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A Little Heavier

I try to pay attention. I really do. That might be hard to imagine–I know I often talk too much, send too many messages, post too many pictures. I know this about me. I am constantly having to to forgive myself and try again in the morning. But inside all of it, I am trying to pay attention. To listen. To discover the messages.

They’re easy to hear at yoga glass where I’m expecting them–the whole practice is dedicated to paying attention. But I never heard anyone say anything like what the instructor came out with last week. It caught me so off guard I almost burst into tears. Not that it’s anything to cry about, but, you know. Strong emotions have that effect on me.

A resting pose. A twist, maybe? I forget. And the instructor says: “See if you can be a little heavier. Let the earth hold you.”

Seriously.
See if you can be a little heavier.
I mean, who says things like that?
Who does that?

Be heavier. Let the earth hold you.
Damn.

Aren’t we always trying to be lighter? Women, especially, I think, in regards to our bodies–but that’s not the point. In our bodies, in our spirits, in our hearts. We’re always–I’m always–trying to let go, to float, to be less extra and more essential…trying to give the earth as little as possible to hold up. Trying not to be too much. Too heavy, too loud, too bright, too much information, too many glasses of wine, overly honest, too explicit, overwhelming.

And there she goes, and right there on the yoga mat permission is granted to be everything. All of it. Be as much as you are. Be as much as I am. To let the earth hold me up because of course it will. There’s no way I am too big or too much or too heavy for the entire planet. Even I know that.

What is it about the mandate to be a little heavier and let the earth hold it all that makes my eyes prick? Even now. Is it because I am terrified of being too much? Of knocking the whole blue and green ball right out of orbit?

Kind of. I mean, yes.

I don’t know how not to try to be less. I envy svelte people with their shit together who speak in critical sentences and never snort when they laugh, fall of their bikes, post stupid things on social media or tell stories that are too long and end up lost in translation. It must be nice. The day I try to be a little heavier and let the earth hold me, Mother Earth is going to have her work cut out for her. Expect atmospheric disturbances.

What’s the lesson? About being what you are just for a minute? Stopping for a second to take stock of your own baggage before going about the business of trying to let it go, to set it down? Maybe. Because letting go of things is good. Things that don’t serve you. Things you don’t need. I guess I just never knew, until I was lying there on the yoga mat practically crying about it, that you also have to quit trying to peel your fingers off of things that belong to you once in a while. Just for a few minutes, while you breathe. And be everything you are. Have everything you have. And just trust the planet to keep it’s rhythm with all of it. Every last pound, story, poem, wish, tear, stupid thing you said/did that you shouldn’t have.

Oh yeah and keep it together while you’re at it because you’re in public and whereas the instructor just gave you permission to let the earth hold you, it’s not a good place to actually come unglued.

Maybe it’s like breathing in and out, the trying to be lighter/trying to be heavier? You can’t exhale forever. Sometimes you have to pull into you things that you need. It’s very scary. Trying to be less feels safer than trying to be more. Or is it just more familiar?

Anyway. I’m trying to pay attention. I heard the message. It’s about self-love and about trusting the universe to keep me in its grasp.  It’s permission not to be a butterfly all the time.  It’s permission to sometimes be a stone.

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Addicted to Amazement

let’s become addicted
to amazement
that dizzying electric surprise
when the unexpected
explodes
before our eyes
on our taste buds
over our skin

let’s take it in our coffee
in our water
in our wine
until we can’t live
a single hour without a
surge of glorious disbelief
to calm us

we will claw the earth for it
find it under stones
in the hearts of
little shells
peel it with our teeth from the
bark of tender trees

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How to Be Okay When You’re Not

I thought you might like a suggestion about how to be okay when you’re not. Because it happens to all of us and it’s good to have a plan.

This is mine:

I go to the beach.  Of course.  Because I can.  But you don’t need a beach to do this.  I sit in the sand and curl up into a little ball, like a seated fetal position. That’s the position I take when I’m really bad. When I’m kind of okay, I might sit cross legged. If I’m good, just feel like I need a huddle with all of my selves, I might sort of lie back on my elbows. It doesn’t matter.

I reach my finger out and trace a circle around me–all the way around–in the sand. It could be a big circle or a little circle—it doesn’t matter. The less okay I am, the smaller I make the circle, like a tighter hug.

I don’t know where I got this from, but it’s been with me for a long time, and I am pretty sure I didn’t make it up. If I did, it’s one of those things that can’t I be the first one to have invented.

This is how to be okay whether or not you are.

The important thing is to close the circle. You may not believe this until you try it, but you can feel the circle close. Something happens. I swear. No, I am not insane. Try it. If you can’t get to the beach, sit on your living room floor and draw an invisible circle. Sit in the driveway and draw a circle with chalk. You’ll see what I mean.

I tell myself that everything that is me is inside the circle. Definitions are important when you’re not okay. Basic definitions. Inside the circle: Diana. Outside the circle: not-Diana. Having something you can be completely sure of is a fabulous place to start when you’re not really okay. And it rocks when you are.

I tell myself that inside the circle, everything is alright. There is enough air. The sand is holding me up. Nothing hurts. My heart is beating just the way it’s supposed to. My lungs are doing a great job of breathing. Everything essential is just fine. I tell myself everything I absolutely need is inside the circle with me. Intestines, for example.

And everything/everybody that is not-me must stay out while the circle is closed. When I’m especially not-okay, I write things in the sand outside the circle. The first letters of names, usually. People, living or not, who, no matter how much I love them, are not me. Only I am allowed inside the circle. I have to be in here alone to be okay, and you have to stay out. Sometimes I review a list of things and people who are not me, mentally telling them they have to stay out right now, setting them on the other side of the line.

It becomes easier and easier to breathe.

I explain to myself that inside the circle, everything is alright. Nothing is missing. Here are my two hands, each with 10 fingers. I have plenty of teeth and enough hair. My legs take me everywhere I need to go. If I am hungry, it is by choice.  Outside the circle, everything can be as wrong as it is, but inside the circle, everything is accounted for, working, in place. It is the only spot in the universe where everything is alright.

I just sit there. Sometimes I close my eyes. Sometimes, if I’m not having a good day, I might cry a little. I don’t usually, but it’s not impossible. So if you walk by on the beach and happen to see me, don’t worry. It’s just salt water. And don’t talk to me. I can’t talk when I’m in the circle. I mean, I don’t want to. That’s not generally a problem either because I think there’s something about the circle that makes you invisible to most people. I’m not kidding. You’ll see what I mean when you try it.

Then when I feel a little better–or the tide is coming in, or my back starts to hurt, or the mosquitoes are biting me, or I can tell I’ve had enough sun, or I’m thinking about how my cats are hungry—I reach out with my hands and open the circle. I make a door in it.

And the rest of the world comes rushing in. But it’s alright. Because on some very basic level, I have remembered that I am still here and there are at least some ways in which I am okay. And that, as I said, is a fabulous place to start.

Try it. It works.

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Los Robles Jalan Rayos

maybe gerardo was right.
maybe there is something sinister
after all about the robles,
those twisted branches
bewitched with luscious
humid blooms in the
driest sun of february’s
scalding curse

he always said
los robles jalan rayos and
i rolled my eyes
but now i wonder.
the robles were blooming their
wicked flowers
when i knew
something was wrong

you tried not to be sick
but i saw the night sweats.
i remembered jenna who had them
before she died
and your skin’s undertone
went from peach to blue.
i saw it,
while on the robles
impossible flowers surged from gnarled twigs
and fell
from the sapphire colored sky

 

 

 

 

 

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The Importance of Being Everything

A friend looked at me with either disbelief or sudden comprehension (they are hard to distinguish) and said to me, “You are everything!” I laughed because that’s silly. The list of things I’m not is much longer than the list of things I am. But I have been thinking, on this 2-week trip out of the Costa Rican jungle into the Mennonite Meccas of the USA, about all the things I am–and it’s a lot of things. Diverse things. Often opposites.

I’ve been thinking about Living Theatre—how Life is theatre and Theatre is life. All the world is, in fact, a stage. And I Iove that. I was a college theatre major many lives ago, and although by all appearances I walked away from it, do not be fooled: I never walk away from anything. I love being a shape shifter, being a little bit of everything. A statement like that make me seem insincere if you don’t take the time to hear what I mean. So, listen.

You can be a lot of things without being insincere. I am never insincere. All of the personas, all of the characters, are real. I just perhaps enjoy this more than most—am able to delight in the scene/language/wardrobe/script(language) changes that drive most people crazy and make them feel that if they cannot always be one person, they are therefore incorrect. Why? Who says? Why be one thing when you can be all the things?

I know. You’re normal and I’m, um, a little strange. It drives you crazy when your life tries to require you be somebody you’re not. I know. Me? I don’t resist it. I take it as a challenge. A new role to play. New lines to learn. A new costume. And I am curious. I want to know everything. From the inside out. If you learn the language, believe your lines as you deliver them, wear the costume convincingly, you will be amazed how people let you in. I have learned this.

In my daily life at the beach in Tamarindo, I feel ageless—neither young nor old nor in need of setting myself at a particular place on the spectrum: undefined. I slip between 3 languages on a normal day which is like having 3 passports to 3 planets. Which one is my home? All of them. Or none? I couldn’t choose. I cruise around on a bicycle in cut-off jean shorts and flipflops (if I can remember them) with a notebook, a baseball cap and sometimes a raincoat in my backpack because you never know. I don’t even think about it until I shape-shift into the farm girl from Manheim, Pennsylvania and then I realize that the things I have in common with other women my age in this place are…well, there are some. Most of them involve reminiscing. Or baking. But what’s not to love about that?

The other night in my journal, I made a list of the things I am. You should try this. It’s an awesome exercise in self-awareness. And then you get to practice being all the things to the absolute best of your ability. Don’t try to shorten the list. Add to it. Deepen. Here’s a truth worth pondering: Acting is acting; lying is lying, but acting is not lying. If you don’t know what I mean, don’t worry. Keep living. You’ll figure it out.

Why anyone else would want to read this amount of my navel-gazing introspection I swear I do not know. But, you’re welcome. You can always shut me up by clicking on the little X in the corner.

This is my List of Things I Am:

the daughter
the grandmother
the step-mother
the good wife
the widow
the American ex-pat
la casi Tica
la quasi Italiana
the nurse (never by profession, but…)
the Pennsylvania Mennonite
the farm girl
the surfer
a single woman
the prodigal child
the cloistered nun
the writer
the student
the teacher
the one who is listening
the maker of maps
the clairvoyant
the wanderer
the stubborn one
the timid one
the guardian
the phoenix

Every day I get up and be some of the things—which ever ones are required of me. These personas are all the more clear when I travel to other parts/places of my life like I am doing right now. I am a human onion. Who, honestly, is not?

The lines blur between Life and Theatre. They melt into the one thing of being absolutely sincere in the moment where you are, and not shying away from any moments because you don’t know your lines or you don’t have a perfect costume. The more things you are, the more diverse moments of sincerity you may participate in.

This is what I’m talking to myself about today on the last day of my trip as a snowstorm approaches.

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The Devil, A Hermit, and a Guy Hanging Upside Down

What do you say when your friend offers you a Tarot card reading to start the new year? Um, you say, “Yes.” You get on your bike and ride over to her house and willingly accept a vodka soda first because you don’t know what’s coming. If you grow up Mennonite like some of us (ha ha) you know nothing about Tarot cards except that they are definitely Satanic. I giggle as I write this because the idea of the devil residing in a deck of cards is, well, funny. Right? If only it were that easy. Sigh. Anyway.

I expected the reading to be interesting, but I have to say it was FAR MORE interesting than I imagined.  I’m open to input from all sources, so why not a deck of cards to suggest ways in which I might think outside of my box?

We shuffled up the cards, and I pulled 3. These were intended to represent the Past, the Present and the Future. And my friend said you’re supposed to pose a question. I don’t really have any specific questions in my life right now, just vague ones like, “Which end is up?” and “Am I doing this right?” But you apparently aren’t allowed to be vague, you have to be specific—so I made something up about focusing my energy. Which is still vague. And I feel the cards I drew held a mirror up to me in a way that is IMMENSELY COMFORTING.

Funny. I wouldn’t have said I went there looking for comfort, per say. That’s not generally the way I roll. But I rode home later practically crying with relief. Here’s what I drew:

THE PAST

I flipped over the first card that represents the past and there was the fucking Devil. Sorry about the f word.

I gasped. I mean, the last thing you want to do on your very first Tarot reading as a recovering Mennonite is come face to face with the Devil. It scared the crap out of me. And then I almost burst into tears of joy because HE IS IN THE PAST. You and me, you Beast From Hell, are done with each other. Bye.

The more you know of my story, the more levels of meaning the Devil in the Past will have for you. And, no, I don’t believe I have dealt with the literal Devil in the past. I mean that I have been through many difficult scenarios, most of them in one way or another chosen by me. And of course Cancer is an obvious devil who has very recently caused the complete destruction of the life I had. So yes, a diabolical amount of pain and difficulty are DEFINITELY in the past for me. And what a relief to have this comforting pat on the back from a stupid deck of cards saying, “That’s all done, honey. It’s all over. It isn’t now and it isn’t later. It’s done.”

THE PRESENT

This one was so obvious it made me laugh. I flipped over the middle card and found The Hermit. Ha ha. There’s not even much to say about that. And the Tarot deck only has one devil and he’s in the past so what the heck? Everything else is cream, baby. That’s an amusingly accurate picture of what followed The Devil. A whole year that I spent being a hermit.

I am trying to move out of the hermit mode little by little and I think I’m doing a good job. The Hermit card is said to represent a period of withdraw and reflection, which I think all of you have witnessed me doing.  Right again.

So now I’ve got one card left and it’s the one I’m nervous about. Only mildly nervous because the Devil is in the Past, but being as the Hermit in the Present is SO ACCURATE, I can’t help but be worried about what the Future card is going to be. Because if it’s as right-on as the Past and the Present, then…well, that’s a little scary.  What if I don’t like it?

I flipped it over.

THE FUTURE

Staring back at me was The Hanged Man. I was stunned, confused and dismayed–in that order. The picture on the card and the name of it don’t really match. The name on the card sounds like a death sentence, but the guy on the card isn’t dead. He isn’t even hanging by his neck. He’s hanging by his foot with a very peaceful Mona Lisa type of look on his face. He doesn’t actually appear to be in any type of distress at all. In fact, the more I stared at him, the more it seemed like he was hanging upside down because he wanted to. Just chilling in an upside-down tree pose. And he has a halo on his head.

I stopped being upset and became fascinated. I spent most of my childhood hanging upside down from a broomstick trapeze that my dad finally made for me in in a tree in the front yard after I inflicted on him unbearable amounts of pestering. When I outgrew that, I spent an inexplicable amount of time doing handstands against the kitchen door—just chilling upside down. My parents were perplexed. My sisters were annoyed. I just liked it. I’ve always liked upside down.  No idea why.

So what does The Hanged Man mean? My friend and I had to look him up because he’s a little obscure.  We found this description:

In this card, it depicts a man who is suspended upside-down, and he is hanging by his foot from the living world tree. This tree is rooted deep down in the underworld, and it is known to support the heavens. It is believed that the hanging man is actually positioned there by his own free will. We believe this because of the serene expression which is on his face. His right foot is bound to the branches, but his left foot remains perfectly free. His wearing of red pants are a representation of the physical body and human’s passion, while the blue that he wears in his shirt are representative of calm emotions, a color combination that is commonly seen in saints. His intellect is symbolized by the yellow color of his shoes, hair and halo.

Which, supposedly, means:

The hanged man understands that his position is a sacrifice that he needed to make in order to progress forward – whether as repentance for past wrongdoings, or a calculated step backward to recalculate his path onward. This time he spends here will not be wasted, he does this as part of his progression forward. His upside down state can also symbolize the feeling of those that walk a spiritual path, for they see the world differently.

This is a card which is mainly designated towards waiting and suspension. This suggests that this might be the thing that you need to do in order to achieve success or to wait for the proper opportunity. Keep in mind that taking action is not always the best solution and in certain cases refraining from doing so might bring you just as much, if not more benefits.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS TO ME

I told you it was interesting.

What I got from all of it is pretty much a huge pat on the back from the Universe, and a, “Don’t you worry your little head about it.”

The dark days are in the Past.
The Present is quiet.
I’m not supposed to know, now, what’s going to happen later and there is nothing I need to do to bring it about.  So I should just hang upside down and chill.  Be where I am.

I love it. I can do that. I would have been ok with a bright, joyful and glorious future instead of hanging upside down by the foot, but hey. I can hang. Whatever is coming will eventually get here. And if this is what’s coming, it’s good enough for me.  As long as the Devil is in the Past, I can hang right here for the next 50 years or until enlightenment arrives or until somebody cuts me down.  Whichever comes first.