Without a mirror what do I look like?

I read a quote, “To find yourself, go back to when you were not lost”. …hmm perhaps I have had moments of feeling found but never truly being joyful about where I am. I have always been restless searching for the next moment of joy or pleasure. Does that make it difficult to really know and love something/someone if I am flittering around always looking or the next good thing?

I would like to go deeper into the idea of love or rather addiction. When we are some new lover you are so cherished. You are a mirror of something lovely.  Maybe if one meditates on something beautiful you can also hold that beauty in your heart as if it is you; I guess that is how Buddhism works. Maybe that is why I am drawn to it. But what is the me that is beyond the mirror the me that is in the quiet where no images project in telling me how I feel.  What if there is nothing shining into my eyes. Can love grow inside in the darkness?

Perhaps that is where I dwell. I will go there and meet myself.  

My Papa loves to watch NCIS. It is well written, exciting, and after of all the frightening and stressful events there is the loveliest of things: a solution.  I always want a solution. If there is an answer then I don’t have to sit with the complex feelings of sadness, grief, fear, and/or anger.  But the truth is not all problems have a solution. Sometimes they are just hard. Discomfort will pass but it takes great courage to be with it.

The goal then of hard time is to accept it, to find ways to sooth and distract, not avoid but to comfort oneself with compassion.  

I still find it much easier to hunt for solutions, avoid the pain and/or blame others for the pain. But the truth is only when I acknowledge how hard something is, take accountability for myself and what I am bringing to the table does it ease up, after time has passed.  

There are no solutions for pain. It just is. As my favorite quote says, “Life with bring you pain all by itself it is your job to create joy.”  It does not say just feel joy cause you can avoid pain. It says pain is part of life. Be with it and create joy, perhaps sharing our joys comforts others sitting with their own pain.

How do I create joy?

·         I can create beautiful drawings.

·         I can be warm and kind to those around me.

·         I can be helpful.

·         I can find ways to laugh so I can share my humor.

·         I can advocate for the vulnerable.

·         I can take care of myself so I don’t add to others burdens.

The First Walk

Fear and Joy
January 2015

Like water off okra I ooze out of the car.

I am not sure where to park.

I could just go home.

 Maybe I will get mugged or raped.

I am safer going home.

I should have peed.

I walk past the Industrial plants framed by tall trees and vines  

Tennis shoes complimenting my dress slacks.

Button down and dress shoes

Heaped in the passenger seat

I no longer see.

The trail folds out before me and  

I hear bird song and the crunch of leaves,

I see tall green giants welcoming me.

Others are here

On bikes,

 with dogs,

running.

And as the trial folds out before me

And I am amazed by the feelings

Of love for each green leaf

And each skeleton of wild carrot

from last summer

I am so in love with the wild world

To be with it this rich earth

 I never feel bound

 by

a

need

To connect

It is as if all the words of my existence can be found here.

And I am plugged into the freedom of a green trail blanketed in wind, growth, silence and decay

Joy then compliments my fear.

And

I am proud.   

I strut back to parked car

ready to explore the world again.

Play and the Working Self

I recently heard this great Onbeing podcast on play, the guest was a man named STUART BROWN. He  is the founder and president of the National Institute for Play. (http://www.onbeing.org/program/play-spirit-and-character/143#.VBuCd0sYEpE).

One of the most intriguing things in this interview was the idea that the games we loved as children are our bliss. What games did you play? What was my favorite game? Where to find out? I am lucky that my mother is still living so I called her and asked what was my favorite game was when I was a child? I asked her, Was it dolls, playing outside, using my imagination? and she said, "You loved reading books", and what was amazing is as soon as she said that this flood of memories came back to me. I could remember sitting in a bucket in the garage, with a stack of my "little golden books", I recalled looking at pictures of Petunia pig and Frances and her tea set. I recalled running my finger along as I looked at the words.  I remember annoying the whole family reading road signs and, all of the credits after movies.  I remember reading Stephen King when I was twelve all night with a flash light. I have always loved words and stories.

I wonder why even though I am repeatedly called to write and even allowed long bits of time to work on writing, why is it that I avoid the thing that brings me great joy? What am I afraid will have to change if I really commit to writing?

I will try to share something everyday for the rest of September.

My work.

I have found a part time job as a data collector. It is slow to start but I am grateful for it. However this thing about work continues to be a mystery. The other day a healer said to me, "You have not found your work". 

She is right. 

I am not sure how that is helpful I already knew it. I guess now that it is confirmed I can begin to look for "my work". 

As a child from a blue collar family I grew up believing ones "work" is a job one gets to pay the bills and then you do your best to be good at it as a side effect of integrity. I have not understood work as something that fills one up. In the world I come from a person could be filled up by family or spiritual life. But not work. What does it mean to find ones work?

Where does one begin to look? 

Working at finding Work

Wow looking for work is a complex mind machine. Shame-Hope-Shame-Hope....

There are these moments where I am happy cleaning, making food, organizing stuff, and relaxing and reading a book. There are moments where I get excited as I apply for a job, thinking this one would be great.

If I am not job hunting there is a little voice says, "You should be contributing to society-you bum." So I anxoiusly fill out long complex job applications, send emails, make phone calls, then stare at Indeed.com like some job is going to pop up off the internet.

I think job hunting it is kind of like dating or better yet so much like me as a kid waiting to be picked for a sports team.

I can feel myself standing on the side lines, staring at the kids picking teams. thinking..me next, me next, me next.. I feel myself watching as each kid runs over and stands proud breathing out. I just continue hoping to be picked at the very least before the kid with the care aid.


I do want to be part of a working team. I feel a kind of shame in not working or raising children. Like the whole world is at a party and I am waiting here at home.

Many students that graduated seem to have picked up jobs right away with out even a job interview So I wonder, am I not trying hard enough?

Am I a grown up?

Internet and time.

I got on Instagram last night and did not even realize I was in the room with my husband for maybe 15 minutes. I just zoned out looking a photos. No body at all just a mind... photo... little heart... photo, little heart, ...wow that looks fun...photo little heart.... Look up...husband in recliner, cat passed out on her cardboard covered box. hmmm.

Where does all the time go.

How do I want to use my time?

Okay. So here I am writing on the internet. That may be okay but I find that instead of doing nothing I peak around on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. I think I am looking for connection. Some sign that I matter in this big world. I know I matter to all the little living things that make up me. but what about the world outside of me.

I wonder does a person need to do nothing. Also what about spending time drawing or learning to play the guitar. Or talking to a neighbor.

I am puzzled about time and would love a guide, maybe a person who had wisdom on matters of body and mind and this technological age.



Today I planted a grape. It is a chardonnay. I had to dig up this stubborn root to get it in the ground. I hope it does well. I kind of freak out when bugs appear on my plants.
Heres to being a grown up.