A Tantrum Over Attachment

You can barely see it, right?

A beautiful new book purchased as research for writing my fiction sits innocently on the café table.  When I fan the pages to indulge in the fresh press smell, it mocks me.  But I don’t recognize its unfamiliar, bogus tone as I replace it on the table close to me, in order to appreciate it with frequent lover’s glances.  I turn to a gifted, used, older book with great wisdom on how to write dialogue and forget about my infatuation with the new book.  Journaling ferociously about soliloquies and foils, I have gracefully begun courting the Muse.

In my altered state, my fleece entrenched arms reach around my full, carnation-white mug to consult my laptop for definitions and synonyms.  Jersey-cow colored coffee spills all over my new, slighted book with unrequited love, my spill-proof mug sitting nearby, unused.  A puddle rests on my laptop, but I am more concerned about my new book.  My most prized possessions are my books, especially the brand new ones, impregnated with unique word sequences and immaculate odors.

My face falls like the girl who got the wrong Barbie for Christmas.  It’s all wrong.  Ruined.  I throw an internal tantrum at my stupidity.  Having told myself several times to move the mug, I now torment myself with reminders of my responses:  I’ll be careful.  I know it’s there.  Holding my once perfect lover now mysteriously disfigured, I get up to retrieve a towel to begin sopping up the mess.  My writing friends exclaim, “It has character now.”  “It’s not so bad – just a few pages got it.”

And they are right.

Attachment to my books has lessened over the years, but today I realize it still needs work.  They are not my lover, slighted or otherwise.  They take turns sitting on the shelf, sometimes neglected for years.  They are pages that desire a life well lived, not unlike myself.  But instead of being thankful for the coffee stains and dog-ears on my pages, the deeply creased spine and curling leafs, I have been careful with my life, fearful of survival, pleasure and everything in between.

I will forever look at this book and be reminded of that morning in the café with my friends.  I am glad for the stains and reminded to pursue the more adventurous life that I dream of.  And that adventurous life has begun with the shifting of attachment and fear to the willingness and cultivation of the marred, perfectly imperfect page of my life.

Ghost is a Verb

The Ever-Faithful Guide, the Wisconsin River

Traveling through the Driftless Region of South Western Wisconsin several times over the last three weeks reminded me of how much I love this terrain.  Leaving my Iowan home well before sunrise in my little blue car, I travel carefully with the limiting headlights illuminating my way.  Once I cross the boarder into, the great Wisconsin River greets me, reflecting streetlights in its oily, still surface.  Comforted by its presence, I let it guide me to my destination.

I imagine the river is still asleep, unmoving, like resting bodies behind the dark-windowed homes I pass.  Winter has stripped the trees of their leaves to reveal their stark naked forms in my headlights creeping up on me until they go whizzing past.

As I drive into daylight, I am reminded that this is the only way out of darkness – stay awake and keep going.

Silhouetted trees, now darker than their brightening surroundings, stand alert as though waiting to cross the street or wave at me as I pass.  The river is becoming more visible, the color of the barrel of a rifle.  The grays and browns of winter before snow become more visible.

Paying homage to my racecar driver DNA, I accelerate through the winding, tree lined road, fully aware that I could drive right into the river, should my eyes linger there too long.  The road becomes less claustrophobic now as the river and trees retreat, revealing wide-open farmland, illuminated farmhouse windows and barns, fog in the now distant hills.  I still feel the presence of the river to my south even though I can’t see it.

I wonder if Batman knows about this place...

I pass through the not-so-mythical city of Gotham, WI, now ten miles from my destination:  sunrise and a morning of writing with friends.

My return trip home is in daylight, back down the same road that brought me here, still guided by the river, yet a completely different experience.  It’s now fully daytime, cloudy and the muted lighting is enough to illuminate things that the night hid.

Two more hours of meditation by the hum of my engine and the passing landscape reveal marshy vistas along the river, a horse farm in town and a yard covered in plastic Santas (in hindsight, I wish I’d stopped to get a picture of that!).  Feeling pleased with my day, I suddenly remember the black dog that ghosted into my headlights on the drive here and hope that I do not see him on my return trip.

Maybe, It Pretty Much Always Means No

“It seems to me that maybe, It pretty much always means no.” ~ Jack Johnson, Flake 

Have you ever tried to make plans with someone, they respond with, “Maybe,” and you just know they are saying it to be nice?  They have no intention of finalizing any plans with you.  I understand if someone needs to check his or her calendar or see about other potential plans, but being strung along just feels crummy.  Unless you’re a highly trained, well-bred Greyhound, chasing the bone around the track may not be very gratifying.  Applying the Toltec Four Agreements has helped me move on, but the Fifth has helped me capture the elusive prize.

The Fifth Agreement is:

Be Skeptical, But Learn To Listen

“Be skeptical is masterful because it uses the power of doubt to discern the truth.”  Initially, I wanted to reject this agreement.  I don’t want to walk around all day doubting the words coming out of people’s mouths.  Believing what people say is what I was taught, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Even my own self-talk is what I had come to believe, “I can’t do that.  Who do you think you are?”

Having sufficient evidence that the other four agreements forever changed my life for the better, I continued to turn the page, be skeptical, and listen.  By adopting an attitude of doubt, I can question the truth in what’s being said.  My truth.  I can agree, disagree or not engage at all.  In the case of my own self-talk, anything that goes against my true nature of love can be transformed.  The First Agreement of Be Impeccable with Your Word helps me with this.  With diligence (Agreement Four), I can attain the prize.

And what is the elusive prize?  You decide.  Don’t believe my version of it.  But here it is in the instance that I’ve hooked your attention:  It’s not some cheap plastic bone at the end of a competitive sprint.  But energy I have lost by investing myself in any message that is not true.  When my doubt announces that maybe means no, I resume my life enlisting the tools of Agreements Two and Three.  And every now and again, I am pleasantly surprised when maybe means yes.

The Five Agreements:

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally

3. Don’t Make Assumptions

4. Always Do Your Best

5. Be Skeptical, But Learn To Listen

Let it Be

Dearest Friend,

I’ve been sitting in sadness these last twenty-four hours – perhaps longer.  Finally allowing myself to feel it, I am overcome by the absence of friends and family.  You are the most precious of these to me in ways unimaginable.

Thank you so much for all your support, I feel it, I welcome it, I add my essence and send it back.  Your support, your unconditional love, carries me deeper into sadness because you are there and I am here.

My tears fall on seemingly barren terrain – my pink, emotion-heated flesh, the hard, impenetrable table of where I sit and write this – and then I realize these tears nurture the invisible.

The terrain of my soul, dry and cracked as deep winter dermal, consumes the first tear in a flash, as though it never arrived.  I unwittingly send more.  And more.  Soon my soul breathes.  Soon it is ready.  Soon the sadness transforms itself.  Into what, I don’t know yet.  I just let it be.  For now.

Until I see you again, feel your heart pound against mine, I commune with your soul and feel less sad.

Love, Soul