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. 

What Ifs – A Response

What if I thought more of others’ happiness

What if I were grateful for what I have

What if I took good care of my possessions

What if I took good care of my body

What if I allowed myself to receive love from others

What if I allowed myself to receive my own

What if I believed I was alright

What if I were grateful for my coffee mugs, 

                                                 gifts from kind friends

What if I were grateful for the furniture in my apartment, 

                                                 free, all of it

What if I were grateful for the electricity

                                                 clean water

                                                 hot water

                                                 a refrigerator

What if I allowed myself to fill my refrigerator

What if I allowed myself to believe in my inherent goodness

What if I believed that I was more than my wants

What if I believed that I was able to carry more than I ever have

What if I thanked others for their kindness

                                                 What if I meant it

What if I let myself feel love for other people

What if I let myself feel generosity of spirit

What if I thought there was enough for everyone

What if I thought more about everyone

What if love was a gift

What if I let myself breathe 

                                                 when I hug people

What if the smell of children’s hair was enough

What if I let myself believe in my dreams

What if I let myself support them in an adult way

What if I opened to hearing your praise

What if I opened to hearing your guidance

What if I opened to hearing your story

                                                 without thought to improve, correct, enhance

What if you were enough.

What if I were enough

What if I let myself stop 

                                                 worrying

                                                 being small

                                                 hiding

What if I believed it were safe

What if I believed you were safe

What if I believed that I were

What if I let myself be

What if I were more generous with my gifts

What if I were more generous with my affection

What if I were more generous with my laughter

What if I could relax

What if I could relax.

Romance & Finance

The Third Thing. That’s what a woman told me yesterday, after I met up with this new group of folks who, apparently, talk about intimacy, relationships, and habitual avoidance of (or indulgence in) such things.

I was telling her that for years, I’ve been trying to find a balance between Betty Crocker and the Vixen, to find the middle way between them. And she said something I’d never heard before – that likely, whatever it or I turn out to be, it’s probably neither of these – it’s a Third Thing.

I’ve said sometimes, that I don’t like the analogy of “living in the gray,” you know, the balance between black and white – between black and white thinking, all or nothing. Some people call this middle, attempting to live in the gray area. But to me, that sounds pretty awful, like living in a fog bank (looking at you, San Francsico!). And so, I’ve said that instead of the middle of black and white being gray, I call it color. That something other than black, or white, is color. And so, “the third thing” thing makes sense to me (she said it’s a Bill Clinton quote, and g-d love Bill – I’ll have to look it up).

Romance and Finance. I hear so often that these are the things which so often plague, worry, or motivate all of humanity. I’m reading this book on the art and history of Europe (“for the traveler”), trying to get some more info, things I slept through or didn’t care about or was too worried about the aforementioned “ance”s to listen. I have a few books on European travel on my desk, and this one is giving me the history, the why and wherefore of how come art and architecture look like they do. And here’s what I’ve learned: people, throughout history, have fought and been motivated by romance and finance. Kings marriages, new religions, revolutions. Many have been about who has what, who doesn’t have what, and how they can get more.

So, I’m not alone, apparently, in the grand scheme of these issues. Of working on them, and my own grating relationship with each.

This is good. And there is a solution, but as Jung said, (I think I’ve mis/quoted him here recently!), You can’t solve a problem on the level of the problem. And the problem here is that I have only my well-worn resources, patterns, and behavior to help me "solve" these problems of romance and finance. So it’s time to look for help.

My romantic life as having fallen in either Betty Crocker or Vixen territory is very much like my relationship with money. I’m either restricting, meagerly existing, and isolating – or I’m burning money to quench and balm the pain of all that restriction. Binge, remorse, restrict. Repeat. Many people can notice these traits in anorexics or bulimics, and so far in my life, knock on every piece of wood and mock-wood in the vicinity, that has not been an issue for me in that particular way. My binge and restrict is with emotions, money, and sexuality.

And if the middle way is not indeed the “middle,” then I have to keep coming back to those who know a different way, and can help me to get there.

This morning, I queried in my Morning Pages about this desert I go to in meditation. How was that desert, I asked. I hadn’t been there in a long time, and it was a place that I’ve gone to occasionally in my meditations for years, and one which I was encouraged to solidify in myself and my brain while I was doing some EMDR work with my therapist earlier this year.

She said it was interesting that I chose a desert as my “safe place,” that many people choose cozy small place, places where they feel protected. But, no, for me, I want a wide wide field of vision. There are no surprises, no sneak attacks, I have full view of every single thing for miles and miles. It’s a desert like those you see in the southwest, with ocher colored mesas in the distance. And the flat, flat, cracked earth expanse of dirt and dust and a hawk flying lazy circles in the bright, expertly clear sunlight.

This, is safe to me.

I suppose I’m reminded of it today, as I am going to be needing to touch into places like this – safe, calm, where I feel almost in charge. There is nothing hidden, nothing freaky, nothing to shake me or scare me or surprise me. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of surprises and shakes and scares as I begin to dive into this romance stuff. This emotional intimacy, undoing this very deep pattern of all or nothing. And so, it’s time for me to strengthen my base, root within my safe places, and get the hell out of the way.

This is like a geyser, this work. Or maybe it’s not, what do I know. What I do know is that I am grateful for the help I have available to me, internally and externally. I was asked in my meditation from my Feminine, as I reported the other day, if I was ready – I guess I was being asked if I was ready to work on this stuff – because she/I have reawakened, and is powerful as fuck. It is no wonder to me, then, that it’s taken me as long as it has to come to this place of beginning to integrate and work on my sex/relationship/intimacy stuff – I’m going to need all the resources I’ve acquired, and many I have yet to discover.

Here’s to an assault on old ideas, however that looks as it is coupled with a cosmic cease-fire. 

Delicious Evil

Today’s a day off from the temp gig, but not a “day off” for me. I slept later than I have this week, which is nice though. I have to meet some folks throughout the day, and I have a teaching resume to write, and some jobs to apply to, and some other writing that I need to have ready for Monday. Also… my workshop is tomorrow in SF, so I should likely prepare for that!

So, “day off”, but full. It’s alright, I likely need full right now. There’s a lot of chaos in my brain. Luckily, it’s found something else besides imminent poverty to latch on to, but what it’s latching on to is sending me to the bottom of something else. And for that, I’m going to go meet up with some new folks today and see how they deal with some of this type of mental obsession and compulsion.

Turn over a rock, and there’s another rock.

Basically, my discomfort at my financial situation, as well as some recovery around it, is revealing a set of behavior I thought either long dormant, dead, or just not my problem. I was wrong. Resurrection is an ugly beast.

I find myself engaging in behavior that, well, makes me feel uncomfortable. And intrigue and thrill … however lovely they are to experience, they’re waving hot pink lures down a path of self-destruction.

I think it makes sense, honestly. I’m coming to a place where I’m beginning to take ownership of myself and my life, beginning to want to do so, starting to try to be the woman I want to be – one with a job, and hobbies, and some self-respect. And, “suddenly,” I find myself being derailed and side-tracked by a whole new set of “issues,” things which chop all that good work off at the knees.

Oh, silly Molly, it’s not right to feel good or proud or accomplishy – let’s give your brain this poisonous chew-toy instead, and see what happens. Let’s maintain the small, hamstrung, going-nowhere-fast Molly. That’s the familiar and easy one.

I’m a little surprised at the voracity of the new behavior. It’s a twist on some old ‘going for unavailable men’ behavior. And again, I thought that I’d sort of let all that go, somehow. But, apparently not. And, like a snake at rest who strikes suddenly, I’m bitten, poisoned, and fucked.

Luckily, in this case, not literally.

It ain’t fun. It ain’t fun to talk about, admit, or lay claim or words to the behavior that’s causing me discomfort. Unavailable men have meant many a thing in my past, though usually over the last several years, that has meant emotionally unavailable. I’m taking it to a new level this time, and I’m hitting a bottom around it.

Because I don’t want to stop. I do. I vehemently and vigorously do, want to stop. Engaging, intriguing, contacting, … flirting. But, oh that part of me that doesn’t. That part of me that makes that slurping delicious… ha. I just remembered. “Delicious Evil.” That’s the phrase, the face, the action, the feeling of this behavior. Delicious Evil, you can taste it on your tongue like chocolate velvet. With an afterburn of horror.

When I moved to San Francisco 6 years ago, I was ushering for a small theater company downtown, then, as now, trying to keep my toe in the acting world, or the periphery of performance. I was a few weeks sober. There was a cast party that night that I’d been invited to. And as I went to the restroom to weigh that option, I was putting on lipstick, and caught my eye in the mirror. I gave myself that hypnotic, lightly cruel, lip curling sneer of a smile, the look that says, we’re gonna do bad things tonight, and it’s going to feel great.

I stopped.

I know that look. I know the results of that look. I knew that if I went out that night, I’d drink, I’d flirt, I might sleep with someone I barely know, and I’d feel like shit afterward.

I knew whatever happened at that party, Delicious Evil was on the menu.

And I didn’t go. I felt like an asshole, like a loser, like a party-pooper, and not a little bit strange/aloof/confounding to the actors – but I didn’t go. I’d been to that party before. I know how it ends.

For all of this/that knowledge, “playing the tape,” knowing the results, having been down roads like this before, I find myself unable to stop the careening wheels of this mining cart. Plumbing further into the darkness, away from all that I’m working for and toward.

This is a hot stove. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot.

It is.

And so, today, I’m going to try to do something different, and seek out folks who maybe know the way to slow, and even stop this cart.

Because I have been walking toward the light, toward respect, responsibility, toward adulthood, toward love of myself, and I’ll be goddamn fucked if I allow myself to be buried all over again. 

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. 

Grown-upness

I was on the phone yesterday with a friend/mentor of mine. I’d asked her for an informational interview, with the knowledge that I had no idea what I was going to ask her – I’d let her know that in the email, too. She accepted anyway, and on the phone we were, as I sat beneath the dome of the downtown SF shopping center during my lunch break from the temp gig.

She knows much of my story and development over the last few years, and works in a field to help people, and, most importantly to me, seems to have some semblance of balance between work, creativity, and life. I thought she’d be a good place to “start.”

I told her the 2^nd thing that came up at the “money meditation” on Monday. The 2^nd question was “Do I (Molly) fear you (money)?” The answer was, Yes, because I mean responsibility.

Oh Responsibility! How I’ve run from you!

Over the course of my conversation with my friend, she reflected back to me that it sounds like I want to be powerful, without building or holding or being the vessel for that power. I do want to do great things (not like, ooh famous – just like, ooh cool), and, I have not wanted to really take the ownership of what it might take to get there. See, particularly, Magical Accidental Orgasm. There is no one coming to live my life for me. There is no one coming to take the risks and chances and changes that I need to make in my life and attitude for me. It’s up to me.

Or it’s not. I can choose or not to take the reigns of my life. I can choose or not to take the steps to holding responsibility for myself.

This responsibility thing, my aversion to it, came up earlier this year, in a workshop run by the very same friend. See, I have these old associations with responsibility. That it means more than I am able to handle. That’s what it meant when I was young – having to do things a child should not have to do, things that an adult ought to have been doing, but the adults in my life were not quite able to do that. So, I did. And I resented it, and I was burdened by it, and I’ve carried my resentment and fear of responsibility here through and to my adulthood.

Adulthood. That word came up yesterday in our conversation too. “Adult.” “Grown-up.” If I want grown-up things, which I very much do, then I have to learn to be a grown-up. Sure, I’m 30, but that’s no indication of adulthood.

Things that grown-ups have -- a job, a car, a house, a relationship, stability, vacation -- well, they earn these things by showing up for themselves in a responsible way. My same friend had worked as a house cleaner for ten years before coming to her pursuit of her current profession.

She also said, basically, nothing can grow in the dark. I am ripe with resentment, self-pity, longing, entitlement, and self-centeredness because of this ongoing rejection of the mantle of grown-up. I grasp at things I think I want, but I’m not willing to firm the foundation to get there – to mix the mortar, lay the bricks. Chop wood, carry sticks. That’s where I need to be at. Very simply, I need to lay hold of qualities and actions that I have tried to avoid.

The truth is that I have no idea what it would be like to take responsibility for myself. I’ve churned along at this hamstrung pace and mind-set for so long, I honestly don’t know. I’ve been talking here some about how “grace” and gifts from the Universe have been incredibly lovely, but that they don’t help me to build self-esteem around jobs and work and … being a responsible adult, basically.

To warm up to the idea of being a grown-up. Yes, very much I want to be one – I want what they seem to have. But what I see, I suppose is the externals. What I haven’t seen, necessarily, is all the work they have put in to get there. To do what is necessary. I haven’t done what is necessary. I’ve done everything else, I’ve danced around the entry to that path for a decade, and belly-ached, Why can’t I get there? Why is the door closed to me? It’s not closed. Never has been. I’ve been terrified of what it means to begin to walk down it. But the truth is, and forgive me, I got a cat a year and a half ago. She is a monument to my warming to commitment – has this responsibility, has responsibility for this life, hers, created any burden or pain in my life? Not in the slightest, and in fact, has brought untold and unforeseen joy.

This is what I too imagine that taking on responsibility for my own life may bring. Sure, I imagine it’ll be a little different, seeing as it’s mine, and my brain is such a lovely chatter factory. But, maybe not. Maybe, the doors will swing open as I take one step onto the path of grown-upness. Maybe, simply, I’ll feel better knowing that I’m on the path at all. 

Positions.

Over the last few years, I have gone from smoking maybe half a pack or so a day, down to nothing -- this, by no virtue of my own. There have been times when I was smoking a pack a day, and sometimes hardly at all, having started back in college, when I said Fuck It, I Need a Cigarette, following a dramatic break-up with my first “real boyfriend” my freshman year.

But, over the last two years or so, I’ve had to stop. Despite having developed strep throat several times a year in the past, and continuing to smoke until really, ultimately, I couldn’t breathe fully or swallow, whereupon I’d “quit” until I could get that nicotine relief back into my lungs, a different ailment began to happen when I’d smoke recently – after several a day, at night, I began to wake up from my sleep, not able to take a full breath properly. So… slowly, I cut back, and realized that even after one a day, I’d still get this tight chest pain, and shallow breathing, which was always not so fun. And slower still, testing the waters still… I’d go down to a drag from someone else’s or splitting half a cigarette with a friend. No. Dice.

Without fail, I’d go to sleep, only to wake up a few hours later unable to breathe. So, I “quit.” Or rather, I stopped. I had to – it wasn’t my choice, I’d rather not have, despite the health and smell and cost and yadda yadda – If I could, I would, but I can’t.

Yesterday, as I was sitting at my temp job in SF, I had a similar experience. Something being crossed off my list by no virtue or choice of my own. Within a few hours of sitting, doing data entry basically (I’m organizing the massive library for the interior design firm that I’ve temped with before – hired to work with them until it’s finished – so about two weeks) – my back began to hurt. And this isn’t like "oh, silly back pipe down," this is like "stop sticking a fucking fire brand into my lower spine."

I’ve known recently that sitting for extended periods of time has been aggravating my health, but it’s been easier to moderate as I haven’t been working full-time. So, yesterday by about 3pm, with near tears in my eyes, my three or four lower vertebrae about ready to jump out the back of my skin, I told my boss that I was going to leave for the day.

This was fine – she knows the work is grueling, and I’ll be back this morning, and I’ll attempt to moderate my sitting time more consciously. But, when I came home yesterday afternoon then, and came to my computer to apply for jobs, what am I looking at? Admin jobs.

For the love of Christ.

This, is being taken away from me as an option through no virtue of my own. Sure, I’ve been applying to admin jobs at cooler places, like the SFMOMA and galleries and art schools – places that seem more aligned with where my values lie – but, it seems, and is evidenced, that this too is not an option – or not in this way.

I simply cannot sit down for 8 hours. The job that I applied to yesterday listed under physical requirements that I be able to sit for 80% of the day and type for 50% of that. It’s a cool-ish job too. And yes, I applied, before I began to put two and two together.

So, this option is being wiped off the slate, and I’m left with another question mark. I’m honestly glad that it is being taken away from me – it’s a default position, it’s a fall-back, it’s what I’ve always done, sit behind a desk like a good worker bee. I’m good at it, but like I recently told a friend when she asked me if I liked those kinds of jobs, I said it’s like (forgive me) farting – it’s something I can do, but really I’d prefer not to.

Sorry. ;)

So, it’s been suggested for me to make a list of all the jobs that don’t require sitting for 8 hours a day, or more schooling at this point – though, maybe that’s just what will happen – though, sincerely, I hope not. And doesn’t require standing for 8 hours, like waitressing. Although, I do have a few offers for some catering work over the next few months, … which I haven’t replied to yet.

I was with a group of folks last night, and we were listening to a tape of a suggested meditation. This was about money, our relationship to it. We were to stare at a monetary bill of some denomination, and really look at it, and imagine it nearly animate – we, Americans, Humans, give money a lot of power and anima all the time, may as well find out what it has to say! The first question we were to ask it was, How do I (Molly) feel about you (money)? Its answer: Distant. … Duh, no wonder I am where I am.

There were a few other questions along these lines which need some more marinating and change, but as I change my relationship to money, how I can earn, how I can earn respectfully and with integrity and health, how I can be of service to others which is reflected back to me as a monetary value, how I can be responsible to myself, to money, to my jobs or career … I will apparently also be changing my position, physically and otherwise.