Modern Family

Yesterday could not have been more marvelous. Oh, San Francisco friends ~ How I miss you!!! And how I don’t realize it until I see you.

Having lived in SF for almost 5 years before moving here to Oakland, I had the (I can’t even think of the proper word – I don’t think I know it) intensely fulfilling and soul-affirming opportunity to meet and grow with a pack of women. Many of my desperately favorites were at my friend’s Memorial Day bbq event yesterday.

The feeling of guts relaxing, smiles expanding, hearts sighing, that’s how it was. I can’t stand it.

But I could, and I did. I was there, and present, and helped, and talked, and listened, and laughed, and sun-baked (beneath a generous layer of SPF), and hammocked, and cherry picked, and peach picked, and dribbled little lines of peach juice down my chin, and made children laugh, and they made me laugh, and caught up, and shared, and understood, and was understood. Oh, this family gathering. This is my family, part of it anyway. And how good it was to be back with them.

So many things have changed. The children are bigger. One is moving to Japan. One got braces. One got certified. How many things change when we aren’t looking – or in communication.

The phone works, sure. The bridge works, sure. But how me and this particular group of women met, and shared, and grew, it was in person. It was by witnessing monumental and incremental growth over weeks and weeks which became years and years.

Yes, I’m feeling a little sappy. But I can’t help it. I love them. And, they love me. This is a section of people who know me in a way few do, who have witnessed my own growth and change, and who like me, accept me, are fond of me. As I do them. What a miraculous gift. What a fucking gift.

I don’t know quite the solution. Does there need to be one? The ache that I realize was there? I felt the same way when I went to a workshop run by the same woman who hosted this barbeque – the workshop was in January, and I arrived and saw two women I hadn’t seen in likely a year or more, and again, my guts sank down from somewhere behind my ribs, where they'd been benignly pinching my lungs and inhibiting my breathing, they sunk, phoom, back down to where they belong in the grounding, rooted, centered calm.

It was at that workshop that I realized how much I missed them all. This won’t be another diatribe on how I don’t feel connected to the East Bay as in the “Exile” blog. I do feel connected, more connected, than I had, with more women than I had. I feel friendships, and activity partners, and women to share with. But. … I’ve only been here a year and a half, almost two. That’s not 5. That’s not in the same way.

Things change. They must, and they have to. Can I change with them? How do I balance? How do I maintain – or if change is necessary, not “maintain,” then, but evolve? How do I evolve with the reality of distance?

Because I won’t always be here in the Bay. That much is likely true. And what happens then? I have a dear friend who moved to Brooklyn last year, and we speak on the phone maybe once every two months, with some smatterings of texts, but we’re not nearly as close – this woman who was once as close as my heart.

How do we do this?

I’m not sure. I know that I obviously missed these women more than I knew. I missed the way I feel when I’m around them – known and loved, exactly as I am, for who I am. Women who know me well enough to jibe at me, laugh with me at myself, and poke into parts of me that need to be poked for movement to happen. These are women… for christ’s sake, I can’t stop gushing.

What now? If I’m aiming to be responsible and adult in my life, to take action where I’ve taken none, to believe that no one is coming to change or live or make my life for me – then, how do I incorporate this knowledge? The knowledge that I want more of that – that I want those connections kindled, or renewed?

I love my new friends – they are buoying me in ways they don’t even know. But I miss my old friends. I miss so much of what’s happening. Life is so damn short and quick, and things move so suddenly. Someone moves to a new town. Someone to a new country. Someone is engaged, or married, or pregnant. Someone is in a break-up or new relationship. Someone is changing careers, or expanding a business, or taking a new class, or forming a girl’s band (yes, that’s me and my friend with plans to jam with her drums and my bass, here in the east bay).

I want. Terrible words. But, I do. I want – I want what I had, but in the present. I want what I had yesterday – the gut-release, the warm bath, the mild pleasant smirking at the familiarity of us all.

I want. In the present. And how. 

Miracle-Gro

I have heard it said that Relationships are like Miracle-Gro for your character defects.

If this is true, I realize this morning, then Relationships are also Miracle-Gro for our spiritual development. One must lead us to the other if we aren't to fall into a pit of fire or stagnation.

A few years ago, I was engaged in a clandestine dalliance with a man. I was titillated by our connection and conversation, but “nothing” had happened so far. So I did what I do in circumstances like that – I went to G-d, or Higher Power, or Magical Sky Faerie, or Inner Wisdom -, obviously “G-d” is just a great shorthand, so please read it as such.

I wrote one of my “G-d letters,” a letter to my HP with all my questions and fears and excitement, etc. about this man. And then I turned the page, and wrote a letter back, in theory from G-d, or from my higher wisdom. In this letter, I was informed that, great, have fun, be titillated, but whatever you do, Molly, don’t forget Me. Don’t forget my HP, and like yesterday’s blog, don’t forget to do those practices which help to keep me on balance and on my side of the street.

Relationships are like Miracle-Gro for my spiritual development. I have not always used them as such. Or viewed them as such, but I believe I’m really understanding that more now.

The more involved I may become with someone else, the even more firmly and strongly I need to involve myself with “myself,” or those wise, calm, serenity-producing, others’ welfare-focused parts of myself.

I’m not in a relationship – but I have a second date with the okJew on Tuesday. We confirmed this yesterday, and so it is. But, today is not Tuesday. Today is Sunday, when I’m heading with my girffriend and her bf all the way out to Discovery Bay for some sunshine, barbeque, potential pool and hot tub, but mainly, to fellowship, camaraderie, catching up with friends I don’t see nearly that much now that I’m in Oakland, not SF. Today will be a day for me to be present with who I'm with and where I am, as well as a day, potentially, to rest by the pool, and do some of the writing I need to have done for tomorrow.

Today, is not the day to obsess. I will not obsess on what I will wear on Tuesday. I will not obsess about wanting to text this guy and let him know that I won’t be having sex with him on Tuesday, so he can back out if he wants – because obviously, says my story (see above character defect reference), men only see what’s on the outside, and that’s all they want. Today I will not obsess about planning to get STD tested, or whether I have up-to-date condoms, or if my feminine lady time is coming right now and will preclude sexual encounters anyway.

Today, I will not obsess that I should have been paying more attention to working out, or to a lack of firmness in any part of my body.

Today, I will not obsess that my home isn’t clean enough, or decorated enough. Today, I will not obsess about what will happen on Tuesday, about whether I’ll be able to stand firm at my boundaries and decline the obvious sexual attraction from being consummated.

Today, I’ll get ready for my friend to pick me up (in 30 minutes!!). Today, I’ll pack a beach towel, and some sunscreen, and sunglasses. Today, I’ll put on shorts, and sip the last of my decaf. And that’s really as far as I need to see today. There are plans to go cherry picking, there’s likely going to be barbeque and food. There may be time to catch up. There may be social awkwardness. It may not all be about me.

As far as I can see today is the next 30 minutes. Those are pretty easy.

Oh, and I can recall to not forget G-d. 

Mind your own music stand.

Several years ago, about 5 or so, I was dating a wonderful man. I was also in therapy. These things were and were not related ;)

One day, my therapist and I stumbled across a metaphor that I’m reminded of today – when I get into relationships, it’s as if I’ve been the conductor of my own orchestra, and ultimately, the highest ideal and intention is that my partner, boyfriend in this case, have his own orchestra, and that the two sounds mix and meld in a way that increases the beauty of both, without losing the integrity of either.

Surely, you may have your own metaphor for this, as there are many, but that’s what came to me then.

The “problem,” as it were, is that I was noticing my tendency to want to begin to conduct his orchestra. That if his oboe were a little more resonant, or his triangle more tingy, we’d sound better together. The result of this peeking over onto his side, was that I began to neglect my own. In beginning to mind someone else’s business, I forgot to mind my own.

When this happens, things like self-care, integrity, and reason begin to go out the window. I become more interested in making sure you’re doing things “right,” and that we “sound good together,” that my whole balance of living gets thrown off.

That was then. This is now. Will it be the same?

When, before I began dating that man, I asked a trusted friend if she thought I were ready to date – as he would become the first person I’d date while sober – she said that if I was ready to handle the emotional twists of a relationship without drinking, then go for it.

And so I did. I learned a lot, and ultimately, it didn’t work out, but I learned so fucking much. I learned how to try to love, how to try to be loved. I learned how to be honest with another person. I learned to look at the clouds and see shapes and animals again. I learned how to relax a little.

Yes, these are things I can learn “on my own,” they are. And I get more of that now than I did then. But, too, there are some things that can only be learned in communion with someone else.

I notice that that big hunk of manic-depressive wild-haired meat that I call my inner manifestation of Love is “up” right now. As when I met her on one of my shamanic journeys, and she threw herself on me after I gave her one bit of kindness, she is not yet one who knows balance. When I pushed her off of me, she got rageful and went Neanderthal.

This is part of my pattern. Show me some kindness, and suddenly, I light up like Times Square and drape myself on you, my needs, expectations. Show me that you can’t possibly meet those demands, and I will turn to ice quicker than an eskimo’s piss.

There’s more to this. As there usually is. If you’re not meeting my demands, and I’ve turned cold, you won’t really know it. It’s subtle closing off and shutting down, this Elvis leaving the building. We’ll have sex, but I won’t be present. I’ll still try to use it as a way, the main way, to connect, but it doesn’t really work when I’m not there.

Also, as I recognized last night on my surprise-last-minute okJewpid date, before I know more or better or have a peg on the situation, sure I’ll be outwardly as gregarious and charming as always, but... I felt it – I felt my shell.

Perhaps this is “normal.” You’re meeting someone for the first time – you of course have some guards, maybe. But, I’m just so much more acutely aware of how scared I am. How scared I am to allow that shell to melt, because inevitably, in my past, it has meant a descent right into that enormous sigh of relief that you are here, that I can now relax, depend on you – and make a few adjustments to you while we’re at it.

When I let go of this shell, I start a pattern that leaves me alone, sad, and feeling pretty childlike. Not womanly. Not adult.

So, I keep the shell. I’ve kept it for years now. Better to avoid the whole game than to try to play it differently, acknowledging and using the new skills for living and being that I have. I could have garnered a whole fleet of new tools and attitudes, but fuck if I let them out of the gate. They’re like a trained – well, I was going to write “army,” but I’d rather leave the military out of my love life, thank you – they’re like a well-trained dance company. Having rehearsed for years, perfected, practiced, fallen, and learned – but … me, their manager, I will never and have never let them perform. They are a lost art. They are a lost gift, because I’m too scared of how they’ll be received, or of if they’re really ready for the big show.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but with the Cousin, I said at one point (not to him) that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a shelf, and “fix” myself, or get better, and then, only then, when I were better, then I could take him down, and we could have a wonderful life together. Life.Does.Not.Work.In.Darkness. It does not work in absence, and it does not work without my active participation.

I may be the world’s best anything, but I’d never know it.

And so, it’s time to see if my conductor skills, my dance company, my emotions have learned things that I may not know they’ve learned.

Because my date was awesome. And, likely, I may want to date again. 

Melting Boxes and Falling Cards

I may or may not have a date this weekend with a jew I met on okCupid. We had made tentative plans for Sunday, but I had double booked and asked to meet up on Saturday instead, and haven’t heard back yet. We’ll see. I’m talking with another CupidJew; jdate, I have a coffee date aligned for next Friday, but I’m not entirely enthused on this one – and let another thread fall when I realized I wasn’t really interested in meeting this other dude. 

Who knows. It’s like the job applications. Send stuff out – see what sticks. I do feel like I’d like to apply to more teaching jobs though. It’s really funny. Maybe 6 or so months ago, I met with a girl friend who works with Expressive Arts Therapy, and she asked how "teaching" felt in my body – to make a motion or movement – that would express what being “a teacher” would mean to me. Then, I contracted and constricted my body, on the tack that teaching is a sedentary, stoic, geographically uninspired profession.

Surprisingly or not, I don’t think I feel that way anymore. Maybe I’d express it a little more wiggly now – maybe because it is a little more (or a lot more) wiggly than I’ve previously boxed it in. I also would like to apply outside of the Bay a little more. I know that moving costs a lot, and yadda yadda, but, in the spirit of “what do I know about Fate,” I’m willing to throw my net wider, and my seeds farther, and see what sprouts, … or is caught. … You get the idea.

What a concept – pushing my ideas out of the proscribed boxes in which I’ve held them.

Interestingly, my mom comes to mind. “Mother,” lord, what a “concept.” What huge, enormous expectations and qualities we – or I – hurl upon such a word. My ideas were formed way back when – she’s crazy, unavailable, manic-depressive, and dying of her own neuroses – and these have kept pretty calcified over the years. She’s better now (G-d bless medication), but it’s hard for me to allow that. If she’s not crazy, if I don’t mistrust her, where are we? How do we engage? Obviously, similar questions can be brought about my dad, and even my brother. … and more broadly, myself, you, the world, etc. Boxes. Boxes with a label, Discard After 1987, or maybe after 1996. Certainly, way past their due date by 2012.

I think of this about my mom today in again reflecting on the agingness of my parents – having seen them both two weeks ago for my graduation. They’re getting older. They’re not going to be able to do or go or share or be what they had been. And so, I wrote my mom an email yesterday I titled “If you build it, they will come,” and in it I simply wrote, “Sometime in the not too distant future, you and I should go to Paris. That is all. Love, Molly.”

My mom has never been, nor have I. I’ve been clicking on this contest prize for a trip for two to Italy for a few weeks now – because, you gotta buy a ticket if you want to win the lottery, right – and I realize that there are some things that if I want to do with my mom, I better start to do them now. Sure, I have no idea if something like a trip to Paris or Italy, or anywhere, will take place, but the time is getting shorter when they’d, she’d, be able to really traipse about. Traipsing is a young people’s – or younger people’s – pastime.

I am glad that the boxes in which I’ve held my parents are disintegrating like so much wet cardboard. It’s a little scary. But, rather, it’s not scary, as much as new.

I wish I could let the boxes around myself melt as much. One of the dudes I’m talking with on the dating site is very encouraging and interested in my bass playing, though I keep on telling him it’s really a lack of bass playing, and a lot of me being silly and denying myself (although, surely, I didn’t put it quite that way – impressions, you know!) ;)

But, it’s another box. My girl friend I was supposed to speak with about her bass playing, our phone call didn’t happen, and I haven’t rescheduled. Although I am having two info interviews around theater next week. One in person with a friend of mine who is an active actor (but has a “real” job, too), and the other by phone with my former acting teacher at school, who is the casting director at a local renowned theater company. So, there’s that.

There’s a lot. And as I was telling someone yesterday, a house of cards must be taken down very slowly and carefully. Not all at once. I don’t think I’d much like being shaken all the way down to my bonsai tree nubs. Or pruned, I suppose would fit that metaphor better! But point being, that dismantling old beliefs and behaviors takes patience, practice, and an ability to leave it alone for a while.

It’s not some jenga game I have to finish in a proscribed period of time. (I’m ripe with metaphors today! ha! enjoy or apologies, either way!) There are time-sensitive matters – my parents’ aging, obtaining employment so I can feed and house myself, but even that one is a little fluid right now, although surely top of my mind - I do have this temp work I’m doing, which I’ll be doing for likely another 2 weeks. I’ve been applying, and we’ll see. I’d like to apply to different avenues, and we’ll see. I plugged “jewish” into my searches on the dating site, and we’ll see.

“…and action is its key word.” Amen. 

Bloggus Interruptus

Hey Folks! Please return in the afternoon for the daily blog.

A biento!
M.

Sans Cape

For an unemployed person, I’m mighty busy, and double booking, or booking right after another.

So, I was honest with the painter yesterday and simply emailed her to tell her that I was feeling a little daunted at the thought of modeling for 3 hours after working a full day – I’ve been so tired, guys, normal people hours are weird – I almost wrote “wired,” which I suppose they are too. My caffeine reduction experiment tanked last week at the temp job with a return to 3 cups a day, but I’m trying again, and yesterday was only two.

A friend of mine said, when I told her on Monday night that I was thinking of canceling Tuesday’s modeling gig, that there was no way that I could cancel with this woman, the artist, that I had made my commitment, and that it was less than 24 hours notice, and that it would affect my “reputation,” and that if I didn’t want to model ever again than it was fine for me to cancel.

Whoa.

So, considering that this woman is someone I go to for council in other matters, I took what she said, not to heart, but to left ventricle maybe. But it didn’t sit well in my left ventricle. I am/was tired, and was not really going to be emotionally or physically available to do what needed to be done. This date was set up over a month ago, when I had no idea I’d be working 9-5 in SF. I went to sleep on Monday night contemplating lying to the artist, and telling her that I had a stomach issue, and couldn’t make it. Then, I let it go, and went to sleep.

I woke up, and decided to just be honest. So, I wrote the artist an email, said obviously I made my commitment to her and would be there, but was there another way.

You know what she said (of course you do), she said, NO PROBLEM. “I’ll paint instead.” And we rescheduled for a weekend evening next month. “No Problem.” Once again, I’m shown that when I’m 100% honest, it usually goes better than I could have imagined. I tried my very best to let go of the results after I sent the email yesterday morning – I brought all my modeling gear with me, and said to myself, if I have to, I have to, and I will – … then I habitually, compulsively, checked my inbox to see if there was a response. Then… I remembered that I was “turning it over,” letting it go, and I was actually at another job that was needing my attention.

And so it went for about 4 hours. I even left for lunch. Ha! I even let myself take my little breaks and walk around downtown, to relieve my poor spine of compression for a few non-sitting minutes. I let myself take care of myself, basically, even though I didn’t know what “the future held.” That’s sort of new. Usually, I’ll clamp down – I don’t know what’s going on, what’s happening, what will happen, I better stay here, worry, consume, agitate.

Nope. I took a walk. I wore a dress yesterday even, I think I’ve worn it once since I bought it, and I looked nice. I looked presentable. I looked Molly. Only nicer ;)

I come back from lunch, there’s an email from the artist, and, I guess I spoiled the surprise already, but, NO PROBLEM. I can’t stress enough what a relief that was. I was able to leave work and go to meet up with some of my peeps for an hour, we even sat in some 15 minute meditation, which was unexpected. I was able to come home, play with my cat, … attempt to get to bed at a decent hour.

I haven’t told my friend who chastised me for considering canceling that it all went well. I know that she’s human, and as another friend said to me recently, We can only see as far for others as we can see for ourselves. And, I “get” what she meant, that it’s not okay to cancel last minute – or rather, it’s not ideal, but it had to be asked. So, I will have to tell her – and maybe when I’m done with this set of work I’m doing with her, I’ll move on – she is helpful in a lot of other ways, and again, she is human. She has her own history, and beliefs and patterns. Whatever it meant to her to arise such a virulent reaction, really doesn’t have much to do with me, honestly. I’m glad I’m able to see what was mine, what was right for me, and do what was right for “Human Molly,” not “Super Molly.” I may look good in tights, but the cape is a little much.

One of the reasons I didn’t want to do the gig yesterday was that I wanted to continue to apply for work in the evening. I didn’t do that yesterday – I sat on my couch and read this book I’m reading. Man Seeks God. It’s actually hilarious, and informative. But one thing that came up at my workshop on this past Saturday was my answer to my question for the group – What, honestly, is your favorite creative block – or put another way, what is your favorite thing to do instead of being creative?

In the past, I’ve written facebook, or t.v., but this time, I think I got a little closer to the heart of it: Reading about other people’s lives instead of living my own.

Yep, that pretty much fits about all the manifestations of what I do instead of living my own – that’s what facebook provides, this book I’m reading offers, it’s what t.v. or movies do. Let me witness someone else’s life, instead of participating in mine.

Sure, there’s a time and place for it all – I’m not going Luddite. But I’m glad to be more focusedly aware of what it is I’m doing when I decide to read for 3 hours, instead of send out one resume.

That said, today, I commit to creating a teaching resume, and sending out one job application.

I also commit to taking a spinal decompression walk. ;) 

We Have All Overpacked

hey dudes. burning candle at both ends, with early work commute, and late night job hunting, so, please accept this poem in place of today's blog. it's what I read at the "spiritual send-off" graduation ceremony two weeks ago. imagine me being emphatic. xo,m.

                     * * *

There is a train departing shortly.

All the people in this room will be on it.

This is lucky because you have overpacked.

You have brought

scarves

and sweaters

and knitted hats.

You have anticipated your journey

will be wintered

and icy

and hard.

Your neighbor has also overpacked.

His suitcase is filled with

stilettos,

and boas

and a katy perry mash-up.

He has anticipated his journey

will shimmy with ease

and levity

and laughter.

As you look around this room,

each person comes here overpacked –

with ideas

with plans

with scars.

Each person with

a dream,

or prayer,

or plea.

Each of us comes here hoping

we’ve prepared for our journey properly.

Hoping we’ll

have enough or

be enough or

do enough.

Hoping that everything

we’ve put in

and gone through

and let go of is enough

to move on from here.

But, I am sorry to tell you,

we haven’t got everything we need.

See, I need your feathered boa

to remind me

not take myself too seriously

 – and that glitter is a verb.

You need my winter boots

to help you walk through that one

moonless night.

The person in front of you would like to know

if you have a bandaid she could use,

or a book that you love,

or a love that you lost.

The person behind you would like to know

if she could borrow your arms for a minute

so you can enclose her in an embrace

-- something none of us can pack.

There is a train departing shortly.

All the people in this room will be on it.

And this is lucky because we have all

overpacked.

May 2012