Graduation

I have always said that if you seek to teach, buckle up, because life will give you a lesson to learn.
Yoga agrees on this point – that if you don't learn it the first time, that's ok. You'll get the lesson again. And again.

And again.

I have shied away from teaching yoga, in part because I did not feel worthy. For years I attributed this to the Hero's Journey, my reticence to stepping into that role. Who am I? What do I have to offer? A refusal of the call, followed by heeding the call, followed by a return home, changed, lesson learned.

It was not until cambio opened that I decided to step publicly into the role of teacher.

And for years I don't think I had much to teach, because I had not been open to learning. I was operating from a high place, a pedestal, a seat of accomplishment, having done all of the things just right. I was pompous and overconfident, while simultaneously feeling (secretly) unworthy.

Classic imposter syndrome.

I measured my success by counting pats on the back, likes on Facebook, repeat students fawning over me. I was the person in the tight pants, the self-righteous vegan diet, the green smoothies in jars, the mala bead jewelry. And then, I fell from grace. I lost friends and respect – yours and my own.

I burned my life down.

Infertility taught me many things (including and most importantly that I am not, in fact, infertile). My body is not broken – it is on my team – most days it is the captain of my team. It is telling me important information, trying at self-preservation when my mind and spirit run into their self-destructive tendencies.

And so I'm writing to tell you what I have learned on this hero's journey, awash in the sea of the reality of life.

Addiction is no fucking joke, and it is not welcome in the life raft of my joy room. It is not welcome in my body. Only good things are allowed in.

And good things must be let in.

External validation is no substitute for the nutrition that can only come from self-worth.

My starving body has told me this – maybe yours has told you, too?

I have spent so much time apologizing for existing, for not meeting your expectations, for needing anything at all from you. For running on your validation, with which I have sustained myself rather than seeking true sustenance.

I have found my voice, and know my truth. I used to apologize for it.

I am a writer - an anthropologist.

I am ready to graduate.

On Wednesday, I will lead my final class at cambio., and I like to think of this moment as a graduation – a diploma I have earned, having learned so many lessons.

Join me, if you can.

Om bolo satguru bhagavan ki.

Rhizomes

Ben is getting ready to go to India for the next five months, to study Tibetan in an immersion school.

I feel so good about this.

Yes. I thought. This is your path. THIS is part of why we separated – so you could go, and I could love you for it rather than resenting you for it.

I got to see him for a few hours, and chat about the important things. Share feelings in a way I haven't been able to share with anyone else, because he knows me in a certain way that no one else does.
I find it interesting that we describe separation as part of divorce – it is what you do before you divorce, and then the judge and the notary are supposed to shove their gavels and stamps between the sides and create a clear separation.

But I don't feel that separation.

I feel roots.

When we got married, I carried a bouquet of golden aspen leaves. Our people wore aspen pendants and corsages, and we ate aspen-shaped chocolates. It's weird, I suppose, because the leaves aren't flowers, and it wasn't traditional. But it was authentic, and it has deeper meaning for me now.

Aspen trees are rhizomes – one root system lives for thousands of years, sending up various trees whose individual life spans are short, among the chorus of their neighbors.

Each tree contributes to the colony, investing it's life into the roots.

What we see as independent trees is simply an illusion.

How's that for poetry?

As I once wrote, some marriages fail without ending, and I believe ours ended without failing. I believe we poured our life-force into the roots, and we are each better for it. And while we may not be walking hand-in-hand in this life, tethered by rings and Official Documents, our connection persists.

The separation you see, is simply an illusion.

Dig

I am so tired these days - as though I have never slept.

I think it is the weight - or maybe the gravity - of the world.

We appear to have lost our collective minds, I think. Too much anonymous sharing, too much hopping into our respective silos and avoiding the reality we find ourselves in. Too many virtual masks and mud flinging. Too many post-apocalyptic fantasies that get us riled up for all of the imagined injustice.

As I teenager I spent most summer days ashamed of my skin. I am so pale, with so many freckles, and god knows no one in the fashion magazines ever wanted to see something so hideous as my french vanilla skin. Meanwhile, I benefited from all of the invisible privileges that came with it.

It has taken me a long time to embrace my outer shell, so I'm not about to say that I'm ashamed of being white. I've done that. And I can't help it. But I CAN use my unearned privilege wisely. I CAN use my voice to say - if you are spewing hate, you're doing it wrong. Hate has no place in this world - it is a distraction (and, the yogis would say, the highest form of devotion, but that's for another day).

When you have a feeling, as you are bound to do, particularly if you are sober or having a sober moment, it is your duty to unravel it and channel that energy into something more constructive. 

Passion, say, or digging holes. Digging is a spiritual practice, I do believe. My teacher, my dear sweet Hunter said so.

It was, in fact, the only word he ever said.

Dig, dig, dig.

If you're too afraid to do the inner work, then pick up a shovel. Call the electrical company or drive out into the desert, and have a moment with god. Dig. Stomp your feet. Yell into the ethers. Step away from pitchforks and tiki torches, away from other people who are also angry.

If you are afraid, as I am, as so many of us have been for the past nine months, then this is the place to gather. Look for the person who is more afraid than you are, and hold their hand. Get them water.
Let your eyes be soft on them - tell them you are a digger.

That maybe you don't understand how they feel, or what their experience is, but that your eyes and ears are open.

Interlude

There was a girl yesterday who both made my day and broke my heart.

I was walking through the Botanic Gardens, and we locked eyes from a distance. She said hello, and then came up and hugged my legs.

She knows - I thought.

She knows something, but her words are coming in, which means she's starting to forget.

Don't give up, she said with her eyes.

Never give up.

Instruction Manuals

I'm vacuuming today.

Yesterday, my friend and her toddler came over to help me install a ceiling fan, because earlier this week the fan above my head decided the globe was ripe and dropped it right on me as I slept.

Knowing my limitations regarding electrical work and my lack of necessary limbs to both lift and unscrew simultaneously, I called in backup. Two tiny women in their thirties and a toddler.

(God help us).

We watched a YouTube instructional video, which was a bit disconcerting. Nearly a quarter of a million people have viewed it, but it does not give success rates, nor are there helpful Yelp reviews. The man started with “I had my home wired specifically...” and then I glazed over.

What?

We tried. We successfully removed parts A-T from the box, found the instruction manual, and were flummoxed by step one, which referred to an essential part that was not included. Fastidious women that we are, we dutiful unpacked, unwound, counted and inventoried, naming each part as we went. I secretly missed the useless yet comforting image of the man with the pencil behind his ear, ala Ikea manuals.

Step one – find a man with a pencil.

(I'm pretty good at THAT step one).

Without the easy first step, and without the essential part that was excluded from my purchase, we gave up, packing up most of the things back in the box and shoving them underneath the guest bed.

This is what I do when an unmanageable problem surfaces in my life – first, call in backup. Second, give it the College Try. Third, shove it under something, and pave over the emotions of failure with cheese, chocolate, or conversation. Wait for rain, the cavalry, or the apocalypse, whichever comes first.

The fan was a bust, but the day wasn't. Because instead of spending a few hours with a very confusing instruction manual, and 20 different parts to assemble (some of which are not included, a conversation I intend to have with Mr. Lowe himself), we sat on the couch and watched the full joy of the experience of destroying styrofoam packaging, through the eyes of a child.

And today, I got to vacuum all of the tiny wispy bits of styrofoam that remain. The static cling of them ensured I put in due effort, and I was grateful. As has been taught to me, be grateful of the dishes you must wash, as it means you have both dishes and meals. Be grateful for the laundry you need to fold, as it means you have plenty to wear.

Be grateful for the flotsam left in the wake of a joyful toddler, as it means your life has been touched by friends and by God – her infinite wisdom that the joy of the thing was not the point of the thing.
That the fan will wait for another day, but that this moment is precious and sacred, and would otherwise be missed if we always kept things tidy and followed the Rules.

I am grateful for the wisdom of the child who shepherded my sanity on this day.

Who kept me walking in the light.

Adulting

Everyone seems to have an opinion on my dating life these days – things you should and shouldn't do on a first date, or second date. What to wear. How long to wait afterwards to text or call. Whether or not no news is good news, or simply another loose end. My readiness, in general.

It's too much.

And so it appears I'm becoming an anthropologist of dating, a psychoanalyst of one.

I'm learning so very much about myself through this – first, that I'm an adult. Second, that adulthood is not in any way correlated with competency. That's the lie of the driving age, the voting age, the drinking age. The idea that time in service equates some level of proficiency in making decisions.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

The Greek Chorus of my friends and fellow wanderers seem to think I've got a few things going for me – that I'm smart and witty. Funny. Attractive. I've tried not to be – dumbed myself down, chopped off my hair. It's easier to accept rejection when you're not playing at full volume – accept the outcome when it's just the flip of a coin.

Harder when you're real, full force. Because then the rejection is real, fully earned.

The biggest challenge is not believing it's deserved. That the rejection is more about cosmic forces in slightly – but significantly – different orbits. See you again next life.

Or not.

My therapist is trying to help me embrace the idea that I have needs that must be met by other people – that I'm not entirely self-sufficient, and that this is not, in fact, a sign of weakness. This is a sign of human-ness. Humans are social, and even with my best cyborg impersonation, I am resigned to the fact that I am one. That part of being human is asking for help, and asking again and again at different doorsteps, at different feet.

The biggest lesson to date, in the field of dating, is that it takes a village. That my anxiety requires the assistance of 15 friends, a gallon of paint, a few yoga classes, a tribe of Al-Anon-ers to make sense of my disoriented position in the galaxy. And this is the gift – the realization that I have fifteen friends. A yoga community. A room of people as twisted and as human as I am in their preoccupation with calibrating off of the misguided signals of other people rather than their own screwed up and perfect molten cores.

I feel about twenty years behind at this, and pop culture is of no service. But neither are the opinions of a dozen people who are equally lost on this path. My solution – my resolution – is just to be me, fully, no holds barred. Less consideration for the shoulds and the thou shalt nots, more respect for the inner compass. More willingness to say, “help me!” when I need it, and “thanks for your opinion” when I don't.

Perhaps this is the mark of adulting.

Sankalpa

I've been lost for the last 24 hours or so. There are caverns in my mind... long, winding hallways filled with darkness and secret dripping sounds. Echoes and things that slither. The first time I held a human brain in my hands, I remember thinking that the labyrinthian folds and corners looked rather familiar... and I'm in there now, somewhere left of the lingual gyrus in a place that is deeply patterned.

Anxiety city.

I can't go into the details – they're irrelevant anyway – but the basic premise is that I'm looking for some external validation. I'd like to buy an ego-boost for $500, please.

I mean, welcome to America, right? I can hear you thinking that this is simply how we roll here – we buy the validation, the ladder out of the lost places in our mind. Or we ride the chute of addiction out. Have you seen my postings on social media? Mine, like yours, are cries for attention – validation – support of me as good enough. Right enough. Well enough.

Someone please tell me I'm pretty.

It's exhausting. Because I know I'm smart, and funny, and I do actually think I'm pretty (on a good day, with the right lighting...) It's hard to create my own light and shine it out, but that is the work. Especially on days when I am looking for someone else to light me up, to reflect my light back at me, these are the days when I need to put my hand on my chest and BELT, “I AM BEAUTIFUL – I AM BOUNTIFUL – I AM BLISS GAWDDAMMNIT.”

The yogis say that your thoughts become your words, and your words actions, and if that is the case then I believe we are royally fucked, my friends, because my thoughts are not yielding fields of blueberries and decent foster parents for all. My thoughts have a way of scampering into the dark places, of luring me down the hole, of clouding over the sun of my self-confidence.

After yoga, and coffee, and confession, and more yoga, I drove home ready to do the home-improvement work that I'm sure Jung would find particularly meaningful - rebirthing my guest room in Santa Fe colors. It's a work in progress, like my social life. And now I've retreated to the joy room – my life-raft of safety and security, containing only the things that spark joy and literally nothing else.

So here I am – on time out. Surrounded by things that spark joy, seeking the internal light switch. Recharging the crystal I wear over my heart, which took the place of the phoenix whose job was to remind me to lead with the heart, always.

I AM THE LIGHT OF MY SOUL.