Thanksgiving

Every once in awhile I go through that little ritual of counting my blessings. Usually it's a reality check, a way of acknowledging that things aren't as sucky as they feel. But somehow, I can't experience gratitude, neat. I find myself qualifying my gratitude, saying things like, "I'm grateful that I have my health......sorta." And then I think about all the things that ail me, trying to convince myself that those are minor problems, and basically I'm in good health because I can still climb Chimney Rock at Ghost Ranch, or go hiking in the Sandias with G and P. Doubtless it is true, that I am basically healthy. But it's not all the truth, and I need to acknowledge the yin in the yang and the yang in the yin, right? Isn't part of living in the moment recognizing all aspects of the moment?

And so it goes, with all my causes for gratitude.  My family?  too far away.  My friends?  ditto.  My capacity for joy?  drowned in exhaustion.  My capacity for productivity and creativity?  ditto.  The gratitude in my heart is silenced or diminished by the carping of my inner critic, and all I can do is whine, "what am I doing with my one beautiful life?"

My more robust companions will have none of this.  Some try to bolster, some speak sternly, some send hugs, virtual and real.  None of them say, "you're being boring," for which I am....grateful.

Sometimes I listen to my friends, and sometimes I listen to myself. A few weeks ago I had the amazing experience of listening to my heart through the agency of another human. My friend M's friend L is a dowser, and she spent 2 hours with me, talking, dowsing and clearing. Afterwards, I felt....light. I went to the clay studio and played on the wheel, producing an off-center vase, with thick lower walls and thin curvy rim. I took one side of the upper excess and curled it down, attaching the edge to the container and creating a handle. The opposite side was transformed into a spout, and the lopsided vase became a lopsided pitcher. In the ensuing week, as the mass of dark grey dried to leather-hard greenware, I trimmed and smoothed and carved. The resulting imperfection is actually rather interesting, but that is not the point. The point is the process, experiencing the transformation. I don't say I guided the process, nor did I control it. Again, that was not the point. I experienced it. I gave my inner critic a much-needed vacation.

There is a cult of excellence in our society. One's productions  must approach perfection as closely as possible. People must be beautiful, writing must be expressive, pots must be balanced, bodies must be taut and muscular. In such a culture, it is difficult to be grateful, for how can one rejoice in the imperfect? And yet, I do, and I must. Otherwise, what is the point of creating. And, if you are constantly judging your work by an unreachable standard, how can you live in the moment, how can you enjoy your life, how can you be anything but exhausted?

L's take on my constant exhaustion and nausea is that my heart wants to be free and my soul wants to connect, and my body is expressing how much both hate where I am right now. Yes, my head says, it's beautiful here, the job is good, and so is the financial reward: I should be content. But my heart says "get me out of here!"

So, we asked questions and the pendulum answered yes/no. Some of the questions were directed to the body: am I taking care of it properly? Yes. Do I have a diabetes? No. Most of the questions were directed to my heart, And, according to that guide, it seems pretty clear that I need to get rid of my possessions (even more than I have) and go out and explore, and I need to do it sooner rather than later. Apparently my heart does not want me to move back to Portland or Albuquerque or Wit's End, but it does want me to bring my violin along with me on this soul's journey. It doesn't want me to change my attitude towards my current situation, it wants me to move out and on. It wants me to trust it as I have trusted my brain all these years. I'm good at taking care of business, thinking things through, analyzing. Now I need to work with feeling. 

My first foray into that was most successful.  That day, when I got home from the studio, still feeling light from the session with L and the session with clay, I split some kindling and built a fire and posted the following haiku:

Content to be home

Lying by a crackling fire.

Who will make dinner?

A few moments later, I received a phone call from S, who said: "We will make dinner!" They were in Taos, and I met them at Kyote Club. The Universe responded splendidly.  Ask and ye shall receive.

Still, I'm not clear about my choices here.  I teared up during some of the discussion, and part of it was knowing that my friends and family will be worrying about me if I take this journey.( Not that they don't worry about me already.) My head wants me to wait for a few years to build up more retirement,  But it also says, what's the point of having an extra thousand a month if I have to spend it on healthcare? After years of living with D and years of working a stressful job, my body and soul are both hurting. I don't think I can afford to abuse them any more.

Yet, I'm not sure that a change of attitude is not the solution. I do have so much gratitude in my heart, and my critical thinking brain cannot always stop that. I am grateful for family, friends, health, talents, capacity for joy, capacity for productivity, material comforts, meaningful work, beauty in nature, beauty in art, beauty in people. Not necessarily in that order. I'm grateful for hearts and heads and souls.  And sometimes I am able to tap that gratitude, neat:

I spent much of Thanksgiving Day worrying about my niece.  Her labor had begun the day before, and as the hours wound on on the contractions weakened, and the medications came and went, and the baby reacted negatively to the whole process.  I wanted to be there, because of course if you are there, things will be okay. Finally, they decided on the C section, and my sister sent us the word:  I have a grand niece.  And there was no inner critic to say anything about it.  I felt light, happy, and intensely grateful.

I am grateful for

A great end to a long wait.

Welcome, Abigail!

Don't be a jerk

We had our first fight the other day.  Actually, G is so laid back and understated it's possible we have had other fights and I just didn't notice.  And, it's possible he didn't think this one was a fight either.  Maybe a disagreement, maybe a source of frustration, but not really a fight.  I don't know, because I have a skewed view of fights.  I don't easily get angry, and when someone is angry or irritated with me, I get hurt or confused.  Sometimes I get indignant because the angry person is not seeing things accurately, in my opinion, and it feels willful.  But usually the response is an internal curling up into a ball.  The fetal position has long been my default.

Fights with D taught me that I had it in me to scream so loud my heart hurt.  I found myself saying "Fuck you!" and meaning it.  It didn't feel like me, though.  I had changed my default from fetal position to flailing.  I stopped apologizing or taking my share of blame for the fight, because he rarely reciprocated.  My compassion was seen as capitulation and weakness.  Finally, I just ran out of energy.  I had no more investment in defending myself, I neither flailed nor curled.  Our final fight, the night I left, barely qualified as a fight.  I just looked at him and left.  There was no more fight in me.  As T often said, "when you're 'thu,' you're 'thu.'"

Since then, I have been in some fights, but they remain strangely passionless.  Yes, I've been hurt, yes, I've been irritated.  But mainly, I've just ignored my opponent ("It's his/her problem,") or walked away ("I don't deserve this.")  I still don't have the energy for fighting, it seems, and I don't know if that is good or bad.  Neither, I suspect.  It's where I am, part of the healing, part of the lesson learned.  I never again want to care so strongly or hurt so deeply that I invest in fighting.

For the less personal fights (war, gun control, environment, abortion), I have the good fortune to live in a place and in a way where my safety, livelihood and selfhood are not overtly challenged.  I know that there are real problems, real attacks, and that they do impact me as a human on this earth, but I can live in my bubble and leave the fight to others.  Is this a symptom of the lack of energy, or is it another example of my stunning first-world self-absorption?  As I recall, I've always been that way.  The fights with D were an aberration, as were many aspects of that relationship. Normally, I just want to enjoy what I have.  I don't want to fight for it:  if a fight is necessary, I walk away.

So....our first fight.  As with many fights, it was about nothing.  It was about a game.  It was about an unequal investment in the game.  It was about a lack of caring, a lack of focus.  It was about a misunderstanding.  It was....a fight.  I first realized it was a fight when G handed me the game rules and said "You need to read these, you don't know the rules," and I said, "I DO know the rules," and G said....I don't remember.

I curled up on the couch with the rules and started reading. It was a role-playing game, and the rules would have made no sense to me if I hadn't already been playing the game for several weeks.  Most of the rules had to do with setting up the game (G's job).  But I dutifully continued, occasionally saying: "this doesn't make sense," or "we haven't been doing this," or other mutterings to indicate that I WAS NOT THE PROBLEM.  G passed in and out of the room, sometimes responding, sometimes not.  And then I hit the jackpot.  I laughed and read it out loud:  "Be courteous and encourage a mutual interest in playing and don't engage in endless rules discussions.  Enjoy the game, be considerate of the others at the table, and don't let your actions keep them from having a good time.  In short, DON'T BE A JERK."  Later I kissed him and apologized for calling him a jerk and he said, "That's okay, I know you really care about me." 

I do, but not enough to fight about it.