In Training

Dear Blogosphere,

Apologies for the sporadic posts these few weeks. First there was sickness, then my mom in town, and then, of course, the Monday 5 a.m. shift at my gym.

And in thinking about the structure of the next few weeks, I don’t know that I can promise you anything more than a few pixels.

This Sunday began the first full week of rehearsals. 4 hours Sunday, 3 each night this week. And assumedly, each weeknight until opening night on September 19. It really is like a part-time job!

And so, I’ve come to think of my approach to this time as though I’m training for a marathon. To the best of my ability, I am going to aim to be completely conscious of the food I eat, the breaks I force myself to take from my desk at work, the sleep I manage to slip in between rehearsals and a day job.

I have this phrase I wrote down a hundred years ago that is taped to my closet wall and has taken me as long to come to understand and believe: Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.

And I believe this is the perfect time to begin to implement “acting as if” that’s true (because, I somewhere believe it is). The body is a cautious and delicate scale. In these few weeks and months, I’ve gotten to see that my own scale is particularly sensitive (liver trouble, K.O.’d by a virus, my acupuncturist saying my body was ripe with signs of stress).

So, balance, intentionality. Vigilance. Yes, it’s the absolute busiest season of my work year – like a retailer between Black Friday and Christmas. But, as we’ve seen, I can’t show up to work if I’m not healthy, and I’m not healthy if I’m not intentional. So, I have to be my own trainer, stopping the clock to take a walk outside. Deciding, No, I won’t have 4 cups of coffee to power through my day. Yes, guy at the store who watched me put the apple back and reach for the organic one that’s a dollar more expensive, yes, I do need to eat this instead.

I’ve set up a “crash-pad” at my friend’s house who lives between work and the rehearsal theater so that I can go and chill out a few hours after work without having to either rush home and back or sit at a café and spend money or be interactive with anyone.

I’m going to begin going back to my gym a few mornings a week, instead of the once I’ve been doing. I’ve been meditating almost every morning for 10 – 20 minutes. And, we’ll see where the blog falls on the self-care scale, considering the few moments of sleep it ticks away.

Finally, I’d like to make sure that I get time in with my “brain drain” crew, spending an hour with people who normalize my experience and help my thinking to turn down in decibels.

"Meetings, Movement, and Meditation" has arisen as my prescription for health, and I am hoping to treat myself as the worthy patient and doctor of such self-care, which will enable me to show up fully, mind, body, spirit.

Because… I gotta tell ya, This shit is So.Much.Fun. !

Why Nice Guys Finish Last.

(Note: The following is one human’s opinion and not intended for relationship diagnostic purposes. See a doctor if symptoms worsen.)

You can add your variation of this sentiment to a long list of complaints we’ve heard over the years:

“I don’t get it; I’m a nice guy. Why do women only go for assholes?”

In my meditation on kindness today, I was brought to thinking about “nice-ness.”

In dating, what does “being nice” look like? Most times, we translate "being nice" as allowing the other person to make the decision:

“Wherever you want to go.” “Whatever food you want to eat.” “Whichever movie looks good to you.”

In the beginning, this seems like a great tack. Allowing the other person to choose, we figure, means that we’re being “nice” by saying that we respect and trust their opinion. We’re also saying (perhaps) that we don’t want to impose our will or assert our own interests or preferences, because we’re afraid that if we do, we’re going to proffer the “wrong” choice. 

I’ve had Mexican all week, and want to have Thai, but what if she hates Thai? I have absolutely no interest in seeing a chick flick, but if it means I get to spend time with her, then fine, I’ll sit through it.

We believe that we’re letting the other person make the choice in this situation, but actually, we’ve already made one: I am choosing not to disclose my desires for fear that my idea -- and therefore I -- will be rejected. Period. So, by contrast, if I let you choose, then I know whatever it is is something you'll like, and therefore you'll have a good time and you'll like me.

So, the "nice" guy says, "Whatever you want." Look how nice I am. 

This is a choice. But it's also a manipulation of the truth. And, in my experience, if you add enough of those up, what you wind up with is not knowing at all what the other person likes, what their preferences are -- who they are.

We wind up dating someone who is just trying to stay in our good graces, and in doing so, the "nice guy" begins to lose us, because there isn’t enough of “them” to keep us engaged.

I want to date you. Or at least, I want to find out if I want to date you.

I will add here, that of course, in the start of any dating situation, we’re all angling somehow – of course we want this to work! Who doesn’t want to find someone they enjoy and can be themselves with?

But there’s the rub. If we begin to date on a basis of people-pleasing, we’re not being ourselves at all. We’re being who you want us to be – Or more accurately, who we think you want us to be.

There is always room for negotiation, for compromise, obviously. (And sometimes, yes, you really don't care.)

But I think the (mis)understanding of “nice guys vs assholes” is that we set up a dichotomy that states: "Being nice" doesn't work, therefore women want an asshole. And, asshole becomes defined by the opposite: Someone who asserts themselves regardless of the other person's needs or wants. Someone who treats the other like crap.

And that is NOT what I’m saying is the successful tactic.

Certainly, someone who takes only their interest and desire into account is an asshole. And is not someone who I (or most people I know) want to date.

But there is a middle-ground for each of us between being a doormat, and being the one who makes the other a doormat.

Equality, self-esteem, honesty, fluidity. Uncertainty.

Yes, perhaps you see the chick flick on your second date. But maybe you have Thai beforehand.

Because, I want to get to know you, whoever that is, and whatever the outcome.

We Can Do This the Easy Way . . .

Why does nobody ever put a period after that phrase?: 

We can do this the easy way. Period.

I heard it again on a radio interview the other day: Well, anything worth doing is hard. It’s the hard work that makes it worth while. Nothing good ever came from taking the easy road.

Really?

Here is a brief list of activities that I find most worthy and fueling in the world:

Holding a baby

Making conversation with a child

Laughing with friends

Singing showtunes with my mom and brother

Singing camp songs while my brother plays guitar

Dancing

Not one of these things is “hard.” Not one requires advanced degrees, mountains scaled, or scars incurred.

Each of these things are, for me, Easy. Joyful. Miraculous.

This value our culture has attached to struggle and adversity and toil is sickening and disheartening.

Why would we try to do anything if we know we’re gonna get our butts kicked in the process?

Now, I know what they’re getting at. I know that I wrote just yesterday that showing up is hard and scary, so I don’t know that I have a soap-box to stand on here. But, I am tired of being harangued by the idea that I have to struggle in this life to do anything worthwhile.

That anything that comes easily, naturally, feels good, joyful or pleasurable must have a toll paid in flesh.

Sure, caring for children all of the time is taxing; and I’m not a parent, just an eager attendant and friend to others' kids, which demands its own responsibility. Making the time to show up with and for friends, and to maintain friendships does take effort. Dancing means making myself vulnerable to being seen, which requires taking a deep breath before diving in.

But it doesn’t follow that these things are struggles, adversities, or stories of redemption.

God, how we love a redemption story. We hate people who “have it easy.” We want to hear how muddy the water was you had to slog through toward your goal. We want you to express fear and isolation and doubt and a “dark night of the soul” before you are worthy of a story of triumph, joy and ease.

What kind of fucking schadenfreude society are we?

I “get” that we all want to feel a kind of connection with those who have struggled, because often we too find ourselves in struggle and we don’t want to feel alone. It feels disconnected to hear a story of ease, success, and Life’s mercy. Because we don’t have or believe we can have that ourselves. And so we want you in the mud with us.

Sometimes we do slog through mud. I get that, too. But not everything in life that’s worth doing requires that. Sometimes we cross the bridge, our toes are not calloused, there is no troll to pay off, and we simply arrive at our destination.

I know that doesn’t make great drama. But I’m not looking for drama. I’m looking for joy. 

You Spin Me Right Roun’...

I’ve been looking up meditation retreats. There’s this one I’ve heard about for years that’s a 10-day silent meditation retreat – I remember a guy I knew once shared that his therapist advised him against going on a silent retreat! (He went anyway, and reported great tidings.)

But, one thing I always seem to forget until after I’ve gone on such a retreat or weekend away is that I can effect the same kind of stillness without going so far, and without paying so much.

I remember last year, I went north to Marin to participate in a half-day meditation retreat. The meditation itself was lovely; the grounds are nestled into the hillside near the ocean, and there’s an organic farm and garden you can walk through during the walking meditation part. But… the zen talk… eek.

This day's particular teacher stuck in my craw the whole time, so before the second “dharma talk,” I left. I felt good about having gone, being among the greenery and the eucalyptus. I even saw a chipmunk on my way back to the parking lot. But, I didn’t need to stay and “practice listening” to someone whose personality shone way larger than his teachings. It was way more about him, than his teachings.

As I left, I noted that I could have found the same or a similar degree of stillness, just by driving up into the nearby national park in Berkeley. I didn’t have to sit in a “zen-do” or listen to teachings – really, I just wanted to listen to the silence, and although I can do that in my own home, I prefer to go somewhere nature-y when I really want to recharge. 

I’m reminded of this as I look up retreats this morning: a day-long one at the same retreat center, the 10-day silent retreat place, even a hot-spring zen-center-meets-spa related to a nearby center.

But really, what do I want to achieve or gain or experience? Stillness.

I feel very harried at the moment, with a lot of irons in the fire around creative endeavors, work endeavors, and even friend endeavors.

I’ve been wanting to strengthen my relationships with friends, form new or stronger connections, and this weekend has been the perfect exercise in that – it’s been chock full of friend-related activities that have been truly wonderful. But, I’m tired.

Yesterday morning, spur-of-the-moment birthday plans were texted to me: “Join me in Marin for dinner and a hike under the full moon.”

Um, Yes, please!

None of the 6 dinner attendees knew anyone except the birthday boy, and we had a great time. The hike was fantastic. Epic, really. The view over the Bay, the fog rolling in, the lights below, the reflection of the “super moon” in the water. – That, my friends, was meditative.

But, it also wasn’t. Different personalities require different levels of reverence, and for some people, silence isn’t really an option. – I’d love to go back and experience it in the quiet. It was awe-inspiring.

And, I wasn’t home til after midnight … which if you didn’t know, is way past my bedtime. But, so worth it!

However, I begin to feel a draw inward. I’m an “X” in the “introvert/extrovert” Meyers-Briggs scale. Meaning, I am neither an “I: Introvert” nor an “E: Extrovert” – I fall so perfectly between the two, needing both in such equal amounts, that I am an “X: Right in the middle.”

So, with all of this external push (creative stuff, job stuff, friend stuff), Anty needs a recharge. (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reference, fyi.)

But, it is important for me to remember that I don’t need to retreat from the whole world, put huge parameters around my life in order to do this. It’s as simple as committing 2 hours, getting in my car, driving 20 minutes, and crunching through the soft-fallen eucalyptus leaves until I get to a spot where I can sit – no incense required. 

MyHead Revisited

I can’t even remember who it was now, but recently a friend told me that she is consistently revisiting and reevaluating her goals. What seemed like the best and truest goal two years ago may no longer hold the sway, and so, daily almost, but certainly every while or so, we must revisit what we’d thought we were heading toward – like recalibrating our compass.

I’d come up with this vision a few years ago, maybe 2 or 3 now, of my ideal daily schedule. The early morning, of course, is inner work like I already do (journaling, meditating, blogging); the rest of the morning hours would be spent in working on my craft, in a detached studio in the backyard that would be half an art studio and half a music studio. Couches, light, friends to jam or visit.

In the afternoon, I would go out “into the world,” and do *something* of which I’m still unsure having to do with the community -- being involved, helping others, maybe working after school with kids, or facilitating my workshop, or some kind of public speaking. Unknown task, but known purpose: to help, to connect, to be in community.

The evening would be play time. Either I’d be in theater productions, performing with my band, out at art shows or readings. That would be my friend, fun, out, “On” time.

And that’s my day. All seen from a white kitchen, where I stand, maybe 50 years old, chopping something at the island block, the art studio visible from a door to the backyard.

Not a bad vision, eh?!

But. It’s also time to revisit it. And my thoughts and goals in general. Are these intentions still relevant, powered, intended? Are these my values? Dunno. I’ll have to sit with them for a while.

What I surprised me this morning, however, is that several of my intentions have become realized. Though I know I am unfulfilled in my employment, as I remember where I was when I discovered the above vision a few years ago (also unfulfilled in my employment), I recognize I am no longer looking at this vision from a place of Yeah Sure, Right. As a completely foreign land.

I guess I’m being vague.

To drill down: This morning, I’m boarding a bus, to a train, to a plane that will carry me across the land to visit a girl friend and her new baby. Three years ago, this would be impossible.

And that’s what I’m trying to get at here: Something that was impossible, is now utterly completely possible, and it’s happening. In 4 hours. It is. There is no waiting, no longing, no hemming, no envy. I am doing what I’ve wanted to be able to do because I am able to do it.

Perhaps this all sounds quite bent this morning, perhaps having not packed yet is making me anxious to put all this down and get onto that plane.

But, I hope you get my meaning.

Because even as few as 2 weeks ago, I was as depressed and lost-feeling as Tom Hanks without Wilson. Despite the mantra of my friend that, This too shall pass, it didn’t feel that way, and I had no idea how that could happen. Nothing can really change, can it? It’s all the same Groundhog Day, isn’t it?

But, Bill Murray wakes up in the end to a new future, doesn’t he?

What looks like the continuation of a road going nowhere, long and desperate and desolate… well, this morning at least, I see that it’s not.

It doesn’t solve my life. It doesn’t offer clarity or freedom or a path lit up like the exit lines in a plane. But, in some ways, my recognition of my being here does fucking solve it.

The fact that this is enough. That I am happy – that I allowed myself to take a vacation, to visit a friend, to take action toward something that was valuable to me. … Actually, that does solve my life.

To look up from my navel-gazing and my despair and my coordinate-less destination, to remember (oh forgive me) that the journey is happening right now, and that I am (FINALLY) participating in it and NOTICE that I am participating in it:

Well, it feels like Alice in the ‘50s cartoon version of her story, walking along a path through the woods when a dog with a push-broom nose comes along behind her, and erases the path from which she came, cuts around in front of her, and continues to sweep away the path toward which she’s going, so that finally, all she’s left with is one illuminated square.

But for me, I’m seeing today (and this all may change tomorrow!) that this is pretty good square. 

The B Word.

Balance. Without it, I tend to become the other B word.

Someone asked me how the whole, "I need friends who don't live hand-to-mouth," blog went over, if there was any push-back from it. I said, not that I know of, but that I’d spoken to some other folks over the weekend, and was reminded of something very important in life: Things are not black and white.

When I stopped drinking, it was because I was an alcoholic. I put the bottle down, looked around, and declared everyone close to me alcoholic, too. Whether they were or not, I was on a crusade of reform, and they all were alcoholics who needed to stop as I did.

Well… two things: a) yes, most of the people I was associated with “at the end” were in fact drinking alcoholically, but b) that didn’t mean they or anyone who drank were alcoholics. In the beginning, I needed that kind of black and white thinking, because being close-ish to people who were drinking was too difficult a gray line when my line had to be crystal clear.

But, just because that was the way for me, I came to realize that wasn’t the way for everyone. And after some time passed, and indeed the folks who were hopeless sops like me faded from the foreground of my life, I got to see that some people (god bless them) can drink normally.

There’s one friend who stuck through my own transition. She described this "normal" drinking to me: she literally says to herself, “Hmm, I’m beginning to feel buzzed, I should switch to water.” Uh… I didn’t get that memo. “I’m beginning to feel buzzed,” was always followed by, “A few more will get it done right,” or if I was feeling temperate, “I should switch to beer.”

So, my friend does not react to alcohol how I do. And I have to come to see that there is a world between sauced and tight-ass.

In the same way, I recognize that as I begin to assess my behavior and extremism around money, scarcity, and deprivation, I am being called to allow others their own experience, even as I diagnose and address my own.

Just because a friend opened a new credit card, doesn’t mean I have to stop hanging out with them. Just because a friend is earning less than I think they deserve in the world, doesn’t mean they’re addicted to deprivation. Just because other people behave differently than me, doesn’t mean my way is the right way, and most importantly, doesn't mean I don't have anything to learn from them. 

As with getting sober, I do have to admit that some of the folks around me may indeed have trouble in this area – water seeks its own level, after all. But, that doesn’t mean I have to be an asshole about it.

And, that’s what I’ve gotten to see these past few days I’ve been declaring myself needing to “move on” from friends and communities who have what I’d declared a “faulty, diseased, and only rectifiable by a spiritual solution” relationship to money, and thereby the world.

It’s a good thing people don’t take me that seriously!

And it’s a good thing I can remember to not take myself too seriously, too. If I’d stuck to every declaration about myself… by this point I would have been:

Vegetarian

Israeli

A prostitute

A suicide victim

A daily exerciser

T.V.-less

Caffeine-less

An organic farmer

and a truck driver.

The thing is, I can’t make blanket declarations for myself or anyone else. I have no idea what my path contains or eliminates, thereby no idea what others’ do.

There is some truth to wanting to learn from and be around people whose relationship to money can model my own. But that’s because I have a problem with it. Not everyone does, and if they do, it’s really none of my business.

It comes to equanimity, and allowing others and myself our experience without judgment. It means having openness, compassion, and respect toward all people on all paths. It does certainly include me getting help for a pattern of beliefs and behaviors that have led me to despair and insanity, but it also includes me being more generous in my assessments of life. Allowing for the gray, for the middle-ground, for difference, for balance.

Because, solvent or not, nobody likes a bitch. 

Changing Underpants

“It’s like he really likes me & I’m not running from it,” is what I wrote in my journal this morning.

In fact, on Wednesday, I’ll be heading toward it, at 500 miles per hour.

I have my heels dug firmly into the ground below the plane that will carry me there, and I have compassion for the terror and fear that insists I stay in my cozy isolation.

It reminded me of a story I’d written in college (A Perverse Act of Gentility), although now, many of the details have changed. Most importantly, the part where I’m actually attracted to him, and that he’s never fallen into the deathly “friend zone.”

But, the final sentence of that story, about having humiliation and disgust for someone who “held me like an angel” -- that’s what sparked the memory this morning. That I anticipate being held in the same way by the Boston Cupcake, but I that anticipate feeling in polar opposite to how I did then. In fact, that I already do.

The number of years I’ve spent avoiding true connection is vast. I’ve written extensively here about hiding from, running from, being suspicious of love, but if you’re new to reading me, trust me: Intimacy … 

Well, here’s the vicious Catch-22 I’ve found myself in for as many years:

I am terrified of being loved; and it is also the absolute thing I hope most to be. It is where I know healing, change, elevation, joy, enlightenment, growth, revelation, and alchemy will occur. 

So, there is something different this time (no matter what the “outcome”) with the Cupcake: I am actually heading toward it. I’m not listening (wholly) to the fear. And, I feel different. “Even in my underpants, I feel different,” to quote Elizabeth Gilbert.

But, less in my underwear (though, yes...), and more in my chest cavity, in my guts, I feel different. At the same time that I have this electric fence around my whole body, I have a magnet within it too. And one is fading.

I want to be loved more than I want to hide, and I can feel the shift. I can feel tectonic plates, long-ago formed in the tundra and tumult of my creation, beginning to ease. A slight release in the tightness of my guts, and mostly, an excitement. Not just the titillation and anticipation of getting to spend time with someone I really like, but also, the opening of a door that for so long hung a sign that said, Do Not Enter: Radioactive Waste.

Years ago, I wrote a poem about a dusty “Back in Five Minutes” sign on the massive-shipping container that is my heart. About brushing the caked dirt off it, but not needing to open it then, just being content to know that it’s there, “secure, intact, existent.”

I think some of what is occurring is that I am finally opening up that shipping container, and taking a look inside. That I’m allowing the door to be open for a few minutes at a time. That I’m allowing myself to dream about what it would be like to unpack it all, to discard the fallacies, and engage and indulge in the luxuries.

Moreover, I’m letting myself do more than just dream about it, and I think that’s where the true change is occurring. I am heading over a continent, through years of flirtation, through a lifetime of resistance, toward possibility. There is a willingness to step into the unknown that hasn’t been there before, and after the willingness is actual action. Call it cancer, call it recovery, call it straight-up flouting of boredom and stagnancy.

I still am terrified, I know that. But I also feel different. In my ribcage and in my underpants, I feel different. 

Hi. My name is Molly, and…

My thighs don’t touch.

(The following will be the notes and musings of a hopefully complete article I’d like to submit to some magazine or website or another.)

There was some article flying around social media recently about “real women” and their thighs touching. Somewhere along the way, the idea of women’s thighs not touching became the measuring stick for skinny, and has since become a meme for ire, derision, and rejection.

I want to fully and emphatically state that I believe in the “real women” movement that seeks to show all body types as valuable, beautiful, and audaciously sexy. I love that there is a movement whose purpose is to extol the virtues of all people and to help dismantle the idea that there is only one ideal for beauty, fitness, and femininity.

However, there is a seething undercurrent to some of this new “inclusiveness” that feels like burning those of us whose thighs don’t touch at the stake. That somehow in simply being and looking how we are, those of us with this kind of body shape are pulling down the wave of feminism. That if your thighs don’t touch, you are a tool for the patriarchy, and what's wrong with this country.

Like many women, I poke at my body, prod the sagginess that is and is below my tush. Lament the flatness of what god gave me to sit upon. I pinch my belly flesh when sitting, and feel a little chagrined that my boobs are small, but not pert, and like so many others', simply collapse flatly when I lie down.

But, I read a quote from a cancer survivor when I was fighting Leukemia that helped put some of this in perspective, and I have it taped to the full-length mirror in my closet:

When I wake up and my jeans don’t fit right: There are times when I still have those annoying body-image moments we all have. You can’t skip through a field of flowers every day. You just can’t. But I’ve come to realize that if you can stop the spinning in your brain of My jeans are tight, I can’t believe I ate that—if you can change your clothes, put some mascara on, get out of the house, and move on, life will be much more fun.

The truth is we women are just way too hard on ourselves. We need to remember there’s total beauty in who we are, and it’s not about what we look like. Cancer made me realize: You can cut off all your hair, and people will still think you’re great; you can look your worst after chemo, and people will still love you. So what the f--k have I been worrying about all my life? We spend all this time looking in on our lives from the outside, but we gotta get in it, and live it. Because it’s a day-by-day gig.

And if this is true, if what this “real women” movement is supposed to be saying is that we are more than what we look like on the outside, and that the outside no matter what is beautiful, too… then why are we burning women whose thighs don't touch at the stake?

There is a contradiction and hypocrisy in some of what that movement is purporting: All women are beautiful, except those whose thighs don't touch. They are part of the problem, and all must be dismissed and eliminated.

I get that there is a pendulum swing that must happen in order for us to come to the center of this issue, to the place where there is equality and equanimity, and I am still proud that this trend toward inclusiveness is happening in my lifetime. But as a member of the generation of women who are supposed to be supported and elevated and freed by this wave of feminism, I would like to be able to feel like I can march along as a "real woman" too, atop thighs that simply don’t touch, without being accused of treason. 

Yo' Mama.

Apologies, reader, for the rain delay (lack of blog) yesterday. It was this wonderful Spring rain in the morning, and instead of sitting at my stoic kitchen table, and peering out the window while writing morning pages, meditating, and composing a blog, I took my mug of coffee into my studio’s bedroom/living room, tucked myself into the corner of my couch against the window, and sat next to my cat on the arm of the couch watching the rain make everything greener.

It was warm and cozy, and I just couldn’t bring myself to break the calm of the spell. The sound of the rain, the steam from the mug, watching my cat’s chest expand and contract with each breath. Oh, calm! How I miss you! Oh, rest, you ineffable minx!

I let my thoughts roam over the landscape, and thought how I missed my mom, when she was here last, and sat on this very couch with this very cat. And so, I called her. – Strange and funny thing to do, eh? Think of someone, and actually call them? Not text or poke or email – but make a phone call – God, it’s luxury and connection incarnate.

I knew she’d just returned from her annual trip with her beau to some Caribbean island (Back, Envy, BACK!), and even with only a half hour (barely enough time for us to scratch the surface of a conversation), I called to find out how it went.

I love talking to her. Sure, there are times when it’s grating, and I have to remind myself she’s human with flaws and working on them. But, on the whole, especially these past several years, talking with her is more refueling than it is draining – which is a gift.

She’s just hilarious. Our conversations meander, and side-track, and disambiguate, and non-sequiter, yet always find their way back, like six degrees of separation. It’s these things that I know I’ll miss most when she’s gone. And why I’m trying to get what I can now, to call, and make plans to visit, and email when I can.

Call it morbid, call it realistic. I just want to store it all. Engage in it all.

Coincidentally, one of the anecdotes from her trip was about interacting with the armed guard at the airport, the process of going through customs and homeland security, and the stark seriousness of it all. And, so, as she is wont to do, she planted a funny sentence into the bleak and rote exchange with the check-point guard.

He cracked a smile and then cracked wise. Suddenly, it was an exchange between people instead of objects.

I told her how synchronistic it was that just this very week I wrote a blog about learning from her to talk with strangers, to make our interactions with one another just that much more engaged and alive.

I shared with her my own story about being in Port Authority around the Bush Iraq invasion, and bantering briefly with a guard walking through the orange-tiled halls about exchanging his gun for some flowers.

I love that she does this, and that I do it, as I wrote the other day. It’s part of what makes this life worth living and engaging in, part of the surprise of being alive. When you engage, you don’t know what will happen, you’re rolling the ball onto the Roulette wheel. Maybe the person won’t want to play, maybe they’ll look at you with a “look, I just want to clock out, please stop talking to me” impatience. But, perhaps, both of your days will be lightened just that little bit. Maybe, in fact, it’s the only time you talk to someone all day, as can happen in our disconnected world of modern conveniences.

I asked my “intuitive” once what she thought about my moving back to New York-ish to be closer to her, since sometimes it really is painful to live so far away, to not get to pick up the phone and say, hey that movie’s playing on 72nd tonight, wanna go? Or, I just saw this exhibit is opening at the FIT Fashion Museum, meet up this week? Or, can you come with me to Sephora, I need to find a new blush?

Honestly, it pains my heart to not get to do that with her.

But, my intuitive, whenever this was, a year or so ago, had a pretty logical answer: If you go, you’ll be her caretaker, and that will not be good for you.

It’s true. There’s a fine line from being involved to being too involved, and there’s a pattern of being her caretaker that I don’t want to repeat from my childhood. And it’s a role I know I can easily fall into, without strong enough boundaries: Love as Caretaking, instead of Love as Equanimity.

The jury has been out indefinitely on my move back to the East coast. It doesn’t have to be New York. It doesn’t have to look like moving into caretaking distance. It can look like, "I’m coming down or up for the weekend, let’s do stuff," which is easier than "I’m taking a cross-country flight."

Luckily, I am not in charge of my destination, I’m only in charge of doing the work. Perhaps my boundaries become stronger, perhaps I am better able to stay out of the grooved rut of caretaker. And perhaps they don’t, and I allow myself to say, That’s okay, Mol.

But, on a rainy Saturday morning, I can still give her a call, and we can laugh, meander, and enhance one of the cherished relationships I will ever have.

For you, not me.

As is custom, yesterday I got the chance to sit with two other folks who work on their relationship to money. We met in the monthly group of three to hear and discuss and provide suggestions and feedback to one of the group. It was this woman’s first group like this, she being new to addressing her vagueness and impulsiveness around money.

And I got the melodious chance to see how far I’ve come since I sat with a similar group of two strangers almost 3 years ago.

As I watched her discomfort, shame, panic, and hopelessness, it reminded me of how I was when I sat in that first group. I hated that I had to seek help around money; I already spent plenty of time in groups about alcoholism, now I have to do it about debt, scarcity, and … (dread) abundance?

I came to that first small monthly group with my numbers tallied from the month before, my income and expenses. I came with my mounting student debt, my checking account bouncing along the bottom, my credit cards bouncing along the top. I came with starvation in so many areas, and I was so sure they were going to tell me to cut more, since my income was not meeting my expenses.

Instead, what they told me was that I was living in deprivation, and needed to increase the amounts I was spending in certain categories of self-care (clothing, entertainment, food). They told me that my needs weren’t too great to be met; that I needn't be ashamed of actually needing more.

It was horrifying! It was so uncomfortable to be validated that I wasn’t living too big for my britches, but have no idea how to change the income side. At the time, I was barely making ends meet with temp jobs, and felt I was doing all I could to get out of the hand-to-mouth hole. But I was powerless, I was desperate, and I listened to these two who said, We believe it will get better for you; it has for us.

Things didn’t really begin to change for me until last Spring when I began working one-on-one with a new woman I’d admired from those groups. For whatever reason, things didn’t really change when I’d worked diligently with the first woman I’d worked with.

When I started again with J., at one point, she told me that I needed a car, and I would get one. SCOFF!! What?? How? What money? Me? No….

I didn’t believe her in the slightest. At all. But, I did believe that she believed, and that was enough. She said, I needed a car to get to band practice, to get to auditions, to get to work, and it would happen for me.

And, as you now know, last October, maybe 6 months after her proclamation, it did. It’s not a beater car, an “underearner’s” car, it’s not a jalopy. In fact, it is the exact make, model, color, mileage and price I’d hoped to get. Seriously!

I didn’t “come into money.” I didn’t stop buying clothing, or going to the movies. I just kept showing up to groups and meetings and writings like the folks I saw get better do. And things changed.

I know the woman yesterday thinks we’re full of shit, just like I did. I know that she thinks to herself, "Yeah, maybe for you, but not for me," just like I did.

But, with my life as evidence, with one credit card paid off, my $90,000 student loans in repayment (slowly), with food I want to eat in my fridge, and most importantly, with the specter of "I'll never get out of this; I'll just kill myself" long faded – if it can happen for me, it can happen for her.

And if the course of one year of real change can produce what it has, maybe I no longer feel the same militant resistance to where else abundance wants to enter my life. (Maybe.)

Sword of Awareness.

Yesterday morning, I was on the phone with a mentor of mine, talking about how busy I am, and how bone-weary I am as a result. Sure, busy with good things. That’s what I tell people at the “How was your weekend?” congenial Monday-morning chat. "It was busy, but busy with good things." So that, of course, makes it okay.

My mentor asked me why I thought I was so busy – and I know, and have known, the answer: TIME.

Damacles’ sword. The tale of the king(?) who had a sword suspended over his throne, he sat and ruled from under the constant threat of annihilation, never knowing if it ever would indeed fall.

How do you live from that place? Certainly, we all are living under that sword. Some of us are more aware of it than others.

Sometimes I hear people talk about things they’ll do when they’re old, or older. Things like travel, or tell their grandkids, or when they retire. All of these future plans, all under an assumption of life. All under a naïve assumption that life will be there when they get there.

Ignorance sure is bliss. Because when I listen to them say this, my heart steels and in my head I say, “Maybe.” By which I know I mean, loathe though I am to admit it to you, “Maybe, or you could be dead.”

So, TIME. I am so very busy, because I don’t believe there is enough time for me to be The Great And Powerful Molly that I want to be. This wasn’t a cancer-causation. I felt this way long before cancer, that I have missed the bus on things, or that I just know there are so many things I want to do, I lament how to do them all – while I’m alive.

Cancer just rubbed rock salt into the wound. Brought my attention to a pin-prick of the value of life. And cancer has made me a little sour on others' assumptions that it will be there.

Hence, my goal to prioritize. What is important now? What can’t wait? What feeds me the most, brings me the most joy, is a 5 on a joy-scale of 1 - 5?

That’s what my friends and I spoke about yesterday morning, after I got off the phone with my mentor. As I’d said, I wanted to get help with how to prioritize the bevy of interests I have. And, we did. We talked about a lot. I cried a little. I got to see how fear, rather than joy, is motivating many of my projects.

And they told me it was okay. I'm allowed to feel frightened and desperate if that's what I'm feeling. I'm allowed to feel sorrow over the uncertainty of it all. I'm allowed to feel a sour-green envy of those not aware of the sword, and I'm allowed to feel self-righteous over them, too. But, I'm allowed to not feel this way also.

They charged me with the task of focusing on one interest, if only for one week. We created a “time plan,” sort of like the kind of money spending plan I have each month. It’s a goal, it’s an allotment of values. Everything is a choice, even paying rent. If I’m willing to accept the consequences of not paying rent, sure I could not pay it. But I’m not!

Performance, acting, right now, came up as a higher priority than anything I’m currently involved in. Though painting was the only thing that earned a 5 (though, I imagine, mostly because I’m not engaged in it at all right now).

This value judgment will have consequences. It means the reduction and phasing out of other things I’m involved in. AND, it’s only a guide, this new time plan. That’s the important thing for me to remember. It can change. And if I have more time for rest and centering, there may be more ease to do other things.

When we plugged in “Acting Activities” (e.g. researching roles, practicing monologues, etc.) as the only creative activity this week, I could feel my hackles rise: “But what about painting??” My two friends encouraged me to just try this, just for one week, just to see how it feels.

If my goal is to “Focus, Prioritize, and Follow-through,” this is their suggestion. It’s just a trial. How does it feel to commit to one thing fully --- oh my G-D – COMMIT?????

Oh Lord, grant me strength to focus… to (gulp) commit. (shiver)

Because though the sword be there for all of us, for me, I have learned that racing to it all is wasting my time. I’m not getting better at any of my interests, because I’m not spending …committed… time on them.

It is an imperative in my life to use my time efficiently. And this is an avenue I’ve never tried before. 

Results: TBD. 

Martyrdom is so Passe

I'm going camping. HA!

Applied for that job I want...

Had an info interview with my acting teacher that gave me some food for thought, but, for right now...

With my new copy of GQ with Michael *drool* Fassbender on the cover to keep me company by the lakeside...

I'M OUTTA HERE!

Fun: 1  Over-thinking: 0

See you on Monday, folks!

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. 

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. 

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

The 11th Hour

So, to get to the important info first, of course. The internet-met coffee date was a bust. Not an ounce of chemistry on my end, so, after about a half hour of waiting on the slowest coffee drinker in the world, I declined the invitation to go to eat or to the park, and went on my way.

I’m glad I felt comfortable enough to do that, despite the CREST FALLEN face when I replied, Actually I think I’m going to go. That man is not a poker player.

But, on my way I went. I caught a bus up to see a girl friend of mine, and we had a sojourn to Ocean Beach. It was more than lovely.

Regarding the title of this blog however, I feel like I’m here again. I’ve said in the past that usually what happens around money and jobs is that “something comes through” in the 11^th hour. This has always been true, and despite my dire, apocalyptic belly-aching about the sodium-laden brick, I haven’t eaten any Top Ramen in the last several years.

Part of what I’ve recognized though is that I come to a point at some time during my “what am I going to do next”ness where I “go rag-doll on G-d,” as my friend puts it. You know when you’re in a grocery store, and a parent is holding hands with a child, and the child is cranky or tired and doesn’t want to go or walk anymore, and the kid just goes limp. And has to be dragged by the parent a few steps.

Yeah, that’s going ragdoll on G-d. It’s like, I’m not sure what the fuck to do, so I’ll just let you pull me. That feeds back into the whole “lack of self-esteem around jobs” though when I throw up my hands, and just wait for the 11^th hour – when I know inevitably something will have to happen. I really haven’t been dropped, ever.

But, I’m not comfortable doing that anymore. It makes me feel young, and childish, and like a recipient, rather than an active participant in my own life.

So, I guess I’m at the point of finding some sort of balance between trying to “figure it out” and throwing up my hands in frustration and impertinent surrender. “Alright, Universe, Fate, G-d, whatever you are, you obviously have some better idea about my life than I do, so HERE. Go ahead. It’s all yours. Fuck it.”

The former makes me crazy, and the latter lacks integrity & a fair balanced view.

So, what’s the middle way?

…*crickets*…

Perhaps it starts with the recognition that I don’t want to do either. I am still taking action. Applying to jobs, looking at websites around the country, trying not to be too limited, but not too focused, because I really still have no f’ing idea where or when or why. It IS the 11^th hour. June approaches, and my bank account approaches zero.

So, how, in what sense-memory tells me is the "same place," do I stand on my two feet, and let myself be guided rather than dragged? How do I stand with integrity and surrender?

Well, yesterday I did make a phone date with a girl friend bassist for this afternoon. I also did ask my theater instructor for an informational interview coffee date. And, I did show up to that date yesterday, not knowing what would happen, but being willing to try something new - and hideously uncomfortable (somehow, "we met on the internet" doesn't make a great retelling...)

And, to be honest, I still have the hope that in the 11^th hour, there will be a miracle – because there always is – but I don’t want to stand around waiting for it. I want to meet it. That feels more “adult,” or humble, or something. More of value.

But, what do I know, I just work here.

Here’s to the middle way – letting go, but walking forward – it may be into the dark, but my eyes will adjust. 

Elephantitis.

So, I gotta admit, I’m feeling a little discombobulated this morning, and I’m not really sure what’s up. It’s like a wrong side of the bed, but not cranky, just, off. Like the films aren’t aligned properly. Not sure. Maybe as the day progresses, it’ll wear off. It’s threatening to be a gorgeous day, so I’ll hopefully spend some of it outside, or at least in a café, working.

Part of the discomfort is that I think I spent too many hours hunched over my computer yesterday, working on both my thesis and the info blast for May’s workshop. My neck muscles literally cracked when I turned to shut off my alarm – ouch. Stiff and unhappy. Computers and health may not be aligned either. Balance, I suppose.

I got the final copy of my thesis back from friends yesterday, and began my final edits. The folks I gave it to were really helpful and specific, which offset the entirely vagueness of my professors’ notes. I am marinating on a few changes that may happen – a word here, to delete one or two poems there.

The nude suit is back in. By the way. I had my performance poetry class last night, and spoke about my new idea, and that it may not warrant a nude suit, but folks encouraged me, and said, basically, why the F not. Pretty much anything that I’d get up there to say will be about getting down to the/my authentic, naked self. The professor said that it adds something visually, it doesn’t matter what the content is. So, now, the hunt for a nude-colored body suit. I have a hunch where I’ll find one, and as I just got asked to babysit this Friday, I’ll have the funds to fund it.

Although he’s a little hesitant for me to be working on a brand new piece for the performance, which is in less than two weeks, I’m pretty confident that I can bust it out – as soon as I put pen to paper. There’s SO much divided demands right now, is all. Each thing is important, none can be “dropped,” and hardly any back-burnered, but this piece has been, and I’ll do my best to crank it out in the next day or so. It won’t take long. I have it mapped out in my head. I’ll post it when it’s done.

That’s really all that’s up right now – these school demands, and the crunch time lead-up to both next Saturday’s workshop, and May’s workshop. Each are going to require some more input from me. And I just feel really thin at the moment. Only one person has actually registered for the workshop next weekend, though a few have Facebook responded. But, I’m certainly aware of the habit people have – myself included – of clicking “attend” to something they have only a vague passing notion of attending. So, I’ll have to blast that out again – if you get the email again, forgive me, but I sorta need to know how many folks will be there. Like, if there's really only one…!

Also, I have to print flyers for the May workshop, and I need to do color copy cost research for that, and then I’m going to ask a friend to help me drive around to various places in the Bay to post them up. So, I’ve got to reach out for that.

Ack. You can see, perhaps, why I feel all off. I tried to meditate some this morning, and got a few deep breaths, but not too much grounding. Maybe today is a multiple attempt at meditation day.

There’s something I heard once: a guy said that on most days he meditates a half hour, but on the days he’s really busy, he meditates an hour.

That actually makes sense to me. Now, maybe I’m not the hour-long meditator type, but I’ve sat in a few circles for 40 minutes. It’s HARD … in the beginning. Then I sort of sink into it – once my brain has had its say around what feels like 20 minutes or so of, OMIGOD are we done yet??? But, like working out, or something, once you get into it, you forget that you hated it in the beginning few minutes. The adrenaline starts to pump, or in meditation land, the serenity does. … Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes it’s 40 minutes, or in my case, 10 minutes of laundry list, punctuated by a few, oh yeah, deep breath, follow the breath, touch down, just notice – I have to get quarters for laundry – do I have any dollar bills – I love the sound the machine makes when the quarters are changed, like in Vega-- oh, right, breathe in …

So, maybe today requires a little more grounding. I’ll go meet up with some folks later today and have a bit of brain drain for an hour or so, but, this is part of my self-care. The only way I can balance all that I’ve got going on, is if I can let myself get balanced first.

I feel like that unicycle circus dude with the poles and the plates balanced on top. I’d like to feel like the elephant, rooted and pressing into the earth. 

Reframe.

In a stroke of inspiration, I have produced both disappointment and excitement. Disappointment, as I’m not sure I’ll wear a nude body suit for my Performance Poetry class final performance. Excitement, as I think I know what my piece will be about.

As I’d mentioned, I needed to see if the whole brazen nude body suit thing would be supported by the content of the work – why wear that if you’re going to tell lyrical poems about cherry blossoms? This morning, however, I believe I was struck with the inspiration paddle, and think I know what my piece will be about.

Originally, it was to likely be about a woman’s relationship with her body, how it waffles between ownership by self, and ownership by others, including mainstream media, etc. But, I feel that I’ve covered a lot of that for now in my thesis work, and although, sure, that’s an issue that’s present or “up” in my life, as I began fleshing some of the new idea out in my morning pages this morning, I think I’ve found something riper, funnier, more relatable, and interesting. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve started using a different morning pages notebook, as I’d finished my last a few days ago. It’s thinner than the last, but much larger pages, which equals much longer writing in the morning. (It’s also made from post-recycled materials, so it’s not new growth trees being cut down so I can write, I wonder what the Harry Potter stars are up to now – which, yes, occurred this morning along with all the else.)

I was a bit intimidated to be writing these 3 long hand pages much longer – would I have enough to “fill” it? What more could I possibly have to say. But I actually think this new length is just right for me. It’s longer than the last, and is giving me the room to get further into stuff before I wrap it up or end. Which is partly why I think my new idea for my performance came about – there’s more room to work it out, and watch it stumble across my page.

On another note. My friend left yesterday, and my little space is my own again. Driving to the airport at 5am will a) make you appreciate a rental car, and b) cause the skipping of my morning blog yesterday, so please forgive. I was a bit pooped and outward energy depleted from the trip.

It was very good practice, though, I believe. To wake up and have a person there. To go to sleep and have a person there. Granted, on the pull out couch, but still. I’ve been a solitary bird here in my apartment for a long time, and having another human here … well, was interesting to notice how I act and react.

Part of me is enormously proud that I got in most of my morning practices, and I stayed within my spending plan for her trip, and brought lots of snacks and meals with me so I didn’t have to eat out very much at all. Part of me is very acutely aware of how other-centered I become in the presence of someone a) so close to me, and b) who's in my space almost 24/7.

But, the good news, is that I noticed it. And I began to do my best to reign back in my codependency. I don’t need to complete your sentence. I don’t need to add in my two cents about your story with my own. I don’t need to be thinking of how to respond or what I’ll say next to keep the conversation interesting and exciting.

It was hard, honestly, in the few times that I consciously thought, I can let this thread lie. I don’t need to pick it up. It wasn’t that I was being cold, or uncommunicative. But when there came moments when I certainly had my opinion, or an alternate opinion, I didn’t have to voice it. I could let my friend state her opinion or share her story without having to add in my own or contradict or augment what had already been said.

Some moments, it felt to me like there was a huge, blatant gap in the space when I was usually "supposed to" say something. And it felt awkward and uncomfortable for a moment – within me. Surely, she didn’t realize anything, and a new thread of conversation would be picked up immediately. But I noticed. I noticed, basically, that I was holding my tongue.

Which, I suppose, leads me back toward my own center. I don’t have to put out every idea or thought in my head. I can let myself rest in the calm of a conversation, or someone else’s story. This isn’t a very frequent habit of mine, usually. Although, I do tend toward the loquacious side, with my friend from New Jersey, we’ve spent so many years as the other’s half, it’s “natural” to want to just chitter chatter away. But, I realized it’s exhausting.

She, again, was not asking me to contribute in a way that was depleting. And it also comes back my former habit of accepting jobs I don’t want, when they’re not asking me to give from my dregs. If I take care of my center, notice that my focus is somewhere in between me and another person, me and a job, and can bring it back to myself, and sit, sometimes in the discomfort of not engaging in a behavior that leaves me feeling depleted, then I get the chance to give from my best, and also, to simply rest in the companionship of another person.