The Beautiful Answer

Today has been a blur practically since I woke up. Work has been amazing, with lots of new opportunities and clients. I love meeting new people and helping them find solutions to their problems, so I suppose I’m in the right fields, as a writer and intuitive healer. But what do you do when someone doesn’t believe in you, or part of you? 

To some extent, I get it. I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to demystify the intuitive arts by claiming the ability I was born with (that was hard enough) but also striving to be seen as a real person, not some woo-woo gypsy who’s trying to separate you from your money. I suppose it would be easy to blame Miss Cleo, or Stevie Nicks (I know, she gets unfairly blamed just because of the way she dresses), or anyone who’s ever attended a Renaissance Faire. But I’m not in a blaming mood. 

I am in a sad mood, that people can believe in gods, fairies, monsters, angels and the devil, even a long-dead guy named Jesus, without ever having met him. They can believe in the effect of tides on people’s moods and women’s menstrual cycles, and how hot summers can increase the crime rate. But somehow, they can’t believe in my ability to direct energy, make contact with spirits, and even my heightened ability to see and hear beyond the physical realm. That’s too much for them. 

So what do you do when you don’t exist to some people? When they don’t give the same respect and attention to things you’ve spent your life studying, perfecting and piling up certifications in? After all, I didn’t ordain myself as an intuitive healer. I studied, just like doctors and lawyers do. Then I applied the teachings over years of practice, just like any professional would. 

I don’t do spells and don’t have that kind of “eye-for-an-eye” thinking anyway. I don’t operate that way. So maybe my regular level of mindfulness will have to take a step up today, in order to reframe the pain this has caused. I can soften around the place that hurts, and welcome it instead of pushing it away. I can sit with it awhile. And I can bring my mindfulness to a new place of movement, by standing up for myself in a way that doesn’t extend the suffering of this moment one instant longer. 

Remember that commercial with the Indian standing by the side of the road, crying because there was pollution in the world? When someone threw garbage at his feet and a single tear fell down his cheek?  It was on my mind today for a few reasons. Check it out here:

I suppose it was the three — count ‘em, three! — instances of littering I ran into this morning, in a little over an hour of doing some quick errands. The first was some disgusting food garbage, which I guess the person had left outside his or her car door. I almost stepped into it when I got out of my car in the parking lot. There was a garbage can less than fifty feet away. 

The second was getting in to an elevator. For some reason, this person has crumpled up the packaging for a headset and stuffed it nicely into a corner. And the last one was at the gym, where someone had left a discarded protein powder packet and a drink container, with sticky residue coming out of it near a piece of workout equipment. In this case, the trash can was about two feet away. 

What the eff? 

I suppose, in this day and age, we’re not talking about littering anymore. It’s all hybrid cars, solar cells and green initiatives. But if you grew up in my town and threw garbage out your window, you’d get yelled at. Ditto on the yelling for the leaving garbage in a parking lot. 

It’s not about being a drag; it’s about admitting that other people live in the world. That somehow, your space isn’t more important than the common space we all share. Find a garbage can, people. It’s never acceptable. 

The reframe on this one isn’t easy, since I can’t control other people’s behavior (and really don’t want to). So I decided to volunteer some time cleaning up the beaches of Southern California, which can get pretty gross during the summer time. I don’t know if it will exactly even out all the pollution being done in my area of the world, but at least it won’t make the Indian (actually, Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian immigrant) cry. Rest in peace, man. 

It’s easy to get super serious these days, or introspective, or afraid. So much negative information batters us every day that I doubt most people are even aware of it. The wording of commercials can be so sly sometimes, promising a better life if you buy this, or wear that. As if your life now is Ass Meat on Toast, devoid of flavor or appeal. 

I mean, I like clothes as much as the next girl, but I don’t need a certain label to feel complete. It started me thinking about superhero costumes. 

The other day, I wrote a post about being the hero of your own life. How the hero’s journey, outlined by Joseph Campbell, is the template for most of our inner and outer heroic journeys. I realized that if I’m going to be the hero of my own journey, I’m going to need a badass superhero costume. 

For women, the costume has to be sexy, verging on the slutty. I’m OK with that, as long as it shows off my best features. It also has to feature shorts (all right, if I have to) and some sort of corset top. Totally cool with that. It’s a good shape for most women. At least it respects the female form, right? 

But you have to reel it back from the edge with some tasteful jewelry. Wonder Woman had her bracelets (nice touch) and Sailor Moon always has a nice manicure (always a good accessory). It’s tough to fight crime if you have dangly chandelier earrings or lots of scarves (damn, there goes my favorite accessory).

So I’m gonna go with a tiara, free of conflict diamonds,  and a pair of Lauren Wolf earrings. I love her stuff — what with the dark side of nature, claws and all, on display. Don’t have time today, but I’ll have to look around the web for some potential costume elements to go with them soon, or maybe I can have Lauren Wolf make my tiara! How hot would that be? 

The reframe in all of this? Being your own hero, or the protagonist of your own life, doesn’t have to be all serious. It can be light and fun and, yes, well accessorized. 

Mundane, which derives from the same root as the Spanish world “mundo,” means “characteristic of the world.” Though it’s come to mean something practical, boring, ordinary or commonplace, it’s actually something everyone shares. That’s, of course, partially why I decided to write this blog every day for a year of my life, and why I thought it might be interesting to look under the surface of what most of us do that’s the same. These are the things that connect us, no matter where we’re from, or what beliefs we espouse. 

Today it was a dental appointment, which is usually about as much fun as surgery without anesthesia. I tend to read or fuck around on my phone until the last possible minute, when they’re practically removing it from my hands so they can do their work. It’s that boring to me. Today’s appointment, though, was something I had actually been looking forward to for a long time, to fix some stuff that went wrong in childhood. 

Had trouble parking until I prayed to the parking goddess and one opened up. Then, when I got upstairs, I was told that they had painted the office over the weekend and the woman who was supposed to do my work, who’s pregnant, had left feeling nauseous from the fumes. Crap. 

This week is exciting and slightly daunting for me business-wise. I have a lot on my plate over the next few weeks, and fitting in another dental appointment isn’t going to be easy. Part of me felt the same thing my 10-year old self must have felt — a little crushed and disappointed. Of course, I knew it wasn’t personal. Things like this happen. But I wrestled with my feelings as I got back in my car and headed to the office. 

Staring out my window, I realized that life is filled with moments like these, the missing moments, or times of letdown. When we don’t get what we set out to attain, and feel that groundless feeling beneath us. I took stock of mine for a few minutes, then thought of the pregnant dental technician, at home with her nausea. I thought about her missing moments, and those of her baby, stretching on and on and on.

These were the moments I didn’t see every day, because I’m usually focused on getting my own stuff done. These were moments from the lives of others — equally important, equally valid — and I felt my throat close up with … something. I don’t know, connection? Realization? Love and respect for the fragile freakin’ nature of humanity? 

It wasn’t an intentional reframing of the experience. It just kind of kicked in on its own, and I thanked whatever higher power keeps watch over me these days, content to know that I do have eyes, and ears and senses that allow me to connect to other people and their funny, touching little worlds. 

If you’ve ever boxed, you’ve heard the phrase “stick and move.” Hitting instructors will tell wannabee champs to throw a punch and keep the feet moving, so their opponent can’t hit back, or at least inflict any real damage. Though most think the sport is about punching, or who’s stronger than the other, it’s actually about footwork, and being able to be so conditioned and graceful that you can dance away from any potential danger. 

This has been going through my mind a lot for the past few days, as I struggle to deal with habitually negative people in my life, or those who simply aren’t happy unless you’re joining in their moping party. I’ve been through with that for a long time, and it’s one of the reasons I started this blog. But it’s a fine line. Cutting them off only narrows your circle of friends, particularly if you like some of their qualities. Nodding your head and letting them spin out of control doesn’t really help, either, since you’re enabling an unhealthy way of being, and actually have to sit there and listen to an unending litany of Why Things Suck instead of, say, getting a root canal. 

You know what? A lot of things suck. Injustice. Cruelty. Inequality. Violence. Poverty. And tons more. 

You can either get in there and fight, by giving money, recycling, volunteering somewhere, or caring enough to sign a fucking petition or two. It’s the passivity I can’t stand. The whining until someone comes along and solves their problems, or the world’s problems, by waving some sort of magic wand. 

Nonsense. Get involved. Take control of your little corner of the universe. Care, deeply, for those around you, even those you don’t know. 

So to reframe my current dilemma, I began to think like a boxer.  Stick and move became “deflect and go,” as I started to change the subject any time one of these people tried to pin me down and take over the conversation with the usual fare. The first few times, they whined that I wasn’t listening, or accused me of not caring. But by the third or fourth time I did it, trying each time to be a bit subtler, they went along with the conversation’s new direction, and didn’t remember to go back to the bad stuff. 

Not that every conversation has to somehow be positive. Again, I’m aware that there are Things That Suck. But to put our focus on them all the time robs us of the meaning we claim to care so much about, and the beautiful moments of our lives, which exist all around us. And I think we can all agree that those don’t suck at all. 

Most writers are familiar with the hero’s journey, from the book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, which breaks down the world’s ancient myths and applies their commonalities to healing and other purposes. Also called the monomyth, it shows how all of our lives, in some fashion, derive from this singular series of events that define the hero’s life. Writers find that these translate very nicely to, say, Hollywood action films, and other dramatic stories. A very common series of steps in most of them (depicted perhaps most famously in Star Wars) is: 

1. The Call to Adventure 

2. Refusal of the Call 

3. Supernatural Aid 

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold

5. Belly of the Whale

6. The Road of Trials

7. The Meeting with the Goddess

8. Woman as Temptress

9. Atonement with the Father

10. Apotheosis 

11. The Ultimate Boon

12. Refusal of the Return 

13. The Magic Flight

14. Rescue from Without 

15. The Crossing of the Return Threshold 

16. Master of Two Worlds

17. Freedom to Live 

And all this return to Joseph Campbell (I first read the book almost 20 years ago) got me thinking about how important it is to become the hero of one’s own life. How we are so often provided with supernatural, or seemingly supernatural, aid only to refuse to believe our opportunities are real, or are ours to accept. 

For me, crossing the threshold right now means accepting what I was born with, what I have taken many years working at to hone and perfect. And to be OK with how that makes me different from other people. Not better, different. 

Today, the journey took me to the farmers market, where I was not offered supernatural aid (a parking spot — oh well), so it was on to another part of the path, a spontaneous breakfast with my husband and some people watching (one of my favorite pastimes). The day will take me other places, I’m sure, just as my larger journey will ensure that I end up precisely where I’m supposed to be in that moment. Becoming the hero of my own story, as I understand it right now, means that it’s time to leave behind what I have grown familiar with and take on a bit more responsibility for my own healing and growth. Even the past two weeks of keeping this blog have shown me that this is so. 

I don’t know when or where the return will occur. I just know that I have reframed my life in a much larger way today. By not seeing others as somehow all-powerful or even essential in my story, I assume the central role in my own happiness and believe in a much more heartfelt way that I exist to create my own destiny. 

Had to go to Office Depot again, since I tend to like to torture myself on Fridays. No, not really. I just unexpectedly ran out of ink on a day I had to print a million or so pages. So I headed back into the land of the zombies. And the guys were moving around the floor with this kind of look on their faces: 

(image courtesy of Spoon Graphics - www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk)

At the register were two people, a man and a woman. The woman was helping someone, and I was next in line. The guy finished helping who he was helping, then walked away. I walked up to him and he said, “She’ll help you in a minute.”

I watched him walk over to a woman at a Xerox machine, help her center something on the glass (I guess she couldn’t figure out how to do that on her own), then disappear into the back. I didn’t really care about having a wait a few more minutes. In the long run, that’s not a huge deal. But he seemed to think that helping people was beneath him (confirmed by the woman at the register when it was my turn). So as she rung up my order, I began to think about that — the ways we feel that we’re better than other people, certain situations, or social groups, even better than certain jobs, as this guy seemed to be. I’ve worked with people like that, who seem to think that certain work is “women’s work” or “secretary’s work” or defined by whatever behavioral patterns they’ve picked up along the way. 

Since I can’t and don’t want to control other people’s stuff, the reframe for this was to not care, to visualize the entire experience as fluid, flowing through the store, into the parking lot, off my back and out of my life. In about three seconds, it felt like the moment was a hundred years old, way behind me. 

I’ll continue to think about ways I may believe I’m “better than” in the future. After all, I may notice a pattern in others because it’s something I do myself. 

But since it’s Friday, and Whole Foods’ turkey sausage pizza is like crack, I got my reward soon enough. Awww, yeah! 

Yesterday, someone hurt my feelings. I know, earth-shattering, but shit stinks and pain hurts. Someone criticized by writing in a mindless and somewhat passive-aggressive way, which usually doesn’t get to me. I’ve been doing this for a looooonng time, and have faced my share of rejection. It’s part of the game. But when someone who doesn’t do what you do, and has a fairly ignorant opinion of it anyway, you smart a bit. 

My first thought was: This sucks. My second thought was: All right, this is a good opportunity for reframing. But how do you reframe someone hurting your feelings? It happened. You want to be honest and authentic about what you’re feeling, but you also don’t want to spin out of control and let it completely ruin your day. 

So I decided to do nothing. Yeah, seriously. 

I sat with my feelings last night, and then again this morning. In Buddhism, you’re taught to soften around difficult emotions like hurt feelings, or the anger and reactivity that arises in wanting to make things “even” again. I softened around the idea of being hurt, the clenched feeling that had taken root in my body. My chest, which had felt like a knife has been stabbed into it, relaxed and I “saw” the knife fall out in my mind’s eye. 

Wow, how cool! Though I’ve been working with this technique for years, I’ve never experienced something so visceral and fast. It’s amazing to think that you can stop something from hurting by welcoming it, and agreeing that it’s really happening, without reacting. Maybe this is all the reframing I need when things go sideways. 

Can’t make any promises, but I’m going to try and remember this the next time I get sad, angry, or frustrated. Stopping reactivity in its tracks may mean the difference between losing a friend, relative, client or employer and not. 

Maybe I’ll even make doing nothing a habit. :) 

For some reason, I’m missing the hell out of Joe Strummer today, and have adjusted my weekly playlist to include lots of late-era Mescaleros. No offense to the Clash, of course. That’s some of my favorite music ever. But sometimes, it just has to be the Mescaleros. 

Maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking about this idea of humanism, of opening to the idea of whatever’s best for the greatest number of people, and how hard it is for most of us to do that. To step outside our own minds and needs. Then, out of nowhere, I played Joe’s cover of “Redemption Song,” by Bob Marley. His spoken introduction talks about people, how they can accomplish anything, since all countries have them and depend on them to function. Inspiring words, whenever you hear them. 

I met Joe only briefly, by phone a few times, when I was working in the music biz. Super nice guy, very polite, and funny in an Artful Dodger kind of way. The world needs more people like this, who live their talk and inspire others to do the same. I hope in my small way to step into these very large footsteps. 

Injustice can pile on. Some of my clients can’t even watch the news because it’s so scary and negative. It fucks with their heads, and leaves them despondent and alone. Can’t say I blame them. So maybe the reframe today, courtesy of Joe Strummer, is that no matter how dark things get, no matter how unfair the economy treats you, or how far you seem from your dreams today, there is redemption, and power and light. It happens inside you, and in the space between people. 

I know this was the theme song from John from Cincinnati, but it just makes so much sense. Why would we screw up the very thing that makes us happy? Greed doesn’t make anyone happy. Not even the greedy. 

I was never much of a sci-fi person until I read Philip K. Dick in my twenties. All that stuff about robots and dystopian futures just kind of icked me out. I’m a warmer type person. I prefer guitar bands to electronic music (for the most part) and like my communication face-to-face, rather than hidden behind walls of emails and social networking platforms. I’d trade hours of mind-blowing Internet sex for twenty minutes of authentic and searching conversation any day of the week. 

So as I’ve been thinking recently about the erosion of customer service, heck even a glance in your general direction, I’ve begun to see the connection between “regular” sci-fi and the demise of human contact. Humanity 2.0, you might say. 

As most of us who have been to any average business recently know, it’s tough to get decent customer service anywhere. The hold music plays lip service to “valuing your business” while proceeding to do the opposite, and the people you end up speaking with may not be of your culture, speak your language, or even live in your country. Factor in that purveyed by stores, restaurants and even online businesses, and you’ve got an epidemic of bad manners. 

Today I had to make some calls I’ve been putting off for some time. They’re that annoying. Some are about records and getting copies of things I either never received or have lost. Others involve following up on things I shouldn’t really have to follow  up on (in other words, stuff that’s slipped through the cracks), and just returning a bunch of calls that I haven’t had time to return: 

Call #1: To my doctor’s office. Got put on hold, twice. Got asked my name three times in fewer than 120 seconds. I think she’s going to send the records. Not sure if I was really getting through to her. She sounded distracted, but also a bit high. Maybe access to available drugs is the main perk of the job. 

Call #2: To the manufacturer of my fax machine. Ditto getting put on hold (music gave me a headache). A bored sounding young man directed me to their web site. Not sure why I wouldn’t have figured that out on my own, and why I would have stayed on hold for 19 minutes if that had already solved my problem. Then he couldn’t find a record of my purchase in the computer. Maybe he needs some of what the doctor’s office lady was on. 

Call #3: To a friend. Left a message on the machine. 

Call #4: To another friend. Left another message. 

Call #5: To a restaurant, to make a reservation. Got hung up on. Didn’t call back. Get it together, people. 

Call #6: Calling a potential employer for a friend, to give a reference. The person’s assistant was one of the rudest people I’ve ever spoken to, and was talking so fast I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, which frustrated her even more. Finally got through to the person I needed to speak with after the fourth try. 

Call #7: The restaurant got my number from caller ID and called back. Apologized about the hang-up and made the reservation. 

The Reframe:

Envisioned my words as smoke signals, billowing from a mountaintop. Envisioned them as hieroglyphics. Then envisioned them as pictographs. There has to be a shared language somewhere, right?

Treated all I spoke with as human beings, even when I wasn’t being afforded the same consideration. Asked how their days were going, and noticed their busyness. All but one of them slowed down long enough to help me. The woman who was speaking so fast I couldn’t understand her seemed to think I was in some kind of alternative “slow” universe, but I didn’t really care. All of us, I suppose, believe we’re at the center of the “right” universe, or the “real” one. 

Humanity 2.0?  Maybe it’s the friendliest robot you ever met, who’s always wanted to be a Customer Care Associate. 

I’d sure get a lot more shit done that way. 

Been thinking about the concept of value these last few days, to try and reframe the same-old, same-old version, which tends to revolve around money. After all, how could we award all this power to a guy whose operating system has more holes than a leaky bucket, or a guy who’s lost more money than he’s ever made in New York real estate? 

Answer: They’re both massively, unapologetically rich, and that makes us want to listen to them. 

It’s not about picking on these two guys. They’re just really public examples of what I’ve been contemplating. What it’s really about is how I assign value to various parts of my life, but also what I choose to value, and how I determine what that will be. 

For a long time, it was about just trying to fit into the system. Didn’t matter how effed up that system was, I perceived I had to fit my somewhat individualistic personality into it. Soon, I couldn’t sleep, ate only sporadically, and lived on dangerous amounts of caffeine. I was young. I could handle it, for a time. 

But as I got a bit older, I realized that time had more value for me than the rate I was currently selling it for. Dreaming time, reading time, studying time, observing time had all been shoved to the side, and these days I realize I literally can’t do without them. They’re that much like air or water to me. 

I feed these needs in myself a lot more now. I value them more than, or at least as much as, the ways I make my living. It’s not about “giving back to myself” or work-life balance, or anything like that. It’s about recognizing what I need in any given moment, and then making a plan to provide that. 

Right now, it’s this blog, which is helping to open up new places in my heart, and a play I’m working on. Toying with additional writing projects as I think about what I want to study this summer, and then into the fall. 

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop valuing education, or inner work, or self-knowledge. These three seem like pillars to me, for how to see myself in the world, and illuminate my path toward how I can contribute in this lifetime. 

Money? That always comes, no matter what. 

The other stuff? Harder, but ultimately a lot more valuable. 

Woke up from a troubling dream, where I was standing in line at an assembly line clinic for some kind of surgery. It seemed to revolve around the heart, and we were all standing in line in our gowns, waiting to be seen by a doctor. I kept wondering how there could be out-patient heart surgery, and if I could let my husband know to pick me up later, and then I woke up in a bit of a funk. 

I don’t have real heart problems, not in my waking life, so it became a kind of fun dissection project in the gym, cycling away on the bike. Though I adore my job — actually I have two of them, as a writer and a psychic/intuitive healer — but I’ve been feeling of late that my heart could use some opening up, some new kind of feeding and nurturing. That’s in part why I began this project and this blog, to be able to explore the tiny mysteries of daily life in a way that felt authentic and real, not self-obsessed and needy. 

So I pictured what might have happened if the dream had been allowed to continue (I woke up while I was still waiting in line, maybe three or four people back). Maybe I would have had my heart removed, or replaced, or somehow altered. Perhaps my doctor (the doctors all looked very distracted and kind of cold throughout) would look at me like a lab specimen. Or maybe I would have awakened with someone else’s heart in my body. Yikes! 

Trying to reframe this was hard, and I spent most of the late morning and early afternoon thinking about how my dream might be asking me to think in a more abstract and creative way. I don’t have the most linear of brains anyway, but waking life does sometimes tend to impinge on my flights of fancy pretty much every day. 

Kind of reminds me of this PInky Show comic (love them!). 

The bottom line remains, no matter how the dream is interpreted. My heart needs altering somehow, to affect a real balance between the work I do to help others (the psychic and healing stuff) and the work I do to feed my soul (writing, reading, teaching). It needs to be open somehow, unclogged of grief and other confusing emotions. In short, it needs to be considered not just as the pump that circulates my blood, but the engine of my existence. 

Of course, the heart is associated with the emotions, particularly love, but it’s also the center of self-love, or the ability to balance your own needs with those of the world. If I could do that, or even come a little closer, I seriously doubt there’d be any more strange dreams. At least this will give me something to think about and work towards as I keep this project going. 

All I can think about is travel, and new horizons, and unexplored territory. My mind, body and spirit seem to want to take me into these places now. And I will go as willingly as I am able, given my human limitations. 

I hate Facebook. There, I said it. OK, maybe I don’t hate Facebook. It just gets on my nerves a lot these days. What began, for me at least, as a way to connect with colleagues and readers of my books, as well as old friends and distant relatives, has grown into a festival of need the size of the Super Bowl. 

Most of my Facebook friends are people I’ve never met, who sell themselves or their products at me pretty much 24-7. They don’t try to converse about anything I’m interested in, or begin any sort of meaningful dialogue. Generally speaking, it’s a one-way street — toward them. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to hear about what some of them are doing — their events, book launches, or personal challenges and triumphs. I just don’t need to constant neediness in my life, the incessant striving for attention. And it started to get pretty wearing. 

After a bit, I realized that it kind of reminded me of this Mighty Boosh sketch, featuring the immortal Old Gregg. Noel Fielding plays a local legend who’s so lonely that he has to kidnap people to be friends with him, to love him. 

For me, Facebook presents an interesting reframing challenge. I could avoid it altogether (I’ve basically cut my time there down to about five minutes a day). I could avoid certain people — of course some of my friends are needier than others. So today I tried a different kind of experiment, viewing Facebook as if I were an alien who’d just landed on the planet. I read about record releases and Farmville news and viewed photos of newborn babies. I took in soapbox declarations of one kind or another. I scanned for sighs of anguish, for fist pumps of encouragement. 

And all of a sudden, my heart felt lighter. People shouting about why I should become a vegetarian, or worship Christ, or sign a petition about a certain politician who should be bounced from office for texting photos of his whosiewhatsit to someone faded into the background. Through the eyes of an alien, it was all just information about this new society. To someone brand new to our way of living, it was quaint and old-fashioned and vaguely fragile, in the way that new information you’re sifting though always is.

All of a sudden, I didn’t see it as annoying and needy. I saw it was what it probably really is: a desperate need to connect with other living beings across aeons of pixels and a whole lot of space, whether literal, figurative or something in between. 

Feeling better already, and hoping Old Gregg finds a real friend soon. 

Today’s traffic adventure involved having to get somewhere to interview a playwright for a podcast I curate, knowing that I would not have enough time to eat lunch, breathe or prepare, really. Thankfully, I’d written the script yesterday. But it’s generally a better idea to spend a few minutes centering yourself, drinking a bit of water, and maybe grinding the phlegm out of your throat. 

Today? Not so much. 

It seems like it’s been one of those days that kind of shoots by and nothing gets done. I’m sure some things are getting done, but not as many as I’d hoped. But since I’m in a reframing kind of mood, I’m gonna look at the limiting belief in that statement, “There’s not enough time.” 

Who says? Some great clock-keeper in the sky? Who rules time anyway? Maybe people would even ask, “What is time, but a human construct?” 

Now we’re getting somewhere. ;)

Yes, time is a human construct, but when you work freelance as long as I have, there are deadlines to consider. And deadlines are made of molecules of time. I’ve missed maybe a handful of them in the 20+ years I’ve been writing and editing. So maybe I have a better understanding of time than I think. 

Perhaps a better belief to install would be, “Since there’s no such thing as time and I’m already working pretty hard here, it’ll all get done and handed in to everyone’s satisfaction as soon as humanly possible.” 

See, that word humanly is important. I’m not a robot, though at one point I tried to be one, overloading myself with assignments and overly-defining my life by my work. I’m a human, damn it, and sometimes traffic happens. 

My little reframing exercise seems to have worked. I got there with a few minutes to spare (and prepare) for my interview, which went fine. I ate lunch, though it’s nearly dinner time, but it’s amazing what you can do with your mind to make it all OK. Kinda makes me wonder what my mind does when I’m not watching, and how it maybe takes to places I wouldn’t willingly go. 

Need to upgrade my operating system this weekend, so I can put up the pictures I’ve been taking for all my blog posts. Until then — meerkats! 

That one on the left totally gets it. 

If you live in California, as I do, you have to have a smog check when you renew the registration on your vehicle. Sometimes, depending on the age of your car, you have to have a super-special smog check, but I got off easy today. My mechanic is great, and he was able to fit me in on a work break. 

Their “waiting room” is two battered plastic chairs under a broken umbrella set off to the side of the hydraulics and the bays. Kind of stinky, but I had a book of short plays, and it was pretty damned intriguing if you must know. But of course, since I seem to attract this kind of thing, as soon as I sat down I heard “Pomp and Circumstance.” You know, the music everyone graduates to? Only this time, it was played very loudly, on a crappy PA system, over and over and over. Dimly, I heard a woman’s voice trying to shout over the music, and then a speech of some kind. Since I couldn’t see around the hedge, and didn’t really care all that much about what she was saying, I was free to imagine. 

So along Brand Blvd., which is one of those wide avenues on which tons of car dealerships are situated, I reframed the wait into a parade. The woman was at the head of it — I put her in a spangly red, white and blue outfit with one of those majorette hats. And all the car dealers in their 3-for-$100 suits and ugly ties came behind, marching in some sort of order and looking out of the corners of their eyes for anyone who looked like they might want or need a car. Some of them smoked cigarettes and looked bored. Others watched the majorette lady’s ass and made with the finger guns to assorted onlookers. 

Behind them there was a band, maybe from one of the local high schools. After “Pomp and Circumstance” they had worked up a series of numbers inspired by Glee — Lady Gaga, Rage Against the Machine, Rhianna. They rocked the show right before assorted others brought up the rear. Some had tried and failed to get on reality shows, or were just pissed off at how little attention they seemed to merit these days. They just needed a little love on a Thursday morning. 

Eventually, the smog check came to and end and so did the parade in my head, and then I had to go back to work. But these kids are invited to my imaginary parade any damn day of the week. 

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”      

— Pema Chodron 

We’ve all felt it, if we’re aware enough to admit it. That tightening around the jaw. A rumbling in the stomach. Feeling dizzy, or not quite connected to the ground anymore. If we could fly, we’d probably take flight if we could just get away from that awful feeling. 

Fear shows up in all kinds of ways in my life. Always has. And maybe it’s some sort of reckless streak that runs through my personality, but I’ve found that usually, I need to walk towards whatever’s scaring the crap out of me, so I can experience something intense, usually learn something from it, and hopefully grow as well. I say hopefully because, well, sometimes recklessness is just recklessness, more a desire to annihilate the self than anything else. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of that in the past. 

But as I began to meditate (which I’ve done for nearly 15 years now), the self I thought I was and the self that was always hanging out inside me began to separate themselves enough for me to tell the difference. As I began to investigate each one a little more closely, I realized that I no longer had those reckless urges anymore. Playful adventurousness, sure. But not that terrible urge to blot myself from the planet. 

Today, I’m waiting for some results from some tests I had done last week. I had some pretty serious health problems about a year and a half ago, which I’m sure I’ll get up the courage to talk about at some point. The weird thing is that this isn’t really even related to that. But somehow, my brain is “going there” on this eclipse day, just kind of clenching up and … well, it’s always worse when you don’t know, right? When you’re waiting to hear, and your mind can fill in all the juicy details it wants? And I have a freakin’ vivid imagination. 

Sigh. 

So I’m going to take Pema’s advice and reframe this. It’s not a torturous moment of potential doom. It’s a natural reaction, a step towards truth. It’s not a time for bad news to be delivered, it’s a march towards better health, more intentional living, and (gulp) perhaps everything I’ve always wanted. 

Wouldn’t that be scary as hell? 

Today’s Task: Quarterly Taxes

Fun Quotient: About 4.3% 

Though I’ve noticed a distinct opening of my heart and mind in the days since I began this blog, there’s nothing like a lot of mindless paperwork to close them both up again. But today, I was able to stop the process before it went too far. Yay! 

The Reframe: Instead of being bummed out about possibly contributing to needless wars, over-the-top defense spending, or Dick Cheney’s retirement fund, I thought about each dollar going to a kid in need, a school’s additional books, a new road for an area devastated by natural disaster. For about twenty minutes, I visualized every single one of them moving into the world to help in some way. Then I felt better. 

And the best part of all is that the faster all that goes, the more time I have to daydream. For some reason, I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite songs. They tend to be the ones that tell a story, rather than the ones that just have a danceable beat or quotable chorus. One of my favorites is “Waterloo Sunset,” by the Kinks. 

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in London, and have actually seen the sun set over Waterloo (man I miss that place — must not open Orbitz window), or just that I dig the beautiful lyrics of this song. But something got me thinking about the characters, and what happened to them after the song was over. 

In “Waterloo Sunset,” Terry and Julie meet at the Waterloo Station while the narrator is content to stay at home. In their insular world, they don’t need anyone as they cross over the Thames. They’re that much in love. 

I like to think that Terry and Julie stayed together, at least until they got married, had a few kids, and made several thousand visits to the local pub. Maybe that kind of love doesn’t last. Or maybe it could, if the right people were involved. I suppose only Ray Davies knows for sure. 

Tell me that doesn’t make it all better.

There’s this telemarketer/bill collector that has been calling my office for over two years now, every few days, leaving messages for people who aren’t me. I don’t owe them any money, and I suppose the people who do gave them a fake number so they couldn’t be tracked down when they didn’t pay up. Once, I tried picking up the phone (thank you caller ID) and explaining that they had the wrong number. Wrong move. After a few minutes of being verbally berated by someone I’d never met and owed nothing to, I hung up. Two years later, we’re still getting the calls. Good luck collecting, guys, if that’s your only strategy. 

Every time I see the number come up on the caller ID. I still get a little tense around the mouth and shoulders, from that original altercation. But in the spirit of this blog, and reframing my experience, here’s how it went today: 

Me: Hello? 

Caller: Yeah, can I speak to Joe Garcia? 

Me: You know, there’s no Joe Garcia here, but you have a really nice voice. Have you ever thought of being on the radio, or maybe TV? 

Caller: No. You’re saying he’s not there? 

Me: There’s never been anyone by that name here, but I don’t want to talk about that. You know, your voice kind of reminds me of Julio Iglesias. The singer? Do you sing at all? You probably could, if you tried. 

Caller: Look, ma’am, I’m trying to collect a debt, and anything you say … 

Me: All I’m saying is that this person has never lived here, and you should really think about getting some singing lessons. I’m serious! Maybe make a little demo, take it to iTunes or You Tube. Who knows? You could be looking at a Justin Bieber-type career. You could blow up huge! 

Caller: (laughs a little) Not my kind of music. 

Me: Well, then you could rock it Marvin Gaye style. Don’t lie. I know you like to get with the ladies. 

Caller: (laughs even more) Are you serious? 

Me: Hey, I call it like I see it. You want to stay in that basement all day calling people who don’t owe you money, that’s your business. But I’m betting your time would be better spent getting creative with the stuff in your mind. It’s there, right? 

Caller: Yeah. 

Me: You haven’t given up on your dreams, right? 

Caller: (a little defensive) No. That’s none of your business. 

Me: Then I suggest you go and chase them — right now!  What do you say? 

Caller: You’re sure he’s not there?

Me: Never has been. 

Caller: And you’re not him?

Me: No, I’m not a man, last time I checked.  

Caller: All right then, You have a good day. 

Me: I’m gonna be looking out for you on American Idol. You’re not going to let me down, are you? 

Caller: OK, then. Bye-bye. 

And that, my friends, is how you turn the tables on a telemarketer/bill collector to whom you owe zero dollars. 

Ground Zero of No Fun: For me, this might just be Office Depot, land of zombie checkout people, long lines, absent floor helpers and … well, it’s just a pain in the ass. I put it off for so long, I’m practically on my last piece of paper and my last drop of ink. And that’s not good for anyone. They put everything where you’d least expect it, hide the things you need most in dark corners, and I’m sure that somewhere, someone is laughing and rubbing his greedy little hands together, believing that this actually is going to make you buy more stuff. After all, you can’t resist what you’re forced to walk past three or four times, right? 

Ha! 

Applying a little mindfulness to an Office Depot run is a little like having dinner with someone you loathe. You’re going to do it, gritting your teeth the whole time and trying to be polite. But you’re not going to like it, damn it. So imagine my surprise when I visited Office Depot today (on a Sunday, no less!) and the usual gulag mentality was in full effect. I half expected the ceiling to spontaneously lower itself and the lights to flicker on and off, like in the movie Brazil. But no go. I decided to reframe this as an expedition, viewing the haphazard arrangement of goods like natural formations. After all, you don’t get pissed at nature for putting rocks next to streams, or inconvenient boulders where you want to hike. You go up and around, or over. 

After a few minutes, it wasn’t half bad. I saw a little kid amongst the office furniture playing office, I guess, which made me laugh. And my reward for all this reframing work? My newly found playful sense of purpose?

Zebra striped binder clips. 

I know. A small thing. Not earth shattering, or world changing in the slightest. But my paperwork’s going to be stylin’ for the next several months, and who knows? The stuff I send to the IRS may put a smile on someone’s face a hundred miles away. 

My name is Ally and I’ve come to a conclusion. No, I’m not an alcoholic, though some might say my curious mind addicts itself again and again, sometimes to the strangest things. :)  That aside, I find myself at the end of my rope. Sure, I’ve had my share of struggles, challenges, dark nights of the soul. I am not the sort of person to paste a fake smile on my face just to make people feel better, though I do believe that kindness will be the weapon that eventually slays ignorance for good. I am not sad, or suicidal, or anything like that. Instead, I guess I’m the slap in the face to other people. I am a reasonably happy person. 

What? That’s so boring. 

I have a great husband and a dog. We live in L.A., though we’re planning to move north soon. I have a great job, and love my work. What’s to complain about? A lot, it seems.

I’ve grown sick of the constant complaining, the entitlement, and assuming that other people have it better than us, that someone is “getting away with something,” or that something else better is out there. I just don’t want it around me anymore. No matter where you turn these days, there are plenty of opportunities to absorb negative messages about how much happier we’d be if we had this, or owned that, or drove something else. I’m betting that throwing off that stuff and creating my own version will manifest some important changes. I’m going to give it a shot. 

I’m far from a saintly person. But I’ve made it my task for the next year to pick a mundane aspect of life. It doesn’t matter what it is, but it has to be something not traditionally thought of as inherently happy. There, I will reframe my experience, and try to find something beautiful in that moment or, in the case of the DMV, perhaps an hour or more. At least once per day, I will look deeper, refocusing my senses and getting closer to the surface of my life, with awareness and hopefully love. 

I’ll use this line from an e.e. cummings poem as my inspiration: 

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” 

Just today I was at the car wash, watching people pacing around angrily, checking their phones and berating the guys drying the cars to move faster. I looked at a chair nearby and saw gorgeous pattern that looked like a butterfly wing cast on the pavement. In the few moments between a woman claiming her car and another guy sitting down, I took a picture. In that fleeting few moments, a beautiful question formed. 

Who would sit there next? What would happen when the sun bounced off that person’s body? How might they be taking part in a moment of inadvertent bliss?