Tonight I am sitting by my new fireplace and taking in the view of Seattle out my living room window. Really, I am thinking to myself? I get to enjoy this every day? How did I get such a gift?
The leaves are falling off the trees, and my winter view of the Space Needle is here. I love my summer view (where the Needle peeks out from behind the foliage), but I think I am going to enjoy the direct gaze for the next several months. I always sensed its presence, but it is good to be face to face with it, too.
Which brings me to the ruminations of my heart tonight….
I have learned this week, that I have an amazing presence of men in my life. They listen to my voice, value my mind and heart, and are curious about the way I see the world. They challenge me, and let me call them out, too. They share their questions and their hopes; they have the character to share their convictions and their wounds. There is a respect and a mutuality in our way of being together that I have come to take for granted.
But, this week, I came face to face with it, once more, which has caused me to pause and consider the richness of their gifts in my life. I sense tears wanting to accompany my words, because something about the grace of each of you touches me at a deep, visceral level. I would not be able to write what I do or hope for what I do without the community of men that surrounds me. For each of you, I am grateful.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Urgent West Wing Party
Sunday night my commune called an urgent meeting. We needed late night Chinese food, Mr. Sketch markers, paper scotch taped to the walls, and flow charts to plan our lives. Apparently, Jeremy says that in West Wing they call such urgent meetings (with boxes of Chow Mein late into the night) where people band together to solve global crisis and change the world.
We were all experiencing- sort of a collective conscious moment- that we needed to talk about our passions and life dreams and our daily steps to take them seriously. The meeting ran 4 hours and it was one of the most efficient meetings I have been at. We all came away with assignments, based on our creative brainstorming with one another. I am currently focusing on:
1. My book project and making it happen.
2. Caring for my body better, which means attending to healthy meals and 7-8 hours of sleep at night.
We broke it down into specific steps. For instance, if I am up past midnight, I have to give account for why. If I have a rush of creative energy at 2 am, I can justify being up late writing. If I am tempted to scrub my toilet at 2 am, then I need to be asleep.
We have a meeting on Sunday to check in with our assignments. I will report back.
P.S Just a quick note on my use of "androgyny" in the last posting. I was using it in the Virginia Woolf sense, not the literal sense. I don't think I look too much like a man. If you want to know more about the Virginia Woolf sense, feel free to ask. It makes a good conversation.
We were all experiencing- sort of a collective conscious moment- that we needed to talk about our passions and life dreams and our daily steps to take them seriously. The meeting ran 4 hours and it was one of the most efficient meetings I have been at. We all came away with assignments, based on our creative brainstorming with one another. I am currently focusing on:
1. My book project and making it happen.
2. Caring for my body better, which means attending to healthy meals and 7-8 hours of sleep at night.
We broke it down into specific steps. For instance, if I am up past midnight, I have to give account for why. If I have a rush of creative energy at 2 am, I can justify being up late writing. If I am tempted to scrub my toilet at 2 am, then I need to be asleep.
We have a meeting on Sunday to check in with our assignments. I will report back.
P.S Just a quick note on my use of "androgyny" in the last posting. I was using it in the Virginia Woolf sense, not the literal sense. I don't think I look too much like a man. If you want to know more about the Virginia Woolf sense, feel free to ask. It makes a good conversation.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Football and High-Tea
I am feeling very inspired to do things that I love to do. I think you should do the same. What if you put 3 activities on your calendar next week that fit in the "I would love to do but I never do them category?"
To kick things off, I am going to a a high school football game tomorrow night, just for the heck of it. Ben, Cabe, and have decided to support Ballard High, a team picked at random. We all have a great deal of excitement going into this game.
Then, I am going to start planning my princess high-tea party, because I just found a great princess dress at the thrift store down the street. Jane runs the store and she picked out all kinds of lovely items for me. This dress is a green, strapless, Jessica McClintock, and it goes well with my elbow-high, ivory lace gloves that I keep stored in my sock drawer for such a time as this.
Between football and high-tea, I think my activities are quite androgenous.
To kick things off, I am going to a a high school football game tomorrow night, just for the heck of it. Ben, Cabe, and have decided to support Ballard High, a team picked at random. We all have a great deal of excitement going into this game.
Then, I am going to start planning my princess high-tea party, because I just found a great princess dress at the thrift store down the street. Jane runs the store and she picked out all kinds of lovely items for me. This dress is a green, strapless, Jessica McClintock, and it goes well with my elbow-high, ivory lace gloves that I keep stored in my sock drawer for such a time as this.
Between football and high-tea, I think my activities are quite androgenous.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Seasonal Plans
Perhaps I do most things with too much planning, but with that disclaimer, here are my goals for Fall/Winter :
1. Read. Read poetry and the New Yorker and children’s books and old classics and new ones, too. I miss reading. I used to read things besides the DSM IV; it is time to resurrect reading for the pleasures of language and story. I want rainy days and pages of good books, while I cuddle under my afghan and sip tea.
2. Dance. I want to buy one very good pair of dance shoes and make as many excuses as possible to dance as often as possible. I want to swing and salsa and maybe take a modern or hip-hop class.
3. Football. During my Sunday Sabbath, I will be religiously committing to blocking off three hours to watch the Seahawks, complete with unabashed cursing. I also hope to actually start winning in fantasy football, or at least achieve a respectable mediocrity. Finally, I hope to attend one high school football game with my friend Ben. We don’t care who we watch, we just want it to be cold and slightly miserable while we drink that syrupy hot chocolate and hang out on the outskirts of the student section.
4. Walks. I want to hear the little crunch of leaves underfoot and breathe in the crisp, Autumn air. I hope to visit the arboretum and other tree-worthy places to see the leaves in their fiery prime.
5. Scarves and boots and textured tights. I don’t think further comments are needed for this one.
6. Bubble baths on very cold days.
7. This one might be a titch early to speak, but I want to celebrate the holiday season with intention and preparation. This will include getting my first ever Christmas tree, decorating my own apartment, and baking Baklava, in honor of my grandmother.
1. Read. Read poetry and the New Yorker and children’s books and old classics and new ones, too. I miss reading. I used to read things besides the DSM IV; it is time to resurrect reading for the pleasures of language and story. I want rainy days and pages of good books, while I cuddle under my afghan and sip tea.
2. Dance. I want to buy one very good pair of dance shoes and make as many excuses as possible to dance as often as possible. I want to swing and salsa and maybe take a modern or hip-hop class.
3. Football. During my Sunday Sabbath, I will be religiously committing to blocking off three hours to watch the Seahawks, complete with unabashed cursing. I also hope to actually start winning in fantasy football, or at least achieve a respectable mediocrity. Finally, I hope to attend one high school football game with my friend Ben. We don’t care who we watch, we just want it to be cold and slightly miserable while we drink that syrupy hot chocolate and hang out on the outskirts of the student section.
4. Walks. I want to hear the little crunch of leaves underfoot and breathe in the crisp, Autumn air. I hope to visit the arboretum and other tree-worthy places to see the leaves in their fiery prime.
5. Scarves and boots and textured tights. I don’t think further comments are needed for this one.
6. Bubble baths on very cold days.
7. This one might be a titch early to speak, but I want to celebrate the holiday season with intention and preparation. This will include getting my first ever Christmas tree, decorating my own apartment, and baking Baklava, in honor of my grandmother.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Incompleted Thoughts
Why do I love and hate the desires of my own heart? Because they surge me towards what I want, at the cost of actually feeling that I am wanting. To live into my heart is to know the piercing of the unknown space between desire and the desired. It is to live into the unconsummated. It is to trust that my dreams will come true somewhere between now and never and maybe. Tonight, dreaming feels excruciating. I try to grip them tightly because I don’t want them to get away, but then I know they wilt for lack of freedom.
I want to embrace life’s unknowns but I have too much of a craving to control. I want results, satisfaction, arrival, or at least incremental steps that tell me I will arrive eventually. And yet, the journey is changing the point of arrival, so that I must surrender the destination even as I step towards it….
It is all rather risky business.
As Anne Shirley once said, and as a dear friend reminded me tonight, life has so much potential thudding, which makes soaring on the wings of anticipation rather hard, I’m afraid.
(Life context for this emotional purge: one teeny little morsel of an email from an editor, probably just a pseudo courtesy prelude email to the real official rejection slip that is coming…which somehow opened up the vast quantities of want I contain within me….)
I want to embrace life’s unknowns but I have too much of a craving to control. I want results, satisfaction, arrival, or at least incremental steps that tell me I will arrive eventually. And yet, the journey is changing the point of arrival, so that I must surrender the destination even as I step towards it….
It is all rather risky business.
As Anne Shirley once said, and as a dear friend reminded me tonight, life has so much potential thudding, which makes soaring on the wings of anticipation rather hard, I’m afraid.
(Life context for this emotional purge: one teeny little morsel of an email from an editor, probably just a pseudo courtesy prelude email to the real official rejection slip that is coming…which somehow opened up the vast quantities of want I contain within me….)
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Gratitude
Tonight, I am watching lightning over the city and raindrops making patterns on my window. It is lovely– very soothing for my night-before-the-first-day-of-school butterflies. I have had these since I was six and they just don’t go away.
Something about this weekend has felt so exquisite. Part of it was the 13-hour hang out spree with my old friend Andy, including chocolate and banana pancakes for Sunday brunch, writing time, laughing time, chatting time, and time to share our writing project together with a roomful of dear souls. We had a 4pm “happy hour” at my place and read the creative non-fiction narratives we have been working on that explore homosexuality and spirituality. It was just such a vulnerable and beautiful time for many of us– 2.5 hours of reading and amazing feedback and conversation. I was so honored to have a group of people so engaged with our writing, and so pleased to see it generated a shared space to wonder and explore together.
I think I am just feeling a little overwhelmed by the beautiful people in my life and the community I have as I start the school year. Tonight I was listening to Patty Griffin amidst new and old faces and just taking in the moment, which somehow felt very full of possibility and love. I am also a little overwhelmed that I get to live each day with so many things that give joy to me- teaching, writing, studying, commuting almost everywhere on foot, the daily, sweet moments of friendship, a family that is consistent and loving, new people who show up in the most surprising ways.
Something about this weekend has felt so exquisite. Part of it was the 13-hour hang out spree with my old friend Andy, including chocolate and banana pancakes for Sunday brunch, writing time, laughing time, chatting time, and time to share our writing project together with a roomful of dear souls. We had a 4pm “happy hour” at my place and read the creative non-fiction narratives we have been working on that explore homosexuality and spirituality. It was just such a vulnerable and beautiful time for many of us– 2.5 hours of reading and amazing feedback and conversation. I was so honored to have a group of people so engaged with our writing, and so pleased to see it generated a shared space to wonder and explore together.
I think I am just feeling a little overwhelmed by the beautiful people in my life and the community I have as I start the school year. Tonight I was listening to Patty Griffin amidst new and old faces and just taking in the moment, which somehow felt very full of possibility and love. I am also a little overwhelmed that I get to live each day with so many things that give joy to me- teaching, writing, studying, commuting almost everywhere on foot, the daily, sweet moments of friendship, a family that is consistent and loving, new people who show up in the most surprising ways.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Life's Known Pleasures #114
When I go from lightly goosebumped to sun-baked, all in about 90 glorious seconds,
lounging, dock sprawled
after dunking in the lake
On a sun-soaked August afternoon.
lounging, dock sprawled
after dunking in the lake
On a sun-soaked August afternoon.
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