Am I back from my extended self-imposed hibernation? Maybe.
I have been nearly two months here, in this company now. Some days are very clear, know exactly where I am going. Some days are muddled. I surfing the web wildly.
I have carried forward some of my projects - I have been working on my script and some incimplete stories. Been blogging my poems. Bought myself a Flickr Pro account for my birthday! Feel good about it.
--
There is a calm, uncompromising thread passing through my memories of these days I am spending in Mumbai. I am not pushing myself too much, I am not worried about money. I am easy. But that has meant I have "slipped" out of most social engagements, I am not in touch with anyone!
Like that quote read on my brother's laptop, "Don't relax. Your tension hold you together."
Anyway.
Have not been able to keep up with my BA assignments... I need a online degree. The net is something I don't really lose track of. As it is I have enough free time at this job. But enough motivation... maybe not.
Haven't yet found a house in Mumbai. Why? I am being very indecisive, very choosy. Don't want anything to go wrong. Just saw another few flats near my office... Mumbai is expensive. I don't think I can afford to live as comfortably here... in contrast to Ahmedabad.
I will post about the stories I am running with sometime. How does a story - described and detailed come across? Telling a story is part of it.
I find making "contacts" at Flickr much more easy than say Ryze or Blogspot... I see pictures, if I like them I already feel related. Am working on some photo ideas as well.
I was looking at my Vermont pictures yesterday, my sister said she likes your face... would like to be friends. Was generally feeling nostalgic. Why? I enjoyed the moments of "responsibility-free" living I had... most of my life otherwise is with filled with family and ambition... I would like to live like a tourist, but I have furniture. What will I do with it?
Ok, so I am very curious about Miksang. Very. Am keen to do a workshop. When are you doing it?
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Friday, January 06, 2006
Reckoning
"First we admit our mistakes
Then we open our eyes"
It's been a very interesting beginning week to a year which is bound to be, well, very interesting. There are the things I ask the universe for, specifically, clearly, and then there are the results I receive. A modicum example would be personal ads, which I have been loosely playing with lately, to the result of winking at or hotlisting (on Onion listings) people who don't respond the same to me, and folk who wink or hotlist me about whom I have absolutely no interest. It reminds me a lot of when I edited a poetry journal: folks would read our journal and love it, absolutely love it, then send their work, and it would be absolutely nothing like our journal at all, not even fitting enough to consider. I am sure I have submitted to many a journal who has thought the same thing: sure she likes our stuff, but what makes her think she fits it in the slightest?
How it is that we love what we cannot have, that we are pulled to that which is, at different levels, repulsed from us? I was shocked in the end of the week to see that the most predictable results - playing "hard to get" - brought in responsive results. In romance, at least.
So in the face of a couple of failed budding romances, I pulled back this week and refocused on work and friends. The results are, of course, gorgeous. Friendships are this rich, deep place of equanimity, where there need not be doubt about trading time and energies, where support can be found in Scrabble or time sewing together, listening to Ani DiFranco and talking of everything but sex. Tonight, holed up against a Friday night, my housemate and I received call after call from all over the world; people who hadn't called us in months checked in, lined up on our voicemail, and all we could figure is that our collective energy called them in to us. Berlin, London, Portland, San Francisco; we sang with them all, with each other, and the universe sang back. I had told my housemate I wanted to do something tonight I had never done; I had had fantasies of going out dancing in a racy outfit, something to break the monotony of a week of stressful computer work at the store. But it turned out what I hadn't done in so long, so long, was lay back and be loved like that.
Reading both bell hooks' Communion: a Female Search for Love and Joan Didion's latest memoir, the Year of Magical Thinking, I have had love on the brain. And loss. I am finishing my application to school, recounting how my life so far has shaped my ability to love what I do now: teach. My nephew is coming to visit this weekend. I feel rich to the point of bursting. There were many discouraging moments in the week, many times when I begged for the something-to-look-forward-to feeling that being in love, or thinking I am, can give me. And yet, this was it. A quiet Friday night. Phone calls. Music. Sewing. Beer and laughter. I can't say I'm not sad. But I reckon I am closer to opening my eyes by now, than making mistakes. Just now, for now, that cycle has come from reconciling to reckoning, and I am grateful for that.
Thank you.
Then we open our eyes"
It's been a very interesting beginning week to a year which is bound to be, well, very interesting. There are the things I ask the universe for, specifically, clearly, and then there are the results I receive. A modicum example would be personal ads, which I have been loosely playing with lately, to the result of winking at or hotlisting (on Onion listings) people who don't respond the same to me, and folk who wink or hotlist me about whom I have absolutely no interest. It reminds me a lot of when I edited a poetry journal: folks would read our journal and love it, absolutely love it, then send their work, and it would be absolutely nothing like our journal at all, not even fitting enough to consider. I am sure I have submitted to many a journal who has thought the same thing: sure she likes our stuff, but what makes her think she fits it in the slightest?
How it is that we love what we cannot have, that we are pulled to that which is, at different levels, repulsed from us? I was shocked in the end of the week to see that the most predictable results - playing "hard to get" - brought in responsive results. In romance, at least.
So in the face of a couple of failed budding romances, I pulled back this week and refocused on work and friends. The results are, of course, gorgeous. Friendships are this rich, deep place of equanimity, where there need not be doubt about trading time and energies, where support can be found in Scrabble or time sewing together, listening to Ani DiFranco and talking of everything but sex. Tonight, holed up against a Friday night, my housemate and I received call after call from all over the world; people who hadn't called us in months checked in, lined up on our voicemail, and all we could figure is that our collective energy called them in to us. Berlin, London, Portland, San Francisco; we sang with them all, with each other, and the universe sang back. I had told my housemate I wanted to do something tonight I had never done; I had had fantasies of going out dancing in a racy outfit, something to break the monotony of a week of stressful computer work at the store. But it turned out what I hadn't done in so long, so long, was lay back and be loved like that.
Reading both bell hooks' Communion: a Female Search for Love and Joan Didion's latest memoir, the Year of Magical Thinking, I have had love on the brain. And loss. I am finishing my application to school, recounting how my life so far has shaped my ability to love what I do now: teach. My nephew is coming to visit this weekend. I feel rich to the point of bursting. There were many discouraging moments in the week, many times when I begged for the something-to-look-forward-to feeling that being in love, or thinking I am, can give me. And yet, this was it. A quiet Friday night. Phone calls. Music. Sewing. Beer and laughter. I can't say I'm not sad. But I reckon I am closer to opening my eyes by now, than making mistakes. Just now, for now, that cycle has come from reconciling to reckoning, and I am grateful for that.
Thank you.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Burn That Broken Bed
"I wanna scope you out - I wanna touch your mouth when you're out there.
When are you comin' back? Bird on the branch must come on home to sing."
-Burn That Broken Bed by Calexico and Iron and Wine, from album In the Reins
So many burnt bridges. A few years ago, in the dying throes of our friendship, a friend and I figured out that when you have a close enough relationship with anyone, you basically create a whole other existence out of that relating. You make a child, was our analogy (keep in mind we are both childless), or, more lightly, a bridge. You are, together, not just yourself, not yourself at all, in some ways, rather, a part of that newer entity. When you "break up", there is a presence lost, and it is not just that other person, not just parts of you. It is also the relationship.
My 7 year old nephew, who lives a couple of hours away, and I are getting a lot closer. Tonight, in a friend's borrowed car, we went bowling, then over to the store, because he loves to ring people up, and increasingly, he loves books. He is deeply affectionate, and wirey but inspiring. I had a dream last week that I was pregnant, and it was funny (odd, not ha ha) to be around him today, to feel a connection to such a person, a new generation of our family, of the world - to feel our connection as something outside of us both. His dad is moving to Milwaukee in the next few weeks, and he was really worried about not seeing me, about not seeing his dad as much. He was really excited about being in a car alone with me (I don't own a car, and he and I are rarely without his father) and about being able to hang out with me. It is so amazing how significant and sad it feels to me to be important to someone, to him. This, this season of family and relationships, and he gave me a big fat wet kiss on the lips when we said goodbye and wished me Merry You-Know-What.
In some ways, I have gotten what I wanted: alone-ness. Solitude. Space. Yet, I was feeling suspiciously isolated (over the holiday). My nephew, plus friends visiting from Canada, have helped over the last couple of days (holidays are always hard, as some folks are still around, but we are always holed away in our own homes). I feel in my gut a kind of hollow space, honestly, an aborted space, from which the dead of my family and the living but not a part of my life had been extricated by taking on this year's Christmas as purely my own. It was good to have a taste, a wet, sloppy taste, of my nephew's need for me to stay with him, here. Wherever that here is. Empty spaces included.
This is the worst time of the year for me, by a clear margin. In fact, Christmas isn't the hardest, it is New Year's. I honestly couldn't tell you why. Maybe it is the time after the last months' struggles. Maybe, and this I suspect is the "truest" bit, though it is quite plot-driven, it has to do with the pressure of a "New Year". Performance Anxiety. I always spend New Years Eve day alone, sorting over the last years' letters, calendars, diaries. I spend the day culling wisdom from the last year, making accounts, burning broken beds. This year I have done better maintenance all throughout. Maybe this year I'll spend the eve out in nature. Meditating. Moving ahead. Being in that day, instead of afraid of it, hoarding the seconds before the ball drops and lops off the last year from my life. Maybe this year I'll fall in love a bit, instead. Burn something other than a bed.
When are you comin' back? Bird on the branch must come on home to sing."
-Burn That Broken Bed by Calexico and Iron and Wine, from album In the Reins
So many burnt bridges. A few years ago, in the dying throes of our friendship, a friend and I figured out that when you have a close enough relationship with anyone, you basically create a whole other existence out of that relating. You make a child, was our analogy (keep in mind we are both childless), or, more lightly, a bridge. You are, together, not just yourself, not yourself at all, in some ways, rather, a part of that newer entity. When you "break up", there is a presence lost, and it is not just that other person, not just parts of you. It is also the relationship.
My 7 year old nephew, who lives a couple of hours away, and I are getting a lot closer. Tonight, in a friend's borrowed car, we went bowling, then over to the store, because he loves to ring people up, and increasingly, he loves books. He is deeply affectionate, and wirey but inspiring. I had a dream last week that I was pregnant, and it was funny (odd, not ha ha) to be around him today, to feel a connection to such a person, a new generation of our family, of the world - to feel our connection as something outside of us both. His dad is moving to Milwaukee in the next few weeks, and he was really worried about not seeing me, about not seeing his dad as much. He was really excited about being in a car alone with me (I don't own a car, and he and I are rarely without his father) and about being able to hang out with me. It is so amazing how significant and sad it feels to me to be important to someone, to him. This, this season of family and relationships, and he gave me a big fat wet kiss on the lips when we said goodbye and wished me Merry You-Know-What.
In some ways, I have gotten what I wanted: alone-ness. Solitude. Space. Yet, I was feeling suspiciously isolated (over the holiday). My nephew, plus friends visiting from Canada, have helped over the last couple of days (holidays are always hard, as some folks are still around, but we are always holed away in our own homes). I feel in my gut a kind of hollow space, honestly, an aborted space, from which the dead of my family and the living but not a part of my life had been extricated by taking on this year's Christmas as purely my own. It was good to have a taste, a wet, sloppy taste, of my nephew's need for me to stay with him, here. Wherever that here is. Empty spaces included.
This is the worst time of the year for me, by a clear margin. In fact, Christmas isn't the hardest, it is New Year's. I honestly couldn't tell you why. Maybe it is the time after the last months' struggles. Maybe, and this I suspect is the "truest" bit, though it is quite plot-driven, it has to do with the pressure of a "New Year". Performance Anxiety. I always spend New Years Eve day alone, sorting over the last years' letters, calendars, diaries. I spend the day culling wisdom from the last year, making accounts, burning broken beds. This year I have done better maintenance all throughout. Maybe this year I'll spend the eve out in nature. Meditating. Moving ahead. Being in that day, instead of afraid of it, hoarding the seconds before the ball drops and lops off the last year from my life. Maybe this year I'll fall in love a bit, instead. Burn something other than a bed.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Pins and Needles
Today and yesterday were edgey.
The kind of days where I realize I can't get so tense about job stresses or I won't last the last six months. Then I realize I have to pace myself equally for *life*. Take a deep fucking breath. Of course I only realize that after 48 hours of self torture followed by a hot shower and some mindless television, then crying for a couple of hours over how useless it feels to relax. Funny how the first phase of resistance I ALWAYS go through in relaxing, in starting a weekend, is how useless my life is unless I am doing something. I crave being alone, being silent, having time to fuck off all week, then I get it and I think: "Jesus. I should go out. My friend's having a party. Why aren't I there?" It's true my mindset can change. It's true that what keeps me home most is just inertia. But in the end its rare that I regret harnessing time alone when I can get it.
It's just that I have never really known what I want to choose, under pressure.
One thing about meditation: the second I sit down, and for the first ten minutes thereafter, I am sure I know exactly what I want. Of course, I want to be doing anything other than meditation. ANYTHING. Sometimes, I have to confess, I will use meditation to kind of move around my thoughts a bit - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche basically condones this in his book Turning the Mind Into an Ally - go with it for 10 minutes, the list making the I wish I were making this instead stuff, but stay close to it. Then, meditate. Pre-cleansing cleansing.
Tonight I feel like I could do anything. I kind of could. I have a friend's car on loan, I could go out to a bar or a party or dance (I don't own a car, so otherwise it would be cold and stuff). But I am here. And I'm happy enough. A flickr buddy has just sent me a mix of his, and I've got his set (entitled "Pins and Needles") to keep me company, instead. Plus any other manner of activity - inside activity. Sometimes the funny thing about having a good-seeming choice, is to not choose it. I could choose to go out, unlike other nights, only I am going to not choose it. Hard to remember that is a choice, sometimes.
The kind of days where I realize I can't get so tense about job stresses or I won't last the last six months. Then I realize I have to pace myself equally for *life*. Take a deep fucking breath. Of course I only realize that after 48 hours of self torture followed by a hot shower and some mindless television, then crying for a couple of hours over how useless it feels to relax. Funny how the first phase of resistance I ALWAYS go through in relaxing, in starting a weekend, is how useless my life is unless I am doing something. I crave being alone, being silent, having time to fuck off all week, then I get it and I think: "Jesus. I should go out. My friend's having a party. Why aren't I there?" It's true my mindset can change. It's true that what keeps me home most is just inertia. But in the end its rare that I regret harnessing time alone when I can get it.
It's just that I have never really known what I want to choose, under pressure.
One thing about meditation: the second I sit down, and for the first ten minutes thereafter, I am sure I know exactly what I want. Of course, I want to be doing anything other than meditation. ANYTHING. Sometimes, I have to confess, I will use meditation to kind of move around my thoughts a bit - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche basically condones this in his book Turning the Mind Into an Ally - go with it for 10 minutes, the list making the I wish I were making this instead stuff, but stay close to it. Then, meditate. Pre-cleansing cleansing.
Tonight I feel like I could do anything. I kind of could. I have a friend's car on loan, I could go out to a bar or a party or dance (I don't own a car, so otherwise it would be cold and stuff). But I am here. And I'm happy enough. A flickr buddy has just sent me a mix of his, and I've got his set (entitled "Pins and Needles") to keep me company, instead. Plus any other manner of activity - inside activity. Sometimes the funny thing about having a good-seeming choice, is to not choose it. I could choose to go out, unlike other nights, only I am going to not choose it. Hard to remember that is a choice, sometimes.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Kinda I Want To
(from Pretty Hate Machine, Nine Inch Nails, 1989)
It's been an anniversary year, of sorts. 10 Years Ago This Year, I graduated from high school. Ten Years Ago This Year, I had sex with a guy for the first time, my first serious boyfriend, my high school sweetheart, of sorts. 10 Years Ago, this time exactly, I was on the last leg of a three-month backpack tour of Europe with my eldest brother, David. I haven't checked the dates, but December 10th would have likely put me in Germany, likely a tiny town in the Black Forest called Kirchzarten, spending the last of my vacation with a lover and a friend. Soon thereafter, I took a speedy train to Brussels, a reluctant plane home, all to find the relationship I had secretly hoped still waited for me, didn't.
Hadn't. No one has really been waiting for me any of these ten years, except myself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"in-'säm-nE-&: prolonged and usually abnormal inability to obtain adequate sleep".
(Courtesy of the good ole Merriam Webster)
What if you can't sleep enough on a regular basis? What if not sleeping enough is sometimes enough? For a large portion of my adult life I have been convinced that I live on a schedule which is more like a 28-hour cycle. I have read about 28 hour cycles in terms of propaganda to shift us to a less survivalistic cycle:
http://www.dbeat.com/28/ (for a nice newage example) but there isn't much testimony out there about folks who did it because they naturally figured that they actually function on it. I have experimented with it, and sometimes, it has experimented with me, like tonight.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's four AM. Generally, four AM is a "bad time" to think or write about anything as crucial as sleep. Then again, who would be at the most open position to re-consider its timing than someone immersed in its mis-timing? Four AM though is still probably a bad time to be thinking about how long ten years is in many ways. And how one day can seem to make up for that wait. Seem to.
A lot of things are returning with Saturn. Again, even if just taken analagously, it is seemingly effortless that the things that have worked, like patience are slowly becoming rewarded and the things that don't work, like my belief that I must work jobs which don't support me fully as a being, are falling apart. Of course falling apart is a bit more painful, outrageous even, but I appreciate them even as much as the things that are being rewarded.
Who knows what today means? It was a perfect day in many ways, due to many different factors. I opened a lot of doors I am conscious of opening. Others opened doors for me through which I have yet to walk. I am sure I closed doors.
I used to imagine my life (about ten years ago, in fact) as being a round room, the walls composed solely of doors. I spent all my time opening and closing them, often through force. Now, it is more like I am still, in the center, and they are opening and closing, naturally, as I observe them. When action calls, I commit, and for no longer, when I go back to sit.
Tomorrow, I will take my first Buddhist vow, the refuge vow. I met with a senior teacher earlier this week to confirm my choice. He asked "How do you feel about this vow?". I said "Everything I have read about it feels exactly like how I feel about it, already". He smiled. "Taking a refuge vow is like drawing a line in the sand. However, that is still really open to interpretation. The only thing it should be is effortless. So you are ready".
Ready.
Yes. Yes I am.
"I've had some time to think about you...on the long ride home..."
Dedicated to Scotch Hall, 1984-2005
It's been an anniversary year, of sorts. 10 Years Ago This Year, I graduated from high school. Ten Years Ago This Year, I had sex with a guy for the first time, my first serious boyfriend, my high school sweetheart, of sorts. 10 Years Ago, this time exactly, I was on the last leg of a three-month backpack tour of Europe with my eldest brother, David. I haven't checked the dates, but December 10th would have likely put me in Germany, likely a tiny town in the Black Forest called Kirchzarten, spending the last of my vacation with a lover and a friend. Soon thereafter, I took a speedy train to Brussels, a reluctant plane home, all to find the relationship I had secretly hoped still waited for me, didn't.
Hadn't. No one has really been waiting for me any of these ten years, except myself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"in-'säm-nE-&: prolonged and usually abnormal inability to obtain adequate sleep".
(Courtesy of the good ole Merriam Webster)
What if you can't sleep enough on a regular basis? What if not sleeping enough is sometimes enough? For a large portion of my adult life I have been convinced that I live on a schedule which is more like a 28-hour cycle. I have read about 28 hour cycles in terms of propaganda to shift us to a less survivalistic cycle:
http://www.dbeat.com/28/ (for a nice newage example) but there isn't much testimony out there about folks who did it because they naturally figured that they actually function on it. I have experimented with it, and sometimes, it has experimented with me, like tonight.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's four AM. Generally, four AM is a "bad time" to think or write about anything as crucial as sleep. Then again, who would be at the most open position to re-consider its timing than someone immersed in its mis-timing? Four AM though is still probably a bad time to be thinking about how long ten years is in many ways. And how one day can seem to make up for that wait. Seem to.
A lot of things are returning with Saturn. Again, even if just taken analagously, it is seemingly effortless that the things that have worked, like patience are slowly becoming rewarded and the things that don't work, like my belief that I must work jobs which don't support me fully as a being, are falling apart. Of course falling apart is a bit more painful, outrageous even, but I appreciate them even as much as the things that are being rewarded.
Who knows what today means? It was a perfect day in many ways, due to many different factors. I opened a lot of doors I am conscious of opening. Others opened doors for me through which I have yet to walk. I am sure I closed doors.
I used to imagine my life (about ten years ago, in fact) as being a round room, the walls composed solely of doors. I spent all my time opening and closing them, often through force. Now, it is more like I am still, in the center, and they are opening and closing, naturally, as I observe them. When action calls, I commit, and for no longer, when I go back to sit.
Tomorrow, I will take my first Buddhist vow, the refuge vow. I met with a senior teacher earlier this week to confirm my choice. He asked "How do you feel about this vow?". I said "Everything I have read about it feels exactly like how I feel about it, already". He smiled. "Taking a refuge vow is like drawing a line in the sand. However, that is still really open to interpretation. The only thing it should be is effortless. So you are ready".
Ready.
Yes. Yes I am.
"I've had some time to think about you...on the long ride home..."
Dedicated to Scotch Hall, 1984-2005
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