Just when I think I know something. I mean when I think I REALLY know something, the Universe brings me a lovely way of opening my world even more. Just when I think I know how something's going to work out or who I'm going to be with or where I'm going to be going or just anything, anything at all, I discover that none of it is true. I come back to the same conclusion: I know nothing. Truly. I know nothing.
A friend of mine in Australia tells me the same thing over and over: it's not what you think. It's never what I think. It never is. I need to stop thinking really.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
First Interview
I just sent in the information for my first radio interview about my book. According to the information that I was sent it will air on Thursday evening (March 18th) at 8 pm CST. It can be accessed via phone at 724-444-7444, Talkcast ID: 39674# and non-talkcast members press 1# after the talkcast ID. You can also go to http://www.talkshoe.com/. It's Tina Ferguson's show, and my first of many interviews. I'm lining them up now as I type this.
Today is a mission on keeping myself focused on what I want. I mean a very conscious effort. Not that I don't do this anyway, but today seems imperative. It feels crackly, this energy. I don't know what to make of it, but what I'm discovering is that all that used to work for me is no longer working. At all. Not at all. I now must really work in this life, play in this world totally differently. How do I do it? How do I show up and be genuine when sometimes I don't even know who I am? There are mornings when I wake up I feel numb as if the person I was when I went to bed is no longer here and the person that wakes up is someone I need to get to know all over again.
The physical reality is so flexible and malleable to me. It doesn't seem nearly as dense and heavy. It feels like I can close my eyes and change it. I can sit still and breathe in the divinity that I am and the physical shifts. Suddenly a phone call or a person shows up, words are spoken that are answers to questions I didn't even know how to phrase.
This moment I focus on breathing in the calmness, the peace that I truly am. I am the eye of the storm. I am and that's all that matters.
Today is a mission on keeping myself focused on what I want. I mean a very conscious effort. Not that I don't do this anyway, but today seems imperative. It feels crackly, this energy. I don't know what to make of it, but what I'm discovering is that all that used to work for me is no longer working. At all. Not at all. I now must really work in this life, play in this world totally differently. How do I do it? How do I show up and be genuine when sometimes I don't even know who I am? There are mornings when I wake up I feel numb as if the person I was when I went to bed is no longer here and the person that wakes up is someone I need to get to know all over again.
The physical reality is so flexible and malleable to me. It doesn't seem nearly as dense and heavy. It feels like I can close my eyes and change it. I can sit still and breathe in the divinity that I am and the physical shifts. Suddenly a phone call or a person shows up, words are spoken that are answers to questions I didn't even know how to phrase.
This moment I focus on breathing in the calmness, the peace that I truly am. I am the eye of the storm. I am and that's all that matters.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
to friendship...
I appreciate beautiful things, or rather I appreciate the beauty in so many things. One of those "things" is what I've just been given: vulnerable honesty, the kind where you put yourself out there. I mean really lay it out there and allow whatever happens next to just unfold effortlessly. Beautiful, luscious, extravagant, decadent vulnerability.
I met a man. I saw a man across the room, and I looked at him over and over and over. He talked on his cell and typed on his laptop, and I snuck peeks over at him every chance I got.
I was there for a meeting with a friend to talk blogs, discuss marketing on the Internet, and to catch up on personal news. And behind her was this man I saw for the first time. He was dressed in black, and I couldn't help but notice how polished his shoes were when he walked by.
For two hours we exchanged glances and nothing else.
I was ridiculed when I got home and told my story. I was asked why I didn't get his name or his number, and let him know I was interested. I was labeled a chicken.
Really? I can leave a 32-year relationship and move to the mountains. I can fly small aircraft under the hood (meaning only being able to see the instrument panel) without a problem, and now I'm being called a coward because I didn't get a man's name? Really?
So, now I was on a mission. I was going to get this man's name, and I did, and so did my friend. Actually, she met him first, but the fact remains that I walked right up to him, and introduced myself. We talked for a little bit, long enough for me to want more.
Returning home, I Googled him. I found his website and read every word. I was fascinated with his writing, intrigued by his stories, and smitten with his view of the world. The one thing I didn't discover from what I read was whether or not he was available. And more importantly, if I were to ask, would I get the truth?
He surprised me. No, surprise isn't the right word. The feeling I got from his email that responded to my question of his marital status was one of awe. I read his words, and my heart blossomed open. Oh, and no, he's not available, but the way he wrote it made me so happy he wasn't until I realized what this meant for us. There couldn't be an us. Ah...well...
And then I thought about what it could be like to be his friend, what it would be like to sit across the table from him and sip coffee while we talked, or spinning a few tales while walking in a park, or looking at an art exhibit. Suddenly another world of new possibilities opened up, looking more intriguing than what I could've imagined before.
He could be my friend. How lovely it would be to just share some moments with him, learning more about who he is and how he shows up in the world, knowing full well that's as far as it would go. What a pleasant and welcomed gift. No pretenses, no anything besides lovely warm friendship.
All I know is that since reading his email the sun shines brighter and it's easier to smile. Is that so bad?
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Wake up to the WTF of it all...
Thank you, Jason Mraz, for the title of this blog.
Manhattan's on TV and siren's are sounding outside: "A local authority has initiated a direct community access." This just flashed across the TV screen, and then in a soft female voice, I hear: "This is only a test."
WTF? What's not a test? Isn't just showing up here day after day after a day a test to see how you do in this moment? Isn't everything an opportunity to say fuck it and do it your way as only you can do? Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it...fuck everything. Just show up and be present. Nothing else ever matters.
When my father was dying, I stood by his hospital bed waiting for one word, just one word that let me know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was loved as wildly and feverishly by him as I loved him. I had waited to hear his car pull up every evening. I couldn't wait to open his door before he could even turn off the ignition. The safest place in the world had always been with my head pressed against his chest and his arms squeezing me close. Years later at the ripe old age of 24, I stood beside his bed, holding his hand waiting to hear any whispers that he might utter. After hours of waiting, I heard his words: "Make sure you get all the belts counted in the bay. Inventory is due before the week's over." His eyes were open, but he looked away from me as if one of his employees was on the other side of the room. Those were the last words I heard him speak.
My father's taught me so much in life, about life, and about what's important in living. As we walked down the aisle together with my soon-to-be husband at the altar, my father told me while smiling to the crowd in the pews that I could just say the word and we'd turn around and leave the church. I plastered a smile on my face and kept walking forward. Four years later he was in that hospital room. He had just turned 58. He worked all day and all night. The word relax was not in his vocabulary. I learned that naps were unheard of, that any moment not working was a wasted moment, and that I needed to justify my reason for being by making money, cleaning, etc. Move, move, move...do, do, do...
I'm now inching towards the age my dad was back in that hospital room, and I'm rearranging how I view what's important to me. The doing isn't as essential as the being. I move when I breathe. I see the grand view instead of the little dramas. I breathe instead of scream. I relax. I take naps. I enjoy my moments instead of constant planning, achieving, and setting and resetting goals. I show up. I just show up and allow the magic to happen.
Manhattan's on TV and siren's are sounding outside: "A local authority has initiated a direct community access." This just flashed across the TV screen, and then in a soft female voice, I hear: "This is only a test."
WTF? What's not a test? Isn't just showing up here day after day after a day a test to see how you do in this moment? Isn't everything an opportunity to say fuck it and do it your way as only you can do? Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it...fuck everything. Just show up and be present. Nothing else ever matters.
When my father was dying, I stood by his hospital bed waiting for one word, just one word that let me know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was loved as wildly and feverishly by him as I loved him. I had waited to hear his car pull up every evening. I couldn't wait to open his door before he could even turn off the ignition. The safest place in the world had always been with my head pressed against his chest and his arms squeezing me close. Years later at the ripe old age of 24, I stood beside his bed, holding his hand waiting to hear any whispers that he might utter. After hours of waiting, I heard his words: "Make sure you get all the belts counted in the bay. Inventory is due before the week's over." His eyes were open, but he looked away from me as if one of his employees was on the other side of the room. Those were the last words I heard him speak.
My father's taught me so much in life, about life, and about what's important in living. As we walked down the aisle together with my soon-to-be husband at the altar, my father told me while smiling to the crowd in the pews that I could just say the word and we'd turn around and leave the church. I plastered a smile on my face and kept walking forward. Four years later he was in that hospital room. He had just turned 58. He worked all day and all night. The word relax was not in his vocabulary. I learned that naps were unheard of, that any moment not working was a wasted moment, and that I needed to justify my reason for being by making money, cleaning, etc. Move, move, move...do, do, do...
I'm now inching towards the age my dad was back in that hospital room, and I'm rearranging how I view what's important to me. The doing isn't as essential as the being. I move when I breathe. I see the grand view instead of the little dramas. I breathe instead of scream. I relax. I take naps. I enjoy my moments instead of constant planning, achieving, and setting and resetting goals. I show up. I just show up and allow the magic to happen.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Simple magic of a soft wand
These words keep echoing in my head. When I was first told these words, they seemed wrong, but I knew they were absolutely perfect.
I have recently been introduced to Harry Potter movies and after seeing them all, wands don't seem so soft to me at all. However, after studying quantum physics a bit I can only see them as soft. Wands to me are just the energy used to create my universe. Energy is malleable, flexible and sometimes not seen with the physical eyes at all. How can it not be soft?
Here's how it's been explained to me. We are all energy. Everything is energy. We create interference patterns in our energy fields when what we're offering meets up with what's echoing. Offer waves meet echo waves and create interference patterns that are dense enough for us to see and feel, smell and touch. Our waves are intensified by our feelings. The stronger we feel about something or someone, the stronger the offer wave becomes. However, every time we second guess ourselves or throw in a modicum of doubt, it throws the offer wave a bit and there goes the echo wave we wanted to match with.
Energy. Vibration. Feelings.
I'm 53 years old and I'm learning a new way to live. None of this was taught to me in school. The past I choose to focus on right now is one where I was a Catholic school girl with three brothers growing up in the 60s and 70s. So, to say this "new" way of creating is a bit different for me is an understatement, and yet it's the clearest, the easiest, and the most comfortable I've been in this lifetime. It's home to me. It's as if I'm finally recognizing who I really am and what my true potential really is.
I am scrapping all, and I do mean all, that I've ever been taught, bribed, and coerced into doing and believing. I am like a snake shedding its skin. I am being transformed yet again, entering a new phase of being. I'm learning what doesn't work for me and surrendering to all that shows up in my life, knowing and trusting that it is exactly as it needs to be.
The judgments that I've so honed into in the past, all the dos and don'ts of my upbringing and of a stifling marriage are being discarded. They are sloughing off with ease, and I'm just standing here cleaner and fresher than I was before the shedding process.
Am I done with the transformation? Absolutely not. I'm transforming at the moment, getting ready for the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one. I know that the more I know the less I know. I know that the more I question, the more questions there are and the fewer answers that exist.
So, my simple magic of a soft wand is being still, is feeling the feelings of what makes me feel good, and seeing the life that makes me feel good, and then knowing, knowing beyond any doubt, that what I so desire is making its way to me. It's been waiting for me to be ready for it, and whatever it looks like is absolutely perfect.
It's that simple.
I have recently been introduced to Harry Potter movies and after seeing them all, wands don't seem so soft to me at all. However, after studying quantum physics a bit I can only see them as soft. Wands to me are just the energy used to create my universe. Energy is malleable, flexible and sometimes not seen with the physical eyes at all. How can it not be soft?
Here's how it's been explained to me. We are all energy. Everything is energy. We create interference patterns in our energy fields when what we're offering meets up with what's echoing. Offer waves meet echo waves and create interference patterns that are dense enough for us to see and feel, smell and touch. Our waves are intensified by our feelings. The stronger we feel about something or someone, the stronger the offer wave becomes. However, every time we second guess ourselves or throw in a modicum of doubt, it throws the offer wave a bit and there goes the echo wave we wanted to match with.
Energy. Vibration. Feelings.
I'm 53 years old and I'm learning a new way to live. None of this was taught to me in school. The past I choose to focus on right now is one where I was a Catholic school girl with three brothers growing up in the 60s and 70s. So, to say this "new" way of creating is a bit different for me is an understatement, and yet it's the clearest, the easiest, and the most comfortable I've been in this lifetime. It's home to me. It's as if I'm finally recognizing who I really am and what my true potential really is.
I am scrapping all, and I do mean all, that I've ever been taught, bribed, and coerced into doing and believing. I am like a snake shedding its skin. I am being transformed yet again, entering a new phase of being. I'm learning what doesn't work for me and surrendering to all that shows up in my life, knowing and trusting that it is exactly as it needs to be.
The judgments that I've so honed into in the past, all the dos and don'ts of my upbringing and of a stifling marriage are being discarded. They are sloughing off with ease, and I'm just standing here cleaner and fresher than I was before the shedding process.
Am I done with the transformation? Absolutely not. I'm transforming at the moment, getting ready for the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one. I know that the more I know the less I know. I know that the more I question, the more questions there are and the fewer answers that exist.
So, my simple magic of a soft wand is being still, is feeling the feelings of what makes me feel good, and seeing the life that makes me feel good, and then knowing, knowing beyond any doubt, that what I so desire is making its way to me. It's been waiting for me to be ready for it, and whatever it looks like is absolutely perfect.
It's that simple.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
What I know for sure
Things are never as they seem. This has been the story of my life. What I've concluded is that I know nothing. There is nothing in black and white; it's forever gray, but that too will change. Who I am right now is only this for the moment. Within seconds I'm different. I see things differently. I want different things and I want differently.
I'm discovering the world anew every second. I think of myself like the little kitty at my daughter's apartment who twists her head looking at a shoelace longer than I've seen anyone stare at anything. She's entranced with everything. The wind that blows up her nose is a new experience when she goes outside. She touches the brick on the wall gingerly as if it will disappear if she presses any harder.
The world is not what it seems. It never has been, but I've bought into it for most of my life: pay my taxes, balance my checkbook, go to college, get a degree, get a good job, build a retirement plan... These were constants in my life. These were things I could count on. I followed these rules and life was supposed to be good.
But it never was. I struggled over being off pennies in our business accounts. I stashed away funds like there was no tomorrow in all five of our retirement accounts. I paid bills. I went to church. I paid taxes -- payroll taxes, state income taxes, unemployment taxes, federal income taxes, and on and on and on.
I have nothing to show for all of that diligence. There is no retirement. All five of those accounts got used up before the ink was dry on the divorce papers. The college degree has not gotten me any jobs. There is no security in anything I was told was going to be my security. Having a husband didn't do it. Buying insurance policies -- health, life, term, car, homeowners, renters, malpractice -- didn't keep me safe either.
It has been a hoax. The whole thing. None of it is real. None of it has been worth losing all those nights of sleep when I tossed and turned over every little detail. Did I pay the vendors? Did I return the state's phone call? Did I put enough in retirement for federal income tax?
For years this life and these questions filled the space between my ears. It was a small, draining, and exhausting life. Running, running, running to keep up with what I thought was necessary to keep up with. Never going to bed satisfied with my accomplishments, and always feeling so empty.
Going to bed with someone whose presence made me feel worse about myself was no way to enter into my dream state either. I stayed until I couldn't stay any longer. I stayed until I couldn't take being the miniscule person I was showing up to be.
Four years without that life has turned me upside down and inside out. I've seen reality for what it really is -- fake. I've delved into the quantum realm and found home. I choose living in the world of energy and seeing it as such, knowing that what I do, what I say, who I'm with are all just reflections of me. How do I choose to show up in this flexible, malleable world? It's a continuous process of changing and rearranging what I do with my moments. It's seeing the world of all possibilities and reveling in it. It's feeling the joy in the air around me and embracing it, inviting it to stay.
I wake up now to watch West Wing with a dog on my lap. I drink my coffee and eat my English muffin while listening to dialog that intrigues me. Once dressed and in my studio I arrive at a feeling of intense joy, loving passion. I sit at my desk or at my sewing machine, and I revel at the happiness I feel being surrounded by fabrics, threads, and beads that I've been so attracted to all my life. Once awakened, there's nothing stopping me to delve into what could come from my imagination at that moment. What garment, what piece of art, what writing, what illustrations, what next? It's all one moment of discovery after another. It's pure bliss. It's abundance at its finest. It is heaven as only I can know it.
Staring at the piles of fabrics, the threads heaped, and the boxes of flowers I've fashioned with scraps and beads, I feel blessed. Looking at the aprons I've designed for a wholesale customer makes me feel like a genius. What degree? What job? What anything? Because looking around this room at every art book, every basket of paints, all the clear containers of spools of thread, and rainbows of fabrics, I know what wealth feels like. I know what joy looks like. It is me in this very room surrounded with all that jazzes me. There is no greater wealth, no finer empire than where I sit right now typing on this keypad surrounded by my yards and yards of fabric. And this I know for sure.
I'm discovering the world anew every second. I think of myself like the little kitty at my daughter's apartment who twists her head looking at a shoelace longer than I've seen anyone stare at anything. She's entranced with everything. The wind that blows up her nose is a new experience when she goes outside. She touches the brick on the wall gingerly as if it will disappear if she presses any harder.
The world is not what it seems. It never has been, but I've bought into it for most of my life: pay my taxes, balance my checkbook, go to college, get a degree, get a good job, build a retirement plan... These were constants in my life. These were things I could count on. I followed these rules and life was supposed to be good.
But it never was. I struggled over being off pennies in our business accounts. I stashed away funds like there was no tomorrow in all five of our retirement accounts. I paid bills. I went to church. I paid taxes -- payroll taxes, state income taxes, unemployment taxes, federal income taxes, and on and on and on.
I have nothing to show for all of that diligence. There is no retirement. All five of those accounts got used up before the ink was dry on the divorce papers. The college degree has not gotten me any jobs. There is no security in anything I was told was going to be my security. Having a husband didn't do it. Buying insurance policies -- health, life, term, car, homeowners, renters, malpractice -- didn't keep me safe either.
It has been a hoax. The whole thing. None of it is real. None of it has been worth losing all those nights of sleep when I tossed and turned over every little detail. Did I pay the vendors? Did I return the state's phone call? Did I put enough in retirement for federal income tax?
For years this life and these questions filled the space between my ears. It was a small, draining, and exhausting life. Running, running, running to keep up with what I thought was necessary to keep up with. Never going to bed satisfied with my accomplishments, and always feeling so empty.
Going to bed with someone whose presence made me feel worse about myself was no way to enter into my dream state either. I stayed until I couldn't stay any longer. I stayed until I couldn't take being the miniscule person I was showing up to be.
Four years without that life has turned me upside down and inside out. I've seen reality for what it really is -- fake. I've delved into the quantum realm and found home. I choose living in the world of energy and seeing it as such, knowing that what I do, what I say, who I'm with are all just reflections of me. How do I choose to show up in this flexible, malleable world? It's a continuous process of changing and rearranging what I do with my moments. It's seeing the world of all possibilities and reveling in it. It's feeling the joy in the air around me and embracing it, inviting it to stay.
I wake up now to watch West Wing with a dog on my lap. I drink my coffee and eat my English muffin while listening to dialog that intrigues me. Once dressed and in my studio I arrive at a feeling of intense joy, loving passion. I sit at my desk or at my sewing machine, and I revel at the happiness I feel being surrounded by fabrics, threads, and beads that I've been so attracted to all my life. Once awakened, there's nothing stopping me to delve into what could come from my imagination at that moment. What garment, what piece of art, what writing, what illustrations, what next? It's all one moment of discovery after another. It's pure bliss. It's abundance at its finest. It is heaven as only I can know it.
Staring at the piles of fabrics, the threads heaped, and the boxes of flowers I've fashioned with scraps and beads, I feel blessed. Looking at the aprons I've designed for a wholesale customer makes me feel like a genius. What degree? What job? What anything? Because looking around this room at every art book, every basket of paints, all the clear containers of spools of thread, and rainbows of fabrics, I know what wealth feels like. I know what joy looks like. It is me in this very room surrounded with all that jazzes me. There is no greater wealth, no finer empire than where I sit right now typing on this keypad surrounded by my yards and yards of fabric. And this I know for sure.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
brain vacation
My brain has decided to take a vacation and not invite me.
I'm in my studio for the second day this year because I've been residing in bed since New Year's. My brain started hurting last week when I was working on a new design in my studio. On New Year's Eve after seeing It's Complicated and laughing my ass off, I went flying with a friend over McKinney until it became the new year. I'm not sure if my brain landed with me.
It was a full moon and a blue moon. It was also John Denver's birthday. We took off around 11:48 at night. I was in the back seat clicking pictures of the lights and the moon, when the pilot told me to take over. There went my picture taking, at least the shots that weren't blurry.
I love to fly. I love to take off. It's one of my greatest highs. It's the landings I'm not so excited about. I'm not thrilled about taxiing slowly down the runway turning towards the hangars. I don't enjoy undoing my seat belt and taking off my headset.
Takeoffs are exceptionally orgasmic for me. There's not a cell in my body that's not turned on and tuned in. There's something so amazingly seductive about being above it all, seeing the ground below, the ant-sized people until they are nothing but dots and then nothing at all.
This is freedom. This is unadulterated freedom. This is mind-blowing, breath-taking, and well, for lack of anything better to say, just far out! Thank you, John, for that.
The point I want to make though is that I don't think my brain came back down with me. I've been floating and unable to comprehend the simplest of tasks since. Is it because it's been so long since my last flight in a single-engine? Is it because it's been even longer since I had my hands on a stick? (And I mean that in oh so many ways...)
I am meant to live above it all, above the pettiness and drama that resides here. They are not my friends or my people. My people are lax and loose and free. My people see no boundaries or reason to blame. Situations and people in their lives are clear mirrors to their own thoughts about themselves. They are grateful instead of blaming. They are in joy instead of in sadness. You ought to feel their excitement when I'm up in the stars. When I'm steadying my camera lens at the blue moon outside the cockpit.
It's the stars and the clouds and the sky and the moon and the sun that's home to me. Coming back down, feeling the tires land on the runway, and the propeller slow down makes my brain take a vacation without me.
Next time I'm going with it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)