Looking Back Post 2/3

(I am posting my own responses to looking back over the last year in this blog weekly for three weeks. These are unedited writings done in class, offered here for my students and readers. This is week two out of three - the last one will be next week)

“Whatever arises is fresh, the essence of realization…”

(line from Shambhala lineage chant)

I look out over the back yard from the windows above, and I see space: whiteness expanding our small urban field, melding into the white and blue garage, and blue sky beyond. It is easier from this high up to not see where rabbits have run in circles, or shat in the snow making small minefields, to not to see the still green fallen willow leaves, or patches where grass bleeds through.

And so, though I don’t mean to back into a metaphor for looking back at the end of the year, I have. It is easier now, at the end of December, either see the whole year as clear and white and clean and destined, or as muck and confusion and mud. The fact is, it was, as is life, both.

Even Light Can Get Trapped

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a prompt in my weekly writing classes about light and shadow. I was pleased and surprised to have a few folks write about hiding their own light - a powerful counterpoint to hiding our shadows.

This is one piece about hiding one's own light, by a student named Silas Day. Silas is transgender, and while his description of hiding his own light has its particular attributes to his struggle, I think his way of being with himself in this regard is also universal.

Please enjoy this rough, raw and very real writing.

                       ***

My strengths have never included taking compliments.

I have recently had two very different kinds of relationships that have tested this. One, romantic, this person was very infatuated with my patience and kindness and yes, my good looks, too. I noticed how uncomfortable it made me to be frequently shown or told about these attributes of myself. 

Was it because I don't like to feel the spotlight or because I don't believe them to be true? Probably both. 

As a result of transitioning, I think that part of me has worsened.

Casting a perpetual shadow over myself so I could sneak by unnoticed. If no one notices me, they wont mis-gender me.

I think that shadow has carried over into my self worth. I care so much for others, I want to highlight them and stay safely in the dark. Being so familiar with my faults and flaws I pushed away the sunny days when I could gently remind myself you are good.

That feeling you get when the clouds break and the sunlight sneaks out to cast the warmth across your face. It lights up your skin and seeps through to warm your insides. You take a deep breath and smile and in that moment without realizing it... you feel good. Because you are. 

That moment or feeling of light and love come together to fill all the empty spaces and no one has to convince you that you are kind or patient or beautiful because the warmth and the light let you feel it. 

If even just for a moment.

Even if it goes unnoticed.

I hope one day I can bottle that feeling and use it in times of need. Or perhaps recognize other opportunities for the warmth to settle in and remind me to step out from the shadows.

If I spend this much time showing compassion to others… perhaps, there’s room in there for me to share the love with myself.

Love and Light

Writer/Author

"You really think you are an introvert?" My student looks skeptical. Compared to her, I spend so much more time interacting with others. She doesn't realize how much time I spend alone, at home, reading, writing, computing. How much time I spend meditating, all in order to restore myself for more social interactions.

As part of the Wisconsin Book Festival, I spent Thursday night out for dinner and drinks with a few other queer writers. We were needing to eat, yes, but also celebrating our successful event (Losing Gender at Room of One's Own) and getting to know one another a bit better. Quite a few of us are out, not just in terms of gender/sexuality, but also "out and about" - people on the town, well-known, etc. I was surprised to hear that one of the people at the table, easily the most public, is intensely introverted and has social anxiety about interactions in public.

Questions I Can Answer

Sometimes, having a spouse who is going through a gender transition (male to female) is a lot.
Sometimes, teaching people how to be there for themselves, how to be aware and in the moment, and how to practice art that takes them there, is a lot.
Sometimes running my own business(es) and traveling for work is a lot.

This is not a surprise, of course, that I get overwhelmed.
But when all of these a lots and more come to fruition at once, I turn to ... Crossword puzzles.

That's right. You thought I was going to say meditation, didn't you? Or yoga. Or walking, or writing, or drawing or reading dharma or eating good food or getting plenty of sleep. Or talking to friends.

Yes. Those are all helpful, essential. They are my "first lines of defense" or even better, of "non-defense."

But sometimes the empowerment I need is to be able to cleverly answer questions, especially when they are puns. To have AHA moments that I can actually access when everything appears to be (and when it needs to remain) made of mysteries my intellect cannot and should not discern.

That's when Crossword Puzzles are the answer.

Be Careful What You Wish For

In the Summer 2011 issue of Writers Ask, a quarterly publication of Glimmer Train Stories, Armand ML Inezian notes “Oh sure, there are writers who sound very humble, but you have to have some kind of ego to get through all the rejections.” This is at the end of an interview in which he states there are two kinds of successful writers – the people who “win the lottery” and those who stick with it diligently over time, “like a glacier, slowly scouring the earth, and moving ever toward the horizon.”

Having a spouse who is transgender is great practice in this regard. This morning, she said to me “I realize that at some point I will have no control (due to hormones) over how I present myself, gender-wise. I often feel like everything is moving so slowly, way slower than I want, then, I realize, it is all beyond my control. It’s a little like that saying ‘Be careful what you wish for…’ – I want to be a woman, but secretly I am a little scared of it, or want to have more control over the process. Not quicker or just the way I want it at each moment, which is impossible.”

Our relationship to change and to fame, even to downfalls – to life overall - is very, very similar. Of course, at base, everyone wants to be recognized, observed, appreciated for who we actually are. But there’s a lot of mixed information covering that ideal – sometimes we don’t know who we are, or don’t like who we think we are. Sometimes we self-sabotage, which is both under our control and not under our control, and sometimes, as hard as we try, the world seems not to respond.