Hide UNSIGHTLY wrinkles...

I have had several people comment (friends) that "you are so revealing about things..." There is this tone of warning. It made me stop each time and see if I "did something wrong." It was like someone said, "Hey, you have underwear on your head!"

Are you sure you want to reveal all that? This is the implication of that comment. Politicians are always getting in trouble for tying their shoelaces the wrong way, stepping into the closet with so and so, etc. But I figure it like this: I have had sex in my life, I have pimples, and I even have a fungus on my toe. I just polished them today, after going on a "polish diet" in the hopes that the toe would become glowingly healthy.

So what is the difference? When am I hiding, and when does it feel right to expose? Hiding the fact that I eat to replace feelings does not seem well worth hiding. Just makes me want to eat. But the toes were staring at me every time I taught, and looked down at them. Seeing what others might see. So, I was inspired to polish the toes (I did not do it. I am hopeless in all beauty pursuits. If smearing meat grease on your face was one, then I would be an expert.) because I am tired of looking at my sad, sad toe. It is the big toe on my right foot. I know how it got there. All the lovely piles of sugar I shoved in my face. I am sure you could argue it was something else, but this is my belief.

Anyway, today I decided that staring at my toes, when I am teaching, makes me feel bad. It is not like I am trying to stretch my forty-year-old face into a different, prettier mask that doesn't move. I don't like those creepy eyebrows that arch permanently with face freezing. I'll take my wrinkles, thank you. But the toes bother me. I decided today, that it makes my very childish heart happy, to stare at polish on them. (toes) I look down, and the color smiles up at me.

I am not against people freezing their faces, removing or adding things to their bodies. But this is not my idea of fun. I do not like being waxed, plucked at, dyed, or any of the above. It is not for moral reasons. I am not a nature girl. I like my body being left intact. The more people fuss, the more anxious I become and the more I start looking. I prefer not to be bothered.

But the toes were a delight. I went to a place nearby. I felt very proud of myself, because I realized I had shame around this toenail. It was my scarlet "A." If you are so disgusting to have made yourself get a fungus, I had thought, then you deserve to have it paraded around. Today I thought: this is NOT right thinking.

But I wasn't finished liberating. Because when the woman was done, I squinted at the toes. Squinted some more. It looked spotty, shoddy, half done. And I am hardly fussy about grooming. The color looked sheer-ish, even though it wasn't. Instead of a soft beigey pink, it looked dingey. You could see bits of toe underneath. And my first reaction: Oh, just leave it. That's what you get. Then....an alarm bell went off. YOU ARE STILL IN SHAME. STILL PUNISHING YOURSELF. So you get polish, but not a nice looking job. An almost but not. Very Woody Allen.

I told them politely, apologizing, and pointed. Three Chinese ladies conferred among themselves. I imagined something like the Seinfeld episdoe where they are speaking about (in the nail shop) what a jerk Elaine is. I continued to say, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but it doesn't look nice.

I told the woman who did it, in my own new age nail mantra, "It's not you. It's my toes."

Everybody smiled. Everybody was happy. I got a fourth coat of polish. And now my toes look pretty.

(Singing:) Do your boobs hang low...(can you toss them to and fro) etc. etc.

So when I was taking off my sweaty sports bra, and putting on a new less sweaty one for class, I noticed. Right breast hangs slightly lower than the left. I hadn't noticed before. I turned to the side. Hmm. Maybe right is larger. I get turned around, mind you, looking in the mirror. With right and left. Always an issue for me. Don't even get me started on north, south, east and west. AND I still tie in bunny ears. I asked all my senior ladies in my sit and be fit class, if any of them tie their shoes in bunny ears. They laughed and there was a resounding "no."

So back to boobs. I looked and noticed. Then stared at my tongue to check for sludge. I call it my "We are still not getting any sugar" sludge. My body is still doing some sort of detoxification. Frankly, the tongue was more fascinating than the breasts.

And after I thought about it, I thought about how I didn't think about it. I also noticed some new strange splotch on my face (my skin is prone to getting all sorts of spots on it--not pimples. spots.) and I looked at this too, like, Clint Eastwood. "What you lookin' at!"

I glared back at the boob, and the spot, and various rashes I noticed elsewhere on my less than perfect skin, and dared it to make a peep. Nothing. Then I happily put on my clean sports bra.

I am happy that life is bringing me to the point where I do not care if my right boob hangs low. Where else does it have to go?

My Mistress wakes me in the night

The day I grew ugly my words grew strong. My cheek grew plain and they lifted and swelled and raised so high I could not see. They moved beyond I could not hear. And as the years felled me, the words defy this master Time, and they are buoyant. They lift out of the shell, that could crumble at the wrong touch, a bump in the night, and a shock of grey, and they haunt me with verdure.

They are light and incandescent as my skin fades. And they breathe meaning and order into each letter that forms their pleasure as my own breath stumbles beneath my chest. There is life beyond life, in these words. Life beyond death that not "may," but "will."

And where are you, you say? I am waiting for the order, mistress to my master of words. They suck their fill from me, without a worry as to when. Though I am in the midst of a mid-night's sleep, they will be heard. They point and gesture from inside the dreams of sleep and knock on my brain until I am wakened and my fingers itch.

The words breathe and grow stronger as I fail. And they will be the death of me, but will leave me with one last sentence before I roll over and lie down. One last letter will hurl itself out of me, Herculean in it's effort, before I go quiet. My mistress, master of the letters, will be heard.

BREATHE You are here

There is something to feeling. Vipassana meditation teaches observation of sensations. This started as something to do because I had never done it before. This is often incentive for me. I think I am a hedonist by nature and new experiences offer me the desired jolt. But then this observation became a part of me like a nose on a face. (Except in stories by Gogol.) That is why it is so interesting that there is no turning back from seeking my essential joy in life, in a deeper capacity, now that food no longer exists as that constant buffer.

I notice all sorts of things since I started feeling deeper. I feel pain, and hurt and longing more intensely in my body. It is not that situations seem bigger, or that I am more in tune. It is that I feel them. Along with this, is what I am feeling this morning. There is an inscrutable joy, and a thrill that I am in the midst of something marvelous. But there is no particular explanation other than the completion of my long neglected shaving of my legs. It was like magic to watch the hairs slide off my leg while the razor cleared the field of skin to smoothness. There, and then not there. Like magic.

This joy. It is nothing specific. But everything around me has this presence to it, as though all is layered in golddust. I feel pleasure over the sensation of cold from the chill in the room on my bare arms and the goosebumps forming on my arms. I feel the urge to squeeze down into my heart to resist the cold and breathe in little gasps and instead, keep my heart open. And there is the possibility of resolving all this by simply putting on a sweater. But I want it there. It makes me feel my body.

I want the feeling. I want to feel. I want to feel my tailbone underneath me as I sit propped with hips above knees on one rolled mat on top of another. To feel the weight of me beneath me is somehow pleasurable. And there is music, a cd I bought, that is floating in my ears and serenading my fingers, who respond by typing faster and faster on the keys. All of the emotion and feeling has to fall out, leap out of me. This is what feeling is all about.

Shaking the stop sign

I used to have faith in everything that happened because I could see a larger purpose. It felt nice to believe. This mode meant it was possible for the tooth fairy and neat endings to exist. And whatever happened, I looked toward something higher. I was always looking for something higher.

I don't know what you would call that something higher. Joy? God? Spirit? All of these work for me.

Things happen and you look for answers and guidance. It is like the road is under construction. There is a reason, like the earth made a crack appear in the road. This is what is happening. And then there is what you must do. You have to wait. You stop there when the person in the orange vest holds up the STOP sign and gives you a look that says, "Pay ATTENTION."

Then they reverse the sign, and it says "SLOW." You can go now.

This road crew is parallel to GOD or Spirit, in my world. It is akin to the "something larger than me" that provides me with guidance. And it is also simply a road with a road crew telling you to do things. Both the literal and symbolic can coexist in my world. This allows me to walk my tightrope of sanity.

But there is also the solo showing of "just because." Sometimes things happen, and I don't look for a reason. Of course, there is the tendency for my mind to try and decipher the meaning behind things. And if I am frustrated, increasing attention will go to the process of "how" and "why," while hypotheticals lie one on top of the next, smothering one another with "possibilities." Then I think about it some more until I shake it off with a walk.

But there is this delightful moment that arises every now and then, like a quick breath on an inhale, where I just see the moments. This part of me sees things happening and then, sees just "that they are happening." I am dying. The house is sinking into the mud. The glass is broken. A baby is born. This does not subtract from the richness of the moment. I can do whatever I like with the information. The road has a big crack in it because the earth opened up. The earth opened and I am staring at the crack.

When I am in this mode, all is well, even if there are unsightly blackheads on my nose. It is not because I think "it is all for the best." I am viewing like Switzerland.

Currently, I have not "lost" faith. I still look for signs. This is my adult version of a teddy bear. It is just that there is this other part developing in my search for acceptance. I want peace when I see things happening, and I can find it in translating. Or, I can find it in seeing what is there as "what is there," rather than attempting to call a rose by any other name but a rose.

Victoria's Secret could USE this...

So I decided (Yes, Amy, I know this is not a proper sentence) to take on the idea of dropping one of my classes. It doesn't pay very well, and it has never felt "right." There's always a hint of hesitation for me before I go in and this tired feeling across my eyes that I have to fight off. This does not happen regularly when I teach. Or I wouldn't teach. I mean, today, I may be operating on half a cylinder, (does this make sense?) as this is the second day in a row with 4-5 hours sleep, BUT...generally, I am thrilled and interested.

I talked to the person in charge about cutting the class short a half hour. This way, it would just be an hour. This would make it easier, I thought. Anyone can make an hour fly by. Then, I thought about it, and I explained to her that I didn't want to do this because then I would have even LESS income coming in. Notice it was not with the idea that something else would fit in its place and suit me better. LESS was on my mind and the throat lump reared its nasty head.

I wiffled and waffled until I got off the phone. Of course, I couldn't ignore the nagging feeling. The nag is actually my inner voice, who talks to me. (I do regularly talk to myself OUT LOUD. Thank heaven for the invention of cell phones, which makes it appear as if I have one of those bluetooth thingeys in my ear.)

So the Voice begins to start: Drop the class. Maybe you should drop the class. You have been thinking about this for a while.

I play with the idea and the unpleasant lump is revving up in my throat. The fear is there. And the voice is saying: What will you get then? What if you don't fill it with something else? What if you have nothing? What if what if...So I ask, "Should I drop the class?" I give It the choices: YES or NO.

First I do my usual way of determining things when I am confused and cannot bother friends any more because my quota is up. I ask the question I want answered, then pick anything near by with writing on it, and point my finger to a spot that draws me. Then I look for the clue. Like if it said, "then," I would assume this means "yes," because it sounds like it if you move the "t" and make it a "y." Or if it said "disaster," I would assume no. There's sort of makeshift rules that I make up to find my answer. And before you accuse me of being "California," I am not from here. I come from the Midwest. So there.

I tried asking and pointing in my notebook. But the link was too obscure even for me. I didn't know the answer. Then I tried same thing, pointing in a favorite book. Did this a few times. Nada. Couldn't make any sense to what I saw. No answer still, to my question.

But I knew I needed to make a decision. So I decided to dao. Now I may have spelled it wrong. But I will tell you what it is. You dangle some sort of pendulum and can ask it "yes/no" questions. Perhaps some of you are very clever and can get it to speak, but I haven't figured that out yet. Holding the pendulum by your two fingers, you let it swing. "Yes" is determined as being one way--say vertically forward and back, and "No" is determined as being the other way--say horizontally to the right and left. To determine which is which, you ask it obvious questions. Mine today were (b/c I was feeling very fragile) "am I a girl," and "am I a boy." This much, I knew I could figure out.

Once you have your directions for "yes," and "no," set, then you are ready to go.

The problem was that I couldn't find anything to work. First I tried a pen. Nope. Didn't swing. I tried to dangle it as much as possible, but it did not dangle. Then I tried a spoon. No dangle. I even tried the cord that is on the phone charger but this just stood there sullenly, and made less effort than both the spoon and pen combined.

I really needed to know. What to do about the confounded class. The lump in my throat was making me. So I ran upstairs, scanned the room wildly, and grabbed the first thing I could think of. My bra. This is not a little sports bra. I am talking about what would more suitably be called a "brassiere." The type of bra my mother or someone's mother would wear. Or someone like me who can fill it. This is not the type of bra that girls who wear those stylish, little sports ones would ever have to stoop to wearing. It's for the big girls.

The thing about this bra is that usually--actually, all the time, it sits unused. It is supportive for me, holds everything in, and does not allow bounce. It fits perfectly. But it is uncomfortable. Instead I wear what women are not supposed to wear regularly, because it is truly unflattering. But it is more comfortable and I start feeling as though I am going to have a panic attack with the other. Or that I can't breathe.

So I was thrilled to finally find a use for it. Those puppies are expensive.

I got ready to ask my question, and filed a disclaimer with the throat. NO backlash. I warned aforementioned bulge that it needed to go immediately to a nice rest home, far away from me if we were going to do this. Now for the defining moment:

I dangled. It came. I saw.

I called my employer and told her, "Drop the class." Being compulsive, I also emailed her the same message.

One less hour and a half of work. Just before my throat could think about slinking back from glossier pastures, I checked my email. A new one from someone. More work! And better pay!

And now, the title makes sense. I wasn't trying to be clever. Well -- maybe just a little.

The thing about WAKING UP

I am finding CLARITY. I "capped" it because that is how it feels inside. People often say all CAPS looks like screaming. But that is what is happening. My eyes feel like they are open so wide, and a hundred truths are pouring in without my interceding. The gateway is open and there is no blockade, no barrier, no guard standing at the front to stop the flow.

What comes in must then come out. The movie--my movie--has always been running, but now I am looking at it. I thought I could skip out before. Before I found my food sobriety. In the story of Jonah and the Whale in the bible, Jonah tries to hide from God. Now call God whatever you want. Lots of people get nervous if you use the word GOD. Maybe this is just an aspect of California. It seems that it's like wearing acid wash jeans to some. Out of style. But let GOD stand for whatever you want if it makes you nervous.

Anyway, so Jonah was not successful. How can you hide from God? I thought I could hide as well from things I did not want to see, from words I did not want to comprehend. The consequence of this state, induced by my already expansive nature that was easily damaged by sugar, was that I was dimmed to all sorts of things. Maybe not compared to another person. So energetic was I. So full of enthusiasm. But my natural level was dimmed under these conditions.

So here I am, at 40, figuring out how to live with feelings and intuition and perception that grows clearer all the time. Lots of benefits. Obviously, it is good for business. And my feet shrunk a half size so far. Truly. I guess the bloat deflated. I can understand all sorts of things now that I never thought possible. I am expanding my concept of my "intelligence." These are all wonderful things. And the joy--well, I was already one of those "high on joy" kind of people. Now it is exponential.

But there is this other aspect. The feelings that I judge, that I deem upsetting, or disappointing, or knowledge of what is happening with people I love. This is not so great for me sometimes. So I am telling you instead of resting my head on the bosom of a big hunk of bread, which would soon migrate to my mouth. Then I go right back to darkness. I will stay here.