Breathing Room.

Sort of makes me wonder if there’s a room somewhere where all people do is breathe? Maybe that’s called a meditation center. Or a hospital.

In any case… yesterday, the interior design company I’ve been temping with these last few weeks (and on and off during the last year) asked me if I’d like to come on with them for a temp gig for a full, firm 6 weeks (possibly 2 months, but 6 weeks firm)?

Of course, I said yes. !

This gives me 6 weeks to really have the mental space to look for permanent work, while not freaking out about bills being paid or not. I know, now, that I not only will have July rent paid (HUZZAH!), but I will have August rent paid. I haven’t known if I’d have two months’ rent in a row in a long time. I can’t tell you what a relief this is.

I noticed how much more I was breathing after I was asked and after I accepted. I have a tendency to hold my breath, or breathe shallowly, when I’m stressed out. Most people do, I think. I realize it’s not only then though. Sometimes the muscles of my stomach are in contraction even when I’m sitting by myself at this computer writing this – or at my breakfast nook, writing my morning pages. Why on earth would I hold my breath, or be all tied up when there’s nothing to stress about? I dunno.

But, I recall what was said at a meditation I went to a few weeks ago, where the facilitator suggested we allow ourselves to have “abs of jello.” People snickered, because really, we all probably are holding (well, not maybe ALL) some sort of tension around with us.

The way that I walked into work yesterday, and the way I walked out of it were two vastly different ways of being. I was angry – as you might have learned from yesterday’s blog – and all bolted up in worry and fear. I did also leave the building at noon to head downtown to meet up with a group of folks for an hour, which was unbelievably helpful – and I began to notice, then, the whole tightness of my belly thing – the not properly breathing thing. I hadn’t been asked to stay on yet, but I began to notice that I didn’t have to hold my body in freak-out mode.

When I was asked to stay on, if you could visualize that metal bib they put on you at the dentist as a cape, and watch it fall to the floor with a thud, then you’d know how I felt. I felt acres lighter. It’s huge. It’s a big thing.

And… it means even more that I have to show up for this position for what I’m being paid to do. It means getting to work on time, basically, and not hanging out online that much. That’s cool. I mean, I set my alarm for 6am yesterday in an attempt to get to work earlier (aka “on time”), but didn’t make that. I snoozed til 6:30. So, this morning, I tried again. And up at 6am as I was this morning, I might have to wake up earlier still to ensure that I have the…breathing room… to do everything that I do in the morning with more ease and less stress – a constant look at the clock – even in my meditation feeling crushed by my awareness that it’s ten minutes I “don’t have.”

Although I cringe at the thought of anything earlier than 6am, it’s really not that big a deal. I’ll gripe about it some – but the benefits will be way worth it. I won’t hold my gut in as I write this in the morning, or as I’m cooking my ubiquitous eggs.

It’s hard to not imagine that some of the work that I’m doing around money isn’t related to this sudden “windfall.” I’ve been in a limbo of not knowing whether I have work from week to week and day to day for the last few months. And now, “suddenly,” I’m asked to stay on for 6 weeks – 6 STABLE weeks? I sent out those letters last week to former employers (see: Bollocks) letting them know that I was a lousy employee and that I was trying to do better. And in the intervening week, I have been trying to do better – and think I’m progressing along those lines.

Also, it’s hard to imagine that my work of freeing myself from “wrong” sources of power and validation (see: yesterday, and the entire history of my life…) aren’t in some way influencing the curvature of this road.

Sure, it could all be “coincidence.” Nothing to do with anything, but I don’t believe that, personally. But. Nor do I believe that I am “rewarded” for “good” behavior (and thusly, punished for bad). I rather believe that as I let go of behaviors which aren’t serving me, I’m more available for the good things the world has to offer. Usually those things were available all along, but I’ve been too busy peering down the dry well, begging it to be water, that I miss the river.

Whatever the cause and effect, or lack thereof, I’m grateful. Hugely. I bought a (cute, but) cheapy new notebook for my morning pages yesterday. I intend to take another look at how I planned to distribute my funds this month. Because the truth is, even though I hadn’t planned or had money in the item lines of entertainment, or notebooks, or toiletries – the reality is that I spent money in them anyway.

Last night, I found a note from February when I was meeting with some money folk, and there’s a huge note-to-self that says to be honest about my needs, so that I don’t overspend.

This month, instead of having been honest about what I really need, I wrote up a meager, scarce, and skeletal spending plan, and of course I haven’t stuck to it. Be honest about my needs. They’re not overwhelming, they’re not indulgent, they just are what they are.

And I can allow myself to own and take care of them, while I breathe into my abs of jello. 

Rage Against the Whatever's Handy.

Last summer, before I started getting help around money, I was in a bad way. I answered an ad for a company/house looking for dominatrixes (dominatri?). I was desperate for money, and was almost willing to do anything to make it.

So, I answered the ad, spoke with a woman on the phone, looked at their website, and scheduled an interview.

Then, I emailed a friend of mine who’d been a dominatrix once upon a time, and I asked her what her thoughts were around it. She replied with an interesting thought. She said that it was a very low and base level of energetic exchange.

Even though it sounds “woo-woo,” I knew what she meant. She didn’t tell me yes or no, she just said, basically, that it felt icky. And that she was heavily using drugs at the time.

A few days later, and before my interview, I called to let them know I wouldn’t be coming in for my interview, that I’d like to cancel. And that was the end of that.

However. I’m reminded of this now, about a “low” source of energy, or power, because I’ve been experiencing the most wonderful (<-- sarcasm) feeling of free floating anger lately.

For those of you who know me, “angry” is likely the last thing you’d associate with me – quirky, awkward, loving are most likely the top layers, and indeed, the most core layers. But, in the middle of those is everything that I’ve tried to put in between me and you. That includes sex, and that includes anger.

Now that I’m in the process of extricating myself from any sexual entanglements, grey areas, … dating sites…, I’m noticing that anger has arisen where “sex” used to be.

When I was in junior high, and I came into school that one Monday with contact lenses and makeup and suddenly I was visible, I rode that high, and my anger that “you” only now noticed me, I rode that well into my twenties.

I fed off of that energetic exchange. The power that a woman (or man) holds via sexuality is more than palpable, it’s addictive. It’s enlivening. It becomes what I’d come to believe was my only source of strength.

This was a “low” form of strength, and a false form. But oh the many heads of it. I feel powerful (or visible, or valid) when you pay attention to me. When you’re giving me what I think I need, when you’re eying me, or flirting with me, or seeing what I know (or think I know) you’re seeing when you see me.

So, now, I’m removing this source – I’m calling this well toxic, and trying to walk away from it. Sex isn’t bad – but it can be a natural outcropping of feelings rather than hormones.

I said yesterday to a friend that I feel like someone has pulled my covers. That my defense mechanisms are being shorn away one by one, and so, now, here I am with anger.

I am very aware that anger is just the other side of vulnerability. I don’t want you to see how vulnerable I am, so I will put on my angry armor and tell you to fuck off.

But, being aware of it doesn’t cancel it out.

I was reflecting this morning about the power of anger. I realized that before there was the Power of Sex, there was the Power of Anger in my life. It was modeled to me that if you were angry, you were powerful. If you were angry, you were paid attention to (and left alone). I learned that anger was an appropriate way to feel visible.

This, is a poor lesson. As frightened as I was when I was younger, I began to learn to fight fire with fire. I learned this young too. I was not really a pleasant kid, behind my shy exterior. The shy came after. After I learned how to be angry, to yell back, to provoke, to antagonize, and to defy. I learned that not everyone, especially in school, was going to put up with that, and it sank inward, enclosed by the layer of “demure” and “shy.” I’ll just disappear then. If I can’t have power via anger, then I apparently don’t have any at all.

When I found sexuality, I found a “more acceptable” pathway to visibility. And now, again, as that one’s being taken away from me – the abuse of that power, rather – now, I’m falling backwards through my timeline into anger.

Rage, really. I learned a lot about rage growing up – surely, not as much as some, but more than Mr. Rogers would have wanted in his neighborhood.

So, here I am at rage. One of my last defenses. I am sorry to be here at it. And I also know that freedom from it will bring untold gifts. But… I like it. And that’s the problem. The problem is that these sources of power are still salivating. I still feed off them. I still feel powerful from them, even “knowing” that they’re false.

I made someone angry yesterday, and I liked it. I felt validated. If I’m able to make you mad, then that means that I’m alive, around, meaningful. If I’m able to cause a reaction in you (previously, a sexual one; now an angry one), then I have a purpose.

Yes, I “get” that these are totally fucked up thoughts. I get that this has to be “gotten through” or it will continue to cause me pain. And isolation.

But I felt that “low source of energy” when I was the recipient of that anger yesterday. It’s like a “HA! See, you do care."

It’s so Psych 101, it’s stupid – better negative attention than no attention. But, it’s recorded in textbooks for a reason. It must be prevalent enough and common enough to fall asleep to at your freshman college desk.

So, that’s my thoughts for the day. Thoughts on feeling vulnerable, and what I do to hide that. Thoughts on my reluctance to let go of sex and rage as sources of “power” and validation. My thoughts on compassion for myself, as I know this is hard. And a modicum of hope and self-validation for choosing to move through this anyway. 

Literati

Yesterday was a day off from work, as they needed the room I’ve been stationed in, the library, so I got to experience a lot of loll and gag. Less gag, more loll.

I still did spend time in a library, peeling myself from my couch to go sit in the local library and email and submit applications for higher education jobs. Here, Southern California, New York City … Northern Florida. Throwing out the seeds and seeing what sprouts.

I also got another book out of the library, and began to notice a trend of mine over the last few months. The latest books I’ve read have been:

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do) by Mark Greenside

Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine by Eric Weiner

Seriously, I’m Kidding... by Ellen Degeneres

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

and now

Bossypants by Tina Fey

As I was checking Tina Fey’s book out, I was able to connect a few dots through the above list. Firstly, there are the books that are about redemption – about people searching, seeking, going insane, going sane. Mark Greenside’s book is more of a bridge to the other category, not being a redemption, but certainly a “coming of age” (at 40) kind of an adventure. The other category, of course, being the comedienne’s books.

Something about this strikes the right balance with me. That, yes, I want to read about your harrowing walks through dark nights of the soul and wilderness and Vegas (see : Man Seeks God), but I also want to read the levity, candor, and strength of women in showbiz who are being pioneers in a different way.

I’d never been one for non-fiction, and all the above are. They’re all “memoirs.” I was raised picking up the library copies of my mom’s Stephen King novels, and for most of my junior high and high school years, I’d sit on the couch in the downstairs living room, engrossed in the psychological and physical mystery of King’s characters and plot. Everyone would eventually go up to bed, but I was too page-turned, and soon, it was late. And I was by myself, reading Stephen King in the middle of the night.

This, was not an altogether pleasant experience, so I’d read further, because if I closed the book, I’d have to turn off all the downstairs lights, and walk upstairs in the dark with visions of deranged clowns lurking in my peripheries. So, I read on, and then it’d be 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, and my eyes scratchy from being open so long, and I’d finally give up, too exhausted to care if there were a rabid dog perched somewhere in the stairwell. I’d climb up to bed, and fall in, too tired to be awake enough to contemplate the darkness.

There were the years when I didn’t read anything at all, really. I call these college.

No, (!) just kidding. But after college, I read nothing much at all, or nothing that stands out. And I don’t really remember what I picked up next, but it wasn’t that many years ago.

I remember when I first got sober, within the first year, I went to see a movie at an indie theater in San Francisco. I had befriended a group of people who were wonderful and hilarious and lovely, but none of whom wanted to see anything like what I was seeing that day. I enjoyed the movie immensely, and when I walked out, I began to panic.

I’ll never have the kind of friends who’ll want to see anything like this with me. No one has the kind of taste I have. I’ll be destined to watch things and do things that interest me alone forever.

Fatalism is not just a river in Egypt. Melodrama, the same.

I began to cry. Honestly.

I called the one woman I trusted, and sobbed to her on the phone how alone I was, and that no one “got” me, and that I was too weird to have friends.

She told me to come over to her house right then. I sobbed even more that I didn’t know the San Francisco bus system, and I’d be stuck in Polk Gulch forever.

So, she told me how to catch the Geary or the California bus, and picked me up at a mutual spot, and fed me tea and calmed me down.

A few months later, I was outside my car with a group of people. One of them I’d just met, and she looked into my backseat and saw a book I had there (I honestly can't remember what it was). She exclaimed with delight – she had been meaning to read that book! How did I like it, what did I think? And I told her she could borrow it when I was done.

It felt like a revelation, even though it was such a “small” thing. I leant her the book. She leant me one. I began to form friendships with people who had similar tastes and interests, and who would undoubtedly today come with me to an indie movie theater.

It took time. It took a lot of time. I have a friend now who is going through similar transitions and longing for those kinds of connections, having been immersed in a relationship involvement so that it’s been hard to make the kind of friends she wants. So, I told her that story of the movie theater breakdown and the book-in-the-car new friend.

At some point, I turned from the sci-fi, novel genre (though The Illustrated Man sits on my shelf – moment of silence for Ray Bradbury, and his children’s room/lion story that has never left my consciousness). Today, the books I read are not paths into the mystery of the mind and the world, but out of them. (Though, someone once gave me a copy of The Power of Now, and each time I tried to read it, I a) threw up a little in my mouth, and b) twice --TWICE-- simply threw the damn thing sputtering across the room – this last time, just a few months ago. I’ve since given it away. Self-righteousness in a “spiritual” teacher is an ugly characteristic.)

It’s just interesting to me to notice what I’ve been attracted to lately. That it points to a change in course. I yoked a friend of mine to driving up to Jeanette’s reading when she was in town a few months ago, and that friend now has my copy – a friend of mine, wants to read something I’m interested in too. A friend of mine is interested in the things I am too. And she's not the only one. I’m no longer bereft and alone on a street corner drowning in the electric whine of MUNI wires and the stench of human misery.

Thank you, Brandie, for asking me about that book in my car. 

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

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

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

Then …

I sat and stared at a wall of books.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. 

Turn Left.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sucker

Dear Folks,

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

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

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

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

Well, you could always teach English.

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

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

But…

The reality.

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

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

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

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

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

So, I could do it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

which I guess is another word for Adult. 

Three's Company

Best Laid Plans are luckily not always the best plans. Overambitious as visits with family usually are, my brother Ben and I did not get to see all of San Francisco in an hour and a half. He did say the sweetest thing, as we swept back into the car off of Pier 39 on our way to Lombard Street – that he came here to see me, not San Francisco.

My brother is 3 years younger than me, lives in New Jersey, and is a highlight of my life. It was not always rainbows and puppy dogs between us, but the last few years have seen a dramatic, but incremental shift toward mutuality, trust, and love. It’s been one of the greatest gifts that I’ve gotten, this renewal of our relationship on a basis of support and respect and admiration – to get to know each other as adults, or as adult as we are, rather than as two kids fighting each other for the crumbs of whatever there was available.

So, he and I got to briefly traipse around those tourist spots, and then had to get to SFO to pick up our mom. Another relationship which has formed and reformed many, many times. It’s in an iteration that neither of us know, and so we’re sometimes formal, hoping not to cross boundaries or offend, and we’re sometimes deep, treading carefully for the same reasons as above. Mostly, we’re funny. Mostly, the three of us together is like an old left-off conversation, dotted with movie references, and cackles of laughter – though my brother chortles rather than cackles.

An old boyfriend of mine got to meet her once when she came to visit me in San Francisco about 4 years ago. He said that we laugh the same. I’m sure we’re many things the same – sometimes I catch the strangest sights of myself, and am struck at how much that’s a “mom” move – reaching for a kitchen cabinet, I see the hollow of my thin, graceful wrist, and it’s hers that I see and remember. Sometimes it’s the way I click my fingers together when I’m nervous or anxious. And sometimes, it’s strange things that I’ve picked up from her, like when I was in college, cutting up chicken breasts in the kitchen, and I started clucking at the chicken – and didn’t even notice it until my roommate came it and laughed – this, is a mom move.

Irreverent, sensitive as all get out, brilliant, worried, with a kind creamy center like the inside of a cadburry egg that you cradle so you don’t crush it. That’s my mom, and also my brother and me. We each have varying degrees of it, but we are apples not fallen far from the tree. And however embarrassing it was growing up without cable or Nintendo, so that we watched Fred & Ginger movies, and all the movie musicals, and The Marx Brothers, so that no one our ages would get our references, we’re older now, and people still may not get our references, but I can appreciate that we have them at all.

A friend of mine told me maybe a year or more ago, how distancing she felt that her father could really only communicate in quotes from movies – that it wasn’t personal enough or intimate enough. I shared with her my and my brother’s experience, and said, for me, now, it’s actually one of the ways we do share intimacy – sharing something, a witticism, with each other that we know the other will get, and so we bond and revel in our commonalities.

My cell phone broke recently. In it were saved text messages over the course of several years. I’m a hoarder of texts. One of the last that I know I have saved in there is from my brother a few weeks ago: “Of course your president is an actor – he has to look good on television.”

For those uninitiated, this is a Back to the Future quote, just one in the long continuous conversation that my brother, and mom, and I get to share with each other across time and space.

We cannot be present in person with each other often. And when we are, we’re all still learning how to relate in a way that is open without overreaching, and fun without being superficial, among many more balancing acts that all relationships aim to master, but likely never fully achieve. We figured out that the last time the three of us were together was about 3 or 4 years ago.

Last night, at dinner, which didn’t go “as planned,” as my dad and his fiancé were stuck in the city and didn’t make it to the ceremony at school, it went perfectly. It wasn’t as I’d planned, it was better. And the three of us delighted in the bright, animated, multi-faceted, infinitely tangential company of one another.

For all that has come before, for all that it took to get us to that dinner table, for all that will continue to need to happen to help us show up to tables like that with one another, I have a family whom I love, and who love me dearly.

TODAY’S GRADUATION DAY! So, as Abe Lincoln said,

Be excellent to each other, and… PARTY ON DUDES!!!

Pulling a Carmen: 2

When I began this blog-a-day back in November of last year, my first post was called “Pulling a Carmen,” as I'd been reading and was encouraged by her own blog-a-day postings. In the time since, sometimes I just find it hugely funny how parallel my path is to my fellow blogger and friend.

For recent example:

• I also just starting going back on to the internet dating scene. In fact, I have a coffee date today with someone I met on JDate

• I too have said fuck it, and asked out a dude yesterday. Unfortunately, turns out he’s married, but it felt really good to do so.

• Several of the books that are lining my desk and bedside table are travel books about Europe, underlining my intention to take a real freaking vacation some time this century.

• And, I also rented a camera and video camera from the school’s A/V department to begin taking pictures again. 

Sometimes I feel awkward about our exceedingly similar trajectories, as if I’m copying her, but the reality is that independently, we come to these things, and then come here to write about them. It’s really funny, and also somewhat comforting to know that there is someone who is traveling a similar path toward “To thine own self be true.”

On that note, I went to see my friend’s band play in the city last night, and then headed with my girlfriends to go out dancing in Oakland. Prior to both these… we went to the Dharma Punx meditation – nothing says spiritually fit like meditating for 40 minutes before downing coffee with an add-shot. ;)

But to relate it to the ‘self be true’ part – each of these are places where I want to feel more connection. I hadn’t been to see live music in MUCH too long. It’s on my current list of “Serenity Moths” on my refrigerator (a list of things that aren’t cataclysmic, but slowly and subterraneaously eat away at my serenity and foundation). Yes, “Absence of live music” is on there, and so should be “dancing.” I’m a white girl. I have no ambition or goal to be anything but a mildly flailing Elaine Benice, but … i love it. The absence of self, the absence of self criticism or posturing or need to be anywhere or anything else. Lost in the music.

The band brought something else up for me. Like the “dropping” of the whole acting bent at the beginning of this year, what I’ve dropped more often than anything is the “being in a band” idea.

As you may know, I have 2 guitars, a bass, and a small USB plug in keyboard. Each as dust-covered as the next. The bass amp sits as a monument to abandoned dreams in my apartment.

Last night, watching my friend’s band, I remembered that this is something I want to do. In fact, I’d emailed one of the guitarist’s wife about 6 or more months ago to talk to her about her own process of getting toward singing in a band - embracing her inner teenage rock chick. If I had my … well, if I had my own back, I guess, I’d play bass, and I’d sing. Talk about vulnerability.

This week, I stood practically naked in front of an audience and spoke my poem into a microphone in a moderately full theater. That isn’t nearly as frightening to me as standing in front of an audience, singing, or playing.

The truth is that for several years, I’ve been gathering information about the whole bass playing thing. But, no, I haven’t been playing. A few years ago, I asked a guy I knew for bass advice, and he sent me a long list of places to start (which I didn't pursue). About a year later, I contacted this other guy about bass lessons (which I didn't pursue). … And the guy I asked out yesterday is also a bass player. Apparently, I have a thing.

Every few years, I’ll troll craigslist, and I’ll answer a few ads for singers. I even recorded myself a little on my computer’s Garageband to send as a sample. I got a “not a good fit, but thanks anyway” from one, and no reply from another. And, hey, I don’t blame em. When I’m terrified, it comes through. I don’t know. I’ve written here about it kind of frequently – and dismissed it and been “embarrassed” by it just as often.

However, once again, the thing that occurred to me last night as I watched my friend’s band was another case of “I want to do that” … followed by “I can do that.” There is no one stopping me, obviously except for myself and my fears, and that critic that says “Not good enough” and chops me off at the knees before I start.

One thing I’m working on releasing at the moment, a pattern and belief and behavior that is just not fucking serving me anymore, is my need or habit to stay small.

When I was living in South Korea, my friend nicknamed me “Ballsy Mollsy.” I had the absolute chutzpah and hubris to ask anyone anything, go anywhere, and do pretty much whatever I felt like doing in the hedonistic way most drunks do.

However, there is a quality of that Ballsy woman who still I am, somewhere, and who I want to resurrect or reveal or uncover or let loose – or even just let into the light a little tiny bit.

I find it’s happening in some ways. And I know to have compassion for myself as I try to aim in this direction which has been a Siren song for me (uh, no pun intended) for … oh, 15 years.

But compassion for slow progress, and acceptance of stagnation are two different things. And I’d really like to move forward from here.

So, for your reading pleasure, here’s a poem composed about a year ago. Reading aloud is encouraged.  As is recalling the line "So let it be written, so let it be done." Cheers. m.

Band Practice

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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.

BFF

My best friend from the east coast is coming in tomorrow to visit for 5 days. I’m excited and nervous – and I think I’ve written this before! I tried to write a blog this morning about real and fancied fears (that i’ll end up pushing a shopping cart: fancied; skin cancer: realish), but I couldn’t get it going, so I dug around for what’s really on my mind.

So, that’s happening, and part of my nerves are that she and I haven’t spent such significant time with one another in Years. We’d had a pretty bad falling out at the end of both our college years, almost 10 years ago, and didn’t talk for about the next 5 or so. We both had some growing and changing to do, but as Fate would have it, about 3 years after I moved to San Francisco, we began to reconnect.

Like any friendship, and especially a reconciliation, it’s been by degrees. The warming up, getting to know you again phase. And particularly with reconciliation, the “what’s it going to be like this time” friendship fear. Will it be the same? Likely not; we’ve both changed our lives & ourselves dramatically. Will it be based on nostalgia? That, is something that a few of my friendships from New Jersey have faded into, and have thence faded completely. A friendship based on nostalgia doesn’t really work. It’s great to reminisce, but that can’t be all there is – if there’s no current common ground, no interest in pursuing something forward, then there’s really nothing to bond over. The bond was made, but it’s … in the past. 

Luckily, with my friend coming out this week, we’ve been able to learn that we have more in common now and more to talk about and bond over than we had then. We have the wonderful ability and common shared history to be able to talk about that ridiculous party in the sand pit – the “pit party” – or the terrible yet funny nicknames we used to have for people in high school (Money, Teeth, Banana – because he looked like a monkey… go teenage girls…!). But we’re also finding now that our lives, despite our separate courses and coasts, have miraculously similar trajectories.

It’s been a blessing of the highest sort to have this friendship come back together. There were a few years when I didn’t know if it would, and I was viciously saddened by that, but it was not my business or my plan as to whether someone wanted to be in contact with me again. So, when I would hear a song on the radio that we’d played 10,000 times at the local diner, I got sad, but wished her well. When that movie we’d loved as children came on, I felt a twinge, but sent her the blessings for her life that I wanted for myself. I hope she’s happy.

And then, as luck would have it, we came back together. Slowly, for sure. We’re still in the slowly part. This visit is part of the solidification, but also, I have to take my expectations out of it. I want to make it a “great” time, so that we are friends again. I want it not to rain, so the weather doesn’t reflect something about myself or my life. I want us to not be awkward or have tension so that I don’t lose this again. But, none of that is anything within my control.

All I can chose to do is to be myself. If this is a person she wants to befriend, then she will. As with romantic relationships, if it’s meant to be I can’t screw it up, and if it’s not meant to be, then I can’t fix it.

I had a conversation several years ago with a girl friend of mine about the power of female friendships. The “best” friend friendships. How, really, in many ways they are – we said, then – more important and more complicated than romantic relationships. I still think some of that is true. However, part of the difference today with me is that I recognize that people are human (duh), and cannot, simply cannot, fulfill all the things a person I wish ought to. One person cannot be someone’s all. One person cannot be my only friend, or my only social connection, my only vessel of personal relations.

Like seeds, you’ve got to spread it around. Part of this is self-protection, but part of it is simply being realistic. And that is the protective part. If I am realistic about my expectations of other people, then I won’t be hurt if they don’t live up to my demands about them. It is simply unfair to anyone to expect them to fulfill my needs. Firstly and foremostly, I need to ensure that I’m taking care of them for myself to the best of my ability. Then, I can look outside myself to other people, and form relationships where my needs are met. Where my realistic needs are met.

Sorry for the tangent on what I think friendships and relationships are, but this writing is also a reminder to myself of this as my friend comes to visit. For someone who’d been labelled your best friend since the age of 3, that carries a lot of weight – and I’ve recognized, unfair weight. Part of the reason for the separation all those years ago was that we each had massive expectations and need put upon one another – or, I’ll speak for myself, I did that on her. That wasn’t fair, and the friendship burned down painfully.

So, coming to this visit in a spirit of open-mindedness. And a loose set of expectations and desires will help us both to have a better time. The weather isn’t a reflection of me. She’ll have a good time if she’s meant to or wants to. And I can take care of myself, so that I don’t put the onus on her.

However, those two hot chicks you’ll see blaring STP down the interstate? Yeah, that’s us. 

R+D

The past two days, I’ve been functioning according to my new time plan – or schedule. My friend who helped me on Tuesday morning suggested things I would never think of myself (or let myself) like “walk,” and then insisted that I write down “piano” in capital letters.

I spend more time than I like (cough – resentment) traveling to and from school because of the shuttle schedule (though I am grateful to have it at all). On Thursdays, for a 4pm class, I’m on campus at 2:30pm, because the next shuttle doesn’t arrive until after 4. So, I have over an hour to “kill” on campus before class.

My friend knows that a spiritual nourishment of mine is playing the piano in the school chapel, and suggested I use some of that time at the piano. If it weren’t written down, I wouldn’t do it. Like, take a walk, or… the “important” piece, R+D.

Research and Development. That’s what we’re calling actions relating to job, career, income earning. I like it so much more than writing down in my new little schedule, “Job hunt.” That just sucks. Makes me dread and despise it before I begin. But “Research and Development” sounds like something significant and helpful for me. Just research. Helping me develop. Not a whip or a chastisement.

So, over the past two days, I’ve spent 4 hours in R+D. This is huge. Usually, it’s looked like a few minutes glances at craigslist, a loud harumph, a resentment, despair, and click the browser closed … and then go off to some other mindless activity to get my mind off my despair!

So, R+D for an hour, I set my alarm clock, then I have something in between before the next hour. Something nourishing. A reward perhaps. Tuesday it was “art,” and I made two little acrylic painted postcards, out of the blank postcard pad I’d bought last week. I sent one off that afternoon. Yesterday, my nourishment was a walk. Although it also included calling my mom and coordinating logistics for her and my brother’s visit in a month. But, that’s alright. I got out of the house, up into the gorgeous hills near me with houses so beautiful (and enviable).

Yesterday, I also began “development” of a newsletter to send out to the masses, announcing my new workshop that I’ll be facilitating in SF in May (G-d willing). Part of my “Go big and go home” movement is to really take ownership of this workshop, and to really put it out there. I have great support around it, and have been encouraged by numerous parties. Now, the action ball is in my court, and with those structured moments of time, I’m picking up that ball.

So, yesterday I went into Constant Contact, that mass email newsletter site. I logged in, actually, although I couldn’t remember when had been the last time I did – I knew that I had an account with them. Turns out, saved in the draft section was a newsletter I was working on in November of 2010. It was a very ambitious letter about starting an creative events company. It’s more than overly ambitious, and I think very sweet, now that it’s two years later. But what it tells me is that I’ve been working on stuff like this for a while. And there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.

I went to brown paper tickets to check out their policies, and saw you can have free tickets too, so as to be a great way to manage RSVPs … not via a “Yes” on Facebook. (I don’t know about you, but I tend to click yes to all kinds of things I later have no intention of going to…!)

Then, through a girl friend, I saw her website for her creative coaching company. And started some work on one of my own. Because really, I know if I were going to attend a workshop, I’d want to see a website.

So, here we are. Taking action. Moving along as scheduled (although yesterday, despite being “art” time, I took a much needed nap!). I will allow for the changes I need as I come to know how I work best. I know 2 hours of R+D in a row is overwhelming. Splitting it up is helpful. I know that 15 minutes on dishes and cleaning a day will save me time in the end, and also help me to feel proud of my home I’m trying so hard to keep.

I have been building toward things like this for a long time. I have co-run this workshop before; I have a teacher singly devoted to helping me put on the free version later this month; and, as irony would have it, I have a decade of administrative, secretarial experience – so I know how to organize an event.

I’m supported in my effort of self love. Which in the end is what this is. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judgy McJudgerson

or “Spiritual Arrogance”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s my business that I am.

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

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

Sounds pretty shitty, doesn’t it?

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

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

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

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

Savage Love

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

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

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

It was none too different this morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She, is Savage Love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was Depression.

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