Avoiding the Avalanche: Non-reaction and sitting with Vulnerability

Avoiding Avalanche - Non-Reaction and Sitting with Masculine Vulnerability 

How do you hold space for your partner when what they are experiencing- regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with you- is triggering all your shit?

You are standing on the top of a snowy mountain. All you want to do is primally scream and you know in your gut a yell could trigger an avalanche. The ice is staying in place only by virtue of precarious calm. Releasing your frustrations could be the catalyst that 'snowballs' out of control and escalates into chaos.

Analogies aside, let me translate. In relationship conflicts often arise in the communication dance of action and reaction when an individual's fears are triggered. How you choose to navigate what comes up, articulates the future. Yesterday after a period of experiencing disconnection from my partner and  requesting he be honest with me, he was candid about his fears regarding the future of our relationship. I want to howl in terrified desperation at the sky while my wiser self is urging me to feel the snow beneath me, appreciate the beauty of where I am at, and realize that my 'stuff' does not always need to take precedence in conversation with my partner.

Let me be clear, I am not encouraging withholding, or bottling emotions. I am speaking of timing. Relationships are a complex and delicate interplay of energy. They flow with the dynamics of a tango, and we thrive on that changeability. In perpetual stasis we would be bored. Yet we generally are daunted when conflict arises, and many of us have never seen or learned healthy conflict resolution.

When I am in a conflict with my partner, choosing the moments to table my own reactivity and create space in the form of silent pauses so he can express his doubts and vulnerability, is challenging. Sometimes I mistake pauses in conversation as an apathetic vacuum and rush to fill the perceived emptiness by sharing all my thoughts and reactions. If I name it first it won't hurt as much, right?! 

When I am keeping the conversation space full of my fears, I create imbalance in the relationship. I am dominating with my baggage.

This is partially my personality and partially a cultural inclination for women to feel more comfortable expressing emotional vulnerability than their male counterparts. Let's be real, men are taught never to share vulnerability because it denotes 'weakness,' a loss of 'status,' and they are told this makes them less desirable. 

I believe this cultural belief is shifting, and as a male friend of mine wryly stated, 'Vulnerability is the new sexy.'

However, there is a transition period necessary for any major change, it takes time to release old habits and act in alignment with new belief systems. For many men, it is difficult to share doubts and insecurities. This is not merely due to ingrained 'masculine' survival tactics, but because we as women, with our own cultural conditioning, have no idea how to hold space for our men doing something so 'out of character.' 

As I am confronted with my own inability to hold space with the grace I intellectually assumed I was capable of,  I have to take responsibility for how I am showing up in the dance. My partner relayed to me realistic and fair doubts about our future. Ninety-five percent of these fears were circumstantial and had nothing to do with me, yet I reacted as if the sky was falling. Why? My best girlfriend said candidly 'Our men listen to our insecurities regularly, staying solid for us, but when they have a moment of similar doubt, we act as though the relationship is over.' We as women claim we want sensitive, emotionally mature men, and when confronted with one we have absolutely no idea how to support the bravery they are exhibiting.

If we want our men to change, as women we must take full responsibility for our reactivity and create a safe space for them to do so. I realized today how difficult that can be.  I have no idea how to be what my partner needs right now. I do know it is going to require work on my end.

Brene Brown says in one of her TED talks, 'Show me a woman who can sit with a man in vulnerability and I will show you a woman who has done work on herself. Show me a man who can sit with a woman in vulnerability and I will show you a man who has done work on himself.'  I thought I had done the work because I cultivate ideas of radical responsibility for my life which begins with self-awareness. Awareness is the first step but it is by no means the work. What the hell is the work?

After some serious thought this is what I feel 'The Work' is.

1.  Allow feelings to arise without reacting.

This is perhaps the trickiest yet most important. I am an extrovert and I want to tell the world about all my transient feelings.  Yet talking about those feelings gives something fluid a more solid form. Words are powerful as we pass an idea tangibly into someone else's mind. They then hold this truth in their mind and it becomes something else. To discuss all your reactive feelings with multiple people is a choice to turn unwanted liquid into a solid rather then letting it evaporate on its own. It is of course a known component of zen buddhism to be able to watch your thoughts without reacting. How do we do this?

2. Take care of yourself 

I know certain things about myself. I need to eat regularly. I am more emotional when I lack sleep. I need to do yoga regularly. I benefit exponentially from daily meditation. I gravitate toward worry because that is what is familiar to me. With a hangover comes depressive thoughts. Knowing this, part of the work is creating healthy habits. If I am not taking care of myself, how can I show up and be supportive of my partner? It's obvious, and easier said then done. 

3. Have patience in holding space.

Taking into account the generalization of cultural conditioning in expressing vulnerability; many men need time and space to release their feelings. I have to be willing to sit in the vacuum patiently without filling it with all my own insecurities. We are not 'connecting' when I am vomiting my feelings into the emptiness so I am more comfortable. The action is non-reaction, allowing a silent pause, and creating intention around Listening. 

I understand these steps intellectually, now I must put them into practice. The next time I sense my partner has concerns weighing on his mind, I want to breathe into the moment with him, and not rush to fill it with my anxious perception about what I think he might be thinking. I want to cherish his company within challenging circumstances and wordlessly tell him to take the time and space he needs. I can hold a secure space when he needs me to in the form of receptive silence. 

For the first time in my life, I have two people I want to to do the work for. Myself, and my courageous partner.

Toss out that Laundry List. You know the one.

    I promise you I have chased every unavailable man in Los Angeles; musicians, bartenders, vagabonds, actors, weekend warriors, and most famously 'men right out of relationships.' Through trials and stumbling heartstubs (like stubbing your toe but with your heart), I learned:

You attract either WHAT you are yourself (ie. emotionally unavailable), or WHO you need to work through your issues. 

     This is a 'Duh' kind of comment, especially if you read self-help books and fancy yourself a bit of a spiritual aware-ist. The truth is, breaking ingrained habits and belief systems require more than reading Brene Brown books or watching TED talks. Letting go of your idea that you have it all figured out and applying daily discipline to evolve your inner conversation is necessary to break unhealthy patterns.

     I didn't do this in my twenties. I look back on the domino line of men I dated that were simply not right for me. Yet when every one of those relationships ended I took it as evidence of the story I was telling myself; I am not good enough. It is ironic how we set up proof for a 'given' we have defined. Geometry hypothesis aside, once we decide on a narrative we embark on a zealous quest to provide countless experiences that will back up this story and define our playbook.
   
      So what is your story? Is it 'I am not good enough?' Mine is a variation of this 'All the men I am really interested in aren't interested in me.' Naturally, I went out and dated every unavailable man I encountered attempting to morph myself into what I believed they wanted me to be. Talk about an Escher painting, jumbled stairs leading nowhere. It is exhausting. After a series of profoundly hurtful 'non-relationship' relationships, I stopped dating. I told myself I was too screwed up to attract the man I really wanted, and I needed to be alone to learn how to love myself.

      Underneath I yearned for a partner that understood me, that could love me for all of the messy intense edges that collide to create Me. I surrendered to the idea that perhaps some higher power knew what was right for me better than I did.

     I threw out my laundry list. You know the one. It details everything from personality traits and income, to dick size.  I crumpled it up and replaced it with one prayer. 'Universe please send me the man that is best for me right now.' I left it at that. Well almost. I added quickly, 'Someone I can laugh with. I want to laugh all the time with my partner.' Each time I felt yearning I would repeat those two sentences and leave it at that. The simplicity somehow soothed the feeling of being broken, of loneliness, of trying to have it all figured out at a time when I didn't have any of the social norms of success 'figured out.'

       Then it happened. The night I was confronting yet another 'Sorry, the Universe is not going to let you stay in situations not compatible with who you are' ending (this one job-related), I met the guy just right for me, right now. It is new, it is terrifying, and it is still tempting to want to pull out that laundry list. But then I take a deep breath and realize I feel safer, healthier, and more seen than I ever have before.

       What I thought I wanted wasn't what I needed. The Universe always gives you what you want, so be careful what you ask for. It is a hell of thing to look at that list and realize that you forgot the one characteristic that is now sending your 'perfect' laundry list partner on a fast track out the door. We don't know everything and that is ok. To trust in a higher power, or if that is not your cup of cold-pressed organic juice, to relax and be open to someone blowing your mind without seeing if they have listed qualities 1-32., is freedom.

     I don't have answers. I am scared shitless (trust me, I am). And for the first time I am not stressing to control/manifest/'figure out' what I think I need.
As a result I am discovering.......

       I am laughing more then I have in a long time.
       The drama is pretty much non-existent.
       I talk about all my fears right away.
       I feel imperfect almost all the time and it isn't freaking me out.
       I am happy. So very, very, happy.

  You can take this advice or you can create another vision board/list with every nuance of your perfect man....either way there is no right or wrong answer. My laundry list is now crumpled up, tossed out, and in its place is a present so fantastically stress-free I don't know what to do with myself. Next to me is a man who I like more and more as I uncover the layers of him. Universe I am sending you a giant wet kiss, and a fist bump. You did good. You did real good.

The Labyrinth: The Affair

The Labyrinth: The Affair: The Beginning: There is no sweeter invitation than your unlocked door I slip in, clothes off, switched on, My world narrows. Surpa...

Letting Go

My hands cannot hold your face,
So they paint solemn pictures
Frida Kahlo style.

My lips cannot kiss your mouth,
So they stick together dryly
Unlubricated by tongue or tears.

My heart cannot feel your spirit,
So it sits in the worst loneliness
Witnessed, yet unseen.

My body cannot press against yours,
So it tries for solitary release
Leaving me in disappointed whimpers.

My mind cannot frolic with yours,
So it retreats in darkness
As I slowly begin to heal.


Mind Ramblings of an Overdramatic Nature

Phalanges twitch wanting to spew forth languanges..
Wait. Backspace.
wanting to layer linguas upon the smooth floor of polished paper............
Aaaa lilting ballet of eloquent emotion. 

Pause. Sigh. Eye-roll. Continue.
Wine wastes the edges of raw
leaving a delusional cotton-candy version 
of the carnage laid waste across my mind
ravaged hearts,
 massacred moments,
scavenged meanderings through memories. 

Do I proceed? Why stop now.
I try to guess what you think
It is a masochistic errand
even fools won't touch. 
If only I had a magic bean 
to bury in your heart soil
and grow an aorta capable 
of pumping blood to your brain. 
It was lost in the nether regions
where we whiled away hours in rehearsal 
playing at making love. 

Period. Delete. 

The Affair

The Beginning:

There is no sweeter invitation
than your unlocked door
I slip in,
clothes off,
switched on,
My world narrows.

Surpassing passion couples
with simmering fears
of what is,
what can be,
what will never be,
My foundation cracks.

You drive deep digging my well
water springs free
I wipe my tears,
you tell me-
I am beautiful...
My gates unhinge.

The Middle:

Limeade tickles my tongue
Vodka loosens my mind.
The heat of you
strikes the spark in me
I combust.

Dry goods room
the best place to start a fire.
The obvious is poetry in action.
Pretty words can't describe
the feeling of my face
pressed into your shoulder
I fragment.

The world floats
in its humdrum pace.
I sail within
thrumming under my skin
to my own beat.
I  simmer.

The End:

In the sunshine I feel broken
Scars exposed to rays sear open.
Another delusion shifts
to disenchantment.

Tired  I pull my cloak over my head,
wearily grasp my lantern,
and walk alone
into black.

Goodbye

I look over my shoulder,
my gaze tastes you one last time.

The you that was you
when there was we, ceases to be.

I stalk the streets we walked
my steps steal them back from memories.

Flavors of lovers sift,
 I sigh, savoring my colorful mistakes.

Richness lingers beyond pain,
my landscape vibrant, temptations to tears.

You would not dream beyond reality,
My dream solidifies to certainty.

Regrets don't exist in a knowing soul,
my toe nudges the door wide.

I surrender in the fire of a man
who finds my hand through layers of me.

Alone I am complete.
 Instantly he Sees.

When Thinking Instead of Singing in the Shower.....

I anoint myself with rose oil,
you waft into my mind.
Water steams down my back
flushing skin with thoughts of you behind....
A closed door.

I explore the crack
On my knees, seeking you.
Light explodes, splits my heart
Premonition insists I pay my dew....
'I am not ready.'

I glory in vulnerable skin,
Defiant in lust, excuses wash me clean.
I turn my mind's eye blind
truth insidiously thrusts laying a grimy sheen.....
'This is not what I want.'

I sigh not sated in release
pleasure dilutes wisdom as I fly.
I hit the ceiling,
Sensation sinks headlong, who laughs first later cries....
'What should I do?'

I step out onto the cold floor
hard tile dampens heat toes to thighs.
I shiver in knowing,
Glow dulls dim, body reflecting what mind implies
A lock clicks open.

A Story

  It was an embrace too awkward to be sexy and too intimate to be anything other than love. They made jokes about how she was a frog perched on his lap, and in those jokes she knew her sorrow was not his burden. His refusal to shift to her mood, and his insistence at laughter left no room for her heart to frown. But still an anxious beat hit double-time in her chest.
       He knew she was not hard to read, but he would have known her even if she was. His arms encircled her froggy spine and he lay his forehead gently on hers tilting it ever so slightly back and forth so his eyes crossed at odds with his face. She giggled helplessly.
        She yearned for words of love and admiration but she knew instinctively they would not be believed if he gave them in response to her asking. So she sat in her own ant hill feeling the gentle crawl of the mound begin to swarm and overtake her. No easy answer. No comfort found in circumstance or skin. No way out.
         Whether through osmosis (third-eyes still resting unceremoniously on each other) or by his knowing of her breath, the tension in her body, he knew the fears that choked words below her throat and above her heart. A mutiny was beginning in her stomach led by beautiful winged insects.....
       "I can love you when you don't love yourself," he said. "There are people who will love you and believe in you when you don't believe in yourself."
     The relief began to melt and curl up, a plastic bag slowly catching fire. He pulled his head back a bit "But none of it will matter until you truly love yourself."

    Later as the day moved on as life does and profound words become memorable hiccups, she thought with the wisdom of a woman no longer lost in the fairy tale of youthful passion, "This is love."

         The next day he told her he could no longer see a future with her. When she could not see herself his vision of their future together was veiled. She thought with the wisdom of a woman no stranger to loss, "That is life."

Big Fish Potential

Tonight was my last night of yoga teacher training, and like so many things in my life, I was not at all the way I envisioned I would be in the 'defining' moment.  Months ago I would have seen myself serene, triumphant, basking in the glow of praise and affirmations of how brilliant of a yoga teacher I will be. Flash to reality, I am sitting amongst a group of amazingly non-judgemental talented yoga peers, crying my eyes out and realizing how naive I have been in thinking I was somehow 'better' or great.
    Note to self: the biggest talkers often do not back up their claims. In the future DO NOT fall into that category. Quiet confidence is a difficult and impressive quality to embody. The quiet part presents a challenge for me. I am ready to tackle it. Embarrassment is a hard pill to swallow and like most scenarios in my life, the abject humiliation was mostly in my head, but no less acute for that fact. I was so sure I would excel and be the 'top of my class' and in the final moments of the training I fell into bad habits. Lack of discipline and procrastination are cute in college, they are not cute when you are 29, they are self-sabatoging. I am at the stage in my life when I am realizing in a very real way what is and is not working in my life. There is no one else to blame.....everything is a choice.
       Telling the world your parents fucked you up works when you are a teenager, when you are an adult it is your choice to work on yourself and define how much you want your 'nurture' to effect you. Change is in your hands...you just have to have a) awareness of your issues b) balls to decide to change them c) actually put in the work to shift yourself out of the issues.
     I have come to the conclusion that c) is my Achilles heel. As I was driving home in my car, I was having flashbacks of my mother. She was never satisfied with my ability to make A's and B's without even trying. She would always say 'God, if you even tried and put any work in, do you know how well you would do?' I always thought, 'Geez, get off my back, I am doing better than 75% of my peers, give me a break.' But now I get it. I understand in the way only a grown-up perspective can give lightning flashes of real perspective. My mother wasn't trying to say she needed more from me, she was trying to teach me discipline. She somehow knew that if I became comfortable skating along with minimal effort on my god (or genetically) given 'above average' intelligence and talents, one day I would realize that only hard work and practice can actually take you to the next level. In a big pond...the big fish is the one who takes talent and intelligence and combines it with diligent practice. The big fish refines 'above average' intelligence and talent into greatness with hours of sweat and tears.
    I am in a big pond. Los Angeles is full of amazingly talented and hard working people, and I am an itty-bitty fish. Maybe not even a fish, maybe I am still algae. Humbling, this perspective. Being faced with your own mediocrity is always humbling. And the whole 'potential' statement. Now this is a topic unto itself. People have been telling me I have so much 'potential' for much of my life. I have a good friend who has a friend who is an actor. This 'actor' friend recently booked a reoccurring role on True Blood and turned into an overnight sensation. He met up with my friend for coffee and his comment was "No one is telling me I have potential now." It is clear, when you are living your potential, no one comments on the fact that you have it, it is just obvious.
        Living this potential is precisely what I am striving for. Now I just need to dig deep down into the dregs of my personality to find that boring and utterly success-making quality called discipline.....and his sister diligence. The three of us would make for a very profitable and successful team. Time to stop hearing about my potential and to start living it.

Love and Death

   Out of countless experiences in life two of the most dynamic are love and death. They both change us in a way that is essential--our very ESSENCE is never the same after our first kiss of both.

      The past two years as I have been living through the death of family and the death of love relationships, I can not help but see how my process of grieving for both is almost identical.

  My first inkling of this came when I was flying home for the funeral of my aunt a few months after an incredible heartbreak. I felt terrible because I was more wrapped up in the pain of my lost relationship than I was in the death of my close relative. I realized that the death of a relationship, in its own way, is as profound a loss as the death of a relative. Yet many times we don't give ourselves time to mourn. We rush to move on and often try to bury our pain in a new relationship while working through grief. We judge ourselves for not being 'over it' , but the relationships we create are in every way but literal physical form,  living, breathing 'lovechildren,' and to suffer the loss of them triggers pain and grief akin to death.

          Let us start at the birth of our lovechild. When you meet someone there is immediately something present, a chemistry or energy that is the original seed of creation but also something other than you or your partner. When the seed is planted and both parties agree to contribute to its growth, suddenly it solidifies as it's own separate identity. The thing between you and your partner is not solely you or your partner, rather it is it's own perfect combination of what you have created together. It is in a very real sense an individual energy of what lies between you two. This lovechild is sometimes called, 'Us' or 'We' or 'Brangelina'  but for now let us call it 'YouMe.'

         YouMe lives to be different ages and we watch it grow with joy and bafflement, and trepidation of screwing it up. Much like any parent, we subconsciously throw our deepest neurosis at it, while consciously thinking we are 'protecting' our lovechild. And one day our worst fears are realized,  tragedy strikes, and YouMe is killed. Maybe it only lived to be 3 months old, maybe 9, maybe 20 years old. But when YouMe dies, we as  parents deal with the death through our own process of grieving.

    *just in from my googling efforts, the 7 stages of Grief*

Shock or Disbelief
Denial
Bargaining
Guilt
Anger
Depression
Acceptance and Hope  

   A year and a half and five funerals later, rather than berating myself for silliness of intensity at the loss of my love relationships while dealing with the death of my father and aunt, I have forgiven myself by realizing the death of YouMe is every bit as real as any other. Granted some people's YouMe is like a cat with 9 lives, but for everyone who dives into the truth of an ending, the stages begin.

        I find myself in the final three stages as I mourn my father and the YouMes of the past two years. I am struggling to find the Acceptance and Hope. If google tells me it is the final stage it must exist and I have faith my personal resurrection will soon come to pass. Lately there have been brief moments of pure light. They randomly pop out of the fog of 'should haves' and 'could have beens.'

      I realize I have been disrespecting the very integrity of my lovechild by trying to discount it's beauty. It is like I have been obsessively pouring over the baby book looking at the most luminous pictures of YouMe trying to make it somehow less beautiful. Angrily I think 'well in this picture YouMe has his father's nose, and I don't think I ever liked his nose. YouMe was really not that amazing.' I convince myself that somehow denying the best parts of YouMe will make the pain less.

     I stumbled upon 'Acceptance and Hope' tonight when I brought out a picture of YouMe for a friend who is about to have another lovechild. She is terrified as we all are when we have endured the pain of loss and realize we now have something again we don't want to lose.  I instinctively told her a story of the birth of one of mine. And there I was suddenly looking at the most beautiful amazing child, perfect in the moment of creation. Just like that I understood. Healing is valuing every moment you had with YouMe. The lessons gained from even the painful ugly moments of parenting. Letting go begins with treasuring the experience of YouMe, not attempting to discount it. For denying any part of the relationship is denying part of yourself.

       Tonight I did not resent the empty space in my life without YouMe. I did not think sadly of how it went from being so prodigious to the bones of now. I held the picture of YouMe tonight and marvelled at the incandescence of that moment when anything was possible. When we held hands at a waterfall that looked like heaven on earth and understood that second was to be treasured because it would never happen the same way again; when we decided against all the false starts and bumps that we wanted to try an 'Us' while picking out sheets at Ross; when we welcomed a 'We' in passionate love-scapades. In that moment when YouMe's eyes sparkle again and my heart breaks with the beauty as my mind says 'thank you, thank you, thank you,' I am beginning to heal.

Dancing about Architecture

   I watched a movie today that made me cry. Not difficult considering I am a total sap. I cried at The Lion King. All I really have to do is imagine the pain the other person is feeling and poof! I am crying. Pain has it's value, but I am no masochist. Generally pain triggers intense growth. I used to foolishly worry that I had not experienced enough tragedy in my life to be a good actor. God was up there laughing, and said 'ok, really? I can arrange for that.' After one of the most painful years of my life I am reflecting on how this pain has changed me. I have undeniably grown, shifted, transformed. Life has a way of taking the malleable material of us and subjecting it to all different weathers, circumstances.....it effects us and we are left scraped, weathered, dented. But we still have a hand in our own creation. We can take the scratched metal and make modern art, the weathered sea glass and make jewelry. Everything is perception.
   I looked at a picture of myself at 25 when I was in my last relationship. All I could think was how incredibly young I looked. It seems like another lifetime. I felt like I was looking at a girl, and undeniably at some point last year I became a woman. I can't even tell you exactly what is was that changed but I had that realization driving home in my car. People talk casually about a 'loss of innocence' and create 'rites of passage' to try and define the transition from child to adult. Ultimately that indefinable moment belongs only to the individual.  Maybe this shift happens when something is so broken you have no choice but to rebuild it, to make your art, recreate yourself. There are a few moments in my life when I have felt completely broken. The first time my heart was broken by a friend, the first time my heart was broken by a lover, and the first time my heart was broken by death. Kahlil Gibran says "How can my heart truly be open when it has never been broken?" It is easy to love when you have no idea of the consequences and have never experienced pain. To love after being broken requires bravery and wisdom. To laugh again, to play again, after so much sadness, that is real growth.
           I am still trying to find that wisdom. I realized about a month ago it has been awhile since I have laughed, really laughed. After last year all I want to do is laugh and play. It still seems easier to cry, like my body is now more conditioned to a teary response. I am not naive enough to think that life won't deal me more blows... but if I can make the laughter come easy now, I will understand I am capable of it. Pain may bring growth but real wisdom comes with learning to laugh after the pain and perhaps eventually even in the pain. 
        Laughter; you have to just experience it. I think it is something rather silly to talk about.....there is a line in a movie "Talking about love is like dancing about architecture. You just can't do it." I think the same could be said of this blog and me attempting to talk about laughter or the transition of child to woman. But here I am doing just that because it is within our nature to communicate. So I am going to end it with some wise words from a conversation with a very dear friend of mine who healed me in ways I will endlessly appreciate.
        "It is why our mouths are shaped the way they are, because we want to communicate. If you are born in a country with a language you will learn to speak it. We want to communicate our hopes and fears to each other. It used to be you could go to a neighbor or anyone in a community and they would do their best to help you out because it is in the best interest of the community. Now we are starved for community so we find our therapists in bartenders, and cab drivers, we pay them to listen."
     Or we just post a blog. 

Nostalgia

 In the name of nostalgia I am posting this journal entry from april 2006. I am of a mixed mind sometimes of the benefits of returning to the past. Is it valuable to see how we have grown? or is it just taking us further out of the moment? Regardless I hope you will enjoy the pensive musings of a 23 year old me. 

Venice 4/29/06

   My solitude is peopled strangely by yellow pickups that go in and out of the warehouse that juts awkwardly from the octagonal lookout. This structure stands quietly on the beach it's faded paint belying years of silent guard over zealous surfers and curious tourists who wander too near the finger of rocks. The occasional runner passes by, each windbreaker more colorful than the last as I sit here writing trying to forget my heart-sickness. I snicker inwardly at the futility as a tear slips down my cheek surprising the midnight blue velour of my London coat bunched on my knees. Kids playing on the beach, a yoga class to my left, the disappointed surfers waiting for more than a half-foot wave, and still I am sad. Amazing how self-absorbed we humans are. We all wander around content in our bubbles. The organic coffee I drank is starting to hit my empty stomach and I nestle my cheekbone in the palm of my hand thinking how odd this passage is. I suddenly feel like if I dont stop writing, I can hold at bay this feeling of desperation that has surprised me this Saturday morning. My words sound trite and dramatic even to myself. A surfer finally gives up and climbs out of the tiny pocket of sea he was occupying patiently. The concept of knowing when to call it quits relates glaringly to my situation. Hearts are tricky things. They seem to rarely actually agree with Minds but they play along for awhile until one day Mind realizes Heart was being facetious and the joke is on Him. Heart is cunning, complex, yet thoroughly genuine all at once-much like the women who cling to Her every hope and dream. And there we go; a moment of catharsis. I close my eyes and let the feeling trip over me like those silly blustering half-foot waves. I look up and see the one surfer, who determined, finally caught one of those little waves and rode it for all it was worth and again parallels strike me. I have a choice. I can sit out there mid-way between shore and deep sea armed against the chilly waters in my wetsuit and hope and wait for a wave to ride as far as it will take me satisfied at least that I have tried. Or I can head in now cut my losses call it a day. My cheekbone returns to my palm as I try to hear Heart through Mind's instant rebuke and painful constriction. "Dont lead me out there to wipe-out on a half-foot wave." My one successful surfer climbs out and considers calling it a day. I think true courage must be loving someone With the knowledge that they do not love you back in the same way. What does it take to, knowing that, be brave enough to love anyway? Is this true courage or just stupidity? Which flimsy category do I fall into today? My meditation is interrupted by my need to pee as the coffee has shot through my system and now is weighing heavily on my bladder. I am so reluctant to leave. While I am here on this little patch of beach it all seems okay. The wind and the waves catch my silly neurotic thoughts and play with them, careful not to take it all too seriously. I continue to ignore my now more insistent need to piss. This is a beautiful vacuum and the sun is just starting to peek out and warm my back. I grab a curl and stretch it vertically down my face as I stare out to see and my stomach drops out. Any fantastic revelations today? I check the "No" box. Did I momentarily feel wonderfully alive? I check the "Yes" box. It seems appropriate that my lone wave-catcher is heading back out to sea for another go, as I prepare to leave my insignificant yet strangely meaningful section of sand.

November: Death as it proceeds rebirth.

   There is something about this time of year that is always filled with a desperate intensity. As one reality is dying and fading into a ghost, the specters of the past seem to drift forward to witness the last rites of yet another phase of life. I find myself watching them lined up transparent, sad, and wise.

   We have all lived many lifetimes, each one with a different starring cast. Sometimes I think my heart is just too big, too sensitive. I look back on the characters from these past lives and my heart still bleeds a little. I miss them. I have the misfortune of once loving, always loving. My heart is filled with these names and tastes of lovers, and memories though faded can still overwhelm me with a subtle sadness. Especially in November. 

      I have noticed that people seem to break up between October and November......maybe I am just seeing patterns where I am looking for them. But every year.....around this time the heartache abounds. This is the month of Scorpio, whose corresponding card in the Tarot is Death. Many people associate fear with death, because they know with endings come pain. The Death card speaks of the absolute ending of one cycle, to allow for the birth of a new one. We humans like the familiar, the known. We fight subconsciously the change, we anticipate the hurt, and generally have to be forcibly dragged to our own 'death.' Yet, in nearly every case, I find the painful ending was necessary for some crucial growth only appreciated in retrospect.
  
  I sit here on an oddly balmy November night, and still in my mind there is that winter chill. The breeze seeps into my bones and makes it known that things are never going to be the same after this month. It lends to melancholy, fanciful notions of headless horsemen, and hauntings. So in honor of my uneasy reflections, I line up my ghosts--all oct/nov casualties--starting five years ago..........
     Five years ago, I left everything I knew, hometown, friends, a boyfriend, to move across the country to Los Angeles. Four years ago, I found myself recovering from my first big city musician heartbreak and gratefully putting to rest the me who didn't respect herself. Three years ago, a dramatic ending of a friendship, perhaps the ugliest I have ever experienced. Two years ago, the deepest heart wound I have yet experienced from a relationship I hadn't even expected in the first place. One year ago, I was planning my trip to India as I learned my father was dying. Every year another little death. From each of them I am changed. Perhaps sadder, but hopefully also wiser.
       
         Somehow reflecting on them makes me feel comfort, but I am still pensive. Knowing you will live through the pain and be a better person, does not take away the fear of the pain. It just gives you a little more courage to face it. Next year I will know what it was that died this November.......from my new lifetime.

Choose your own Adventure

I used to think all you needed was a string to find your way out of the labyrinth. Even when it was dark the answer was as simple as a one yarn solution. Age has taught me better. Sometimes you follow a string certain it will lead you to salvation and instead you end up at a free-standing ball of yarn. Or maybe it leads you straight to the minotaur. There are layers and layers of tangled string. Each one represents a possibility. Like the dime book mazes you used to do as kid with multiple ways to solve them. Though one path seems more direct, the bottom line is no matter how you get there, you are either stuck in the maze or liberated  from it's boundaries.   One way is no better than the other, just different.  

           I think human lives are like this. We build our own labyrinth, a choose your own adventure. Sometimes we end up dying early, and everyone around us wonders what would have happened if we just made one decision differently along the way. Would everything change? Is destiny as precarious as a one bait card trick?  

        I like to think that just like the choose your own adventure stories, we have multiple lives and chances to make choices that will eventually lead us to one of the happy endings. I always used to skip ahead and read all the outcomes so I could be sure to pick the option that would lead me unerringly to a glorious finish. It is odd how little changes in our personalities and minds as we grow and yet how drastically different our circumstances are. If I am being honest with myself the grown woman imitates the little girl in the big game of life. I try to flip pages ahead to the outcome of every choice, disregard the 'projected' unhappy outcomes, and make the one decision that leads ultimately to riding off into the sunset.   

              In my effort to control these outcomes and "write" something that cannot possibly be written, I lose the point. We can write our choices, not their outcomes.  We pick the long way or the short way out of the maze but ultimately out is out, dead is dead. The shorter path out is not somehow less fulfilling. That is the ultimate fear though, that we will die with something left unfinished; a life we do not judge as being filled with the tears, joy, and accomplishments of hollywood movies.     

          Somewhere in trying to lump together the moments of my life into some elegantly written plot, tonight I am capable of stepping outside of the usual patterns I see. I can in this unexpected flash of insight,  identify the tiniest seconds of my journey that impart meaning enough even for me.     

       I am thinking of this past year and trying to write the story of my time in india with my Dad for my stepmother who is writing a book. She is a woman of action and I admire her courage. I have begun writing the story many times in my head but even now am procrastinating on giving it a tangible life by writing this blog instead. As I try to craft this journey of trials and tears, two moments stand alone in my head. Moments that make the rest of my time in India make perfect sense. Everything I went to india for is summed up in the look on my father's face when I first arrived, and the look on his face when I left. Amidst my angst, my searching, my 'sacrifice,' are just two glances. Seconds when the mind labyrinth ceased to exist and there was only pure love.     

        People write movies in airports for these glances. The split second when two people first see each other and everything they feel is naked on their faces. When I first arrived in india and my father opened the door and saw me for the first time after seven years, the only thing on his face was pure excitement and love. Two things went through my head;

1) I had never seen my father look so old,

2) I never knew he loved me so much.

The bookend of this moment was captured on camera the day I left india. After my father passed a month later, my stepmother sent me the picture she had snapped with her phone, and I cried. Because it was that look again. I could not see it because I was hugging my father but in that photo is once again the most obvious open expression of love.  

      We are all human and we get hopelessly tangled in our balls of string that we are hoping will lead us out of the labyrinth. Sometimes we sling our strings like rodeo cowboys into walls and around minotaurs. In the moments when we embrace the darkness and drop the string we remember the way out lies not in our minds planning and scheming, but in remembering what "is." There is not one but many paths out of the maze, to find them we just have to know they exist. They are illuminated not in logic or attempted projections of future, but in finding the answer in love that lives beyond the limitations of 'wrong' choices. That love just "is." Choose your own adventure.

A final goodbye. At least in this lifetime