* Relationships. 

Today is my birthday. In the past week, I’ve been told very directly from three different people that I’m selfish and self-absorbed. All three are close to me and know me fairly well. I think they are spot on, however I also think I’m spot on.

I’m taking time to be selfish in the way that I need to know my self. This often leaves others out in the dark which gives them a myriad of responses: sometimes easy, sometimes difficult. 

I’ve recently taken space from a lot of people in my life to allow for this self-discovery and I have experienced, first-handedly, my true friends releasing me in love. It can be painful, but they all have said, “my love for you is not hinged on you being near me or giving me what I want from you.” 

I’ve read of this kind of love and thought, how beautiful! For the first time in my life, I’m experiencing it being given to me by people other than my family members. There’s no morality or religion tied to it. It’s people making a specific choice to love me in the ways I’m asking for. 

In two of the most recent cases, friends have released me in love and I have come back to them with a renewed purpose and outlook. In two others, I’m still away from them. 

Today one of my two closest friends asked for space from me. A punch to the heart, that one. However, I get it. Truly.

INT. OFFICE - DAY

In one chat window we’re going over some of the hard emotions and feelings in our relationship and how we want to deal with it.

In another window, my other closest friend has sent me a most incredible birthday message thanking me for giving her space when she needed it years ago. 

FADE TO MY THOUGHTS. 

This beautiful love I’ve been given and I must now give again. Her need for space is more important than her being near me or giving me what I want from her. 

I take refuge in Björk’s “All Is Full of Love.” (Plaid remix - of course) The message is so powerful and I need to once more trust it.

* Worth it. 

Funnier things have happened
Life gets a bit sappier
We prune our own nuts and berries
Sweet syrups of life, we draw on our own.

The dramatics, the calculus 
Restricted to outlines and rosters
I want you to hold me when I’m not causing
Anything or anyone to move.

Hold my body - speak to me
In that gentle, fighter’s tone
You make me never want to be alone
As scary as that feels
Teach me to be still.

As for me and my Jimmys 
The older you grow, the less you tell me
Out of wisdom and grace and disappointment.
Innocence without bearing

And why is that sad
A skosh mal bagatelle?
We all learn one way or another.
Allow me to teach you, as you’ve tried to me.

No longer need I hear
Joy of decisions so different than mine
Such poorly hides misgivings and fears 
They’ll not affect me how you intend 
Deep in my heart, I call you ‘friend.’

My company MOMO has it’s first public feature. Stuart of Barry and Stuart is wearing his custom MOMO bracelet. 

Should I create a line for him?

Shrinking text. MS DOS.
One computer for 25 kids. 
Breathing hardly, of this I’m convinced 
I haven’t felt this way since.

Never has the aortic nerve tensed and pulsed
In a way to science doesn’t make sense. 
That artwork you couldn’t tell your parents to which you were drawn; 
Bodies out in the dark.

I know my heart and it’s wilder than yours
Not that it matters, I think yours is hoarse
From all the shouting of “Let me out, I’ve got to grab her.”

Mine is retreating from all that it needs
Thank God from yours it does not recede
This may be the spot my heart can sleep
My eyes t-winkle should ever I weep.

But wild is wild
Heart of a child
Read it in my stars
Can’t express this enough.  

Thom Yorke, you’ve brought me to and through a lot in life. Thank you.

Music, Spectator vs. Participant

These dichotomous options are something I’ve avoided for years and, given my age, decades. I teetered somewhere between the two never claiming either side. I grew up around many “talented” friends who seemed to be hacks at their respective instruments. My brain was always moving on to the next thing and therefore not easily able to sit in one spot for more than half an hour to practice. 

Add that to a generous amount of mental gluttony, vainglory and acedia that lead me to think I ought to be the best at everything, or at least in the top of the pack, and I didn’t even care to look stupid doing it. So if after my thirty minutes of practice I couldn’t achieve something worth listening to, I was done.

It was shameful for me to think that I “couldn’t” do something. I wanted to be one of my hack friends and just pick up the guitar and roll-make people smile at me to affirm my awesomeness and precocious talents.

I failed to acknowledge that to be able to appear to have serendipitous talent takes an enormous amount of time and persistence in learning. I didn’t want to acknowledge this, even if a small part of my truth told me it was true. I wanted to believe that I was truly “special.” I heard that I was special every day of my life and I tried my damnedest to will that truth instead of work for it.

I do believe we have a lot of power to create truths or situations within our worlds. However, If I really wanted my magic to shine through, if I truly cared enough, I would have put more effort into it and sat my flighty ass down to practice. Practice is playing, so if one wants to play, one would want to practice. At least practice enough to learn how the instrument works. Right?  

Looking back I realize at all the things I didn’t accomplish that I didn’t truly want those things. My only regret in these things is that I should have gone after what I wanted and forgotten the rest.

Hello, Monique.
There you are, sleeping child.
Do what you want to do.

This brings me to the latter half of my entry title: participant.

I have recently started to play the bass guitar. It’s a chuckle inducing choice if you know me: I’ve dated three bass players, bought a cello and never learned it, always enjoyed the bass parts in music (partially because I didn’t understand them), and shouldn’t you be so (un)lucky to see my reaction when a particularly bass(ey) hip-hop/dance track plays anywhere-anytime. My shoulders and hips start bouncing in time and my head goes back or down in pure pleasure, it’s quite a reaction. 

I was ready to play about six weeks ago when I put the word out there. My dear friend had a bass that had been sitting in his closet for eight years. I was genuinely blessed when he gave the thing to me. I tried to say, “Oh, I’ll just borrow it,” in about five different ways. But he wanted to give it to me. Thank you.

Next thing you know, my professionally bass playing friend is in town from his tour and I get a 101 and 102. Thank you.

Now I believe there is a secret campaign to pool friends to get me my latest desire: the Kala U Bass. It’s a tiny piece of heaven that is portable, practical and sounds just like an upright bass. I should be getting a bass amp from my solo trip up the coast from my bass playing friend. My new fella friend just told me he has lined up a ukelele lesson(s) for me when I receive the ukelele. I put out what I wanted, to play bass, and here it is-every detail looked after and generously given to me. Thank you!

The thought of how I’m going to use these gifts to combine with my only other instrument I have any claim to, my voice, is exhilarating. 

This is where I need to be - exactly. I’m ready to participate in music. I’m ready to make my own. I’m ready to flop and flail my way through the learning process and trust in my own ability and determination to play. Is this all I needed; to be ready? 

I’m ready for so many things. 

This is my last night house sitting in Venice Beach and I was quite a bit sad when she told me she was coming home early. 

The puffy square quilted comforter lays over the bed; the (I’m intelligently guessing) Peruvian fabric flitters in the light wind accompanying the rain. Yes, it’s raining in Los Angeles. One of the few times in the year, and it’s raining when I’m sleeping gloriously alone and in silence. 

I am taking this silence, the rain I’ll imagine from my homeland, and the knowledge that I’m close to the sea with me into tonight. 

Why are the sleeps in Venice often not very restful, but so very good feeling to me?

I drive down the streets and I feel death. This is not something that frightens me. It feels to me like il Foro Romano (the Roman Forum): I’m on the edge of existence, I can feel my death which makes my life so much closer and real. 

I suppose this is a traditional thrill seeker’s prey. But this is a prolonged thrill, a living thrill, that is so impacting me that I’ve stopped life to write a blog entry about listening to the rain. How much more can I feel this than to do this trite thing? 

This place feels to me. 

My first acknowledgement in a book. Gene says, “when you’re famous, you’re famous.” Of course, he’s actually famous.

I’m on cloud 9001!

yesterdaysown:

An old Cherokee told his grandson:

“My son, there’s a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It has anger, jealousy, greed resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other is good. It has joy, peace, love, humility, kindness and truth.”

The boy thought about it and asked:
“Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

The old man replied:
“The one you feed”

- Anonymous

Yes, I’m a fan of change. I decided this long ago and I’ve stuck by it ever since. 

Lately I have taken to changing my diet - whole foods, plant based diet; my friends - reconnecting with former ones and letting go of ones with whom I don’t jive (awesome sentence); listening - this is a trying one for me…

I’m a talker.

I’ve been accused on multiple occasions of being an extrovert.

When I was a toddler, my parents thought I was a prime candidate for kidnapping because I was so friendly. 

All this makes me a barrel of monkey fun at parties, but often leaves me with a long list of people calling and texting me the week after to hang out. I will often oblige and spend much of my free time out - again, having much fun. My room stays a mess, I never get to hanging those pictures I spent framing while on the phone with my new friend and I’m too tired to prepare healthy meals for myself or water my plants. 

I like healthy meals and blooming plants, so I have to purposely limit my social time. 

All that chatter on extrovert(ism) to say, I think I’ll do more listening and see if that will keep me talking less and focused and learning more.

Plus, my plants are just pitiful without love. Aren’t we all?