You know what's really great about my blog? If you want to view it, you have to agree that you're ok with possibly objectionable content. Ok, so, yeah, if you're reading my blog, you know this, because you had to agree to it. Did it excite you that you may soon be privy to the more torrid side of my life? Yeah, me, too. It's cool. But there'll be none of that today.
So, weird week.
I don't tend to hang out in self-pity about being single. I love being single, traveling alone, eating out in restaurants by myself (almost all the time), no one to check in with about plans, the freedom. It's so good. And yet, over the last few days, a sadness about being single has settled over me.
At the sight of a couple making out, my first thought was a melancholic, "How nice that oblivion of new love must be," followed quickly by damnation: "What self-absorbed, disrespectful, privileged assholes. If they were a gay couple, there's no way they'd feel able to do this. And, what kind of a person enjoys subjecting others to such overt sexuality?" Yes, I'm an expert in self-righteousness, but it was that first thought, which is not usually my first thought, about the beautiful ignorance of fresh love that rattled me.
Last night, after plopping down in a seat next to my reporter friend, Jim, at a lecture he was covering, I see his boyfriends' smiling face from his laptop desktop, and the envious sentiment steals into my head: "I wish I had a boyfriend's face glimmering at me form my laptop." Again, not the expected fort thought, which on a normal day would have been, "Wow, Brian looks fabulous in that picture!" (You really did!)
Hearing tonight that a secret admirer left a pot of spring flowers on Myriam's doorstep this morning, pulled my heart in a million painful directions of jealousy.
I do not want to resent or condemn the love others are experiencing. That is not the kind of person I am. And yet.
And what I try to avoid is the all too familiar litany of questions -- Why not me? Why does no one want to love me? Why will no one make the effort? When will love come? What am I doing wrong? -- which can all be answered with this slicing conclusion: I am not meant to be loved. I am not worth loving. Saying this all seems so trite, so cliched, so Freudian and typical and not unique. Same story, different blog, right?
Playing on iTunes right now is my Gospel mix. All ye heavy laden, come! All ye heavy laden, come! I will give you rest. This musical backdrop of upliftment, of spiritual affirmation, of healing and joy is a blatant challenge to the veracity of what I am writing about.
I cannot know that I am cosmically and spiritually companioned, intricately part of some wonderful divinity AND feel deprived of love. It's just not reality. I cannot look over the arc of my life and ignore the fact that love flows blessedly and endlessly into it from friends and family. I cannot, as Rickie Byars Beckwith sings now in her richly cavernous voice, "let the love wash over" me if I resent it in all it's expressions. So, I hang my sadness on this hook and hand it over to Her: The love I seek is seeking me. May I be blessed with an open, pure heart, and clear eyes, so that when our paths converge, I may recognize him immediately.
Tonight, in my church class, everything felt trite, contrived, and fake. The opening activities felt rote and disconnected. That question I scrawled across a sheet of paper in my very first church class 18 months ago rose up and perched on my shoulder, whispering it's presence: Why am I (capitalized, bold, and underlined) here? I don't pray or meditate regularly, I struggle to do PTPs on time and with depth, I haven't updated my service log since Fall, I don't volunteer for much outside of choir, I don't enjoy or connect much with the reading we do in the classes about New Thought. I haven't prayed with someone else in weeks, and make little effort to make time for that in my life. I still dislike praying out loud much of the time. What, exactly, is my intent in being part of this class? I know a part of it is that I love the people in my group fiercely, and I cannot imagine my life without them. But, I also want to have a deep and profound spiritual experience of life. And it's been hard for me to have this consistently and "do" the rest of my life.
But what I do know is this: it's my intent to be consistent in my spirituality, to make choices in line with the integrity that runs strong in me. It's my intent to be an instrument for love, healing, and joy to enter the world. This is who I am. This is where I stand.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Spring
I returned to Santa Cruz late Wednesday night from Atlanta, and before that vacation in New Mexico. The dark hid from me a splendid surprise: spring had come in my absence in a sprayof flowers blue and purple, yellow and orange; in apple and cherry blossom trees that bloom and spread their petals like snow on the ground in heartbreakingly quick succession, in ferns and low growth of such a vibrant green, it makes the eyes squint, in a sun that comes earlier and warms the breeze just a few degrees warmer and in the shorts and flip flops the students at UC Santa Cruz (where I work) have pulled out from under their Uggs and fleece-lined hoodies. What a warm welcome home, the best I could have wished for.
I preceded the blooming phase of spring in New Mexico by a couple weeks, but the beauty there, though less saturated in colors, was no less moving than here. The ways that the pale browns, reds, greens, and blues of Nature there play off one another was a great challenge to my writing, one I think I met well. The exception to the pale beauty of the state were the sunsets. They are as mystical as they say they are, striations of colors you forgot existed blanket the sky and reflect in the mountains in fading palettes, and 24 hours later, it happens all over again. That stark, pre-Spring time in New Mexico solidified my intention to build a career in writing, and opportunities are lining up, it seems, that will keep me on that path. What a gift those two weeks were.
Last night, Thomas came over with a bag of produce for dinner and, after dropping it on my counter, we left for a long sunset hike. We spoke of healing, of loss, of lessons, and laughed a lot, too. Sometimes, I get the impression that we're building a relationship, minus the sex and romanticism. He knows me in a way few people do, he's bore witness to my spiritual growth over the last couple years. No one, except I'Asha, has been this close to me in my spiritual struggles. And he gets it, gets me. As I never quite know how friendships with straight men really happen, it's natural that from time to time I wonder, "What if..."
As if in response to my musing during the hike, while he was preparing dinner, I pulled out a game I bought to use with my staff -- a set of cards with personal questions on them -- to test out. One of the first cards read: "Tell about a secret desire." My first thought was, "To have sex with Thomas." I had to supress the giggles. We both squirmed under the topic. Stalling, thinking, "umm-ing." I suspect his first thought was also mine. We've had moments of sexual tension since we became friends. How apt that the Universe would pose to us a context that we could either step up to or evade. We evaded, and I do believe that was the right thing to do. And yet. It was my first thought.
Thomas' skills in the kitchen have become legendary. I do think many of my friends secret desire is to be invited over when Thomas is cooking, since I talk about what a wonderful cook he is. We began with my contribution: a simple and unexciting salad. Then, proceeded with "unadulterated" artichokes (without mayonnaise, as I was raised to eat them), as he referred to them. They were perfectly steamed. I told him about how as a kid my mom told us that kids couldn't eat the hearts of artichokes because they were too prickly. I think I was a teenager when I ate at a friends house, and noticed that everyone simply spooned out the prickly part and savored the heart. All those years, my mom was saving our hearts for herself. I guess that's what mom's want to do. What a hard thing it must be to parent children, who you devote your life to, and then they leave you and go live and survive without your constant nurturing. I don't begrudge her the artichoke hearts. I was about to write that even now, I would give up my artichoke hearts for her enjoyment, but the memory of the heart form last night is still too close to my lips and satisfaction to commit to that sort of sacrifice!
Then, Thomas divined a vegetable coconut curry that rivaled any restaurant's version. Paired with my favorite sulfite-free, organic red wine, the meal was culinary perfection. Dessert was a scrumptuos strawberry shortcake. The good company, of course, was the real treasure. Considering it all: Nature's spring greeting, the energetic hike, the good food and wine, Thomas' gentle, loving companionship and coking, my welcome home these past couple days couldn't have been more blessed.
I preceded the blooming phase of spring in New Mexico by a couple weeks, but the beauty there, though less saturated in colors, was no less moving than here. The ways that the pale browns, reds, greens, and blues of Nature there play off one another was a great challenge to my writing, one I think I met well. The exception to the pale beauty of the state were the sunsets. They are as mystical as they say they are, striations of colors you forgot existed blanket the sky and reflect in the mountains in fading palettes, and 24 hours later, it happens all over again. That stark, pre-Spring time in New Mexico solidified my intention to build a career in writing, and opportunities are lining up, it seems, that will keep me on that path. What a gift those two weeks were.
Last night, Thomas came over with a bag of produce for dinner and, after dropping it on my counter, we left for a long sunset hike. We spoke of healing, of loss, of lessons, and laughed a lot, too. Sometimes, I get the impression that we're building a relationship, minus the sex and romanticism. He knows me in a way few people do, he's bore witness to my spiritual growth over the last couple years. No one, except I'Asha, has been this close to me in my spiritual struggles. And he gets it, gets me. As I never quite know how friendships with straight men really happen, it's natural that from time to time I wonder, "What if..."
As if in response to my musing during the hike, while he was preparing dinner, I pulled out a game I bought to use with my staff -- a set of cards with personal questions on them -- to test out. One of the first cards read: "Tell about a secret desire." My first thought was, "To have sex with Thomas." I had to supress the giggles. We both squirmed under the topic. Stalling, thinking, "umm-ing." I suspect his first thought was also mine. We've had moments of sexual tension since we became friends. How apt that the Universe would pose to us a context that we could either step up to or evade. We evaded, and I do believe that was the right thing to do. And yet. It was my first thought.
Thomas' skills in the kitchen have become legendary. I do think many of my friends secret desire is to be invited over when Thomas is cooking, since I talk about what a wonderful cook he is. We began with my contribution: a simple and unexciting salad. Then, proceeded with "unadulterated" artichokes (without mayonnaise, as I was raised to eat them), as he referred to them. They were perfectly steamed. I told him about how as a kid my mom told us that kids couldn't eat the hearts of artichokes because they were too prickly. I think I was a teenager when I ate at a friends house, and noticed that everyone simply spooned out the prickly part and savored the heart. All those years, my mom was saving our hearts for herself. I guess that's what mom's want to do. What a hard thing it must be to parent children, who you devote your life to, and then they leave you and go live and survive without your constant nurturing. I don't begrudge her the artichoke hearts. I was about to write that even now, I would give up my artichoke hearts for her enjoyment, but the memory of the heart form last night is still too close to my lips and satisfaction to commit to that sort of sacrifice!
Then, Thomas divined a vegetable coconut curry that rivaled any restaurant's version. Paired with my favorite sulfite-free, organic red wine, the meal was culinary perfection. Dessert was a scrumptuos strawberry shortcake. The good company, of course, was the real treasure. Considering it all: Nature's spring greeting, the energetic hike, the good food and wine, Thomas' gentle, loving companionship and coking, my welcome home these past couple days couldn't have been more blessed.
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