Nap Time

This has felt like a very indulgent weekend. Sleeping, reading and putting butter on my toast.

It is so peaceful out here that I can’t help but drink in the tranquility. And I didn’t realize how exhausted I was! Looking back I don’t think I’ve spent any length of time relaxing since Christmas, and that was 6 months ago.

Which means that everything around here acts like a narcotic. Any time is nap time out here at The Shack.

The wind rustling through the trees, I’m out.

The sound of the rain on the roof, I’m out.

Reading one page of my book, I’m out.

I’ve been here for 21 hours and almost 12 of that has been spent sleeping. That bed is so comfortable! It took me at least 2 hours to rustle myself out from underneath the cozy, warm, divine duvet this morning.

It’s lovely actually. Waking and rising and not answering to anyone. Hanging out with myself and doing whatever. I’m giving myself permission to enjoy this time, even though I’m not getting as much writing done as I would like. It’s ok. This time will clear space for creativity to rush in. It’s all perfect. And it’ll help me face my stressful, busy, loud and active life a little better when I get home.

For now, it’s nap time.

Tiny, Quiet Revolution

So here I am...5 days in to a new place of being. Exploring something I am completely shocked to find myself exploring. Uncharted parts of me. Shocked and delighted to find myself here.

10 days ago I agreed to do a cleanse for a friend of mine who is launching a new business. I am so fond of her and wanted to support this leap of faith she is taking. Sure, I can do a cleanse for 3 days. To support Neelam.

No big deal.

But the result for me has been monumental. Three days drinking juice has shifted something in me at my very core. Not only was I not hungry, I had no cravings. So different from my past experiences with weight, feeling deprived, wanting to eat everything in sight, using food to slather on my broken heart, my fractured nerves, my unmet needs. Needing it to nurture and protect me. Looking for all the answers at the bottom of my hot fudge sundae. And living with the hatred of the extra 30, then 40, then 50, then 60 pounds. Carrying it around as punishment, as an outward expression of all that I truly believed about myself.

Feeling so lost and desolate in my weight loss journey because I had been to hell and back, done it all, seen it all, heard it all, tried it all and just ending up somewhere broken and wretched and lost. Not knowing if I could or even wanted to find my way back.

And trying to live in acceptance.

Trying so hard.

But it's hard to hear what my body really wants when it was muffled and stifled by all those chocolate chip cookies.

~~

I met with Neelam months and months and months ago. She's a nutritionist who helps women release weight through proper nutrition and custom meal plans.

It was too much for me. The journey she was proposing I embark on was too much for me. I couldn't face it. I couldn't face starting from scratch and doing it all over again. I couldn't punish, torture and hate myself thin again for all the Blizzards in Dairy Queen. Couldn't do it. Couldn't even think about doing it. Nope, nope, nope. I needed to find my way back. I needed to find the start line and then decide if I even wanted to get there. And mostly I didn't.

Until this 3-day cleanse came along.

Can I face all the mechanics and work involved in losing 30 or 40 or 50 pounds? No. Can I drink fresh-made, all natural juices delivered to my door every day.

Ya, I can do that.

So I started this totally harmless thing and it turned into this REALLY BIG THING! Because, that's it, that's it, that's it. That's my START! I started! No over-analyzing, no overwhelm, no mechanics, no fucking 'weight loss plan', just a start, an opportunity, a new chance at feeling better.

A start. That's all I needed, Neelam. A start. A chance. A new beginning to a desperately and deeply unsettling problem. And isn't that what it's all about?? Isn't this the crux of humanity? Isn't the core of any good friendship, relationship - or business for that matter - about having someone stand at the mouth of a whatever dark cave you're stuck in waving their flashlight, calling your name and showing you the way out.

Youth, Day, Old Age and Night

I pulled out a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass today and treated myself to a little beauty. A dear friend gifted me this book in 2000, and I think I've only just now grown into it. She gave it to me before I was ready.

So today on my 35th birthday, for her, for me, with my thanks:

YOUTH, DAY, OLD AGE AND NIGHT

Youth, large, lusty, loving--youth full of grace, force, fascination,

Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?

Day full-blown and splendid--day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter,

The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.

~Walt Whitman, 1881

This Pretty Much Sums Up My life Right Now

Picture from mincingmockingbird on Etsy.

Way Down

I think I might have to break down and buy Tori Amos 'A Piano' box set. For those of you who know me for my notorious cheapskatedness, this is a rather bold pronouncement.

The only thing. Only.ONLY thing that has buoyed me through this week has been the acoustic version of 'A Sorta Fairytale' which is so god-damned heart-breaking that it makes me want to curl up in a ball and wail.

That and 'Intro Jam/ Marys of the Sea.' This 8+-minute song which includes such epic lyrics as 'Back that ass up now' and 'you built your rock that’s on sand' (which i actually thought until just now was 'hey you built a rocketship on sand’ and I gotta be honest, am kind of disappointed is not. meh. I've been making up my own tori lyrics for 15 years. Why stop now?) has been propelling me to and from wherever I've been coming and going from.

“Back me on up
I gotta face some kind of evil tomorrow
I need to know that you're gonna be there
and you know my faith is in your hands, now
just back me on up
just back me on up
back me on up”

I need all the help I can get.

This week has been strange; I have been on auto-pilot. I feel like I've been in some sort of vacuum, or tunnel. All I can hear is white noise. And Tori Amos.


This bitch has got my back.

Get Back To Work

TODAY'S LITTLE GEM:
Ok, first of all, did you know that Elizabeth Gilbert used to work at SPIN magazine?! Like she wasn't, you know, cool enough already. Secondly, and more shockingly, fair readers, did you know that she wrote a memoir for GQ about her bartending years in a lowdown East Village dive which became...are you with me..."Coyote Ugly."

I may be the last person on the planet to have known that.

Crazy. Quirky, Unlikely.

And you're welcome.


But that's not why I'm here. No, I'm here because my Guru and imaginary best friend, Ms. Gilbert has a few thoughts on writing. Being that she knows a thing or two about it, thought I'd share:

Discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.

I have a friend who’s an Italian filmmaker of great artistic sensibility. After years of struggling to get his films made, he sent an anguished letter to his hero, the brilliant (and perhaps half-insane) German filmmaker Werner Herzog. My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc. Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to be an artist…now get back to work.” Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

[...]

In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”

Great New Year's Quotes

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850

New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
~Mark Twain

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions. ~Joey Adams

The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
~W.H. Auden

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.
~Ellen Goodman

The Desiderata

I have always loved this poem, and kind of forgot all about it until I was reminded about it on elastic waist.

Merry Christmas everyone. Peace and blessings!

~~~
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

--- Max Ehrmann, 1927-

Elizabeth Gilbert, My Hero

CERTAINTY

"Absolute certainty is not something I strive for anymore. I've learned the hard way that destiny usually looks upon our most strident convictions with amusement, or perhaps even pity. (Oh, those silly humans! So desperate for their absolutes!) Sometimes it seems like the only job of the world is to gently (or not so gently) separate us from our deepest assurances, exposing us once again to that ultimate moral teaching tool: humility.

Of course, it's not always a pleasant experience to have our certainties stripped away. Sureness is something like a neck brace, which we clamp around our lives, hoping to somehow protect ourselves from the frightening constant whiplash of change. Sadly, the brace doesn't always hold. I could list for you a tragicomic litany of all the things I was once mistakenly completely certain about...Maybe you, too, were once absolutely sure that you'd found your great love, or your final best friend, or the perfect mentor, meditation or medication that would--once and for all--never fail you. And then? Slowly it seems, we are not so sure after all. Such is our slippery toehold here on Earth, and so it has always been.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the people we instinctively turn to in times of trouble are those who--we sense-- have made space within their convictions for doubt and mystery. Compassion grows best, it appears, in the soft spot beneath quiet surrender. So I try very hard to go easy on firm conclusions. These days I settle for feeling only 85 percent sure about most things, most of the time. I believe this is keeping me sane, and I also believe that it's keeping me human. In fact, I'm 85 percent sure of it."

.

Oh, Rainer...

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

On the Nature of Love

From my new favourite author, Rabindranath Tagore, poet Laureate of India, who is soothing my panic, disillusionment, fear and loathing.

The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness,
but where or with whom- of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith- that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
For your sake such miles have I traversed!'
All those others who come close and moved off
in the darkness- I dont know if they exist or not.

-From Chaitali (1896)
Translated from Bengali by Ketaki Kushari Dyson.