Perfection is an Illusion. Really.

“Tell me how” implies that there is a right way, and that you know how to do it.

“Show me how” implies that there is a guideline to follow, and I can learn according to my own humanity, with mistakes and triumphs.

Tell me how means that I don’t trust myself, and that I am better off letting you figure things out for me, leading the way so that I don’t fuck it up.

Show me how means that we are collaborators, each learning from one another, and there is no expert or right way.

Tell, versus discover. Tell, there is a certainty in this world; discover, nothing is certain.

Maybe there is no reason for this cancer, except that my cells mutated. Period, the end.

Maybe there is no vault combination to happiness in life, and it’s all a trial and error.

Maybe I can let go of the throttle-hold on how to live properly, my strict code and belief that the world will “open up to me,” “fall into place” if I just learn how to live properly.

I brought a certain notebook with me to the hospital this time. I use it mainly for recording my shamanic journey meditations, or work that I do with others around that realm of my practice. I read through some of it during my stay, and came across a meditation I’d forgotten, one where I’d come to meet my grandfather, my mom’s dad, who died when I was about 11.

I’d dreamt of him before, had memories of him, with his blue v-neck sweater, tall as anything. In this meditation, his advice to me was, “Live … And don’t worry so much.”

Good advice.

I’ve been thinking about living, how I’ve been doing it, and wrestling with it, and flaying in it and struggling against it, and demanding it reveal its secrets to me, so that I can finally relax.

When, in fact, the relaxing is when the revelations occur.

An example I heard recently was about the Dead Sea in Israel, or really any salt body of water – if you flail and struggle, you’ll drown; if you let yourself relax, you’ll float.

I’ve been thinking about the intersection perhaps of the two gods I’ve been struggling with – the one that is the calm center of the Universe, and allows for glimpses of what can only be called love; and the one that might be personal to me, and actually interested in my living a life worth living.

My friend said perhaps there’s both; and perhaps I’ll never know.

I’ve been thinking about relaxing. About putting an end to my frantic digging. Digging for answers, for a new life, for one that looks more secure and accomplished than my own. Digging for peace – frenetically. I’ve been thinking about the possibility that a power greater than myself might be able to care for me, in a partnership.

I’ve been thinking about how much less worry I’d have if I didn’t demand so much of myself; so much of myself to be different than I am – to be published perhaps, a good pianist, gainfully employed in meaningful work, partnered, happy. To wrestle myself into happiness.

I don’t think it works that way.

I’ve been thinking about that phrase from my friend, that it is our responsibility to make our lives one worth living; that we’re the only ones who can do that for ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we are alone in doing it.

I’ve been thinking about the words mystery, paradox, wonder. Words given to me by a friend this morning in her own expression of what god might be to her.

We don’t get to know, and we don’t have to know. I don’t have to know the answer. I don’t have to know the outcome. I don’t have to change what you think of me. I don’t have to change how I am around you. I don't even have to change how well I play the piano.

The only thing I have to change is simple: I have to open my palm, and allow myself to live.