Picante

Uh oh. Only 20 minutes to write this time. In 22 I need to eat dinner, then jet out the door to my new-w-w JOB! Which I am officially hired for, by the way. Tonight I’m on for four some hours of register training with Sean. Phew.

I’m squeezing in this blog post because I was asked if I forgot to blog last night. I was just that touched that I decided to alter my plan to fully recharge my battery and only half refuel for the sake of keeping ya’ll informed (well, Mom informed. She’s the one who asked :} ). So now I’m lying on my back in the ever so elegant “legs up the wall” position, typing with Mom’s laptop perched atop my belly, leaning against my thighs. Now that’s what I call dedication!

Dad is cooking spaghetti in the background. Probably, since he’s rushing around to get it done while I still have time to eat it, I should be helping. Or at least keeping him company with some pleasant chitchat. But after a day of training my replacement at the gallery and a night of being trained ahead of me, I feel I must eek out my energy wisely.

And again I find myself worrying that I’m going to bore my reader by going on about the same topics. How to reconcile this dilemma? Anyone?

Oh well, here I go about dancing again: I found a restaurant an hour and fifteen minutes away that has a Salsa band and dancing on Saturday nights! I used to drive an hour every weekend for church; now instead I’m off in high heels to wiggle in the dark to Latin beats . . . and I somehow don’t think God would mind. You see, when I dance I truly connect to deeper parts of my being and to the Divine, and that’s about the point, in’t it?

Joseph Villaseñor and I will be going to Tabú, the blessed restaurant, together this weekend. Last Saturday we had a rather in depth conversation about the nature of our relationship (status: dance partners in crime). We discussed jealousy, commitment and the potential that having a basically platonic yet spicy partnership could have for our fun on the floor. I also promised Joe there would be little danger of me getting mad at anything he might do–other than leave me sitting in the wings at Tabú if the ratio of male to female dancers turns out to be typical. My hopes are set higher!

He and I concluded with a promise to maintain direct and open lines of communication; and I’d say that’s a good policy to apply to all relationships, be they muy picante or not.

Adios, mis amores!

Human Doings

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Oh Mary Oliver, you’re a genius with words!

Those lines are an excerpt from Ms. Oliver’s poem, “Wild Geese.” “Wild Geese” is a breath-catching piece that was first introduced to me by a crone and counselor of mine, Joan. Joan presented me with the poem after an unusually turbulent session we had during which I finally collapsed publicly under the pressure I had been piling upon myself to be, well, good.

That was probably three years ago. I am grateful to have since made significant progress in the arena of being too hard on myself. Treading that path is tricky though, when you’re trying hard not to try too hard and then trying harder not to try so hard. . . It took many helping hands for me to see the way I was and gently guide me closer to a sweeter definition of “good.”

While living in Boulder I had another wise counselor, this one named Kate (do all female therapists have one syllable names? If/when I become one, I suppose I’ll have to drop the “a” and start going by just Tess). One of the many things Kate helped me realize was that in effort to constantly be positive, I had adopted a way of maintaining a semi-smile with my cheeks, eyes and corners of my mouth all the time. It’s not that I never stopped smiling and always appeared excessively happy, it was just that I was always on. I wanted to be good and so I squeezed my face into excellent and never let down the facade. Until, with Kate’s help, I began finally to relax my facial muscles. As I did, so many other aspects of me melted, too. And I’m softer now.

My old boyfriend David also led me closer to peace. When we started dating, I was running 4-5 mornings a week and attending yoga classes on three of them. David supported my seemingly healthy habits, until he noticed the way my stress level would increase if I missed or skipped a yoga class. “Tessa,” he would ask me, “Don’t you do yoga to decrease your stress in the first place?”

Other times, David would remind me how sometimes the best thing we can do for our body is let it rest. He sometimes put his advice into Christian context, emphasizing that what we do doesn’t make God love us any more, nor does he love us any less for what we don’t. Buddhists or Yogi’s might phrase it differently, but I, an already self-proclaimed Buddhist-Christian-Yogini, believe that the sentiment is the same. Be present. Be here now. More being, less doing. We’re not called human doings, after all.

As I’m now plugging steadily away trying less to be good and more to simply be (notice I’m still trying. . . ay yi yi), I find my current challenge has become to understand more fully what my body, what the soft animal of my body, really loves.

And for all this, I am honestly “so grateful.”

Seasons Come and Seasons Go

Oh, how I love the fall. Crisp air, turning leaves, the encouragement to stay present because winter is coming. I wonder why I don’t feel the same way about emotional autumns?

“Seasons come, and seasons go” is a favorite quote of mine by the father of another past boyfriend named Peter. Tim said it to me one late summer day in New Hampshire when I was bemoaning the fact we wouldn’t have fresh blueberries to pick for breakfast every morning anymore. A wise man!

I’m lying on the couch currently enjoying an autumn eve as we [speak]. It’s the first truly cool night we’ve had this season. The wind is howling and we had a little rain; Dad is rushing about trying to get adequate cover on our tomato plants lest they freeze. He says tomatoes are very cold sensitive, that in a cold snap the fruit turns to mush and the greens go black. It sounds rather dramatic to me. Maybe tomatoes are ennea-type 2′s of the fruit world?

My boss Lauri told me today she feels the winds of change a blowin’. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I like it . . . Change is exciting to me, especially when I’m in a place in life where I’d like to see some of it come about. Less exciting is that since I interviewed for a job in Santa Barbara it’s been obvious that my time with the Arts Council is truly limited and as a result they may be bumping me out a little sooner than I’d planned. Whoops.

Then again, even that is exciting. I’ve been reading about synchronicity and coincidence, both of which inevitably point to the natural order of the universe, to God’s will. I’ve always been a believer in signs and synchronicities, but during this season I’m bumping it all up a notch by attempting to see (as I will with the 20-20 hindsight I am certain to eventually achieve . . .) the perfection of every aspect, of every encounter of my life. On this topic, Deepak Chopra writes the following:

“In retrospect, the narrative of our lives appears perfectly logical. We can easily follow the thread of continuity upon which we gathered our life’s experience. Even now, at whatever point you are in your life look back and notice how naturally your life flowed from one milestone to the next, from one place or job to another, from one set of circumstances to an entirely different set.”

He goes on to say, “Notice how effortless it all could have been if you had only known where your path was leading.” He asks us to examine (of course, it’s the premise of his book) the endless possibilities that would become available to us if we would begin more actively tuning into what he deems the “nonlocal realm,” what I believe others would call God’s voice.

I’m an enthusiastic advocate of such lofty plans and intentions. But you know, I’m also finally beginning to accept my human status and recognize where I actually am in the scheme of things. So, while I would love to have a mind quiet and pristine enough to see the thread of my life clearly from here to forever, I’m o.k. being realistic and recognizing that I’m not there yet. For now, I will be content if I can actually believe in the continuity of the thread, that there isn’t some drastic cliff-hanging break in it between now and eternity.

And anyway, if this doesn’t work out, there’s always next spring for changing my mind.

Chopra, Deepak. The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. Three Rivers Press, New York, 2003. 301 pages. Quote from page 120.

Sunday Mornings

OMG, 6 views today and they weren’t my mother; I just asked her. Woohoo and thank you all!

We just arrived home from yet another of Mom’s birthday celebrations this evening. It was dinner with Terry and Happ, Mona and Bruce, Mom, Dad and myself. For a few of these birthday gatherings I had a date to bring along, but tonight we’re back to the good ol’ norm: three wise couples and . . . me. I tolerated it in good taste anyhow, comforting myself by sitting prettily in my green dress between Savannah and Shasta, the dogs. . .

Today is Sunday. I spent the early morning sipping coffee and making my Slovakian grandmother’s award winning pastry, “cheesies,” for dessert at the party. The experience was lovely and nostaligic, bittersweet only in that the gooey bites of deliciousness are prepared with premade Pillsbury dinner roll dough and therefore gave me no opportunity to show off my baking skills. Alas, I tolerated the convenience and popped the golden puffs in the oven with expectant glee anyway.

I spent most of the afternoon trying not to eat the cheesies. Thankfully, my friend Amy came over later and “Mmm’d” and ate some for me and then kept me good company. We talked about school and shopping and food and God.

The last fellow I dated nicknamed Amy “Bible Amy” for her love of the good Word. Although I think his intention in coining the nickname might have been slightly less than pure, it really is fitting. Amy is a “Good Christian” in every of the phrase. She does just what Jesus would and doesn’t what he wouldn’t; she’s never judged me even though I used to babble church like a brook in the Garden of Eden and now I burble enneagram instead and have nothing to say about church anymore because I haven’t been going . . .

For nearly an entire year I was infatuated with a church called Bethel. Each week, I drove 60 miles there and back, and sometimes attended three two-plus hour services in one day! But the year before that, it was the Buddhist Abbey that had my heart. I guess if I had to categorize myself, I’d say I was a Buddhist-Christian-Yogini . . .

. . . which is a musing I will have to indulge another day. For now, as first the Abbey’s and now Bethel’s tugs on me wane, I am simply grateful to be gifted again with the quiet pleasures of Sunday mornings unplanned.