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one smart cookie

about 3 years ago a dear friend moved from California to Pennsylvania for love and left this inspiring token behind with me. it had already served her, she was taking her chance… (they are happily married now and will both return to California with PhDs, by the way)

the fortune from this smart cookie (which has resided on the inside of my rear view mirror ever since) inspired me to take chances I never thought I would or could and I relied on it and its message more than once.

even though it took me this long to feel this way… When i saw it today i realized it has served me well too.

so much is happening and I can’t wait to share it with all of you… but I’m also exhausted and I figure the most loving thing I can do for myself right now is go to bed.

I have taken my chances… and will continue to. and life this way is so much more joyous and fulfilling than it has ever been before.

Now I get to share the “good fortune” with someone else.

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this american life

do you listen to it (this american life)?  you should… it’s awesome.  it’s a weekly radio show from WBEZ, a public radio station in Chicago… and each week there is a theme and a variety of stories on that theme (I am basically hearing Ira Glass’ voice in my head right now as many of you others who also listen are… right?).

anyway, the only rationale I have for this being on topic is that I think part of what’s happening this “month” is that my appreciation for other art forms is enhanced.  i’ve found myself more connected to books, performances, shows, movies, etc after a long period of time of not as much interest in them as I’m used to.  this american life=art.  dammit.

now back to the off-topic stuff.  i was listening to an older episode of the show on my iPhone app and it was one of those that was interesting and entertaining… and that was it (sometimes they are shocking and moving or disturbing and thrilling, yadda yadda).  Until… Act Three:

You can listen to the entire episode here.  or… just Act Three

… and I strongly encourage you to… it’s more emotive that way, but as it turns out… they provide a transcript on their website too which I can only assume is to make the lives of bloggers easier.  Thank you, this american life.  I love you more today than ever.

I know you are going to read what I write before you listen so I’ll continue and then you can promise to go back and experience the art as it was intended.  The story is about a guy named John Perry Barlow who meets the love of his life (his “soul mate” if you will) by chance at a venue where two very different conventions were occurring (his: a Steve Jobs roast, and hers: a Psychiatry convention).  They fall in love at first sight, and (spoiler alert) tragedy brings their relationship to an untimely end.

The transcript from my favorite moment:

John Perry Barlow

So this whole episode, from the moment I saw her there in the hallway of the ANA, to the moment where I watched her walk onto the aircraft was one of the really central passages of my life. And after that, everything was different.

Ira Glass

And smaller.

John Perry Barlow

Well, no, not– actually, I wouldn’t say that. In many ways, not at all. Because one of the things that came out of it was that prior to this, I didn’t believe in the soul. I mean I think that within us we’re two spirits that had always– I mean, there’s really just no way to say this without sounding incredibly sappy. But we were the same soul. And having seen that, that changes everything.

Ira Glass

Now that you’ve had this experience with her, do you find that you have this experience all the time, in a smaller form, where you’ll meet a group of strangers and there will be one whose eyes strikes you. And you think, OK, I can see a part of this thing.?

John Perry Barlow

Absolutely. I mean I feel an ability to attach on a moment to moment basis that is completely unlike anything that I felt prior to that. And I think it’s sometimes a little disconcerting to other people, because it’s genuine on my side. And people are not used to having somebody just dock emotionally that instantaneously. For one thing, I feel like I can see their souls. Their souls are visible to me.



and… that’s when I realize that I’m holding my breath and inside my head I hear my own voice shouting: 
I do that!  I can totally do that!  I can and do do that!

and then I conclude that I am not crazy, because if JPB is on this american life describing experiences I have and he’s not described as crazy then I am also not crazy… because this american life is the authority on all things sane.

But really, I have spent so much time in the last ten years not being myself, and not accepting and loving my gifts.  I have judged them and second guessed them and tried to keep them hidden away.  And now that I am choosing to live without limits I am completely overwhelmed by the things I am discovering, recalling, remembering, and reframing…  The last week has been so FULL of mind blowing experiences that I am choosing to experience through surrender that it is all I can do to just keep my feet planted on the ground and my head pointed at the sky lest I float away never to be heard from again…

I was just telling 38 that my blog persona and my real persona are starting to blend together.  For safety’s sake I have kept them somewhat separate (meaning, I don’t tell you about all of my deepest, darkest thoughts and fears, and in general I stay in a loving space when I’m here), but the longer I do this the more I find myself having the same conversations in real life (with others and inside my own head) as I do with all of you here and I think that instead of coming here to pretend to be a little more enlightened, or happier, or more peaceful than I really am… I can just let this be who I really am. 
and so it is.  
I can see souls.  They are visible to me.  
day-um.  
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the artist’s non-date

i’m sick.  okay, I said it… can it go away now?

i tried convincing myself I was healthy.  i tried claiming it was allergies.  i tried complete denial (which is different from convincing myself I’m healthy).  i even tried rest… and still… my twice daily neti pot routine is yielding some gruesome results.  it’s been a week now and I’m over it.  I’ve been on the rest plan since the tail end of last week and I’ve been expecting to wake up one day feeling better and with the motivation and energy I need to tackle the tasks of life that are piling up around me… but nope… I rest, I still feel crappy, and the pile of life grows, and not only do I feel unmotivated to tackle it… I feel pretty overwhelmed by it at moments.

As my facebook friends (sorry to mention facebook again… but it exists, and i kind of love it… so there) may recall, I am in the market for a maid, cook, housekeeper, nanny, and sex slave all in one… I have no ability to pay this person.  I hear that the only solution to this problem is to get a wife.  I’m totally up for that.  When can she get here?  (okay, I’m not technically divorced yet… but soon enough, I promise, and she can totally live with me in the meantime, I’m not morally opposed to shacking up).

So, I’m sick and I had a date with myself on the calendar for Sunday.  You may also recall that I admitted to you all that I think dating sucks and I much preferred being in love… so with that in mind, I did have a date with myself, but it was the kind of date you have with someone who you’re in love with who also has a sinus infection.

I got takeout, went braless, and after cuddling in a blanket on the couch watching Parenthood on Netflix (where has this show been all my life?  I’ve been needing a good cry lately and it’s going to deliver… I can tell.  I’ve gotten misty several times) hopped into bed for more Parenthood and spooning for the rest of the afternoon.  How do you spoon with yourself, you may ask?  Well, I’m not sure I can explain it… but just try it.  It involves side lying, intertwining your own legs, and popping your top shoulder backward so when you drape your arm over yourself and grab onto a breast it feels like it is someone else’s arm.  Too much information?

Anyway.  2nd artist’s date: a success.  Now, my artist isn’t always going to be satisfied with this… she’s going to want to be taken out, she wants an occasion to dress up and get pretty and hit the town, but she also wants snuggling… so she’s satisfied for now.

I find myself wanting to describe this month as dismal so far… In terms of progress on the bullet points

(which were:

  • Make something new (rinse, and repeat).
  • Morning Pages.
  • Artist’s Date.
  • Finish an old project.
  • Recognize CREATEivity.
  • Art party) 
    • the painted circles have been sorted… and there they remain

    well… actually I was going to say that I hadn’t made much,  but now that I look at it:  I do the morning pages daily, I’ve had two artist’s dates, I am aware of my own ability to create, I scheduled and invited guests to the art party… I guess I’m doing okay.
    In addition to the tree branch (that is still sitting in the same place), I also brought home a door.  Both of those will become more than just a tree branch and a door before this month is over…  and qualify as “make something new” or at least they will… And, well, I sorted the painted circles… which are certainly part of “finish an old project.”
    Again, I guess I’m doing okay.  In addition to all of the creative stuff I am just feeling pretty good in general.  I am so honored by the feedback and support you’ve offered throughout this journey.  It’s crazy scary and downright mind blowing to be living this way, but it feels right and I am glad that I can share it with you.  
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    talking to myself

    Good Morning!

    Welcome to the first off-schedule post!  I just had an experience so amazing that I cannot not share it with you… wow… I’m still in awe.  Seriously.  Let’s see how fast I can get this done, it’s a race against spiderman’s internal clock (the one that controls his desire for pancakes).

    As you know I have been writing “morning pages” since the start of this “month” on 2/21.  They are just three pages of stream of consciousness writing.  They aren’t supposed to be anything in particular, just what comes out, but Julia Cameron does warn that often what will come out is our inner critic.  She encourages us to develop imagery for our inner critic, defile the image, and keep it close to our morning pages notebook so we can use it as inspiration to fight back.  Seriously… like if I printed a picture of my former mother in law and put a big red X through the face and taped it to the front of my notebook that would be a completely endorsed supplement to the morning pages by the creator herself.  Amazingness.

    So, my inner critic has come out a lot, sometimes my pages are filled with the song lyrics that are in my head when I wake up, sometimes they are filled with the reasons for the panic I woke in, other times they contain my to do list for the day, and others they are filled with mantras and other repeated phrases about what I want for the day ahead.  I’m pretty sure I was able to convince myself that the cold shower was going to be refreshing within the context of my morning pages.

    Cameron also warns that morning pages will be hardest for writers… because writers will try and make their morning pages into writing… and she’s right (so I guess I’ve decided I’m a writer, by the way.  cheers!).  It’s hard for me not to think a few words ahead and try and make it sound articulate and pretty.  I sometimes catch myself doing this and the only method I’ve had to curb it so far is to simply focus on one word at a time and not think about the next one until the current one is on the page.  This is pretty difficult… I write much slower than I think.

    Today, for the first time, I didn’t think at all about what to write… it just came… it was nearly involuntary.  I had a small part, but most of the words on the page didn’t come from my consciousness.  I’ll explain.

    I have a spiritual side… and we’ll talk more about her in a few months when that is the focus, but in the interim a few quick tidbits.

    • I’m not a religious person… never found any one religion that I jived with
    • I’m a “take what you like and leave the rest” person and I’ve done that with pieces of earth religions, buddhism, new age sort of stuff, paganism, etc. etc. 
    • I use the word universe as a way of describing some kind of spiritual force, but I don’t intend for that force to exist separately from me… I am the universe and it is me (and it is all of you too).  We are all one.
    • I have several religious people in my life and when I hear about them and their conversations with “God” I realize that I have the same experiences… I just don’t consider the divine inspiration to be coming from outside of me… My conversations with “God” are conversations with myself and my connection to the divine.
    I’ve had a great couple of days.  Something that had been bothering me for a lot of the previous week has been calmed and quieted by a new understanding, faith, and some good old fashioned surrender.  For the first time since I started seeing my Brainspotting practitioner we didn’t have to work at bringing me down off a ledge of anxiety… I was calm when I arrived and we used the time to bring me to a deep relaxation and talk about some stuff.  
    Still, I’m always a little bit afraid of the weekend.  If I don’t get myself into the right frame of mind, the weekend… with all of its free time and silence… can be a scary place for me to be.  So, despite the peaceful enjoyment of the last two days I noticed I felt worried about how I was going to keep the peace in all of my alone time this weekend.
    And so that’s where my morning pages began.  I wrote my concerns, and I wrote them in the form of questions… and then someone answered.  And about halfway through the first page I realized that I was having a conversation with my intuition.  The answers were calm, loving, and reassured.  They weren’t ever rushed or pleading, they never contained an ounce of emotion, they were pure loving calm.  …and it was lovely.
    I asked on my facebook page many weeks ago how other people could tell the definition between their intuition and fear… many people responded wanting to know what was wrong.  Others had some very interesting things to say.
    • Funny things: Intuition is what you call it after the fact when your fear came true.
    • Logical things: intuition is based on all facts from a history and fear is based on some facts from history.
    • Movement oriented things: Intuition can push you away or pull you in. Fear always separates.
    • Emotional experience oriented things: You are still strangely drawn to it despite the anxiety and are willing to push through the anxiety… and the anxiety feels kinda exciting at the same time, if that makes sense. Anxiety full of severe dread is not good, on the other hand…
    • Profoundly confident things: We always truly “know.” It’s the fear that likes to talk us into something else. Because sometimes our fear of the truth is that we really don’t want the answer we are intuitively receiving.
    • Self aware things: I know for me when I get nutty nervous about something it may be cause it’s not right or something from my past is coming up that was not pleasant usually. Or…I’m just plain scared and then I look at all the silly things I have fear of and if it’s in an area I need to stretch myself in, I do it and pretend the fear is excitement
    • and a lovely late entry: I see fear as negative and intuition as positive….therefore you must work through the fear to realize the fruition of the intuition. So they are not one in the same…but connected and one can keep the other from happening. Your intuition is strong…believe it and follow it…your fear must be overcome so that you follow that real sense and just go for it. 
    I happened to have therapy that very same afternoon and I asked my therapist the same question.  Her answer was so quick I almost felt a wind blow by.  She said that fear has emotion attached and intuition does not.  Intuition has no need or fear or want or even desire… it just is.  She also said that you can talk to your intuition anytime… you ask a question and when  you hear an answer and it comes from your body around your heart that’s your intuition speaking.
    I’ve tried to tap into it since with limited results.  Usually my emotions and wanting are so noisy and active that they are taking up all of my heart space and even if my intuition is saying anything I can’t hear it over the din of my frantic desire to control the situation…
    (I’m so losing the race against the internal pancake clock right now…)
    but back to today!  Today I had a 3 page long conversation with my intuition.  She’s lovely… and I trust her… and after our conversation I feel safe about my choice to stay on the couch and watch as much tv as possible while I let my body do what it needs to clear out these sinuses so I can breathe again.  Here’s to staying in touch with her!
    “Momma!  I said I’m HUNGRY!”

    I hear you, child.  I hear you. 
    xoxo
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    rock. paper. scissors. laser…

    In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday…

    I’m going to attempt
    to make this post rhyme.

    Let’s see how long it lasts
    probably not a long time.

    In honor of John Bon Jovi’s birthday I’m going back to prose. Thank you all for playing.

    I have a series of random thoughts to share with you and an update on my first art project. Welcome to the disjointed edition of IWWSPIP!

    1. spiderman believes that the game rock paper scissors includes the option of a laser. consider yourself warned.

    2. i currently have 5 different globs of toothpaste on my face. this is because I have 5 different zits. I haven’t had this many pimples at once since 1995. my vanity is not pleased.

    3. I forgot to tell you on Wednesday that I played piano from age 2-9 and saxophone and clarinet in jr high and high school. Yes, I was in marching band. It pertains to my strange relationship with music… I was a decent player with some technical skill but I never had any “soul.” I could never improvise or jam. And now all I can do is play Mary had a little lamb with chords.

    4. I took the wrong exit driving home today (I was not thinking about driving obviously)… and then saw a license plate that said REALBMS… people are awesome. I wonder if they know what a BM is and what it means to have real ones

    5. I went to therapy and the OBGYN today. Have you had a pap smear in the last 18 months? If not, go schedule one now. Seriously. Nothing important is happening here tonight. I’m loopy.

    6. Laughing through your nose when you’re stuffed up will result in a snot escape… it’s not attractive but it can be funny in the right company.

    7. Another reason the artist’s date was a flop: I hate dating. It’s awkward and silly and it can’t compare to being in love… So rather than date myself I think I’ll try being in love with myself instead.

    And now… a story about being a terrible person:

    When I was pregnant with spiderman, angrywombat (and my mom, and some other lovelies) threw me a blessingway. While a traditional baby shower is about the baby and gifts for the baby, a blessingway is a ritual celebration a woman’s journey into motherhood.

    To prepare for the blessingway I made a belly cast from plaster bandages that captured my swollen form in perpetuity. The intent was to do a group art project at the blessingway where the women in my life would decorate it in found leaves and pressed flowers. The women present did so eagerly… and… I… um… well… I… I hated it.

    I’m still a neurotic control freak, but only a shadow of the one I was back them. And my super pregnant and super hormonal self was horrified that the body cast I had suffered through making was defiled by a lack of understanding of the intentional use of negative space. Unfortunately for everyone involved I went in with a vision that the belly would be scaled in multi-colored eucalyptus and grape leaves would demurely cover the breasts… Pregnant, terrible and snobby to the Nth degree I put it in a box and never did anything with it.

    I’ve taken it out a couple times since and tried to love it… but while I love the intent… I still don’t like the way it looks. To anyone reading who was contributor… First, I’m sorry I’m a jerk, and second I’m sure the part you did was the only part I liked.

    The belly cast went into the closet almost 5 years ago with the intent that I would rework it into something I loved and I knew that this was the month to complete my ultimate unfinished project.

    Here’s a little photo story about where we are. And again, I’m sorry for being such a jerk. I still have the birth necklace we all made together and I love it dearly (oh wait, I think I restrung that myself later too. Damn.)
    So, I’m still going for the scales look… but found all of these cardboard circles to use instead of leaves.

    If painter’s had sous chefs, I couldn’t think of one I’d rather have than this one.

    Experimenting with cleaning the wall after experimenting with painting on the wall…

    Remembering why I love painting… I love that it gets everywhere. I find a little bit of absentmindedness to be endearing and nothing is cuter than a dab of paint or flour on a busy creator’s cheek or forehead.

    “scales” this photo and the process of painting all of these made me feel quite fulfilled.

    So, now because I am not a free spirited artist type I will go sort the dry circles into categories based on color and stuff…

    Night.