Another Iteration

I created a playlist for my friends upon leaving Tucson last month entitled "Another Iteration."  There was no goodbye.  There was no belief that I was magically manifesting a new destiny or "new" me.  I believe in magic.  I don't believe in magical solutions, and I don't say goodbye to people I love.  I do acknowledge that the way we interact and the spaces we inhabit will be different, but I can't quite see things as true "beginnings" or "endings" any more. Life is a little too fluid for that.  And I'm grateful for this perspective.  And I'm grateful for the realization that many of the best moments are in the spaces in between...in between here and there and where I am and where I am going.  We're all in motion, and I am in such beautiful company.  I wrote a note to a friend a couple of weeks ago that said, "It seems that it's all simply a process of letting go."  The response I received was a simple, "yes."

This past month has been one of constant readjustment and some pretty intense moments of...not clarity (I'm acknowledging that clarity, for me, requires a little more stasis than I've had of late), but deep breaths, breakdowns and breakthroughs (I'm hard-pressed to tell the difference between these two any more), singular experiences, frivolous experiences, and laughter that comes from a deeper place than it has in a while.  Changing my geographical location will never solve anything in itself (I manage to bring myself everywhere I go), but the freshness of new surroundings?  The realization that routines are not familiar, that navigation has become problematized and complicated? For me, this leads to realizations that I don't reach in other ways. And it reminds me of the importance of letting ourselves be exactly who we are in any given moment.

Some e.e. cummings that struck me recently:
"To be nobody but
yourself
in a world which is doing its best
day and night
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight
and never stop fighting."

I like the idea of each of us fighting to be exactly us.  And to be willing to support one another in doing just this.  That, to me, is love.  I guess it all is.

Remembrance and Intentions

I'm afforded a week to sort and finish packing (the most fun part of the purging is done and now I'm down to minutiae and trying my damndest to make sure I don't throw some hugely important document away).  It's been a long year, but do you ever notice that despite the fact that you've been looking forward to something with great anticipation, when it arrives, it's like, "oh, shit, really?  Already?"  That's how I felt on the last day of school.  I remain so completely filled with love for the students I was lucky enough to spend time with this year...and the beautiful colleagues without whom I would most likely have lost myself in teen angst and exhaustion.  And, so, remembrance--that there is no present moment that I would wish away.  Easier said than done.  I wake each day with the intention of living in the present, pausing to notice beauty, promising myself I will choose my words carefully and move gently.  And I continue to work on being gentle with myself.  It's a constant struggle, but one that will prove to be a practice worth the effort in the long run.

I've decided that I need physical reminders to keep my intentions in the foreground:  a new tattoo is in order to help me with this effort.  I will wait till I arrive in my next destination, but I need a physical touchstone that will be with me always--  reminding me to live with love and not fear.  A tiny reminder on the pulse spot on the inside of my left wrist.

I'm enjoying these last weeks of yoga practice in studios that have become my physical reminders of living with love...with friends whose presence next to me on the mat can make my heart sing open.  I walked out of class last week and realized without a doubt, that as long as I could find respite in a yoga practice, I'd be able to find my way back home to myself and to love.  I carry it with me, but it sure gets buried sometimes without intentional actions.

I will continue to refine my intentions.  I will revise my routines to make space for them to live out loud.  And I remain steeped in gratitude for the presence of those around me who, with a simple smile, a tilt of a head, a laugh or a twinkle in their eye, can surface all that is good and true throughout.

The Answers are in the Data

I've hit a wall in the past couple of weeks.  Maybe I've hit a couple of walls.  All I know?  Is that the forward momentum that I would love to be seeing is at a stand still.  Or maybe it's simply incubating.  Who knows?  My fellow dissertation writers know this feeling.  All of us know this feeling.  You're moving moving moving forward and suddenly, seemingly without any reason at all, you fall flat.  Thankfully, I'm at least aware enough to acknowledge that this is not a permanent state.  (I hope....I believe...I trust...I try and remind myself...)

So, at this moment?  I focus on some concrete things that actually seem tangible.  I reflect on miniature butterfly hair clips as fashion statement, the taste of a mango-pineapple smoothie for breakfast, a moment of laughter coupled with an eye roll at a student's behavior.   I reviewed a couple of hours of video data this evening.  I reminded myself that my students and I have a story that people should hear and read.  I reminded myself that this work is all for a greater purpose than me.  I think.  I hope.  I believe.  I trust.  I remind myself.

I know there are answers if we look closely.  We can draw conclusions based on close observation.  And so I look.  I look around at what's true.  And the truth keeps shifting on me.  Do you have those moments when your true north feels slightly skewed?  When your belief system is shaken just slightly?  This is where I return to when I'm feeling this way:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIr4pL9P0SA
Watch it.  Really. (Buddy Wakefield's "Information Man" on You Tube)

I haven't revisited Buddy Wakefield in some time.  BUT, he helps me move forward.  He helps me recognize just how tenuous truth is, and how much reality hurts, but how beautiful it all is.

"There is a distance the size of bravery"--and at moments, I feel like I am not brave enough to cross this distance.  You know that distance...it's the distance between here and now and what you have imagined as truth and where you're headed.  It's a combination of fear and loathing, and a dream of the future.  It's as simple as a dog panting by your side and as complicated as an emotional wound you can't seem to reconcile.

"But tonight, I am going to get the answer..."

Or not.  But at least I know I'm looking for one.

The beauty is knowing there is someone out there reminding me that we all have questions.  Regardless of our pursuits--research, life, love, happiness...life is a question.  And answers are fucking elusive.

"Even at your worst, you are fucking incredible.  So return to yourself.  Even if you're already there.  'Cause no matter where you go or how hard you try or what you do, the only person you are ever gonna get to be, and I know it, thank god, is you."

Thank whoever you want.  I'm grateful for every single one of us.

"I Don't Know Nothin'..."

"...except change is going to come"--Thank you Patty Griffin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38an1V5UkOU

This is one of my favorite songs of all time.  "I don't know nothin' except change will come.  Year after year what we do is undone."

The one thing I do know?  Is that we're walking in the right direction.  There isn't another.  I think the essential piece will always be surrounding yourself with people who will encourage you to pursue your own direction and in your own way.

I'm realizing more and more of late that "it don't come easy," but it certainly does come.  Persistence.  Intentional practice.  Willingness to pick yourself up and try again.  And again.

I have so many people in my life who are willing to remind me of what's true...over and over and over...And I hope we can all offer this to the people we love.  And to the people we encounter.  It's simple, really.  We listen.  We support.  We regain our perspective.  We see the facts as facts.  We manage to suspend judgment and simply acknowledge.

And we do a really happy jig when we acknowledge that it's all exactly as it is, and we wouldn't trade.

Paradoxes and Wide Open Spaces

One of my favorite Story People stories is:  "feels like some kind of ride, but it's turning out just to be life going absolutely perfectly."  And my favorite moments in life are when I can sit back, laugh a bit at myself and realize that I'm finally able to see the truth of the perfection.  I'm a fan of letting go with both hands, clearing space for whatever is coming, and moving forward knowing that anything is possible.  It's scary as hell sometimes, but it sure as hell pays off big when I trust that the outcome will serve.

I wasn't prepared for the level of bliss that closing on my house this past week and selling my things would offer.  I haven't been able to stop smiling.  I've reclaimed my own ways of moving through the world...and my belief that everything we put out into the world will always come back to us.  Generosity of spirit, of time, of energy is never wasted.  And I am so grateful to so many who have shared their spirit, their time, and their energy with me when I've needed them.  These feelings of gratitude are both humbling and expansive.

I think I've finally given myself permission to look forward and shrug off any last bits of debris (aka  responsibilities) here.  I have a dissertation that can be finished in the next months from anywhere I choose to be.  I have an amazing series of professional experiences that I'll tuck in my belt and walk away with.  And, truthfully, in retrospect?  Not one regret.  I put my whole self in, all in, all the time, to everything I took on.  And it's paid off.  And now?  I teach another month, I write, I pack, and I drive away.  And I smile.  The ride, despite some momentary crash and burns, has gone perfectly.  I will leave here with the experiences I came here for, and now it's time to see where those lead me.  And things feel wide wide open.

Last week at yoga, one of the themes was "paradox"--as in the ability to see the beauty that surrounds us even when we're feeling sad or dark.  And I think that this whole ride is a continual paradox:  the world can be harsh and ugly, but there, in a moment of darkness, is a hummingbird, a smile from a stranger, a moment of utter peace even when everything feels like it's crumbling around us-- these moments are truth. These moments are our core.  These moments remind us that despite indications to the contrary, life is going absolutely perfectly.  Everything is always precarious in the day to day.  It is our core being that keeps us on course.  And happiness always returns.  Always.  We can step into wide open spaces knowing, trusting, that there is so much that will fill us up, and so much that we can offer.

And if I can continue to move through the world in the ways I believe in, and if I can hold my course to what I believe to be true and right no matter what else is happening around me?  And to recognize that this is going to grow and change as I do?  Then the paradox is a blessing.  And the wide open spaces go on and on.  This drawing in and expanding out--simultaneously --seems to be the balance we continually walk.

Purging and Finding

There are treasures and minefields lurking behind every closed cabinet door. When I was young, I would have found this process an adventure.  I would have snuck to Narnia beyond the panel in my linen closet.  I would have run far and free in snowy fields never wondering if I was going to make it back.  Maybe, however, there is some part of me that still thinks this is going to happen as I slowly empty the contents of armoires and night stands that I will sell at next weekend's garage sale.

There is always, in this moment of purging belongings, a moment of nostalgia (stumbling upon something you haven't seen in a while; associating memories with it; deciding whether or not to discard it).  Whatever the said item is, it does take a moment, even if it's only a split second, to determine whether it comes along with you on the next stage of the journey, or if it can be left behind.

And I will say that this process of letting go of the material existence that fills my home is a strange mixture of melancholy, a desire for it to simply be done, and a disbelief that years of living can be discarded so simply.  I am a natural purger.  Growing up, we moved every couple of years, and hanging on to lots and lots of "things" never made sense to me.  As an adult I've followed the same pattern.  When I move, I move in my car.  Yes, I know, there are many adults who would choose to rent a moving van, put all of their things in it, and when they reach their new destination, they take them all back again and put them in order.  I can't quite understand the logic of this.  This could be simply because my "large" possessions?  Were once someone else's...and I like the ecology of passing them on again to someone else.

So, as I work through this process of culling and purging...there are moments that stop me short.  A note written tucked in a file that I'm sifting through...a photo of a time I hadn't thought of in a while...a tiny bowl from Italy that I will snuggle in the box of linens I'm mailing to my new destination...and will find there, tucked in flannel sheets, with the same sense of surprise I had when I first found it in a shop in Tuscany.

And there are things I'd prefer not to see again...because they are associated with another time and another belief system that I no longer adhere to.  And that's the beauty.  Someone else can pick these things up, find them beautiful, and walk away with a gift.  It is this fluidity of "stuff" that I appreciate.  I'm pretty sure there's more out there.  We pass it around, those of us who don't insist on buying everything retail.

And there's vulnerability that surfaces when you purge.  There's vulnerability in saying, "Well, I kinda thought this was a forever kind of deal, but look at that, it wasn't."  And there's vulnerability in saying that sometimes, truly, letting go of expectations is a tough thing to do.  And there's vulnerability in saying  that despite the fact that the end result is feeling more than okay, the means of getting to this place didn't.  And sometimes, "stuff" is just "stuff"--and the stories we associate with it are just stories.  And the narrative continues whether we acknowledge it or not.  So we may as well acknowledge the stories, laugh and cry at the appropriate (or highly inappropriate) times, smile, cry, and purge.

And there's vulnerability in acknowledging that this is not exactly what I had anticipated.  I wouldn't trade my current life trajectory, but that doesn't mean that the past two years have been one's I'd like to re-live.  I would love it if the stories of time weren't carved so completely within me.  I would love to be able to place some of them out for sale at my garage sale:  "Would you like to buy a portion of that workaholic phase that didn't serve me at all?"
"Maybe you could go ahead and take that infidelity, resentment, and hostility story-line out of my mind--five dollars and it's yours.  Go ahead, keep it. "  And then these "things" would be gone and not tossing around in me.

I know these lived experiences are not "things" that can be bought and sold.  And, on some level I am grateful for this.  On some level I know they are the foundation from which I operate.  And, on some level, I'm hoping that some of them will leave on their own accord.  Allowing me to find, once again, who I am, after the purge.

Kindness and Facing Forward

A woman spoke at my school this week about a local project for spreading kindness (www.bensbells.org). She shared her story of losing a child at a very young age to a sudden death.  Her project began as a way to  face forward and continue to live while walking wounded.  And I thought of how many people are out there "walking wounded"--and so often we can't see the wounds.  It's so strange to think about the fact that a person can be broken open, but on the outside look totally "normal."

The smallest signs of humanity can be the things that save us from retreating, turning around, or simply losing ourselves again in the pain of a past experience.  It's hard to keep facing forward.  Hell, it's hard to live in the present regardless of how glorious our past has been.  And there are so few people out there who have not had to stare darkness in the face, pick themselves up off of the floor, breathe deeply and will themselves to carry on.

I don't think there's anything wrong with honoring the past, nor do I think that taking time to mourn when the past surfaces in us is a weakness or a failing.  We just need the constant reminder that the past is past, not current reality.  Remembering is just that; it's not a re-experiencing. There's no truth but that exists in the present, despite triggers that launch us backward into some space in our memory.  And the only person we're truly accountable to?  Is us.  I try to remind myself of this.  When you're harder on yourself than anyone else would possibly dream of being, it's hard to remember to be gentle in this accountability.  But it's necessary.

I was riding my bike up Mt. Lemmon highway on Saturday morning when a biker pulled up next to me to chat.  It was a man who had coaxed me up miles of mountain a couple of summers ago, and who, through his absolute kindness during that time (and without knowing a thing about me or what I was living through) helped me face forward and move upward--literally.  I remember a day when all I wanted to do was turn around and ride downhill, and his company for a couple of miles boosted me to my highest point on the mountain yet.

And there's the professor I talked with on Friday evening at yoga who congratulated me on my return to my dissertation and the progress I've made.  And the fact that she had been keeping track felt like an honor.  She said, "I know it was a rough time.  But I'll tell you, as someone who's a little bit older...it's just life."  And I said, "Yes, it's just life."  And I realized there's a hell of a lot more of it to go.  It's a little bit easier when we keep our eyes toward what's in front of us.  And it's more than a little bit easier when we know how much more kindness exists out there.  Random or not, kindness is a gift.  And, I'm pretty sure, like love, it's a renewable resource.  Be kind.  Indeed.