One Night Only

This may be an X-rated post.  I would feel morally responsible for damaging the vision of any  Cinderella-esque fantasies.

In my whole life I have had a few of the so-called fairy-book romances.  Not one ever worked out just as I had always dreamed.  I often wonder what that must feel like for the ones for whom it “had been fulfilled“. Does that relationship exist?  God bless them if so.  I know that  I have had a long, strange trip, as the Dead would say.  And all the better for it.

If I could sit down with a young woman today and share with her the trials and triumphs of love, I’d likely share the following series of lessons.  Much more.  But here’s a start.

Lesson #1: Ford Tempos.  Intercourse in the front seat of a Ford Tempo (or any car)  is uncomfortable under any circumstances.  In the case the antagonist tries to assert himself, affirm your boundaries and request that he relocate to a more appropriate venue, like a coffee shop, where you can discuss, freely, under florescent lights, the reasons why sex is not an immediate need.  In this light, things become much clearer.

Lesson #2: Intoxication.  Young men under the influence tend to not make the best decisions when it comes to carnal relations.  It is best to regard their advances with general benevolence, but it is best to affirm a virtuous boundary that without the long-term promise there is no penetration.

Lesson #3: Crushes.  The guy that you’ve had the crush on for two years and finally decides to acknowledge you means less about him discovering you and more about him running out of prospects.  Hold tight to your lessons 1 & 2.

Lesson #4: Big Brother’s Best Friend.  Don’t ever, under any circumstances date your big brother’s best friend.  Even if he approves,  he will always butt-in and try to manipulate the outcomes.  It’s best to remain the “one who got away”.

Lesson #5: Traveling.  When traveling in foreign countries remember that foreign men prey upon foreign women.  When they say things like, “you are the most beautiful” or that “they have never felt this way” it’s really simply a cultural difference that we, in America, have yet to experience because most men have never really explored feelings beyond the penis.

Lesson 5 a: While in France, remember that they drink A LOT.  Their forward advances are nothing more than an indication of their intoxication; not about your beauty.  Look around you!   You are not all that amazing when compared to the millions of women around the world.  We are all beautiful.  

Lesson 5 b: When in Croatia, remember that, due to the economic conditions,  the many expatiates seems to think they can own, redistribute and confiscate all and any foreign properties at will.
Lesson 5 c: When in Austria, remember that studious hostel workers are really as sincere as they look.  Please do not damage their innocence.  Go to the cafe until the urge passes you.
Lesson 5 d: In Slovenia, all young men are generally interested in learning more about the language, but they are also interested in practicing sexual exploration at all costs.  Again, cafes are great places to explore your emotions.  I think that is why European cafes are always bustling.
Lesson 5 e: Argentinean men prefer the made-up, sophisticated, alluring women.  A lot of independent, strong American women do not succumb to their standard.  But if you were to express yourself successfully and then they want to marry you, be careful.  Mammitis may displays her ugly head. And she can be a challenge.

Lesson #6: Final Lessons.  As you age, learn to focus more on yourself and less on what you think “he” or “she” wants from you.  YOU are the only person in your life.  Even as a devoted mother I can say this.  As painful as it is to admit, my son’s life is HIS life, not something I have any control over.  All I can do is allow life to unfold as it may and trust that it was always be a blessing.  Curses only happen to shift us from the unreal to the real.

All the loves of my life have done nothing more than give me a better insight into my own light.  And without those loves, I’d not have discovered the beauty of my light.  And they do not create my light; it’s mine.  Yet, it is so often how we associated that feeling of love with the creation of light.  Yet, it’s always only our light that ever shines.  Even the love I feel between me and my son.  Our lights are our own lights; even as much as I wanted to control it and be the source of his light, I know that his light shines with or without me.  He is a beacon of his own volition.  How scary and yet how beautiful that is.

What lessons would I share with him?

“Your soul once sat on an easel on my knee.
For ages I have been sketching you
With myriad shapes of sounds and light;

Now awake, dear pilgrim,
With your thousand swaying arms
That need to caress the sky.”

~~Hafiz

All I can say for myself now is that I have had the privilege of love and the opportunity to test my theories.  I am grateful to all the past loves to have allowed me to come into their lives and experience the exhilarating ecstasy of love at its purest form.  And most of all, I am so grateful for the opportunity to love this child, Ziggy Finn Santos for all that he is now and know that all he is to become.

I will never forget the one night in which he came to me.  Long, laborious, painful and beautiful night of confusion and trust.  And then he appeared, so peaceful and beautiful.  He is the LOVE OF MY LIFE and likely will always be such.  One night; how it changes your life.

I am a Change Agent

When I was a young girl I would go to church with my mother, who was an organist and choir director.  As she practiced the hymns for the service, I’d wander around the pews and read passages from the bible.  My older brother had been teaching me new tricks.  One, was how to catch things in my mouth.  So I practiced with my Sunday school offering, a quarter.  I would toss it up and try and catch it in my mouth.  Most of the time it would fall to the floor and I would have to clamber under the pews to find it.  But once, it slipped right into my mouth, down the back of the throat and, slurp!  It was gone!  I swallowed it! 

I was sitting quietly as my mother played the last hymn that alerted the children to leave service and head downstairs to Sunday school.  She looked back at me and asked, “where is your offering?” meaning the quarter, which I had swallowed about 15 minutes earlier.  “I swallowed it” I said.  She looked at me and then her face went white with panic.  She stood up and called to the Minister.  Service was stopped and she called the Catholic Church, where my father and brother were in their own Sunday service and apparently, a lay-person had to interrupt the Priest in the middle of his sermon to ask him to notify my father that there was a family emergency and to meet his wife at the Lutheran Church immediately. 

All the while, I felt fine.  I wasn’t quite sure what all the panic was for.  My brother smirked at me when they arrived to the church.  My father was impatient and annoyed that my mother interrupted service so this minor offense.  “She’ll just shit it out!” my father sighed. 

Nonetheless, we drove the 15 miles to the hospital; I was admitted to the emergency room.   Our family doctor happened to be on call and appeared from behind the curtain, ear to ear with a grin that noted his pure delight in this latest catastrophe I’d gotten myself into.  Earlier that year I had fallen on my bicycle and well, I required stitches in a rather conspicuous place. 

“What seems to be the kerfuffle this time?” he asked.   “She swallowed a quarter.  Her Sunday school offering.” my mother pressed.  He looked me over, took my pulse, my temperature, and looked into my eyes.  “Well, there’s not much we can do.  I can take an X-ray to make sure it’s not stuck anywhere.  Likely, we’ll just have to wait until she, ah, discards of it naturally” the doctor said. 

Xrays were taken.  You could see Washington’s head and the date on the face.  My brother took them to show-and-tell at his school.  For a few days, my mother would examine the contents of my bowel movements.   My father told her that this was her project and he’d have nothing to do with it.  She gave up after a few times.  “Yuck!” she'd scream as she was riffling through my poo. 

We never did find the quarter.  The inside family joke is that I made change: two dimes and a nickel.  I guess we just never saw them come out.  And that is why now believe it was my destiny to be a "change agent".  

Shoes

I was recently awakened to the idea that the shoes you wear may quite certainly make the impression about you.  And, for a fact, I know that the shoes that you wear are important to the activity you are embarking. 

Take for instance my recent foray into 14 miles of back country where I wore a study, yet light weight cross-training shoe carrying almost 30 lbs of gear and within 5 miles my arches were not just barking but SCREAMING at the intensity of pain they felt with each step.  Later in the hike, a through-hiker on the PCT acknowledged that my choice, while admiral, was illusory given my load.

I remember years ago when I was a recent devotee to backpacking that I arrived at the trail head without the shoes required.  I simply forgot!  I had to buy new ones at the last outpost town and hope that they worked out.

When I was 12 or so I remember being ridiculed by a teacher because I wore cowgirl boots to school.  She belittled me in front of everyone saying, "what? you think you are going to clean the horse stalls?" and told me to sit in the back of the room for the class because she didn't want my stench to interrupt her.  

Every time I see a pair of sexy boots that I'd just die for I hear her cackling in the back of my mind and I move on to more sensible shoes for the urban set.

Yet, I often go outside my bubble and I see women, clearly not clearing out horse stalls wearing boots and other quite undignified footwear in the setting of choice and they seem quite sexy.  What gave them the godly right to walk around like that??  And why don't I feel the same about my shoes?

And then, it became apparent in the last year how my work colleagues began to comment upon my footwear.  It was often with surprise and impressionable glee that they commented on my latest pumps, high heels and sleek ballerinas.  It signaled, for me, a shift in my career from, doer to overseer. I used to lug these heavy Rubbermaid tubs of educational items from school to school as a Coordinator.  But now, as a Specialist, I get to marvelously sit in my office whist a staffer does the schlepping.  Has the change in authority and priority really changed who I am?

I have this one friend who wears ridiculously high high heels.  Well, actually there are a few of them in the office.  They all seem to balance effortlessly as they push buttons on the copier and fax documents. I've often fantasized myself walking into the office sensually with everyone looking at me as I pass and sort of acknowledging that I've got my game on.  It's yet to happen.  When I do wear the fancy heels, I am often barefoot by mid day.

Then there was the recent long distant trip on I-5 where I saw surreptitiously strewn evidence of a suitcase's entire contents.  And what caught my eye, more than anything else was the tiny little girls' sandals that were tossed along the cement embankment between the swift lanes of the interstate highway signaling much more than their presence as outrageous.  I saw, in that flash of a second the loss of innocence.  I saw the fleetingness of youth. The preciousness of the very seconds we have, when we, as adults, so unrelenting force our children into our schedules, that we hurriedly shove their tiny feet into shoes with abruptness and frustration.  And all they are doing is being young.

When I was 20 I bought my first pair of Birkenstock sandals because it symbolized a movement in my life.  It re-identified me from one identity to another.  I wore those sandals for years before they wore out their soles with defiance that I'd ever be anything other than that rambunctious 20-something who bought them with her daddy's money.

And daily, I find myself, shoving my son's feet into much too small shoes in an effort to be on time and quite frankly because I can't afford to buy new ones.  And he smiles at me knowingly as I shyly admit failure.
Sometimes the pain of motherhood isn't something you can walk away from.  

And shoot, here I was, 14 miles into the back-county in the Sierras with shoes that were not sufficient for me and I had only 14 miles to hike out.  What was I gonna do?

Walk out.  Just like I walked in.  The pain, yes, indescribable.  But that didn't make it into the Facebook posts.  No.  What was important was that I DID IT.  And even more, I did it regardless of the gear lacking, the companion lacking, the time lacking, the son, who was with his father, yet to be ready to do such a hike, was lacking.  The shoe choice, that I spent too much money one, was lacking.... I did it.

You know, it was funny because I walked all around the campsite, the hot springs without shoes, in the grass, among sage, rose thorns and stinging nettle without any issue.  I felt free.

Today I dared wear high heels to work and wow! the pain I felt as my yet-to-heal arches gave me warning that such shoes are not for the kind of girl I've become.  I smiled to myself as I walked comfortably between offices and copy machines barefoot knowing in my heart that I was never the kind of girl to wear them in the first place.

Shoes.  We talk of Jesus and the shoes he wore.  Or how it's a sacred practice of removing shoes before entering temples.  How the sick are washed at the feet of synagogue by healers.  I remember the first time I put shoes on my son.  It was a major transition between being completely helpless and dependent upon me and finally realizing his own potential as a human.  We walk upright.  That's what humans do.

"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare."- Voltaire.  

Does walking have anything to do with being authentic?  Just wondering.  And how do shoes define that?

Indigo Girls' Deconstruction - Really... You need to read this!!

We talked up all night and came to no conclusion
We started a fight that ended in silent confusion
And as we sat stuck you could hear the trash truck
Making its way through the neighborhood
Picking up the thrown outs
Different from house to house
We get to decide what we think is no good
We're sculpted from youth
The chipping away makes me weary
And as for the truth it seems like we just pick a theory
The one that justifies our daily lives
And backs us with quiver and arrows
To protect openings
Cause when the warring begins
How quickly the wide open narrows
Into the smallness of our deconstruction of love
We thought it was changing, but it never was
It's just the same as it ever was
A family of foxes came to my yard and dug in
I looked in a book to see what this could possibly mean
Cause there is fate in the breeze and signs in the trees
Possible tragic events
When forces collide with the damage strewn wide
And holes blasted straight through the fence
The sky starts to crash the rain on the roof starts to drumming
And laid out like cash your take on my list of shortcomings
The show starts to close, I know how this goes
The plot a predictable showing
And though it seems grand it's just one speck of sand
And back to the hourglass we're going
Back to the smallness of our deconstruction of love
We thought it was changing, but it never was
Our deconstruction of love

Lonely, Alone with Me.

The other day I was fixing something on our bike.  I say our bike, because Ziggy and I ride this sort of tandem bike; where a little tyke bike is attached to my big person bike.  As I was turning this screw, I negligently pinched my pinky finger and it hurt real bad.  I screamed (amazingly enough I refrained from explicative’s) and I ran into the house moaning.  Ziggy followed me, all concerned and as I was applying ice and cool water I began to cry.  Sob really.  And without really thinking I cried out, “this is why I want a partner!!  I am so tired of doing this all by myself!  I want help!!!”   The tears streamed down my face and this sort of deep sorrow welled up from inside.  And I looked at Ziggy, startled and I realized that no one was coming to save me.  No one was going to help me.  It was just me.  And him.  It was us.  And that is the way that it is.  How long it will be like this, I don’t know.  But it is this way now and there isn’t anything I can do to magically to change it.  I must accept this reality.  And it was then that I realized just how desperately I’ve been seeking a partner.  I haven’t been seeing my real reality at all.

I mean for a long while there I thought that if I did my hair a certain way, or if I dressed a certain way or if I lost weight or if I did just this or just that, that I’d meet him.  The “guy”.  And I know that there isn’t really any “guy” at all.  I mean, sure, of course, I’ve got to remain positive and believe that he exists some place out there in some other plane, some extended version of my truth.  But he isn’t HERE.  NOW.  I am alone.  Siddhartha (one of my favorite books, thank you Johnny) explained that when someone seeks, it often happens that his eye only sees the thing that he seeks.  He sees nothing and takes in nothing because he sees only what he seeks.  Seeking means having a goal.  But finding means being free.  Huh... find???

I walked to the beach last night.  I’ve been sort of sad lately as this realization has been sinking in.  As I walked, I cried and I thought about my life.  Am I having a mid-life crisis, really?  I mean, am I really doing that thing that 40-somethings supposedly do when they realize that close to half of their life is nearly over? Am I assessing my life for value and substance?  Scrutinizing my friends and acquaintances with a bit of spicy envy?  Comparing myself to others?  Judging my experience based upon the latest Comso or People Magazine spotlight on every day lives of the rich and famous?  Am I really doing this?  Really?

Yes I am.

You see, I am not like most people.  And sure, I know you are saying, well, we all are unique in our own way.  But seriously, when I look around at others in my immediate circle I see people with family living relatively nearby.  I see extended families who go out of their way to help each other.  I see best friends from high school arranging play dates for their children.  I see college sweethearts, heck, high school sweethearts pawing each other in the grocery store.  I see good friends who’ve known each other for a long time.  I don’t have any of that around me.  I am completely alone.  And to no fault of anyone but myself.  I created this reality.  Through a series of calculated and innocent acts of defiance I have virtually made myself completely isolated.  The only exception is Ziggy and well, he's not even with me full time.  

I have memories of me, being awakened in the middle of the night, sobbing in the corner of my dormitory hallway by some floor mate frustrated with the incessant noise.  What was I doing?  Crying because I was lonely.  What about the time I skinny dipped by moonlight at Moon Dunes Beach in Lake Tahoe, alone?  Or the time I camped out in a thunderous hail storm in the Sierras, again alone.  No, that time I was with a friends dog, Allagash.  Maybe it was my 30th birthday when I camped out in the woods near Lake Tahoe and burnt all my old journals.  Or the time I went to Eastern Europe, alone. Or the summer I spent on a survey crew in West Virginia where we lived in an old farmhouse with no running water or electricity and during the day I’d be totally alone for hours under the ancient wild cherry trees of Otter Creek Wilderness, high as a kite wondering what in God's name was the name of our crew leader.  Or in Argentina, a city of 13 million, again, alone.  Maybe it was the time I took a road trip across 10 western states, alone.  Or when I’d go to music festivals, with a bunch of people, but they’d find me, hours later, tripping out, dancing, alone.

Are we seeing a pattern here?  I have learned that patterns are inherent realities of nature.  They cannot be altered from their organic state, but they can be modified or disturbed in tendency and form.  Their substance remains intact.  Am I product of my patterns of behavior or am I a pattern in and of itself?  Was I sent here to learn the life of living in such a disturbing pattern or was I here to disturb this pattern that was set in motion?

And you know the worst part?  People have tried to befriend me, members of the church invite me to all kinds of events and parties and even just to hang out and what do I do?  I defer, I delay, or I discount the invitation as bullshit.  Why?  I will let you answer that because I think I am too ashamed to write down what I really feel.

The truth is I am 40 now and I am realizing that I have made choices and gone down certain roads in my life that have led me to these consequences.  I see that I have traveled far from my path of origin and those experiences, certainly have made me who I am today, but have left me far from my home.  I am uncertain how I will ever find my way back again.

Again, Siddhartha said, “we are not going in circles, we are going upwards.   The path is a spiral and we have climbed many steps.”

So, for those of you who read my blog and then actually see me in person, please don’t mention this blog.  Don’t apologetically invite me over for tea.  Don’t try and take me in like a lost stray cat.  I hate cats.  This is a cathartic experience.  Putting it all on paper and then releasing it off into the Universe.  For me, writing is sacred.  Just let me be.  Let me sit with this for a spell.  Let’s see what I find.

Mudifestation

Wow.  I am 40.  I think I am having the ubiquitous mid-life crisis.  As I grow, learn and live I find that the experiences I am faced with are both typical in a global sense and yet independently unique to me.  Everyone has experienced loss, disappointment, betrayal, etc.  Everyone has had moments of pure ecstasy, unfettered joy, unbridled passion, etc.  This is life.

We have the opportunity to choose how we respond to life’s circumstances.  We do, but we often fall into the egoist trap of ‘victim mentality’ blaming others and not truly being authentic with our emotional reactions. We lack faith.  Faith in the bigger picture.

At this point in my life, you’d think I’d have it all figured out, right?  At least, that is what my mind tells me should be happening.  It’s a constant barrage of criticisms and judgments for not “having met the right one” or “not having achieved a pinnacle in my career” or “feeling like a failure as a mother”.  I spend a lot of time trying to see the truth.  And sometimes that intense observation only muddies the view.

In Science of Mind (SOM) they speak a lot about manifestation.  If you read definitions, you’d know that to manifest is to “demonstrate” something.  It may be an indication or expression of the existence of something happening. If you saw the movie, the Secret, you may believe that simply by believing you can, you will.

These definitions are interesting.  Because as a practitioner of SOM, I’d debate the idea of the mind seeing versus the heart feeling.  I met someone recently who adamantly expressed his mind-focused view of the world, almost in opposition to my heart-centered view of the same world.  Which is correct?  I actually enjoy debating the difference between the two and I’d argue the definition is somewhere within the shades of color representing a glimpse of actual truth.

What we don’t know is so much greater than that which we do know.  Therefore, how can we possibly limit ourselves with vision boards, prayers for something and petitions for change?  Be the change you want to see in the world is not a petition for change, it is quite simply, a declaration of action.

One of my favorite songs of all time, is Round Here by Counting Crows.  It starts out like this, “stepped out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white.  And in-between the moon and you the angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.”

Why can the angels see the difference and I am so confused?  I feel like I’ve stepped out onto the front porch of my life and I am walking like a ghost into the fog.  Not knowing where I am going or where I will end up.  If I fear and fret about the outcome I only confuse my reality.  The total truth is that I’ve just stepped out into the night.  That is all.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I believe I’ve discovered a new phenomenon.  It’s a process of “mudifestation”.  I think, that as humans, or as somewhat astute humans who feel as if we’ve got some kind of control over our existence and we try to SEE more than what really IS.  And instead of “manifesting” truths we “mudifest” the reality of our existence.

I know I am a lot like Maria in that song.   I thought I was close to understanding God.  I know I am more than just a little misunderstood and have trouble acting normal when I am nervous.   I am, in short, me.  A unique totally independent manifestation of the greater whole of existence.  There is a fine line between my truth and the whole truth.  The dirty water isn’t necessarily an indication of wrong direction.  It’s just a place where we are.

Dennis Merritt Jones came to speak at the Center maybe a year ago and he spoke of this parable of a tiny civilization who lived in a stream of flowing water.  They clung to the rocks, and sticks and leaves, whatever they could and held on with all their might.  Strife was their existence.  But what else was there?  They couldn’t let go!?  But one finally, out of sheer exhaustion did finally let go.  At first it was terrified and regretful that it had “died” but the others, as it passed by saw it as a messiah and believe that it had become enlightened.  So, who knows what we are doing here… each of us on our own journey.  Sometimes lost.  Sometimes trapped.  Sometimes floating by in the messiness of the muddy waters of life.

Lost in the mystery of mudifestation I sleep tonight and pray, on this beautiful full moon that when I wake and step out into the new day I will be grateful for where I am, who I am and what shows up in my life.

Why I Hate Dating

It was the first date I had since I had become single again.  I was late.  Traffic was bad and I didn't exactly know where to go.  I arrived sweaty and frazzled.  His profile said he was two years my junior and athletic.  What approached me was, in fact, someone who looked like a fat, old, balding version of Mel Gibson.  Lesson #1 in online dating:  Never agree to dinner.  Why?  Because it's too long to commit to being with someone who you may very well desire to decapitate.  As we began our small talk, ordering our food and drinking wine I began to realize immediately that he was regretting this as much as me.  I ordered the linguine with clams.  It slopped and slurped all over the place.  I chugged down my wine while he made references to his mini mansion in Montecito all the while dissing environmentalists, women, Americans and small children.  At one point, when I was offered a Styrofoam container for my left overs and I declined he literally rolled his eyes and sighed painfully aloud.  Racing towards my Prius, which only inflamed him further, we said our good byes and I laughed the whole way home. 

Finding myself at the age of 40 and single is a surprise to say the least.  Dating is not like it was when I was twenty. 

Lesson #2: never date anyone with weapons.  Oh, and there are so many men in Ventura County who have weapons surprisingly.  One of which, pulled a gun on me after my dog took a innocent swat at his ancient, smelly, cat.  You see, this is not something that you can really put on your profile, but some, cleverly drop innuendos with pictures of them shooting guns or killing some kind of woodland creature.  This is all fine with me; I've never been one to judge a man who can hunt, but one who sport hunts his date over the fate of a feline is someone of a different sorts. 

How about the time that the guy shows up in his van and then I realize as he aimlessly rambles on and on that he, in fact, lives in his van because he got kicked out of his last place for selling drugs.  Or the one who chose to harvest marijuana instead of walking on the beach together.  The marsupial who was insecure about his height.  The one who forgot their wallet.  Or the guy who showed up to a mid-day bicycle date with a water bottle filled with vodka?  Then there was the one who had a small tent (and other things small) and refused to blow his nose as a courtesy and I spent the night making music to his nose whistle. 

Lesson #3: the rejection you feel when the cute guys ignore your profile and sweet emails and winks is not an indication of your self worth or date-ability.  It is, however, a measure of just how paralyzing the new dating paradigm can make women feel.  I think we are honestly seeking a relationship and most of the men on these sites treat it like Craigslist shopping.

The funniest part about it for me is that I've become so much more self confident.  It's like I can finally agree that there is nothing wrong with me.  With all my flaws and imperfections and inadequacies, I am still pretty fucking amazing. 

Lesson #4: love yourself above all else.