today

i feel strung out, tired, worn down.  ready to eeeexxxxhaaaaallllleee.

sad.  sad at the loss of friends.  small.  tired.  weak.

and in pain--my body hurts.  taxed from 2 hour gig at Vine yesterday.  and the emotional buffetting baring down on me of late.

inviting in peace and ease.  gentle ease.  softness.  sweetness.

tears come so often these days, a gentle hand letting go

i feel so emotionally constipated--just overflowing and it keeps getting shoved back in me, not wanted.  al i want to do is love--and yeah i'm not perfect at it--but WHY does it have to be so f'n hard?  so painful?

dissolving into the tears.

why is it so hard for me to just leave people alone when that is clearly what they want?  why is it so hard for me to leave him alone when that is clearly what he wants?  these compulsions are old habits and run deep.  i watch myself cutting myself off at the legs, helpless, paralyzed.  pushing on the fulcrum of pain--muscles running over my brachioradialus illicts deeper sobs.

losing center, losing grounding, losing focus.  and still i am so surrounded, engulfed by support.  in this moment it feels overwhelming.  elizabeth offered to take me to the beach tomorrow.  there's a beginner bike ride to micanopy.  or do i need to just do nothing and crawl back into my shell?  i'm afraid of that too, of my habits and tendencies, of my feelings.

ah ha.

the crux.  running away from the pain AGAIN.  begging for respite.  when i asked kristen exasperatedly "when is this going to end"  she just laughed and said "you know its never going to end!"  and ariella today--we're just these bags of water, sitting on a rock, and we have no idea what we're doing. but at least we get to be here together, and love each other.

dissolving.

remembering:  the only way out is deeper deeper in.

goddammit

dear one

this is all i have to offer you:

1.  sweet delicious unconditional love

2.  a mirror

3.  my willingness to be mirrored

question of the day

how do i stay soft and vulnerable while being strong and resiliant?

stress response

In kinesiology today we learned that stress is just stimulation of the sensory nervous system.  as in, too much info coming in at one time.  this is what my life looks like so often.  i came home today paying attention.  purposely made choices to do one thing at a time.  and still--i ended up on the phone with my mom, renegotiating her visit since the flights are screwed up while a class mate pinged me on FB--an amazing woman who keeps it all in and never asks for help.  i gave her what i could--then noticed son's band page on FB and went to the website, to be greeted by his sweet voice crooning over delicious guitar riffs.  god i love that boy.  love the feeling of my gut unwinding just hearing the deep-seated peacefulness in his voice.  bitterness at making choices that resulted in him just withdrawing completely...maybe that was inevitable?  i don't know.  i can't know.  i'll just put out my prayer that we one day find our way back to loving each other--in the ways that we are able.  just being in his presence is such a sweet gift, i feel grateful to have known you Mr. Son House II.

I told Paul on the way home today--this program invites such a deep level of vulnerability and rawness all the time.  i've never cried so much in my life and today at lunch nearly broke down when jessay told me it was jacked up that i wouldn't go back out (in the freezing!) to get his lunch. i feel so tender all the time, and the smallest things reverberate hugely through my body and heart.

so i am practicing awareness of the number of sources of stimulation i am taking in at one time.  even with this, i just had 3 FB chats going at the same time, while listening to son's music.

Noah visit part V

Wednesday: RIVER ADVENTURES PART II--ChristmasWe tried to get an early start with moderate success--after packing a lunch, we jumped on our bikes and headed to the far north corner of town, and a little beyond.  after hiding our bikes by the railroad tracks, we stuck our thumbs out in an attempt to catch a ride up to O'leno State Park, where we'd been on Sunday.  This time we intended to rent canoes.  It took a while (and an outfit change, patch pants ---> skirt) but eventually someone stopped for us--heavily tattooed and blaring metal music..."yeah, VA is a hard state for doing illegal things"  and so sweet and kind, took us all the way up to the state park.  we filled out the canoe paper work and got paddles, then hiked the remaining mile into the park and to the river.  another gorgeous day, patch clouds and 70 degrees....delightful river with lots of turtles.  

we paddled for a couple hours, then stopped for our lunch picnic and headed back.  hiked back out through the woods and stopped to pay--the park ranger just crumpled up the paper and said "aw, don't worry about it!  take care!"  back out and first car stopped--a guy and his kid who had passed us in their motor boat on the river.  they got us a little ways, then another guy stopped and brought us to alachua.  nice, and still about 10 miles out of gville.   we hiked through town, no one stopping, starting to get tired and cranky, sun is setting...finally a dude turned around who'd passed us before---very sweet guy just getting of the night shift after christmas with his kids.  he rode us back to our bikes, and we biked back home w/ a brief stop at the catholic worker raised beds to harvest some greens for the CHRISTMAS FEAST at our house!  people came over and we feasted heavily, then played poop smoothie. Thanks for an awesome visit Noah!

kaleidescoping

"The buddhist teachings...encourage us to relax gradually and wholeheartedly into the ordinary and obvious truth of change."
             ---Pema Chodron

and again and again i find that familiar place of constricted fear in my gut.  this ego wants to hold wants to know wants to imprison myself and others so that it can feed on the certainty that it craves.  how do i tell it, gently, no, no, no, NO.  that is not the way.  that is not the way in, it is actually the way to lock yourself OUT from the true depths that are possible only because they are unknowable to this scared and shrinking ego-mind.  take comfort in what then, what? it demands to know.  and what made you think this was about comfort; one answer.  another, more reliable for this mind-body-animal....cuddling?  but really, the only answer is this one:

the only comfort is in the release and relief of knowing this moment and drawing it near.  tenderly.  yes and gently, letting it whisper its one deepest truth and sheltering that from the ego storms that demand answers.  because there is also this:

to see it, to hold it, is to watch it change shift transform, kaleidescoping itself ever forward and outward to deeper levels of beauty than this poor puny ego can even conceive of.

so that's the trade off:  comfort for beauty.  at times, terrible, painful beauty that freaks the shit out of my ego. and when i can remember t

o let this simple practice happen, then it is always worth it, oh it is so so worth it.