Old Soul

 

When I was very, very small, my aunt held me and told my mother, "She is an old soul." My mama says that since that moment, I've had worldliness and  knowingness about me. They only evidence I have of that is ordering salads at restaurants when I was three years old. 

Yesterday, I visited the newest member of my family, Eli. I was scared to hold him, as I had been with his sister when she was an infant. I was afraid of holding something so delicate, of holding him the wrong way. I was telling his aunt this, and she said, "Oh, you have to hold him. When you do, it feels like there is nothing wrong with the world. He is such an old soul."

And it's true. As I held him close, the whirlwind, static noise of thoughts and worries evaporated. All of my attention was on this tiny little being. My heartbeat slowed to match his rhythmic breathing. He took in the world, and his eyes didn't hold the same grasping quality I've seen in most infants. There was an acceptance, a patience with the attention he was receiving, a knowingness and a sweetness about him, so rare in others that he was striking and comforting at the same time. It was a comfort being close to him, a little respite.

Welcome to the world, Eli. May it be a wonderful one for you.

Resonace and Frequencies

 

Photo my mama took on the airplane ride to Southern California 

There is something incredibly—I can't describe it other that tiny-laugh-secret-smiley-comforting-and-lovely—about having a conversation with someone, and they say things that echo your heartmind so thoroughly you feel a though they are reading pages from your personal journal. Those moments bring me back down to earth, make me feel connected again, and validate my cascade thoughts.

I'm in Southern California right now, where the air is constantly thick with a bougainvillea perfume that sticks to the roof of my mouth. My mama flew down from Northern California, and we're visiting my uncle and his family. My mama and uncle and I spent yesterday wandering around Descanso Gardens, venturing up into the hills among the poppies and the lizards, drinking in the sun's warmth.

Both of them are artists. They speak with candor, humor, and cadence that I recognize, and there are moments of resonance that give me pause. I wax on about struggles and insecurities, and they don't placate with "There there, now." They offer up truths so rare and so raw that my world starts to soften. My tunnel vision, narrowing in on the awful, expands to let in some light. "I've been there too," they say. "You're not alone."

I could write entire posts about how each of these people have inspired me in their own ways (and I most likely will). Take a moment to visit their websites and be inspired. The links to their blogs areavailable in my Love List. 

Joe Murray Studios – joemurrarystudio.com

"We can’t waste precious time bemoaning what is no longer. What our careers used to look like. How much money we used to make, or how much notoriety we once had. Those are illusions anyway. Sometimes we even limit ourselves with what we think is right for us. Your art is happening right now, and moving like water where it wants to go. It has bigger plans for us than we know." – Joe Murray 




Dianne Poinski Handcrafted Photography – diannepoinski.com

"I know that even if I won the lottery today I would still continue to pursue photography. I really don't have a choice. My sanity and well-being depend on it. I like to think I am making the images I want to make and not just for the market. Just try to imagine for one minute, what it would feel like to create simply for yourself with no intention to ever share that work! I feel so liberated and joyful when I think about that (even if it's only in that moment)." – Dianne Poinski

Pray, Tell Me

 

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When I pray, I imagine myself as a glass shell of a person. My insides are hollow—if you tapped my body, a clear note would ring from my head to my toes. But darkness and dirt, the scrappy dust refuse of industry, gather around my head and my heart, blocking the light.


Like water, falling heavy from the sky, my higher power reaches in and washes away the refuse. I feel the water fall into the rim at the top of my head, falling with such force that it reaches my toes and swells back up my sides, going up and over out of the rim once again. With it, it takes my fear, my pain, my worries, and plaguing doubts. Light shines through me again and drops of water evaporate from my glass skin.

The moment, the rush, the swell are momentary. I haven't been at the practice of prayer for long, and asking for help is a relatively new concept for me. I am trying to build it as a habit. Instead of running my hands ragged, blisters forming on my palms where I've tried to grasp and control again and again, I open my hands and let go. Someday, my first instinct will be to let go.

What Do We Do With the Sadness?

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Today I listened to a Radiolab podcast titled "Race." The last section told the story of a Sunni man trying to locate his father's body in a Shia-controlled morgue with the help of his Shia friends. There were several layers of horror bound in this story: The sudden disappearance of the Sunni man's father; the photos of the dead shown in the morgue waiting room that family members were forced to sit through, waiting to see if their missing relatives would appear on the screen; the collecting of his father from a pile of bodies in the morgue. My breath staccatoed and tears began to well. I was so sad, hollowed, mortified, and bewildered for this man that I don't know. I felt helpless and small and weak, unable to reach through time and technology to help this man. But what would I have been able to do?

I immediately called my friend, who has seen me cry at the musical Chess (just to give you a barometer for my sensitivity), to help me calm down. She too feels overwhelmed with all the wrongness in the world, all the awful, all the monstrous. She reminded me about housing gratitude in our actions. Breathe with gratitude. Nourish with gratitude. Speak with gratitude. Acknowledge and cherish what is around you. It isn't combat against the dark, and it isn't a guard against it, it is an acceptance that the world is unbalanced, and we do what we can as individuals to restore balance. 

Even now as I type this, I am harshly wiping tears from my cheeks and wringing my hands, feeling guilt that my reality is so much different from the Sunni man's. But my friend's words echo in my head: Respect. Respond. Restore. Storing my sadness in my chest will do nothing but make me feel heavy. Walking with a purpose will keep me light on my feet. 

Choose Your Own Adventure Stories

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When I was studying abroad, I would often go outside my comfort zone because I knew it would make a good story. I was simultaneously adventuring and drafting narrative in my head, preempting which parts I would punctuate with exclamations. Not surprisingly, I lived good stories. Falling in crush with a British boy, meeting my French relatives, bartering at the market in Italy.

As I build my life, I've felt that sense of adventure wane. Why is this? Am I afraid? Am I lazy? Are my responsibilities tying me down? Does it not seem appropriate or "adult" to go parading? Is it money? Is it time? Where is the pull in my stomach and the fluttering in my heart that tells me, "This would make a great story."?

It's all still there, within within, and lifts its veil briefly whenever I am staring out my office window at a giant billboard urging me to visit Montana. I feel my mouth start to gape a bit, my eyes cease to whir with the light from the computer, my fingers relax from their claw-like typing positions, and I'm lost in a daydream. And this series of responses occur when I think of other things I'd like to do: perform burlesque, sing in a band, write a short story, see the northern lights, spend some time in the desert, ride an elephant, successfully grow something and eat it, shake a woman politician's hand, learn how to drive manual.

But more than these daydreams, I want to have my sense of adventure run through my veins like an electric current. Every day presents potential for expansion. Every day, I have the opportunity to open my heart to new ideas, new people, new things that I'm sure will one day make a great story.

Den of Thieves

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I put pressure on myself to be the best. My job, schoolwork or relationships become reflections of what I have to offer the world. If I am the best at my job, then and only then am I worthy of your time and love. I let this illusion play out until I'm standing on toothpick-thin stilts of imagined self-worth.

This self-imposed pressure disconnects me from what I can learn from others. When someone asks a really great question, or throws out a creative idea, I don't commend them. Instead, I berate myself for not thinking of it first. When I see others accelerate in their careers, I don't think about how great it is to surround myself with dedicated, ambitious people. Instead, my self esteem plummets because I am not the best and brightest. Never mind they have something different from what I want. I have failed. 

But there has to be more to me than my job. A little flicker of light within me refuses to dim. Berating myself is not going to help me ignite that spark. Yanking myself from the present moment with "shoulds" will not help me define what I believe to be success. These actions keep me locked into other people's ideas of what success looks like instead of defining my own. Instead, I will open myself to my own, toe-curling, arms-to-the-sky, full-throated rebel yell celebration of the present moment. Joy will be on my own terms, and I will give myself the gift of seeking it. 

Catch and Release

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"Free yourself from the burden of feeling the need to hold on to everything. Let go—you are a part of everything." – Steve Maraboli 

I tend to cling to reprimands and mistakes. "Should have's" play over and over again in my mind, revealing fresh hurt and regret every time. I grew comfortable with this routine until it became a part of my life. I began to expect that I would be disappointed in any situation, and by self-fulfilling prophecy, I got the small reward of the "I told you so" dance followed by the replaying of the mistake in my head again and again. 

Obsession wears on me. It takes up time and energy and ultimately does no good. I cannot go into the past and change it to my liking anymore than I can will the future to play out exactly as I want it to. Obsession effectively yanks me from the present moment and cuts me off from enjoying the pleasures of now. 

By letting go, I open myself up to receive what the present moment has to offer. I can cast my net wide and become human again, interacting and receiving and responding. The world becomes full of potential, rather than the place where I made that one wrong decision. The potential is effervescent, sparking and igniting the moment and lighting up my world.