Stirring the Pot, but no soup for me!

The restlessness came from nowhere. The anger, the frustration, even the feeling of paralyzation, all at once. I can't run to shopping anymore, so I'm stuck. Or not stuck. I kind of don't appreciate any of this. I felt like running this morning, and I don't mean the strap-on-your-shoes-and-take-off kind of running. I mean the get-out-of-here-because-it-feels-uncomfortable kind of running, only there's nowhere to run. So cleaned out my closet. But what I want to say is that I don't know what will happen when I get to Bismarck and have to clean out that house. What's the problem? Everything I will be doing would've had to have been done anyway, it's just that the whole pot/house got stirred up, and everything is in disarray. Interestingly, the things I found most important are safely esconced here in a climate-controlled storage unit. So theoretically I could just haul a dumpster to the driveway and scoop everything into it, right? Only everything is mooshed together. I just don't know.

What would I wish for in my life right now? A clearing, some simplicity, some open breathing space that isn't about cleaning or clutter or clearing. I just want to be 'there', in that place where everything is settled and calm. I've got the makings for it. We're eating 100% healthy now, I'm not spending any unnecessary money, I'm thinking before I spend, sitting with what I have, still malleable and open to change. Will anything REALLY change? When will that tide begin to turn? Is this normal? Am I normal? Will I ever stop asking questions?

I saw an old friend this afternoon and she asked what I was doing. I told her I was going to Bismarck to settle the house, starting a new radio show, writing my blog, teaching a memoirs class, and working on a cookbook. She laughed and said, "Man, you are just never a dull person, are you?" and I laughed, because I was feeling kind of bored and unproductive, like I should be doing MORE. I feel like I'm totally taking a break. THIS is the thing - I think I may be the one stirring my own pot, I'm not sure. I have to check some more variables, but if that's true, then I'm the only one that can do anything to change anything, right? Hmmm... this is all very interesting to me. I think I'll go clean out my library and see if any more insights come to me while I'm looking through old books.

Eclectic

Melissa's fabulous. No, more than fabulous. She's amazing! This new best friend. I just knew it from the second I met her - this is someone I'm going to be friends with. She's a professional organizer (yikes Mikes!), and the first time she came over to the house I was more than a little self-conscious as to how she'd see it.

"Well," I said, "What do you think?"

"Eclectic," she tactfully said.

That's not the first time I've heard that. Carolyn said that, as well. I think that's code for something. Messy, maybe. Junky? Maybe. None of our furniture matches, and the paintings range from an amazing Star Wallowing Bull over our mantle to an Ace Powell right next to it. Burgundy Persian rugs and rust colored flowered easy chairs. Hmm...eclectic.

"What should we DO?" I dramatically asked my sweet husband, my arm flung over my forehead, me draped over the side of the chair. "I love all my stuff."

"Honey," he said, "It's who you ARE. Every time you throw something out it leaves a hole in our house, then you just go out and buy something to replace the hole with."

I look at our library. I love that room. It's got built-in bookshelves on two walls that are filled with antique books, reference books, fiction, non-fiction, spirituality, children's - yes, they're categorized. It houses my beautiful cello, Celeste (yes, I named my cello - so what), and our baby grand piano, Sophie, our beautiful 200 year old plant (yes, I named my plant - so what), my mom's antique doll collection, Dad's army hat, my Athlete of the Year basketball award, Steve's Shriner's hat, and a Turner sculpture. If someone were to tell me to get rid of half of everything in that room I would start crying. I love everything I've got.

Maybe the key is breathing into what I've got and not buying anything MORE. Is that a hoarder's justification? Maybe I need to strong arm myself and give away 50 things I cherish, just to make myself detach from things. Maybe I need Melissa to roll up her sleeves and get in here and show me how it's done, really done, not this pansy butt giving away a pair of shorts here, a pair of shoes there.

I walked out to the garage today, ready to tackle no-man's land. I'll give my french horn away to the high school, get the Underwood typewriter fixed so I can type on it (how cool would THAT be? Pretty cool), throw out 6 of the 9 tennis rackets, 7 of the 10 baseball gloves (I'm not joking). I can do this. I walk out, start moving stuff around. There's a pile of garbage in the corner where the paint is peeling off the wall from the leak 10 years ago. I don't know what to do. I sigh, turn around and walk back into the house.

Sometimes I feel paralyzed. Okay, a lot of the time I feel paralyzed, and I wonder if my achy knees is symbolic for my inability to move out of this energetic stuff muck. I think so. I think I am painfully awake now that I have stopped eating cows and pigs, have stopped spending money on unnecessary things, and have actually looked at my life. We need to move. That would fix everything. No, it wouldn't. I think I'm stuck with myself. What to do? Uhm, go eat some organic chocolate, I think. That will help. Really? No. Just kidding. It won't help. I'll go finish reading "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" - that will put my life into perspective, I think. Then maybe I'll go force my 11 year old to practice his violin for 6 hours. Hah. Just kidding. Man, what a riot this life is. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings. I'm sure it will continue to be a laugh a minute.

Let's Get Ethical

Why does anyone become a vegetarian? I imagine there are as many reasons as vegetarians. Why did I choose to give up red meat and pork? It was an energy thing, an experiment, I was curious. Was it an ethical thing? Okay, maybe. I will tell you a story. I hope you don't think I'm odd, but chances are it's already gone way beyond that by now.

I was standing at my stove stirring hamburger. I think it was in 1998. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular, just looking down at the skillet. Then I heard it. A moo. Inside my head. That's it. It barely registered at the time. What did that have to do with me cooking hamburger? How far removed I was from the whole butchering process that I spaced out the source of my dinner? That's probably WHY we can do it, maybe. Eat meat. It's sterile, hygienic, detached, separate. We don't SEE the live cow, or see the butchering process, see the stockyards, see the terror in the cows, see the whole hamburgerizing. I wanted to type more details, but my stomach started turning just hearing the words forming in my head, so I won't type more. I'm assuming everyone knows where hamburger comes from.

So that one incident was significant for me, because for the first time I really chose to put two and two together and I got a cow. A live cow. That mooed in my head. I still ate the hamburger, and it became easy to just go back to sleep. But not much anymore. I fear I am waking up with a vengeance, but I think I'm also becoming aware of subtle shades of gray beyond the usual black or white. What are the shades? Well, here are some.

It is true that we eat animals. We have always eaten animals, for thousands of years. We can hunt them, fish them, gut them ourselves, clean them, cook them, give thanks for our abundance of riches in the form of food for our bellies. We can raise them humanely on small farms, letting them roam free, feeding them good food, giving them room. We can only eat meat on special occasions, not as an every meal option. We can still be very healthy and eat moderate amounts of animal protein, I think, if it is organic, low-fat, and raised in a healthy way. It is becoming more evident, I think, that raising things (any things) in crowded conditions leads to disease and illness. E coli from not only beef, but spinach and sprouts.

I don't like all or nothing of anything. I really don't. The rebel in me wants to be free to do whatever I want to do. And I want to decide what I want to do, I don't want anyone else telling me what to do. Sure, maybe it's immature - it's just the way I am. How can I make good, healthy decisions for myself if everyone is yelling at me that they know what's best for me, for the rest of the world? I think that's crap - we have to be stewards of our own bodies and our own lives. We must be allowed to make decisions for ourselves, within the confines of society, of course, but otherwise we become puppets and remain emotionally dependent children for the rest of our lives.

I can feel the future of the world, and it is this: hubs of locally grown produce and meat, available to the general public within a 100 mile radius. If everyone could do this, there would be enough for everyone, and everyone could get what they wanted without having to get something from Chile or Brazil. Okay, I might not be able to get pineapples or oranges, it IS North Dakota, after all, but we could figure that out. It's probably a good idea to cut down on this nation's consumption of animal protein, anyway, so the demand would drop and the huge megafarms of Tyson would lose their footing. We'd get to know our neighbors as we trade and barter goods (another wave of the future), and we'd get more connected to our world. We should probably do away with fast food because there's not much good I can see that comes from it. Hey - family dinners! Home cooking! Dinner parties with friends!

There are so many choices and options and things to think about when it comes to changing lifestyles and making conscious decisions about how to live a full, rich life that doesn't involve sprinting and gulping and sugaring and chemicalling ourselves to death. There's just no need. That era is over. This is a good time for gentleness, ethics, and moral decisions based on what might be good for everybody, not just me, or you, or you. Yes, I've decided no more cows or pigs, and eggs are mysteriously falling by the wayside as well, and for me that's a really good thing. Do I ever judge someone else's choices? No, I don't. You do what you need to do - see how it works for you, see how you feel, see how good your health is, and if you think you'd like to do something different, maybe even call me to go out for some coffee. I'd love to talk with you about it. Oh - you don't drink coffee? How is that going for you? I can't seem to stop.

Oh brother, Mother

I've been a mother for almost 26 years now. When I was a child, I thought there were three types of people: men, women, and mothers. I honestly thought they were a different species, void of feeling, needs, opinions. I thought they lived to serve us children. I have always wanted children, since I was 7 years old. I love my kids. They have my whole heart. I think about them, worry about them, care for them, take care of them, love them, laugh with them, praise them.

I dropped my 11 year old off today at middle school. As he slammed the door and walked confidently toward the door, I felt my eyes tear up and breathed in the emotion instead of laughing it away. It surprised me, this reaction. After all, he'd bee in school for 5 years already, it wasn't like this was NEW. But I decided to follow the thread of my feelings as I drove away. I felt a big hole open in the middle of my body, and felt a rush of air as my whole life flew through me. I felt myself as a young child, then a teenager, then as a young mother, to now, and on to being a grandmother, growing old, then dying.

I felt as if I were falling as I gripped the steering wheel tighter, trying to hang on. I stayed with the feeling all the way home, but immediately after slamming the garage door felt a HUGE pull to go to my computer and buy everything I could see. I DESERVE that Chanel 2.55 bag, I NEED that beautiful leather couch for our house in Bismarck, I NEED that fire pit in the backyard - I'll call the concrete guy today. The hole in my stomach opened wider and I looked down into the abyss and saw no end. So I decided just to sit with it all.

"Hello, body - sup?"

"Uhm, uncomfortable here - duh..."

"What is it that you need? I see that you're in some pain. I want to help."

"Well, I would like to get outside in the green and the breezes. And I would like to stretch. Oh, and while we're at it, I'd like to lift some weights."

So I snapped the leash onto my wild child puppy and headed outside. I matched my stride as much as possible to my wiry dog and followed my breath - in out in out. I looked up at the sky, up at the trees, not down at my feet. They know what they're doing. Is this getting any easier, this not spending money? Well, it's easier to not eat cows or pigs, I'll tell you that, although there WAS that perilous bacon temptation moment a few days ago.

I wonder if this is changing my life, really, or if I'm just deluding myself again, pretending to do some oh so cool stuff. I look around my house. It's still messy. But at least I'm not bringing anything NEW into it, and my credit card balances aren't going UP anymore. So if the water isn't totally stopped, at least it isn't overflowing anymore. That's something.

I stir my lentil curry soup and let the smell of onion and garlic soak into my consciousness. I slice the artisan whole grain bread and place the warm slabs on each of our plates. I cut the local watermelon into three big slices and put them on the table. I am so rich, I think, this life of mine. Full of abundance. I have three beautiful children, a beautiful husband, a beautiful home, beautiful Work, beautiful clothes, a beautiful backyard, beautiful health, beautiful beautiful. Do I like this new life? Do I like me? Do I even like being with me in this 100% way? These are questions I'll have to keep asking, but I DO know one thing for sure: I really don't want to eat cows or pigs anymore. As for the rest of it - we'll just have to see.

Sweet Surrender

Surrender. Let silence have you. And if you find you are still swimming on the surface of the ocean, let go and sink into the depths of love. ♥ ~~

–Kar Kirpa Sahib

My enlightened friend Juliet posted this on Facebook today, and I thought (as I think 100 times a day), "What a coincidence! I was JUST thinking about this!" (see previous blog post from two days ago). All about going deep not wide, sinking into my life instead of hydroplaning on the surface. Am I silent? I pull out my fuschia yoga mat and turn on my 101 Yoga Poses on my iPhone. Standing tall (do I have a choice?) with my hands in front me, palms together, elbows up, I take a few deep breaths and look out the window at the wind blowing through the leaves of our silver maple in our backyard. I become the tree, rooted, deep, letting the wind of life move through my branches, moving me but not breaking me. I think, 'is this corny?' I don't know, but it makes sense. I put my focus in my belly, my trunk, and breathe my energy deep down through the bottoms of my feet. I'm not the most grounded person I know. Hah. Understatement much? That is my desire - to be connected not only deeply to the earth, but to every single other being in this whole Universe, every 'thing', every particle, molecule. Why? Because I believe we ARE all One - we are made up of that same 'thing' whatever that is - that golden sparkle of Divinity, maybe? I don't know what it IS, really, I just know I feel it and believe it.

So if that's true, then there IS no separation, anywhere, anytime. If I'm angry at THAT person, I'm angry at something in myself. I feel my reality shifting and my brain pulls and stretches with the possibilities. There's no one out there. There's just me and a kazillion googleplex of mirrors of me reflecting me back to me. And you back to you. Ow - my brain is stretching again, so I step back from my soaring reflections and feel myself present in this moment. I feel the fullness of my being, the richness, the honor of being able to inhabit this beautiful, healthy body. Our bodies are temples of our souls? Is that biblical? It has new meaning for me.

I have said many times that I give up. People have asked me that what means, and I answer, "I don't know." It usually means life has become too frenetic, too stressful, too much, and I want it to change. But that's not surrender. Surrender isn't the white flag that says I give up, but the peace flag that says, "I am here fully and I understand." I stop my pushing, my conniving, plotting, planning. I stop my bullshit and my judging, my justifying and my explanations. Just stop it. Close my eyes, lean back, and just fall into the warm waters of surrender. Let them carry me downstream to the Ocean. No more fighting. There was never anything to fight about in the first place. I made it all up. I thought it was real. It isn't. THIS is real. The wind through the trees, my breath through my nose, my toes wriggling off the end of the chair, the smile on my face. The rest? Fluff and stuff. I want real. That's all.

swing swing swingety swing

I bend over my toddler and lock my hands beneath her knees, then lift her up. I start swinging her back and forth, singing, "Swing swing swingety swing." Such fun to have a makeshift swing, anywhere, any time! Back and forth, feel the air on your face, your tummy lurch just a little as you switch positions from one extreme to the other.

Life is my mother bending over me, her hands locking beneath my knees. I feel myself lifted off the ground, and feel the movement in my days as I swing back and forth. Sometimes I'm nauseous, sometimes motion sick, sometimes altitude sick. Sometimes just confused. There are so many options. There are so many things to think, things to do, things to feel, friends to talk to, dishes to be washed, surfaces to be dusted. I sit here in my chair, doing nothing. Well, I'm thinking. That is not always a good thing.

I take a breath. As I continue to sink deeper into my life, I'm slowed down enough to actually look around at the seaweed, little shells, fish swimming by or just lounging in front me, tails lazily treading. I can see the murky green little bits floating in the water, if I squint I can see parts of the sandy bottom, and shadows darting through the weeds. I don't like the shadows. I can't see what they are.

I like to KNOW things. That is where being an intuitive comes in quite handy. But sometimes we just don't know. So we search for answers in our outside world to explain everything. I think we are at a point in our evolution where most things just CAN'T be explained or understood on the outside. They have to be felt and experienced from the INSIDE.

I just don't know. I understand more of why I seek distraction. Life is messy. It's not clear cut. I like rewards, treats, breaks, distractions, disconnects. Only not so much anymore, because I've chosen clarity, simplicity, stripping away the clutter to uncover what's underneath. So far I still don't know what's underneath; I seem to be still in the process of stripping down to the basics. It still feels like a lot of 'stuff', physically, mentally, emotionally. Spiritually I'm good. That's always been easy for me. It's the life living stuff that's more difficult. I don't always 'get' it. Why isn't everything easy? Why isn't everybody nice to everyone else? Why can't we all take responsibility for our happiness and our well-being? Why do people blame others for their unhappiness? I feel my consciousness dive deeper as I hold my breath for the long plunge ahead. I keep thinking I will get to the bottom of it all some day, but I think perhaps there is no bottom - just more swimming deep.

Swing swing. Back and forth. I need to just sit for a moment, clear my head. Man, it's a mess in there sometimes, even without the cows and pigs and sugar and handbags. A friend once told me my mind is a raging river, never stopping. I don't know if that's a compliment or an exhausted observation. Maybe both. I breathe. I sit. I observe. Even if I'm swinging, I can be in the present moment, experiencing the swinging sensations, feeling the wind through my hair, the blur of my life as it flies back and forth in front of my vision. Swinging isn't necessarily bad - maybe it's more of a figuring where you want to be in the moment, looking at different places, enjoying the ride.

Sinking In

My feet are in the warm foot cleanse water, I have 10 minutes left. I close my eyes, sit up straight, put my hands, palms up, on my thighs, and take a few deep breaths. I open my eyes a little and focus on a spot about three feet in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye I see a light yellow butterfly (moth?) flit in front of the window, a crazy swirly pattern, then disappear. I start to compose my blog entry as I sit. Stop. Sit. Breathe. I'm so good to be sitting here, just sitting here. See how good this is when I can just slow down? Stop. Sit. Just breathe.

Slowing down to the speed of life. It is SO not easy for me. 51 years of marathon sprinting to an invisible finish line, acquiring mounds of things that were never enough, focusing on my outside world so that I am hydroplaning my life, skimming along the thin top layer. When I am like that I can't feel my life beneath me and one false move and I can swerve out of control. I HAVE swerved out of control several times, all the time, really. Until now. These past few weeks have become very important to me. I forgot that I was only going to give up red meat for one week, and it's been three already. I forgot to eat any animal protein yesterday; I just didn't want to.

I still struggle with not looking at catalogs or going online; I'm not going to lie to you. Hubby found a dog-eared Nordstrom catalog in the bathroom. Guilty. But I haven't bought anything. I am an addict, I think. I just have to keep going cold turkey. Don't open the catalogs at all. Don't go online. Don't daydream about the next thing that will REALLY make me happy, for REAL this time! I think this deep life is the real deal, and while I casually wonder why I've been avoiding it for so long, I remember a counseling session I had several years ago. My therapist asked me who I would be if I wasn't doing something. "Dead," I said. But 'doing' is overrated, I think, and I'm tired. I like 'being' - it's a still pond with green waterlilies and floating loons. It's a slight breeze rippling the surface and the reflections of pine trees. It's the crackle of the deer through the forest and the breath of the hiding rabbit. I breathe deeply and sink in further.