If you tell the whole truth

You may face the consequences
You may literally quiver in your body, shiver in your bones, and just barely whisper your words
You may suffer regret
You may be surprised by the way another's whole truth affects yours
You may enter the freedom and committment and chill of actually marrying yourself
You may be mistaken for selfish or rude
You may apologize with nothing but sincerety in your heart, no matter the humiliation or blow it takes to your dear ego
You may feel the emerging pain of bringing something new into the world for the very first time
You may begin to believe in love
You may actually get what you really want (and you may come to realize that it's not what you thought you wanted... not even one bit)
You may cause storms
You may change your entire life with one sentence you can never retrieve
You may lose things or people or places or jobs you never planed on losing
You may wonder if it was worth it, or if you (and everyone else) would've been better off living just below the surface of your perfectly normal lies
You may gain the life you're really meant for
You may find true companionship
You may be seen and loved, fully, for every single bit of who you really are
You may sacrifice ease for holiness
You may be completely exhausted and need two naps a day for the rest of your life
You may become far more curious than you were ever prepared for
You may ask provacative, pivitol questions, and fear not their answers
You may feel alone
You may swell over with remorse
You may swell over with gratitude
You may Surrender
You may become closer to God than you ever knew possible
You may learn the true gifts of imperfection
You may give more than you were ready to give
You may learn more than you were ready to learn
You may have nothing left to sit with than what you're actually meant for in this very moment in time
You may come to life like never before
You may embody a difficult, honest work
You may embody Love
You may know that it was worth it, every tiny morsel, every drop of sweat, every tear and laugh and unruly sigh of relief

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.

i love keri smith.

i love her ideas (and the things that inspire her) so very much.

this, for instance.

"the problem today is -the only possible project (and young people should complete an active effort now) is working to ‘decondition’ people from the god of merchandise." -Enzo Mari

i both struggle with and am fascinated by ideas of deconditioning people from "the god of merchandise"... and the thousands of deeper layers of conditioning we've yet to free ourselves from.

it's only natural for me, after so much tedious production work, to surge full-force into innovation mode. and lately i've been playing with ideas of unfiltering and deconditioning my interactions with other human beings. for instance, learning about the unemployment in the city by talking with the unemployed as opposed to reading statistics in the paper. or standing next to a list of all my sexual preferences and being totally open to talking about them as opposed to letting a magazine ad vaguely and (most likely) incorrectly inform people of what i'm interested in. (hellloooo...everyone has individual, specific interests!)

i have ideas for a new collective of people who are committed to this kind of work in the public sphere--this kind of face-to-face, on-the-streets approach to learning about each other's lives. i see this movement as akin to the Do It Yourself movement that was a reaction to the distance and lack of ownership people were feeling in regards to the process of turning materials into goods. similarly, this Person-To-Person movement is a reaction to the constant filters through which we receive our information about others. i feel such distance from distance and lack of authentic connectedness that i feel with my community, my city, my generation.