A few months ago I wrote a short story here. It was called Heartworld Transformation Fairy Tale and it told a little magical story about a person who transformed their heart and then learned how to open it up to others, to give and receive. At some point the person gets hurt and has to start over, but the moral of the story is that you always can. The soil on the grounds of your heart world, when properly cared for, gives endless abundance. The story was inspired by a time when a customer of mine at the burger place opened his heart and home to me to spend beautiful family time with him and his lovely little son. We watched movies together and cooked together and often times I would just sit and work on my poetry while he did his programming job. He was a beautiful person and he gave me the family type warmth that I miss so much being away from my parents and brothers.
So I was inspired to write that story, but I think that at the time I didn't understand nearly as well as I do now the power of transforming my heart--giving it strength, power, and fearlessly exposing it over and over and over, as a practice--and the way that would open me up to and attract so many loving and deeply complex souls. When people open up to you, it's like staring at the ocean in the sun: you see the incredible light reflecting off the surface and can only feel, sense, and imagine what is in its grand mysterious depths. Now that I have gotten to a place where my heart is almost always open to others, I have started to feel a closeness to people in my everyday life, even those I don't necessarily have a large or varied relationship with, a closeness I never could have imagined. And a true reciprocation of energy and of caring with people. And it fills my days with surprise gifts of kindness, warm words, people offering help or guidance, people sharing things (food, matches, their feelings, their ideas, their art, their smiles) and even outright giving me things that I didn't even ask for, just because it makes them feel good.
My life has become profusely full here in Portland. And I realize now that I did create it that way, by daring myself to improve. From not long after I got here I opened my heart up by giving to the community through volunteer work and by joining a spiritual community, and by working a job that I really didn't enjoy with people who I really did love to be around. Going on a meditation, doing yoga for a little bit, learning how to become an independent and free spirit, taking counseling, reaching out for help when I was afraid and feeling helpless, practicing communication and developing relationships out of thin air--all of these experiences have helped me to grow and to open up. And along the way I have picked up a wide array of incredible connections. And recently I was blessed with an incredible new job where I met three coworkers who are by far some of the most incredible people I've ever had the good fortune of working with. And while one of them left, we still see one another, have a profound friendship, and she is still present in my heart every work day. (Her cubicle used to be next to mine. And her old nameplate is sitting on my desk right behind my laptop at home as I type this.)
One of them became my carpool buddy and we have incredibly open and simply astounding conversation every morning and afternoon on the drive that centers and grounds me spiritually in a way I never would have thought I could receive on a simple carpool drive. He is one of the most generous and thoughtful people I have ever met. Everyday he surprises me with something--usually it's an abundance of fascinating thoughts and feelings and a handful of completely unnecessary out-of-his-way kind gestures to me and others. He also makes me laugh. And he makes me notice things, and take a breath. I remember when I met him he was "the guy who also used to serve, just like me, and was kind and practical when he trained me." But back then I only knew him on a surface level and I had no idea of the beauty underneath.
And the third is a person I didn't even notice for at least a month of working just a few cubicles away. But in retrospect, I remember now that during that month he came several times to my cubicle, while I was still new and scared and learning my job, and he offered me little odds and ends to help me with my training. I remember he was quite shy and shaky and gave off such a powerful energy it would always stop me in my tracks. But he would just stop by for a moment and then just like that gone, back to his desk. And the most I did back then was to think "Well what a strange and nervous little thing he is.... and I wonder why he gives me things..." Well anyway time passed and somehow we connected. And getting to know him has been absolutely among the best experiences I have had at my job, and in my life in general. He is talented, intelligent, interesting, funny and kind. And he's not nearly as shy once he knows you. He has a fabulous personality and so much to share. And hell, I was probably just as shy when I got to my new job, I just never saw it reflected back at me so vibrantly. Vulnerability is positively captivating, honorable, and brave. I admire him for creating and nurturing our connection, even when I was absent-minded and scattered by information overload early on.
The moral of this story is for god's sake open your heart. And not just to your family and close friends the people you already "trust." Learn to feel safe opening your heart to everyone. Practice doing it in little ways all day long with everyone who passes through your day. Then try doing in bigger ways with new people you've never given to or shared with before. Respect your own boundaries and never give or share in any way that makes you feel unsafe. But this practice of opening my heart has been the absolute key to my happiness.
(This was written in approximately July of this year of 2015...)
Ok, so I haven't posted in a while. I will warn you that this blog compensates for my sabbatical by being extra long and dramatic and particularly self-absorbed (or to put it nicely "reflective"). So if this is a "TL:DR" type of situation for you instant gratification types, the highlights are in bold and italics. To start with:
I haven't written because I've been in a sort of mental paralysis for the last two months.
You see, Portland is kind of the most crazy awesome place I've ever been to in my life. And I've made a surprising amount of friends here in a very short amount of time. I lived in Iowa for over three years and had half as many friends there as I do here. But Portland is the most friendly place I've ever lived, so I don't give myself that much credit for it. I mean, you can make a friend on the bus without even trying (if you're open minded). That's all good right?
And I am proud to say that about a month after living here, at age 25, I did finally learn how to make friends without any pretext. I learned how to strike up conversations with strangers and express interest in getting to know them without really worrying about failure. All it took was finding out the worst thing that happens is they say, no thanks. And that really isn't so bad if you don't take it personally. If you really have to, you can even just pretend they probably have chronic diarrhea and so can't really get too close to anybody. If I would have learned how to socialize in college, I would have made a lot more friends. I was a weird girl who looked comfortable and confident and probably pretty approachable while speaking during class, but sprinted out the door the minute it ended, so as not to accidentally be spoken to--which would only lead to horror, sweating, twitching, and vocal paralysis... But we all learn at our own pace. So hooray!
Without having any idea how I did it, I have managed to make friends here who basically rule the world.
They're incredibly talented, interesting, dynamic, creative, ambitious, successful, and focused. They're "dreamers" and "doers" and great "go-getters." Not quitters, complainers and chronic bed-wetters. And whenever I get together with anyone of them, I mostly just stand in awe and feel very grateful to know such brilliant people with such diverse interests.
I met yoga instructors of all different specialties; artists, entrepreneurs, and musicians galore; a painter and graphic designer that has also just become a yoga teacher; a photographer and videographer who now works for an emmy-winning film studio....so on and so forth... and most recently a coffee shop worker who is pursuing acting and fire-breathing (yes, fire-breathing) in his spare time; I deeply admire nearly every friend I've made in regard to their ambitions. So what could be bad about that?
All of these people needed no pretext or excuses to become my friend. And, being who I am, I can't get enough of them! I love to hear them talk about their passions. I want to meet every kind of person there is in Portland and find out why they love what they love and what motivates them and gives them that healthy obsession that keeps them awake sometimes. In Living With a Wild God, Barbara Ehrenreich's captivating autobiography, she quotes a fellow scientist as saying, "You're not really doing science if you don't wake up screaming in the middle of the night."
And I think what they're saying is that people who truly pursue their passions without reservation are sooner or later going to feel utterly terrified. But the fire-breather told me tonight that he's never met a fear he didn't want to conquer. I could have rolled my eyes, made judgments, and been defensive, but instead I only felt a deep sense of compassion and respect. The essence of life is in overcoming our fears. (A/N: I wrote this entry while I was working at Powell's, at my current job I have a magnet, which I bought at that same Powell's job I had to quit. It says "Everything you want is on the other side of fear." And I look at it every day.)
Now, just to be clear, I have met amazing people my entire life in all different places, so friends from back home shouldn't feel left out. It's only in Portland that I met so many so very quickly, in part because of an intense motivation to make new connections, after moving away from home. And naturally, as a highly self-critical person, meeting so many outstanding people--and having them generally enjoy my company and want to be around me--has led to a lot of reflection, skepticism, distrust, and the inevitable question:
If I'm not nearly as successful or talented as these people, then why do they want to be my friend?
And of course, the first answer is that Real Friendship is not based on superficial definitions of Success or Failure. It's based on your Personality and Sense of Character. And maybe what music you listen to (which is anything but superficial when you think about it).
The second answer, and least forgiving one, is that I am the Groupie to their Rock Star Status. They are all somehow just fulfilling a need for attention and admiration with my starry-eyed affection, but ultimately don't genuinely reciprocate. They are Beautiful Multicolored Planets and I am so much Orbiting Space-Junk. Harsh. I know, but everyone is their own worst bully. And it's hard not to be a little intimidated by so much success, meeting so many people who genuinely and consistently recognize their own talents and validate themselves. It really shines a light on everything you want that you don't have, everything you could be if you only tried harder, woke up earlier, slept better, ate healthier, acted cooler, and were generally an entirely different person altogether.
But the third answer is a little voice inside of me that keeps softly saying,
"I wouldn't be making friends like this if they did not see something inside of me that I'm not giving credence to."
That voice is a hell of a lot quieter than the ones telling me that I'm a satellite.. And yet it's the little voice that is calm, rational, and consistent. And doesn't need to barrage me to get my attention. At the end of the day it's the only one I really hear, since the rest are being incredible jerks. "You are capable of just as much as any one of these people, and you are just as surprising, powerful, and beautiful." That's the voice that rings most true. It's the law of attraction at work. And really, the bullies inside and out have been sprinkling the same sand in my shorts my whole life, through successes and failures and everything in between. In fact, now that I think about it, the difference between the successes and the failures has only been whether or not I was listening to these poop shovelers at all. Because when you silence the bullies and listen to the quiet one, there is no such thing as a failure. There is only deeper awareness.
And that is exactly and only what I have achieved thus far in my life. Ok slight exaggeration. I have a bachelor's degree and quite a bit of graduate work, I've spoken at a conference, taught at a university, presented poetry to hundreds of people, taken road trips, ran a 5k, seen the world and a thousand things in it, studied five different languages, tried my hand at quite a few different jobs, been hired by the #1 best independent bookshop in the world, blogged for a famous feminist center, had my story appear in a spiritual publication, and, most recently, I've ridden a bicycle naked for seven miles through a major city. I've connected and shared with, all over the planet, a vastly diverse amount of people with regard to age, status, origin, class, race, religion, orientation, ability, appearance, personality, health, occupation, criminal record, political leanings, and so on and so forth. I've had more experiences than you can shake a stick at.
But meanwhile, I've seen all of the kids from my graduating class who were in the same honors and AP classes, many of whom scored equally as well on the ACT and with equally as high GPA's (which I know only because we were competitive enough to compare scores), and at the time those numbers were my primary source of self esteem. Many of whom did not get a fancy full ride scholarship to a prestigious university, but got into school anyway and busted their humps to finish.
Just about all of those who I consider my closest peers from high school have graduated from college into promising, powerful, and lucrative careers in fascinating fields of work. They are professionals, with a specific set of skills that they contribute directly to society in practical and fulfilling ways.
They've got things like salaries and health benefits and 401k's. People give them responsibilities, which they take on with pride. They work one job, for more than a year at a time, and have a reasonable and predictable schedule that maybe even includes paid time off. (A/N: I have this stuff now. I didn't when I wrote this. A small but emphatic boo ya. Spoke it into existence.) Maybe they even are in charge of other people, or at the very least in charge of themselves. My point is they've accomplished something of an occupational nature, picked A THING to be and are carrying it as far as they can. They have focus and many of them have had it for many years now. They probably ate, slept, and breathed that THING for no short amount of time before even reaping the benefits of it. And then they tried and probably failed a few times when it came time to be that THING out in the world, but that probably didn't scare them all that much, because look where they are now.
And me, I just look around and see EVERY THING, I want to TALK TO EVERY THING, do EVERY THING, learn EVERY THING, and BE EVERY THING and sometimes A NEW THING every year, every month, recently every waking SECOND.
Sure it's great to be incredibly curious. The world is my oyster. But where does that lead me? In circles, and down crooked paths, with wide eyes and out-reaching hands, running like a small diapered child into the forest trying to catch butterflies and bugs, and all manner of animal with his bare hands, tripping and crying, only because he had to stop running for a second, getting back up and happily, naively, carelessly, chasing again, never realizing that he's never gonna catch anything--that if anything he will get poison ivy, or get hurt, or get eaten alive. And when he runs out of breath he's in the middle of the forest, all the animals have wandered away, and he's finally figuring out that he doesn't know how to catch them, which is very unsettling because that's why he started running in the first place. It's dark, and he's broke and his pants don't fit because he's emotionally eating pancakes, he's retreated into social isolation, he's stopped going to church, he's sleeping all the time, his paychecks put him at poverty level, he's thanking his stars for universal healthcare, the rent is coming due and.... errr... the metaphor broke down somewhere, but I am the small diapered child. Only I'm 26 going on 30...and you get the picture.
This type of person, as you'll see below, is commonly known as a "scanner" or "dabbler" or "generalist," where as my peers who have careers are called "divers."
I told my new fire-breathing friend this and he said some things I never stop appreciating but have heard many times before in a myriad of ways:
It is beautiful to be endlessly curious, you are a modern day DaVinci, a Renaissance Woman, a Jack of all Trades (leaving off Master of None), I'm sure you've had a rich and full life, how lucky to be able to understand and explore so many different things. You say you don't have a passion but it sounds to me like you're passionate about being alive and everything life creates.
But this life style and learning style (which has been referred to as being a "scanner" a "dabbler" or a "generalist") has led me at times to emotional exhaustion and paralyzed indecision. As this article from Psychologies points out:
[Aside: I found this article by googling "jobs for people who want to do everything" and the query pulled up this entry just a few results down, which just goes to show how endlessly amusing Google search results (and predictions) can really be. And just for further illustration of the concepts, Kanye and Steve are both Divers and not Scanners.] "One of the biggest problems for scanners is that they can get lost in a never-ending sea of flash-in-the-pan interests. Overwhelmed by choice, option paralysis can set in and the scanner...never lives up to their potential. Or else they use perpetual indecision as a form of procrastination. Another downside is that... the generalist may find it hard to dedicate themselves fully to one thing out of a misplaced fear that they might miss out on a better prospect tomorrow.
As psychotherapist Andrea Perry points out, ‘If someone spends their time flitting from thing to thing, there’s a danger that they may end up feeling as if they’ve eaten canapés rather than a proper meal. There’s that feeling of vague dissatisfaction. Picking at things can be lovely, but nothing beats the sensation of being authentically “full-up” — and knowing how to attain that state is valuable.’"
I would google canapes but I assume it's some sort of appetizer or small bite of something and I've gotten to the point of techonology fatigue that I no longer care to google every last thing which I do not yet know, a tiresome modern compulsion that has only further exacerbated the very problem I'm discussing and left me reading about pineapples on Wikipedia when I should be setting goals and building a future... as.... a.... pineapple farmer? YES! No... Pineapples... exotic islands... cruise ships! I could work on a cruise ship! Surfing! I'll take up professional surfing. But it's kind of late, so I'll just watch a cartoon and go to bed. But I'll definitely make a plan in the morning. Definitely....
zzzZZZzz...
And so it goes. There's a test at the bottom of this article to find out if you're a "diver" or a "scanner." I don't need to take the test to know that I'm a "scanner," and specifically, at this point in time, I am the dissatisfied kind with unfulfilled potential. This article is ALL about people just like me, which makes it very comforting in a way. And the author really tries to defend the underdog and argue in our favor. Oprah Winfrey is crazy successful and she's a scanner!!! Well there you go. They'll eventually give me my own television show. So I think I'm just gonna wait it out. ;)
I'm kidding. And don't think that I'm all doom and gloom about this because I'm not. And besides my friend Corey has been sagely preaching on Facebook to everyone in his statuses the last two months to "Harness the Darkeness," which I think is his mantra. And he's said it so many times it got lodged in my brain and when things really did start to feel pretty dark, I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to lay in it forever. And like I said, the quiet, calm voice inside of me knows I'm not running in circles, only toward deeper awareness and ultimately toward fulfillment (even if it takes me a bit longer). Like they say, the first step is admitting you have a problem.
And after two months of trying to figure out , I've realized I am dying to take on responsibilities and a career path, and I'm ready to do some diving.
I also have spent the last two weeks occasionally bursting into deep hard passionate sobs of acceptance that I literally worked my entire life toward a full ride scholarship to a prestigious university (I set that goal at age 14 and if you look at my old Xanga, started around that time you will see that I CLAIMED a full tuition scholarship from DePaul or Loyola for myself four years prior to earning it), my entire childhood and young adulthood I aspired to receive a full tuition scholarship from a prestigious and reach opportunities my parents never got to have, and truly believed my future would be laid out for me if I just worked toward that one thing, and I was told over and over throughout this time period how smart I was and how great I would be and how I was destined for success and prosperity and ALL the BEST THINGS I could want.
And instead I'm dirt poor five years out of college, no car, no house, no career, working two part-time entry level positions. And I'm on the bus listening to Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and reading "Song of Myself" by Whitman to try to keep a rational perspective on things, remind myself to live in the present and about unconditional self-love and self-acceptance, and that I am probably not the first person to look back a couple of years and feel like life didn't go as planned....
But nobody really told me anything about what the real world is like or for example what specifically to do or how to go about it. When I was thirteen years old I took a career aptitude test and could not WAIT to receive the results. Because at that time I was really curious what I could do for a career and had a very strong hope that this test would give me one straight solid answer about something being a good fit for me, "the right thing" right then and there at thirteen. And I got my test results back and ripped open the envelope only to read what all my test scores already predicted "You could do just about anything you want to!" While plenty of my friends got concrete specific answers about moving toward math, or science, or some trade or specific vocation, or group of jobs like counsel, lawyer, teacher or architect, engineer, programmer, I got a big fat shrug with a smile and a thumbs up. And even at thirteen years old I remember thinking, well thanks for your help assholes. And then just went on studying everything equally and getting good grades in all my classes and really just enjoying all of it quite well, hoping that I would sort it out later and pick a favorite subject. But when I got to college I was faced with the same paralyzing number of choices and the same crippling indecision. Ah the freedom of the well-rounded intelligent person. With great power comes great responsibility. I could have been blissfully happy in any number of very straight forward and semi-to-extremely lucrative and secure professions, particularly those in the sciences, or the non-profit or social sectors. And although quite a few people warned me against the perils of being an English major, I wasn't really listening, caught up in the romance of my first year of college and the big city of Chicago and the prospect of reading Shakespeare and Milton and writing poetry for four years. Which I must admit was a dreamy, dewy, cotton soft cloud full of intellectual pleasure on which I did so blissfully recline and float away my college days, something that at the time felt oh so good and right and fun... And I wasn't phoning it in either. I worked hard and I was good at it. But, as Bob says above, I only used to get juiced in it...
So I've spent the last two weeks crying sobs of acceptance that I really did earn and fight for the most amazing opportunity I could have possibly gotten, and then kinda sorta (from a certain cynical perspective I've taken on recently) totally blew it.
And the very opportunity that was supposed to keep me ahead of the curve in life, that really I'm telling you was at the center of my being from junior high all the way to the the day I graduated college, as far as giving me purpose and substance and security, and surely the opportunity did open my mind to the vast knowledge and beauty of the world regardless, as they say a liberal arts education will do, I am afraid completely wasted, only to end up feeling as far behind in things as any of my coworkers over the years, most of which have not gone to college, or have just started college, or have no plans of doing so. But they also say that if you open your mind wide enough your brain will fall out. And that's kind of what happened to me. I mean, it's a lot more complicated than that, and if you want the whole story you'll have to read my memoir, copyright circa 2080. But in the end, truth be told, I don't want be an English teacher, and I didn't end up wanting to be an ESL teacher either, or a lifelong academic all things I thought I would want to be when I was in school. I also don't want to be a speech therapist. And I procrastinated on figuring it out so long, and spent so much time waitressing and going home and watching television, eventually picking up an intense exercise regime (also as a distraction) and occasionally reading a book or two but not really doing a whole lot else, that I'm fairly confident my brain, like my muscles, turned to total mush in Iowa. I whipped my body back in to shape before I left, but I brought my mushy brain to Portland. And for a while I was afraid it wouldn't recover from the entropy (I mean atrophy... and entropy). And even if it does recover... I don't have a plan. Even if the atrophy is just totally simmering I made up and I'm actually as smart as ever, what am I going to do with it? What will I do "for a living?" How am I gonna make my way in this cold, cruel world? The truth is I still don't know.
But the good news is that my shame and self-criticism surrounding that big ugly question mark is starting to pass. It started this morning when I had a really good heartfelt talk about it on the phone with my good ol' unconditionally loving momma (who I can't wait to visit next week), and actually felt like I processed some of those feelings instead of gulping them down in front of cartoons with along with a big pile of comfort food.
And then I went to work and I had a really awesome conversation with an elderly man who honestly seemed kind of lonely and desperate for connection. And I feel proud to have connected with him and do what I do best in customer service, which is make someone feel acknowledged and appreciated out in public.
We talked about how this modern era is kind of set up to make people feel that way, lonely and desperate for connection. And we also talked about how the development of technology has made it so that a lot of the job opportunities available to someone with my education revolve around online businesses and phone apps and software that integrates thingamabobs with whojammies. (A/N: At my new job a month after writing this, I had to learn computer thingamabobs and whojammies and I have to say it wasn't as scary or boring as I thought it would be, but...)
And frankly I don't care all that much about thingamabobs or whojammies.
I barely know how to use this blogger, though I do type at a fabulous 71 wpm. ;-D And I could quickly learn those things if I had the desire. This guy was on the same page as me. So I am a diapered small child inside of a seventy year old man trying to make it in a tech-savvy, vertically blessed, well-dressed, Rockstar-drinking young adult's world.
But I've made a couple of new friends by working at the airport the last few months and tonight after a great shift, we all went out for pizza and the fire-breather and his friend who can kick through a wall (? claim unverified) basically told me I was awesome. And I decided that they are right and that they are awesome too. And I felt happy and excited again because I did another new thing today. I went out to a pizza place I've never been to before with two new friends that I made by being friendly. The fire-breather also told a wonderful story about how he tries to get spectators of his performance to hold fire. He says it's just a little parlour trick involving lighting oil and water in the palm of your hand and it's not dangerous and anyone can do it. But nobody ever volunteers to because they're afraid: except little children, who are curious and excited about just about everything new they see. And he says that after the little child does it the adults get embarrassed that they were afraid and jealous of the kid and after a moment of processing that, they all line up to try it too.
So there is a beauty and innocent bravery to being a wide-eyed child with out-reaching hands.
When I got home I started reflecting on all the incredible experiences I've had in Portland, more than I can even recall, which is why I really do need to journal more or take more pictures or something for when I'm old, and I reflected on all the amazing things I've done since college, in between serving shifts, and in spite of poverty level income and no substantial property of my own. And then I got online to check my email and my Facebook and I saw my friend Shanita posted this article, about today and being overwhelmed by all that is not "right" in your life and then honoring what you've accomplished.
My jaw kind of fell open. I don't normally give a lot of credence to horoscopy predictamaroles. But, correct me if I'm wrong, that is a strangely specific prediction of exactly what I did today without ever looking at a horoscope or frankly even knowing about the full moon or remembering it was the first of the month. But I did have a breakthrough that started with me simply not being able to sustain my two month long lifestyle built around sleep, pancakes, cartoons, and anxiety and dread concerning both my present and my future--cartoons, social isolation, extra sleep, and pancakes not really putting out the fire but more like covering myself in gasoline and then just sitting down nihilistically next to the flames. And it has led to a renewed sense of conviction, something that I lost a little after school ended, but have actually had for the vast majority of my life.
And in fact, I am selling myself short if I say I haven't committed to anything in the past three financially destitute years. I committed myself to a long term relationship, longer than any job I have ever held and almost as long as I committed myself to earning my bachelor's degree. I committed myself to a diet and exercise regimen just last year that caused me to drop an astounding thirty pounds in four months (a huge amount of weight for a tiny-framed girl like me). I committed myself to career exploration, even if I'm not finished with it. I committed myself to Portland. To finding friends and establishing myself in a huge unfamiliar city. And I committed myself to two new blogs, a spiritual community, volunteer work, and a publishing project (which I will finish, no matter how long it takes). (A/N: I'm not finished but I'm further along.) I'm clearly committed to this blog enough that it keeps me awake at night as I started writing this around the time I got home from pizza and now the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. But after all my child like meandering, I'm ready for greater and more adult commitments (for a guide to this: see Adulting by the talented Kelly Williams Brown of blogging fame). And it will take time to finish mourning the choices I've made and the time I feel may, in some way, have been wasted. I feel like Iserved my first bowl of pasta at Olive Garden in Iowa at 23,blinked, and I was serving a burger in Portland at 26 and crying into a customer's milkshake over lost time (if you read this blog enough you'll see that tears are a big part of my growing pains, one that I used to be embarrassed of but have had neither the energy nor the patience to be self-conscious about this time around). Even if there is a magnet at Powell's that says "A wasted youth is a lot of fun!" It's not everything it's cracked up to be... But at least there's this reminder that people who have a career right out of college do not always have perfect lives either. That we are all really in the same pursuit of self-actualization and we all get there at different rates in different ways. And where one person may seem be further along than me in one way, I could easily find ways in which I am further along.
But I'm really truly (just about) ready to find, commit to, and develop a skill set and contribute it to the world in a fulfilling way. (A/N: And now I'm doing it!) And I found three great tips for narrowing it down. And this little bit of advice. So that's a start... And if I'm not sure it's exactly the "right" path for me, I'm ready to go down it anyway, pursue it, and risk having to start over, instead of never starting to begin with. To be a "diver" and be "authentically 'full-up'."
To see what it's like to hunt something down like a warrior and not chase after it like a helpless child.
Instead of fanning the fire that has started in my head these past few months, I'm going to blow it out of my mouth and hold it in my hands.
Because I too have never met a fear I didn't want to conquer.
[Author's Note: As proof that I did not forget about my blog the last two months, here is an entry I drafted but did not publish earlier in the month, that is comically ambitious but ultimate incomplete in it's attempt at allegory.]
I'm going to start calling my quarter-life crisis moments "The Stroganoff Effect," even though no one will know what I'm talking about...
It's because I very clearly just relived my whole quarter-life crisis in one evening while cooking stroganoff: Tonight, I painstakingly picked out the finest ingredients, I easily mixed them together from memory and imagination with major success (college), got distracted when it needed to be carefully boiled down (grad school), walked away for waaaaaaay too long (aka The Olive Garden Years), came back and it was completely boiled away and burnt to the pan. (Quarter-Life Crisis)
After lamenting for a bit, I realized some of it could be salvaged. Not much, but enough. :-) I scooped the mushrooms and onions out from the old batch and started a new batch of broth. Now I'm letting it simmer, a lot more careful than before, and thinking that the burnt parts might actually add kind of unique, smoky flavor to the sauce. I think I'm also feeling a lot more satisfied than I would have if I had just cooked it great the first time through. Somehow salvaging the remains of my failed attempt, sifting through it for what's good, and exactly what I did wrong being the thing that makes it one-of-a-kind and great, will make it taste even better. I also noticed that the second time around cooking it I was much more involved in the process, much more determined and passionate. There was actually a moment where I was attentively stirring and looking deeply into my meal and thought "I WILL prevail," standing there in my gallant chainmail and armor. Plus, when I had to remake the broth I tweaked it a bit. I even added a completely new ingredient that I had no intention of using before!! Booyakasha! So the whole process took a lot long than I expected... oh well. The meal will be over in twenty minutes anyway. But the cooking experience was unforgettable.
How's that for the most heavily laid on Russian cuisine metaphor you've ever heard? Hey. Sometimes stuff just makes you think of bigger stuff and takes on a whole new meaning. And that feels good. Like the microcosm resonating into the macrocosm... or perhaps it's the macro infusing itself into the micro... At any rate, with life experiences kind of emulate each other, or at least teaching you something, you feel like things are going good and you're right where you should be.
[EDIT: it gets even better, earlier in the evening when I accidentally pushed the cork in the bottom of the pepper shaker and after fidgeting with it for however long, couldn't get it out again, I coldly tossed it away and moved on. But while cooking I remembered that pepper is a key ingredient in my stroganoff and had to fish the pepper shaker out of the garbage. Plus I realized that I could at least take the pepper out of the pepper shaker before throwing it away. That was kind of wasteful. So insert that into the metaphor however it suits you. It's a tired old thing by now anyway.]
P.S. If you want to read about my night in a bachelor party earlier this month, which I also drafted, but did not and probably will not post, I can email you that story in confidence, as I'm a little hesitant to post it on here just because it's a tad risque (only a tad) and truthfully a bit of a reckless adventure on my part that probably sets a bad example for how to find adventure in the world, as I tend to be a bit impulsive in my quest for the new. It has been part of my scanning nature to recklessly talk to and participate in activities with strangers, a habit I've been trying to quell while living alone in such a big city, as I'm not keen on being driven to the coast or the top of Mount Hood in the back of anyone's trunk.
The weeks since the spring equinox have been, for me, a time of existential thinking. In recent years, I seem to have become more and more continually and perpetually aware of my own mortality, freedom, and isolated existence. While this has added richness and heart to my experience of life and of its pleasures, it has also caused me to plumb more and more deeply into some of my deepest and most essential fears, sadness, and anxieties. I did so four or five years ago with almost no emotional tools at hand. And that was a lot scarier. Luckily, and possibly as a direct result of that nosedive, I am spelunking now with much greater mindfulness and a much stronger and healthier foundation. My safety rope is much more securely fastened this time around.
As it turns to spring, two huge events seem to have triggered my escalating existential fixation. First, I permanently moved half a country away from my family six months ago, for the first time ever in my life. In 2008, I spent four months in Budapest, Hungary, and that was quite a big adventure as well. And it did definitely trigger some existential ponderings. If all these people in this country can speak this complete other language and have this complete other identity and political situation, different values, different landscape, different everything... then what does it mean for me to be alive? I basically broke out of the strange teenage shell of narcissism that in a way had protected me from realizing the vast possibilities of life experience and the sheer quantity of life on earth--which I feel makes existential pondering unavoidable. Europe was a pleasurable experience in that taking in so much newness was pure adrenaline. And yet it was terrifying to suddenly think about how very big and strange the world felt suddenly and how did I end up in this new part of it and what does it mean that there is so much of it here? And if so many people's lives are so different from my own, then what is life exactly? And yet, I didn't get all that preoccupied with these questions. In part that was because the sheer sensory overload of experiencing Europe for the first time was plenty of distraction. But also, somewhere in my mind I always knew that I would be back to my family before long and I did not really feel like I had to make Budapest feel like home for that reason. I still had a home of my own. Budapest was a brave adventure for a young girl of 19, but ultimately a finite one.
Moving to Portland, not knowing when I will be able to afford to go back and visit my parents, not to mention really enjoying Portland and feeling as if I would like to settle down for a bit here, has stirred up all this desire to feel at home here, to make a home here. It has stirred up the recognition that while I love my family and desire to be close to them, I may make a life for myself far away from them for many years. And that means that those family relationships can only take me so far in my sense of being at home in the world right now. And that has caused me to ponder about what it is that makes a place feel like home. I keep remembering the scene in Garden State that first gave me words for this yearning feeling and caused me to recognize it as an essential aspect of young adulthood. If my parent's home no longer feels like my home, what will it take to feel at home in my new city and this next stage of my life?
And that brings me to the second event that triggered my existential fixation: ending a long term relationship. Leaving a long term relationship has felt like jumping off a train mid-trip, between stations, out in the wilderness. I felt myself to be headed to a particular place while I was on that train, both of us having had our ticket in hand for a while now. And though we don't ever really know how long the ride will last when it comes to these things, I had that comforting feeling that I was headed somewhere. And that I had a particular companion. That is the beauty of long term relationships, commitments. It is an enchanting moment when two people decide they want to experience life together, in a way. And the magic of long term intimacy is getting to know how the other person fits into your desired journey and how you can be a part of theirs. And there is a distinct pleasure in viewing another person's experience of life at that intimate level of significant other and enjoying a sort of vicarious fulfillment when you feel that they are growing and prospering and that you have added to that and you have this common goal of fulfillment of two people's life desires. When the relationship ended, it was not like the train had reached its intended destination, but rather like I had sort of jumped from a car mid ride and done a barrel roll down a hill into a wooded area where people don't normally travel, with no streets or sidewalks. Luckily, at this particular moment I had everything I needed to land safely and change my course. I even had the companionship of the very person I had bought my ticket with. In fact, it was almost as if we had both jumped off together and he had held my hand to make sure I landed safely. But whereas before I felt like I was headed somewhere with someone and maybe also a bit like I was being carried and could put my feet up and read the newspaper a bit, this new part of my life has forced me to very much walk on my own two feet to get somewhere, and now I'm trying to navigate where exactly I am and where I want to go.
It seems that in all of the phases of my life up until now, there has always been something cut and dry to keep my perception of my life course just narrow enough for me to not find my own existence incomprehensible. I always had some phase or intention to focus on. For most of my life up until now it was school. Then by the time I decided I didn't want to be in school any longer and wanted to explore new career options, although that triggered some existential questioning, I was also in my long term relationship at this time and able to devote an intense amount of energy and thought to the idea that this relationship was giving my life direction. My partner and I were a team and that gave my existence some greater purpose. I was the "go-to person" for this other person, for a great deal of love, attention, support, and caring. That felt important and grand and profound and meaningful to me. (Again a song popped into my head. My wonderful father is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan.)
So part of my existential thinking process has been letting go of the idea that this person's life is integral to the purpose of my life. And beyond that, exploring the purpose that I want to attach to my life and the goals that I want to set. Truthfully, it has been painful to open up my awareness beyond the various straight line paths of intention that I have drawn up until this point. Suddenly instead of my life feeling as if it is moving toward one particular thing, I now feel like it is just simply expanding outward in all directions, along with my awareness. And the mandatory opening up of my awareness to comprehend my current state of being, has felt a bit like stretching a muscle inside my head further than it can comfortably go. And yet, just like stretching my muscles allows them to become more comfortable in that state, I feel that I will eventually adjust to this awareness.
When it comes to the bigger life goals I feel pretty clear on what I want: I want to write, read, learn, grow, be useful to others, be independent, make a home for myself, travel, and ultimately, at least I think at this moment, I want to find a loving, soulful, and intimate companionship with another person. At the same time, it's hard to be sure that a connection will occur that matches one's idea of fulfilling romantic companionship. And so that is where I am learning to simply embrace my own capacity for such a companionship, continue to try to develop it, and recognize and appreciate connection and love through friendship--knowing that the intentions I am setting for a future romance can only be fulfilled by the discovery of a twin flame, which don't come around too often.
The most fruitful branch of my existential exploration has been to try to coalesce an idea of how I want to live. Not deciding what goals I want to reach or things I want to acquire. Not figuring out where I want to go in life, but figuring out how I want to walk...
Because, really, the vast majority of your life experience is the everyday minutiae. There are the big decisions about where you want to move toward, but there's also the little everyday decisions about how you want to think and feel about the world around you. As a friend of mine put it "You never get over having an existential crisis. The best thing to do is find a core belief, something to which you can devote your whole self and believe in that." And yet, I must say, that I've come to think of my own experience not as an existential crisis (which I would think of as involving maybe a panic attack or depression or suicidal ideation, just because of the word crisis) instead I feel that I'm simply reaching fuller existential consciousness: a fuller understanding and acknowledgement of my own mortality and finite existence on earth, as well as recognition of my isolated human bodily experience irreparably separate and apart from all other beings. But my friend's advice really helped me to feel supported and uplifted by someone who has also plumbed these depths.
I think that my core belief at the moment can only be love. I simply want to live my life with an attitude of openness and receptivity in the world and a desire to give and provide for others. I have learned during these past few weeks that when I can get my mind off of my internal confusion and questioning and just look out all around me, I see other people and animals, I feel their energy, and I sense that I am needed in some way. I feel companionship in my experience of something as small as sitting on the same bus with other strangers. And everywhere I look I see the opportunity to give someone a smile or a kind word. And I feel that this capacity for love is the most powerful thing that I have to give in this world. To lessen suffering and to increase love and beauty in the lives of others is never time wasted. If my life has some meaning it is this, for now. And I know that the journey continues and I can never know what greater existential consciousness than what I currently have will bring.
A brief PSA: If you are going through a bit of this thinking yourself and you are looking for some guidance, I found a very interesting and almost comically practical guide to the subject on Wikihow. And the Wikipedia article is also quite interesting. It's most important to know that increased existential consciousness over the course of one's life is natural and that there are people in the world comfortable with you sharing these feelings. And while this increased consciousness may, at times, bring about fear, sadness, anger, anxiety, even paralysis or shame (as everyone around 'seems' to be going about life without questioning it), the growth of existential consciousness is a good thing. It will cause you to live your life more fully and intentionally. If, for some reason, you feel surrounded by people who are disinterested in or uncomfortable with your growing existential consciousness, please email me at heartstump@gmail.com to share your thoughts with someone. You never need to experience existence in isolation, although you do have that as an option (as part of your expansive freedom). Also, this website has some great quotes on the subject, including a pretty all encompassing coverage of the subject by Stanley Kubrick. And if you want to intellectualize your feelings--which can make them more (or less) palatable--you can always read Nietzsche or Kierkegaard. And when at a total loss, find someone and ask for a hug.
I will finish things with a quotation from an exchange I overheard at a recent get together between two people I had just met that night. Earlier in the evening I was invited to a housewarming party and I was torn between whether I should go or stay home (<----natural introvert). When I remembered how warm and comforting so many of these people are and I contemplated the idea of being open to whatever the night would bring, I could not resist going. However this was definitely in spite of the deep urge to spend another night at home plumbing deeper and deeper into myself for some epiphanic answer. Once I made my decision to go I felt bright and positive. I felt open and full of love and ready to give eyes and ears to the world. At one point, I was sitting on the couch next to a friend and we were watching these two bandmates wrestle with one another. Interestingly, as they physically tustled and played, in between heavy breaths, they had what seemed like a very idiosyncratic dialogue going on, most of which I could not attach any meaning to. But a group of us in the room watched and listened with enthusiasm. And then, at a moment when my attention had been pulled away, this exchange between the two wrestlers rang out over the din in my ear:
"Well then what does it
all mean?" one asked. The other
said,"It means a lot."
My friend and I laughed and smiled and looked to each other for acknowledgment of what we had heard. I could see that we both had a profound appreciation for such powerful words mixed in amid all the banter and play. It was as if these two turned up the dimmer switch on everything that was happening around me. What a beautiful epiphany. And how much more fulfilling and profound to experience in the company of friends and strangers, rather than alone. Maybe the meaning of existence isn't so elusive after all... Maybe it looks at me, all the time, at every single moment, from across a room.... or a bus, a table, or the sky, meowing on the kitchen tile, laughing at my jokes, giving me its milk, roaring through my town on wheels, walking across the floor above me, crying along with my tears, and blowing softly through my hair. I need only to be open to receive it.
At the Portland Center for Spiritual Living today Reverend Larry King taught us that, in Art of Communicating by Thich Nhat Hanh, there are Four Elements of Loving Speech:
1) Tell the Truth.
2) Don't exaggerate.
3) Be Consistent.
4) Use Peaceful Loving Language.
I have been ruminating on the first one all day since the service this morning, especially because of the elaboration Larry provided in a handout he gave us during his talk. It says the following:
"Tell the Truth. Tell the whole truth as factually as you can. If you're worried that the truth amy be hurtful, take the necessary time to share the information skillfully. Lying or fibbing undermines your credibility, is difficult to maintain and causes relationship stress."
Now, it's not that I am an untruthful person, to be sure. It's the exact opposite. I'm about as truthful as they come. More so, I sometimes blurt out the truth accidentally and quickly (not skillfully), when I'm not particular ready to share it. And I often have a burning passion to share the truth with people, whether it's what I feel to be the truth about something else, or whether it's simply the truth about how I feel...
The reason that the first element of loving speech is weighing on me is because I do occasionally commit what they call a "lie of omission." For an exact definition (courtesy of Google) "Also known as a continuing misrepresentation, a lie by omission occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes failures to correct preexisting misconceptions." I simply choose to stay silent sometimes when my heart screams out at me to say something very true that I'm not sure the other person will either understand, like, or accept. At times this can be extremely damaging to a relationship or interaction. At other times, the relationship and other person go unscathed by this behavior, and it is only me that is hurt by this behavior.
Of course, not all truth is relevant to discuss. Just because you wore the same socks two days in a row doesn't mean you have to tell everyone you encounter that day, unless of course they are making faces like something stinks and you suspect that they would appreciate an explanation.
But these three simple words "Tell the truth" and the elaboration that followed spoke to my heart today and stuck in my brain. I'm grateful for that experience because I know that it's a call to action. For one thing, I got an email over a week ago that I never responded to because I didn't know how to go about saying the truth to the other person. The truth would have been revealing and made me vulnerable. But I couldn't really think of anything else to say instead. As a result, I may have done damage to the connection (by neglecting to even respond at all), making the other person think that I'm just careless, although I've read the email numerous times. And furthermore I may have lost the opportunity to tell the truth to someone more open to it and see what results. So today, after reading the advice of Hanh and King, I responded to the email, opening with an apology for delay and proceeding to the truth of things, truth I'd been carefully avoiding acknowledging both to myself and to this other person.
The book for the month of March at Portland Center for Spiritual Living is The Art of Communicating by Thich Nhat Hanh. Sunday March 1st our talk was about listening to yourself. And Sunday March 8th (today) was about listening to others. Both were presented by Reverend Larry King. This is good subject matter for March, for me. Being new to Portland and having just moved into a new home here, I set the intention in February (as hokey as it seems) of spreading love. I made it a priority to socialize heavily, strengthen newly established connections and make myself purposefully extra available and open to new and spontaneous developments. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I certainly was able to have a lot of fun nights, full of unexpected surprises and often strangely substance-filled conversations with complete strangers. I found so many beautiful new people to invite into my life with such passionate and creative hearts and minds. I'm super grateful to have found a lot more love and light here in Portland than I think I have ever found since moving away from my parent's home. However, a lot of this connection had an impulsive element to it, in that I set the intention of spreading love freely, and then did so without thinking at all about which of these new connections might stick or grow. I was focused on being very present in the moment with other people and on not pushing anything to become anything else (detachment from outcomes, as mentioned in previous posts). But inevitably things do or don't. Stick and grow, that is. And then, should they do so, there is a next level, which involves caring for those connections and learning to communicate with those new people on a regular basis with love and respect. And also, as always, there is the practice of healthy communication with yourself. But in this particular circumstance, for me, it is about having a healthy open discussion with myself, and others, about what I really do want or need from new connections. So it was good to have a service that brought self-communication to the forefront. In the book, Hanh refers to speaking as a way of nourishing the planet, either with good or with evil. The idea is simply that when we speak, it has an immense impact on the world. Whether we complain, explain, preach, teach, tattle, babble, theorize, proselytize, gossip, conceal, confide, repeal, editorialize, memorialize, praise, reject, rephrase, reflect, eulogize, apologize, scold, fabricate, parabolize, it all makes waves. And the state of the world is an aggregate of our words (and actions, of course) toward ourselves and one another. And the words of one person can greatly influence the words and actions of another. So really the ability to communicate is imperatively important on a global level. And on a personal level, practicing loving, positive, healthy communication with yourself increases your overall quality of life. The first thing to notice, if you suspect that your self-talk is less than ideal and may be contributing to some of the ways that you aren't yet where you want to be is that--if we have not consciously adjusted it--we are likely doing what we were brought up to do, when it comes to self-talk. This primarily has to do with the attitudes and ideas we grew up around, both within our immediate families and within our culture. If members of your family tend to have always spoken negatively of one another or of themselves, without conscious changes being made, you will probably do so also. This is not to say that you are not capable of doing otherwise, but habits and behaviors learned in childhood have an incredible influence on our adult lives. And, for me, I wasn't even conscious of my inner dialogue as something that was affecting my outside life until I actually took the time to conceive of that possibility and to be mindful of what was going on in my head. If you have never done so, it is an incredibly enlightening thing to try to be conscious of what you say to yourself in your head and how you say it. After all, this self-talk is the primary form of communication we perform on a daily basis. The conversations we have in our brains are far more common than the ones we have with other people. And the ones we have with other people, the words we choose and our attitudes and perspectives, are pretty much just an off-shooting of our internal conversation. We could think of ourselves as seeds and our internal words that we give to ourselves as the fertilizer and water and nutrients that we spread on that seed. So then, logically, the words that we give to others end up being the fruit that we give forth to the world. And if we are nice, loving, positive, and respectful in how we talk to ourselves, our words with others will be just as sweet and juicy and our fruit will attract everything around us. And if we are hateful, negative, critical, and harsh to ourselves, our fruit will be bitter and no one will eat from it. Those that do will spit it out and have a bad taste in their mouths. Self-talk is a major component in the reality (the life) we create for ourselves. And I've noticed that a lot of the people in my life who could clearly benefit from some better self talk, have a tendency to complain of unhappiness and to actually blame that unhappiness on some other outside circumstances. So that even if you were to say "You would be a lot happier if you weren't so negative all the time." They would often respond with "Actually, I think I would be a lot happier if my car hadn't broken down and if my kids weren't flunking out of school and my wife wasn't always nagging me, and blah blah blah babble babble babble mush mush mush *verbal equivalent of oil spill pollution on a BP level*." But really, what people need to realize is that outside of certain types of very objectively excruciating circumstances (serious illness, starvation, natural disaster, death of loved ones, etc.) most of life's suffering is entirely self-inflicted and solely related to one's attitude about the (often self-created) circumstances of one's life. Thich Nhat Hanh points out that when we claim for ourselves that we are stupid or unlovable, it is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. But when we can eradicate it and create something else it is nothing short of a fairy tale. I will explain...
...
Fairy Tale
...
Bad self-talk is a grumbling grave-digger standing on top of your heart perpetually digging a grave for your happiness. And the hole he creates leaves a pretty obvious deficit in your self-worth that is very visible to the people around you. And even though not everyone consciously understands why it drives them away, we all know on a sub-conscious level that someone with a hole in their heart is not spilling over with love and joy to give to others. And there is nothing worse than investing in a relationship with this type of person because everything you give to it is just going to plummet into the black hole inside their heart-grave never to be seen again and never to be reciprocated. And so by allowing this process to go on internally you quickly find yourself in a vastly empty barren wasteland of non-love and standing in the middle of it with the grave-digger grumbling "I told you that you weren't and you wouldn't and couldn't. And now there you are and they aren't and you suck. You are pitiful, ugly, stupid, and lame. You smell and you're boring. You'll never have fame. You'll be poor, you're unwanted, an old piece of trash. You're no good to look at, you feel like a rash. There's a grating, obnoxious sound in your voice. You'll die fully alone. And you don't have a choice." The funny thing is that all you really need to do to turn things around is push the grave digger into his own grave when he's not looking, put the top soil back on and plant some pretty flowers over it. Thich Nhat Hanh calls this process recognizing, refuting, and replacing bad self-talk. And the great part about it is that the grave digger is not a real person so there is absolutely nothing to worry about in administering to him an immediate, brutal, and fatal punishment. Use your imagination. It's ok! He deserves it. And since you're replacing him with love and light, you can recognize that just because you chopped up your internal grave-digger and put each little bit of him in a different barrel and sent them down ten different rivers in ten different countries, does not make you a raging sociopath. You're just passionate about making a permanent changes. Once you've said good riddens to the grave-digger planted the nice flowers over top of the grave (Daphnes? Azaleas? Yummy!) here's the best part: nobody is keeping closer tabs on your life than you. That means that this total internal 180 should not really bother anyone around you in the least, other than those that felt a morbid sense of comfort from living in a symbiotic environment of self-hatred. But you are not helping them or yourself by nurturing that relationship, so the consequences of your changes should not be met with panic. Whatever happens because you murdered the grave-digger is for the best. (A sentence I did not anticipate writing today.) And the cool thing is that once he's gone you can fertilize and feed the soil for a bit. It's probably going to need it. But before long you can invite a sexy landscaping gardener to come in and turn your whole entire heart into a lush paradise all while wearing something incredibly arousing, sipping from some sweet lemonade, and occasionally looking over at you to toss you a playful wink. (Sometimes hard changes are made easier by a vivid imagination.) You can throw up a hammock and take a cozy nap in it. You can build a beautiful warm cabin made of ponderosa pinewood with a stone fireplace hearth and a big cloud-nine bed covered in thick red cotton quilts. You're heart is a safe and sacred space now. It is quiet and serene with playful chirping towhees bouncing from branch to branch in the bushes in the morning. Fluttering around the feeders, taking patient turns to feed. And it is a magical vacation destination away from the harsh vibes that (unfortunately) are still going to emanate from other people and continue to shake things up in your outside world. Your paradise will probably need to start as a gated property. Especially since your previous internal landscape likely attracted you to a harsh neighborhood. But overtime you'll probably find yourself so happy and content in your paradise that you don't have much desire to leave. Unless, as you discover, it's to venture out into someone else's--after all maybe you have a romantic wooden mountain cabin in Oregon, and they have a seashell encrusted shimmery ten-story castle on the hot sandy beach. That could be a great change of pace. But then, over time, you will also find that the memory of the grave digger will become nothing but a distant hazy dream. And you won't be able to fathom how you started with so little and grew such a luscious wonderland with fruit so succulent and ripe. And with the grave digger so distantly dead and unthreatening, you'll find that maybe you don't need to keep the gates locked all the time, since you kind of feel like if something putrid creeps in, you and your sexy gardener could probably take the right steps to dispose of it. And some days you find that you feel so confident and good about your internal resources and your cup runneth over so much with the impulse to share that you say "Fuck it. Kegger." and you put on the fancy disco lights and you set up the fire pit and make pizza and invite everybody over to your gorgeous property to dance with the sexy landscaper in the flowers and grass all night. And you may wake up in the morning with a few broken lamps in the cabin, and a funny looking stain on the rug. And that's the danger of letting people in. But like most parties that don't end with police sirens, you find that the memories you made by opening your heart up far outweigh the cost of replacing a few damaged items. And besides, you know how to do that now and you didn't even own this house but a few months ago! So the chore of a little post-party clean up is really no chore at all for a grateful person like you. The biggest thing that can happen when you make this kind of a change is that maybe someday you invite somebody in and they are beautiful and fantastic and then they say "Hey my place is cool too!" and they show you their magical beachfront castle, which is grand and ornate and fun to hang out in. And most of all, just so different. One day, you show your companion how you can shake a branch on that one tree outside your cabin and all the petals from the blossoms will rain down on their head and cover them in good smells. One starry night, your companion asks you to close your eyes and listen to the crackling of the fire and the ocean waves simultaneously on the beach next to the castle and you notice how the salty sea air mixes with the smoke. You dig your toes into the sand with a roasted marshmallow melting in your mouth, those two sensations combined for the first time ever in your life, and you think, "Wow! This is nothing like what I had over at my place." In a year or a month or a week, you exchange keys and find yourselves perpetually hanging out in one paradise or the other, alternating. Eventually you both agree that the walk is really far and it would save you both the trouble and you build a magical bridge together with a cool teleportation portal in the middle and each of your fabulous properties on either side. The teleportation device looks like the queens mirror in Snow White, but the glass is aqueous. The bridge is wooden. On your side it is covered in moss and has ropes for rails and sways with each step over a splashing rocky river. When you step through the metallic portal you instantly come out on the other side, where the bridge is now a dock overgrown with coral and seaweed on the sides that takes you to the castle of your companion, who lives on the coast. This bridge is a WHOLE other experience more magical, mysterious, and intoxicating than even hanging out in your own paradise and throwing parties in it, or visiting another person's for a bit. You are directly connected. In different worlds, even with different looking sides of the bridge. But you each hold a key. But then one day you wake up, and your whole cabin and garden is covered in a roaring blaze of fire. The entirety of your heart-world pounds and aches and heats up and hurts. So you grab your sexy gardener's hand, who is calm and serene still planting in the garden amid the fire. You pull your gardener away from the flames and run to the bridge. You run up to the portal, but it's sealed over completely into solid metal. You can't walk through and on the other side the bridge just goes out into the dark wilderness. Screw it, you straight up sprint through the trees and travel all day to the castle on the beach. You run up to it and you bang on the door. You try to use your key but your companion has changed the lock and is nowhere to be found. You stop for a minute to try to understand what is happening but you are at a total loss. It's just simply that some things disappear without a trace when you least expect it. There is nowhere else within reasonable walking distance to run to in this heart-world of yours, so you have no choice but to go back to where the fire burns. Your gardener walks with you every step of the way. Your gardener is never tired, never angry, never sad. When you get back to your paradise, it is still softly aflame. So you safely hide on the bank of the river under the bridge, holding the gardener's hand, and wait for the fire to burn itself out. You fall asleep on the bank in your gardeners arms. In the morning, you approach your heart-world together and inspect the damage. You might speculate as to how it all happened. You might suspect that your castle companion had a total freak out and maliciously maniacally torched your paradise. Or you might wonder if maybe you foolishly left a candle burning in the night. And then again, in such a natural environment, forest fires are a fairly recurring thing. So it is possible that it got started on its own. I don't really know what happened. And neither do you. It was all really sudden. And these things happen sometimes. So let bygones be bygones and let's look at the situation. Here you are once again in an empty barren waste land. Everything else has been burnt to the ground. You kick your feet around in the dirt and a shred of white ropy hammock turns up between your toes. Fuck man. You look around, the gardener's consoling arm around your shoulder. Remembering suddenly makes you tremble with fear. This looks just like the barren wasteland you were standing in when the grave-digger's grumbling drove you over the edge with murderous rage. And even though it has been planted over for years now, you and the gardener stand staring and what you simply know to be the exact spot where he used to dig, and where he is buried. For a brief moment you can almost feel the grave-digger's presence. In a fleeting instant that defies the rules of space-time, he pulls himself out of the grave by his knuckles, it falls deeply open again, and he instantly zooms around behind you without using his feet and pushes you in, laughing and grumbling. That was just your imagination. It has been years since he has decomposed. And he has actually fed the flowers that bloomed on top of him because something about a dead grave-digger produces some extra juicy petals on a good heart-garden. You stare at the grave-site for hours. Maybe days. But good news. Nothing happens. He's dead. He has been dead for many years and zombies are not a thing, even in this magical fairy tale world. Yes the soil is barren and deserted once again. But your gardener did not run and has been standing here all while you were waiting for doom. Your gardener is still beside you holding your hand right now and looking as luscious as ever. And looking over at you with soulful compassionate eyes, your gardener says, "Well, we will just have to start over. Huh! Such a funny thing. Never thought it would all burn down. Life is something else. Come lay down. We'll get you a stand-alone hammock and a nice cool lemonade. This won't take long." Your gardener gives you that playful wink, hooks arms with you. And as you look down at your feet in the scorched earth of your heart-world, a little grape hyacinth shoots up and blossoms between your last two little toes.
This week was the last week at Portland Center for Spiritual Living focused on The Art of Uncertainty by Dennis Merritt Jones. Sharon focused on the idea of 'conscious choices.' She said even the word 'art' refers to a 'a skill we choose to develop, study, and pay attention to.' I have been butting heads a lot with this concept in my personal life, as now more than ever my poetry project is becoming something I have to keep choosing to do, rather than to let it fall by the wayside and become nothing. When I first conceived of the idea and got a vision in my head about what I wanted to do, it was very exciting and romantic. It was like "Yes! I wrote this cool poem and it has this goofy made up compound noun in it, and that makes my think of this pretty image... and I have some other poetry TOO so I'll just put it all together and BOOM! I'll have a book." It's quite comical to think that it could have felt that way at some point. But the emphasis I want to make is on how easy it was to get the idea in my head and then pursue it on an almost unconscious level. It just seemed like such an intuitive and straightforward thing that I would try to do this that I started and didn't look back for almost two months straight...
Now that I have the collection about halfway finished and moving along nicely, I have been really looking into and pursuing the actually bookmaking aspect of it. And that has been a lot more complicated than I initially took into consideration. I mean, for one thing, it took all this time just to look at all the many different publishing options I had and to make a decision about which routes to pursue. There is still the whole factor of money--a lot goes in before a purchasable book comes out--but I'm hoping that will just kind of work itself out, heh. And then once I decided I wanted to start with handmade books there were a million other little details to consider. And new obstacles and forks in the road keep bubbling up at any moment, unexpectedly. So now where I am currently at is trying to understand and accept that if this project is something I really want--and if it is going to be what I envision it to be--it is going to be somewhat all-consuming: time-wise, money-wise, resource-wise, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It is what I want to make and it is what I want to give. But that means really looking hard at my other ideas for myself and maybe letting some things wait and letting some things get smaller.
As Sharon puts it, "Sometimes we have to let go of the life we have planned so we can accept the life that is waiting for us." And this is definitely not the first time I have had to do that. And I'm positive it won't be the last. But it is a matter of changing your vision of your future to fall in line with what is really sticking out to you as 'the right thing' or 'where you need to be right now.' Sometimes we have a different vision that doesn't actually incorporate a whole lot of what we would consider the truth of ourselves or the truth of the world around us.
Sharon asks us "How invested are you in your own life?" She observed that sometimes we end up being the spectators to our lives more than just the actors. I think I spent a very long period of time in that mindset, where I preferred not to act, to make changes, or to confront emotions, but instead to just let things happen to me as they would. I have been done with that mindset for quite a while, but even now it is good to be reminded not to slip into it. Part of me, when I'm full of fear and doubts about what I'm doing, starts to feel a desire to slip into a passive way of being. But once you have really ACTED for yourself and done something with your life, if you are conscious of that, you would hopefully just feel heartbroken to slip into the background of it. It's your life. You are in the spotlight. And that spotlight is BIG and BRIGHT and all for you. Don't waste it. Also, if you've ever acted you know that if you just stand there doing nothing, you're only going to sweat under the hot lights and notice how exposed you are. And you'll probably wet your pants or run away. Is that something you really want? ;-)
Sharon says (or maybe the book says...) "It's choice not change that determines where you end up." This made me think of river rafting. I thought of life as this river rapid, full of strong currents that are never going to stop coming, But they are going to shift unpredictably and they are guaranteed to throw you around. But the choices you make in the raft determine whether you have a safe and exciting ride or get thrown off the edge of a waterfall (like in silly movies). At any rate, you can't really blame the water can you? For changing or for pushing too hard or for coming at you when you least expect it? It wouldn't do you any good. The best you can do is get the right tools and skills to know how to adapt and to control your own course. Sharon says to "make choices out loud." Own them and commit to them sometimes. You'd be surprised how much putting something out there really pushes you to make it happen and get it right...
But what if I make a mistake? What if I make a choice OUT LOUD to do something, and it doesn't turn out how I hoped and it turns out that maybe it shouldn't have happened. Or what if I've hardly made a damn conscious choice in my whole life? Do it now. If you have done it before, and it got royally fucked up, do it again! "No one's keeping track of you and your standing really. That was yesterday. It's gone. What are you gonna do now?" Did you make a lot of mistakes? So did Sufjan Stevens in Chicago. Get over it. He's hugely successful. Have you never made a choice? So be it. You're capable of starting. Just choose to start. There, you have one under your belt. Fantastic. Congratulations.
Keep going, make more conscious choices, every second. And build something. Create something. Give something a name. Have a kid. Fly a kite. Confront your boss and get a promotion. Buy a house. Be independent. Ask someone out. Kiss them! Invite more people to be around you more. Pay attention to them and ask them questions. Find out, so that their experience is a part of your experience. Learn things. READ READ READ! Study. Develop an art, even an unconventional one, even an art where you are the ONLY person who would label it that without poking fun. Be brave. Be loud. Be yourself, but make yourself BIG. Bigger than you ever thought you could be. Your kite won't fly, your boss says no, your crush tells you to get bent, who cares? Tomorrow is another day. And trying to get big, couldn't possibly make you smaller than you already are now. I promise it. Open up your life and let it get bigger. It's really cool. I asssure you.
Just please do it in a conscious way. This doesn't mean dancing into moving traffic or approaching dangerous strangers with track marks and inviting them to a party at your house because you're "Really BIG now." That is one way to get big, but it could put you in an early grave. And each new day is a chance to get even bigger. So why cut it short by being stupid? You don't have to. Just think things through and make intentional decisions about how you want your life to be bigger. And then do something about it and it will be.
Making conscious choices improves your life. When you recognize the uncertainty of everything, but you don't let it cripple you, instead you let it become a beautiful crazy dance you're doing, and that is when you really feel courageous and incredible. Courageous and incredible enough to dance at bus stops and really not care who is watching. Every single day, even. Seriously. As Sharon put it, "To me it's like everyday is Christmas and I'm the present." Open yourself up. See what's inside! Give yourself to someone. Don't be afraid. Tomorrow is another day, and you'll be all wrapped up again in the morning and they'll be something else totally new to take out. But a present that can't be opened... people kind of lose interest. Nobody really wants it. They can't get to the good stuff. You can't get to your OWN good stuff. Why would YOU want to be such a thing? Ignore everyone else for a second. Before you even think about the goodies inside you have for other people, think of giving yourself something special. And remember, "certainty and uncertainty are made up things. They are human created concepts, neither of which are really real." Life is not uncertain or certain. It just is. If there is no uncertainty, and no certainty either, what is there to fear? And you are neither special or unspecial. You just are. And when you can't be unspecial, but there's no pressure to be special either, what is there to hide?
My favorite part of the service this Sunday was at the very end and it was a direct quote from The Art of Uncertainty (which I haven't read by the way but I now feel like I have). I will finish with it because I couldn't say anything quite so poetic on the topic even if I tried.
"May you always approach the edge
of your uncertainty and lean over,
knowing you were meant to soar."
Well, you heard the man. Go ahead! Get along little birdy! Look down! Look over the edge. Whoo! Wtf? That shit is crazy. I know man... I know... it's cool though right? Good. Love you.
