Time Capsule Thursday #4: where there's a way there's a way. Oh and a bunny.

Time Capsule Thursdays, in which I pause and notice. And write down what I love. And choose life. And get curious. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition (with a hat tip to Havi).

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What did you notice?*
This tree. How it keeps growing through the pavement. First I thought: “Well, where there’s a will there’s a way.”

But then I reconsidered: Maybe it’s more like where there’s a way there’s a way. That seems a whole lot kinder. And much less likely to cause a hernia on account of overexertion. Because, willing growth? Pushing and pulling for something to change? Exhausting. But allowing it to follow its way, maybe even through and around seemingly impenetrable concrete? Joy!

What made you happy?
Today! Four clients! Two new, two old. And how much I love what I do. I love touching people, listening to people, noticing people. I love meeting them and their bodies exactly as they are. And inviting space for what wants to come, what wants to change. It’s fantastically wonderful for me.

Whom did you appreciate?
My friends at Havi’s Kitchen Table. I was remembering how they helped me quit a massage gig that was making me cry every week last winter. And look at me now: 4 clients on my own in a day. Thanks my KT peeps!

What astonished you?*
This bunny at Danehy Park. I was coming ‘round a bend and there he was! We had a stare down for several minutes, until someone else came ‘round the bend and sent the bunny scampering off into the tall grass.

What amazed you?
That there is still rain to be had. Seriously, we must be coming on 40 days and 40 nights.

And also? Squirrels. Especially the highwire chases they do on the telephone lines outside my window.

What did you hear?*
Thunder. Oh my gosh, I do love storms. Big-ass storms make me feel nothing short of glee. Is that weird? Good.

What surprised you?
I looked up and caught a reflection of myself musing by the window at the bookstore and it made me smile. At me. And I had to take a picture. For you.(I love all the layers reflected in the glass. Oh and that’s Porter Square Books, my awesome little indie bookstore in, yes, Porter Square, Cambridge, MA)

What was most tender?*
My dearest heart.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. (One request: kindly withhold from offering advice. Thank you.)

In which the open letter gets personal. And not.

My dearest heart,

For some kind of forever I’ve been waiting, waiting for you to come, and I can wait no longer. I must write you now, for surely my chest will explode if I wait one second more.

For some kind of forever I’ve been thinking you had to be a certain someone. As in, else. And not just any old else, but a very special someone else.

(Let me just say that there have been ones. Special ones. Especially one. And maybe there will be more—a girl can hope!—but I can wait no longer because honest to freaking lord my heart is fairly bursting with all the things I would tell you, if you were here.)

And then today, out of the blue gray (on account of living in Boston during the wettest Spring/Summer since 19-freaking-03!) I was like: it’s you! Yes, you and you and you. So now I don’t have to wait for you any longer. Because, um, here you are!

Oh my. Where to start!

There’s something on my heart. It’s got to do with home. With finding home. With making home. With not feeling at—

Home.

How can a word be so beautiful and heartbreaking at once. How! Can you tell me that, dearest heart?

Because for some kind of forever I’ve been homesick. Heimweh. Echando de menos. Whatever the language, no matter: it was some kind of crazy-ass heart-breaking thought of home. At 11 I remember sitting in Social Studies, my insides getting squeezed like some kind of sopping wet cloth… my throat so thick I could hardly swallow.

For a long time I blamed homesick on the hows and wheres of growing up, having been away from home early and for long times. I also blamed it on being a cultural mutt, somehow an outsider, sort of maybe kind of from wherever I was but not really, always looking or sounding—even if just a teensy weensy bit—foreign. I concluded that homesick was about being different and being away and missing people I loved.

But maybe it was you I was missing, dearest heart. You. And maybe it was me that was away, my mind always imagining what I’d be doing if I was there, if I was OK, and about just how OK I would be:

If only I were there picking raspberries with them in the backyard…
If only I were there enjoying the mid-summer lake with them…
If only she were here to tuck me in…
If only I didn’t have these chub cheeks…
If only they took me in…
If only they understood me…
If only I had a special love…

If only was mighty lonely. And lonely makes it hard to see anyone else. Like you, for example.

So, it’s about time, wouldn’t you say? Time to write to you, my dearest heart. Yes you, reading this, if you want. And, would you mind if I bring If only? She could use some lovin up.

Well, love, that’s all for now. I just wanted to say hi. I’m right here, if you want me. But then, you knew that.

Yours and mine,

Heidi

Time Capsule #3: gray days, yellow birds.

Time Capsule Thursdays, in which I pause and notice. And write down what might otherwise go forgotten. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition inspired by Havi Brooks’ Friday Chicken.

What was most tender?

What did you notice?
Manna: I have just enough. No more, no less.

What astonished you?
Three yellow birds at Danehy Park. (Anyone know their name?) They had a bit of black in them too. It’s been so humid, gray and rainy going on two weeks, those 3 birds were a flash of joy.

What made you happy?
This email:

Dear Heidi, Billy Collins is happy to give you permission for limited use of “Marginalia” as you request it below. Many thanks, Sara

—>First podcast, ever, here I come!

What made you come alive?
The poem that pounded down my door. I gave it a pen and let it have its life.

What frightened you?
I was invited to imagine my future: where will I be, who will be around me, what will I be doing 10, 20, 30 years from now and at the time of my death. All I could see was blank. And I didn’t like how my mind interpreted that.

What did you think was happening?
The neural pathways I’ve been traipsing are being torn up. I feel lost.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. (One request: kindly withhold from offering advice. Thank you.)

A poem came pounding on my door...

A poem came pounding on my door today and I had to let it in. I asked it for a point and it yelled at me, something about no time for talk.

It told me that my chest will explode if I don’t give it a pen already. And that my heart will shrivel up and die if I don’t let it cry and break, no questions asked, as much as it needs to again and again about how the world is too much and not at all at once, since here I am, still alive and exploding even while the world keeps coming and coming and coming at me, saucy earth woman that it is, in me, through me, to me, all the freaking time.

It’s about how you are me (that’s right, you) and he is me and so is she and she and she. And Dick—that’s right—Cheney is also me, mistress of evasion and hiding that I am. And cheeky Jon Stewart too. And Barack Hussein Obama. Momma that’s right, it said, you heard it here.

And George W. Bush too before you go thinking I’m taking sides for how could I when I am all of them and all of you and it’s all right here inside Iran, which I am, and have been every day I’ve ever held myself back and stifled and silenced and shut things up when I didn’t agree with me, trying all the while to make it look for the world like my shit’s together when really there are burning tires and exploding cars right inside my chest and I na-na-na put my fingers in my ears and numb myself to almost- but never quite fully -death—

For here I am, still, my smile as forever plastic as the bags I self-righteously don’t give myself anymore except for when I do for the trash I justify in my kitchen, because, after all, some stuff just won’t break down no matter how you slice it and dice it and cook it up.

And while I’m at it let me claim pollution of super-sized blah blah blahs of in-consequence except for their numbing effect on a heart fairly bursting if I wait to say how it really is for even one second more.

And before I forget, the poem said, I must tell you that you are also the stupid people in the stupid line this morning, biding their time to pay some stupid fine they can’t afford to pay. And the little boy on his big boy bike trying desperately to make it go with training wheels too low to the ground on account of the hovering mother also called you, not wanting him, by which of course she means herself, to fall.

So that’s me with the attention span of a fruit fly and the world inside.

Where was I anyway? Oh yes, channeling Eliot, something about in the end is my beginning and all that as it seems that through no merit of my own and by what I can only call mercy I find that the trees are also me—

As is the endless spring rain that just yesterday became summer.

So this is how it happens when you can’t get out of your own way: change comes knocking on your door, politely ringing your bell and waiting ever so patiently for you to answer, tick tock tick tock, and then one day, when and exactly why we’ll never know, in some merciful kick of kindness, it breaks down the door of you, the very door you kept meaning to answer, because that’s right: change hasn’t got all day.

Time Capsule #2: Tears, bells, and pieces.

Time Capsule Thursdays, in which I pause and notice. And write down what might otherwise go forgotten. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And honor age-old wisdom (bloggingly exemplified over at The Fluent Self): “Because traditions are important.”

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What did you notice?*
No matter how much the colors and the shapes look like a match,
if the pieces don’t fit they don’t fit.

What did you hear?*
Church bells as chronometer for tears.

What was most tender?*
The human heart.
The inside of a man’s hand (the hand he can’t open on his own after a stroke).

What astonished you?*
The softness of eyes.

What would you like to see again?*
The bright red cardinal and his gray, pale-red mate along the river.

What took you back?
The Riverbend Office building in Watertown Square.

Where did it take you?
9 holiday parties in my 20’s.

What made you cry?
Noticing I’d stopped trying to make the pieces fit.
Noticing that the piece of me, and the piece of he,
are in the same puzzle, just not side-by-side.

What did you think was happening?*
I stopped arguing.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. (One request: kindly withhold from offering advice. Thank you.)

Thursday Time Capsule #1: First ever edition! (REO Speedwagon, birds and raindrops)

Time Capsule Thursdays, in which I pause and notice. And write down what might otherwise go forgotten. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And honor age-old wisdom (bloggingly exemplified over at The Fluent Self):

“Because traditions are important.”

If a heart can feel destitute in the company of a thought? That’s how it was for mine one day last winter. The thought?

“It’d be OK if that truck hit you. It really wouldn’t matter, just as long as it all happened quickly.”

Who wouldn’t feel lonely when believing that thought!

(This gets better. Much! I promise. It’s not really about that, although noticing that thought is what pointed to something truer and much more exciting because that was also the day when the idea of a kind of Time Capsule began gestating.)

“Thoughts are like raindrops,” says Byron Katie. And yes, arguing with a raindrop? Useless. Silly, really, because? Thoughts appear. And appear. Hello!

The truck passed and I crossed the street and wiped some tears. I noticed it was a thought. I knew it wasn’t true. But I also knew that something in me was wanting attention. My attention. Like a child, it was tugging on the hem of her mom’s skirt: Ma! I’m here! Pay me attention! And I was the child, the mom, and the skirt hem.

The truck-thought needed me to know how bad something inside me was feeling. It wasn’t a new thought. I’d had it before. Many times. But years ago I hadn’t known how to meet it with kindness and understanding. Rather, I had believed it. And where my actions had taken me wasn’t a pretty place. Necessary, because that is what happened, but not pretty.

But this was now, and because I hadn’t banished the truck-thought like some evil intruder but rather noticed it kindly, there was room for my mind—agile and winged bird that it is—to hold the truck-thought’s hand even while it started bringing me presents, showing me thing upon thing that I love. And the urge to write those things down has been threatening to explode my chest.

Which brings me to this Thursday Time Capsule!

On that day last winter my mind’s eye showed me the picture of a girl that doesn’t really want to die. Oh no. Rather, she adores life. (It just feels like a lot sometimes). And in the space of awareness and kindness toward everything inside me, I saw a girl needing to express all that she keeps pent up: all that she loves: all manner of things like slices of memories, things observed, comments overheard, rolling laughter, innocent gestures, loves made, loves lost, fears… In short, all. Yes, all the stuff of being a human on this dear Earth of ours.

(Please know that I was not on that day last winter, nor am I now, suicidal. Indeed, if everyone were held to task for the thoughts that cross their minds in a dark moment, we’d all be in prison. Or hospitalized. Often!)

And now, without further ado, Welcome to Heidi’s first ever Time Capsule Thursday. Pop the corks. Throw confetti. Pass around the chocolate cigars. Heidi is starting a little tradition of her own: a weekly slice to honor life.

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What did you notice?*
Raindrops in a row like upside-down birds on the telephone wire

What did you hear?*
The rushing wind making love in the branches of the maples.

What astonished you?*
The sheen of city lights on wet pavement at dusk

What would you like to see again?*
The children running through the fountain
wearing nothing but undies and grins.
The red-winged blackbirds flying
from stalk to tree top to stalk in the marsh.

What was most tender?*
The old man in his suit on his bike

What took you back?
REO Speedwagon from the radio in the kitchen at Renee’s Diner

Where did it take you?
Quito, Ecuador. Junior Year. Boarding school.
“I don’t want to sleep. I just want to keep on loving you”

What made you cry?
A big brown beautiful bear in my boarding school dream.
Wild and closed in. He won’t leave until I let him.

What did you think was happening?*
I was changing in spite of myself.

That’s this week’s slice, my friends! Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. No pressure, but, I would LOVE that. Just one request: kindly withhold from offering advice. Thank you!

A tight box + big energy + curiosity + Leonard Cohen = change

Change. It happens. It’s the way of things, of life.

Inside me something’s been pent up for something like forever. Tied up. Stifled. It’s some kind of energy.

Isn’t energy a property of matter related to its ability to perform work? You know, work. As in motion, movement. (I had no idea I had this physics stuff left in me. But don’t get your hopes up. Or, don’t get worried, whichever the case may be. That’s it for physics. Promise.)

Lately some kind of herculean pushing is going on inside me. As if something’s gotten way too small for the space it’s in and now it’s pushing to get the hell out. Sometimes its energy is desperately intense, like it’s buried alive, trying to claw or hoof its way out. Even when more subdued it feels like something growing that has run out of space: there is no way it can keep growing, or even stay alive, where it is, how it is.

IT wants expression. I don’t know exactly what IT is, but its medium is written. And I do have some hints about IT.

This whole buried alive feeling is getting reeeeeally uncomfortable. It’s amping up majorly. We’re at a Spinal Tap 11. Or “a todo full,” as we said growing up in Chile.

I’m curious about the box. The coffin. The majorly confining thing that feels like it’s killing me alive.

Thing 1 about that.

Something is afraid. It is trying to protect me. It has to do with wanting a guarantee of success. Or, better said: It wants to know I won’t fall flat on my face, because from its point of view? That would suck.

Suck how, I wonder—

Um, duh! Major shame. Crimson cheeks. Hide in closet kind of shame.

From its point of view it’d actually be better to stay stuck and stifled in the box than out and free and in danger of falling flat on my face in shame.

Thing 2: “What will they think” and “it’s too much”

These thoughts invariably come nipping at the heels of the push to express in a big way.

Ironically, all the hints I get about the IT point to ITs having to do with taking the shame out of being human. Hmmm! Curiouser and curiouser.

The IT wanting to be written has to do with saying things without pretense. Without prettying them up. Without uglying them up. Saying things as they are.

But in order to say things as they are or in whatever way they ask to be said, I have to get out of their way. The agenda of having me look good doesn’t fit. The hidden motives of teaching anyone anything, making a point, or having a cause don’t fit.

IT may very well allude to or come right out and talk about things people often feel they should hide. (And it’s so not about airing dirty laundry. No). But again: Hello, Shame!

It sure does seem that much (all?) of the reeeeeally hard and stuck stuff of our world—hate, war, prejudice, murder, lies and everything that separates rather than connecting us—touches on shame in some way.

Who would we be without our shame?

I know many people who would say that shame is what keeps us in line. Case in point: Watch the news. Notice the language used in relation to the “bad guys”. Or, adults saying to children: Shame on you!

But really: How IS that working for us? I’m beginning to suspect that line of thought. It seems much more true that shame keeps us hiding and small and, ironically, doing the things that make us feel ashamed.

In all this pondering I have noticed something odd: The people I find most beautiful, endearing, attractive, crush-worthy… and the stories that most speak to me, are not Pollyanna-ish Hallmark-y tales with pretty Hollywood endings. At all.

Rather, they share a quality of almost heart-breaking honesty and openness, usually or often about the very things that would shame me. They are at once incredibly vulnerable and incredibly strong. These people look life in the eye, no matter what looks back. They are as resilient as they are fragile. Their skin is as leathery tough and wrinkly as it is tender and soft. Their transparency is breathtaking. And they don’t care what others think of them. Or if they do, they don’t let that stop them. They go ahead anyway.

Which brings me to : Leoanard Cohen. Whom I saw. Performing live. On Saturday night. In person, people, in person!

And, um, Leonard Cohen? In case you’ve not been near planet Heidi for like the past several years? Newsflash! I am in love with him. In love. Unapologetically and irrevocably: in love.

(Blushing-aside: In fact, halfway through the concert, pro’bly during Chelsea Hotel or Suzanne, I turned to my dear friend who was visiting and had gotten us the tickets, and told him that if there were, you know, any chance of, um, you know, with Leonard Cohen, that, well, um, we’d have to find him—my friend, that is—my camping mattress and sleeping bag so he could sleep on my living room floor for the night. Or something. He laughed and said, of course. Yah. Now that’s a friend!)

So where was I? Oh yes. About my love—

Leonard Cohen, exquisite lover of word and world, is my hero. Such accessible poetry. None of this intellectually aloof blah blah. He is clever, but never in an I-need-to-impress-you way.

But most of all I love him for not hiding his humanity from me, from you. He is imperfect and heart-breakingly honest about his foibles and mistakes. Which makes him all the more beautiful. He teaches me to embrace wherever I am at.

And he shows me how to age with the utmost of grace. Talk about vintage wine. Oh my. The man is 75 and he’d skip onto and off the stage. He was sporting his fedora, of course. His backup musicians were all stellar in their own right and when their moment came, Leonard Cohen was the embodiment of generosity: he’d take off his hat and listen, rapt, sometimes getting on one knee right alongside them. The man can listen.

The entire concert felt like some kind of a passionate, mysterious, sensual, divine yet oh-so-human prayer.

Thank goodness my days praying to inaccessible perfect gods are over. Give me human. Give me heart. Give my honest. Give me life, any day.

I’m left to ponder this: What if I cared what people think AND went ahead and expressed IT anyway? What if?!

“But what about that shame?” something asks.

“Awww, Sweetheart,” I say to it, “it’s OK. Here, give me your hand. There’s enough room on this human bus for every part of us. Stay with me as long as you need but how ‘bout you and me get the hell out of this tight box and start writing? What do you say?”

Wearing less. Like a skimpy, sexy dress.

The other morning I passed a lady fumbling for keys in her bag to open her little manicure shop on Mass Ave. We exchanged a quick smile and I felt my heart swell with appreciation:

• The fact that she’d gotten out of bed.
• That she’d showered and fixed herself up.
• That here she was, showing up for another day of business, no matter how busy or slow, good or bad, it might turn out in the end.

It got me thinking about all the little things, all the ways in which people—you, me, that lady—show up for life.

Those things I used to take for granted? I’m noticing them. I’m loving them. And, this seems to be getting worse.

That’s right: worse as in, it’s spreading. In fact, I think it’s contagious.

The main symptom? Simple joys.

Like goat milk in my morning tea. (The milk I sometimes refer to as my a-buck-a-sip milk). And I should say goat milk in the best-ever-tea. (Yorkshire Gold, if you must know, of which my sister sent me three big boxes for my birthday).

Things like arm muscles growing more defined, not from any health club membership like I used to have, but from walking home a mile or so from the market several times a week, balancing, among red cabbage, lemons, kale, cheese, chocolate and bread, yes: that half-gallon of buck-a-sip goat milk.

The bright fire-orange reusable bags I fold up and carry around with me.

The city park I walk through with its birds and its marsh. Its benches and bunnies. Its frogs and its ever-changing-trees. Its kids and their moms and their dads and their soccer coaches with British accents and lovely tight tushies. And my running track and my walking paths, including a glassphalt path made of smooshed up, recycled, colored glass mixed into black asphalt. Ahhhh, Danehy Park. I love you.

The light of the moon on said sparkly path.

I could go on, I’m sure.

Lately, my pared down life keeps returning me to one simple question:

What is essential?

I love that question. It helps me find the heart of a matter.

It cuts through overwhelm with pruning shears of kindness. It gets rid of clutter to find the smooth surface of my kitchen table, the sweet comfort of my heart, and a mind that incubates all manner of ideas.

Yesterday, going about my business, I started playing with the words “Less is less,” singing them to the catchy tune of “Black is black,” by Los Bravos:

Less is less, a skimpy, sexy dress
More is more, one more thing of bore and chore.
What can I do? Cuz I-ayayayayay, I’m feeling new.

I know, cheesy. But hey.

Less and essential make room for bursts of unabashed laughter. For joy. Followed by quiet, in which to notice sounds, like the plaintive call of mourning doves. Like the neighborhood boys’ basketball bouncing in the park. Like the church chimes on the quarter hour. Like my visiting friend’s breathing while he sleeps.

Sounds a whole lot like just what I need.

Babbling fool on the 83

Yesterday, on the 83 bus (yes, the very same soggy sardine 83 which we may as well rename the where-all-things-happen-83), there was a guy in the back talking to himself. OK, really more like babbling incoherently.

It’s one thing to babble discreetly. But this was not that. And I was seriously annoyed.

WTF, I thought, why me!

Is there nowhere in this city a sensitive girl can get some peace and quiet? thought the sensitive girl with a short memory of a lovely nap she’d just hours before taken in the sun under a birch tree in a hidden courtyard of said noisy city.

So there I was feeling sorry for self.

And then, with some smidgen of willingness I can only call grace, I sunk just past the annoyance and there, in the midst of noise noise noise, I began what ended up looking a whole lot like:

Bonding with a babbling fool

That’s right. I looked for what we might have in common. And from there, as things are wont to do, one thing led to another thing to another…

I found that he certainly had a mother. Maybe a mom that at that very moment wondered where he was, hoping he was OK.

Maybe he wondered what he’d have for dinner when he got home. I thought about the brownie in my bag.

Maybe he too thought the 83 sure does take a freaking long time to come! I’m with you, babbling brother.

Maybe he found this world a bit hard to take at times. Oh man, can I ever feel you there!

Somewhere along the way my imagination game became a matter of heart. And as his sounds became louder, faster and god-help-us-feverish, I imagined any number of things his sounds might be about.

Some girl who broke his heart.

Some plan of all plans gone awry.

I had no idea, of course, but it didn’t matter. By the end of my ride, all I could really find different between this babbling fool and me was that he gives his stuff a voice, a sound, whereas I tend to keep my mental chatter and drivel locked up inside my dear innocent head. Basically:

Babbling man, me: same, same.

I’d be lying to say I wasn’t relieved to get off the bus, but relating to this man allowed what would have been an insufferable 15 minutes to be bearable, in the least. Maybe even, good.

Good? Yeah, I got off with a smidgen more patience. And patience? Huge. HUGE.

In case you couldn’t tell: I am not one of those people that always walk around seeing the world through rose glasses. Oh no. In any given funk, truth be told, I look at a glass and see not only half empty but also the smudge that you missed while cleaning it. And the crack that is bound to happen sooner or later. Pro’bly tomorrow. And you’ll probably step on the broken glass too. (OK, I exaggerate. Writing license. But still.)

Lately I have been going head to head with my cynicism. Impatience. Paranoia. Suspicions galore. Envies. It’s enough to bring a girl who cares a whole lot about love and beauty and kindness to desperation. Even curiosity about all this wasn’t giving me much relief.

A few weeks ago, visiting my dear friend Lizi in Vermont, I happened to be on what can best be described as a horrible bender of cynicism that even the fresh Spring air of Vermont was not loosening. Not even Lizi’s adorable baby Isabelli was putting much of a dent in my misery. I was doing my best to keep it to myself, not being, after all, one of those incoherent loud babblers, but the more socially acceptable thank you very much keep-it-to-yourself kind.

But two days into my visit I broke down. I cried about how even in such a beautiful place and even doing the best a girl freaking could, I felt so scared. Life sucked. I knew it was all about my thoughts, but goddamn! All I could see, everywhere, was what was wrong, including with me: demanding, picky and critical. To utter anything that was good, would have been utterly fake and pretend. Lizi just listened.

Never, ever underestimate listening.

She was utterly present but said not much at all. (Which was huge: her not trying to fix me. Her not inviting me to “just shift my perception.”)

A while and a bunch of tears later I said: “the only good thing I can find in all this is that it softens my heart toward the tight-assed, the demanding, the perfectionists, the fascistas of the world.”

To which she simply lifted a brow and chuckled softly: “well, there you go.”

This is the German coastguard: What are you sinking about?

Sometimes I believe that I should be spared of ever feeling badly. That there is something wrong with me when I feel certain things that don’t feel good: blah, scared, lonely, loopy…

Basically, it’s a setup, because, as life would have it, I do feel those things sometimes. Like today, in which I went the way of all happy meals and snowballs:

Down. Last night Scared started dredging up memories and then the whole thing started rolling down the hill, and this morning it picked up blah, and let’s not forget loopy, until the whole freaking ball crashed into a tree and melted into a puddle of lonely. Not pretty.

How to stay in a swampy bad place:

Step 1. Believe every thought that flits across the screen of your mind
Step 2. Don’t do anything differently.

Byron Katie says that thoughts are like raindrops. They appear. She asks: Would you argue with a raindrop?

Me to Byron Katie: Well, duh, of course not.

Enter curiosity, a.k.a: Playing Detective

But, truth be told, I do try to argue with raindrops. I glom on. As if!

It appears that I don’t let them just run down the window of my innocent mind, but rather I get all up in their face:

“you there! Yes you! How come you’re here today? Hunh, hunh? On no, not you! Something is wrong. What the hell is wrong! If you’re here there must be something terribly wrong.”

(What can I say. Panic is redundant.)

It’s like this: I lasso a thought and capture it. I don’t let it come and go freely anymore, as thoughts and raindrops, and anyone, really, would much prefer to do.

Right about now a bunch of stir-crazy thoughts are tied up in a corral: “I’ve ruined it… again… I always do… I’m too demanding… I’ll end up alone… I’m too fucked up to be with anyone… in any way…” And then, last but not least: “I’ll die old and alone, with nary a soul in sight. And loopy in the head to boot.” It’s getting a wee bit cramped in this thought-corral, not to mention the smell. Oh my.

This story? It’s been done. If I were a producer I’d be like: “Are you serious? Honey, I’ve read this screenplay a million times. You can’t really have thought this was original—”

Hmmmmm… could it be that I am onto it? Could it be that I don’t truly believe it anymore but that I’m so used to running that story and buckling under its weight that I’ve started believing that it’s the only story there is?

(The producer has now fallen asleep).

About Step 2. Don’t do anything differently.

On account of feeling trapped like some kind of Gulliver tied up with a million thought-threads, one of the hardest things to do in The Swamp of Same Old is Anything Different. So what’s a Gulliver-girl to do?

@TheGirlPie told me to write, so this is me writing to you:

Mayday, mayday…

But mind-in-a-panic has the attention span of a fruit fly. And now I am trailing off to write to my dear friend, the one I most want to be “gotten” by (as in “he gets me”):

“Can you throw me a life-line please, I’m sinking and just need a life-line.”

Enter a glimmer of insight:

I foresee in my magic 8 ball that by pressing “send” I will only worry him and make him feel helpless, because, if anyone knows this old story of mine mind, he does. And if anyone loves me, he does. And certainly I know and he knows he can’t save me from my thoughts. (Plus, he’s working. He’s in the middle of delivering a training. It wouldn’t be kind of me to send him a desperate note.)

Still writing, supposedly but not really to him: “Please give me simple direction.”

And supposedly but not really from him comes the wisest-ever, most-loving-ever, simplest-ever answer I can imagine, from my very own fingers:

Heidi, this is your simple direction:
1. Go outside. Get fresh air.
2. Run. Move. Make your heart beat hard.
P.S. I love you.

Willingness, the unexpected fruit of desperation.

I’m off to follow the simple direction of my wise fingers. But before I go, I leave you with this, just in case you, too, are having a trying–to-capture-raindrops kind of day:

Massage therapist heal thyself.

A massage can do wonders for a tight butt. Just sayin. Read that whichever way you like, and you’ll probably be right.

I just had one. It was awesome. The massage, that is. The tight butt? Not so much. Because, a tight butt is pretty much—how to say—a pain in the freaking ass! Not to be rude, just literal.

I want to write about my tight butt today. Why, you say?

Because writing is what I do. It’s how I get through the hard shtuffs. And few things can bring me to cry “Uncle!” more quickly than pain: Butt pain. Neck pain. Shoulder pain. Pain pain. Any pain.

I’ve seen low back pain in a number of clients and friends over the years. At its worst it makes people double over.

Me? I wasn’t doubled over, but neither was I my fold-my-legs-every-which-way self. And by yesterday this butt pain was day 5 and counting.

Dream from weeks ago: Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and a girl wake up in an apple orchard. Someone says: “You put everything into the dream and you wake up and you notice it was only a dream, and the people that were in the dream only have a vague memory of it, too.”

An ocean of sadness comes right there. By which I mean here, now.

Something about illusion. Something about innocence. Something about seeing that the Wizard you’ve been pinning your hopes on is just an old man, with eyebrows and lord-help-us-nose hairs as long as the livelong day, bent at the waist to boot, probably on account of a pain in his butt too.

You look around and see flimsy where you had thought things were strong.

And you see gone where you thought stay.

You see empty where you thought it’d be full.

You taste salt and you notice it’s streaming down your own cheeks.

You check your itty bitty nest egg and the crow has gone and robbed it.

You look around and it’s freaking dark outside.

You call out and not even your own echo comes back.

What’s a girl to do?

Cry. ✓
Cry some more. ✓
Get on her knees and pray. ✓
Make tea. ✓
Pee. ✓
Notice thoughts. ✓
Examine thoughts. ✓
Call a friend. ✓
Visit said friend. ✓
Go for a walk. ✓
A run. ✓
Or a waddle with bent waist. ✓
Start therapy. ✓
Make more tea. ✓
Pee again. ✓
Try to find the funny. ✓
Cry. ✓

Write. ?

Write! Right. Where was I?

Tight, it’s been so tight. Like tight-assed and all that comes with that. Fingers closed in grip. Calculating.

Rest? Hard to do on hyper-alert.

A dog circles and circles. Can’t lie down and get comfortable to sleep already.

In all this, I was making gift certificates for my massage therapy ittybiz, with Mother’s Day in mind. I had sent my dear dear dear friend my text so that he could use his magic formatting powers and programs to make it beeeeautiful.

He sent me back a couple versions, one of which included a picture of a beautiful young woman gazing ever so first-time-momishly at the baby she was holding ever so carefully and tentatively.

You could not squeeze more love into her arms, her hands, her gaze, you just couldn’t. If you tried it would just spill all over the floor.

The beautiful woman was my mom. I cried because my dear-times-three-friend had, for whatever reason, dug up that picture (which I didn’t even know he had ever scanned when we were living together) and thought to use it in a gift certificate for my business on mother’s day.

I cried because it’s not true that I don’t know what it feels like to be held safely.

And I cried because careful and oh-so-tentative are not exclusive of love. At all.

And I cried because I noticed, again, that everyone and everything is always doing its very best with what it knows, with what it has, with what it believes, with what it understands. Everything including a tight butt.

After my most-wonderful-massage today I told my therapist that I felt like my tires had been balanced. Like some kind of realignment.

I should tell the Wizard to go see Lou. Or to come see me. Maybe I should give him my gift certificate.

The Point.

What’s the point— Just last week, I was asking that about life, and once or twice I could taste the panic rising in my throat.

Thing is, that question has no good answer. It’s an endless kind of loop. Which is to say, not helpful, whatsoever. I know all too well where that question can lead if unnoticed and unmet by kindness. And that’s a place I’d rather not return.

But turning my back on the despair the question carries in its wake? Never worked.

(I notice how hard it is to write the word despair. There’s shame about admitting that it still, sometimes, arises).

Something says: Heidi, aren’t you past that already?

Apparently not. How do I know?

Because, there it was, just days ago, galloping in my ribcage and weighing down my chest like those leaden vests they make you wear while the technician runs out of room to zap the X-ray from somewhere behind the safety glass.

Fear. I can plaster it with affirmations, pretending I’m past it. But hel-lo! There it is. And it doesn’t much matter how good the affirmation is: if I’m using it to cover up fear? It’s bullshit. Plain and simple. And…

Bullshit by any other word? Yah.

Besides, when the “positive stuff”—you know, the affirmations, the grin and bear it everything-is-fine-thank-you-very-much smiles, the platitudes, the parroting of verses, proverbs, quotes or texts no matter how sacred—is used to cover up fear? Useless. The bogeyman may not come out in the noontime sun, but at 3 a.m.? Yeah. Yikes!

So, this is me out of the closet:

Hello, my name is Heidi, and I am a haver of a hard time. Last week it was panic.

Hi Heidi. Welcome.

Of bags and trees

Today was a blue sky, just-a-sweatshirt kind of spring day here in Boston. There I was, walking down Mass Ave from Davis to Central Square (to meet with Dave, owner of Black Lotus Yoga, where I am signing on as Massage Therapist come May —yay!) noticing trees. This isn’t unusual for me. I love trees no matter what, no matter where: in summer, full and round. In fall, decked out in celebration. In winter, breath-takingly naked. In spring, bursting in bloom. Like today.

So there I was, la-de-da-ho-hum ambling along noticing trees and then this one Magnolia in particular with a black plastic bag stuck in its branches was there. That’s right, there:

Of all things to be, a black plastic bag isn’t tops. Especially these days when everyone including moi is calling them names like “bad,” and leaving them to not decompose anytime soon for their much sexier and politically correct cousins, the reusable canvas bags.

Now you could say that black plastic bag did not belong there in that tree, and of course in many ways you’d be right. But, know what?

Saying that does not take away from the reality of it being there. And know what else?

If you’re going to be a plastic bag, and if you’re going to be stuck? Might as well hang out on the branch of a bursting Magnolia. Just sayin! The scent. The view. (Not to mention that chick taking my picture!)

And if you’re going to have panic come a-visiting, as sometimes it is wont to do with some of us? Why not take it by the hand, out into the world. Because seriously! A closet? When was the last time you tried sitting in a closet all day? And under the covers? Might stuffy, I say, mighty stuffy.

So, what’s the point?

Life. Life is the point. My friend @tangokate tweeted it best:

“Today I remembered why I go out into the world; not because it’s good for me, not spiritual homework, but because this is the point. Life.”

Until next time, see you around! Maybe on twitter ;) Maybe on Mass Ave. Maybe on the branch of that Magnolia—

Heidi (a.k.a. @curiousHeidiHi)

Hmm... the S in Scared didn't want to leave!

When I started this April blog series called “Taking the S out of Scared,” I was soooo excited. How awesome would it be to recycle and reuse that S. Sure sounded good! I had, after all, so many better, sexier, more interesting uses for that S, S being one of my favorite letters.

Confession: I haven’t succeeded. I’ve been scared. Really scared. Scared with a good bit of overwhelm. You know, when everything feels like “too much,” and even the best of sounds can sound like noise… Like that.

Good intentions. AND good to notice that a huge part of my motivation was being pushed by the part of me that was freaking-the-hell-out: it wanted me to get rid of Scared once and for all. Pro-bly on account of it being scared, too!

Wanted: Calm. To know down to my bones that all is OK. Knowing I’m taken care of, no matter what. And, doggone it, we were going to make that happen.

Laudable, isn’t it? I justified my agenda by saying that of course calm is a good thing. As is feeling taken care of. Who doesn’t want that! And besides, this was me doing it. It wasn’t like I was waiting for anyone to come save me or anything. I was going to do it and then share my findings with you.

Oh well.

Enter reality. Hello!

Over the past week every time I’ve gone to write an entry: nothing. Or I’d start and stop and start and stop over and over again… Oh the pressure.

Last night found me in this chair right here trying to write yet again. I so wanted to sing the praises of “Essence” and “Simple” — but everything that came was convoluted. Plus it felt forced. Like me pushing something that didn’t want to move. Or wasn’t ready.

Finally, exhausted and battered over a week gone by without a second post, I went to bed. “Oh no! Now what! I can’t even write any more. Writing is my love. Will I lose even that?”

It was a hard night. You know: too long and too short at once.

This morning I wrote my friend Elizabeth a 5-line email:

Dear Elizabeth,
Do you have any time today?
I have lost interest in everything. I’m scared.
Love,
Heidi

Basic? Yes. To the point? M-hm. More to the essence than anything I’d written all week.

Elizabeth Levine—whose middle name might as well be Kindness, or Presence, or Kick-ass-sense-of-humor, or Understanding—wrote back inviting me to ask myself:

Is it true that I’ve lost interest in everything?

Hmmmm. Pretty quickly I see it’s not true.

For one: I’ve not for one moment lost interest in finding ways to take care of myself.

For two: I’ve not lost interest in not giving up on myself.

For three: Ironically, I’ve not lost interest in Scared. It’s here in spite of my trying to get rid of it. Hello!

For four: It seems what I’m really interested in is how someone with lots of overwhelm and scared can take good care anyway.

For five: I’ve not lost interest in beauty. It’s just that at the moment, as one dear friend so succinctly said: “You’re seeing everything through shit glasses.”

Oh my. Nails it!

But know what? Beauty is still here. Alive and well. And yesterday, even in the midst of an overwhelm of gargantuan proportions (redundant, just like the overwhelm)—beauty found me.

Oh my. So subtle and even more beautiful for that. This beauty looked a whole lots like 4 itty-bitty sparse paragraphs written by the equally beatiful Havi Brooks:

Anyway, it was just the two of us. No waitress. I was covering the bar and he was taking the kitchen.

We knew we’d be hanging out together until at least six in the morning when we closed, so it wasn’t like we needed to fill the space with conversation.

I was cleaning something. He was cleaning something. Johnny Cash in the background. All the space in the world. All the time in the world.

Just cleaning. And thinking. And waiting, but not impatiently. Knowing that any minute a door will open. A bell will ring. And there you are.

Oh my. So simple. Ahhhh. So calm. Ahhh. So much care.

All for today, my friends, all for today—

Heidi

April Blog Series: "Taking the S out of Scared"

I have been noticing how often I feel scared and how often I think or say the words: “I’m so scared!”

I’m quite adept at running the mental movies: woman pushing shopping cart. Woman trying to keep her laptop dry in the rain. Woman trying to find wifi… Woman sleeping under the bushes in the Cambridge Common… Woman dying old and alone with nary a person who loves her in sight… Scared yet? No shit!

But the other day, while doing my Heidi-version-of-running running, I began wondering about what the part of me that’s scared most longs for, most wants, most believes is missing. And that’s when things started getting interesting. (You know, enter curiosity!)

Little Tangent: I’ve been doing A Month of Living Curiously and have loved it: I lurve writing letters to people I love. And my subscribers? Adore them.

But this month I very much need to focus on biggifying my massage therapy, self-employed IttyBiz. I need to make massage a more solid stream of income, one I can consistently depend on to provide me with a solid base. Because, I don’t know about you but it’s freaking hard to keep the creative juices flowing when “one” (who, me?) is worried about rent and food. After all people, we’re talking Maslow’s lowest rung on the pyramid here! And as much as I was loving writing missives to my subscribers, it wasn’t fully and literally sustaining me.

But that made me sad. Because I can’t not write! And I want to write. And I love staying connected. So, I’ve decided I’d just do it more lo-key, less formal. (And here ends the Little Tanget) So:

I took Scared’s hand and we kept doing our laps. And there, in the middle of Danehy Park, it came to us—Scared and me—that Scared doesn’t really have to be so scary.

Hmmmmm! Interesting about that. And that’s when my April blog series was born: Taking the S out of Scared!

And, want to know something really cool? April is Earth Month! That’s right! All about recycling and reusing. So, rather than throwing a letter away, we are going to reuse it.

Besides, even if it weren’t Earth Month, doesn’t the thought of throwing a super sexy scrumptious letter like S away just break your heart? (If it doesn’t, do not even tell me). And, besides-besides: it also happens that April is National Poetry Month, and, um, hel-lo! what sort of a disrespectful dipshit would throw away a letter during Poetry Month? Not I. Oh no, not I.

So, good all around. Everyone is happy. Scared gets to get taken care of. No letter will be left behind. And Heidi gets to write.

Stay tuned for my musings on reusing the S.

And, my IttyBiz? Why, I’d love you to come see me for a massage

Grandma & me

(My grandma Eck died last week. 94 years old. She and I had a good many things in common, some of which I loved, others not so much. Here’s my little eulogy for her!)

One of the things I most enjoy having in common with Grandma is where I grew up. A beautiful place in the Southernmost Southern hemisphere.

A place of interminable winters of rain, rain, rain. Did I say rain?

And right alongside winter, the smell of burning wood and parafina space heaters. And wet wool that never dried.

A place of amazing summers, all the more special for their shortness.

The heady scent of fruit in orchards.

Land of poets and writers in a language spoken in an accent that flows off the tongue like a brook.

Land of some of the kindest most openhearted people I know.

I wouldn’t change where I grew up for all the money in the world. And, um, these days that’s saying a lot.

I share something else with Grandma. I think about things. A lot.

Like Grandma, and many in this room, I was born into a family of missionaries.

I learned the word eternity right alongside the days of the week, and believe me: I have given the whole eternity thing a lot of thought.

I was about 4 the first time I remember pondering it with my nose pressed to the window on one of those interminable winter days, raindrops trickling down down down, and beyond the fogged up window, a world of mud and puddles and clouds.

What I was doing, along with wishing the rain would stop for a bit so we could go play in the puddles, was trying to wrap my head around “forever.” (Which I don’t recommend trying to do at 4). I was considering my options:

On the one hand there was heaven with Jesus and the angels and the mansions and the streets of gold.

On the other hand there was hell, with the devil and darkness and the demons and the lake of fire.

I was a bright girl—you know, the good genes and all—and with only those two options, it was pretty much a no-brainer.

Except it wasn’t. I kept thinking about it. Truth was, I really loved Jesus, but the mansions and streets of gold? I really could have cared less about those. Honestly. I meant no disrespect then. And neither do I now.

I notice that we dear human beings define heaven as pretty much the opposite of what most scares us right now. Or what we most long for and think we don’t or can’t have now.

If we’re poor now, then we will be rich in heaven.
If we’re afraid of the dark, then heaven will be eternal light.

There is something else that I share with Grandma. I can tend to worry. OK, I’ll be honest: I’m really quite good at it.

I can inject a shot of worry into the most amazing and calm of days. And a night of good sleep? Forget about it! If a worry is wanting my attention, I can wake myself right up out of a dead sleep with it.

Dear Grandma. I understand that in you. (And yes, I sometimes worry about that, too!)

When I think of the kind of heaven I want for you, in addition of course to being surrounded by all the love in the world, and your dear Everett, and my dad too (have you said hello?) the kind of heaven I picture you in is not a place with no darkness, but a place where you aren’t afraid of the dark.

It’s not a place where everyone agrees, but where everyone has a seat at the table.

It’s not a place where we try to get rid of whatever we don’t like or are afraid of, but where we welcome it all with open arms.

I love you, Grandma. I picture you surrounded by all you ever dreamed of and more. And I’m happy not to have to wait till I die to meet you there.

Dearest Life, Bring it on! Love, Heidi

A facebook friend’s status line said: “Write 500 words on what you are at your most happy, prosperous and healthy. Amazing fun. Do it now.” I do so love receiving simple direction. Here goes!

At my most happy I am calm in my heart and belly even when my mind is a-buzz with ideas which I can hardly wait to write.

I am at ease and filled with joy. I look forward to the future and don’t regret the past. I sleep like a baby. I have amazing and creative dreams.

I have nothing to lose and I do what I love. I don’t mind failing over and over again because I’m doing what I love. Everything is a success because I do it for its own sake. I am not needing your approval but am simply doing what I love and putting it out into the world.

At my happiest I have friends in person and all over the world. Friends that come to my gatherings. Friends that meet me for tea or a drink. Friends that I pop in on just to say hi. Friends I go skinny dipping with. Friends that hold me. Friends that laugh with me. Friends that cry with me without worry or freak-out. Friends that get me.

At my happiest I feel completely free and am doing absolutely nothing out of obligation or guilt, or fear of hurting anyone.

At my most prosperous I am at ease. I feel the support of the ground below me and the generosity of the air I breathe. I feel cared for and caring. I feel safe and held by the world.

At my most prosperous there is enough to have the meal plus the appetizer plus the glass of wine plus the dessert plus I can pay for the other person. Or hell, the entire group. I am openhanded openhearted. I have left over to pass along or do with what I want. To give huge tips. I surprise all my friends and family. I leave people totally anonymous no-strings-attached gifts. I sign up for all the awesome classes I want. To study anything, anywhere I please. I pay in cash.

At my most prosperous I rent a zip car whenever I want to go wherever I want. I take vacations. I travel and am free. I have 10 massage clients a week and can raise my price when people are pounding down my door. (And I get a 90 minute massage every week, at least).

At my most prosperous I write write write. I have written and published a book that continues to bring me unexpected joy and income. I have finished my play and it’s being produced in cool theatres around the world. And I have a website with a rocking blog and a lovely community of people that read and comment.

At my most prosperous I move into a simple lovely place where I can have a dog. And an awesome kitchen. And a lovely room of my own to write and muse. And a porch with a swing and enough chairs for all my friends.

At my healthiest I eat meals that I prepare with love and delight or I go out to eat and in my prosperity I order exactly what I want.

At my healthiest I get fresh air and movement every day. I do not need to compulsively check the internet or anything else. If I am online it’s because there is a good reason, even if that is simply delight and joy.

At my healthiest I am not thin and not fat, and I have me some nice delicious curves. I love my body. I love my hair. I love my newly arriving wrinkles. I am sexy as hell and I do not try to hide it.

At my healthiest I smile openly and warmly without shame. Without holding back. My body and mind feel balanced. I express and I receive, all the time giving and taking as if in a dance.

At my healthiest I laugh a lot. And I cry freely without holding myself in. At my healthiest I am an open yet mysterious and exciting book, never quite finished…

So bring it on, Baby.
Bring it on, Life.
Bring it on, Heidi.
Bring it freaking on.
I am here.
Here here! Ho!

in which my wise self laughs in the face of paralyzing fear. The nerve!

Excuse me, could I please speak with the person in charge here?

Um, that would be you, dear.

Oh my, so it is!

So, what’s on your mind?

Here’s the thing: When I signed myself on for A Month of Living Curiously and picked Mary Oliver’s poem “The Uses of Sorrow” I had no idea how big and scary my box full of darkness could be!

What did you think, Sweetheart, that you’d be parroting affirmations to the courageous and curious people that signed up with you?

Noooo. But I didn’t have in mind how scary and in my face my dark stuff would be. It has practically paralyzed me a bunch of times this past weekend, in case you couldn’t tell.

[Shakes her head, laughing]

Um, excuse me! This is the part where you are supposed to make soothing “there, there” cooing sounds.

[Laughing harder]

Um, excuse me very much, did you miss that day at Being Your Wiser Self School?

I’m sorry but you know I can’t fake it. If there’s laughter, there’s laughter. What can I say. Besides, if I recall—and I do have a very good memory for these things, you know—it just so happens that the day 1 lesson 1 of “Being Your Wiser Self School” was: “Never, ever, fake it. Say it like it is.” And right there, just then, the most honest expression that came was laughter. Would you have me hold it back? You of all people know the kind of havoc holding back emotion, stifling honest expression—or even worse, faking it!—can wreak on a person’s body—

Yeah, I suppose.

C’mon, you have to admit how good it feels to laugh. You might try it.

Yeah, I ain’t feeling it right now, so just let me pout, would you? That’s me not faking it.

Suit yourself.

[A few minutes pass]

So what’s on your mind, Sweet Pea? I’d love to hear you. I’m right here.

I’ve been scared shitless in case you couldn’t tell.

Right now you are?

No, actually. Not right now. But I’m just remembering how scared I was this past weekend.

Yes, good to notice it was then.

Yes, but it scares me when I remember it and I know it will probably come back. It always does.

Who knows. Maybe. Maybe not. Did you do your best? Did you meet it with understanding?

Yes, as best I could.

I’m proud of you, Sweetheart. You always do your best.

Yes, I suppose I do. You think I’m doing OK?

Oh my god you are doing sooooo OK! Amazingly OK, you.

You think I’ll be OK?

Of course you will! You’ve got me, babe! And I might have missed a day or two at Being your Wiser Self School but I can tell you the lessons on those days were lame, at best, and I was learning more playing hooky. Plus, my friends let me copy their notes and I can assure you, I got it all. So, yes, good you have me, good indeed! And remember: you’ve got Luna. Plus all your curious peeps looking forward to hearing from you.

Hey! Speaking of Luna: what was with that cat that bit me on my hand in my dream the other night? Ow! That pretty much killed!

Killed, huh?

Oh. My. God. Yes! It was intense! I hadn’t even done anything to that cat and she just jumped up and bit my left hand in that fleshy triangle part where the thumb and index finger meet, the part that feels so good to have worked on by your massage therapist…

Yeah, right there where it feels so good to have pressure, she bit you. That’s curious. She could have bit you anywhere else but she bit you there.

And hard!

Yes, I get that.

If she wanted my attention why didn’t she just tap me or nuzzle up on my leg like a polite cat, hunh? Why not? She freaking bit me and those were some sharp fangs she had going on!

Hmmmmm. Curious, isn’t it. Something might come to us about that today.

Yeah, that one’s puzzling me.

Hey, and you all have that Dreams Call coming up with Barbara McGavin next Saturday, right?

Yes, I’m sure Barbara will have some interesting things to say about the puzzling things that transpire in our dreams.

Yes, great! I’m excited for that… Hey Heidi, have you told people how to sign up for that?

There’ll be a link below this post, where people can sign up for my mailing list. They should be sure to check off the box for the Dream Call on Saturday, March 28. (Even if they’re already on my mailing list, this link will take them to where they can add this group to their interests!)

Good. It’s at 3:30 pm eastern, right?

Yeah, that’s right. And people can find what time that is for them where they are around the world at this link here…

Can anyone be on the call?

Yes, but they have to sign up. There’s a document I’ll be sending out to everyone that’s signed up. And they’ll also have access to the recording then, in case they can’t make it or just want to listen again.

Good. Alright, Sweet Pea. You’re doing great. I’m really pretty lucky to have gotten paired up with you, you know?

Lucky?

Yeah. I could have gotten someone that didn’t give a rat’s behind about curiosity! How boring would that be! You ain’t so bad at all, Heidi, not so bad at all.

Hey, before you go: does everybody have a you? Like, does the person reading this here post have a you too?

A me?

Yeah, a wise self?

Yeah, although some people might not know it. But I’m pretty sure all your curious peeps know it. Matter of fact, they may be getting curious about their own Wise Self right about now.

I hope their wiser selfs aren’t as irreverent as you are!

Me? Irreverent? Hey, I make you laugh. Let’s not get thankless about that. Minor point.

OK, bye.

(This post is March 16th’s missive for A Month of Living Curiously — but even if you missed signing up for the month, you can be on Saturday’s call (March 28, 3:30 pm eastern). Now don’t go missing that too!)

Enter your email address here to add your name to Heidi’s mailing list and/or to sign up for the FREE Dream Call on March 21 (And yes! Your email address will be kept private)

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Waiting a-la-Isadora Duncan & walking in momma's heels

Sometimes the hardest thing is to be still. To wait for right action to arise. I’m not talking sitting on your butt waiting for life to come and find you. No. It’s more an alert kind of stillness even while in the thick of things.

There is a story of dancer Isadora Duncan, considered by many to be the mother of modern dance (retold by Eugene Gendlin in “A Process Model”). Sometimes Isadora Duncan would wait, very still, holding a position for long periods, maybe even hours, moving only when seemingly moved to do so, and maybe then only ever so slightly.

It’s as if she was waiting for the next move to arise, rather than forcing or bullying it by will or pulling it out ahead of its time.

Duncan was onto something great, if subtle. Simple, but not easy. At least not for someone who often feels like a puppy chasing her tail, or a squirrel hiding nuts. (Who me?!)

I notice that when I push and pull myself it is often from a place of urgency, propelled by a panicky sense. Usually I’m trying somehow to ensure my safety, my OKness. Nothing wrong with wanting to make ourselves safe and OK, but when my action comes from panic, there is nothing that feels OK about the result.

Something about forcing things feels like Cinderalla’s stepsisters (in Grimm’s fairytale version), where they are so convinced that they want the prince that they cut off their toes so their feet will fit into the dainty slipper. Alas, the prince sees through their scheme! (Oh my prince, is it the blood? What is it? I can clean that up!)

Way way way back, there was a time when “OK” was not a thought that crossed my mind.

Funny how before thought there just is what there is. After thought, there still is what there is, plus thought. Another layer’s been added.

Before the thought “I need to be OK,” there was OK. I was very very young, when concepts like “secure” or “safe” or “forever” would have been met with the likes of, “hunh?!” To the question of what I’d become when I grew up, that girl would have said something like:

“I don’t know about becoming but I sure do like stories and thinking up stuff and watching the way the rain trickles down the window here and noticing how things happen the way they do and being up in the tree picking cherries and chasing grasshoppers in the field and cracking open those hazelnuts from our bushes out back… and what about you?”

I notice the quality of my movement: Does it come from fear? Does it come with urgency? The trick is to become still again and wait. It doesn’t literally mean sitting still, though maybe. (Running round the track is one of my stillest times).

Byron Katie says: “Don’t pretend yourself past your evolution.” In other words, don’t pretend myself past where I’m at. I know the feeling of doing that. Of faking it. Of pretending. (Being what Havi Brooks endearingly would call “being an enlightened asshat” — you know, sounding like my shit’s together when, um, it’s not.

Giving advice usually comes from that enlightened asshat place. And that sort of pretend always backfires. Often it’s with the intention of putting a lid on what’s really there, not wanting to be seen as I really am.

There is another kind of pretend I sometimes do that is a bit different. It’s not from fear. It’s from fun. It’s kind of like a 3-year-old playing dress-up, walking around in her mommas heels… tripping around in shoes she may grow into… It’s experimenting, imagining. There’s no hiding that you’re 3 and in heels way-too-big, but there you are!

Sometimes, these days, it’s like that. My too-big shoes are writing. By golly, I’m swimming in these shoes but I sure do love the feel of them. And my feet are growing. And oh my! My letters are crooked and sometimes all over the page, but golly-gee-whillackers I’m writing…

I look around and see lots of space and empty. Some tears. A run. Some laughs. More laughter than ever before. A not taking myself so seriously. Some writing. Ideas. More writing. Some twittering. A bit more writing. Other tears. Some sitting on my hands so as not to start back in on the grabbing at what’s no longer or what’s not yet.

Here I am. On the big stuff, it sometimes feels like I got dealt a major learning disability, along with a slip of paper: “Learn to live your best life with what you’ve got.” Oh my, sloooow learning. But we all get what we get (and anyway, que le vamos a hacer!).

Regardless, regardless: I notice that I am the one I fall asleep and wake up with in sickness and in health, so help me God. No matter who else may come along or go away, I’m the one that stays. And if I can’t be OK with me, who can, I ask, who can?!

All for now, my friend, goodnight—

Heidi

Bring your box full of darkness on an adventure!

The Uses of Sorrow (by Mary Oliver)

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

Come in, come in. So good of you to come!

Please make yourself at home: “mi casa es tu casa,” as we said where I come from. “My house is your house,” indeed, especially for our month together.

Oh, and, that there white cat is Luna. You may see her around from time to time. Don’t worry if she slips out the door behind you. She’s a go-where-you-please kind of curious cat, yes.

Oh my! I see that you’ve brought along a box full of darkness of your own. That’s great. What? You don’t so much like what’s in your box?

That’s OK too. “A Month of Living Curiously” is the perfect place to bring a box full of darkness, and indeed, I know I even asked you to bring it with you. (And I do so love a guest who takes an invitation at its word!)

So, look around. Take off your shoes. Have some tea.

And if you’d like, go explore. There’s boots of all sizes in the mud room in the event you should want to go traipsing through the fields. The woods are lovely too, by the way, as dark and deep as they come!

And feel free to pluck and eat anything in the garden. I especially would recommend the forbidden apples. (They are The. Best. Who can blame Eve.)

There’s rocking chairs and a big swing on the porch. Feel free to spread out on any of the tables with paints and brushes or pencils or clay. Or pile up your arms with books from the library.

So, really, just you make yourself at home!

You should know that there will be poets coming and going at Curious House this month. They happen to be some of my favorite teachers of curiosity (though I’m sure they might raise an eyebrow or roll over in their graves at being called “teacher”).

Mary Oliver, as you can see above, happens to be here right now. I hear that T.S. Eliot may be stopping by for a few days. Pablo Neruda is a frequent visitor of Curious House as well. As is Rumi. And Rilke. And Leonard Cohen. And Myra Shapiro. And Antonio Machado. And Kevin Young. And I hear that Jacques Prevert, French poet and playwright is in the area. And Billy Collins. Oh my. I really don’t even know who else. We’ll just have to be surprised.

What’s that, dear? You’re curious about what other curious guests’ boxes of darkness are about? If they’re as dark as yours?

Hmmmm. I don’t know. But it sounds like you think yours is pretty dark there.

Hmmmm, yes. I hear that. It’s been troubling you for some time. Oh, excuse me, years! Yes, it’s been around for years, and recently it’s been waking you up early with worry. Yes.

Oh my, yes! I do see where you’ve been pulling your hair out. Yes, that’s how frustrating that box full of darkness has been for you. Oh, and that’s why you’re here alone? You think that box messed up your love-life? Yes, I hear you.

You’re in the right place. Welcome, you and your box full of darkness, to “A Month of Living Curiously”.

Today I invite you to find (or make) something that will serve as your reminder of getting curious about your box full of darkness.

Me? What did I pick? Why, the moon! Like Luna she appears and disappears. And since the moon’s not mine by any means, you can certainly share the moon as a reminder to pause, notice and get curious, if you like.

I also quite like the church bells that chime on the quarter hour. The gong-ing of the bell often brings me back to now. And now is the best time and place to get curious.

Feel free to drop me a line. Tell me about your box of darkness. Or not. Tell me about your reminder-to-be-curious thing. Or not.

Until you hear from me again, curious friend, or until I hear from you, remember: “Mi casa es tu casa!”

Heidi & Luna

P.S. Today we’ll just be settling in and making ourselves at home. Other curious guests will be arriving throughout the day, and indeed, maybe even through Thursday, March 5th.

They, and you if you haven’t and want to, can sign up here. Also, if it’s only a financial limitation that would keep you from joining, drop me a line. We can work something out. I know it can be a bummer not to be able to afford something you really want to do!_

Recalculating!

(Last missive from February’s “A Month of Living Curiously”)

Recently I was in a car with a global positioning system. I know, I know. GPS’s are probably old hat for you, but this is me. I’m a public transportation girl.

So my dear friend was driving, and I was curious about this little direction-giving contraption that would say things like, “In 20 feet turn left.” I thought, “How cool is that! I’d love one of those for my life.”

And then, something like a light bulb lit up in my head.

There is, actually, something very much like that in my life but it requires curious and open eyes and ears. And when I am pushing and pulling like crazy I just can’t see or hear it.

Then I asked my friend who was so adeptly navigating New York City traffic with the help of this little gadget: “What does the lovely GPS lady’s voice tell you when you don’t follow her direction and you make a wrong turn?”

So, get this! Ready? If you make a wrong turn, the GPS system will say, very simply, in its inimitably no-muss-no-fuss, a little bit sexy & a little bit business but always calm voice: “Recalculating…”

And then, get this! It will scan to determine exactly where you are presently located (after making that “wrong” turn) and, taking into account where you are trying to get, it will proceed, without a hint of impatience, to give you simple directions, one step at a time, to get you there from where you are now.

Notice that in no moment does the lovely GPS lady ever get snarky and say: “You dumb-ass! What’d you go and turn left for? I never told you to turn left! Now what are we going to do?!” Hmmmmm. She must know that would be of no help at all!

Isn’t that simply the best? So now, I add to my collection of self-in-presence people and things to channel in moments of panic and wrong turns, right there alongside Maya Angelou, the paramedic, and Dagmar from Lars & the Real Girl, none other than the lovely GPS lady-voice.

February’s “A Month of Living Curiously” comes to an end. [Sniffle, sniffle.] You will hear from me again tomorrow just to wrap things up, toot some horns, as we say around here, and give you some info and where to go from here options.

Right now, here, I’d love to take a moment to make a wish for you, dear friend:

May your pausing and your noticing, and all the ways you’ve begun to open your senses curiously toward yourself and the world in this short month, be just a beginning, a mere stepping stone on your continuing journey of a lifetime of living curiously with the one-and-only you.

The way I see it is that life keeps happening anyway. I can either live curiously and enjoy getting to know this amazing, if at times oddly-behaving, creature that is me, or I can kick and scream and complain about who I’ve got tagging along. It’s my choice to make.

And if I miss my turn? Well, thank goodness there’s always RECALCULATING.

Gratefully, curiously, and ever yours,

Heidi

P.S. I’m very excited about the brand-spanking-new AMOLC adventure to start on Sunday, March 1 (if a bit nervous and biting my nails!)

March’s AMOLC will have a side-theme of DREAMS running through it, and I’ve been saving up some nice POETRY, since poets are some of my favorite teachers of curiosity, ever!

So, that’s a little taste of what’s to come. I’d love to have you along if it calls to you to join. You can sign up for the ALL NEW month here.

Thank you. Blowing kisses your way, whether or not you stay!