drab scarf

I slept in this morning...well 7:10 and then hurried to class, had a one on one with the teacher...and had some fun time with my classmates.  !st... my scarf color was all wrong ...the knitters, who had played hookie today and went to a knitting place...came back with great chakra colors..and decided i should be cobalt blue...they are not happy with my clothes ...if I am going to wear blue...it should be bright blue.  Ok  I bought a red shirt for tomorrow... I am sitting here with my grey scarf...folded around my neck...but I know that Devine would not  wear it this way.   We had chocolate cake..but it was vegan chocolate cake...and sorry....it is not as good without egg and milk. I really liked the facial  yesterday...and Jennifer explained all the products to me...so Iam ok doing the routine.  In talking with the group trying to zip me up...  you are a very colorful person and yet you appear drab...ouch... but true... I like drab... I like to observe.   If I were full of color..I would be  more noticeable and not get to pick and select who I want to encourage and support... oh well.  I  think  I have been convinced that I should knit a next scarf... lordy lordy... and would not my mother be proud....
I was reminded tonight of an old saying....
and the shaman came and said
when did you stop dancing
when did you stop singing
when did you stop being enchanted by a story
when did you stop loving the silence....
and now
when did you learn to be drab....

Devine

The day started red... the power was off and the generator was not functioning as it should....so there was only an emergency light in the hallway...and no light in the bedroom nor in the bathroom.  At about 5:15...I shot up and realized my noses was bleeding and  before i could sit up there was  blood on the pillow.   I felt like all the coke kids that blew  their nose and would wake up with burned nose. I got is stopped and then stumbled into the bathroom to wash my face.   We had yoga in the dark and it was very good...but downward facing dog was not in my cards.  the nose bled several times during the day...about  8 something the power came on long enough to get the coffee pot made...and then off.   Class was long but good... chatted politics at breakfast... but  by lunch I was back in the groove.  Learned lots of pressure points and a nurturing mother routine.  I wore my shoes for the last class.   Well i now have the utube sight for scarf tying... and had a great facial....and of course bought a  bag of clean your face stuff...which I hope to use.  Now for an update.When i checked in there was this tall woman... with long dark hair and a long skirt...i have not seen her with her hair up and down and back.....and tonight...I had a chat with her...and her name. is.....Debra Devine.... now isn't that devine.

I must be in Asia

I have just spent a half hour getting into the Internet.  Ok so there is a storm and we are on a generator...but everyone else got in... Just like sitting in an Internet cafe on khosan Rd...  I WANT WHAT THEY HAVE.  I had to take off my cookies and history and first born etc..   I was able to get to the blog on my phone... so I was determined.  Ok now I will stop whining. The other reason I am thinking I am in Asia... the evening program was Thai massage. I did not go...I had an energy balance with polarities.   It was different.  I had definite heat in my lower body and i could feel my twitching.. So how was the day...much better.  While I woke up a few times,  didn't have to get up and was up and ready for gentle yoga this am...  i could do almost all of it. good breakfast...and then I was a little late for the class.  i spoke to teacher and told her she mumbles..  no easy way to say that... i offered to lay on the floor under her ...but she offered to put on the mic...; what a concept.   so he tapped and rapped and moved and made noise and whatever... we sent energy and then did a healing for a midsection meridian...  We are not doing an evening session..so there is time to get some other things in.... and why not....   Today the polarity balance, tomorrow a facial, Wed a session with the intuitive teacher, thur a aroma therapy session.....  Tomorrow the experienced folks are doing the snake at 8...and us inexperienced can come and watch or dance.    Tonight's group experience in addition to the Thai massage was drumming... mmmm great fun...I drummed and rang the bells...happy bonny.  So far all I have done is tell the teacher she mumbles, walked out of class with a blanket, and lost my napkin...and of course...got a bloody nose.   I am tired... the wind is not too bad now and I hope the generator has turned down the heat.... even with my shorts...I am hot.  i only bought one CD... no books... good bonny...  and tired bonny

I have discovered that QiGong in the US is very softly spoken.  I am not sure this was a good thing...but tomorrow our class will be in the day light. 
Tonight we did something on our back which sounded like mmmmmmmm and it lasted about 15 min.  I kept an eye on the woman next to me so I could tell when it was over....  I am going to give this a good chance... or just move to another class.... if it is the same tomorrow.
Other observations for the day...  In my next life I want to put in an order to be tall and have long hair.   The woman who checked in when I was doing so had a long back skirt and when she walked she moved like a snake.   I also discovered that i know nothing about tying a scarf.... I bet Monika or Kim could teach me how to do that...  there is a flare...even when you are wearing a sweat shirt.  I tie it as if I had a sore throat.   Many of the people in the dinning room were eating as if it were their last meal.... gobble gobble.......then keep pushing the food to the center and then grabbing a large spoon full and then chew like they are about to have the plate stolen.  it is all interesting...  A young man and woman are talking about life and exploring  each others interests... there mumble is louder than the teachers.  
What I learned  in today's class ....we must treat our bodies as a temple.  Fall is the time to let go of that which isn't working.. shed your leaves....  it was wonderful to leave the house is such good order... I feel I am in a good place.

Can’t do Everything.

Buddy Beth has been helping me out with the plantings in the garden. She stopped over on Sunday to do a few things and watched me walking about with my shoes untied. I tied them, then retied them, and then tied them again. I can do a clove hitch, bowline, tent hitch with one hand in the dark but I can’t tie my shoes. Cousin/brother Eugene taught me to tied them when I was very little except he put in an extra twirl which makes them a slip knot and they self-release in minutes. Usually, I get climbers sliders for my sneaks or I double tie them. In Asia, going in and out of Wats with shoes off and on, the latter is a pain. When I started school and kids were teasing, you can’t even tie your shoes yet….was heard. Of course I had been doing something with the laces several years before most of them knew where there feet were located, but it was another opportunity for me to feel inadequate=dumb. There have been very few times when I have fallen, but enough to remember Eugene. As Beth squatted down to tie my shoes, I thought ….I just gave a friend an opportunity to be a friend… Nice... and Thank you.

i KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE

I have seen ads for pole dancing but since it is hard for me to bend my right knee consistently, I have decided to take up striptease.
Somewhere behind what others think of me.
Somewhere behind what I want others to think of me.
Somewhere behind what I think I should think of me.
Somewhere behind what others have told me they think of me and that I should think of me.. Somewhere behind some physical idea of me is CORE ME.  
Wow…
there on the floor in a pile of my emotional clothes are the words I have been wearing…
 this is giving new meaning to birthday suit….and I like it.!

Passion for life

I have been looking at my calendar over the past months and it is a reflection of my off and on life.  When I get “juiced” with a project or task…. I pull out the cork and say full speed ahead.  I see clearly where I am going with an idea but I am not so stuck that the course cannot be altered I just keep moving making slight course corrections.   There is a passion when I am moving but when I don’t have a dream a fire in the belly… I can do nothing forever…or less than nothing.  I have three days to get three rooms ready to be cleaned.  The yard is almost done for this year and in the spring I will only have the sitting spots and the meditation bench to complete and I will have the zen spot.. and my book pages to fill.  The bridge went in yesterday and the bamboo cover is on it’s way… It was a rainy day so I have sat a great deal and completed some of my writing tasks and  I connected with an old love tonight… We started our political efforts and voter registration with McGovern… it is a long time since ’74 and yet it is the same time. I thought of us crawling around the tenement buildings trying to talk folks into registering to vote like it was yesterday.   It felt like every other apartment had a prayer meeting going on.. and the halls were full of the smell of hair being straightened… I was passionate about the cause or at least about my friend.   I would not want a life that played it safe.  You can stay home and never get hurt.. or you can run over the rocks….…and who knows...  

The Heart Box

I have been cleaning out the library.  In addition to the books of my life, I have kept a little reminder of the significant people in my life on display in between the manuscripts.  Every so often I take time to look at each of them or pick it up and let my mind go to a story connected to the person.,, my Dad’s cigar holder, my Mom’s old Brownie Camera and purple tam, my own track trophy…..  On the wall of my office is a set of picture frames with similar mementoes…Chuck’s Boy Scout hat, a picture of my therapy dog wearing my glasses…..  and in my heart I keep a little “box” of special people, places, and things.  When I first put my treasure in the box, it is bright and shiny and sometimes it has corners for it hurts to touch… but over time… there is more room in my heart box for some things fade and some get smaller with time.. and some will always be shiny and bright and prickle when I touch them.  I might not keep up with where everyone is today, but there is still a special spot in my heart box and I think of them on special days…and it is all good.

Sailing

I get daily emails from a variety of sources and usually one is more religious than my style, but this morning this really hit my current thinking space

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. ~William Arthur Ward 

I started sailing at age 14.  Well it was a turned over bench at church as a Mariner Girl Scout, but I learned to sail long before I was I a boat.  I liked the idea of gliding silently across the water the same as I love the feel of gliding across the snow on the skis.  I soon learned that it is not silent but a rhythmic swish from the waves on the bow.  I learn all the mechanics and could plot a course with compass and counting the forward movement of the boat with the hull speed.  I rarely thought about my very limited swimming ability…just get in the boat and go.  Like most experienced sailors, you feel the wind… I said I sailed by the fuzz on my face… you can anticipate a shift when you get that second of back breeze but unless there is no wind, you know there will be a shift and you also must adjust your vessel when you want to go where the wind is not easily taking you.  The most progress is made when you are angled into the wind and the most awareness is needed when you have full sails out or a spinnaker (that big colorful sail seen in racing)  going with the wind.   The most important thing is awareness being mindful of where you are, who is with you and which direction you are heading.  If there is a gust… so be it.  You can handle it unless you are asleep at your helm. 

Perfection

The concept of being perfect just as you are is difficult to get your arms around when you first hear it.  I know I said RIGHT!...that sure is not what my Mom said and I surely know my faults as seen under my karmic magnifying glass.   But when you take time to really look at the concept, it gets a little more acceptable.  When everything is running smoothly and I have seconds of ease about health, family, future etc.. “Another beautiful day in paradise” acceptance, compassion, tolerance, etc. just flow.  I see the grass growing and smile with love as I pass by other travelers.  That is my perfect nature.  Don’t see it often but I know it is there.  What happens is that we cover our perfect self with the junk of judgment for ourselves and others, worry, fantasy, inner voices etc.. which are not our true self.  Our “self” is perfect it is what we choose to believe over perfect that gives us suffering.  So… We are here to end suffering.  If ending suffering is more important than anything, we will end suffering and be perfect.

Deals with voices

Sometimes I wonder why I write.  I open a book to almost any page and right there are the exact thoughts that I wanted to write… “Your worst enemy cannot hurt you as much as your own thoughts unguarded. But once mastered, no one can help you as much “The Dhammapada.  How very long it took me to shift through all the noise in my head to sift out what was mine and what was subliminal messages from outside.  Surely the words of parents and significant people in your life – lovers, bosses, couches, etc. come with a megaphone and the sticky walls of your consciousness allow words to be retained so you can read/feel them over and over as if just said. Cleaning out the corners of your mind is much like sorting my bookshelves.  Some of what is there, and not just positive stuff, are good reminders and tools for today, but some such as how to build a program in C+ are really useless today.  I have also found that some of the words have not stuck to the wall and when they have fallen off, the entire meaning of the words that remain changed and now they are read not in the context in which they were said which also brings new meaning.  In sitting, old expressions and thought roll across the meditative mind and in the unemotional observer mind, you get to say… nope.. you can’t stay words.. not relevant today and this is what is my experience. There have been deals I have tried to make with life… If I take this person or opportunity into my core, will the universe make it/them fit my needs and there have been person and opportunity that I have turn away that I now have longing to have in my more evolved space.  I can see the changes in my inner thinking and space and I know I will trust to be more of that person externally but it is easier to follow your pattern and be the expected self in the universe.  I believe I will get the congruent path together and live a spontaneous, thoughtful, life that is not free of angst but freer from self-created trauma.

 

Being Present to yourself.

Sometimes when I go to the supermarket and look at co-shoppers,  I feel that I have been dropped into an environment with body snatchers.  There is an appearance of mechanical people going about the process of procuring food in a robotic manner.  Some have a list and some just buy the same stuff every week to get food on the table.  I live in a town with a grocery experience so a few folks are from out of town and looking at the “tall buildings” in amazement. The remaining group is socializing with other shoppers, reading a label, or trying to decide the nutritional or cost advantage of an item.  We are decedents of hunters and gatherers who had to be awake and aware as they foraged over the twenty miles a day it took to procured substance. I am one of those that generally walks around smiling but I usually only go to the produce section so it doesn’t take me too long and I am an eye shopper – what looks good for my smoothing or stir fry. Shopping and commuting on public transport are a great places to practice mindful aware awake living. What energy am I giving off to my environment and what am I taking in?   Is this a robotic experience or am I present to myself? What great things happened to day?  Well for me, two things.  Saint Mike, the computer man, came and found Jane Monheit on hiding in my backup area and with some effort, Jane and my other buddies, Zen meditations, and travel music were back home and then transported to the iPod.  Brother John, finished the garden screens and came to put them in place… just as my mind’s eye had envisioned.  It takes time to make your environment be your support and comfort but slowly I am making my home my shelter and a place to be present to myself.

Project Manager

I take pride in the manner that I approach projects.  It is my belief that the long the time you spend thinking and preparing a project, the smother the operation.  The waterfall project in the side yard has involved trees and bushes and barriers and screens and bridges and of course water.  I had the project so laid out with sub projects etc.. so that if there was a delay here energy could be shift there.  The house project has been multiple projects – replace the refrigerator (which involved cutting the molding) replace the dishwasher which (involved family member John whom I almost electrocuted by selecting the wrong breaker) the mortar project (which involves help Russ whom might be found dead if I can’t control his ADD and he wanders off to the new project) and the purging project to re purpose much of my library and asking myself do I really need this…   I have been pretty good about keeping it together, in spite having to go down the steps one foot at a time with my knee limitations and having to take pain meds to keep standing… but cool.   I listen to my ipod.. and just keep plodding along.   When I was running out of ipod juice, I decided to plug it into the computer… well when I switched my stuff to Georgette's computer, I must have forgotten the music and half paying attention to the cues… I backed up my ipod….only to find I backed off everything and there was nothing on the computer.   I will get back the essentials.. morning meditation etc… but I counted it took me 58 seconds…and everything I had done for myself in the past month.. all my resolve to be kind and easy to myself and others…58 seconds and I was one my feet screaming at the ipod… where’s my music. Jane Monheit has left me… everything but 5 songs and none of my favorites... poof… I want the pain over NOW.. so I call Mike the computer man.,,, I drop everything and search my computer.. Jane.. where are you… cry me a river… for I am about to cry a river over you…..

Compasson in the night

"It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments….."

I have been organizing my plethora of books and making piles of give to someone, leave on the street, and trash as well as …the gosh I forgot I had this pile.  I have known for a long time that I needed an intervention and that I could not go into a book store without supervision. Recently, at Kripalu, I went into the bookstore several times thinking, "there must be something I can buy".  While I have more books than my library and the multiple bookcases throughout the house can hold, it has been a joy to experience reunions of several very old friends, such as the quote above.  I find myself experiencing more compassion. Having been in the other side of the couch business as well as a constant striving to improve person, I am very convinced that we have multiple personalities, I am sure it is my evil twin that makes such a mess of my house, but it is also my higher and best self that has compassion for that part of me that is always trying, always organizing, problem solving, and jumping in to fix things.  I feel that she just needs to be held tight and told.. shhhhh it is ok, you don’t need to do any of it, just be and it is perfect. And for tonight in the empty moments… I like me.

Good Morning Martha

I learned a great deal this morning from reading the November issue of Martha Stewart Living.  First, for those who know me well, this is the last magazine that you would expect to find me sitting in bed on a Sunday morning “reading”.  But then, for those of you have been to the Hudson, farm, it would be the last rag you would expect Georgette to subscribe.  Horse management, dog breeding – yes.  Centerpiece decorations – no.  I have inherited, via forward the mail, many mail items that are foreign to me – but you can now ask me about home remedies for worming horses…. Oh I wish these were my cocktail time days.  Also if you know me, I rarely read.  Like how I do most things…. I glance, assess, then either speed read,  pass over or put aside for ingestion.  When I do read -  poetry, life lesson books, Buddhist articles and the writing of good writers – I read very slowly and word for word in my head – often going back to a sentence over and over.  I can’t read without a pencil so I now make “sticky notes” for my e-books.

So what did I learn.  First, in a practical way, she had a series of pages on how to wrap your Oriental plants for winter…  since I am the curator of a row of bamboo and a Japanese Maple, it was very timely and I will proceed to get the burlap and sticks necessary to tuck them in for a winters nap.  I skipped the 50 ways to fold napkins (which I already know from my charm school days) and how to cook game.  But I was interested in apple hash and mashed steamed veggies.  Second, I was reminded not to JUDGE before you really know and take good time to KNOW before you judge.  I picked up several good home and food ideas.  OK, I don’t know if I will renew the subscription, but I will “read” it when it arrives.  I will put more passion in to my discernment and not just embrace what I see, but take a little time to assess what I am embracing.

The next pen, will be the one

I am clearing out that which is not important to my Now Life.  I am really enjoying the cartoon Bonny.  As hard as I try, I just cannot get myself to journal with a pen/pencil on a page lined or unlined. 

I  think my dyslectic beginnings and unmerciful teasing by my family about my poor handwriting and illiterate scribble had something to do with it,  In organizing my desk and bookshelves, I noted that I have a very extensive collection of journals  - lined and unlined, cloth-leather-pressed cardboard – letter, junior, 5x5, 4x6…even round.  Each has about 3-5 pages used and I can see the great intention of taking my time and writing slowly and legibly which over the course of a page or two became more rapid and less recognizable.  Along with the paper, I have a great collection of writing tools – colored pencils, fat short pens, long thin pens, felt tip, rolling point, mechanical and wood pencils.  One of my standard birthday gifts from my life-time friend Georgette, was a pencil or pen set for my birthday.  The card often read - this will be the one.   I know that I always tried to tease myself into thinking… if only I could get the perfect pen and the perfect Leger.. I could hand journal.  The journal and writing books all say writing with a quill on paper makes the writer more connected to the words.  Maybe so, but I can’t read what I have written and I still skip words and add the wrong word that when read back, does not make any sense.  I look on my shelf and there are a series of books about Grammar, Etymology, Thesaurus, Am English usage….but I prefer to just use the “….. “ rather than deal with commas, semi-colon etc.  Siting in the semi dark, listening to sad songs, I just type for 15 min and quit.. and it is all good but my happiness resolution for today....no more journals

We can run but we can’t hide

There is no short cut through a problem. Whenever I find that I am running fast to get out of my own way, I am usually trying to avoid something and filling my life with stuff so I don’t have to be alone. But it is embracing the alone that will get you through the issue and the crazy busy that will only encourage avoidance and keep you numb and eventually prolong the pain.
When we stray out of Now and play old tapes of failure and disappointment and cling to pain.. it is like the Ground Hog movie except things don’t get better. The only way to make friends with you is to spend time getting to know yourself again. Retreat… go home…stay home. The more the walks close in...the closer to the resolution. In the past few days, I have taken a look at my fear of scarcity. It is not attachment that keeps me holding thing long after they should be gone but a new form of fear of abandonment. There are things in my life that I have decided I don’t want…but I will hold on tenaciously and then be sad that they might leave.
Our life is a single person passage. If we meet a fellow traveler for a little time to travel with… great. However, at the end of the walk… I am accountable for how well I spent my life… not my “stuff”… and if all I can say is I wept over what might have been...or what could be...can you say this was a life well lived.

The best part of impermanence

you don’t have to stay stuck.

 I have allowed a few days of Post-partum following the end of the Vision Plan…time to move on…new horizons.   I can’t do anything about the past but I can change my attitude about today.  To give one more millisecond to a decision made is not worth my time… So…I will take my own advice.. and clean up my act (in my case my home)… and move on.

Bus Crash

 There was a very bad accident last night in my town.  Four high school students were coming home from school and plowed into a slow moving school bus with such force that the vehicle was stuck on the bus axial for hours.  Sometimes life feels like that.  You are driving along on your auto pilot paying little attention to what is happening in the background and assuming the players in your life will act the role you have assigned.  Stress and incessant business are behind your wheel….and the bam! Something steps in the way of the life car and you are tossed and your life vehicle appear to be broken.   Why do we meditate or do a physical routine like yoga, QiGong, etc.… to help us step out of autolife and move into being awake and aware.  When you are counting your breath successfully…you can’t be somewhere else and when you can’t count past 5 without losing the count.. it is time to take a good look at ability to drive your life.

  When I was a Kripalu, I bought a CD with three versions of Yoga Nidra.. long, short, sleep version.  I played the sleep version and just as I got off to enter dream land.. the volume on this band jumps as she says RELAX…  my eyes fly open, my eyebrows go up and I know I have a startled look… you don’t expect this – my bed hit the bus.   So like Goldilocks, I try the next band…. And I have yet to hear much farther than … Your body is held by the floor…..zzzzzz.

Not everything works the way your expect it to… but as the tee shirt says…it is easier to want what you have than to get what you want… pay attention…drive mindfully.

tom tom

I loved to go to camp when I was child.  I was good at being in the out of doors and it was a great place to meet new “kids”.  Almost always, I was elected to be on the camp council. They planed the all camp events and got to serenade the camp the last night of the session. Big stuff.  You got elected to that job by your camp unit so it was great for the ego.

Every year, I promised to write home and Mom even gave me post cards that I could check and mail..  I am ok  I am having fun   Everything is good.. etc.. but I was having fun and too much fun to write home or even check the boxes.  Every year my Dad would come to pick me up to tell me .. you are not going to camp next year.  I thought you got lost in the woods since you didn't write. 

 Going to camp was a great inconvenience for the family, since Dad had to drive me home in time for camp and then be there to pick me up.  We live in NYC or Boston or Philly for most of the summer so my father could work and still have time with Mom.   So when I went for my physical and the doctor said, I don’t think you should go to camp, you have a heart murmur or something.. I said.. we are going to another doctor who has a better stethoscope.  I didn't do anything the day of the second visit.. I didn't play, drink tea or coffee or anything… I just sat and played cards by myself.. so when we went to the Dr., I was fine and off to camp.

For most of my life and particularly my adult life, I would wake up to hear my heart pounding in my chest… I worried about it at night and sometimes couldn't sleep.. but then I would go to bed sooooo tired form living and working hard that I would be too tire to hear it.   About 7 years go, I went for my annual physical and when the nurse took my pulse.. she said, how long have you had the murmur.. oh no… not again.   So the doctor hooked me up to a monitor and I went about my life.. running up stairs.. do the elliptical for ½ hr, debating my boss about a treatment plan etc..  I only require 5 hrs a night sleep so.. I eventually got to bed…   I was leaving for a North Carolina Buddhist retreat the next day so I turned the monitor in and forgot about it as I  worked hard and spent my free time.. hiking up the mountains.  It was a silent retreat so I turned the phone off when I got off the plane.  At the end of the time, sitting at the airport, I turned on my phone to hear my good Dr. say…  Your monitor report is back and I left a prescription for beta blockers at the drug store and you have a stress test tues…  wow…  So I popped the pills and went to the test.  Running as fast as I could on the treadmill.. in a hospital gown with my butt hanging out which was enough to give a murmur.. and the next day was sitting in the cardiologist office.   He talked my primary who is a very holistic traditional Md.. and they feel that if I can tolerate the night time heart pounding.. my heart is very strong.. I just have a natural pacemaker that thinks I should be running at full tilt when I am sleeping… 20,000 to 40,000 extra beats during the night … and 4 during the stress test…  So.. I meditate or do deep relaxation but no blockers.  And every time I wake up to the tom toms.. .I think of camp…and smile.

Keeping touch with “friends”.

 

When I am buried in projects I put my energy and all into them.  Many times in my life, I have taken on tasks that are bigger than life and sometimes, even bigger than I thought they would be.  What happens in the rest of my life goes to rack and ruin …collecting clutter, dust, and in some cases decay.  You know you have a great friend when no matter how long it has been… they are just there for you.  What makes the distance is your own embarrassment about the temporary abandonment.  You want to say.. I didn’t forget you.. but in many ways you did.   Out of sight…out of mind.  I have done that with a great friend….a friend that helped me believe that I have some talent.. a friend that has traveled far and wide with me and has helped me see better than I can with my own eyes.   I know that friend will be there just the same as when I left..  I trust friend will be patient with me as I try to move from snapping to composition.  We have a date mid-day Sunday to go look at trains.  Others will be there with their friends…but while I have been estranged, they have gotten more intimate.  Tucker dog is watching me and is too old and tired to be shy... so we said hello...but  I am going to treat this outing as a simple first day… nothing fancy…..but time together … just Bonny and Nixon D90…..and the trains.

Noticing

Most of the time when you walk through a passage from one phase of your life to another, you hardly notice.  It was like looking at my skin one day and realizing that the elastic has diminished and I wondered when I got wrinkles, when did I get old.  I have come from a family of high vain hands…and like my grandmother and father… there they are.. high veins and wrinkles.  As you start to practice life.. and not just run through it…., you become more mindful and conscious of the events and feelings.  I always thought of myself as spontaneous and really worried that I would become some inert blob if I thought about things or someone who had to meditate to make a decision.  Most of the time, it is just a matter of saying a word.   Like when there is fruit in front of you.. an apple an orange a banana… you look and just say apple and recognize that you are eating an apple.  And then you move on and don’t spend time thinking now should I have eaten the banana or many be the orange. Next time, make a different choice.  The big difference is that after the apple is in your digestive track….you know that you ate the apple.  I ate dried apples on a hike one time and then drank a bottle of water.  Believe me I knew I was eating hydrating apples as they moved through my gut for I could hardly walk with the cramps.  So I don’t do that age, I put it in my experience file.  Like most, I have spent a great deal of my life running from meetings, appointments, assignments, events, responsibility, etc.. and having lots of feelings about most of it – I have laughed and cried and regretted and questioned…  and I must admit that there has been a few moments this week when I have said… I have just used the money for three trips to Asia to put water in my back yard… but..it is ok.  That is want is different now.  I know when I am running (the apple I chose to eat is in my stomach) and say.. do I need to do this.. is this what I want to spend my energy doing…I am fussy about putting people into my life.. is this someone I want to spend my time with …can I give something..can I learn something… do I enjoy them or are they just people and places to help me numb out so I can wait for “real” life.  I want to live and be aware that I am living every second and smile at my life and move on to the next adventure.  If you keep your eye on how your think you want life.. you are missing the life you are living.

beauty

As the story goes, John Lennon’s mom told him that what is important is to be happy so when he started school the teacher said, what do you want to be when you grow up and he said “happy”.  The teacher said you don’t understand the goal of education and he said, you don’t understand the goal of life.  I started looking at what makes me happy.  When I was younger it was a BLT sandwich with 20 pickles.  Beautiful people make me happy.  When I was younger, I just saw externally beautiful people and I did not hesitate to say, that is a beautiful woman or man.  I remember sitting in my father’s New York City office and just watching the muscles of an African-American construction worker.  He was right outside the window so I could see the strips of sinew under his skin and watch the movement to the tight brown skin.  My mother came in and I was staring out the window.  She did not understand how beautiful I thought his skin was.   Often beautiful faces would make me pause.   Now what I see that is beautiful is often not as simple as the skin, but the compassion that someone is showing toward another.  To give what is asked without question… makes me happy.. and is very beautiful.  One thing that can make you very happy is to know  whether you are in a relationship or in the middle of thousands, when push comes to shove, you have to walk the last mile alone.

my father

Today is the anniversary of my father’s birth in 1894.   My house was 20 years old.  As my mother would say, I got several of his very bad traits.   First, he gave away much of what he had.  He helped anyone in need whether he knew them or not. He would come home without a coat or enough money in his pocket to buy gas if he saw someone in need.   If they had a story and he connected, he was there for you.  He was sentimental and remembered the great times with vivid detail.   He could tell a story down to the finest detail.  And when you listened, you thought you were watching a movie and could almost smell the picture.  I later found out that he did not tell some stories about his first marriage or some legal problems he had.   I think he had a camera for his memory.  Life was always interesting and what he could not do, he figured out.   I thought of him yesterday as I crawled under my porch in the rain and moved furniture and ended the day extremely dirty and extremely tired.  The waterfalls in being built in the back yard, the porch is being prepped for painting and I have trying to do some repairs and clean up and my knees are telling me that maybe I was born in 1894…  All good… and my tee shirt says.. It is easier to want what you have than get what you want….    I just don’t believe it… and soon there will be water falling in this urban backyard…

Numbing out….

I have never understood how people can say, I am going out to drink to numb out or forget.  Drinking to excess has always caused me to do the porcelain prayer..lord if I ever get out of this feeling, I will not do it again.  Having lived a couple of years, I know that adversity, pain, mistakes, confusion are the times that I am forced to take a look, examine, and decide what I need to do to not end up with my head, heart, and soul in the garbage pan or toilet.  When we are sailing along, it is rare that we say, let me step out of my life and examine my motivation.   And yet who wants an unexamined life.. a life of taking up space.

If we can see pain as opportunity , we might not like it, but it is when we start to deal.  When I was working with folks as a therapist, I found some people just liked to spend their money and talk about the same thing over and over.  I could not listen to it over and over.  They had a boring story life and they loved having the story to hold on to.. for if they really put that aside, what story would they have?  They were usually people who did not like free time but wanted to be booked so they were doing.   You want to know what is making you sick then you have to take the time to look at what you are eating/drinking and how you feel about it.. and change your diet, attitude, and/or perception or continue to repeat your life story…until you don’t even remember that you wanted to be your best person.

If you are mindful, you know what and how much you are consuming.  If you have compassion for yourself, you will be moderate and if you have moved beyond self-loathing, you will see yourself as perfect and not treat yourself or allow another to treat you as an object.  So for today… I will cherish myself and others with mindful compassion.