In case you weren’t sure, I was the one dancing.

Last night, I got an email reply to my inquiry about volunteering for a day-long community social action project in the Fall. The call was for artists of all types, and if I’m anything, I am an artist of all types!

The email came back: YES! We’d love to have you; here are some painting projects: Create a mural; touch-up-paint a building; paint a wall; help kids decorate bags for food that will be donated.

If you read my blog, Men at Work, about circumstances that have come to fruition since being put in my “G-d box,” you may remember (as I do, since it’s now tacked to my fridge) that in that box was a list of things I wanted to do, accomplish, or participate in. The second on the list, just after "being in a band," is painting a mural.

At the time I was writing my blog about it, the mural didn’t seem so important anymore. In fact, I reflected, "Sure that’d still be totally rad!" but that doing a mural doesn’t feel as prioritized as some of the other items on the list, like finding a creative job I enjoy, or being in a musical.

And yet. Here’s an opportunity I would never have thought would come to be an opportunity!

The email said the mural would be in collaboration, and there’s more info that I’d gather from the committee members, so I wouldn’t be doing this in isolation at all.

However, I notice, too, that my typical/habitual reaction is to say, "I’m not an artist on that scale or level, so I’ll take the job of helping the kids decorate lunch bags."

I know that’s my automatic response. I know that’s my fear response. But, I also know that there’s validity in saying, I’ve never done this before, and I would love to help, but I’d also need help.

And, so, that’s likely what I’ll say. I’ll be honest with where my talents are, but also where my aspiration is. I mean, if I never, ever step out of what my comfort zone is, how will I ever know what I am capable of, hm?

That doesn’t mean taking risks at the detriment of a community project just to say, “Of course I can do it.” It's detrimental to me (and to them) if I take steps that are developmentally inappropriate out of fear or pride. That doesn’t mean not to stretch out of my comfort zone (which, FYI participating a mural at all is!!), but it does mean that I start with a 5 mile hike, not 10.

This all feels very parallel to the job of the lead role in the play I was offered. I know it’s a stretch of my talents. I know I’ve never done it before, but unlike the play, the mural is something I’d really love to do. I appreciate the organization, their mission, and think it would be a lot of fun.

More will be revealed. I will let them know my truth, and be willing to say, "I don’t know if I can take the lead on this project, but I would love to be 'second in command' or co-chair of it -- truly involved in its creation and completion."

Instead of playing it safe with the colored bags (something I know I can land easily, have fun with but not be learning much), I think the way to “dare greatly” here is to offer to help out on the mural however I can, and learn a whole lot on the way. Then maybe next time, I can confidently say Yes to taking the lead.

Here’s to being willing to cross more items off that list! (And here's to my "daring greatly" in the first place by writing to them that I wanted to be involved at all.) 

Independence

I was driving down to San Jose for the Queen concert the other night by myself. I was meeting my friends who were coming from the city, and we decided it was more time efficient if I drove from the East Bay myself.

I drove in traffic, behind, in front of, and next to other people driving by themselves. No carpool lane for us. And I reflected on how in this age of disconnection, where people seem to be lamenting the loss of connection, community, and interdependence, we certainly do like to be alone a lot.

Or, perhaps “like” is a strong word. We’re enabled in being alone a lot.

I live in a studio apartment alone with my cat. I drive alone to work because public transportation to my job is not feasible. I can spend entire days not connecting with another human being. Without hugging another human being.

And then, like yesterday, I run into one of these human beings at the farmer’s market, that I went to alone, and get a surprise hug and get to share a moment of catch-up and a smile. A farmer’s market where I finally know the bread vendor by name and he knows mine, so we can say hello properly after a year of my buying the same whole wheat. Where I ran into one of the families from my work and spoke with her and her son, who was running circles around a tree again and again, asking me between breaths what I was doing there.

I was invited to go to dinner and the movies last night with two girlfriends. I could have said, No, I have to pack for my camping trip, which is so totally true, and imminent right now. And I literally asked myself which was more important: going to the grocery store before it closed to get organic meat, or spending time with a woman who’s moving to Nashville in two weeks.

I chose the friends. And I’ll be going to the store once it opens before we hit the road.

Which is another one of these connection moves I made recently. An awareness that I had recently: I miss hanging out with groups of folks. I am great one-on-one with people. I can talk and gab and get deep. But there’s something for me about being with a few people that ignites a different side of my personality. I come alive in a different way. A) it’s usually less intense and deep conversation when it’s more than one person. But not always. I just like groups of folks. I’m excellent at big and small talk, and I like people. –Well, some of them, anyway!

So, I’m at the part in my healing work where I’m to make amends in relationships that need mending. And this is one of them: recognizing that I have a deficiency in my social life that affects my joy. And then doing something about it.

Because of this awareness, I organized this camping trip. Because of this desire to be with folks, I am joining some of them to see The Goonies for $5 movie night at the Paramount next week, and I asked if we wanted to have dinner beforehand, and I made that reservation for us.

Because, independence is appropriate, as far as it goes. Not needing people to do for me that which I can do for myself is independence. Not needing someone to constantly bail me out financially is independence. Not depending on a substance to make me feel normal or different or a version of “better” that is unattainable, is independence.

But when it comes to human relationships, I like to strive (these days, at least) for interdependence. Not co-dependence, which is not the opposite of independence, by the way. But equanimity – a word I only learned a few years ago, but has been a soft murmur in the back of my head since then. To me, equanimity means not being emotionally tossed around by others, and not tossing them around either. It means having boundaries for myself and allowing others to have theirs. It means creating, actively trying to build relationships with people on a basis of trust, mutuality, empathy and shared values.

This is not always easy. In fact, it can get right messy, and it has, for me in many of them, as we crawl our way out of strict independence or co-dependence into interdependence. Relationships have suffered; some have been lost, and others have been strengthened exponentially.

It takes work to give up independence, or, as I’m using it, isolation.

For right now, I can claim independence from my need to isolate. Because I am learning how to show up honestly, with boundaries and without iron walls or punishing.

If I can do that, then there’s no reason not to be in community.

Happy Freedom from Bondage Day, Kids!! – Whatever that looks like to you. 

Band Aid.

You know, it was right around a year ago last June that I stood up with a group of 4 other people and played bass with a band in front of actual people in an actual venue. – I’d started playing in May.

This month, I’m being invited to do so again.

I’ve picked up my bass literally once in the last 6 months, since our final show on New Year’s Eve, or the final show I played with them before I left the band to pursue theater.

This switch, this focus of my energies in one creative direction (one that I’ve always wanted to pursue, but never let myself try or admit or commit to) has turned out pretty darn well in these last few months: I got real headshots, auditioned about a dozen times, performed in one play, one staged reading, and am preparing as the lead in a play at the end of the summer.

These are all great things.

But I miss the band.

I miss the immediate gratification of playing with people. I miss the noise, the movement, the sound, the collaboration. I miss the laughter.

Theater is performance; being a musician is a performance; but there’s a difference. The former is literally more staged. It’s not like I have acres of experience in either, and maybe I simply fell in with a great group of people for my first band – which I did. But whatever the formula is for happiness, I felt that when I played.

A friend once asked me what it was like to play with the band. What it felt like. And I took her question with me to band practice that week, and noticed how I felt as we fiddled and fixed and went over and over and moved into a rhythm, and went totally off the reservation with funny lyrics and made-up progressions: I was smiling. I was bouncing on the balls of my bare feet – the only way I could practice – and I noticed that I felt content, engaged, in the moment, fun, funny, “on.” That’s what “happy” felt like.

Next Sunday, I’ll get to practice with a new group of folks, a friend and his friend, to prepare for a potential show in July, before my theater rehearsal gets going. I’m feeling nervous and jittery – wanting to get the music charts NOW so I can practice, be perfect, be better – because if you haven’t followed along, I’ve only been playing a year, and not that consistently at that!

I want to build my calluses back up. I want to remember where C is on the fret board. I want to bounce on the carpet in my bare feet.

I love this theater stuff, … but I love the band better.

(P.S. I’m just reminded to reflect that it was only a little while ago that I wrote here that I wanted to “band” again … and here it is. Word.)

How I met my best friend from Long Island in South Korea

It’s 10 years this Fall since we met. I’d come off a 14-hour flight from JFK into Seoul. I seem to recall I was actually picked up by the Assistant Principal of the pre-school where I’d be teaching who drove me the 45 minutes back to the Samsung Apartments. The LG Apartments were over the hill. 

I arrived to a large 4-bedroom apartment with heated floors, one Texan, and a Canadian, the two other “native English speakers” who taught at the school just up the road – or over a fence if you were late and feeling adventurous. I tore my favorite pants that way.

Further up that road was a mountain spring, where my Canadian roommate, the one who showed me the short-cut, would refill his water, in line with agimas, old hunched Korean women with no front teeth who would cut in front of you no matter how long you, young white person, had been standing there waiting to fill up at the fresh, cool water tap.

The Texan insisted that I come “into town” that very first night, before jetlag and culture shock set in. Beer. The great equalizer. It was halfway through the school year, so the Texan had met some of the other ESL teachers in the area, one from South Africa, one from Ireland, all in our early to mid-twenties, all young enough to be stupid and adventurous, but old enough to have consequences. We celebrated on the first of many nights to come over uncountable pitchers of piss-water beer, bad games of darts, and laughter that always got too loud, and if you were me, too sloppy.

About a month into my new life there, culture shock, homesickness, alcoholism running like a hotshot through my veins, I found myself hailing a cab in a dark corner of Seoul. Well, I was attempting to hail a cab. But wherever we’d ended up wasn’t the typical wei-gook (white person) hang-out, and fading, wasted, and tired, there weren’t any cabs.

This is where we flash forward through the two Indian men offering to give me a ride home, me saying no thanks; long minutes passing without a cab, and them coming back; me agreeing to the ride. This is where we flash forward through them pulling the car over on a lonely stretch of highway, and taking turns raping me, too drunk and immobilized to fight.

This is where we flash to them actually driving me home, and where I collapse inside my apartment’s front door and begin to wail.

And, by the grace of something I will never quite call coincidence, this is where Jess walks out of her boyfriend, the Texan’s room, and comforts me.

She picks me up, I tell her what happened; she offers to stay in my bed with me, I tell her it’s alright. But the darkness of my bed is too large, and I pad across the heated wooden floor to their room, knock on the door and ask her to stay with me after all.

Jess insisted the next day that I go to the hospital. I wouldn’t have. Never would have even crossed my mind. She came with me to all 4 of them, because at each we were turned away, because “rape is not an emergency.”

To flash forward over the harrowing and humiliating events of that day that only compounded the isolation and violation I’d suffered, I’ll tell you it’s over. And the rest will have to remain the content of therapy sessions and the slow course of healing, which over the years since I’ve considered turning toward volunteering at a crisis hotline. But honestly, it's not over. I’m not over it enough to help others. 10 years later.

Two years later, I lived in San Francisco. Jess lived in upstate New York in a partially-converted garage next to a washing machine while earning her Teaching Certificate. 5 years later, she met an old high school-mate at a New Year’s Eve party. 9 years later, I watched them get married. And three weeks ago, she had a baby girl. Who I’ll get to meet, and hold, and smell next week on Long Island.

My friendship with Jess is inextricably linked to one of the hardest events in my life. I’d barely known her before that night, met her sure, another East Coaster, great. But friends? As dramatic as it is to say, but real enough anyway, it was while holding the hand they’d botched the IV into that Jess and I became friends.

It’s accrued and built and become many more colors and tenors and experiences over the decade, mainly on the basis of a shit-talking, wise-cracking, overly honest relationship. (Yes, the nurse stuck her hand up Jess’s vag to pull out the rest of the placenta.) And although it started as it did, and though I would eagerly and instantly give that experience back--despite how it might “benefit others”--our friendship is easily one of the great and unexpected treasures of my life. 

Meet Cute

It was last Saturday at Live Oak Theater. Auditioning for a staged reading set in Texas. Trying to remember how Texans sound, trying to channel my memories of True Detective and Saving Grace to get close. About 10 of us are milling around the lobby, there’s only one young cute guy I can see across the millers, tall enough to see me back.

He walks over and makes introductory chit-chat. I tell him he looks familiar, because he does. I ask if maybe I’d seen him at other auditions. He says he doesn’t think so. That he’s trying to get something in before he moves to LA next month. I inwardly resign this one, and try a cheerful, Well that’s a big move! The producer calls my name.

I don’t see him as I’m walking out of the audition. And that is that.

Until last night. While at my friend’s tattoo shop opening, I look across a very different enclave of millers, and see him. He smiles, I wave. I go back to my conversation, but the nag to excuse myself and not miss the opportunity prevails. I walk over toward him and his friend, a girl.

He replies, they'd heard the music as they were walking by, and decided to check it out. No, they don’t know any of these folks at all. Total coincidence. We laugh and light chat, and I walk back over to my conversation.

Some bit later, he walks over to me, says they’re going to take off. Asks if I’m ever in LA. No, not really. When does he move? Three weeks. But he’ll be up to visit sometimes. He offers a, Maybe we can get coffee or meet up or some other I want to see you again euphemism. I offer my phone number, he calls it. Exchange complete.

Exit stage right, man with the ocher skin and topaz eyes. 

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. 

Creativity and Spirituality

I got two emails yesterday. On suggestion from a friend who knows the woman who runs it, I’d submitted my resume to a tutoring company in SF. She said that she just hired an English mentor, but would love to keep me on file. And that she loved seeing the "mixture of spirituality and creativity that seems to be the hallmark of your professional life." (She also asked if perhaps that also echoed in my poetry, to which my answer is, not yet. But reminds me I want to read more David Whyte.)

I was surprised by her summation of my resume, which to me reads as: secretary, secretary, secretary. – And not in the sexy Maggie Gyllenhaal way. But, as I look at it from the outside, she’s not far off, and that makes me happy to see that despite my self-identified squabbling for a place in this professional world, I’ve been apparently creating a space for myself at the cross-road of topics that not only interest me, but which continue to be places where I do more seeking and reading and learning. Perhaps what I like to do does intersect with my professional life.

The second email I received was a reply to my resume submission for a job with Kitka, the non-profit organization of vocalists who travel world-wide. This was the job earlier this week I’d received from my friend out of the blue, and which I’d immediately dismissed as underpaying, overworking, and non-profit = non-stable/sustainable financial flow.

But, I applied anyway, despite my protests and whining. And I got a call back.

So, we’ll see. I would like to continue to apply to jobs, as it felt like an exercise in willingness and letting go of my ideas of where I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to do in this world. Besides, as I’ve heard quite recently, which I love to death is: “Sometimes you shake a tree looking for apples, and oranges fall out.” Aka – who knows? The Universe is pretty creative and wise, and likely has my best interest in mind.

Plus, it was actually nice to update my resume and take a look at what I’ve done since arriving on this here coast. The second half of my resume is “extracurricular work” and lists the volunteer or creative work I’ve done over the past few years. This includes my position as facilitator of the creativity and spirituality workshop I did last year… and will do again this year.

So, want to hear some cool shit? So, this Dr. Palm Reader/chiropractor I’m going to now (as a result of woo-woo coincidence), well he has a space in the basement of his office building (it’s an old Victorian house) that I’ve noticed gets used for yoga classes and the like. It occurred to me as I consider marketing this workshop to a wider audience than my college (where it’s been held) to ask what the deal was with that space – is it available for rent, etc?

Guess what? It is. And for relatively cheap, and the space is gorgeous, and perfect for my needs, and I’d get a key, and a lease for 6 months on the space. WHAT?? You want to trust me with a key to this wonderful place? Well, yes, they do.

I haven’t pulled the trigger yet – but it’s totally looking like a viable option for me – and I really wanted an accessible place in SF for people to come to. It’s in Hayes Valley; super public tranport accessible; and just super cute space with hot water and tea provided by them!

I’m humbled just thinking about how amazing and grateful I am for the a) idea; b) opportunity.

Lastly in this vein. I met with my professor who has been helping me to organize the version of the workshop that will be held at school next month. A workshop which I’ve been planning with and through her for several months. And it looks like it’s coming to fruition. I love the idea of having the opportunity to do the workshop for free as a “test run” and to help me get a clearer idea of what works and what doesn’t. Surely, there’s a lot I’ll learn as I go along.

But here’s the thing: this is a workshop I’d want to take. These are topics I’m passionate about. I’ve realized that sort of without my knowing or planning it, I’ve been preparing to do something like this for a few years. And my professor reflected back to me that people want this. Many people are looking for ways to tap into their creativity, for a way to get still, or for a roadmap to try. Ways to access what their intuition is trying to tell them, to access their internal nudges.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, you will know that’s precisely what I do and have been doing - however haltingly. Trying to get closer and more attuned to what I want in my life, who I want to be, and how to do that.

Here’s my last story: I have a friend who was a very well paid CPA (Accountant). She was financially rich, but felt spiritually bankrupt. She hated her feelings of single-minded material acquisition. So, she gave it all up. She threw her hands up, sold most of her everything, and went to India for 6 months to live as an ascetic Buddhist. There, she found herself to be spiritually abundant, but materially bankrupt.

And then she returned to the U.S. This is not the land where materially bankrupt works. So, she knew she had to find a balance. How to be able to hold financial and spiritual health. She began to do a lot of work, research, reading, healing. Finally, she realized that the work that she was doing, the research she was doing for herself, and the knowledge she was finding would be of value to others as well. Her own life’s path could be of service to someone else.

So, she started her own business, and now coaches others on finding their balance in holding the material and spiritual. She loves it; she is fed emotionally and financially by it; and others find help through her.

This is a model of what I’m realizing is happening for me. I know I can discount it and say, Oh I’m just rehashing what I’ve learned from xyz books and workshops myself, but as my professor said yesterday – people will pay for that summarization. They may not have the time – so I can offer to them what I am and have taken the time to find out.

So, we’ll see. I’m feeling more optimistic and confident in what’s happening and what’s next. And that feels pretty good. 

Dr Palm Reader

I am currently trying to convince my body that decaf coffee is just as wonderful as regular coffee.

For anyone who knows me, or shares this wonderful love affair with the warm caffeinated beverage, you know this a difficult task. In fact, liquid tranquility was once how I put it – despite it’s technical opposite affect on our bodies.

Why, then, you may ask? Is this a further foray into asceticism or self-denial or militant straight-edgyness?

It’s because of my feet.

Well, it’s more because of my pelvis. Well, it’s more because of my jaw. Oh wait, it’s a global problem with my body.

True to the magnificent nature of coincidence in this Universe, I walked into a conversation between two girl friends of mine about two weeks ago. I forget what brought it about, but one of the women mentioned her chiropractor. When I added in that I’ve been clenching my jaw at night pretty severely, she handed me his card. Apparently, he’s not the pop and crack kind, and is very holistic to all the body’s needs – which is good, because I have never seen a chiropractor because I thought it was a racket: to pop and crack, come back in a month, pop and crack, ad nauseum.

So, I googled, I yelped, I read all the info on the website - including his own "journey" to this angle of the profession - and then I called. Turns out, Yes, jaw problems are something that they deal with, and I could come in in a few days.

The yelp reviews are like the gospel praise for Jesus himself. You’d think this guy performed miracles or something.

… and, he does.

I went for my initial interview last Tuesday, and he spent an hour telling me to stand up, sit down, raise one arm, now open your mouth raise the other, lift this leg, turn your head and lift it again, … and then he asked a strange question. Was your childhood stressful? HA! Yes, yes it was, Dr. Palm Reader. and on with his gentle poking and prodding.

See, the problem is that because I clench my jaw at night, my dentist told me about 6 months ago that I was getting micro-fractures in my molars, and if I didn't take care of this my teeth would fall apart in my head. That it was likely caused by stress, and that I would have to wear a night guard… forever. So, luckily, I have a retainer thing from the interminable period of my adult braces, and I’ve been wearing it semi-regularly, and then more regularly, waking up in the night or morning feeling like opening my jaw is like open the jaws of life – it’s so stiff and tight and ouch.

So, Dr Palm Reader… actually, I’ve really come to call him Dr. Eyeballs. … because he has the most incredible blue eyes. I’m a sucker for them blue eyes.  – So, he says okay, I’ll see you in two days for the “download” appointment, the one were basically he tells me what’s wrong with me, and what we’re going to do about it. … "and," he says as I'm walking out, "which organs aren’t functioning properly." Oh hell, you say this as I’m leaving!? Which organs of mine aren’t functioning properly? Chew, or clench, on that one!

In any case, I do come back. And on Thursday, he tells me all kinds of stuff. Firstly, he says my adrenal gland is shot. The childhood question was because often if there is a lot of stress in childhood, the adrenal gland is over-active and overly called upon then, and so, in later life, it crashes. Have I been extremely fatigued lately? Why, yes, Dr. Palm Reader, I’ve been going to bed at 8:30 or 9pm when I can, but I thought it was just “winter,” or, you know, what my body needs… 10 or so hours of sleep a night.

Nope. My adrenal gland is shot. Okay. What else you got? Well, flat feet – get this – are a symptom of early stress. Perhaps it’s not “genetic,” although my mom has them too (“Did she have a stressful childhood?,” Yes, Doc, yes she did.).

The bottom line was this, all kinds of things are out of whack, ligaments are falling apart in my pelvis, over stressed and twisted. My hip pain another dr. said was tendonitis and I’d just have to NOT USE IT … uh, yeah, no, it’s these loose ligaments. The jaw? Well, (cue “the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone”), pretty much, it all ascends from my pelvic problem, into my diaphragm, and into my neck, and then, into my jaw. All the muscles are doing work they shouldn’t be doing, and are overstressed from doing them.

… Now that you have gotten my medical history, what on earth does this have to do with anything? Well, firstly, after he did a few pressure pointy things, and one crack, guess what? I didn’t clench my jaw for two nights. I never thought that would happen. Or would have guessed the relief I felt without it. But, this is a long-term issue, and so, over the course of the next 6 weeks, I’ll be seeing him 3 times a week, to train my body into its proper form and function. Which also means that YAY!! I won’t have to see him forever, I won't have to wear a night guard forever, and all different kinds of systems in my body are going to be starting up again… and mostly, I won’t be so fucking tired all the time.

Down side? I feel like an 80 year old woman at the moment. I’ve been told that for the duration of the treatment, I can’t bend in x y and z ways, …. and although he hasn’t said it… the pamphlet he gave me on what’s “wrong” with me (which btw, has an illustration of a completely fucocked spinal cord…), well, it states that caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and sugar aggravate the system and inhibit healing.

Well, Balls. Caffeine and sugar are the only ones I still use/abuse, but hell. Really?

So, this is not my swan song to coffee. I've had one cup of regular and one of decaf this morning, … and I guess that tub of “no sugar added” ice cream is gonna have to go…

But, indeed, it’s true. This is some sort of miracle. And if there were ever a time in my life when I had the time, health insurance, availability, and Universe conspiring for me to bring my physical, emotional, and spiritual health into, … alignment, it’s now. 

In All Its Forms

Yesterday, I got to cross a few more “Serenity Moths” off my list, including letting my apartment get messy (kitchen, another story); no fuzzy socks (my clothing allowance this month will now be worn on my very toasty happy feet); and not using my art and craftyness.

Today is the birthday of the woman who I have known longest in my life, second only to my family. We met when we were both three-years old in a story both our mothers love to tell.

Soon after my brother was born, my family moved from Brooklyn to northern New Jersey. Maybe that same or maybe next day, our new door bell rang. The story goes, that the little blond girl who lived just next-door stood on the door-step, looked up at my mom, and asked, “Does a little girl live here?” I peeked my head out from behind my mom's legs and we have been friends for nearly 30 years. (wow, I'd initially wrote 20!, but no, it's 30!!)

Like most friendships, it’s seen its fair share of trials, but through a fair share of miracles, we have found ourselves to be strong friends again, across the sands of time and Minnesota.

So, yesterday, I made a crafty little gift for her. I took out my tools I laid down since my Christmas card puttering-out, and infused as much love as I could into it.

I also put up a handwritten sign in my apartment, just below the very tall almost 12 foot ceiling: "Love, as much as you can." And put little hearts around it. ;P This was the edict, the command, and the hope, from the workshop I did a month or more ago when we meditated to ourselves as really old people, and asked ourselves what lessons we needed to learn. Today is the final of the 4 in the series of workshops on relationships. Spiritual Contracts and Inner Archetypes.

On the note of that type of work, I did get an email back from the Sacred Stream meditation school, and they do have a scholarship, but it’s itty bitty, and I can’t afford the course right now – particularly after I pay the security deposit to the Bay Area Modeling Guild, which I found out last night that I got in to :)  But, that’s alright, I feel like I’ve got enough spiritual shenanigans happening around and in me at the moment, that I’m not quite sure now is the right time to blow the top off myself anyway. Sometimes, I just need to regroup. Ground myself again.

So, doing these sort of “of the earth” type activities has been nice, cleaning my apartment, making art, finally in-putting my numbers on what I spent in December. (which, I was probably right to fear! oh holiday spirit…) ;)

On another note completely, so, I’d been praying for an acting coach. That was the suggestion I got from my acting friend in SF, and although I’d been half-heartedly looking, I’d also been dragging my feet feeling that I didn’t have the money to really afford a coach.

Then, I went to my Thursday afternoon class. Acting Fundamentals. I had completely forgotten that I’d signed up for this course. But I had. So, maybe I don’t have an individual acting coach, but I now have an acting teacher. Included in the price of all that I’m already paying for school. She’s the casting director for Berkeley Rep, and has been teaching acting forever, and has acted forever, and although at the moment she seemed a little sharp at the edges, I think this is just what I’ve been asking for.

After class, she said that it seemed I had more experience than the other girls, and I said, I’m open to any help she can give, and she said she tries to challenge and meet people where they’re at. I also found it rather hilarious that I’m more experienced than anyone in my theater experience, as I feel like such a novice I can’t even tie my shoes straight!

But, it’s not about comparison. It’s about what I can learn, and how I can inhabit my body and my emotions more fully. It’s about WAAAAYYY tuning down the cacophony of my heartbeat in my eardrums when I stand in front of a panel at an audition. I think the audition is the hardest part – for me at least. Good thing I have two more over the next two days. ;)

So, here’s to Love, which finds it’s way back to us, over 30 years of friendship, in the form of a needed teacher, and in the self-care which buys me these awesome fuzzy socks. 

Lighten up!

Yesterday, I bought a new comforter. The one that I had was given to me by a kind friend, but was stained and dark, and it went down on my list of Serenity Moths on Tuesday. (Something subtle that eats away at my serenity, yet doesn’t have to.) Also on my list was my apartment being dark. Part of that is due to the fact that the lamp I have on my desk does not have a lampshade, and so I taped a piece of construction paper around it like a shade, but am usually too nervous of fire to keep it on!

So, after work, I went to Ross, the discount store (i.e. Marshalls, etc -- east coasters shout out!), and found a new, white, soft, warm comforter. And now it’s on my bed. As I live in a studio, whatever color is on my bed really changes and is obvious in the whole apartment. So, I got to cross “stained comforter” off my list, and am heading in the direction of crossing off “dark apartment.”

I realize that almost all of the furniture in my apartment came to me absolutely free. I reflect on this, as I begin to think again/re-address/new-perspectivize myself toward abundance in my life. Every major piece was free. A gift of the universe. The bed came first. When I moved to California, my one friend was like, uh, is that all you brought? I had a few suitcases and a pillow. ;) She said she would have brought a u-haul with all her stuff. But, truth be told, I didn’t have that much, having just recently moved back from South Korea – all I had was in my childhood room in NJ, and no, I was not going to bring a twin sized bed to my “new life” in San Francisco.

When I got my first craigslist apartment, yay! here’s a room. … with nothing in it. Nothing at all. Not even a bed. Miraculously enough – very incredibly miraculously enough – my new roommate said his girlfriend just bought a new mattress set, and was getting rid of her old one. As I didn’t have any money, I offered that I could give her the $75 gift certificate to Victoria’s Secret that my dad’s fiancé gave to me as a parting gift in NJ. Sold.

That very day, we went and picked up a Queen-sized, good condition mattress and box spring. I have it to this day. For free. Or, as close to free/not out of my pocket as you can get.

When I moved to my own one-bedroom in SF, the next big piece was my couch. I wanted a pull-out for visitors, and lo and behold, on craigslist was a free two seater pull out couch. I don’t even know how I was able to transport it – my good friend and her boyfriend helped me, as he had a truck, and it is so damned heavy with all its metal internallings. Why was it absolutely free? Because the awful blue sofa also was entirely scratched apart on the arms of it and the back of it by a very active cat. Some of the stuffing was even coming out of the arms. No problem. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond, and found a perfect chocolate colored faux-suede sofa cover, and I have it to this day ;)

The rest of the pieces have come off the street, or several once from one of the buildings managed by the property management company I worked for. The building manager had a whole host of excess furniture in the basement. For the price of looking, asking, being organized to get transportation, and most importantly asking for help around it, I’ve acquired an entire mod-podge apartment of furniture that looks pretty cohesive.

The shade-less lamp, I paid $6 for, and it may have to go, or a lampshade will become available (believe me, I’ve been looking!), and I also paid for the omigod this couldn’t be any more perfect 2^nd bedside table which perfectly matches the off-the-street one on my side. The new one was bought at a garage sale around the time I was doing the Calling in The One exercises on creating space for a partner. It isn’t a replica of the first, it’s a partner. It matches, complements, enhances the first. Sort of what a partner should – or can – do, eh?

To abundance. And my lightening up apartment, heart, and outlook. ;)

Weird Science.

Winter solstice approaches. So despite the dwindling hours of sunlight and what feel like dwindling hours of productivity, change is on the move. I love thinking about stuff like that – my brother is an “earth scientist” – basically, he’d steeped in physics, chemistry, and biology, and at the moment is working as a cleaner upper of this here our earth.

He once sent me a text photo, when he began his job last year in environmental remediation, of a teeny tiny little frog balancing on my brother’s blue hazmat gloves, with the note saying, "I’m cleaning his home." :) It was the very sweetest thing.

Once, Ben and I heard the rumor that on the equinoxes in spring and fall, you could balance an egg on its end in a window of like 3 minutes, and it wouldn’t fall over because the earth was positioned in such a way that the gravitational pull was completely equal. – It worked! It totally balanced on it’s little fat bottom end for about a minute or two before it lopped over onto its side like all other days of the year.

We used to sit at home on the couch, and he’d basically translate what he’d just read from Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a Nutshell, and we’d talk about the expanding and contracting of the universe, and about black holes, and just science-y stuff in general. It was great. I rarely, if ever, get to talk to people about stuff like that, mainly because I’m so novice, and also, it just doesn’t come up – so, did you hear about Pluto doesn’t really count! (And p.s. I feel bad for Pluto’s demotion!)

When I was in college, heading toward, well, I wasn’t always in my right mind, I was taking a physics course, and one of the classes was on relativity. And in the “Whoa, man” state of mind I was in, after class, we’re all outside waiting for the bus, and I don’t really know anyone in the class, being an English major, and I say to one dude as the bus approaches, isn’t it crazy, the bus is moving relative to us, but we’re moving on the spinning earth, and the earth is moving in orbit… You can see why lots of stoners get blown away by such concepts ;P

But, it – science, math – comes up for me. Strange as it may seem. My brother was a double major in geo-physics and music theory. Art and science aren’t as far apart as they may seem. All my painting is is increasing the viscosity of a pigment to deposit it on another surface ;) One thing that came up repeatedly for me over the number of times that I did the Artist’s Way was to take a math class. Weird, I know. But we’re asked several times throughout the course to list – without overthinking it – 5 classes we’d want to take if money and time and fear weren’t an issue. And each time, math would be on that list.

I was proctoring an SAT exam about 2 years ago for some extra cash, and I was looking at the test in the aching silence of the room as these poor students are having meltdowns and panic attacks about their future, and sine and cosines swim in their graphing calculators. It was actually fun. To feel these very old creaky wheels in the back of my brain trying to remember the formula for triangles and circles. I didn’t remember the harder stuff, but there was an inner perking up of, hey, I know this stuff, and hey, do we get to do this. (I actually did better on my SATs in math, twice, than I did in english, so…)

I don’t know what it means, but in keeping with listening to my inner nudges, and knowing that this math/science thing has come up several times over the last 4 or 5 years, maybe it’s time to listen. I actually looked to see if I could do one at my school, but they are waaaay advanced, and I need like algebra 1 again! Not lecture and lab. Math can be fun. Science was way fun the way my brother and I used to talk about it. The way that he would explain these concepts to me, and we could converse about them.

Keep ‘em coming, little nudges. I don’t know what yet to do with you – but I have utter faith that I will. 

Just Row, Darling, Just Row.

So, I’m feeling both immensely relieved, and a bit of an emotional hangover from all of the worry and intense “gotta get it done”ness of the school semester. I finally finished my paper for my Shakespeare class, and emailed it to the teacher last night at 9pm. Granted, it was only six pages, but this whole working plus school thing really walloped what I was able to give to school, and squished everything else into weekends that wasn’t school and school sort of got shunted along every day, moving down my calendar like a shuffle board disc – I can do it tomorrow, I can do it tomorrow. Like Scarlet O’Hara – After all tomorrow is another day.

Which may be true, but tomorrow has been another day of intense activity, and not in any way better than the day before it.

So, the paper is done. My third out of 4 semesters of my MFA degree is done. And again, relief but… a big dose of “uhhhhhh….???” aka now what. I’m familiar enough with situations like these to not have to worry too much about the “now what”, but rather to just show up for what’s next, even if that’s do the dishes (which, duh, I do have to do), and also, as I’ve been doing more of lately, follow my little internal nudges, cuz they seem to have a better idea than I do about wtf is going to happen or is meant to happen, or which way I should row.

It’s funny. I had mini-epiphany a while back which went something like the following: I only need to row. I don’t need to know which way the boat is headed, I’m not steering, I’m not making the waves do their thing – I only need to row, and I’ll get there.

But that didn’t quite sit right with me. Sure, I agree, do the next indicated action – which for me at the moment is to wash up and get ready for work (I’ve decided – for now – to do my blogs in the morning – I procrastinate them at night, and then end up past my bedtime – plus one thing I really did learn from all this paper-writing pushing was that I really do write better in the morning. I’m a morning person – sort of. I’ve already had one cup of coffee! – I’m more of a “mid-morning” person – catch me at 10:30 or 11, and I’ll be ON IT… perhaps that’s also cuz the other two cups of coffee will finally have kicked in…).

In any case, rowing is great – I can row, and sit backwards and still question where the hell are we going. But I also do believe that it is sort of my responsibility to have some vague idea of which ocean we’re in – to extend the metaphor beyond its bounds! Maybe that’s still just me wanting to have some control, some idea of control if I know where I am, where I’m heading, and more about what I need to do to get there. Maybe that it doesn’t sit comfortably is just all part of the action and practice of this thing – to sit in the discomfort of not knowing, but to do the work anyway.

I don’t know what will happen at auditions. What will happen after school. What will happen tonight, even! I want to know – especially the “after school” part. Somehow I’m way more willing to let the audition stuff be how it will be – I’m way more que cera cera about it. Because I really know that I can’t control the outcome, I can only control how I show up and prepare for it – how I do or do not do research, take action, practice, and look for an acting coach, like my acting friend suggested to me. Somehow, letting go of the results of this is easy. Partly because, to me, it also feels fun. It feels like an adventure. Like trying a new ice cream every time. Like, I wonder what this flavor tastes like. So, of course it’s easy to show up more lightly to those. (But I will say, I’m sure I wouldn’t have always felt that way – which is why it’s taken me so long to even get here to stage zeropointone or wherever I am.)

But, “after school,” the looming deadline of “you ought to know.” More lies. I don’t know. I know that school has been the best thing I’ve done for myself in a while. Not cuz I get to study and write poetry – that’s cool, but it’s not where my passion is – but cuz I get to have this time to discover all this new stuff about myself. I said when I arrived that I wanted the two years of school to offer me time to “solidify my foundation within myself.” And I think I’ve been doing that. Concretizing who I am, how I want to be in this world – to have the time to become someone who can show up to auditions with a sense of fun.

I am uncomfortable not knowing. I am uncomfortable feeling like I’m not taking the “right” actions (not writing a sample syllabus, not looking at teaching jobs, not knowing where I will live or want to live). But, I also don’t want to teach. … So, that’s leaves me with a WIDE field, and too many options feels a little like none at all in my fear-brain.

So, before I talk myself out of the awesomeness that is my ability to show up and let go of the results, out of the awesomeness that is I FINISHED my semester, I’ll go get my second cup of coffee from my microwave and pray that all this rowing is better for me than I can possibly see. 

Effective but Wordless Chant

So I did look at one SF apartment ad today. It was through my old employer, a property management company, which is how I got my sweet deals on my SF and Oakland apartments. Granted, it wasn’t a handout-out, I worked well there – maybe not that hard, but it wasn’t that challenging or enticing, and eventually I found myself overcome by the Ugly Cries (maya's accurate term) in my car at lunch one Friday on the phone with a friend having another job existential crisis.

That day I gave my two weeks notice, that night I threw my 1st pre-Valentine’s party, the following day, I went blonde. This was almost 3 years ago now. My boss wasn’t pleased, but he knew I wasn’t happy – that I wanted to do something creative, anything.

So that began several months – two, to be exact – of job hunting. I remember I didn’t even tell my parents I’d quit my job and was looking for work cuz I just couldn’t face their “Are you kidding me, in this economy??” spiel. It was hard then – I had notes all over my SF apartment – "This is a world of grace and abundance and I am letting go."

A friend afterward told me to change to wording to “--and I allow myself to receive” – more “open.”

Two years before that, I’d been “downsized” from a corporate real estate firm, my first long term gig in SF, and was on unemployment for the full 6 months. The first month? Awesome - yay paid vacation. By the end of six months? I was desperate. I began to answer every ad. The very week my unemployment was going to run out, I had two job interviews one day, and I’m driving to one of them, out somewhere near Bayview, and I’m in my car and I have this mini-epiphany: I had every single thing I needed at that moment. I had eaten breakfast, I had coffee in me, I had gas in my car – I didn’t need anything else at that moment – no money in my hand, nothing. For that moment, I was completely taken care of.

I forget what it was now, but I even began this little chant while I was on my way to that interview. Something about being content and caffeinated, or something? That afternoon, I had my other interview – at the property management firm. And I got that job. The woman I was replacing happened to be out sick that day (she was going on maternity leave), and so I interviewed with the owner of the company – and we got along fabulously. (A big part of me feels that had I met the woman instead, I wouldn't have made it through the door.) The mug that I’m drinking out of now, he gave to me because he got tired of me using the one that had a photo of his kids printed on it for my coffee (it was the biggest mug!, What?). The one he bought has sort of colorful swirls on it, and he said it reminded him of the tattoo on my wrist.

So, yeah, he wasn’t pleased when I left my job with them, but, obviously still liked me enough to let me have parties in my SF apartment, and to move here into the Oakland one on a slight deal.  – actually, it’s a really good deal, i should be (and am!) really grateful – the rent isn’t that much cheaper, but I didn’t have to pay security deposit, or pet deposit, so that’s quite generous.

Reminds me the theme of today’s CITO is generosity …

But, back to grace and abundance, and letting go – or “receiving” rather.

I quit that job with the property management, and spent two months looking for creative work, again. And finally what happened was I woke up one morning and asked myself, still groggy from sleep and receptive to the universe, What else am I interested in?

The reply came, Well, I like being Jewish.  … So I typed "Jewish San Francisco" into Google, and applied to every position there was.

I got one of those positions. (Actually I applied to one I didn’t get, but my resume got passed along to someone else in this Jewish education non-profit, and I got that job – for which I was surely more well suited.) ... 

Then, on a not so whimish been-looking-at-the-college's-website-for-three-years whim, I apply to the MFA program, and get in. (Note, there: I actually intended to apply to the Master's in Literature Program, but didn't have a current academic paper, and am pretty sure none of my professors from college remember me ... but the admissions coordinator for the English Department told me that the MFA program, I just needed 15-20 recent poems. How many did I happen to have recently? 16.) Nudgey McNudgerson, you sly Universe, you.

I dunno. I guess I’m feeling reflective about all of this – about all of my “being taken care of” and steered into a more ... "Molly" direction -- because I have no clue what’s going to happen when school is over in May. I quite imagine that it will work out well – and I also imagine I’ll freak out a bit anyway.

But, if any of the above isn’t evidence that I’m being gently but firmly guided, I don’t know what is.

So, Universe, Let me be receptive to the strange and unusual nudges you have to give me. I sit here, in a heated apartment, with food in my belly, electricity running, December rent paid, and I’m chanting the tune to that chant whose words I no longer remember. Amen.

Alright Sports Fans

You know those montage-y frenetic moments in movies or, well, Looney Tunes, where they play “Flight of the Bumble Bee” and everything starts moving insanely quickly?

Well, it’s sorta like that. I feel like saying, Drivers! Start Your Engines!

This morning, Monday of the beginning two weeks of school/work insanity, I emailed my boss at my temp gig and asked her if I could have Wednesday off. I also asked her to get a little more clear with me on when this assignment ends, as it’s really vague, and I don’t like my income hanging on “really vague.” So she said, Yes to Wednesday off, and that she’d love to keep me into January, so let her get back to me on Thursday. So, Okay.

PHEW on Wednesday off – my crazy long day with evening class, and now I can meet with my professor to talk about my final project – due next Thursday. I emailed him this morning too and suggested what I think I might do for my project – it might be a script involving the two heckler muppet dudes. Yep. He wanted creative! I’m thinking of having them, as images of the upper class, watch several scenes from the Shakespeare plays we’ve read this semester – scenes where Shakespeare seems to be calling out the upper class. He’s got a lot of commentary on classism, and I found myself drawn to those pieces in all the works. So, we’ll see. That does not seem like an “easy” thing to do. But, it could be fun – they get all ruffled and heckle-y, and then maybe that bald eagle guy comes in at the end (You can tell I’ve been influenced by the Muppet Movie advertisement at bus stops…)

After I emailed him, I packed up my shit and went to school. I knew that hanging out here would only mean distraction – facebook, cat, tea, nibbling, general procrastinating. Luckily, both the girls I was supposed to meet with this morning cancelled – which was totally HP doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself, as I really didn’t have the time to meet with them, and would likely have been distracted.

So, I went to school, and plunked down in the English Department with my tea, my laptop, and my homework. I got pretty far. (Poem for evening class, two singing critiques for Friday, printed thesis draft.) There’s still a lot to do, but I am feeling better about it.

I have to do a teaching demo on Friday of the workshop I’m piloting in the Spring – “Creativity and Spirituality”. I co-facilitated this workshop last semester with the Director of Spiritual and Religious Life at school, and it went pretty well. So on Friday, I have to demo a portion of the workshop to my professor and my classmates. I’m not too worried about it – but I do need to get my own script down a little more. Leading people through spiritual processes – well, you have to have a degree of confidence in yourself and the work, to come from a calm position, or else people who may already be nervous about WTF is going to happen – am I going to speak in tongues? is there going to be “G-d” stuff? – feel like they are being led by a knowledgeable guide.

Luckily for me, this is all work that I’ve done. Some of the pieces for the full workshop next semester (3 times, 3 hours, for 3 different groups of women) I haven’t done, I’ve created from my own imagination, but I believe in them. The whole workshop is about helping the participants to see that they can access creativity in a variety of modes, and to call that pathway by which they access it “spirituality.” To begin (or continue) to understand that we always have something to say, to give, to create, to invent, because we have the un-tap-out-able well of creativity inside us already – we don’t have to “hunt” for it, “work” for it, we just need to access it.

And sure, it sounds “woo woo” hippie shit, but, I believe it. I don’t always remember it – and try to create from a place of desperation or scarcity – but the real juice is always there.

So, that’s my workshop. I also have 4 reading responses and a final paper to do for this class. … And a final paper and an end of semester portfolio for my poetry workshop.

BUT, on top, next to, in spite of all this – the Universe works without me – often.

I get an email this afternoon while writing with frenzied fingers that a slot opened up in the auditions…and I can get in Sunday at 8:30pm, if I want it.

I want it.

Of course, this week of ALL weeks (cue “Bumble Bee”), I now have to memorize 2 one minute monologues, get my headshots printed, and read up on this Strindberg fellow. But … it’s general auditions for a bonafide theater company in SF for their upcoming season in a bonafide theater – and *I’m* auditioning. Holy Crow.

The very next email I get? From another theater company (no lie) I emailed in my diligent action moment of a few weeks ago. They can’t fit me in this time, but will keep my info on file. Fabulous.

Just when I was beginning to feel like I was watching myself retract from the whole acting thing again, the Universe throws me a bone. I was watching myself follow the pattern of “flurry of action, then nothing, flurry of action, then nothing” – but, this time, with my small little actions, these self care little moments of listening to myself, this comes along. It is just an audition, I have to keep reminding myself, because I get easily scared the f out.

To counter the crazy “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I called in help. I called Lorraine, my acting friend I called a few weeks ago. We just spoke, and she gave me some good tips on the monologues I’m choosing, a classic and a contemporary: Gertrude from Hamlet cuz I just read it– and The Flood from Vagina Monologues cuz I know it, as I’m cast in it at school in the Spring! Plus she gave me head’s up on a place to get my headshots printed in the city, precisely where I will be on Thursday at noon.

So, yeah, I’m alright. A little dazed. But, I did a lot of work today (and some action a few weeks ago) and some unexpected bounty happened. Fancy that. 

Sacred Bonds and Hybrid Cars

Today I went to the 2^nd in a series of workshops led by a friend of mine on relationships. The series is Relationship with Self, Others, the Divine, and Spiritual Contracts and Inner Archetypes.

So, today was “Others”. I trust this woman implicitly, and have been through several workshops and retreats with her over the past … could it be 4 years? Maybe. In any case, I was interested to see what would come up, especially as I’m doing all this Calling in The One work, etc.

The most poignant, and new, information was around my ideas of what a “girlfriend”, as archetype, as character, as a “should”, should be. After writing for other archetypes of Mother, Husband, Friend, qualities like consistent, loving, supportive, independent but available, etc., it was a shock to see me write under Girlfriend: sexy, happy, giving, available, demur. ...

It is not a surprise then that I’ve been a serial single person! If my belief is that in order to be a girlfriend, I must demur, be happy and sexy and giving and available to the other person at all times … yeah, it’s no wonder I’m single.

The other thing that came up was around my mom, with whom I haven’t spoken on the phone with for about 6 months, following a, well, an inappropriate conversation – one which she really has no idea was inappropriate. And I wasn’t able to say as much then, so I did like I do and I shut down, and haven’t spoken to her in 6 months. We text now and then, just so we know each other is not dead, but going to a dry well for water is one thing (I’ve sort of stopped) – having that well knock on your door and say what’s up how come you haven’t asked me for water lately is maddening.

In the workshop, I later wrote down how my experience of “mother” actually is, versus my “should”s: narcissistic, over-worker, self-involved, NEEDY, isolated, sad, doomed …

I then wrote how “daughter” actually is: burned, exhausted, done, tired, untrusting.

And again, it’s no surprise then that I haven’t spoken to her in 6 months! And yet I judge myself on it all the time. I should be nicer, call her, love her, talk to her, listen to her … I get depleted just thinking about it. But even so, Super Molly thinks it’s the role of a daughter to talk to her mom – no matter what. Human Molly tries one more time to not be disappointed, to set boundaries, to stay on her own side of the street, and gets walloped, time and again.

Last week, I told Patsy, my spiritual teacher/friend lady, that I had to write a “Renegotiating Old Agreements” letter to my mom – that I wanted to – that I’m warming up to the idea of getting in touch with her again, but that first I want to be clearer on a few things within myself. She said, how about you do it for next week – I cringed. She said it was just a suggestion – and here it is Saturday night, and I meet with her tomorrow, so maybe I’ll do it on the train – but I will write it. Because it does feel crappy to not talk to my mom – the mom I have is not the mom I want, but I would love to renegotiate an agreement where I can communicate with the one I have in a way where I don’t get depleted …

Come to think of it, in a similar way to how I believe a girlfriend gets depleted. Hmm…

Thank you for reading my therapy session. (Kate, I swear there’s traction!)

In other news, so, the Universe is obviously actively listening to me. About a month ago, in rearranging my room per CITO, I had need of a 2^nd bedside table, one that would match my first (sort of country-style wood painted white). I’d been semi-on the hunt for one, and in a very synchronistic manner, I ended up at a garage sale with the *perfect* matching table – white, with a drawer, and country details. Evidence one.

Evidence Two: the blind date – I’ve asked for a tall, handsome, employed Jewish man – and I got it – but whoa, buddy, I guess 'not a douchebag' wasn’t on my list, and I didn’t specify taller than me, so…

Evidence 3: the perfect purple wool pea coat. Done - and for cheap!

Evidence 4 … For the last week, I’ve been bemusedly thinking of getting a car, coveting them on the street, looking at some online, and I found a new lovely hybrid car online for the mere price of almost $30,000. So in realizing that I’ve gotten evidences One Two and Three, guess what I’ve been doing the past 3 days? Asking the Universe for a hybrid car or $30,000! (Although it was pointed out to me that having a car again may not solve my time-debting problem, as was clear to me when I rented a zip car yesterday...TO GET TO CLASS! f*ck.)

But, in the mail today when I come home is a pre-approved auto loan junk mail for … $30,000. No lie. I guess I have to be really specific these days (“$30,000 with no strings attached, and no one dies”).

Thank you Universe for listening, I’ll be more conscious hybridcarhybridcarworkingingoodshapehybridcar of my intentions from now on. ;)

Compensation

A friend once told me that the Universe gives us compensations. This was after I’d just spent an emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually bankrupting week at my family home in NJ last month – I was there to clean out my childhood room as my dad and his fiancé have purchased a new construction home in Florida and plan to move there in April, so he is clearing out the house to get it ready for sale.

He was going to yoke my brother into the task of clearing out my room – and somehow, not really being sure if I’d cleared out all the sex toys, drugs, or writings about such things - and in addition wanting the experience and process of the ritual of “leaving my childhood home” - I made a snap decision to buy a flight home in October. My dad’s not really a sentimental kind of guy, and wasn’t really getting that it was an emotional thing that the house I grew up in – that we shared a family life & history in – was about to be sold.

That same friend also told me that her parents had sold her childhood home without her packing up her things, and that if my dad wanted to clear it out, then whatever he found was his own fault/problem, and that although it sort of sucked that she didn’t get to do it herself, it happened, and it was what it was. But, luckily, I knew I had the money, and there was a cheap deal on a flight, and off I went… to a whirlwind of entirely fucked up.

In describing the state of the house to friends once I returned to SF, two people asked word for word “Was anyone living there??” And my answer was yes – yes, two adult men, my dad and my brother, were there, living in a home that had dead flies on all the window sills, dead bugs caught in the scum of the oven hood, beyond the forever unmowed, uninviting lawn. You remember when I said we never had people over growing up? Yeah, my house was not the entertainment house. It has gotten significantly worse since my mom moved out ten years ago after my parents’ divorce, and to be fair, my dad has been splitting his time between his own home (he kept the house – my mom is a city dweller by very nature) and his fiance’s home, and keeping up the maintenance of a barely used home is a trial. Plus, my brother had been away at graduate school until last year, so … The house reflects the loneliness and neglect.

I did a lot of work before I went home on untying my identification with the house – if it only had more attention, love, consideration of its assets, it could be beautiful, exciting, a success. I was livid that the 200-year-old oak tree in the front lawn was now rotting, and will have to come down before the house is sold – its roots had died; I felt personally affronted by this.

So, I went home – to pack, but also to make peace with all of that. With the deep depression, the anger, the resentment, the despair that house witnessed. To make peace with the shattered door frame to my bedroom as it was once attempted to be kicked down. And also, to thank it. To honor what was, what it sheltered, what it witnessed, and then to let it go.

I did sort of well – no, I did as absolutely as massively well as I possibly could in the situation. When on a streaming tears emergency phone call to an SF friend, she asked me what more I could be doing at that moment (We’d just come back from visiting my dad’s parents in Queens – and their home is, without any exaggeration, a fertile candidate for an episode of “Hoarders”, … and some very strong meds). I thought about what more I could be doing at that moment, and the answer was nothing; I was doing absolutely everything I knew to do in moments of distress – Once we’d gotten home from Queens, I went out for a long walk, I called my spiritual teacher lady (who said we all have a Grey Gardens branch of the family tree) ;) and I made plans to go to dinner with a girl friend who knew my situation. So, I told my friend on the phone, I was literally doing all that I could be doing – and I knew then, that that had to be enough. I was fucking uncomfortable – I was sad, anguished at the state of my family’s homes, of their comfort with or ambivalence toward or simply paralyzing despair in the face of such obvious … sickness. Yes, I was uncomfortable, but I also was doing the very best I could – that had to be enough.

So, I went to dinner with a girl friend; I cleared out my childhood room (there was only one book of porn and no drugs!); and I saged the damn place – because I don’t want no bad jujus hangin’ out there in NJ while I’m all the way back here in CA.

And I came home.

In the tiny window of my layover in Detroit, I get a phone call from the temp agency in SF asking me if I want to work at the interior design firm again - I could start the very next day. … Having cleared out the old, I made way for the new.

And so my wise, wonderful, now-Brooklynite friend told me upon hearing this story: “The Universe gives us compensations.”

The reason I wrote today’s blog on this? This afternoon I found the most perfectly ‘couldn’t be more perfect’ purple wool coat that I’ve been actively envisioning, believing in, and hunting down for the last month – on sale. And after the blind date disappointment, I remember her words, and smile joyfully at my plum compensation. ;)