Break Time

I've been blogging for about 5 years now. I can honestly say it has been, since day one, something I've felt passionate about-even when there was no one reading. I loved the multi-media aspect of journaling and having a personal forum to share my thoughts and feelings.

But I'm tired. I've been online intensively and the push to go faster and further is huge in the circles I became a part of. I still do my own work, but I've also happily returned to the 8-5 (for now) and need a deep breather. I want to use my hands, make art, travel and enjoy.

I've also broken up with Twitter. I found that increasingly I was getting what I wanted/needed from Facebook (ironic given my total hatred 2 years back).

So bear with me. I'm not closing shop. I'm simply takin' a break.

Much love,
Kelly

Utterly Alone (NOT a Depressing Tale...)

My online buddy, fellow Fish and one of my esteemed writing heroes and I are jogging a parallel, painfully confusing path that is so universal it hardly warrants mentioning. And yet, if it is a struggle for you, it can be all-consuming. Since it is universal, it means many of us are wrestling with it.

Loneliness.

This beasty can nag even when you are coupled, at a gathering or surrounded by loving, generous friends.

So confused am I as to how to manage my own non-coupled self (I've been in committed, co-habitating relationships for 27 out of 30 years!) that I started my first real piece of fiction ever (not unless you count the teenaged, self-conscious love story I wrote for high school English class). It is sci-fi, a world where I find myself with no companions or fellow humans, but with animals and a never ending supply of goods, mysteriously replenished by unseen forces. Money? Not needed. Paid employment? Not necessary.

Oh. In case you are wondering, in this story, I can neither off, nor numb myself. It just won't work in this fantasy scenario. I know myself too well.


After I slept for awhile, and got a dog, or two, and gorged a bit on great food, I'm confident I'd get bored and start looking for the perfect, little place (or raw unfinished space-I'd get to choose freely!) that would allow me to feed my gardening fetish.

Then what...????? (At least I wouldn't be fighting off zombies).

What would matter? Would writing? Would art? Do we do it for the sharing or for the doing? And if it is for the doing would we still actually want to if we were the only ones to see it?

Obviously, my life is never going to be like this. I've got great family and friends.  But it has been a good exercise to explore what type of meaning my life would have if I never, ever found romantic love again...

I am fascinated as I patiently "watch" how I would handle A-L-O-N-E when the "what the F&*K!" wore off. Just repeatedly pondering this hasn't been as helpful as actually writing it down.

Is life worth living if there is no one to observe any of it with you? What do you think?

Pretty

The Challenge of Opposing Truths

Sometimes we fall in love before all of the information is in.

Actually, that's usually how we fall in love. We fall in love with the best parts of someone, with our eyes squeezed shut, with our own garbage standing right in front of us or with the other person saying "you do NOT want to do this!" and, being the fallible little beings we are, we ignore it all. Our hearts get wrapped up in the other. And, once wrapped, we find it difficult to accept all of those things we should have paid attention to up front.

Despite all of this, we sometimes fall for someone who is good for us, enjoyable to us, fulfills us so much that we cannot extricate ourselves despite THE ISSUE(S).

Oh. We try. Over and over again. But it is no good because either the scale tips severely back and forth (very very good to very very bad) or it is balanced just enough in favor of the relationship that not being involved is more painful than being involved. There are so many good things...

It can become very easy to start blaming yourself (or feeling that your friends and family are blaming you) for a lack of willpower at this point. Or blaming the other for not having the willpower for you. To. Just. Walk. Away.

If only life and love were that simple. When you are looking deeply, soulfully into the eyes of someone you are so connected with (or laughing maniacally over something hysterical you just read), walking away feels absurd.

Luckily for me I have a sage, an oracle, a guru, a spiritual director all tied up in my therapist. God love her. I told her last night that she got therapist bonus points and could advance to the next level. Because she challenged me on this self-blame, love addiction theory. And said,

How is this any different than a woman who falls in love with a great, great man only to discover later that he doesn't want children...and she really does? Or falling deeply in love with someone and connecting with them on social issues and literature and nature and passion...only to find they don't believe in God and have no desire to deepen a spiritual connection?

And, while these are huge impasses and very painful stuff, no one in these scenarios is to blame. Life is full of really tough choices and dilemmas. That's just the way life is.

I don't have an answer. I'm not sure either of us will ever feel fully resolved. But I'm incredibly grateful to have met someone with whom I have such a deep and abiding respect and love for and who loves me in return. Today's agenda? Nothing more than gratitude.

Expanding...

 
I am expanding.

Well not like that. Actually, like "that" I've shrunk a bit. The two may or may not be related, but I recognize a hunger in me that has nothing to do with food. And no, I have not read the much heralded, Oprah-anointed Women and Food by Geneen Roth , but I did read her Feeding the Hungry Heart in my 20's.

I do believe 90% of our hunger for more: food, sex, relationship, shoes, chotchke has something to do with our understanding that we have a hunger and craving for a need that simply cannot be fully met. We have a cavernous pit of longing and we are trying to fill it with something, anything. It's akin to tossing golf balls into the ocean in an attempt to make a difference somehow.

It's been a pretty powerful few months for me. A serious of books have landed in my lap, no doubt for a purpose. I am calmed and in an intense period of emotional and spiritual learning and growth. The Restless Heart changed my life significantly. Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart is teaching me to reframe everything and An Altar in the World guided me safely and lyrically back to where I'd been in the past. Finally, Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years reminded me of what my life could look like and provided me with my newest mantra:

I am a tree in the story of a forest. 

i.e. it isn't all about me, the tree. There's more going on than my little pea-brain human self can envision.   

I've experienced lots of change and challenges. I didn't want ANY of it. I wanted to keep deluding myself that I was living a perfect life. Anyone else, who knew the whole story, would see that it was swiss cheese. Since that time I've become more patient (though one would hardly call me "patient" exactly), more loving, more forgiving and far more appreciative of what I do have.

I know now I don't know the story and I can't and won't until I live as long as I do and have as broad a view as possible of the whole big story-and not just mine. I know I touch and have been touched (no giggling) by many people, that my friends and family are of equal importance as a partner and that I'm an ok sort of person, flawed as I am.

Mostly I just feel centered. I hope you do too. If not, grab one of those books. Seriously. And if you are centered, read one anyway. They are that good. 






Photo: via Creative Commons license, courtesy King of Herrings.

Beautiful

I found Rosie Thomas via Last.fm:

Killer YouTube PlayList

Sure. We all think we have the best musical taste, eh? All I can say is this is a group of songs from a whole host of sources that move me either lyrically or through the music alone. Thanks to Erica Swanson for a few. Keep an eye on her blog for great writing, great music and great design!

Most of these are pretty low key and lovely:



kd lang's version of Hallelujah

Michelle Featherstone "I'm There Too"

Melody Gardot "Worrisome Heart"

Grace Potter & Nocturnals White Rabbit

Roison Murphy "If We're in Love" (and anything by her live)

Cinematic Orchestra "To Build a Home" (stunning)

Dinah Washington & Max Richter "This Earth"

Skunk Anasie "Squander"

David Gray "Draw the Line"

St. Vincent "Paris is Burning"

Epiphany

[This has been one of my most heartily received posts, both on the other blog and on Twitter/Facebook. I'm reprinting it here because here is where it belongs but I'm leaving it there because that's where comments are.]

Relationships are hard on me. But, I finally think it is fair to say, they've been harder still on my ex-partners. When you continue to hear the same things from people you've loved and lost, you gotta wake up some time. Unfortunately, waking up isn't always clear and easy.

Folks. I woke up this week. I'm flooded by what I've discovered and it has freed me in a way that isn't easy to express because I suspect that I'm in a small, lucky, sometimes cursed group of people.

I credit this book, The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness, for what may be one of the most pivotal changes in my life. It is the section on "restlessness" as a type of loneliness where I recognized me. I can't copy it all here so I'll do my best to summarize an eloquent writer's words:

Many or most of us suffer from a type of soulful loneliness, even when we are deeply loved, because we have felt a fully evolved, higher level of love via spirit. We've been "kissed by God" and in most of us there is a memory of this that causes all other love to pale in comparison. (Page 54 of the hard cover).

My sister and I have what we call the "love dream". Unlike a sex dream, the love dream (with a stranger or a friend or a celebrity-the object is not important) leaves you bereft upon awakening. I've been blessed/troubled with these my whole life (because this is a serious post I will wait til another time to amuse you with the objects of my affection). I've laid in bed and cried because I could not reach that ethereal partner. As in-love as I've been, except in a few fleeting moments of physical intimacy, I've never experienced said "love dream" in reality.

So. You are my earthbound love interest. Poor you.

You simply cannot compare. Sorry. I'll beg, cajole, nag, cry, grovel, yell, scream, pout, woo, rationalize, educate you to DEATH trying to get you to conform in some way to this level of love I've experienced.

And you just can't. And you get exhausted and defeated because

It is never enough.

If I've heard it once, I've heard it 1000 times in variations.You can never do enough to please me.

When I read Father Rolheiser's words, I wept copious tears. When I read them aloud to one of my objects, I wept again. I can barely keep from weeping now, frankly.

THIS is why I feel let down. THIS is why I suffer chronic loneliness. THIS is why I'm constantly seeking the romantic love of a lifetime...and why I can never really find it except in a spiritual capacity within myself.

I think some of us have a stronger memory of our love relationship with God/spirit/Universe. We can still feel it on a deeper level than others. This is me. I've been labeled a sensualist and an empath and once wrote Diane Ackerman about this sense of loneliness which she graciously responded to with a "yes", she feels it too.

I feel free. I feel blessed. I feel a sense of understanding and acceptance I've never felt before. I've released the fantasy while retaining hope of a strong, healthy, committed human relationship and recommitted to focusing on my self and my spiritual life. Have you been "kissed by God"?

In A Mood...

...and I've missed Ani (she's particularly impish in this one):

Serendipity, Love and Therapy

If you are blessed to have a therapist like I have in the elf, you could never completely let them go It has been awhile since I saw her, but post-birthday I wanted a check-in/check-up. See, I'm in a complicated relationship. That might be an oxymoron (like dysfunctional family) but this is the meaty juicy kind of love that fills you up so much that you cannot let it go despite it having some significant barriers to what you want and think love should look like. I needed to mull over words like "codependence, love addiction, attachment hunger" and more.

Luckily for me, my therapist prefers words like "bullshit" and "fuck".

When I walked in, she had a book by her that I owned and loved (Cries of the Spirit in case you are interested). She mentioned stumbling on a piece she was sharing with someone and we settled into therapy and didn't discuss further...right away.

About halfway through our examination of the current status of said relationship, she said "Hmmm. Let me read you this piece and see if it resonates." (When she say stuff like this, you can be sure it will).
And it did.  Here it is for you. Print it off. Mine is now on my fridge where all important things reside.

Much love,
Kelly

Our Passion for Justice - Carter Heyward

Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling, not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward". Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies [emphasis mine].

Love creates righteousness, or justice, here on earth. To make love is to make justice. As advocates and activists for justice know, loving involves struggles, resistance, risk. People working today on behalf of women, blacks, lesbians and gay men, the aging, the poor in this country and elsewhere know that making justice is not a warm fuzzy experience. I think also that sexual lovers and good friends know that the most compelling relationships demand hard work, patience, and a willingness to endure tensions and anxiety in creating mutually empowering bonds.

For this reason, loving involves commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called "love". Love is a choice-not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity- a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is a choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh.

This beautiful, very human photo is by Mozinos and Flickr via Creative Commons.