a question, security and ferocity

i just tried to make a title for this post - but i have no idea what it's going to be about - so i'll wait until the end. i'm thinking it might be loosely based on an INTENSE and kinda frantic writing session i just had. the basic gist of it, as i get knee-deep in romantic intensity and what-not, was the question: WHAT DOES A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP GIVE YOU? and i think for most people it might give something a little bit illusionary. i want to hear other peoples' thoughts on this topic. my notion is that humans chase the [false] idea of Security and Stability all their lives — in relationships primarily, jobs secondarily, and then maybe kids terti..arily [i.e. the Security that comes with knowing part of your genes will carry on after you're dust, and they get down to the business of living life that maybe you yourself abdicated in the pursuit of providing-for-your-gene-carrier, etc]. i feel a little bad writing this, b/c the one person i think who reads my blog is a parent - and i am not intending to breeder-bash (at all!) (i still toy with breeding meself, don't laugh), i just think the topic of kids is germane to this idea of Security-seeking — which appears to be the point of the post, so i have to say it.

ANYHOW. we all die. it's a fact. and it's not just life that ends, EVERYTHING ends eventually. The flan you just ordered, the clean tub you just scoured, the high feeling from the superfun night you had with your friend, the close connection you're feeling to a person/any person, the inspiration you got from that art show, the feeling of security you have when there's money in the bank, an earth that's not quaking, a town that's not war-torn, etc. all these things, i believe, come to an end. which is to say EVERYTHING comes to an end. yet humans chase this idea of the NeverEnding. i would venture to say most humans spend the bulk of their time trying to secure things that are by definition ephemeral. which, when i think about it, feels like a monumental and yeah, tragic waste of time and energy. to really come to terms with the fact that NOTHING is secure, that you are completely and irrevocably insecure, seems like a sort of key to the kingdom, to me. like, then you can actually spend your time and your energy and your life pursuing the things that make you feel alive — rather than trying to run from things that remind you of death, which be comin, no doubt. to get secure in the insecurity, such that you can go forward and PLAY with life, seems like a really good idea. and honestly, the only true way to live.

i'm just speaking for myself, obviously. this isn't meant as a polemic against people who want to find security, cuz I GET IT. i've been doing the same thing my whole life. and now that i'm in a relationship, i feel these weird, irrational tugs to try to secure this partnership in some way, to make myself not feel afraid of its (eventual, let's be honest, one way or another) ceasing. and this is what's leading me to ponder these ideas. and the biggest question that comes out of it for me [and i want to know what others think, for real] is WHY ATTACH TO ANOTHER? and the best reason i came up with for why i feel attracted to this fella, outside of all the aforementioned security/comfort reasons (which are nice, for sure, if not fantasy-derived) is that he actually lives in a way that i want to live. namely: courageously, playfully, engagedly. he finds inspiration and joy and fun and interest in everyday things. and he challenges his mind on nearly every point he or anyone else makes. he is rigorous in his enjoyment and rigorous in his contemplation of things. it feels like he lives pretty fully. this isn't meant to be an anthem to his coolness, i am just trying to sort out the reasons i have personally — the ones i can really get behind, rationally i mean — for being in a relationship. and i guess it IS like i said comfort for one, inspiration for two AND, a third is that this level of intimacy is the closest any of us get to living in another person's skin. which is sort of like a dream-come-true. how to have a life-experience that is not your own -- that is a real trick. and i think we can become so much smarter, so much cooler and funner and more compassionate and all-around wiser, by seeing out the eyes of someone else. this is a trite point perhaps, but still a cool phenomenon. and one you don't get [i know from experience!] chilling in your own world on your own couch by your own damn self. hmmmKAY?!

okay - i guess that's all i have to say on the matter. i went on for 6 pages in my journal around this topic, and it bled into all different areas, pretty fun. oh yeah, and the word i took away from my journal writing was FIERCE. i feel like a Fierce life would be one that totally embraces this idea that nothing can be contained or grasped, and so we have nothing to lose, and so we have nothing to fear, and so we follow every instinct, idea, spark that gets us going. we live big. in open air, like birds or something. we're alive while we're alive and we'll be dead when we're dead — not trying to escape death while we're alive. not a poetic ending.

i dedicate this song...

I can't decide which thoughts and feelings are the biggest right now. But i will say that i am wildly, heart-clutchingly grateful for the relative EASE and PEACE i've been feeling the last few days. it's weird how we forget the truth in the old adage about this too shall pass and all that — why is it so hard to imagine feeling any different than we do at the moment? Every emotion feels terminal. I guess there's also fear involved, which only makes things seem more desperate, more bound-for-hell. in any case (i can't decide if i'm converting to a Titlecase kinda gal or if i should just stick with my usual lc style) - things have shifted. And i get a little surge of adrenaline at even the GALLING ASSUMPTION... life is truly so weird, people.

what helped. for one, the tools i discussed last time. for two, being BUSY. my kingdom for a full schedule these days. i'm unemployed at the moment and boy does my idle mind go to bad places lately... also, FRIENDS, SISTERS, STRANGERS. i have a bad habit, when i'm all raw-and-open like this, of telling every damn person what is going on with me. and luckily people are really nice. but the best people to hang around when my head is spinning out are those that always shock me into some kind of understanding. i'm thinking of one friend in particular. he has a very matter-of-fact style always, and it is damn comforting to hear that man say "Sounds normal," and "It'll pass," with his signature eye-close and wipe-away-turn of the head.

This is not the most inspired blog, because i'm about to THERAPIZE, people, so i'm a bit distracted, but i find also that the other thing that helps is working these tricky mindbits through in a (semi-) public sphere. not that anyone is reading it even [thank you if you do!], but it feels loads more productive, somehow, than simply bleeding onto my journal YET AGAIN. i am feeling less and less certain of the purpose of my journalling. it's one place to work through things, but i am starting to recognize in myself a real penchant for screwing-around-in-one-fucking-place-forever. to wit: 20 years of emotional romantical solitude. sorry, Dave! maybe i should write a Willie Nelson style cover To All the Men I Couldn't Love Before. might be helpful.

i believe that is enough for now. thank you and good night.

holy hell.

hi everyone. i'm terrified. i don't mean this in my usual, hyperbolic assessment of some new (relatively) trifling work or personal situation. i mean this in the WILL-I-EVER-BE-THE-SAME fright that only a long-denied, wholly unexpressed childhood fear can elicit. turns out, i have never before experienced panic. or at least not in my adult life.* ... but this is something i feel best described by the phrase "bone-rattling." literally, my bones shake. my organs shake. i shake. it's fear. the subject / content of which is probably less interesting than the phenomenon itself. let's just say, in short form, it's about getting hurt (again) in romance. startlingly singular and fascinating, i know! i'm the first person ever! so... the mystery of my two solidly single decades is solved, at least - or on the way to being so. this is progress, i have no doubt about that. but fucking HARD-FOUGHT (and not yet entirely won) progress. mother of god. i didn't know people could feel this way. what follows is not a cry-for-help, NOT YET - it's merely an expression of a new kind of understanding: i now understand why people off themselves. poor david foster wallace. i can't even imagine the pain. i've been reading his "a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again" essay the last few days; the weird thing is that everyone feels connected to that guy. how can someone so observant and warm and hearty and hilarious and weird not feel the love back? how could we all adore him and his thoughts so much [and by association his person] without him feeling this love? what happens in us / to us / between us that keeps all the understanding-magic from inhabiting us or eachother? anyhow, back to my suffering. cuz like i said, that is fascinating stuff.

i've been reading / listening to / talking alot about fear lately. the buddhists compare fear to a dream where, e.g., you're being chased by a tiger and you fully believe it to be real until you wake up and then of course realize "it was just a dream" - and the terror instantly vanishes into nothingness. they say our thoughts and stories and fears are exactly the same, except that it's harder to pull back the shade of fiction, because we live in it and are committed to it on some subconscious level. where we all agree consciously (and subconsciously) that dreams are not real. neurobiologists say that the amygdala, which houses our fear and emotional center, connects only in a one-way street to our pre-frontal cortex, where reaction-decisions are made -- a major superhighway from fear to action. the reverse path, however, whereby we can make decisions and reverse the fear response or alter it by the force of our reason, is only connected by a series of small, bumpy, winding, unpaved backroads. i like the idea of trying to pave this road.

the odd thing about this experience, about fear, is that much of the trauma comes from the fear itself. it's the fear the body reacts to - that's why the raised heartbeat, the sweaty forehead, the numb limbs, the burning chest and gut. which, it usually turns out, is the extent of the negative experience. it's all right there in that moment, when you have a scary thought and your body responds. the next, crucial step, from what i am gathering, happens when you indulge that thought and extrapolate out a life of lonely devastation and perpetual sweating. that's when the mind starts to lose its hold. the purpose of the mind is  to protect the body from such traumas, so it comes as no surprise that a "crazy" experience takes hold as you fully experience the fear. your mind is logically arguing that you GET THE FUCK AWAY, but for whatever reason, you're in it. and now your body is in charge, bearing the brunt of the mind's vomit. i never thought about that: fear is the mind's puke. and it actually feels just like that, come to think of it. the mind does not know what to do with fear other than RUN AWAY and protect. this is the superhighway aforementioned. it's instantaneous. it tries to save you.

i've been told recently, much to my dumbly surprised nearly-40-self, that fear is "part of being human. get used to it." somehow i was under the impression that i didn't really so much have any of that. well, joke's on me. some fears are just too big to be unearthed without the help of hormones and luuuurve, turns out.

tools. i have been given a few tools so simple-sounding that you'd almost think they aren't worth listening to or trying. but isn't it always the case that the smartest tools are also the simplest ones? Number One: Breath. When the panic hits, if you can train yourself to be instantly aware of the physical or mental/emotional cues and start to breathe deeply into the belly, you're halfway there. part of the crazy-feeling comes from thinking you're losing your mind, when in fact you've just let fear take over - whose JOB IT IS to get you to run like hell, like we said. so to be able to take a few deep breaths and literally say in your head "oh, fear's here. terror's here. pain is here. hellooooo guys..." makes you YOU again - puts you back in control of the situation. and let's be honest, this is all about control in the end. Number Two: Acknowledge that Love/Life/What-Have-You is larger than the pain and fear you're experiencing. that you, your heart can handle it. Number Three: Tell the scared person (kid?) in you not to worry - that you're in charge now and you know what to do, that a very smart person taught you a very smart system and all you have to do is allow it. Number Four: Use Your Senses. Name 5 things you see, 5 things you hear, 5 things you smell, something you taste (p.s. metal is the taste of fear, i have discovered). this part of the exercise puts you firmly back in your body, in the world, and reinforces that you are alive in this very non-scary room or place, wherever you are. it's a good one. very grounding. Number 5: SEARCH for the fear. look for its remaining hiding place. maybe you feel a little tremble in your belly or a residual burning in your arms/chest or numbness in your calves. the instruction i've been given is to "Let your kind breath touch that spot." Where breath meets terror, terror cannot live. sounds way too simple, but i'm telling you people, it works. BREATH. who knew? all the buddhists, actually.

alright. i guess that's all i have to say on the subject for now. this is quite a trip, an insane-feeling adventure. but i also know that it is leading me down the path to being able to experience virtually ANYthing that life hands me - and hopefully it will even make me smarter to the hidden/disguised fears that have been kind of ruling my life and inadvertently choosing on my behalf for the last 40 years. oy.

*i suppose i panicked a bit in cameroon - my first 3 weeks nothing short of a ghostly dream and me sort of lacily floating through it all sincerely exclaiming to my new international co-volunteers: "do you feel like you're dreaming?"

POST-SCRIPT: my therapist recommends i do a lot of exercise, spend a lot of time around trees, eat alot of root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets, rutabagas, etc) and drink "Irish Guiness." no shit. i love her.

and hello

**this post was started on feb 9 of 2009 - not sure why i didn't post it... it still seems true - if unfinished.**

2 yearsish since the last post. it is a grey day in nyc, totally my kind of day. a little drizzly and hushed - like a big grey blanket the sky offers with a kindly "i know, i know." i appreciate this. i didn't get much of it in california. all that sunshine feels like a mockery if you have a noggin prone toward pensiveness. there's no NOT going outdoors and NOT enjoying the sunshine and NOT going on a run in beautiful countryside. ok, i'm sort of undoing my own point by listing all these lovely things. it's just that i like the sweet indulgence of a grey day. you CAN drink your coffee indoors and read until you fall asleep on the couch and you have in no way wasted anything. no guilt. i can dig it.

i'm thinking lots of things and don't know what exactly to write about - but i'll start with a short list, for today:

1. this growing sense i have that my life needs more deliberateness. when i think of what others have done with their time on earth, i am amazed and inspired - and reminded that there are as many ways to live as there are ideas about life. that there is no script and that we can actually invent new ways to live. this excites me, and makes me feel open, even just thinking about it.

2. i might open a winebar/cafe in windsor terrace. my friend says its more important to just do it than to worry about "the theme", the look, how-it-will-work, etc. he is smart in this way, and i think i should take his advice and just start.