Mellifluence

2011-10-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Announcing My New Blog!

About three months ago, I had an idea for a blog, one where others would write articles along with me and where we could build a community together of people who are searching, seeking, and learning on their life's journey. Truthfully, I'd gotten tired of my own words on the screen. I felt like my blog had become stagnant. I wanted more vibrancy, more connection, and more of a sense that there were other people out there, writing, commenting, responding. Writing can be lonely. I wanted to see if I could create a space where writing could connect me with others.

For a month or so, I felt creatively on fire, thinking about and designing the blog. I had to learn how to use Wordpress. I bought a domain name. I started reading about keywords and SEO and monetization. I wanted this thing to be real, serious, and alive, not like most blogs that sit in darkened corners of the internet, visited only by accident.

Then, the momentum died. I went away for vacation and came back and had a hard time getting that fire burning again. The absence of that momentum made me a little depressed, and made me question what I had long thought was my life's mission: to celebrate and communicate life in all of its mystery, even the hard stuff, even the dark stuff. For over a month I felt like the new blog was going to become yet another project that I've started and never finished. Another reason to get down on myself.

But I refused to let that happen. Even though, at the time, I didn't feel the passion anymore, I decided that I'd spend a couple of hours a week working on the blog. I decided I'd launch it no matter what. At the very least I will have fulfilled one of my creative goals.

Then, as I worked on it, I felt the momentum building again. I felt excited about it again. And in no time, it was ready to go! And so now I'm announcing it here, my new blog, Joy at the Heart of Things. The idea is that, though I've written all the posts so far, I would like YOU to write some. And to comment on posts. And to participate in the dialogue. And to give me ideas for issues you would like to see covered on the blog, or for other blogs, books, and resources that you think more people should know about.

As for Mellifluence, it will be fading away as I devote my energy to this new project. I may post my more personal writing here, but most likely I'll post most of my new writing to JATHT. Please come visit. You can like us on Facebook, and join our Twitter and RSS feeds. It's easy!

And if you like what you read there, please consider writing something, and forwarding the link to people you know who might like it, as well. I want to build a vibrant community of people, and I can only do that with your help. Thank you so much for your continued support of Mellifluence. I hope to see you over at Joy!

2011-10-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

What Does it Mean to be Mentally Healthy?

Today is World Mental Health Day. As part of the psychology community (of a sort) both as a consumer and a professional in the psychology field, I walk a line between my own personal experience of what some might call 'mental illness' (depression and anxiety) and helping people who might be called or who consider themselves 'mentally ill.' As you can see, I have some ambivalence about the term 'mental illness'. I think the term carries a huge amount of stigma, and that most people who seek help for their mental health issues are not so much ill as out of balance. Obviously, mental illness is real and many people suffer incredibly with severe mental illness. But the average person who takes antidepressants, for instance, or prescription anti-anxiety medications, are not 'mentally ill', they're simply having trouble finding a healthy mental balance.

For me, mental health lies on a continuum. There is no place where we will be perfectly mentally sane - as in, never having a low mood or acting in an unhealthy way, never having negative self-talk, never needing an escape from reality in the form of compulsive behavior - but there are degrees of imbalance, from occasionally feeling melancholy on grey days to full-blown delusional psychosis. Clearly, on the severe side of the spectrum, people need professional medical assistance. But most of us who struggle lie closer to the other side. We get sad and can't shake it, get anxious in certain situations, do to much of something (shopping, watching TV, gambling, drinking, eating) sometimes, or make unhealthy decisions rooted in psychological issues we've developed over the course of our lives.

In my personal mental healthy journey, I've found two things to be of utmost importance in living well with my brain's particular tendencies: Compassionate self-awareness and acceptance. I've learned that to cope well with the cards I've been dealt in terms of genetic disposition, inherent temperament, and the wounds that life has given me, I have to become gently aware of them in the first place. This doesn't mean seeing them as flaws or weaknesses, but as part of me the way my hair, eyes, and nose are part of me. We all know people who hate their hair, eyes, nose, or other body part, and even sometimes go to drastic (and expensive) lengths to fix those things. Generally, even when someone has a full plastic surgery makeover, they're still unhappy, because the unhappiness always went deeper than the particular thing they were obsessed about. For me, becoming compassionately self-aware of the underlying psychological needs that drive me (for better or for worse) means that I can explore those needs in a kind way rather than hunt them down in some kind of search-and-destroy mission that will make me feel broken and weak. I don't believe my psychological issues will ever 'go away'. All that I can do is get to know them and learn to cope better with them. Tools for this, for me, include meditation, mindfulness, getting more exercise and time in nature, getting enough sleep, eating well, learning to connect better with others, seeing a therapist regularly, and yes, occasionally taking prescription anti-anxiety medications.

Similarly, acceptance doesn't mean just lying down in a wailing heap and waiting for my brain to do me in, as I've sometimes felt it wants to; acceptance means understanding who I am and not fighting against that knowledge. I am a person - as we all are - with particular tendencies, both healthy and unhealthy. It would be a waste of time, not to mention spectacularly disrespectful of myself, to want to be different than I am at my core: a good, kind, caring, and light-filled being. When we can accept who we are, we can go about making changes that make us more of who we already are inside underneath all of the psychological defenses and other gunk that drive us to escape the pain around us. This also makes it easier to accept others for who they really are, and not for who we want them to be.

So on World Mental Health day, I encourage all of us to take some time to congratulate ourselves for having made it this far with the good things that we do have - the love of friends and family, our health (however it may be. As someone once said :"If you're still breathing, you're doing fine"), the lives we've been able to build, and our brains and bodies that have kept us alive. Even though I know being alive sometimes hurts, it's important to take the time to be grateful for what we do have, and to gently acknowledge the places where we could seek more balance. Also, on this day, let's look at those around us - those wonderful, loving, sometimes confusing and spectacularly irritating other beings - and send them some compassion and acceptance as well. Like us, they're doing their best, and like us, they could probably make some changes. Life is hard. But we can live it well, even with mental illness or whatever term you want to use, by cultivating a gentle compassion towards ourselves and others.

2011-09-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Sailing the Seas of the Heart

For the first time in a very long time,I felt happy. Content, calm, centered, creative, and engaged. Afterfinally getting free of a painfully drawn-out, crazy-making relationship that went on farlonger than it needed to, I was finally, possibly for the first timein my life, happy to be single. I felt good, looked good, and washaving the time of my life connecting with friends, writing,rediscovering yoga, developing creative projects, exploring my newlove of live music, meeting new people, and even becoming reenergizedat work.

Happiness, I had discovered, wasn’tabout who or what was in my life, but about my own inner light. Itwas about being so comfortable with myself -- including the dark stuff– that I could just accept all of who I was. What started out as anawful summer, with me being just this side of suicidal, ended upbeing quite possible my best summer ever, filled with love, light,learning, and, let’s see, what’s another ‘l’ word….Langour?Lust? Levity? They all work.

For the first time in years, possiblyever, I was firing on all cylinders. My engine clean, oiled, andfunctioning perfectly.

And then what do you think happenednext?

That’s right: something unexpected.Isn’t that always the way? The details aren’t important, but itwas a situation guaranteed to trigger all of my stuff again. The samesituation that always triggers me: my insecurity, my deep need forattention and belonging, my desire to be someone’s one and only, mytendency to ruminate, my desperate discomfort with uncertainty of theheart. And, as it unfolded, I realized that this sort of situationis, and will always be, my meditation. As everyone has certain thingsin life that cause that deep, soul-level discomfort and uncertainty,this one is mine. It’s my edge. But the wonderful thing is that,this time, I found myself being able to stay in Wise Mind – thatbalanced place where both emotions and detachment are operatingsimultaneously – almost all of the time. I could feel discomfort,and not react in an unhealthy way. I could see myself ruminating, andchoose to continue or stop, depending on how useful the thinking was.I could see what was happening, consider multiple explanations, andset them aside for another time when I have more information. Icould revel in the joy and pleasure, notice the moments ofdisconnection, and yet not grasp for an answer, any answer, thatwould make me more comfortable. And I've even stumbled a few times, but I haven't let those times take me completely down the dark rabbit hole that has been my pitfall in the past.

Being in Wise Mind in this way is astrange sensation, sort of like being in a sailboat and trying tokeep the keel even. It’s never a straight path, and the balance isnever total or consistent. But it’s as if all of my senses arealert, the way sailors are alert to the wind and the currentssimultaneously, in a complicated and beautiful dance with the sea.They say never to turn your back on the sea. I say I can never turnmy back on my heart. I’ve nearly drowned before, and Iwon’t go there again. But it’s nice to know that I’ve learned,at least somewhat, to sail those waters in which I used tofrantically flail and flop, waiting for someone or something to pullme to safety. Now I know that I’m the only who can pull me tosafety if I need it. But I don’t need it right now. I’m sailing.

2011-09-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome Home

My two friends and I were waiting in the hotel registration line at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, waiting to get our room key. It's a long drive, specially for my one friend who had driven his truck and camper up from southern California to pick me up on our way to Burning Man. We had decided to stay over one night in Reno, then get up before dawn and head out to the playa, after a last night of a good dinner, drinks, and a real shower. As we waited in the shiny, loud, blinky, mirrored casino-slash-hotel lobby, we would have looked out of place except for the Burners who surrounded us. I had on a midriff-revealing tank top and desert pants, and the multiple bracelets, necklaces, and medallions that signify my Burner persona, and one of my companions had a shock of bright pink hair. As we waited, a young-looking, scruffy man with a long, unkempt beard walked by and said "Welcome Home."

"Welcome Home" has become a catchphrase for Burners. When you drive into the gates of Black Rock City, the greeters insist on you getting out of the car so they can hug you, say "Welcome Home", and make sure you know to keep hydrated and not to put baby wipes in the porta-potties. In the first days of Burning Man, people often say "Welcome Home" as a greeting where people in the "default world" say "How are you?"I've often considered why this is. In the beginning I even bridled a little bit at the phrase. "I'm not home," I'd think to myself, "This is an alien place."

But at my fourth Burning Man, I finally got it, and finally felt it. This was home. Not the flat, dusty moonscape with the surreal art sprouting from it like Dali-esque flowers, but the community of creative, inspired, lunatic people who spend months, if not the entire preceding year, getting ready for what is, in essence, a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage to the place where we
can fully be ourselves, from the professional men who gather flamboyant outfits to wear in the dust, parading like wonderful peacocks, finally comfortable in their own skin, to the women in the short-shorts and tall dusty boots who can finally give up worrying about makeup and body hair, or who can go all out with makeup, body paint, and jewelry in a way that would label them freaks in the real world. Burning Man is a place to let go of all expectations, all plans, all judgment, a place to be inspired, to experiment, to stay up all night marveling at the show that spreads out before us on 5 square miles of alkali plain. It's a place to create art, to have deep conversations with strangers as the stars, lasers, and LED-lit mile-long strings of balloons wheel and dance above us in the black sky. A place to dance, to wonder, to travel deep into the psyche or to fly high above it, in whatever fashion you choose to do so. It's the only place like it in the world. And because Burning Man is about coming back to oneself, it's home.

I've always noticed the phenomenon of the trip to the playa. As I get ready to leave, I start the process of shedding my "default" persona - the one that allows me to hold a job and to walk down a street without anyone looking at me askance. The one who is polite and professional. The one who cleans the house and worries about the mortgage. The day I leave, I put on the bracelets and necklaces that represent my pilgrimage. The clothes I wear on the trip to the playa are not my Burning Man clothes, but they approach those outfits. I anticipate the heat of the desert, and dress accordingly. As I and my companion drive northeast, the closer we get to Reno, the more Burners we see. People honk and wave on the freeway as we play "Spot the Burner" with each passing car. In Reno, every large store and hotel parking lot has sprouted RV's, campers, vans, and cars piled high with PVC pipe, tarps, bicycles, hula hoops, and other odds and ends. People with braids, dreadlocks, feathers in their hair, facepaint, bindis, and long, colorful outfits wander the aisles of Costco and WalMart, staring and shocked in the fluorescent lights, as the regular denizens of Reno watch with amusement.

Then we travel deep into the desert, joining a long line of cars, and the deeper we go the more of our "default" persona we shed, as someone who sees the ocean for the first time runs towards it, shedding clothes as he goes, longing to dive deeply in. Waiting in line, sometimes for hours, the dust coats us as we play, dance, and talk to the people around us. By the time we've entered the city, we're anointed with dust, baptized in it. Nothing will be truly clean or organized again until we've had time to do our laundry and clean up in a 7-10 days. Then we're in it, and the days rush by, with no alarm bells, no jobs to go to, no bills we can pay. We're in a land of surreality that becomes our reality, so deeply felt that when we leave, it can sometimes takes a couple of weeks to mentally come back to the world everyone else sees. Afterwards, the phrase "Welcome Home" takes on a new poignancy. We miss that parched desert place where we can truly bloom. Things in the "default world" don't shine as brightly, and just simply aren't as interesting. And no, it's not the drugs, since I didn't even drink that much on the playa. It's the spirit of what we, all of us, create there, that we miss when we leave it. And why the Burner community is so close-knit even off-playa. It's not the desert that's home, it's the people.

Welcome Home, fellow Burners, let's meet again soon.

2011-08-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

Playa Bound. Again.

It’s that time of the year again, when 50,000 freaks from across the globe start collecting camping gear, costumes, art pieces, and fetish objects and packing them up into cars, busses, RV’s, campers, and a motley assortment of vehicles of impossible description, ready and eager to begin their trek into the high desert northeast of Reno, NV. Yes, it’s Burning Man season. The time of year when, for a little over a week, the San Francisco bay area seems devoid of its freakiest denizens. When certain areas of Facebook are eerily quiet. When people who might ordinarily have gone but couldn’t make it can’t get in touch with 90% of their friends because there’s, generally speaking, no cell phone or internet service out on the playa.

This will be my fourth year going to Burning Man, but not in a row. The first year, I got sick and had other bad experiences that made me decide never to go again. Then, a little over three years ago (about eight years after that first trip), I met a man, fell in love, and let him convince me to go again. It had changed his life, he said. The relationship was troubled almost from the start, and the Burning Man experience, though astonishing and inspiring that year, was also difficult and emotionally wrenching. One Burning Man truism is that if you go with a boyfriend or girlfriend, you’ll either get married or break up on the playa. It’s an intense place for even the best of relationships. Our second year, the relationship had frayed even further, and our playa experience was downright traumatic. I came back stunned with pain and regret and wondered if I’d ever go back. But in January, the day that tickets went on sale, there I was, at 10 am, with thousands of others, buying tickets for myself and friends.

Now, single again, I’m preparing to make the trek with an old friend who has never gone before. We have weekly phone calls and chat sessions deciding on the details, like who’s bringing the glowy bracelets (him) and who’s shopping for food (me). I’ve got my outfits all sorted out, realizing that I have too many by now to bring them all. How did I collect all of this stuff??

Along with the excitement comes the apprehension. Will it be a good year, finally? Will I finally be able to relax into the experience, without being caught up in conflict and bitterness, now that I’m attending as a free agent? What will happen when I run into my ex-, which I inevitably will, since he’ll be camping with my friends?

I’m pretty sure that this will be the best year ever, the year I’m finally able to be my true self without apology and anxiety. But I remember the years past, the surprising panic attacks that came out of nowhere, the crippling disappointment in a relationship I simply could not make work, the tears, the shouting, the confusion, the sadness, the loneliness, even in the crowd. I wonder sometimes: was it the relationships that made Burning Man difficult, or was it me? Is it possible that it just isn’t the place for me, yet another place where I will never fully belong? I want to belong there. I enjoy the community. The most creative, fun, strong, inspiring people I know are Burners.

Burning Man is a crucible, almost literally. The vast expanse of alkali plain ringed with dark craggy mountains cooks you down, separates your essential self from all the crap that you bring with you. Or at least it does if you let it. It forces you to rely on yourself and others, forces you to let go of the stuff that won’t help you survive, forces you out of your linear mind and into the world of the surreal. It’s like a huge party, a gigantic camping trip, a Dali painting, a spiritual retreat, and a pilgrimage all rolled into one. If you give yourself fully to the experience, you come back a different person. If you hold back, you wonder why everyone is so enthused about it.

I think the reason I keep going back is that I know I’ll face my True Self out there in the desert. It might not always be pleasant and wonderful, it might even sometimes be difficult and scary. But it will be interesting, at the very least, and cathartic at the most.

I’m looking forward to meeting the person who makes that return trip.

2011-08-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

What Blackberries Taught Me

As a homeowner, one of the things that I've always had a complex about is that I've never been the greatest or most ambitious gardener. I put California drought-tolerant natives in my front yard after a couple of years of pretending like I was going to have a nice lawn, and as many years coming home and wincing at the ugly, weedy, yellow thing that passed for a lawn. I had a lot of ambitions for my backyard, such as lush plants growing along the perimeter, and a vegetable patch up against the side of the garage, which got the most sun. Seven years after I bought the house, I have a few stubby plants growing around the fence, a tiny orange tree (or rather, shrub) that never really took, and the vegetable patch that I had going for a couple of years got totally swallowed up by crabgrass after one summer of not maintaining it. The compost bin I was trying to get started is literally lost within a huge overgrowth of bushes behind the garage. It will take a machete to get to it now.

My gardener friend would come over and shake his head, especially at the thick blackberry vines that were coming over from the neighbor's yard. "You'd better control those," he warned. I did, somewhat. I hacked them back when they got too overwhelming. But due the vagaries of my life, I had not had much of a chance to do yardwork in the last six months or so. And my friend was right: the blackberries had their eyes on my yard. They were subtle, sly. They came in inch by inch, as if hoping I wouldn't notice. And of course, for the most part, I didn't. Most of the vines stayed politely along the fence, making bushy shapes, although one crept in among my butterfly bush and one snaked in at ground level. I did run that one over with my lawnmower the other day when I was doing basically the only yard task that I ever do anymore, aside from watering.

Last night, out in my yard for the first time in awhle, I noticed something: all of the blackberry bushes had blackberries on them! Ripe ones. Huge ones. I tasted one. They're good, too! I got a bowl, picked for about five minutes and got about a cup and a half of really nice, ripe, gorgeous, juicy blackberries, which I'll serve for dessert when my dad comes over for dinner tonight. As I picked them, I laughed at the found booty.

The lesson? First of all, our perceived weaknesses might also be the doorway to positive experiences. I'm not a disciplined gardener, which I always considered a flaw. But if I had been, I would not now have a stand of gorgeous blackberries literally ripe for the picking, right outside my back door. Also, blackberry vines never give up. They just keep coming. If I were a good gardener, I'd probably hate them, and do things to keep them out. But blackberry vines are patient. They keep growing, regardless of what we do to them. We can dig them out, cut them up, run over them with our lawnmower, but they keep coming. Might we learn something from the wily blackberry vine about being steady, slow, and relentless in pursuit of our goals, whatever they may be?

2011-07-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

The Danger of Letting Others Define You

No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow
--Alice Walker

For the longest time, I thought I was a depressive. Never mind that, actually, I was probably having more fun -- and was less scared -- than almost anyone else I knew. But because I felt intense sadness at times, and thought a lot about deep things, and wrote about those things, including about the dark stuff as well as the light, I never felt like I was "happy" enough. People told me I was depressed. I even pigeonholed myself, to an extent, becoming someone who writes about depression. And yes, I have been depressed, even been on antidepressants twice. But does that make me a person with depression? Or does that make me someone who is sensitive, thinks deeply, seeks help when things get bad, and isn't afraid of talking about the darkness?

Recently, as I've begun to understand more about what happiness is, I realized that in some ways I'm probably one of the happiest people I know. If happiness is, as a friend and I were discussing today, the fact of living a life in keeping with one's values, of feeling like you're living the life that you're meant to live, than I'm doing really well. Even despite - or possibly because of - the fact that I listen deeply to what my soul and psyche are telling me, and I talk about it.

For a long time I've thought of myself as a dour, dark person who feels sad all the time, and I've even considered stopping writing the blog because I've felt like it's depressing. But I feel compelled to continue to share my deepest feelings and thoughts about life. Does that make me dour and depressing? It's when I realized that the posts with the most emotion in them are the ones that generate the most feedback that I realized that the people I'm writing to aren't the ones who think we should only reflect the "happy" parts of life, but the ones who appreciate the true complexity of life. The ones who define me as a depressive are not my audience. The ones who don't bother to define me at all, but appreciate the way I mirror life in my writing, that's not only my audience, but the people I want to have around me. As friends. As lovers. As colleagues. The people who can't see the complexity that I weave with my life and my art are just, put simply, not my people.

I think this is true of all of us. The people who insist on putting us in a box are not our people. The people who accept us -- or even if they have trouble accepting us, are at least interested in hearing about us -- in all of our depth and complexity, those are the people who will come along for the ride with us, who will be there to mirror our true experience and won't tell us what we're feeling or tell us we shouldn't be feeling it.

It's important that we take the time to define ourselves, and that we see clearly when others are trying to define us in their own terms or in relation to what they want us to be. In researching verbal abuse for my last post, I found one writer who considered "attempting to define you" as behavior that could be a part of verbal abuse.

We all try to categorize the people in our lives to a certain degree, but it's when we need to define someone, to put them into a category such as "crazy," "slut," "asshole," "flake," or even "housewife," "businessman," or "straight A student", and refuse to acknowledge or even see the times when they don't conform to that definition, that it becomes a problem.

Someone who used to insist that I was always depressed (whom I no longer consider a friend) used to use my blog as evidence of this, despite all the times that we spent enjoyable, happy, laughing times together, and even the times that I wrote about more neutral or even happy subjects. She needed to think of me as a depressed, desperate person for her own reasons that had nothing to do with me. But for a long time, I thought she was right. Now I know that that sad, depressed, desperate person that she saw, though still a part of me, is not the whole me. And now I will only give my time to people who don't need to put me in a box like that.

How about you? How do you define yourself? How do others define you? And what are the parts of you that don't fit into any definition?

2011-07-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

It's Not Okay, Part 2:
Speaking out about Verbal Abuse

I was lying in bed, wondering if it was finally time to tell my loved ones the truth about what happened in a significant intimate relationship. About the verbal abuse and the reason I stopped speaking to my ex: that he had hit me one evening during an insane tirade that had lasted hours. I was thinking about whether I should write about it publically, or if I did, if I would be motivated by revenge or self-righteousness rather than the purer motive of wanting to tell others out there that they're not alone in dealing with abusive partners. I was wondering if I was right in calling it abuse, or if, as my dad told me when I was 25 and confronted him about his abusive behavior, I was just being a victim, just feeling sorry for myself. I'd never told anyone about this behavior, would telling it for the first time on a blog be wrong, be sick? Or would it be more wrong, more sick, to keep silent?

I got up and turned on the computer, meaning to write down some of what was coursing through my mind. As I checked my e-mail, I literally gasped. A friend had written me letting me know something devastating about his relationship. This is a relationship I'd always admired from afar. They had seemed so happy, so perfectly matched. I had envied them. And now this. I was floored. After writing him to show my support, I wondered it if was a sign that I needed to speak out about my own story. I remembered how, over drinks with a friend once, she told about the ex-husband who used to get violently angry and hit her. I almost told my story then, but I was too ashamed. But knowing that she had experienced this and gotten out, moved on, made me feel a little better about my situation. It's silence that hurts, that keeps us from knowing the others around us who might help up, that keeps us from getting out. Why keep silent anymore?

I'm still ashamed. But recently I've become slowly more and more conscious that a big part of my healing is understanding that this behavior was wrong, that it was abusive. More and more, I'm awakening to what really happened, and how traumatizing it was for me. The emotional and psychological manipulation, the sexual withholding, the lies and half-truths, the triangulation with other women, meant to keep me off balance, the passive-aggressive control maneuvers, meant to slice my heart open. And the verbal abuse: the horrid name-calling, the strings of expletives thrown at me, sometimes in public. The e-mails and verbal rants about what a horrible person I am. And then the last straw, the blood on my lip after he hit me as I grappled with him to save the laptop he'd grabbed from me in a rage. Anger and conflict happen in couple relationships, and fighting is normal. But this? This was not normal, nor healthy.

I used to think it was my fault, which is what I was told repeatedly. But I'm starting to wake up from that, as if from a dream. No. It was not my fault. Yes, I did things I regret in that relationship, yes, I did things that were unhealthy. But nothing I did justified that treatment. Nothing justified the horrible torrent of words that shamed me, cowed, me left me cold, left me wanting to kill myself because I was so obviously a useless waste of breath. In a camping trailer, rocked by the wind, the horrible black river of words triggered by a stupid catty accusation I'd spit out while I was upset - his bizarre, unreal counter-accusations, said with such conviction that I almost believed them - pouring onto me for an hour, so that I literally curled up into a fetal position and wanted to die. He was right, I was absolutely useless and fucked up. I didn't deserve to live. He told me that once: that I was so fucked up I should just throw myself out the window of my third-story apartment.

And then, afterwards, the feeling I had, not of rage, not of anger, not making plans to leave him, but feelings of GRATITUDE that he still wanted me! Walking with him, meek and numbed, pretending to smile and be happy because I knew that's what he wanted, knew he wanted to pretend nothing had ever happened. The hope that if I acted like nothing had happened, then perhaps nothing had.

We don't talk about behavior like this in this culture, unless the abuse is horrific and the story ends up in in the pages of a newspaper. Unless someone is bleeding, in the hospital. There's no hotline for psychological or emotional violence. But it can be just as harmful as physical violence. And it's not okay, the mean teasing, the belittling, the cutting comments, the name-calling, the rage attacks behind closed doors. It's not okay, in any universe.

It's embarrassing, isn't it, to let others know what we've endured? That we stayed in a situation that was so bad? We feel ashamed. I know that's how I've felt for years, ever since I stopped talking about that relationship with my friends and family because I didn't want them to know how bad it had gotten.

I guess I'm writing this here because I want to finally not be ashamed anymore. I want others who experience this kind of treatment to know they're not alone and that it's not okay. I started this blog because I wanted to help others by exploring my own journey. My story, as all our stories, is universal. We all struggle to learn and grow through our lives, and I want to help people by showing my own explorations, struggles, and triumphs. And this episode in my life, one of the worst times of my life and also, sometimes, the best, how can I not write about it? This is part of my experience. A part I'm still healing from and coming to terms with.

Once, in a group therapy session where I was talking about my dad's physical abuse of me as a young child, the women in the group became enraged on my behalf. "Why aren't you mad??," they yelled at me, after I talked about what happened in a very matter-of-fact voice. "Why are you so reasonable about this? Why aren't you upset??" I said I didn't know. I just didn't feel mad anymore. I had forgiven him.

I am angry - furious - and sad, so sad. I still miss the good things. Still sometimes miss him. Why did I let this happen? I still blame myself, and he blamed me, too. My rage comes and goes, dancing with self-doubt. I don't know if it's right to go public with this, but I do know that it's not something to be ashamed of. I did nothing wrong, or the things that I did wrong did not justify the hateful treatment.

Today, I start telling people. Today it's no longer a dark secret hidden under a rug. I'm here to say: This type of behavior is not right, no matter who is doing it; it can never be justified. Nobody has the right to treat anyone that way. And no, it was absolutely not my fault. My only fault was staying when I should have walked away. But maybe that was also part of not wanting to admit what was happening.

How about you? do you have a dark secret you've been hiding, out of shame or embarrassment? What do you think it would take to start talking about it?

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Photo: This is part of an ad campaign sponsored by the Aware Helpline in Singapore, informing the public about verbal abuse and offering help and support for victims. http://tinyurl.com/ycqhobq

There is no hotline specifically for people being subjected to verbal or emotional abuse, but in the US, the Domestic Violence Hotline is (800) 799-SAFE (800-799-7233)

if you suspect you're in an abusive relationship of any sort, here's an informative website.

2011-07-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

No More Ms. Nice Girl Or:

It's not Okay to Treat People like Crap. Please Stop Doing It.

I've made quite the career out of being reasonable, measured, empathetic, and compassionate. I'm the one friends turn to when they're troubled, no matter what happened, because they know I won't judge them. I'm the one who's quick to take responsibility for my own actions and issues that contributed to a conflict. I'm the one who feels bad when I feel I've been short with or dismissive of someone else, even if that person didn't notice anything amiss. I'm the one who, when a friend is quick to judge someone, says something reasonable in a reasonable tone, about what might have been going on in that situation. More than one person has rolled their eyes at me when I've pointed out that they may be seeing things in a one-sided way. I'm the one who rarely uses shaming or judgmental words or calls people names, even when I'm upset at them. I'm the one who, on a recent first date, thought seriously about whether to see the guy again because he was so quick to say how much he hated whole classes of people. I can almost always see more than one side - if not several sides - to any situation. Yes, I'm one of THOSE people.

But you know what? There's one thing that's been making me angry lately, and I don't feel like being polite and understanding about it. This is it: It is NOT okay to treat other people like crap. It's not acceptable to make nasty comments in blog posts that you disagree with, simply because you're basically anonymous. It's not okay to string people along who are in love with you so they'll do stuff for you. It's not okay to cheat on your wife, no matter how unhappy you are. No. It's not okay, and there are no rationalizations that will make it okay.

It's not okay to denigrate people, to call them insulting names, to push them around, to manipulate their emotions, or to hit them. It's just not. It's not okay to stand people up on dates, it's not okay to lie, it's not okay to pretend you're something that you're not in order to get your way. It's not okay to blame everyone else for your problems. It's not okay to have come into adulthood without any understanding of or concern with how your actions affect other people. It's not okay to use people for your own ends. It's not okay to tease someone in a hurtful way because it makes you feel better about yourself. It's not okay to refuse to pay child support when your ex-wife is raising your kids. It's not okay to insult a woman because you're mad that she won't sleep with you. It's not okay to neglect your kids in any way. It's just simply not okay to be a jerk. Is that clear?

I'm so tired of people being mean, pushy, manipulative, insensitive, selfish, and cruel. Not everyone is like this by any means, but I'm tired of being so understanding and reasonable about the ones who are, tired of taking sole responsibility for my responses to behaviors that I find hurtful. Because you know what? They feel hurtful because they ARE hurtful. If you are an adult person who cannot act in a way that's even basically sensitive, considerate, self-aware, and compassionate, if you are an adult who doesn't care about the effect your actions have on others, then you are failing as a human being, and you need to do some serious work on yourself.

I understand why it happens: the cruel or insensitive parents, the media that trains men and women in the art of acting like walking cliches, the stress, the deep insecurities, the psychological issues. I get it. But here's something else: we are all human beings and we have very big brains. We have big brains because each and every one of us who is a normally-developed adult has the capacity to reflect on our own actions. If we choose to not reflect, than we are a jerk. Plain and simple. You can call it anything you want, you can give it a name that ends in "disorder." But the truth is that if you treat people like crap without taking any responsibility for it and reflecting on (and subsequently changing) your pattern of behavior, and apologizing with sincerity when you mess up, you're a jerk and that's the long and short of it.

I'm not going to appeal for politeness by calling on our innate shared humanness. Screw that. I'm going to call on our innate aversion to be called a jerk and say: if you are a jerk, please change. Stop acting like a selfish, cruel, insensitive (insert favorite name for male or female genitalia here). You can do it. I have faith in you. I'm tired of being polite and understanding about it. Just simply cut it out. Seek therapy, change jobs, move to another town, do whatever you have to do to become a decent human being. Because this world has enough jerks in it, and we certainly don't need any more. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

2011-07-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

We Let What Arises, Arise.

Every time I get to about the 45-minute point in my 1 1/2-hour yoga class, I start to get cranky. I want to go home. I'm tired. I want to eat something, or crash on my couch and watch whatever movie I have waiting for me. I can think of all these chores and tasks I want/need to do. My mind starts to wander. My yoga teacher always talks about "letting what arises arise." At this point in yoga, I could get up and walk out. Nobody's stopping me. Or I could slack off and just not do the harder poses. That's what the class is like. You do what you want to do and no more. I could let my mind wander and just not focus on what she's saying. But what's interesting is, if I relax and just let it happen, the discomfort at being in the middle of yoga class isn't quite as bothersome as it might have been if I had tightened up about it and let the cranky, tired story take over.

When I start to watch the clock in yoga class, I play with it. Sometimes I want to sneak a peak, during downward dog, at the clock, and sometimes I don't let myself. How does that feel? Then, sometimes, I do let myself. How does that feel? It's a good lesson in letting it all arise, no matter what, and in not judging it. Sometimes, I'm shocked at how slowly time moves. Then, when I get into a sequence, I peek at the clock and 15 minutes has gone by. Poof. And what's different each time? Not much, just what I'm choosing to focus on.

I stopped doing yoga for about six months, because each day that I had a class, I'd spend the entire day feeling bad about it, making excuses not to go, feeling tired and out of sorts. I finally decided that if it was that painful, there was no reason to do it. But since I've come back from New Orleans, my life has changed to the extent that I can, for some reason, let things just be. I can notice the discomfort at the prospect of doing weird poses in a hot room for 1 1/2 hours, and not feel strongly one way or the other. I can decide to go or not go, and not make up a story about it. Or I can come home and goof around on the internet and not feel guilty. I can go on dates and not feel nervous, and not feel upset if things don't seem to go well. I can get an e-mail from my ex- and feel vaguely amused but not caught up in the old drama. Or I can start to get caught up in the old drama and watch myself not get truly hooked by it. I can have plans for Saturday or not. I can not sleep well on a particular night and not be upset by that fact the next day. I can just let what arises, arise.

How odd.

When we let things just come up and be, they don't have power over us. In yoga class, when I wish the class was over, I can just experience the feeling of wanting the class to be over. I don't have to have a story about why the class is so long or how I'm too weak to do a 1 1/2 hour class, or how the woman next to me is better than I am and she doesn't seem to be tired. It's the same with everything else. Play with it. When you're hungry, can you just be hungry? When you're sad, can you just be sad? When you're confused, can you just be confused? How long can you let it just be? Then when you start to make up a story, can you just watch that process without jumping into it, wholeheartedly? "Oh, there's that story again." Can you let what arises, arise?

Here's a concept: What if everything is perfect the way it is? This can be an easy or impossible concept to grasp, depending on what your circumstances are. But no matter how difficult things are, is it possible to relax around it and, even if just for .3 seconds, let it be what it is? I don't want to be on this mat, hot and sweaty. Oh well. I don't want it to be this cold outside. Oh well. I don't want what happened in my last relationship to have happened. Oh well. Maybe you don't want to be unemployed, to hate your boss, to be in the situation in your relationship that you're in, to be sick, for your mother to have just passed away. But can you let what arises, arise? And if you can't, can you let that arise and be OK?

Yoga teaches us many things: to pay attention to how we hold our bodies, to breathe, to stay committed to something that's often hard, to be patient, to be self-compassionate, to not judge ourselves or others. One thing it teaches is that discomfort is not inherently negative. It just is. It can be borne. Also: usually, discomfort means that we're not allowing ourselves to relax into an experience, and sometimes that we're literally not breathing. When I practice not giving up at the 45-minute point in yoga class, I also practice not giving up, lashing out, tensing up, or getting swept up in story outside of yoga class. Emotional pain, like yoga class, will end. And, like yoga class, it makes us stronger and can make us more flexible if we can choose not to harden against it, not to stiffen, not to get up and walk out. And, as my yoga teacher says in the middle of difficult poses: "Remember to breathe! Breathing is good!"

2011-06-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

Shame on You!
How We Use Shame to Control Others

I just started reading Brene Brown's book I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power. Brene is a "shame researcher", and the book is about how people - particularly women - experience shame. Within two pages I started to remember shaming incidents that happened when I was a child. This post isn't mean to be about blaming daddy and mommy, but to point out how most of us use shame to some extent or other as an attempt to control other people.

One incident that is very mild but for some reason has always stuck with me was this one: I was about 12 or 13, and I was sitting at our kitchen table with my dad, eating a slice of apple pie that my mom had made. She makes really good apple pie, and before I knew it, I had inhaled it, wolfed it down, snarfed it. It was like there had never been any pie there. My dad, still eating his piece, said something shaming about how quickly I had eaten the pie. I can't remember what he said, exactly, but I remember feeling a hot wave of shame course through me, which I can still feel when I think back on it. Even now, when I'm eating with others, I time my consumption to the people around me, so as not to finish faster than they do. When I do clean my plate faster, I feel slightly ashamed again. And when I see other people eat quickly, or take the last piece of a shared plate of food, I sometimes feel arrogant towards them, like they should be ashamed of themselves. I don't usually say anything, but I still feel it. That incident with my dad taught me that people who eat too quickly are pigs and are shameful.

I only recount this scene to show how effective shame can be in teaching others the lessons we think they should learn. Shaming works. Unless the person we're trying to shame really could care less what we think of her, almost everyone will respond to shaming in some way, although it will almost never be in way that nourishes the relationship between the shamer and the shamee. Shame makes us feel terrible, like we're horrible people, broken, worthless, and disgusting. And when someone shames us, we lose respect for that person. Shaming, like sarcasm, is easy but damaging.

Brene defines shame as "the intense painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging."We are probably wired to feel shame because it keeps us in line with the rules of our society. When we break or flaunt the rules, we may be ostracized, which could mean death or at the very least, disconnection, which can feel worse than death. So the reason that shame works so well is because we're wired to connect to and to seek acceptance from others, and shame effectively withdraws that acceptance and connection. But, as the apple pie incident shows us, shame can embed itself in us deeply. Shaming words may never be forgotten, and shaming others, though it may be effective for behavior change, damages them and lowers us in their esteem. Who wants to be around someone who tries to make them feel ashamed?

I started to think about how shame has worked in my life, incidents where I felt shamed and where I attempted to shame. I can still remember trying to shame an old boyfriend into wearing slacks instead of jeans to a friend's wedding. I remember how another old boyfriend, during an e-mail exchange in which he was angry with me, ended one e-mail with an out-of-context PS that read "Oh, by the way, you should consider brushing your teeth more often. Your breath stinks." Though I knew he had meant it to shame me, and I checked with friends who said they hadn't noticed that I consistently had bad breath, I'm still hyper-conscious of my breath to this day and notice that I sometimes cover my mouth or turn my head away when speaking to others. The shaming worked.

There are many different ways we shame others: Sarcasm, name-calling, expressing disgust, and eye-rolling are all ways we communicate that someone else is not worthy of our respect. Shaming behaviors make us feel superior to that other person, as well as communicate to them that we wish they'd be or act differently, without us having to actually talk to them in an adult way and taking responsibility for our own feelings. The same way teasing is so often rooted in hostility, shame takes its energy from judgment and self-righteousness. Shame, in whatever form it takes, is a way to control the other person by using their deeply ingrained need for connection to threaten them with disconnection. It's genius. And nefarious.

The best weapon against shame is empathy. If we tune in to our empathy, our ability to understand how it might feel to be in someone else's shoes, we can understand how painful it is to hear shaming words. If we've resolved not to cause harm to others, we can use this empathy as a way to turn off the instinct to shame others, and as a reminder to choose kinder words when we need to communicate. We can practice the art of checking our words before speaking them, especially when we feel disgust, anger, or hurt. Are the words we are about to say necessary, helpful, and true? If not, then we can choose not to say them.

I'm sure all of us can remember at least one incident where we felt shamed, and where we've shamed others. As part of building a kinder, gentler world, can we all resolve to refrain from shaming others and to discuss their shaming behaviors with those who are important to us who use shame as an attempt to control us? Sure, we probably can't eliminate shaming behaviors, but we can become aware of them and of how damaging they can be.

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image: www.visualphotos.com

2011-06-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Coming Unstuck

Painting by Mark Zillman (see below)
We hear a lot about the pain of samsara, and we also hear about liberation. But we don't hear much about how painful it is to go from being completely stuck to becoming unstuck. The process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality, like changing our DNA.

--Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Sometimes I really envy people who don't seem to think too much about their experience, who they are, what they've done, where they're going, and why they're here. Even though I know an unexamined life means that people tend to make the same mistakes over and over, and that true growth means paying attention and thinking about these things, sometimes it just gets tiring. When I get tired of all the turmoil and change (one and the same thing?), I envy the people who don't seem to care too much, who slough off the past pains and disappointments and move on, seemingly without a backwards glance.

I know that in the above quote, Pema is talking about stuckness and unstuckness in relation to enlightenment, but for me, the quote really rings true when applied to 'normal' stuckness, too.

Right now, I'm in the midst of great change. After 3 years of struggling to make a situation work, I've finally realized (much later than many people in my life) that it will never work, and that I have to move on. I feel like I shouldn't be writing about this anymore, which probably means I should be. I started this blog to record my actual experiences, not the experiences that I'm 'supposed' to have, and self-censorship doesn't serve that purpose. The truth is that I still struggle everyday with a combination of relief that I'm not longer in the situation and intense longing to be back there. Anger and sadness dance in my head. Self-righteousness and self-doubt. Acceptance and a childlike refusal to accept the inevitable. This morning at 5:30, I woke up and missed my old life - my old lover - immensely. The strange thing is that I hadn't wanted to go to sleep the night before, because I think I knew this was going to come up. Things have been going fairly well for me, I haven't been missing things so much, and then it hit me hard again, at 5:30, the way the cravings for something we're addicted to will hit without warning and all we can do is cling on to something and take deep breaths until the craving leaves us.

The pain of coming unstuck from this situation is what I think of when I opened When Things Fall Apart the other day and read Pema's quote. Becoming unstuck, for me, means feeling the pain, the discomfort, the longing, the confusion, and the regret, and not doing anything about it. Not trying to solve the problem, not trying to fix anything. This is in stark contrast to what I've done up to this point, always trying to rationalize, discuss, fix everything. Hoping that something would finally work, would somehow make the situation something it could never be. Becoming unstuck means facing mistakes I've made, means wondering if it's all my fault, means gently reminding myself to come back to the moment when my mind wanders off, telling stories about who did what and whose fault it was.

Coming unstuck means finally, fully realizing my own patterns and reactions and how they contributed to things, means finally, fully committing to changing those patterns in the future, and it also means grieving those patterns, those old ways of being.

Coming unstuck means sitting in a sort of limbo-land, means not knowing anymore what I used to think I knew: exactly what I wanted out of a relationship, exactly what I wanted my life to be. It means being uncertain, not knowing if I'm doing the right thing, but trusting what my gut tells me. I means knowing that the mornings will be hard for me, and going to sleep anyway. It means waking up every day and accepting what arises, then doing the things I need to do despite the discomfort. It means appreciating the small joys and triumphs, knowing that they don't give the same pleasure as the addictive thing, but that their pleasure is healthier, for being more subtle. It means training myself to enjoy these subtle wonders in the same way I enjoyed the intense and dramatic joys of my old life, the way we train ourselves to eat carrot sticks instead of potato chips.

But it's true what Pema says: we don't often hear about this aspect of things. Grief is supposed to last for a certain amount of time. Then we're supposed to adjust, recover, buck up, move on, and don't look back. This limbo place of putting one foot in front of the other and of letting our emotions come up and out of us, all of them, no matter what, day after day, hour after hour, not knowing when things will shift or if they ever will, this is what it takes to become unstuck. This feeling the painful ambivalence and looking forward, doing things that will take us into our future, even when so much of us cries out for things to be the way they were. This hearing people tell us we should be over things by now, and knowing that it's not so simple, and, most importantly, being okay with where we are in the process. That's what it takes to get there.

I'm impatient, I want to get on with things. But things will not be gotten on with on anyone else's time but their own. In fact, the impatience probably makes the process take longer. Coming unstuck means being patient, even when every fiber in our being screams to be away from all this muddy smelly confusion, angst, and doubt, when our internal critic echoes what all the self-help books (and the ex-) say: it's taking too long! Get over it already!

Have you ever dropped jam on yourself and discovered it hours later, but by then it's gotten all over the place? That's how it is to come unstuck. The stuckness shows up in places I would never have guessed. How on earth did it get there? I wonder. But I patiently (well, sometimes patiently) clean that spot as best I can, remove the stickiness, and hope that each time I find a stuck place, it's one of the last.

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The painting above is my Mark Zillman (http://cbsartcollections.com/mark-zillman/fork-in-the-road)

2011-06-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

Why I Can't Help But Feel Compassion

This morning, for some reason, I was thinking about a community of people with whom I never seemed to fit in, and with whom I'm no longer involved. There were several people in this community who had taken a disliking to me for various reasons, and it was extraordinarily difficult for me to accept that. I can't stand it when people don't like me, especially when they don't bother to try and mend the wounds, or even communicate about why they have a problem with me. I hate not knowing why. Even now, and maybe especially now, that I'm no longer involved with them, I still find myself thinking back and wondering: what did I do wrong? I think about whether they're glad I'm gone, and about whether they still gossip about me in the kitchen the way they used to do when I was around, whether they roll their eyes when my name comes up. Thinking about this curdles my blood, makes me tense, makes me angry and sad.

At the same time, I'm conscious of my own judgments about certain people in this community. The lady who thinks I jammed a screw into her tire is obviously a total nutjob. The ones who gossiped about me and were talking about me in other groups are clearly disturbed. It was so obvious that she was jealous of my relationship with X.

This line of thought always brings me, eventually, to thinking about all the mistakes I made in that time of my life, all the stumbles. As I usually do when I find myself erupting in judgment of others, I came back to: Well, I've done that, too. I've made accusations, gossiped, been jealous.

So after awhile of this merry-go-round of dysfunction, I came back to one thought: Ugh. We're all messed up.

I wonder sometimes if people who aren't intimately familiar with their own difficult natures can actually feel true compassion for others. Compassion is the act of forgiving someone for not being perfect, but we can only feel compassion from a place of knowing that we, ourselves, are not perfect. We understand our own struggles with mood, with anger, with inattention, with procrastination, with jealousy, and we look at others who display their struggles, and we say "Oh, I know how that feels." That's compassion. If we believed that we had never made a mistake or acted in a less-than-perfect way, would we still be able to feel compassion?

I can't help but feel compassion because I'm so familiar with my own struggles that judging someone else for theirs, just seems unjust. Oh, I'll be judgmental just as much as the next person, but usually, eventually, I catch myself with the thought: "Oh, I've done that." When I can drop my own story about it, I can feel the heat of anger, jealousy, unkindness, hatred, loneliness, pain, despair, and my soul says "Yes. I've been there."

The challenge for me is to be compassionate towards myself. I can be compassionate towards the gossipers, the jealous ones, and the delusional ones, even if their treatment of me still hurts. It's forgiving myself for being the target of their gossip or misguided accusations that's hard. And the funny thing is that I get judgmental about others who don't exhibit compassion and forgiveness towards me ("Right, like you've never had a bad day or acted in a way you regret!" I'd like to say to them), but when I don't exhibit compassion towards myself, that's perfectly fine. It's that same old cliche: we're our own worst critics. Although I've never accused myself of jamming a screw through my tire.

2011-06-14T15:19:00.000-07:00

Hearts Made to Repair Themselves

When I saw the recent headline on BBC's website "Hearts made to repair themselves", I misunderstood the topic of the article and immediately clicked on it. It turned out to be an article about how a new drug can prompt the heart to repair itself after a heart attack. Even though it didn't say what I was hoping it would say, which is that hearts were already naturally designed to heal themselves, I still found myself thinking "Wow, if they could make a drug that did that for heartbreak, they'd make millions."

On thinking about it, though, I realized: hearts are designed to naturally, albeit perhaps slowly, heal themselves. Think about a heartbreak - whether romantic or otherwise - that happened to you in the past. Think about how painful it was in the beginning, and how it feels now, years later. Even if it's still somewhat tender, chances are that it's not nearly as painful as it once was, and that you've managed to move on in most ways in your life. You've found other partners or lovers, you've gotten a new job, you've developed a life in spite of a bad childhood, abusive parents, or other major traumas, you've been able to laugh again, enjoy yourself, and even to forget about the pain much of the time.

One thing we do know about heartbreak is that we can't feel it if we don't have a heart. And if we have a heart, it will be broken, often stunned, sometimes for years, with the pain of something that went wrong. But for most of us, slowly, determinedly, incrementally, the heart grows strong again, sometimes even against our will. There have been times after breakups when I started to feel a bit better, and actually didn't want to, because it meant that I was truly letting go of that old relationship. It almost seemed to indicate that that old relationship hadn't been important, if it could be gotten over. But the heart wants to feel whole again, and if we let it be, it will. We can inhibit this healing process by letting ourselves stew in grief, anger, self-pity, or stories about how wonderful things were back then, the way a wound will fester if we don't clean it out, remove the foreign bodies, and change the bandages regularly.

I just came back from New Orleans, where people are still traumatized from Katrina, still lose sleep, still experience panic and anxiety, incredible grief, anger, stress and heartbreak, are still facing the devastating effects of this national tragedy, such as the loss of loved ones, jobs, money, career, and family heirlooms, not to mention a trust in the systems they thought would never fail them. But even with this incredible amount of loss, there is still music to be played and enjoyed, wonderful food to be cooked and eaten, weddings to be celebrated, art to create, and futures to mold. The people have survived an ordeal, but they still laugh, even if the laughter is slower to come now.

As with any physical wound, if we care for our hearts - both physically and emotionally - they will heal and become strong again, ready to take risks again, ready to see the beauty and the joy around us again. I still think if drug manufacturers could make a drug that would do this for us, they'd make millions, but maybe something would be lost if we could immediately forget our pain, the way the characters in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind realized that they didn't want to give up their memories of their love even though things didn't work out. In order to feel the joy, we must open ourselves to the pain. But, luckily, hearts are meant to heal themselves, and they will, if we let them.

2011-06-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

http://tinyurl.com/433h2a7

True Romance

My ex- and I used to butt heads over the fact that I need a partner to be honest and open and to tell me what he wants from me, while he feels it should be implied and not explicit, because that’s more romantic. I have never been good at playing the mating game, which is probably why I’m still single, and why I gravitate towards online dating. I hate trying to guess what someone’s motives are and then having to decide how to send the message I want to send without actually just saying it. This is doubly true because I’m really not good at reading or sending these subtle cues.

Recently, this came up with a new male friend, who I believe is interested in me. He put his arm around me as we sat by the river, touched my back, and wanted me to take his hand as we walked. And all of this made me uncomfortable. Not only because I’m not romantically interested in this man, but because I knew he knew I knew what he was doing, but I didn’t know how to respond. I moved away slightly, but this felt rude to me. Yet I didn’t feel like I could just say “Hey, I notice you’re touching me affectionately, but I don’t feel like that about you.” This seemed like it would just cut him down unnecessarily, and in the past when I've been that honest, the other people have expressed hurt. At the same time, I didn't just want to hold his hand and to respond to his caresses to be nice because I've also done that, and had people think I was interested when I wasn't. So I was stuck: there didn't seem to be any proper response. In the end, I just did nothing, and he seemed to get the hint. But the whole exchange seemed strange to me. Why can't two adults be honest with one another?

I was thinking about my male friends in considering what to write about this issue, and realize that the men I feel the safest with are men to whom I feel I can speak my truth. When we can speak honestly and truthfully (which also means respectfully: one can speak difficult truths gently and with compassion), then there’s no guesswork, no anxiety about what’s really going on, no discomfort or tension about what might be unspoken. To me, the idea of being able to be totally honest with a lover is supremely romantic: that myself and a lover or potential lover can feel free to express our love, emotions, and sensuality with openness, and not be worried about saying the wrong thing: how can that be anything but romantic?

I can see where the game-playing – the subtle cues and the dance of touch and glance – can be supremely exciting, and I’ve enjoyed those moments, too. But I don’t feel that they have to be mutually exclusive with honesty and openness, we just have to choose our times. Recently, I experience an intense evening of flirting and sexual energy with a man I had just met. I've never felt anything like it. It was magical, yet there were ethical issues that I felt we had to deal with before we could consummate our feelings for one another. Unfortunately it seems like that cooled the flames, and now I doubt we will see one another again. But if I had ignored those issues, I would have felt awful after the sex, and this would have poisoned anything that might have blossomed between us, not to mention my self-respect and my relationship with another friend. To me, the perfect dance is one of passion and honesty, subtle cues and openness, a dark, hot glance and the respect of full disclosure. As in everything in life, the balance is hard to strike, but I know it can happen. I regain hope when I think about the men in my life who are willing to go there. They are few, but they’re the brave ones.

2011-06-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

Coming Home

Traveling is a study in movement. When we arrive at a place, we immediately get to work inhabiting it. We expand into it: we unpack, we take up residence. Whether it's a house, an apartment, a hotel room, or a campsite, we move out into it, we expand to the size of our space; with our things, with our presence. When we leave, we contract. Slowly, our things disappear from the space, and we're like a turtle going back into our shell. And when we look around and notice that it's as if we were never there, it's strangely comforting and disturbing all at the same time. We sit in that quiet empty space and wait until it's time to go. Our things are all packed and orderly. We may never come there again, may never look at those floors, those windows, those ugly prints on the wall, ever again. Others will come after us, will expand into the space and then contract, and then leave, and others after them. But we'll have no knowledge of that. We'll be somewhere else, in some other space, expanding to fit it.

I come home, and it's like I never left. The cats, who have had other company for a month, recognize me immediately and come to be stroked, as they didn't with their other caretakers. They demand that we return to our old routines.

The place I left was 95 degrees every day, and here it's 60 and cloudy. In New Orleans, I kept having to explain to people that California wasn't all sun and beaches, that northern California was actually cool and foggy in the summer, and that it had been raining here for weeks. "Oh," they would inevitably say. It's so much quieter here: no garbage and delivery trucks going by at all hours, no partiers and workers walking through the narrow streets, their voices echoing off the buildings. No sounds of ship horns, no calliope (thank god!) I wonder if I'll remember how to drive my car, or how to get to work, but of course these things are all so ingrained in me that they can never be forgotten. Body memory will take over. I missed driving, and I look forward to once again getting behind the wheel.

The one thing I don't look forward to is explaining my trip to people. "How was your trip?" They'll say. And I won't know how to answer. "It was great!" is what I'll probably say. And it was, of course. It was wondrous, fun, exciting, interesting. I got reenergized to write my novel at the same time that the book I went there to write has seemingly died on the vine. On the other hand, I didn't write as much as I wanted to and never really got into a writing groove. I ate wonderful food, (and got food poisoning on my last day), listened to fabulous music (and got sidetracked more than once and didn't make it to music I was intending to see), explored a town that I love (and realized how the people there are struggling emotionally), met interesting people (and remembered that people can sometimes be total shits), and, as always, rode the waves of emotion the way I always will (both the difficult and the wonderful). But how do you explain that?

I think I expect that people will want to see that I've changed in some obvious way, even a temporary way like being suntanned. I am, a bit, but when you're in 95-degree weather, you don't hang out in the sun. Will I seem more relaxed? Or more stressed after traveling home while suffering from food poisoning?

There is no succinct explanation available for a monthlong trip away from most things familiar, and I dread getting stuck in that cliche of saying "Oh, it was a wonderful trip!" when things are so much more complex than that.

Friends and family who visited me have written e-mails to me despairing of the culture shock they experienced when they returned here, sad to be gone from New Orleans, worrying about how I will adjust. But I don't feel sad to be back. Leaving our world is exciting and interesting, but hopefully, it makes us appreciate our world a little. Now, my stuff sits in piles, waiting to be unpacked. The suitcase is on the floor, spilling over, clothes waiting to be sorted into clean, dirty, gifts. Friends need to be called, work needs to be done. Was I ever even gone? But the question: "How was your trip?" proves that I was gone, reminds me to keep my head out of the routine for just a little bit longer. And for that I'm grateful.

2011-06-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

2 am Thunderstorm Thoughts

Thunder woke me at 2 am. I had seen the sheet lightning in the distance earlier as I sat in a balcony bar overlooking St. Ann and Dauphine Streets, occasional bright blue flashes to the east that could have been from someone’s flash camera but were not. When the storm came, I had been sleeping lightly, anyway, tossing and turning amid twisted sheets. The thunder had overcome the noise of the air conditioner by my bed, rolling over the city like a tidal wave of sound. I clambered out of bed and padded out into the living room to shut the windows against any possible deluge. Returning to the bedroom, I opened the curtains to the window by the bed. In California, we don’t have thunder and lighting, and they’re fascinating to me. Back in bed, I heard people in the streets, walking and biking by, trying to get home before the rain.

I’m used to being alone, and had been alone in this apartment for several days, but for some reason, 2 am aloneness is different. Suddenly, the loneliness felt palpable, and along with it came a sort of unrelenting, generalized fear. The sky flashed, but no rain came. It was like the tension between two lovers when you know there’s going to be a fight, but it hasn’t happened yet. To calm myself, I counted the number of people in town that I knew and could call on if I needed help, and came up with the impressive number of six, four whose numbers I had in my phone and two where I knew where they hung out. That made me feel better. Counting your blessings is always a helpful exercise. The normal panic thoughts tried to come: “why am I alone here?” for one, but I ignored them. I knew them for 2 am thunderstorm thoughts, and not for the truth they tried to convince me they were.

The next day, I had plans: to do yoga, to meet a friend for beignets, to visit the Katrina memorial, to write, and to go see some last music before I leave on Monday. Not the life of a lonely woman. I rolled over, away from the window, closed my eyes as purple flashes played across the ceiling, and fell asleep.

And the rain never came.

2011-05-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Re-BirthDay in New Orleans

It's my birthday today. Apparently, the tradition here is to pin a dollar to your shirt on your birthday, so others can know its your day and, if they are so inclined, can pin another dollar there, to, as my friend eloquently put it, "make sure you stay drunk."

In the midst of a monthlong retreat, of sorts, I woke up to birthday wishes - electronic, postal, and face-to-face. My mom and friend are here to help me celebrate. The air is balmy, the birds fill the air with sound, as do the garbage trucks, workers, tourists, boats, and the cathedral. I'm sunburned from a day on the bayou listening to great music yesterday. And today I truly hit that next great decade of my life: the 40's.

I admit I came here in the hopes that I'd experience a rebirth. A rebirth of hope, of ownership of my own life, of joy. I didn't have many expectations coming here, but I think I did expect to somehow channel a different part of my personality, the one that's always the life of the party, always knows the right thing to say and do, and is never bored, cranky, sad, or drinks or eats too much. I wanted to rediscover self-care, wanted to recommit to getting physically active, eating well, and taking care of my body and psyche. It's a funny place to do that, New Orleans, the center of debauchery. But for me it's never been about the parties, but about the deeper, darker, more complex nature of this town. OK, and somewhat the parties.

I have been meditating regularly, doing yoga almost every day (well, until my visitors came, but now I'm still planning to do it three times this week) have been talking to people, have been writing and thinking, pondering and simply being. But, of course the mantra of "wherever you go there you are" is true. My personality, I have discovered from this trip, is what it is. My lesson is to be grateful, compassionate, and loving of who I actually am, in all my complexity, and not wish to be different than I am.

I feel very lucky: to have family and friends who want to celebrate with me, to have people I barely know and have just met sending me birthday wishes (Thanks, Facebook!), to have a friend who sent me a real physical card to my New Orleans address, to have my physical health, my insight, and my childlike wonder. I even feel grateful, in a strange way, that my heart is still tangled and knotted so deeply into a situation back home that I recently came to the conclusion that I might as well just accept that I can never extricate myself, and to learn to live my life in spite of this. Being able to open my heart is a gift, even if the outcome is messy and frequently difficult.

Thank you to everyone who has (and will) make my birthday a special one. Be well, happy, and heartful.

2011-05-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Home is Where the Heart is

One of the reasons I wanted to live in New Orleans for several weeks rather than simply visit it for a week or so is that I don't think you can really know a place until you've experienced the actual rhythm of life there, including the things that might make you grumble. In New Orleans, in an apartment rather than a hotel room, on a residential street rather than in a tourist zone, I already feel at home.

Yesterday morning, the jackhammer at the construction site around the corner started up at 7:30 am as the workers tried to beat the coming heat. Sitting here today, writing in my apartment at noon, the sounds of construction just, blissfully, stopped for lunch. if I was in a hotel room, I might complain to someone, or changed rooms. But as a resident, even if just a transient one (is that an oxymoron?) it's just part of the scene. The hotel workers walk by at all hours of the day and night, their talk loud and often disgruntled, punctuated by loud laughter that bounces off the buildings. Someone was fighting on the street corner last night, late, as I sat, exhausted and weirdly achy after taking the commuter ferry across the river to Algiers and back under a bloated, full red moon. My companions on the ferry were young black men transfixed by their iPhones, and middle-aged people of various ethnicities coming home from working in the city.

Until today, the days have been cooler than I've expected here, but they're warming up again. The wind of the last three or four days has died down. It's expected to get sultry here, every day warmer than the next. If I was only here for a week, I'd have been sorely disappointed in the sweater weather, but with a few more weeks to go, I'm enjoying experiencing the changes in the weather, the way the clouds are different every day, the way the thunderstorm swept through on Friday and was cleared out by the afternoon, and the air became sparkly and crystalline.

These days, I think about what to cook for myself rather than where to go and eat. I clean my own dishes and bathroom, make my own bed, and if I want clean clothes, I go to a laundromat. I sometimes feel like connecting and sometimes don't, and I sometimes get bored, or sad, or tired, or too lethargic to go out. I walk familiar streets now, to cafes where I know I can get internet and good coffee. I waste too much time on Facebook and e-mail because I'm procrastinating on my job. Just like at home.

The day before yesterday, I felt depressed and tired the whole day, and spent it in my apartment, napping, canceling plans to meet up with people. I went to bed early and didn't sleep well. I listened to the street sounds and, as the sky lightened, to the sounds of the sparrows changing guard with the nighthawks. In the morning, I felt better - even happy - and spent the day connecting with the people around me. Life is like that, isn't it? Nothing if not changeable.

When we live somewhere, we have these times when there is no escape from real life, and when distractions don't seem to work, times when we feel productive and energetic and times when we feel lethargic and down. Our lives have schedules, but they're not as full of exciting, new things as they are when we're tourists. Here, I make plans to go far afield, to go to places the locals go. The museum, neighborhood eateries and bars, art galleries. I explore the place the way someone would who had just moved here. I look for places to feel comfortable, rather than distracted, places to visit again or places that teach me something. I make note of the trolley routes, the bus schedules. I recognize people on the streets, even if they don't yet recognize me. I consider helping the tourist couple looking at their map, but then realize that I don't actually live here, and might very well not be able to help them. After all, I'm still not entirely sure of the order of the streets here. I laugh at myself for becoming so quickly acclimated to this place. I think about never going back, but I know that that's an impossibility.

A new friend yesterday suggested that I split my time between here and my other home. That would, perhaps be the perfect solution, for how can we get bored with the routines of home if we have two homes? I asked him how I was supposed to do that, and he, a native of Alexandria, Egypt, who came here sight unseen ten years ago and worked his way up from dishwasher to owning his own store, just shrugged, smiled and took a drag of his hookah. I suppose that means there's always a way.

2011-05-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

New Orleans Aria

Sunshine, breeze, music, shouted voices from below, the clatter of horse-drawn wagons, church bells in the morning. This is my experience sitting in my third-story apartment on Burgundy Street in New Orleans, with the breeze wafting in through the sheer curtains, and the mockingbirds and sparrows creating the soundtrack to the day. In the mornings, meditation, yoga, coffee, toasted bagel and fruit, writing. In the afternoons, wandering through the narrow, pungent streets, perhaps doing errands, finding an internet café to check e-mail and research the city, or heading out to some site or another (today I think it will be the art museum at City Park, and then a food festival at Liuzza’s restaurant, then, later, free swing dance lessons, perhaps with a new friend).

In the early evening, as the shadows lengthen, a drink in a bar, perhaps some shopping, and then sitting by the great muddy river, higher now that the northern floodwaters are reaching the sea, people-watching or just meditating. Then dinner at home, watching the sunlight redden the rooftops of the Quarter, finally fading to darkness. Then it’s out to hear the night sounds: music, loud laughter, the clack-clack of the shoes of well-dressed ladies, similar to the clippity-clop of horse’s hooves pulling the tourist wagons. Then to sleep in my room under the eaves with its one small, dusty window looking out over an old loquat tree, lights from the street below dappling the ceiling.

It’s been an intense time, actually. As Jon Kabat-Zinn likes to say, “wherever you go, there you are.” An old relationship keeps rekindling and then dying out spectacularly, like a fire that refuses to be put out. I sit with my own mistakes and patterns, and see his, as well. I grow sad that we can’t get out of the cycle one way or another, or if we can, seemingly it will only be by cutting off all communication. I flirt (pardon the pun) with finding a distraction in the form of a young and life-filled man, but then back off at the last minute, afraid of the emotional repercussions. Sometimes it’s just easier to be alone.

I’m enjoying playing house here in this apartment under the eaves. It was filthy when I moved in. I polished the dark hardwood floors, washed all the sheets and towels, took down the awful New Orleans cheesy wall art, bought flowers, and moved things around to better suit my tastes. Now it seems classy and modern, clean and light-filled, with just enough funk to feel like home. I never want to leave it, even though it isn’t exactly well-stocked. There’s not a sharp knife in the place, and I had to go out and buy clothes hangers. But it’s coming together and it’s exactly the type of place I was hoping for. The right place to just be, to get out of old habits and patterns, to re-commit to self-care.

I’m not socializing as much as I’d hoped to, but the energy just isn’t there. I talk to and e-mail friends back home; I will call my new local friend today and arrange to go dancing. This is enough for me for right now. Slow rhythms of the day, no place I need to be, nobody I need to be with. Just me and a city that I love, music in the air and the warm breeze on my skin. Heaven.

2011-05-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

New Orleans or Bust

I’m writing this from an airplane. About 4 or 5 months ago, things in my life were so frustrating and intermittently painful that I felt like I had to get away. I had to get out of town. Not just for a weekend or a week, but with enough time to really absorb my new surroundings. With enough time to develop a new facet of myself, the new me that seemed to want desperately to get born, but that couldn’t, surrounded by the same conflicts, friendships, job, house, weather; the same entertainments, the same rituals, the same chores.

the Ninth Ward, courtesy of Brad Pitt

For awhile I’d been waking up bored. Bored with the same schedule, the same pattern. Bored with taking a shower, with feeding the cats, with getting dressed, bored with the same clothes and the same drive to work, and the same tasks once I got there. Don’t get me wrong, I feel extraordinarily lucky in my life. I have a wonderful job, supportive coworkers, a fabulous, supportive, fun family, amazing friends, a great house. Nothing in my life is wrong. But the wanderlust that I used to feel more when I was younger just kept popping up, and going somewhere for a week just didn’t seem like it would cut it. I wanted warm weather. I wanted new faces. I wanted time to settle, time to think. I wanted to get away from certain triggers that reminded me of a difficult time in my life, triggers that I saw every day.

And I finally had a book idea that spoke to me, that sung of my soul. I wanted to have space to work on that project. Finally, something to write that seemed like it could plumb that deep river that flows through me. Something I could sink my teeth into. For over ten years I’d midwived other peoples’ books. Now it was time to birth my own.

For years, my mom and I have talked about renting an apartment for a month or more in New Orleans, one of our favorite places on earth. The first time I visited New Orleans, with my mom, I fell in love with it immediately, as she had. There’s something about the balmy air, the tragic history, the celebratory atmosphere coupled with an absolute, no-bullshit understanding of the fragility of life, that speaks to me. The air breathes music. Spirits inhabit the dark corners. The toxic Mississippi meanders past, telling stories to anyone who will listen, as do many of the people. There are artists here, freaks who could find no other place to call home. The buildings are gorgeous – yet most of them are falling down. Even the most well-kept places have ferns growing out of the walls. It’s like in New Orleans, nature reminds us every day that we’re just specks on Mother Earth’s back. New Orleans reminds us not to get too cocky.

Ninth ward foundation, 2010

When I thought about where I might like to hang my hat, a place that might welcome me – the true me, not just the me I’d learned to show in my familiar haunts – I thought of New Orleans. Of course! A city that could absorb anything, a city where you could always find someone to talk to, even if you would be smart to keep your hand on your wallet during the entire conversation. I’d been visiting New Orleans once or twice a year for about ten years, had come to town to help rebuild after Katrina, in fact, I wrote a love letter to the city here and another one, after Katrina, here. But even though our relationship has changed over time, New Orleans has never grown boring. There’s still so much to learn, like a fascinating lover who never ceases to surprise.

So there it was: my escape plan. I would spend a month in New Orleans. I rented an apartment in the middle of the French Quarter, outside of the tourist path, if that’s even possible in the Quarter. I’ve been talking about and planning the trip for five months. Yesterday, I cleaned my place, watered the plants and the cats. Spoke to my house/catsitters, put everything in its place, tied up loose ends at the office, and when I left my house, taking one last look around to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, I experienced what I always do before a trip: at the last minute, I thought “Wait, why am I leaving, again? This is such a nice place and a nice life.” Maybe that’s one reason why we travel. To appreciate the places we leave.

Now that it’s really here, I hardly believe it. I’m sitting in a first-class plane seat – the first time I’ve ever done that. I got my first-ever manicure-pedicure yesterday. It’s a week of firsts. Perhaps these will be the firsts of many adventures to come in the next month. I’ll keep you posted. And if any of my readers know of great places (music, food, art, dancing, or just general freakiness) to visit that are off the beaten path, please let me know! I’ll be here until the first week of June.

2011-05-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

An Ode to Frida

"Toni Morrison said that "the function of freedom is to free someone else." This is the final step necessary for keeping your heart at liberty, and you do it in just one way: by telling your story. However you do it—a journal, an artistic creation, the pictures you hang on your walls, or the way you raise your children—telling your story demolishes the barriers between your heart and the outside world. I won't lie: This means that your heart will be exposed and, yes, broken. But it's important to remember that a heart is imprisoned not by being broken but by being silenced. There will be people (often the people you most want to please) who won't like what you say. It's going to hurt—and it's going to heal."

-- Martha Beck, in an article on Oprah.com

I read this article at about the same time that I was going through a crisis of faith about my writing. Was my writing, as some have said, too much about my depression, my worries, and my relationships? Am I just too self-obsessed, and is my writing just - if you'll pardon the term - intellectual and emotional masturbation? At the same time as I was worrying about this and reading Oprah (!), I was reading Frida , a biography of Frida Kahlo. It struck me as I pondered if the writing I've done up to this point - as obsessed as it is with love, heartache, pain, emotion, and psycho-spirituality - was just a huge waste of my time, that Frida Kahlo probably heard much the same criticisms about her paintings. Not that I compare myself to Frida Kahlo, necessarily, but it did strike me that my writing is always about my own personal inner experience, as are Frida's paintings, and, similarly to Frida's paintings, my writing doesn't shy away from expressing pain or heartache.

Nearly all of Frida's critically acclaimed paintings are of herself. They reflect her inner world, what she experienced, her pain, her triumph, her loves, and her dreams. Her paintings are often inscrutable. And her life is as fascinating, if not more so, than her paintings. Frida spent a lot of time and energy creating a persona to present to the world. The clothes and jewelry she wore and how she behaved in public were carefully cultivated. In life, she was complex, magnanimous, passionate, and generous, at least when she was feeling well. People loved her. But she was often in extreme emotional and physical pain, both due to her many illnesses and chronic physical damage from the accident that almost killed her as a teenager, as well as her tempestuous relationship with Diego Rivera, whom she adored and who, it can be argued, treated her terribly.

And she painted herself obsessively. This is how she told her story.

Clearly, this was a woman who lived mostly in her inner world, who spent a lifetime carefully exploring her psyche, pondering who she was and what her place was in the world. Love - not only the love of Diego but the love of her family, friends, lovers, and animal companions - was of the utmost importance to her. She desperately wanted children but was unable to carry a baby to term due to her physical infirmities. And this pain, anguish, and fixation on love and relationships can be seen in her paintings. So would we consider Frida to be overly obsessed with herself? Do Frida's paintings - and her life - teach us anything about ourselves or the world? Would the world have been better served if Frida had just shut up and "turned that frown upside down", perhaps divorcing Diego for once and for all (the man did have an affair with her sister, for God's Sakes!!) marrying a sweet, quiet bureaucrat and living placidly in the suburbs, whiling away her time washing her husband's socks?

I am certainly no Frida Kahlo, but when I read about her, her experience resonates with me. Her life and loves were epic, and mine are not, but whether she was feeling tortured by pain, love, confusion, or absence, caught between societal expectations and her own soul, or enraptured by the beauty of the natural world, she expressed it. In paintings, in letters, in conversations with those closest to her, she never pretended it wasn't happening. And now, she's not remembered because she had a bad accident, an amazing unibrow, was a devoted Communist, taught art class, or kept Diego's house; she's remembered because she was a brave, sensitive, passionate woman who dared to express the most intense pains and joys of her soul and to make them public.She's remembered because she told her story. Fearlessly, relentlessly, and without artifice.

Martha Beck says that our greatest gift to others is to tell our story, and that a heart is not imprisoned by being broken by being silenced. My heart has been broken time and time again, but I refuse to shut up about it. Because I am sensitive to the pains of love, I'm also sensitive to the joys of living. And if I don't paint enough flowers and sunny days with my writing, that's because I know wholeheartedly - the way my lungs know to breathe - that life is more complex than that. It's not because I don't see it.

Storytelling can happen in so many ways. It happens in the clothes we wear, the persona we present, how we decorate our houses, the gifts we give, and, more obviously, in how we talk about ourselves to ourselves and also to others. In this Facebook age, we're telling our stories more publically than ever before, and I, for one, love it. I'm addicted to Facebook because every time someone posts something, they're adding a new chapter to their story. Frida was criticized in some circles for how she told her story. Too dark, too much pain, too depressing, too personal. But to me, her story inspires me, telling as it does the tale of a woman beset by many pains who nevertheless managed to live a vibrant life full of love and magic. I want to learn from her story - as well as from the stories of everyone around me - how to live that kind of life. And, in my blog and in other ways, I want tell my story, hoping that it will resonate with and teach others. My message? Tell your story, and tell it loud!

2011-05-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead. Really?

I wasn't planning on writing about the death of Osama bin Laden. really, I wasn't. I'm not a political blogger, and I find that the easiest way to polarize people is to talk about politics, and to a lesser degree, religion. I'm aware of the brouhaha about the supposedly "fake" MLK quote which wasn't actually fake, merely misquoted clumsily. On the spectrum of responders to the news of his death, I'm one of the ones who posted the MLK quote and voiced my doubts about whether this one man was ever really why we're at war in the Middle East.

But this post is isn't about how I'm right and the people celebrating in Times Square were wrong. This post is about tolerance and compassion. I never liked the world 'tolerance'. To me it sounds like it's asking us to merely tolerate other peoples' differences, rather than to actively respect and engage with them. But I'm using it here in its meaning of "respecting others' experiences and opinions without denigrating theirs or defending your own."

I heard that bin Laden had been killed while perusing Facebook. I was immediately (as in, within seconds) fascinated by how people fell into three categories: the "Ra! Ra! USA" camp, the "MLK quote" group, and the quiet ones, who never posted about it at all. My immediate response was to post a status update implying that the wars were never about bin Laden. I got two comments, one that supported me and one that didn't.The person who posted the comment that didn't support my position later deleted it, though I did not respond to it in any way. Within a day, blog posts and articles on his death sprouted up all over the internet, as happens these days. What has struck me in the few days of reading about this incident is how inflamed people are about it, and how unpopular it is to write anything that brings up uncomfortable questions about his death, or that brings up complex questions about celebrating it. You can see what I mean here, if you read this article on the Huffington Post, about a mindful response to bin Laden's death, and then read the comments. The overwhelming tone of responders is condescending, insulting, and childish. They snipe at the author's square glasses, call him names, take his remarks out of context, and generally act offended that he wrote what he did. People who write comments that support him are also insulted, though they, out of all respondants seem to be trying to hold a middle ground (i.e. "I do not celebrate his death yet I grieve for the thousands of lives he destroyed...")

To me, what bin Laden's death has really shown us is that when humans' emotions are inflamed, they absolutely lose any semblance of common decency, respect, or compassion. Obviously, the internet's level of anonymity doesn't help in that regard. The real enemy here was never Osama bin Laden or Al-Quaeda. The real enemy is our animalistic, knee-jerk, illogical need to create enemies at all, and especially to create them out of others around us who are merely voicing opinions that we do not share. No matter what you feel about the death of this man and the others around him who were killed, I want to ask you one thing: Is it possible to allow others to process their feelings without attempting to prove their feelings wrong?

2011-04-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

Love is Not a Victory March

by Shuzo Ikeda

http://www.annexgalleries.com

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Driving home Easter Sunday from visiting a friend in Napa, Rufus Wainright's cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah" came on the radio (Yes, I know this was from 'Shrek', which just shows you how out of touch I am with pop culture.) I burst into tears. For some reason the song brought home the horrible, beautiful poignancy of love. I and a man whom I once loved a great deal had recently exchanged some heated e-mails in which I had communicated about being hurt due to a lie, and he had responded that he had lied because I was so unpleasant to talk to that he had wanted to get off of the phone. Rather than be devastated, as I had been with similar e-mails in the recent past, I felt my heart shut down on the last vestiges of our love. I let go a tiny bit more.

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

When 'Hallelujah' came on, it seemed to communicate the deep joy and pain of love, a well as the profound ambivalence. My sadness wasn't for myself, but for all of us who have loved one another and then found ourselves on the other side of love - trading angry, hurt words laced with bitterness and disappointment. I wondered how this man and I had gotten here. We had once loved each other so much that we told each other we'd do anything for each other. And now we were spatting like an angry old married couple, and we weren't even in a relationship anymore. It made me - makes me - so sad. The song seemed to imply that this is also love: this disappointment and pain. That the joy can't exist without this other side. And I was so sad that this has to be true. I cried for all the souls who have fallen or will fall in and out of love.

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Later, at my sister's house, I found myself telling my six-year-old niece not to ever fall in love. It came out of my mouth before I could stop it. I never want to teach her to be afraid of love, just as I don't want to be afraid of it. But sometimes the deep pain is too much and I wonder if all people feel this, or if I feel it more deeply than they do. If it hurts so much why on earth would anyone allow themselves to fall in love? I just have to rely on my memory of the wonderful, awesomeness of love, the other side from where I am now. And to have faith that it will happen again, and that next time, I can be better at opening myself to all of love, letting love come sit on my shoulder without needing to cage it.

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

2011-04-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

Butterfly on a Pin

Predictably, a few weeks after I wrote my earlier post about being happy, I sank into a deep 2-week depression that was worse than normal. It broke, the way a fever does, a little over as week ago, and since then I've found myself at a loss for words. Part of me feels like I'm a fraud for writing this blog about how we need to accept what is and open to our emotions, even when they hurt, about happiness and dancing, when, in fact, I often feel no hope that I'll ever be able to reach any emotional stability in my life. At times like these, I can't imagine that anything I say would help anybody.

I was just re-reading an interview in the spring 2011 edition of Tricycle magazine with John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher, existential therapist, and author of several books, including Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships . He discussed the concept of "spiritual bypassing" - the phenomenon of spiritual practitioners using their spiritual practice, not as a way of becoming friends with themselves and of opening to all experience, but as a way to wall themselves off from unpleasant emotion, repress painful truths about themselves, or to beat themselves or others up about not being "good" (nonattached, generous, spiritual) enough.

At one point he says "We are not just humans learning to be buddhas, but also buddhas waking up in human form, learning to become fully human." and goes on to say " It can be quite threatening when those of us on a spiritual path have to face our woundedness, or emotional dependency, or our primal need for love." I take this to mean that, by avoiding our emotional experiences, we actually hold ourselves back from growing as spiritual beings. By avoiding our real human needs, we're ignoring the truth about what it is to be human. By trying to be more than human, we deny our right to be merely human.

My depression is invariably rooted in attachment issues. When I feel depressed, I feel a crushing loneliness, a desperate fear that I will never be loved the way I need, a primal need to connect with and bond with others, combined with a deep-seated disappointment in the fragility and fleetingness of the bonds that I do make, as well as a need to back away from those that I feel are too needy or desperate themselves, where I fear I will get lost in the swamp of their deep need. When I sink into depression, it's usually because I feel rejected or unseen, a sense of not being okay, of not being enough. At these times, the child in me cries out: "Why don't you love me??"

I get depressed when someone I care for treats me dismissively, lies to me, or withdraws from me, because to me, it feels like they're taking their love away, and I can't figure out why. Almost invariably, when this happens, even if it's only my perception of what's happened, I fall into darkness and have to let it run its course, like a bad cold or flu, before I can recover.

Welwood talks a lot in the interview about how striving for nonattachment can be a form of attachment, by denying and repressing our very real human need for connection, and how humans must heed the needs of our souls but also of our psyches. That in order to grow past attachment needs, we need to have healthy attachments first. In this, he compares many spiritual practitioners' attempts to force themselves to be nonattached to "an unripe fruit trying to detach itself from a branch instead of receiving what it needs - which will allow it to naturally ripen and let go."

I love this metaphor of an unripe fruit. For years I've beaten myself up about needing my partners to love me in ways that they clearly could not. Words my exes have thrown at me about how needy, desperate, flawed, voracious, and unsatisfied I am still buzz in my ears. I've always believed them, even, at times, wondered if I'm simply too crazy to ever have a healthy relationship, because something deep inside is so broken that I will never be able to form a deep and true partnership. I still sometimes wonder this, but I can also see that my need for healthy and loving attachment to a partner doesn't mean I'm flawed or unenlightened. What it means, simply, is that I have not received what I need to grow past attachment, to let go of the branch.

karenkearney.com

It comforts me to know that my need and desire for healthy love- and my striving, however misguided, to make unhealthy attachments healthy - doesn't mean that I've failed as a spiritual person or that I'm all those things that ex-lovers have called me. Yes, I need to learn to meet some of my own needs in a better, more consistently loving way, but I also don't have to feel embarrassed because I believe that some of these needs will best be met in a relationship with another. It also comforts me to remember that all of experience is our teacher, which means staying present in the moments of pain, confusion, judgment, anger, avoidance, sadness, or loneliness.

That last part is always the kicker, right? For me, this means even being present in the moments of disappointment at myself for not being present, for not being okay with what's happening. I'm angry and hurt today because I was lied to. Is it okay to be angry and hurt? Is it okay to also doubt myself, to wonder if I'm overreacting, and to believe a friend's insistence that I'M in the wrong? Yes. This is what we don't want to face, this messiness and doubt. This is what some of us try to escape with spiritual practices. But I can't escape it. I'm like a butterfly on a pin, stuck here, and doing my best to accept it all - the stuckness and the fact that the pin doesn't actually exist.

2011-03-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

I Just Gotta Dance!

Or: How I Faced one of My Strongest Fears

Actually, that top title is a lie. I've been terrified or intimidated by dancing all my life. The first time I ever danced on a dance floor in public was at a company Christmas party I attended with a boyfriend when I was nearly 30 years old. I'd always been terrified that people would make fun my my dancing, so I would only dance alone, in private, and even then I'd be self-conscious. At the party, I had had some champagne, and lost my inhibitions. I really enjoyed dancing, and now I'll dance at parties no problem. But I've always wanted to formally learn to dance, to take classes, and I've been intimidated, afraid to be that physical in front of other people. Afraid to be judged, or to be clumsy, or to not be able to do it right.

Several weeks ago, at a party of people I know from the Burning Man camp I'd camped at for the last two years, one of the women asked me if I'd perform a dance with the other ladies of the camp, at an upcoming Burlesque-themed fundraiser party. I said yes, of course. I felt so honored. These women were people I'd been admiring for years. They were sexy, hot, confident, talented, kind, and, smart. I'd never felt like I was part of their inner circle, even after knowing them for three years. When I was asked to participate in the dance, I felt like I had been accepted. Yes!

But wait, I was terrified of performing in public! How on earth would I do this? What was I thinking?

I couldn't attend the first practice, so one of the participants sent around a video of the routine. I sat down at my computer, nervously clicked 'play' on Quicktime, and watched the dance. As soon as it ended, I got up and walked out of the room, telling myself "Oh, HELL no, I could never do that! I'm no dancer! They're all dancers!" I knew right then and there it wasn't going to happen, and I felt terrible, let down and disappointed. But clearly, I wouldn't be able to do it. So, for the next day, I thought of excuses I could use about why I couldn't participate. I couldn't make any of the practices, I was sick, I hurt my leg. I even considered just saying that I was no dancer and I didn't think I could do it, and I didn't want to hold everyone else back. But I SO wanted to be part of the crew! It had been something I'd been longing for for years.

I suppose it's worth mentioning here that several days before she asked me to participate in the dance, I had actually had a daytime vision of myself dancing at the event, on a stage, in my corset.

Then, I went out with a friend and had a couple of glasses of wine. On the drive back, for some reason, maybe the wine, I realized: I probably could do it. For some reason, the fear went away. Even if it was the wine, when I woke up the next day,I still felt that way. Yes, I could do it. And that feeling never left me. Another practice was scheduled for two days later. I told the organizer that I'd go through it at home the evening before practice, and if I got it down, I'd go to practice.

That evening, it was just me and my cats. I got on my exercise pants, got a chair, positioned the computer so I could see the screen from the chair, and played the video. I poured myself a glass of wine. I had to play the video a few times - and have a few sips of wine - before I got over being too self-conscious to even practice alone in my house. Finally, I took a deep breath and I started to dance, one piece of the routine at a time.

Before I knew it, I was doing the whole routine from memory, keeping up with the video. I did it over and over again. It was fun! I was enjoying myself! When I stopped, I felt high. Not from the wine, but from triumph. I knew that even if I never made it to the actual performance, I had broken through a wall in myself. My skin was shiny with sweat. I felt loose and warm. I felt great.

I went to practice with two women who were experienced performers. I was far from perfect, and I still don't understand the whole counting thing, but I could follow it, basically. I got a few pointers from them, and then practiced several evenings at my house. Finally, a few days before the event, we had one last practice with almost everyone present. Again, I could follow with a few stumbles here and there. The routine had been expanded, and I now had another assignment (hat girl!) and there were more bits to learn. This was the only time I had a jolt of fear, but I sat with it and didn't let it derail me. The night before the event, I practiced the whole thing through 5 or 6 (or 7 or 8) times and got it down each time. I understood the routine.

Through it all, I kept waiting for my old terror to come back. But it never did. Even the night of the event, even as we went out on to the dance floor in the middle of a crowd of hooting and hollering people, I didn't feel it. That beast had been vanquished, at least for that night.

Then, we danced, and then it was over. The whole routine was only about 3 minutes long. It was even a bit anticlimactic; I was so intent on doing the dance (and on not falling down on my heels on the slippy floor) that it was over before I knew it. I didn't even notice peoples' reactions. Later, watching the video taken that night, which was too dark to make anyone out, I heard the crowd clapping and hollering. The cameraman said "This is great!":-)

When I told people what I had done, only one person really understood how big a leap it was for me to be dancing with that crowd: the man with whom I had camped on the playa, the one who had introduced me to these people in the first place, and who had seen me in the paroxysms of anxiety that had overtaken me at their dance parties, had heard me wonder aloud if these people would ever want to get to know me. He was so supportive, and so proud, and I want to thank him for that support. For everyone else, it was "cute." For me, it was like a new person emerged out of the one who had been terrified to show that side of myself for so long. I feel renewed now. I want to take dance classes, maybe even poi spinning! Who knows where I'll go with it, but it feels great to have gotten over yet another roadblock to total self-expression.

Thanks S, for your support, and thanks E, for inviting me to participate, and for your wonderful choreography. And thanks to the Decadent ladies for being such wonderful dance companions, and to the rest of the camp for being such an appreciative audience.

2011-03-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

What Happiness Looks Like

Or: Is Happiness a 60's Muscle Car?

Recently, something really strange occurred to me. It could be, could it be....that I'm happy?

Not happy like brimming with blissfulness all the time, not happy because I finally got something I've wanted for a long time, not happy because I'm rich or freakishly beautiful, or wildly successful (which I'm not). My life is pretty much the same as it was before. I still have days where I'm cranky, sad, or tired. I still get irritated when my cats careen around the house at 4 am. I'm still single and don't want to be. I still say things I shouldn't, still don't exercise like I should, still feel fear and anger and still have some bad days. Still wake up lonely most mornings.

But there's a lack of compulsiveness or obsession that's different than it used to be. It's not mania, and it's not lethargy. Things don't stick as much. It's like my mind is teflon and my emotions just sort of roll off. I still experience emotions: still feel a jolt of joy at receiving a compliment, still feel tongue-tied in a room of people I perceive as more creative/attractive/lucky than me, still feel upset when someone is upset at me. I'm not completely detached or disassociated. I get upset at pictures from Japan. I still swear at the keyboard sometimes when I type so fast that I make an error. I even still have days when I ruminate. But I see it all clearly, even when I'm in the midst of it. The emotions don't go down to that wounded place inside. They don't pour salt there anymore.

Walking back to the office after lunch, I was musing about first dates, and how they no longer make me nervous. They don't make me nervous because I no longer have any inclination to pretend I'm different than I am. I am me. As much as I would love everyone to like me, I know to some people, I just won't be their cup of tea. And vice versa.

Maybe happiness is really just about not putting pressure on ourselves to be different or to be having a different experience. I know I probably jinxed myself by writing about this and that maybe tomorrow I'll wake up in the clutch of another depression, but right now, the thought doesn't bother me. Because then is not now.

Maybe happiness is just a willingness to let the stuff all go, the gladness and the sadness. To experience it fully, then watch it go on down the road, like the kind of beautifully kept 60's-era muscle cars that always catch my eye. "Wow, nice car!" Then it's back to the present.

2011-03-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

How Can I Help?

As I was looking at photos of the tragedy in Japan, my mind just reeled. I kept thinking "How in the world will anyone be able to make a difference there, with such overwhelming destruction?" Of course I donated money, but it feels like such a tiny drop in the bucket, doesn't it? It doesn't seem enough. Before this happened, I was thinking about writing a blog post about how difficult it can be to want to help our loved ones but to not be able to fix their problems. What's happened in Japan just mirrors - on a grander scale - the frustrating reality that we can only do so much, no matter how much we want to jump in and save the day.

Last week, in one day, no fewer than four people I know and care deeply for let me know they were struggling. I was beside myself the whole morning wanting to save them. I came up with half-baked plans to raise money for a friend who's sick with no health insurance, stopped myself from sending unsolicited advice to a friend who's trying to decide the best way to support his teenage daughter, and talked on the phone with two people who were struggling with depression, anxiety, and interpersonal conflict. I almost felt frantic that morning, with wanting to help, and not knowing how. If I could, I'd send my one friend enough money to pay for health insurance and a good doctor, I'd get my other friend a wonderful job, I'd somehow impart to the others the wisdom to know exactly what to do to in their situations to make everything work out perfectly. But of course, I can't do that.

Another factor is that, for the first time in awhile, I feel pretty good and strong. Maybe even happy, even though things are, as always, imperfect. Shouldn't I then be able to use my superpowers to bring everyone else in my orbit happiness, as well?

I think one of the hardest things we can experience is to know our loved ones are suffering and to not be able to take their suffering away. We can rationalize that to ease their suffering might dilute the strength of the lessons they're meant to learn, but when we care for someone who's hurting, we don't care about that other stuff. We just want them to feel better, and to be able to fully embody their true, beautiful nature without all of this struggle and pain.

I sat in meditation and wanted to do tonglen for someone who was suffering. When I thought of who to focus on, I couldn't decide. So I gave up and did it for everyone, and for the entire planet.

I've come to realize that the only thing we can do in these situations is to witness our loved ones' struggles. We can listen to them with patience and compassion, even if we've heard the same story a thousand times. We can challenge them, if it seems appropriate. But we can't save them. We can only be there for them with the resources we have, even our only resources are our open hearts and our words. But this still doesn't seem like enough to me, and neither does sending them love and healing in meditation. When the chips are down, what's all this woo-woo stuff got to do with anything? On the other hand, what are the alternatives? I can't send all my money, I can't get my friend a job, and I certainly have no idea how to motivate a teenager.

So, I sit with the energy of wanting to help, try to be there in the ways that I can, and do something I'm pretty good at: witnessing peoples' experience with respect and open-mindedness. It's my gift and it's all I have, really.

To L I send healing. To S I send patience. To D I send compassion - I know how it feels, believe me. To M I send strength. To my mom I send openness. To J I send the energy of moving forward with joy. And to the people of Japan, I send all of these things and more. You are all in my heart. It doesn't seem like enough, but it will have to be.

2011-03-02T20:23:00.000-08:00

But I Want Everyone to Like Me!

My name must taste good;
it's always in someone's mouth
-unknown

I'm pretty oblivious to gossip. Everyone else in my office knew months before I did that two coworkers had left their respective partners to be with each other. When I found out, I was shocked. My coworkers laughed at the fact that I had no idea. In junior high and high school - the prime time for gossip - I never had enough friends who had enough friends to gossip about anyone, and I seriously doubt anyone gossiped about me. I was one of those shy, geeky kids who hid out in the corners and barely spoke.

Gossip and its attendant drama only entered my life on a personal level about 2-3 years ago, when I entered a very close-knit community while trying to make my relationship work. Even so, until recently, I never really knew what people were saying about me and my situation, and I really didn't care to. I did know that one woman in the community, who was known to be a little off-balance, accused me of puncturing her car tire with a screw and of wrapping a t-shirt around her axle, as if I even have the strength or flexibility (much less the desire) to do anything like that. When I posted that to Facebook, a friend commented "I wish someone thought I was that crazy!" while others worried for my safety. In the relationship, as part of my ex-'s flirty and outgoing character and extremely social lifestyle, I ran afoul of a few women who would gossip about me, and last night, trying to work out a friendly relationship while also helping out in a music community that my ex- and I co-founded, I encountered it again.

Now, drama is always the responsibility of all parties involved. I can certainly to point to times when I've chosen drama over rationality, written ill-considered e-mails, said something out of line, or chosen to engage with someone who I knew had already made a negative assumption about me. I've lashed out, gotten jealous, made catty comments. I'll never deny that I've contributed to some of these dramatic situations, and sometimes inflamed them unnecessarily.

However, once I realized that I was contributing to the drama, I chose to disengage. I apologized to one person in particular (who responded by saying I was a "moron who thinks she's enlightened.") and tried to move on. But these situations continue to bother me. Last night, while two women who have a problem with me gossiped in the kitchen - I assume at least somewhat about me - I chose to stay out of the kitchen and to enjoy the positive, warmhearted people elsewhere in the place. But it still bothered me, these women. Just like it bothers me that this other woman thinks I jammed a screw into her tire. And that someone I was trying to help with some mental health and grief issues - and whom I thought was becoming my friend - wrote me off because I tried to set a boundary with her. It hurts, even when I know these people have their own issues and pain. At my core, I just want everyone to like me.

Gossip and drama are about a lot of things, I think, for the ones participating. It makes the gossipers feel superior and self-righteous, and it distracts us from our own boredom, pain, or difficult emotions. When we are the focus of gossip, it feels like an attack, and we usually respond by defending ourselves, which usually just inflames the situation. We either get angry or are genuinely hurt and respond by trying to convince the other person that we're not what they say we are. In as sense, we all participate in some gossip and drama. We all talk about one another, share judgments, offer opinions, laugh at one another's foibles. But when the gossip becomes malicious, and the conversation becomes irrational and turns to drama, my experience is that there is nothing that will stop it except total disengagement.

But it still hurts and mystifies me. I just want everyone to like me! Last night, I sensed the negative energy from these women, and I chose to stay away. I basked in the glow of the love of the others, and of the music, and of watching my friend with his visiting teenage daughter, watched the obvious love and respect there. When I think about the gossip and drama, and feel that hurt, I switch my thoughts back to the warmth and love that I also felt, and I resolve to become better at choosing not to engage in drama and gossip. It causes pain, out of pain. And why do we need to cause more pain in such a world?

Some tips for not getting caught up in gossip and drama:

1) Do your best not to gossip or to foment drama at any time. Gossip is lazy, and drama is usually rooted in our own insecurities or lack of emotional self-awareness or control. If you find yourself getting involved in drama often, you might consider looking at how you are creating or attracting drama.

2) If someone gossips about you or starts creating drama, disengage. This can be hard when someone accuses you - even if indirectly - of something. Naturally, you'll want to defend yourself. If you must do this, choose a time to talk to the main instigator, in a calm, clear, sober state, and state your case once. Tell her you would appreciate it is she stopped gossiping about you. If she continues to gossip, accuse, or argue, stop talking and walk away.

3) If people come to you telling you about someone who's gossiping or who's creating drama, state your situation or viewpoint clearly and without blame, counter-gossip, or judgment. Ask them to help you keep the situation under control by not passing on the gossip. If they continue to gossip or pass on stories, stop engaging with them to the extent that you can. Don't bring up the situation. Don't give fuel to the fire.

4) If you just cannot bear to disengage emotionally, remember that not engaging with the gossips will actually enrage them, and is the best revenge, anyway!

2011-02-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

Acceptance Means Never Having to Say

You're Disappointed

I suspect that most interpersonal conflicts are really based in disappointment. We're disappointed that the other person didn't do what we wanted them to do. Think about it. The last time you were mad at someone, why were you mad at them? 9 times out of 10 it's because they disappointed you. They didn't show up on time, didn't say the right thing, did something you disapproved of, or weren't there for you in the way you needed them to be. They didn't do, say, or feel what you wanted them to.

A friend is catering another friend's benefit event, and was feeling frustrated because people he had recruited to help him didn't come through. The day before the event, he had nobody to help him cook, prepare, pack, or deliver the food, and had to scramble to be able to get things ready. It occurred to me that one of the problems in the situation is that my friend hadn't counted on these other people's proven tendency to flake out. This type of thing had happened before with this group, and he had been left scrambling. At the very least, he could have followed up sooner and known earlier that the people in question weren't going to be able to help. In a sense, he had set himself up to be disappointed, because he had expected these people to act differently than they had in the past. This line of thinking made me realize that the best way to avoid being disappointed is to accept people for exactly who they are.

If your partner habitually forgets your anniversary, you view the upcoming anniversary with some anxiety, right? You believe he'll forget again, and you can taste the disappointment and anger, even before it happens. Then he forgets again and you get upset. "This happens every year," you say, "Why can't you just remember!?" Sure, if it's important to you, he should make an effort to remember. But if he doesn't, and hasn't for most years, isn't the disappointment you feel somewhat on your own shoulders, for expecting him to be someone that he isn't? In this case, you might consider taking his remembering on as your responsibility (writing it on the calendar in the kitchen for instance, or reminding him a few days before.) But how many of us (and I'm guilty of this as well) will actually avoid mentioning it or writing it down, as if to catch him forgetting, so we can be justified in getting mad? Isn't that entrapment?

The funny thing is that the people who disappoint us the most bitterly are often the people we know the best. This seems counter-intuitive, because if we know these people so well, why would we expect them to behave in ways that they never have? I have a friend who is almost always late when we make a date to go out. For years and years, I would boil, fume, and make snarky comments to her every time she was late. But eventually, I stopped expecting anything else, and now, not only doesn't it bother me when she is late, she's not late as often anymore. I used to feel uncomfortable around my mother because I felt that she rarely asked questions about my life or my work. It felt like she didn't care. But when I was able to drop the expectation that she be someone she wasn't, it didn't bother me anymore. I know what we talk about (movies, food, travel, family), and I know what we tend not to talk about, and I'm pleasantly surprised when we end up talking about something that goes deeper than our normal conversations.

How do we accept the people around us for who they are, and not for who we want them to be?

1) Understand who they are in the first place. I have a bad habit of trying to find psychological reasons that explain why people don't act the way I would in a situation. I can always come up with some seemingly sound psychological reason why Steve doesn't respond to the emotional content of my e-mails or Jodie never answers her phone and takes days to call back. But the reason why isn't important. How do they act? What are their patterns? That's who they are. End of story.

2) Practice gratitude for who they are. Make it a habit of noticing what the the people around you bring to your life. Once, when a boyfriend hadn't done something I had wanted him to do, I was really angry as I got something out of the refrigerator to cook on the stove, and remembered suddenly that the he had bought and installed both the fridge and the stove for me, not to mention built my new, beautiful front porch. Yes, he hadn't done something I wanted, but he showed his love for me every day in other ways. That moment reminded me that, most of the time, it's "and" not "but." Not "I love you but wish you hadn't done that" but "I love you AND I wish you hadn't done that." Real love is not conditional on the other person always doing what we want. Can you drop your disappointment and see the other person's gifts?

3)Understand why you want them to act differently. If Steve doesn't respond in the way I would like to my e-mails, I need to think about what it is I need from him. Why does this disappoint me so? Is it because I want to feel emotionally connected in a way I don't? Do I need to feel reassured that I'm OK emotionally? What we're feeling is our mind's attempt to get us what we need, but maybe it's not really about this other person.

3)Take ownership of your expectations. Don't give those expectations to someone else and make it their responsibility. Of course, communicate your expectations ("I'd really love it if you could remember our anniversary") but if you've communicated it and the person doesn't meet them, then drop it. If it's a deal-breaker, end the relationship. If not, let it go and figure out how to make things work anyway.

It's tragically common that so many of us spend so much of our conversations with one another complaining about other people. And why do we complain? Because the other people have disappointed us. Our partners, our parents, our kids, our coworkers. We always have a story about someone who's done us wrong. But what if, in fact, no wrong was done at all, and in fact what we're experiencing is merely the reality that other people aren't us? Once we realize this, we must face the fact that disappointment is normal and common, but we're the ones who lend it drama and pain. Can we let go of our attachment that our loved ones be different than they are, and simply appreciate and love them for who they actually are?

2011-02-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

A Valentine's Day Musing

It's that day. The day when single people who think about such things, or even some of us who pretend we don't, grumble and gripe and pretend to be cynical about love, and those of us in relationships that aren't perfect do the same. I wonder if there are more fights between couples than normal on this day, as we take turns disappointing one another by not giving gifts or the right gifts, but not taking our lover to the right restaurants, by not proclaiming our love enough or in the right ways. Boy, what a ridiculous day! And most of us understand that Valentine's Day is merely an economic tool designed to make money for card companies, candy makers, and flower sellers, but even when we pretend not to care, many of us do. In my neighborhood, every street corner has sprung up with makeshift booths offering gigantic plush teddy bears in pink, white, and red, bouquets of carnations and roses shipped from Mexico, and piles of pink, white and red heart tchotchkes. I suppose the booths are there for the men who forgot to buy their lady something for the day and are now terrified of her wrath should they come home empty-handed.

But, as we all know, a day is what we make of it. I've always loved the heart symbol. I collect them. I have a bag full of heart-shaped rocks that I've found. I even have a string of mardi gras beads that are heart-shaped that I found in New Orleans a couple of years ago. Today is the day of the heart symbol. It's everywhere. Yes, it may be, as one blogger pointed out, also the shape of the engorged hindquarters of a lady baboon in heat (he's not bitter about Valentine's Day, though!), but it's a day - regardless of why it came to be or who benefits financially - where we celebrate love.

Love, as we also all know, is wider than the love between a couple of people who have sex together. We also feel love for our families, friends, pets, plants, the planet. Love is everywhere. It's in the art we see around us, the music we listen to, and the books we read. No act of creativity comes without love. No act of kindness does, either. So today, can those of us who can see beyond the media and retail hype of this day use the ubiquitous heart symbols to remember to appreciate and generate love of all kinds? Try a smile at a stranger. Try forgiving someone something, just for today. You can pick a fight with them tomorrow. Try letting go of bitterness about yet another "how I met the love of my life" commercial on TV. Try laughter. Try calling someone you've been meaning to call for ages, and just asking them how they are (and meaning it.) Create something and dedicate it to love. Just find ways to generate love today. And possibly, that love will last until tomorrow, and the next day, and to the ends of time. But start today.

2011-02-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

Only the Lonely

I had a lonely day last Sunday. Not that I had a lot of plans originally, but the one thing I had scheduled was canceled, and Plan B also didn't work out. All of a sudden, I had no plans and nobody to not have plans with. All my life, I've been very sensitive to feelings of loneliness and isolation. It's not that I can't be alone - I can be and often choose to be alone, and I can enjoy alone time very much. In fact, I need a lot of time alone in order to stay balanced. I'm a classic introvert that way. But in this case, I wanted to be around people, and there were no people to be around. I've always felt a deep emptiness within me, and situations like this naturally exacerbate it. Being alone and not wanting to be alone bring up all those old, childhood fears and anxieties, all those thoughts of not being good enough, of being unloved and unlovable, of living in a world of scarcity and lack, and of wasting my life. In these situations, I sometimes get into a headspace where I feel bad because I'm not doing enough, not social enough, not creative enough, and not making enough of an effort to change the world. Sunday started out no differently, but ended very differently.

I sat in bed for awhile and read Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness by Mark Epstein. In the book, he talks about how this profound sense of emptiness is a universal human experience and how the people who come to the author for therapy come there in distress from this experience. How hard we struggle to numb or distract ourselves from the void, through abusing substances, watching TV, shopping, staying busy, surrounding ourselves with people, overworking, ruminating and obsessing, or pursuing or obsessing over relationships. As I read, it dawned on me that this emptiness is a big reason why so many of us feel that we must keep moving: must find a partner, get married, buy a house, have babies, get promoted, buy bigger and better toys, take vacations, and worry and obsess over all of these things. If you think about it, discontent with our present situation is why most of us do anything at all. So in that way, this shifting empty feeling has motivated human to achieve everything we have, for better or for worse.

I realized that for my entire life, I have faced this emptiness because, for whatever reason, I never had the temperament to keep constantly busy, to be a workaholic, to create something major, or to have kids. I have friends, a wonderful close family, a home, a job, I write, and do the normal things that people do, but I've never had those big dreams that all the self-help gurus talk about following. So for that reason, I've never been able to escape that void for long, I've always wound up facing it, sitting with the sad empty feeling because no method of escape has ever really captivated me. I used to think I was immensely flawed for not meeting all of those developmental goals: for not getting married or wanting kids or a promotion, or for not wanting to write the Great American Novel or spending my life trying to save the world. Now I wonder if it's actually a blessing, because without knowing it, I was always learning to face this deep black hole that so many of us spend our lives trying to escape.

I had to get out of the house, and I had the idea to go walk around a local urban lake. I got dressed and headed out, bringing my book. I was still feeling lonely and uneasy, empty and bored. I felt restless. I got to the lake, and started walking. It had rained that night, and the sky was lovely and full of clouds in all shades of grey. The kind of sky I loved to watch. As I walked, the sun came out, and I sat on a bench to read. I lost myself in my book (The African Queen by C.S. Forester) and shed my scarf, sweater, and hat as the sun warmed me. After awhile, I walked some more, and, deciding I was hungry, went into a lovely little lakeside restaurant that always makes me think I'm in Switzerland. I had a salad and some sparkling water, and looked out over the lake as I read more of my book. As I ate, there was a rain squall, and I felt cozy and very lucky having decided to eat lunch right then. By the time I had eaten and paid, the rain was over and the clouds parted again, and it was sunny. The sun sparkled on the wet pavement and the earth and plants smelled good. I walked some more, and eventually walked around the entire lake. After that, I decided to go to another watery location - Jack London Square - and see if there were any movies playing that I wanted to see. There weren't, so I sat in the sun along the Alameda Estuary and read more of my book. A friend called and we chatted for a short time. I went into a nearby store and bought some useless things, and ran into another friend. Then I went home and watched a movie and played with my cats and fussed around in my house. And by the time the day ended, I felt fine. The loneliness and anxiety had left me, the void was no longer there. I was okay being alone, okay not having a grand scheme to fill my days.

This may not seem like a profound day, but for me, it was. What started out in emptiness and despair ended in peace and comfort in my own skin. For some reason, I was able to let go of that need to have a different experience than I was having, and I was able to stay with myself in my actual experience.When I let go of wanting things to be different, I was able to take things as they came and the pain eased.

Two days later, a friend sent me the following video and it all clicked for me. Loneliness is a feeling of being incredibly vulnerable, of not being protected from the vital truths of the universe: that all of this "stuff" with which we surround ourselves is not important; that our lives and the stories we tell ourselves about our lives are just our attempts to avoid what we know, deep down, to be true: that each moment is the only reality. That there is nothing else, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. It's uncomfortable to be that vulnerable and to know what loneliness teaches us, so most of us avoid loneliness at all costs. But perhaps, loneliness is only painful because we think it's wrong to feel that longing, that restlessness, that wistfulness, that vulnerability. In the video, she tells us that it's important to stay vulnerable and open, even thought we're bombarded with messages about the terrible things that may happen to us if we do. On my Sunday, I was able to settle into the loneliness and found that it wasn't a bad place, after all.

Brene Brown - The Price of Invulnerability

2011-01-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

Soul Mates

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mate's purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life...

- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Ahhhh. Well, in that case, I have had so many soul mates I can hardly count them. Is that very lucky, or terribly unlucky? I suppose that I have the privilege of living a life of being smacked down so many times and bouncing back as many times, at least in love. Love is the one place in my life that is like the ocean. Where almost everything else in my life is disgustingly stable - great family, wonderful job, fabulous friends, intelligence, creativity, soul, self-awareness, and hey, sometimes even good looks - love, for me, is rocking, stormy, tempestuous, almost inconceivably deep and ever-changing, always surprising, changing colors in an instant, never to be taken for granted. Like the ocean, love, for me, can kill without warning, or it can buoy me up. Sometimes both simultaneously. Like the sailor says: Never turn your back on the ocean. For me it's "never turn your back on love." I've learned to have great respect for this torrent of emotion, but still I insist on wading in deeply, beyond the breakers, and letting the waves do to me what they will.

In Cancun last year with my soul mate, I once tried to follow him into the surf. He's a sailor and grew up swimming in the ocean off of Florida. He knows how to get beyond the breakers and float on the salty water. It doesn't scare him. I got out there, but the sense that I was drifting, anchor-less, terrified me. The waves rose above my head and I'd panic, trying to regain my footing, which was impossible. I was tense and the water attacked me because I wouldn't give in to it. Meanwhile, my love floated effortlessly several feet away, like a sea otter. Finally, I paddled back to shore, anxious and afraid. When I got to the beach, I consoled myself by looking for sea shells. On a sea cliff not far from where we'd put our towels and clothes, someone had carved, in 2-foot-tall letters, "Te Amo." I Love You. When my love came back to the beach, I showed it to him. "You didn't write that?" he asked. "No," I said. It seemed to be a sign of some kind.

In the breakup of this relationship and in the preceding years of stormy seas interspersed with waters of a placid, mirror-like calm, I've seen myself clinging like a drowning woman to the broken timbers of my ego, my expectations, my assumptions, and my fantasies, while the waves, in the form of my love for this man, tried to strip me from those comforts, tried to hurl me into the depthless water, tried to force me to swim on my own. Again this has happened. He tells me that I need to let go of all that, that even the pain is comfortable to me because I'm used to it. He tells me that he understands my fear of the unknown, but that I don't have a choice; this ship of ego is going down. To cling to it would be suicide. But the thought of letting go, of letting the waves take me - to either drown me or support me, I don't know - is utterly, mind-splinteringly horrifying. I know that if I relax into them, they will support me, but their fluidity panics me. And in my panic, I tense up and cling, and my body gets heavy and I start to sink, which panics me even more.

Was I lucky to meet this soul mate, or terribly unlucky? I suppose, from a perspective of awakening, I was very lucky. He did to me exactly what Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in the passage above about soul mates. And he made me go hunting for my Water Wings. Now where did I put those?

2011-01-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

By the way, this is not my tattoo!

Tattoos and the Art of Accepting the Choices We've Made

At dinner last week with my sister, we were talking about her marriage, and about how she'd recently come to a place of acceptance of both the bad and the good things about her husband, her family, and her life in general. She reflected that though things weren't perfect, things were the way they were, and she was much happier and more relaxed having come to that conclusion than when she had been consumed with anxiety about all the flaws in her life and relationships.

I'm in the process of getting a new tattoo. I approved the design the artist drew for me, and in a matter of less than a week, my body will be permanently altered. It's the largest tattoo I've ever gotten. When I got my first tattoo ( a small and innocuous one) at age 30, I only had one very brief moment of regret. I don't know why, maybe I was depressed in general at the time, but for a brief minute I wondered what the hell I had done to myself. It didn't take me long to realize that, first of all, it was too late to waste time with regrets, and, second of all, I had chosen that path. I never regretted the tattoo again. Later, I compared my tattoos to the scars on my face and body from 30 years of chronic acne. I reasoned that, at least with tattoos, I get to choose them, as I never had been able to do with my acne scars. Now, a tattoo for me is not about gaining perfection or avoiding regret. It's about showing my soul on my skin. A tattoo shows us something about the person we were when we made that choice; I may be a different person now than I was when I got my first tattoo, but I that tattoo is a reminder of who I was then, and what I wanted my life to mean.

I've been reflected recently on how tattoos are very much like most of the decisions we make. They're permanent, they mark us, and they reflect who we were at the time, though not necessarily who we become. The jobs we have, the relationships we're in, the cars we buy and the places we live are all based on choices we make. Even if we leave the job, the relationship, get rid of the car, and move, those decisions have affected our entire lives; in this sense, they are permanent. At the very least, they live on in memory.

A lot of us spend a lot of time regretting the decisions we've made. "Why did I marry that jerk?" we ask, "Why did I ever accept this crap job?" "I should never have moved across the country, spent my money on this stupid car, said what I said to my kid/partner/friend/dog" We spend a lot of time trying to fix decisions we now regret. But regret, though a normal and natural human emotion, is almost never helpful in the long run.

That one moment of regret for my tattoo taught me a lot. It taught me that after we've made a decision, regret is useless. It taught me what my sister has also learned: that things are the way they are. It taught me that the best way not to be tortured with regret is to try to make a wise decision in the first place, but that there is no such thing as a perfect decision, or even a right one. Each decision takes us down a fork in the road; each decision has ten million other decisions attached to it. Agonizing over each decision eventually is just a waste of time, as is regretting them once we've made them. I've always had the rule of thumb that if you want a tattoo, sit on it for at least 6 months to a year before actually getting it done. If you still want it later, then get it. The same is true - though maybe not literally - for each decision we make. Study your options, get outside opinions if they would help, and listen to your gut. But when you've made the decision, let go. Things will be what they will be.

On the other hand....

2011-01-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

When Words Confuse Rather than Clarify

Who tells a finer tale than any of us? Silence does. - Isak Dinesen

I'm a writer and an editor. Words are my drug, my wine, my meat and potatoes, my oxygen, my muscles and at the heart of my understanding of things. Sometimes I have nightmares about what would happen if I could no longer read or type. I live by words. They console me when I'm sad and spill from me when I'm happy (and sometimes vice versa). Words pay my mortgage, put me to sleep at night, and are the reason I get up in the morning. Words are essential tools for the vast majority of humans, but they are more important to me than they are to most.

I've always thoughts of words as the final arbiters of understanding. When confusion arose, I've always felt like if I could just explain myself, or understand another, that everything would resolve itself. I've always believed in honest words, in saying how I really felt, and always tried my best to listen to other peoples' truths, even when they were painful. I suppose, like most of us, I'm better at the former than the latter. I've always had a habit of writing letters - or, nowadays, e-mails - in difficult situations, because I've always believed that more understanding could only create goodwill. I never understood why sometimes my words, so carefully crafted, so honest and emotionally resonant (at least in my eyes), sometimes put people off, sometimes created anger or resentment in people. I always figured it was because they just didn't understand my words, and that more words would fix it. If I could only explain, I would think. Everything would be okay.

Recently, though, I realized that a relationship with an important person in my life has been marred - for years - with such a tumble and overabundance of words, that it has actually damaged our understanding of each other. For years we've gone 'round and 'round, over and under, with words, trying to explain each others' position, trying to clarify, trying to express what was happening internally. We've argued, we've written love letters, we've written books worth of e-mails. And all that's left is a big mess of confusion, pain, misunderstanding and mixed messages. It struck me today that emotional words - words written in an emotional state - are a permanent representation of a temporary feeling. We feel something, and we write it down, and the other person reads it, and it sticks. In ten minutes, we may feel differently. But that other person will still remember the words. That temporary feeling permanently informs that other person's understanding of us and of who we are, and I dare say that this is especially true of hurtful words. They can't be erased. Even spoken words can burn themselves into someone's brain and cause pain or confusion.

As well, words are easily misunderstood. I stumbled on a blog post on Psychology Today where the blogger pointed out that arguments between intimate partners can often hang up on the most simple of misunderstandings: what each partner means by the words 'intimacy' or 'love', for example. I've had words I've written thrown back at me in a way that made it clear that what I had meant to say did not come across to the other person. What I thought was so clearly expressed came across as something completely different than what I had intended.

I've finally figured out that sometimes, more words are not the answer. Sometimes, more words are just confusing. Especially when emotions are high, words can do damage that we don't intend, that we may not even notice until the misunderstandings have blossomed, like a cancer, and there's no way to take them back.

Perhaps there are times when it's best to just shut our mouths and experience what's happening without more words. Maybe it's time to use touch - a hug, a handhold - a gesture, or an action to say what we mean when more words won't increase anyone's understanding of what's happening. Sometimes, when tensions are high, perhaps it may even be best to leave the situation entirely and just accept one another's differences of opinion and experience. In my situation, if I had trusted my own intuition and experience and made my own choices rather than expecting my friend to say the right things to make me feel better, perhaps we wouldn't have felt the need to continue explaining and explaining, and maybe we would have avoided digging ourselves into this deep, dark hole of misunderstandings and wounded feelings.

It's been said that words are responsible for only about 7% of our communication, which is probably why e-mails and written language can be so fraught with peril. How many of us have written e-mails or letters that have been woefully misunderstood? Body language, facial expressions, probably even scent, communicate more than mere words do. I feel like I need to learn when to stop talking, to stop writing, to stop this eternal processing that I continually hope will bring myself and other people into a perfect clarity of understanding. Maybe, sometimes, the best understanding is to understand that there will be no understanding. And maybe that's okay.

The image above was generated at http://www.wordle.net/

2011-01-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

Letting New Beings into My Life

I'm hoping that this will be my only blog post about my cats. I absolutely refuse to let this blog de-evolve into a blog about the single life with cats. I refuse! Anyway, but an interesting thing happened when I chose to open my life to two new young beings, two 7-month old cats who were born not far from here, from a feral mother.

I grew up with cats. The only times I haven't had a cat or cats was during the time I was in college, and then for the last 2 or 3 years, after my cat, Merlin, died suddenly after living with me for 13 years. I've always missed having cats, but after Merlin died, I was so involved in other things, including an all-encompassing relationship with a man who was allergic to cats, that I just didn't have room in my life for them. I didn't spend very much time at home, my man was allergic, and my life felt full. Also, my life had dogs in it. My boyfriend had a dog, who died after I had known him about a year, but then his roommate brought another dog into our lives, and I enjoyed getting to know these creatures who were so different from the cats I'd always been surrounded by. I once remarked to a cat-loving co-worker that I felt like my life was entering a dog phase.

When the relationship started going downhill, I often thought about getting cats again. My house, where I was now spending more time, felt empty without other mammals in it. But the relationship wasn't over yet, and I still clung to it. If I got cats, that walled off a portion of my life from the man I loved, because he could no longer spend time at my house. Getting cats felt scary to me, like letting go of something I didn't want to let go of. It didn't feel like the time was right.

After the breakup, it took me about 3 months to be ready to get cats. For years I had been asking the universe to send me my next animal companions. My cats who died felt like my familiars, not like pets to me, as did my ex-boyfriend's dog, Paco, and I wanted any relationship I developed with future furry creatures to be as special. Animals aren't just accessories, they're sentient beings, creatures who have their own lives, personalities, and neuroses, just like people. I wasn't just going to go grab some random cats from the pound and be done with it.

I was looking online at pet adoptions, when I saw pictures of two older kitten called Callie and Zorro. On a whim, I e-mailed the woman who ran the organization. I assumed those kitties had been adopted already, since the photos were from two months before. After I sent the e-mail I was nervous. Did I really want cats? Was it time?

When she e-mailed me back, she had a lot of requests of me in regards to caring for any cats I adopted. She was a holistic practitioner, so I was to feed only raw organic food, have the cats be indoor/outdoor, and not have them vaccinated. I balked at all the rules - as well as the high adoption fee - and when I explained that those weren't going to work for me, I felt relief. The situation seemed settled. I would not adopt cats. But then she, and the women who were fostering the cats, both wrote back basically begging me to look at the kitties and telling me the could be flexible on the rules. "These cats need love!" they all said.

I thought about it. Was this the universe giving me what I had asked for: a sign that these were my new animal companions? I decided it was, and went to visit the cats, and later decided to bring them home. They're both sitting near me right now as I type this.

Deciding to bring them home was a process. I had to let go of the life I had had over the last 3 years, of staying away from home for days on end, and of dating a man who was allergic. Even now, when I miss my old life, I wonder if getting cats was the wisest thing to do. In my darkest moments recently, I've looked at the cats, who I've re-named Sita and Shiva, and wondered if I was going to end up a middle-aged cat lady, alone in my house with my expanding menagerie. This even though I've always had cats and had many a relationship where my partner loved my cats.

But there's some ease that isn't there anymore, the way it used to be when I had my other cats. I have to stop myself from seeing these kitties as an obstacle to a free life, and I never felt that way about my other cats. I wonder if it's because of who I am now, the experiences I've had since the last time I had cats, the recent breakup. I'm keeping open to my new housemates, letting them get used to this place and to me, letting them teach me who they are. We will develop a relationship, the three of us, and hopefully, someday a fourth two-legged male human animal will join us. But right now we're a funny family, one of whom is now chewing on my toe as I sit curled on my couch typing this. I never realized that getting kitties would be as intense a soul search as it has been, and continues to be. But, the adventure continues!

2010-12-26T13:32:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 25: Photo

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 25 – Photo

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

I believe it was in April. My company, bless its collective heart, sent me to a psychology conference held, of all places, in Cancun, Mexico. My boyfriend at the time, an eager traveler who lived for 10 years in Mexico and speaks fluent spanish, agreed to come with me. I mean hey, free hotel, warm tropical beaches, what's not to like? Oh, and then of course there was his wonderful companion, me. Due to the vagaries of cheap air travel, he got there a day ahead of me and we agreed to meet in the lobby of the hotel. The night before I arrived, he got a cheap hotel in town, and, wandering around that evening looking for a place to eat, he found a sushi restaurant that had just opened up. The food was excellent and he bonded with the owner and manager, so later that week, after the conference was over, he brought me there. We were the only people in the restaurant (it was pretty early) and we got to talking with the staff. The dinner was great, and after dinner, the owner, a former interior designer from Japan, decided he wanted to show us a wedding kimono he had just bought for some ungodly amount of money. Several thousand dollars, at least. It was gorgeous, of course, and he insisted I try it on. This photo is of him adjusting this amazing concoction of silk and ribbon, with me as the model.

This photo is special to me because it represents so many things that are dear to my heart: travel, love, my ex-, adventure, good food and company, and those kind of experiences that you could never in a million years make up. I'm trying on an expensive wedding kimono in a sushi restaurant in downtown Cancun! It's so surreal it's wonderful.

To me, it represents something I like about myself: my capacity to gleefully travel outside of culturally prescribed norms and be open to this wide, wonderful, crazy world in all of its weirdness and mystery.

2010-12-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 22: Travel

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 22 – Travel How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?

New Orleans. Cancun. Tahoe. Napa. Bodega Bay. The Black Rock Desert. I traveled for work, for play, and for everything in between. The trips were inevitably glorious, trying, beautiful, complex, and adventuresome. I watched the sun rise over the Mississippi. Danced in the warm waves off the tip of Mexico and watched lightning flash across the beach at night, warm in the arms of my love. Smelled the dust and crushed grape-smell of the Napa valley, hiking up an unnamed creek after escaping a traffic jam on Silverado Trail. Watched technicolor clouds tumble over a hidden reservoir in a forest. Walked the humid streets of my favorite city with friends and family, celebrating my 40th birthday. Tasted playa dust and watched from atop a bus as a wooden effigy burned amidst a storm of dust and smoke. Slept in a trailer that rocked in the wind off the desert as stars brighter than I'd ever seen floated across the sky outside. Walked a cold northern beach, bundled against the wind, while the shorebirds scattered through the seafoam. Drank many a toast, laughed a lot, admired the view.

For 2011, I will be in New Orleans and the Black Rock desert again, as most years. Possibly Washington DC for a conference. I'm going to try to find a temporary apartment rental in New Orleans in May/June and live and telecommute from there for about 6 weeks. I've always wanted to know what it would be like to live there, not just party there. I'd love to visit my old haunts: Grass Valley, Santa Cruz, Tahoe, Napa. I'd like to go on a road trip in the US south.

The sense of movement is what I like best about travel, that and seeing things I've never seen before. I've never liked staying in one place for too long, but I like coming back to a home. This year, I look forward to more adventures, more photos, more stories, and more new friends!

2010-12-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 19: Healing

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 19 – Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011?

Something about confronting my deep, dark shadow this year healed it. At least it feels that way. Or maybe it's just that being out of that situation feels so much better than being in it, that I feel healed. But I think mucking around in the deep, stinky mud of my psyche, confronting those fears and the old pain, being forced to sit with it when there was no place to hide, did something, brought some of that stuff out into the light, where it dried up and blew away. I'm sure the roots are still in there, down in the soil, waiting to sprout again if the conditions are right, but I feel stronger now, more like I can handle a few weeds. Other things that healed me have been people who have been brave enough to shine their lights on me, and to remind me, over and over again until they must have gotten tired of it, of my own light.

In 2011, I want to be healed of more of my fear and to be able to stay centered in my own light no matter where I am or with whom. Never again do I want to lose myself to the extent that I did in 2010. I would like to heal that hole that so desperately craves someone to fill it with love and adoration, and that keens with loneliness when that person isn't to be found. Already I feel better, like the hole is somewhat healed, or healing. The loneliness isn't so sharp as it was, nor the keening so loud. I'm wishing for the healing to continue in 2011 and for that hole to close up without even a scar. Well, maybe one of those sexy scars, the kind that will make me all the more mysterious and intriguing :-)

2010-12-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 18: Try

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

Reverb10: December 18 – Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

I'd love to learn to dance, and I'd like to dance more. I've always wanted to take a dance class, to learn the more formal dances because I think some of them are cool. Also, I'm not very physically confident, so formal dancing makes me a bit nervous. I think it would be good for me and open up possibilities for me to do something that demands a certain measure of physical coordination. And with a dance partner, too!

In 2010 I wanted to do this and also wanted to learn spanish. I think spanish will take more of a commitment and hardcore studying/experiences (like taking an immersion course in Mexico), and I'm not quite ready for that yet. I actually did take spanish class in 2009, because I've always loved the language, but the class I took was too easy. So I decided to enroll in conversational spanish, but that was too hard. So then I just focused on other things. But I'd still like to be able to converse at least minimally in spanish. I mean aside from asking for more beer.

In 2010, I tried to learn to play acoustic guitar, but before I got very far, I changed the strings and I broke the G string, so the guitar has been sitting in my office for the entire year. I've had "buy a new guitar string" on my to-do list forever. In 2011, I really would like to buy a new G string. Take however you want to :-)

2010-12-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 17: Lesson Learned

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 17 – Lesson Learned What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

I learned that I am stronger than I sometimes think I am, and that I can withstand what I think I can't. It's so hard to feel stuck, trapped, not able to cope with things changing in the way that you fear, while also being unhappy in a situation that doesn't serve you. I learned that healing happens faster than I think, that I have a deep capacity for recovery and growth, and that I CAN do the thing I think I can't.

Going forward, I will do my best to remember this (it's sometimes hard when we're in the thick of things, isn't it?) and to trust my intuition to lead the way when I'm unsure. I'll act more quickly on my gut, and at the very least give myself the right not to make any major heart decisions until the right path seems clear. Consistently. Not just every now and then. I know I will be able to survive any decision I make, even when it seems heartbreaking at the time. For me, the heart heals more quickly than I ever thought possible.

2010-12-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 16: Friendship

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 16 – Friendship How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

I met a wonderful lady last year by stumbling on to her blog. Her words touched me deeply, and I commented on her post and also forwarded her blog to my sweetie at the time. He was even more blown away by her words than I was, and it started a chain of events that, I think, taught all three of us some new things about ourselves.

Her blog - all about living and loving, moments of enlightenment, and moments of struggle, and how they all intersect - seemed to tell a parallel story to my own story. Things that had recently happened in my life, especially concerning my relationship, seemed to have parallels in hers. It was eery. She writes continually of opening up to the love that surrounds us like air, and letting that energy flow through us without resistance. She writes of the boundless ecstasy that is awakening to this interconnectedness, and how we suffer by believing ourselves to be separate.

Meanwhile, over the past year, she also wrote (on her blog and in e-mails to me) of her struggles with the reality of being a single mom, with relationships - both new and past - and in carving out a career for herself in the midst of it all. Throughout this time, I was also struggling mightily with my relationship. Her words, always wise and kind, brought me back to earth when I was shattered, panic-stricken, or terrified that I was losing my love. Her message was always: this is the way it's meant to be. Everything's happening for a reason, and everything is okay. Her wisdom and good humor, and her sharing of her own struggles and stories with me, helped me tremendously in walking my path that eventually led to my relationship ending.

Now, sitting here in relative peace and contentment, feeling better than I have in years, I'm in awe that we met and that we share so many parallel experiences. We have never actually met in real life. She lives in the midwest and I live on the west coast. We've only spoken by phone once. But she has changed my perspective - or at least her perspective has supported my changing perspective - on why we're here and what we're here to do.

During this time, I met another woman, in a workshop designed to help us find our soul's mission in this life. We hadn't really spoken much when another group member took me aside and told me that this other woman lived in the east bay as well but didn't have a car - could I perhaps drive her back across the bridge after class? This started another friendship with eery parallels to what was going on in my relationship. She was struggling in similar ways in her own relationship, and on our drives home, we would talk about what was going on for us in our relationships and in our hearts. Meeting her made me realize that I wasn't crazy for being in the situation I was in, or wanting what I wanted. She ended her relationship long before mine ended, but seeing her blossom after the ending gave me hope and confidence that I could survive and thrive in a new life without my love. Her care, concern, and genuine interest in what was happening in my life is an amazing gift.

Both of these women helped me see the importance of intuition and that deep, inner knowing that we all have access to, and opened my heart to the possibility that there are other realities out there that are worth exploring. They reminded me that love surrounds us, all the time, and also that we don' t have to be doormats to have relationships ;-) For many reasons, I consider myself a wholly new person now, not the same person I was a year ago. These two women are crucial to that transformation, and I would not have the perspective I have now if I hadn't met them.Meeting them and developing friendships with them also gave me confidence that there IS some force out there, or some energy, that looks out for us. How could I have randomly met these two amazing women at the exact time in my life when I needed them?

Thank you, L and E, for your wonderful kindness, amazing strong energy, creativity and inspiration, and for keeping me grounded during what was one of the most difficult years of my life!

2010-12-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 15:5 Minutes

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I'm nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 15: 5 Minutes. Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

Beautiful boat, and wonderful music and friends, food, drink, and dancing.
The changing of the seasons in my garden.
Trips to the desert, the mountains, and the sea.
Celebrations with family and friends.
Organizing concerts on the boat, meeting musicians and promoters.
A book I acquired at work that was the best success of my career
Road trips to Grass Valley, in the warm early summer
My 40th birthday in New Orleans!
The sunrise over the Mississippi
Dancing in the surf in Cancun
Watching an amazing lightning show from the beach in Cancun.
Meeting and getting to know wonderful new friends.
Sitting at lunch with friend J, chatting and solving the world's problems.
Nights on the town with friend M, meeting new, interesting people and having adventures.
NYE 2010, doing a ritual of cleansing and manifestation for the new year.
The moments of love and connection and inspiration with my honey.

2010-12-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 13 – Action

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 13 – Action When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

I have a project that I'm embarking on in the new year, a project that I must keep under wraps because it's a project that I think could actually put my name on the map. It's about dating, and about having our loved ones help us find that special someone. It poses the question: is all of this seeking love by ourselves (online dating, love at first sight, pickups, etc) really working? Does it really serve us when it comes to finding long-term love? Maybe there's another way to do it, by combining certain ancient practices of couple-making with a modern-day sensibility. That's all I'll say.

I will be convening a meeting of certain loved ones next month, and then we'll go from there. Incidentally, I'm interested in talking to people who are in relationships where they met through the intervention of family or friends, especially arranged marriages or matchmade relationships. E-mail me if you or someone you know falls into this category!

Other than that, my actions include making time to meditate every day and making sure I get out and socialize at least a couple of times a week. My other action plan is to find a way to exercise that I don't absolutely abhor. I hate exercise classes! I'm thinking dance class, more strenuous hiking, and maybe an exercise machine at home. Another action I'm taking is to learn tarot, which I think can be a way for me to use my natural intuition and listening skills to connect with people. It's a lot of fun and a fascinating way to get to know people. I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

2010-12-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 14: Appreciate

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 14 – Appreciate What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

The thing I learned to appreciate most this year is my intuition, my inner knowing. The fact is that if we listen to ourselves, we often already know the answer. If we sit with a dilemma in silence, with our heads still, our soul knows the right way to go. And if it really doesn't know, it may not be the time to make the decision. Looking back on 2010, I saw so many times when my intuition was right, and my tendency to trust people implicitly or look on everyone with compassion without taking steps to protect my own interests overrode what my gut was sometimes screaming at me to do. So I've decided that, from now on, I will listen to my intuition, take the time to sit in silence and let it send its messages to me, and listen to it when it keeps tapping at my shoulder. If something seems wrong, consistently, it is wrong. If someone seems untrustworthy, it's OK to protect myself before engaging with them. My intuition is there to help me walk this path with a minimal amount of danger, and I need to trust it.

2010-12-17T16:45:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 12 – Body Integration

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 12 – Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

This is going to sound so weird, but the times when I feel the most integrated in my body are when I'm driving. There's something about how my senses and my body move in an intricate dance. I see a brake light or a car come into my lane and I react. I don't have to think about it. I know what to do when I change lanes, get on the freeway, take a corner, and it's like I'm totally in tune with everything around me. This is probably why I like driving so much. While driving, I have to watch my ability to drift into thinking and ruminating, so that I can stay alert behind the wheel. Not that I'm always good at bringing myself back, but, since mindful presence is so important while driving a large hunk of metal at insane speeds while feet away from other hunks of metal being driven by soft, squishy humans, there's more at stake while I'm driving, more reason to stay present.

I LOVE to drive. Sometimes I'll just take off and drive. In a mental storm, it helps me to calm down. When I'm feeling good, I love to explore. When I drive, I feel in flow and engaged, at one with my mind and body.

2010-12-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 11: 11 Things

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

1) Loneliness (as opposed to being alone, which is different.)
2) Criticism and judgment.
3) Too much expectation.
4) A resistance to letting go of sadness.
5) The need for people to agree with me.
6) The need for people to like me.
7) Physical laziness (more yoga and exercise!)
8) Fear - of contact, of newness, of doing things I'm not good at.
9) Living too much in my head.
10) Overdrinking and overpartying.
11) Living vicariously.

I think most of these can be faced (I don't necessarily believe in eliminating any part of ourselves) by cultivating mindfulness and attention to my experience, and by reminding myself that one of the things I value is participating and connecting, even when initially it might feel scary. I can use the tools that I know: breathing, centering, meditation, and an attention to my desire to live by my values, and use those to surf the ocean of life.

When I feel lonely but too sad or scared to go out and socialize, or feel like isolating myself from loved ones, I can center myself and remind myself that I value connection. When I'm feeling down on myself for not going out (or not staying in, or not calling a friend back), I can remind myself that I don't need to be perfect. When I don't know what to do, I can consult my values and what I want my life to mean. I can also do this when I'm scared to try something new, or scared to make a commitment to a new path. When I don't want to go to yoga or take that walk, i can remind myself how good it feels to take care of my body. When I want another drink though I know I've already had enough, I can remember the discomfort of a hangover and remind myself how good it feels not to overindulge, how much brighter my mind feels when I'm not toxifying it. When I lose myself in my head thoughts, I can gently bring myself back to the moment and consider that a part of self-care is not letting myself ruminate myself into a deep, dark pit.

When I feel alive and centered and connected, I feel truly myself: confident, strong, laughing, and vibrant. Other people don't need to see that or agree with me or mirror that to me, I can feel it. In achieving the goal of letting these things go, I will feel that "true-selfness" more and I will be using my gifts fully, not escaping from myself or my experience, nor beating myself up (or believing others who beat me up) for not being someone else.

2010-12-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 10: Wisdom

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 10 – Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

This year, I was wise enough to sit still as something that had taken up a lot of energy over the last 2 years went away. I could have fought it, and I did a little bit, as I have for the last year. I could have continued to grasp and cling, but finally, after many tears, I just let go and sat down and let the waves of pain and anger and loss cleanse me. It had been a long year of trying very hard to make something work that was not working. We had tried very hard. But in the end, the change that kept trying to happen over this year, and that eventually, I think, we both knew was inevitable, made a final push and, after a few weeks of continuing my fight, I let go of the rope. I sat down and grieved and hugged myself and closed my eyes and let go. It was a combination of me getting pushed out of the nest and of me choosing to go, but I think wisdom can sometimes be just simply seeing and accepting the writing on the wall. Though I still sometimes wish for that life back, I'm wise enough now to know that those feelings will fade, and I that I don't need to do anything about them. I still want apologies from my ex-, but I'm wise enough now to not demand them. Sometimes wisdom is not doing anything, and letting the waves come and recede.

2010-12-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 8: Beautifully Different

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I'm nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

We're all so beautifully different, aren't we? I used to write a zine called Beauty is a Battlefield that explored the beauty trap for women. Why we're so caught up in the myth of physical perfection, how it feels to be a woman who would not be considered Barbie-like. I had girls and women from as far away as the Phillipines buying the zine because I think all women, everywhere, resonate with the issue of not feeling beautiful in our own skin. When I look down on myself for not being physically beautiful enough, I can sometimes remember to review what I see as beautiful in others. Who are the most beautiful people I know? The answer is that the most beautiful people I know are the ones who aren't concerned with being beautiful. They're the ones with energy, radiance, kindness and love shining out of every pore. The ones whose eyes and faces light up with excitement, who laugh big and dance strong. The ones too worried about whether their outfits are right or their makeup is smearing aren't beautiful to me, whether or not they have perfect skin and perfect bodies.

My whole life, I thought that I was ugly. And even now, as an adult, it's a load I carry with me, something that's hard to put down, though the load is getting lighter the older I get. I know I'm not ugly, but I also know that I'm not some perfect woman, and in this culture, that's a message we get from every rooftop: you must be perfectly coifed, perfectly made up, smell like roses at all times, be bright and chipper always, and have no physical flaws whatsoever!

The things that make me beautiful: my desire for honesty and truth, even when the truth is hard; my awe and wonder at everything around me; my dry humor, my curiosity, my calmness in the face of problems, my openness and flexibility, my willingness to be with people even in their sadness or distress, my deep well of forgiveness and kindness, my understanding of the complexities and nuances of life that sometimes get me labeled a 'downer' because I don't care to turn my face away from pain, my ability to act as a muse and bring peoples' words and dreams out of them in new form, all of these are ways I'm beautiful. One thing I'd put at the top of this list: my ability to see beauty everywhere, and in everyone.

2010-12-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 7: Community

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I'm nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 7 – Community.

Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Community is a hard one for me, because I think, at my core, I'm a loner. I crave connection at the same time that it seems difficult for me to maintain connection. In 2010, I was active in several communities, but seemingly only on the outskirts of most. In one case, I was one of the founding members of a community that has not seemed to notice that I've gone away from it. In another case, I've spent two years being active in a community that, again, generally doesn't seem to notice my absence, but for one person who has reached out. Then there was my family, probably my biggest source of emotional and all other forms of support, the community that has stood by me the longest - and I hope vice versa. My friends - my chosen family - have, as always, been a wonder of connection, support, laughter, and wisdom. I am very lucky to have them in my life. My work community is also a gem - I work with some of the most amazing, creative, fun, loving people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.

I did have a revelation about community not long ago, though. It struck me that community is not a group of people that exist already, and with whom we begin participating. Community is all the people around us, the ones from all the orbits of our life. We each make our own community, from everyone we know, not from existing identified groups. Facebook illustrates this nicely. I sometimes wish I had a chart that illustrates my Facebook community, including how they're all connected to one another. Several times I've gotten back into contact with old friends because they know a current friend whom I didn't know they knew, or noticed that current friends know each other without me knowing. Every time, I had the sense that my community was connecting to itself, one strand at a time, like a web. It's a lovely feeling, like puzzle pieces are being put into place. One thing I've always loved is to help people find others people among my community who can help them. It's one of the things that makes me the happiest. I feel like a spider, creating an infinitely precious web, one silken thread at a time.

For 2011, I'd like to continue to grow my community and also to be more proactive in building and nurturing my community. I think in 2010 I somehow expected community to care for me, but without putting as much of myself into it as I could have. In 2011 I'd like to be more proactive in caring for my community, expanding and linking the people therein, and discovering new aspects of community. I'd like to be more conscious of who I let into my life, and to pursue positive, healthy relationships with people, rather than just letting relationships crash over me like waves in the ocean. In 2010, my community was largely about partying, drinking, and play. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I'd like community in 2011 to be more about connection, communication, exploration, and a deepening of our understanding of life. And then parties, too ;-)

2010-12-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 5 – Let Go.

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

Reverb10: December 5 – Let Go.

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

So much letting go this year, and over the year prior! You can dig around on my blog to see more details of this, but suffice it to say that I grabbed on to a dream 2 1/2 years ago and clung to it like a starving wolverine until 2 months ago, despite all signs that told me that this wasn't working. I was so in love, and love blinded me to the obvious fact that I was not in the relationship I thought I was in. Ho hum. Oldest story in the book. But even knowing that, I couldn't let go. The message of letting go came to me so often. Once, during one of our many "practice breakups", I had lost a ring that I really valued. I couldn't find it anywhere, and so I finally accepted that it was gone forever. Taking my lover's clothes out of their space in my dresser, I found the ring, UNDER the clothes where it would have been virtually impossible for it to fall. To me, that message was loud and clear. Get out from under this, it said. But I didn't take heed, and found myself losing myself in my desperate attempts to cling to a relationship that anyone else could see wasn't working. I wanted it so badly. I thought we were building a future, but I was in a fantasy world. The messages came to me one on top of the other, and even then, I couldn't act. I was trapped by some deepseated longing to be loved the way I pretended he loved me. Then, it was over and I had no choice but to let go. The letting go was excruciating, like letting go of my own soul. There were the stages of grief: denial, despair, anger. I'm just now getting somewhat over the anger, and acceptance is peeking its head around the corner. I'm not sure I'm ready for it yet, anger is so comforting, in a way. But I'm finding the vise-grip of my heart slowly loosening. Some light gets in, these days, and some joy and laughter. Two months ago, I never would have thought I'd be in this place, contemplating a new future and new possibilities without the angst and suffering of the last 2 1/2 years. There are still some things to cope with, but dawn is coming. I can feel it.

2010-12-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 4: Wonder

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I started nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 4: Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

Wonder? That's an easy one. Everything is so wonderful it's hard to pinpoint one wondrous thing. But I do know that wonder is something that circulates in my blood, that eases in and out of my lungs with every breath, and that causes my muscles and neurons to fire. Wonder? Let's see. Everything that my senses detect is full of wonder. The light, the color, the sounds. Today, for instance, the storm of the last few days had passed, and the weather was actually warm, the air wet but not spilling over. Fat clouds passed over and spit a few drops here and there, and the sun came in and out of play, toying with us - sunglasses? Yes. No. Maybe. The pepper trees on my walk to lunch were orange and yellow and bright red. I couldn't get over how fiery they were. They were like torches standing against the soft grey skies. Yellow leaves against the wet sidewalk made me stop and stare. The colors! Where was Andy Goldsworthy when you needed him?

In 2010 I used nothing but my presence to cultivate a sense of wonder. Sometimes, it was all I could do not to take photos of every moment. Here are some:

Bliss - sculpture at Burning Man

The Black Rock desert

More Black Rock Desert. Every moment magic.

The beach at Cancun

Cancun, the night of an awesome lightning storm

Sugar Pine Reservoir, Tahoe National Forest

The Ninth Ward, New Orleans

Audubon Park, New Orleans

Dillon Beach, CA over Thanksgiving

Dillon Beach

2010-12-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 3: Moment

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I'm nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll write now about one that sings to me.

December 3 - Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors.)

I sit at the door to the boat, and the people start coming in. The band is starting to set up. The rain is dancing down on the roof, the windows, and the water that surrounds us on three sides. I'm the doorperson; I take the door donations and direct people to the seats and to the kitchen where the food and drink are. People are happy to be here. They're impressed with this beautiful, 80-foot, wood- and window-lined boat, and with the concert series. The windows surround us; the light is falling and the rain makes it feel cozy inside. I'm surrounded by friends and by people who love music. This phenomenon is something I helped create: a house concert series on my (now ex-) boyfriend's boat. We had this vision, and we made it happen, and now, swimming in love, light, and music, I'm happier than I've ever been. Nothing else matters, and tomorrow does not exist. When the musicians arrive and the room fills with guitar and voice, the audience - and I - well up with tears. "If you're not in awe, you're not paying attention" is the phrase of the evening. I'm in awe, and I'm paying attention, and we're all so alive that the air hums with it. This is a moment that all future experiences will be measured against.

Here's a video of Lisa and Erika, the duo who played that night.

2010-12-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

Reverb10: December 1: One Word

Following a link from Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project, I found the Reverb10 site, which encourages us to spend each day of December looking back at 2010 and thinking about what we want in our lives in 2011, through daily prompts. Since I'm nine days late, I'm not going to write about all of them, but I think I'll start now with the one that sings to me.

December 1 - One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you're choosing that word. Now, imagine it's one year from today. What would you like the word to be that captures 2011?

2010: Growth.

Man. 2010 was a doozy. My heart held sway this year (as if that's different from any other year!) but it held me so tightly, that it forced me to look deeply into my own darkness and the darkness of others. It forced me to sit with this deep, howling need, and to look, over and over and over again, into this pit of despair that makes me want to fill this emptiness with someone else's love. I couldn't get out, it was like I was mesmerized, in the old meaning of the term: hypnotized, spellbound. All I could do was watch myself behave badly, claw and grasp my way in a sort-of-relationship that did not suit me, surround myself with imbalance, ambivalence, and shady half-truths that I wanted, so badly, to believe. At the end of the year, eventually, we got out of it, and I'm still in grief. But the growth has been amazing. Amazingly profound. Amazingly painful. Amazingly deep. Amazingly life-altering. I've discovered some deep core of myself that I wasn't aware existed. Some strength that I didn't think I had.

2011: Balance.

I know what I need to have in my life to make me happy. Creativity. Connection. Laughter. Exploration. Nature. Self-Reflection. Physicality. Spontaneity. Honesty. Love. Music. Books. Any of these things can be had, basically immediately, but to have them all, and in balance? That's the challenge. In 2010, I had many of these things, but but not in balance. I stopped meditating, did very little yoga or exercise, ate badly, drank too much consistently, was tense and stressed out, and in my head much of the time. Honesty as hard to get at. It was there some of the time, but there were far too many secrets and nasty surprises for my blood. For 2011, I would like to bring my life back into the balance that I know is good for me, and to not forget what it takes for me to be happy. I want to remember, in this next year, that I need to look out for myself before I can look out for anyone else, and before I do for someone else, I need to do for myself. At the same time, I want to dance with life - a waltz this time, more than a tango. No need for so much intensity and angst that it steals all the light. Life is meant to be lived, and as we grow older, we know more and more what we each need to live well. I know what I need to live the life I want to live. I'm tired of sadness and profundity. I want laughter, happiness, love, and light, and all of these in balance.

2010-12-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

It's In the Cards

At the office holiday party, we had a nice young tarot card reader tucked away in the corner of the bookstore who would do a simple, 3-card reading. Of course I had to partake! I love that kind of stuff. My position on explorations of the divination kind is that regardless of where the information is coming from, it can all be useful. I don't know if the cards (or the palm readers or the crystal-ball gazers) are really tapping into something otherworldly, but I do know that when I've had my cards read, I've inevitably gotten useful information. This time was no exception.

There were three cards - what to hold on to, what to let go of, and what to look at for the future. I'm not actually clear on how she phrased the position of the third card, but it's not that important.

The first card, that reader said (there was no exchange previous to this except for discussions on how I was to cut the cards) told me that I should hold on to my ability to grasp all the complexities of life, and to help people see and understand those complexities. That was kind of a mind-blower, considering that this ability - and support for it - is something that keeps coming up again and again in all of the inner work I've been doing for years. It's what I try to do on my blogs. It's something I've struggled with, as I continue to get messages from others that I should just think happy thoughts and be happy and that all this complexifying is just a downer. But the cards said it: don't let go of this ability to see life for what it is - infinitely nuanced and mysterious!

Wonderful! After this last couple of years, getting a divine confidence boost like that was nice.

The second card - what to let go of - pictured the Hermit. Uh oh. "You need to stop spending so much time alone." she said. OK. After the breakup, I went into lockdown mode. I shut myself off from everyone except the people closest to me, and my coworkers, who I see everyday. Granted, I've had a bad cold for about the past week and a half and that's intensified it (I think I fell in love with Netflix Instant Play) but for the past two months, I've really not wanted to be around people. This one both rang true for me and also made me squirm in my chair. What? Leave my safe cave and go back into the fray?

The third card made me laugh. "Now is not a good time to be vulnerable," the tarot lady said. Ha ha! That's a good one. Ha ha. Funny. Wait. What?? "Now isn't the time for intense self-reflection," she continued. Alright, now look, I almost replied, I am the queen of vulnerability. I write a blog about my own depression on a website filled with psychologists. I've written about my most intense, opening, often painful moments, on a public blog, for years. I still use Blogger fer godsakes!! And before that, in a zine. A ZINE!! So how am I supposed to not be vulnerable, to not be intensely self-reflective? It's what I do, it's in my bones. My gravestone will have to have a screen embedded in it so I can update my blog from the Afterlife.

But it all made a kind of sense, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. So I told myself that, after I got over this @#$%$ cold, I'd reenter the big, bad, dangerous world and make it my bitch. Errr...sorry, my oyster. That doesn't mean no self-reflection or vulnerability or alone time, but maybe it means taking greater pains to reinvent myself, to try new things, and to let go of the past as much as I can without denying my natural grieving process. To laugh more, to let go of expectations more, and to let the moment in more. To be present with whatever's happening, and to meet the people around me with less in my head and more in my heart.

To that end, I'll be adding some new stuff to this blog, shaking things up a bit, and, at least somewhat, participating in the #Reverb10 meme, which is what I was planning to write about in this post before it got hijacked by this tarot card post. But not tonight, I'm off to meet a friend for a spontaneous drink on a rainy night.

2010-11-18T16:20:00.000-08:00

We Survived!

Walking at lunch the other day, off to go do some retail therapy to try and make myself feel better about heartbreak, and wondering why emotional pain can hurt so badly that we sometimes wonder if we'll survive it, I had a thought. I remembered other times I've been in intense pain, even the day before, and how I despaired of making it another minute with this pain, and how I did make it. It seems melodramatic in times when we're doing okay to think of emotional pain as something that can kill you, but I think all of us at one time or another have had moments (or longer) of being in such pain. And in this moment, I wondered how many of us have given ourselves credit for surviving those moments. Yes, perhaps the thought that we will die from heartbreak or disappointment is unrealistic, but in the moment, it can feel like the ultimate reality. When's the last time you stopped and congratulated yourself for getting through those moments, and even getting past them, healing, and moving on?

I went to lunch with a friend a few days ago, and she happened to pick a restaurant where I had gone with an ex- (not the most recent one.) We just happened to sit at the same table he and I had shared. My friend and I had a nice lunch, and it was only that evening that I realized: I had had no twinge whatsoever of pain from that old breakup! I almost texted my friend, but held back, figuring I'd already talked her ear off about this latest ending and she was due for a break. But when I realized that I had moved past that painful time and moved on, and that the old memories no longer haunted me, I got a new shot of faith that I will survive the current time and come out alive, kicking, stronger, and healthier for it.

If you're struggling with emotional pain, despairing that it will never end, remember the old pain and give yourself credit for surviving those times. Give yourself a pat on the back or an ice cream or a new book and congratulate yourself for being so strong, resilient, and courageous that you've made it here!

2010-11-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

On Letting Go

I have to let go. I know that. Even as I grasp this situation, this person, the way someone grasps desperately at leaves of grass as she tumbles off of a cliff, I know that my grasping is only doing damage, and will not help either of us. I've become someone I'm not proud of, someone who lashes out with jealous comments and little snipes to ease the pain of loss. Last night, at a very special event that fills me with pride and joy, I was forced to act easeful, happy, and welcoming in a group of others. I was the hostess, I had to be strong and poised, even though that morning I had been weeping, angry, and desolate. After that night, I knew, my new life would start, one that I had to walk into with the same poise and confidence that I displayed to our guests. As I closed that door behind me after a wonderful evening, carrying with me flowers and compliments and a strong feeling of the love and support of the people around me, I wanted to cry, I wanted to rage, to be called back and to be told that it was all a mistake, that I didn't have to walk away, that I didn't have to let go. Even as I write this, when a car drives up in front of my house, I look, halfway hoping to see that familiar car. The joy of witnessing something I helped create come to a gorgeous crescendo is still inside of me, as is the feeling of love for someone that will never (hopefully) go away, even if our relationship must change.

I just wrote a blog post for Psychology Today about how accepting the feelings of anxiety and terror that I used to have about driving a car helped me finally get my driver's license at age 36. I realized as I wrote that I can use those same skills now, as I make a new life for myself. I can sit with the loss, the grief, the sadness, and even the hope and the good memories, and still choose to move my life in a direction that supports my values of being a good friend, speaking and acting with compassion, surrounding myself with beauty, supporting creativity in myself and others, and generally living a life of integrity. I realize that, in the recent past, I have not acted in accordance with my values, and that, though it hurts to let go, that letting go will actually help me get back to my valued path. At the event where I helped host, I was able to be there for others, be strong, confident, welcoming, and happy even though I knew that every hour that passed brought me closer to walking out of a door that I never wanted to have to walk out of ever again. If I could do it then, in the midst of people and chaos, music and laughter, I can do it now, in the silence of my house, with the light streaming in and the warm breeze. I can let go of wanting life to be different than it is, and I can wish everyone in my life - past present, future and maybe-future - love and wholeness.

2010-10-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

How does One fall in Love With Oneself?

I actually asked my counselor that, when he suggested that I take this time of being single to explore the idea that I am the one I seek: that I am my own Beloved.

We tend to look outside of ourselves for love and validation. All of us do it to some degree or other. I tend to do it balls-out, no-holds-barred, full-on, to a degree that terrifies me and leaves me floundering in a sea of emotion. To say nothing of what it does to my partners or the relationship.

If, then, it's possible to fall in love with myself, to always carry with me that serene knowledge that I am the one that I seek, that I can give myself everything (yes, everything) that I seek in another when I look into his eyes, that means that nothing can derail me emotionally because I will never need someone else so badly that he can break my heart. I can choose to be with someone because I love him, because of his true qualities and not the fantasy qualities I ascribe to him. And I can choose to leave, if that seems like the best decision, without falling apart, because he is not the one who gave me the good feelings I had when I was with him. And I know I will be OK, no matter what, because I can trust that I can provide for myself everything that I need.

That sounds nice. But how do we do this?

Yesterday, I meditated on the fact that I am totally unique in the universe. Think of it! You - we all - are like nothing else that has existed ever before or will exist ever again. There will never be again be a collection and expression of genes, experiences, learning, emotion, and thought that is exactly like you. Even if you were cloned, that person would not be exactly like you because he or she would not have the same exact experiences, and thus would never have the same reactions to life, the same quirks, likes and dislikes, or the same thoughts. The same is true of every being that we meet. Even that bird on a wire is totally unique. There is no other bird exactly like that one.

Have you ever stared into your own eyes in the mirror? I have. Do it sometime. It's fascinating, because, if the eyes are the windows to the soul, you can almost see your own soul while staring into your own eyes. Whenever I doubt that I am a genuinely good soul, I do this exercise. My eyes tell me that I am, even if I do or say things I regret. Do this: find a mirror where the light is good, and just stand for a few moments, looking at your face and into your eyes. What do you see in them? Kindness, sadness, amusement, embarrassment (it might feel kind of silly to be doing this, after all), anger, joy? What does your face tell you? I've been noticing where the wrinkles will be, and that these are the same places they are in my mother's face. Around my lips, and under my eyes. I notice that I purse my lips a lot, and that my face is always active, my expressions pass quickly. What do your eyes tell you about yourself? Mine seem innocent and open sometimes, like I don't understand the meanness that's in the world. This is actually how I feel, a lot of the time. Other times they seem to speak of unseen worlds inside them, characters and stories and ideas and images. Sometimes they are very sad and red, sometimes calm, cool, and serene. Sometimes laughing, sometimes steely. You can tell a lot about yourself from your own eyes.

One night, having no plans, I just hung around in my house, alone, listening to music. On my mantel were several photos of myself with various important people in my life. I sat on my couch as I listened to the music, occasionally singing along, and when I did this, I faced these photos. I was at it for hours that evening, and at the end of the night, I realized I felt an incredible love for this person I had been gazing at for so long. I've always considered myself less than beautiful, but at the end of this night, I realized I was beautiful. It was like after hours of staring into my own face, I had finally seen myself, and liked what I saw. Perhaps one way to fall in love with ourselves is to have photos around us of our best selves, where we'll see them every day. I have two photos of myself as kids up on my bookshelf. In one, I'm laughing. In the other I'm looking into the camera with an expression of calm and strength. Both of these remind me that those kids are still in me - the joyful one and the calm, strong one.

I don't know the answer to the question I posed above. I don't know how to fall in love with myself, although these things all seem to be good starts. I - we all - can practice looking at ourselves with compassion, even when things are difficult. We can treat ourselves like our own best friends, rather than our own worst enemies. We can care for our bodies and our souls by treating them right. We can treat ourselves like we would a small, dependent child and make sure we always keep ourselves safe, yet at the same time open ourselves up to new, challenging experiences.

I tend to feel resentment when I realize that, truly, I am the only one who can help myself when I'm in trouble. Even if I call my friend or mom or sister for support, at the end of the call, I will hang up and be alone with everything. It hurts. But why, if I'm really the one that I seek? Why is this a situation to resent? I hate sleeping and waking up alone, often dislike coming home to an empty house and to have an evening to kill at the same time that I don't feel like filling my days with empty plans just to fill the time. Maybe this is what I'll work with. Turning the resentment to joy that I have someone like myself that I can count on when things get rough. Enjoying time alone with myself because I am the only one who fully, truly understands me. And who wouldn't want to be with, sleep with, wake up with, do yoga with, be creative with, someone who totally and fully understands and loves them? It would be a dream come true.

2010-10-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

And the Sun Shone In

Wow. Sometimes the light comes from the most unexpected sources. My brain is buzzing with what I've learned, all in the course of one day, and how I went from crushing devastation to strength and bliss within an hour. The details will remain vague because I'm not interested in 'outing' anyone or blaming anyone, so I apologize if the vagueness is irritating. This isn't a tale of woe or of revenge. I'm telling this story for those of you who are in difficult situations, who don't feel like things will ever get better, who are stuck in self-blame or in blaming others for situations that cause you grief and pain. For those of you trapped between love and a hard place. Until last Thursday, I felt trapped, too. And then a light, delivered by a most unlikely fellow traveler, clicked on.

The story starts with a situation that I've been in for a couple of years. There is love there and also conflict, confusion, and tears. For years I've twisted myself into a pretzel and bent over backwards, forwards, and all ways to make something right that really didn't work for me, with someone who really - at his core - didn't want what I wanted, but that I desperately wanted. I cried over it, despaired over it, ruminated, ate my own heart out, got angry, got desperate, threw things, raged, made accusations, blamed myself, blamed others, lay in bed more than once in a stew of confusion, grief, and loss. God, I wanted this so badly, more than I've ever wanted anything. To get what I wanted, I tried hard to be sweet, forgiving, open, and understanding. I stood by, trying to be patient, absolutely sure that things would change once a certain situation worked itself out. I meditated, envisioned my heart glowing with a white light and enveloping the people in my world. I did magic, blessed charms, burned prayers and sage, made an altar, did lovingkindness meditation to towards all those involved, prayed for all of us to find joy and happiness in our lives. I even tried to let go, to move forward, to cut the bonds of attachment, but I kept going back. Through it all, what I really wanted, was to possess this thing that seemed to be the answer to all my prayers.

Through the whole thing, I tried so hard to be consistently patient, kind, sweet, and forgiving. I tried to rise above the pettiness and low meanness that popped up around me from time to time. I tried to tell myself I was above the drama, and that it wasn't me, but 'them', that created it. But no matter what I tried, for some reason, I kept acting badly, kept doing things that filled me with shame and regret. I had rage attacks, for weird reasons that made no sense. I got upset over miniscule things. In my heart, I tried to keep love and kindness and openness ascendant, but what kept coming out of me was pettiness, jealousy, anger, and judgment. It was so strange, like trying to speak to someone and finding your words coming out as gibberish, even though they're clear as day in your head.

No matter how hard I tried to rationalize this situation and make it OK, no matter how hard I tried to be the model woman, to be wonderful and calm and everyone's friend, it always backfired. People seemed to hate me. They gossiped and sniped and made bizarre accusations. People I had helped and tried to be kind to turned on me. I found myself in a situation I've never known before: surrounded by people where I didn't know who was my enemy and who was my friend. And I thought I deserved it, on some level, because I had behaved badly at certain times. I had lashed out at people, had attacks of anger, fought, wrote ill-considered e-mails, made accusations, snapped at people. So I decided that these people hated me because I was flawed and damaged and had made too many mistakes in their presence. I believed they were right to dislike me.

And I kept on trying to make the situation work for me, to try to be even better and sweeter and nicer and more forgiving, and I started to develop gratitude that someone I cared for still cared for me even though I was so damaged and troubled. I lost so much of my self-respect that I was actually grateful to have what I had - even though it was far from what I wanted and deserved - rationalizing that nobody else would want me because of my craziness. And the more I tried to be kind and open, the more the opposite came out of me. In desperation, and hating the needy, untrusting, unbalanced person I had become, I prayed to the Universe to please show me what to do, to show me the path away from all this pain.

The answer came from an unexpected place. One day last week, when I was drenched in pain from things that were happening in my life, I got caught up in a drama, where I made some accusations in an e-mail to someone who had been in my social circle and clearly had some issue with me. I believed wholeheartedly that I was doing the right thing by keeping this person out of our circle, because I believed she had wronged myself and a friend. I tried to make the e-mail sound fairly objective and straightforward, but basically I was acting on the word of someone else who was untrustworthy. Yet another mistake, I thought to myself, after I sent it. Why am I always such a screw-up?

She wrote back, an e-mail steeped in bitterness, hatred, and contempt. She called me horrible names. She accused me of horrible things, and made herself out to be blameless. But most importantly, she told me things about the situation that I was in that, despite the nastiness of her tone in general, I believed as soon as I read them. Though perhaps some of the facts of the letter may not have been true, or may have been distorted, I believed the spirit of it instantly, because it felt true. In my thank-you e-mail to her, I told her she had "bitch-slapped me into reality."

I was stunned, crushed, devastated. The situation was not as I had thought. I saw evidence that someone I thought was my unabashed supporter had said cruel things about me to people we both knew, some who were my friends. Suspicions I had long held but tried to rationalize away seemed true now. Doubts I had had over the years made sense to me now. Feelings I had that I thought were my own craziness now seemed not as crazy. I realized that the two of us had often had exact opposite experiences, even though we were together. Everything fell into place.

I cried in long, choking sobs, with my office door closed, too broken to even think about driving home. I called my best friend and cried to her. And in the middle of the conversation, it was like a someone poured a soothing balm onto my aching heart, and the pain left me. I felt relieved. I felt free from the situation that had been chaining me down for so long. Though some of my realizations were not very positive about someone I cared for, and some were pretty damning of myself, I felt no anger or self-blame, only release. I walked on air that evening, feeling no bitterness or regret or sadness, only sympathy for all of us in the situation, bemusement at the actions of people I had trusted, and gladness that I was more free of it than I'd been in 2 years.

But I couldn't figure out why I felt so good. I should have felt crushed, betrayed, angry, bitter, and resentful. But I didn't. I felt like I had been in a twilit room, filled with creeping shadows and half-hidden figures, and someone had turned on the light. The reason, as near as I can tell, is that the e-mail finally forced me to see what was happening, forced me to let go of a fantasy that I had been holding on to about who I was in the context of this relationship, who the people were around me, and what this situation meant. Everything I had thought was going on, every hope I had clung to, every bitter disappointment I had struggled through, was all based on a fantasy that was never true, that was all created out of a desperate, primal need I had to be wanted, loved, and held. Perhaps realizing that things weren't always as I had thought them - that I had been naive, in a certain sense - had the effect of banishing all of the assumptions that I had been making for the previous 2 years, and in seeing through the assumptions, I realized the truth: That my fantasies of what had been going on were false, that the pedestal on which I had placed certain people was make-believe, and that even my holier-than-thou beliefs about my own pure motives weren't true. And it freed me. It freed me to see those around me for who they are and not for who I think they are or who I want them to be; it freed me to live a little bit bigger in my own self, without feeling like I need to be different to please others.

And it solved riddles and answered questions I hadn't even known I had asked. Puzzle pieces finally fit together. I had felt so crazy for so long, and all of a sudden I didn't. It all made sense.

A friend suggested that my acting out had been my inner knowing - which knew things weren't quite what they appeared - trying to get my attention. That my intuition had been right all along, and because I tried to ignore it, it kept coming out in these acts of rage, insecurity, and fear. That sounded right to me because, though I've always had a temper and have occasionally overreacted out of anger, I had never acted so badly as I did in this situation. This simply wasn't me. I was a different person in this situation than I was in every other part of my life.

After I received the e-mail, I sent one back thanking her. I felt so grateful to her for pulling the wool from my eyes. Her response to me was to call me a "moron who thinks she's enlightened or something." When I read that, sitting at a patio table on a warm evening, drinking a glass of wine, I had a visceral feeling of the pain that she was in, and I felt an intense sympathy for her. May she - and all of us - be open to the light that comes from unlikely sources, and widens our understanding a little bit.

I now feel like I've found myself again - the person who was lost for almost 2 years - probably even longer. I feel strong enough to put my life back in line with my integrity and values, to go back to self-care, to remember what's important to me, not just what's important to someone else. I feel like I walked through an underworld and came out of it into the light, like the Chilean miners.

The lessons I'd like to impart from this experience are:

1) Trust your gut, even - especially - when you don't want to.

2) If you find yourself in a situation where you keep acting in ways that aren't in line with your values or how you usually are, consider that your intuition is trying to force you to take a deeper look at the situation that triggers these behaviors. If you feel like a situation is making you crazy, it probably is; it's probably not you, it's what's happening around you that's the problem.

3) Get to know your own projections, fantasies, and dreams about things in your life that are important to you. Realize when you're making it up - and most of us are making it up a lot of the time.

4) Cultivate open, nonjudgmental awareness as the key to bringing contentment and strength in all areas of life. When you absolutely know the real you, and can be relaxed enough to let others be the real them, without judgment, then you will know peace.

5) If you are struggling and feel that it will never get better, practice this: What if, just for a moment, everything really was OK just exactly how it is? See if you can relax your judgments, expectations, worries, and hopes even just for a split second, and see how it feels. Is it possibly to come from that place of peace and nonjudgment and make the decisions that are right for you?

6) When faced with a difficult decision, go inside and ask for help - from God, from Buddha, from the Universe, from your spirit, from whomever you pray to. Ask them to show you the answer. I did, and everything became clear.

7) if you, or anyone in your life, thinks they know all the answers, that's a sure sign that they don't.

Namaste, be well, and take good care of yourself!

2010-10-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Clouds and Water

These photos were taken at Sugar Pine Reservoir in Tahoe National Forest by myself and Scott Locker. The camping trip was much-anticipated but started off rockily: A misunderstanding started it all out, then the van broke down just at the exit from Auburn. It turned out to be an easy fix (well, maybe easy isn't the right word....it's guy stuff.) Then we got lost on the way to the campground, then the campground where I had planned to stay was closed for the season (even though I had checked online that morning and it was listed as open). We found another campground, but the only spot left was next to a huge family of dirt bikers with lots of screaming kids, and across from the bathrooms, which were desperately in need of a pump-out. Let's just say you didn't need a flashlight to find them at night, you could navigate by smell. Though it was warm and hot when we got there, it started to rain that night and the for the rest of the trip was cloudy and cooler. It was all enough to give one pause and to make plans for a hotel in Auburn. But, we stuck it out and the next day was wonderful. We got a new spot by the water (with its own private beach!), took a gorgeous hike around the reservoir, hung out around the campfire with wine and good food and lots of good discussion and laughter, read to one another from "The Holographic Universe", and generally bonded and enjoyed our time together.

These photos were taken on the last night, as we drank red wine sitting by the edge of the water. The clouds were spectacular and the water was like a mirror. As the sun sank, the contrast got brighter and the colors deeper; several layers of clouds moving at different speeds drifted north. Some lit up orange and pink while some stayed the grey of a soft longhaired cat....and then, literally in the blink of an eye, the color went out, and all was cool grey, and it was night. It was better than any TV show could ever be. It was magical. Thank you, Universe, for gently teaching us that letting go of expectations can result in experiences we could never have imagined.

2010-10-05T16:25:00.000-07:00

Eat, Pray, Love - The Complexities of the Heart

So I'm normally not one for Hollywood movies, but the other night my mom, my friend, and myself went to watch Eat, Pray, Love after a light mexican meal and several margaritas. It was a regular ol' Girls' Night Out. I really enjoyed the book, so even though the movie stars one of my least-favorite actresses, I decided to go.

Yes, the movie was cheesy and overwrought, with Miss Julia finding beautiful, perfectly furnished quarters to stay in in picturesque towns crawling with cute orphans, crotchety but wise grandmothers, dashing Italians, monkeys, and cows. Yes, she learns perfect Italian in a matter of months, finds a beautiful best friend almost immediately, and, even though she jokes about gaining weight in Italy, it's clear she never actually does. Yes, she ends up finding, finally, a man who can love her for herself and - literally - motors away into the sunset with him on a boat, to some small picturesque island off of Bali. OK. I can suspend my disbelief for this one movie, because besides the normal Hollywood claptrap, there were some genuinely touching things about the film that have stayed with me.

In one of the first scenes, she's talking with a Balinesian medicine man and he gives her a picture of a figure with four legs and eyes in its chest. The four legs, he explains, remind us to stay grounded and balanced. The eyes in the chest remind us not to think from our heads, but from our hearts. Even in the moment, in the theater, during the scene, I found this last part to be eye-opening. As soon as he said that, I shifted my consciousness to my chest, and it was like some screen had been pulled from my eyes. The next morning, I spent most of my meditation with my consciousness in my heart, and even though there's a situation in my life that I've almost literally been ruminating about for two years, my heart was steady and solid and loving, and the ins and outs, rights and wrongs of that situation weren't important. I've recently been haunted by an image of my own heart, seeing it as scarred and twisted as the back of an old boat-propellor-torn Manatee from a Florida swamp. I can see it, clear as day. But when I actually went to my heart and saw the world from it, my heart was whole, clean, strong, and juicy. Nothing had damaged it. The world seemed exactly as it was, and I only felt a calm goodwill towards myself and everything else. Try it. Right now. Even if you don't believe me.

In another scene, the lone American in the ashram, a gruff Texan with a dark past, tells our heroine, when she misses her boyfriend, to send him light and love and to let it go. As someone who clings incessantly to people, places, and memories, this seemed a particularly empathetic and kind way to deal with the kind of pain that comes from missing something we have known that is now gone. When we send light and love, we acknowledge the importance of a memory, person, or feeling without needing to go to it. Far from just distracting ourselves from the pain of the missing, we go into it, acknowledge it, and use its energy to send out light - an act which not only helps us, but helps the whole world (at least that's what I believe.) I have used this technique before, and even written about it, but sometimes I forget to use it, and this scene reminded me.

The Texan also tells Liz that if she could just get these men out of her head, and all the guilt and recrimination about them, that the Universe would rush in and would fill her with love. (At this point, my mom leaned over to me and said "Oh, that's just crap!") But that touched me, too. I loved the image of the vacuum created by letting go of all of this complicated stuff in our minds being filled with a radiant, Universal light.

In the movie, Liz leaves a troubled relationship to travel the world for a year. Before she makes the decision to go on her trip, yet knows she's profoundly unhappy in her relationship, her boyfriend holds her to him and says, essentially, "Let's accept what we have here, let's build a future together and accept that we are miserable but that we're happy to not be apart." This sounds ridiculous on the face of it, I know, but in the world of the heart, it makes a kind of sense and I've been in that situation more often than I'd like to admit. I have not seen this kind of situation reflected in any movie or acknowledged as tenderly. I've always thought there was something broken in me that I've considered making this deal in my own life. I teared up at the reflection of these two peoples' pain in a situation that worked for neither of them, but where their love of each other - and dependence on each other and the dreams they held for the relationship - keeps them tied to one another even when they might be happier with someone else. Later in the movie, after spending time at the ashram, Liz writes him an e-mail telling him that they both deserve better than they had when they were together. Again, I was moved by the portrayal of the pain that these decisions - even when they're right, and all parties know it - can cause. Even - maybe even especially - a right decision can be heart-wrenching and sad. I know it, and can relate to the difficulty in walking away, and the sadness of being without a person you love, even knowing you weren't right together. I thought this situation in the movie was handled in a sweet, profound way that I don't often see. Most often, we're told to "just get over it", with no acknowledgment about how complicated the heart is.

I have no naivete about Hollywood or moviemakers or what's important to them. I don' t believe there's any film company in all of L.A. that wants the best for us. But somehow, in the case of this movie, some true things came through the glitz and the gloss, things I'm still thinking about and digesting several days later.

2010-09-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

On Happiness, Rainbows, and Icebergs

I usually write by the “Poison Snake” method, in other words: I wait until the inspiration jumps out and bites me, and then I write. Since coming back from Burning Man, I’ve wondered what to write about. Things have been pretty normal: I’ve run the gamut from despair to contentment, even felt bliss at times. I’ve surfed the waves of relationships, and have fallen off the board a few times over the last couple of weeks, while triumphantly staying upright at other times when the waves hit. Mainly I’ve just been doing my thing: working, playing, loving, making mistakes, doing the right thing. Big whoop. Nothing exciting to write about there. So I asked sweetie today: “What should I write about?” Not fair, I know. It’s my art, and I should take responsibility for it. But my self-imposed deadline is coming up tomorrow and inspiration is out hunting field mice, for all I know. So I asked, and the answer was: “Write about something happy!”

Of course, me being an Overthinker, my immediate response was “Why, Is my blog not happy enough?”, a question which he, smartly, did not answer. We won’t get into the rest of the conversation, but this exchange brought something up for me that’s probably a part of my resistance to writing. I feel like this blog – and by extension, myself – is a bit of a downer. I feel like I should be happier and write about happier stuff, like sunsets and rainbows. Really, I’m not being sarcastic. I do want to be able to craft beautiful, uplifting words about the loveliness of nature and the basic, core goodness that exists in all of us. Because I actually believe in those things and think they’re important.

But something stops me.

I think the thing that stops me is a deep feeling that , while happy, light topics can be important and inspirational, they’re easy to appreciate and to write about; but what I feel compelled to explore – in my own life and in my writing – is the deeper current, the stuff that’s more complicated, intricate, sometimes hard to appreciate and even dark. I love rainbows, who doesn’t? But if I were to write about one, I’d write about the beauty AND the shadow side of the rainbow. I can’t help it. It’s in my blood.

To me, the beauty of life includes the darkness and the things that are hard, unexpected, or intense. In my own life, the most powerful lessons have come from difficult situations, even when it’s taken me years to digest the lesson. But I also know that more people want to read about rainbows and goodness than about struggling with intense emotions or difficult feelings, or even of exploring the nuances and complexities of a situation. I’m often the one trying to fill in the shades of grey to other peoples’ black and white understanding of people or situations – often to the frustration of the person I’m talking to. I can’t hold grudges for very long because I can understand other peoples’ motivations so well. I can’t write about blissful beauty without acknowledging the other things that come along with it, even if just my own complexities of mood as I observe the rainbow.

But then I wonder if my propensity to swim in the ocean of complexity and nuance – to acknowledge all facets of a situation, including the difficult – actually contribute to my frequent depressions and other mood troubles. Maybe they’re right, that optimists are happier, that if you look on the bright side, good things will come to you. I know people of whom this seems true.

Perhaps I should try to write about rainbows more frequently, or things that bring simple joy without complexity or darkness. I’m not sure; I don’t want to subvert my particular gifts at seeing the whole iceberg, but I also don’t want to crash into the iceberg and sink into an ocean of despair. Maybe there’s a balance to be struck between swimming in the dark waters and basking in the sunlight that breaks through the clouds and creates the rainbow.

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The photo at the beginning of this post was taken by Scott Locker, follow his blog here

2010-09-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

Back from the Desert

Like last year, I'm not sure how to start writing about my Burning Man experience. There's so much, and nothing I write will really encompass the actual experience. But I suppose that's true of any experience.

Imagine starting out before dawn, and arriving, after 3-hour drive into the desert, in a swelter of dust, to the other side of the moon, populated by aliens - beings dressed in costumes, furry vests, bug-eyed goggles, hot pants, with braided hair and tied all over with string, beads, and charms. You park your camper in between an Airstream shaded by a tarp and lit by christmas lights, and an old bus painted with blue waves. The air throbs with music and it's only 11 am. Friends are there and they greet you, and then you get to work making your new home habitable. And for the next week, you're out there in the grey alkali flats, surrounded by these creatures and the music, and the dust, and the surreal sculptures that look over it all, out there from the deep playa.

Pretty intense, no?

When people have asked me about Burning Man since I've gotten back, all I could say was 'It was intense.' It's the only word that even comes close to telling the truth. The truth is that it was a difficult time. That's not something Burners like to hear - that the experience wasn't really that great. Lover and I were lost in waves of miscommunication and misunderstandings and tension, and finally had a big fight, in the middle of the week. Meanwhile, I was feeling that old social tension and anxiety that visits me more than I like to admit - surrounded by people who were close to one another, but with whom I've never been able to figure out how to make any inroads. I felt left out, but not because anyone actually left me out. Because that's my story and has been for my entire life. The killer is that I knew it was only my imagination, and I still couldn't get past it. At the kickoff first-night party, I froze up in social and personal terror and could barely participate, and this set the tone for the whole week. I still don't know why it happened. I could only stand by the burn barrel, on the outskirts of the camp, and pretend to be friendly when all I wanted to do was go curl up in my comfy bed in the camper and be safe. I felt unsafe and afraid, and I till can't figure out why - was it just that we had only landed a few hours prior and I was still transitioning to this new world? Was it because I had been feeling such tension with my partner? Was it hormonal?

Of course I always want to add: "But there were good times, too!" Finally reconnecting with my love on Friday night, almost too late but not; bicycling out into the desert to look at the art and the great, old, wrinkled hills; moments with friends in the afternoon when people gather under the shade structures and hang out and talk; walking into the playa at night on the traditional evening walkabout, led by a man with a plastic lit-up sword; riding in the camp art car down the dusty streets to discover what we could discover, like bacon and avocado thrust at us from one camp, and a ball crawl and bad advice - and stencils!- in another. Exploring the city with my sweetie on our bikes and decorating one another with a rubberstamp that read 'tramp stamp', while drinking Snakebites; being visited unexpectedly by friends one morning at the camper, and having a relaxing morning (well, OK, it was after 11 am) drinking Heinekins and hanging out and talking.

The best time, honestly, was the last day in the desert when we decided to leave a day early - after helping break down camp, an effort that left us sprinkled with grey playa dust that seemed to age both of us by 40 years. My love had talked with the representative from the Bureau of Land Management - who had a camp across the street from us - and he had told us of a campsite and hot springs about 2 hours' drive up the playa and into the hills. So on Sunday, we left Burning Man, drove up the road a mile, and got back onto the playa, on a rutted track that went for 30 miles, skirting Black Rock City and curling into the brown hills peopled with jackrabbits and Russian thistle plants (better known as tumbleweeds.)

En route we realized we didn't have enough gas to make it to the campsite and back, and, as we pondered what to do, we rounded a curve and saw water, which literally made me gasp - water in the desert! It was a small reservoir, and we decided to camp there for the night, the way the old explorers and cowboys probably did, knowing that water was the symbol for safety and survival in the desert. It was quiet. No throbbing music, no people in costumes except for a couple of hunters in camo who drove past us on the gravel road. The wind whipped the water. We joked that this was like one of those movies where the couple is hunted by psychopaths while trying to survive in the wilderness. At night, the sky blazed with stars and, with no moon, Mars took over and was reflected in a silver path on the reservoir. We could see a faint glow in the blackness over by Black Rock City. Sweetie thought it was the Temple burning; I think it was just the lights of the city. A few coyotes yipped. But other than that, there was no sound.

In the spaceship of that camper, we heated up leftover lasagna, poured some cocktails, and talked about astronomy and astrology. We fell asleep to the wind rocking the camper like a mother rocks a cradle.

The next morning, we awoke to bright sunlight and silence - and to a flat tire. Luckily, my man did the manly thing and changed the tire while I made breakfast, and we dined on a blanket on the shore of the reservoir. After that, we emptied all of the water out of the van and camper, keeping only two Nalgene bottles full for drinking, and drove back to town, hoping we had enough gas to make it.

It's always been my contention that it's not an adventure if everything goes right. If everything goes right, it's just a trip.

We coasted back into Gerlach - whose combined population with the neighboring town of Empire is 499 - and into the town's only gas station right when the fuel gauge touched E. There was barely any line at the pumps, and then we were back on the highway, on our way home.

2010-08-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

Burning Man or Bust

Burning Man is coming up. We leave in a week and a half. Yipes! For those who have never been to this festival in the desert, it's pretty hard to describe. Burning Man is like a combination of camping trip, class reunion, art festival, music concert, spiritual retreat, gynormous bar crawl, and hippie love-fest all rolled into one - with costumes and 50,000 of your closest friends. Set in the high Black Rock desert north of Reno, it's usually described as an experiment in intentional community. For most of the year, the desert is as nature intended, a moonscape; for one week out of the year, it's transformed into a working city, complete with its own economy (no money is exchanged) street signs, a police force, medical personnel, its own rules of conduct, a schedule of events, several radio stations, a coffee shop, and even a beauty pageant. One Christian gentleman described it as "Satan's Birthday Party." It's more than an art or music festival, more than a retreat, more than a camping trip in a beautiful natural setting, more than a ritual, more than a gathering of hippies and freaks, more than a big party. You have to experience it to understand.

Last year was my second time, after an ill-fated first trip 8 years before after which I swore I'd never go again. A man persuaded me to go again, and this time, with the help of a wonderful new camp of friends, I had a transformative time. Still, Burning Man is not, at least for me, some carefree jaunt of parties and half-naked women. It's tough, too. In the desert, I confronted my deep inner stuff. My fear of and discomfort around people, my deep inner insecurities, my relationship troubles, old grief, the gaping hole of need that I carry around with me, my judgments of others and myself, my fear of letting go. At the same time, I came back with a desire to live that creatively in the rest of my life - to be my true self, no matter how weird or different.

At Burning Man, you dress how you want - the more creative the better. Almost everything is participatory and nobody tells you what to do (unless you're a real danger to yourself or others). Art and self-expression are everywhere you turn, sometimes to physics-defying degrees. At Burning Man, you rely on yourself and your friends. You haul in your own food and water and necessities and haul the waste out again, and if you run out of something, there's no corner store to go replenish your supply. At Burning Man, there's music, dancing, yoga, meditation, art classes, lectures, nature walks, fire displays, bars, and performances 24 hours a day - and no money is exchanged. At Burning Man, you can't drive your car around unless it's a permitted "mutant vehicle" - a vehicle that's been modified in some creative sort of way. People-watching gets raised to a whole new level as folks go by in outlandish outfits, sometimes no outfits, and often being transported by strange devices (stilts, pogo sticks, unicycles, cardboard fish, cupcakes). In the desert, it's hot during the day (temperatures of 115 degrees are being reported) and cool at night, and sometimes the alkaline dust gets kicked up into whiteouts that shroud everything in what looks like talcum powder. Oh, and did I mention that there are no showers unless you bring them (and the water) yourself?

I've heard it described that at Burning Man, everything is love and there are no judgments. I don't think this is strictly true; on the playa - as the Black Rock desert is called - people are the same as they've always been. There are the assholes who get too drunk or high and act like jerks, or just generally don't act with common sense; there are the hotsy sexpots in their 15 revealing outfits a day who stand around and preen, and the lazy ones who disappear whenever work needs to get done. There are the flakes and the users, just like in the 'default world' (as Burners call where we are right now.) But in general, I would say that Burning Man brings out the best in people. Or maybe it's that the people who go to Burning Man are generally more open, more creative, more flexible, and more expressive than others.

The experience of Burning Man begins when you get in the car and start the trip. You drive further and further from your life, and your entire new life is packed as tightly and efficiently as possible in your car, RV, or van. Civilization passes behind you. As the hours roll by, you pass green trees and lakes, and then you get further into the desert, and things get more sparse. The weather gets hot and dusty. You start to see other Burners on the road - vehicles piled high with bikes wrapped in pink fur, hula hoops,tents, rugs, and other assorted items, the vehicles often painted with slogans or crude depictions of the Burning Man logo. The highway, your fellow travelers, and the barren, hot landscape are all you see.

Then you hit Reno and it's like someone dropped a huge pot of gold paint onto the desert floor. It's so surreal to have this gigantic mass of lights and glittering buildings rear out of the desert that it seems like a mirage. In Reno, you finish buying supplies, the way the old timers did - stocking up on the essentials before heading out into the brush.

As you leave Reno at 4 am, you know you're heading into the wilderness. You hope you didn't forget anything. The air is quiet and cool, the stars sparkle. Others are on the move, too; the string of red lights ahead of you on the road tells you that. You're all heading to the same place. The further you go, the more Burners you run into, until they are the only people on the road - Burners and the people who serve them.

The closer you get to the playa, the more of the default world you slough off. Cell phones don't work (much), radio is spotty, there's no e-mail. You no longer care if the dust gets into your hair or your fingernails break. Your body adjusts to the heat. You braid your hair to get it out of your face, and you stop looking in the mirror to check your makeup. Then you're there, and the culture is totally different, with different rules and expectations. The first thing you see that lets you know you're on another planet now is a huge metal dragon the size of a bus - oh wait, it IS a bus! The guy getting something out of his RV in front of you in the line to get in the gate is wearing tight silver bellbottoms, platform boots with flames on them, and has a red mohawk. BMIR (Burning Man Information Radio) is the only station you get and it's pumping out music to welcome the hordes. You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

A week from this Saturday, I'll be on the playa trail. I hope for myself and everyone else who attends, that it's a vibrant, transformative, creative, challenging, fun, laughter-filled, connecting time. I hope for new friends and for old connections to be strengthened, for joy in the sun- and moonrises, for the time to sit in the shadow of the great, wrinkled mountains and absorb their calm presence. Have fun, y'all!

2010-08-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

What I Learned from Twisting Myself Into a Pretzel

A yoga studio where I used to take classes several years ago had a note taped up in their bathroom that said, in essence: "If you notice what other yoga students are doing or wearing, than you are not doing yoga." It was much more complicated than that, but what I always impressed me about the message was that it told me that it didn't matter what others' paths were; my yoga practice was mine and mine alone, and like nobody else's. It reminded me not to compare myself with others in the studio, but only to concentrate on my own experience of yoga. I can barely remember how it was to practice at that studio (except that the receptionist brought her small parrot in occasionally to crawl around on the front desk) but I remember that message taped to the bathroom wall near the mirror.

In yoga, not only do we practice strengthening and stretching our bodies, paying attention to our breath, and always moving with physical and mental integrity, we also practice self-care. We go as deeply into poses as we can, and we even challenge our physical comfort, but we do not go so far as to cause ourselves injury. We are mindful of our own level of practice and we don't try to emulate others who are at different stages or who are simply different people than we are. Some days during our practice, we feel more open, more flexible, and have more stamina. Other days, we feel stiffer and get tired more easily. We learn to pay attention to where we are on any given day or minute, and to be OK with that, no matter what.

In another studio where I went to a couple of classes, I was really irritated by a guy who was practicing behind me. It was a mixed-level class. I consider myself an experienced beginner (even after years of practicing), and this guy was some sort of high-level yogi, so he was doing all these crazy variations on postures that ended up with him twisted in ways you wouldn't think the human body could twist. But through it all, he huffed. And he puffed. And he groaned. And he sighed. And he did it all loudly. It was like a bear was doing yoga back there. Like he needed to put on a show so we would pay attention to him. Come to think of it, I've seen this several times, and the groaners have always been men. Anyway, but boy, was I irritated! I just wanted him to shut up so I could concentrate on my own practice. And I was irritated because I felt like he was trying to show the rest of us up, to show how much more advanced he was than we were. I'll never know his actual motivation for making all those sounds that day, but what I realized - what yoga has taught me - is that it doesn't matter. My job is to concentrate on my own work and to do it with integrity, regardless of what's going on around me.

At yet another studio, a flier states that the energy of each person in the room effects the energy of the whole room. That if we are to dedicate our practice to helping support the others in their practice, then we must practice with intention, mindfulness, and presence. How deeply we go into the poses or which variations we choose doesn't matter as much as the quality of our presence and attention matters.

So from these messages I've learned:

Concentrate on your own path, and not on the paths of others.
Be mindful of where you are in any moment, and practice good self-care. Push yourself, but not enough to injure. Pay attention to what your body and senses tell you, and be OK with wherever you are in that moment.
It is the quality of our presence that matters more than the details of our practice. The goal is not to be the most accomplished yogini; the goal is to move and act with integrity, openness, and mental and psychological flexibility and stability.

The funny thing about it is that I have no problem with these lessons as long as I'm doing yoga. But if I try to apply them to my life outside of yoga, I have trouble. The first lesson, for example, tells us not to compare ourselves to other people. I've gotten better at this, but the sight of some lovely, vibrant beauty with perfect skin and teeth still sets my own overly-large horse teeth on edge. And "be OK with where you are in the moment"?? In the yoga studio, I send myself compassion when, as happens frequently, I topple over in Tree Pose when I'm supposed to be elegantly balancing on one foot with my hands in prayer over my heart. But outside of the studio, any minor mess-up is accompanied by a curse under (or over) my breath. Oh well. Another lesson from yoga is that the journey is more important, in the end, than the goal. It's what we learn about ourselves from the practice that counts, not how far we can get our heels behind our ears. I can feel gratitude to my body and mind and how far we've all come together, and at the same time notice that I still have much to learn.

Namaste!

2010-08-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

My friend wrote this wonderfully poignant, horrifyingly detailed account of witnessing firsthand the cruelty of bullfighting as a young boy in Spain. There are links at the end for anti-bullfighting organizations in Europe and the US.

http://barkissimo.com/blogissimo/

2010-08-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

The Blind Lineman

I've only had a car for about 2 1/2 or 3 years. Before that, I used to always take the bus. Since I was 14, I'd spend hours a week on public transportation, going to and from school, work, recreational activities, even vacations. I got very good at figuring out ways to get strange places, cobbling together bus and train schedules in a complex web, poring over routes the way gambling addicts pore over horseracing schedules. Being an adventurous person who's easily bored, as well as someone with a mild driving phobia, I wasn't going to let a little thing like lack of a driver's license keep me from adventuring.

When you take the same bus for awhile, you start recognizing people. One of my routes took me through Emeryville, an industrial city on the edge of Oakland. The bus passed a school for telephone linemen, with rows of tar-covered telephone poles lined up at attention in the yard for the students to practice on. A few times a week, a man would get on the bus at the stop across from the school, dressed all in his lineman gear - hardhat, utility belt with various complicated-looking devices hanging from it. He would greet the driver cheerfully, and then sit down in one of the two seats up front dedicated to people with disabilities. He'd keep his cane close to his side as he sat down, careful not to sit on top of anyone else. Because this lineman was blind.

I was always fascinated by this man. A blind lineman? Who ever heard of such a thing? I'd watch him carefully. He always seemed happy, chatting with the driver or whoever else was near him on the bus. He was a skinny man with thinning red hair, maybe in his 40's. He was one of those characters that can only happen in real life. Nobody could have made up a blind lineman.

Things in my life changed and so did my bus routes and routines, and I stopped seeing him as often, although I would occasionally spot him waiting at another bus stop as my bus whizzed by, always with the hard hat and the belt. It was comforting, in a way, to keep seeing him. He was a fixture of my life and my city, the town where I grew up. But then I stopped seeing him at all, and then I got a car, and my life changed even more.

Life with a car is different. Better, in a way. No more having to build in 2 hours to get anywhere and back (I once went on a date by bus. He stood me up, and then I took the bus back home. I figured I wasted 5 hours on that one.) No more waiting in the cold, windy evenings in shady parts of town, while the sun sinks, wondering whether the bus will be on time. No more avoiding the eyes of the smelly, mentally-challenged men who always seemed to take a shine to me immediately. No more walking for a mile through Richmond - number 8 of the most violent cities in the U.S., the last time I checked - in the dark to get from the train station to home.

Of course there are drawbacks to not participating in the soup of humanity that relies on the bus. I feel like I'm less in touch with the reality of urban living now. I float between work, home, my boyfriend's place, friends' houses, stores, the yoga studio, the park where I hike, without interacting much with anyone in between. I'm less fit than I was when I walked 2 miles a day to the train station to get to and from work, when I would take one bus and one train each way. There was also some kind of pride I felt when I didn't rely on fossil fuels as much, and some pride in being a middle-class white girl who would dare take the public bus as a regular means of transportation. More than one person expressed their concern for me that I would take the bus at all hours, to which I would flip my hair and say "Well, I've been taking the bus since I was 14, I kind of have the routine down."

But now, I'm one of the drivers, caged in my steel box, able to go anywhere at the drop of a hat without worrying about routes or schedules or connections. I gas up my car like everyone else, putting money in the pockets of the horrible oil companies while rationalizing that there's no other option, since I can't afford one of those fancy new electric or hybrid cars.

Last week, I was driving through Berkeley en route to a friend's house. This was my old stomping grounds, a city where I used to be able to recite the routes of 5 or 6 separate bus lines, including the approximate period between buses, and approximately when each route stopped running in the evening. Driving up University Avenue, I looked over while I was stopped at a light, and I saw him. The blind lineman. He was standing at a bus stop, and he looked exactly the same, if a little bit older. He still had his hardhat and his belt, and his cane. He was standing patiently, waiting for the eastbound 51 bus. Seeing him made me happy, for some reason. I still don't understand how there could be a blind lineman, especially one that relies on public transportation. I still don't know his story. But seeing him again reminded me that the world is a strange and fascinating place, and even though I now drive a car, that doesn't mean I can't take the time to look around me and interact with all the crazy, wonderful, interesting people around me. On the bus, you're part of it, whether or not you want to be. In a car, you're not part of it, whether or not you want to be. But even us drivers can step out of our safe steel boxes occasionally and walk amongst the people who live with us.

2010-07-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

The Ultimate Self-Help Tool

and End to All Suffering

So in the dark place I visited last week - that place to which I might as well bring a toothbrush and extra change of underwear because I know I will visit it again - I found that there was only one way to ease my pain. My brain tumbled and coiled, bit its own tail, spun like a top, sank deep into the muck of resentment, fear, and jealousy and then breached into the clear air of love and tenderness, only to splash back into the dark water again. It was like watching a lava flow, if the lava flow was also accompanied by the emotional equivalent of actually physically touching the molten, red rock.

As I drove into the tawny hills of the Napa Valley trying to escape my discontent, I noticed little flashes of clarity, like brief openings to the blue sky between the clouds of a rainstorm. In those moments, I was able to become present with my own tender heart, and to find the love and care for another that is always there, inside, glowing like a fireball in my chest.

I discovered that I could send love to the people I was eating out my own heart about. That if I chanted "I send you all my love", the pain would cease, briefly. It was the only relief I could find, but it was also hard to stay there. I wondered why I didn't just reside in that place, but for some reason I kept kicking myself out of it, returning to the dark fires of my tortured soul. But then I'd remember again, and I'd send my love again. During meditation, I started visualizing a white light coming from the heavens down into the center of my skull and through my body and entering the earth again. Then I visualized a beaming white light from my heart, shooting out in all directions, like a balm of love. I found myself sitting up straight on my cushion, the beam of light holding me up almost like an extra spine, and the white light from my heart throbbing with my pulse.

It's hard to send light and love to people you feel have wronged you. In thinking about my own experience, I'm aware that it's the "wronged" part that I cling to. The self-righteousness and indignation at being treated this way is what feels so painful. And I think that's true for most of us. If you suggest to a hurting person that the way past the pain might be to do the exact opposite of what our instincts tell us to do -which is to ruminate, stew, pick the scab, and seek refuge in anger and self-righteousness - you so often get the 'Yeah, right" response. It's like this is the hardest thing in the world to do. Like to suggest that sending love and regard and letting go of resentment is the same as suggesting that we aren't important enough to be treated well. But this clinging to hate and anger, self-righteousness and victimhood only hurts us, it doesn't hurt the people who have "wronged" us. I know how it feels to not want to let go of the sense that we are victims. It's a safe place to be and it feels good, in a weird sort of way, like playing with a loose tooth. I also know how it feels to, even briefly, drop that story and send love to someone I'm angry at. I know the relief from pain that accompanies this, even if I can't usually stay there for very long.

Tonglen is another technique that I often forget to use, but that works in those moments of intense anguish when I feel backed against a wall of emotional pain. With Tonglen, we breathe in the pain of all creatures who are feeling the way we're feeling - hurt, betrayed, angry, lost, sad, abandoned, frightened - and we breath out healing, love, and light to ease the suffering. It goes against all human instincts to take on more pain, but with this practice, we take it in in order to ease the suffering of others. It's the ultimate act of selflessness. But when we do it, we find that the pain is transformed into sympathy, care, and a desire to help, and instead of pain, we find that we are breathing in the connection we have with all beings who suffer. It connects us all.

So, in moments of pain, when every fiber of your being wants to lash out at others or yourself, disappear, escape, or lose yourself in helpless rage and self-destruction, can you:

1) Chant "I send you all my love" to one who you feel has wronged you or not treated you right?

2) Visualize a white light from the heavens coming into your heart, and your heart spreading that light out in all directions, like a nimbus of love?

3) Breathe in the pain of all beings who feel that pain that you feel, and breathe out ease, light, and healing?

4) Chant "May you be healthy/May you be happy/May you be wise/may you be free from suffering", changing the 'you' to 'I', and to the name of not only people in your life who you care about, but the people in your life to whom who you feel anger or pain?

And if the answer to this question is 'No', can you look at that and discover where your resistance lies? We all must start where we are, but it's useful to understand just why we choose to suffer rather than ease suffering. I find this resistance in myself, as well. It's as if suffering feels so much safer than letting go, that we'd rather writhe in pain. Like touching a hot stove, feeling the skin burning, but choosing to keep our hand to the flame rather than snatching it away. I don' t know why we forget these lessons so often, but if I'm confident of nothing else, I'm positive that the Universe will continue to send us into situations that will remind us to keep letting go, letting go, letting go, until we Remember.

2010-07-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

Not All Little Girls Who Wander are Lost

I’m sitting in the Oakville Grocery on the plaza in Healdsburg on a Sunday evening at 5:30, enjoying a glass of Chardonnay and a salad of greens, currants, chicken, walnuts, and goat cheese. There’s a table of three guys at the other side of the outdoor patio who are trying to figure out why women are the way they are. At another table, an Australian man assails his friends with tales of a woman who’s chasing him even though she knows he’s married. Ah, love.

When I get agitated, I wander. As a little girl, wherever I found myself, on trips with the family, summer camp, staying with friends on their ranch with their horses, I would inevitably find myself wandering off into the wilderness. I would wander and I would daydream, away from people and whatever they wanted from me. I would get lost in the heat and the smells, especially around water. If possible, I’d sit in water or have my feet in it, if I couldn’t swim in it, and I’d just let my mind run, like a Border Collie off the leash.

I’d spin stories in my head of being a brave, strong, beautiful woman. Inevitably I’d be living a life of my own – passionate, creative, unique - and never the same life twice. Sometimes I’d be riding a fiery horse, sometimes I’d be driving some powerful car, but I was always in control. Except when I was being saved by the strong, sexy hero. But just as often, I’d be the one saving him.

I’m always needing to move, like a shark, so this weekend, having no plans and nobody to not have plans with, I decided to get in the car and drive. Yes, I know, the Gulf is on fire with spilled oil and we should cut back on our driving. I’m an environmentalist; I get it. But driving calms me, even more so if I don’t know where I’m going. I had a vague plan: the Napa Valley, possibly Calistoga. It’s warm, looks like Italy, the hills are the color of lions and the air smells of sage and wine.

Of course, it being a summer weekend, I could find no reasonably priced hotels online, but I decided to go anyway. It’s only a couple of hours from home, after all.

Highways are like constant choice-points. The signs taunt us with unexplored roads. I mean, what if I got off at Old Mill Road from Highway 12 North? What does it look like? Who lives there? What experiences might I have? As a kid on road trips – and even as an adult on them – my eyes would always follow those roads that crawl to meet the horizon, wondering where they went and half-wishing I could be on them to find out.

So when I saw the exit to Sonoma, I decided, at the last minute, to take it, and found myself in the midst of a half-marathon. Hundreds of sweaty women with numbers pinned to their shirts, drinking water and wine and shopping in stores that were dark from a recent power outage. In the plaza was a small wine festival, and somewhere, a band pumped out rock & roll standards.

After perusing Sonoma, I got in the car again and drove north. Hwy 12 was clogged with a mysterious backup right around the turnoff to Sugarloaf State Park, so I took that road, and found myself, within 30 minutes, soaking my feet in a shady creek, writing in my journal. After that, I hiked up the dusty hill (Having quick-changed out of my summer dress and into shorts and a tank top) and found a burbling creek of tiny waterfalls tucked into a small canyon. I sat, and as my blood pumped after the climb up the hill, so did my creativity. My heart opened. I thought of that little girl, wandering the hills. The dusty smell of my hike had brought her back to me.

I thought about her wandering, and, my grownup wandering. I felt in that moment, perfectly balanced in the in-between place that is reality: not happy, not unhappy. ;Just there, observing the water-skeeters riding the surface tension of the clear water, doing a dance with my toes. I was shaded by pines and bay and something I couldn’t identify. A delicious little breeze dried the sweat on my arms. Nothing had to happen in those moments, nothing had to be decided. I just sent out the wish that everyone – including myself – could find peace and release. The mood ring I wore that said ‘I Love You’, in that moment became not so much a symbol of one person’s love, but of the love of the universe, which a friend had just reminded me, is always coming to us if we can only see it.

Then I hiked back down the hill, quick-changed back into my sundress, and drove north to Healdsburg, where I knew a little cheap motel off the highway that just might have a vacancy. I had stayed there once on a cold birthday in May a few years ago, running from the fog and seeking the sun. The sweet woman behind the counter greeted me cheerfully, gave me my choice of rooms, and showed me the pool, hot tub, and dry sauna, and then I drove into town, and here I am. The sun is sinking, the wine has warmed my blood, and the light is playing yellow-green in the leaves. ;Three police cars – Healdsburg’s finest – just almost collided in the intersection, en route to some local tragedy. My wine is gone; time for the next adventure.

2010-07-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

Crash

Yesterday, I went to have my astrological chart read. I'd never done that before; I mean, I've always known I'm a Gemini, but that was about the extent of it. I still have barely a grasp of what it all means, but the reading itself was fascinating, if only as a way to look at my life in larger terms, as a journey and not a series of events that have nothing to do with one another. This man knew nothing about me, not even what I did for a living, before he started my reading, and all I could do while he talked was to nod 'yes.' Yes to the intimate familiarity with the scary Underworld places, yes to my ability to sit with the scariness, to accept those experiences as helpful and meaningful; yes to me ability to have insight into mine and others' motives and the complexities of the psyche, yes to my ability to sit with others' scary experiences, to make it OK for them to be there; yes to my tendency to get codependent in relationships, yes to my continual need for new experiences, new knowledge; yes to my deep contact with spirituality and with the larger global consciousness that makes itself known in symbols; yes to the sense that I've always had of a staggeringly powerful life force within me that yearns for freedom; yes to the intensity of my pain, to my tendency to sacrifice myself and then get caught in a victim/martyr story; yes to my deep empathy that makes the world difficult to be in, yes to my struggles, yes to me constant yearning for a nest, a place of comfort, a safe harbor in relationship; yes to my need to create, to process, to integrate, and to witness life's coiling mysteries; yes to my constant moving, thinking, and seeking, yes to my feeling misunderstood and separate. There was so much information to process, I still don't know whether I grasp it all yet.

But the next day, today, right now, I was sitting in a meeting at work and all of a sudden I knew I had to get out of there. Blood sugar crash. I felt like I was going to faint. All of a sudden a wave of pain engulfed me, like I was sitting in a pit of fire. I actually felt like there might be steam rising from me. A friend of mine might suggest that maybe it wasn't my pain, but it might as well have been. I sat in the meeting pulling on my hair the way I do when I'm nervous, waiting to see what it would do. I felt faint, I felt constricted. Finally, in the middle of the meeting, I got up and left, raced to my office, ate some fruit, drank some water, then lay on the floor. And as I lay, the sobs came and I cried in deep gasps, like crying for the whole universe of suffering that exists, not only my own. My brain roiled and coiled frantically, like a cat in a bag. It kept telling me: I can't do this. I can't do this. It hurts too much. I need too much, a need that nobody can ever fill. And if I can't be filled, then I won't survive. The pain alone will kill me. I was frantic, desperate. When the tears subsided I got up from the floor and knew I had to write it all down. Out of me.

Now I'm writing with trembling hands, the vestiges of my blood sugar crash, and a deep childlike terror in the pit of my stomach. It's like being on a life raft in the middle of a huge ocean, with no ships in sight and no rescue. I am the only one I can count on, and I can't even count on me.

It sounds so dire. And it is. Is this post a cry for help? Possibly. Though I doubt any help exists. I kept asking myself in the meeting: Are you strong enough to handle this pain? Can you take it? And I kept answering myself: I don't know. I don't know. But here I am, typing. I did survive it. Do you think I'm crazy? Possibly. But maybe I'm really, really sane. Maybe, as the astrological guy suggested, one of my karmic lessons is to trust that the Universe will provide for me, and confronting these intense fears - even in a Friday late morning staff meeting - staring them in the blood-filled eyes, is a way to learn to trust, the way people with phobias have to confront their fears in order to get over them.

I still don't know if I can do this. I suppose eventually we get used to the waves crashing, or we don't, and we let them take us back to the place where we started. But here I am, still doing my work, still making plans with my friends. When things are dark, we let habit take over until we can exert more control over ourselves. I'll sit here and wait for the sun to rise, as it always does.