Fat rendered to silence

I love my fat. Yes, that is what I said. But I am not talking about the fat on my body, although I understand the benefits of self-acceptance in this realm. When I was forced to take Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, it made me very sleepy. I admit I slept through most of my classes. My brain falls asleep when I am squeezed into a chair for hours without regular movement. But I got extra sleepy in this class. So calm yourself, because this is not an exposition on feminism. I am not going to talk about loving my inner thighs, which never seem to be sufficiently taut and just sit there sullenly, slacking in their business. I will leave them alone, for the time being. What I am going to talk about, is my love for the beautiful white disc of fat I am staring at, recently rendered by me on the stovetop. It started out as a few pounds of fat scraps from my butcher.

They do not believe that I eat the fat, which is free, (no one wants it) and keep asking me what it's for with a "wink-wink" expression, as if I will soon give them a "real answer." Butchers are some of my favorite people now; It is really the only place I enjoy shopping other than The Goodwill. There is a special brand of humor among people who cut and handle dead flesh for a living. It reminds me of my nurse friends' humor. I get along with them swimmingly, because like me, they are often lacking the "screening" button in their speech.

Yesterday, the manager in the meat section looked me up and down, and challenged me to bring in what I eat. "I don't believe you eat it," he said with a big grin. I am not sure if it is because I am skinny, or because no one they know purposely eats fat in this way. I love this sort of friendly banter so I "raised my hand in the game," by telling him and the others that I will bring in my latest breakfast of fried fat, liquid fat and dried meat, for proof and eat it in front of them. At any rate, they happily sent me off and running with my free package of fat. But this was not the end of it.

Getting the fat is just the beginning of a whole process. It is for the purpose of making my meat biscuits or "pemmican." This product takes two ingredients: meat and fat. I like the spareness of ingredients because it calms me to have something simple in life from which to work. (This is why I wear all black. It is not because I am trying to be deep.) There is a whole ritual involved in making my pemmican. I cut up the strips of fat, take out a giant cooking pot and dump them in, turn the pot down low, and continue to check and stir my fat with a level of attentiveness that one gives to a small child. I do not want it to burn or to scorch. I leave the pieces in there to get brown and fry them for eating the next day. Then there is the straining of the fat from the chunks that are left and I pour the liquid into a container. I reheat it once again to remove any condensation from the process that might have added water to the fat. Otherwise, it can spoil.

Then, I wait for it to harden, and the next day, or later that day, I separate the hardened white mass of fat from the orangey jelly beneath. This "jelly" will be used for delicious broth, which turns my meal into pemmican "stew." At the "end" of the process, I feel a bit of nostalgia. It is like finishing a good book. Part of you wants to sustain the deep level of concentration which lifts you out of your usual buzzing state of thoughts, complaints, and ongoing distraction. When the fat is complete, I take my thinly sliced meat out of the dehydrator and pulverize it in my food processor until it is a fine powder. Then I mix in enough rendered fat in liquid form until the pemmican has the consistency of brownie batter. I pour it into bags and leave it to harden and then eat it until it runs out and I need to make more.

One aspect I love in this process, is to run my hands through the fine powdered meat before I mix it with the fat. There is something delicious and sensual about doing this, and I have much greater appreciation for these inherently sensual acts now that I don't derive pleasure from sugar. This reminds me of yet another sensual moment, that I enjoy: I like to grab the edge of the sheets with my feet and get it right between the crease of my toes, and feel the soft, tickling sensation. It is wonderful. I also get this delicious feeling too, from engaging in this whole pemmican-making process with my meat and fat hunks.

There are so many aspects from it which give me pleasure, that I cannot think of them all. It reminds me of those books for children that show a picture of a person doing something, and ask, "How many such and such can you find in this picture?" It is an exercise of pure creativity, to make my fat as useful as possible. I even rub some of it on my lips as moisturizer.

At first, I didn't grasp the global benefit to undergoing the step-by-step process required for pemmican-making. It seemed like a lot of work when I learned about it. But then I began to think about it more and more, until I just felt like trying it. But I still didn't want it to be what I deemed "too much work." Therefore, it annoyed me that there were often hunks of meat attached to the fat the butcher gave me. I would never tell them this and simply take whatever the butcher gives me. I do not expect them to cut it perfectly when I am not paying for it. I had to cut off all the meat myself with our not-so-sharp knife in order to separate it from the fat.

More to do, I thought irritated. But after completing this step several times now, I realize, that my soul craves every part of this activity for the peace it brings. The more I do, the better. The steps followed in this activity allows me to engage in the moment, instead of having my mind running away from itself in its usual mode. It gives me pure focus. Even to exist in a minute of this space is bountiful. And this sates me inside as though I have just been fed something of great sustaining powers before I have even eaten any of the pemmican.

I am sustained when I give my attention fully in making my meat biscuits, and also in my work teaching and doing intuitive readings. This care and interest continues to generate more and more incoming gifts. The process is a wonderful opportunity. I experienced the truth of this yesterday, when I learned that I could embark on yet another process, in the field of my work. I had an idea, and told a friend about a new venture, and she gave me a whole schedule of things to do to make it happen. Right off, I did not like her viable suggestion. It seemed painstaking, laborious, and tiresome. It wasn't exactly what I had envisioned. I rejected her ideas immediately.

This is a person who I love and respect on many levels. But all I could see at the time, when she offered her wisdom, was the way it hindered me and would cause me too much work. To make matters more complicated, I made up a story about her motives for suggesting it. I decided it was because she believed I was not good enough to do it the other way--the way that did not involve as much of a process and that had been my favored approach. The other way was new and untraveled.

Fortunately, I realized later that I was being a jackass and avoiding both the methods and the loving care she was offering. She was actually paying attention to what I said. This is friendship and care. She was offering the "fat" of her knowledge, rather than nodding her head in a stupor, and just throwing out some quick route to shut me up. She was giving me an opportunity to find yet another process with which to nourish myself.

Before you wonder what in the world this has to do with fat, I will explain. I do not use these long-winded analogies to be clever. I am an experiential person, and experiencing is how I learn. Without direct practice, I will spiral once again into that unfocused student falling asleep in Women's Studies. It is in the details of ordinary life that I find self-knowledge and excitement. I did not plan to write about how fat makes me focus, and use everything intended, and about all the other wonderful aspects. I just felt the sensation of joy around the process and began to write. But I realized there was a huge gift inherent in the experience, the more I wrote.

I cannot say enough good things about making pemmican. I get to use every part of my ingredients to create. Nothing goes to waste. It makes me feel nourished and sated. To use all of my meat is to use the meat of substance that my dear friend offered, and to use the care that is being sent to me. It is to receive and welcome every possibility, every bit of my heart, ears, creativity, and senses, while the mind quiets and nothingness burns clean. All of this comes from participating in a process.

This is the gift and the answer. When you burn away what is not wanted by focusing on a task at hand, then you have the chance to experience the wonder of pure nothingness. It is the silence that we often seem to find only in sleep, though it exists in our waking life in the form of various jobs when we focus on them. That is why monks often clean the toilets with a toothbrush. It is not because they are that concerned about the cleanliness of the toilet, but more so with using details to stimulate the cleansing of the mind and the emptying of its reservoir of "gunk," as I call it. The mind is so busy hopping and jumping that it needs tasks to calm it and bring us to "awakeness."

This is the reason I am deeply connected to movement in the body. It is not to look toned, nor is it to show off my flexibility. I am not that flexible. When you bring your awareness to the act of movement in the body, you are once again, "engaged." When you carefully go through each step in making something, or drink up every last drop of love sent your way in a friendship, or spend hours putting something together, you are immersed fully in precious inner quiet and the study of your life through living it.

I could easily buy my pemmican already made. But then I would not receive this amazing gift. I could have ignored my friend's suggestion. I could look at the process of making pemmican as simply a laborious task. But then I would not have the opportunity to receive its wonderful benefits. There is nothing that replicates the process of working through an idea other than working it.

It is not really to get to the "end-goal." Of course, I want the "finished product" in the end. After all, it is delicious. But my focus is ALL about what happens during the "making." It is about what emerges when you put your whole self into an action. Whether it is a kiss, a performance, or cleaning your briefcase out, the gift of awareness is always accessible. And if this gift comes for me in the form of globs of fat--whose transformation to meat biscuits allows me to feel aliveness and silence, then I welcome it with grace and gratitude. It is with this understanding that I continue to sing the song of love for fat, my lovely fat.

Leaving me behind so I can come forth

When things move like gravy, thick and lumpy, inside me, I am prone to think I must change something. Exercise! Lift out of it and perk up! Picture an aerobics instructor with that irritatingly high-pitched voice that stays always at the same, over-cheery tempo while you are about ready to keel over. I am sorry to say I have pushed this cheery militancy many times on myself and others. But I have been gaining more comfort with a middle ground of "enh," as I call it. And today I woke up below "enh," and a wave of sadness washed over me.

It felt just like that. The story behind it? I lost a friendship that I imagined had deeper bounty to it than was the case, and this disheartened me. I had been trying to ignore it for days. Every time I thought about "losing" it, there was a certain shame outstanding and I tried to shove it away. It was the sort of shame you feel when you get picked last for soccer. I felt "bad" the way small children do, when their mother tells them they are "bad."

The unpleasant feeling made me look at all that I do not like about myself. I picked apart my way of being, and wondered how I could be "less" me to be more appealing and make my friend like me better. I thought about how I provoke and demand and urge people on and how this was perhaps a "bad" thing. And I knew I would not change it. BAD. All bad. And if I were to become "better," how could I teach as a new me? Whisper? Lay there and play dead? Wear pastels? I had taken it over the top, as I am prone to do. This sent me into early morning chaos.

All this distress was in the back of my mind, and while I was thinking about it, I sent some correspondence to someone I respect, regarding a nutritional question, with many errors in it.

Sometimes I have errors in these posts. And I remove them if I catch it. But so you know, I do not proof "to the death," because then I would never print out a single post. This is truth. I will keep arranging and rearranging like a dog chasing its tail. It is how I will hide, and I love hiding. Right now, in fact, I am slunken into a seat with abominable posture, with a hat pulled low over my face and a turtleneck yanked as high up as it will go. And it is not cold out. I am sitting in a dark corner. It makes me feel invisible and this is comforting. So I am not defending my errors; I know proofing is good writing, but my need is to get it out and have it be coherent at once without a century passing, while my writing sits hidden in some corner like that of Emily Dickinson.

However, this is not a good excuse for what happened this morning. It was my worry and chaos leaping out. The person, who knows fairly intimate details about me and my nature, remarked that my thoughts were jumbled, my sentences full of errors, and my tone, full of worry and anxiety. They insisted that they were not scolding or disparaging me, but holding me to the standard they knew I was capable of and asked me to rewrite my question. Then they would be happy to respond. There was no malice in it. Kindness and concern shone through in every bit of the comment. This is the kind of thing people will not usually tell you. They may just "tsk" at the sight of your name the next time it comes up and discount you completely as "that idiot." This is the same sort of thing people do when you have bad breath, or are wearing something that makes you look like a house. Just sneer or pity you in silence.

I complied to the request and re-wrote in a style that even my "editing" self could appreciate. And then, I began to reflect on what had precipitated the jumble of a question I had first vomited out of my brain to this person. I thought about how there was something disrespecting in myself, to spill words out without clothing them properly. And how it looked to them. Why did I not care enough about myself to make a nice presentation? This was enough to open the proverbial floodgates along with my own narrated sad tale of being unlikable. That and some emoting music of Dido on my little headphones put everything in motion. But I wasn't quite through with the crescendo to lift-off, so I continued hacking at myself a bit more, just to really get the tear ducts working at full power.

This was furthered by "The List." You know this--the list of all that is wrong with you. I thought about it in a general sense. "Generalizing" is always a troublesome thing in relation to surmising all that is "off" about oneself. It worked. A whole assortment of untenable, unlikable and irritating things about me, according to me.

I felt bad.

Then the wave arrived, like the swells that come and go in our Pacific Ocean. I cried. And cried. And kept going. I didn't fight the act of crying and grimace, as I often do, trying to resist. This is an odd sensation where the corners of the mouth are being yanked up when they want to fall down. Disconcerting, to say the least. Notice it the next time you are fighting sadness. It is sort of a Twilight Zone moment. But this time I cried perfectly. I was a consummate emoting professional; The tears came without resistance.

When I went upstairs much later (I go downstairs whenever I get up, which is usually at un-Godly hours like 4:00 am) , my husband asked me right away, with a lift in his voice, "Did you put on makeup?" This was funny, because it was actually that I had not bothered to take off my new habit of eyeliner from yesterday. He is not a morning person per se, but this interested him. This is what is so reassuring about men. They are delighted by what they see as beauty and this delight is in no way diminished by the stupid thing you said yesterday at 2, to your mother. It helps make you less crazy about yourself.

He was looking at me and admiring it as I debated about telling him what was happening. He loves makeup on me, which is unfortunate, because I tend not to wear much. (I make up for this by not properly removing it, which makes it look like a heavier application.) The crying gave my eyes a perfectly smeared look that you would see on fashion models which I can never get right if I try. Eventually, I told him I had been crying. He lit up and was happy to know this. This is not because he is a sadist. He is always relieved when I am not attempting to conceal my feelings like I do my teeny little pieces of paper in my backpack composed of receipts, numbers, old wrappers, cards, and other junk. It makes him feel like he is on the inside loop.

What was it about? he asked. I told him it was a wave of feeling. He looked at me with his blue eyes in perfect solidarity. He gets this concept because he is a surfer and knows the ocean like he does my body.

Frankly, I have a hard time separating from people I care about, even when the dynamics aren't working. I worry and wonder what I have done wrong. I feel like the imperfect garment labeled "irregular/damaged" that is discounted and no one buys. I fret as to why I am "bad" even though it may not be what I want. I had forgotten all about this because I was too busy castigating myself.

The truth is, that friendships come and go, even if you don't overly put your foot in your mouth, so to speak. This passing of unions and moments are no less natural than birth and death. It was not about this and could not be about this. I know this because the feeling just blew right out of me as soon as my tears passed. I cannot find the importance now that I attached to this person. I could not remember why I was upset. And the "story" seemed to fade quietly. There was only the pure feeling that came over me like a torrent that just released easily and like the waves pulling you in, it then left little behind. I felt tired, but calm. The pure feeling of emptying was the essential part. Like an orgasm. I felt like a flat beach with my sands pounded down into smoothness after the arrival of the tides.

When I could see this, I breathed lighter. I began to think about my new batch of meat biscuits I am making in my dehydrator and dashed off to get my dose of morning fat that I like to fry up in the pan. Really, the coming and going of my wave was just like the weather in Hawaii when we lived there for a few years. Torrential downpour one minute, and the next minute, bright sunshine. This used to be very bothersome to many people who visited us. Sun, rain, sun--you get the idea. They wanted consistency.

But I am mostly okay with the mercurial nature of life and my place in it. Now my eyes are long dry, I have lived out twelve hours of my day, and my body is recovering, quietly and peacefully. I don't want anything to force it out of where it needs to be. No brutal aerobics instructor, thank you very much. This is the act of a true friend. From me to me. Just letting things be. Seeing what I want. And just because I like myself a little bit better now than before, I will try for me and you to spell correctly. Because that's what friends do.

ON the Substance of Roots

On the Substance of Roots

If you look not so carefully even

It is child’s play to

Find the spot inside my heart

The spot that is soft

Like butter

And that you can cut through easily

And have your entry, too

What can I do

Silly hen

trying

To close this place

With the entry that needs no key

And the hole that has no center

When the center sings of something

And draws those to it like the pied piper

Without will

This

I do not understand

But endure

It embraces and absorbs

Without will or try of me

This center redesigned

only then

That would or might lessen

the grip

And instead would

Fruit me a photo-shopped life of certain smiles

And easy hems

Instead it is there-

Tapping at me

Like water on a drum

Drip drip goes my eggheart

Climbing inside the souls of others

On the days it shreds

Which is Most

And Wednesdays are no relief

Nor the rest of the days named

Monday or so

For time after more

Workey work it goes

Goes without a breath

Or a stop

And I feel the tired

The tired

that sleep cannot lift

That eyes cannot cover

That ears cannot block

And the chorus

Continues

Of busy in my head

And the silence laughs with a jolt

Of almost

You fall and I hear

You ache and I bleed

And sense of normal

leaves for

The thump and guns salute of alive

oblivion

Shakes and rattles

Against the windows

Goes the wind

Of me leaping to escape

Only me

But me is still there

Glued to I

Our band of misfits

Trembling and whistle

she

Prays for

The hope of exit

Hint of embrace and a sigh

Perhaps happens

I rise to the chance

And my yolkey heart

Lays stubborn still, like sap

On the trees

And it trails

over the leaves

Like a snail’s slimey wake

And it is a moment that breaks

where

The glorious space bar

Of silence happens

They-the whole of

What is

out there

In the woods-

My Savior

carry me Home for a rest in

My lovely labors of God

The green of spring

And rust of Fall

My pillow and solace alone

These Dear verdant ones

And the inside of me courses on

Like the scab that bleeds

Bleats like the lamb at slaughter

Willing my

head to roll off

so my body can start making sense

Where roots of all

have taken hold

In the stem of me

Cries all of me and it to no one:

Bring to us

The barbs of wire to allay

that which

Invades and plants

colored glass bits in our sides

pretty though it smarts

Each time it lands

taking a bit

Of your smile, too

And a touch

Of your normal

left

So it leaves you crumpled

Give us the wall

Of silence,

They bleat and scream

That would hold the enemy

Away from the gates

Through which they entreat

with hope at love

But my dear fellows

Cannot stop

More than a letter can become a number

For fellows cannot resist

Digging in the soggy soil

Of my Entrails

And what am I to do anynow

With a hole on both ends

The whole of me,

This

But yield to it

This humanness

Damned mortal life

leaving me in

Achille’s wake

Without the antidote

There is only

the breath

Of winds on my cheek

Blessed release

The gamey smell of damp and wood

For relief

As I sink into the ground on my knees

And the cool earth surrounds

As I sit in the soil

Precious to me

This moment

For I soften and sleep in my fury then

And only then

In this place

Where there is clamor until now

When we meet,

You willows and soil,

Does Peace sing softly

But I can hear!

And the green of trees towering,

Bushes clamoring

These protect me

deep in this bosom of musk

The leaves are my manna

Heaven of which

I cannot

live

Without

Live and fly, too

From a heaven that is this place

Yes

To quiet

I can lift my weary head

Find in the moment that sleep will at last overtake

the thumping sick of yellow

In my brain

A moment

Of quiet then

Beautiful nothing it is

In its coat of empty

It is this

This You I seek

To quiet the weeping ewe

Who would seek refuge

The thickness of the tree trunk

In my woods

splayed in sureness and stubborn

yes of maleness

This gnarls on it twisting and sure

Holding through the multitude of voices

That prayed for the century’s dead

This is the Solid I seek

And the length of it

The solitude rooting down

where the worms and the cadavers

Lie

So a stomp on me

Will not and cannot change my course

and quit me then

and Then can I have the antidote

To this present crumbling

So I am found in one piece

After all

There is only the whisper of hope

In this tree-lined world of grass and snakes

And flowers that fruit

And water I see

Flowing placid

That Dazzles the hope of release from

All

ALL being larger than the world

Or the stars and galaxy

And Everything in between

The whole of my

Of my all

Of ever flowing deeds

washed

Clean

Deeds writ in stone before one is a speck

In your father’s eye

This forest,

These hills and mountain passes

Washing tenderly

The soot of my soulprints

dissolving

And crumbling happily

For me-so easy

like a pile of

Sand in the shoes

Tilt of the shoe and the silt falls away

All that has been traveled

Clear and empty now

Brand ever new

And it is this place that brings me hope

I long for this bareness

To be naked of sins

That have not yet come

And moments that have not yet

Ticked out

But hang in the air

And milk that has not spilt

But still dangles on the edge

that precipice

Of tyrant Fate

To lie awake and yet sleep

To be innocent of want

And the unceasing fugue in my brain

Like soldiers marching back and forth

But all there is

For a Lassy like me

Is the wish and flash for

Green

What else is there

to hold and sink onto

The Green is all and there is

None else

to save my heart

The yolky egg

The requiem

To be filled in with

Nature

So this becomes my picture

And scene

The last rite

to hold my ear close to

the leaves that shiver

on the wind for a change,

instead of me

For release I sing

The roots to grab hold

Under ground,

Not me

And the water

To flow

In its container

Without the flooding

Of puddles

O’er me and my mortal frame

Release me

I am cooked now

And can crumble

Finally

In god and green

Showing SPOTS

I AM NOT A CROOK. I am thinking of Richard Nixon. But he did. Do it. This morning, manic in my bed at 3:30, I began to think about my integrity. I had this dream that there was one of those slot machines in a classroom and when I hit the lever for change, all this money came out. Tons of it. I started piling it in my jacket, taking more and more. I remember thinking at that exact moment, that this was a bad thing, but not stopping. I grabbed all of it and jammed it into my backpack.

Then the "teacher" came around, and was looking for some papers in relation to it, which I had also grabbed inadvertently. I felt bad then, more than nervous. What I felt bad about, really, was not that I was the type of person who would do this, but I had created a whole hassle for myself. Now I would have to do all this hiding. This seemed very inadvisable, inconvenient, and put a whole damper on the "steal the money" thing.

I woke up feeling like I should scold someone. Umm, myself?? Then I began to think about my covert tendencies. I hide things away regularly. We are not talking state secrets. Pieces of paper, hair bands, lipsticks--shoes. Shoes get squeezed under the back seat of my car. Like a squirrel, I burrow--just because. Or maybe not.

Empty bags get squashed underneath the not quite roomy driver's seat. Pieces of paper get stored in tiny pockets in my backpack. If my very organized, bordering on anal, husband (this is what opposites look like-us) threatens to help me by cleaning any of this up, he risks having his hands snapped off. My sense of internal chaos gets very edgy when it is threatened. All these things I store--turn up again. Like the disc my husband gave me the other day from 7 years ago. I have found all sorts of things years later this way. Precious things, things I planned to do something with, things I didn't want to deal with at the time, that I put into the "see now, deal with later" category.

I started thinking about how this relates to my state of my body now. I shoved all kinds of foods inside it, quickly and aggressively like I was hiding the evidence ASAP. And I have hidden aspects of myself that I found disquieting, unappealing, unlikeable. And then it all started pouring out. When I took my chastity vow of no sugar.

Well, not all. But lots of it. I remember seeing this woman in a cafe where I was writing. She was probably around 55. She came up to this much younger man, who she clearly knew from a past history, and he had the look. The look was "I don't want to talk to her, but I will suffer it." She began to talk about how she felt. It was not dignified, the way she poured it all out. She did not save face. He seemed to want to crawl under the chair, inside the wall--anything to get away from the open confession of another. It was as though she had a rank odor. You could clearly see it on his face. The disgust. And she continued undeterred.

I remember thinking, "What balls this woman has. She is making a complete ass of herself, opening and revealing all without a thought to how pathetic she looks. How weak she seems . How revealing." This is my future role model. I talk about my toe, my weird tongue, my ugly rashes on my skin. Why make myself look ugly? Because it is too hard to keep shoving things in cubby holes. It is too much work to keep storing pieces of paper in bags, under things, in tiny corners. Those corners build up. I can blame my "organization challenge" on ADD. Definitely a characteristic of this syndrome. But I would like to go deeper, because I am fond of cliches and EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED.

I think that when I stop hiding my perceived ugliness, I will stop storing as much little pieces of paper. I will stop hiding things under the figurative bed. My mother used to find food I snuck in my drawers and under my bed. We weren't allowed to eat "bad" food, and I wanted it. So I snuck. The way I snuck ice cream alone in my apartment even when single, by eating without looking and cramming the empty container immediately in the trash.

If I stop hiding, my drawers might stay neat, and maybe my car will wash itself. Maybe not. But it sure makes life easier. Show your spots.

The Bloody Trail to Somewhere New...

Last night, a friend did an imitation of Jack Nicholson's often repeated line, from the movie, A Few Good Men. It was attempted in Nicholson's trademark style of gutteral and explosive frustration: "You can't handle the truth!"

There is something to this concept. Often the reason we push people away or get pushed away has nothing to do with what we believe or what is stated as the "reason." When you extend toward another, sometimes you get "no." No contact, no one home, don't call and don't leave a note. There are different ways the other person conveys this: It can feel to you like an act of cruelty or unkindness. As though that other person had taken a swipe at you when you least expect it. It happens in business, in love, in friendship, and in day to day encounters. This can happen when you are near someone's comfort zone and threaten to invade this barrier.

When I am on the receiving end of this, I feel pain and suffering when I cannot see the fear behind another person. And delivering this blow to another, is also destructive to my well-being. Either of these scenarios cause grief and static. Part of the potential outcomes in connecting with other humans.

So what does one do with this? Well, there is not one thing that will force another open if they do not wish it. You can choose to step into new places in your own interactions, but not one thing will push beyond a wall the other person does not wish to climb. Nor sleet, or snow, or entreaty will seep through. What is left then, is an opportunity for you, the one who seeks entry or closeness, to turn their cheek--not in anger, but in understanding. The task in this, as I see it, is to find love, still. And love is understanding.

We can see that a small child is often afraid of strangers. Someone who I do not know and something that is not familiar. Adults still exhibit this, even though they are wearing grown-up clothing and this time, the danger is instead, something that is beyond the scope of their experience. But this is not felt directly because it is considered weak. We are not allowed to cower as grown people. We are encouraged to be fearless, and handle everything with equanimity. This is the unwritten socialization that makes us good little boys and girls who hold our pencils properly in class.

In light of this scenario, often when there is fear, something else comes out instead of "the truth." The response can be to sink one's figurative teeth into another person. Safety prevails. Or you may choose confinement and loneliness in order to protect your heart from perceived injury. Friendship, opportunity and life, all loom scary in the distance.

If however, you desire experience more than "safety," then the recourse to this fear is to see it. Then you can treat it like something that is not "bad" or scary, but that which you do not know. Your decisions may change. Potential abounds, then, for the magnificent expansion of our being through "contact." Human to human.

Runners talk about hitting a "wall" in a long race. They either move beyond or stop here. Attempt to push a person beyond this--their wall--and you may become one more casualty on their bloody trail of flight from the "new." But you can continue to leave the light on with understanding and love. That is up to you.

A spotless mind

I have just figured out the best exercise for lifting your pelvic floor and other stuff. Without a stitch of regular exercise. Why should you give a hoot? BECAUSE IT JUST MIGHT PREVENT YOU FROM BEING A PERSON WHO NEEDS DEPENDS UNDERGARMENTS. Now that I got your attention, that is just one of many reasons why the pelvic floor is important. It pulls everything up down there, which makes fun things like sex, MORE fun. Also, a raised pelvic floor, means more tone, which means your tummy looks good, and it works well when you move. And in the case of my bathroom trick, it also means you wont have pea-sogged pants.

So here's the way. I discovered it quite accidentally. I was in my favorite coffee shop, Peets, and was needing to "empty" after drinking a tall glass of mint iced tea. (No caffeine for me. BAD idea.) So I go in the bathroom. I have on black stretchy pants (of course), and they are very flowing and come down low. They are lower than usual because the drawstring fell out, and I am not fat now that I don't eat sugar. Further, I am wearing my Converse. These are the only shoes I seem to wear other than Uggs or thongs.

The Converse have very little heels so this also causes the pants to drag. The moment I enter, my eyes scan like a laser. I am instantly on guard for pee speckles on the floor, and all sorts of potential germy solutions that I cannot see for certain, but know for certain, exist. It is a feat of strength, coordination, AND of the pelvic floor, what I need to do in order to not dip the wick, or rather, the ends of my pants in pee juice.

I yank them up as high as possible by pulling my pubic bone up to my belly (just what I tell people to do in class). Meanwhile, I am also pulling the pants down at the same time to go, using my hands to continue reaching for the cuffs of my pants. I try to pull the pant cuffs all the way up and tuck them into the waistband in order to keep them from falling. I have gone to a bathroom before with the sagging flowing pants and emerged after feeling the disquieting wetness of fabric against my legs. And it was not there before. This leads me to start adding up all the ingredients seasonally available in each john I enter: all things starting with "p." Maybe not the substance perhaps, but even the thought of the essence is enough to make me fervently hike up my pants.

This may seem ridiculous to you or perhaps a bit OCD that I am concerned about these germs, but this is not unlikely. ESPECIALLY in a place where the bathrooms are unisex. People tend to dribble and make messes when it is not their own home. All you have to do to test this theory out is to notice locker rooms in gyms. People whip their towels on the floor, leave splashy messes and lotions and all kinds of gunk all over the place. So really...If you want to believe there is still a toothfairy, then you may ALSO believe that the pee stays just where it belongs--in the nicely designated porcelain well. And pigs fly. And no one inhales.

So after I manage to yank the ends of my pants up, stuff them in the top of the waistband, jamming my chin in to my chest to "hold" everything in place (stomach still getting a workout), then there is a new issue. That of the toilet. I am not sitting on that. It is not a "long stay"--just a fluid release. So now I squat, because LORD KNOWS WHAT IS ON THAT TOILET SEAT. That is simply unthinkable. All the germs throwing raves, creating havoc, and assimilating with each other in one loving family. In order to do this squatting, I have to further draw the belly in, and do a nice pelvic tilt forward so I can aim without missing. Otherwise, the straps on my backpack, which is on my back, (I don't want to set it down on the floor. My backpack is like my stuffed animal.) will end up dipping in the toilet. Then I will have to snip that part off. And I also do not want to miss with my aim. That is always unfortunate, if you have ever "missed" and gotten yourself. I have done this. My germs at least, but still not enjoyable as say, eating pizza or playing Scrabble.

So now I am maneuvering like Russian gymnast with abs of steel. I aim, squeeze the belly in, tilt the pelvis, and clear without a problem. Now comes the next feat. How to move over to the toilet paper metal thing on the wall which is about 4 paces ahead of the toilet. I cannot reach it because if I reach, my pants will fall down and then I will be swimming in the germy sea of pea puddles on the floor. I have to walk, but I cannot walk regularly without still clenching my stomach and jamming my chin down to my chest, because then, the Leaning Tower of Pants will fall down. And I have to hold up the pelvic floor so pea droplets do not escape and cause soggy underwear. This feels infinitely harder than, say, the SAT's. So I hold my stomach in as best I can, and take short stunted steps until I reach it. Now there is a new challenge.

I don't want to touch too much of the toilet paper. More germs. If I grab heartily and fully as I would at home, that means I will have 2, 14, 26 hands which touched God knows what, on me. Bleck. I would rather just sleep with them. Would probably be more sanitary. So now it is a matter of fine motor skills. I look for the very edge of the toilet paper. This is like the razor's edge they talk about in Buddhism. Right in between one place and the other. I am in between air and paper and hunt for the exact middle. I find it, and with the touch of, well, someone who can touch delicately, I take the smallest tug. I pull just enough.

Now for the flourish. Clearly, after this work, I am not going to just rip it-it, being the selected toilet paper square. Then I am once again, sleeping with the 26 people and their mold, gum, coffee, stuff under the nails. So the finesse is now required in that I must exert the exact amount of pressure with my hand sweeping through the air, raising the centimeter of toilet paper I am touching, and then lowering my hand like the guillotine, to perform the "tear." And I do it! The square tears without me having to contact anything other than the centimeter of claimed t.p.

After this, I wipe, and once again, avoid touching anything on myself as well. This requires more dexterity, of touching just the paper, and moving it where it is needed. Now I continue to do my ab exercise of clamping my belly into itself and begin to pull up the pants. Last comes the hand washing. I use my very dextrous elbow, which is covered by a shirt, to pull up the water, pull the lever on the soap and turn it off. The shirt will be washed later. And last, the trash. Please do not tell me after that masterpiece that you would touch anything on the trash receptacle. That is a given no-no. Ick.

And last, I draw my shoulder deep into the joint, as I unlock the door, and then use lovely resistance to push the door open. This is why I don't need to exercise very much anymore.

Maybe all this is very sensible to you. Reasonable, even. But here is the funny part. I do not worry about germs. Ever. Around sick people, on buses, on raw meat, or surfaces, or in the gyms. Only toilets and bathrooms. The mind is a funny place. Funnier even than bathrooms.

FUN with Crazy Brain

When you are in the midst of Crazy Brain (I am appropriating this from a new friend), what do you do? Now if you are already rolling your eyes, or wondering what I am talking about, you can just sit back and listen. I am an old pro in explaining "crazy brain." This is when you hang on to an idea, a feeling, a notion with the grip of me eating a ribeye even though you are pulling away from it at the same time. Like, I do not want to do this survey that I have already done twice, three times for a place I work at. But I am utterly anxious about having everything set and completed. Yet they do not know what happened to my three earlier attempts at the survey. It is sucked into the giant rest home of Computerland. I have put my foot down and am not doing it again. I told them this in several emails and felt like I could barely stop the froth from pouring out of my mouth.

I don't understand the ins and outs of what happens to the little messages once they get sucked into the computer. Or how they get lost or found. This aggravates me because I do not have an understanding about what to do. And I am still feeling responsible even though I insisted I washed my hands of it. So I am not relinquishing utter responsibility. Which means, I still consider it my problem. I would like it to go away like the fungus on my toe. Fast. Part of me is hanging on waiting for them to fix it. And the other part is stamping her foot and saying no, no, and hell no.

This requires lots of energy. I squeeze my neck tight, grip in my jaw. Race around and pace and tap my fingers and have what my husband calls "little fits." My little fits usually consist of me standing there one minute, typing while standing (because I am hyper) and he is sitting quietly as usual, reading and eating. Then I jolt and shake around as though I am having a seizure and slap my hands in the air and sometimes wack them on my legs.

"What's wrong?" he says, appalled and disturbed by his wife, the maniac, out of his peaceful reverie. And of course, his unsettling gives me some mean satisfaction. Crazy Brain likes to make waves. It is a good way to move some of its energy out. Why else do you think the crazies on the street who are yelling come right up to YOU instead of doing it in a lone alley? Husband's sensible reaction to my mania propels me into further crazy brain. I want to unwind him a bit more. Maybe I can pass it off to him completely! I would gladly trade in my vagina for a penis in that moment if only he could take on my issue.

"What do you mean?" I say as non-chalantly as possible, like he is insane. Now I have a problem with computers, work, and my husband. He is pissed off. This is sort of how it works. All I want is escape, but the issue is not resolved, so I am raging that I have to be involved. And somewhere inside, the thought is that rage will scare it away. Like the cowardly lion's roar. But in fact, all of this is just pulling tighter and tighter without release till my brain feels like it is a small nut being squeezed into smithereens. And problems ensue.

In what I call good movement, (and I am not talking about toilet movements-though this would not be unusual for me) you have push and pull going on. In quality movement, this is what allows lightness. Push into the earth with your feet, and the earth pushes up into you. This sucks the line of movement from your toes all the way up your body until you are drawn inside yourself. It is like pulling the cord on the duffle bag or the garbage bag. Then you are free to lift and move and raise your arms like a bird, or just flip the bird! It feels wonderful, stable, strong.

But when you have crazy brain, it is a different kind of movement--that of gripping. Everything is being sucked inside, as though you are sinking in quicksand, and instead of lightness, you move deep into yourself as though you are being turned inside out. There is no lightness, no humor, no twinkle toes in the sky--this falling in to yourself is resisted as you grab and try to touch something outside this. Like a husband who is reading his surf magazine. Everything becomes a tantamount effort.

What can you do? Let it drop...? Dump it out. Let yourself sag? Then you have your mouth dragging along the floor, and the eyes downcast, staring at the ground as though the sun will never come out to play again. If you do this in the midst of a pushup style pose, and you are in my class, this will give me one of those obvious fits I mentioned earlier. And it will be deserved. You may as well have smashed a brick into my funny bone. This collapses you in your spine, and it collapses you figuratively. So once again, I ask, what do you do besides squeezing yourself like a boa constrictor or "dumping" when the situation is dismal?

FORECAST: I WILL ANSWER THIS IN A PARAGRAPH EXACTLY.

There's nothing more irritating to someone with high anxiety than having to wait for answers. I dislike this in movies, in books, and even when I am pricing things for work, I seem to often blurt it out. I don't want to engage others in this kind of suspense, because I assume this could be their issue as well. So, I will answer. I will not be like those French deep movies that close with the blank screen and credits rolling without a discernible ending.

FIND ANSWER RIGHT HERE (this is what I wish the world would do for me, so I could have a bit less anxiety. I would like it if they posted these signs everywhere, like in the air when I am lost and driving): What I do in unfavorable moments, when I am not throwing fits, is watch it roll. The film of me is rolling and events are doing what they will do. I watch how disgusted I am, I mumble to myself (a bad habit that I can't excuse with senility), and I wonder how long it will stay. It is the visitor who stinks like old fish immediately. And then, if I keep watch for the this changing of the Guards, there is an instant that the scales tip. Suddenly my fingers are tapping away happily on the keys, I am breathing full into my chest, singing in my annoying loud tones, and I have stopped knitting my eyebrows together.

Things pass. And I am done with my fit.

Things always pass. It is the waiting that bothers me. Gotta keep making friends with Crazy Brain.

ClEARING THE DUST

CLEARING THE DUST As for hungry ghosts, the point for me is NOT to assume I extinguish them. I befriend my "darkness" or my hunger or my craving without getting to the goal of YAY! FINISH. END OF GAME-YOU WIN A BRAND NEW EUREKA VACUUM! The game continues and the board pieces are still there. If it is not in food where I extinguish this vacuuming up of "filter" for feelings, this does not mean it does not exist for me. I do not feel safe assuming I have extinguished this. EVen a sense of wanting to do one thing while doing another--this, to me is a hungry ghost. That is why I say, when someone says "that person is an addict" there is always a chance to turn the finger around. So I may not go out and get plastered like Joe does, but I maybe get aggressive when I am driving. Why? Really, it is not simply "they made me" b/c they did something stupid. My way of looking at it, is that this feeling that is "stimulated" in me is ALREADY THERE. Food did not bring it. Nor does food release it. Nor did the clothing purchase, or the sex, or the lack of that new job I want. That is why I continue to say, ad nauseum, it is not just about the food (Fill in the blank with your particular habit. That is one of many for me.) But it is up to each person how far they want or need to dig. I don't really have another option because the light of recognition is shining. It goes dim during all sorts of moments. It shines in others. HOw tedious? Maybe--or maybe, how freeing, how expanding. HOw negative? Maybe--or maybe looking and seeing the dust under the bed means I can clear it.

Hunger

There is something in Buddhism called the hungry ghosts. I remember hearing about them and it fascinated me. At the time, I was very able to name some select people who fit the description exactly. I am sure my naming of them was accompanied by requisite finger-wagging. You know that feeling you get--oh, you can admit it--no one is watching. It is that feeling of superiority that the bad trait does not belong to you, and even better--it belongs to someone else! This feels like the rite of Spring. To know that what is wrong in the world is not you, means you are OK. A decent person. Certainly better than that other person.

So tonight I began thinking about my hungry ghost inside me. This just goes to show how nice and firm our resolve is to believe all is right with us--that is has taken me this long to really make the connection. So with no more ado--about this ghost. In my interpretation, the ghosts have these little mouths and giant bellies. They are unquenchable, and the torment is that their little tiny mouths can only take in so much at once. The end result is that they are always hungry. All that space in the belly and so little opportunity to fill it.

And to be hungry, as I have seen, is to suffer. To be hungry for love, for accolades, for accomplishment, for silence to fill spaces you do not want to feel. All of this hunger leads to yearning, which leads to desire to fill the space. Fill it with blanks, with those flourescent hazard cones, or a tall building. Just fill it is what we crave. And when I stop filling my space, there is something that happens.

The vacancy initially makes me want to fill it more than ever. I am not talking about the times when I am occupied. When life is like cherry pie and I am deeply immersed, in joy, in busy-ness. The time I speak of, is when the silence washes over me, and I see truths and can do nothing to soften them. I cannot move them out of focus, and I feel the rumbling in my belly. I do not expect that my belly will one day cease rumbling, perhaps until I pass from this place.

But until then, part of the art of living, for me, is to play the dance with the hunger when it arises. I dance with putting it out of its misery and acommodating it with distractions and work and laughter. And then there is just sitting with it, ugly and unappealing and whining for "fill" as it is. It is unwanted, but I imagine that it is sitting right next to me, feeling the same fear and rejection that comes from me. It is of me. And then with this, I am okay with sitting. The grumbling in my belly quiets and for a time, my mouth closes. The baby bird has stopped begging for food. I can wait, I think.

The Strings that unwind

I have boy-style underwear. I like it because I had a brief affair with thongs, that passed and when it passed, I buried any desire for floss moving in between my bottom’s cheeks. I recall, in the midst of our torrid affair-thongs and I—what I loved about it. There was something free and naughty, even, about feeling just a hint of something, and then lightness and space everywhere else but for a tiny triangle. It made me feel that sense of bareness, while clothed. I have never liked clothing very much. It doesn't feel good on me, so the thong was the perfect addition. I loved buying ridiculous colors, tinier and tinier versions. And it was just the sort of thing that low-price stores tended to carry. There was nowhere I couldn't find my thongs.

But then that shimmying string in back, strung in so many different colors, from all the exotic “birds” I bought from stores, started to wear. I even tried the more "select" brand names. But it didn't work like my meat. It rubbed, it harassed, and annoyed. Like that person, who once encompasses your space, who you cannot get enough of. You know what I am talking about, right? Suddenly it is the hacking up of phlegm, or the way they mumble babytalk, and all of a sudden, you are thinking, “this does not fit.” Get them outta here. Well, this is what happened with my thong. We had a good run, and then one day, I found that it didn’t fit. Well, actually it fit too well. I decided it and I weren’t ready for that kind of closeness.

It just doesn’t feel nice to me to have little strings squeezed "in there." I mean, how is this much different than leaving floss between your teeth all day. I get the whole purist thing about having NVP (no visible pantyline) but WHO THE HELL CARES? Is the point to not look like I’m wearing underwear? And what does this say to my elderly ladies I teach? Hey, our teacher is going bareback! As it is, I shave under my arms even though I am extremely lax about keeping up this process on a regular basis, simply b/c I do not want to shock them with a view of unsightly “pubic” hair. So back to the question: do I want my bottom to be that free for the general public? I mean, I consider it rather intimate to be letting all of that shake about for the neighbors, the 10 year old kid, their dog, the cashier at the grocery store. I am all for the semantics of mating rituals and enticement, but when the bottom is masquerading as a citizen during my day, I like it clothed. There is something secure about having my “cheeks” wrapped, and then double-wrapped. And I find they look “cuter.” This is an easy fix; it is not like having to sit there with dye on my hair for hours, or have flesh sucked out with those vacuum things I saw on Dr. 90210 once. (Have not watched it since.J) Nor is this fix like the torment and laborious process of hair dyeing, which I used to do as a peroxided blonde. And they are only $8.00 at Lululemon. These are my favorite. Small, in case you’re wondering. The larger sizes STRETCH too much, and there is nothing worse than stretched out underwear on my skin. Makes me chafe. Then I get more rashes.

Even if I don’t sleep properly, or if I am having bad hair, I can always rest in confidence that my backside is quilted, coated, and supported. So boy underwear it is. And if people in the world can see that I am wearing it, due to my ever present uniform of tight exercise pants, that cling to my legs, I am with God on this. I wear boy underwear.

The Wiggle Dance

What is love...I mean how does it get inside me? I can't figure out if it is a sound, a wiggle, a movement--or a flash of something that in a second, reminds us of a feeling that all is well. I tend to be partial to sensations as being the root of everything, so I think of it as this wiggle in my throat that moves down to my pelvis and snakes around there causing all kinds of delicious feelings.

People get funny about the genitals. It's like there is something perverse about them. But what is perverse to me is the need to cover expression that is natural and free-flowing. How is the sensation you feel in the act of love, any less "spiritual" or "pure" than the feeling of ice cream smooth and creamy on your tongue. I believe that the pelvis wants to be free. It wants to move as you walk, wants to grip and relax as you rise and sit. Why is this perverse? Perversity is to freeze your movement, close your heart and your body to feeling. Then life is stilted and stiff, as well.

I felt my sacrum wiggle today while I was teaching. We worked various movements and then walked around after each to test how it shifted our bodies. To my delight, after the exercise, each time I would shift to the right or left with my "cheeks" (yes, the lower ones) I'd feel a little echo, a wiggle, in my sacrum. Instead of being glued to me in one clump, it WIGGLED. This gave me great joy. It felt like nature intended. A woman with a shake of one hip, then the other, and the tailbone following.

There is nothing like having a body and moving in it. Meeting it with joy, with curiosity, with sensuality. Sex is not the problem. Making war, not love. That is the problem. Moving is good. Moving and feeling is better. Shake it!

The blasted whatdyacallit CORE

What does it mean to be in your core. I teach this. I am constantly, ad nauseum telling my students and any person who will listen to pull their pubic bone up to their belly button and move the tailbone down toward the floor. So what's the point of this other than yammering?

It is the best gift I can give. It's the kind of thing that makes me worked up to share.

When I draw myself in, in this way, I am inside myself. I have the structure to move in. I am connected from the tips of my feet, (that I am also yammering about--lifting up inner and outer arches) all the way up my legs, through my center to the tip top of my head. I am connected to the earth beneath me. I feel the earth, feet and feet below me pushing up into my own feet and through my body. I picture what lies below the floor, the dirt, the cement, and how it clings to the bottom of me. I think if I "see" deep enough below this earth, I can end up on the other side of the globe. Possibility.

And then there is this sense of the center point of my head. I picture a hole there, (feels like there's one a lot!) and that this opens up to the sky, to the heavens. To possibility and to expansiveness. All this through thinking about this little center point on the top of my head.

I tend to find the most safety, feel the weight of gravity best when I can feel where my body begins and ends. I don't have problems connecting with beyond, in the elusive, where things are indefinite and murky. (Well, I am problematic with everything, but this sort of abstract is comfy.) But when I get to feeling my breath tight in my chest, and looking around me for some kind of answer or sureness, I go to the core. The core is more than tight abs. More than a flat stomach. Fine. That is nice if your belly doesn't bulge. Good for you. Good for me.

But the core is what keeps me safe and sane. It keeps me feeling that I am a body that has a place "here" as an earthling, and somewhere to fit. If I can feel myself from the top to the bottom, and hold myself in, with this core, then I am centered. Then I can begin. And life leads me forward as I hold this. From top to bottom.

Night Waves

Something goes crack in the night, and my soul lights up. I am sleeping, but my mind is full of ire, and color. I dream of love, and aches of my soul leaping off into the space of creativity, where things burn without ever smoldering. And I wonder--in truth--where does this light come from? Where has it hidden. And what has happened to open it up so?

This year, I seem to feel pain and suffering on a level of sensation that brings me to the feelings of the tiny hairs in my nose. Of how the air of sadness slides through my nostrils in little puffs and lodges itself part-way in my throat. The throat--the base of ecstacy, of pain, of joy breaking.

All of this floating around inside me regardless of bedtime, and little elfs that sing in the night. While I am meant to be dancing with my sugar-plum fairies and sleeping like faithful bunnies do, all tucked up in their cages--my mind is roaming and soaring. My feelings inside me pouring out like batter in the pan. And the insides are spilling out everywhere so nothing is contained.

It is all flowing. And I wonder how I can be quiet, how the symphony and cacophony of senses sliding around do not wake the whole city. The city, which breathes its silence as the air whistles through it. Inside I feel love, I rage, I live and feel my heart beating and my nostrils flaring and eyes water as feeling pours out because it can. It is so alive in here, even as I die every moment and die toward living. The night is so lonely, but it wraps me in its silence so I can storm and rage, like life can while I am.

Happy Endings

NOT about THAT. About actual coincidences, now that I got your attention.

I was working away today and was sitting in a cafe on a busy street. All ready to leave. I had just about finished my mint tea, revised three pieces and had a social visit. My newest routine is to get an iced mint tea wherever I go. I am always testing to make sure they don't sneak some sort of alien ingredient of fruit juice in the tea bags. They do sweeten it without telling at one place, which I discovered. So ever since them, I tend to quiz the people behind the counter if I taste a hint of sweet. Yes, I have become one of THOSE people. I don't care. They can't spit in my food because I don't order any, and I harass them AFTER I've gotten my order.

So I figured I put in a good day's work and was ready to head home. But then at the last moment, when I got to my car, I thought, maybe a little more work. After all, I wanted to make use of the great parking space I got. In this area, it is IMPOSSIBLE to park, especially right near the shops on the weekend. But I did what I always do, when I was driving. I pray to the parking gods. Seriously. I do. And it usually works. If it doesn't work, I'm not focusing.

So after my first cafe, I decide to go to Peets Coffee and Tea before leaving. Peets has lackluster internet that I like to use. It's the type of internet server that makes you feel lowly for not having one of those little thingys that lets you get on the internet everywhere. I am thinking of getting one of those. I am addicted to being able to get on at all times. Maybe this is akin to being addicted to a vibrator. I don't know. But it seems bad. Anyway, Peets allows you on-line for two hours, but you are constantly getting booted off. Which means you have to go up to the counter, and ask once again, for the little piece of paper that allows you to type in a code and get on. Once you have done this, you are not homefree. The moment you move off from email, looking something up, and go back to your document, which there is probably a way to avoid, you get booted off. Someone once showed me how to work in a lot of "windows" at once, but looking at all those things at the same time made me feel schizophrenic.

So I am looking for a place to write. There is a cold and unpleasant breeze coming in, and I haven't eaten yet, which makes me a bit cold. I go all the way down to the end, near a lovely woman in this persimmon orange color with these perfect little braids. The color draws me in. Everyone else in this place looks beige. Or in all black like me. (I typically hate getting dressed, so I find it less exhausting if I can just wear all the same color. Less to match.)

Somehow, we get to talking. Actually, we get to talking, because I tell her, "I'm sorry I'm an inch away from you." But I am not, really. I could have moved on the other side, but there is something about her that makes me move nearby. She doesn't shrug or grimace or make one of those groaning sounds. Some people bother you when they are in your vicinity. Others are like water. So eventually, I apologize and point to this sticky, milky looking spot as the culprit. "I didn't want to put my computer in it," I say. She smiles.

"It's that," I accuse again, while pointing. She laughs and I go to get a napkin. "Now I can, since you're here and no one will steal my computer," I say. She laughs. She has these cool glasses on that frame her dark skin perfectly. They are green, and make her teeth stand out. She's got one of those faces that shine in a room. I wipe the spot and we find out that it is just a white circle and is not sticky. It is this spot that got us to meet and to talk. We get to talking. About her. About what I am writing. She's so interested. And I tell her what I "see" for her. This really interests her.

She's an artist. I tell her I see these blue tiles in an installation format. She says this is what she has just been studying, and she wants to do a piece on this. Anyway, I end up showing her how to move through her body and ground from the feet. Fun stuff I like to do. In the cafe, no less. I don't care and neither does she. No one is paying attention. The women behind us punctuated every other sentence with "like." I am reminded how inane it sounds. One of the two young women is talking about how "in love with me this guy at work is." And how she "lets" him do things for her and take her out to dinner. "A girl's got to eat, " she says. Nice.

The woman in the persimmon shirt and I talk for a while. About the street, and the people and how hard it is sometimes for people when they are looking outside of themselves. She gives me ideas for little postcards I am going to make up. It's that kind of moment that flows. We just talk some more, and marvel how this exact meeting, came together because of a variety of factors. And that the things I talked to her about were what she had been thinking on. That I had been just thinking this morning, that I wanted a new friend. This very day.

I hate having to do surface talk, I told her. She smiles and I do too, a lot more during this exchange. I love the energy of connecting and meeting new people. To think that just turning a corner this way or that, leads to all this. Chance is such an interesting and lovely thing, sometimes.

Quintessential...

There is this expression my ex-boyfriend used to say: It's a good day to die. I like this. To me, this means, you have done all, experienced all, and savored the minutes. And this was my day today. Quintessential California. I took a hike with my weird hat in toe (it covers everything on my face but my nose. Otherwise I get burned and cancer. This comfort in dressing to my needs without regards for the stares I get (I have gloves, too) is probably inherited from my mother, who has been known to secure her hat with a shoelace.

I usually am very friendly, to remind people there is a sane person behind the hat, or I tend to do what I did to one young woman today who insisted on staring at me non-stop with an expression that made me want to crush an egg on the side of her head. "Stare much?" I said with my expert deadpan voice. That made her look away QUICK. I know -- not very mature or evolved of me, but I never said I qualify as either.

I took a trail I'd been wanting to do for a while. It's cut right into the side of the mountain and it's simply beautiful. I kept going because last time I did this trail, my brain was on carbs. I couldn't find the direct route down. But I was determined to try again, and got it! Unfortunately, my brain did not think about the fact that I would not be able to avoid the last two mile stretch. I didn't bring a cell phone either. There are no buses in this part. And it is HOT and exposed. By the time I was ready to be done, I still had another two miles to go with the sun blazing on me. And as I am sun sensitive, unlike normal people with their little tank tops and tiny shorts, I am completely covered. So it is HOT. And I had enough. But fortunately, I resolved that I would not walk any farther than necessary.

I stood on the side of the road, and whipped open the hat, so I would look a bit more endearing. (People often make smart remarks about me looking like a terrorist with the hat. I sometimes respond, that if that were true, then my skintight pants would not really work with the whole motif. Nor would my being a woman and strolling on my own. Nincompoops.) I just sort of stared at the first two cars, and the people in it stared back at me. Time to get more aggressive. Sun is beating down on me without relief. I waved at the next car going by. Gave 'em my story, and they told me to hop in. Yes, I know it is dangerous to hitchhike. They did not look like killers. Soon enough, the nice couple dropped me where I needed to go. Then I borrowed a cell phone from a man sitting outside Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I "worked" for my use of his cell phone. I softened him up first by imitating the people in this particular area. The women tend to be VERY thin, shiny, and pretty, but often appear to have something stiff lodged up their backsides. And the men, well...lots of designer jeans and head swiveling every two seconds to see who's looking and who they can look at. He works at the KFC, and told me this impression was spot on. He laughed a bit. Then I asked to use the phone. I'm a salesperson at heart. I got to make my call.

Husband came to get me. Only had $1.50 and the bus is now $2.00. $2.00!! If you are so poor that you do not have a car, why do they need to punish you by making you pay $2.00??? Just my thoughts.

Anyway, then we came home and I had all sorts of grand plans, but actually felt tired from my long walk. I won't give you all the tiny details, such as my cleaning the toilet, a task that feels better once finished, and guiltlessly enjoying some movie with Zac Efron, but eventually my husband came home and convinced me to take a nap. I get like a little kid around naps. I don't want to stop playing, don't want to lie down, even when I'm tired. But somehow, he convinced me. I draped a sweater over my head. (I am also neurotic about getting too much sun b/c I have the kind of skin that develops spots all over it. So this is my attempt at fighting off the damage of the uv rays. Sunscreen makes me feel all greasy.

Slept for almost TWO HOURS. Ok. I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it. The day. At 4, I roll out of the house. Go to Haight Ashbury. Now I have always detested this street. It is famous from the 60's. I'm sure that's a bad description, but think hippies, pot, and lots of sex. And patchouli. Haight Ashbury. My husband goes to Amoeba records on this street, which is this warehouse-ish type place with every kind of music. They assume you will steal them blind, (which is correct) so all backpacks must be checked. It is also the kind of place that does not let you use the bathroom. Actually, none of the places on this street will let you use the bathroom, unless you BUY something. And many on this street, are the disenfranchised types, so if you have to pee, you better have a few dollars, or you're out of luck. Or do like the French, and tinkle on the street.

Anyway, all these reasons made me not like this street. Especially the fact that I despise smoke, and it is impossible to walk down the street without smelling it. And Amoeba has a well-worn, musty smell to it. Well, it finally grew on me about a week or two ago. I decided I want pop music. He only listens to jazz and classical. And after about 9 years together, I am ready for my pop.

I LOVE AMOEBA NOW. I feel perfectly at ease, because you could have an orange head, be topless, and walk around on stilts on this street and no one will notice, and most likely, someone else will be wearing this as well. No one cares in this store WHAT you are wearing or look like as long as you check your bag at the door. And they have listening stations! What I love are these little listening stations. You can bring your selected cd over and hear it, if they have it catalogued. Trust, I have thought about little critters that might attach themselves to me, via the headphones. You can often smell the wafting air of unwashed hair on this street and in the stores. If you do not know what unwashed hair smells like, walk around here and you will. But just like my raw meat, I don't worry about it, but just softly consider, every time I put those headphones on. My husband will not go there and he doesn't even have any hair for lice to hide in. I figure what doesn't kill me... (Anyway, I am not the most "frequent flier" when it comes to hairwashing.)

So after this, I got a John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, and Norah Jones. Listened to the John Lennon and thought, no wonder people like this guy. "Remember." Liked the name and that it was $4.99. I always look for the cheapest ones and used ones with damaged covers. They check everything at this other station in the store to make sure cd's have no scratches or they won't accept it.

Next stop on my journy was the Goodwill. Husband called me and wanted to ride over and then put his bike in my car. So I chatted with my sister about meat, writing, and suffering, while trying on $3, and $4 tops. 50% off bluetag items. I HATE shopping. But I LOVE the Goodwill. This is a place I can afford to shop. And there is no attitude. They don't care if you don't have teeth, if you are fat, or if you dress badly. I love it.

Sometimes I just stare at all the pretty colors. They order clothes by color. It's like looking at rainbows. Better than pills. And I always get into fun conversations with people there.

When my husband got there, we went back to Amoeba and I listened some more. The sun was out. The hippies were in tow, the people in suits, with their long hair, the pierced kids, the tourists, the guys on the corner drinking out of paper bags--were all enjoying the aroma. Of a day with sun and people milling and buying. I got 3 shirts and two were "fancy." Fancy for me, is anything that is not exercise clothing. Unlikely I will ever wear it, but what the "h." (Still "trying" not to swear. Very close to "trying" not to get pregnant.)

Then we drove home, with the bike in the back and put John Lennon on while sitting parked at the beach to watch a really orange sunset. I love my husband. I loved the day. Oh, and best part last. I went and got a steak, on sale, which I am now happily munching on. So if it is my last breath, lucky for me, I got to eat some nice crispy fat off a ribeye before I go. Perfect way to end the day. I love California.

Between the In Between

Nervous Nellie. Today my grounding practice is feeling plaque on my teeth. I can feel it on the back of my front teeth. It is bothersome, and curiously, addictive to keep feeling over the rough surface with my tongue. It is buildup from something or other--very likely, from the science project happening in my mouth as my body heals from candida. This is why I get my teeth cleaned very often. Otherwise, I mutilate them with that sharp thing that the dentist uses. Every time I go, (well not anymore) I ask them "Should I do that?" The answer is always, "No, no. Just come here and we'll take care of it for you."

But there is something to cleaning off the gunk in your life. But I wonder...is it possible to clean things up without being aggressive and harmful? It is like the periods I've had where I decide to turn over a new leaf. When I decided I wanted my toes to look decent, I went at them like red ants on a dying insect. I mutilated the nails, cut into the skin too much, and dug down into the tender part that is meant to be left alone. That is why I pay to have them done now. I cannot be trusted with this. Too tempting. Give me anything sharp and I will re-sculpt myself into Edward Scissorhands or something like it.

So is there an in between, I wonder? Yes, in the perfect world it is called "balance." And it become this eccentricity to say things like, "I am compulsive, or obsessive, or anal retentive." Yes, that's always a good way to making your "bad traits" sound good. It looks great on a Woody Allen film. But I do not have a projector behind me. I just beam straight human, not films.

If I have a wish: it is that I would like to pay attention to my teeth without mutilating my gums. I would like to take care of my hair without either dying it every single color and switching every other month or shaving it off. (Almost a year ago, I took on look at it, and decided I was sick of dying it and shaved it all off. And I mean ALL off.) I have been "growing" it now without a cut. It is a lovely mullet-ish style, which I am hoping will turn into one of those really nice "layered" styles, once it grows. But in the meantime, I am practicing just sitting with it. I get the urge to cut it all the time. But I am leaving it. Un-dyed. Un-cut. And I have greys and I am leaving them.

So I am doing this moderating in areas of my life. But I am not really looking now at where I am moderating. This is not time for a gentle eye that lets things pass. That is like looking in the mirror and asking where things are sticking up, and just saying, "It's all fine." Without really looking. I am looking where I attack vigilantly, and wonder if it is not to give myself something to do, so I don't get too sleepy.

This being on one end of the spectrum or another leads me to believe I am not so comfortable with things right in the middle. Or maybe middle is a high level of joy, or intensity.

This post even seems middling to me. I don't like it. As much as I talk of this calm, I am very comfortable in my bursts of energy. This other place -- I do not want sometimes. It is the baby, right before they go to sleep. And sometimes, there is something scary to me about slipping off into this. I claim to want calm, but the idea of silence can be pressing. No noise, no music, no talking, no movement. I sit and do nothing. This is lovely when I am in the mood. But it is more fun, in an un-fun, guinea pig kind of way to stalk myself and notice, when I am not in the mood for silence. "What are ya' up to?" "Nothing." That is the response I don't want to feel. Like right now.

I am not up in arms about something. Not feeling really worked up. Just a kind of "enh" feeling that is not strong enough to move to anything deeper. And I am not doing anything to entertain myself, distract, make things go faster. I am not running out for a walk, or going to drink coffee or tea. I am not talking to a friend. Not preparing for work. I am just sitting here with this in-between self. Being vanilla. I can feel the urge to "do" something to change it, but I am enjoying making the "self" wait and "sit in it." Like lumpy oatmeal grown cold on the table. Practicing oatmeal is my new torture device. I must admit, it gives me pleasure to see myself squirm. Practicing oatmeal--the new Zen.

Oatmeal would have saved me lots of money on my hair. I would rather have had all that spent energy as money in the bank. Oatmeal would have saved me countless hours spent obsessing, feeling bad, calculating on what the perfect hair would get me. Oatmeal would have saved me time and energy now in setting up my life in particular ways when I was busy running my engine on high. But oatmeal is not always available. There is only now. And right now, I am enh.

JOY

I got to teach a group of special needs adults today. Notice, I said I "got" to, as though it is a privilege. There is nothing like teaching to pull me out of my head and into the moment. My entire being was focused today and giving every one of those folks the experience they deserve.

All of my being soars in to this, and focuses on bringing each person into the world. I couldn't let settle even for a minute, the possibility of a person stepping outside of the world and being alone while in the midst of my hour. So I pranced, I had them sailing off to Mexico, and climbing up mountains, and "oohing" "ahhing" and "eeeeing" with their mouths. I was shameless in every sense. Hands were tapping heads and noses and shaking in the air "making snowflakes." I had them hug themselves, clap for themselves, make a giant sun with their hands, throw imaginary cheeseburgers (I know as well as anyone, that's a way to get the attention going!) and crackers from their imaginary sailboat we were "rowing" (the imagination knows no bounds) to one another. Each person met the other with a gaze, a smile as they were "throwing" the items. A few "ate" their crackers up and we had to come up with new imaginary ones! We had magic balls, and sleds, and snowshoes.

Anything to move them into the present. And my moments were gliding along and all of "me," my "thoughts," my "opinions," were thankfully squashed under real people, moving, existing and being. I told them at the end, after having them pat their hearts, clap for themselves, give themselves a bow, to say "I did a good job." The first woman said, smiling with her big part toothless grin, "You did a good job." I took her finger and turned it around. "Say I did a good job, " I directed. She smiled and said this. Then I wheeled around the circle of 15 people or so, and asked each one this question. Some barely able to speak, some getting their words out in broken speech--no matter. Each one beamed and pumped out a word, or the phrase. One just said "JOB." But he did so with emphasis, with heart, and gusto.

This is life.

My lovely tapeworm...HABIT

Who knew that feelings were so "feeling." It's not as if I have ever been a muted, withdrawn person. But what it feels like now, is that I had my inner sense of what I liked, disliked, needed, folded up like an oregami paper. And then the outside part, had to just wave wildly, grasping at things.

Feelings are busy, I am finding. And it is interesting that I am not "done." Just because I notice this, my assignments are not completed. The old habit is very persistent. It is like a lovely little worm parasite that you can get from raw fish. (people tell me all the time I will get sick from eating meat raw at times. I tell them I am already sick. Tapeworms are the least of my concern.) This tapeworm of habit wants to hold you, embrace you, and sing Carole King songs to you while it lives off your body.

So I have to be a very avid watcher of my old tricks popping up. Cut out sugar, and suddenly want loads of eggs. Cut out eggs and want bacon. Soak the bacon to "get rid of" the bad stuff on it, and want EVEN MORE bacon. Want sex. MOre. And then more work. More of anything to replace a feeling floating around. Trying anything to avoid the feeling. The lovely little tapeworm. Habit persists and will do anything to get more oxygen and avoid being suffocated.

My vigilance to this cycle, is like instilling my own detective agency inside me. What is the advantage to all this? YOU might think this is a hassle. Poor, sick person. Yup, that's me. But the advantage, is that I get to do what I want. I get to move forward in my pursuits. I get to pour words out on the page, b/c I am not stuffing away the desire, the thoughts, the notions through a habit that keeps me from being alive.

When I don't avoid feelings, with a habit (that can only cover lamely), then I have opportunity for change. And as I am a hedonist, change is very stimulating for me because it is "something new." It wakes me up. If I take on whatever I feel like, regardless of whether it is like last night (my class I went to for the first time that had NO ONE there), I am living.

I want to live. My tapeworm the habit, can go straight to hell.