Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Burn That Broken Bed

"I wanna scope you out - I wanna touch your mouth when you're out there.
When are you comin' back? Bird on the branch must come on home to sing."
-Burn That Broken Bed by Calexico and Iron and Wine, from album In the Reins

So many burnt bridges. A few years ago, in the dying throes of our friendship, a friend and I figured out that when you have a close enough relationship with anyone, you basically create a whole other existence out of that relating. You make a child, was our analogy (keep in mind we are both childless), or, more lightly, a bridge. You are, together, not just yourself, not yourself at all, in some ways, rather, a part of that newer entity. When you "break up", there is a presence lost, and it is not just that other person, not just parts of you. It is also the relationship.

My 7 year old nephew, who lives a couple of hours away, and I are getting a lot closer. Tonight, in a friend's borrowed car, we went bowling, then over to the store, because he loves to ring people up, and increasingly, he loves books. He is deeply affectionate, and wirey but inspiring. I had a dream last week that I was pregnant, and it was funny (odd, not ha ha) to be around him today, to feel a connection to such a person, a new generation of our family, of the world - to feel our connection as something outside of us both. His dad is moving to Milwaukee in the next few weeks, and he was really worried about not seeing me, about not seeing his dad as much. He was really excited about being in a car alone with me (I don't own a car, and he and I are rarely without his father) and about being able to hang out with me. It is so amazing how significant and sad it feels to me to be important to someone, to him. This, this season of family and relationships, and he gave me a big fat wet kiss on the lips when we said goodbye and wished me Merry You-Know-What.

In some ways, I have gotten what I wanted: alone-ness. Solitude. Space. Yet, I was feeling suspiciously isolated (over the holiday). My nephew, plus friends visiting from Canada, have helped over the last couple of days (holidays are always hard, as some folks are still around, but we are always holed away in our own homes). I feel in my gut a kind of hollow space, honestly, an aborted space, from which the dead of my family and the living but not a part of my life had been extricated by taking on this year's Christmas as purely my own. It was good to have a taste, a wet, sloppy taste, of my nephew's need for me to stay with him, here. Wherever that here is. Empty spaces included.

This is the worst time of the year for me, by a clear margin. In fact, Christmas isn't the hardest, it is New Year's. I honestly couldn't tell you why. Maybe it is the time after the last months' struggles. Maybe, and this I suspect is the "truest" bit, though it is quite plot-driven, it has to do with the pressure of a "New Year". Performance Anxiety. I always spend New Years Eve day alone, sorting over the last years' letters, calendars, diaries. I spend the day culling wisdom from the last year, making accounts, burning broken beds. This year I have done better maintenance all throughout. Maybe this year I'll spend the eve out in nature. Meditating. Moving ahead. Being in that day, instead of afraid of it, hoarding the seconds before the ball drops and lops off the last year from my life. Maybe this year I'll fall in love a bit, instead. Burn something other than a bed.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Pins and Needles

Today and yesterday were edgey.

The kind of days where I realize I can't get so tense about job stresses or I won't last the last six months. Then I realize I have to pace myself equally for *life*. Take a deep fucking breath. Of course I only realize that after 48 hours of self torture followed by a hot shower and some mindless television, then crying for a couple of hours over how useless it feels to relax. Funny how the first phase of resistance I ALWAYS go through in relaxing, in starting a weekend, is how useless my life is unless I am doing something. I crave being alone, being silent, having time to fuck off all week, then I get it and I think: "Jesus. I should go out. My friend's having a party. Why aren't I there?" It's true my mindset can change. It's true that what keeps me home most is just inertia. But in the end its rare that I regret harnessing time alone when I can get it.

It's just that I have never really known what I want to choose, under pressure.

One thing about meditation: the second I sit down, and for the first ten minutes thereafter, I am sure I know exactly what I want. Of course, I want to be doing anything other than meditation. ANYTHING. Sometimes, I have to confess, I will use meditation to kind of move around my thoughts a bit - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche basically condones this in his book Turning the Mind Into an Ally - go with it for 10 minutes, the list making the I wish I were making this instead stuff, but stay close to it. Then, meditate. Pre-cleansing cleansing.

Tonight I feel like I could do anything. I kind of could. I have a friend's car on loan, I could go out to a bar or a party or dance (I don't own a car, so otherwise it would be cold and stuff). But I am here. And I'm happy enough. A flickr buddy has just sent me a mix of his, and I've got his set (entitled "Pins and Needles") to keep me company, instead. Plus any other manner of activity - inside activity. Sometimes the funny thing about having a good-seeming choice, is to not choose it. I could choose to go out, unlike other nights, only I am going to not choose it. Hard to remember that is a choice, sometimes.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Kinda I Want To

(from Pretty Hate Machine, Nine Inch Nails, 1989)

It's been an anniversary year, of sorts. 10 Years Ago This Year, I graduated from high school. Ten Years Ago This Year, I had sex with a guy for the first time, my first serious boyfriend, my high school sweetheart, of sorts. 10 Years Ago, this time exactly, I was on the last leg of a three-month backpack tour of Europe with my eldest brother, David. I haven't checked the dates, but December 10th would have likely put me in Germany, likely a tiny town in the Black Forest called Kirchzarten, spending the last of my vacation with a lover and a friend. Soon thereafter, I took a speedy train to Brussels, a reluctant plane home, all to find the relationship I had secretly hoped still waited for me, didn't.

Hadn't. No one has really been waiting for me any of these ten years, except myself.


"in-'säm-nE-&: prolonged and usually abnormal inability to obtain adequate sleep".
(Courtesy of the good ole Merriam Webster)

What if you can't sleep enough on a regular basis? What if not sleeping enough is sometimes enough? For a large portion of my adult life I have been convinced that I live on a schedule which is more like a 28-hour cycle. I have read about 28 hour cycles in terms of propaganda to shift us to a less survivalistic cycle:
http://www.dbeat.com/28/ (for a nice newage example) but there isn't much testimony out there about folks who did it because they naturally figured that they actually function on it. I have experimented with it, and sometimes, it has experimented with me, like tonight.


It's four AM. Generally, four AM is a "bad time" to think or write about anything as crucial as sleep. Then again, who would be at the most open position to re-consider its timing than someone immersed in its mis-timing? Four AM though is still probably a bad time to be thinking about how long ten years is in many ways. And how one day can seem to make up for that wait. Seem to.

A lot of things are returning with Saturn. Again, even if just taken analagously, it is seemingly effortless that the things that have worked, like patience are slowly becoming rewarded and the things that don't work, like my belief that I must work jobs which don't support me fully as a being, are falling apart. Of course falling apart is a bit more painful, outrageous even, but I appreciate them even as much as the things that are being rewarded.

Who knows what today means? It was a perfect day in many ways, due to many different factors. I opened a lot of doors I am conscious of opening. Others opened doors for me through which I have yet to walk. I am sure I closed doors.

I used to imagine my life (about ten years ago, in fact) as being a round room, the walls composed solely of doors. I spent all my time opening and closing them, often through force. Now, it is more like I am still, in the center, and they are opening and closing, naturally, as I observe them. When action calls, I commit, and for no longer, when I go back to sit.

Tomorrow, I will take my first Buddhist vow, the refuge vow. I met with a senior teacher earlier this week to confirm my choice. He asked "How do you feel about this vow?". I said "Everything I have read about it feels exactly like how I feel about it, already". He smiled. "Taking a refuge vow is like drawing a line in the sand. However, that is still really open to interpretation. The only thing it should be is effortless. So you are ready".


Yes. Yes I am.

"I've had some time to think about you...on the long ride home..."
Dedicated to Scotch Hall, 1984-2005

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Glass Museum

(Side note on sources: This title is probably a title even more apt for the last entry's photograph than this week's entry!
: )

I like to take titles from the music I am listening to and adapt my writing for the entry to it. This is the title of a Tortoise track, a sort of electronica/wordless emo band from Chicago. The album is titled Millions Now Living Will Never Die. Just thought credits' sake was due...)

Saw Capote a couple of nights ago - the film based off the book about the book by Truman Capote entitled In Cold Blood (did you follow the meta-authorship on that one?). It was a perfect first-few-days-of-winter movie - a period film, silent fifties, dressed down without cell phones or computers or much by way of televisions and radios. Even the high class cocktail clientele was silent in comparison to the larger parties I now attend. Even Capote's rapacious behavior was silent somehow - well-directed, spaced, spacious. Glass-like, in fact, in it's delicateness, despite his torrid social errors and confused state of being.

I've been experimenting with my own delicate self lately. Wandering over the new ice, not yet grey, and late with new people into the night, feet the first to find some kind of ground under a foot of large-flaked snow. How late can I stay up and still be awake the next day? How far in can I dance with someone and keep my toes when I walk away? I certainly hope to evade any of the tricky moral ground Capote was infamous for not only visiting but inhabiting, and yet, those lines are delicate at best.

A museum of glass. Thousands of rustling stones below the glass floor. Silence, and small cracks. Very winter: active, warm on the inside, exterior cool and blond and collected. Capote and I, both.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Don't deal with yourself harshly

Don't push, don't hassle, don't say "the world is going to end. if you don't perform." Relax.

How does one do that, and not feel strangely, obtusely that one is going to be left behind? I have been very laidback lately. I have kind of changed my priorities, from being motivated and charged and hyper to being slow, lost and unsure. Confused. Because that is the way I am. I can behave in different ways - social pressure, social ambition pushing me - but I can't be that.

So this past month, I have done nothing on time. I have not ticked much off my task-list, I have forgotten and forgiven, not bothered to get angry.

I have enjoyed drawing again, have drawn a lot. And I have watched myself. I will not do things which take me away from being peaceful. At any cost.

Living in Mumbai can be a hassle. So little space, such long distances, high-pressure work. Can I survive? Maybe. I don't want to do too much. Just as much as I can. Get rid of my debt, learn about things I pretend to know a lot about... be lax and easy with myself. Be good in my relationships...

Mumbai is in a way - fun to drift through. Fun to move around, not pretending to be in a rush, and not bent on getting something done.

I will be staying as a paying guest near my office. I have my own house in Ahmedabad. Does it puzzle me - why am I here? what am I doing? Sometimes. Otherwise its clear. I am here to practise, doing things, being things, seeing things. Practise meeting people, bonding with people in a different way. In a way, which feels honest, personal.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

First in Flight

(The picture is from Erika's opening reception at Barriques. It isn't of her work - this is the selection of empty wine glasses at the end of the night. Right after I took it, a friend said he was glad I took it, since he didn't have his camera and had been staring at it for awhile, appreciating the light and wishing he had brought his camera. It was, fittingly, the last photo. Closing time!)

Last night a friend and I began an 8 week course with local Professor Richard Davis on Racial Healing. The man is chock full of boundless, loving energy, and is definitely another teacher I was asking for without even knowing it consciously. We started the course, which is mindfully based in meditation and listening silently and respectfully to each others' understandings of and experiences with racism, with a video called Color of Fear. Veterans of the course - or rather, I should say - die-hard come again fans, call the experience "story hour with Richard Davis". I have been craving more and more places where people come to listen to one another. I certainly strive to create it in my classes, and I think I succeed well. I always love to see it manifested again in other ways, especially around something as explicitly important to address as racism.

Mindfulness. Someone recently described to me that trying to understand animals is like trying to understand God, which I took in the most general sense - trying to describe mindfulness is similar. The irony of using language for it can feel nearly sacreligious. Yet, it is done, again and again, mostly through stories. The group Blackalicious has a song - First in Flight - in which they describe everyone's knowledge as being just that - the first time ever, beginner's mind. First ever, every time. I have known for years I was coming back to this, to the beginning, to the emptiness I have run from, struggled to get away from, for so long. I can sit with it now, sometimes, or look at it from across the room. The big, pink, empty elephant. Each time is the first time, it feels like.

Tonight a new friend who attended my writing class asked how I deal with pedagogy versus experience in class. I told him about one experience, from tonight, after class, in which a woman had described an experience of hers for which I knew the exact Buddhist description. But it wasn't the right moment to share that. I just felt that. Ironically, the decision to let experience speak for someone, or to someone, is intuitive, and itself based in experience. This is for sure the beginning of a long journey for me, and I am so far loving it. There's nothing like that thrill in the beginning, when you first take off, your face empty and open, wings spread, launching up and out and over.