Last sleep...

It’s my last sleep in Australia. My first sleep was laced with dreams of his body next to mine after our first experience of mouth to mouth contact. My last sleep will be laced with longing and the presence of gratitude for a loving that was unknown before. But an empty bed.

I’m changed. I couldn’t tell you exactly how but I feel different. I feel seen. I feel desired. I feel loved. Even if we could not or did not act on it. I feel these things.

And not just by him, though I know he helped. As did all the new people I met here, all the new people I allowed to reflect myself back to me. As did my best Australian angel face girlfriend who’s wedding to an amazing man brought me back to this place that will forever hold a place called home in my heart.

But by myself. Even if I don’t yet love my new tattoo, I know I will grow to the way I have grown to love myself. Truly. Madly. Deeply. And not because of how it looks, well not just because of how it looks because I am quite certain I will find physical beauty in it as I have in myself... and not just because of how it sounds (I know tattoos don’t sound but go with me here), or tastes, or feels, or smells... but because of what it is.

Because of what it will take to become what it is. The healing, the shading, the peaks and valleys of grey to black with a splash of pink gradients. Because of the wear and tear my skin will go through, the sun it will see, the rain it will smell, the salt water of the various oceans it will taste, the depths of emotion it will hear me express (I know tattoo’s can’t hear but go with me...), the skin of other humans it will surely touch.

Because of what I am. Because of what it has taken to become who I am. Beautiful, romantic, warm, optimistic, enthusiastic, open, welcoming, engaging, dizzying, sensual, sexual, loud, soft, scared, shy, willing, kind, intuitive and above all else capable of so much god damn loving it sometimes hurts.

And I wouldn’t trade it in for anything, not a thing.

Because of the fact that I see all these things in you. Literally, in every single person I am lucky enough to meet, or even just look at. And this, this is enough to walk through all the lessons of my life, every painful, delicious, delightful and/or pleasurable one. Whether brought on by outside opportunities or simply my desire to stay in the seat of evolution, you will be there reflecting who I am to me and I will be there reflecting who you are to you.

There’s a tightness in my throat as my head hits the pillow and my naked body rests under a clean crisp sheet. I have a fear I will lose this when I fly across the ocean home to Los Angeles. I fear I will lose the connection to the me that I met here, the me I discovered, the me I allowed myself to fall in love with. I fear I will lose the connection to the people I allowed myself to see myself in. I fear they will forget how much I love them. I fear I will forget how much I love.

The tightness closes and the tears flow out of my eyes, as I suspect they will until they are done. I suspect they will flow at the airport and on the plane as we ascend. I suspect they will flow as we descend as well. When I see that Los Angeles sun rise and feel surmounting gratitude for the amazing home I live in. When I see the face of my beloved Bodhi boy who has so patiently waited for me to come home after three flight changes or remember the absence of our dearly departed Baby. I will cry and I will remember.

I will remember who I am.

I vow here and now in this bed, during this last sleep in Australia, to invite every new part of me to move fully into my being. To embody all of it in my heart and soul. To integrate with the amazing woman I was before and see a new world through her same big brown eyes. To smell a new world through her always slightly stuffed nose, hear a new world through her open ears, touch a new world with her often calloused, dry hands, and taste a new world with every delicious bite. 

I vow to remember that if I do forget it’s ok, that’s part of the deal, that’s part of the path.

I vow to steep in the deepest appreciation for this and every other moment that I have and will be lucky enough to live as Eliza. 

I vow to steep in the deepest appreciation for these and every other single person, place or thing I ever have or ever will be lucky enough to love as Eliza.

And in that sense I suppose my bed isn’t empty at all... and neither am I. And in that sense I suppose I will never be... for I am full of love, always and forever... in loving.

I am yours Australia, I am yours Los Angeles, I am yours New York, I am yours world, yours life. take me, use me, fill me, inspire me, exhaust me, excite me, renew me, revive me again and again and again... you’re going to anyway so, I hand myself over to you, a willing servant to all the magic you have to give and I know, I know, I know you’ll take me on a wonderful wild ride.

Starting with wonderful dreams and just the right amount of rest to get me on the plane to fall asleep again...on my last sleep, my blessed last sleep in sydney... this time round anyway because I know, I know, I know, I’ll be back.

Burning Hot

I am burning hot. So hot. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s just the way I am wired and I am beginning to wonder if I like it.....

I can’t think. I can eat and sleep thank god. but my body, my brain, my being is consumed with desire. Desire to kiss someone, a specific someone, a man. Like a real man. A tall man. A man who seems like a kind man.

But of course because I’m me, and this seems to be the lesson of my lifetime so far (but god help me I am so willing and ready to learn it and move to the next), an unavailable man. An unavailable man who is just as into me as I am into him. An unavailable man with whom I’m quite certain based on chemistry alone there is a very real soul contract at play with. 

And I know how this works. I’ve been around this exact block so many times it’s enough to drive a woman crazy. And I think it might be, driving me crazy. So right, I know the questions to ask and mostly I even know the answers.

where am I unavailable to myself? Where do I have something so delicious, so juicy, so explosive to offer myself? Where am I holding back from allowing myself full expression? 

But right now all I can’t think about are the things you need another body for. And I know myself enough to know I don’t want to do that with any body. And right now all I can think about is his body. All I can think about is how badly I want to kiss this man again. And how badly I want him to kiss me. Everywhere. Every. Where. All. Over. And over and...

And it’s a gift. It’s all a fucking gift as frustrating as it might feel because I also understand at a certain level that all that’s actually happening is I’m falling in love with myself. This man is a reflection of me. An incredibly handsome and sturdy reflection of me. Beautiful, stunning and sturdy me. 

I see myself today differently than I did last week. Today I see myself as a woman to fall in love with. A woman who is worth falling in love with. I have been allowing myself to experience myself in love, doing my best not to attach that loving to him, or more truthfully doing my best to release that attachment to him as soon as I’m aware I’m in it.

I have been allowing myself to look in my own eyes, in love, and say, that’s you, that’s you you’re falling in love with. It’s not actually him, he’s reflecting you. this is the amount of love you have inside of you, this is who you are. And no matter how seductively painful the illusion is that it’s him and that if he doesn’t choose you, you must be unlovable and disgusting, it’s not true.

It’s simply not true. 

“You’re lovely.” He said. Even he, even unavailable, in his own life, with his own habits to break or not break, even he is able to see who I really am. He may not currently be in a place to have the wherewithal to be with me, in any real capacity, and frankly I may not either but he did not allow this to diminish my light in his eyes. “You’re lovely.” 

And I am. And he is. And we are. And you are. No matter what. No matter what may or may not physically transpire. And I know, I know someday and maybe even someday soon, just on the other side of that proverbial door, there will be a man, a tall man, a sexy man, a man who wakes me up the way this one has, who is available, wholly and completely. And who can choose to be with me easily and freely. And I will fall in love with myself all over again and offer my whole heart in love to him and he to me and we will say yes. Yes, yes, yes. 

And it won’t be off into the sunset happily ever after because it never is. The grass is never greener. in fact it’s only green where you water it and sometimes it’s really easy to forget to water things we get comfortable in. But it will be real and it will be solid because we will talk about how we’re not in love with each other but instead we are supporting each other in awakening to the love that we already are. And we will agree to lovingly remind each other if it seems like we are forgetting. And in that awareness and agreement we will have the most delicious life and the most connected kisses. 

And until then and for right now until the cycle dissolves, and I know it is dissolving, I will return to myself as many times over as I need to while simultaneously wishing that it were this man. I will have my fantastical thinking and then release us both from attachment and outcome as many times as I need to in one second all the while dreaming, hoping, aching to kiss this man again. Over and over and over. 

And yes I’ll do so all the while burning hot because, lucky me, that’s just the way this woman is wired, thank god... and when that man, either this one or the next shows up for those kisses... lucky, lucky him...

this life...

This life. Oh this sweet glorious, difficult, heart-breaking, delicious, magical, mystical life. 

Human existence is bizarre. So many things to do, to see, to feel and they all come and go passing through our heads, our hearts, our bodies, as quickly as the illusion of time ticks across our watch’s second hand. If we even have watches anymore. If we even believe in time. Our own time and not time on someone else's standards. Time on apple’s standards. Time on our husband’s standards, our wife’s, our children, our uterus’... So many fleeting things to miss when we are all so involved in the thinking of life, the deciphering, the figuring out. Sometimes it feels easier to just sleep or run away or disappear. And sometimes it is. Sometimes the weight of things feels too heavy to bear. 

Sometimes your 17 year-old cat needs to leave her Kitty body and everything else falls away and all that you find left in the depths of grief under mountains of unrelenting tears is the most human question that ever existed. The question that every single human that came before and every single human that will come after has ever or will ever ask. A question that has undoubtedly existed since before there was a language to understand it. 

Why? why? why? why? 

It's not logical, it doesn't add up the design of this place. What sense does it make at all to be here and do these things and know these people and feel these depths of emotion and connection and aliveness if it's all just ultimately going to end? They'll go or we'll go, right? Eventually. And we don't know what comes next. None of us can really know what comes next. We can't even really know what comes next in waking life let alone our dying one, and so we grasp and bargain and plead and explain and lie and confer and sweat and bleed and cry and cry and cry.

And then we see her bright blue eyes in a moment, in a fleeting memory, a glance, and we feel the weight of her purr against our chest and even though we know on one level she's gone, on a deeper level we know she's not. And if you asked us whether we would give up the 17 years to not feel this pain, this empty space in our heart, this longing, we would say, never.

No. Not in a million years, not for one nanosecond of illusory time. Nor would we give up those stolen kisses from our lover even though we wish there were more. Nor one second of the beautiful mess that was the alcoholic love of our lives. Nor the years of longing that our parents would get back together or the wishing that our aunt hadn't died. No we wouldn't give up any of that or any other pain-filled second in between. 

Because woven through every part of that, in every molecule and every thread, in every breath of our lungs and beat of our hearts, in every blink of our eyes or bat of our lashes, in every turn of our smiles or trace of our tears lives the thing that none of us would ever dream of trading in whether we admit it or not. whether we know it or not. And the fact is we can't. trade it in. it's impossible to trade in the very core of who we are. And so we keep going, we march on, we get out of bed every morning god bless us and and we do it all again. 

And we dance. And we sing. And we laugh and cry and scream and dream and create and destroy and rebuild over and over and over again. And we question the unanswerable and look to the stars, the oceans, the dirt, the sun and the moon for answers. We look to each other and for fleeting moments in spite of it all or perhaps due to it all in sickness and in health for richer or for poorer, we find it. We find it in lovers, in children, in sisters, brothers, in best friends, in strangers, in pets. We find the answers and we find ourselves. And for fleeting moments we let ourselves know who we really are.

Today is the day to celebrate that exact recognition. Every day should be the day to celebrate that exact recognition. 

And if you can, hold onto it as long as you can. Hold onto the feeling of your aunt's hugs when you were four and skinned your knee. Hold onto the feeling you had at the dining room table laughing with your married mom and dad. Hold onto the feeling of your heart exploding while kissing through the bars of a rhyme with the first boy you ever loved. Hold onto the feeling of being held by your alcoholic boyfriend in the sober morning's light. Hold onto the feeling of your lover’s adoring eyes and touch. And please please hold on to the feeling of those white furry paws on your skin, the feeling of that sweet wet pink nose sniffing your tear duct to wake you up no matter how early it was.

Hold onto the silent truth that screams in all of these magnificent human moments. The silent truth that things like endings can not erase or undo. The silent truth that you will take forward with you in every moment until death do us part and then after that. 

You know love. You are love. Everything is for Love. Everything is for you. Everything leads to love. Everything leads to you. Even when we think it’s being taken away—even that most painful and bittersweet of human confusions holds in it a return to the truth. Perhaps the most sacred return. But in the end it’s all sacred. Every single moment from the glory to the gutter. From the agony to the ecstasy. From the coal to the diamond. It's all worth honoring, It’s all worth revering and so are every single one of us. 

This is a strange and wonderful place and whether we think we are operating under someone else's standards, apple’s, our wive’s, our children’s, our husband’s, our bosses’, or even what we think is our own….there's really ever only one and it is for that one that I am eternally grateful, eternally grateful for the all of it.

So... Happy Valentine’s Day every day. Happy You-Are-Love Day. Happy so am l. 

This life. Oh this sweet glorious, difficult, heart-breaking, delicious, magical, mystical life. 

Cracked Chest Plate (or belly chest exhale 4)

Life is so weird. I find myself saying this all the time lately. I mean look at our government, you honestly can’t write this shit. And the same is true for my life, and yet I try to write it all the time. All the time I try to write what I want to happen next, what I think is going to happen next, what I think should happen next, or worse what I fear might happen next.

But the truth is I have no idea what’s going to happen next. Not a god damned clue. And I never do. The only thing I know is that I get to choose how to relate to whatever is going on around me. and I get to choose how to engage with whoever it is I may or may not be interacting with. and I get to choose how to engage with myself in the face of every major and tiny moment I come across.

I spoke to my ex-boyfriend on the phone yesterday. For the first time in three years. For forty minutes. A tiny major moment (pun fully intended for those in the know). Admittedly it was probably twenty minutes too long. At around twenty minutes I felt my defenses start to melt, I felt my heart start to beat in a very familiar, very comforting way. At around twenty minutes I felt myself start to miss him. Despite the fact that nothing seems to have changed, that he is still very much dancing with his demons of addiction, at twenty minutes I could feel myself becoming slightly intoxicated by my own addiction, to him. To everything about him.

I loved him. I love him. I will always love him. And there is so much more to this whole thing than love. And love is all there is. And this time I took my time. I observed. I noticed. I allowed. And though I thought I accepted, I heard myself say to my best friend in the post mortem: I just still wish it were different, I wish he were different, I wish he wanted to get better. I heard myself say it and I recognized it for what it was, a fight with what is. A battle I would lose, a battle that would always be lost.

I wanted to write it differently. I had wanted to write it differently since very early on. Don’t worry, I have used it for all it was worth. I have worked every angle of my alcoholic ex and my alcoholic family and my own addictive tendencies. My past (and ok maybe still a little current) tendencies, for example, to fall in love with unavailable men because I have been unavailable to myself. My past tendencies (and ok maybe still a little current) to fall in love with people who I decide need fixing, need me to fix it, need me to make it better because as a sweet, sweet child through no one's dictation, I decided that was my job for my parents, to fix it, to make it better. I could write that. I had seen enough happy ending movies. That was at the very least a way to try to understand it all.

But yesterday, I will admit it, I wanted to write it so that my ex would hear me say, I can not engage with you on the romantic or probably any level until I see a year of sobriety and I mean see you do the work sobriety, not just stop using false sobriety. I wanted to write it so that he would hear that and go straight to rehab because my love can heal even the most wounded of souls. Crazy right?

Hours later, thank god, I found myself on that loving humble wooden floor of the Santa Monica Dance Center finally reunited with my breathwork teacher. My body and mind were still buzzing and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I know I am safe in that room though, and I know the power of the breath. So when my teacher started speaking I listened. And when he said if you’re willing, open your chest plate and let all the goodness of your loving in, let all that healing loving light in to do its work, with every breath, open as much as you can and let it in. I may be paraphrasing, but what stood out the most for me last night was if you’re willing.

I am willing. I. Am. Willing.

Belly. Chest. Exhale. Sarah McLaughlin’s voice. Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Three chords in, the tears start. And they flow and they flow and they flow and as best I can and as often as I can I return to the breath. And I chant, it’s ok, i’m here, I got you, you are amazing. And I let the parts of me that want to run to him cry and I let them imagine what it would be like to run to him.

And those parts cried and wailed and writhed right there on the floor in a room full of people. And I held them hard and let them know it was ok and let them know I understood and let them know we would not be running to him and let them know that was ok too. And they heard me, and they cried, and they understood.

And we all recognized how painful it was to wish someone different and how painful it was to wish something was different and how painful it was to wish we were different. And how painful it was to go into loving someone needing to fix them. How painful it was to have loving enmeshed with fixing. How painful it was to think if we didn’t fix them, if we couldn’t fix them there was something wrong with us (all the parts of me) and we must of course naturally then be just the biggest failure and the most unlovable person ever.

Because if my love can’t get Mark to stop drinking, or my mother to stop drinking, or my mother to stop smoking, or my parent’s to stay together, or my aunt to not die then my love must not be enough.

Open your chest plate, crack it open, let your love in, let your love heal you.

My body lurched, my chest raised, my breath steadied. Belly. Chest. Exhale.

Let it the love in and let the rest of it go.

And all of a sudden it all faded away. Wait. I heard myself say. I don’t need that anymore. After the last 20 minutes of going back and forth inside between wanting to run to Mark and knowing that he was not the man I was looking for. Between wanting to wait for him and desperately wanting to be free from all of it, between never wanting to let any of it go and wanting to shed every single identification I had ever had….it all just lifted.

Let yourself free, let your love set you free. crack your chest plate open. Let it in. Get free.

I don’t need that anymore. I don’t need to fix people. I don’t need to relate to people from that place. My love is so much more than fixing people. My love can’t fix people. People don’t need to be fixed. People need to be loved. People need to know they are love. It’s up to the person themself. It’s up to Mark to realize that inside him and love himself, unconditionally, wholly and completely. And I hope he does. It’s up to my mother and my father and my cousin and my best friends to realize that inside of them and love themselves, unconditionally, wholly and completely. And they have to do it in their own time. I can’t do it for them, even if I want to, I can’t. I can only do it for me.

It’s up to me to realize that love is who I am and I am tasked to love myself, unconditionally, wholly and completely. And god damn it if there is one thing I can do it’s love. And I do love, and I will love, and I will see the best possible outcome for all people and I will let go of needing to have anything to do with someone getting there or not. It has gone. I don’t need it anymore. That’s not what my love is. That’s not what love is.

And my body lurched and my chest lifted and I felt it and if i could have literally taken a sledgehammer to crack it I would have. And the light flooded through me and the love flooded through me and I felt free. I felt free of all of it. I felt my entire programing system upgrade. And I cried and I laughed and I screamed and I yelped and I breathed. Belly. Chest. Exhale.

I. AM. WILLING.

And I know I will still want to write some things differently than the way they happened, I will wonder and imagine and create inside myself, I am after all a writer. And I can’t wait to see what life is like with this new understanding of things. And I intend to walk through it with as open a chest plate as I possibly can. And I know words and emotions and thoughts and trying to understand any of it is futile but I am human. We are human and life… Life is so very wonderfully weird.

From Up Here....

The human ability to remember and then live in a moment that has already past is sensational. So too is the ability to travel into a potential future which may or may not be made manifest. But to be there, to stay there, to feel it, hear it, see it, taste it, touch it. We can do this and many of us do do this. It can be a source of great calming or great anxiety based on what we decide to remember or create inside ourselves.  

I'm on a plane, sitting on the runway, getting ready to elevate thousands of miles above the ground, above the clouds, above life on earth. But I'm also in bed, with a man, a man I have deeply loving feelings for but for many reasons don't get to see that often. We lay, naked, body to body after communing in the most sacred of ways. I can hear his heartbeat, I can feel my smile grow. Remember this, I think, mark this moment. I feel his body relax and his head filled with sleep falls heavy onto mine flooding me with warmth. Remember this.

And I do. I remember it vividly. As I sit here fully dressed on a deep blue leather chair in row 10C on this tiny air bus headed due east, I feel him. And my heart squeezes in my chest. And I think of all that I haven't told him and all that we can not be to each other. I feel the warmth dissipate into something else and wish my brain would stop hijacking my memory. then the plane begins to move and my iPhone All Times List on shuffle picks the perfect tune and we shoot straight up through the clouds up over anything I could possibly think.

Because up here anything is possible. Because I am flying. And I can't help but think about how many different people there are on this planet. About how at one point we thought the earth was literally flat and being able to fly was as ridiculous a thought as extra-terrestrial life. Video phones as ridiculous as time travel. And now we know the earth is very round, we can walk on the moon, there is water on Mars and FaceTime will be as common to our children as radio and tv was to us. It's only a matter of time and space until ET and doc browns delorian are here and touchable, usable, part of our reality.  

Things change so fast and all the time. And there are 7 billion people with infinite brain space to think and dream and create and remember and break down boundaries we only thought were real. There are 7 billion ways to live a life. 7 billion childhoods to work through, if we make it that far. 7 billion mouths that have 7 billion different tongues that taste 7 billion different ways. 7 billion bodies that all work, generally speaking, the same way but have vastly different experiences.

And yet, we all breathe, we all bleed, we all feel pain and we are all capable of joy. We are all capable of blindness and we are all capable of kindness. Is some psychological arenas it is said that anything we can see, anything we can conceive even, is something we are, on some level, capable of. Which means in a very real way we are capable of anything and everything and nothing is off the table. Even eternal life, eternal love.

My aunt died when I was 6. That's almost 34 years ago. She visits me almost every single day. Last night my teacher Gene Bua sang to me. He's been gone for 5 years but as sure as day, there he was. Ok it might have come through Mark Ballas' body but there was his sweet soul, immediately touching mine the second the notes of "IN MY MOTHER’S EYES" landed in my ears. And yes I was seated in my felt chair at the ahmanson, but I was also in my car. In my 2007 Volkswagen Eos sitting next to this legend of a man, laughing, crying, singing. Maybe not how I want it but it's there, available, always.

Eternal life. Eternal love.

 And just as often there are 7 billion ways to panic and freak out and create horror and terror and fear. And we see it out pictured. Every day and frankly lately more often than I'm comfortable with. And we're all connected and we are all responsible. The chaos and mayhem we see comes directly from the chaos and mayhem we feel inside ourselves. And listen, I'm no saint, and neither are you. And I am not saying let's all think positive thoughts all the time and save the world.

But what if we could? What if instead of being afraid to lose someone, we knew we couldn't? What if we knew that whoever and whatever we love, lived in us and could not ever disappear? Even when we do, even when they do? What if we became as brilliant at creating joy and harmony as we are at creating fear and separation? Something tells me we already are, we just forgot.

Because anything negative we feel or think stems from a variation of very human, very understandable, very untrue belief: I am unworthy, I am unloved.

People will lash out, be hoarders, degrade others, become addicted, withhold talent, withhold love, withhold joy all because we feel these things or because we are scared that these things are true or because we're scared they're not. People will hurt each other and themselves over and over and over trying to prove that they are better than each other only because they are so fundamentally convinced that they are worse. It's almost unbearable how simple the solution is and yet how unbelievable.

For 7 billion different brain cells to all of a sudden wake up to their inherent worth and loveliness. How very unbelievable.

and yet right now I believe this because up here, anything is possible. Up here, over the clouds I believe this in every cell of my being. I believe this is where we are heading. I want to believe that we will as a people can just wake up to it but until that happens I will just keep work on waking up to it myself. Over and over as many times as I have to. And I will do whatever it takes too.

Maybe it's closing my eyes and remembering my bed in my room that I lived in when I was 12. Remembering the outdoor bunk bed I slept in at camp just two years later. Remembering all those people I loved and how they made me feel. I’ll remember climbing up to that loft bed I built in college, peering out into Eagle Rock through that tiny sliver of window. Creating that sense of home wherever I am. Somehow feeling the warmth of every bed I have ever slept in makes me know I am always home. 

Maybe it's remembering the man I thought I would marry. And finding forgiveness and finding compassion and finding as much gratitude for him as for his departure. Remembering every person I have ever loved and letting the gratitude and compassion grow. Somehow realizing I can still feel them all with me makes me know those feelings are mine. And I can visit the amazing moments of my life at any time. Maybe it's realizing how much fun I have wherever I go and acknowledging that that is who I am. Maybe it's setting the intention to know myself as that wholly and completely.

Maybe it's all of these things and so much more. And maybe it's none of them. I do know though that resting my head against this plane window and feeling the seat underneath me sturdy as we fly through the air, whilst thinking about all of these things simultaneously, I am calmed remembering the weight of that man’s head as it rested on mine. And so, I will think of it. And I will think of him. And I will revisit that moment and let it calm me. And I will see what I can create moving forward. And I will be with the warmth I feel from all of that right now. And right now I will allow all of this to expand in my body and make me feel good. Make me feel love.  

I will allow all of this to help me to remember who I really am: love.

The human ability to do this life thing, in this space, at this time, for the centuries it has is sensational, truly sensational. to feel it, hear it, see it, taste it, touch it..... it's miraculous, when we let it be. Marvelous, when we let it be. Magnificent, when we let ourselves see it and us as such. So why don't we? Why don't we let ourselves see how amazing of a place this earth school can be? I want to. Are you with me???

Where to begin...

I had a great week. I don’t know why, it was just good, sort of from the start. Lots of high energy, lots of connection, lots of present moments filled with gratitude for this life I have been living and everyone in it. Part of this was due to the discovery of an amazing radio station, part of this was due to a long weekend of family time, and part of it was due to excitement from many upcoming events and changes in my life.

The bottom line though? I was good, I was happy.

Then, on Friday, things happened. Specific things yes, but that’s not as important as what happened inside me.  Oh, someone was unhappy with something that happened at work and I did not get to spend time with someone special that I was really very tremendously looking forward to seeing. Even though it’s never a sure thing, I was hopeful, I was happy. But that happiness didn’t somehow magically make the things that I wanted to have happen, happen.

You see in retrospect, I believe the happiness came from juicing the joy from being fully present in the moments I was in. Wednesday I had Boyz 2 Men on the radio, coffee in my bloodstream, the promise of possibility on the landscape in front of me but no attachments to what that might be.

Upon starting my work day on Friday I got angry energy thrusted at me, not towards me, but still enough that it knocked me down a bit. And then I had an expectation. And my expectation had an expectation. I expected to see someone, and I expected that since I was so happy it would of course naturally happen.

And when it didn’t….. crash and burn, and not in the good Usher Burn way. Also not in the as-bad-as-I-used-to way but still I could feel a deeper disappointment than just shoot, we didn’t get to see these people I was really very tremendously looking forward to seeing.

What I became aware of and found so interesting, observationally, is that I was sad that I did not get to be happy around these people I was hoping to see. And then forget about me being available to my friend who was talking about dating. I was gone, hopped on the train of self disillusionment which is never a fun place to be.

You see what happens on that train is that everything turns grey. The joy gets sucked out of any given moment and everything in sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell dulls. Color bleeds out of life like paint dripping off a canvas leaving only greys and muddy browns behind. Sounds mute and music leaves the air. Scent does nothing but perhaps remind me of a time I miss more desperately than anything. Touch of any kind feels like fire on my skin and my tongue tastes literally nothing.  

Whatever anyone says somehow gets run through a filter of inferiority and ends up with me feeling broken, defective and completely horrid and unlovable. And so, my sweet friend, who was simply talking about a new man she was dating, probably got zombie face from me because what was really happening inside was a vicious self critique on what a horrible, disgusting, fat and ugly woman I was.

A woman who sucked at dating and hates even hearing about it (not entirely true). A woman who wants to fall in love but doesn’t want to work at it (not entirely true). A woman who wants to be a writer but doesn’t write (not entirely true). Who loves to sing but doesn’t sing (not entirely true). Who wants to release weight so she doesn’t feel gross but doesn’t want to diet (not entirely true). Who wants to be able to love herself unconditionally in the face of all these things but standing in the face of this expectation crash can’t seem to find a single thing to love (totally true). About anything (ugh the worst). Which is so not this woman’s style.

But, I am good at faking it. So I act, I smile, I laugh and I even win the game I am playing, which I admit, is fun. I never saw that coming. And I have learned to observe more too now, I have learned to witness these thoughts more and engage with them less. Though I could tell by the sinking energy in my body I was engaging with them more than I would have liked.

That voice is loud when it kicks in, and harsh, and cunning. Less of an angel devil on the shoulder thing and more like a charming prince who turns into smeagol hoarding and protecting and nurturing all of your deepest insecurities, feeding them, helping the to grow. So I observed while my smeagol hissed my precious over all those things that I hate right down to the part of me that hates that i hate, in general, at all, ever. And it all feels so true and awful. Like deep down in my bones awful, so overwhelming that i don't even know where to begin. And then….

And then I remembered Elizabeth Gilbert paraphrasing a Rumi quote, or hafiz, none of us can remember, not even google who credits ava on pintrest. (note: i really didn’t think ava on pintrest came up with this quote, but i can not find it credited to anyone else. Perhaps she just made it look really pretty but if it is hers apologies) Simply stated it says:

Show me all the parts of you that you do not love so that I know where to begin.

I remembered this on my journey to the heart of self-loathing and everything in my entire body softened. How lovely an idea that is. Certainly not an easy task, to think of, to admit to yourself, or to another, all the things you do not love about yourself. My ego wants to say there’s nothing that I do not love about myself but alas, I can’t pull off that lie and if I could I would hate it about myself. None of us can pull that one off. Because for all of us (except maybe the dalai lama, ama, or the likes) have something they do not love about themselves.

But what a lovely idea to let that be the place to begin. Let that be the place I begin to love. Entirely, wholeheartedly, unwaveringly, unconditionally. Instead of letting those be the places that I hate and then hate myself for hating, what if, what if, i let those be the places that I notice myself hating so that I can know where to love.

Not to change, not to fix, not to replace, no. To love. Simply to love.

So, I love my stomach, I love my arms, I love how nervous I get around men. I love the parts of me that feel unattractive, dirty, gross. I love the part of me that gets jealous of people in relationships new or old alike. I love the part of me that gets defensive about not being in one. I love the part of me that desperately wants to be in one and the part of me that doesn’t.

I love the part of me that is scared of success and the part that is afraid of failure. I love the part of me that is terrified to sing off key. That is terrified something that could bring her so much joy might in turn invite people to laugh at her, to say she sounds awful. I love the part of me that procrastinates writing because she is scared she can not do it. She is scared no one will like it even though she knows she’s not doing it for that.

I love the part of me that is so concerned with how she looks that she judges every thing she puts in her mouth and the part of me that rebels against anything close to a diet. I love the part of me that cares so damn much about what people think of me. The part that cares so damn much about those people loving me and staying with me and wanting me to be their friend that she will do anything for them to make it so.

And I love that sweet, sweet part that for even one nanosecond thinking she is unlovable and undeserving.

And I don’t need any of those parts to change. I just need them to know that I love them. Oh my gosh I can feel it in my heart right now, it’s exploding in my chest. And my eyes are watering and all those parts are looking at me with wide eyes. Really? They are saying. You love me? Yes.

Deeply. Entirely. wholeheartedly. Unwaveringly. Unconditionally.

My body relaxes. Color comes rushing back in. I can hear the music again and I want to sing it. I can taste the iron in my mouth, the taste of my body, my amazing thriving body doing whatever it needs to do to survive. I can feel the hair on my arms raise in gratitude as I wrap my arms around myself to squeeze. The giddiness returns and it’s without coffee or boyz 2 men.

And while that is not even close to everything I do not like about myself, it’s a start, it’s a taste, it’s the experience of knowing what that feels like. So now, when I realize I hate that certain songs still make me think of my ex, I can use that to sink into a place of love and say, aw, i love you for thinking of him, even now. Or when I realize I feel threatened by someone because I have decided they are smarter or prettier or better than I am, I can sink into a place of love and say, aw, i love you while you are forgetting you are the best you and they are the best they. I love you no matter what always and forever…..

This is my pledge from here on out. I say to myself, show me all the places you do not like, gently and easily please, so that I may know where to begin. And I will begin applying the love to each and every place ad infinitum forever and ever amen.

I love you. Whether you are feeling it or not. I love you. Literally whatever you are feeling I love you. there is nothing you can do to make me not. Nothing. Whether it’s a good week or a bad week (whatever good and bad actually mean anyway).

And just like that i am back in the present moment. Bruce Springsteen in my ears, a No. 3 Sativa candle in my nose, and the promise of possibility on my horizon as I drive to one of my most favorite classes. And once again, I am grateful for this life and all the people in it. And now, now I know where to begin...

The Comedown

I'm having a comedown. Moments ago I was flying high, literally. 20,000 feet above the earths soil staring at clouds and snow capped mountains, staring at the expanse of the Grand Canyon and pondering its history. I was also pondering the most magnificent of weddings I had just attended and how moved I was by the magic of the bride and groom.

She, my best friend for the last four years, a tride and true, a person, like a my person person. Like one of my people. He, a man I have known and loved from a distance who now I get to love up close. A man who has become my best friends best friend. her partner. Their marrying was one of real life fairy tale.

Sweet, timeless, true. Every moment, from the improvised vows to his hand on her neck during the first dance. From the attendants inclusion to the second line seeing the couple off, sending them on their way. Not one inauthentic moment, not one thing not thought of, pure perfection (if perfection was a thing I believed in.)

I even tried to find feelings of jealousy and yearning for my own fairytale as I have at so many other weddings. But I couldn't. Not one damn tear for anything but happiness. Happiness for them and happiness for any two people who had ever entered into the contract of marriage or partnership of any kind. For those who have chosen their avatars because I truly believe that's what marriage/partnership is.

A moment to pick one person, a person who lights you up, a person who. Alex you feel alive, a person who makes you feel seen and heard, a person who is willing to be seen and heard by you fully, one person to serve as the placeholder for all the love that runs through us and out us to be shared with the world. Because let's face it, we can't take the world home with us.

The betrothed wanted us to celebrate love, to celebrate the love that we each are and the love that we each have. And all weekend that was literally all I could do. I fell in love with almost everyone and everything I came across. And when it was time to go, I was ready. I was, as I mentioned, flying high.

Then i found out that those who stayed behind coincidentally (if I believed in coincidence) ran into the couple and got to spend their first day as mr & mrs with, well with mr & mrs. I sat with that information for a moment and slowly felt the familiar feeling come rushing in. Jealousy. There it was. That thing I couldn’t find if you had paid me one day earlier in the bathroom at loose mansion. So I called it out, owned it and carried on.

Except I couldn't seem to carry on. And it was beyond fascinating to see what my brain made this mean. It was beyond fascinating to notice the wonder of every other moment dissolve into the deepest feeling of I must not be enough. Simply because I took a different flight.

I wasn't lucky enough. I must not be a real friend. Probably none of those people actually love me. Because if they did I wouldn't have missed it, I wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't be good for just support and help I'd get to have fun too. If I was important enough these things wouldn't always happen without me. (Mind you, I know none of this is true or even remotely close to what my friends are actually thinking but inside me, for the comedown, they feel very fucking true.)

And I see a pattern here, and I realize there is a gift here for me because even in the comedown this couple have managed to provide me with a space to go deeper in my own connection to loving.

What I realized in this spiral was I don't believe it when you tell me you love me. I don't believe you when you tell me that I look stunning or that I have a beautiful voice. I don't believe you when you say I did a good job or that you genuinely love me. Not unless I've done something for you. Or a lot of something for you. Or given something to you. Then maybe, maybe I'll believe you.

(Parenthetically, I do believe it when you say I'm a good writer but that's because I'm not writing, god is writing through me. Why then, is god not singing through me? Expressing through me? Loving through me? Delicious food for thought…)

The way that mr & mrs were looking at each other was literally  breathtaking and promising to each other that they know their task is to stand on their own and exist in the surplus of their loving. To mirror to each other who they truly are: love. And I know they love me. I know they love everyone on the planet and are choosing to hold that loving in the most sacred space in their marrying.

And I know my work now as I move forward in this world. Somehow I have gotten it all jumbled up. I know how, I was born, and I picked a unique set of circumstances and i have a unique set of lessons to learn from unfurling my so far lifetime. And I can see more clearly than before the ways in which this is jumbled.

I can see at a deeper level how I have not let love in, fully anyway. It's like I keep it at arms length. Like I hold it just so, controlled by what I can provide you, what we can provide each other, not at all existing in the space of just loving. Pure unadulterated unconditional loving. It's strange though, as I feel I can give or participate in unconditional loving OF YOU but when it comes to you of me, I don't buy it.

My spiritual teachers say, how you relate to the issue is the issue, or how you relate to yourself while you are going through the issue is the issue. So I guess the issue here is feeling not good enough, not worthy enough, not lucky enough, not loved enough. I guess the issue here is that I am telling myself, in this stinking thinking, that I am not enough, not worthy enough, not lucky enough to receive your loving.

The issue is there are still places inside of me that have not yet learned, experientially, that that is not how this works. Maybe the issue is that there are parts of me that are still believing love is something to be received. Because there are other parts of me, so many other parts of me that know that to be categorically untrue.

Love is who we are. Love is who I am. Love is who you are.

That's what this whole entire weekend was proof of for me. Undeniably, unquestionably, without doubt. This is why I couldn't find those tears in the bathroom at loose mansion. This is why when I met a handful of attractive taken men this weekend I did not cave inside as I used to. Just because they are “taken” doesn't mean we can not participate in sharing the love that we are together. I can share the love I am with the world and often, so often when I am not in my head, I do.

So to those places that have not yet learned that they are love, that love is not something to be received, it is something to allow, to experience, to breathe in… I will wait for you. I will unconditionally love you and I will continue to, as often as I need to, find the teachable moments and say to you, see?

Do you feel that? Can you touch that light on the inside when you think about your friends face as she smiled at her man? That's love. That's you. Can you touch that tender spot inside that lights up watching the stream in this park in the middle of Santa Monica flow to the duck pond as the ducks play in the water? That place that wants to explode when you think about how many different people there are in the world? That thing that oooozes out of you every time you see a child? That thing you want to share with the entire world?

That's you. And there's actually only one person you are tasked to share that with before all others. It is not a mistake that you are here, god did not put you here by mistake. God puts us nowhere by mistake. Love puts us nowhere by mistake. And same goes for all of those people who told you all of those things. They are not there by mistake either. Love doesn’t make mistakes.  And maybe, just maybe none of those people were ever lying. (Hint: they weren't) maybe you did look stunning, maybe you sounded fantastic, maybe you did do a great job and were incredibly valued, and maybe, maybe you are genuinely loved. For no reason at all other than the fact that you are you. (Hint: you did and you are and you will be forever more)

And I will be here to hold you when you forget that and it hurts. I will be here to dance with you when you remember and I will be here to celebrate the sharing of the love that YOU are with anyone who is lucky enough to share it with you. I will be here when you are flying high, coming down or landing somewhere in between. I will stare at you with eyes of love, mirroring to you who you are and I will hold the sacred place to celebrate that....

For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in remembrance and forgetting, as long as we both shall love….

(dedicated with eternal gratitude to Mr & Mrs. You Know Who You Are...... I LOVE YOU!!!!) 

the void (or belly chest exhale 3)

I think I left my body last night which was kind of a first. Flew. Soared. Remained stiller than I ever had in all of my almost 14,600 days on earth.

My intention and word de jour is freedom. Freedom from limiting beliefs. Freedom from old patterns of co-dependency that have long had me place the needs of others before the needs of myself. Freedom from attachments of how I think it or I or you or god should be. Freedom from my disappointment in how things didn’t turn out, or how they did. Freedom from needing people to need me. From desperately wanting people to love me so that I could know I was loved.

I felt my back flat on the floor and rooted myself deep into the earth as my teacher instructed. I imagined my body growing roots like the trees I have recently planted in my yard. I imagined myself unfurling into this giant rock and I imagined the rock opening itself to welcome me, to hold me, to support me. I imagined my chest plate coming off next, exposing my red and white light filled beating heart. I saw my heart, exposed, beating. It shook a little at the exposition not used to being so prominently displayed. It’s ok, I told it, we are safe here, we are loved.

My roots, my heart and I were all prepared, we knew this terrain, we had been doing it for quite some time now. We expected dry mouth, we expected dizzy, we expected tears. We never knew what would happen but 90% of the time, all those things did. The great wondrous release that happens when my New York City analytic brain can no longer outrun the emotion I have been side stepping for almost all of my almost 14,600 days on earth. The crying through things I had never cried myself to the other side of. The things that I can’t control how many tears it will take to get to the other side of. (which is in fact anything and everything)

My roots, my heart and I were ready. Bring it on we said thinking of our favorite color (purple), our favorite food (tortellini with sage butter), our favorite texture (my cat’s furry head), our favorite sound (my cat’s purr) and our favorite smell (rosemary.) “And when the music begins, let’s breathe. Have fun.” my teacher's voice said before ushering in the subtle tones of a song I have long loved. A song that takes center stage in the second feature script I ever wrote.

And I belly, chest, exhaled as I do, as I have been doing, belly, chest, exhale, belly, chest, exhale. The beatles morphed into something else and something else morphed into something else and my belly and my chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell and then…..

………........................                              ........................……...

I spent much of last night in a void, on an open road with the top down. I found myself unattached to almost everything which was new. Memories would come and then go. People would come and then go. There was no time for emotion. If there was it was only fleeting lovely gratitude, then back to the void, back to the open road. I knew I was held by god and that god was experiencing itself through me.

I felt myself fearless. I felt myself doing things without second guessing. Finishing books, reaching out to men i find intimidating, singing out loud, standing on stage.... I saw anything is possible in this space and felt myself as grounded in my own loving and awesomeness as I have ever been. I knew in that spacelessness in that timelessness the world was indeed my oyster, my stage and mine for the taking or rather mine for the living.

The living. Mine to be lived. Lived.

Not thought about, not imagined (though imagination is key for living let’s not forget that), not wistfully dreamed about. L I V E D. The book is mine to write. The call is mine to make. The intimidation is mine to feel, there is something in it for me or i would not be feeling it. And the choice to move forward in engaging with the man is mine to make, it’s my experience to have, and he get’s to be a player on my stage. The stage which is mine to sing on. The stage which is mine to own.

I found myself free. Free of all those things I listed above. I felt the tingles this suit I call body was feeling, I felt the energy working it’s way through me but I, I was free. I was flying, I was soaring, I was still. I was the spark, the buzz of electricity that travels back and forth in the light bulb of life. The lightbulb of my life. I could feel myself brightening and dimming as needed.

I was nowhere and everywhere. I was nothing and everything.

It was harder to come back last night than ever before. I wanted to stay in that space. I wanted to stay in the space where anything is possible and have the grounded confidence to do all those things with or even without the fear or attachment I may have to outcome. I wanted to do all these things free in my own loving.

I stood up wide eyed and shaky. I drank some water. I had a lovely dinner with a lovely friend and I went to sleep. I woke up and drove to get coffee. On my drive back I saw a man. He was homeless, or at the very least unbalanced. His teal socks hit the road as his skinny and blanket wrapped bottom hit the sidewalk. I drove by as he was inhaling on a cigarette. I remembered that feeling from my 2,900 days on this earth as a smoker. I remember that drag when there’s nothing you need more than one...more...puff.

He was pulling on that cigarette searching for the meaning of life, asking the deepest questions he could ever ask and upon getting it, could finally exhale. Everything is in that drag, answers, love, space, freedom, calm, time, life, death, everything. I watched him and felt my chest plate drop, and though i was not on a floor in Santa Monica, I felt my roots dig into the earth rock too. I sensed all my favorite things and I too inhaled with the man. I needed no cigarette though. I realized in that moment, I needed nothing.

I needed to inhale, belly, chest, exhale. I pulled over, I put my top down, I smiled. I looked around at the greens and blues and reds and yellows of this world. At the greys and pinks, at the dense spaciousness. My eyes filled with water and I sneezed. I turned up my music and let the warm almond latte of my morning work its way down my throat. I put my foot on the gas and became fully and wholly aware of myself in the void despite the fact I was nowhere near it and fully encompassed by it.

In my almost 14,600 days on earth I can not even say I have come close to figuring out the infinite amount of paradoxes and possibilities that exist. But in my almost 14,600 days on earth I can say that I have tasted freedom. I have flown, I have soared, I have listened, I have cried, I have laughed, I have loved, I have learned and I have lived. And I will forget this, over and over and I will choose to use everything to help me remember, over and over.  I have tasted the colors of life and I will keep opening, keep soaring, listening, crying, laughing, loving, learning.

And I will keep living, with roots held by this rock supporting me in knowing myself for who I truly am, with a heart open, exposed, beating, vulnerable, real showing herself as who she truly is.

Love. Free. Love.

An unstoppable force of free expressed, sourced, living love. Existing in this place, of this place, for this place and always aware of the expansive void. The void of love. Free, infinite, unwavering, compassionate love.

When I listen...

There’s something amazing that happens when we, well ok, I don’t want to speak for you….

There’s something amazing that happens when I listen. When I open my life up enough for the silence to come in. For the stillness to come in. For the inspiration to come in. For those moments when all of time stops and I become blissfully aware that this is all an illusion. That all of this mishigas I create in my head is simply fodder for my human brain.

My life is busy and has been particularly full lately. And anyone who actually knows me is likely rolling their eyes at the lately part. The truth is my calendar is always rather quite full. But this month, this month my insides urged me, begged me, made me wipe it clean. First by some very uncomfortable outside factors. Then by my own choosing.

And let me tell you, that space was and continues to be magnificent. I find myself more relaxed and able to hear what wants to be told to me. Garden, the air said. Sleep, the air said. Read, play, laugh, share, breathe, don’t plan, be led, let the urges, let the invitation, let the space lead you. Enjoy. Enjoy every damn thing this place has to offer, it is after all, for you. All of it.

And so I did. And guess what? Information and loving and enjoyment came rushing in. I no longer felt like I was doing things because I had to. I was doing things because I wanted to. And I am learning the difference between saying yes to everything that sounds like fun and reserving it for the things I actually have the bandwidth to do. And even though I may be desperately in love with an invitation and the person posing it, I may not actually have the bandwidth.

Sometimes I don’t have bandwidth for anything except my cats. Especially in times of transition, in times of change, in times of repose. Turns out I am desperately in love with these times too. And I need them more than I have realized. (Consider you might too.) Even just sitting and doing absolutely nothing at all. It’s why we go on vacation but here’s the question, why limit it to vacation?

In my inner urgings for space, this weekend I was left with two entire days to choose where to put my attention. I slept until something woke me, I ate when I was hungry. I ended up having deeply satisfying surprise visits with people. I cleared and cleaned the stacks and stacks of collected crap that had accumulated in corners all over my house. I read the newspaper. I got my hands in the dirt. I fixed my Buddha fountain that has been dry for years.

And then I went and I got my body scrubbed. All dead skin gone. It’s a treatment at a korean day spa where these wonderful women lovingly, and with gusto, truly remove every clinging cell of dead epidermis. And then they pour warm water over my body washing it away finishing with a lotion rubdown leaving me glowing, refreshed and renewed. This is something I have been wanting to do for six months. Six months and there was no time in my calendar. No place I could find to give this to myself.

And that’s ok. Sometimes, usually, we have to forget before we remember. And after this weekend I remember the importance of space. As I lay on that table I imagined every thing that no longer served me, every negative thought, every doubt, every fear, every misbelief that had been holding me back from moving forward was getting washed away. And in those spaces I imagined light filling me, infusing me with the awareness of who I really am. Love. I spent some time visioning my future but more over I was able to feel it, to sense it, to know it independent of what it actually was.

When I checked in to the spa for this treatment I got my key and it was the number 129. 129 is my number, a variation of my birthday. I giggled. Oh the universe. My world was talking to me. And I know it’s because I finally gave it the space to. And I knew the next three hours would feed my in precisely the way I needed. I knew that the six months I wanted to come all led up to the brilliance of this very experience. And I let that metaphor bleed out into all areas of my life. I don’t have to force it. I don’t have to make anything happen. I just have to show up.

Show up. Allow. Participate. Engage. Love. Find the thing that makes me come alive and do that. Until it doesn’t. Then find the next thing. Show up. Allow. Participate. Engage. Love.

I returned home to my flowing fountain and newly planted garden excited aware that my insides were tilled, my seeds were planted and my inner fountain of joy and love was very much in tact. I felt like I had returned to myself in a deeper more settled way than I had been in a while. And this week, though it’s only tuesday, has already been a myriad of mind readings and seeming coincidences.

Because I am tuned in. Because I am listening. Because I am present. Because I am allowing.

Magic happens in these moments. Pure Magic. So I accept it. And I plan to honor and revel in this space and continue to create it as much as possible. One vacation day a week I say. At least. 15 vacation minutes a day. We are so worth it. We are so worth anything that ushers us into the reception of the truth that this world is for us. That ushers us into the truth of being able to enjoy what may be the biggest gift of your life. You.

Let yourself receive of the magic that you are. Listen to the magic that you are. There is amazing information available to us in this world when we listen. Your world is talking to you, all the time, and asking you to take the space to see it, it is imparting the most important of information. Information that will reflect to you who you are and lead you to the places that will help you know yourself as that.

You are wonderful. You are amazing. You are beautiful, funny, wise, brilliant, talented, sensual, unbelievable bright, present, connected and kind.

I love you. I wish you an amazing week. A slow, spacious, delicious, fun, musical, radiant, energetic and joy filled week. I know it’s there for you…. Just listen…...

Fragile Strength

Yesterday 60% of these daffodils were buds, closed, cocooned in their casings. I did not think just 24 hours later and a little bit of LA’s finest tap water would create such a magnificent and swift bloom. Blooming, unfolding, transformation, emerging, becoming, being, radiating, coloring, receiving, living, thriving, drinking, making the most out of every single second they have here in my house on the corner of here and there, each in their most unique and wonderful of ways. No two daffodils opened the same way but with the right environment they seem to have all opened at the same time and instantly.

Last week a man climbed through the bathroom window into my house with muddy feet from the rain. I did not know he had stopped by until much later when I discovered the pried open window and the knocked down, tread upon shower curtain in the back bathroom just before bed. My heart raced and my head went into overdrive. No. I thought. It must have been my best friend ben, he must have needed something, and he certainly is wily enough to fit through that window, kind of.

I called ben. It wasn’t ben. As soon as I saw the young man’s air jordan's on my canary home video system, my body was met with a flood of anxiety. Ben, because he is the best, came right over and spent the night. He on my couch armed with a fire shovel, me in my bed armed with a fire poker. The flood of anxiety turned into sadness which turned into fear which turned into gratitude which turned into love which turned back into anxiety. none of it turned to sleep. All the time curious about the what if’s.

It’s been a week now, exactly a week and the film of violation has mostly lifted. I have installed gates and alarm systems. I have timed lights now and have stopped sleeping with the fire poker. I have started sleeping, mostly. Last night as I was drifting to sleep, I noticed this glow from my closet. I opened the door and was met with all of the sleek new technology of the ADT protection system I had two nice gentleman install earlier that day. One of them was small. Probably the size of the man that had visited me through the window.

I looked into his eyes. He was incredibly sweet and gentle turning away from me into the corner every time I entered my password or code into the system. And I mean of course he did, he had to, this was part of his job. But he didn’t have to be so careful and sweet and kind in how he did it. But he was. And it cracked my heart wide open. He had only been with ADT for two months and was clearly in training and doing his best to be on his best behavior. His partner was seasoned, trained, just as nice and just as wonderful with his young protege.

It reminded me of the cops who came the day after my unexpected visitor. One seasoned and curious about the breed of my cats, one sweet and nervous asking repeat questions and forgetting the answers, feeling excited and proud when he knew he could figure out the brand of air jordan's from the video. Ben had stayed and Barry had come over, I was surrounded by men. I could not help but noticed that I was surrounded by men. My third thought after watching the video footage of this mans feet creep into my bedroom over and over and over was if I had a husband, if I had a man, i better really get on that. As if it were something to get on. And then I am gently reminded the very next day, I am surrounded by men.

And they are all so sweet and all so thoughtful and all so considerate of my space and my reaction to the experience. It was all so exactly how I wanted to be handled. And while there were floating remnants of the what if’s and the how could he’s and the why do we treat each other these ways, there was more, oh my gosh and holy mackerel and man i am protected and I safe and loved and so is he.

Another dear friend reflected to me that this man was given a different choice point too, he got a pattern redirect. And I kept thinking he must have been so scared when I came home. Knowing somewhere in him that crawling into someone else’s home is not the best choice for karma points, it’s not the most self honoring thing he could be doing. He ran. He sounded terrified in the footage. And he was small, I mean he had to be small.

As I stared at the tiny ADT man making me safe, my heart cracking wide open, I thought about us, as a race, as a people, as a people who help people and people who hurt people. I thought about how we feel when we help people and how we feel when we hurt people. I thought about how we change and grow and learn and hopefully awaken. And how we all do these things at different levels, at different stages, in different ways. I wondered if this tiny man making me safe, who could not have been older than 23, had a lover in his life. I wondered if the tiny man who had crawled through my window had one too. Was it a man? Was it a woman?

I wondered if they had been in gangs, if they had robbed people before? Ben had. When he was younger, being a dumb young dare devil kid. Had this ADT man had turned the other cheek and was now sleeping with the enemy. Or rather the opposite of enemy. Had he been hard prior to now, this safety man, was he still? There is not often a lot of thought put into things like this. There is often not a lot of thought put into a lot of things. I tend to put too much thought into everything and it has certainly paralyzed me many times in my life. I wondered shifting my gaze from the man to the daffodils, how much thought they put into their unfolding. I wondered do daffodils think?

Humans are fragile. Humans are strong. Daffodils are fragile. Daffodils are strong. That man is fragile. That man is strong. Our world is fragile. Our world is strong. You are fragile. You are strong. I am fragile. I am strong. Life is fragile. Life is strong. We get knocked down we get back up. I bet my life that people who make choices that negatively impact the world around them are making choices based on a seemingly incurable pain that exists inside them. A pain of unworthiness, of believing they are not lovable. I bet my life that most of us are making choices based on our level of awareness of the love that we actually are, the inherent worthiness of who we are simply because we are here.

And there are as many ways of figuring it out as there are bodies on the planet. And change is constant, evolution is why we are here. I am evolving, the tiny man is evolving, the new cop is evolving, the bathroom burglar is evolving, the planet is evolving. Sometimes we need to go back before we go forward. And sometimes change is painfully slow, sometimes it feels like it's never going to happen. Sometimes it feels like I am never going to get it.. I will never be as free as I want to with this brain running at the speed it runs. And then all of a sudden I forget to think, and I allow, and i see the magical grid of life’s unfolding and then all of a sudden, I see. 

It is really all as it should be. Everything is really unfolding in the most delicious perfect way. Even if that unfolding includes robbery and orange president’s. Even if that unfolding is painful and seems meaningless. Is anything ever really meaningless anyway? Is it actually possible for anything to be actually meaningless?

Many spiritual teachings tell me that there is no meaning to anything, except I can not help but wonder now, the meaning of the fact that this all exists in the first place. As I stare at these bright yellow blooms I think, yes be careful of how much weight I give the meaning my human brain wants to attach to things. but also be careful not to forget that this life has meaning, it has value, it has worth. The days are long but the years are short. I don’t need to be a parent to honor this sentiment.

Savor your life. Savor each year, each month, each week, each day, each hour, each minute. Savor each moment. Even the hard ones. Even the blessed ones. Even the boring ones. Even the scary ones. Even the dark ones. Even the bright ones. Even the crowded ones. Even the empty ones. Even the loud ones. Even the silent ones. Let them each grow you, teach you, unfold you. Allow this world to work for you, for you, that is what it is here for. And as I write this I think, surrender means just getting out of the way, letting this all happen through me. And of course being an active participant of my life, yes, to go out there and have the most fun I can have, to follow my joy and shine my light AND to let my life happen. To let it unfold.

We never know what the thing is that is going to flip that switch of awareness, what the thing is that will give us the clarity to see and make and engage in the change that is coming anyway. Because while change is constant and often so slow, sometimes, just like that our stems get pulled up out of the earth and cut shorter and transported to a glass vase filled with delicious tap water it could be that very next morning that we wake up bursting with color, ready to shine, ready to radiate, ready to emerge, ready to brighten, ready to receive, ready to thrive, ready to be, ready to bloom.

Change is a process and not an event but sometimes, sometimes it happens over night, after moments upon moments upon moments of waiting, sometimes it just takes one night. and you never know what could be waiting right around the corner that very next morning…..

Holy Shit I Love You (or belly, chest, exhale 2)

“Holy Shit!” she heard her own voice exclaim as she poured the hot water over her peppermint tea bag into her favorite mug she got when she went to see Harvey by herself on broadway third row back stage left for $47. “I love you.” And in every cell of her body she felt it. “I love every single part of you.” she knew she had said it before and she knew she would say it a million times again as she knew she would, of course, forget. She was open to never forgetting it again but having taken almost 40 trips around the sun, she severely suspected she may at least a few more times in what would hopefully be a very long life, forget it. “Holy shit, I love you.” she said again softly touching her own lips preparing them for the scalding hot liquid about to travel down her throat.

She had traveled just hours earlier. Traveled the highways and byways of her own consciousness. Guided by a master of air pipes, a master of space creating, a master of musical manipulations, a master of unconditional reflecting love. “Go for it tonight guys.” He had said. “Are you willing to lose control?” he had said. “Are you willing to let it all go?” He had said. “Belly, chest, exhale.” He had said. “Allow yourself to have the experience you have.” and she did. From the minute she walked through the door….

Material. The faces in the room, the first notes, the twelfth breath, her throat began to tighten. Belly, chest exhale. To release single, she had intended, to release the notion of alone, to release feeling inherently unlovable. To call in partnership, yes in a man, of course, it was after all, all she had ever wanted. But she knew, somewhere in there she knew, it wasn’t the man…. But right here, right now, right then in that moment, the tears flowed.

Having listened to her trusty guide and wishing her intentions set a sweet goodbye never to think of them again memory after memory, feeling after feeling came rushing through. Longing, desire, wishing she could be seen the way she wanted the first love of her life to have seen her. Wishing she could always be seen that way by the men she had wanted to look at her. Hand in hand with the knowledge that their view, that gaze, would ultimately never be received if she could not look on herself that way, that gaze would never fix anything as nothing ever needed to be fixed.

Her throat tightened even more and when he said “now let out a primal scream.” she could not, she was crying too hard. And then she heard her own voice say, it’s ok, I got you, you can let it all go, you can - a loud cathartic scream interrupted the river of mascara filled tears that had been draining out of her closed eyes and it felt amazing. She came back to the breath, tempted to cry forever she heard that voice again inside herself. It’s ok, i got you, come back to the breath. Belly, chest, exhale.

God the word came rushing through in between rhythmic exhales. It’s not the man, it’s god - I want god. And as if they had never stopped, the tears returned along with a million more thoughts and memories and feelings all at the very same time. Though one stood out, and it was one that visited her frequently in that room on Santa Monica Blvd It wasn’t a thought though it was a who and she materialized instantly the moment the combination of his words, “let yourself receive the love”, and hers, God - i want god, mixed themselves into her ear drums.

Cindy. Her aunt who had left this physical world reality game in 1984 when she was six. She loved her aunt. Her aunt was one of her most favorite people in the entire universe, multiverse, multiverses, alive or dead.  She was sunshine, she was warmth, she was band-aids and kisses, she was the mother of her other favorite people. And oh my gosh did her aunt love her. Never ever did this woman, well at the time, girl, feel anything other than entirely lovable when she was with her aunt. At least that’s how she remembered it.

God never left you sweet girl she felt her aunt say. You think that god left you when I left you, you think that love left you when I left you. You think all of that was left behind in the catacombs in rome. She felt her chest heaving. Belly, chest, exhale was unavailable in this moment, tears were unavailable in this moment. this moment was for something else entirely. It wasn’t my love. It has never been gone from you. And in a way I have never been gone from you. But believe me, leaving you was never something that was easy for me to do. Leaving here was not easy.

And then her beloved acting teachers appeared behind her aunt in full support, in full agreement. Nor for us, leaving you was never an easy part of it and oh my gosh are you lovable and not, ever, ever, ever, ever alone. And then all together, in perfect unison with the man leading this room of breathing people, her current, very alive teacher, very alive messenger of the truth, the golden holiest of truths-

Let yourself receive the love. It’s there. It has always been there. It’s yours. It’s you.

The music shifted, it slowed, her tears did not. her heart cracked wide open the memories still rushing in like the grand rapids. Every memory of a time she had ever wished a boy, a man, a lover to love her, every time she had laid with a man, peered into his eyes, opened herself to love even if only in her mind, and let’s face it - it was a very many lot of the times only in her mind - she let her heart crack open a little more and she filled it with as much love as she could muster. She could see herself in each scene, and she could see them, and she slipped into them and said directly to herself, you are beautiful, i love you, i am here. And she saw herself the way she had always wanted them to see her. And she let herself be seen. And she said to them I’m sorry.

And she cried for every time she every deemed herself unworthy because of the size of her body, the bags under her eyes, the thickness of her thighs, because of not being chosen by the person-du-jour here, because of being different, being not enough, being not the right person. As if there were such a thing. She was she. And she was the best she there was.

And if she wasn’t she she would not have met the people she had met, she would not have gotten to love the people she had loved whether they loved her back or not. She felt waves of anger and loving occur deep within her all at the same time. Anger that she had ever felt that way that she had ever forgotten who she really was. Love for all of the amazing miraculous people she had ever been lucky enough to call friend, to call family, to call lover, to call foe, to call ex, to call at all who would always eventually in their own unique way remind her.

And then she felt it. She felt it clear as day flowing through her, flowing out of her, flowing into her, flowing all around her. God. Love. An endless abundant river of light, an endless abundant river of love that encompassed all of her emotions, all of her fear and sadness and rage and ideas and notions and misbeliefs and visions and….all of it. Things that she hadn’t even thought of yet, people she hadn’t even met. This river absorbed it all and transmuted everything into the most glorious gold stardust and merged itself with the light pink clouds of unconditional compassion and then fell like snowflakes into her, melting into her skin and filling her entire body with a feeling that defied words.

“Everyday it’s a gettin’ closer,” she heard “going faster than a roller coaster.” And she knew it to be true. “Love like yours will surely come my way.” She knew it already had. And the tears flowed again. And she welcomed them.

She knew she would not be miraculously different when she walked out of that room. and she also knew growth was a process not an event. For one moment at the start of class she wanted to release every single thing from her past and leave the room as a completely new person. But now as she was staring at her true colors loving them, receiving love from them she knew she would never be anything other than completely her. The sum total of her parts forever blending, forever merging, forever growing with whatever was added to her simultaneously available blank canvas. Thank god.

And she was always open to the miracle. Like standing in her kitchen pouring hot scalding water over a little bag filled with mint, letting her memory visit a recent time when a soul friend would make her tea. When this friend loved her and nourished her heart. “Holy shit I love you.” she heard herself say for a moment mistaking these words as only for her friend. Very quickly though she realized that while yes, those words were for her dear sweet wonderful friend, they were also for her. Every I love you she had ever said, and my gosh has she said a lot of them, and every I love you she will ever say, and she knows there will be many, many more, is hers. They are for her. They live in her.

She stood in her kitchen and realized, there’s no such thing as goodbye, not really. It may be sad when you have to leave, or end something that is loved and that’s ok to be sad. But it doesn’t mean the thing leaves, the thing lives in me, the thing is me. I am the thing. Holy shit I love you. And she felt her belly fill, then her chest followed by the most delicious exhale. Smiling she let the hot water travel down her throat past her heart into her stomach warming her whole body and went to bed ready to see what the heavens had in store for tomorrow. Knowing no matter what it was, she had her breath and she had her love.  

PS for all those intrigued... http://revelationbreathwork.com/

Yesterday I slept...

Yesterday I slept. Literally all day. And to be honest, I didn’t do much more than that the day before, and frankly i don’t want to much more today. But I have to, so I will. I slept and I slept hard. And I could probably go to sleep again, right now after another full nights sleep.

I don’t think I am sick. Allergies maybe, hence my sleeping supplement which parenthetically worked leaving me pathetically paralyzed. God bless benadryl right? God bless all the things that help me numb out when I need to numb out. Because let’s be honest for a minute shall we?  

I know that numbing out long term is not the healthy option. I know that numbing out long term in some parts of the world, in some parts of my brain, in some parts of reality is actually called addiction. And I know that these days most of us are addicted to one, if not many things all at the same time. And that is not, by the way, limited to drugs or alcohol or Benadryl. There's TV, food, instagram, 12 step meetings themselves can be all consuming and addictive to the right addictive personality.

To me, addiction is anything that removes the ability to stay present to whatever emotions we may be feeling for an extended period of time. Anything that allows us to skip out on the hard human stuff for what we think will be forever. That's where I think it comes from. Ironically some of us, ok well I can't speak for others, but me, I am, addicted to sadness and existential angst. For me, for some reason, the good stuff in life feels hard and I know to some that might sound ridiculous but it's true. I have had a historical tendency to stay in my misery because… well there are lots of becauses but right now I am more curious about what would happen if I didn't try to avoid it. If I instead allowed myself to have all the experiences, including the occasional numbing.

After all, we don't get teeth pulled without lidocaine do we? We don't fix broken bones without anesthesia. Well not bad ones anyway. What if a little numbing was sometimes necessary? And don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting addiction, believe me. Anything in excess gets dangerous, anything mindless will most likely just result in it taking longer for us to get where our hearts want to take us. But what if, what if every now and then we needed to shut off? What if we needed to zone out? What if we needed to sleep?

Granted there's nothing like sleep. Sleep is the best. The Dalai Lama has said it's the best form of healing. But sometimes we can't sleep, especially in this day and age with all the stimulation coming at us from every angle. Sleep being my first choice of course, what if the occasional instagram scroll, or tv session was a second best to sleep? What if a night out was a third? What if mindless anything for just a moment was a needed for us to take a break and tap out for just a moment?

I do these things and berate myself for the next handful of days for being an awful human. The world's worst. If I were better I wouldn't have done that. If I were better I would have finished my novel by now. I would have jogged 3 miles every morning. I would be more honest to people in my world and be living a more aligned life rich with integrity and healthy choices. Clearly if I were better I would have the perfect body and a husband by now. I would have made all the changes I talk about ad nauseum instantly and be forever set up in the oasis that are my heartfelt dreams. If i were better….i wouldn't have slept away a whole day, no two!

Do you think a butterfly says this to herself? Do you think a butterfly curses the very chrysalis she has lived her whole life until that moment to build? On the stages of becoming a butterfly: “from the outside of the pupa, it looks as if the butterfly may just be resting, but the inside is where all the action is. Inside of the pupa the butterfly is rapidly changing.”

Consider for a moment that we need rest too. And yes sleeping may in fact be the healthiest choice. Far better that mindless behaviors but consider that we need to, literally need to, shut down for some time in order to gear up for change. Change which is by the way constant. Sometimes it's big and obvious. Sometimes it's soft and subtle. Sometimes it's by our choosing and sometimes it's slammed into us with what seems like no choice at all. How we respond of course, that is for us to choose.

Think about what we go through as humans. It’s truly spectacular. Birth, death, growing up, always growing up, falling in love, falling out of love, falling for the illusions of physical world reality, forgetting about the spiritual context, remembering the spiritual context, making friends, losing friends, finding four legged friends, losing four legged friends, broken bones, broken open hearts, bankruptcy financial and emotional alike, demolition, restoration, my god it’s endless. And every day the sun sets and the moon rises, and we theoretically sleep and wake up to do it all again. We are magnificent creatures and like the butterfly display our beauty in our way.

There are some big changes occurring in my life. I'm getting ready to make some big bold moves and people in my life, some of my favorite people, are literally moving. Others are navigating their own major life changes whether that is the arrival of a new baby, a new love, a wedding or the departure of a beloved, the ending of a job, the closing of a door. Their life changes of course affect our life which changes with every sunset and moonrise. It's the only constant, truly, and sometimes with change we need rest. Usually with change we need rest. And these days who actually lets themselves rest?

I do. And I will. And in the future I intend to do so consciously or at the very least once I realize I'm in it, allow it to unfold and trust that inside of me, all the action is happening, just like the butterfly. And today as I wake up, because I will wake up today and get out of bed, not because I have to but because I want to, I will slowly and carefully spread my wings and cherish whatever changes have occurred whether I can see them or not.

I will love the beauty that is living this human life for all of its moments and all of its ever changing ways and i will celebrate myself and you in any which way i can, even if it's just more sleep. 

the alphabet game

I woke up at 4:30am this morning, los angeles time, of course. 7:30am New York time, where I am from. I ended up thinking, surprise, surprise, but the thoughts were actually somewhat, well surprising. 

I ended up remembering, with the most enormous amount of joy, a game I used to play with my best girlfriends in high school. in new york, where I am from. It was called the alphabet game. we would write lengthwise on a piece of paper the alphabet and then lengthwise next to it a sentence, a line from your favorite song, a poem.... anything. It looked like this:

a i
b l
c o
d v
e e
f y
g o
h u

...but for the whole alphabet of course. then we would set a two minute timer and fill in as many names as we could. Famous people, fictitious characters, people we knew in common, whatever. The only rule was we had to have all known them or known of them. It looked like this: 

a i - amy irving
b l - bruce lee
c o - carol o'conner
d v - diane von furstenberg (kinda cheating but not really) 
e e - emilio estevez
f y - 
g o - georgia 0'keeffe
h u

My gosh we played that game for hours, over and over. We would not tire of it. Well, I specifically would not tire of it. It made me miss my girls, miss my childhood apartment, miss the innocence of those child hood days. It made me realize how many people I have loved and how many names I knew in my brain. It made me wonder how many names there were now as opposed to then. Shoot, I would probably ace that game now. I smiled thinking of my life gone by. I smiled thinking of the life to come. 

Then, my 4:30am/7:30am brain started to wonder about letters, and where they came from, and how we picked them, and what we would do without them. My grandfather wrote a whole book about the first greek alphabet. A small book but a book all the same. Funny to think we would wonder similar questions so far away from each other on the chronological timeline of things. All though relatively speaking, on the chronological timeline of of the alphabet, he and I are basically the same age. 

It's amazing what we have done with letters, with the alphabet. It's amazing what we can do, what we will continue to do. Think about it, as my brain started to do at 4:30am/7:30am. Can you let yourself wonder? Can you let yourself wander? 

Through a's and b's and c, d, e's.... really, I invite you, take a journey discover what we are. 

we are after all....

Amazing
Beautiful
Creatures
Doing
Everything
Fantastically
Growing
Humbly
Inquiring
Journeying
Knowing
Loving
Meaning
Never
Owning
Proper
Queen(and King)domship
Rarely
Sensing
(the) Truth
Universal
Value
Worth. 
Xeroxes
Yearning (for)
Zen.

not much to say...

Just thank you. Thank you for this life. Thank you for my friends. Thank you for my family. Thank you for the people who have been in my life and who have left my life.

Thank you to my aunt cindy for being who she was. Thank you to my parents for teaching me what they did. Thank you to my half-sister for letting me love her as a whole. Thank you to my Italian’s who know that cousin doesn’t even begin to cut it. Thank you to my godparents given and chosen for the spiritual direction and thank you to every single person I have shared blood with. my god I love you.

Thank you to the thirteen years of ethical education and every person who has moved into my heart since the day I met them, be they still very much in my life or long since gone. Thank you to my four years in eagle rock at that thing called college. Thank you to marijuana for taking me so far away from myself that I started my journey to get back. my journey that has morphed and continued and twisted and turned to take me to where I am right now.

Thank you to the extra weight I have carried on my medium framed body for all these years that has shaped my insecurities and behaviors more than almost any one thing. Thank you for showing me I am beautiful even if I have fought you tooth and nail to believe it. Thank you for your patience with me, my dear sweet body that houses my soul. My dear sweet body whom I would literally be nothing without. Thank you for showing me how strong I really am, what I am truly capable of. Thank you for showing me what it means to tap into the feminine mystique, the feminine wiles, the feminine softness, the feminine way, the feminine reception, the feminine truth, the truth of beauty. Real inside out beauty that exists in all of us and deserves to be colorfully paraded like a peacock’s plume.

Thank you to my Hollywood life, my night club days and my roommate nights. Thank you to the discovery of my soul family number one on Magnolia Blvd. Thank you to the two people who saw me more clearly than anyone else at the time and ushered me into a life I was always too shy to admit I wanted. Thank you to the souls who share the mark, the mark of the bua’s. A mark I am most proud to wear out loud on my sleeve, on my heart, on my soul. Thank you to the expansiveness of that world, the ability to become anyone, anywhere and write words performed so beautifully by people I love so tenderly.

It’s never what you think it is, anything can happen.

Thank you to my soul family number two who I met in that mothership we call 2107. Thank you to the Drs. Hulnick who showed me what miracles are, over and over and over again and reintroduced me to a God I forgot I had known all along. Thank you to the brave souls who traveled in this ship with me. Thank you for showing up and revealing and reveling and uncovering and discovering and allowing and expressing with all of the authenticity you could muster. Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for our connection, for our discovery of who we are as worthy women, as worthy humans.

Thank you to my soul family number three who I have shared a life with behind the purple curtain working through a curriculum and a karma that only we know, only we share, only we can claim. Each and every one of you has touched my soul ad infinitum. There are actually no words for the people, places and things that have happened to me since I said yes to this job. No words at all. Well, maybe thank you, and I love you.

Speaking of love, thank you to every man I have ever loved. Or even just lusted. Thank you to men, in general. Thank you for calling me forward in my womanhood. Thank you for inspiring me to become the best most whole version of myself so that I could attract the best most whole version of you. Thank you for breaking my heart and causing me to doubt and question my beauty, my worth, my cool. Thank you for opening the deepest of wounds within me so that I could see what was really there. So that I could look in the mirror and really see, really see what was there. And so I could love her.

Thank you to the men that are doing the work to really see, to really see who they are when they look in the mirror. and those who can say to themselves, I love you man. Thank you to the men who are working towards being that man and thank you to the men that are already there. Thank you to the men that have helped me to see myself as magnificent and delicious and impossible to get out of thier minds. And thank you to the man who I do not yet know who is preparing himself to share a life together in companionship, in partnership, in sexual communion, in growth, in loving.

And thank you to my friends who show up and light up my life more than anything I could ever begin to try to capture with these words. My friends who fill my heart so full I think it may burst. Old friends, new friends, long friends, short friends, other lifetime friends, adventure friends, couch friends, food friends, gym friends, road trip friends, breathing friends, healing friends, my god the list goes on and on and on……

Thank you to these eyes that have been able to partake of all this beauty. Thank you to these hands that have the ability to translate the rush of words that consistently and constantly flow through these arms into prose, into poetry, into art. Thank you to these ears that have been blessed to hear the amazing sounds of this earth from the silence of a Sunday afternoon to the deafening beats of a Pixies concert and everything inbetween. Thank you to this mouth that has been courageous enough to speak, to sing, to kiss. And thank you to this heart that has let all of these things in, and deeply. thank you to this huge, ever expanding, unbelievable heart.

And thank you to you. Thank you for reading my words. Thank you for receiving them. Thank you for considering even for just one second that you in fact are the same as me. We bleed the same, we breath the same, we feel the same. Our shapes and configurations are completely different but we are all made up of the same thing. We are all made of love. And I thank you for letting yourself tap into that divine truth for even just one second. I lose it all the time and I thank you for giving me this very reason to remember over and over and over again.

Ok, I was mistaken, I guess I had plenty to say ;)

inch by inch

I could have slept forever this morning. Truth be told, this is not uncommon. I often wake up wanting to go back to sleep. I love sleep. It's healing, its restorative, it's good. Some say during sleep we travel in realms unknown to our daytime eyes, our daytime minds. Some say we integrate our daily affairs and heal what wants to be unconsciously healed or that we release what wants to unconsciously be released. Some say sleep is a place where we can communicate with others at a different level than our daytime words, our awake words. I don’t know about any of these things, I like them, but I certainly can’t prove them. I do know, however, how much I love sleep and that for me, sleep is good.

This morning I woke up with a very distinct dream, or message, or download. And I can’t quite remember the specifics because, well because that’s the way these things go after all, but I will do my best to share what I do remember. I woke up with this statement running through my head… something like... and 9 by 10, each time a little, and always whether you know it or not, we grow.

9 by 10, each time a little, and always whether you know it or not, we grow.

And the context of the dream was an envelope and the envelope had grown an inch. And the context was that even when we are not looking, or if we cannot see it, that envelope grows every year. Somehow I knew it hadn’t always been a 9 by 10 envelope. Somehow I knew that it was a deeply comforting thing that this envelope had grown an inch. Somehow I woke up incredibly reassured and hopeful about my life, about your life, about the world.

As I went to start my day this message morphed and changed and I caught a tune while brushing my teeth which instantly made me smile. Pete Seger was a folk singer I grew up with, his voice is like salve to me. And with all that is occurring in my life, both inside and out, I welcomed this salve into my day and started humming it to myself. As I looked at my reflection in the mirror my eyes twinkled back and both my reflection and I giggled.

Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow…

And we stopped, my reflection and I, and we thought about this message, and we thought about our 39 years of life. And we smiled. Filled with bittersweet nostalgia and expansive hope at the same time, I thought, this is life. This is what is happening, this is what we are doing every single moment whether we like it or not. Growing. And if we fight the growth, we atrophy. if we resist it, we wither. if we ignore it, we become outdated and incapable of keeping up with the rapidly changing world around us.

Think about the fact that when I was 3 years old, answering machines were just becoming common in households all across America. What if we had fought that? And I am sure some people did. I am sure there are people out there with rotary phones that fill their empty hallways with ring after ring after ring. But in general we didn’t fight that, and now we all have smart phones, the majority of us. And the majority of us now have an emotional reaction when we can’t reach someone we love, or need, within 30 seconds. Why aren’t they answering? Where are they? Don’t they know I need them? I hope they’re ok??

Sometimes, like with this example, I wonder if we are growing in the right direction. But always I come back to the personal belief that growing is growing is growing and that is ultimately a good thing. Just like living is living is living. There are days when the grass is greener both in my own lawn and on someone else lawn. There are days when the grass is browner and it seems like it may never grown again. Both on someone else’s lawn and on my own lawn. And then of course, there are the days when I wonder if grass even ever existed in the first place.

And then I remember love. And as Lin-Manual said “love is love is love is love” and maybe, just maybe the opportunity is to sacrifice the notions of a right way and a wrong way to grow. There will always be polarity in the world. Like a battery, it won’t charge without a positive end and a negative end. Nothing would happen in the space between if both ends were positive or both ends were negative. It’s the combination that creates the energy that creates the charge that creates the life. We don’t judge battery’s for having two opposing experiences inside them at the same time... maybe it’s time to stop judging ourselves and each other for this as well.

Maybe it’s time to allow ourselves to have crappy moods and ecstatic moods. It’s ok, both are natural and both are allowed. It’s ok to be blue or angry or even a little stubborn from time to time. Just like its ok, nay necessary, for you to fall in love with who you are and scream it from the top of the rooftops (or mountains depending on where you live). It is ok, nay necessary, for us to question our own growth or stagnancy. And it's equally ok, nay necessary, to celebrate our own growth or movement out of said stagnancy. It’s ok to feel yourself any which way you do...go ahead and feel yourself, right here, right now. How do you feel? Whatever it is can you let it be ok?

It’s time to accept the what-isness and cover the whole damn thing with as much love as you can muster. And if you have ever read any of my musings before you know I know you are filled with love. It’s who you are. You are a beautiful, magnificent, wonderful, growing, being of love. You are, whether you know it or not, you just are. And so am I. And so is he. And so are they. We may not know it, we may fear it, we may have been taught a billion different things. For as many billions of brains that there are on this planet, there are an infinite amount of thoughts to believe and recycle and be consumed by or be inspired by.

The sun and moon always rise, the clouds come and go, the rain and snow and sleet eventually stop and nature, nature shows us the sturdiness, the constant slow and sometimes speedy pace of change, while always rooted in the cycles and rhythms of life. Waking and asleep. And I return to my dream, I return to my assured, calmed state as I peer out the window at the world around me. 9 by 10, we grow. It’s the most true thing I may have ever heard even though I don’t quite understand it.

Inch by inch, row by row…..

Inch by inch, row by row,
Gonna make this garden grow.
Gonna mulch it deep and low,
Gonna make it fertile ground.

Inch by inch, row by row,
Please bless these seeds I sow.
Please keep them safe below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down.

Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones,
We are made of dreams and bones
Need spot to call my own
Cause the time is close at hand.

Grain for grain, sun and rain
I'll find my way in nature's chain
Tune my body and my brain
To the music of the land.

Plant your rows straight and long,
Season them with a prayer and song
Mother earth will keep you strong
If you give her love and care.

Old crow watching from a tree
Has his hungry eyes on me
In my garden I'm as free
As that feathered thief up there.

-Pete Seger

sweet talk

It’s love day. It’s a day celebrating love. Love is the best. Love is my favorite thing ever. Like in the whole wide world. And dedicating a day to celebrate it? How wonderful! How incredible! How amazing! Only there’s this slight weight that comes with it for me. Oh I have tried to fight it, tried to ignore it, tried to embrace it, tried to numb it out, tried to hide it and myself underneath any cover i perceive as safe but, it remains. It’s not as strong as it was in my younger years which is, believe me, welcome. But last Friday, there it was, as clear and recognizable as ever.

Another Valentine’s Day, and I am alone.

Like a bee, a sweet beautiful, inherently purposeful and useful creature buzzing around, floating in my consciousness. Waiting, partaking of my sweet, happy-go-lucky nature, sipping of the wide-eyed and joy-filled days and nights. Spreading it even, the sweetness of me, the sweetness that people speak of and reflect back to me. This unsuspecting bee takes it in like the nectar of a flower and then...at always the perfect time...stings me.

Another Valentine’s Day, and I am alone.

And on this Friday I listened. That sting took me all the way down and in its own inherently purposeful way shone a brighter light on the places in my head where I am perhaps not being very nice to myself. The voices that keep the tape of unlovable running. The tape of unworthy and disgusting and too muches and not enoughs and you’re brokens and you’re never going to get it rights. Interestingly it’s moved on from thinking this is ever about the other, except for the fact that it’s entirely triggered by the other, but that’s just semantics.

No, I know it’s all about me to me. I know it’s all inside me. I know this tape, these voices, these sweet protective voices, are trained and habitual. They have not gone away yet though and perhaps even worse is the next round of self flagellation. The how could you still be here, the you know better than this, the what’s wrong with you, when will you let this go, why won’t you let someone in, why won’t you just believe that you are lovable?

Why won’t you just tell yourself a different story? A better story? A new fucking narrative?

And that’s when it got interesting. For the rest of the day I became hyper aware of just how negative my self talk was. Just how quickly I jumped to those tapes that had been running in my head for thirty nine years. Well, hopefully a little less than that, I am quite certain those tapes took time to develop. And i am beyond blame or trying to or needing to understand why these tapes seeded and where and how. I mean it’s not useless information to know but ultimately it doesn’t matter. The tapes are there and they’re running.

And for the rest of the day with every negative thought I began to wonder what it might be like, what might life be like, what might my life be like if I had an opposite response, an opposite thought running than the thoughts that sting, the thoughts that weigh down the issue of love when the issue of love becomes weighty.

And for the rest of the day, and the next, I questioned all of my thoughts. And then I questioned everyone else’s. I wondered, do all the people who are in couples have better inner dialogue with themselves? And I know that being in a couple is not the end all be all of our life's experience. I know that once I am coupled life will be equally as wonderful and equally as difficult. I know that a boyfriend or a husband or a child will not fix anything because i know there is nothing to fix. This I really know and yet…

Another Valentine’s Day, and I am alone.

And yet… I know this is not true. First of all, I am not alone. I am surrounded by the most wonderful people. It’s true. I literally have the best team ever. I have the most amazing support system that shows up as healers, teachers, friends, cousins, sisters, parents, godparents, pets, colleagues, bosses. Yes even my bosses are that amazing. I also know that I have a team from beyond. I feel my grandmother with me always, and my aunt, and my gene and toni, and I know they are hobnobbing with the archangels and ascended masters so no, I am not alone.

But even if I was, let’s say “alone”, in physical world reality as I am right now. Alone in my house that I heard filled with the laughter of children the moment I walked in to see it with my realtor. Alone in my office with my candle lit and my music blasting. Alone in my kitchen preparing a meal for one. Alone in my bathtub soaking in all the luxuriousness of who I am. My god I am not alone. I have me. I am there. And when I think about myself, as a baby, as a young girl, as a teenager, as a post graduate, as a young adult and now as a….well an adult… I have so much reverence.

Oh my gosh we have been through so much together me, myself and I. So many adventures, so many heartbreaking wide open moments. So many beautiful, sad, uplifting, disappointing, expansive, contracting moments. How could I have anything but unrelenting, unconditional, unwavering love for her? How could I speak to her in any other way? When I see that girl in the pictures my heart cracks open and I can feel the light shining through. She didn’t know. That’s all, she simply didn’t know.

But I do now. I know and I am gratefully and gracefully receiving reminders every day from all of my angels. And now is the moment to make a change. Now is the time to realize that that light that is shining through is and has always been there. And it’s always been beautiful and it’s always been lovable. In fact the only person who hadn’t been seeing it, and praising it, and reveling in it this whole time was the person looking back. And in fact the only person who she has ever wanted to see her in this way was and is the person looking back.

It’s me.

So, what if I changed the tape. What if from this moment forward instead of you’re too fat or not pretty enough or undesirable, I said, you are zaftig, strong as all get out and incredibly, in fact, undeniably sexy. What if instead of you’re not enough and never will be I said sweetie, you are so much more than enough. You are just the right amount all the time in every single moment. What if instead of I’m broken and don’t know how to be with men I said you are incredible and the right man will enjoy the hell out of you if he’s lucky enough to find you. And until then babe? You’ve got me. And I’m all in, all the time, from here on out until the end of time and then some.

And now I see it from a whole new angle. This whole time the thing that I have been trying to fight, the thing I have ignored, never really embraced, numbed out and hidden from is the inherently pure truth of who I am as love. And man, I love. The extent of the degree that I love is in fact who I actually am. I have been hiding myself. I have not been singing as loudly as I have wanted to in my heart. I have not been acting at all and I want to in my heart, all the time I want to. I am writing now and now I am starting to realize how important it is for me to share that. For in sharing all of these things I am sharing the love that I am.

And it’s him too, and her. It’s we, and they, and you…. Yes you. Yes, you are love too.  Love is my favorite thing ever. Like in the whole wide world. And I love love. So guess what, I love you. Love is the best. Love lights up the world. Love lights up our souls and connects us and reminds us that we are here to live out loud with each other, through each other, by each other and we are each of us individually love, perfect whole and complete love. And as such what if, what if we only tolerated sweet talk from here on out?

That’s right i’m inviting you to take the Valentine’s Day challenge with me. Love out. Love hard. Love strong. And let it start with you. Hold your own hand. Buy yourself flowers. Partnered or not. Stand in front of a mirror and stare deeply into the beauty of your own eyes, stroke your cheek if you like, caress your hips, but hold that eye contact steady and strong and then just sweet talk yourself as sweetly as you have ever sweet talked anyone in your entire life. Sweet talk yourself right into bed if you can. And then wake up and keep sweet talking yourself tomorrow. Make every day love day. Make every day you day. Are you with me?

Another Valentine’s Day, and I am so not alone.

people floor me

People floor me. Every day. Every day people open their eyes in the morning, or the evening, (depending on when they open their eyes) and they get up with brains full of thoughts and ideas. An earth full of creatures, and this particular race we call human, every day open their eyes and take their brains full of thoughts and ideas and live their days. Some of them full, some of them empty, all of them purposeful despite the fact that most of them are unaware of this purpose. Most of them are unaware of their inherent worth and value simply by just being here.

Perhaps back in the day they knew. Back before the earth was round. Back before religion became so political and politics was so heavily influenced by religion. Was there a time like that? Certainly not one I can remember. What I mean is, perhaps there was a time and space before iPhones and the internet, a time and space before television and print news, a time and space before Plato and Socrates even, before the Pharaohs and the let my people’s go.

A time and space before knowledge when there was only wisdom. Only the inherent truth of our human value. Of the value of all things on this magnificent place. Where people honored the sacredness of life and the sacredness of death. Where even if they had to kill someone or something, in defense or for food, they understood the weight of the action they were taking. It was never done cavalierly or without care or because of a difference in skin color or gender. A time before power plays existed and people looked into each other’s eyes and saw themselves. A time when people looked into each other’s eyes and saw god.

There were only delicious apples and snakes had very specific jobs. And everyone knew this. And appreciated from whence everything came. Perhaps they knew then, their inherent worth and value. Or perhaps they didn’t. I have no actual way of knowing do I? I like to think that this is what we are working towards though. I like to think, to dream, to imagine that once upon a time we knew it, maybe not all of us, but some of us, and that we are all working towards knowing it again. And when we discover it, even for the fleeting moments we get to discover it, we are in paradise, we are a living breathing oneness.

And in all those moments in between, we are 7 billion people who wake up every day, each with our individual thoughts and ideas about what is going on in the world around us. Each with opinions and positions and judgements about what and how we should all be living. And each person, like it or not, walks through their day projecting whatever it is going on in their brain onto the screen we call life. And sometimes it’s wonderful and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it's full, sometimes it's empty and most of the time, in fact always, it just is.

But every day we do it. And then we go to sleep and wake up and do it again and again and again. It floors me what we go through as a people. Death, birth, heartbreak over and over and over again, disappointment, ecstasy, uncontrollable laughter,  joy, creation, infinite creation, connection, infinite connection, hiccups, hunger, fullness, thirst, warmth, cold, discomfort, total relaxation, anxiety, rage, hurt, sadness, lust, love. My god the love.

My god the love.

This weekend I went to the symphony. I watched 120 people come together in total cohesion to perform a piece of music that was written almost 100 years ago based on a piece of literature that was written 422 years ago. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO YEARS AGO! Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet and all of the other masterpieces that capture almost, if not every single emotion a human can have, four hundred and twenty two years ago. We have been doing this for four hundred and twenty years. No, longer!

People, humans, have been opening their eyes for over 200,000 years. They say modern civilization is only 6,000 years old. So 6,000 years ago, on record, people started opening their eyes and having modern civilized thoughts. Whatever that means. We have all of us forever, well for 200,000 years, been evolving. This is an undeniable fact. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1595 and we have been recreating it ad infinitum ever since.

And when Dudamel was done conducting these selections of Prokofiev’s masterpiece, the entire concert hall was silent on bated breath, for fifteen whole seconds. For fifteen whole seconds, all two thousand of us were collectively quiet, waiting for more of this holy music that helps us each to transcend our thoughts and our minds. This holy music that somehow instantly brings us each to a source of life that we forget over and over and over again. This holy music that we had been witnessing 120 people come together to create, out of nowhere. Out of instruments that not only did some other human build but at some point in history, prior to this one, another human created.

Another human being conceptualized putting strings on wood and making sound. Making sound that echoed what I can only imagine some other human had figured out their body could make when they opened their mouth to, well I wonder what they called it then, but to sing. And when he turned around to signal to us that the music was indeed over the entire audience erupted in applause. A young man leapt to his feet so moved by the performance he had to stand. And we all stood with him because we knew how he felt.

A day later I was on my couch alone and I happened upon that giant sports event called the Super Bowl. Lady Gaga was singing and I swear I felt it. For at least 4 of the 13 minutes and 26 seconds that she was performing, we all stopped and we watched. Whether we liked it or not, I felt the country come together to partake of this 51 year old tradition which was sprung from a sport that is 125 years old. And 51 years ago people did something similar. And 125 years ago at the start of football they did something similar. And in 776 BC at the the first ancient Olympic Games, according to historical records, they prayed to pagan gods the way we all stopped and watched a woman fly through the air while singing, on key!

It’s the that moment of silence, it’s that moment of awe, that moment of transcending those thoughts and ideas that have been recycling themselves in our brains for 6,000 years and landing straight in the center of something we can’t explain but we know is true. Landing straight in the center of a divine wisdom that defies words or logical explanation. It’s a moment that happens all the time if we let it. It’s something we have all felt. It’s a supreme remembering and the fact that we do it as humans over and over again...

...the fact that we still after all this time, after no time at all, go to sleep and then open our eyes and then go to sleep and then open our eyes… My god it floors me.

I believe in us. Because of everything that has ever happened in the history of the world and in spite of everything that has ever happened in the history of the world, I believe in us. I believe in us so god damn much it hurts. It breaks my heart every day. It fills my heart every day. It floors me every day.

I love us. Because of everything that has ever happened in the history of the world and in spite of everything that has ever happened in the history of the world, I love us. I love in us so god damn much it hurts. It breaks my heart every day. It fills my heart every day. It floors me every day.

And so every day and i will aim to do my best, to do my very best to embrace the full and celebrate the empty and recognize myself as wholly and completely worthy. I will do my best to see that in everyone. And I will aim to remember that I am doing my best, and so is everyone, whether my ideas and opinions agree with this or not. This is the wisdom.

And every day I will open my eyes and I will say, floor me world, floor me. And every night I will close them and say thank you world, thank you. And then I will wake up and do it all again….

this is history

This is history. History in the making. This is the thing I keep chanting to myself. The thing that somehow manages to make me feel a little better in midst of the chaos of the day.

Here’s the truth, here’s a confession: I don’t know. I don’t know if everything is going to be ok. I don’t know what news sources to trust. I don’t know how to have an educated conversation with certain people in my life. In fact, I am down right scared to have conversations with certain people in my life about what’s occurring.

I hate feeling stupid. I hate judging someone else as wrong. I hate it any time things are not all tied up in a neat little bow. It makes me nervous, it makes me scared, it makes me shy. It makes me not want to speak up or share my voice or shine my light at all. So I try to read, I try to read articles to try and educate myself so that I can, at 39 years old, hold a solid opinion about what the fuck is going on around me.

But I just end up feeling stupider. And this is not a fun thing to feel. And my breath gets short and my heart races. My eyes widen and I reach out to people whom I trust to help me dismantle this overwhelming cloud of fear and confusion that has taken up residence in my space ever since my CNN alerts have started peppering my phone. I want to know when big stuff happens but are those alerts really helping me? I try to send light when I read them but is it really light sent if my heart sinks to the center of the earth each time? And does the light really go? Where? Where does it go?

And some people are doing so much more than I am. Should I be doing more? And some people are doing so much less. Should they be doing more? And frankly, if I were to be no holds bar honest with you, this whole thing goes against everything I stand for and know in my heart to be true.

Here is what I know. I know - yes I use the word know instead of believe because I know it, the way some know god, the way some know love, the way some know peace - I know that if we each and every one of us on this planet were to really own, acknowledge and become aware of who we are as inherently worthy loving divine beings using their human experience, we would not be treating each other this way.

I know people who know themselves as the love that they are. people who have moved out of needing anything outside of them to feel whole or secure or worthy or affirmed as a human beings. Those people can not be anything to anyone but kind. I know that deep down each and every human just wants that, to be treated with loving kindness. And when they are not, they feel hurt and scared. And when they feel hurt and scared, they act out.

I think, I have a sense that a lot of these hurt and scared people have their worth associated with external things and when those external things get threatened, they act out. I mean I certainly don’t have it all figured out and as much as I would like to pretend to be mother teresa, I’m not. I am sure, in my life, I act out. But never intentionally, it is never my intention to shun, exclude or be mean to another person.  

Perhaps this is why I can not figure out, I can not figure out how and where people can so easily tread all over their human brothers and sisters in the name of money, in the name of popularity, in the name of false security, in the name of perceived fear.

I get it, ISIS is real. It’s no fucking joke. And I don’t know what to do about it. And I don’t know how to fix it or tie it up in a neat little bow, I don’t think that’s even possible. ISIS is real, millions losing health care is real, a commander in chief who is quickly threatening my american democracy as I know it and seemingly spitting on the constitution is real. White privilege is real too yes and so is white supremacy. And I am sorry but with all my spiritual wherewithal, I can NOT get behind people treating each other this way. And I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know if there is anything I can do about it. It feel like, in all this, I don’t know anything at all.

And I have an opportunity to learn what I believe, what I think and what I know. I have that chance to take actions I find appropriate to what I believe in, like deleting uber or donating to Planned Parenthood, or marching, or not marching… and so do people who don’t agree with me. So do people who somehow somewhere in them feel justified in walking all over their human brothers and sisters in the name of money, of false security, of popularity and perceived fear.

We are, after all, in a very real way, despite the illusions, in this together.

We all bleed. We all shit. We all cry. We all have bones. We all have pain.  Feel your cheeks right now, feel that fleshy area underneath them, pinch it, hard. does it hurt? I want to ask people who think it’s ok to be unkind, to be hateful and discriminatory, on whatever side of the discriminatory fence they are on, if they hurt when someone cuts them. I want to ask them, do you bleed? Do you think your blood is more valuable than that of another’s?

When your mother can’t come home because she was born in a different country or your father gets killed in the name of having a different color skin, or a different amount of money in the bank, or a different religious affiliation, when your baby sister dies while trying to flee to a safer more peaceful place, do you hurt? And do you think that people deserve to feel that hurt? Simply because you don’t agree with them?

And I know it’s been worse. And it’s definitely been better. Border’s have been blending and bleeding into each other since the dawn of human existence. Rome burned while Nero fiddled. Empires have fallen over and over again. We are a young country and it would be wise to remember this at times. A very young country in fact. But this doesn’t make it easier, or better, or excusable and it certainly doesn’t make me any less confused.

And I know it’s more complicated than that but sometimes I wish it wasn’t. Often I wish it wasn’t Always I wish it wasn’t. And sometimes I actually don’t think it is. Be kind. It’s not that hard. Be kind to each other at all costs. Take care of yourself, take care of others. Don’t hurt yourself and don’t hurt others. Use it all to grow. Use it all to uplift. Use it ALL to evolve. Use it all to realize who we are. Use it all to wake up to who we are - love.

And it’s important to speak up, to shine, to share, to express, to discuss, to disagree even if it’s uncomfortable. That’s where growth comes from, that’s where art comes from, that’s where life comes from. I know there will be amazing art surfacing now, I know there will be amazing discourses and discoveries, I know it won’t always be like this and I pray to whatever god I believe in and whatever god you believe in that we can as a people, as a worldwide people, find a common ground and build its foundation on kindness. My preference is loving kindness, but if we can’t agree on loving let’s at the very least agree on kind.

And let’s agree on taking some time and taking some care and taking some space and getting some altitude and thinking of one another as we would want to be thought of and working together as we evolve and take each step forward. Let’s do it from love. Let’s love each other so hard, and be so radically kind to each other that the world won’t know what to do with itself but to match us. This is what I want to see and I don’t have a clue how to get there except for starting with myself. So I love. I love me and I love you. And I will trust, I will pray, I will believe,  and I hope that someday I will know. Because this is history.

This is history in the making. And the thing is, while we still can, we are the ones who are tasked to make it.

And as she did...

There she stood, tall, strong, grounded in her truth. She knew what she had to do but she was scared to do it. She knew what she stood for and what she believed in her bones, what she knew in her bones, but acting on it meant breaking free from what was perhaps her biggest, baddest, oldest behavior pattern that had historically saved her. Now, it only held her back. So there she stood on the edge of her metaphorical cliff.

There she stood on the edge of the cliff, staring out over the Los Angeles skyline. Downtown to the left, the pacific to the right. She inhaled deeply considering the last twenty plus years she had spent in this city, away from her home, away from her family, having tried to break the pattern so many of those years ago. And she had, broken it, much of it anyway. She was not necessarily living to please the way she used to. Certainly not as co-dependently. Certainly not as externally validated.

Not as. Because as she stood at this cliff staring out over her city, she could not help but become aware that she was doing it again. It was less painful she was able to recognize, though that didn’t make the pain feel any less real. And it was a shorter time frame too, which she recalled was the measure of actual growth according to her old therapist who she had been meaning to e-mail for years. The sky was blue again, for the first time in days. Rare for Southern California. It had been raining, a lot, which had been an appropriate reflection for the internal storms brewing inside of her.

She kicked a pebble off of the cliff and listened as it hit each edge on its way down. The impact the tiny pebble had on its journey to the bottom was not lost on her. Pointedly stopping to make it’s mark on each exact spot of the giant mountain. She wondered where it landed and peered over a little too close for comfort, loosening more dirt to fly to the bottom of the ravine.

Why did these pebbles land where they landed and how did they pick each perfect spot to hit? She thought about her life and the world around her. How are there so many billions and billions of pebbles? And why do certain pebbles end up in certain places? Is it all a game of random chaos or is there a bigger plan, a bigger picture? Why out of the 7 billion pebbles on this planet did I end up being in the same orbit as the pebbles I orbit? She frowned.

And what do these pebbles have to tell me? What is their purpose? And why, god, why am i so scared of taking this leap? Fear? Fear of the unknown? Fear of letting go of the comfort I know and walking into something that I do not? Fear of making a mistake? Fear of experiencing the pain of disappointment? Of embarrassment? Of abandonment? Of shame?

She knew the pebbles were screaming at her begging her to jump. But how could she when so many people she loved were suffering? How could she actually go for it when so many people were facing so many desperate times which everybody knows calls for desperate measures. How could she ask god to help her? How could she step through her fear, shame, embarrassment and really ask for what she wanted when…..

A giant gust of wind blew up from behind her and her balance was knocked. Her heart rate quickened and her breath left her, but only for a moment. She knew the answer to that and she knew that if she stayed with her feet planted firmly where they were for very much longer she would wither, weaken and dissolve into the nothingness from whence she came.

Everybody’s scared, everybody’s embarrassed, everybody’s disappointed and everyone fears abandonment but no one is ever, ever alone, because we always have ourselves. Those things are myths, oh they feel real, they feel very, very real, let us not be naive. But they are myths all the same. And the only thing to do, the only thing for any of us to do as pebbles so naturally do on their own, it be so fully and wholly and unapologetically ourselves that it gives others permission to do the same.

With kindness and respect and reverence for this crazy, mixed up, un-understandable human experience, of course, always. Kindness, respect, reverence for each other as brothers and sisters of the same race all with blood that pumps and hearts that break, wide, open and bleed. My god this life is short and why would we do anything but live it? Fully? Boldly? Openly?

She could feel a smile crawl across her mouth and her palms began to sweat. She knew, she had always known. And she was aware not everybody did. Not everyone knows what their passion is, what their god given gifts, what their purpose on this earth rock is. But she did. She knew her biggest purpose was to awaken to herself as love, as is the purpose for all things, pebbles included. And she knew her purpose was to shine bright, as bright as she could bringing her words into fruition, onto the page, into the light.

Her eyes filled with tears as she thought about all the people who supported her, all the people who loved her, all the people she had loved. So much depth, so much laughter, so many tears and years of watching, listening and growing. Years of releasing and dissolving the old to cultivate and fertilize the new. But her land was ripe now, it needed mulching, it needed tending to and she knew, she knew there was only one way to do it.

So she took another deep breath in, and a few steps back. Then, after pausing a moment to really feel her feet firmly on the ground, taking a running start, she jumped.

And as she did, she held out her arms and felt the air blow through her hair. And as she did, her arms expanded and grew and caught the wind in the most delicious ways. And as she did, she flew. And as she did, she knew there was no turning back, she couldn’t even if she tried. It was forward motion now. Only forward, only bright, only real, only honest, only true. And she would respect her truth and she would respect the truth of others. And she would live and she would love. And she would continue to, as often as she could, fly.

And she would invite all those she loved to fly with her. She would invite them to forget about embarrassment and shame, to forget about hiding or living half lives. She would invite them all into her technicolor because they all deserved to live it. Every single thing deserved to know this feeling and she would lead by example and walk in love and show the world it could be done. Because if she could do it…

And she landed gently on the ground again, exhilarated, let in on the world's best secret, ready to run to the top of the mountain, scream it out loud for all to hear and do it all again. But before she did, she looked down and at her feet, perfectly placed, waiting for her, was the pebble. She laughed because she had to, put it in her pocket and started up to the top of the mountain again.

There was much work to do and she was ready to do it.

i'm sick...

I’m sick.

It’s tuesday and I’m sick. Nope, not sick and tired, though there is plenty I am sick and tired of, just plain old sick. It came on Sunday afternoon and this is day two I am missing from work. I do not need to be hospitalized, I am not on my way to urgent care, there is nothing broken or out of the ordinary about what is occurring in my body. I am just good old fashioned, prep the tea, warm the soup, fluff the pillows, grab the kleenex sick.

And I feel so, so - oh my gosh there must be something incredible wrong with my psyche, how could i let this happen, what am I even doing with my life anyway, what is the universe trying to tell me, what are my employers thinking of me, what is my trainer thinking about me, what does this mean - guilty.

And this happens every time I get sick. Any kind of sick.

And it makes me question, everything. Am I in the right place? Am I doing the right things? Have I gotten sick because I am doing all the wrong things and making all the wrong choices? Has every choice i’ve ever made been wrong? If I were a better person this wouldn't happen to me. If I were more aligned with my inner desires, because me getting sick must mean i’m not, right?

It must mean that all of the things I wanted to do, all the actions I was gearing up to take, everything about my decisions was wrong, right?

Or does it mean I don’t care about my life? It must mean I am depressed and apathetic. Or just pathetic. Because if I cared more, if I was a happier person, this wouldn’t happen. And if I were a better person I would just suffer through it. I bet Obama never gets sick, or Oprah, I bet they never got sick. And if they did they probably just drugged up and carried on.

Never mind we are coming up on the year anniversary of my beloved teacher, best friend’s, gosh there really aren’t words to describe her, transition. Never mind that a year ago while that was going on I got bronchitis and was laid out for ten days in grief manifesting physically. Never mind that i miss her every single day and likely still in a very real stage of grieving. No I must be making that up. That must just be an excuse. That’s not real, these feelings aren’t real.

The deep amount of weeping I have been doing for her and her husband my other teacher, friend, there are no words… that’s just pansy behavior. And the profound and rooted realizations about where my life is and where I want it to go, the fear I have been facing on what it would mean to make those changes, to take those risks, that’s not real either right? and the awareness of the giant impact my teachers had on my soul and the giant gaping hole they left when they left? these things are all just fabricated justifications for why I have succumb to some infection that has attacked me, right?

But what if….

What if I was just sick? What if my body, soul, mind and heart just needed some time to sleep? To rest? To slow it all down so much that there was nothing to do? Nothing I could do? Even if I wanted to? What if all there was to do was be flat, prone, savasana and let each moment pass over me like a cloud does over the sun? Like the storms we just had in LA passed through our city?

And what if, like our city, I was left cleaner upon allowing this to pass through me? Not fighting it, just surrendering to the sleep, the stillness, the rest? I did not surrender last year. I fought it tooth and nail, coughing fit after coughing fit, which is probably precisely why it lasted ten days. Well, that and the nature of grief.

What if in this moment in time, for some reason totally unknown to me, it was the most important thing for me to stay still, to let someone bring me soup and tea, to listen to my 16 year old kittens purr louder than the sounds of construction across the street, and to be available to the tremendous amount of wisdom, dreaming and what very clearly feels like healing taking place.

Healing i don’t understand. Healing I don’t have to understand. Healing I couldn’t possibly understand even if i tried. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this isn’t the case for everything. Every single little thing that happens. Maybe everything has in it, like a pearl in the oyster, a healing. A healing we don’t have to understand, a healing we couldn’t possibly understand if we tried.

And i don’t have to fight it. In fact, perhaps fighting it makes the healing take longer. Like picking a scab. Maybe I can just really let all of the harsh self judgements go. Because, come on, I know they're not true! and the guilt? maybe i can just really let all that go too. It's not really serving anyway. And I am not saying i don’t get to keep stretching and learning and growing and expanding but maybe, just maybe I can let go of the fight. Or change my definition.

At the gym, when I am going for a PR (personal record) my coach says “good fight”. I am fighting for something, I am fighting FOR myself to hit a record in order to get stronger. But I am not fighting against anything. I suppose if I had to say I was it would be against my weakness but not in the judgmental, negative, degrading way. They also say at my gym “fail better”. To me this means keep fighting the good fight. Keep going for growth, skating your edge, expanding your awareness of what you can and cannot do.

So today, instead of fighting the inner battles and judgements of my own tired, worn out brain I am going to fail better. I am going to be the best sick I can be. I am going to sleep, drink tea, sleep, maybe read if I have the energy, listen to purrs, drink soup, sleep, and recover the way that my body is asking me to do. It clearly has an agenda I am currently not in control of anyway.

And I will grieve better too, I will cry as hard as I need to whenever I need to about all the things I need to cry about for the rest of my life. And yes, I am pretty clear I will be crying about Gene and Toni for the rest of my life. It's ok. And I have a sneaking suspicion that releasing my judgement about it and letting the tears out will in fact prevent the paralysis I am trying to avoid by not doing it in the first place which seems to set in anyway whenever I attempt not to feel or cry instead. 

And I will do all of this regardless of whether or not anything else is going on, whether it is deep healing on all levels or simply the eradication of some germs I picked up out there living my perfectly imperfect life.

Sometimes, I am making it up, sometimes it does happen when something is misaligned, sometimes I know I need rest but can’t ask for it myself. Sometimes it’s all of the above and sometimes it’s none of the above. And none of it makes me a better or worse person.

Because sometimes, sometimes we just get sick. (even Oprah.)