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Twenty Insults in One Sob
I had been stunned all day.
Too stunned to panic.
.
Oh the thoughts were there.
You did this to yourself.
You made your bed, now you have to lie in it
Yes, I agreed. I could see it was true.
What can you do with something that is true?
The sobs came much later.
Three of them.
They rose from the deep, came with sorrow.
The first sob took me by surprise, I had no idea it was coming.
The second made me think: this is the first true sob I’ve ever sobbed.
The third one though.
You’re a horrible person, you’ve done it again, look how nobody can tolerate you. And on and on.
Twenty insults in the space of one sob.
Geez, I said. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down.
This cracked the sob up.
We laughed and laughed and when we were done, discovered the sorrow was gone.
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One two punch
When I walked into the office Monday morning, my boss said, “we need to talk.”
I recognized the face. This has happened before.
I have been in a haze for a while now. I’ve also made a couple mistakes these past few months. As I followed him to his office, I said, “no matter what he says, I will agree because he’s probably right.”
I heard myself tell him, at the end of his speech, that I agreed with everything he said. I appreciated his generosity with giving me severance. And that I had no hard feelings.
Punch one.
As if that wasn’t enough, the next day came punch two.
I said a little prayer: Could I endure this time with humility.
.
I think I had it backwards.
It was humility that sat across the boss that morning.
The experience came first.
The prayer, after.
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Are you my thing?
I used to think I didn’t know what interested me.
It was true. I didn’t.I thought I had to search the world to find “my thing.”
I tried so many things, always asking everything, “are you my thing?”Lots of things appealed to me — but nothing fit.
I was never hit by some lightning bolt that showed me I had a knack.
Somehow I thought if something was “your thing,” you’d be great at it.
I was okay at many things, but great at nothing.
I thought my problem was I didn’t know “my thing,”
I had a friend in middle school who, in ten minutes, could whip out a portrait of a newborn worthy of a Christmas card.
She had a thing.
She became a pharmacist.
I didn’t understand how art wasn’t “her thing.” Things and careers (your life purpose) were related in my mind.
The true problem was I didn’t know how to know if something was my thing.
Because I already thought I knew: you’d be great at it.
That’s not a bowl-you-over kind of revelation.
Unless you thought like I did.
And then, suddenly, see you were wrong.
I couldn’t find my thing because I was looking with the wrong eyes.
The natural follow-up question then is:
“What’s the right way to look?”That question is unanswerable.
Not because it’s ineffable or mysterious or otherworldly.
But because I never had to ask it.
Once you see you were looking with the wrong eyes, the correct action comes simultaneously.
You drop the wrong eyes.
“You” don’t drop them.
They simply disappear.
And the right ones take over. Without you knowing.
You might be in the middle of using your right eyes, and you won’t even know it. You’re too busy looking at what you’re looking at.
You’re no longer asking anything: “are you my thing?”
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See it everywhere
Three years into my non dual journey – my obsession with all things non dual came to an abrupt halt. I couldn’t read one more spiritual book or listen to one more video. With all my non dual time suddenly empty, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
You can take the girl out of non duality, but you can’t take non duality out of the girl. What happened is this: I discovered there was nothing that didn’t have non duality peeking out of it. Jimmy Fallon’s mad lib theatre, song lyrics, lines in movies and tv shows. Comments people said. I don’t mean I “woke up” – I was still very much in the dark. But, it was comforting because here I thought non duality had abandoned me but really it was just showing me how could it? It’s everywhere.
There are two books I came across that are chock full of non duality that have nothing to do with traditional “spirituality.” The great thing about that is that the non dual truths aren’t explicit. Non duality without its usual non duality garb has a chance of coming in sideways. The two books are:
- Alan Carrs Stop Smoking.
- Several Short Sentences about Writing.
Don’t let the excuses I’m not a smoker or I’m not a writer keep you from trying them out. There are no pre requisite to reading them.
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How do I look
Is my hair tidy? Are any strands out of place? Oh no, is my hair turning more grey. Is that a new wrinkle.
Am I putting on weight? Am I losing too much weight? Do I have it in me to workout more because I would love to look fit and athletic.
Are there any features that are particularly striking? Do I have good cheek bones, are my lips plump enough, do I look put together such everything is perfect. Or is everything in a perfect amount of disarray because I want to show I don’t care about looking perfect.
.
How do I look with my friends in this photo. Does it look like I’m happy and fun loving? Does this photo show my good side, does it show me in a flattering light.
How do I look?
How do I look?
Do I look with warm eyes not because I know how to make a smile go to my eyes but because there’s a warmth somewhere that radiates out of me.
Do I look at you with compassion and peace because I see your pain is my pain and because I know I no longer need anything from you.
Do I look at everything with interest and curiosity because i am interested and curious.
How do I look?
At couples holding hands? With envy. With cynicism. Disapproval. I don’t like PDA. He’s more handsome than her, what’s he doing with her. She’s more handsome than him, what’s she doing with him.
How do I look at strangers? With suspicion. With a practiced friendliness. Or I don’t look at them at all because they are not important.
.
How do I look at this loneliness inside me? How do I look at this little ache?
I push it down. Figure out ways to get rid of it. Fix it with a new relationship. Cover it with a veneer of I don’t need anybody or a veneer of busy. Reject it, bully it. Hate it.
.
I’ve been looking at how I look and wondering why on earth would I want to look the way I do.
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Ode to: Of Beginnings and the Names of Things ~ The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
In some ways, it began when I listened to them speak. It wasn’t their words, it wasn’t what they were speaking about. It was what their voices were made of. Yearning, sorrow, hope, suffering, fear. Love. Pouring out of their eyes, pouring out of their mouths as sounds that took the shape of a life’s story.
(shaking my head). No. It began when I went to China. I had spent a year swallowed by insanity and when it spit me back out, I found myself sitting in an airport, a ticket to Beijing in my hand. It’s not like I was looking to find myself in Machu Picchu. I wasn’t backpacking my way across the Great Wall. I wasn’t learning to be a Buddhist in a Chinese temple. No. It was just life again. Life always dragging me places I didn’t want to go.
But I expect the true beginning lies in what led me to China in the first place. That smoke-like, ethereal, disembodied arm that punched deep into my chest and grabbed hold of my soul. The legion that I didn’t know had been hiding inside me, burrowed deep in my thigh muscles, my guts, my back, my neck – all of it finally exorcised in one agonizingly long living nightmare of a night. One tremendous, incredulous, epic battle over … of all things …
my soul. Yes. I suppose that is where it all begins. This is, in many ways, a story about my soul and all the darkness I carried.
***
My name is Frances, pronounced exactly the same as Francis, except it’s e for a she instead of i for a guy. The name Frances supposedly means “free.” This was not obvious if you’ve ever come across me. There was nothing free about me.
It could, however, be considered prophetic. Without knowing it, I spent my whole life yearning to live up to my name.
***
I have been a sleeping princess. I have been the prince who had to learn my own kiss was the only thing that would open my own eyes. I have been the dragon I needed to slay.
I have clutched the gates of heaven and was found wanting. I have ripped apart a family. I have touched hell and left with my soul. I have spent a year with insanity and left finally knowing the true taste of sanity.
I have been a bad student, a straight A student, a good daughter, a bad daughter, a harlot, an artist, a poet, a sailor, a dutiful wife, a mother, a Christian, a lover of God, a lover of new age, an orator, a mathematician, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a yogi, a meditator, a psychotic, a zealot, an addict, a conspiracy theorist, a savior of the world, a vagabond, a spiritual seeker – only to find myself wanting. Every. Single. Time.
I have sung songs that call angels forth from their hiding places to sing harmony. Our voices mixed makes me weep. I have touched the birthplace of poetry. I have seen the universe explode into being straight out of my eyes.
You have never heard of me.
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I’m Frances
I’m in love with the spiritual journey.
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Non(sense)-Duality 