The Daily

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10/25/16

8:25pm

My friend and I sit together in a low lit cafe; with good food, good coffee, good music, and very cool art on the walls; and discuss business ideas. We love this place. And we love to sit together and talk. It’s freaking fun! We are successful already.

Questions have been presenting themselves to me as my twenties ended and my thirties began: Does this excite me? Do I feel drawn to it?

***Is the time and energy of making money off of this worth it to me?***

That last one is the more important one to me, I have found. In my later twenties I really played with different ways I could make money. I discovered that I could make money off of literally anything. Anything I tried, there was money to be found. I decided to define Success as whether I could see myself living off the money I saw coming in. And lo and behold, I could see myself living off of anything I tried! And yet, none of these avenues turned into the way that I make the money I live off of. But, why? Well…actually having to put in the focus and effort of building success in any of these areas simply didn’t interest me. Actually, focus and effort pretty much turned me off. Yet I do know that you can only get out of something what you put in. So there was a dilemma. I know that to up my level of income, I must up my level of output. And upping my level of output wasn’t worth it to me. So, I had to be happy right where I was. And I was in a way. I was happy that I wasn’t slaving away anywhere I didn’t want to be. But I still wanted to figure out how to achieve more income. And the question arose: What area of interest feels worth my time and effort to make money off of it? 

There’s an important distinction here. For me, at least. Some people ask themselves, what do I love to do? What brings me satisfaction? There are plenty of things I love to do and that bring me satisfaction. But I want to do them simply for the satisfaction, not with the added focused effort of turning it into money: Of coming up with a brand, streamlining that, creating a website, marketing it, going to events to promote my services, advertising, talking about it with others as a service I could provide them, truly believing that I can satisfy clients and make them feel good about spending their money on me, answering emails and phone calls, writing emails, making phone calls, producing content related to it, researching the market, targeting a market, testing out ideas on an audience, seeking out feedback and utilizing it, keeping my eyes on the future, figuring out competition, figuring out how to advance in changing landscapes, figuring out growth and expansion, and all the other myriad details of turning something into a business. In my eyes, that’s what upping my level of output involves. So, christ! I better really love putting in that type of effort or else focus on a lower-effort 9-5 and use that money to then do the things I love for fun. And believe me, I see nothing wrong with living that way! Whatever satisfies you and makes you happy! Where I got tripped up in the whole lower-effort 9-5 was that I put a lot of my money towards figuring out how to make money off of the things I love rather than do them for fun. 

But yet! Fun is an important ingredient! As I said to my friend in this cafe that we love: “The more fun we have with this, the better we’re going to do with it.” And why do I believe that? Because when everything I listed above becomes fun, because the idea of doing this thing I love in a way that makes me money is truly exciting and joy inducing for me, then it is worth my time and effort to make the money. So…to crystalize this even further for myself:

***What will make, making money, fun? ***

Ah….now that is a question I am enjoying asking myself. And I’m feeling the answers coming. Yippee!

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10/24/16

9:09pm

I am a total, 100% utter failure today and that’s ok! 

I realized this. What is failure? We must assign it a meaning and then decide if that is positive or negative and then does that make the thing we are trying to identify desirable or undesirable. And there to me is where we lead ourselves astray. It’s not black or white here. Desirable or undesirable. Good. Bad. We invented that. Whatever it is, it just is. 

I did not complete a task I set up for myself today and thus I failed. And I failed on numerous levels. I had plenty of time to complete it, roughly three weeks! I procrastinated. I also have many irons in the fire right now, so I’m inevitably going to fail at keeping them all hot at the same time. Time management – Fail! Completed task – Fail! Organized schedule – Fail! Getting to places on time – Fail! Communicating effectively with my boyfriend about my feelings around this without seeming like an irate psycho – Fail!

And…so what? I can now assess what different steps to take moving forward. All of my experiences in this life: good, bad, desirable, undesirable, they are all necessary. And there’s no cause to wrap my head further around it.

As I said in a text to my boyfriend, later, when I could articulate more effectively: 

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“I’m not actually mad…just anxious and upset while also not being upset. If I wasn’t anxious and upset absolutely nothing would get done. That’s how I feel right now. And being anxious and upset isn’t even bad. It just is. There’s no need to make anything better. …Sometimes I just need to act insane for awhile, that’s all. Since I’m trying to be better than I currently am at everything – I’m simultaneously failing. So I get overwhelmed and act insane but I’m fine.”

*

He didn’t answer. But I knew he understood. As I had said, there is no need to make anything better. So we left it alone. And here I am accomplishing this Daily post. Failure and all. 

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10/23/16

10:56pm

At 6pm my body kicks into work mode. But I’m not structured properly. I went from working a morning job as a night owl to finally getting the picture and working overnights to now realizing it still isn’t quite right. The time for accomplishing work seems to be out of whack. Resting versus working. Accomplishing both and feeling like I’ve done myself right isn’t an easy task. 

I remember when I switched to overnights exclusively. I knew people did this, of course, but I never thought is was possible for myself. I don’t know why. It just never occurred to me as a possibility. Until one day my constant tardiness (due to lack of sleep) caused my supervisor to “threaten” to move me to overnights. I suppose this is an undesirable shift for most. And it dawned on me that that’s what would work for me. I switched. It felt like being on vacation 24/7. I felt FREE! My schedule was as I wanted it! I got regular sleep! And enough of it to feel rested! People told me I was glowing and looked renewed! I was out on a new venture as a better version of myself; more in the driver’s seat of her life. My creative productivity was at an all-time high! What a wonderful time.

It is two years later now. Circumstances have changed. I’m feeling the weight again of a schedule that’s not quite conducive to what my body is telling me it requires. Another shift must be made. I don’t know exactly what it is just yet. It must be another possibility my mind hasn’t even begun to conceive. Isn’t it funny how there are so many things our minds can’t even see? We don’t know until we know. I’m ready to know what my next reality consists of and leave this place behind. It served me well. But my body has moved on and is dragging my mind behind it. Let’s lighten that load and let the new day begin! You hear me up there, mind? Unsnag yourself from whatever it is and go catch up!

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10/22/16

8:07pm

I watched part of a documentary today about unearthing the 13th, largest, and most complete fossilized specimen of a T.rex ever found. One of the main paleontologists on the dig spoke about being “out in the field,” digging up fossils as it’s turning to night. He said:

“You look up at the stars, the light of which is millions of years old. You look up and it’s the past. You look down at this fossilized bone that is millions of years old. You look down and it’s the past. And there you are sandwiched inbetween…”

Sandwiched inbetween the past. In between memories. Real and unreal at the same time. For the light of the stars is only the light, but not the star itself. And the fossilized bone is only a casing of bone and mineral, and not the animal itself. Standing there between what you can see and touch of a form that no longer exists. 

We are surrounded by the past, walking upon it at all times. A twirling ball of everything that has ever happened within it’s confines amidst a matrix of all that ever was, swirling and shifting forms around us. Nothing is ever gone. 

I wonder about our thoughts of the future. What we hope to see or want to create, build, do. What can our minds make happen that hasn’t happened yet. But perhaps it’s already happened. And that is why we can know it so strongly into being. So we can hold in our hands another memory. For whatever it is, it will soon be the past as we understand it. 

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A decaying log is soft

like the moss growing on it;

romantic in it’s way,

allowing a forest to rot 

away beautifully.

I want to lie down 

inside the fallen log,

run my hand along it

and tell it to sink

into the ground in peace

because I will remember it.

                                      …But it has the moss.

*

(Untitled. Written August 4th, 2008).

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10/21/16

8:07pm

Ideas flash through my head all day. 

I have wants. I want to write about my man. A love letter of my man. 

*

I want a son with dark hair like my man and to be like my man.

I love writing the word man and all that it means.

For me it is darkness. Enveloped in the night facing the darkness. What I already know but deeper, more inside. Hidden but known. Light scratches are enough to bring it forth. This is what it is for me as a woman.

*

My man has strong arms. Hands that grip tightly and can crush. Or protect.

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I learn about protection here. There is more; too much to say about protection.

*

My father had strong, gripping, protective hands. They felt healing and safe. Will my  daughters know this in my man’s hands?

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My mother said the man you choose creates your legacy, that you will leave the world through your children. Is this man the legacy you choose to create?

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A legacy of gripping hands and strong arms. Dark hair and fierce eyes. A square jaw. Strength. 

*

I think things about my man that I learn are not true everyday. I learn different meanings for curiosity and wisdom. For what it looks like in the world to love me. …It is an idea I’d never thought to have before…

*

My man ties me to my Woman In The World.

My man has hands that hold that. I don’t want to have hands to hold that. But they are necessary. And I must love them.

*

I could disappear into the wells of what lies in my man’s chest. But he would never allow my disappearance to begin.

*

He looks at me with the force of everything that ever was, rising and dying, swirling, erupting and triumphing in his eyes on me. 

*

I am humbled. Destroyed. And I rise. There as I look into his eyes. And then in my own, gazing upon my face after he has left the room. I am the Almighty. Right there in the room still filled his essence mixed with mine.

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10/20/16

8:51pm

I will try to write earlier in the day at some point.

*

Back to Evolution. I wonder if Human is the first step in a soul’s evolution. For those who consider reincarnation, and I do, there seems to be a school of thought that we eventually arrive at human form, like a great achievement, and then continue to expand consciousness from there. Until one day inevitably, our soul (or consciousness) can now move on from Earthly lessons and growth to a next stage of existence. 

*

But I wonder at this. Perhaps human is the first step, since the journey seems to be entirely about learning to surrender and trust one’s own soul. The journey seems to be about seeking to understand peace and harmony. Seeking to understand letting go into our own energy flow. Seeking to understand connection; oneness; universality. Seeking to understand our connection to the Earth. Seeking to understand the Earth and how it supports us. Seeking to understand the divine. Seeking to know. Seeking to explain. Seeking understanding on every level it can be sought. Seeking. 

*

Seek and ye shall find…

*

Look into nature – at even one tree, and it seems there is nothing more to seek. Do we eventually get to evolve into the privilege of living as a plant? It all seems to culminate there: stillness, quiet, power, peace, harmony, connection, oneness, surrender, weathering the storm, letting go, trust, receiving from the earth all that is necessary, giving back to the source from which you are created in perfect harmony, brilliance, beauty, existing. There is no seeking. There only Is. Is that not a physical capturing of the nirvana, rapture, ecstasy we seek? 

*

If we could only live for one day, but that day was entirely an experience of joy from beginning to end, wouldn’t that be enough? A blade of grass warm in the sun. A bursting forth, burning up quickly in a rapture of only love. Until we finally evolve to live as a tree. I feel more description here is unnecessary. 

*

But what about all that came before us? Well, isn’t linear time something the human mind constructed to make sense of it’s own existence? 

At least, this is where my seeking has currently taken me.

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I am a Towering Goddess
and I created the Earth 
for the many forests
I will walk through 
in and out of time.
*
I cause the storm 
to feel what the form
of my body is able
to withstand, which I’ve come
to understand is eons
of stretching being.
*
Fingers reach to
curl and wither into
feathers or petals
flattened against
my own wind. 
*
I am the wind.
I am the fire 
burning myself to dust
to remember floating;
twisting through the hardened
structures of wanting to experience
tightness, constriction vibration, in love.
*
I am a Bursting.
A choice. 
Crumble
And again.
Falling is rising
in the other direction.
And again.
I am so old and this
is always new.  
*
My feet are the wisest part
of this whole thing.
The thing of my choice.
I am a Bursting.
I am a Choice.

*

(Understandings in May. Written May 8th, 2016).

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(photo taken May 6, 2016).

 

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10/19/16

7:14pm

A child rested her head against my leg today. She wrapped her arm around it too and followed me when I stood up and started walking. We got to play together today. 

*

The interaction reminded me of a dream I once had of being a single mom, brushing my daughter’s hair on a subway train. The two of us going somewhere determined. On a journey together. And then I think of the end of a movie I once saw; where a mother walks off with her daughter down a dirt path through trees, leaving behind everything else she no longer wants in her life. 

*

This image in my head, this “single mom fantasy,” if I may, always fills me with excitement to think about. The woman standing there, holding her daughter’s hand, is so realized.  So determined. So free. Somehow in this way. Everything about her is sharply present. The power of her is breath-taking. I believe there is a feeling of enviable freedom in this fantasy of mine (one that has come around more than once) because in it there is purpose. 

*

Wind blowing their hair and skirts about them as they walk forward with joy and purpose, hand in hand, to be fully in this thing called life. 

 

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10/18/16

8:57pm

Ok, I am trying this out. Daily blogging. Daily thoughts. What is coming to me is evolution. How will this evolve? I start here and there is no goal or set vision, but the thoughts down. Daily. Write as you talk, an expert said, about daily writing. I once wrote down in my journal that I write as I breathe. Is there a difference? 

*

Now the thoughts come that the goal is to allow my Expert to emerge. And as I’m discovering with my less frequent blog (which I hope to shape into The Weekly) – I write about ideas of freedom and overcoming limitations. Will an expert in freedom emerge? Or is that just how the true expert has decided to begin? A trick of beginning: yes this makes sense, hence I can action it, which leads to the real point somewhere very different, and always more exciting than the original thought. 

*

And so, I have evolved already. And perhaps that is freedom. 

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