DatingGod

Gorgeously Lost, Always Home

During the work week, I wake at 5:45 every morning, in order to be at work by 7:50. On the weekends I sleep in til the grand hour of 7 am, which means that I loll around snuggling kitties, drinking decaf coffee, surfing the net, eating breakfast, and then it's still just 9 am. 

On Sundays, what that means is that I pack up a water bottle, some aromatherapy bug spray, some SPF30, and Burt's Bees honey lip balm and head out for a hike somewhere. Today, I went to a state park on one of the local islands. I hiked around in the marshes and alongside the sound, tromping through sand for a while, then forest for a lot longer. Five or six miles worth. Spiderwebs rigged between bushes and trees and sturdy grasses, boobytraps for getting webs wrapped all up in my hair, my mouth, until I wised up and swished a stick back and forth in front of me as I walked. Little crabs scurried, creating a wide path for my passage.

I've been to this park before, walked on all the trails that said OPEN. And so today I let myself loose onto the CLOSED trails, and happily got lost for an hour or so, winding back onto the regular trails, then skipping back offroad for another clandestine romp. I found a broken footbridge that I shimmied up and over. I walked around a pond that was ringed with thousands and thousands of broken glass bottles, most of them from the sixties, seventies. I saw two deer dash away from me, elongated shadows gently crashing through the underbrush. Butterflies, so very many butterflies, bright blue and black and yellow, pale white. A brief flash of bright red, a cardinal with a long white string in its beak.

I start out the hikes a little crabby, a little argumentative in my own head. I know better than to fight it, or to try and force it to be gone. With about an hour's worth of patience, the sea breeze and smell of forest and sense of excited adventure that yes, I just might indeed be Really Lost, the crabby turns to sweet, the landscape of my head widens out and releases the tumbleweeds from the week, and all is well in lungs and heart and head.

By noon, I come back to the apartment. I've discovered that going back to the computer quickly drains the bank account that the forest and the sea just shored up. So instead I clean my house, do laundry and hang the sheets out in the brilliant Carolina sun to dry, make ridiculously healthy food for the coming week's lunches, run errands to the co-op, the gas station, come back to the loll about in the barcalounger and read (today's offering was Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter). 

And I snuggle kitties. Oh, how the kitties get snuggled. Friday night I went back to the local pet-megastore, where the local cat rescue had a new passle of kitties for sale. The goal was to bring Baby Wallace home a brother. But the brother wasn't there. Lots of cute fuzzballs, but none that I looked at, who looked at me, with recognition, revealed that I'd found Beauregard, the next member of out family whose black and white face I've begun dreaming about. 

I smooch Baby Wallace's sweet face (even though he is big and not a baby any more) and tell him: next week, my little fire puma, next week we'll bring you home a brother. And he licks my fingers, much like The Hoon used to do, and sighs, and does that heavy breathing purr of his, and curls up in my arms, and passes out, small snot snores in my ear. And Jacinta says, yes . . . yes . . . yessssssss . . .  

Volume Down

So much noise in our world. So very much gol-dang frakkin cacophonous vibration in heart and mind and body and spirit. 

What I'm probably doing is turning down the volume knob on everything in my living. Meat and sugar and alcohol and baked goods cause noise in the body. Spiritual seeking and god-chasing causes noise in the spirit. Human love causes noise in the heart. And listening to people's opinions and beliefs and perspectives and judgments and details on just how fantabulous they are is very very noisy inside the mind. 

And so I let them all go. All the things and people and situations that resonate as noise in me. 

Because what would happen in the absence of all that noise? What would I begin to hear? What sound is behind the noise? What lies underneath the wailing and happiness and depression and rage and boredom, the minute by minute rising and crashing waves of what it is to be human in 2009?

Maybe on the other side of this lies the knowledge that these things and people and situations were never noise causers, only outside reflections of the noise present inside of me. There's probably some truth in that. But it's most likely that I've just grown the huevos to name noise as what it is. But maybe on the other side of this, the noise won't hurt so much. Maybe I too will find joy in the Mart of Wal.

Who knows? 

All I know is that the more I turn down the volume, the larger the Yes grows. And that's all that matters anymore. 

Learned Passivity

I need to live with animals, can't imagine living without furry weasels roaming about. But I understand a little of what it costs them. 

All of the animals I bring in are rescues. If I hadn't have taken them in, they likely wouldn't have found homes. Jacinta was rescued from behind a dumpster, where her alcoholic human caretaker had thrown her when he'd broken her leg when she was four months old. The Hoon and Grandma were found in a strange, dark "pet store" in Brooklyn NY that also housed rescued animals. And Wallace, with his many dings and snots and goo would have most likely been a hard sell for anyone other than me and my dreams of him.

But when they come and live with me, they give up the outdoors, the catching and biting the heads off birds, of stalking the wild salamander, the grass rolling and fence climbing and sun lolling. Because of my choice of suburban or urban living, their experience of nature is through a window. Kitty tv I call it, like most people do, but I've stopped laughing when I say it now.

When Wallace first got here, he practically hurled himself against the screens to get at the birds and bugs and wiggly things. But over the months, he's learned that the things outside can't be gotten to. And so he watches. He sits at the window, body draped on a table or a chair, or propped up on a pillow in bed. His paws rest on the window sill. And he watches, eyes darting wildly as the bird flies not ten inches from where he salivates. But he's learned not to move. Only his eyes reveal how excited he is, how engaged. Except for his twitchy tail of course. 

I bet this is how I look at night, curled up on the barcalounger, watching my latest hulu or sidereel obsession: The Mentalist, John Doe, Century City. During the day, I listen to other people's stories, at night I watch other people's stories. 

Wallace is kept from the world for his own safety, kept in a box because of the horrors of speeding cars and virulent fleas and illnesses. I'm in my box because of choice, because of a belief that the world of human interactions holds little interest for me. But is this true? This watching? This safety?

Chimps and the Mute Button

A few days ago a friend sent out an email saying that he'd closed his blog down. I wrote back asking why. He wrote back that he felt that his posts were too negative, that he didn't have anything to offer folks. I wrote something back - something about my own blog and how part of the reason I'd stopped blogging was along the same lines. And he wrote back with the url for a secret password protected blog with a single post. I read it and the first thought was: wow, what a great post. So full of truth and life, really upfront about the struggle of waking up, casting off the self, the tricky foxes that live in the mind. The second thought was: wow, if he had posted that for the internet masses they would have savaged him. Because over the past six years I've posted oh so very many similar pieces, and if I had a dime for every negative, mean-spirited, passive aggressive, gum-flappy or simply flat out nasty comment or email I've received I'd be buying a 1000-acre compound deep in the woods and hiring a personal gourmet vegetarian chef.

Does this itself sound mean? Judgmental? Harshly unspiritual? It isn't. It's simply honest, which is what this blog has always been about. Always. But the internet is the great clearinghouse for the screaming chimps. Behind the electronic screen and the anonymity it brings, the chimp is unleashed, and the bile, it flows. On one level, you feel sorry for them. But after a while, it's just annoying, then finally, boring. 

It's like walking down the street, and a stranger comes up to you. Their face is a little familiar, but you don't really know them. You say hi, smile. And they say: 

You know, those shoes you're wearing are really ugly. I would never wear such shoes. The heels on them are going to give you corns and bunions and hammer toes and a hunch back and halitosis. So take them off! Take them off right now! Because I ended up with halitosis from wearing heels like that and I really wish I hadn't worn them, even if it did mean that I felt that they made my calves look pretty on that date with Horace Van Pelt. You know it's really stupid to wear heels like that. And besides, I saw the same pair on someone on the "worst dressed list" so you really laid an egg when you whipped out your wallet, huh? And by the way, your hair looked way better when I saw you at the grocery store last week . . . Hey, would you like to go get a cup of coffee? I'd love to tell you about my colon problems and the sadness from my failed marriages and the betrayal from my so-called friends and how I'm a writer though I never actually sit down and write anything. No? You don't want to go have coffee with me? Are you kidding me? You mean, horrible, nasty person! You suck! You suck! You suck! {reaches into purse and hurls wads of used kleenex at you, then stalks off, cell phone clicked open, calling everyone they know to tell them what a mean, horrible, nasty person you are}.

Of course, most of the emails and comments are lovely or supportive or gentle or warmly shared or contain invites to tropical sanctuaries or are full of insight or provide proof that someone out there really really Gets It. Which is why it's taken me this long to get to the place where I take the action I'm now taking. It's not about shutting the blog down. That wouldn't feel true. It's about closing the comments. And stating that at the first whiff of negative and/or mean-spiritedness and/or passive aggressiveness, I'm going to delete without reading the emails that come in. I've been doing the latter for a couple of years now, but to state it right out here on the old blog makes it all clear and upfront and makes plain to the bullet-headed, wackadoo screaming chimps, the mute button on their sad howls has been pressed. 

The internet is an awesome place, and I believe in it, believe in the freedom of speech it provides, the global access folks have to one another because of it. Look at what's happening in China, in Iran because of the net. But at this stage of evolution, most folks can't handle free speech, don't know what to do with it, can't handle the responsibility of it. And so they use it to celebrate the damage of their ego, to punch as many folks as they can access in hopes it'll make them not feel so weak and powerless in their lives, to try and suppress anyone who dares to step away from the pack that they hate and yet will defend to the death, to validate their own life choices no matter that those choices have led them to a place that feels neither free nor awake.  

There is a screaming, bullet-headed, wackadoo chimp that lives inside of me, too. And I've been fortunate enough, have worked so dang hard to shut it down, keep it from poisoning the folks around me. Sometimes this means that I stay away from folks these days, because if that's what it takes in this space of my living, I'll dang skippy do it. And the chimp may still scream, but I don't unleash it on others. I don't leave f*cked up comments on people's websites, don't send hateful, arrogant emails. 

With one exception. Ever so often, someone will catch me in a vulnerable space. I'll have been up half the night dreaming about The Hoon, waking up repeatedly, crying. Or I'll come home from a savage day in cubicleland where folks have told me that they have lost their homes and are living in their car and are totally broke and haven't eaten in two days, and they call me from the emergency room because they've committed themselves and I'm the only person in their world who they can think of will listen to them, and all I can feel is how f*cked up the world is, how hateful and sad and mean and unfair. Or I'll have eaten something with fat in it and the digestive enzymes won't help and I spend an hour yakking my brains out. And I'll turn on my computer and there it will be: that goddang chimp screaming about how ugly they think my shoes are. And in the moment, the screaming chimp that still lives inside of me feels justified, and I shoot off a f*ck you. And I instantly regret it, because all it means is that the screaming chimp on the other end will fire off an even more hateful collection of words, and the screaming chimps, they will still be screaming. And once again I'll turn away from the screamer inside of me, refuse to let it take action, but the pattern has been set in motion. The screaming chimp that initiated the contact will continue to send screams for many many weeks, which because of the delete button, are more like tiny squeaks, but I have to face the fact that I let the screamer in me out, and that means that the self scored another few minutes of life, and that, yes that, is unacceptable.

Somewhere down the line, when the screaming chimp inside of me is only an echo, I'll open the comments back up. Maybe. I'll answer more emails. Maybe. Or maybe not. Who knows? If we're lucky and aware and willing, we know the next step and have the courage and spine and huevos to take it. This is my next step. And I salute you, fellow oak, compadre in the boat next to me, human being on their own trek in the deep dark woods, if you feel to keep swaying in the wind or paddling or crawling alongside me for a bit.

And so this blog morphs again. But without the input of the folks who still come here, the salty and the sweet, the screamers and the singers, the folks who have surrendered to the Almighty Yes and the folks who still think that really, their screaming chimp is actually kinda cute and smart and funny and helpful. I keep writing to this blog because I somehow feel that it's important to leave breadcrumbs. Maybe it's just for me, to empty the knowledge of where this step is, or that one. Or maybe it's the last vestiges of self, spasming on the floor. Or maybe it's something I haven't thought of, don't know about, won't get til later. But I do know this: I'll keep writing, and it will shift to reflect the new changes inside, because for now, it's what's true for for this being that goes by the name of Katherine and Kate and Kathy and Kat and DatingGod.

And so I say:

Death to the screaming chimps! Long live the Nothing! All hail the Great Laughing Whatever! 

May this post find you deep inside your own awakening, and may surrender rule this great land . . . 

Pulsing

Sundays I clean, do laundry, go for a hike at the nature preserve down by the ocean. Starting in the afternoon, I cook my meals for the week's lunches: kale and collards, quinoa and lentils, brown rice and black beans, salads with avocado and toasted pumpkin seeds and olives and slivers of red onion. Today I'm cooking a special late lunch for myself: lasagna made with rice noodles and organic mozzarella. It's the first time I've had cheese in a couple of months. This is the sound of me taking many extra enzyme capsules, while also salivating, oh good lord, yes.

Wallace grows big and strong. Still with dings here and there, signs that the virus is still not fully vanquished, but he is fluffy and sweet and full of the punk lusciousness of a pink skinned, red-furred adolescent. Jacinta snuggles and growls and smiles and naps and snacks and has many siestas in her cave up in the laundry closet. We are family. I got all my fuzzies with me. even the ashes of The Hoon and Grandma Booty are parked next to the bed so that we still do family sleeps every night.

My novel came in third in the novel contest's paranormal genre. Sure, there were only three entries, but the editor that did the judging passed on a note to me that said she found the writing fresh, the heroine strong, the novel partial very readable, and that would like to read the whole novel, to please send it to her. I never thought for a second that I'd win any aspect of the contest. But I knew that I should enter. Now I know why. Or at least a part of the why. More shall be revealed. 

I've been on four public health job interviews in the last two months. None as horrible as the first, but still, not a single one of them what I'd call wonderful. And of course no job offer. Except for my cubicleland social work job. It looks like they are going to offer me a full time job with benefits. And I will most likely accept it. Because the whole deal these days is to do what is in front of me, to stay out of my head, out of fantasy and conjecture and thought and do the next practical thing. It doesn't matter what I "prefer" or "don't prefer". It's about doing the next thing. And then finding the ways that it fits, playing the notes it demands. Wax on, wax off. Just do it and the mouth, keep it shut.

I got asked out a couple of weeks ago by a ridiculously hot guy. After a few hours of fluttering stomach and peachfish contractions I got: not this. And so after he'd called me a couple of times, left me a couple of notes at my cubicleland job, I turned him down. He keeps calling, but I don't answer my phone anymore. It isn't about whether he's cute or interesting. It's about whether his energy fits with what I'm doing, if being around him feels like a Yes. It doesn't, and so I spend gentle evenings snuggled with kitties. 

I'm happier than I've been in a long time. A rhythm is pulsing strongly. I'm grateful. And I plan on continuing to show it respect by only engaging in actions that contribute to it's lovely luscious basso thumpthump, thumpthump, thumpthump.

Life is good . . .