It was 20 years ago today …

Okay, it might not have ACTUALLY been this date, but it was 20 years ago that I was preparing to graduate from Oberlin College. I had decided in my senior year that I wanted to move to Seattle, based on having spent a single day in this fine city. But other than that, I had done nothing. I had no job, no place to stay, and knew virtually no one. Not only that, but I didn’t even have a way to get there. I had a plane ticket to return to Florida.

A few days before graduation, a friend of mine approached me. She said, “I’m driving out to Seattle to play in a steel drum band for the summer. We have room in the car. Do you want to come?”

I thought about it for a moment and consulted with my parents, who were there for the graduation. My dad said, “You can always come back home, if it doesn’t work out.”

I said, “Dad, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I’d rather go slime fish in Alaska than move back to Florida.” We all laughed, I packed up a duffle bag and hopped in the car to drive West.

I met people who helped me, I found a place to live, I managed to get some work and I met the love of my life. I’ve made so many friends and have always always always since the day I moved here felt that this is where I belong.

On Struggle and Bliss

For the last two months my yoga teacher Rainey was using the koshas as the lens for our yoga practice. The idea is that there are five of these sheaths or layers, and the innermost one is the anandamayakosha. Ananda is often translated as “bliss”, which I find very difficult to access. I will get back to this in a moment. Rainey likes to translate it as “unreasonable joy” – that is, joy that is unbounded, unconditional, without any cause. And even that is hard for me to get to. I’ve been working with the idea of satisfaction, rather than bliss, joy, or happiness, because it’s much easier for me to be clear about whether or not I’m satisfied. And often, satisfaction brings contentment, which is a flavor of happiness/joy/bliss. I love that in French one says Je suis contente to say, “I am happy.”

That is the foundation. Rainey suggested at the beginning of a class what we might do to reveal that innermost kosha, so that it remained undiminished. I have been working the last several weeks on noticing when I’m telling stories (which are often lies) about my own experience. I often skip feeling the emotion and go right into interpretation and storytelling, which ironically has the effect of keeping me in that feeling (and is often downright unpleasant). I realized that when I can let go of the story about the feeling and just experience the feeling, it dissolves rather quickly. Pema Chodron explains it this way:

When you give your full attention to your knee or your back or your head—whatever hurts—and drop the good/bad, right/wrong story line and simply experience the pain directly for even a short time, then your ideas about the pain, and often the pain itself, will dissolve.

It is the stories I tell myself that create the struggle (c.f. first paragraph on “bliss”). When Rainey said undiminished, I heard in my mind undefined. Can I just let my experience be, without telling any stories around it? And can I find that satisfying? And will that reveal that inner joy/satisfaction/bliss that much more?

How about you?

Give BIG, Go SMALL

Today is the Seattle Foundation’s Give Big campaign. The idea is that if you donate money to your favorite non-profit orgs, it will be stretched by a giant pool of money available in SF’s coffers. Here are a few of my favorite very small orgs doing great work. I know the people intimately involved with the day-to-day operations and encourage you to add one of them to your giving today. Your donation will go much farther than in some of the big-name ones.

Amy Benson and Scott Squire’s Nonfiction Media is the organization through which they are making The Girl Who Knew Too Much. They have finished filming and are hoping to raise enough money to cover the cost of translation. It costs $50 for one hour. This story is going to change lives. It already has.

OneWorld Now! was started by my friend Kristin Hayden after the September 11th attacks in 2001. Her vision is to give underserved teens the opportunity to learn a foreign language and then travel abroad, breaking down barriers and misconceptions about people in other parts of the world.

Theatre Off Jackson is a very small theatre run by two women who love theater and art. They often host shows that otherwise wouldn’t have a space.

SHARE/WHEEL works to eradicate homelessness. It is a network of 14 self-orgainzed & self-managed shelters and two tent Cities that together shelter over 450 people every night, making them the largest shelter network in Seattle – with the smallest budget, thanks to that “self-organized” part.

Thanks for your generosity!

Crockpot Co-workers

Lindy West had a fantastic list of Ten Types of Shitty Coworkers and How to Not Murder Them.

#2 was The Nutritionist, which started off about vegans. That totally cracked me up, because I could relate, mostly from bringing vegan food to work and having other people grill me about it. But then I got to this:

…the dude who keeps a crockpot of Costco meatballs simmering at his desk at all times and shorts out your space heater and makes fun of you for eating carrots because “carrots are for pussies”…

If I had not worked in a cube farm with a man who used to cook chicken in a crockpot under his desk and stink up the whole room, I would never have believed this one. Not only that, he was gay and had a signed picture of George H.W. Bush and Babs on his cube wall. AND, he used a plug-in air freshener. He also clipped his toenails at work. Apparently this combo means I won the competition of strange and annoying co-workers. His only saving grace (for me) was that he was a couple of rows over.

I really found it all too amusing. Would love to hear about some of your quirky co-workers!

Sniffing butts

An interesting phenomenon occurs while abroad when two travelers meet. When I am at home and meet someone new, there is a set list of questions that occur. It’s the equivalent of two dogs meeting, sniffing one another’s asses and trying to figure out who’s the alpha. Almost immediately after learning someone’s name, the very next question that’s asked is about employment, because that is how people are valued in our culture. Rarely does the conversation turn to asking what you enjoy, and if it does, there’s a sheepishness about it, as if pursuing what you enjoy is frivolous and a waste of one’s time.

Outside the country, however, you learn where people are from, how long they are traveling, and most interesting to me, where they’ve been. You swap notes and compare experiences, share little things you’ve learned along the way that might lubricate the other person’s trip. Where a sort of competitiveness arises in the US, when I was abroad I found nothing but a sense of co-operation and willingness to help.

I’m trying to imagine having this sort of exchange with someone new here in the US. Even if we didn’t literally talk about travel, what if when we met, we could share what we’ve learned from where we’ve been and learn from others about what they’ve learned from where they’ve been? How might that shape our identity on both the individual level as well as community and even national level?

I have found one exception to this: the community of writers with which I am becoming engaged. We share what we’ve learned with one another, encourage each other and urge one another on. It’s my desire to have this in every aspect of my life.

I Know Where I Am

The last month or so I’ve been working with the idea that I know how to protect myself. This came up just last weekend, when a man I’d never met attempted to engage me in conversation in a public setting by telling me that he followed me. Immediately a red flag went up. There were people around me and I wasn’t worried for my safety. When he asked if he could sit with me, I just said, “No, I’m busy.” And he left.

In my yoga classes, we’ve been focused on handstand. I probably write about handstand more than any other pose because it induces such intense reactions for me. I suppose some people would say it’s juicy. On Monday, once I was upside-down, I went to the panic place. This is where I feel like I don’t know what the fuck is going on, which way is what and so on. And then I heard this little voice say, “You know how to protect yourself.” And then I thought: I know where I am. So when I came down, it was not out of a panic, but out of certainty. I’ve been exploring this pose for 13 years and this may be the first time I’ve ever experienced it that way.

In my class today I had another opportunity to try this out. The entire time I was going up I thought, “I know where I am.” And I did, it was true. And while the pose was intense and required my full concentration, I wasn’t panicking. I hope I can keep remembering this the next time I start to panic about something.

From the Panama Canal to Angkor Wat

For those of you who know me, you know I am an avid podcast listener. Most of the podcasts I listen to are story oriented, but a few lean toward education. I just learned about the podcast Stuff You Should Know, and they did an episode on How the Panama Canal Works.

Among other things, I learned that a river was dammed up to create a lake to get boats over the continental divide. There was fantastic discussion about the impact of disease (i.e. Yellow Fever) and how knowledge changed over time so workers were getting killed by industrial disaster instead of disease. Don’t ask me why I’m saying this in such a chipper manner, because of course I think killing people in the name of building something like this is horrifying.

My favorite thing about the episode, however, was toward the end, when they mentioned how vessels are charged by weight to go through the locks. I was wondering if they knew about a certain human who swam the locks, and lo and behold, they did! They mentioned Richard Halliburton’s traverse.

I don’t expect many of you to recognize Halliburton’s name, but growing up his name was said with a sort of awe. He was the first adventure travel writer and we read about his exploits in his Book of Marvels and discussed them with my father many times. As a matter of fact, his writing impelled my father to drag our sorry asses many places around the globe. Two years ago, I finally got to return the favor when my father met me in Cambodia to explore the ruins of Angkor Wat.

The Key to Destruction

I have intense, vivid dreams. They could almost be movies, they are so involved. I know, there is a rule somewhere that no one on the internet is interested in hearing about your dreams, so don’t share them. So, you’ve been warned. I’m going to tell you about a dream I had.

I was running down a stairwell, down down down. Running away from people who were chasing me. And in my hand I held an elaborate skeleton key. This wasn’t any old key. Oh no. It was The Key to Destruction. MY destruction. And in order to be saved, all I had to do was release the key. I merely had to open my hand and the people pursuing me would stop. But here’s the kicker. Do you want to know what this key unlocked? A small cupboard with a picture of Salvador Dali on his high school football team.

I often think of this dream, of how hard it is for me to release the clutching, the grasping, even when it might be destroying me. I was reminded of the quote: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. I might amend that to: Pain is inevitable, struggling is optional. I am getting help in identifying these thought patterns that no longer serve me. I am holding the vision that I will open my hand and when I see my fingers curling back in, I can gently uncurl them again.

Prop 8, DOMA and SCOTUS

As you are all probably aware, the Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments for Prop 8 (Hollingsworth v. Perry) on Tuesday and DOMA (United States v. Windsor) on Wednesday, Apparently people are already lining up for tickets. The NY Times made a super helpful infographic to understand the possible decisions. And Scott Fujita, another NFL player for marriage equality, wrote a great op-ed on acceptance. The SCOTUS Blog has tons of entries to help you understand these two cases. They are going to release same-day audio of the oral arguments, since there is so much interest in these two cases. There is going to be a noon rally in front of the Federal Courthouse on Wednesday, to show support and solidarity for marriage equality.

No Effort Is Wasted

I’ve been feeling low-energy this week. Yesterday in my yoga class, my teacher asked if I would demo kicking up into handstand with a partner. I felt extremely depleted, but I agreed to try anyway. Despite not feeling full of energy, I made it upside down. This is the only way I’ve ever been able to get into handstand – with support. I have been practicing yoga for over a decade. And handstands have been on the menu for just as long. Some of you know how much fear I have with this pose.

“No effort is wasted.” My yoga teachers say this all the time. There is also the concept of a “lifetime pose” – as in, it may take a lifetime to get there. I’m not sure in which lifetime I will get over my mental blocks and kick up into handstand on my own, but I’m certain I will surprise myself so much I will fall out and have to do it again.

I judge myself against my classmates, many if not most of whom can kick up on their own. I wonder what is wrong with me that I am not like them. But the reality is, I am not them. Each of us has her own struggles. I do know that over the years, my relationship with this pose has changed in subtle ways. There have been small and subtle shifts, perhaps like the movement of the tectonic plates. I trust in the process and recognize that even if these changes aren’t visible, they are still happening.

Yesterday, after I demonstrated kicking up into handstand with support, a classmate approached me and said, “I aspire to do what you just did.” Wow did that expand my perspective. We are all on a continuum. We all struggle. Only some of us keep coming back and making the effort.

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Slow Bloom Blog

Embrace YOUR pace. No one yells at a flower to bloom faster.