My life is filled with distractions. Always on the go, thinking on my feet, back on my heels, napping when things get hard, and aiming for the middle. I’ve done my time on the edges. Highs in high school required some hospitalizations. Lows have frequently led me to seek medical advice and therapy. Today, I’m free climbing.
I’m also cultivating the quiet. What my mind runs to when I have some open time. The endless minutes stretching out over the course of a day, I find lulls. Breaks. Naps. Resets. Reevaluations. Moments of pause and consider.
I mostly sleep with a white noise generator that gives my L3M (large living language model) a chance to defrag and clear debris. It’s important to learn to purge old shit and listen for the next right action. In the case of today, the next right non-action. I’m waiting. I’m on hold. I’m in a liminal state.
Two jobs form the horns of my dilemma. Yesterday, the interview could not have gone better, except for the part where she said, “You realize this is a part-time position, right?” “No.”
Okay. Reset. Remain calm. No need for drama. The pausing is harder than it looks. Back when I was first fired, without cause, I was panicking quite a bit. I learned to place my faith in god. Also, continuing to do good work, submitting job applications, responding to emails, finding new AI tools to submit to 1,000 jobs at once. Not one interview from that one. Okay, so it’s going to be a long haul, a nuanced effort. Brute force was not going to make it happen.
Sometimes, we are waiting for someone else to make it happen. That won’t work either. It’s a collaborative effort. Me, god, and my anxiety. I’m doing my best to “give it up to god.” I’m praying and napping interleaved with job hunt, writing, singing, and seeking.
Just a few minutes ago, lying in bed, white noise machine off, I was observing the unsteady state of my mind. Ideas were popping all over the place. Impuses to get up and do something. Emotional exhaustion suggesting a nap. Coffee mitigating the mood between the two angles of repose. Get up and do something. Don’t get up and observe the quieting mind.
I started following my thoughts. Counting my breath IN and OUT. Listening to the lack of noise, the ultra-quiet house, sometimes too quiet, my ears start making up noises, complications, distractions. Tune back into the nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I arrived here, eventually, writing again. The silence continues, almost like a ringing in my ear. Clickity clickity of the keys now, letters and sentences spilling out with ease. I’ve already had my piano lesson today. Already checked in on my matches for the tennis ladder. And, finding no particular call to action, I’m back to listening to nothing. Click. Tap. SAVE.
Today is the sun’s birthday.
That was ee cummings. A poet. Expressing his own experience of delight. I have a lot of delight. This period of ambrosia is a little disconcerting. So happy. So productive. And still knowing I’ve got to go back to work. This little stock market trick is not going to last forever. I will celebrate the birthday of my mom, yesterday, now five years traveling among the stars. She was a firm believer in Einstein. Somewhere he wrote about humans being made from the dust of stars. My mom believed in that.
She also had some childhood Christianity training that gave her hope for what’s next. She was ready to go see her daughter and her other son again. She was ready. She told us she was ready for the last five years of her life. Confident in the heaven she’d been gifted by the church.
I think heaven is much more complex. I don’t think there’s going to be a John up there after I die. And, while I would like to meet my old cat Peter, I don’t think he’s with Jesus. I think there’s something to the idea of god. Or God. I also believe it’s unfathomable to mere human minds. He tried to give us an example with his son, Jesus, and look how that turned out. Humans are unreliable.
In my universe we are more like tiny mushrooms off the grand field of fungi. We come up after a rain, live our lives, spit out our spores, and return back to the dark mulch of the whole. Will my thoughts and loves survive the transition? That’s an unimportant question. What is important to remember is this: there is no pain.
Another one: happiness is an inside job.
Here I am, looking for a guidance from a dead Mom and a dead sister. Asking for direction from the silence. Or, better yet, not asking for anything. Just breathing in the moments as they tick by.
Meditating for 30 seconds a day is better than none at all. Finding time to sit and observe your monkey mind is part of the process of befriending the chaos, the god inside, the directionless void of life. We’ve got to tune into ourselves. The other stuff we’re paying attention to is meaningless in the larger picture.
I am in no danger. I am feeling little or no pain. I have everything I need. My mind wraps it’s tenticles around the day and helps me decide am I happy, lonely, sad, angry, motivated, tired. It’s all in my thinking. If I can slow it down, catch a glimpse of the things that send me off in various directions, I can begin to carve out the present moment I want to inhabit.
Let me explain. At this moment, in my comfy chair, writing, I have never been better. I’m trying on a new phrase. “Happier than I’ve ever been,” is worn out. As I observe my attention I see how thoughts lead to feelings lead to moods. I’ve had a problem with moods in the past. If I worry about my job interview, from yesterday, I can begin to worry, project failure, and if I let the ideas spiral unchecked, reach a catastrophic end. If I feel into my loneliness, pay attention to where I’m feeling it, I am again aware of how that “lack” builds a feeling of sadness. But I am not lacking a relationship at this moment. I am choosing to be alone. Choosing the gap between loving partners to reevaluate my approach, goals, and methods.
I’m learning and evolving. I hope for a badass partner who is doing the same. Hope and desire are related, but not binding. I can be aware of my desire for a loving partner without feeling lonely. I can use my imagination not to track or hunt a new partner, but to expand my definition of what I’m looking for, expanded my known universe, expand my expectations of beauty, fitness, creative passion.
I am listening to my own mind. I don’t have to make any decisions right this second. Another sentence forms where the last one left off. That, today, is enough.
I am not starving. I have running water, food, and electricity. I have my daughter’s doodle to keep me company. I have my connection to spirit. Whatever you want to call it. God, if you like. I am a spiritual being. When I can’t connect with someone on a spiritual level I know it’s not going to work out. Our ideas of spirituality or religion don’t have to be the same. Our connection with the Universe, our hippie-like approach to life, is more important.
I am not waiting to see who shows up in my life. I’m not waiting for the job to find me. I am listening on all channels, broadcasting on all channels, and giving it time.
Hope + Love + Time
When I am tuned into that formula I am right where I am meant to be. I am happiest when I’m writing, creating, exploring my expansive ideas. I know the next epiphany is not going to make me famous. This next sentence is probably not my best. But it continues. I hear the silence and slight ringing in my ears. It’s too quiet. Where’s the dog? What’s the point? What do I need to do?
The noise is easy to fall into. By allowing my silence to ring out, I am giving my soul a chance to cool off, to dream, to rest. Silence and meditation is like napping for your mind. Filling it with Tiks and Toks, games, entertainment, chats, activity with no goal or focus… Not the way to go.
For now, for this moment, just for today, I’m going to be okay with letting it happen. Putting my sail up and working my compass and star maps is all part of the process of life. The message will arrive. The path forward will become obvious and well-lit. I’ve been right here before.
Three years ago, in October–just like it is now, in a similar state of “ah ha” I called in two completely different paths. A woman of unquestionable beauty and intelligence showed me what fucking a Victoria Secrets model would be like. Nope. The second path was a more reasonable choice, loving, mature, absolutely beautiful as well. All good for a bit. I was confounded. I was careful.
At first, I made the intoxicating choice. It was over before it began. I backed up and rekindled the better fit. Three years of love, secure attachment, and availability. All good. All. Good.
Yet, a piece was missing. That alluring missing magic.
I think I’ve identified it, with the help of my recently deceased best friend. We called it “cultivated interests.” I probably have too many. Sometimes I struggle to find time for a partnership. In this three year experiment, journey, loving partnership, I learned how I can ask for space without hurting the other person. “I can’t really write or work on a new song with you here.”
Easy.
Enough of the other stuff kept creeping in. Over the summer I had to break it off. Twice. It was a painful decision, but a clear one. I could not fight for my creative time. I wouldn’t have to if she had been involved in other stuff on her own. Other cultivated stuff. If it’s antiquing and British dramas, I don’t think that’s going to be a match.
My daughter questioned my logic. “I don’t have projects over the weekend,” she said. “I just want to relax and have a good time.”
“Yes, but you’re in your early twenties.”
Learning to love the silence and what it brings is part of my cultivated interest. I am certain the next lover is going to have a similar solitude. She will let me find her. She will be found. I will be found. And in the spaces in between we will hold hands and contemplate our constellation of intertwined starmaps.
Travel along beside your lover. Attach securely. Pay attention to the now and not the plans or the future state. Listen for the song of your lover. Sing harmonies.
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