And some things that may be news. In some ways they were to me…
I’ve been fat since college when the freshman 15 became the freshman 50. It didn’t feel like that big of a change because I had already spent my teens years believing I was fat so the mindset was easy to slip into. What was new was when the college guys moo’ed at me. It hurt. I pretended it didn’t. We all carried on with our lives.

As a fat person in pursuit of my own body liberation, I have transformed in phases. There was the “love myself” diet phase where I was convinced if I loved myself enough I would magically become thin. Then the “for real, no more dieting” phase. Then “donut land” (read Dietland for the reference). Then finding joyful movement and fat community via Fat Kid Dance Party and The Plus Bus. Then starting Cincifatty. Wearing crop tops. Dancing in the streets.

Most of these phases – while earnest were, on some level, performative. Meaning – not wholly authentic and not as transformative as they may have appeared largely because I was not being fully authentic. I was doing “what I was supposed to do.”

I was learning the language, becoming the militant advocate, getting the shit kicked out of me by the dissonance between my views/values/actions and my true feelings/fear/shame about my body, lightening up on the militant thing, not knowing who to be and what to say, retreating and re-emerging…

I “know” that body liberation doesn’t mean that I never have a negative body thought again. I know it’s a practice not a result and there is no expectation of “perfection.” But “knowing” isn’t knowing and it’s still hard to be a leader and have secret shame about my own body.

So maybe I’ll share some of it instead of hiding it.

Last weekend I danced with the Shakers in the Midwest Black Family Reunion Parade in Avondale, Cincinnati. This parade has THE BEST crowd. There is a great vibe and I love it.

Our summer costume is a white top with Shakers logo and silver bottoms. I chose a silver mini skirt I hadn’t worn before and learned as we were warming up tended to ride up as I was dancing. Oh well! I mean… the truth was I didn’t feel fully comfortable. I was showing a lot of the part of my body that I still unconsciously conceal: my belly.

Like I started with… you and I know both know I’m fat. No matter what I wear or how “flattering” my outfit is, you are not going to mistake me for a slim person. I let go of that a long time ago. I let my arms out of sleeves, I don’t try to hide the width of my ass or even the thickness, dimples, or jiggle of my thighs anymore.

This belly is new though. In the last year or two it has grown, dropped/folded over, changed shape. It has two distinct protrusions (called a B belly for the shape) and if I’m honest: I don’t love it. I don’t actively think about covering it. I don’t willingly show it. I cringe when my spouse touches it.

I’m stuck on the story of this belly as a symbol of my body failures (failure to diet successfully, become thin, etc) over the years and that it is now too late. There is no going back. I’m over 40, my body is aging, and because I’m never going to diet or have weight loss surgery this is it – I’m fat for life and my body shape is going to continue to change in ways I cannot control. Hint: never could.

So when I left the house wearing this silver mini skirt I was more vulnerably sharing this part of me in a way I had not yet before. In a way I was not fully ready for. And I was even more not ready for others to respond in the way they did.

I usually get two specific reactions to my body:

1. I get an appreciative look over from people (mostly cis men) who express their enticement by my size and shape.
2. I get a knowing glance of “I see you! You go girl” from people (mostly cis women) who know the risks of being fat in public.

Sometimes, despite how visibly fat I am, I am just invisible which can be welcome.

The risks of being fat in public are usually contained in my own mind/experience. I may sit in an uncomfortable chair and feel embarrassed or frustrated about having to ask for one without arms – and while it’s never fun to witness someone’s facial expressions of surprise, confusion, and recognition before they move into action and get me a chair I can fit into… it doesn’t wound me deeply. Instead it’s just another of a thousand little paper cuts that adds up to the experience of being fat in public.

On Saturday, though, the risks were outsized and the impact was wounding. Several people – I counted three, which makes me shudder to think how many more there may have been that I missed – spoke loudly enough about my body and their experience of it that I could hear them over the parade music blasting over any normal conversation.

The first said, “oh look at Miss Piggy here” with a tone that was hard to read. I found myself questioning and grappling as I shook my body through the streets. Did they mean that as an insult? Missy Piggy is an icon! The tone wasn’t outright shaming but it wasn’t celebratory either. The person it came from had a slim, muscular body. Does the tone/intent matter? I attempted to mask my hurt, smiled bigger, moved with more energy and then I stumbled (emotionally and over my feet), now a little off center.

The second “oooh fatty!” happened when my back was turned. I didn’t see who said it. There are so many contexts in my life where that would have been okay, and this wasn’t one. I stumbled more. My shoulders started to slump, my smile faded, and I was aware of how exposed I was. Slumping made my belly bigger – there was nowhere to hide.

The third and final happened just after I had gotten some energy back. They were looking me straight in the eye as they pointed their phone and then their finger at me. “Look at that one! She’s soooo big!” and then they burst into raucous laughter with their friend. At an opportune turn in the choreography I found myself facing them again even after I had walked past. They were still pointing and laughing. I am supposed to represent the group when I’m in my uniform but the flight and fawn responses had already come and gone and fight was the only one I had left.

Instead of looking away I shouted “is that really necessary?” over the noise. They laughed again – maybe surprised that I was a human who could speak and not a lifeless installation presented for their entertainment and ridicule? They responded “you’re really big!!!” As if I don’t know that already. I shook my head. “I know, and you don’t have to be an asshole about it.” There was some recognition on their part then that we weren’t congenially engaged. I was still dancing away as they started to express regret and say “no no no…” Before I was out of earshot I said one more thing: “why don’t you try this? Come out here.” I couldn’t, they responded. I know I said to myself and choked back my sense of defeat and exhaustion.

Later I found out they approached another member of our group and apologized. Said they were just trying to “spread the love” and I shouldn’t “take it that way.” Interestingly, they didn’t approach me directly to share this apology or insight.

The rest of the crew was very loving and protective when they found out what happened. My son said he wanted to punch the guy in the face. I was hugged and loved on by my spouse. My best friend’s text response was exactly the right words: equal parts furious defense and compassionate lens widening. I was taken care of by some incredible people.

I felt angry, and hurt, and embarrassed. I was not eager to see the photos and videos of myself for fear of the really big, miss piggy, fatty I would see. When I saw the first whole body picture I actually had a moment when I rationalized what people had said to me. Oh yeah, it make sense… look at me. I deserve that.

Are you kidding me, inner critic?! No. No no no. None of that.

This experience was painful. I was also very well taken care of by people who love me and I am deeply grateful.

There is no moral here, friends. No nice easy clean wrap up. No I’m so glad I did it. No I love dancing so it was worth it. Nope. Just a true story and real emotions. No plea to think and be different. No list of instructions about how to treat fat people. Just a reminder that we impact each other. Just another window into a perspective you may not have. Do with it what you will. I am going to do my work and make sure it does for me.

I thought about quitting. I probably will not. I thought about never wearing revealing clothing again. I probably still will.

OK wait… Turns out I do have something. A reminder that in this world where we see more of peoples curated lives on social media then we spend actual time in deep conversation with them… Remember this:

You don’t have to be perfect to do the thing. The person who is out there appearing confident or pushing past their limits or doing the thing you believe you could never do is not necessarily doing it from a place of 100% authentic sureness. They may just be tired of living in fear. Or they may just not be sharing with you how scared they feel on the inside for fear that that isn’t what they are supposed to say. Or maybe they are naively stepping into the world forgetting it is often unsafe and getting the wind knocked out of them when they remember.

None of it is a reason not to live. Be kind to yourself – not everyone else will. But some people will.

The backyard was lined on one side with tall cypress trees that blocked the sun for most of the day and kept the unheated, uncovered water chilly. As a young adult who had moved back into the home I bought a fish that supposedly dispensed a fluid that floated on the surface of the water retaining the heat. It felt like it did – maybe a degree or two? It was probably the placebo effect. Anyway, for most of my life the water in the pool was uncomfortably cold for most of the swimming season. It was usually late August or September before it was finally warmed up enough to be pleasant. But the little pool, having less water to heat and being a little further out of the shade, was warm. Well, it was warmer.

So the little pool was a refuge. It was where the kids who were too young to know how to swim or too short to touch the bottom of the big pool shallow end played. It was a way to stay in the water a few minutes past when the night air got too cold to withstand the big pool’s frigid water temperature. It was a way to warm up a tiny bit when your lips started to turn blue but you still weren’t ready to dry off and go inside. It had bubbles!

In the the backyard, often filled with neighbors, cousins, and eventually high school friends, the little pool was a safe place. It was too small to splash around in. It could only contain a certain amount of people. It had limits and they had to be honored. The little pool was very clear about what it could contain.

There were some times, when the other swimmers and I were young enough and in small enough bodies that the limited capacity of the little pool was still too many people for my taste. For those moments, there was another body of water in the backyard that was several degrees warmer and only had room for one: “the puddle.” The puddle was an area where the pieces of concrete that made up the deck came together in a concave channel. A day’s worth of wet feet and splashy diving filled up the puddle. Or if it was a slow day, you could use the hose to get it going. The puddle was just big enough for an eight or ten year old to lie in and have most of their body rest in a 3-4″ deep reservoir of dirty, sun baked water. With a couple lawn chairs strategically placed over the puddle after the sun had warmed it, it offered privacy, sun protection, and a place to dream. When I lied there, unaware of the privilege of having a backyard pool and focusing mostly on wanting a backyard pool with a working heater, I fantasized about being at a resort in a working hot tub. In my mind, I owned this resort. It had many floors, the heated pool/hot tub were indoors on the ground level and above me (represented in this current plane by lawn furniture) were the guest rooms. It was a good time being a resort owner. The only down side was that leaving the resort left me with puddle grit all over my body that had to be washed off with a hose or dip back into the pool where washing off the accumulated warmth along with the grime.

The point of all of this, is that the more limited the space I was in… the safer I felt. The big pool was big. It could hold a lot of people. Any of whom could pretend to be the shark I was convinced lived in the pool scaring me more than I already was. Or simply people with a penchant for dunking. Or ill timed splashing. Or a lack of appreciation for synchronized swimming and other orderly activities (I have a lot of Virgo in my natal chart). The little pool reduced the variables so it was just a more comfortable place to be. The puddle reduced them even further and what emerged in that space were dreams, creativity, and imagination.

I’ve been feeling limited lately and not really knowing what to do with it. I have an innate sense that it is not a bad thing or a problem, just a change to learn how to get used to. I attribute a lot of the limits to age. I can’t lift as much, bend as easily, take on as long a day or as many projects. My body lets me know when too much is going on. My body is very insistent that we live within our limits. But this has not been my way of being. I’ve always taken on more more more and believed in my unlimited capacity to do so. I’ve learned not to do that for other reasons, but never because of feeling limited.

When I think about the little pool, or even better yet – the puddle, I recall something else my body knows. Limits are what contain the magic. Within constraints is where creativity flourishes. Boundaries that keep me safe create a container for my specific genius to thrive.

I wonder what will come out of me as I surrender to being limited.

The spring earth softens as it thaws, aided by warm rain, before it receives the seeds of newly budding trees.

The summer fruit softens on the vine, sending out a sweet scent inviting consumption whether by conscious choice of upright hominid or the instinctual drive of another animal. To reveal at its core – a seed – ready to be planted to begin life anew in next cycle. To play some small role in the attempted guarantee at species longevity.

They say the cervix ripens too. Certainly softening as it morphs from the rigid conical closure to a flat, welcoming entryway. Pushed and pulled into its new, only temporary form, by heavy uterine contraction and the signals sent on waves of hormones.

My body has been softening since I became an adult. Through layers of adipose formation, all arriving for different reasons: trauma, survival, pleasure, indulgence, creation. Eventually they formed enough sheets that they began to harden into a solid mass. It is beginning to soften again. Invited to do so by age.

I wonder what ultimate purpose will be revealed within me as I continue to ripen.

As happens in most relationships, annoyance set in for me recently.  JH used to worry when I said I was annoyed because she DOES NOT like feeling annoyed AT ALL.  It is high on the list of feelings she would prefer not to have.  I don’t love being annoyed (okay, maybe in some sick way I do), but I don’t mind it.  I do not strive to live an annoyance free life.  I’d trade mild annoyance on a daily basis for never having to feel anxiety ever again (if you are a genie or fairy reading this, please consult with me before granting this wish.  I haven’t really thought it through).

I didn’t realize how much I was letting annoyance take the lead until one day I felt drastically different.  When I looked at her, no matter what she was doing, saying, or not doing or saying… all I saw was THE MOST ADORABLE PERSON EVER.  I was so grateful!  What would have been mildly annoying last week, was SO CUTE!  SQUEE!  Nothing she could do would annoy me.  I saw her through a lens of gratitude and appreciation. And through this lens, everything was coming up rainbows and unicorns (as it should).

The shift happened in a moment when I was frustrated and reached out for comfort instead of pushing away.  I cried, let myself be seen and heard, and then listened when she talked instead of dismissing her words as unwanted advice or criticism.  I received what she was offering me in the way she intended (and almost always intends it): as an act of love.  I’d get into specifics, but that’s not really the point.  The point is about the lenses.

My apologies to anyone who has never worn glasses or contacts…  I hope you still get this.

You know when you go to an optometrist and put your face up against that contraption with the interchangeable lenses?  Image for reference.

Photo lovingly borrowed from http://www.mccsmiramar.com/optometrist/ Great photo, folks!

The optometrist, quickly cycles through different lenses and asks you to compare your experience.

One.  Or Two?

If you wait too long to answer because you’re squinting to try to see if you can see better through two or not which is not the point at all, they repeat.

One.  Or Two?

Two (for sake of argument)

Two.  Or Three?

and so on and so on it goes until you’ve compared several different lenses and land on one that helps you see most clearly.  Nowadays, a modern optometrists office has a machine you can stare into ahead of time that measures your eyes, guesses your prescription, and the whole lens comparing process takes just a few moments compared to whatever it took before when it was based on a human’s best guess instead of a machine’s.

That was what it was like to notice my lens shift with JH.

To be clear, the experience between the lenses isn’t that different in a literal sense.  One will be a little bit brighter, the other a bit sharper.  There probably isn’t a “right” or “wrong,” there’s just the one that you see through in the way that you feel most comfortable and satisfied seeing.

And isn’t that just the way of things, eh?

It’s easy to grow comfortable seeing through a lens of annoyance, or judgement, or fear.  And then amazing to realize how much more joyous life can be when seeing through a lens of appreciation.  And although it happened to me totally by accident, I am clear that this is a choice I can make.

Just a few days after I noticed I was seeing through a rosey-er lens, I felt the annoyance lens start to creep back in.  I nodded at it slightly, thanked it for its noble service, and sent it on it’s way.  I’m choosing a lens of appreciation (and the adorableness it yields) on purpose.

Perspective is a fascinating thing.  If social media really is to be the death of us (no one I know has said this, I’m just being dramatic) I suspect it’s because we don’t realize that what we see on our feeds has been tailor made to reinforce the lenses we’re wearing.  We are all seeing something completely different.  Where my feed is filled with videos of cops dancing with children of color at block parties, rational explanations for why #blacklivesmatter isn’t actually divisive at all, puppies, kittens, and articles about emotional intelligence…  my police officer friends’ are filled with stories about officers being shot at, protests restricting access for ambulances carrying sick children, new weapon technology, and puppies & kittens.  And I think (this is just a hunch) we don’t realize that we’re not seeing the same things.  And I don’t even mean perspective wise.

We could each look at the same kitten video and come to wildly different conclusions.  When the way we get our information about the world is through a vehicle like Facebook, we are LITERALLY seeing different things.  And we don’t realize we’re seeing different things, which is why it makes it even more difficult to understand how someone else could come to such a radically different conclusion than we did.

Turns out, they (the people with the other lenses) are not idiots.  They, like you and me, have simply set up their life in a way that they receive information that validates their beliefs.  They are looking at their version of the world through their lens.  And their lens is not bad or wrong, and your lens is not good or right.  Each lens simply represents a way that each of us feels most comfortable seeing.

Where the magic happens, is when we seek to change our lens.  To try on the lens of another.  And to realize that each lens we wear is a choice.

The ancestral makeup that generates my skin tone is one half Irish/Scottish (there was some debate among family members) and one half Mexican/Hungarian.  I have a fair, sometimes ruddy complexion that burns quickly, freckles, and generally doesn’t get along well with the sun.  And for years I’ve avoiding identifying with this, the largest organ in (on?) my body, because of the story I assume you think it tells about me.

this white baby is me

I grew up in a medium sized suburban city (Orange) in the middle of a very conservative county (Orange) in Southern California.  And it was there that I learned to dislike “white people.”  Now, let me be clear… my dislike of “white people” has little to nothing to do with an entire race of people (and much more to do with the mainstream culture of my town) and has even less to do with my beliefs about whiteness now (we’ll get to that).  It was instead, just a good ol’ cognitive distortion, assembled with experiences to create a series of beliefs like:

• I don’t like “white people” because they value sameness, and I feel different
• I don’t like “white people” because they keep their emotions tucked behind a firm layer of social nicety, and I want to shout everything I feel aloud
• I don’t like “white people” because they go to church where – based on the few times I was dragged along – the main event was sitting still for an hour and hearing about being unworthy, and I… well, I just don’t like that
• I don’t like “white people” because they vote republican, want to keep all the money they make, and are quick to judge others as lazy, and I see systemic inequities (I didn’t know those words then) and want to help
• I don’t like “white people” because they’re boring, and I (even though I am) don’t want to be

In other words…  I don’t like “white people” because I don’t think they like me, and I’m all for pushing others away before they can leave me.

My two sets of grandparents, all living at the time (and now down to just one of four), were the embodiment of this division I saw in the world and felt within me.

this adorable white family is mine (and everyone in this photo is a lovely individual)

My white grandparents lived in a 2 bedroom, manufactured home in the Joshua Tree Desert.  They had a huge satellite dish on the side of the house that brought in, what felt like, 3 channels.  There was also a shuffleboard court and a swing outside, a remote control toy General Lee, an organ, and an autoharp.  And it was quiet.  Both of my grandparents were soft spoken.  I never heard either of them raise their voice.  They went to bed early and woke early.  My grandma made us pancakes with club soda in them which made them light and fluffy.  They had Corelle dishware. They wanted to hear me play the organ (or my clarinet, or saxophone).  They wanted to play a card game with us.  They wanted to hear about our days.  They showed up to all of our performances.  They came to be with us for all the holidays.  They are what I know now to be idyllic grandparents, and I would do anything to go back in time to be with them and appreciate them, but I was bored.

The other side of my family is where the action was.  My Hungarian grandmother’s Mexican husband had died years before, but the 6 half breed children they’d had who were now adults are where I identified with my Mexican roots.  My grammy and her husband (a retired police detective with some loose genealogical ties to Edgar Allen Poe, white – but famous) lived in San Clemente in a 2 story house just a couple blocks from the beach.  There wasn’t much of a yard, but inside the house was a maze of rooms, nooks, crannies, and places where treasures were stored.  There were pink depression glass dishes we weren’t really supposed to use, but did anyway.  Up the dark, carpeted, floating stairs my grandpa had a collection of clown paintings and figurines that were classically creepy.  And there were always people around.  Loud people.  Arguments.  Food.  Drink.  Drama.  Showing up for and being concerned about me was limited at best.  There was plenty to want for.  It was dramatic.  It was, in retrospect – not particularly healthy, awesome.

And so my beliefs about race, including my own, were cemented.  “White people” were boring and I didn’t want to be one. “Brown people” were exciting and I wanted to be seen as one.

The issue with this is that I didn’t have much brown people cred.  First, my skin wasn’t brown.  To get a tan I would have to diligently avoid burning by religiously applying 80 spf sunscreen multiple times a day while spending at least 8 hours in the direct sun daily for at least two weeks.  I also didn’t speak Spanish.  Not even Spanglish, which I’ve since picked up.

Then in Jr. High, Stephanie Knecht, whose blond bangs were sprayed to an impressive 5″ height, furrowed her overdrawn brows at me as she shoved me into a locker and accused me of “mad dogging” her.  Stephanie, the resident white girl that hung with the cholas, was my lily white ass’ only potential in with the crowd I supposedly identified with… and that didn’t work out.  So, I just gave up figuring out who I was, or what I was and stopped thinking about it.

I intentionally distanced myself from the community I grew up in (by the way, my parents were totally lefty liberals… I guess they just thought suburbia was safer) and sought out a feeling of belonging elsewhere.  A bunch of other dramatic stuff happened that is irrelevant at the moment, but I’ll write a book some day.

When I started working in Diversity & Inclusion a few years ago, the question of my racial identity came up again.  No one asked me outright, but I assumed it was the question on everyone’s mind (for the record, I have NO idea if it actually is/was).  In response to the fear of in-credibility (<– if that word does not exist, it should) I played up my most “diverse” dimensions.  I got an asymmetrical haircut with a shaved side to be more visibly queer.  I started wearing an Our Lady of Guadalupe and darker lipstick any time I was facilitating a diversity training to give hints at my Latin/Catholic heritage.  I stopped wearing cardigans over my flabby arms to make sure everyone knew (who didn’t) that I was also a fat person.  I debated changing my last name to my mother’s maiden name (which I won’t tell you because it’s the answer to so many security questions).

still white. even with this badass haircut.

It turned out all of my worries were for naught.  I’m good at my job because I’m good at being in a state of learning and moderate discomfort.  And the diversity cred I perceived I needed to be taken seriously hasn’t been an issue partly because I work within a framework that heavily emphasizes honoring ALL dimensions of diversity (beyond race, ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual orientation) and expects/allows for self identification of all dimensions.  I still worry, though, but mostly about other things.

And then Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were shot.

And instead of turning away, I looked.  I watched.  I read.  I listened.  I did not push away the hurt.  I did not push away the discomfort.  I dove in and I learned something important: I am white.

In the 30+ years I spent trying to distance myself from my perceived  (insert: actual) race I was missing a BIG piece of the puzzle.

While I still, and will likely always, value the dignity that comes with inviting someone to self identify, and I still struggle with the reality that race (a mere social construct) has so much weight, I will never again discount the truth that race matters and perception is reality.  I may not feel like a “white person” (based on the beliefs I had about white people when I was child which have since been discredited through the process of maturity), I LOOK like a white person, and that’s what matters.  Because looking like a white person is a privilege.

White privilege is likely, at least in part, why I have been offered jobs, been approved for rentals, been able to shop in peace, been able to sass the police without any harm befalling me, been granted social niceties, and generally been kept safe, lifted up, encouraged, and celebrated by the communities I engage with.  Everything I wrote about in this piece, and likely more than I have even realized, is a function of white privilege.  Wondering about my race is a privilege that people of color do not have the option to do – the world gives them PLENTY of information about their race and what it means about them.  Changing my appearance to convey different messages about myself is a function of my privilege – my skin color, the foundation of my physical appearance ensures I will convey “safe” to most people who cross my path no matter what my hair or makeup look like.  Even writing this, expecting it will be read, and the likely reality that no harm will befall me because of it is a function of my privilege.

And I didn’t realize until all too recently… that by trying to distance myself from my whiteness, what I was really trying to distance myself from was feeling guilty for my privilege.

I am sensitive to inequity.  I can’t help but see it and I want it to go away.  And somehow within my childlike mind I was successful in doing the mental gymnastics I needed to do to safely distance myself from taking responsibility for the parts I play in maintaining the systemic inequity society is entrenched in.

White guilt is an easy next step once you’ve stumbled upon the truth of white privilege.  I am hoping to skip over it, but the truth is I’m on shaky ground and I don’t know what will happen.  The first feeling I had when I truly allowed myself to witness the depth of the injustice people of color live with daily was anger.  I am not comfortable with anger, but I knew it had a message for me so I sat with it.  And what anger taught/reminded me is that I am not effective when I am angry.  My gifts are compassion, forgiveness, humility, and kindness.  When presented with the question: what gifts do you have that you are not using?  My answer was: all of them.  Time to change that up.

Right now, I believe that the most important thing I can do as a person of privilege is use my privilege to create safety and space for people of color.  I can close my mouth and listen to people of color.  I can use the safety my privileged appearance inspires in other white people to gently influence perspectives and behavior change.

When I see inequity, I do something.
When I witness a microagression, I do something.
When I hear racism, systemic or individual, I do something.
When I have an opportunity to educate, I do something.
When I am asked to help, I do something.

Even when I am not asked…  I do something.

—–

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Desmond Tutu

Making the magic happen

I have a history with new year’s resolutions.  Namely breaking them.  And then swearing off them as I prefer not to do things I don’t anticipate will be successful.  In recent years I’ve played with intentions instead.  Feeling less pressure to do anything other than sit back and let the universe take the reigns and make the magic happen.

This year I’m going deep.  I’ve made a vow.  It all happened on New Year’s Eve in a mini meditation retreat at Insight LA in Santa Monica.

A few mornings before the retreat I was in tears about going. I had agreed to it.  Even been the person to initiate the registration after the invitation from JH had been sitting in my inbox for weeks (ignored by me, patiently waiting from her).  Still, there was some dread.  Some fear.  She had just returned from a month at a Modern Zen Buddhist monastery.  I’d been meditating 3 to 10 minutes a day… most days.  Could I keep up?  Was I good enough?  Was it going to be uncomfortable?  Was I going to be judged for my relative inexperience and my obvious lack of skill?  The answers my fear provided in order were: No. No. Yes. Definitely.

I didn’t want to go anymore.

I had already committed, through conversation with my naturopath, purchasing of a book, writing and mailing a check for a registration fee, and many many hours of discussion with JH, to a different relationship with my body in the new year.  I was going to be participating in a group who, along with me, would remove all grains and sugars from their diets and explore the changes to their spiritual body as a result.  My confidence level was high going into this new way of life.  Even though I had NEVER been successful at implementing anything like it before, I was certain I could do it this time.  And I was sure that SOMETHING was going to come up in the silence of meditation that would shake that confidence.  I was dreading it.

We went.

The retreat opened with the teacher guiding us through a ritual.  He explained that the bodhisattvas made vows daily.  Vows to take on the suffering of all.  Something like:

However innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to save them.
However inexhaustible the defilements are, I vow to extinguish them.
However immeasurable the dharmas are, I vow to master them.
However incomparable enlightenment is, I vow to attain it.

These vows give them direction.  When repeated daily, and worn with a protective garment (for them, their robes – for us, knotted blessing cords) they provide steady guidance toward the fulfillment of those vows.

And then, without the need to take on any more than what causes our own suffering he invited us to make a vow that will set the compass of our hearts.  With my eyes closed and my breath at the forefront of my attention the vow came easily.  I vow to value, prioritize, & choose (above all else) WELLBEING for: my body, mind, & spirit; those of my family; loved ones; & those whose I may encounter and can impact.

Red strings were passed around and knotted, first for the belief we hold most dear, second for compassion, and third for our vow.  We tied them on and knew them to be for our protection.  Protection from what?  For ourselves of course!  The rest of the evening was spent in silence.  And in the remaining hours of meditation I did not suffer.  I soothed myself when soothing was needed.  I felt my heart take the lead and set direction toward my vow.  I connected to the power within me to live without suffering.  And the new year rang in with a soft bell, a tearful smiling kiss with JH, and hope.

Happy New Year.  May you find what you seek in the silence when you turn your attention to your heart.

My commitment to myself has already wavered, as things tend to do when I don’t put them in my phone as calendar appointments or reminders.  But the good news is that as soon as I realized I had been forgetting to pay attention to myself (my commitment to myself was a minimum of 5 minutes of daily singularly focused self attention: could be blogging, drawing, meditating, walking, etc just has to be intentional), I decided to blog.  Back.  On.  Track.  Woot!

My family just returned from a road trip up to Oregon and back home to Los Angeles and it was lovely.  I wasn’t sure if I was a road trip person.  The road trips of my youth were forced, awkward visits to grandparents I didn’t know how to appreciate when I could or sick dad consolation prizes that felt scary and unnerving.  And I often have a lot of anxiety about visiting other people.  I worry that I won’t spend the right amount of time making it worth their while.  I’m worried that my family (JH and The Boy) won’t like the people we’re visiting and they’ll be uncomfortable and then I’ll be uncomfortable.  I worry that I won’t know what to say or how to act or basically anything required to be a social being.

And on this trip, somehow that magically faded away.  We spent every night in the bed of someone generous enough to offer us one, after eating the dinner they made for us, and departing on the breakfast they made too (people are SO generous)!  And I didn’t go into it knowing how the exchange of energy was going to work.  But instead of fretting about “making it worth their while” I just let myself show up, be kind, and wait for the gifts to be revealed.  And they were!  We came and took sleeping space, food, water, and air and in return we gave conversation, meditation sessions, a playmate for siblings who usually have just each other, dishwashing, vacuuming, hugs, love, and authentic presence.  And it was more than enough.  And I never worried that it wasn’t really.

And I was reminded of something my great friend, JM, says, if we’re going to make up stories in our heads, let’s make up good ones.

The story I used to have in my head about traveling/visiting was one where I was a “taker” and other people “givers” and that being the opposite from my usual role in life… was not something I could take.  The stories our minds make up are intensely convincing no?

Just before the trip I realized I couldn’t find The Boy’s iPod (and he was leaving on an airplane with his Nana the next day and “needed” it).  I used the magical “find my iPhone” feature on iCloud and got cryptic readings about whether the device was connected to the internet (it wasn’t, then it was, then it wasn’t, then it was…) and the location where it was last recorded.  And I, not recalling that I had taken it out of my bag in the car earlier and tucked it into the glove box, concocted an elaborate story in my head about how I must have dropped it getting out of the car, someone in the neighborhood found it, they were busy stealing it and connecting it to their internet connection when they saw the LOST message I sent to the device, so they shut it down, and turned it back on again in curiosity, and shut it down again out of nervousness.

And then I went to look in the car.  And found it.  And got a reality check.

If we’re going to make up stories in our heads… let’s make up good ones, eh?

xo
KM

Arriving at camp, I felt intimidated.

I haven’t been having the smoothest couple of months.  It’s a time I would have described as “not being at my best.”  For reasons related to parenting, work, and life in general I’ve been pushed past my limits and out of my comfort zones. And I’ve reacted by stress eating, raising my voice, shutting down and worst of all: not writing.

As I started to get to know the ladies at the retreat, and not let them know who I was as often as possible, my old friend doubt joined the party.

“What do you have to offer any of them?” she chimed in.  “You can here to talk about authentic self care after months of putting yourself last… They’re already here, they already know everything you have to say.”

“Gee, thanks for your encouragement there, friend” I had the sense to respond.  “Your feedback isn’t welcomed right now, be on your way.” And she kept her voice quiet but showed up in my body in other ways (a stress dream about speaking after not having oreoared at all, anxiety in my stomach, chest, throat, shoulders, neck, and head…).  I continued to make it known that while I knew she was trying to help, I wasn’t interested in hearing from her by sharing my nervousness with a few new friends.  And when Saturday night came I stood up in front of the room and did what I had promised. And as it turned out, there were women there that needed to hear from me.

And reflecting about doubt’s contribution to the weekend got me thinking about what it really meanest to be at our “best.”

I think of my “best self” as the one who is compassionate, patient, kind, intelligent, creative, mindful, and committed.  And under stress, my capacity for all of those things is limited…  in some cases I seem to lose touch with those qualities completely.  I become judgmental, angry, rude, short sighted, limited, mindless, and want to give up and walk away.

Here’s the thing…  those things I described above, are not traits, they are feelings.  That best self FEELS compassionate where her opposite FEELS judgmental.  They are not me, and they don’t come and go… they remain static. All that changes is my sense of connection to them.  I am always my best self because I am always doing my best (and so are you).

Best is as good as it gets in the circumstances.  And how you and I show up in any room at any moment is our best.  It’s easy to look back and evaluate behavior and choices and say what we could have done differently… if we were truly able to, we would have.  Sometimes we do!  Sometimes we stop ourselves mid nag and change our language or tone.  Sometimes we change course when we’ve headed to dessert table for another helping and refill our water glass instead.  Sometimes we delete the text message we just typed instead of pushing send because we know sending it wouldn’t be helpful.

We do our best with what we have in the moment.

We are always at our best.

What happened next is that I started looking at every day as an opportunity learn and grow.  I almost wrote change there because I think that was the intent at first, but since then I’ve learned that striving for constant change is remaining in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction with myself whereas being open to learning and growth is just being in the state of living, not always moving forward, but being.

I can see now that my failed resolutions were a product of not being connected to my true desires and not honoring the commitments I made to myself (because they weren’t commitments I really wanted to make!).  When this happens often enough, a sense of self trust is lost.  What’s funny is that if I were to make resolutions now I would be much more likely to be successful because I would choose things with purposeful intention and my relationship with myself is strong enough that I wouldn’t be willing to betray my own trust any longer.

I learned earlier this week about the idea of choosing a word for the year and before I was even through reading about it and thinking about whether I’d do it the word was echoing in my head:

SUCCESS.

Success is never a word I would have chosen before.  I would have gravitated to a more that I judged as more “noble”  like love, forgiveness, compassion… and those are the words I’ve been working with rather diligently the last couple of years.  But I’ve done enough.  Truly.  They’ve received enough of my attention and affection that I’ve built a solid foundation in the values that are important to me.  They aren’t going anywhere.

Success & Luck. Guaranteed.

Late last year I was shopping at a jewelry sale and gravitated towards these bracelets that are a piece of cord with a single crystal strung on them.  They were called “Prescriptions for Life” and were perfectly packaged in plastic cylinders that looked like medicine bottles.  I picked up every single one and was putting the one that supported Love in my basket when I felt the “Success” and “Luck” (also: follow through) staring at me.  I bought those instead… and those bracelets (that I’ve worn every day since) mark the first moment I allowed myself to prioritize success and accomplishment.  That’s all it takes.  Do one small thing to plant a seed and watch as it melts into your intentions and infuses your experiences with new life.

I am ready to experience success.  I know I don’t yet know what that means, what it feels like, or what I will need to do or let go of to get it… but I am prepared to find out.  Success is the word for this year.  Success is the experience I will have.  Success is what I’m worthy of.