Snookered.

See, the thing about being saved is that it’s not an absolution.  You aren’t swept back from the cliff’s edge and wrapped in a cosmic swaddling, rocked into unseeing bliss.  What you are is placed back firmly onto a path.  A long one.  Back from the edge, back from the place of giving up on the work of this lifetime, you are nudged—not so gently, but not without compassion—onto a path that will require of you work for the rest of your lifetime.

The cliff’s edge, the leap from it, the ultimate sacrifice as it might be called is the choice to give up all the work that will ever be asked of you.  It is to say, Forget it, too hard, too much, there’s no help, no hope.  To be placed back onto the path you had made some kind of decision—by omission or commission—to leave means that you are now responsible to take up the work you’d abandoned.  It is to look up from your crumpled knees and see winding before you the path of your lifetime, the work that will surely be needed to accomplish it, and the knowledge that to be alive is to do that work.

To be alive is to agree.  To be alive is to sign an agreement daily that you will, however falteringly, place one foot before the other.  To be alive is to agree that you yourself and your life are more worthwhile than eliminating all the possibilities it holds, all the better and all the worse. 

And so, pulled back from the edge, “saved” as it were, you walk with a grim humor, knowing that somewhere you have chosen this.

Third Star to the Right...

Call me a navel-gazer, but as the Jewish High Holidays approach, I get reflective.

At work, I'm neck deep in preparation for them, and acutely aware of their significance on the calendar than I ever was: Two years ago, at the end of September, I was diagnosed with Leukemia on the evening of Yom Kippur, our "day of atonement," the day on which we are either "sealed into the book of life" for another year ... or not. It's a pretty significant day on the Jewish calendar, and I have come to hate it.

I hate what it "means," about being sealed or not into the book of life. I hate how much changed in an instant, with one sentence told to me by a doctor. I hate remembering the sore throat that began the whole prelude to my ER visit, which kept me working from home, and feeling so badly about it since it was a brand new job.

But, what remembering this day also does for me is cause me to reflect on what has changed, and what has happened in the two years hence. I have endeavored to create "a life worth living" for myself against all the internal railing and nay-saying, against all my own self-sabotage, against all the foot-dragging and self-immolation I had previously submitted to.

In the last two years, I have dragged myself kicking and screaming into a life I consider worth living.

This isn’t to say that I’d done nothing beforehand, but here’s a list of experiences I've had & actions I've taken in the last two years, post-cancer:

Hosted my Creativity and Spirituality Workshop

Began blogging daily again

Went to Hawaii for the first time

Got a bedframe for the first time since childhood

Sang at a café with friends

Joined their band on bass

Played shows out, nearly once a month

Started ushering at Music shows for free & have seen, among others:

     - Paul McCartney (about to see him again next week)
     - Red Hot Chili Peppers
     - Doors guitarist Robby Krieger play "People Are Strange" with Warren Haynes...!
     - About to see Dave Matthews

Bought a car

Celebrated July 4th near my old hometown with my mom and brother

Busked on the streets of Oakland and SF singing Christmas caroles

Got real headshots

Auditioned for plays and musicals

Got cast in 4 shows

Modeled for friends

Submitted photos to modeling agencies

Visited Seattle for the first time

Visited Boston to try out a new relationship experience

Dated with craziness

Dated with less craziness

Got laid well

Got laid poorly

Visited a best friend and her newborn baby for a week

Hiked Tilden & Marin

Took accredited acting classes

Took voice lessons
Flew a plane(!) -- and landed it ;)

Any of these things could have happened beforehand (and some were indeed happening, with less gusto, determination & regularity), but most of the activities on this list are new to me.

I was talking with a friend a few months ago, another cancer survivor, and she said that she feels complete with the world – that if she died today, she’d be okay with that. I noticed how not okay I'd have been with that; virulently not okay.

Granted, she’s about 10 years older than me, has a daughter, teaches in a way she loves, is married.

And I think those are key differences. Having created your own family, having a career you feel impassioned about. Those are items that are not yet on my above list, and I want them to be before I expire, thank you.

I do however, write this list to reflect to myself that there are things that I’ve done that are miraculous, fun, and inspiring for anyone to have done, let alone l'il ole me. I forget this, frequently.

It’s hard to admit this here, and it’s not precisely the entire truth, but if I were to expire sooner than later... Well, I won't say, "If I died today, I'd be okay with that," but that I am exponentially grateful for this role I’ve recently landed. To play in a musical, comedic role at a community theater is the cat’s pajamas. (If I have to go soon, I hope it's after we open!) 

When I returned from teaching English in South Korea almost 10 years ago, I said I was coming home to “break onto Broadway.” Then instead, I got sober!

And now, 8 years since then, I’m taking steps that are developmentally appropriate to that dream. It’s in the right direction, even if I never get there. It's my impassioned avocation, even if it’s not a vocation.

I do not wish to expire soon. I have more experiences I want to add to that list, and more sanity and evenness I wish to accrue. But I feel more comfortable now than I had been even a few months ago in noticing that I am accumulating the experiences that, to me, express a full and well-lived life.

I wouldn’t have as many regrets if it were to happen soon. I have a few regrets of things I’ve done & ways I've re/acted in the last two years, sure. It’s not as if I’m a saint, and sometimes I still choose experiences I know are more damaging than useful.

But instead of waiting to be "inscribed in the book of life" by some entity or religion or benchmarks of success otherwise prescribed to me by my childhood, my faith, my inner critic...

Instead I am coming to believe that I am following my own North Star: I may never get there, but I'm headed in the "right direction."

And for the first time ever, I deeply feel that. 

Forte. Più Forte. (Loud. More Loud.)

It’s come into my awareness again this week the fallacy of perfection, and its venomous tendrils. The three “p”s: Perfection, Procrastination, Paralyzation.

I’ve also read that procrastination is simply another way for us to prolong feeling crappy about ourselves, and to delay feeing proud of ourselves.

This week, after a conversation with some people of authority at work last week about my position, my ambition, my vision of “Where I’d like to be;” after I was given the feedback that, great, sure, put it in writing and we can talk more... I stalled and dragged my feet.

It wasn't acres of time, this time; it was only from Friday until Tuesday evening, when I finally wrote what I needed to write. But I could see those tendrils curling up around me, waiting to choke my ambition and self-esteem from me. The tendrils of hopelessness (What the use anyway), uncertainty (What about acting, my art, moving), and simple perfectionism (If it’s not perfect, they'll reject it, and then I’ll be stuck answering phones the rest of my life, anyway, so f* it, I’ll just watch some more Once Upon a Time).

It was so helpful to hear other people talk about how this weed of perfectionism crops up in their lives, marring their attempts at a full life—it reminds me that I’m not alone, and mostly, as I heard people talk about their struggle with perfectionism, I sat there in that chair and decided (for the hundredth time) to go home afterward and do the write-up I needed to hand in to my superiors.

I heard them battling the beast, I heard them being flayed by it, and I decided I wasn’t going to let that be me, if only for an evening.

I cannot tell you how many times I make this declaration to myself. And then, simply do come home and watch Netflix, or surf Facebook. I wonder if the advent of television and internet has created in us a generation of procrastinators, but I certainly know that I am none too helped by it! (in binges, especially)

But for whatever reason (and I won’t call it exasperation, because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been exasperated, and still done nothing), I came home on Tuesday night, wrote what I needed to write, emailed it to a few friends for feedback, and handed it in yesterday.

And here’s the/a reward for overcoming perfectionism: It may not go the way you wanted anyway. I may hear, “Thanks, Molly, but we’re not in a position to… We’ll think about it for some undetermined date… This just isn’t in our vision or budget… We just need someone (you) to stay doing what you are doing indefinitely, or at least through the next year or more.” I may hear things I don’t want to hear in response to my action on behalf of myself and my ambition, BUT, the reward is that I get to hear something at all, instead of sitting, spinning, resenting, foaming, fuming, and … watching Netflix.

The reward for overcoming perfectionism (and it’s paralyzation) in just this one moment is that, no matter the results, no matter the response, I am actually moving forward, internally, for sure. What this does is tell me that, See Molly, once you did something. One time you took action on your own behalf, and instead of delaying your good, instead of languishing in a sea of self-pity, you get to feel proud, pro-active, like a leader. You get to feel like yourself, instead of like the skin of mutating fear that creeps up yours and mimics you out in the world.

I don’t know the result of the action I took, externally, at least. However, having put things in writing and gotten clarity around my vision and desire, if I don’t get the result I “want” here, in this environs, then I get to take that information and that knowledge and shop it around elsewhere. Because I took the action that I did, suddenly, I have a beginning instead of what my brain and that malevolent skin tells me is an end, a sorry, pathetic end.

Finally, I’ll repeat something I heard a long time ago, which I’ve agreed with and disagreed with over the years: We ask “god” for what we want; “he” gives us what we need; and in the end, it’s what we wanted anyway.

I know that what I wanted anyway was clarity and self-esteem, so, Team: Mission Accomplished. 

Drowning in a sea of pearls

It is unclear if things have devolved in 25 y.o. land, but I get the sense from his flirtatious texts that perhaps our intentions are not aligned. It is unclear yet if I will bring up what mine are, ask him his, and accept what comes of that. Sitting in the ambiguity is uncomfortable. It is unclear whether sitting in the ambiguity is supposed to be my lesson, or a lesson here. It is unclear if saying: 

“I don’t know yet if I like you but I would be interested to find out. If that’s something you want to explore, then it would be nice to go out again. If not, that’s okay too.” 

is too forward or just right. Is it pushy, clear, honest, forthright, demanding, off-putting, or too soon?

I get Goldilocks' dilemma.

And I have a hard time letting go of the questions. Even with my full life.

One of the things the male co-author writes in It’s Just a F***king Date is that not every date works out, and then asks, did I get my heart broken? Sure, but not as much as I would have [if I didn’t remember it’s just a date].

So, am I heartbroken? No. I don’t even know whether I should be – what this is. Which, perhaps, is an answer. But I don’t like that “perhaps” hanging out there like a scab of uncertainty. Am I sad? A little. But, like above, not nearly as much as I could be. I mean, it was two dates. I went a little bananas, as we all read, and then I came back to center, remembered I’m awesome, and went about my awesome life. If this is someone who wants to join me on my path of awesome, great; if not, as above, “That’s okay too.” Cuz it really is.

I JUST WANNA KNOW.

Should I erase that name from my date book, or not?

I mean, I have read He’s Just Not That Into You. I do know that if someone isn’t asking you out, that has a meaning. I do know that sexy texts (which I'm replying neutrally to) are not a pathway to romance. But I want him to fucking say it. If that’s the truth, if you’re not into me, if you just want to fuck me, then say that. It saves me a lot of headache. If, because we had a very intense make-out session, I’m now relegated to the “hook-up” file in your own date-book, that’s fine too. Just let’s me know, once again, that the heavy necking should be better left to a time when its earned itself.

There’s nothing wrong with heavy necking, making out, or having sex. Don’t get me wrong. But, having recently been very clear with someone what my casual intentions were, getting those casual needs met, and closing the casual door behind him as he left, I got to see that although I acted with integrity, asked for my needs to be met, felt proud of my behavior and was very happy with the result, I also got to see that what I really want is someone who spends the night. I want to be that person for you too.

So, hooking up is all well and good, and it is also not yet decided that if the 25 y.o. says 'I don’t want to date' if I will go forward with something casual, since the previews indicated a blockbuster movie. But, I want to find out first if there’s an art film playing here, before I buy a ticket for Bourne 17. 

Strike That; Reverse It

(*Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka [Sorry, Johnny, you ruined a classic])

In order to get ready to enter words that create and convey feelings onto a screen that I upload to you, I have to do a little centering first. Otherwise, you’d get --- well, I don’t know – it just never felt right to dive out of bed and onto the screen. Instead, I dive out of bed toward the coffee pot, and then to the journal, the Morning Pages routine picked up many years ago by working The Artist’s Way with a group of varied and wonderful folks in Muddy Waters at 24^th street (you can have 16^th street).

In fact, in order to prepare for you, for this, for reclaiming my daily blog, I began writing them again because I knew I needed to skim the top layer off my thoughts and onto a written page before addressing you. I haven’t been consistent with the Morning Pages, but, pretty much so. I probably have a dozen notebooks since we began in, what, 2008? 2009?

After those (and I don’t always get 3 full long-hand pages, especially when my Thursday night acting class keeps me in Berkeley til 10pm), I try to meditate for even a few seconds, if I’m honest. I have varied the time of these “sits,” even up to 20 minutes, but for now, it’s about 5 minutes, if I get that. If not that, I do one fully present breath. Like really present, not what I’m going to do after this breath present. Because it’s usually somewhere between and in concert of these two practices that I get the kernel of what I want to say to you here.

I’ve written from monkey mind, I’ve quieted it (hopefully), and from there, I can address you.

What I’ve found in a few of my most recent journalings is that when I write the words, “I should…,” I’m stopping myself, crossing out “should” and instead writing something like, “I encourage and support myself in doing...”

I need to send those photos to that agency. STRIKE

I support and encourage myself in sending those photos.

I should go back to the gym today. STRIKE

I support and encourage myself in going to the gym.

What a difference of manner and direction that provides.

I’ve heard people use the phrase “Shoulding all over your self;” and it’s true, you, we, I can shame and should myself all I want – but remember the “more flies with honey than vinegar” thing? I think it works with ourselves, too. 

And while we’re on phrases; Shame, I’ve heard it said, can be an acronym for Should Have Already Mastered Everything. ~ Back to shoulding.

I’m liking that I’m catching myself and changing the language to something more positive, even though I’m the only one who sees it, and because I’m the only one who sees it. I’m only retraining myself. Does it help? Did it make me—strike that—encourage me to send the photos? Not yet. But I did go to the gym. 

Ain’t Dead Yet

Last night, I went to a Halloween party. Like a normal person.

I did fancy glitter make-up on my face, pretended my dress could pass as a 60s throw-back, donned my friend’s blue wig, and called myself a psychedelic stewardess (as they were called in the 60s, pre-politically corrected “flight attendant”).

It was amazing. It felt like normal. Like something a normal person would do the weekend of Halloween – get dressed up, go to a party. It’s something that has felt nearly unattainable for me after the whole cancer thing – normal. I danced. I danced a lot. I laughed, talked with friends, and it wasn’t about my cancer. Sure, a few people asked me how I was feeling, and if there was anything they could do, but for the most part, the people there had no idea the blue wig covered a shaved head. They just saw a girl at a party – and I am grateful for it.

Part of the anomaly of being so sick is that sometimes my health is what’s top of my mind, and it's immediately what I talk about when people call or visit. Sometimes it’s top of their minds, and they want to know about it. But … sometimes, I just want to know what the heck else is going on in the world. I mean, I didn’t even know the Giants were in the World Series. (Though, I remain partial to the NY teams, ahem.)

I want to know how your new job is, or your relationship, or what happened with that thing. I want to talk about something other than CANCER. It’s so overarching and undergirding that it feels hard to get away from, and just talk normally. That’s part of the “watching Ben Stiller movies” thing I was questioning yesterday – am I allowed to still have normal conversations, activities?

Thank G-d, as shown yesterday, YES. As I painted a star over my eye yesterday and asteroids on my cheek (despite a weird double-vision thing I have that the doctor tells me "will resolve itself”...) -- I felt like my old self. Engaged in an activity I love.

I do feel the guillotine though. I go back into the hospital a week from tomorrow, and it’s hard to not feel like my days are numbered. It’s hard to not get defensive in advance. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to do this 4 more times. And yet, this is what they know to do to cure cancer, or at least send it packing for what they hope is years, if not forever.

So, I try and remain present, if possible, but I know it’s looming. I have scheduled a bunch of self-care things this week, chiropractor tomorrow to realign all the sitting in a bed for three weeks issues; a masseuse that a generous friend gifted me on Tuesday to work out the rest of the kinks; Thursday, I’ll do work with a friend who's a professional at inner/spiritual healing to help work out the kinks from the inside as well.

It’s seems hard to try to live normally, and yet, as I saw yesterday, it wasn’t hard at all -- All I had to do was show up. – Plus, I kept the wig. ;)

Movie Magic

In an effort to vary what’s become to me a rather one-note blog lately, I’ve decided to lie.

I recently earned a decent wage from my spirituality & creativity workshops, and am supplementing my income with sales of my art work. Further, I am feeling so rejuvenated and supported by these avenues of income and service, that I have enough energy and creativity left over to practice with my new band – We play our first show this weekend.

There … did that work?

Well, in some circles, one might call that a “vision,” or dream. A goal, per se. And in those circles, Visions are highly regarded as lighthouses for us in the dark nights of the soul. So, I’ll take what I can get. It may feel like pretend, like fantasy, as I cannot see how to get from A to Z, but I don’t have to. Those are places that resonate with me to my core. If we add in that I’m a member of a local theater company, and we just ended our sold-out run, I think I’d hit nirvana.

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this here, though I’ve used this metaphor before.

It’s like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Yep. That’s right. I’m going there.

When Indy, as we affectionately call him, is on his way through the cave to get to the Holy Grail, he comes to a ravine. There is no way to cross this. As it appears, Indy stands on one side, clinging to a statue of a Lion, and about 15 or 20 feet away, is the other side of the ravine, and the path to the Grail.

There is no way. He cannot “jump” it, it’s egregiously deep and sharp and craggy. And so, he recites the clue, as if the words somehow will give him wings.

“A leap of faith from the lion’s mouth.” A leap of faith. This is nuts. A leap of faith. But there’s nothing down there. A leap of faith. Fuck It.

He takes one step forward from the safety of the rock... and is held, solid and firm. The camera pans out from his angle, and we see that hidden, blended into the ravine walls, is a firm, stone bridge. Had he not stepped out from where he was, he wouldn’t have the vision to see that he was firmly taken care of the whole time. That there wasn’t a moment at which he was unsafe. He just needed to take that first step out from perceived safety to perceived risk.

Metaphors like this keep me going.

I’m a visual person, and a child of the 80s, so throw in a "Goonies never say die," and I’m ready to pack my rucksack, hitch up my courage, and step forward.

Despite my crawing about it here, it’s been suggested that I let other people know about the state of my affairs, if only to take my isolation out of it. Funnily, a woman whom I’m not fond of yesterday instructed me to “Figure It Out.” I could have slapped her. (Funnier still, it's already been strongly suggested that I choose another woman for these monthly meetings I have with my financial folks - which I haven't done yet... point taken?)

But, it all reminds me of another phrase, “You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.”

I suppose belly-aching is different than sharing. Different from being open. I’d like to submit that I’ve done a little of both, and what I recognize is that I do have some blinders on. I do stand like Indy with a limited view of things.

And if sharing with other folks my honest truth, without being maudlin or Debbie Downer, can help me to take the next leap into the unknown, then alright.

Camera Pans Right.

Lights up on microphone. 

Poetic Noise.

I was all set to write a blog about 7 years. How really when someone is 6 years old, they’re beginning their 7^th year of life. How I’ve been here in the SF Bay Area 6 years to the day, and so I begin my 7^th year in the Bay. And how, further, and don’t quote me, that our cells are said to regenerate every 7 years – all of them – so that I am now beginning a set of 7. Any and all cells that I had in my body when I arrived in San Francisco have absolutely been purged and regrown, replaced.

I think about this, and intended to write about all the things that have changed in these 6 full years. About where I am not as I begin my 7^th – about how I feel it’s completely cosmically appropriate that I stand ready to graduate from a Master’s program and contemplate a return to the East Coast, and even maybe a career.

I wanted to list things like getting my teeth fixed, a several-year process that I started here, after 10 years of having a few molars pulled in high school but never replaced, which made me self conscious in photos, though few others noticed (I certainly do now, as I smile entirely with every ounce of my cheeks).

I was going to write about my return to art. About taking up the pencil after several years' neglect and the first tentative and judgmental sketches which I shoved away for another few years before warming up and into myself – culminating in selling a painting last year – me?! of all people.

The last 6 years witnessed a return to the stage, auditions, head shots, community plays. Two acting classes, and two performance poetry classes, and some modeling to further my return to being present in my skin.

They also signaled a return to writing, the scribbled in margins and the back of notebook hobby of mine. Who knew that beginning to post my poems as Facebook notes for several years would morph into what it is now – reading in public, (almost) owning my mantle of poet. 

I got a cat, for chrissake. Something I was loathe to do – my first pet-able animal I’ve ever owned, and having her hasn’t make me a crazy cat lady… so I’m told.

I put up curtains, set root in San Francisco, didn’t run away, cut and run, shrink or hide. I’ve emerged slowly, shyly, tentatively, reluctantly and painfully for sure.

I took guitar lessons and voice lessons. Which I dropped, but the piano creeps in these days, sending crescendos of joy into my marrow.

For years, while I’ve been here, whenever someone told me that they were in school full-time, I looked at them as though they were a movie star, a little starry eyed and goofy and admiring, and said (I remember so clearly), I envy people who do that – go to school fulltime. And now I’m one of them. I forget that I really asked for this. I asked for it often and deeply.

As each of the cells on this corporeal form have dived their swan song into the ether, I have changed. People sometimes use the term inwardly rearranged – how literal it is here.

Yes, I intended to write my blog about that – about the nature and surprise of continuing to beat a heart consistently for 7 years.

But I read my email before I came to write this, and there’s some poetic noise in the interwebs about some highly public class tension that occurred last night in the direction of a classmate, and I’m just sort of sad about it.

We are all human. We are all trying to be free from suffering and doing the best we can. 

How we act and react -- teacher, student, classmate ... parent, co-worker, acquaintance, dude who cut me off on the highway -- is simply and ultimately the best we can offer for that day. We may not like it or approve - we may reprove ourselves for how we acted or reacted or neglected to act - but we also get to reflect and change what isn't working for us, whether that's our perspective or action. 

So mixed with the awe and gratitude I feel for not being the sloppy, grubbing, manic splash of a young woman I was when I arrived in San Francisco 6 years ago today, I also feel a melancholy compassion for last night's wounded artist (who for all I know, may not be), and for the reality that we are all somewhere in the process of this perpetual self-renewal.

Through the Tunnel

Well, I suppose I’m better than yesterday. A number of contributing factors. Met up with friends in the morning, got asked to go see a play this Sunday, got asked to go to that Dharma Punx meditation group tonight, made plans with a friend for tomorrow afternoon, made plans with a friend for Sunday afternoon, got my thesis paperwork signed by the folks I needed and it was confirmed that the last signature I need can be gotten on Monday without penalty, was congratulated (even without the uploading) that I will now have an MFA degree and that that’s an accomplishment even if I don’t feel it right now, ran into my professor who’s helping me with next Saturday’s workshop and got some details worked out, got my locker combination from the sports center and put on the sneakers I’d hidden in there almost 8 months ago, took a REALLY long walk through the awesome grounds at school, had a lovely little conversation with a lizard, walked through the school’s herb and healing plant tour, got some good rehearsal in for acting class, had some good convo’s with student friends of mine, came home and wrote the performance piece for May 1^st and really like how it turned out, and then had a long convo with a great friend of mine.

So…. yes, things pass. I needed ALL of that to get through the funk, and there’s still the lingering notes of Beethoven’s funeral march playing in the back of my head, but I don’t feel quite nearly as pissy or whiny as yesterday. This is good.

Plus, I’ll babysit for nearly all of today, and kids, even though I’m always nervous to babysit for that long of periods (how the f can I entertain kids that long!), they’ll help me get back into the more playful, much less self-serious frame of mind.

There was an enormo orange cat perched on the garage overhang as I was writing my morning pages this morning. I always try to get my cat to notice these things, and tap vigorously out the window, but she rarely seems to get it and thinks I’m just playing. D’ah, well.

Luckily, it feels, there’s really nothing more to report. Getting through my emotional tornado was enough news for me. Oh, I also got a few new books from the library before my scheduled phone call with this woman who used to work at galleries, and now works for a law firm or something for art and artists – i forget exactly what she does, but I wrote it down. I wrote a lot down.

We’ve been trying to schedule this call for nearly a year. I let the thread drop sometime in October, and finally picked it back up this month. And we finally got to speak. She was really helpful and informative, as I gather information about what jobs there are in the fine art world. She asked why I was more interested in the art world than the writing world, and I said, I guess I just feel so surrounded by writers, that I like the avenue of something else. Plus, I told her that personally, I love painting because it gives my brain an alternate route to process and develop things – she said to definitely use that sentiment in interviews.

Plus, she gave me info on the other worlds of fine art. The trifecta, apparently, is galleries, museums, and auction houses. She said that my writing background shouldn’t deter me (as in my lack of fine art/art history background), that as long as I “present well,” and do good work, there’s no reason that this world should be prohibited from me. Which is great news.

So, now I have more info on jobs in that field, a website for fine art jobs to check out, and a contact to run things by. She’s actually a friend of my ex, and he’d put us in touch a million years ago, so, shout out to him. I toyed with texting him my thanks, but figured the best thanks is to just go forward with this work. He doesn’t really need to know. … As my ability to let go of all outcome or response from him is limited, and it’s better that I just leave it be. But I am hugely grateful.

A lot got done yesterday. My eyeballs are quite red and dry from all the computer hours logged, so I’ll be glad to focus on kids today, the most anti-computer screen-like things of all.

It’s just sloughing off the old, I suppose. Fear is normal, but really, it’s just boogymen, and I have a massive flashlight powered by all y’all. So, thanks. 

Talking Alarm Clock Meditation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Life is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

My Body is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

My Home is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

My Finances are in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

My Time is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

My Family is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

Now that you’ve vomited, gagged, or simply stopped reading, this is the phrase that occurred to me this morning. Particularly around my family.

These are affirmations, which means that they may not be precisely “true” at present, but the point is to work at believing them, and to bring them into being. Affirmations have a long history, with me too, of being thought of as poppy-cock, and nonsense, and sooooo gushy icky lovey for only the really far out hopeless cases of wishful, magical thinkers.

And, be that as it may, what harm can they do.

It’s like the removal of the paintings of women hidden from the viewer. What harm can it do? It’s like seeing a holistic chiropractor who recommended gargling with (diluted!) apple cider vinegar because I was getting sick. What harm can it do? It’s like believing that my parents will behave themselves when they see each other at my graduation.

Like the anxiety/control bug will do, this parasite will glom onto anything to maintain its existence. And, currently, now that it looks like I may well graduate (WHEW!), it looks like my parents are coming out to see me “walk” for graduation.

I’m… anxious in advance. My parents were not the fighting kind when they were married. They were the not talking kind, speaking, toward the end especially, only about who has a dentist appointment that day, or when they’ll be home, etc. So, it’s difficult to imagine a reality in which they talk less, but, I’m in it. We’re in it.

In fact, it’s worse. Because now, there’s rancor and distrust and dislike. There’s resentment basically. And for the most part, since their divorce ten years ago, a) they do not talk, email, communicate (except through my brother and me), and b) if they mention each other, it’s with bile.

So, my anxiety bug has been glomming onto the event of their being in the same place at the same time, and how uncomfortable their tension makes me.

It’s been suggested that I can let each of them know that this is on my mind, and that I look forward to a happy occasion. They don’t have to be best friends - they never really were – they just have to get along enough to celebrate a happy occasion. My happy occasion.

My therapist said yesterday that it’s typical for people who have had to take on adult responsibilities prior to adulthood to get a little paralyzed and fearful when faced with adult rites of passage, such as graduation. That we have put on such a show and action of being adult before our years that when we’re actually faced with real acts of adulthood, we don’t really know what to do with that. There’s a feeling that we haven’t in fact grown up enough to take on the responsibilities we’re being asked to take on.

The fact is, I didn’t graduate undergrad with my friends and roommates. I was in a mental institution at the time, coming off a combination of drugs and alcohol, most of which noone knew I was abusing so much. I remember my fear of what would happen when I graduated. This fear of going home to live with my dad (my parents had only divorced that year) and knowing that he and I were at odds. Seeing that my roommates and friends were all getting ready to prepare for it, and I was in some bar, occasionally some bar in Philly, miles away from school and responsibility.

And in a final act of “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing – H E L P!!!,” I shaved my head - bicced it - in a moment of defiance, rage, and desperation. I didn’t know why I was really doing it then – it seemed … logical? It seemed like my only recourse. It felt like I was on that electric walkway at the airport, and its moving along underneath me, but I’ve lost my footing, and its dragging me, scraping me apart as others stand so calmly heading toward their future.

I did graduate, and “walk” a year later, once the chaos all settled. But, certainly, it’s been on my mind as I set to graduate this May. The same sense … or maybe it’s just a similar sense – of not knowing what I’m doing; that I don’t know what’s on the other side of this change; that don’t you know how lost I am still, and I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

However, the truth is much different. It’s different than my fear, and it’s much different than the reality of 9 years ago. The truth is, I’ve been told by my academic advisor that this fear is normal. I’ve been told by my therapist that this fear is normal. And, I’ve been told that I am certainly not who I was 9 years ago. That the resources and foundation that I’ve worked to build is actually quite solid, and my fears are no more than that. Just fears.

Just worries that Molly doesn’t know how to do it perfectly. That Molly is at a different place than some of her high school and college peers with their children, spouses, and minivans. I’m just worried that I’m still a foundering vessel – but I’m not. I can let myself be. I can let myself fall into the abyss of despair, worry, and self-pity. But that really doesn’t take into account the facts.

The fact is, I’m much more capable to take care of myself and my life than ever before, and I have a host of people to help me when I feel like I’m failing at it. And, the fact is that whatever happens between my parents when they come visit is not a reflection that I have somehow failed. That their tense relationship is an outside reflection of my inability to have a normal, sane, happy life.

Not true. And, so I will repeat the above mantras, in their purpose to solidify from wish and desire to truth. And maybe even get a little excited and proud that I have accomplished something rather remarkable. :)

Be Lightning.

It will be impossible to write today without acknowledging yesterday. Puffy eyed and dehydrated, as if I drank all the salt water that I poured out yesterday.

A bottle of root beer was spilled ceremony-like into a glass of vanilla ice cream. Like when someone spills a person’s favorite drink onto their grave in memoriam.

Someone chuckled at the number of women he’d slept with who came to the funeral. That that said something, that they all showed up.

A woman he worked with told about the practical jokes he’d done at work, like rearranging her cubicle when she was gone for lunch, so that when she came in, it was all walled in and backwards, and she couldn’t get into it.

What I thought of him was that he was like the initial spark of a lightning bolt. That all of the ions became electrified just by being in his vicinity, just by being adjacent to him. That suddenly the whole place, the whole sky was lit up. He had that effect.

I am not among the women he slept with. I was not friends with him in a familiar, close way. But I was in his vicinity, often, and I too had been lit up by him. Heartened by his just being there, even if he was sulky and sarcastic, as he was more and more. It just felt good to know him. Just to know he was here.

There were more than 200 people there yesterday, with standing room only, and all the doors to the small chapel opened wide for people to crowd in together. I shook with repressed sobs. His mother was in a mildly hysterical, altered state that you associate with someone with dementia – oh, isn’t this nice, what’s your name. …

In Judaism, parents who have lost a child get a free pass to heaven, no questions asked. In Judaism, we also don’t do open caskets. So this was the first time I’d been near a … one.

Awkward in his My Girl made-up face. The slight raised angle of his eyebrows toward the middle that always made him look like he was eager, or worried.

I’d written a blog a while back about death, and how it occurred to me that what was left was love, and children’s laughter. There was a child there yesterday, his nephew, playing outside the opened doors where people were crowding in. And love is not even the right word for what was felt in that chapel yesterday. It’s not even close to big enough.

With no other course, I am inspired to honor this life, his life, by attempting to be a fraction of the electric ion that he was. To quit my solitude and hiding. To love as much as I can, as I know I’m here to do. And lastly, with no other course, to accept that this had to be done. That this was necessary. That he needed to go home. That he needed to go back. 

For all of the lives you brightened. For the one thing that held you back from "getting it." For addiction's baffling ability to cut us down. And for your legacy that poured from every eye in that chapel.  May you be at peace. 

Make It Work

True to the mixed bag that life is, yesterday was a mixed day. I’m insanely grateful that I wrote my confirmation of the goodness of the Universe blog before I checked my email yesterday morning. Because in that email was one from Thursday from my thesis advisor which stated that my blog cannot be my thesis – that it is being rejected. … And further that she strongly recommends, “no, let me put it more firmly,” she writes, that I must go “thesis in progress.”

TIP means that I pay about $500 for the luxury of not having to turn something in this semester. It means that I pause the thesis process and am able to work on it and deliver something and meet with her still over the course of the next year. It also means that I cannot “walk” for graduation in May.

I write her back that this is my reluctancy to do this. And that for the love of G-d, I want to be “done” when I am done. But I don’t tell her that this time; I’d already done so in our previous ... terse email exchange before I handed in my blog in a “well, I don’t have anything better to give” moment.

She says back that, okay, bring all the poetry I’ve got when we meet on Tuesday, and we’ll try to make something work, “no promises.” Cobble something together out of poetry and prose, and to clear my slate for the next month to do a lot of revision, and who knows, she says, “you may just like it.”

Sniff. Ahem. It’s not that I don’t like writing, or haven't enjoyed writing poetry in the past. But, she asked me, I just don’t get it, didn’t you come here to write a book? And this is where she and I are on very different pages. What I have to inform her, I don’t know if I do. But, no, lady, I did not come to school to write a book. I have no aspirations to be published. I believe there is a rich landscape of poets whom I consider awful to not my style but have much merit to striking and inspiring. Do I really feel the overwhelming need to put my voice in with them? As a book? In that limited particular, stick on a shelf in some dusty graduate school library and possibly a few books stores with shelves already lined with a million books in an underlit poetry corner?

No. I don’t have an overwhelming need to do that.

Do I believe in my voice? Yes. That’s what I’m doing here, in this blog. With my community, and in other creative manners. Do I believe that even if there are a million other people on the shelf that I have as much a right as any of them to add my voice? Of course. But that doesn’t mean I want to. Not now. Not in this way.

But, I've now recognized the pattern I have with her, which is her as the little man in The Wizard of Oz in the circlular porthole of the gigantic green Emerald City door saying “No way No how, nobody gets in to see the wizard.” And we exchange a few emails, and then she says, Well, we’ll see what we can do.

In the time between No Way No How, and We’ll See What We Can Do, I am thrust into a dither of indignation, righteousness, misunderstoodness, and despair. And then, on the other side, I am back to feet on the ground, Okay, cool, we’ll see what we can do, hope, things can and will work out – they always do, and I have faith that by doing some work it will.

That, dearests, is not her fault or her problem. That I get thrown WAAAAY overboard into a tizzy is not her fault. And now, especially that I see the pattern, I am more prepared for it, and more able to do what I’ve heard other people say, which is “to wear the world as a loose garment.”

The reality is, yes, my family has plans to come out to see me walk for graduation. I don’t believe they have their plane tickets yet though. I do want to walk at graduation. I do want to be “done” in May. I do want to move on to other things, and take a flatbed of gratitude for the time that being in school has given me to pursue all the other angles of healing that I’ve needed to pursue.

The reality is that if it does come down to it, I will take the thesis in progress. I will be disappointed, my family will be disappointed, but this really is the best I can do. And I have to allow myself that compassion. If I could have written a book of poetry, I would have. But that’s not what I’ve been doing. So be it. I am where I am now, and that’s looking at making something work. I've seen Tim Gunn say his catch phrase in both his dubious, one-eyebrow-raised tone, and in his hopeful get-er-done tone.

I don’t need hope here, I just need to do the work. Satisfy this requirement and get on with my life. This woman is not my enemy. Nor is she my judge and jury.

So, beginning Tuesday, I will not be a poet, I will be an editor. I can do that. 

Saturn Returns.

Every twenty-eight years, the planet Saturn returns in its orbit around the sun to place it had been when we were born. Every 28 to approximately 30 years, there is a window of time which some people call “Saturn Returns.” According to some, this period of time is ripe with change and opportunity. Usually there are major life changes in this period, either positive or negative, and according to legend, the lessons that we do not learn during this first period of Saturn Returns around our 30^th birthday, we have the opportunity to learn again as we approach 60; and if we’re lucky enough to be healthy for it, again around our mid to late 80s.

In what is proving to be one of the most uncomfortable changes I’m making in this, my period of Saturn Returns, I cancelled my date with the Catholic for tonight, and am finally, after many f’ing years of debate, accepting that a Jewish partner is not only important to me, but necessary.

What makes this choice hard? Or this admittance? Well, it feels like I’m closing a very large shiny door behind which are many large shiny non-Jews. I also have debated whether this is “self-will,” me attempting to shoe-horn myself into a belief that isn’t true or fair, one that says I’ll only date Jews. How closed off is that?

But, the truth, the very hard truth of it is, that it’s the only thing for me to do. I have been down the relationship path with men who are not Jewish (in fact, no serious relationship I’ve ever had has been with someone Jewish). What inevitably happens is that I spend a very large amount of time while in the relationship debating whether it is a “deal-breaker,” until my brain feels like an out of shape yoga participant. Achy, cranky, tired.

Ironically enough, on my date with this Catholic gentleman on Monday, we’d been talking briefly about tattoos, and I said how I’d been delaying my next one, as it’d be a large commitment. That I carry a quote from a Starbucks coffee cup in my wallet which says something like, To commit to something, in work, or in play, is to remove our brain as a barrier to our life.

To commit to this decision, to set down this whirling dervish of questioning … could be a relief. I have never dated women – do I lament that I’ve “cut off” an entire portion of the population? No. I’ve finally come to admit that dating someone taller than me is actually really important to me. And that’s felt like a sacrifice too. But, it’s funny, I’ve been noticing a lot more cute tall men over the last two months...

Because what it all comes down to isn’t about religion or self-will, it’s about abundance. Can I actually let myself believe that if I really do, in my heart of hearts, want to spend a romantic life with someone Jewish, can I believe that there is a tall, attractive, employed, happy, funny, Jewish man out there? Seems like a tall order! (uh, no pun intended.) But, is it? I mean, when I think about the kinds of miracles that I’ve witnessed in my life and in the lives of others, am I still willing to debate the power of what’s possible in this world? When I look at the majority of the community I know as people who have been pulled back from the gates of insanity and death to become working members of society with entirely incredible things to contribute – am I still unwilling to allow myself to believe?

The painful answer is no. I am not unwilling anymore. I have been beaten into a state of reasonableness, I have suffered under the pain of my manic debating society, and I have resigned from that committee. I am willing to commit to the belief that my needs are important. Haven’t I been saying that here for a while? Haven’t I run into places in my professional life where I’ve agreed to things I don’t want, only to have to back out? Haven’t I made a conscious and kind-to-myself decision to not do that anymore?

Isn’t this the same thing? Isn’t this the same cosmic lesson? To listen to myself. To allow my needs to be heard. To be responsible to myself with care, not dismissal. Yes. It is.

And so, here I sit, willing to allow the same consideration to my romantic life that I am newly showing myself in the areas of my professional and creative life, to allow that faith, that sense of fun, and play, and direction, and the firm belief that wherever these bits in the cement are coming from, I can trust that I am being led to a life worth living.

It feels so uncomfortable. Which sort of points out to me that it’s the “right” thing. I’ve resigned before to the "easy" route of accepting whatever’s in front of me, only to end up in pain. This is making a resolute decision to groove a new path. 

A good girl friend reminded me yesterday that crazy things happen when people are supposed to be together, so if this particular gentleman or another non-Jew is actually supposed to be it, he will be. “If it’s meant to be, you can’t fuck it up; if it’s not meant to be, you can’t fix it.”

But ultimately, she also said that she sees this decision as me letting go of the rock in the middle of the river, and allowing myself to float. 

So, here’s to learning the lessons this orbit around. Bring on the miracles.

Ready Steady Go

About 3 years ago, when I was living in Cole Valley in San Francisco, I went for a walk. I was packing to go home for a visit, I remember, and was feeling overwhelmed, and decided to take a walk through my new-ish neighborhood. I took a left instead of a right, and walked past a sign, The Sword and The Rose. Maybe you know it. Maybe you’ve walked right by it. As unless you notice the faded paint on the cracked wooden sign, you wouldn’t know to walk into the alley between two buildings. You wouldn’t know that beyond the trash bins was a gate, through which is a sitting garden, overgrown with vined plants and a running water fountain with a stone bench. Beyond this is a small one room shop, that looks like a hobbit’s house, and you have to, well, I have to, duck slightly through the Dutch door.

Inside is one of those curio shops. There’s a small wood burning stove that always seems lit, around which are two high backed cushioned chairs with ancient knitted throws. In the cases are crystals of every color and intention, ones to wear, ones to put on an altar, ones smoothed or raw in form. The shelves are stacked high with different types of sage to burn, candles created on different days of the week, jars of loose incense with yellowing labels of handwritten ingredients seen only in spell books.

And in the corner is a small circular table set with a stained glass lamp, a shawl, and two small straw woven chairs. It is here that you can have your cards read.

And once, I did. Not that day, having walked breathlessly out of my manic and nervous packing session into this stalled garden out of time. That day when I was able to collect myself in the mystery and magic of the darkened, perfumed room. But I knew I would be back.

The man read from Native American animal cards, which I’d never seen or heard of before. I was not very “into” Tarot before, but I have learned enough to know there are many paths to the mountaintop, so to speak.

It is my belief that under the right circumstances, and with the proper intention, we are told, not “the future” or the unknown, but rather, truths about ourselves. It is my experience that what is revealed to me, through cards, or meditation, or other spiritual practices, are knowledges which I already hold, which are simply being drawn out from the shadows, or crystallized in more accessible terms.

So, when the man drew a card he called Grandmother Spider in my reading, and told me that this card was the most creative and powerful card in the deck, I was not surprised, but rather challenged. Challenged to live up to this truth which I had known about myself, and which continues to be mirrored back to me and bubbled up within me.

You can go Google the card if you like; it says that the Spider wove the Universe. Is, in essence, the Great Creator. I don’t deign to think that I am unique in having this spark (truly, I believe we all have it), but I am beginning to honor its presence in my life.

Performance. People have asked me what I mean when I say I want to perform. They ask, Act? … And that’s not the entirety of it at all. I wrote a poem in August of last year, which I’ve pasted below, called Pyrotechnic Performance. In my first blog-a-day posting on this website in November, I wrote about it. (Pulling a Carmen.) And, this morning, I wrote about it, in my Morning Pages. What do I mean by performance? And why am I called to do it?

I’ll quote here from those pages, because this is the change of course of the Ocean Liner, this is the portend and promise of the New Year, and most critically of all, because this is still is my challenge. I have a financial mess, which means I cannot afford an acting coach. I am willing to pay $50 for a zipcar tonight to get to New Year’s Eve parties, which I have rented and am psyched about, but I am still on the sideline of my own commitment to this truth. I know this is eroding, this stagnation, this hesitation, this fear. To loosely quote Nelson Mandela, it is not our darkness of which we are most afraid, but our light. Hiding in financial crises, dead-end (and deadening) jobs, being late, being “shy,” these are the snakeskins which I am shedding.

Because I want to be available, I am coaxed by this light, this promise, and as you’ll read, I have a commitment not only to myself to fulfill, but one to you as well. So, to a new year, to a challenge I am becoming brave enough to face, and to the undocumented bounty of facing a truth I’ve known all along.

A Safe and Happy New Year, Friends. And as Bill Murray says in Ghostbusters, See you on the other side, Ray.

Performance, A Challenge (12 31 11)

I want to perform. I want to ignite, excite, catalyze, engender, enmorphize. I want you to witness me. I want you to be changed in the witnessing. I want the love in you to awaken and stir as I open myself to you. I want to be there for it. Present. My best, most available self. I want you to fall in love with yourself in the process. Discover the ancient and cavernous depth of your heart. I want to be your tour guide. To lead you where you are ready to be led. I want to change the world, for good. One heart at a time, beginning with my own. And I am becoming Ready. I am ready to transform.

Pyrotechnic Performance: What I want to do when I grow up. (8 5 10)

I want to startle your emotions and steamroll you with feeling. I want to seize and agitate the flames of my inner fuel and fury and ignite and catch you on fire too. I want to blast you out of your seat aghast at the wonder that is G-d bellowing through me. I want to own this. I want to master play and expand this. I want to hone sharpen and broaden the depth of what I have to offer you. I want to journey with you through the lands of the psyche and crash you upon the shores of revelation. I want to allow you to lick and contemplate these wounds as you stagger toward the exit when I'm done. 


I want to heave you into oblivion and gently reel you back in.

Ocean Liner

I retract my endorsement of Airborne.

Just kidding. I just am not feeling as better as I’d like, especially as it comes up to New Year's Eve tomorrow.

Although I remember the last several New Year's, which was a new development, none of them have been particularly outstanding. Last year, I was on the roof of a friend’s condo in SF, watching the fireworks over the Bay – which was wonderful – with my soon to be ex – which was less wonderful, but a great attempt at shoe-horning romance into a moment.

This year’s remains to be seen, with a party with some local friends’ bands, and some dances out in SF that could be a raucous good time. But I’m not feeling particularly raucous at the moment. But things change. And this is the season for it.

I was reminded this morning as I was writing my Morning Pages about a conversation I’d had with my friend Luke on our Misfit Christmas. We were talking about the economy, and he was saying that people’s expectations are that things can change on a dime, in an instant, immediately show results. Whereas the more accurate truth is that change is like the course of an ocean liner. It.does.not.stop. when you want it to. (See: Titanic) ;P

He drew his finger in a long, wide arc along the coffee shop table and said that as an ocean liner begins to change course, it continues to look like it’s still going along its original path, it continues out into the treacherous water, slowly evening a turn-about. It is not instantaneous, and it is not immediately obvious or apparent.

Which means, that for anything that does change in this manner, like most things in this world, it requires patience.

This morning, I was reflecting that the change of the year, a sudden WHAM BANG HELLO NEW YEAR!, might not equate with the reality of the subtlety of change. But, personally, I feel it. The planet changing its course in the cosmos, slowly slingshotting back around. The impending change of the year has begun – it’s not one moment at midnight when Dick Clark leads us all in some bedazzled primal chant. It’s more covert, and ultimately more kind than that.

Changes that happen all at once are called emergencies. Lucky for us, life is not always in the habit of confronting us with change in these violent manners.

I’m not sure of my entire point here, but I suppose I’m attempting to provide a bit of cosmic comfort, reinforcement of the positive course I am on and perhaps you are on, and g-d willing the economy is on! Or maybe I’m just being wistful at the close of a year, which, of course, it also is.

I was 14 and at a new year’s dance and a girl friend of mine was in near hysterics. She said that the change of new year’s always gave her anxiety. I got a text just now in which a friend asked me if I didn’t also have the new year’s depression.

Lucky for me, no. I’ve bought my ticket on this ocean liner. Cast in my lot. Threw down the gauntlet. Thrown in my hat. I am down with you, Ocean Liner. I am concerned that I don’t know where you’re going once you make your change in course, but I'm also mildly thrilled to see where you will go. To call on the spirit of “Must be present to Win” and “Just Row,” I will make my best attempt to stand like Rose at the bow of the ship and throw my arms open unto the unknown. 

Holding the High Watch

The best laid plans, right? I had grand ones for this week, then I got sick. I am on the mend, past the worst I think (insert ad for Airborne here [despite others’ nay-saying about its efficacy, I swear by it, and finally stocked up yesterday]).

It has given me the opportunity to nest a little bit; I haven’t cleared my NJ boxes, but I have put up the revised “vision of love” collage. It’s so much better than the last – I wish I’d taken a before photo of the beige yawn it had been! And I have another decorating project I might get to.

I think I know why I got sick – what tipped the scales from ‘minor winter ill-health’ to full-blown ‘duuuude, I don’t feel so good.’ I made out with someone. -- Not that this is karmic retribution or anything, but that he must have been sick too. 

A few days ago, I was in the car with a guy friend of mine. We have a teeny bit of history having been involved for a full 4 hours ;) a few years ago but have remained pretty good friends, sort of sweeping it under the rug. We often talk about our dating lives and such, and as he’s giving me a ride home, we begin to talk about it again, what’s going on, etc, lighthearted, etc.

Except…

I begin to say that I am of two minds lately. The one mind that knows I’m “holding the high watch” as it were for something real, potentially lasting, and ultimately revolutionizing. (Realistic… right? [I do think so actually!]) I tell him about the work I’d been doing via Calling in The One, and about how I am attempting to create my best life, so when I meet someone, I’m fully present and accountable for myself, I’m engaged in a life that makes me happy, and I’m not seeking for someone else to make me happy or to take care of the needs within myself that are actually my responsibility.

This is basically the aim of the book, and of a lot of the spiritual work I do. To become my authentic and most available and active self.

That said,

I am also of another mind. Which says, I’m 30 years old, my bones and ligaments only getting older and less nimble, and these are prime sex years that I feel I’m wasting! It feels like a tragedy to let each day go by without engaging in one of life’s greatest pleasures.

My guy friend says that it sounds like my body is saying one thing and my head is saying another – but I really think it’s everything all at once, to use that phrase again. My heart & head know what I’m doing, holding the high watch, creating space, making room, expanding my life in positive ways. They/I know that this “lull” is temporary, and perhaps in fact necessary to sort of flush the system, or simply not clog it with anything less than awesome.

In his car out front of my apartment, I ask, Has this whole conversation been your way of saying you want to make out? and he laughs, I'm not that transparent, am I?

But, being a hot-blooded human and woman, and knowing the course of the conversation had been headed here, and having actively participated in it, we make out.

And it’s fun and hot for a full ten minutes or so, and then I know I have to leave. I don’t want to sleep with him, though, surely it would be fun, but I am very familiar with fun of this sort, this particular sort, which looks like neither of us actually being romantically attracted to each other whatsoever, and I am also very familiar with the … blasé sort of let-down feeling as you each pick up your discarded socks and clunk through some small talk and try to figure out how quickly you can get out of there.

Sex is temporary. Love is not.

So, despite the “tragedy” of “wasted sex years,” I am clear on what I am heading toward. I am clear on the woman and partner I want to be. Clear-ish. I know it’s fluid. But I also know I am very much done (she says, knowing things may always change) with vapid sex.

Besides, Good Vibrations appreciates my business.