My Tent on The Beach

The funny thing about insight is that I can have it firmly in my grasp one moment and the next thing I know it’s poof, gone.  What the hell?

Today I want answers.  I’ve been trying (and actually succeeding) about being more Zen about accepting what’s coming at me and living with decisions and, while I vaguely remember that, the actual content of those insights is incredibly gone from my head.  It feels like I’m back at square one today.

And here’s why.  This always happens to me.  At the point I was having insight, everything was theoretical.  No changes happening.  Today the changes are real…I’ve hit those “markers” of time that I set weeks or days ago and now it’s real.  Before it was an idea.  Today it’s anxiety.  I guess it’s good to have the insights first…at least I can harken back to them and no matter how crazy they sound now, at least I know I thought them and that I do possess the ability to think them again…if I try…real hard.

Change is hard.  Uncertainty is hard. Working to fight a knee-jerk panic reaction is very hard.  And while I know that what’s transpiring here today–school-related, friend-related, me-related–will absolutely work out in the end…

…today it feels not good.  And the challenge is working through…

My horoscope continues to be right on. And it’s starting to really creep me out.  But, in the weirdest way, I’m learning an interesting lesson.

My horoscope has magically discussed the fact that there’s been a friendship in negotiation over the past week.  This is true.  It also commented on the fact, last week, that I shouldn’t question the change; all would be for the best in the end.  I seriously agreed with that and, frankly, it was what I needed to hear…desperately…thus, I’m willing to listen to my horoscope to hear it.  I know it’s the right thing but in that moment in which the questions happen, it’s hard to keep a firm grip on that.

However, the commentary this week has turned to accepting the distance and letting go of worries about it.  That it’s the space between in which growth happens.  I agree with that too but, once again, I’m thrust (yes I used that word) up against one of my greater fears.  I would love the ability to go ahead and get lifetime guarantees on friendships.  Just sign on the dotted line, thank you, and I’ll be good to go.  Without that to question, I could conceivably proceed happily through whatever comes my way.

Of course, that’s completely untrue…in all cases, forever.  I’m completely aware that lifetime guarantees–even on material things–are a red herring.  We never can assume anything will be forever…in fact, Tom (my guru of sorts) constantly says to me “Everything will fall apart.”  It’s inevitable that things will just always change.  And if I really sat down to think about it, I’m not sure I’d want a lifetime guarantee on anything…because it only supposes what I know right now to be true.  And I’ve actually experienced the joy and wonder (and also scariness) of watching my entire world upturned in about one second.  We cannot guarantee the permanence of anything in this world…because this world itself isn’t permanent…and that’s good.

Because I can say that, I do wonder why I continue to want permanence.  I know I can’t have it, it’s not realistic, and that I really don’t want it…and yet in this moment it would be so nice to have…or so I think.

I think I’ve confused stability for permanence…and that’s be absolutely nothing but trouble.  I have stability; my day to day life is just as predictable as everyone else’s.  I can take comfort in that, just like everyone else.  And when I do, and let go of that idea of seeking something permanent, I can and do breathe better.

But what came into clear relief for me when I did accept my own stability is that I’m not necessarily happy with what I see there.  I think my problem is not permanence but contentment and that means only one thing:  time to clean out the closets (the figurative ones…although the real ones are often a sign of the figurative) and get proactive in getting the kind of stability I want.

With space comes the room to move.

Time to move.

Confession: I pay attention to my horoscope.

I know, I know.  It sounds awful.  In the best possible light it can be it sounds new agey and crunchy-granola-esque.  On the worst side, it just sounds like I’m giving weight to pure hokum.  I have no answers for you; there’s just something about it I’ve found fascinating for years.  I probably don’t consider it totally out of whack just because a whole portion of the ancients (the ones we like to forget existed like the Egyptians and Incans…the tribal folks) had it work for them.  It only doesn’t make sense in the post-Enlightenment world which embraces scientific rationality.  And listen, it’s based on the stars and their natural cycles through their orbits…so it’s the same brand of hokum as biorhythms and some of the more Eastern practices of medicine and wellness.  It’s a spirituality which Christians can be awfully judgy about.

Anyway, this is not intended as apologetics for astrology.  I don’t base my life or decisions on it–the same as I don’t pray for financial stability or seek answers to very practical questions in church.  BUT, I do find comfort in it sometimes and today’s really works for me.

Earlier I wrote about the Inevitable.  I still stand by everything I said.  But it’s funny how time further and further away from a moment of intensity or renegotiating or the inevitable becomes more tenuous.  In the moment, I had a grip on what was going on.  It’s been a couple days now since that intense moment and the grip is gone and I’m alternating between frustrated and angry, between hopeful and despondent.  I’ve found some comfort in distraction but distraction is a tool of the Hunker Mentality.  “Just don’t think about it,” you tell yourself…and nothing gets solved…you just wait for the feeling to pass without really feeling it. Experiencing the inevitable introduces other inevitables…ones you hadn’t thought about…and all of those are changes.

So, in yoga this morning I was asking the Great Expanse for some answers…guidance actually.  And what came back to me was: Don’t Question it.  Stop asking questions.  Stop trying to find answers.  Just be with it.  Truly, I was overjoyed hearing thing.  It made sense and felt good–a rare combination–because I think it taps into a Truth we can lose track of: thinking there are answers is a ruse.  There aren’t answers about the future; all we have is now, which, if we’re experiencing it, is being answered now. No need for questions.  I felt a wave of relief, hanging out there in Warrior I, a wave of power and resilience.  “I can not question it,” I breathed to myself. “Yes, I can…Si se puedo.”  And then I walked off the mat, out of that studio, and lost the moment.  Lost the magic.  Questions, questions, questions for miles around.

So, here’s the kicker about my horoscope today.  I came to school to get some work done and enjoy some AC (as it’s back up near 90 again today here in tropical Chicago) and as I sat down at the computer I just thought to myself, “I need a little inspiration.  I’m not sure where to find it.”  Of course, as part of my “I’m going to think about writing” ritual, I checked Facebook for all the good dirt and my daily horoscope was there. Lo, it said:

The stormy arguments and narrow attitudes that have been coloring your home or working world come to an end soon; and all because you finally put some healthy boundaries in place.It’s a day when logic and pragmatic decisions need to take priority. After the day’s work is complete, a little self-indulgence is in order. A confidence that no matter what happens today, it will all work out for the best. Having some faith in yourself and others is exactly what will make that come true. Any long term plans with your partner that will benefit you both in the near future is best worked out together today, rather than as a surprise.

Surprisingly, it’s what I needed.  Because this whole week has been about making boundaries (even the syllabus I’m writing for my culture class is filled with discussions of creating boundaries and why that’s important).  And the second part was my realization from yoga today; while I don’t have “a partner” necessarily, my life is shared in a lot of directions.  It was a relief to read it; whether or not it’s “true” or “predictive” (which I don’t think it is), I felt vindicated in my insight this morning, which is really all I needed.  A little validation from the Great Expanse itself.

Thanks Great Expanse.  And by the way, when did you get on Facebook?

I spend a lot of time on “waiting:” I myself wait for things to transpire, for people; I reflect on whether or not I should wait; I wonder if waiting ever does any good.  Given the number of years I’ve felt like this has become a kind of mantra, I’m becoming convinced that waiting is more a symptom of a particular kind of worldview as opposed to action.  Waiting almost seems antithetical to action; it’s non-action; it’s….waiting.

As I get older (and one would hope wiser…which I always think is the actual purpose of thinking about age at all–as a mark of life experience) I’m beginning to see waiting less as a courteous gesture on my part (I’ve always approached it like, “I’ll just sit here and wait til you get your shit together…don’t you worry about me.”) and more of a hunkering down–steeling myself against whatever kind of roiling storm is headed my way.  The bigger the storm, the harder I hunker.  I have a “wait it out” mentality…and I think I always have.  It’s how I’ve made it through just about every phase of my life.

But I think I’m becoming a cautionary tale for the hunker mentality; I have a really horrible relationship with the inevitable and as long as time is the mode by which our lives play out, inevitability is always going to be there.  The truth will out in the end…always…(by the by, I’ve never quite understood the grammar on that phrase yet this is how it’s used…a question for the ages).  And actually, when I push past what is a debilitating hunker impulse, I’ve watched the experience of inevitability work itself out.  Or at least present new opportunities that appear to materialize out of thin air.

This reflection is brought to you by the letter “I” and a conversation I had with a friend yesterday.  It’s a conversation that’s been long overdue…as I count it, it’s been about a year and a half since things have been “right.”  We’re both hunkerers so the unbearableness of the present was enough for me to finally draw a line in the sand and polish off my dueling pistol; said friend showed up with dueling pistol in hand…it was bigger than I expected. And thus I was swept into the inevitable, partially by my own hand and partially by the wake of my dueling partner’s efforts…and I couldn’t stop thinking, “This is it; the moment I’ve been dreading…I didn’t think it would look like this.”

It wasn’t an easy day.  It won’t be an easy week.  After that the stings that are there will fade.  My new reality will become “every other day” and everything will resume forward motion at its own pace and with new questions daring me to find new answers.  But in the midst of all of that, I couldn’t stop thinking two thoughts: I didn’t think it would look like this and How did this happen? I’ve felt alternating waves of guilt, then anger, then a simple old-fashioned giving in.  I kept wondering if the hunters and gatherers ever came to this point.  Inevitability was at my door and I just had to let it come in.

I didn’t think it would look like this. And today, it’s not a bad thing.  That’s the weird part about this inevitability; I can breathe today in a way I haven’t for a long time.  I can focus on what I need to do to get my work and, in a lot of ways, my life on track, a focus that was falling by the wayside. But mostly what’s missing is the worry associated with “what will happen when the inevitable comes?”  I’ve seen the inevitable…it was at my door…and in that moment it was okay for it to come.  And with it it brought Hope, Opportunity, and Peace of mind.  Also in it’s entourage were Hurt Feelings and Bruised Ego; those guys are nothing but trouble so I asked them to go. I can still see them poking their heads up over the windowsills, trying to peer in.  At least they can only look.

I’ve spent some quality time with Inevitable and I think there might be a spark of something there.  I didn’t offer him a beer or pull up the coffee table so he could rest his feet. But then, he didn’t ask for it.

Maybe someday.

This is what the world can look like if you let it.

I’ve been really scattered lately.  Sometimes I notice that when my blog entries fall of it’s for usually one of two reasons: either I’m overwhelmed by ideas and can’t decide which one to pick that day OR I’m underwhelmed by my entire life and I’d rather stab my eyes out with hot chopsticks than keep thinking about it.  Thankfully, the recent problem has been the former. My brain has actually been “whizzing” around…stuff’s getting started and I’m thinking in 27 directions.  In the past I would just consider that busy; but I’ve actually been having inspiration in 27 different directions…thus the Thousand Points of Light. That’s a literal reference.

I think I’d be robbing you of the experience if I didn’t include a couple gems just to illustrate my point:

*I’ve been thinking all day about the dream I had in which I met Bernadette Peters at my local McDonalds for lunch.  Then we met Elaine Stritch across the street at Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee.  I’ve spent hours just on this one dream.  I’m both fascinated and a little proud that these women are in there.  Nice.

*I had a “breathing” realization the other day; all the time I think I’ve been breathing deeply…I actually had about 1/4 more room than I thought because I was holding my neck muscles so tight.  So now I’m really breathing deeply and I wonder what all that extra oxygen is doing to me.  Maybe the thousand points of light I’m seeing are actually warning me that I’m ready to pass out from over oxygenation.

*I was talking with Anna, my jewel of a yoga teacher (Anna Schabold, YogaNow North…check her out), today after class and she said the most amazing thing: that we experience the world physically and mentally and emotionally at the same time. [Pause for mind blowing.] I realized I’ve worked pretty hard to separate the two out.  So, every time I’ve experienced pain caused by my physicality (whether it be spraining my ankle or being rejected because of my physical being), I’ve only just “shut off” or isolated the pain.  You rehab the ankle or strengthen the tendon, but what do you do for the emotions that come with that?  I’ve done zero.  Thus, today I’m a mess.  Similarly, when I have emotional or mental stress (this &#*$ing graduate degree), I isolate it there and forget about the physical toll.  It was actually the latter that led me to yoga (b/c my hips and shoulders were killing me) but I think the bigger work that lies ahead for me is reconciling all of the pain my physical body has caused…and releasing it.  I shake like a leaf when I’m doing yoga…huge trembling waves…(it actually looks totally nuts…like a giant muscle spasm)…and Anna’s always like, “don’t come out of the pose…the trembling will stop…it’s energy being broken up and being released”…and by god if it doesn’t stop eventually.  Then of course, my muscles are burning like a raging fire, but no more trembling…and that’s when the work can really start. Anna and her crazy forrest yoga are changing my life. That’s like a supernova point of light.

*I want to Feng Shui my apartment.  Turns out that’s easier said than done as I can’t control the layout of the windows and doorways which apparently is central to the whole thing.  However, I’ve spent time Feng Shui-ing my bedroom and, as crazy as it sounds, I feel better.  I do.  I’m trying to comprehend this change while still trying to figure out how to reconcile all the dairy I eat which, supposedly, blocks energy.

*I saw the move Inception Friday night and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the rare movie that caught my imagination and will not let go.  Now I walk around wondering if people are trying to plant thoughts in my dreams.  Maybe Bernadette and Elaine aren’t so random after all.  Maybe they’re using inception to suggest I need to go to New York and see them together in that show.  Or maybe, they’re telling me that McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts ain’t so bad after all.  Either way, I’ll tell ya, if Thomas Hardy is the one behind the inception, he can root around in my dreams all he wants.  That, in itself, is a dream.

See.  That’s just 4…I have hundreds of these ideas running through my head all at once.  But they’re positive, so I’m not going to work especially hard to quiet them down. It’s sometimes nice to see light, even if it is whizzing past my eyes in the style that the “Big Wheel” on the Price is Right whizzes around (thankfully, my thoughts don’t make that beeping noise or I’d go permanently insane).  I’ve been futz-ing around in the dark so long that I can say for sure that futz-ing in the light…infinitely better.

Today is one of those days.  You know the kind…my brain is just churning out a lot of thoughts that are good but really disjointed.  So, for instance, as I was waiting for my post-yoga raisin toast to prepare itself via the magic toaster this was my train of thought:

I wonder why yesterday the toaster burned the toast and today, without touching the toaster or doing anything differently, the toast is perfect? Where did I leave my flip-flops? I wonder if an all-girls high school education actually made me more masculine than many men I know? I should take a shower. Almost done with IRB. That breeze is cool. I wonder how other people experience pain?

Literally…that was in two minutes.  I walked home from yoga this morning; it took about 25 minutes and I had a lifetime’s worth of conversation with myself.  Going in 25 directions.  Whenever this happens I feel the distinct need to write everything down as quickly as possible.  There could be good nuggets of something in there which only time will reveal.  But despite this mental chattering, there was one thought I kept coming back to, I think because it didn’t originate in my brain.

In the 2 or 3 moments in between crazy shooting thoughts, I actually felt compassion.  I’ve been reading this book by Pema Chodron called The Places that Scare You and I assumed it would be a lot about fear.  It’s actually more about the opposite of fear, which as it turns out, is compassion.  Who knew?  Maybe this is where I’ve gone wrong all these years. Here’s a picture just in case you want to read (and you really should…what else are you really doing?)

Anyway I usually don’t feel ideas; I think about them, dissect them, think more about them, start to worry about them, get anxious about them, then am exhausted and can’t sleep.  That’s usual.  But, I’ve really been working on “heart opening”–I interpret it more as willing myself to feel things rather than approach them intellectually.  It’s given more dimension to my ideas; we all think a lot about love or anger or hurt.  We ultimately want to manage them, so we approach them as events and then get a plan to deal with them.  But I’m learning that if we feel them, they actually have textures…things we can grip onto a little bit and push our edges.  In other words, I think I’m learning that if we feel things, we can grow in ways that thinking about them cannot approach.

But, back to compassion.  So, I think “heart opening” is working a bit.  I was practicing feeling compassion which isn’t empathy or sympathy.  In those, we place ourselves in the shoes of others (sympathy) or recalling when we’ve actually shared the experience of another (empathy) and felt with them.  Compassion, I think, is the following step.  In compassion we stay in our own shoes, recognize the place of another (be it filled with suffering or joy), and then love them as only we can.  It’s not sharing the experience; it’s just opening our arms and loving, regardless of what happens to us or what we’ll get out of it.  I think compassion is the act of giving away love unconditionally.  We always approach that idea from the receiver’s end…I haven’t really even imagined what it feels like to give it.  I think it’s a good thing.

So this is what I’m feeling about today.  Even writing this down has slowed the chatter.  And it makes me think that in order to give this…dude, you gotta tap into a kind of strength that you just have to trust you have…because I think it’s tough.  You may hurt in the process.  But its completely worth it, I think. I mean, I feel.

Ha-HAH. Caught myself there.

So I think it would be fair to say that this spring was a tough one.  Use whatever metaphoric imagery you like, it was long and full of bumps in the road.  Doors were slamming and no windows were opening.  Mountains kept popping up left and right.  I ended up on a very stuffy mountain range of problems.  And of course in the cosmic scheme of things, my problems were relatively small.  Was I starving? No. Was I homeless? No. Did I have no shoes?  No.  Was I even walking to school uphill both ways?  No.  But while I appreciate the fact that my life could “function,” I was “less” in a lot of ways.  Vision-less, hopeless, sleepless, restless.  And some of these still persist today, but certainly not to the acute degree or the breadth that they did just several months ago.

I attribute the change to a couple things but most centrally…yoga.  It wasn’t so long ago (2 months, actually) that I regularly started taking yoga classes (not half-heartedly doing DVDs in my dining room…which I refer to as my ‘yoga studio’).  Somehow, the interaction with a teacher and other students began to work away at some of the anxieties that had built to the point of all of my ‘lesses.’  And in a way that doing yoga “at the gym” as a “workout” could never touch.  A return to the breath–the present moment–was and is the most holistically therapeutic thing I’ve ever done.  So much so, that I feel it has spurred “returns” in other places that, frankly, I thought were long gone.

“What the hell are you talking about Katie?” you must be thinking.  I understand that…the notion that enduring the burning, searing pain in my hamstrings created by a forward bend or working through the panic that arises right in my throat when I maneuver my way into a handstand or headstand could actually manifest itself in very real ways outside of the yoga studio (in this case, not my dining room) seems bizarre and crunchy-granola new agey (this is my own system of classification, just for the record).  But here’s how I’m seeing this work out:  old friends I haven’t spoken to in years have popped back up in moments that I really needed them.  (What freaks me out is that if I think real hard about it, it almost seems like I’ve “summoned” them to me…I know, I know…I’m in a panic about it myself.)  School which was an absolute albatross in February has returned as a true interest.  My financial situation–always tenuous at best–that was positively dire three months ago has positively worked itself out…and not just as a “hey I got a job at Best Buy” type of scenario but as a “hey I’m a fucking sociologist…now pay me to teach it” kind of way.  (Again, if I look hard, the Universe has clearly…CLEARLY…steered me back into the classroom in a very definitive way…and has arrange a payment system that is better than I’ve ever encountered before.)  I’ve been granted closure in the situations that were tearing me apart emotionally.  I’ve been granted insight into the most difficult challenges.  I’ve actually found in a new way what compassion means…especially in approaching myself and others with compassion.  And it’s because of those fiery forward bends and the heinous twists that make me feel like a real failure on the yoga mat.

It so interesting to really begin to understand what yoga teaches.  Everyone thinks about the “flexy-bendies”–you know, those people (usually women) who can lick their shins and turn themselves practically inside out and afterwards talk about how being a human pretzel gets them to a new level of enlightenment.  I have a new respect for them…yoga’s made them that.  But focusing on the physical stretching is just too one-dimensional; yoga has to also stretch your mind and your heart too.  Otherwise, we should call it calisthenics and be done with it.  No, yoga builds spiritual muscle-memory; it teaches you to endure, to dare, and to deal with emotions as they come and in a way that allows you to learn control and mastery of them.  Yogis talk about it in terms of detachment.  I just call it sanity.

But I’m glad I’m plugged into it.  It seems whenever I really focus on it, the Universe responds to me and returns me to exactly where I need to be.  And gives me things like this as a sign that I’m doing okay.

To say I’m a creature of habit is an understatement.  Despite my “wild and crazy” exterior (riiiight…), I love routine.  I’ve come to realize it’s a comfortable way for me to mark time.  I spend a huge part of my life waiting for the future to happen; this, admittedly, is a horrible habit that I’m trying to un-do…but I’ll tell ya it’s not easy.

Anyway, as I’ve been talking about, this “forward-looking” perspective coupled with the biggest, roiling shitstorm-of-change conditions over here have led me to what may be either my 4th or 5th mid-life crisis in the past couple weeks.  I’ve been working on re-focusing so I can free myself to do what needs to be done: get my PhD, not go insane, function in my life, find some joy.  You know…the basics.

One thing I realized is that over the past 3 years, I’ve not actively made the effort to keep things “different” or “various” or “changing.”  Of course, I realized this from a tiny little kernel of truth spoken during a yoga class last week; the instructor said to us, “okay, cross your hands like you normally would.  Now, switch it.  It’s gonna feel weird…but even that little intentional change helps us to be more comfortable with the change we find happening every day.”  She was so right…and was proven right in a bigger way by the events of last Friday.

Many of my friends in graduate school have “moved on.”  Not surprisingly, I haven’t…and because of that, I’ve been adrift in this swirl of “lost friends.”  I still see their shadows lurking around in the neighborhoods we all used to live in.  I remember the conversations we had in the bars that I walk past every day.  In that way, I’ve been living in the past.  So one of my intentions recently has been to find new opportunities to find new people to find new parts of my old self.  It sounds arduous…and sometimes it feels that way.

BUT…last Friday I got another chance to uncross and cross again.   I got a chance to turn an acquaintance into a friend…and it worked…magically.  And part of the magic was, I didn’t initiate it.  It’s been a long time since I’ve actively felt “befriended”…it was a nice change.  And the friend I think I’ve found is just comfortable and fun in the best of ways: compelling, interesting, funny, and similar. Maybe I’m technically celebrating the sameness…but this is the friend I’ve been looking for in this time and place.  And in two days, he’s breathed a kind of new life into me…and the friends I already have.

It’s been pretty interesting.  And I very much attribute it to “recrossing:”  Seeing the world in a new light and acknowledging that it might feel weird at first but that it eventually becomes another kind of reality, just ever so slightly different than the other (or last) one.

Here’s to Jerusalem*. Thank You.

*For whatever reason, when I type his name into my phone (to text or whatever) it automatically auto-corrects it to “Jerusalem.”  I have absolutely ZERO idea why…but it’s endearing…so I’ll go with it.

This could easily be a rant about comments I didn’t ask for showing up on my Facebook page that “cynify” [def: turn something fun into something cynical...that's right, my word] something I’ve posted up there as a moment of levity.  In fact, I’m choosing not to dwell on that (and it’s an active choice because I’m actually seething about it right now…but I’m letting go).

No, instead, I’m going to build on the somewhat popular, new-to-this-blog topic of friends being asses.  It seems fruitful territory to mine these days; at least, I learn an awful lot about myself.

I think it’s no secret (unless you read this blog and literally absorb nothing I write about) that I’m in a period of reflection, transition, self-discovery…all brought on my these crazy circumstances of change everywhere I turn.  Like “epic dreams” that allow your subconscious to speak “truth” to you in dreams, my life right now is at “epic transition.”  I’m totally day to day.  And I’ve already discussed how important my friends are in keeping me afloat in what can be tumultuous seas.

But this tumult also breeds a really bad habit on my part and what can be really bad behavior on the part of some of my friends: they can be mean to me and I’m likely not able to call them on it.

I know…it’s funny even to think about that weird contradiction–if people are mean to us, how can they be friends?  But no, there is a fine line I think lying in between people being comfortable enough to “be who they are” in their darkest of forms and people just being…well, asses.  And this is a line we (meaning the “me”s in this situation) regulate…it’s up to us to defend who we are and what people are allowed to do to us.  Although, arguably, when it comes to friends, we should never have to. (What can I say…I’m still an idealist at heart…and head…okay, I’m an idealist at the most molecular level.)

I realized today that this has been happening to me for awhile…with someone(s) I do consider my ports in this daily storm.  And it makes me sad in several dimensions.  I’m sad I let it happen.  I’m sad they’ve taken advantage (although I’m sure they’re not even aware…which, incidentally, is why we can still be friends).  I’m sad I have to confront my “ports,” a situation that could render me…wait for it…portless.  And portlessness is a scary place to be.  But it’s not scarier, necessarily, than have ports whose waters aren’t shelters but are actually barnacle-pummeling storms (okay, I’m done with the boat metaphor now.)

I guess the realization is this…I’ve assumed the storm was outside of this group of folks I’ve surrounded myself with…only to discover that they’re part of the storm.  I do have faith that I’ll be heard in whatever way I choose to address it; these conversations won’t be easy, but I think they’ll be fruitful.  But I keep moving along as though I’m protecting something I have.  What I’m really protecting is just a mirage…once again, the choice to face what is real rears its ugly head.  At least there isn’t a decision to be made; this simply cannot go on.  But things will change…another transition.

What’s hard to remember is that there are transitions that will bring about more difficulty and there are transitions that will actually get us to a better place.  This specific case is definitely the latter; my life will be qualitatively better not swallowing the bad behavior (no matter the intention) or justifying it…or contextualizing it…or rationalizing it.  I’m going to get away with much less work on a daily basis.

But I’m not fully prepared to accept that some of these “friends” might not be “friends who are asses sometimes.”  They might, in fact, just be “asses.”  And maybe it’s time for them to find another lost little rowboat to pummel (sorry…I needed just one more go…)

I’m hoping…really hoping…for option A.

Yesterday, I was headed over to the eye doctor for some new,  exorbitantly expensive contact lenses when I saw possibly the greatest vehicle I’ve ever come across.  A silver Dodge Utilivan pulled up next to me and I never would have noticed it had it not roared past me, displaying it’s company to be “Universal Power and Control.”  There was a ladder on top…it was an electrician…or was it.

That made my whole day…as did my ridiculous knee-jerk reaction that was, “How do I work there?”  I don’t know how to do anything electrical…but I’m willing to be an apprentice just so I can drive that truck around Chicago.  Brilliant.

Of course, the irony was not lost on me…in fact, the whole episode was nothing but ironic since for the past 7-8 weeks my whole life has been one big shitstorm of unknowing; Universal Power and Control has been my sad, pathetic mantra.  I’d do just about anything to get it at this point.  And whenever I’m clinging on so tightly to that need to control, I just know that whether I like it or not something profoundly chaos-enducing will surely happen.  I just need to let it go a bit.  There is a balance to all of these things.

So this morning as I was standing (okay more like trembling) in “vertical splits pose”–the one I’ve also heard called “needle”–I realized two things.  First, I came to accept the fact that I cannot have universal power and control.  Actually, I’m not even sure I’d want universal power and control–I mean, really, wasn’t that what the entire movie Aladdin was all about? [Sidebar: is anyone else as shocked as I am that the entirety of the western world has been saying this name wrong...and that it's -ah-la-DEEN....not ah-LAD-din?  Thanks again Disney for creating another lie my whole life is tremulously built upon. End Sidebar].  My greater insight, though, is that I already have universal power and control–but it’s really only over my universe which is mildly annoying but a step in the right direction.

I’ve been sweating blood over the past couple weeks, especially when it comes to people moving and moving on.  It seems there’s a lot of this going on.  I feel adrift in their seas…at their whim…I’m floundering.  Except, while suffering through breathing in “needle pose,” I began to think that the power I have in these situations refers specifically to my ability to trust them.  I have the power to trust the people who are moving and moving on.  If I can stop fixating on the circumstances [moving and moving on] and focus on the people [trusting they will show me the loyalty I show them], then the situation becomes more manageable.  The people define the circumstances.  If I empower them to do that, I can breathe a little easier, at least for now…by that I mean this second.  I’m trying to work up to a minute.

One of the greatest comforts I find in yoga is that these systems of thought are ancient…and they seem almost tailored to me in this day and age.  If Buddhist monks on the mountain a thousand years ago were fixated on how, exactly, to live in the here and now and not slip carelessly into the future or past, then…well…good for me.  I really am human.

And I still want that Universal Power and Control truck.  It’s just to tempting NOT to think about…