Everybody in the pool

March 4, 2011

photo-10

So many thoughts, so many epiphanies!

This morning as I was sitting down to write, I had an image of them all, words and fragments, floating up through my head and then jamming all together and bottlenecking.

All of them trying to shove their way up, to sprout through the crown and branch out.

Gah! Stressful.

And then I had another image of kids lining up to jump in the pool, excited and impatient.

So I asked all the ideas to throw on their swim trunks and line up behind the diving board.

Don’t worry! You’ll all get your chance to dive into the pool! (It’s working… for now.)

How do you deal with too many ideas crowding and jostling, all wanting your attention at once?

Not settling

March 1, 2011

Yesterday I was hating this freelance work I was doing so much and thinking that nothing will be okay until I completely quit doing it forever.

That extreme urgency got me wondering about the possibility of this being a false wall.

Do I really hate it?

Yesterday when I was working, I didn’t actually hate it. I didn’t love it, but it was okay. (It’s when I’m not working but thinking I should be that I really hate it. And that’s true of any work for me.)

But part of me is feeling really scared that if I find out I don’t hate it enough, I’ll forget that I want to stop. I’ll keep doing it.

And that would be the worst thing.

I went to college in Tempe, where there are too many 120 degree days in August. By Thanksgiving, I would always forget how bad it had been. But after college I knew enough to move away.

I worked in public accounting, where busy season is full of 80 hour+ work weeks. By Thanksgiving, I would always forget how bad it had been. But five years in, I knew enough to move away.

But, but, but…

When I’m working too much, I just want to lie on a beach forever.
When I’m dating a jerk, all I really want is a sweet guy.
When life feels rocky or scary, I think that peace and calm would satisfy me forever.

But then when I get back to equilibrium, I’m going to want variety. Adventure. Full life immersion!

How do I remember that?

Why do I even want to?

Because I don’t want to make big decisions from these off-balance places, and end up with a really nice guy who I just don’t love.

Because maybe if I could remember that eventually I’ll want adventure and excitement again, then I would be able to enjoy the ride back.

And because sometimes my psyche just needs a jungle gym to climb around on, as my genius business partner would say.

Where is this coming from? I’m not working too much, I’m not dating a jerk…

But I had this giant epiphany,

That I don’t have to settle. Well, that’s actually more of a side-note epiphany.

The giant epiphany is that I was thinking I did have to settle. That when I find something good enough, I’m supposed to settle.

How is this all connected? I’m still working that out.

But I had a really sweet dream last night about my high school sweetheart. I’m not sure exactly how, but ten years later it reminded me of how that kind of love feels.

It reassured me of its existence. In romantic love and work love and life love.

And that if I’m thinking I need to settle for less, I must be off-center. And eventually, I’ll want more.

Residue

February 23, 2011

photo-10I baked cookies on Saturday morning with a friend. For another friend, a cookie monster friend, who left Sunday for India.

And I took several pictures, trying for one without the tell-tale grease spots. I even took a few with the cookies all wrapped up in pretty cellophane and tied with a bow.

But I gave in and went au naturale.

Because, you know, cookies are made of butter.

(Among other things. Like, for example: peanut buttery, oatmeal, chocolate chip goodness.)

Now I really want to tie this insight up with a bow of its own. (What? Where? Which insight?)

The one that’s still, erm, baking. For now: Butter leaves a mark. A tasty one. So there you go.

Blinders, reminders

February 13, 2011

photo-7

It’s no secret: I love Shiva Nata. But no matter, I had been evading all of its charms. No practice for me.

I was still using Shiva Nata concepts to have epiphanies like crazy, but I sidelined my physical practice. I got spooked.

Back story: A couple of years ago I started getting aural migraines. First a swirly ball of doom commandeers my vision and then becomes a pounding headache. I don’t get them very often, but it freaks me out every time.

Back to present: Sometimes the brain buzzy sensation that comes after Shiva Nata would remind me of that migraine aura, and the reminder would spark the anxiety the aura brings with it.

Part of me knew that Shiva Nata wasn’t going to cause a migraine. But it didn’t really matter–I was willing to give it up in order to avoid being reminded of that panicky sense of losing control.

Which reminded me…

A few years ago I read this really useful article by Martha Beck. (So useful that I spent forever digging up to share with you. She writes about neural connections and everything! Read it.)

The idea is that sometimes we put a lot of energy into avoiding stuff that reminds us of something else. And then we have to start avoiding the stuff that reminds of the new stuff we’re avoiding.

Avoid and avoid until, little by little, the world we’re willing to experience is sadly small.

Turning away from pain isn’t necessarily bad. But in this case we’re not really healing that pain because we’re too busy building a tower of new things we have to avoid because they remind us of the pain.

Comforting reminders

My friend K used to get migraines. She once told me that she hated making the drive between our two hometowns just before sunset because the angle of the sun through tall pine trees would create this rapid shadow! light! shadow! light! disco ball effect, reminding her of the start of a migraine.

Open mini-blinds have the same effect on me. So, Shiva Nata and open mini-blinds remind me of a migraine, which is scary.

But they also remind me that the shadow cast by pine trees at sunset reminded K of migraines, too. And this reminder is such a relief: Oh, this isn’t a migraine. This is just reminding me of one, like pine trees reminded K. Phew!

Not that I’m leaping into the scary.

At all! Like right now, I’m sitting in a cafe. A slice of sunlight was slapped up across my computer screen, making me crazy. So I closed the blinds.

And after a few weeks of avoiding Shiva Nata, I intentionally waited until Rally to practice. I knew I would be safe there, surrounded by kind, supportive people + Head Shivanaut : )

I was right. Waiting was a good move, and it felt amazing to get back into the swing of the dance.

But now, all of this has me wondering where else I’ve turned away from perfectly lovely things, because they remind me of old things that are.. less lovely.

Just a pat

February 8, 2011

Radish

Note: This is more than a pat!

I can’t believe how simple this recipe is. It’s actually silly. And therein lies the mystery/magic/challenge.

I borrowed it from the lovely Orangette:
Thick sliced raw radishes.
Thin swipe of Irish butter.
Fresh cracked sea salt and pepper.

(If you refrigerate your radishes, I would let them come to room temperature. Butter, too. But the white wine you sip with it should be nice and cold!)

Honestly? My first reaction was that I’m not going to waste butter-eating on a radish. No offense, Radish.

Also, the whole 15 second effort seemed like a lot of work (proportionately) for the potential result. That’s a familiar tune.

And again I was wrong. The effect is surprisingly tasty, and absolutely worth it.

It took me a minute after the first crunchy bite to remember what the flavors reminded me of and then it hit me. That simplest of childhood foods: Plain noodles with butter, salt and pepper.

But this version is grown-up, sophisticated somehow. And pretty, with that ribbon of red!

I’ve been thinking about small touches that add up to grand effect.

The tiniest flourish that produces. In food, and everything really.

Smoochie Anderson

September 10, 2010

Smoochie Anderson

Smoochie Anderson

One of my old boyfriends had this really lighthearted, playful way of coming up with goofy nicknames or making up ridiculous song lyrics and belting them out around the house.

I’ve been missing that brand of play lately–the giggling and taking myself less seriously. And feeling kind of sad about it.

I guess I assumed that he was the one and only bearer of funny nicknames and nonsensical lyrics.

And I let it follow that, without him, I just don’t have access to that flavor of silliness.

But yesterday morning, my dog was lying in a spot of sunshine in the kitchen, and I called him Sugar Pup Triceratops because I’m crazy like that. And then I realized:

Oh! I’m crazy like that!

I make up off the wall nicknames and sing wacky limericks to my dog all the time.

How Grover became Smoochie Anderson? No idea.

I realized that the boyfriend from long ago isn’t the keeper of my inner goofball, because I am. Of course his unselfconscious sense of humor is probably one of the things that made me fall for him.

At the same time, maybe I appreciated it because I already carried the seed for silly in me.

I get that certain people can bring out our silly side or our brilliant side. And surely our spirits connect partly because of that match.

But even without their spark, we still have it. We are it.

A blinding flash of obvious.

We’re always hearing that other people can’t make us happy. And really can’t make us anything.

And that the good we see in other people is also within us.

But there’s something intensely immediate about experiencing it myself.

(One of the more amazing things about Shiva Nata is the regularity of these epiphanies. And one of the more frustrating things is that it’s almost impossible to describe them without sounding like a platitude-spouting ninny.)

Still, I’ll take it. This particular epiphany brought with it comfort and a well of hope. And a wave of appreciation for my old flame and those silly songs.

Go time. Finally. (And yay!)

July 7, 2010

hopscotch_blog_w

It’s here!

You know – IT. The happy secret I was so tortured about keeping. And now I’m tongue-tied all over again. But that’s just as well, because you can finally just come visit and find out for yourself. Yayyy!

So what will happen here?
I know I’ve been super quiet lately. Part secret-keeping, tongue-tied. Part Distillery-building-Hopscotch-playing. Part cranking away for a few awesome people doing my right-hand-girl thing.

And I really do miss writing. And I’ve been wondering myself what this here blog might become.

Most of my worky-type writing (which I unexpectedly love doing) will happen over at the new digs. So what I’d really love is to write (more!) here about daily life stuff.

To write more often, but about less, if that makes any sense at all.  And to write about simple little everyday things – what I’m cooking, reading, wondering, doing. In some ways, I’d like to write more often for the sake of writing itself — deep practice and all that.

We’ll see when I actually start writing more. Ha. I’m guessing that I’ll be swimming in all things Hopscotch Distillery for awhile. (Note the hopeful description of Swimming rather than Treading Water. Because life and things are busy, but good busy. Critical distinction.)

In the meantime… hope you’ll come by, hang out, throw confetti with us. See you there!

A case of the pre-launch awkward blurts

June 9, 2010

Being yourself online can be the strangest experience. (In addition to, you know, the basic essential weirdness of being a human being.)

Sometimes you want to dip your toe in a certain water without making it a big deal or announcing anything. And then it can feel oddly disingenuous to not share everything with everyone.

I open my mouth sit down to write, but nothing comes out.
So then you just don’t talk at all, because hello, all of your brain matter is occupied by this one thing. Feels a bit like being told something about someone and sworn to secrecy. And before you’ve even absorbed the information, he walks up and you get all blurtey and act like a total dooooofus.

Must have happened umpteen times on Seinfeld: Jerry tells Elaine a secret about George, and then she gets all mumbley and super suspicious. Until George gets her wasted and she spills everything.

A glimpse at the flip side.
Sometimes I feel awkward as a reader/consumer when someone hints at something they’re growing in the background. But now as a writer/producer I completely get it. Because you have this thing you want to talk about, but you also feel a bit protective, and you need to wait until the timing feels right.

Must be a bit like couples feel about telling people (or not) that they’re pregnant?

Nurturing something tiny and sweet is a vulnerable and delicate time. It might start out as just a private glimmer of an idea, a flutter across the screen. And at that point everything is so fragile. You need time to get used to the change. And it needs time to put down some roots and get stronger.

The baby point.
And there’s no reason that setting the stage for a new business venture or product has to be icky or manipulative anymore than it would be with a (real life) baby. Because your business can be your baby. Your next idea can be a tiny, sweet thing.

No one would be like: Oh, gross, she totally hinted at being pregnant – she must be pushing her baby on me. Dude, I don’t want your baby!

So why does it sometimes feel that way when someone hints about their next thing?

It’s like you I want to share a little bit, but you’re I’m scared that it will look like priming the pump or something. (Which in this case is extra ridiculous because part of my thing is for such a teeny handful of people that it would be impossible to game anyone.)

The bigger point?
Part of being yourself online (without wanting to stab yourself in the eye repeatedly) has to do with sharing what you can, being all you in a way that feels genuine and safe.

And if you can’t share everything rightthissecond, it doesn’t mean you’re withholding to be manipulative. And you definitely don’t want to over-share in the name of “authenticity”.

I guess this is me saying that I’m doing some stuff. That I’m crazy excited about. And I’ll be ready to share soon. Then, hopefully, I can stop being quite so super awkward and blurtey.

How about you? Do secrets make you clumsy? Even the exciting ones?

I don’t know anything. (About tamales.)

June 4, 2010

I made friends with the tamale guy at the farmers’ market last Saturday. This is embarrassingly huge for me. Not making a friend so much – more to do with how it happened.

I was waiting for someone who was standing in the world’s slowest line. (With the world’s oldest, sweetest farmer.) So I busied myself looking through tamale flavors at the stand across the way.

After muttering a cold, inaudible greeting when I first walked up, the guy was pretty much ignoring me. He probably assumed I was just another sample-scarfing stop-and-run, which I very nearly was.

But then I noticed one of the tamale packages was marked Tinga. I’ve only had something called Tinga once before – on special at Mijita in the San Francisco ferry building. It was amazing. And then they never had it again.

(San Francisco locals & visitors: Get thee to Mijita, please.)

Well I got so excited at the sight of a Tinga tamale that it thwarted my usual know-it-all tendencies. (My pervasive hesitation to show ignorance about something. Really about anything at all.)

And when I asked about the Tinga, the tamale guy got super animated – he explained the traditional dish to me, and then proceeded to school me in the best way to prepare that particular tamale.

(Steamed, then lightly pan fried in olive oil, and stirred into scrambled eggs for extra oomph.)

We laughed and bonded, I bought some tamales, and we bid farewell like friends. That interaction (and the tamales) pretty much made this particular farmers’ market experience.

And without my question about the Tinga, I would have missed out. For sure. And by no fault of his. (See sample-scarfers above.)

No — I’m usually the problem. Because I am not a good question-asker. I am a very good know-it-all.

I have some issues with being vulnerable. Or knowledge-vulnerable? What do you call the habit of never wanting to appear as if you don’t have all of the answers? Beginners-mind averse? I like what Martha Beck calls it: The Kindergarten Complex. I’ve got it.

In my work life, after plenty of experience fumbling around and spinning my wheels, I’ve pretty well learned to ask questions as soon as they arise.

But if I walk into a new coffee shop, I have an overwhelming need to pretend like I already know the protocol. Yes, it’s weird.

And this defense mechanism would be funny if it weren’t so counterproductive. I’m not sure what I’m try to protect (ahem, ego?), but it doesn’t exactly endear me to friends and family. Or strangers.

If I pretend I already know how to make tamales, there are a few obvious consequences: I miss out on the connection with the tamale guy, and my tamales come out dry and blah. But it has me wondering about how it extends to other, more subjective, situations.

Like: What about pretending (to myself) to know that I won’t be good at something before I ever try it? Or that someone doesn’t like me, without ever being the one to wear my heart on my sleeve?

It just can’t end well. Maybe I’ll try to play with this pattern in some easy, low-risk ways. Like asking more questions at the farmers’ market tomorrow.

Does anyone else do this? Pretend to know your way around a coffee shop?

Discombobulation. (Or, When I don’t feel like being sovereign.)

May 20, 2010

Discombobulated. A word whose meaning and mouth-feel are so well-matched. And a dear cousin to one of my all-time favorite words: Bijigetty.

So… This week I moved into my very own place. I even signed a lease. A twelve-month lease. Eeep!

After a little review of my former living situations, I was shocked to discover that I’ve never lived alone. I actually had to double-check my memory. And if you know me, you’re probably surprised, too. I just seem like someone who would. Plenty independent and all that.

But nope. I’ve lived with friends, I’ve lived with a boyfriend, I’ve never lived by myself.

And taking this step is a Very Good Thing. But the decision-making was terribly uncomfortable. The act of committing unsettled me. I guess settling in is sometimes incredibly unsettling.

I’ve been learning about personal sovereignty, the quality of owning your space, from some wise women. Playing with techniques for establishing boundaries, separating my stuff from other people’s stuff, and taking responsibility for the shape of my life.

And now I guess I’m wondering about the opposite. What about when the last thing I want is to be the master of my own domain?

Because in this particular lease-signing frenzy, I found myself casting around for someone else to tell me what to do. I found a place, the place. And then I desperately needed someone else (my mom? a friend? the landlord? God?) to tell me whether I should take it.

There’s more at play than just sovereignty. I can try to choose the next right thing. I can play the heat-seeking missile game. But I’m wondering how to step up to the plate and run my own show when part of me wants to be taken care of by someone else. (Or drown my sorrows in metaphor.)

One trick is to ask myself, what would Someone Wise do? Can I call on my internal council of representatives? If I try to guess what Martha Beck or Pema Chodron would advise in this situation, isn’t my interpretation of their advice an indirect way of accessing my own internal wisdom?

Or I might ask a future me. Me-ten-years-from-now, what do you think? But she usually just smiles beatifically, generously, and shrugs as if to say: All will be well. And: Sweetie, life turns out just right either way. This is comforting, yes. And reassuring, absolutely. And not one bit helpful.

You know how when a toddler falls or bumps her noggin, the first thing she does, before her eyes even have a chance to fill with tears, is to look up at you? To gauge your reaction? And if you soothe her saying “you’re okay, you’re okay,” she’ll usually shake off the experience and go back to her play.

I guess I’m wanting to learn how to be that “you’re okay, you’re okay” person for myself.

Do you finding yourself casting about for advice about big decisions? How do you trust yourself?

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →