my darling Aunt Roberta (technically my mom’s cousin, but all those cousins are sort of like aunts and uncles – that’s how it was when you played stickball in the streets of Brooklyn in the '50s).

She has been a professor of English since the sun was born, and had some great information and tips for me. She sent me her teaching resume to take a look at, as I’m beginning to apply for teaching jobs – something I’ve viciously avoided for so long, I almost forget why. … but I do remember.

For as long as I can remember, what with my interest in literature, and writing, and reading, well-meaning folks have said the following to me:

Well, you could always teach English.

Somehow this phrase has turned into an anathema for me. Is this the only thing that I can do?? It begins to sound like a default, like welp, you could always settle. It has calcified into a job title that brings to mind aging high school professors, eking out their little lives in some underappreciated, underpaid job. My vision of “teacher” has come to also mean “sedentary,” as once you get a job teaching, all I hear is “tenure” and that’s all people are working toward – all they want is to stay as absolutely still as possible. No room for exploration, movement, change. You got it, you keep it, you pipe down, and suck it up.

Obviously, many of these ideas are unrealistic and quite ridiculous, but that hasn’t kept them from keeping me away from the whole idea of teaching – teaching English, teaching high school, teaching college – as if I’ve ever thought that I could.

But…

The reality.

Firstly, as Roberta was quick to assure me, teaching does not mean wasting away in some small town or inner city for eternity – it doesn’t have to mean that, and particularly in the beginning, it doesn’t mean that – as chances are, as a beginning teacher, you’ll have to sort of go where the job is.

Secondly, … and here’s the hilarious irony … I like teaching.

Sure, it’s hard work – I’ve done it before, but never considered what I've done as “real” teaching. I had a job at a Sunday School last year, once a week (and had lots of lesson planning experience to really really learn that lesson planning.is.not.paid.). I also taught ESL in South Korea for almost two years, but I don’t “count” that either, as I was hung-over most of the time, and worked out my lesson about 10 minutes before class, if that.

However, I do like being in a classroom. I also think I have a lot to offer – I, if I may be so unhumble, think I’m pretty cool. I’m funny, performative, creative, a good listener, and a very good judge of classroom dynamics and social cues (i.e. they’re not listening - change it up, or so and so is interested in so and so, so I better move them). I also have a lot of outside interests, which makes for a well-rounded incorporation of things into the lesson plan.

Thirdly, I'm technically qualified to do it now, with my degree and all. 

So, I could do it.

And as I’ve reminded myself a lot over the last year, “Can I do it?” is a different than “Do I want to do it?”

But here’s the change occurring. My wonderful sunshine ball, Maila, came over for tea last night. Here’s what she said:

“If it wasn’t hard, they wouldn’t have to pay us.”

BAH! Oh, right. It’s work. The ideal is that work include some play or interest, or a lack of soul-crushing mindlessness that leaves zero energy available for outside pursuits. And the thing is, I want and would love to pursue a LOT of outside pursuits.

As she was leaving, I thought of something else which has probably helped to keep me at arms-length from a “real” job. I’m reminded of my life several years ago, which I know is similar to a lot of folks I hang out with.

In the cheepy-birdie hours of the morning, in the hours when the sky is beginning to lighten, and the new day is dawning, I and we, were usually heading home. Weaving and wending our way to some pass-outable location, or so red-eyed and clench-jawed that the chirping birds were a mockery of all that is holy (Shut the fuck UP! Don’t remind me it’s a new day, I’m still … still … STILL up!).

And as we were wending home, or at least one well-worn path I remember particularly, as I was wending my way home in my second tour of teacher duty in South Korea, I would pass by a church on Sunday morning. There, people, humans, were walking to church. And I would sneer, Suckers.

These people, in their pressed, clean clothes, with a full night’s sleep, and a full refrigerator. With brushed teeth, and combed hair, and a place to get to at 8 or 9am. Who paid rent, and taxes, and didn’t have their utilities turned off monthly. Whose teeth were not ground down with clenching, or livers distended with liquor, or clothing bathed in a cheap bath of smoke. These people, with real jobs, real lives, real responsibilities, were Suckers. They knew nothing of the way things ought to be, the nocturnal, hedonistic, nihilistic counter-culture. They were suckers.

And as I begin to accept that it’s time for me to take on those same responsibilities, there’s a part of me that calls myself a Sucker.

But, I’m not a hedonist anymore. I don’t reek, or steal, or slink anymore. If a balanced check-book, paid rent, cat and people food, and some bass lessons are what I want, then I have to do what they do. I have to be a Sucker,

which I guess is another word for Adult. 

Grown-upness

I was on the phone yesterday with a friend/mentor of mine. I’d asked her for an informational interview, with the knowledge that I had no idea what I was going to ask her – I’d let her know that in the email, too. She accepted anyway, and on the phone we were, as I sat beneath the dome of the downtown SF shopping center during my lunch break from the temp gig.

She knows much of my story and development over the last few years, and works in a field to help people, and, most importantly to me, seems to have some semblance of balance between work, creativity, and life. I thought she’d be a good place to “start.”

I told her the 2^nd thing that came up at the “money meditation” on Monday. The 2^nd question was “Do I (Molly) fear you (money)?” The answer was, Yes, because I mean responsibility.

Oh Responsibility! How I’ve run from you!

Over the course of my conversation with my friend, she reflected back to me that it sounds like I want to be powerful, without building or holding or being the vessel for that power. I do want to do great things (not like, ooh famous – just like, ooh cool), and, I have not wanted to really take the ownership of what it might take to get there. See, particularly, Magical Accidental Orgasm. There is no one coming to live my life for me. There is no one coming to take the risks and chances and changes that I need to make in my life and attitude for me. It’s up to me.

Or it’s not. I can choose or not to take the reigns of my life. I can choose or not to take the steps to holding responsibility for myself.

This responsibility thing, my aversion to it, came up earlier this year, in a workshop run by the very same friend. See, I have these old associations with responsibility. That it means more than I am able to handle. That’s what it meant when I was young – having to do things a child should not have to do, things that an adult ought to have been doing, but the adults in my life were not quite able to do that. So, I did. And I resented it, and I was burdened by it, and I’ve carried my resentment and fear of responsibility here through and to my adulthood.

Adulthood. That word came up yesterday in our conversation too. “Adult.” “Grown-up.” If I want grown-up things, which I very much do, then I have to learn to be a grown-up. Sure, I’m 30, but that’s no indication of adulthood.

Things that grown-ups have -- a job, a car, a house, a relationship, stability, vacation -- well, they earn these things by showing up for themselves in a responsible way. My same friend had worked as a house cleaner for ten years before coming to her pursuit of her current profession.

She also said, basically, nothing can grow in the dark. I am ripe with resentment, self-pity, longing, entitlement, and self-centeredness because of this ongoing rejection of the mantle of grown-up. I grasp at things I think I want, but I’m not willing to firm the foundation to get there – to mix the mortar, lay the bricks. Chop wood, carry sticks. That’s where I need to be at. Very simply, I need to lay hold of qualities and actions that I have tried to avoid.

The truth is that I have no idea what it would be like to take responsibility for myself. I’ve churned along at this hamstrung pace and mind-set for so long, I honestly don’t know. I’ve been talking here some about how “grace” and gifts from the Universe have been incredibly lovely, but that they don’t help me to build self-esteem around jobs and work and … being a responsible adult, basically.

To warm up to the idea of being a grown-up. Yes, very much I want to be one – I want what they seem to have. But what I see, I suppose is the externals. What I haven’t seen, necessarily, is all the work they have put in to get there. To do what is necessary. I haven’t done what is necessary. I’ve done everything else, I’ve danced around the entry to that path for a decade, and belly-ached, Why can’t I get there? Why is the door closed to me? It’s not closed. Never has been. I’ve been terrified of what it means to begin to walk down it. But the truth is, and forgive me, I got a cat a year and a half ago. She is a monument to my warming to commitment – has this responsibility, has responsibility for this life, hers, created any burden or pain in my life? Not in the slightest, and in fact, has brought untold and unforeseen joy.

This is what I too imagine that taking on responsibility for my own life may bring. Sure, I imagine it’ll be a little different, seeing as it’s mine, and my brain is such a lovely chatter factory. But, maybe not. Maybe, the doors will swing open as I take one step onto the path of grown-upness. Maybe, simply, I’ll feel better knowing that I’m on the path at all. 

Positions.

Over the last few years, I have gone from smoking maybe half a pack or so a day, down to nothing -- this, by no virtue of my own. There have been times when I was smoking a pack a day, and sometimes hardly at all, having started back in college, when I said Fuck It, I Need a Cigarette, following a dramatic break-up with my first “real boyfriend” my freshman year.

But, over the last two years or so, I’ve had to stop. Despite having developed strep throat several times a year in the past, and continuing to smoke until really, ultimately, I couldn’t breathe fully or swallow, whereupon I’d “quit” until I could get that nicotine relief back into my lungs, a different ailment began to happen when I’d smoke recently – after several a day, at night, I began to wake up from my sleep, not able to take a full breath properly. So… slowly, I cut back, and realized that even after one a day, I’d still get this tight chest pain, and shallow breathing, which was always not so fun. And slower still, testing the waters still… I’d go down to a drag from someone else’s or splitting half a cigarette with a friend. No. Dice.

Without fail, I’d go to sleep, only to wake up a few hours later unable to breathe. So, I “quit.” Or rather, I stopped. I had to – it wasn’t my choice, I’d rather not have, despite the health and smell and cost and yadda yadda – If I could, I would, but I can’t.

Yesterday, as I was sitting at my temp job in SF, I had a similar experience. Something being crossed off my list by no virtue or choice of my own. Within a few hours of sitting, doing data entry basically (I’m organizing the massive library for the interior design firm that I’ve temped with before – hired to work with them until it’s finished – so about two weeks) – my back began to hurt. And this isn’t like "oh, silly back pipe down," this is like "stop sticking a fucking fire brand into my lower spine."

I’ve known recently that sitting for extended periods of time has been aggravating my health, but it’s been easier to moderate as I haven’t been working full-time. So, yesterday by about 3pm, with near tears in my eyes, my three or four lower vertebrae about ready to jump out the back of my skin, I told my boss that I was going to leave for the day.

This was fine – she knows the work is grueling, and I’ll be back this morning, and I’ll attempt to moderate my sitting time more consciously. But, when I came home yesterday afternoon then, and came to my computer to apply for jobs, what am I looking at? Admin jobs.

For the love of Christ.

This, is being taken away from me as an option through no virtue of my own. Sure, I’ve been applying to admin jobs at cooler places, like the SFMOMA and galleries and art schools – places that seem more aligned with where my values lie – but, it seems, and is evidenced, that this too is not an option – or not in this way.

I simply cannot sit down for 8 hours. The job that I applied to yesterday listed under physical requirements that I be able to sit for 80% of the day and type for 50% of that. It’s a cool-ish job too. And yes, I applied, before I began to put two and two together.

So, this option is being wiped off the slate, and I’m left with another question mark. I’m honestly glad that it is being taken away from me – it’s a default position, it’s a fall-back, it’s what I’ve always done, sit behind a desk like a good worker bee. I’m good at it, but like I recently told a friend when she asked me if I liked those kinds of jobs, I said it’s like (forgive me) farting – it’s something I can do, but really I’d prefer not to.

Sorry. ;)

So, it’s been suggested for me to make a list of all the jobs that don’t require sitting for 8 hours a day, or more schooling at this point – though, maybe that’s just what will happen – though, sincerely, I hope not. And doesn’t require standing for 8 hours, like waitressing. Although, I do have a few offers for some catering work over the next few months, … which I haven’t replied to yet.

I was with a group of folks last night, and we were listening to a tape of a suggested meditation. This was about money, our relationship to it. We were to stare at a monetary bill of some denomination, and really look at it, and imagine it nearly animate – we, Americans, Humans, give money a lot of power and anima all the time, may as well find out what it has to say! The first question we were to ask it was, How do I (Molly) feel about you (money)? Its answer: Distant. … Duh, no wonder I am where I am.

There were a few other questions along these lines which need some more marinating and change, but as I change my relationship to money, how I can earn, how I can earn respectfully and with integrity and health, how I can be of service to others which is reflected back to me as a monetary value, how I can be responsible to myself, to money, to my jobs or career … I will apparently also be changing my position, physically and otherwise.