good morning, neighbor.

(periphery)

It is finally growing warm enough to spend my mornings outside, as I love to do. Well I wouldn't call it warm, but with a giant sweatshirt and a cup of chamomile tea, it's doable for someone even as wimpy as me. Preston digs his nose into my legs, hiding himself under the table from the rambunctiousness of Fool 1 and Fool 2, who sprint in constant combat across the bricks. We are full on ghettoasis this morning; the bird songs, towering trees and sounds from the waterfall below could almost fool me into believing that the waterfall isn't made of urban litter (which I am not moving- love my trash waterfall!), that there aren't a couple of no-tell motels within walking distance. I love the contrasts. I love it here.

B loves the Cliff, too; but he doesn't love this particular neighborhood as I do. With no interest in the house, he is moving to another Cliffborhood. It is frightening, yes, the fact that he is finally leaving. I can feel one foot out of my comfort zone, and I feel quite naked. We have known this was coming for much longer than we have outed ourselves, and we kind of knew for much longer than even that. We are both peaceful and compassionate towards one another in this, and in that peace, we find our confidence that this is our best next step.

It is hard to explain to others why getting divorced is a step forward, mostly because it seems an unconventional line of thought to many. People who know us well know that we love to spend time together and that we rarely fight. They know that Bruce was wonderful to me when I was very sick, and that for a long time woke up an hour early every morning to make massive amounts of green juice to help me get better. They know I helped him through his mom's lymphoma last spring; they know he then helped me through my mom's lymphoma later that spring. They know we practice transcendental meditation together and go to one another for spiritual advice.

In spite of all of this, we feel like we have outgrown our time with one another as a married couple, that keeping our relationship in this capacity isn't best for us. Of course, there is always more; yet, even the unspoken "mores" don't really warrant being typed into words, because the point is we aren't thriving like this, and it is no one's fault. Does that make it a mistake? Not for me; I would do it exactly like this again. It has been a wonderful seven years of safety and stability, which I know I needed and will always be grateful for. Do I think I'll get married again? Well, I've learned to try not to say never, but I don't think so. I have questioned whether marriage was the right path for me for years, and I do think I needed to get married in order to have those intuitions confirmed. I may be with someone again; but, a forever promise just doesn't feel right. If forever happens, that would probably be lovely; but then, after the dust settles, most everything seems lovely anyways.

I remember learning about the Buddhist concept of impermanence from Lori when she was working brilliantly through reorganizing her life post-cancer. I recall reflecting on how special B was too me- How could it be that we are transient bubbles on a stream, no more connected to one another for eternity than any other two particular bubbles? How could it be that we could pop out of existence as individuals who felt so much compassion and connection for eachother, and just be water, sameness, perhaps even other bubbles down the stream? I still don't have an answer, but I've developed a haunch that our path is to follow our bliss, to float down stream; and maybe that the love and connections we find on that path are a reflection of the sameness and compassion that is core to the relationship that we all share...That the love we feel between two people is one of the greatest hints of all time, an analogy.

imprecision

Sometimes I think I have typed and writtten into journals SO MANY words, I mean, so many f****** words...trying to describe feelings and energies and gratitudes, and that what i will come to find is that there are no words, no piecemeal of phonemes carefully assembled -as much as i love them- that resonate at the precise level of any perception whatsoever. We can try, and it can be beautiful, but it will always just be an analogy.

the relativity of perception...the precision of essense

Reminds me, once again, of my favorite poem:

Persimmons

BY LI-YOUNG LEE

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker

slapped the back of my head

and made me stand in the corner

for not knowing the difference

between persimmon and precision.

How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.

Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.

Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one

will be fragrant. How to eat:

put the knife away, lay down newspaper.

Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.

Chew the skin, suck it,

and swallow. Now, eat

the meat of the fruit,

so sweet,

all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.

In the yard, dewy and shivering

with crickets, we lie naked,

face-up, face-down.

I teach her Chinese.

Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten.

Naked: I’ve forgotten.

Ni, wo: you and me.

I part her legs,

remember to tell her

she is beautiful as the moon.

Other words

that got me into trouble were

fight and fright, wren and yarn.

Fight was what I did when I was frightened,

Fright was what I felt when I was fighting.

Wrens are small, plain birds,

yarn is what one knits with.

Wrens are soft as yarn.

My mother made birds out of yarn.

I loved to watch her tie the stuff;

a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class

and cut it up

so everyone could taste

a Chinese apple. Knowing

it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat

but watched the other faces.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun

inside, something golden, glowing,

warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper,

forgotten and not yet ripe.

I took them and set both on my bedroom windowsill,

where each morning a cardinal

sang, The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding

he was going blind,

my father sat up all one night

waiting for a song, a ghost.

I gave him the persimmons,

swelled, heavy as sadness,

and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting

of my parents’ cellar, I rummage, looking

for something I lost.

My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,

black cane between his knees,

hand over hand, gripping the handle.

He’s so happy that I’ve come home.

I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.

All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find a box.

Inside the box I find three scrolls.

I sit beside him and untie

three paintings by my father:

Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.

Two cats preening.

Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,

asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,

the strength, the tense

precision in the wrist.

I painted them hundreds of times

eyes closed. These I painted blind.

Some things never leave a person:

scent of the hair of one you love,

the texture of persimmons,

in your palm, the ripe weight.

heaven unnoticed?

"Most people are so busy making improvements; they don't notice they just stepped out of heaven." Byron Katie

there is a lot number on my birth certificate.

(entry way of my "Cuban Family's" home)

True story. In the same genre, my mom and I used to have one tv which made the picture. On top of it? That's right: the tv with the sound. Sometimes we had to hit the bottom one just a little bit. This is a life skill I've taken into my profession.

6 year old: "The stapler is broke again."

me: "Did you try hitting it just a little bit?"

You know what is really comical, though? I used to think I was poor; I really thought that. I thought I was poor because we had thrift store Christmases sometimes. I thought I was poor because I was one of the few kids who had the special free lunch ticket. We lived in a trailer, and when we didn't, we were moving all the time. Didn't get braces. Went to the sliding scale clinic. I thought I was poor. I was poor, and others around me were rich.

Somehow, I reveled in this, starting pretty young. Our minds will do what they can to organize social ambiguity into something seemingly emotionally reliable. Pride. I felt proud not to care I was "poor," to be brave enough to invite my friends from beautiful homes into my little trailer. A humility which was it's own form of arrogance, somehow; I reveled in our differentness.

(happy accident in the ghettoasis)

My identification, my egoic hat if you will, hanging carefully on the hook of the deeper things in life, or so I thought. One more illusory division, or really, a failure to accept the illusory nature of our differences...whether I shop at a thrift store, or you have hair extensions...whether I read Vonnegut, or you read magazines...whether you volunteer your time with children, and I spend my time on myself...We are made of the same stuff. Somehow, I the best description I have for said stuff is: compassion. Peel the onion. Peel it. There is no core; that is a myth. Inside, is emptyness...pure potential...sameness....love.

I didn't always know this. I thought I did. Peel on, another layer. Lose count. The futility of being careful. Shed tear; the stinging, cleansing inevitability.

And then I met Invalvis, one lovely day in Havana. With her, once again, I met my own naivety.

More to come...

p.s. Then, I did not know this. And even knowing it now isn't enough; I feel this internal drive to see it, live amongst it. It just is.

I am...

...suggesting you may not want to read my little list...could be quite boring!

...needing to catch up on EVERYTHING! Reading my little, special-to-me blog friends, taking photos and uploading them here, being focused enough to write something sensible here.

...finally reading The Alchemist

...hoping I will enjoy it as much as 11 Minutes; this is a bit of a guilty love, as it's explores the spirituality of sexuality. I believe it is the outlier among his books.

...wondering if Paulo Coelho would accept a date with me

...am getting divorced. Yes, you read that right. No dramas. No scandals. Will expound later. Hard to explain, but it is a move forward for us both, and neither of us see our relationship as a mistake. We remain good friends. We have been, believe it or not, more or less separated for about a year- it is still hard, of course, because it is the human condition to feel dissonance over the ambiguity which is woven into life's big changes; it is also exciting and hopeful, if that makes sense. On my Cuba trip, this wonderful, full of light woman from San Francisco, had my favorite reaction so far. No "sorry.: No "I feel so bad." No "how unfortunate." She just said, "Peace to you in your lovely transition." And that is all it is; because isn't that all anything is? Lovely? It happened exactly as it was supposed to. How do I know? Because that is what happened. It was lovely. And now it is something else. And that is lovely, too.

...questioning the practicality of marriage; have you seen Ira + Abby?

...reading like a zillion books at once...personal finance, global economy, freelance writing, etc.

...Doing the Body For Life program. I've been rocking out the gym in general for awhile now. Things keep getting smaller, but I'd like to have more choice in the engineering of the shapes on my body! So, BFL, in a nut shell, = less, more intense cardio + lots more weight training.

...I'm working tons extra so that I can afford some fabulousness, of which I will speak once it has happened (remember, I have become superstitious about mentioning).

...Was all set to move to Shanghai. Really. Did not turn out to make sense for this year, as the job I REALLY want turned out to be in Hong Kong, and I am not qualified until I have had some Montessori training. So, seems best to stay here a year or two at the job I already know I love rather than take a 2 year interim job. Also, it will be difficult to be Montessori trained in China, as you have to pay the entire fee up front, and it is very expensive. I've come to believe Montessori was a genius; constructivism is the pedagogy of awakening the senses, engaging the intellect...which can save the world, I truly believe.

...still continuing my little obsession with China. I very much feel a deep drive to experience living there, and to lean into my nomadic side in general- to feed what has become a passion for two way dual language programs, which I believe are a pedagogy of world peace. I knew I'd get hired at this job in Shanghai, but something I've realized about myself is that I will not be happy without nature all around me. Shanghai will not have that. HK is polluted, yes, but beautiful. I do not know if I can explain my need for this move; it is almost an intuition, a pull, more than anything. I can tell you it has something to do with the environment, with communism, the concept of oppression in cultures, globalization. When I came to understand the seriousness of the pollution in some Asian cities, I cannot explain how this hit me. I thought of the children living there, how spiritually oppressive that must be, living in such degradation; I felt (feel) this drive to see it, to go to the source to define my convictions, to be intimate with it. This is part of why I went to Cuba- to go to the source to define my convictions- and on the last day, I was overcome with emotion because I realized that I could no better define my conviction the final day than I could when I booked the trip. In a way, I did, though, because I made the Howard Thurman quote from the previous post into my religion, and I have been living it ever sense.

...honestly reveling in another year or two with my lovely little house, my happy little prius (who taught me to like to drive!), the best job in the world, and the best neighborhood in the world!

...speaking of my job, I'm getting my first student teacher! I'm such a nerd about the responsibilities of teachers to engage in critical pedagogy rather than bitch of how difficult we have it bc of testing dramas, that I am thrilled to share my room. I would love to teach teachers someday; I am so passionate about turning on little minds, to think I could help connect someone with what makes them come alive...more so than ever after teaching in the state that led the country in the push for oppressive, low level overtesting. It feels systematic to me...a systematic dulling of the intellect, a systematic training of "in the box" thinking. It feels like Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron.

this was acutally legal (promise)

I went to Cuba. I realized it is my first island. I saw lots of 50's American cars.

True to my travel nature, I mostly veered from the group and wondered on my own; this is how I like to travel. I find 99 percent of people a bit too needy to travel with, as I like to go off on my own with little notice, and it can piss others off. It's not you; it's me. On my adventures, I met a wonderful Cuban family. Here I am (I don't love this pic of me, but it's all I have with my friend!) with Inalvis. She is a nurse. 34. Master's degree. Fluent in English. Working on French. Of course, not allowed to leave the country to visit the places in which these languages are relevant. Oppression weighs heavy on my heart during the trip, as I spend time with my friend. I am certain we will meet again, when I return to Cuba; maybe somehow she will someday be able to visit here.

The tourists' view of Havana.

Beautiful, breath-taking "Old Havana."

I went tentative, but kind of thinking I'd gain a greater respect for Marx, Che...Instead, I am in a state of wondering...though an obvious ideal, can systems such as these exist realistically outside of a vacuum? As "lefties," it can be convenient and even hip to love Che; the irony of the commoditization of the famous print of him cannot escape us, of course! Do they have homelessness, abject poverty, a literacy problem?? No, and that is amazing for a developing nation; however, I am in dissonance, especially over who feels like my Cuban sister, for example. ... how we are both educated, professionals, about the same age...but do I believe that she has human rights? Can I place a value on dreams? Aspirations? Is it true what Jeffrey Sachs seems to hint at in his book, The End of Poverty, that there is something ingenious that is inherent in systems like capitalism (obviously not unbridled, multinational, monopolized versions...including corporate dictatorship)...that will lead to innovations which will lead to the end of poverty much more efficiently and realistically than systems of strict government control? I almost can't believe I am saying some of this. Instead of being overwhelmed, I am taking solace in the following quote by Howard Thurman, a mentor of MLK:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

-Howard Thurman

feel.

I know. Lots of quotes lately. And lots of not being here. I have been input rather than output as of late; no apologies, of course, as we follow our impulses as our life's treasure map.

You wait until I tell you how much is changing; it's literally (expletive) unbelievable. Of course, I am not telling it today. :)

I cannot describe what has been happening to me (and I believe to B, too, although I will have to tell you about that later), as in the synchronicities, vividly clear "messages" from the universe, or rather, vividly clear decisions to make. Everything is so, so clear and beautiful; I realize I sound like I'm holding a giant hookah, however have seldom meant something more than this.

I tend to believe that this fresh mental and emotional spaciousness, clarity, arises from practicing transcendental meditation for the past five months; as in perhaps it has given mental spaciousness to unblock parts of myself which were impeding living a more authentic life...more authentically aligned with my soul's desires/purposes. I truly believe that our bliss, our hearts desires, are our compass from the universe toward our most authentic and fulfilled life.

Our prefrontal lobe, our planning brain, is often merely in the way; yet, oh, the many ways I've given this sterile driver the wheel. I mean, it drives safely and pragmatically enough.; however, it seems to regularly misunderstand and limit the vehicle in which it navigates. I think of it like driving a Taurus, quite exceptionally, working so diligently to rock out this Taurus. The often unrealized irony is that while you were thinking so diligently, carefully controlling each nuance of the gas pedal, the break and perhaps the gears, you failed to notice you haven't been in a Taurus at all, but in the Batmobile...or a spaceship.

I will speak about the changes very soon. It's pretty unbelievable. I've never probably felt more alive or sure of things or open or peaceful. Having said that, there is a part of me that is just afraid out of my mind. And that is my intention for this stage of my life, in a way...Feel the anxiety, the fears of truly living a non-sedated life. Be comfortable uncertainty, tolerate discomfort, especially the discomfort of not knowing. Be open. Let go of ego. Remember one of the most important universal truths I've come to deeply believe as of late: Ego is never personal; love always is. I know it to be true deep in my core, and when I let that truth be my veil in the world, everything wonderful comes to me somehow, esp as it pertains to my relationships with others. The sanity in others, the compassion which is their true essence, arises when one does not react to ego, knowing it is not personal...and finds the morsels, however small, of compassion, taking them in like the carefully wrapped gift that they are in their essence. But, the fear? Yeah, I feel it. Sometimes, at least. Sometimes, I find ways to avoid it. These words, by Pema Chodron, are such a poignantly apt description of where it is that I am right now, and where it is that I am going. Peace.

Impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage. And so does fear. In fact, anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present, without a reference point, experiences groundlessness. That's when our understanding goes deeper, when we find that the present moment is a pretty vulnerable place and that this can be completely unnerving and completely tender at the same time.

What we're talking about is getting to know fear, becoming familiar with fear, looking it right in the eye -- not as a way to solve problems, but as a complete undoing of old ways of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and thinking. The truth is that when we really begin to do this, we're going to be continually humbled. Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there in nowhere to escape.