In search of Alchemy

It's been a year now since I decided to leave my hard earned home of five years and go out into the wide world once more.

Once more with nothing. With no furniture, not even a bed. With my books packed up and left behind, boxes of colour and memory dusting in a barn. My piano gone, pictures locked up, papers destroyed.

I left with no job and limited savings to make my way alone in a place I had never lived. To move back into a city from deep rolling hills, back into all the languages of the world and the engine of city traffic from the kayikiki call of fox outside my window and coyote and bear in the woods. To make friends in a city of strangers after leaving those who would come by with homemade butternut soup and thermometers when I was sick or hunt christmastrees with me, swim in lakes and pools, and explore the surroundings of a whole wide state.

It was just this idea of where I wanted to be next, who I wanted to enable myself to become (again?) and what I wanted to surround myself with. An image of the lifestyle I wanted to experience next and opportunities to find.

How has it nearly been a year since I was packing all my things away to set out across the country?
And what has been done or found or left in that year?

    "To live without roads seemed one way

 not to get lost. To make maps

of stone and grass, to rub stars together,

find a spark."

~from "Spark," a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

I have travelled through and explored
New York, New Hampshire, Massachusets, Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina
as well as
New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Guatemala

I have depleted my yatch savings fund to nearly the last dollar, but starting saving over again.

I slept on a floor and then an airmattress for three months.

I worked as a canvasser on the street, a cashier and hospitality hostess in a pizza place, and am in my second position doing development and marketing work in an awesome arts organization now.

I completed two residencies, two terms of grad school, a critical thesis, and am preparing to graduate with my first Masters degree.  (There is always room for another MA...)

I've missed my friends, people who have poured into my life over the five years who feel like family, who may themselves have moved, too, but many of whom still keep in touch, find ways to say hello and an "I'm thinking of you" and some of whom have even managed to visit.

I've made new friends and reconnected with friends from my past--discovering one college friend and I can see each other's bedroom windows from our rooms here in all the expanse and building jungle of this city.

There have been organizations to discover, to join and participate in. Women's groups, political groups, arts groups, writing groups, UN groups, groups from my life's many homelands, embassies, music, bellydancing, martial arts, concerts, all my favourite food groups, rake-leaves-at-the-monuments--so many different experiences to explore and wonder at. So many fascinating new people with complex backgrounds and stories far crazier than my own. Giving strangers in the metro or at a restaurant my name, my number, my smile.

I've made it to a movie theater five times. (LOTR the Hobbit II, Frozen, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Maleficent, and How to Train Your Dragon 2, again--if you were wondering...)

I sold my car.

My belongings are still in storage and I miss my books and my piano every single day.

I've acquired more books and learned how to use a library at last (though I still don't like them much!)

I've seen 2 ballets, 3 operas, 3 theater productions, 1 dance show, 1 musical, 1 concert (and I think more that I cannot recall offhand).

I have visited and been visited by my siblings more this year than perhaps the last two years combined.

I've run away to a nearby beach twice, and made it back to NY briefly twice, too.

It's been a scary year. A year of wondering, Am I going to make it? Can this work out?  A year of signing onto leases before having employment, believing that the job was around the corner. Believing what I was earnestly looking for would come.

On the hard days, I would draw up this wonderful quote in my head from Theodore Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It has been a year of letting go of everything and finding a path through the sky.

And, in fact, doing not zero, not one, but TWO high ropes courses, despite vertigo and hating feeling out of control. And losing a friend to an accident, who two years earlier helped me first conquer those things, climb a 70something ft tree and jump off a 50 something ft pole.

This year has felt a lot like skydiving did last summer. At the beginning being excited, then going through the paperwork that lists in horrid detail every possible way you might die or worse, injure yourself and recieve nothing but a miserable life without any assistance. And then you see the little backpack that is supposed to let you soar and you think, no way. That will never work.

Yet still you get into a rinky-dink plane and you climb up two miles into the sky and you open that door and jump anyways and somewhere in that crazy freefall you discover what it is to fly, and you land on your feet ready to go up again, to fly some more, to see the world in a whole new way outside of itself and so far beyond your tiny little being.

It's one of the most beautiful things imaginable.
And it is my life.
And I am deeply grateful.

A Challenge of Imagination

As a temporarily unemployed professional, I have done a lot of thinking about this process of searching for work in which I find myself these days. People ask questions like, "how are you doing,"  or "what sort of work are you looking for," or make comments like, "man, it must be rough to not have a job," or "boy, I sure wish I didn't have to be working, too."

I find that being between work does indeed leave a lot to be desired--security and stability, in sum, not to mention the fact that I happen to love working and really miss it. There are times when the narrow reality of my situation presses in on me and I feel my stress rising; blood in my ears and bile in my mouth. Times when I toss and turn instead of sleep, or when my eyes fly open from a deep sleep back to this waking, unsettling insecurity. Many of those who know me probably also know that for all my adventuring, I do actually like structure in my life and I love to work. This is not an easy experience for me.

What I have come to find when I am not holding onto narrow reality or demanding impossible answers to temporally irrelevant questions, however, is that this place of searching for work is a beautiful place to be. There is always something wondrous in being lost and much of the wonder of that comes in what you find along the wandering way.

I think and talk all the time about translating culture across boundaries, about shape and place and space and being. But how often do I think or take the time to consider the possibility of translating the [non-cultural shape of] myself? Now, every day when I look at job descriptions, I think, Can I do this? Do I want to do this? What skills and experiences would I bring into this? Who are they looking for?

I left the realm of "jobs which I obviously and easily can do" behind weeks ago now, and spend time looking at jobs that I would have said were out of my circle of possibility. I think that is wonderful. Searching for work is teaching me to see myself anew every day, and not only to see myself, but to imagine and to re-imagine myself over and again.

It is like acting in a way, looking at a role and saying, do I have something within me that I can call upon and respond to the call of this character to me? Can I embody this being and be it so well that the crowds roar, that my heart soars, that the integrity of the character is satisfied?

But the fact is, it is not actually acting at all: it is a translating of myself: not an act, but a new form of being. Sure, there is this "one me" with the list of things I have done. But we are not defined--should not be defined-- by what we have or have not done. That is what traps people and creates the silent despair so many people suffer through in their daily lives. That is a form of death, I think.

It is our being which matters, and our being is expansive and ever expanding (I think when our being ceases to expand we are like the dead). Our whole, elastic being contains so much more than simply what has been done, what we have accomplished. We are not wearied check lists buried under dusty stacks on a desk.

One of my favourite historical figures (alas that now I no longer have the possibility of dining with him!) is Vaclav Havel. He wrote, in addition to many other world changing things, this incredible speech about the power of the powerless. The fact is, we all have power; we all participate in the shaping of reality. We can pull out from the realm of imagination and enact; we can expand our being and do differently--challenge ourselves and step outside of what we think is possible to discover the boundlessness of possibility and the feebleness of reality.

It is incredibly uncomfortable to push the edges of reality. I think of my childhood, trying to step into a mirror all the time to find the other world and the frustrations when it would not yield to me. Frustration, disappointment, the risk of feeling one's trappedness or smallness after all. But fear is the worst possible jailor, and I refuse to put myself in shackles. If there will be shackles in my future, they will not be because I held out my wrists meekly or shackled myself fearfully. Fear is what keeps us powerless. Fear is what keeps us going in a dead end job because we are too afraid to re-imagine ourselves in a new life, in a new world. Fear is what confines us to one possible reality. Fear is what never lands on the moon.

Imagination is not child's play in the grown up world, but maybe if we exercised it more, or if we played harder and dared longer, we could grow into it again. I do think for many people, there comes a time when we have left the imagining and re-imagining of ourselves and possibilities so long in the past that we no longer know how to do it. Perhaps we no longer know how to see ourselves at all or are afraid of what we will see when we do simply look in that mirror. Not even that should stop us, though; search out your muscle memory, try and try again.

I know that right now, far beyond the discomfort and the instability, I just love this idea that I could be and try so many different things. I am discovering jobs, lifestyles, endless universes I did not even know existed! And when I look at myself in light of those possibilities, I see there on the other side of the mirror myself, smiling back.

Exploring. Becoming anew. It is spectacularly freeing and empowering. Expanding the universe of self.

Right now we are reading in my workshop here at residency this book called 19 Translations of Wang-Wei. It is based on this one, 4000 something year old ancient Chinese poem that has been translated and retranslated throughout history. Every version of it still is itself, but new and delightful and rediscovered. I want to be that poem. I want to be fully myself, with so many facets that I sparkle like the most gorgeous diamond in the world. That some intrinsic intricate part of me resonates wherever I go and echoes still in my absence, touching and changing and challenging the world. And I cannot wait to find this next translation of myself to fully step into and develop.

I think everyone should join me in taking on and enjoying at least one of these actions this year

identify your fears and embrace at least one of them
take a long look at yourself--all of you, the whole entire beautiful wondrous and terrifying essence of your being--and then re-imagine yourself in some way

I'd add at the end of both of those, "be different," or "be re-imagined," but the fact is, I think if any of us try any of these things, that will be the result no matter how small or large that difference seems at first. We are not dead; we are gloriously alive. And since we are alive--living matter, breathing being--we can shape and reshape and expand ourselves to encompass possibilities we can (or cannot yet!) only dream about right now.

Rubbing Stars

"To live without roads seemed one way

not to get lost. To make maps

of stone and grass, to rub stars together,

find a spark." 

~from "Spark," a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

Sometimes it is in the wandering that we find ourselves in the most perfect of places. 

Just now, I am curled up on a couch in the lounge of a college in Vermont, happily tuning in and out of conversations around me; tuning in to hear discussions of publishing, of writing styles, point of view and audience. Tuning out to reflect on the day, on the last few days, on the end of last year. Last year when I came to this place of wonderfulness at the very end and after too long in transit. Tuning out to think of the next few days and the future smiling at me. 

To settle back into a small city, even if just for this period of 12 days, is beautiful. Walking everywhere--20 minutes down a slushy slide of a road to the downtown, dumptrucks loaded with snow driving past, clearing the way. On either side of the main streets quaint shops, local and proudly green or organic or handmade all. Espressos in honey-wooden rooms, crepe cafes and mad tacos and the most alice-in-wonderland sort of thrift stores. A sweater I have hunted for 8 years! Late night viewings of Les Miserables with my roommate at the old cinema by the capitol building and a taxi ride back through the night. 

Engaging in lectures on all sorts of wonderful subjects; of craft and of creation, of theories and possibilities and fascinations of all kinds. Readings that make you hold your breath, unable to breathe for the beauty of the words, of the particular arrangement of those precisely chosen words one after another in art and in meaning (and are those the same, afterall?). Losing yourself in workshops; reading and thinking and sharing--this wonderful back and forth--dialogue to take a work from what it is to even better; to impossibly better. Beautiful.

I love the new faces, the new stories, the new friendships being made. The fact that this place is obviously a community that exists across space and regardless of this particular place; the understanding so crystalline that when we leave this particular here we will still be together talking and sharing and exchanging. Pushing and encouraging each other and continuing these dialogues. Continuing this lovely engagement. To not only go out with a group of friends, of fellow students, but with professors you cannot wait to work with; have so much to glean from. 

I love that in all my wandering without roads, I am found here, in this perfect place. Ready to wander some more, ready to make maps of stone and grass and to find a spark--to make a spark. To write. 

In Abstract

Sometimes as I sit at home, curled up on the floor toes tucked in and fingers curled around a warm mug, I catch myself wondering what in the world I'm doing. I'm the kind of person who lives a very very busy life--and not just busy, but deliberately full. That differentiation is crucial. Busy is mainly concerned with doing and quantity; full is rather more about being and quality.

This year has had an awful lot of busy, so that at times like this when I'm curled up at home, I wonder, what am I doing? What is my life about? Is it ok that I am taking a few moments of pure silence--not speaking to anyone for a few minutes or occasionally, whole days? How do I keep the balance for myself between just being "busy" and having a "full" life as I explore what life has just sitting around waiting for me to pick up and try out? I don't want to invalidate my existence.

I think that what I love most about my life is the people I get to meet going through it. People are also the hardest part for me because they are the most unpredictable. They come in, they go out. They live, they love, they leave. (And they will all leave, you know, even if it is just through death.) I love that my life is such that it allows for so very many people, and such different people at that.

And I think what I love even more about life is the beauty that can be found in it. The beauty of people, of their beings and how they choose to live their lives. Or the beauty of wonder. So much wonder! And the time to sit quietly like now and mull over the wonder of it all, this is good and still full. I think, I am so fortunate to be a witness to so much beauty, even the most painful piercing kinds of beauty that we find in the depths of life.

Just a thought.

The Woman Wanders Again

(from Thurs night)

This night stretches long as I sit in the train station with my trusty bags and listen to the hum of those around me (are you sure you have our tickets, the Canadian woman asks her man) and music over the radio I'd prefer off. Waiting for the midnight train--my first train again since taking the night train to Bangkok in July.

What a day this has been, though! After weeks of too much work, I am taking a respite. This morning I enjoyed the great pleasure of sleeping in til mid-morning and then drove about 45 minutes through crisp air and rolling hills speckled with turning leaves to a farm where one of my friends has been working the last several months.

Seeing her was lovely in itself; working alongside her the whole day long was wonderful. What is richer than the immediate satisfaction of manual labour and the joy of deep conversation with a good friend?

We picked corn, then moved on to watermelons and from there to yellow squash, zucchini  and eternal rows of more kinds of peppers than I knew existed. Then eggplant and lettuce, stepping through weeds and overgrowth; over the rotting remains of produce that will be reborn next year. The farm is organic (not yet certified in ints general operations, and set in a beautiful landscape. Gorgeous old but renovated farmhouse overlooking so much land; fields of vegetables growing their last days, hours. Barns with calves, horses, goats, chickens and lots of cats. A huge blue pond. Dogs in a pen begging you to play, showing off their antics. Wild kittens growing tame, cows grazing in the distance.

We transplanted in the greenhouse tender little sprouts wanting more space, basketted cilantro and tomatos, and spent nearly the whole of a beautiful afternoon picking beans and pulling up the bean plans after: their season, too, at an end. And we lunched on sweet water, creamed coffee, dark chocolate, and toast topped with fresh eggs over easy. Delicious!

i try to think--how does one describe this sort of experience/ Could I be happier? Such a natural place for mankind, working hard with the earth, the animals, even (eventually?) with critters and creepy crawlers? I remember growing up, my favourite day Saturdays--not because of no school, but rather, that my older sister and I spent nearly those whole days outside with our father, hauling branches--working in the yard--even when merely hauling branches from his dump pile to aid our our fortress building in the briars he had yet to trim. Riding in the truck to the dump with him at day's end--unloading the (massive) haul and riding victoriously (with deep satisfaction) home again as he regaled us with either stories of his own days growing up in America and shoveling horse manure, or else talkes of Frankie the Talking Horse or The Flying Belly-Button Monster. Little was happier than those days, those moments.

So many times in my little rented flat, even with my paltry flower/herb garden attempts, I find myself missing the maintenance of upkeep--hammer, nails, paintbrush, wood varnishing--and I wish I had a yard to work on or a house to continually fix. I suppose only the idle can dream of work.

This evening in the city--a man nearby speaking Russian on the phone to what seemed a buddy of his. In the store picking up food for this trip and supper for myself--the cashier from Poland; we spoke together, in English, of our distant homes, our other foods, our lost words from school days back there. And I don't know how people content themselves never to meet new people, to capture a fragment of another's story, or to pass through another's life like ships in the night. Even our worlds--his Russian, her accented English--can move us. Give me a whisper of hope, a shadow of a smile.
We are not alone.
Adam and Eve in the garden.
The world before the brokenness of the land, the fracturing of people into echoless babel.