A Treatise on God

I almost had Rico in earshot when he turned away and walked toward the group he'd just sang a few songs with. He sang, he rapped, he prayed, in English, in Spanish, in song. Watching him, you could tell he was devoted to his art and creativity, he was that lit from the inside. I waited for him to turn and walk toward me again, feeling that familiar nervousness I feel around anyone accomplished at their art.

I'd heard his name mentioned last week as a possible performer at an upcoming hip-hop showcase a student group I advise is planning, so I wanted to meet him and get his contact info. After we'd exchanged introductions and information, I asked him how the show had gone for him, and he said, "That Rev of yours is a trip, isn't she? I got so fired up before the show when she prayed with us. I was like, 'Damn, this spiritual connection stuff, that's what I've been missing'." The fact that he was moved by my Rev and felt just fine saying "damn" while standing on the pulpit endeared him to me.

It also reminded me of how I ended up in a spiritual community at all: I'd sensed I was connected to something that just wouldn't be ignored any longer. Around the same time, about four years ago, a friend dragged me to Inner Light. Which I hated in equal measure to a searing need to come back. Tonight, in the presence of Rico's relaxed shoulders and excited eyes, I wondered if perhaps I didn't have to struggle so much with God, or the idea of God.

A couple months ago, an old friend confided in me that she’d thought all my God-talk in the last few years meant I was a Christian. I recoiled at the thought that anyone, especially someone I love so much and who knows me so well, would assume I had converted to Christianity.

Now, if someone mistakenly assumed I adhered to “pure” Christianity, the kind that fights for social justice for all (yes, for all) and works for peace and wouldn’t make Jesus cry for the perversion of his teachings, that’s not SO bad, even if it’s not true for me. But buried in my recoiling is my own continuing ambivalence toward being associated with a religion that always felt sinister to me.

When I think of Christianity, I think conservative politics, homophobia, and male dominance. It means a scary, white, male God. It means that the only way to be saved is by accepting Jesus into your heart. It means closed-mindedness and self-righteousness. It means that when the crazy lady, Marguerite Perrin, from the reality show Trading Spouses, flipped out about being a God warrior and screamed at her terrified children that they didn’t pray for her and that gargoyles and psychics are “dark-sided,” she didn’t seem so crazy.

It means all the worst ways in which Christianity has slid into fanaticism. It’s a type of Christianity so un-holy that when I, a former atheist-leaning agnostic, use the word God, even dear friends worry that I may now be one of "them."

So to clarify, here’s what I mean when I use “God,” in no particular order:

First, the truth is that my God loves those Christians, too. It’s naïve of me to think that I am one of the believers that is somehow more evolved, for surely those Christians think the same of themselves. I do believe my God holds up for all of us a higher possibility for living as spiritual beings, and that fretting over those who are approaching this spirituality business in ways I don’t understand or agree with is a waste of spiritual energy. That doesn’t mean I don’t fight for things like gay marriage or refuse to engage with those “others.” It just means that I work for and towards a more inclusive world and not against those who have a different vision.

Second, God is a limiting word for me. Three letters that lend themselves to such wildly different interpretations can’t ever describe a thing that morphs the second you try to describe it. This is why creative people struggle to translate the feeling of love into color, or shape, or form, or song. They try to because it’s such a singular experience, and because it can never truly be represented. Real love has to be felt, perceived, to understand it. So it is with God. I use the word, though, because it is easy and recognizable. When I read or hear the word God these days, I just as often hear "Energy," "Universe," “Love” or “Peace” or even the sound of waves breaking or feel the sun on my face, and they all approximate how God rests in me.

Third, sometimes I find it hard to believe in God. I was an atheist longer than I’ve believed in God, almost as long as I’ve been alive, and my agnosticism took hold for only a brief year or two before God came along and refused to be ignored. I sometimes have to make an effort to call this event or that person God, and sometimes it’s more out of habit than faith. Sometimes, I look around my church, at the hippies, the SNAGs, the gays and lesbians and the folks of color who love God enough to put up with the rest of our majority white congregation, as we learn that "Oneness" won't let us off the hooks of racism and heterosexism, as we learn how to rock with the choir and praise like we mean it and I think, "What the hell am I doing here? My friends would think I've lost my mind."

But when I feel sure, without a doubt that God's real, it’s such a rush that I know it before I’m conscious of it and when my mind catches up to protest, I find I can’t deny what my bones know. That fortifies my faith enough to keep me going when I’m not so sure.

Fourth, I feel God a lot, and twice, have seen Her. This is true. Most recently, it happened a year and a half ago, when Thomas ended our relationship. The night after I wept sad, fat tears for hours, and that's when She has came to me. Luminescent dark skin and shining dark eyes, with long, nearly-black curls cascading over gossamer robes, barefoot and smelling faintly of lilac and jasmine. She reminded me of a less ornamented Virgen de Guadalupe. Too sad and weak to protest, my logical mind succumbed to my devastation, which looked up at Her and asked, "Well, what the hell took you so long, I've been like this for hours." She curled up next to me, warming my skin where she touched, her scent insanely comforting. The fanatical atheist in me scrambled for a logical explanation, but she felt so solid and real there next to me, holding the pain in her hands until it felt bearable again, that I surrendered to Her. Both times God has taken this form with me, it just stopped mattering if she was a figment of my imagination, or a hallucination, or as real as the eyes your reading this with.

Most of the time, though, what I call God is simply a sensation: an expansion in my chest or just beneath my skin, or words that get typed or written down by my hands but not from my mind, and I think, "Oh, hi God." I always feel God as a feminine presence.

Fifth, I never doubt God when I am singing. Singing clears out all my hemming and hawing and struggle and pulls me right into divinity.

Sixth, I believe that there is no separation between God and anything else. God is energy; just molecules holding together in different ways. It took me years to make sense of this for myself. After all, a pen is a pen and not God, right? Well, maybe. It’s rather pretentious of me to assume that a pen isn’t as sacred as I am or as God. Besides, the sacred vs. the profane question lacks interest for me. How am I, who consistently has sex too soon in new relationships, Divine? How is the man who cut me off on the freeway Divine? How is my brother, who annoys the joy out of my mother’s life, Divine? How is my father, who makes no attempt to know me, Divine? These are the juicy questions, the ones that challenge me to keep loving past all that doesn’t make sense. If God is energy, and everything is energy, then I'm God, and so are you, and so is anyone who's ever hurt me or anyone else, and well, that changes everything. It calls me up to heal so that I can be of good service to the world, and this calling up, this business of healing, feels like a really rich and rewarding place to live.

And maybe that’s it, that for me, believing in God is more interesting than not believing. It inspires me to be a better, more compassionate person. Choosing to believe in God, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when I'm not quite convincing myself, keeps me closer to the magic and mystery of life.

So my bottom-line take on "God"? I don’t think anyone needs to believe in God, any god, to experience the sacred. It’s just that I do.

I ended the night on a good note: licking the remains of raw chocolate macaroons from my fingers. It was a pretty good recovery from a crying spell on my chiropractor's table earlier in the evening.

He'd explained that sometimes in this type of spinal work, emotions come up, and that it's normal and acceptable to emote in whatever ways feel right. But I, of course, decided I wasn't going to be a crier.

Rev D's joke comes to mind: Wanna make God laugh? Tell It your plans.

At the end of my treatment, as he always does, my chiropractor said, "Take a few moments and sit up." I took longer than normal, because I didn't want him to see me crying. But I couldn't stay there forever, so eventually I pushed myself up, and as I faced the wall to my left, I knew I wasn't done crying. When he noticed my eyes, I saw his face soften with compassion, and he asked, "Did something come up?" Yeah. Fear. Fear that no one will ever love me. The same stupid, ridiculous fear that even I am tired of thinking. I can only imagine, beloved readers, how bored of it you all are. Indulge me please, if you can, it's simply where I am at.

I didn't answer his question, but a few defiant tears spilled out before I could stop them. He reaffirmed that this is normal. I told him I didn't like crying in front of people. "Wow," he replied with such softness his words were velvety, "doesn't that take a lot of energy to hold it all in?" Oh my God, yes, it does. "Ian, that's not helping me here," I sort of laughed, and cried some more.

The thing is, most of the time I find my desire to appear fierce and happy, or fiercely happy, much more compelling than my need to let the pain escape as tears.

So, Jose has decided he's not feeling it anymore. This definitely bummed me out. He's a wonderful man and I have so enjoyed his company this past month. He's reminded me that there are sweet, kind men out there who are able to care for a woman in a way that is all about respect and adoration. I was seriously beginning to doubt that. I'm grateful he chose honesty now, before we made love, before I got any more enamored, before I engaged in too much imaginary "life with Jose" planning. I feel deeply honored by him and I see how he did this because he fully understands I deserve what I am looking for, and that he can't offer that. That is so much more respect than John or the man before John could muster for me; they waited three and six months respectively, and neither wouldn't have ended it at all had I not gotten tired of waiting and ended it myself. Jose did a hard, good thing in telling me his feelings had changed, even if it wasn't what I would have hoped for.

Today, my little emotional outburst waited patiently for almost all of the 24 hours or so since Jose delivered the news before consuming me. That's good progress for me. Typically I'm right in the thick of the same old, tired story: Since no man ever has found it possible to love me (romantically) for good, it can only mean: 1. I did, or, more worrying, I am, something wrong, 2. I will probably never get to experience the things I want most in the world: partnership with a loving person and parenthood.

This time, I weathered his leaving well, even with his irresistible long, dark hair swinging and a soft kiss lingering on my skin. I fell asleep fairly quickly and tearlessly, I woke without engaging it. I had breakfast with Thomas and we spent most of the time talking about Thomas' life. I went to yoga, had a date with my nieces, and later dinner with them and their parents. Even when my sister in law remarked that she supposes most people think the girls are mine because they look so much like me. A drop sensation flooded my insides as I thought, So many women my age are parents of 6 and 3 year olds. Just not me, and now I'm even farther from being a mom than I was just yesterday. Even then (even then!), I didn't hook into the self-pity. I really didn't lament this shift away from love with Jose much all day. I'd think of him, my body would give it emotional charge, I let it run through and quickly reminded myself I am grateful for his honesty. So, truly, I'm making progress.

But the fear was waiting for me on my chiropractor's table, despite my fine work processing most of the day. A tenant I can't evict.

As I wrote the preceding sentence, intuition planted a three words in my head: Rumi, sorrows, and welcome. I googled them and here's the answer:

Guest House
by Rumi

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

So, fear, do come in. I am willing to receive your guidance, and permit you to clear me out for some new delight. Yet, I will entertain you only as long as it takes for me to learn from you, and then I'll kindly ask you to leave.

Augustine Roberto Salcedo, 33, was in the middle of his dissertation on educational leadership at UCLA. He also served on the El Monte elementary school board and worked as assistant principal at El Monte High School. His body, along with six others was found, dead, in Durango, Mexico on the last day of 2009. He'd been abducted the night before from a restaurant, where he was eating with family members. He was one of a few Americans that have been killed as a result of drug-related violence in Mexico, but let's face it, he's brown, so most of the nation will never learn of his murder, or of the staggering violence happening in Mexico as a result of America's demand for drugs, chiefly, cocaine. If Augustin had been a pretty, white American woman, maybe we'd all know about this tragic murder. But even then, even though her face would be plastered across every evening news broadcast for days, even though emotional relatives would plead for the madness to end, I doubt Americans could personalize this tragic situation and start conversing around the hard questions it raises.

Here are some stats I heard on NPR's morning edition this morning (for the full story, visit: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=3; scroll to "Calif. School Board Member Slain in Mexico"):

* In 2007, Mexican President Philipe Calderon began his offensive against the nation's drug cartels and by year's end, 2,700 drug-related murders are logged (these include civilians and bystanders, police, military, and cartel members).
* In 2008, Mexico's War on Drugs intensifies, and drug related killings nearly double to 5,600. In Mexico, officials speak openly of the drug war peaking and confidence that this trend would not likely increase.
* Last year, 2009, nearly 8,000 people have been murdered in drug-related violence.
* In Ciudad Juarez, a border city infamous for cartel activity and violence, 320 lost their lives in 2007. Last year, the number hit 2,600.

"Staggering" barely registers the horror these numbers bring up for me. When I lived in Mexico a mere five years ago, the only talk of drug-related danger in I heard centered around a few areas in the capital and Ciudad Juarez. Now, there are hot spots all over the place. A low-level of fear has spread even into areas untouched by drug violence. I don't think a country can lose that many citizens and not impart a profound and unsettling sense of vulnerability to all who dwell there.


What happened? I'm no expert, but as far as I can tell, the government started a War on Drugs. And now around 16,300 Mexicans are no longer living. Can you imagine the outrage a number like that would provoke here? Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe we'd still go about our days and lament privately the loss of life all these wars have on us collectively.

16,300 lives. Fathers, friends, lovers, mothers, teachers, service workers, children, even. Yes, some of the killed were knee-deep in getting drugs to users here in the US, but everyone of them was once an infant and child, full of potential and deserving of love and respect. Even the drug smugglers, every last one of the murdered didn't have to die, shouldn't have died.

16,300. We haven't lost that many Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a nation, we are, on the whole, weary of these wars and want our troops home, out of harms way. How do Mexicans living along the smuggling routes cope? What can they do when the war is at their doors, in their restaurants and stores?

What can we do?


Over last decade, the Mexican drug cartels went from controlling about 50% of cocaine trade coming into the U.S. to now controlling about 90% of the cocaine headed for U.S. distribution. These smuggling routes are worth billions of dollars per year and as long as that is true, the Mexican government cannot win a war on the drug cartels. The war will only escalate the rate at which murders occur. The Mexican government is in a civil war with the drug cartels, essentially, and we are supplying the motivation, the market, for it to continue. Secretary Clinton got it right when she said that our part in solving the drug crisis in Mexico is addressing the demand for cocaine in the U.S. When will we do this? How?

I know that to a cocaine user these numbers, and this reality is so far from the lines in front of them, and I am under no illusion that my little blog post would inspire anyone to swear off cocaine, but this is my only tool.

This ability to consume without thought of consequence is endemic to our culture. Whether it be food, drugs, media, or any other product, we have been so well trained by capitalism, by imperialism, by privilege to not ask questions like: Where did this come from? Who made it? Under what conditions? What statement am I making by consuming this product? Was anyone hurt, made poorer, or killed in the production of this item?

It is a mark of enormous privilege that we do not need to ask these questions in order to survive. But I'm willing to bet our neighbors to the south are asking how it is possible we do not ask these questions, how we do not see what our national appetite for drugs is doing to them, and when will we stop? And if they aren't, its only because if we've dared ask the questions, we don't want to hear the answers, and if we are forced to, then we deny their validity, and they are too busy trying to make a decent life in what's quickly becoming a war-torn country.

Ask the questions. So what if you don't use cocaine: ask them about whatever it is you had for dinner. Ask them about the clothes you are wearing. I hardly ever ask these questions, and when I do, I feel overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to answer them. If my rice came from the bulk bin at Staff of Life, and the bin doesn't say where it was grown or how, then I can ignore the probable answer: it's probably grown in the central valley where annual crops like rice shouldn't be grown year round because the climate isn't good for rice cultivation and it destroys topsoil and makes deserts of fertile land. If the tag in my shirt tells me it was "Made in Cambodia" and I get online to google "garment industry working conditions Cambodia" will I make the time to read? Will I think about all the fossil fuels it took to get the garmet form there to here? I know what questions I should ask, but my life is going to have to change if I answer them honestly. And from this tall hill of privilege I sit on, it's an endeavor I fear undertaking.

But, still, I urge you (and me) to ask the questions. Ask them of yourself and of others, ask me. It starts with the asking, and if we care enough, eventually, I have to believe the care will transform into readiness and we will hear the truth in the answers. I have to believe that given enough time for reflection about what we want our lives to be about, we will act on what we know is best for us, our planet, and our fellow humans. So just ask the questions, please.

I send out a prayer to Mexico tonight, to all the tens of thousands of people snatched from this plane as a result of drug-related violence, to the family, friends, and school community of Augustin Roberto Salcedo, to all who struggle to be good in this world, to all who don't even try or know how to. May all of us rest in peace (whether in death or in living), reflect with genuine curiosity compassion, and act in love.

Even during the break-up conversation John was endearing, at one time reciting a Langston Hughes poem about chance and possibility, and later, after I'd said I should leave, he walked to my side of the table, put his arms around me and stayed there, only after a minute or two, saying matter of factly, "Ok, I need to weep now."

All of which made it harder than I thought it would be. I shed a few tears inside his house, but by the time my ass touched the seat of my car, I was crying hard.

Yesterday, he'd suggested plans for tonight: make dinner, watch a movie at my house, stay over. But this morning, I woke up with another man in my bed (we didn't have sex). I watched Jose sleep as the sun broke over his shoulder and torso, and it occurred to me that the fact that I'd let him sleep over at all, innocent as it was, was evidence enough that I'd made a choice, and it wasn't staying with John. If I let him come over tonight, I'd feel a bit sluttish (2 nights, 2 men) and I know I'd be paranoid about making sure all evidence of Jose was eliminated, and that felt too much like cheating, even if John and I never spoke of being exclusive, or not dating other people. So when he called to finalize plans, my response was, "I don't want to make dinner or watch a movie. I need to talk."

Cliched as it was, I listened to Beyonce's "Halo" over and over on the way to his house. Yes, I'm still on my Beyonce trip, months later than the rest of the country, but hey, she's been a bit of a lifeline this past week, so I'm not ashamed to admit it. It fortified me, tweaking the lyrics as a I sang, so that it spoke to me about being in love with Love or the Universe or the best of who I am, and finally, just trusting that my idea for Love in my life is so much smaller than what I am actually blessed with. There's some cosmic energy stronger than I out there and singing Halo on my way to speak my truth, I took great comfort (albeit a cheesy, high school, GLEE-like comfort) that this immense, benevolent energy,

it's my saving grace
everything I need and more
I know it won't fade away
I'm letting the walls just fall away
They didn't even put up a fight
I found a way to let You in
I've been awakened
I'm never gonna shut You out
Everywhere I'm looking now
I'm surrounded by Your embrace
Hit me like a ray of sun
burning through a dark night
You're the only one that I want
Think I'm addicted to Your light
I swore I'd never fall again,
but this don't even feel like falling
Gravity can't forget
To pull me back to the ground again

I parked in front of his house, took a deep breath, holding on to the vibration of my version of Halo, and said out loud, "I know You've got my back," as I walked in the door.

I could tell he knew what was coming by the concern in his eyes.

I told him I don't like the woman I am with him, always trying to figure out which page in which book he's in so I can be there, too, neglecting that I have a perfectly wonderful book to hang out in, forgetting even, until it's too late, that I am not here to accommodate his every whim or mood. I told him that his desire to buy me dinner for taking him to the airport was revealing. You buy dinner for a friend that takes you to the airport, but you take your lover to dinner the night before you leave because you're not going to be with them for five days. I told him that I'd wanted him to take me to a nice dinner, like he had offered, not ending up in casual clothes at a casual restaurant. I told him that I want to be treasured, I wanted his actions to be evidence of his affection for me.

I told him that he'd been pretty clear with what he could offer (essentially a "one foot out the door" relationship) and that my responsibility was in hoping that he'd wake up one day and realize that I'm it, that I'm the one he loves. That's just no way to sustain me or him or us. I told him that I couldn't make enough onion bread or cashew cheese (recipes of mine he loves) to make him love me, that if he isn't sold in three months of dating me, then I'm not it.

He told me he understood where I was coming from, that it's true that he hasn't been able to meet me in my world as much as either of us wanted, and that he's been pained by his inability to embrace all of what I have to offer. That was the hardest thing to hear, the thing that in the end, made me weep once I was in the safety of my car: For the first time since we've been dating, I finally get that he does see who I really am, that in his way, he's awed by me and by how right we are for one another in so many, many ways. He simply doesn't have the emotional capacity right now to love me, to adore me, as he said, he knows I deserve. Our timing was just off. We should have met five years ago or in another year. That a healed and whole John would have been grateful for a chance to honor me with the best of his love, that? That's what made me cry.

In the end, it was a simple calculus, but the answer offered none of the comfort of a well executed formula. In the end, we were two people who needed to take our first few steps away from one another in months, and it was hard.

So we stood in his living room, just before I left, holding each other, and he began to cry. I gripped tighter, not wanting to let go, but prepping for the inevitable, trying to steel us both for the coming, final separation. I think of him now, his sadness, his regret, his not understanding why he couldn't muster enough love for me, and I ache for him. And here I am again, trying to be in his shoes, in his book, living his words. This stops here.

With hours between the conversation and now, I'm sad, tired and weary, but also relieved and even proud of myself. I get it like I haven't before that my needs aren't too big, too needy, too much. It isn't that I'm not worth loving, and I finally (finally!) see that that's never been it. I'm not going down that road this time. I drove right past it, without even a sideways glance. I'm looking at that old lie and seeing the big "t" Truth right there in the middle of it: I'm worth loving me. The only person I ever had to prove it to was me. And there's not anything that's going to get in the way of dedicating myself to loving me the best I can from here on out, because, fuck, I am a spiritually empowered woman and it's about time I start living like one.

Here's to a new beginning. And thanks, John, for helping deliver me back to myself. I'd been away so long, I almost forgot it's a really great place to be.

R&B, how I have missed you...

Last week, I re-discovered my abiding love of R&B while trying to find just the right music to get me through my last hours at work before my much needed two week vacation. Whether old school Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield, standards like Mary J, or pop-leaning Beyonce and Rihanna, I'm a sucker for it all.

In high school I loved Boys II Men as much as the next girl, but for the most part, I was an aspiring indie-rocker (I'd been in unrequited love with a friend for years who had an encyclopedic knowledge of all things indie-rock; I was trying to score points). But in college, most of the music in the office I worked in was R&B or hip-hop, and this is when my love affair began. At work, I was the only white person, and not knowing much musically about anything but white rock bands no one had ever heard of, I often felt like I stuck out more than I wanted to, but my fall for R&B was quick and hard, and my desire to somehow fit in wasn't a necessary condition. There's something in the drama of it, the sweeping declarations of love, the plaintive sing-song wailing of heartbreak, the often sexy as hell sensuality, the wanton disregard for self-care in the name of wild devotion to another, that registered on a cellular level. Those same qualities later drew me to Spanish music and even Gospel, but coming back to R&B after several years of neglect was like recalling a first, sweet love.

So, I've been hitting the R&B hard this last week. It really was an accident that I had an R&B playlist on Pandora playing when the new guy I met last weekend came over to hang out while I did some food prep and holiday knitting. I wasn't trying to set a mood. Yet, it weaved a subtle web in the background as we talked and got to know each other, and as the hour progressed, I found myself feeling more and more drawn to him, despite knowing that I don't have it in me to date two men at once or the desire to dodge my integrity around honesty and forthrightness.

I'm still trying to pinpoint what it is I find so maddeningly attractive about this new guy. He's shorter than me, not in the greatest shape (though his self-deprecating humor about it and willingness to be active anyway is endearing). He lost his job a couple months ago and is now working as a busser to get by. He's an artist with work exhibited in a local cafe. He is not, like most men, used to getting what he wants (in his words, "Would I be bussing tables right now if I got what I wanted?"). He is used to dreaming big and working hard and has overcome much. He shares about his life and asks about me in equal measure. There's a way his lips move around his crooked teeth that sharpen his words and make his laughter both resonant and bright. He's considerate and kind. Long, dark eyelashes sway languidly over happy eyes and his long, dark hair frames his face pleasantly. I find myself distracted with visions of holding back his hair while kissing him. All in all, he's not conventionally hot, but there I was beholding the beauty in him. 

And this confuses me. I'm invested in another man. True, we haven't had the conversation about exclusivity, but I think if our situations were reversed, I'd think his attraction to another woman was telling. I have this sinking feeling that I am attracted to this new guy because right now he's uncomplicated and it's all confident flirting and bold moves. I know this territory so well and I'm so good at it that I slide into it without much intention. I'm not good later on, when the "just what is it we're doing here?" begins to form between me and whatever man. I don't know how to navigate those waters well, and that's right where I am with the man I've been with.

So, just what is my attraction to this new man telling me about my feelings for the man I'd be with exclusively if it were up to me? I'm frustrated with him, and there's nothing I can do to make things go my way. I have someone who is so close to exactly who I want, and the only option is to let go. This new guy reminds me that there are interesting, kind, available men out beyond the morass I've made of trying to hold space for a man who's on the fence. This new guy is an opportunity to press pause on all of it and get clear again on what it is I'm looking for, on what I want and need.

A couple days before the man I've been seeing left for the holidays, he called and said, "I'd like to take you out for a nice dinner tomorrow night." So, I'm thinking Soif or maybe even Oswald's. I decide on my highest, sexy heels and lowest cut shirt in blues and greens and golds that make my eyes sparkle.

When we speak a couple hours before meeting the next night, I decide to ask where he's taking me, and he mulls it over aloud, throwing out sushi, Thai, Malabar, all casual dining and not one of the nicer-type restaurants in town. He asks me what I'm interested in. Instead of saying, "I'm interested in you taking me out to a nice restaurant like you'd suggested yesterday," which looking back would have been a perfectly acceptable response, I say that Malabar sounds fine. I ask about what he's wearing and he says casually, as if the invitation to a nice dinner hadn't roll off his lips, "Nothing special." Again, inwardly disappointed, I mentally re-adjust my outfit toward the casual.

The dinner was pleasant enough, and we decided to sleep at his house that night. Once we've settled in bed, my arm resting on his chest, I start to nod off. It wasn't long before he says, "I like feeling your hand on me, but can we settle into our own spaces right now?" in other words, no touching. I withdrew without surprise or protest, I was too tired to care, or so I told myself. I tried to sleep again, but found myself smoldering, filling with resentment, and I began to wonder what the fuck I was even there for. A raw scratchiness crept into my throat at this point, which begged for the relief of a cough or two, which I stifled so as not to disturb his even breathing. I told myself to get up and go home, but I stayed, and suddenly the absurdity of the situation hit me.

He will always feel justified and comfortable in asking for what he needs, and he's accustomed to having them met. I rarely feel that way, and (shocker!) I rarely have my needs met. The very thing I was resenting so much in him that moment is the very thing I need to be doing myself. I have actually been dating a man who is a good model of self-care. And he's attracted me to him, a good model of how to care really well for others.

I'm learning that I can be the loving, need-meeter person I am, but I also have to be comfortable (and feel justified in) stating my needs, and expect that my needs are taken seriously and honored where possible. I'm also getting real clear that the man I end up with does need to take good care of himself, but he also needs to be curious about those needs in me that he can meet that make me happy or make me feel loved and supported. I must take better care of me not just because it'll make me a less resentful, more fulfilled partner, but also because I have nieces who look up to me and, Universe willing, a child one day who will learn from me, and I don't want them to grow up with the message that women are supposed to care for others needs first, and that men's needs are more important to meet than anyone's else.

I'm not sure I can learn to self-care better with any man around. I've already laid the foundation of my relationship with man number one with my sacrificed needs and willingness to try to meet his. The pattern's been set, and I don't know how to break it without breaking all of it. But I guess I don't need to know how, I just need to say "yes" to the change. "Yes" to speaking up when my needs aren't being met, "yes" to being clear about what my needs are. "Yes" to more sleep (well, not tonight, but soon...). "Yes" to me. The how will become clear.

On a hike with the new guy today I told him that I needed to get clear on what it is I want and what I'm doing with this other guy, but that I'd really appreciate his friendship right now. It wasn't so hard, stating what I need. It was a little hard to let our attraction hang in the space between us with no outlet, and we struggled with the weight of it for a while. But by the time we parted ways, we resolved to offer our friendship to another, and for now, I'm not going to let this blip of attraction to another man mean the ruin of my relationship with the man I'm seeing. It's a chance to re-assess and see anew.

As I wrap this up, If I Were A Boy by Beyonce is playing on Pandora. How comically apt:

If I were a boy even just for a day
I'd roll out of bed in the morning
And throw on what I wanted
And go drink beer with the guys

And chase after girls
I'd kick it with who I wanted
And I'd never get confronted for it
'Cause they stick up for me

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man

I'd listen to her
'Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
'Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

If I were a boy
I would turn off my phone
Tell everyone it's broken
So they'd think that I was sleeping alone

I'd put myself first
And make the rules as I go
'Cause I know that she'd be faithful
Waiting for me to come home, to come home

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man

I'd listen to her
'Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
'Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

It's a little too late for you to come back
Say it's just a mistake
Think I'd forgive you like that
If you thought I would wait for you
You thought wrong

But you're just a boy
You don't understand
And you don't understand, oh
How it feels to love a girl
Someday you wish you were a better man

You don't listen to her
You don't care how it hurts
Until you lose the one you wanted
'Cause you're taking her for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
But you're just a boy

Release

I (want to) free what has been in my clutches so that it can evolve into its greater yet to be.
I (want to) release to liberate my mind from relentless repetitiveness.
I (want to) release to cultivate the soil for right action.

I want to be willing to drop the "want to's." What will it take for me to drop the "want to's"? When I read these lines Sunday, these sparkly, little gems, wedged into the affirmation at church, I longed for them to be true of me the way I long to be in love. As though it'll never happen.

This morning he called. Told me he's thinking of going to San Diego for Christmas with his father. Then asks me what my plans are, saying, "You probably spend the whole day with family, huh?"Uh-huh. Sure do. He arrived at work and we hung up. Later, making my bed, I thought, Wait a minute. Was he feeling me out to see if I would be able to come with him? He didn't outright ask me, but the conversational proximity of the San Diego trip and my family holiday plans made it seem plausible. Confusing, given our rather up-in-the-air status at the moment, but still plausible.

Later, chatting with my sister in law on-line, I told her that he might have invited me to Christmas with his dad. She said that was great and we'd work our holiday plans around it. It is great, I remember thinking. Tonight, I asked him if he was asking about my plans because he was thinking of inviting me or because he was just curious. The pause was long enough to know he hadn't thought of including me at all. I felt like an idiot. For hoping. For wanting it to be a sign. For actually having asked my family if it was possible to move our holiday plans around to accommodate a trip he'd never even thought to invite me on. For having the thought that I would get to visit my friends who just moved to San Diego while he got in some one on one time with his Dad. Granted, it was his vague communication style that left it open for interpretation, but I chose hoping against the odds, hoping against evidence even that we are so not there yet.

I cling. I fear he'll all go away, because all the other men I have loved, or tried to, always have. So, I try to be the best they've ever had. And usually, I am. Usually they tell me I am. It's always them, unavailable. And here I am again, really liking a man with one foot in the door. The whole rest of him may be in the room: sweet, sincere, smart, goofy, attractive, clearly into me, clearly so much more than I would have expected to find in a man. Mostly. But. He's got one foot in the door, not letting it close, an escape route, an excuse out. For whatever reason. It's a good reason, I can't deny him that. But, if I continue to see him, as he has said he wants, even if we slow it way down, I'll still be waiting for him to stop thinking of me with a "but" somewhere in there.

It doesn't matter that his best friend told me he's said great things about me.

It doesn't matter that he told the woman who introduced us that I was the kindest, most compasisonate woman he's ever met.

It doesn't matter that one night after we talked about books and writing for a good long while, he texted me, "I like that you're a lit-critter."

It doesn't matter that he made a list of what he wanted in a woman and I am who he described.

It doesn't matter that I see the way he looks at me from time to time, eyes dancing and pulling the corners of his mouth upward just a bit, as though he's just amazed.

It doesn't matter that somehow I know we're supposed to be together. 

Because the timings off.

I'm ready; he's not ready yet. Me sticking around won't change that.

Rev D this Sunday said we don't release because we don't trust that our deepest heart's desires will be fulfilled. Truthfully, she said we don't release because we don't trust that there's a Divine Order. And really, I guess that's true enough. I do believe that I'll have my needs fulfilled. But my wants? My deepest desires? I want to believe, but I doubt. If there's one Bible passage I can relate to it's in Mark 9, when a father brings a sick boy to Jesus and says:

 "... if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."

" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

 Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

I so need to overcome my unbelief.


If I release him now, and tell him, "When you know what you want, and you're ready; give me a call. If I'm single and still interested, we can give this another shot," I fear he won't ever call. If I hold on to him, I fear I'll smother this new sprout of a relationship with my insecurities.

I have a hunch that someone less prone to dramatics and romanticism and wishful thinking would look at my options and call it a no-brainer. "Tell him 'goodbye'," they'd say, "Light a fire under his ass by taking the goods away." But honestly, the fear of not hearing from him again, the fear that can only be assuaged by more trust in the Universe than I currently have, feels much scarier and less reliable than getting as much of him as I can for as long as I can because in the end, I have always ended up alone.

The only question now worth asking, and answering, is "Am I willing to trust that if not this wonderful man, then someone better?"

What I do want

I want to sleep. Sleep for hours and hours, maybe even a whole day, or at least until late in the morning, so that when I wake and look out my window from my bed, the sun has been poured across the bay, making it a glistening, white pool.

I want to meditate upon waking each day, sing a song or two, and pray.

I want to write a little, or a lot, every day, so that the words stay fluid and free in my fingers.

I want to honor my recently declared three month fast from shoe and clothes buying. I want people to see through the economic privilege needed to even declare such a fast, and see why I am really doing this. I want to prove to myself that I have enough, that no new pair of shoes or new jacket will make my wardrobe feel complete, and that the completeness I seek in my wardrobe is just a desire misplaced.

I want to uncover the places in me that lack cohesion, coordination, unity.

I want to spoon more Chocolate Hazelnut Fudge Coconut Bliss Ice Cream into my mouth, except that, at the moment, I want more to honor this body temple of mine, to honor the organs that do not need more food tonight. I want this honoring to last me until bedtime, through tomorrow, and I want to be forever plagued by the ability to honor my body's (and my heart's) needs for nourishment.

I want to solo the song that broke me open back in 2007 when I was so weary with resisting faith, and made me believe in more than just myself. I want to stand up in front of a packed house at my church, with my choir behind me singing their hearts out. I want to sing of letting go, of surrender, of just letting it be. I want the nervousness that claws inside my throat and makes my singing less strong and clear and beautiful to be transformed by the vision of my ministry into freedom in song.

I want the my muscles in my lower back to stop seizing and shooting out tendrils of pain.

I want to be witty and smart and assured, sorta like a straight Rachel Maddow.

I want the wars to end, for the Supreme Court to make gay marriage legal, and for health care reform, including a public option, to pass and show all the naysayers it's possible to honor everyone's right to health care without the world falling apart.

I want to tell the truth. I want to be free of the endless mind-fucking that not telling the truth does to me.

I want to tell the truth: You made a list of the ten main qualities you want in a partner just before you met me. Passionate, happy, intelligent, maternal, humorous, to name a few. You made a list of my core qualities. I want you to see that you drew me into your life. The truth I want to tell is this: I don't think it's possible to make a list of what you want in a partner and then dictate the time line of when the physical manifestation of this list shows up. I want to say: There's a disconnect between not being sure about having kids when "maternal" is on your list.

This is more truth I want to tell: I have never in all my years of dating connected intellectually so well with a man. When you quote to me lines from great literature, or read to me in bed passages from a book that a deceased friend of yours wrote, and I can hear the tears haunting the words, or you consider thoughtfully my distaste for the word "ghetto" without getting defensive, or call me to get my input on an assignment or discussion questions for your students, I weary of, once again telling my heart not to leap into my throat and force me to say the thing I'm afraid is "too much" for you, that I can't keep seeing you and not grow to love you. I want you to know that when you told me you watched me while I made dinner the other night, I lied and said I didn't notice. I want to believe that there's something to the warmth and tenderness in your stare that has to do with love.

The truth is: I'm not one of those women who can just live only in this moment, and not think about where this is all going, unless I am being honest about where I am, in this moment.

Because I want to be treasured, I want you to fall in love with me because of who I am and what I bring to your life, not because I am here now, a comfortable fit.

I want to be a truth teller.

I want to say all this, and let the words fall where they may. I want to be that bold.

I want to think it's possible that you are falling in love with me as much as I think you may be too full of stories about your past relationships, age, and doubt that will prevent you from seeing that you've got what you want, and that I've got what I want, right here.

I want, more than anything right now, to stop wishing you would text me, or call me, and reassure me. Just as no man has ever been able to do before you, I know that THAT kind of reassurance, that I am treasured and adored and loved will mean nothing if I don't already treasure, adore, and love who I am.

I want to remember that you can't read my mind, you don't know how I feel unless I tell you, and that you appreciate when I am honest with you. I want to tell you, and actually mean it, that I want you to be honest with me about where you're at.

I want to not make too many excuses about how busy we both are to avoid this conversation.

I want to have the sweet, lovely, light quality to our interactions untainted by my insecurities.

I want to stop wanting and start experiencing the things I want.