if you wanted to know my spirit

if you wanted to know my spirit
i'd give you a jar and say:

mix all my paints with water
turn me mud-brown, mutt-like
let no one know where i'm from by sight

call me a gorgeous indistinguishable everything
call me singing hallelujah off tune
call me just like you: special matter, transmuting 
unable to untangle 

all these pigments
and roots

hallelu
hallelu
hallelu

Calling All Creeps

Come, love. Sit down with me. This is for you...

When it seems like there's no where to put your love
When your desire becomes a splinter in your heel that you cannot remove no matter the tweezers
When you just keep walking, pain and all, beginning to limp from longing so deeply

When what you prefer giving and what they prefer receiving doesn't exactly line up
When you have no fucking clue what it is that you're meant to give
When you can't control your energy in ways other than outbursts of desperation or denial

When you're the only one at the party buttoned up, or wearing flannel, or ready to kiss with as much as a hint
When you're never invited to the party
When you always choose to stay home

When you're popping xanex in the bathroom to kill the edge
When you just can't shake your judgement
When you can't understand why everyone's judging

When you get the best gift of your life and then have nothing for the giver but a thank you that he won't even receive
When you know the truth will most definitely break something--like the inertia of your body or the frozen fear of your voice
When you'd rather lie than go through the pain of restoring a shattered life
When you decide to let things break, and no one likes your recklessness

When you begin to see yourself in everyone and everything
When you can call yourself what you really are, without pretending that you are not
When your big bold life begins to topple over the edge of normal and into the realm of whole
And when you let yourself worry that this--this expansive way of being alive--makes you even stranger than before when you had no where to put your love

What if your belonging doesn't depend on someone else's word or approval?
What if there's no one coming to comfort you--I mean down-to-the-bones comfort--but your own tired self?
What if you are the so fucking special and also the creep, the weird-o?

We are all so very vulnerable. No one immune. No one getting to play hookie in the health room during the math exam. Not forever, anyway.

We all eventually have to sit for that test--the one that exposes how little we know, the one that makes us feel like beginners again, the one that softens our ego and teaches us to ask for help, or say nothing at all and just be with our own tender limitations.

We are all creeps. All weird-o's. And there is someone out there, someone so fucking special meant to make your creep stand tall like hairs on your back. Meant to remind you of your fragility. Meant to point you to your strength by illuminating your wobbly parts.

Sit for your test. Struggle to let someone see your vulnerability. Over and over and over again.

Passing's not the point.

You're learning. Perhaps, if nothing else, how to let go of the need to get everything right, to know all the ways of the all the worlds, to always have an answer.

You're learning how to be a creep, and therefore, relatable. You're learning how to be a weird-o, and therefore, low-pressure for everyone else. You're learning how to be one of many drowning in the pool of desire for a perfect body, a perfect soul.

And this, this makes you more known, more normal, more human than you ever thought you'd be. It makes you just like me, just like her, just like him. It makes you one of us in this big, messy, beautiful human family that's trying to learn love despite our differences; that's trying play and grow up and stay young and feel free and feel safe all at the same time.

We see ourselves in you.

We all have our days (or months, or years) wondering, What the hell am I doing here?

We're all in this together.

Here. Now. Happy.

I spent this morning with my two best friends. Judy laid on her bed as we held up her clothes one by one. "Yes." "No." "Ummm, nah." We tossed the future into different piles, letting keepers tell the story of who we're becoming: a tall tree grounded to the beauty of existence; slender power revolving into an indistinguishable knowing; puddling eyes drizzled with sunlit freedom.

Bri & I are down to two weeks until departure for our grand bicycle adventure. My dresser was sold for $20 on Craig's List and the little clothing I kept is resting on Brian's recently cleared bookshelf. In boxes by the door, my art supplies wait their turn. New seeds are being born under florescent lights on the stove. There's a clearing here. There's room for new life.

I pick up my ukulele and play the song that Jodi and I wrote about the comfy red couch, about the coffee from the local shop, about choosing to be together. I walk barefoot through the front yard garden, watching the wine glass path glisten in the sun. I breathe in pollen and car exhaust and sky blue spring time and songs sung by birds.

I read my twitter feed and give all the attention in my bones to the truth of what's happening in the world. I look up and give all the attention in my bones to the truth of what's happening in this room. I pick up my new iPhone and smile at pictures of a long-held dream made manifest; the movements spreading with fiery force.

This is where the stories meet, I think.
This is where everything exists together.
This is where I get down on my knees and kiss the earth and choke up in gratitude and silently scream with my tears.
This is where I am.
Exactly where I want to be.

conversations with abraham

 
i have a tendency for falling in love with people everywhere i go. it's a condition i simply cannot shake. yesterday at the big bear cafe, abraham was no exception.

we were sitting catty-cornered at the common table that was long with deep grooves from many years of use, many mugs and plates clanking down on it.

i was drawing and he was typing. peering over his laptop with a slight grin on his face and love in his eyes, he asked me, what are you making?
--sorry, what did you say? with his soft voice and east african accent, it was hard to make out his words.
what are you making, love? it's beautiful.
--oh, thank you. a flier.
ahh... what is it for?
--an arts festival.
oh, you're an artist, yes? i nodded... what kind of art do yo do?
--writing and painting, mostly.
his brow perched up. i'm a writer, too. what do you write about?
--umm... being human, i suppose. you know... fear, trust, love. my nerves must have shown through the confidence i projected. but something in me knew that neither nerves nor confidence were important here. what about you?
he paused. yes yes... ego is the sneakiest of human struggles, he said finally, stroking his beautiful white beard in a quiet and thoughtful way. you never really rid yourself of it. you just learn how to control it. and fear is at the center of everything. i write about these things, too.

i put my pen down, took off my reading glasses, and smiled. hello, love, i thought, let us begin.

our conversation stretched on for hours with velocity and ease. at times when abraham went into longer stories i let my mind quiet and watched the widening and narrowing of his glossy eyes--the space between his barrier-breaking smile and curious furrowed brow.

i've learned through practice to let go of individualizing myself and others... to become part of the universe.

do you still have fear? i asked.

yes, but my fear does not haunt me. from the center of his chest out toward his sides, he motioned with his hands, shaking out the space, patting down the air. this was his letting go, his shaking free. i love to dance, he told me. too much, sometimes.

i knew this was true beyond words, without ever seeing it happen. dancing is freedom, and abraham seemed to know both.

there are two paths you can choose: the average path or the spiritual path. choosing the spiritual path does not land you at the ending like *that*. it takes you on a journey. he leaned back smiling, tilting his head to almost touch his shoulder, as if he saw me straighter that way. i never know where it's taking me. but i'm glad to be on it.

i understand that intellectually, i told him, followed by an exhale of honesty, but i'm still very afraid in my heart. 

ah, you are young. you have many experiences waiting for you and much exploration to do. the universe will teach you many things. many lessons about impermanence and loss. my acceptance of impermanence has liberated me from fear for the most part. but like they say, if you're not an idealistic marxist in your twenties then something's wrong with you. this idealism makes it hard to accept loss. you have many experiences waiting for you. you will live to explore many ideas and truths. but right now, this is enough.

yes, abraham, i thought, right now--this is more than enough.

To see one's predicament clearly...

On the first day of Sociology 105: Social Problems, the professor asked the class to write a list of social problems in our notebooks, then circle the most pressing one. When he asked for students to share their opinions, common answers arose like homelessness, unemployment, drugs, hunger. Everything was as he had planned until my hand rose and out of my mouth came something that turned heads:
"Alienation."

"Uhmm.. sure. Yeah... mental health issues... that's good," the professor said, misunderstanding my remark.

I can't remember if I responded or not in the moment, but internally my mind raced. No, no. Mental health is something pinned on the individual. Alienation is a collective human experience -- one of the most painful and pressing of our existence. It's having countless ways to connect but feeling devoid of connection. It's existing cut off from our true selves, and therefore cut off from one another. It's believing that we're in this life alone and that our survival is completely up to us. As if we're not all going toward the same eventual end. As if we're not all hoping for the same things before we get there. As if we're not all present in this very single moment, capable of showing up for our own and each others big truths. Capable of making a better world to exist in.

The class moved on and alienation didn't come up for the rest of the semester. Years passed and I'd completely forgotten about what happened on the first day of Socy105 until I read this line in Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth:

Alienation means you don't feel at ease in any situation, any place, or with any person, not even with yourself. You are always trying to get "home" but never feel at home.

A heart-sinking feeling came to me as my eyes graced this line. My mind raced back to that day when I sat on that squeaky wooden chair and was quietly washed over by a feeling of alienation just as I tried to bring the very thing to light.

To this day I still believe that an inability to be present with one another is at the root of our social ills. There are cures and there are answers--things we each hold in our hearts when we slow down enough to listen for them--when we believe in our potential for progress and trust in Tolle's closing remark:

To see one's predicament clearly is a first step toward going beyond it.

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