Today (Response to Liz)

Since I need prompting, I've joined a 30-day challenge, #Trust30 on Twitter. I'll take any help I can get, of course I have to act on the help I receive. Liz's post asks me who am I today, in one sentence?

My answer is: I am happy and confident.

If I were to say more than one sentence, or why I would say that sentence, those words out loud, write them, it's because I know I'm not alone. I know I'm loved. I know I can be useful. I know I have work to do. I know I have inner resources. And I know I have priorities. I am at the beginning of something amazing, and not knowing, watching things unfold, even as I move within it, doing what little I can, but always taking action.

Rhere have been times when I've dreaded the day that comes with no escape, when I would have to do what I said I would, take a trip, move, face disruption, face reckoning. Can I live daily with some feeling of urgency, without the desperation, without the dread, with gratitude, not from fear but from purpose, as Mastin teaches.


And for me there is usually an undertone of anxiety or uneasiness which I need to learn to be with and then take action. Years ago I worked briefly with a man named Jose who said, to my incredulity, no harm can come to you, they can hurt you, they can kill you, you're still you. I don't know if my saying that to someone else will give that person comfort, but I am a small part of something far greater than me that will take care of me, that I matter and don't matter, am responsible for what I can change and powerless over what I cannot change.


And I am grateful. Perhaps not at every instant, I am not conscious every instant. When I consider the landscape of my life, where my feet have walked, where my body has stood, sat and lay down and risen up again, the greater part of my life has been and continues to be unmerited gifts.


Today I have work to do for my new job, work that demands my attention, meeting with my counselor who always starts me off with relaxation and a smile, and time with my children whose company I enjoy even if they are not always enjoying one another.


On my way to the interview for the job I was eventually offered and accepted, on the highway, I found myself following a cement mixer with the word "Advance," on the back. It became my word for the day and I found what I needed from within and I know not from whence it came and I am still advancing. And happy and confident.

"Where does that highway lead to?"

Much has been written about the American love affair with the car and the road. Driving today in the blazing sun I thought of the continuous highway that stretches beyond anything I might imagine. For it is all connected, every part of the landscape, trees, dirt, rocks, creatures within, and as it stretches on it is all simultaneously present from one moment to the next.

I cannot imagine what a discovery it may have been to someone how the automobile gave instant access to a continuous stream of high speed simultaneously present images stretching as far as the horizon and constantly unfolding.

This is the dream and the freedom of the car and the highway, thanks to the Eisenhower Interstate System of the 1950s. But what of the reality? I counted my blessings with a clear roadway ahead while traffic was backed up for countless miles in the other direction and thought sometime that will be my situation. There are many ways of dealing with it, here is one.

I'll be doing this every day driving to work. I would like not to be asleep to it, indifferent to it, hostile to it, but my mind has other ideas and obsessions. The highway is traffic, commerce, inconvenient construction, consumption of finite fossil fuels, discarded trash, slow decay, impact of weather, tolls, human conflict, silence, eternity, now.

Beautiful Butterfly

I don’t know how I came to discover Jessica Kristie and her blog which delivers new poems on a frequent basis and was the source for updates on the progress of her first collection, Dreaming in Darkness. But I’m happy to have done so.

Dreaming in Darkness is dramatic, brutally honest, confrontational, and mysterious - one of the sections even has a double-take inducing partial title “Magic of Desparation.” Throughout there are powerful insights on the effects people have on each other’s lives, like this description of internal experience in "Shades of You and Me"

"The sounds of each letter find their way to a piece of me –
I have been trying to forget."

This is a lovely imaging of relationship:

"Fireflies"

"Mutual fire and mutual admiration,
what a lovely place to be.
With my words inside of you,
and yours inside of me."

The desire to change one’s self ins expressed in these two poems:

"Love letter"

"I beg for revolving doors.
Pain in: my journey in life.
Pain out: to grow and change."

“We Walk on Water”

Down on bended knee, as my bluest aqua blue,

reminds me of a bitter truth -

I must change.

At the same time, the speaker shows an appreciation for who she is and where she’s been, also from “We Walk on Water”:

What a masterpiece I have created in my soul’s foliage.

It is shaped of stars with scented breezes.

A desire to transform language through poetry:

“Tragedy’s Room”

Today I want to put skin around my words,

turn sentences into limbs,

and reach across the seas.

Jessica, in her introduction, indicates these poems are composed from many stories she’s encountered, “listening to all sides and filtering them from” herself, as Whitman urged us to do.

All in all Dreaming in Darkness is a wonderful first collection encompassing romance, heartbreak, loss, aloneness, motherhood and insights on the writing process. It will be exciting to see Jessica’s work evolve.

Responses to Self-Care, Mindfulness and Social Media chat 3/7/11

I thoroughly enjoyed the web chat on social media featuring Jennifer Louden , Tara Sophia Mohr, Marianne Elliott, and Bridget Pilloud. Tara Gentile moderated.

Some of the themes which especially resonated with me were:

A mindful approach to what I post and share:

- Jen said that she considers, before posting material, “what’s the conversation” “what’s the context” “who am I” “what do I represent,” all pointing towards “mindfully sharing.” I take this to mean posting, sharing something that will contribute to a discussion, that will pointto a useful resource, something given toward serving someone else. She also creates an intention and sets a timer before she engages with social media, and while using it she pays attention to what is going on with her (emotional, mental, physical states,) adjusts accordingly and aims to “share strength and upbeatness,” rather than the contrary.

- Bridget described her mindful approach saying if she is feeling “equally excited and scared when” putting “something out there,” that is when she feels most real, that she describes as authenticity.

- Marianne spoke of “getting grounded before I start” and referred to “limitless qualities of social media,” and that “the body and mind are not accustomed to entering into such a place.” Her techniques include “drop into my body” “relax and release” “bring awareness into my body” (feeling her body being present, her breath and her body sitting and whatever is holding her up) (she also mentioned her Zenpeacekeeper’s guide to Twitter, sounds cool.)

- Tara brought forth insights about the addictive qualities of social media, likening these sites to computer games, noting they deliver similar rewards and feedback and affect dopamine levels. While Twitter and Facebook may not be designed for addiction, they are certainly meant to be engaging, she pointed out, and it is up to us “to be conscious of how we respond” to these networks and “manage” our responses. She also described her approach to posting material "consistent with compassionate and wisdom," and remarked "less is more" and about the importance of "white space."

A lot of the discussion also centered around engaging with others on social media. Here, Tara said, it is necessary to ask oneself “why am I going to social media,” and if one is “looking for validation and reassurance… Twitter may not be the best place to find it.” (In which case, better to pick up the phone or go visit someone or go where people are. Although in the café or the library people will likely be engaged in social media.) Bridget said it is OK to "think of social media like your house," and consider who you want to invite in and not. Jen urged us to ask ourselves the question "why do you want to talk to someone," and to "create our own fishbowl," connect and share with others with like interests who support our efforts.

I admit to being sucked into Twitter and Google Reader and I want to read everyone's tweets and blogs, and obviously it's not possible. And I have to have a certain degree of acceptance with that, and also accept that people are busy. And I was reminded during the talk, maybe by Bridget, there has be a certain give and take. What do I offer someone on social media? How can I support this person? Why would she/he care?

And applying the awareness and the patience and the mindfulness and the presence and the enjoyment and the gratitude that I apply at other moments in my life will go a long way. If I can step back from the computer. If I can know when to post and when to keep silent. If I can "do the work," as Tara says, actually produce something. And just breathe. And have an intention. And be here now.

A great discussion by wonderful, thoughtful, energetic, positive women who each have a powerful presence in Twitter and the blogosphere. Thanks to all for making this happen.

Run Like Hell

I am thinking of the Pink Floyd record Run Like Hell. It's not one of their best, IMHO, I'm more of a Dark Side of the Moon kind of guy or even Piper at the Gates of Dawn even though I have slightly terrifying memories of the latter. Run. Get out. I guess Updike wrote a whole book on this theme though I never got very far in it, last I remember the policeman was discussing with Rabbit why he could not engage in the activity of drinking with his wife.

The pendulum swinging between fear and trust. Both and. The people I know may know what I need better than me and I am an expert on myself, knowing things that are only part of my experience. (I think of the Johari window.) The terror one might feel upon discovery that someone one trusted is not who he or she seems to be, does not have the same interests, we are working at cross purposes, the rules of the game were not apparent. Maybe it is like that in divorce and raising children subsequently. Someone has everyday insight but may be too close to the situation, or may have primarily his interests, his secrets, his squalor, his inability to admit difficulty and accept help. The other may not have the courage, a condtioned response not to argue and say the truth, quickened by fear, tossed about by multiple perspectives, trying to decide what's fair rather than assert what he wants.

I don't know. I cannot reflect. This hasn't been very specific. I am thinking of an early Monty Python episode where John Cleese plays the cliched version of a cowboy and tells the ineffectual Michael Palin character "There's a time when a man has to stop running." Then there's the amazing story I heard at the Monti in Durham, NC last year, listen to the ending.

"But I haven't got anything to say!"

I am thinking of the Peterkin Papers, a children's book from the late nineteenth century. I read it to my kids when they were younger. An evidently well-to-do family seems quite befuddled and their friend, the lady from Philadelphia, shows a bit more sense than the rest. For instance, the Peterkins have a piano delivered, and it is placed with the keyboard facing the wall. So the daughter sits outside on the porch in all kinds of weather and plays the piano through the window. Then the lady from Philadelphia suggests the family turn the piano around. Most of the stories are like that and some are more interesting than others. My thinking and acting, throughout my life, has been much like the Peterkins. Find the most complicated, convoluted way to do or say something. My ex-wife once said, regarding this behavioral pattern, "it must be difficult to be you?"

The one incident from this book that sticks with me today is when John John, one of the sons, decides he's going to be a writer, and goes out and buys a fine writing table, fine paper, a handsome pen and other accoutrements (probably a comfortable elegant chair, too.) Then he's seated at his desk with all his new things, pen freshly inked and raised, with a sad look on his face, and he says, desparingly, "but I haven't got anything to say!!!"

I often feel like that when I log on to this blog, or even meeting an acquaintance on the street, I fall into a strange blank space and don't know what to say. However, upon further review of the play, there is something to say (and sometimes it's OK to say nothing.) I read a fine blog post by Victoria relating her experiences teaching writing to students at a community college, and one of the guidelines she mentions hit me between the eyes: "A writer is someone who writes." Everyone has a story to tell and not everyone has to listen to everyone else's story. "Listen to all sides and filter them from yourself," Whitman wrote. Or as Ornette Coleman wrote in his notes to Body Meta, "if you can read or write, but don't write or read, why?" The thing is to make a beginning. Now. As Tony's quote of Goethe urges me: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."

Looking at #LoveSparks

I'm amazed at Jasmine's Love Sparks Blogging Festival and it will take me some days if not weeks to read the posts and probably more will be added meantime. However, two, among others, catch my attention at this moment, Kristin's Love, a How To and Christa's Lonely hearts/loving hearts. Kristin's is a whimsical and effective reminder to not let ego get in the way ("push the pause button" she demonstrates in her drawing") and turn one's attention toward others. Christa's, mindful of those who may be lonely today, gives us permission for self-acceptance, kindness towards ourselves, loving ourselves and then sharing that love with others. And I read somewhere else today, someone saying the best part of life is something shared with someone else. It's been years since I read Emerson's essay on love, but if I recall the zenith of it is not the person we love but the spirit within that ultimately connects us to the divine from whence we came. I don't know what I am talking about; nevertheless, this is a worthy and awesome project. Happy Valentine's Day.