My Tent on The Beach

I spend a lot of time thinking about an in cycles.  If we’re reflective, I think that’s what happens: we keep going around and coming around to the same point.  Maybe because the point’s unbelievable.  Maybe because we’re still trying to understand.  And maybe, ultimately, because the point is too hard to come to grips with.  So long, I’ve fret over circumstances…noticing themes, noting similarities between one year and the next.  In my best of times, those similarities seem colloquial or interesting…maybe even marvelous sometimes.  But I think, in reality, when one chooses to face that–there’s only one thing that cycles indicate: that you haven’t been paying attention to what is real.  Fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice…

It’s hard to come to grips with what you don’t want to see.  It’s easy to believe the stories you want to tell yourself.  But in the end, all that is real is what is actually there, staring you in the face, demanding something of you.  And if what is there makes you miserable, it’s time to face the facts.  There’s no more thinking or framing or hemming or hawing to do; the Universe is speaking…and it’s telling you to move on.  What I’m amazed by is the persistence.  No matter how hard you try…moving on always wills itself on you in the end.  And forces you to face it; make a choice–either stay or go…but stop being so upset about the same things over and over.  And realize…that you’re not as special as you think.  The world will go on without you.  It always will.

These times feel really sad.  It’s the sadness that marks the end of an era; the end of a good time; the end of complacency or comfort.  Moving on means breaking in and getting settled, each of which is exhausting.  And it means letting go.  Giving it up.  Wishing it well. Hoping that something will emerge to fill the void that will surely leave a big, black hole somewhere. It means realizing that something’s done.  And knowing that those times are passing.

How to find the next?

I have a terrible habit.  I am a serial committer.  I believe in all out, 100%, go-for-the-gusto effort.  Never back down, never give in, never work less, never expect less.  Go. I’ve been this way since I can remember.  And I find myself today in a terrible conundrum.  I find myself fearing time.  Time seems to be passing in the blink of an eye.  I miss entire days and, regrettably, sometimes weeks.  I usually stop long enough to realize it’s Thursday which, by my past recollection, is one of 3 days of the week.  At least it’s the one I seem to  notice the most.  I sleep away seasons while trying to catch up on rest not gotten while the last season has come and gone.  Without rest. Without recognition.  Without a break.

This is not the first time in my life I’ve noticed this.  It is the first time in my life I feel like I’ve been taken for a ride.  I’ve been the dumb ass following the carrot suspended just in front of my nose for the last 20 years, expecting that one day I’ll get it.  I’ll finally reap the reward.  I’ll have what I want.  I’ll be happy.  But that is one elusive carrot…always just right there…dangling…swinging…I can smell it and in my heart I can taste it…but it’s never real.  And I press ahead, mezmerized by that carrot, enough so that I can’t let it go…I can’t imagine what my life would be like without it.  What would I chase after then?

I’ve been trying to correct for this a little; my entire life cannot amount to a dangling carrot never to be eaten.  And so I’ve taken to imagining what would happen if I let the carrot go.  What if I stopped caring about the carrot.  What if I finally came to the right and good conclusion that I don’t like carrots…in fact, I hate carrots.  I’ve started to reassign the value of the distance between me and the carrot…because as much as that goddamn carrot will not get closer to me, there’s a lot of world that passes between me and that carrot that I can reach.  That is within my grasp.  That comes near me.  That doesn’t run away.  That smells just as sweet…and mostly that I take little notice of.  I wonder what my life would be without the carrot.  Could that really be what I’ve been looking for all along…a carrot less life?

I’m intrigued.  But scared enough that I already miss the carrot.  And it’s still dangling there with that damn crooked smile. 

Why do we feel the need to categorize, to catalogue, to make sense.  Chaos will not ensue if we don’t say what we’re supposed to say.  Be free to look outside the lines.  Push past the need to fit a box just because the box is there.  Just because it has sides doesn’t mean it knows boundaries.  Just because it has marked space in it doesn’t mean anything actually has to go there.  Maybe the sides of the box are there to remind us of all of the space without.  I watch every day as people walk past, doing what they think they’re supposed to do, not questioning. Not giving many signs of life.  Breathing alone doesn’t mean living. And living in the space without does not mean death.  Or dismemberment.  Stop saying things like, “you’re unique” or “everyone’s special.”  That’s just as bad as cramming yourself into that box.  Just prove those things…by doing something interesting; by doing something challenging; by doing something that you yourself have thought up. And that doesn’t include the Gap.  

Why is it that we do always focus on the space inside the box, when what it might be begging for is for us to admire the fact that it has 5-6 surfaces, pointing outward…and defining the space without.

Dear Friend,

You’re doing it.  You’re making me a believer.  You’re teaching me that I don’t need to work for every single feeling to happen; that I am worthwhile just as I am; that I can be what I want but don’t need to be more for others.  More often that not recently, I’ve stopped to revel in the fact that you’re there and, I think, you will be there. I’ve found you to be a great comfort and a partner in mind.  You compel me.   And I know I’m better both because of you and with you.

It’s a scary thing, this.  Sometimes I get so self-conscious because I start to think that if you actually knew what was there, you’d turn and go.  And that thought is more comfortable thaan the realization that you know what’s there and you choose to stay.  It feels so generous, so luxurious, that I begin to worry that I have to do more to make it happen.  And then I realize that, in fact, the opposite is true–that you’d stay just because.  And that’s when panic starts to set in.

Dear Friend, please be patient.  I’m learning.  And I’m panicking.  Because I’m learning basic things…fundamental things…and I need time.  But then, why do I feel the need to ask. Because you know.

So I’ll admit that even I’ve been fascinated by my bold statement yesterday–”this year will change my life.” I try to avoid epic proclamations because, usually, they mean you have to do something. You’re now on the hook. Something had better become a life changer.

So I set out this morning with that in mind and managed to fully recapture the feeling of old. I completely went about my activities today in total shitshow fashion. I’ve cantored probably 1000 masses by now…I actually forgot a piece of music only to realize it after the service started…not good. And in the moment in which I was trying to understand how this was any different than the usual, I actually saw the difference and I came to understand more about the challenge of this year. It’s about fear.

I did something today I’ve never done. I panicked about it. But the lesson I walk away with is that I lived through it. And it was something I couldn’t solve and someone else could. That started me thinking that my challenge and my fear is to see what happens when I let go…when I stop trying so hard–which I know I can do but in the end will kill me. The challenge is to see what can and will happen when I don’t have control of the reins, either because I’m stupid (for which I can love myself) or I have no ability to see how things will end. What happens if I don’t try so hard? Or if I don’t proceed with the intention of pleasing anyone but myself? What happens when I stop gripping on so tight? Or when I lose my grip against my will? What will become of the “usual”? In these same terms, then, I wonder what becomes of that someone of something that flies in the face of their fears? What happens when someone becomes fearless? How do they get there? And what are the outcomes?

I sure did live through today. It was uncomfortable. I panicked for a little while. But in the end, it worked out. Others stepped in. The world kept turning. And I walk away feeling supported and nourished in a way I may not have even known was out there. And this is just about forgetting a piece of music and the ensuing flurry to get back on track. I can’t help but think that if I can take a deep breath and dive in to all of that that continually scares me…not just worries me but actually terrifies me, that I can make some progress…and not just for its own sake. But actually to find paths I never even knew could exist.

Or I could just jump off a cliff. It all feels the same.

In some ways I want to ask, “How did a new year get here so fast?” In other ways, it seems like I’ve earned the right to a new year and everything it promises.

And I believe this year will change my life.

I usually don’t have that feeling on this day or time; I’ve watched the New Year’s celebrations on tv (Dick Clark’s Rockin Eve used to be the absolute go-to until he had a stroke and now he just creeps me out…so I don’t really watch anymore…) and the ball would drop and everyone would make a big deal. And I would just feel nothing. I wanted to be that excited, that enamored with the idea of new and clean, a fresh start, a new canvas. Instead, I could never turn my head away from the past. More often than not, I live in what happened and treat what’s happening with an equal amount of apathy and disdain (what happened is much easier to handle…you’re dealing with facts and reality and not the tempting ether of what could be.

But this year is different. And I’ve felt this coming on for awhile. It’s almost against my will. But I feel that some material has shifted. The stars have aligned and something new, of which I have no knowledge, is definitely on the horizon. Whether it’s looming or perched ready for a grand entrance I don’t know. But the air smells different–like it does right before a thunderstorm when that first crack of lightening spiders through the air. The leaves blow upside down and for just a moment electricity becomes sensible, almost tangible. And as much as fear might instruct you to move to shelter, adrenaline rules that moment and begs you, no demands you, to stand right where you are and entertain the possibility that that spindly lightening hand or that peal of thunder might be the moment that you and your maker meet.

I am in that moment right now. It is a moment of alignment and as many of these moments (I believe, although this is my first) go, it’s not sprung on you. I’ve been doing yoga for years now, very intentionally, communing with whatever Universe is out there that determines all things including the tightness of my hamstrings. I’ve been singing in church for HOURS every week–more communing with the Universe, although dressed up in one particular way there. Nonetheless, I have spent some major, committed time asking open ended questions.

I think it’s been indicated to me that I should be ready. That I have been heard. There are answers coming…and I’d best be ready when they show up, whatever they are. The only way I know this to be true is the electricity of the air around me. There are few times in my life (but all incredibly precious) in which I have just known. I haven’t even needed confirmation because it’s all so clear. This is one. Things are about to change. And it’s mine to walk through that door or to stay so safely comfortable right here. And therein lies the challenge of change. While we all say we want it, we want the dream of it. We want the version we’ve laid out in our heads. We want to command it. And change is not to be commanded. Either rejected or embraced. We control the action, not the detail.

So, here I am. For the first time, maybe ever, I’m ready for this electric change. I’m embracing that this time next year, everything…EVERYTHING…will be different. And whether it’s better or worse…well, that’s my story to write.

For whatever reason, I’ve been blessed with great realizations that have dropped out of nowhere (which in other circumstances could be known as “now here”) and…today was a really lucky day.

I can’t explain the way these epiphanies happen. Sometimes they seem random but my real guess is that it’s usually when I stop trying to control everything and just let things–against my will–that things happen. Good things. Life-giving things.

I’ve been busy lately and as I’ve felt the stranglehold on my usual routine loosen, magic happens. A great, great concert on Saturday. Lots of good things Sunday. And a Monday full of things that can only be attributed to pure luck or the universe stepping in and simply giving me a break because I’ve been working so hard…spinning my wheels, really, at things that should be pretty easy.

Tom today said that I should enjoy all the great things I bring to the world around me…and I laughed…because all those great things feel like pure gifts…I don’t necessarily work that hard to get them…but the joy is nothing but pure and real. I laugh it off or think nothing of it but…I had an epiphany about it…

…things are good. And I’ve worked hard to have it that way.

I was not emotionally prepared for this.  There was a post I wrote years ago.  And I’ve thought about it periodically since then.  It was one of those moments that, forgive me for my lack of humility, I had an insight much greater than myself and I dared to commit it to virtual space.  Anyway, from time to time I’ve gone back to that particular post and read it.  Until today…when I found that the blog site I once used is completely gone.  And all of my blog archives are gone with it. This is clearly a universe thing.

This is one of those cases of, “you don’t think about it until it’s gone.”  And now I can’t think of anything but that.  So many years of insights.  Not all good ones.  Not by far.  But some moments of truth there.  Moments captured of the hardest years of my life thus far.  And the history is gone.  And maybe that’s exactly the way it should be.  Those years are important and ones to remember…but they can be remembered without a word for word re-enactment. I guess.

In the end, it would’ve been nice to be informed that every thought I committed to digital reality up until the start of this brilliant space would be completely wiped from existence.  But then, it’s good to be able to let them go.  That was then.

And today is now.

And this is the post I was looking for:

http://mybeachtent.com/page/7/

Where has our public space gone? For the past month at least, I’ve been riding the train when some ass with an old school phone shows up with the thing blaring and the rest of the car has to sit and listen to whatever horrible dreck is streaming forth from said phone.

It’s so annoying.

Today I’d almost had it. But, in an effort to contain myself, I started wondering what exactly causes the breakdown of public behavior. Tom seems to think it’s narcissistic personality. I’m prone to argue, along sociological lines, that it has to do with power–it’s a reclaiming of space they want or need but don’t have. I’m sure theories abound. But it all seems to do with the loss of the idea that anyone exists but yourself. It’s not even a choice to be rude; it’s a total lack of awareness of others around you.

I used to really like riding the train. At least I didn’t hate it. And now I find myself actually forced to plug into some headset or earphones to avoid other people’s need to not realize anyone else exists but them. I’m forced to be disconnected.

Or else kill them in a blatant fit of rage.

You know what drives me crazy? Friends who get pushy. What the heck has been going on recently? I feel like over the past week or so I’ve had to have somewhat uncomfortable conversations with people who I’ve always considered friends about laying off me. Mostly it’s because of really unreasonable requests, demands, that they make of me because of something they need. Well, friends, I *need* you to get off of me and stop asking for crazy things. Enough’s enough.

I’m beginning to wonder how it is that people get so self-absorbed that all they can see is them. More interestingly, I’m fascinated by the fact that this is a choice; there’s literally no will to compromise. I’ve gotten used to opting for the highway, but I always do with a little sadness. The highway always seems like it should be a last resort and it comes up a lot more frequently recently.

Granted, there was a time not so very long ago at which I’d really work to make things work out. It’s interesting how much rigidity shows up when you start not bending over backwards to please people. Not exactly what I was hoping to find. But much less stressful to maintain.