Who told you to stop~ Marty Kantrowitz

I, sometimes, imagine my life with no husband or child...Or maybe I imagine my life before them and what it could have been. Not in a "what the hell am I doing with my life" sort of way but, in the nostalgic, "what could have been" way.

We all have dreams. And if we are alive, we keep living and seeing that some of our dreams and wants are not happening or did not happen as we thought, as we hoped or as we dreamed. And I find it so easy to romanticize that which I have not lived as being the perfect version of me and my life. I imagine the things that I wanted so badly when I was 10 years old, being what I am today.

And then I am struck with the wonder of what IS. I mean what really is! It's so easy to think that which could have been and is not, is the perfect scenario. It's an easy cop out: I know this cause I've walked down this road many times before. It's so easy to feel constricted by the demands of our today and hear a, "stop dreaming, you will not and can not be what you longed to be". It's easy to hear that someone else is stopping us and telling us, "No!": our husbands, our children, our jobs, our...LIVES.

What takes energy and gives such purpose is seeing...I mean really seeing what is before me and the beauty and magic it holds. A husband who loves me and in no way asks me to be anything other than who I am. A daughter that thinks I hold the moon and the sun in my hands and wants to be me when she grows up. A life that offers me unconditional love and support. I couldn't have dreamnt this! It's better than the nostalgic, "what could have been". It is alive with what IS and teaming with possibility.

I watched a movie called, "A walk on the moon". In this movie the wife cheats on her husband with this incredibly sexy free spirit of a man who sells blouses...(I know, but he looked AMAZING). She cheats because she felt robbed of the life she dreamnt of as a young girl. She felt that she couldn't dream and do anymore, that she had stopped existing and had disappeared. When her husband finds out, he, of course, is pissed. She tells him how it wasn't him, but her. she had dreams and she needed to try to touch them. He asks her one question, "who told you to stop (being you)?". He tells her he had dreams too. Opportunities dashed and what could have been, not being.

You see, he never did tell her to stop being who she was. She heard it from life rolling as it does and her not taking the steps to reinvigorate her life be who she hoped to be. It's so easy to look around and blame our not living life out loud and in compliance with the BIG DREAM of our childhood, on others. On life. But maybe, the life that we have is different and better than the dream and our living with each other changes the terrain of the dream, giving it more depth and richness. Maybe the living is better than the dream and if the living isn't better, then WE make the changes! Because, who told you to stop? Not me~

If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down on a, bed of roses
Sink me in the river, at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song

Lord make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors, oh and Life ain't always what you think it ought to be, no
Ain't even grey, but she buries her baby~ The Band Perry

My friend's daughter died. She died at 6 years old. She had a rare form of cancer that she fought valiantly for 2 years. And, every minute of every day that she fought to live, her parents believed for her to get better. Yet, she died quietly cocooned in her bed on a sunny afternoon. How do you make sense of something that seems so, so messed up? How do you keep going after what you believed for, hoped for...with all your might and strength...fails?

I don't know. But what I do know is that while Victoria was fighting for her life, friends from all over stepped up to help her parents care for their other two children who were healthy and strong and needed to be places, fun kid places, other than a hospital. One of those other kids was a baby. And, an amazing couple stepped up to love on him and embrace him into their fold whenever needed: this turned out to be often. More often than my friends wanted, but exactly what they needed since their new address was a room in the children's hospital. So like I said, after many many nights and days and moments that turned into years, Victoria went to sweet sweet sleep forever.

My friend was at the store the other day and she ran into the family that had really stepped up to the plate with her baby boy. The wife said something to my friend that she had never told her before. She told her that they had adopted a baby from China and were headed back to adopt their second child. She told her that it was in taking care of her baby boy while his big sister took on the battle of a generation that they learned how deeply they could love a child who shared no DNA with them. Do you hear that?!! While Victoria was dying, they were caring for her baby brother. And while caring for him, they fell in love. A love so deep that it changed the make up of their hearts and made them get on a plane, fill out endless paper work and travel thousands of miles to an orphanage in China and get their babies! Changing the lives of 2 Chinese children FOREVER!

So it goes like this, Victoria got sick, her parents lived by her side at the hospital, baby brother is taken care of by a family without children, they fall in love, their lives and heart are forever changed, this spurs them to action to adopt 2 Chinese babies, they get on a plane to China, they go to an orphanage and get their children, their lives are changed and their new children's future looks like daylight after the longest night ever seen.

So how do you keep putting one foot in front of the other when all that you've hoped for has failed and left you? You think about all of the wonderful details that are so beyond you right now that are weaving together to sew a cloak of grace and mercy throughout the topography of your life that you haven't yet walked on. I'm doing it right now. Thank you Victoria~

When you compare yourself to others only two things occur, you find yourself better or less than the other.

Neither is good~ unknown

I have a slow metabolism. I eat the same thing as the reasonable person next to me and I gain weight. I restrict myself to 1200 calories and I don't lose a pound. Not a stinking pound. So you see how easy it was for me to walk around feeling sorry for myself.

I went to my doctor with this sob story, ready for him to commiserate with me and tell me how he had some magic pill or advice that would make me skinny. So I sat there on the examination table with my robe on, naked and cold and started telling my doctor how slow my metabolism was. I wanted him to tell me how sorry he felt for me and how skinny people are the devil. Instead, in response to my, "my metabolism is so slow" my doctor looked nonchalantly at his computer and said, "what the hell does that mean?" He said, "it is irrelevant what someone else needs calorically, what is important to understand in a meaningful way is, what CHA needs".

So whether it's calories, houses, cars or jobs...it's not important what anyone else needs to be their highest and best. It matters what you need~

May God bless and keep you always

May your wishes all come true

May you always do for others

And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung

May you stay forever young~

Bob Dylan

Mother Jones would declare she was going to be with Jesus every Sunday morning with a tambourine in her hand. I mean every Sunday she would say in the middle of service that Jesus was calling her home today. It never seemed strange then. It seemed as normal as her starting the whole church singing a tune she felt and loved in her bones,

"Lord I'm striving to make 100 (one hunerd), 99 1/2 won't due"

She would be wailing and moving back and forth, hitting that tambourine on her thigh and making a chorus of her own: convinced that any minute she was going to tambourine it right into heaven and stand before Jesus. The theatrics of this was beautiful to me. But, I get it more now than then. Why she couldn't die at her home by herself, but only on a Sunday in a small church packed with people, with a tambourine in hand and a song in her mouth was lost to my 7 year old self. But my 36 year old self gets it.

Every human being needs to be seen. Needs to feel seen. Every human being needs feel that they are important. That some how, their being here on this earth matters. And in a small church packed with about 75 people singing loud and strong to a God they believed in with all their might, and Mother Jones being the Mother of that fold and being honoured as such, I suspect in that moment, Mother Jones felt seen. Felt important and as if she mattered!

Why wouldn't she want to go to heaven in a moment like this? From my current vantage point, ain't no shame in it. While she may have been more theatrical in her need to be seen and embraced in "you matter", she was NOT unique.

We all want to be seen and surrounded by, "you matter". Because we do matter and the echoing back of this truth corrects our course faster than chocolate melting on a sidewalk. So in moments where you forget your value, or the "you matter" in your days, just think of Mother Jones and her tambourine singing you a song like she'll never sing again. Simply because, YOU MATTER~

p.s. Mother Jones died peacefully in her sleep 2 years ago at 111 years old...looks like 99 1/2 was left in the dust...

Leaning out as far as she can, hoping she'll fall soon, so she can stop worrying about whether it will happen or not~ Brian Andreas

The only way I have found to stay young and to continue dreaming is to...DREAM. If you look up and it's been a while since last you wandered those fairy dust roads with wishing in your heart and hoping in your soul and "it'll be great" wrapped around your neck, then start dreaming again...start wandering those paths of fullness and light and touching those walls of promise~running your fingers over the walls of "man, that's amazing" and "how will this feel?". I love that space where I am so overcome with awe that I forget how to act and respond within the framework of social decorum, and my mouth is wide open, my eyes are full of "this is amazing" and my feet won't stop moving and I say everything that's in my heart with out editing it. Yes, go back, go back, go back...dreaming is powerful.

I am convinced that it has matter~hmmm...The matter of dreams. I like that. It fills my heart, mind and body. It makes me taste what I have forgotten...what I need to live! I NEED DREAMS TO LIVE. Funny, but it's true. I need courage to continue dreaming because the rough spots of life make dreaming harder. It shows you the backyard of dreams, where nothing is possible and disappointment and heartache are the standard...and after a while this is all that you see. But dreaming, it is real! It has matter, atoms and skin!

I dream, because dreaming is REAL!

"Belief makes things real...makes me feel...feel allright. Belief, makes things true, things like you...you and I"

Gavin DeGraw

I am truly shocked every time that I watch the Titanic and it sinks. I know we all know the story, but I am earnestly bowled over every time it ends in disaster. Somehow I believe, each time, that they will miss hitting the iceberg and that the authorities will come and save the day. So there I stand on the deck certain that the ship won't sink. Believing to the point where the water is coming up over the deck and the boat is creaking with the sound of the great impending break...believing that there will be a happy ending.

I used to get mad at myself for being so daft and childish...why can't I be more mature like other adults and give up when the odds are stacked against me? When the story looks over? When I can still walk away with my ego intact not looking like a fool while I am seen believing for the impossible. Other people walk away before they look foolish to everyone. Other people walk away way before the dreams in their pockets are exposed...and they look silly for having them in the first place. For whatever reason, I have been unable to lay claim to this pragmatic approach that says, "this is going down...bale". But when I really look at it objectively, what's wrong with believing in the impossible, the fantastic, the unimaginable? Nothing. Dreams keep me alive. Dreams keep me waking up every morning trusting that it is with purpose I arise...or was even born. I would die without the ability to dream and believe in the ether of their substance. When I step back far enough, I see that dreams are the foundation of everything: this computer I type on was a dream in the heart of somebody, somewhere, at some point. The car I so appreciate, that gets me to where I want to go, began as a dream. But not just a dream, but dreaming in the face of the impossible. Dreaming when it didn't make sense. Dreaming when what you have conceived in your soul has never even been processed by the masses...dreaming when what you dream only exists within you! So I say to myself, my adult self, that seeks at times to fit in and look all mature and together and nothing like peter pan...SO WHAT!! What's the joy or the point of looking like everyone else. What power is there in limiting what I can conceive so that it looks believable, plausible and neat to all the other adults? What joy is there for ME to stop dreaming? So what if I look like a fool with dreams in my pockets that I won't and can't let go of! It seems to me, the things that have inspired the heart of humanity and have lived beyond the life of the dreamer were the dreams! So I may never be able to appropriate the correct mask of indifference or the middle ground of half hearted belief and stand knowing I will not look foolish. But I will keep the energy and zest for life that dreams bring me. Someone has to believe dreams do come true. Why can't it be me...why won't they be mine?

Yes, the Titanic sank (even though I am shocked every time). It still sinks, while I believe it will float off to safety. What's the point of believing since it didn't change the ending? What's the point in believing against an already known outcome? Maybe the outcome doesn't always change...but I change. I tap into that well spring of hope that created the world and am transformed a little at a time. Every time I believe against belief, I get lifted. I get strengthened in this place within that makes it harder to destroy me when things don't turn out like I planned. My mother is like this, she is unmovable in the face of adversity. She actually thrives. I mean thrives. So maybe, this is the change that is taking place within me. I am learning to be a builder of inspiration to myself and others. I am learning how to lift humanity up in my own way. So believing when belief has exited, makes me better.

So maybe, just maybe it's not a weakness of mine to believe against all hope. Maybe it's a strength...to see something with my eyes and know the natural limitations set forth and to bend that limitation with my heart and...believe. Yeah, cha, maybe it's a strength...keep dreaming.

Sometimes I feel all I have are dreams...all the things that I want are way off in the distance. So hard to find a way to stand still and not fidget with life in my hands as I try to believe God for the unspoken well-wished plan for my days...praying that it won't all go away and shrivel up into dust and leave me with years and fears that pile up to mean nothing.

Sometimes I feel that all I do is hope...has hope tired of me calling on her and holding her hand freakishly tight?

Sometimes I feel that everything I am doing has no meaning...that I am just sauntering through my days. I am doing my best, but I thought that my best would look a bit different: like lions and tigers and bears or a wardrobe that takes you into Narnia, or like chariots of fire, or dead poets society or like...I'm not sure what...just different. Am I the only one who is building her life with the best she can with her fingers in the sand and clay of her days and who hopes that hope will make her life have meaning? I can't be the only one.

The deepest quest of man's heart is to make meaning of his days. To live and to know that this living is fruitful and precious. That this living far extends beyond the days that you occupy space on this earth. That this world would not be the same without you. So with a dexterity I possess in my dreams in the moment where I am wowed by the presence of God in my breath and my soul...I make beauty. The trick is that I have to remind myself, that is what I am doing when it feels like I am just getting by...making breakfast, grocery shopping, writing, exercising, eating, wishing and hoping and...creating. I AM making beauty with my life.

The thing about making something fantastical with one's life is that it often feels like...living. So here's to living! Here's to dreaming and hoping and wishing and doing and wandering while you're hoping and wishing!

True self-esteem comes not from knowing you are pretty, smart or beautiful...true self-esteem comes from knowing you have something that no one else has...that you have something special!

Rabbi Shmuley

Look we have all heard that saying, "it's not what's on the outside that counts but what's on the inside that matters". Yeah, yeah, yeah...we have heard this a thousand times. We have told others this same thing to make them feel better about themselves. Hell, we have tossed this back and forth in our own minds trying to lift our selves up! But what we really want, if we are honest, is to look great in a bikini, look hot in a summer dress, wear our jeans so well it causes us to faint, and look at our naked bodies thinking, "if I weren't so modest, this body should be in Play Boy". What we want is to look and feel beautiful and desired. What we want is to feel so good about ourselves that our imperfections don't distract us from the truth of who we are. The question is, how do we get there? How do we really arrive at the place where we feel so great about ourselves and are not just bandaging our esteem up with quip phrases that sound good but mean NOTHING?!

It obviously is not in the 30 pounds we have to lose. It is not in the beauty of our faces or bodies. Nor is it in the brilliance of our minds. There are strikingly gorgeous models who need to inject themselves with drugs, just to get on the run way in order to swagger with a contrived sense of esteem and confidence. There are people who are more beautiful than I could ever hope to be, who still hate themselves and feel worthless. There are those who are smarter than any IQ test would ever qualify me as, who still feel without value. So, what I have learned is that no matter the scenario that I can paint that is perfect and shinny...even there, if I have not assessed my sense of self-esteem correctly...I will lack it. I will still feel less than beautiful, smart or sexy.

We all know that comparing ourselves to one another is damaging and fruitless...but, we DO IT. We all know that when we compare only one of two things occurs, 1) we find ourselves better than what we are comparing ourselves to or 2) we find ourselves less that what we are comparing ourselves to...both are bad. We compare ourselves in attempt to derive a sense of where we are on the spectrum of value. This is inane and fruitless. Instead of looking outward to see my value, maybe I should look within at my unique parts and revel in them. After all, they are mine and mine alone. For some reason the moment I heard Rabbi Shmuley say, "that true self esteem is derived from knowing you have something that no one else had", I could access that and revel in this truth. I. Am. Me. No one else can be me. You. Are. You. No one else can be you!

I found myself walking into rooms with my head held a bit higher knowing that I was the only ME in the room and therefore had something special to bring. And, everyone else in the room had something unique about them as well...nothing I needed to compare myself to...just enjoy. Look, I still want to look smoking in a bikini and divine in a pair of True Religions...but I no longer have to live in limbo waiting to achieve these things before I feel good about myself right now; before I esteem me, CHA! And, I don't have to feel bad about myself, because you look so much better than I in your jeans...besides, I got this little special pill called, CHA-NESS. So what's your pill? And, are you taking it regularly? I know I am...

Strong women of the Y, strut your tail feathers...
YMCA t-shirt


Yesterday I cried my eyes out. For nothing in particular...just, a general, "I need to cry". I have a lot going on within me: I miss my mom, I want to go home and curl up in the bed with her, I want to smell the ocean and play in the sand, I want a cold beer on the beach, I want to hear the sound of freedom and youth in the palm tree branches as they dance in the trade winds, I feel fat, My skin looks bad (like I am 15 years old and in the middle of a break out), I want a new dress to make me feel pretty, I want my thighs to shrink overnight, I have a lot of hopes and dreams and fears and wishes and...my period is about to start.

So I started thinking about this t-shirt slogan, "strong women of the Y, strut your tail feathers", and wondering what a strong woman looks like. What is the landscape of a soul that is "strong"? When I think of strong, I think of immovable and stoic and untouchable spirit and strength. I think of the kind of person that says, "hah" to danger or to mean people. The kind of people that climb mountains each day and wake up with vigor to climb some more! When I envision a strong woman, I see her bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan, changing diapers, wearing heels, looking oh so good, make-up perfect, hair flawless, running in the park after her 3 golden retrievers, training for a marathon while working and parenting full time, writing her memoirs in her spare time (what spare time you ask? I have no idea but she finds it), she is never unruffled, she is on every board, taking every conference call, at every game, her husband thinks she is amazing (as well as everyone who meets her), she knows what she wants when she wants it, she decorates her home in one clean line of decision making, she's doing what she always wanted to do since conception, she always knows the right thing to say and when to say it, she bakes fantastic chocolate chip cookies, does the laundry on time all while hosting the best cocktail parties.

So, you see my dilemma...I am nothing like this. I have only now just figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I am sensitive and sporadic. I am creative and honest. I cry in public if the feeling hits me. I struggle for recipes to make my family dinner. I wash the laundry and wish that it would find its way into drawers in an organized fashion. I think out loud (often talking to myself). I play a song I like over and over again, and again and again. I put on workout clothes and never make it to the gym. I have to wear Spanx to keep all my stuff in place. I have a few wayward chin hairs that seem to always pop up. I mean to do things that I never get to (or get to so much later it hurts). I create art in a flash. I am moved by images. I speak from truth. I encourage others to be who they are and shine. I hold my daughter and feel the urge to eat her whole (her entire being is delicious to me). I write every day...something. I am always excited when something goes well for another. I still dream (the kind of dreams you dream before you started believing dreams don't come true). I put my eye on something and I go all out for it (sometimes falling flat on my face). I don't take compliments well and often try to deflect it with humor. I love heels, but they hurt me after a while. I hate talking on the phone and no one ever wants a conference call with me (whew!). I love making people feel better about themselves (funny...it makes me feel better about myself). I love stories (telling them and hearing them). I think of a new thing to be when I grow up almost daily. I sing in the shower (it's the only place where I think I sound good~even if I don't). I love thinking. I pee with the bathroom door open. I don't own proper pajamas because I sleep naked. And, I am more comfortable with being me than I have ever been (this has snuck up on me...and, I am totally enjoying it).


So, as I contemplate strong women and who they are, and who I am, I am overcome with this possibility: I too may be a strong woman. Oh, I look nothing like how I originally pictured her to be. I am so much more "not together" than she. I still feel awkward in so many of my "adult" moments where I want to say the right thing with the right inflection in my voice (but don't quite cut it). But living has taught me one thing, I am never alone in how I feel. So if these are my assumptions of a strong woman and the realities of my being...maybe she too has parts to her that are not as together as perceived by all who know her. Maybe she feels similarly displaced (maybe not). Maybe it has nothing to do with what you do that makes you a strong woman. Maybe it has nothing to do with how you look. Maybe it has nothing to do with "bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan". Maybe it has nothing to do with how many pots you have on the many burners of your life. Maybe it has nothing to do with how many organizations you lead and how much respect you command from the generals and presidents. Maybe...just maybe, it has nothing to do with running the world (all before 5pm)...being everything to everyone. No one can do it all. Even when it looks like they can, they can't. This expectation, this picture I have constructed of a strong woman is the stuff of myths and fables. No one can live a myth and to put that charge over myself is ridiculous.


All I can do is be me, commit to growing and work with the limitations of my being...while honoring me. So, maybe being a strong woman has nothing to do with doing and everything to do with being: being who you ARE and loving her. Thus, every strong woman looks different...she has different habits, different items on her to do lists, different commitments, different desires...none more important than the others, just different. Some are quirky (like me), some are corporate, some have tans, some are pale, some have long flowy hair and look fantastic all the time, some have a bit of a rat's nest atop, some are bald, some walk, some sit, some cook, some order out, some drink wine, some eat chocolate (who am I kidding, we all eat chocolate), some bake, some taste, some are single, some are married, some want kids, some want to visit with yours, some write, some talk, some dance, some swing...
Some do many different things, but we ALL are endeavoring to be who we were born to be. To. Be!

As long as I am being me...I. Am. Strong ~no matter how weak I feel. So, I guess the t-shirt was talking about me...

People think that love looks like bikinis and cold beer~beautiful and young. Shiny and perfect. That's why we so easily shirk it off when it resembles girdles and stubble. crazy and uninspired. slow and uneventful...like a bologna sandwich and a hostess cupcake~ mundane and ordinary. We balk at ordinary. We long for our lives to resemble fun, exciting and drama filled TV shows. You know the ones with all the right lines and dialogue? Where people say everything better than you think them. Where there is a crescendo of emotion in every episode and a lovely well thought out ending that lets us exhale and relax at the end of every day.

The problem with this is love just doesn't look like this. I don't know exactly how it looks every time. But, I do know from my own experience...my own love... that it looks different than, "Private Practice" or "Gray's Anatomy". I know that my love doesn't always allow us to like each other. I know that my love gets boring at times. I know that my love sees all my jagged and harsh pieces and stays. I know that my love has gained weight and watched mine get fuller. I know that my love holds me when I cry and want no one else to see me weak and crumbly. I know that my love sits with me as we try to figure out a schedule for a day that will entertain our family and make us feel like we are doing something memory worthy. I know that my love often feels disjointed when everyone else looks solid and enviable. I know that my love doesn't have sex everyday and when we do, it doesn't always blow my head off and make me scream or say something perfect and sexy. I know that my love sees me naked...stretch marks, fuller thighs and hips, breast with a little more sag...and seems to appreciate all my flaws. I know that my love holds my hands while he's driving and drinking a glass of sweet tea. I know that my love doesn't read my mind and says the wrong thing often. I know that my love tells bad jokes at times, but I have come to find them endearing. I know that when my love and I take a shower together it never looks like, "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", but like two adults fighting for the hot water flow, soapy and cold.

It looks silly, rough, smooth, like a mistake, like a dream, like anger, like frustration, like comfort, like regrets, like an uncharted path, like movie watching on a sofa, like arguing right before church, like telling my deepest fears and knowing that I won't be made fun of, like laughing and farting at the same time, like pants that don't fit, like children we make, like passions we explore, like poems we write, like numbers we crunch, like paintings we think to make, like...a future together no matter what. My love isn't shiny or perfect. My love is flawed and beautiful. It holds my hand when I'm not being pretty and refuses to throw me away when I act like a bad impression of myself.

If love looked like it does in the films...like bikinis and cold beer, I would tire of it and, it would certainly tire of me...quickly

She said, "Put one foot in front of the other and repeat until it's done."

"How do I know it's done", I asked.

"When you arrive", she answered.

"Arrive where?", I asked.

"Where you are supposed to be." She said.

Cha Sears

So I've been exercising on this machine at the YMCA, the True Stride! I've gotten to where I go over 11 miles and burn 1200 calories every time I do it. I know, it's amazing isn't it? So it only makes sense that I'm in love with this machine...that I look forward to doing it everyday.

This machine has taught me a lot. When I first started doing it, I would put it on level 20 (at this level my feet look like they are walking in place...literally). I looked like I was moving nowhere and doing nothing. But, to my right was this cute young thing flying away at an enviable pace. I mean her arms were pumping, her legs were flying, she was sweating and covering all sorts of ground. She looked like she was running a 400 in the Olympics. Pan back over to me and I look a bit pathetic; like I am covering no ground and walking into a wall. But, I refused to stop.

"At least I am doing something", I thought. Anyway, I had the monitor covered with my towel so I couldn't see how "not far" I was going. But little Miss Missy had her towel around her neck (to catch all her sweat from her break-neck pace) leaving her stats in full display for the whole world to see. And, me being me, you know I was comparing myself to her. Why does everybody go so much faster than me? Look how amazing she is...one day Lord, one day. I can't wait till I look like that...wow, she's gone 3.5 miles and burned 350 calories. I tell you what, everybody can fly, save for me. You get my point? This is second nature to me; comparing myself to whomever and whatever and on the back end coming up short.

Meanwhile I'm pushing through and sweating my ass off (at least I hope it's coming off) and making strides so slow, you can see me concentrating. Then the next thing I know, little Miss Missy is done and wiping off her machine. I am staring down her stats through my peripheral vision (I don't want to look like I am desperate, juvenile and comparing myself to her...even though I am). She's gone 4.9 miles and has burned 491 calories. Anyways, I avoid looking at my own stats (I promised myself that I wouldn't look until I had only 5 minutes remaining). I think I'll be within my time range in another couple of minutes or so. All I can do to keep going is to look at the movie screen and try to connect with the story line (I work out in the cinema room) of this awful movie called "Star Dust"; I think it has too many moving parts for me and I can't nail down a story line. Perhaps, it's also because I've been too preoccupied with little Miss Missy's exercise stats. Anyway, I can finally look at my stats to see the ground I have covered: I pull back my towel, hoping that I have gone a mile or two and to my shock, I have gone 10.4 miles and have burned 998 calories! HOLY CRAP! But, I was going so slow~ sure I was working up a sweat and my breathing was laboured, but I felt like I was doing nothing (especially compared to little Miss Missy). Okay, so maybe Missy isn't her name, but she looked cute and perky enough to be called Missy.

Oswald Chambers said it best, "there is always one fact more in every man's case of which you know nothing". We all know that comparing is wrong and self-defeating. But, what I realized that day was that our comparisons are baseless~ utter garbage without merit. You are NEVER comparing apples to apples. You are always comparing cherries to Kumquats. You never know the full story that you are comparing your story to. I had gone 11 miles and burned just under 1100 calories by the time my true stride journey was up, and every step of the way I felt like I was moving NOWHERE! So this is how making headway feels. This is how covering ground smells. It feels and smells like nothing, but a step. There's no grand feeling of accomplishment that comes over you when you cover ground, it just feels like another step. There is no applause from the raucous crowd to benchmark your progress...just a step. Just a feeble nondescript step. Extraordinary people don't feel extraordinary, they feel quite ordinary and average. The step that gets you to the summit of Kilimanjaro feels like the many, boring, non-ground covering, laborious, nowhere getting steps before it.

I don't need to feel like I am making headway in order to make headway. I don't even need to hope that I am making headway. I WILL, as long as I keep stepping. The true stride taught me 2 things: 1) comparing myself to you is baseless. There are too many meandering parts in both of our stories, that to nail down a common fact that would accurately allow me to determine my worth as compared to you is...IMPOSSIBLE and FOOLISH! 2) I don't need to feel like I am making headway in order to do so. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I just need to keep walking.

So let's make this pact: I'll walk my path and you'll walk yours. And, we'll tell each other stories along the way while we share cherries and kumquats between the two of us, knowing that we're both covering ground in the right direction.

I really love taking Communion...

I mean, I love it! I always have. As early as I can remember, every time the Communion plate went around, I would want to take a handful. When the wine/grape juice made it's way around, I swear if I could I would guzzle at least a dozen little goblets or drink every licking drop from the chalice (thereby leaving the priest none). What is wrong with me? Why do I have this uncanny urge to partake in full of The Lord's table? Is it that I am hungry and am in need of a little bit of carbs? I really don't thinks so. Because, in that moment all I really want is Communion: pizza hut will not suffice. So there is something about it that I LOVE.

And, I think it has little to do with it's intended purpose, i.e. remembering the death of Christ and how "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed". Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the thought that Jesus died and took my everything upon himself that I might have life. But I don't think this is where my mind is when I'm wanting to gobble down The Lord's Supper. I think my mind (or soul rather) is so open to the magic of the moment: this ritual has been repeated millions of times throughout centuries. Centuries. I imagine earlier followers of Christ living in Macedonia partaking whilst remembering the Mystical. I envision Greek soldiers partaking of it in secret trying to touch the Fantastic. I see mothers and children in hovels down through the ages dipping their bread in their wine and remembering Jesus and the profundity of his journey...hoping they have a place in the scope of this journey. I imagine drug addicts high as a kite standing in the back of a church taking it; trusting that they will be OK and be better than the night before. I see losers and saints, sinners and aristocrats taking this bread...drinking this wine; longing for a real God to show up some way in their lives and assure them that their unspoken brokenness is seen and possibly understood. I see a lonely woman home in her house simulating this event with her own foccacia bread and cheap bottle of Boone's Farm wine; hoping that her life has meaning...wanting a glimpse of God in her world.

I see them as far back as two thousand years ago to the present. All kinds. All types. All pains. All human conditions...at all places on the continuum of faith trying to touch heaven...trying to be touched by heaven. And, when I see them trying to touch the untouchable, the miraculous, the never ending, the unfathomable...I get touched so deeply and truly, that I want to partake forever. In that moment I stand with my brethren of humanity trying to tackle our hard to reconcile desire to know God and glance into His heart (hoping to see ourselves in there)...trusting that we are seen. Though the masses are great and the world seems to implode with souls from start to eternity...I feel special when I take Communion. I feel that I am being seen by God and, maybe...by all the other broken souls that stood before me trying for the same thing...to touch the untouchable...

In that moment I feel transfixed between a deep desire to be touched in my broken parts and assured that unlike Humpty Dupmty I can be put together again. In that moment I feel a release; like heaven is pausing and bending down towards me and holding my cheek. It feels so sacred that I just want to keep it coming. I swear I could take it every Sunday, or everyday for that matter, if I could. Well I guess if I wanted to I could take it everyday in my house. Maybe I will...

I told you I LOVE taking communion (and for probably all the wrong reasons)...but I still do!

There exist a gap between what I always wanted to be and what I am...

I sit here at 34 trying to reconcile the gap: trying to decide whether to close it or let it persist. You know how you have unlimited possibilities in front of you when you are young? You really think that every and anything is possible...then life happens a little more than it did the year before and you are not the person you always dreamed of being and it seems as if you never will be. The only problem with this is, I cannot seem to let go. Life happens and I get down on my knees, a little more buckled in my back than the day before. Yet, I still can't let go. I still can't reconcile myself to the possibility that I will never see the things I once dreamed in my youth (oh, I know I am still young in the grand scheme of things...but I am further from the young me that dreamed dreams that got up and danced before me and allowed me to touch them with my wobbly hands and a goofy grin). Life tells me to close the gap and accept what is: that some things will NEVER be. And, I really want to do this at times: it seems more prudent and wise. For what will I look like as an old lady with old dreams in my pockets and possibilities in my shoes? Will I look like a pathetic mess? Now as I write, that old lady doesn't look as pathetic as when I conjured her up in my thoughts. Actually she looks quite magical. But I digress, getting back to closing this gap.

So there I go wondering again how I will look to the masses. Wondering how I will look believing for something that may never be...How did Kurt Warner look to the masses stocking shelves at a grocery store with dreams of super bowls in his heart? Stupid? Maybe. Even crazy and a bit wishful? But I think the more important question is, "how did he FEEL dreaming those dreams while stocking those shelves?" He probably felt full in his heart: that dream probably kept him getting up every morning to do the mundane and dream killing task of stocking a shelf. There is something about a dream that feeds the soul. Whether the outcome is what I expect...the dream is nourishment to my deepest self...

So the gap question: what do I do with this gap between the me I dreamt and the me I am? Do I close the gap and fold it upon itself so that the matter of it's existence disappears into this elegant universe? Or, do I let it persist, knowing that in the dreaming I am fed? You see dreams keep me alive. They make me feel utterly beautiful and full of purpose. I know no other way to live. I think I have my answer: for me it's better to let the gap persist than to give up and resign myself to only "what is". Because that would be a place where possibility would cease to exist. And, if possibility did not exist, then what am I here for? What am I waking up day after day for? I certainly am not waking up for only, "what is". For "what is" was not yesterday...even "what is" existed in the realm of possibility the day before. So it seems to me that possibility is the fabric of our days and nights: It is just as real as atoms, the building blocks of our universe. Maybe it is what atoms are made of...POSSIBILITY.

Yes, the gap persists and lives on. And, I think that I am more comfortable in the gap, in this minute than I was before I penned this. Thanks to this moment I will boldly live in the gap! Viva la gap!!

Caya closes her eyes and she thinks she disappears...she can stand in the center of a full room with all eyes on her and she sincerely believes she vanishes with the shutting of her eyelids...when she opens them she says peek-a-boo as if she only reappears when she opens her eyes~peek-a-boo eye see you...

Some times I wish I could just disappear into the ether of life. You know, just close my eyes and be gone for a while. If I could disappear by closing my eyes, maybe I would do it a little too much.

Cha, could you wash everyone's clothes and then fold them and then put them all neatly away? eyes close...disappear.

Cha, we are in marriage counseling and the counselor is asking you about your desire to change people and control situations? eyes close...disappear.

Cha, just stand there while my racist mom tells you about all the things she dislikes about you. eyes close...disappear.

Cha, you are late again! eyes close disappear.

Cha, now why did you go to law school if you were only going to be an artist and stay at home? eyes close...disappear.

Cha, you are 34 years old and have never had a real profession: Why is this? eyes close...disappear.

Cha, what is it exactly that you want to do professionally? eyes close...disappear.

Cha, this resume says you worked as a kayak guide in Exuma and then spent the next summer teaching English to Korean adults in Seoul, what is your plan? eyes close...disappear.

Cha, do you have a COSTCO card in your name? No...then why are you standing in my line? eyes close...disappear.

Cha, I am giving you the stink eye and middle finger because you are driving in my lane crazy lady! eyes close...disappear.

You get my point...from the senseless interactions to the intimate and meaningful ones, there are times when I just don't want to answer...where I just want to close my eyes...and disappear. Like I said before, if I could do this, I believe I would enlist its help far too often. But thankfully, I can't disappear with the shutting of my eyes. Thankfully, every jagged, soft, rough, tragic and beautiful part of life hits me deeply and I cannot ignore it. I cannot shut it out. For it is in this living...living and experiencing all of it, that I am shaped into some one that I long to be. I learn how to traverse the terrain of living~how to weave and bob with the tide of people and their stories. And, it is in this weaving and bobbing that I have learned how to recognize the various stories that are all about in the living of our days...in our choices and in our countenance.

You see if I could just disappear I wouldn't see you and in the seeing...see ME. So here we go, peek-a-boo eye see you...

To sit patiently with a yearning that has not yet been fulfilled, and to trust that, that fulfillment will come, is quite possibly one of the most powerful "magic skills" that human beings are capable of. It has been noted by almost every ancient wisdom tradition.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Hope is a powerful thing...without it man dies. I have seen hope carry my mother for more than 20 years...with a smile on her face. I have seen my mother's cupboards empty and her refrigerator barren all while having no ascertainable way to fill either. And, I have seen this mother of mine spin dreams of visions of plenty without seeming fanciful or full of conceit. I have seen her hold on to hope with hands of diligence...hands of "there's no other option but to hope". You see, hope can breathe strength into a person's heart that defies the moment.

Hope has kept me from giving up on my childhood dreams that seem so far fetched, that I share them with no one. But alas, to hope I can whisper these grand dreams of mine, and it is her voice alone that makes me feel allright dreaming the impossible. It is her voice that tells me the impossible is quite possible and necessary! And, when I can't believe her another moment more, for there exists too large a gap between what I hope for and what I have...and to me it is too great a chasm to leap: hope takes my face in her hands and looks straight into my eyes and kisses me on the lips, assuring me that there is glorious life that lays ahead. So when my hope fails, hope takes hold of me. I think many of the things that lie ahead will only be if I can hope for them. The audacious expectations of my heart are silly in their grandness...but hope never laughs. She just squeezes my shoulders transferring courage and winks at me, because she too hopes in their existence...she too hopes to see them come true. But without her they won't ever come true. So you see, hope is a needed a friend and ally.

"...no, no, no don't pass me over...no, no no don't pass me by, see I can see good things for you and I. Yes, good things for you and I..." The Bodeans

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy..." Albert Camus~The Myth of Sisyphus

So I've been thinking more about my reticence to dive in and give something my all. I think that there is something in me that wants a guarantee of success before I start. That is to say, I want some tangible thing in my hand that I can stuff in my pocket (to pull out as needed) that guarantees me the praise and success I want. If we're honest, we all want to be lauded and told we are great. It gives us a feeling of accomplishment...that what we do, matters.

But the question is, "does this guarantee exist?" And, even if this guarantee existed, "is it proper for me to rest my entire willingness to do my best and give something my all upon this guarantee of success?" I think the answer is ...(and this pains parts of me)...NO. There is no guarantee for success after you have given something your all. At least not what we generally define as success. There is no neon sign at the end of "doing my best" that says...YOU ARE AWESOME! YOUR LIFE COUNTS FOR SO MUCH! Or, (my favourite) YOU ARE SO SUCCESSFUL IT HURTS! Why should I then give my best regardless of the non-guaranteed outcome?

I think that there is something so magical and great that enters into a man's heart when he takes his hand to the proverbial till and harrows the field of his life (no matter how deep, rough and hard) and makes it plantable. I think that the feeling that enters into a person when they look back over their shoulders and see what they alone have accomplished is great. Magnificent. There is no other thing I know that can fill a person to overflowing when they have been gifted to see what they can do! So it is in the doing, the working, the giving something your all that your "raison d'etre", reason for being is magnified to the individual soul that lives. So maybe success is redefined...maybe it's not the end result of praise, accolades, or monetary advancement. Maybe success is simply the gift of giving life all you have and having the visceral feeling of seeing what magnificence you can do! When standing on a mountain top, I feel free. I feel alive. Looking down at the trees that adorn the mountain sides and valleys, makes me want to dive into them and fly. I would never know the complete and utter feeling of freedom that standing on a mountain can cause if mountains didn't exist. This perspective would be lost to me. I think that in large part, the feeling of freedom and life that I have on the mountain top is due to what I know it took to get there. So giving something my best is the reward. Seeing how good I can be is the gift that keeps on giving...and, maybe that knowledge is success.

I start so many things in my life and leave them unfinished...dangling to blow in the wind. It's as if a gust of energy blows right up to me and transforms itself into tangible energy for me to use...and when the gust leaves, the task falls at my feet. Or so it seems. But what really happens is that I have these great intentions or an idea, and when I start to work on it and it starts to look like what I never intended or I leave it too long that I am left feeling too embarrassed to start at it again. It sits there to rot and join the ranks of many other fallen soldiers of tasks in my life. I know, I should be so far beyond this by now. For what this smacks of is Immaturity: when A becomes too hard to turn around and change or B requires too much sticktoit-ness quit both A and B and leave them hanging and start C (keep this cycle going as long as you can). This is embarrassing. I am embarrassed to myself. This is not what I believe is right or what I want to do...yet I do it. This is not who I want to be...yet it is who I have become. If I dig even deeper, what this smacks of is fear: fear of failing and not getting it right. Fear of giving something my all and it still stinks...it doesn't measure up. So now I can't hide behind the safe bastion of "potential" or "what could be". I am in the wide open field of what is...and, the me that I am may not measure up. You may not like me. You may hate what I throw my whole soul into. And, the thought of that makes my stomach churn and my back bend a little closer to the ground. Ode to care less of what others think...

When I was in college I saw this wonderful movie, "Mr Holland's Opus", on a date with an unfortunate fellow who had to listen to me cry and snot for the entire film (by the way there was no second date...surprise hey). You see Mr. Holland was writing an Opus, a musical composition, that was his life's work up to that point, but in the mean time he needed a job to pay the bills. Mr. Holland took a job as a High School Music Teacher for the interim. The only problem is, "life occurred" as it has a way of doing and twenty years later Mr. Holland was still there. I cried like a baby for what I thought his life should be...for what he had wanted it to be. I cried because I thought that my life would follow the same trajectory: that twenty years would pass and there would exist this big gap between what I had hoped for and what I actually had. This all may seem a bit melodramatic...but I truly felt the tension of what I wanted and what may never be...

At the end of the film, Mr. Holland's students returned for a 15 or 20 year Reunion: they came to celebrate him. They asked that he play that Opus he had written years ago. Because, you see, that Opus had become a part of their lives too. They knew he "thought" he was just passing through with this teaching gig...but he had become a wonderful teacher who took the time to pour into their lives and change them...laying music over their dreams. His returning students were doctors, attorneys, teachers, parents and the mayor. So, they were a huge part of the Opus of his life. However, I never wanted that to be my life. I never wanted my Opus to lay un-played for the bulk of my life...only to be played at a High School reunion. As I write, and think about this story line 13 years after I first saw it, I think I cried for the wrong reasons. I cried because I saw Mr. Holland as a failure and I feared I would fail as well. I should have cried for the beauty of the moment where his life's work culminated in a fantastic display of work, creativity and the beauty of human connections.

The point that stands out to me now is that Mr. Holland had written his Opus. It was complete. He had laboured throughout the years tweaking it and making it exactly what he wanted it to be. He had taken every life experience and jotted it down in tune. When the gust of wind stopped blowing, Mr. Holland didn't stop writing. He pushed through ("break on through to the other side"...I hear Jim Morrison singing in my head) until it was finished. He didn't stop writing because he feared that it would never be heard. He didn't not write it in order to stay in the comfort world of what could have been had he...(you fill it in). So what is my problem? My problem is that I have stayed in that space of fear for so long I didn't even realize that is where I lived...that fear had become comfortable for me. My problem is that I have been too afraid to fail, that I care too damn much of how I am perceived, that I haven't even really tried to write my "Opus". Sure I have written bits and pieces, but safe enough pieces that haven't taken all that much out of me so that I could safely say, "I could do better". But where is the better? It lives where where fear is NOT. The better lives where I commit to it, fully, releasing the expectations of what I think you should say or perceive it to be. My best exist where I push past the gust of wind that inspires me and I jump... I jump into the unknown territory of being my best!

To finish what I start. To start with the intention of being my best. To be my best with out fear of failing. And if I fail...at least I failed giving it everything I have. To live my life like this, is my hope. Hope...don't let me down

The other day I saw a huge weed at the side of my art space building...it was a huge tree. Kind of embarrassing that I let it get that big, but it seemed to have emerged from no-where overnight. When I say "it was a huge tree", I really mean most would have mistaken it for a sapling tree (it was big as far as weeds go). I looked at it and thought that I would call Bernardo, my lawn care guy, and tell him to uproot it next time he came. As I thought this I was walking towards it getting a good look up close. Just as I thought, it was huge and beyond my gardening skills. But for some reason, I bent and grabbed it by its base and pulled with all my might...the craziest thing happened: it came up with ease and I fell back on the grass (having exerted too much energy). That "huge" weed had little to no root system.

Though it looked impressive from the ground up (making me think I couldn't up root it), it had nothing holding it underneath. This made me think of so many things in my life that intimidate me from the outside. There are things that I don't do because it seems too hard, too deep, too insurmountable...too everything. There are walls that I don't try to scale because I don't know where to start or because it looks to big for me. This weed showed me the power of perception and the beauty of truth. My perception was, "it's too big for me to remove". The truth was, "it had no root system". What things really are and how they look often exists a disparity. How many things have I not done because I believed the perception instead of what was truth. Sometimes, truth takes a little digging to find. But the moment we start it becomes evident. I'm no longer going to let the weeds in life intimidate me. The least I can do is dig...chances are that what lies beneath is doable.

Action does have magic in it and a grace to fulfill that which calls you with an unknown name...we inhabit a life larger that the life we now live...we inhabit the world. Growing more into me everyday in that way that makes me say... it's good to be freely me. Taste good being the most real fruit of your self that you have seen. And, we can't help but acknowledge the way of our being and how it beckons us to come. How it insists upon our presence at the table of who we were born to be. In flux this being is, in movement our souls grow and become. Not stagnant, not still but it is an ever expounding reality that shows us glimpses of who we are in that secret place that we have yet to find and in a language we are currently learning. The adjectives, verbs and nouns take shape with each passing day and we soar on the whispers of our hearts and visions of our minds eye...and we FLY..., FLY..., FLY...

Flying, with purpose even though the direction is not clear...what calls us though blurry in form is most indeed in front of us, so we fly: to parts unknown by the only known part of us...this is the exciting and exhilarating task. it is a drink of nectars far and deep and of the most delectable tree...the tree of being our selves. FULLY. This is the journey: to be who we are. For who I was yesterday is no more and who I am becoming has yet to appear, but i see her silhouette and I dance towards her shadow cast on the grass of the path that I am on. And in this dance I am fed...and am feeding my soul in ways that I have never. Thank you God for the chance to dance and fly...

On thinking green...

the colour green has been speaking to me...maybe it's the hope of what it represents. the fresh cutting of grass. the arrival of spring on a 727. or maybe it's just the bright happiness of the colour. anyway, i hear my soul speaking, chatting up a storm when i see this colour: dream the dreams soon forgotten. forget what was said of you when. be the person you alone know you could be. and, don't go down the road of, " i forgot what i thought about me in kindergarten" and only remember that me from what they said in grad school and the rest of the professional existence. so i was a bad employee and talked all the time...i can do nothing but talk. talk i did, about everything from morning cereal to fears of the soul...to the latest song on vh1's artist you "oughta know". spring is alive in my heart and shoes, and i run to it. i jump in it with as much know how as i had when i started school...or looked up school: can't remember which one it is. needless to say, i am naive. but...HOPEFUL. and this is what keeps me going towards that me in the green...the green. oh yeah...green is my colour. my colour of starting what i thought that i finished but didn't quite start, but knew that i needed to...green come get me. oh, the green...