“What is your life purpose?”

And I froze.
Actually, quite literally, paused. Pen suspended above the workbook, staring at the question.
Absolutely empty-headed and awash in a sea of blank space.
Completely stumped!

Let me repeat… I think about this type of stuff A LOT. It’s a constant record in my head… How do I want my days to go, to look, to feel… How do I want/need to be spending my time, where do I want my energy to go, what are my priorities. I can tell you lists of goals, things I want to do, experience, accomplish. In the next couple months, this year, over the next two years, the next five… I have goals that I know will resurface twenty years from now.

But my life purpose?! That’s a question outside of goals and plans. An intention stripped down. A purpose that would be yours whether you were a massage therapist or a social worker or a stay at home mom or a business owner. Whether you were married or not, had three kids or none. Whether you lived in New York or in Modesto. And I think it’s been a really long time since I’ve even thought to consider a question like that.

So I’m here… still letting the question marinate… but hoping that some friends can give some little shout outs, and help me out as I mull this over.

Do you know what your life purpose is? Have you thought about it? Are you willing to share?

Pause.

Notice the beauty.

You don’t always have to be so busy.

After the reinvention of Red’s coffee shop in Santa Barbara’s funk zone, Goleta Coffee Company has been my favorite coffee shop. I don’t come too often, because there are so many more that are closer to where I live. But I really just love this place, feel instantly at ease, cozy, and energized by all the visual eccentricities. I adore places like this. A little industrial, a little mismatched and haphazard, and if you can’t have an outdoor patio, then yes please to the fireplace surrounded by booths and a couch. Some of the furniture is quite hideous, and there’s a crazy red paisley rug on the concrete floor under the sofa, but these things make me want to camp out for hours all the same. I’m really here to do some IIN coursework, which I’m excited to get started (who ever predicted I would say that about school!), but I was listening to one of Jen Lee’s Retrospective podcasts, (where she has conversations with so many different people with different backgrounds and different kinds of work about how they got where they are, stories from their life and what drives, inspires and provokes thought in them.) on the way over here. She interviewed a novelist, Diana Spechler in the one I listened to this morning, and I was so captivated by this conversation. It just sparked so many thoughts in me.. Those kinds of mind-boggling, open-ended, questioning thoughts about why the society is in the state and shape that it is, and how achingly delicate and impressionable the human mind can be, and how long we can hold on to healable wounds that we try not to realize are there. It made me think about how so many people are in such desperate need for connection, whether they realize it or not. And how overwhelming that need seems sometimes, and by that I mean the need in the world. How great the need is for mentors. The need for, not even service and resources and organizing committees, but for one individual to sit with another individual and be able to hold a space of patience and honesty and unconditional love. For a conversation.
I guess, for me anyways, it always comes back to conversation. So much can be healed through conversation with another. Through entering into a real conversation with yourself about how you’re making your home in the world and what is or isn’t nourishing you. A conversation with the scarier parts of the secret wishes and judgments that we try to keep locked inside ourselves so that the world stays properly balanced on our own self determined axis.
And I don’t think the power even lies in finding the answer. I think back to how many friends and former homeless shelter clients, and even fictional characters (which you know were based on real emotions) have said, if only I knew why I do this! Why do I have this pattern, this reflex, why do I keep myself here, why do I do this to myself… if I only knew why, maybe I could do something about it. It sounds almost like just another mind trick to keep yourself stationary, doesn’t it? Safe in the obvious truth that until you figure out the answer… there’s nothing that can possibly be done differently.
I think fixating on the answer is a stalling technique. And I think the real power lies in the conversation. In the attempt to understand. In the willingness to hold a dialogue with yourself or someone else, or in prayer or in meditation, and to ask the difficult questions, “the questions that have no right to go away” (David Whyte). To always try to have that courageous conversation. It opens up those dark and messy places, it brings them into the light, little by little, until they don’t feel so taboo anymore. Until the twisted and aching, the hidden and seemingly shameful are finally recognized as passing, malleable, and so unavoidably human and common and cyclical. I don’t know how it happened, that unpleasant feelings became so unmentionable. Like excitement and enthusiasm and affection and satisfaction are the most acceptably universal feelings. But shame… loneliness, and despair and numbness and uncertainty and even sometimes desire… struggle… how did those feelings get exiled? To the land of no-that-never-happens-to-me or don’t-you-mention-that-out-loud-because-it-might-make-people-uncomfortable… to see or talk about an emotion that has a story attached to it. Its all just so stupidly common. From drug addictions, to body image and disordered eating, to the aftermath of feeling abandoned by a parent to the regular old longing for things to be shaken up a little.

How the mind reels.
I may have ended up in a very different place than the podcast started me out with. But isn’t that just how thoughts are. They tip and they pour into other thoughts, which tumbled out in various directions and trip over personal histories and experiences before being sifted into new or rehashed notions.
And I just had to get that all out onto a page, even a virtual one, so that I can focus on learning dietary theories and planning out my February.

Thanks for having coffee with me.

Here I am. Escaping for just a moment. Not sure what to say… but knowing I want to throw a lifeline out there. This week has been hard. I’m pretty worn out. But I have a little break, and a warm cup of roobios tea, so here I am.

I’ve been sick this week. So have Mark and the baby. Add some troubled teething sleep, and a recent transition from two naps to one (the baby, not me) and I’d gladly give up a day’s paycheck (or two) just to sleep through my shift.

I don’t want to ruminate… really, I don’t…

I’m just trying to figure out how to pull off all the things I want to pull off while I’m feeling stretched so thin.

Mark reminded me that it’s been an uncharacteristically busy week… family in town, friends in town, a birthday party to plan, several recent trips.

What am I really thinking…

Just so you know, the biggest reason that I write is to find out what I’m actually thinking, underneath the day-to-day happenings and the familiar records that play in my head. Sometimes, I think we all try and save ourselves some brain power by playing the same tracks over and over… slightly varied versions of the same story… to come to our reliably quick conclusion and our seemingly simple solution [not enough sleep, not enough time in the day, not the right groceries in the house][need more sleep, to organize my time more efficiently, to buy more almond butter and tofurkey and bread]… rather than sitting with a question or feeling a little bit longer than is comfortable, to see if it’s really anything else. Writing helps me to do this.

I think there is a fine line between being gentle and compassionate towards yourself… and using your own circumstances as excuses to avoid putting yourself on the line.

I think of people I know, friends, who approach their lives in a way that appears so courageous. My friend Mary who moved to New York, and is now an off-broadway actress, directing and choreographing on the side. My friend Jenna, who quit a very good paying job to take part in a home-based essential oil business that she and her husband must build themselves. Or my cousin Izzy, who moved to Japan to be a freaking ninja!

Now… none of these lives are for me. I don’t want to be an actress, a martial arts expert, or a salesperson. But still, I’m so impressed by these people. People that I know, who didn’t come from particularly out of the ordinary backgrounds. To have initiated and begun living out these goals that just seem even too incredulous to say out loud. But they seem to tackle it with the same methodology that I would plan dinner with…

Buy these groceries, chop this, mix that, sprinkle in a little of this, simmer for some time, serves and boom, I’m living my dream!

I don’t need to move to the other side of the globe, or the continent, or even make $10,000 a month.

Right now, I just want to create a rhythm and flow to my days and weeks so that I can portion off enough time for some soulcare, some newness, some activity, some rest, some planning for the future… and still have energy for playing and cuddling and adventures here and there.

Oh, and if someone can please invent a barometer that can let me know when to remind myself, “Hey, you’re the mother of a one year old… brew a cup of coffee, grab some baby snuggles and stay home all day, it’s okay.”

or

“Hey! Stop whining, get off your ass and make things happen! You’re a mom, nat an inmate.”

… that would be great…

at least until I can fine tune my own temperature reader…

Thanks for listening.

<;3, E

I meditated this morning.  And among the many many thoughts that swirled, was this need for connection.  For a deeper foundational connection to where I came from.  To something eternal.  Something that has endured, persisted.  Changed, but still is.  Roots.  Ancestry.  Solidity.  The earth even.  My Native American side? Something that I can feel like I can draw strength from.  Find beauty and power and patience in… when I feel like it’s dwindling in me.

Sometimes I feel… not disembodied (although sometimes I feel that too!)  But sometimes I just feel alone, you know?  I don’t mean that in a lonely, depressing way.  But I mean… alone in this journey of personhood… motherhood.

Mark is a huge source of strength and support for me, of course, we’re such an undeniably fantastic team… But I even sometimes feel like we’re alone in this.

Not always.  We have amazing friends and family… and it’s a comfort to be able to share in their journey…  But I sometimes even feel like we’re all alone.

What I’m trying to say, is that there is this whole, rich, deep, continuous source of personhood, parenthood, motherhood… centuries and centuries of people who have lived, trying to be as true to themselves as they know how.  Trying to act with passion and integrity, to find adventure and solitude and peace.  Who have fought and loved and raised children with as much whole-heartedness and imperfection as all of us are doing everyday…

I know that…

But I want to feel connected to it.

I’ve been thinking about a theory my friend Kim Gill and I came up with a couple of years ago… about how a person’s sense of rootedness correlates with the place they grew up, and how long it’s been settled.  I know this is a vast generalization, but she said that people on the east coast seem more grounded, sure of their sense of place… and that west coasters often seem more untethered… seeking more, always searching.  And if you think about it more… take Europeans… the French, Italians, Grecians.. They have such an ingrained sense of belonging to the locality, so tangible you can nearly steep in it as a visitor, that I really think it fosters a sense of connectedness to history, continuity, that is missing out here…

Like we’re all sourcing from a wading pool, when in actuality, we have the ability to reach so much further and deeper…

I don’t have an answer… just taking notice of some things … in this small window of stillness I found this morning.

We’re rapidly approaching a highly anticipated date. August 11^th is the date of my very dear friend, Jaclyn’s wedding.   Jaclyn and I went to college together, graduated the same year studied in the same major, worked in the same field in the same with the same highly interconnected clients… but we didn’t really know each other then.   We met a few years after college.   Jaclyn was my ultimate partner in crime in the days when downtown Santa Barbara after 10pm was like my second home.   Though I had many partying pals, Jaclyn was my most dependable trooper.   I can’t even remember an occasion when she bailed on a late night plan, or turned down a last minute idea.   We drank margaritas on balconies, danced till the clubs closed, danced on the street after the clubs closed, noshed on veggie dogs and chili fries at 2am, and generally tracked down any excuse to postpone ending each night, regardless of what the next day would bring.   Now this isn’t always the case with downtown buddies… but luckily, Jaclyn became one of my most treasured friends, irrespective of our extracurricular activities.   Other words, this was not a friendship that ended when the crazy party days ended. Be it coffee dates, long weekend trips, unexpected babysitting gigs or stolen minutes on the phone while she’s running late to work, we still try and cling to any excuse to postpone the end of each time we spend together.

She’s brave and she’s clever, she’s deeply perceptive and endlessly compassionate.   She’s beautiful and filled with strength, sensitive and sweet, and she has one hell of a shimmy on her!  She’s marrying a lovely, wonderful man who, without hesitation, can provide you with a list of dozens of reasons why she blue him away from the moment he met her.

We’re excited to witness this union, excited to spend time with friends, excited for a mini vacation (and excited for Mason’s first solo sleepover with the grandparents)!

And I also have to say… this day is momentous for another reason… the six month, super strict period of my elimination diet ends this month…

So after what is sure to be a gorgeous and love filled ceremony…

I get to eat absolutely whatever I want at the reception buffet!!!

Meat… cheese… desserts galore.

Oh, how I am counting down the days!

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

• Marianne Williamson

I tend to shy away from quotes that are used often. Even when I initially, really connected to it. This one is different. As I read those words above, even as part of me is thinking… oh, that quote again… it’s impossible to not be struck over and over again by the truth in it.

There’s a woman that works at the same spa that I do, and I love when I run into her between massages, or on breaks, because even when it’s a six sentence exchange during the 3 ½ minutes that we share in passing… the words that transpire there tend to stick with me for a while. She reads like a maniac and is attracted to the same kinds of books I am (she’s the only other person I’ve met who also knows who David Whyte is). And she questions a lot of things herself. Always thinking about the way the world works and the dynamics of human interaction. I adore her.

The other thing that I realized just this weekend, that has become absolutely fascinating to me… is that she seems to see the best version of me.

Now we’ve both talked about our various past fuck-ups, and I’m not saying she thinks I have a charmed life. But she’ll sometimes make statements, amidst conversation, like, “You strike me as someone who…” or “I see you as someone who doesn’t…” And they’re finished up with statements that describe the person that I strive to be, or the characteristics that I value, and aim to cultivate. And I always have to stop for a moment and think about it… because I have that same knee jerk reaction that I often do to compliments, where I want to list my faults and lay them out as proof of how far I still have to go.

But somehow when she says these things, I stop first to think. Maybe it’s because of the person I see her as too? Someone who doesn’t just take things, or people, for how they first appear, and label them from a shallow interpretation. She takes things in, chews on them, questions them and holds an ever-evolving conversation with them, readjusting as she gathers new information or insight.

Whatever the reason, when I stop to think on the things she says, the more I try and find examples of my own contradictions… the more I find that the observations she offers up about me are often true.

And it just left me thinking for such a long time…

I think we often measure ourselves up against the worst version we can find. Recollecting how many times we nitpick our spouses, or are impatient with those around us, choose to eat poorly, or how long we let the clutter pile up until we can’t stand it anymore. I think too often we hold that struggle we have with wishing we were better than we are up to the light for dissection, and convince ourselves that that is who we are. That is how we handle things and that is how far we have to go.

But how far we have to go for what? To reach perfection? HAH! Can I hear just one big collective HAH! at the idea that we must somehow measure ourselves against our distance from perfection?! When in the history of humanity was that idea implanted?!

This is not an idea, a habit, that is beneficial to our growth.  Not acknowledging the good in ourselves, the things we can be proud of, is only inhibiting.  To us all.  ”As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  The truth of it really… hits me time and again.  Because the logical conclusion is that when we do not acknowledge all the staggeringly beautiful and praiseworthy qualities in ourselves, we unconsciously send out the message that it’s not okay to be proud of yourself.  That our faults and mistakes are what define us.   That it’s best to try and make these parts of ourselves as unobtrusive as possible so that these ways in which we fall short aren’t noticed too often. 

And is that really what we want to build a community out of?  Is that the message we want to send out to our friends? Our loved ones?  Our children?

I sure as hell hope not!

Anyways, as I step down from my soapbox… I’ll just say that I appreciated the flicker of recognition I was able to feel when looking at someone else’s description of me. That the highest version of myself, the one I hope to be, does in fact live in my own skin more often than I give myself credit for.

Now to remember this day in and day out… here’s the real key to it all.

I think Monday is my bare minimum day. Where I pick just a couple of things… like going to the gym, posting a book on PBS, and taking a walk… and then let that be my bare minimum.  Anything else, is only if I feel like it, extra.  I noticed that the previous intentions that fell on this day were ones like Slow Down, and Gentleness. And since I work on the weekends… Monday tends to be my breather, but I also turn into a grump if I get to the end of the day without having done anything that feels productive.

You see this intention game is part of this bigger search of mine. To bring more rhythm and ritual to my days. To our days. I had an inkling of the need for this before… months and maybe a couple years before now. But the presence of a baby who’s behavior is landmarked by rituals (naps, mealtimes, play times), and who brings a decidedly more scripted pattern to our life, had made me realize even more how important rhythm is.

But I’ve wanted it to be a natural rhythm, in line with the ebb and flow that occurs spontaneously throughout the day. Action and exploration at the times when our bodies want to move and our minds are alert. Cooking and clearing when I need to get out of my head and back into my body. Ease and gentleness at the point in the day where we all get tired, a little worn out.

Without rhythm, the hours slip away so quickly, but the days somehow seem long.

I’ve been aching for rhythm.  I have been trying to discover my/our rhythm.

Gentleness was my intention for yesterday.  It wasn’t until I was sitting in the beginning of a gentle yoga class that it came to me after a grumpish morning.  The baby has not slept well the past couple nights, and my patience has been short lived.  Unfortunately for my poor Mark, this is not a terribly uncommon occurence.

The yoga was a great way to start the day.  A class that was still intentional in it’s poses, breathing patterns and alignment… but not forceful or overly demanding… an exercise in patience with myself and my body.  And a quality I tried to bring to the rest of my day.  Gentle with myself, gentle with Mark, gentle with Ruby, gentle with Mason (unless he wants a good dance around the living room), gentle with my clients, and coworkers.  Gentle with the way I enter and move through the world.  Similar to being kind… but almost a little more like having grace.  Gracefulness.  The three concepts are so very closely related with ever so slight distinctions.  To me at least.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t pull it off all day.  I was snarky more than a couple more times.  But when the intention would flash across my brain, I would try and reel my patience back in and lay it out gently around me.

Today

Is still a work in progress… I having a hard time figuring out what intention I’m in most need of today.  I’m thinking it will be to in the realm of flexibility.  Going with the flow.  Doesn’t that sound like a good Saturday intention?

We’re finally having our long awaited “date day” for our one year anniversary.  Some friends are babysitting Mason and we have wine tasting, lunch and Crushcakes cupcakes on the menu (Yes, I am having a cupcake.  In the name of anniversary celebration, but also because I’ve hit my elimination diet halfway mark!  Three months down, three months to go!).

Mark had a suggestion for my intention today… but his suggestions are not suitable for this public domain.  ;-)