Spirituality in the Starbucks

Normally at the end of the year I write a witty, pithy letter summarizing my year. I include updates about my career and home life, and end with a list of Things I Have Learned.

I considered writing this letter before I left for my Caribbean Time Out. I considered skipping it all together. And now I'm writing to you from the darkness of my luxury tent, with nothing but the sounds of my fellow inmates snoring and a dozen cruise ships blaring Miley Cyrus and boozing it up.

This is the sound of spiritual transformation, which is also lit by the screen of an iPad. I'm not terribly confident that this is how the saints of yore experienced dark nights like this, but... welcome to the iVerse.

I nearly said that this year started like all of the others, but reflecting back I realize it did not. Rather than the annual walkabout The Ben and I used to take around the lake, sharing our hopes and dreams and plans, this year started with me feeling desperately alone. Too old for the same old party games, too tired to resist, and profoundly lonely (for people trying to get pregnant, that's code for Not Pregnant). It was dreary and The Ben slept in, recovering from a night that was very fun for him and not so much for me. I didn't drink as I held this tremendous hope tightly with two fists. I didn't dare have fun, because I was one day late, which meant This Could Be It.

I am pretty good at spending time with myself, but this was the umpteenth up and down, and it hit hard. Like crying on grandma's bathroom floor hard.

Like Eat Pray Love hard.

(and yes, I still hate the book)

Without the annual check in, I felt lost facing a year with tides of new flavors of loneliness while Ben planned his retreats and travels and I tried yet again to fold my interests around them. His plans included a three week long retreat in Seattle that I wasn't invited to, and I looked long and hard for an international yoga retreat or training on anything during that same three week time frame. There were none. As in: none on Earth (or at least the internet). So I booked something for myself instead. I turned my back on my marriage and focused in on goals I knew I could accomplish, like traveling abroad.

I did. And then my marriage ended. And then my life burned down. My marriage started on the equinox and will end on the solstice, the darkest day of the year. The day when, in years past, we invited friends over to celebrate the coming of the light.

This year I'm spending it in Paradise with Peter.

Despite my intense criticism of my mythical friend Elizabeth of Eat Pray Love fame, I think that perhaps she was right not to try the mega dose of eating, praying, and loving at the same time. Self transformation or purification or spiritual metamorphosis is not sexy, at all. It involves a lot of ugly crying that comes literally out of nowhere. As in tonight, our speaker at satsang was quite honestly the most boring person I've heard speak in public. I felt like I was trapped in a cocktail party in the corner, and this inspired weeping for the lost solstice party. 

There's nowhere to hide in a 9x9 tent with a makeshift bed, either

I've never spent Christmas or my birthday away from my family. Maybe that's pathetic, but it is true that on my 33rd trip around the sun, I'm starting to break away. The fact that I've chosen this particular adventure in a minimum security ashram built on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean is especially comical. This island is home to both the fanatical purists of the ashram and the dark temptations of the nearby mega hotels, casinos, and cruise ships. 

Purgatory.

I'm grateful in many ways for the spotty internet coverage that separates me from the rest of what's happening in the world. For instance, Facebook has just started offering to compile my year in pictures and status updates, and while it's fun to see what your lives have looked like this year, I'm afraid to see how the omniscient biographer that is Facebook would recount my Year of the Wood Horse. Certainly it would pick up on the travel and the changing cast of characters, the gentle transition to those months where I was most clearly observing my feet, and the pervasive, lingering melancholy.

But it would miss the brightest and darkest of moments.... those that should be reserved for journals and those that happen out of view of the camera. It would miss the dramatic irony that my ex-husband's new girlfriend shares my birthday, or the inner turmoil of where to file my boyfriend's mothers' emails.

Friends?

Family?

It would miss moments of realization that should come to me in meditation or deep contemplation, but inevitably hit me at Starbucks. Yes, it's true. There's a Sbx in Purgatory. And that's where I am right now.

Anne Lamott says that God is in the bathroom, and this has been like a mantra for me. I'm doing the work, like daily meditation and karma yoga and asana and philosophy. Every time my mind wanders, I bring it back to my mantra, which is only slightly less sacrilegious than God is in the bathroom, but I bring it back. But it isn't until I set foot in a place that is familiar that I distill the lessons of this spiritual path.

For me, Spirituality is at the Starbucks.

So for this year that cannot fully be described by Facebook or indeed by me, I'll offer you what I can. Lessons that maybe you can take and do something with.

Things I have learned from this: 

1. Relationships between two people can only be understood by those two people, if by anyone at all. Anything you see on the outside is an illusion broadcast by the Man Behind the (social media) Curtain.

2. The best moments cannot be captured by anything other than the soul. Like flying kites on the beach under the full moon, or the sweet boy who came to sit with me during Satsang. 

3. The worst moments are equally impossible to capture, and even more indelibly burned into the etherial material of the soul. Like the decision to part ways, or the infinite number of times I've called that decision to question

4. There is a Starbucks everywhere.

5. I have a quiver full of yardsticks that I've picked up from other people, and these tell me how quickly I should respond to an email, or how I should wear my hair, or how much money I should make or keep or spend. They also tell me about what motherhood and spirituality look like. This is heavy shit that I keep trying to leave behind, but someone from Lost Luggage keeps paging me to come and get it.

That's it for 2014. Next is Christmas and New Years, my birthday and The Year of the Goat, and maybe I'll find the next step to enlightenment scattered among the stars and celebrations. If so, I'll be sure to share.

Om Shanti, kittens. 

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.

Yellow & White is the New Orange (is the new black)

Yellow & White is the New Orange (Is the New Black)

Two weeks on Paradise Island, and I feel just a smidgen like I'm writing to you from Alcatraz.

Don't worry, the food, the weather, the company, and the beds are better.

Before I left, one of my prenatal yoga students joked that it sounded like I was going to prison: two meals a day, clothing provided, nothing to think about but the task at hand. The running theme for the following weeks was which contraband items I should bring.... like a suitcase full of tampons and chocolate (I should have... chocolate is $8). Then when we arrived, our instructor actually referred to the program as "having many similar qualities to a stay at a minimum-security prison." 

Awesome.

So now I will recount for you the ways in which it is prison-like and the ways in which it is not, based exclusively on my experience watching season one of Orange is the New Black.

Similar:

- Wake up bell and role call at every session (both in and out).

- Unflattering uniforms you're not allowed to alter in any way, other than rolling up the pant legs for the mandatory beach walk meditation (<- this is both categories). Mine is appropriately sized for an extra small elephant.

- Metal table service. Although this may just mean it's like camping.

- Discipline as asserted from the outside, consequences, and reprimands for things like being 30 seconds late or texting in temple (<- not me, mind you, and totally reasonable unless you are texting Ganesha).

- Quirky nicknames. In this case, all staff and YTT faculty have spiritual names (so you could actually be texting Ganesha and that would not be appropriate).

- The food is good, although some foods are completely off limits and we currently don't know why. Even if we go into town, no eggs, onions or garlic.

Different:

- Everyone wants to be here (or want-ed to be here before they got here).

- We can leave any time. Or at least any time the boat leaves the dock, which is four times a day, and we don't require a pass or a shiv or an escape plan to do so.

- There is a lot of chanting. A lot. A LOT. When we're not actually chanting, I'm still chanting in my head, despite my complete inability to memorize the one chant we're actually required to memorize.

- We're here to attain some sort of personal mission for self improvement or spiritual growth or enlightenment.*

*Is this true of prison, too?

The hardest thing for me so far has been the sleep deprivation, followed closely by the discipline. I'm not accustomed to external discipline. And I think it has to do with the lineage-based approach. I'm a liberal artist in a school that adheres strictly and stringently to lineage, and that's tough for me. I've heard many times the analogy of the well. You know how if you want to dig a well and get water, it makes more sense to dig one hole and keep going until you hit water? (I'm sure you've dug a well before, right?)

Well, I haven't. I don't know what it's like, but I imagine that sometimes you hit bedrock and it makes more sense to shift six feet to the left and start again. But again, liberal arts.

So far I'm feeling very much like I did as a child in Catholic mass. I used to feel like it was so unusual that hundreds of people would show up and sit in the same room and pretend to believe the same thing, which we all surely knew wasn't true.

Now I feel like it is strange that hundreds of us gather twice a day to pretend to meditate. Digging the same well.

At least I get to walk on the beach.

The Good Girl and The Good Student

The Good Girl and The Good Student

Like most women of my age and time and station, I've spent some time dealing with my predisposition to be The Good Girl, and by that I mean someone who follows all of the rules simply because they are the rules. Usually the rules are not written by good girls, but by groups of elders or men or elves (or ogres).

When they sent the invitations for the Rule Makers Meeting, it's possible they ran out of stamps when they got to the girls.

It doesn't really matter, though, because we are the best at following rules. If there were rule-following prizes awarded by the sun, we would be starlight beings. Even when the rules make no sense, or when we had no part in writing them. We still get a big, bright, gold star in the sky. And better yet, we avoid the stinging shame of punishment.

I'll speak for myself when I say that I'm slightly perturbed by this. 

Well, half of me is. The other half is too busy following the rules.

The other half, the anthropologist, loves observing the absurd behavior of the first half of me. I've introduced these two halves before, but I'll reintroduce in case you're not my mother and haven't actually read the entire cannon of my blogishness.

The rule follower is the Alpaca-Kari. Alpacas are small and skittish and quick to frighten. They are certain that they will end up on the street dragging a shopping cart filled with various and sundry items cast off by the less-anxious animals who seem to believe somehow that they can survive without that pair of broken sunglasses. 

Alpaca Kari follows the rules because she believes that if she just does EVERYTHING RIGHT that it will keep The Bad Things at bay. Like sickness and sadness and death. Anthropologically speaking, this behavior smacks of a superstition, doesn't it? If I told you that all I have to do to stay healthy is to avoid looking at tarantulas, you would call that superstitious. But if Wash My Hands and Eat My Vegetables, you might call that rational, because these rational rules are backed by Science and will therefore prevent me from getting sick.

Tell THAT to ebola.

Yogini-Kari is the other side. The observer who remembers this training in anthropology and yoga and meditation and says... hmmm... there is definitely logic and even evidence that these behaviors will keep me from getting some sicknesses, but nothing, nothing, nothing will actually prevent sadness and sickness and death.

Damn it.

The biggest irony for me, today, is that I'm re-learning this lesson (again, yes, thank you for keeping score) in an ashram. I find myself trying to be The Good Student (which is the best friend of The Good Girl) and forgetting to apply context or my own moral code or set of priorities. Remember when I decided that my own personal health and safety was more important than, say, being on time for things? 

Apparently, I do not.

This means that on my third day here I got in trouble. As in I broke a rule, someone noticed, and then they told me that I Was Bad.

The good news is that I didn't die immediately. I mean, I'm writing this now from what may very well be my death-hammock, as it is possible I've been living on shock for the past 24 hours, but I'm pretty sure this won't be the thing that does me in. 

It did feel like it at the time, because if there's one thing that makes me squeal inside the most, it is Shame. With a capital S. This comes back to The Good Girl/Student who still prioritizes the health and safety of others (or the Collective) more than the health and safety of my self. Not that the health and safety of everyone isn't important, or that empirically it might even be more important than my tired little stress-addled body, however, this is not how I would want to raise my child. To blindly and blithely follow rules written by a committee that I was not a part of.

And this, dear kittens, is my lesson I'm learning again. That I ought to treat myself as well as I would treat my child. Would I tell my daughter to be A Good Girl? Nope. If I ever have a daughter, I want her to be Pippi Longstocking. Full of sass and spunk and unafraid to say, "Dear God, Man! I've spent years delaying going to the bathroom to prioritize the needs of others over my personal comfort and health, and DAMN IT, when  you gotta go, you gotta go. And now I will go scrub the kitchen. I'll even do it better, more sincerely, and for the greater good of all the world... and without doing the pee pee dance."

These are the things I would want for a daughter.

Which surely means, that's really what I want for myself. Isn't it?

Vice

Dear internet,

I wish I could pour out all of my demons into your boundless bytes of infinite wisdom and webbery, but I'm afraid that I cannot. You've been there for me through moments of tremendous excitement and deep back-stabby pains, and while I'd love to express gratitude for the gifts you've given me, instead I'm writing for another reason.

I'm breaking up with you.

This isn't one of those, "it isn't you, it's me" things. No, this is you.

This breakup is for the times you showed me the false lives of friends and families… the pretty side... the promise of strong connection has fallen short with the ever-invasive nature of what you've had for breakfast, how much your babies have grown, and who else is pregnant.

This is for the times you lured me with incessant ads and programs aimed at fixing what ails me, only to prey on my vulnerability as someone who wants - needs - to find the mystery cure somewhere in your deepest, darkest folds of 1s and 0s.

This is for the friends and loved ones who have fallen victim to your tangly, snarled rabbit hole that starts with something innocent and lands somewhere just shy of criminal. Or just beyond.

This is for the nights you've stolen with mindless watching, chatting, playing, and vicarious living.

I have 500 Facebook followers, 768 Facebook friends, seven websites and more passwords than can fit in my head any longer. And I'm either too old or too young for this.

I appreciate your boundless knowledge, your ability to connect me with obscure morsels of entertainment and trivia, and I'm here to say I've had enough.

I'm taking the next two months as a time-out from you and all your blessings. Because for me, each blessing comes with a shadowy underside that is too tempting to resist. In all other relationships I've maintained some semblance of boundaries… but here? I've let you into my home, my purse, my driving, my bedroom. And what do you give to me? The Kansas state bird. Medical "advice" that always ends up with me having cancer. 62 likes.

This time, I'm taking my life back. Maybe I'll start churning butter or wonder a bit more how long a construction project will take? I don't know what I'll do with my time. That's why I'm taking a time out.

My word in class tonight was honesty. And this is as honest as I get.

That's why, it's over.

Phoenix

It has come to my attention that my blog posts are making a few of you a bit weepy. To be sure, I didn't really think anyone was reading this little ol' blog-o, but now I know for real and for certain that many of you are.

It means a lot to me.

I've hesitated to write this episode for some time now, thinking that I would jinx the very person or the very process, but in an effort to keep myself from being committed by various friends who think I might just benefit from an extended vacation giving myself an involuntary hug, here goes nothing.

When I worked in college admission (and therefore inadvertently counseled numerous eager and brilliant young minds), I used to describe the butterfly process. You've probably heard it before, and the dear Martha describes it well in Steering by Starlight. College graduation is very much like hatching from a cocoon with a whole new set of expectations and abilities. I think we go through many of these such processes in our lives: get tired of crawling along, hibernate, disintegrate into goo, put ourselves back together again, and then POW! WINGS.

A few years ago, as I prepared to retire, I had a sense that what I was experiencing was not the lego-esque butterfly moment, but something entirely different. More than a metamorphosis, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. I didn't feel as though I was about to sprout wings and fly gracefully, I felt like I might spew fire and be ready to take names (as they say). I called it my dragon moment, and it just happened to occur during the transition to the year of the dragon. It was dragons all around as I launched my business, leapt from the safety and security of the 401(k) and wrapped myself in the fragile threads of faith that I had carefully kept hidden from the world. I jumped from reality into fantasy.

Wild dreams came true. Pretty much everything that I set in motion either took off or very quickly disintegrated, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I would never have to do something that scary again.

(Hilarious, I know).

This transition… this transition isn't like a game of legos, where you build your tower and then take all the pieces apart and start over again. This time I've started by tossing my beliefs into the fire.

Security? Illusion.

Forever? A myth.

Future? Not guaranteed.

Expectations? Worthless.

In some ways, this makes breathing easier, because the enormous backpack full of crap I've been toting around is losing weight as the crap inside starts to burn... And then there's the smoke.

I'd love to tell you that I've done this entirely on my own, like Pippi Longstocking or She-Ra (or any other strong female with gorgeous hair and long socks). But the reality is that even in this very intimate and personal moment, I've done this and am doing this with the support of many, many friends.

Like you.

Your words and thoughts and intentions give me the strength that it takes to weather the flames.

But that's not the end of this story.

I have to be careful here. I'm walking dangerously close to the line of the knight in shining armor, and I don't want you (or the alleged knight) to think I'm a damsel, or that I'm in distress that someone else can save me from. The truth is that I have been inspired by someone who has already experienced this rebirth-by-fire. That he is willing to watch patiently from the sidelines, to push gently when I get stuck, and to hold on when I think I'm about to burn up and die? This has been a gift I couldn't have asked for. I didn't know it was possible.

It's inspiring (and scary) to transition from the lego-world of reality to the dragon world of fantasy to the other world-li-ness that comes with starting from scratch with a whole new batch of beliefs. I'm not sure I would have said that it happens outside of the epic poems like the Odyssey or Siddhartha, except that I've seen it. And every time I think about jumping back into lego-land or closing myself off to the pain (and subsequent beauty), I see this mythical creature soaring in front of me.

Waiting for me.

Edging me along, encouraging me. Loving me.

And so I sit on the pyre, knee-deep in ashes, waiting to grow wings.

Recalculating

The last few days have been particularly educational for me. I've felt like a jerk no fewer than three separate times, for things I'm so ashamed about that I will not publish them on the internets.

No matter where I go, the Shame Monster lurks.

I've been exceptionally lucky thus far in this life, or at least I think that's what Oprah would say, as would 99% of the population of Earth. The pain I've experienced has been almost entirely self-inflicted, perhaps because I've had it so easy and would otherwise be bored, or possibly because I have some sort of internal defect or flaw, or indeed because I've got a bad case of self-directed sociopathic tendencies.

I love Martha Beck. She says that when you're on the right path, the Universe conspires to assist you, and when you're not… well, it keeps sending reminders. Like my GPS, Shirley T, who never says, "WRONG! WRONG!" she just says, "Recalculating."

I'm recalculating.

And recalculating.

On Friday I went to Divorce Court with my husband. We sat next to one another while the other couples sat across the aisles, spewing silent hate-balls and shooting eye-daggers. We thought we were attending something personal where a judge would give us dirty looks and ask us with puppy dog eyes, "why couldn't you just make it work?" I was prepared for the judge to ask me if I was pregnant, and when I said no, ask me again if I was sure. But I wasn't ready for what actually happened.

Two things broke my spirit on Friday. One, the unfortunate man whose job was to interpret an exceptionally boring flow chart for the masses did his darndest to keep us entertained as he essentially told us five minutes worth of information in two hours. He did this using a narrative style, which I appreciate from the days of working in college admission. Keeping an audience when the subject matter is bleak isn't easy, but his narrative was horrendous. Humbling. Humiliating.

We were a mixed crowd, the 20 other couples and I. Some had children, others did not. As such, our flow charts contained different information. In order to describe the importance of a childcare agreement, Mr. Not Judge described the process of having and raising a child in excruciating detail. "You loved each other, so you decided to have a baby. You wanted the best for your baby and talked about what you would feed it, where it would go to school, how you would teach it values, whether or not it would participate in a religion..."

And there I was, my head pounding. The wailing banshee inside screaming WE DID THAT PART. WE DID ALL OF IT. WE HAD EVERYTHING IN PLACE. AND WE HAVE NO BABY. My eyes started to water, then pour as all of the dreams and goals and plans that I had made washed back into the sea. The reality of the tide receding as I close this chapter was as shocking as Shirley T telling me to take a left turn into a lake.

And so sitting there, in the face of all the never-will-be, in a sea of animosity, my husband took my hand. He said nothing, and he didn't have to, because he knows me better than anyone else. Sure, I've spent months slowly chipping away at the frozen or calcified grief in my belly, but any progress I've made has quickly patched over to preserve or survive. What possibly remains of spirit once the grief begins to thaw? I think it sets itself on fire, transmuting its energy by self-immolation. Grief, I suppose, cannot thaw itself.

It strikes me, haunts me, that in the moment we were supposed to be the farthest, we were the closest.

My wedding video shows my relative insanity as I try to look the blushing bride. Among the things I blame (and thank) my mother for is my lack of Barbie doll preparation for a world that has still quite a few Barbie-esque expectations. There was no deep spiritual transition as I committed myself to a partnership, just a hare-brained attempt to look pretty and keep smiling.

But divorce? That's where the magic happened. The moment I realized that the most loving thing another human could do was to see, to acknowledge, and to hold my hand in the swampy thickness of thawed grief.

We each go our separate ways shortly… him to the East and I to the… well, East, but different easts.

No Shirley this time, just me.

Recalculating.

Tyrannical Monday

Today is the anniversary of a lesson (and it has nothing to do with a man named Christopher).

I think most people would say it's the anniversary of a very bad day, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong about that, but I haven't thought about it as a bad day for the last ten years or so. For certain a date when I allowed myself to be pulled down the road less traveled when standing my ground and taking the brightly-lit path might have been a significantly better choice.

Regardless, one more set of footprints on that dark road.

I know other people who have been there and haven't been able to escape the shadows of that more densely-forested lane, but I feel like I did. And I grew from it, and helped lots of people who needed that help, particularly from someone who had the same dust on her shoes.

--

I've been reading a bit about the pesky, thorny people that come into your life and stick on like brambles and exceptionally tired chewing gum. For me, it used to be the glue-eater in elementary school, and then it was the overzealous coworker who always had her nose and toes and ears in my office asking me where I got my shoes. These people had things to teach me, whether or not I learned them the first time or after declining the seventh invitation to the pyramid scheme kitchen gadget party.  I'm reading a Big Girl Book right now, and I feel I must share with you that this idea is not my own. These people are lovingly referred to as Petty Tyrants, and they A) only come to us if we're really, really lucky and B) are here to teach us important lessons about ourselves. If we're incredibly fortunate, we get an egotistical d-bag named Christopher who begets the pillaging of an entire continent (or two) and the countless peoples within.

Now, I'm not America (obviously). Nor am I so "fortunate" as to be pillaged by the Sons of the Spanish Armada. But I am more than navel deep in my own epic narrative down another road less traveled, and I'm starting to wonder if my tyrant is more of an experience than an embodied person. A situation I've gotten myself into.

Sometimes I imagine that God is laughing - hysterically - about my situation. It's actually pretty funny to think about. I know a lot about preparing women for birth, so a lot of them come to my yoga classes or want to hire me as a doula, or just want to message/text/call me with questions. And it is SUCH an honor to be a part of their experiences! (You want to talk about an experience as f-ed over as pre-Colonial America? try birth). I am absolutely thrilled beyond my wildest dreams that people value my opinion, want my support, or hear my voice in their heads repeating something that made sense when they're in the midst of the cyclone of birth or motherhood.

And yet, the bitter sadness that despite doing everything "right," and learning that nothing is "wrong" that I'm still on the wrong side of that zoo glass. The side that sees motherhood as a spectator. A super fan with no way in.

So here I am, on this dark path, again confronting an experience. Eager (desperate?) to learn the lesson. Trying to find grace and gratitude for the opportunity.

The beauty in the ashes.

I don't like Mondays too much.