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| August 2006 Like so much of the rest of the country, we've had weeks of being flattened by intense heat. Daytime temperatures were consistently at or over 100 degrees with none of our usual nighttime relief. The thermometer stayed stuck in the 80's or 90's all evening. During the siege I hibernated, reading and napping with fans and even energy hogging air-conditioning on the worst days. Other days, I'd drive the dozen or so miles to the coast. Though even the beaches were hotter and more humid than usual, I'd wander along the tide line, watch the sun set over the ocean and have some respite from the sauna that was Ojai. It's been such a relief this past week to have more reasonable eighty-plus temperatures by day and our typical nighttime cooling to the 60's. It's a delight to once again have the energy to do gardening, around-the-house puttering and some writing. During the heat it was all I could do to keep the garden watered, the birds, my kitty and myself watered and fed. How ever did we all live without air-conditioning? And, how do the folks who don't have/can't afford air-conditioning manage still? So privileged we are who have this option! My little garden continues to flourish despite the overwhelming heat, gifting me lately with a bounty of succulent cherry tomatoes, a variety of greens and a mini-riot of color. I've potted a yellow Kangaroo Paws shrub in the tub where my 16-year old ficus tree finally gave out after endless decimations by frost over its lifespan. It's a sweet, dear visual addition to the patio array. Butterflies and hummingbirds seem to enjoy it as well. As I walk to my favorite trail I pass two huge and ancient Magnolia trees still erupting with enormous white flowers. Nearby Jacaranda trees have been carpeting the sidewalks with the last of their musky purple blossoms. The wild mountain grasses have all gone golden, punctuated still by patches of evergreen chaparral: central coastal California's summer cloak. It's been a calmer, gentler month for me since I wrote last at the end of June. I've yet to hear any news/feedback from my agent about the early June revision of the manuscript introduction. I wonder each morning if this will be the day I'll hear something. And, for a few minutes I feel my keen disappointment at the long wait. Then, I seem to put it away, to remember that the Grandmothers are in charge of the rightness of the timing. I come back into a simple openness to whatever the day might bring. Lately, the days give me a bounty of empty hours in which to drift and read and dream and wander. It feels so lush and delicious, at last, to be slowed down to my more usual pace after the long siege of being out in the world traveling and being around people. I love the coming back home to my more familiar life. Except for a relatively easy long weekend trip to Florida to celebrate my dad's 90th birthday on July 15th, it's been a blessedly stay-at-home, be alone season. I so love the voluptuousness of long periods of hermitage. The stillness grounds me, fills me deeply and replenishes my world-weary being. I cannot imagine living a more “normal” life full of the usual endless hours of work, social commitments, agendas and expectations to be met. I know that many (even most) people thrive in the busyness and richness of such lives. Yet, just thinking about myself in such a life fills me with a sense of claustrophobia and suffocation. I feel incredibly blessed to have been able-helped by Spirit-to find my way to have, to afford and, especially, to honor the sort of life that I clearly need if I'm to thrive. One of the amazing women who work with me recently turned me on to a series of connected articles about honoring one's introversion in the midst of an extroversion-valuing society (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch). The original March 2003 article by Jonathan Rauch brought more reader mail than any other article in Atlantic Monthly's history! If you or someone you love is, as I am, one of this tribe, it's a terrific affirmation/elucidation of this other way of being in the world. (If you go to the site, the follow-up articles listed in the side box at the right of the article are also worth reading.) It made me smile and rejoice: an articulate advocate for all of us who are different in these ways. These past six weeks have been, for the most part, a fallow time with no particular challenges or things that needed my attention. On the days I've no clients, I follow wherever the energy leads me. Usually there's a space of time for Reiki, an hour or so of Yoga, free-weights and Tai Chi for my bones and a walk or hike. The rest is unpredictable. One morning during my unplugged time last week, I found myself in my walk-in closet going through all my clothes and shoes. It's always fascinating to see the shifts from the last winnowing time. What were maybe yes/maybe no's six months ago become definitiely-done-with's this visit. While busily pitching stuff into thrift store bags, I stopped to try on two pairs of blue jeans that have been stashed there since 1988(!) waiting for a moment when I might be interested in wearing jeans again. Well, the legs and butts fit fine but neither waistband would close. The gaps were 2 or 3 inches wide, even when I emptied my breath. Hmmm. I realized that, but for one pair of denim shorts, everything else in my wardrobe has at least a partially elasticized waist. For many years it's been a conscious choice to buy only clothes that give me complete permission to move through the few pounds up and down in weight that are a regular part of my life. After years and years of struggling with clothes that made me feel crappy about changes in my body/weight, I swore off fixed waistbands. Yet, here were two remnants both in pristine condition and both capable of waggling a judgmental finger at me. I didn't just pitch them. Oddly enough, they seemed for now in the maybe yes/maybe no category. They weren't making me feel bad about my current body size, so I put them on a back shelf thinking that I might want to have them if I were smaller sometime. Over the next day or two I found myself thinking about them and remembering my long ago favorite thrift store blue pants. Those pants were hip hugger bell-bottoms (it was the late 1970's when they were in my life) in a beautiful shade of not quite navy/not quite royal blue. The fabric was a well broken in sueded cotton that was silky as satin. I adored them from the moment I touched them. And, from the moment I first put them on they were just enough too small in the waist to be uncomfortable. The kind of uncomfortable that yelled, “look at you, you're fat again! How disgusting!” Still, I bought them and occasionally wore them even as they pinched and judged me. For several years they were an iconic presence in my closet. It took quite a while for me to consciously get how they served me. Whenever I might be feeling particularly elated, expanded and full of myself I'd put the blue pants on. Immediately I would be cowed by their tightness into feeling truly crappy about my body and myself. I'd berate myself for my eating and feel depressed and worthless. This was, in those days, a much safer place to roost. Here there was relief from the undercurrent of uneasy anticipation of something or someone external broadsiding me, bringing me down from that high open place. I'd have just done it to myself. I'd also reach for the blue pants on days when I already was feeling really shitty about myself for reasons other than my size or my eating habits. Like pulling on a tear in fabric, wearing the blue pants immediately took me deeper into the black hole and helped me to pull dirt in over my head. When, in the mid-eighties, I began the work of re-mothering myself with tenderness and unconditional loving, I began to see the damaging relationship I'd been having with the blue pants. Though I can't quite remember the details of it, I do remember that I did a small ritual around sending the blue pants on their way to someone else; hopefully to someone who'd use them differently. It was a huge moment in my journey: a conscious commitment to be fiercely and lovingly protective of both my soaring, expanded and my little sad, despairing selves. As I remembered the story of the blue pants it became clear to me that it was time, after all, to send the two pairs of pristine blue jeans on to new owners. Even though they weren't currently wagging judgmental fingers at me, I didn't want to risk the chance that I might stumble into that old hole again on an off day. And, I know that, for all the extraordinary work I've done with and for myself, it's still possible to have an occasional really off and vulnerable-to-old-crap day. The risk seems particularly high at times of major transition and threshold crossing. Usually the slip is brief. I see it quickly and can lovingly call myself back from the brink. Still, it seemed a good idea not to needlessly provide a possible opportunity for getting off track. The saga of the blue pants has become a tale I use in my work. Almost everyone of us seems to have some version of the blue pants in our emotional closets: things, thoughts or memories that we drag out to bring ourselves down to a more manageable size or to dig ourselves deeper into the pit. It helps enormously to bring the process into conscious awareness. Recognizing what we're doing gives us an opportunity to stop, take a deep breath and consider other gentler ways of being with our unease or misery. One of the things I most love about my life-in-the-slow-lane is the time there is to consciously notice and appreciate the seemingly small stuff. Always there's the space to experience the way everything that I do or that happens in a day can offer me a chance to learn or confirm the endless lessons of coming into wholeness. I feel so blessed! During a twilight-into-night meander this month, words for this year's winter solstice card arrived unbidden. Over the next several days a drawing emerged and got refined; such a gift from Spirit/my deep self. The drawing is a line figure curled up and resting, a hand alongside her head. The words: “Gather armfuls of silence, Fill baskets with stillness. Weave a cocoon of gentle quiet, A comforting bower of solitude In which to rest And be reborn.” To visit the Bulletin Board Archive Table of Contents Site Directory (for non-frames viewing)
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