Thank you for the warm reception back to the inter webs friends!  It was quite heart expanding.

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