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Being Brave

3/5/2010

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Listening to the radio yesterday, I heard Cat Stevens' Wild World from the '70s, and I thought that if I had only my smile, it would be much harder to be brave. But as it is, when I'm fully myself, I know that I have more tools and weapons at my disposal than a mere smile, although a smile can be more helpful than many people know. 

Being brave doesn't mean I'm not afraid. Fear rises in me at times just like it does in most creatures. (Embracing uncertainty doesn't always come easily.) I find my courage in spite of my fear... because of it. Bravery is my rebellion against being afraid. Living in my own way, making decisions based on love, courting new experiences and exhilarations... this is the best revenge, the real victory over fear.

Writing this has helped me make a firm decision to go flying with a friend's husband. The last time I saw them, I promised that I would go with him the next time I was there, but I was beginning to quaver on my promise. Now, I'm going flying! Being brave feels so good. I highly recommend it.
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Spirit vs. Form

1/16/2010

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Uh oh. No blog posts in December. Sorry about that. And here it is the middle of January. Yikes!

The Universe or God certainly has a sense of humor. If you believe that everything happens for a reason, which I do, and that we often can't discern what that reason might be, and I often can't, then you'll appreciate this ramble. 

Clearly, I need to learn that being is spirit rather than form, and the longer I take to learn this lesson, the more insistent God or the Universe becomes. I'm being dense and stubborn, and it's getting a little scary.

Last year, I'd had a couple of haircuts I didn't like from my longtime and expensive downtown stylist, so I decided to find someone new in my neighborhood. Did I go to my friends' local hair cutters? Oh, no... why would I do anything that clever?

I went online to Yelp and found a husband and wife team just over and down the hill in the Inner Sunset. Close by, inexpensive, good reviews... what could go wrong?

Making an appointment was easy, and I even found parking right in front -- I was meant to go there! The fellow had a heavy accent, but we seemed to understand each other, and I had brought a couple of photos of the hair style I wanted, and he liked one of them, so I put the fate of my hair in his seemingly capable hands.

We talked about his experience as a hair stylist and his native country, and I wasn't paying much attention to how much hair he was cutting... until it was too late. How can I describe this haircut without a photo? Japanese rock star? Nazi collaborator punished by villagers after the war? Can you see it now? Does it sound like me? No. Really?

I was in shock, so I paid him and left. Went to the mall and in desperation bought hair extensions -- in retrospect, the kind I imagine meth heads might wear -- and just made it look worse. Then I went home and Skyped my best friend and showed her what happened, contrasting the desired hairstyle photo with the actual style, with and without the extensions, and we laughed so hard we almost peed our pants. 

I decided it was worth it for all the laughs and the realization that I'm still me even if I have a ridiculous haircut. 

Fast forward a few months, I've forgotten that benign lesson about vanity. And I have to have an outpatient surgery to correct an idiotic decision made in my youth. The result is not aesthetically pleasing, and I'm momentarily devastated. Then, I remember... oh yeah, I'm still me even if... right. 

Being is spirit not form. Form is just a temporary manifestation of our spirit in the physical world. We are spirits in eternity, the Us that doesn't change. Interestingly, when we accept this and let go of ego, things tend to work out just fine after all.

Namaste.









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Watch out, world!

11/22/2009

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Yikes! Two blog posts in one month!

You've heard of the quiet before the storm? How about the quiet after the storm? That's how it feels to me right now. The last few months have been mostly volatile with a few days of calm here and there. Now, the highs and lows have subsided, and I'm left with determination and hopefulness. Not such a bad outcome, after all.

I'm working on The Artist's Way, submitting children's stories, writing Dinner at Antoine's, The Battle of Picacho Pass, various poems, and a new project that will remain anonymous for now but is a lot of fun so far. I'm also thinking about the winter conference of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators in New York and Highlights Magazine's Chatauqua conference next year.

And then there are archery and horseback riding lessons. These are two activities from my youth. Archery I never pursued, but became interested again when I saw the first Lord of the Rings film (thank you, Orlando Bloom) and I found an old wooden bow in a garage we were cleaning out during a Rebuilding Together SF project. The homeowner wanted us to throw it away, so I asked if I could have it. It is beautiful whether I can use it for archery or not. Horseback riding is another story.

I began riding when I was four years old at a place that offered rides on Shetland ponies next to a beer distributor called the Pony Keg. Figures. I loved to gallop, thrill seeker that I was. At five, I took English riding lessons from a very mean man -- that didn't last. At eight, I rode every weekend with an old cowboy, Henry, and he eventually put me in charge of trail rides. I was fearless. The trail ride that sticks in my mind was with an adult couple. A small plane landed on the trail in the desert, spooking our horses. I gave that pilot a piece of my eight-year-old mind! Nothing mattered except the horses and the safety of my riders.
 
For years after that, I took real riding lessons from Mrs. Dali Watley, the queen of western riding teachers. I worship her memory. She had us ride bareback to really become one with the horse, and it worked. She was demanding and brilliant. I loved her and the horses. One summer, my parents rented horses for us up at our cabin at Hawley Lake on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. We chased Indian cows when they weren't chasing us and had the kind of summer that kids never forget. 

Then years went by without riding at all until I went to work in Paris for a few months after graduate school. One of the secretaries had a horse at a stable and invited me to go riding. English-style riding is called a la française in France, naturally, and I wasn't any better at it than I had been at age five. The stable owner put me on a lively two-year-old and I didn't know what I was doing even less so with her instructions in French and so managed to get thrown several times. Mrs. Watley always told us to get back on if we fell off or got thrown, so I got back on until I landed against the wooden corral wall and hurt my back. They took me to a French hospital where they took x-rays with an ancient machine -- if I get cancer, you'll know why -- and gave me muscle relaxants, and didn't charge me a franc even though I was a foreigner. For the next few days, my legs felt tingly and like they weren't connected properly to my hips, but the real damage was to my confidence. I lost my nerve when it came to horses. I was afraid for the first time.

That is what I hope to regain by riding with a Half Moon Bay cowboy friend of my friends Fabian and Charles West. He also believes in the value of bareback riding, so we'll see. But enough stories for now.

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It's about time

11/9/2009

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I'm not sure one blog post a month actually constitutes blogging, but that's about as good as it's going to get right now. Facebook is great for free association; blogging is supposed to be more structured, I guess. 

This transition — in my life, not between paragraphs — is emotional, tumultuous, intellectual, challenging, and necessary. I can't imagine anyone would ever choose to change her life so dramatically if the survival of her soul didn't depend on it.

A warm, sunny week at a beautiful, isolated resort near Cabo San Lucas in Baja California del Sur, Mexico, with my best friend, was healing. If you're ready for a couple of transformative books, I highly recommend A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, in that order. And if you're on an emotional roller coaster, keep a journal. Dear Diary... you remember how to do it. No one ever has to see what you write — you don't even have to reread it — heck, burn it! But the act of writing down your feelings, observations — whatever comes out, clarifies and distills the contents of your heart and mind. Very helpful. Just sayin'.

Now I'm back in my so-called real life, wading through mud, but making progress nonetheless. Living with love... that's all I can do.
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A Brand New Day

10/12/2009

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How things can change in just a few weeks...

Weebly has overcome its problems with support and I was able to publish this site after many weeks of waiting. I have a lot of work to do on my various long-languishing writing projects, but I feel renewed; my energy, creative force, and muses have come back to me. I am so thankful.

I've also realized that Facebook makes it possible to reconnect with kindred spirits, both long-lost and newly discovered, and express oneself in a stream of consciousness that, while self-indulgent to be sure, is a lot less expensive and, I imagine, much more interactive than psychotherapy. It's fascinating to see which comments, quotes, songs, articles - whatever interests me - is, in turn, interesting to which friends, and to find out what they are doing, thinking, feeling, appreciating. That interaction has woken me up from a long dull sleep, and I'm so grateful.

I am embarking on an unexpected, exhilarating, and, yes, terrifying adventure. I just hope my inspiration and courage can withstand the lures of familiarity and comfort. I know my loved ones will be with me wherever I may go. I am undeservedly blessed with their presence in my life. And when I am old, I don't want to remember my wonderful daydreams; I want to tell stories about what I did, win or lose, to make them come true.
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Writing in the Fog

8/1/2009

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I have mixed feelings about creating a website, blogging, and social networking. I guess it's important to develop an online presence and to network digitally these days, but it feels very exposed to me and a little presumptuous — like writing a memoir when you're 30. Then again, I doubt very many people will see any of this anyway, so what the heck. 

The weather here in San Francisco, especially the fog in summer and the rain from November through April, makes it easy to stay inside and write. Not that writing is easy, although the hardest part is making myself sit down long enough to do it. The inspiration usually comes. Sometimes it even feels like it's flowing through me and nothing exists beyond the ideas and the words. That's an amazing state of mind. I'm grateful for ever experiencing it.

I don't enjoy looking at a computer screen — it makes me feel ill after a while — so I may just have to write longhand now that I'm focusing on writing again. Does that make me pseudo-Amish? There are worse things to be. The Amish are the people who actively practice forgiveness -- remember how they forgave the man who shot and killed several of their children at school a few years ago? And how they comforted his family? They also believe that people with disabilities are born to teach us how to love. That is certainly true for my family.
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