right foot, left foot...

"...one must command from each what each can perform, the king went on. "authority is based first of all upon reason. if you command your subjects to jump into the ocean, there will be a revolution. i am entitled to command obedience because my orders are reasonable."

" ...then my sunset?" insisted the little prince, who never let go of a question once he had asked it.

"you shall have your sunset. i shall command it. but i shall wait, according to my science of government, until conditions are favorable."  

--the little prince

"whenever you do what is holy, be of good cheer, knowing that God Himself takes part with rightful courage."

--menander

"listen. are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?"

--mary oliver

i've maintained for most of my thirties that being brave is not about being without fear.  it's about feeling the fear down to my toes, and continuing to move.  it's about being relentless in not laying down, or at least not staying down.  we can't help but fall sometimes, even when all the lights are on, and the floor is level, and there are no obstacles in sight.  sometimes, we just fall.  it's easy to try and deconstruct why we've fallen, but sometimes getting up is the scariest part of the falling, because we don't know if we might have hurt ourselves in a way that won't show up until we get off the floor, or if we've split our pants, or torn our skirts.  

sometimes, we fall and make a mess, and have to figure out how to get off the floor without making an even bigger mess.  it's hard to know how to pick ourselves up, sometimes.  we know that staying down isn't a reasonable choice  we know that getting up is going to be hard.  we know we will probably be sore, tomorrow, and that the bruises will take time to fade.  we know those things.  we know them, but we have a hard time getting right with them, with radically accepting the true fact that sometimes, the mess ends up in your lap, in your face, on the floor, right beside you.  

i do a crappy job of giving myself permission to struggle--i think that's true of most people i know, though.  i know myself well enough to know i can go right from giving myself permission to do/feel/think a certain way into manipulating myself into laying down on the floor and wallowing in delicious misery.  and MY G-D, what a way to waste time...and i hate wasting time.  but i know that there are days when i have to look at myself in the mirror and tell that girl that it's ok to struggle for balance.  it's ok to not have the next right answer.  it's ok to be frustrated by circumstances over which i have no control. it's totally ok.  

what's not ok is for me to beat myself up about struggling, because OH MY GOSH, major life changes have been happening for the last...i dunno...11 months, and while all of them are incredible and wonderful and life-changing, and i wouldn't change a single thing about any of them...a lady has a very full brain and full heart, and life simply does not stop so that i can digest and process all of it, and catch up.  none of us ever get to stop the game clock.  there are no commercial time-outs.  the test is now, and it's all cumulative.  get right with it.  i also can't lie about not struggling.  integration and transition are hard life-processes to learn, no matter how old i am.  and it's ok that i don't know all of it, right this minute.  the things i don't know about life in general far out-weigh the things i do know.  i'm reasonably sure that will be true no matter how long i live, or how many different life situations i have.  

i had lunch with a good friend, today.  my friend is struggling.  we talked a lot, and cried a little, and i did my best not to fix.  but that conversation reminds me that all of us are learning how to do something new, right this minute.  we know that the people around us give us more mercy and grace than we can possibly know about, but we both have a hard time giving that to ourselves, both have a hard time being grace-filled and merciful to ourselves.  

i'm convinced that learning to be friends with myself, with falling in love with the substance of myself, the good parts and the bad parts, are a life-long process, and since i really started that endeavor three or so years ago, my life has taken many turns that i would not have been able to weather, had i not started that process.  i know i have to continue to be committed to knowing and loving myself, not just for the good of my marriage, my family, or my vocation, but for my own good--that wild and precious and unique creation of G-d, that will never ever come again in this form, that Jesus lived to love.  

and when i remember that, when we all remember that about ourselves, something like courage and strength bubble up, and i can smile at the face staring back at me from the mirror, and tell her, in all honesty, "honey, it's all just fine.  all of it.  now, go do your best, and believe that the rest will be just as it should be.  because it will, and it is."  

mil besos,

rmg

sh*t you missed...

have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?

 have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

 have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

  stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;

 you shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left;)

 you shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books;

you shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me:

 you shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. 

--walt whitman

we shall not cease from exploration

and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time.

through the unknown, remembered gate

when the last of earth left to discover

is that which was the beginning;

at the source of the longest river

the voice of the hidden waterfall

and the children in the apple-tree

not known, because not looked for

but heard, half heard, in the stillness

between the two waves of the sea.

--t s eliot

the minute i heard my first love story, 

i started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

lovers don't finally meet somewhere,

they're in each other all along.  

--rumi

so, two weeks ago, the manfriend and i are sitting on the couch in the apartment in happy valley, watching wimbledon and trying to avoid confronting the fact that he is about to leave, and we aren't going to see each other for TWO WHOLE WEEKS (GAH).  i'm wearing my favorite green t-shirt and black knit skirt, pink pearl earrings, and my silver bracelet that i always wear.  he's wearing his favorite gray t-shirt with the rocket ship on it and  black cargo shorts.  jinx is crawling all over the place and being super vocal.  it's about nine fifteen, and it's that really nice time in the morning, when the light is kind of soft and just starting to get really bright.  

homefry looks right at me, and says (and i'm paraphrasing, because there was A LOT that he said and i said that you don't need to know about, but this is the important part), "hey, i want you to think about something with me.  let's think about getting married. i want to do this with you in front of G-d and the people we love. let's do this."  

and then my head exploded all over the couch cushions.  

but really i just sort of nodded and said something totally inane and classic Peg like, "i totally want to think about that, too.  we can definitely do this."  that's right...the girl who never shuts up, who knows more metaphors that should be legally allowed, who even talks in her sleep couldn't come up with anything better to say that a sentence that included both the words "totally" and "definitely"...i think i probably said "seriously" a couple of times, too.  this dude really, really, really loves me, you guys.  and i can't say enough about all the ways and whys i love him.  

i didn't cry until he actually left, and then OMG, sh*t=lost.  laughing, crying, pacing and skipping, and Jinx giving the big "what the douce" eyes, and finally just retreating under my bed for the duration of the fit. 

and that was the best day, ever.  until last week. 

...and this is the part where i tell you that on friday the 13th (... we had our first date on a friday the 13th...), we decided that we were done thinking about getting married, and that we're getting married on thanksgiving day, in front of G-d and our families.  

this is real.  this is happening.  and i am so excited, i haven't stopped smiling.  and i can still hardly breathe.  

there is nothing better than how this feels, not in this life.  it  feels like praying, like singing, feels like doing all my favorite things all at once, feels like hosanna and alleluia, and saying thank you to G-d with every single breath.  i feel like Moses must have, when he looked at the burning bush, and saw the flames, felt the heat--the bush was not consumed, and Something Amazing was happening... i am awestruck and at attention, and i don't want to miss a single second. it's holy ground, this.  and i have no intention of ever putting on shoes (metaphorically speaking, of course...) ever, ever again, even when i have to go to the grocery store.  

oh, internets...thanks for being here.  we can't wait to see you and show each other off.  thanks for your love, and your prayers...we love you, too. 

and killer, i love you. 

we're definitely, totally getting married.  seriously.  

mil besos,

rmg 

this one is about baseball, after a fashion...

we should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.  

--c.g. jung

some part of our being knows this is where we came from. we long to return. and we can. because the cosmos is also within us. we're made of star-stuff. we are a way for the cosmos to know itself. 

 --carl sagan

you do not have to be good. you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. 

---mary oliver

if what you want to do doesn't make you shake in your boots, your dream is not big enough. 

--brother ishmael tetteh

my fairy godmother/boss says that if you find yourself in tears or belly laughing or having vivid dreams or being so emotionally moved you actually vomit, you'd better pay attention, because it's quite likely G-d trying to tell you something pretty damn important. 

i may not know much, but i know that much is true.  

i can tell you for true and  for certain that i've spent a huge portion of the last...i dunno...thirteen weeks laughing until i cried, crying because i'm happy, and dreaming these crazy colorful  dreams and talking in my sleep like a four-year old.  G-d's not so much trying to tell me something so much as i feel like G-d is giving us a standing ovation and keeps filling up our glasses, and i'm pretty sure the toasts will last well into the wee morning hours.  and i don't care how much sleep i lose, because to be alive and awake at this very second, which ever one it is, is worth everything.  and it's worth ripping out a hem, tearing up a perfectly good pair of shoes, making deodorant work overtime, getting slightly more buzzed than is entirely appropriate in public, irritating the dj into just handing you his ipod because you've requested an ENTIRE ALBUM, and not just one song...you get the idea. this is worth it.  every. single. second.  

here's why i don't even mind the missed sleep (...and you guys know how much i just LOVE sleep...it's like my third favorite thing to do in the whole world.) and why people with good sense never mind missing sleep over good things:  good things are like no-hitters or winning streaks in baseball--they don't come around that often.  there's some flavor of luck that lingers when you taste the incredible, but those same sensible people will tell you that luck and timing taste an awful lot alike, but timing is ever so much sweeter, because we have less to do with timing than we can imagine. timing, on our part, is knowing just when to jump, and when to stand still.  remember when you were little, and you tried to jump on the merry-go-round while it was spinning super fast?  sometimes, you got it just right, and everyone thought you were awesome for like two whole minutes.  sometimes your timing was off (and whether by a little or a lot, it was still OFF) and you ended up half under the merry-go-round, with your shorts and  shoes in a muddy mess, and your mom running over to yank you out from underneath the metal death wheel, and asking you in her mostly-scared but slightly exasperated and very relieved voice just what in the sam hill you thought you were doing and telling you it's going to take a miracle to get these shorts clean...timing...it hasn't changed that much from that merry-go-round bit. 

to be engaged in time, to actively participate in the timing of the universe...you gotta pay REAL close attention to what's going on, and you've got to be ready to get in the game and play your nuts off EVERY SINGLE SECOND, even if you suspect you'll be riding the pine pony all night.  because...we're on a streak.  this is one of those crazy games where the team you love best is going to break every single record you can think of that could be shattered in a single game.  the pitcher is pitching a no hitter...the catcher just batted for the cycle TWICE, and then there was a grandslam on a freaking bunt, right before we all got up and sang "take me out to the ballgame", backed by the entire jam session line-up from the "last waltz" AND elvis.  it's so epic and so ridiculously beyond what you ever expected that ballgame to be, you'll probably have to go to the locker room and sob hysterically into a towel for a couple of minutes during the seventh inning stretch before and after you throw up all your popcorn and big pickle, because you know it's real (those pinch marks on the underside of your arm prove YOU ARE AWAKE), and it's just so intense, you don't even have any words left.  and what you want most in the world is to just keep playing well, to not think about the streak or the no hitter.  because you can't think about that too hard.  if you do, you stop playing well, and start trying to play perfect.  and that's when bad things happen.  so you gotta hold this like and egg, rook.  and never take your eyes off the ball.  ever. and have you ever, ever, ever had more fun in your whole life?  see...told you. 

i honestly believe that there's an incredible trinity made up of grace, mercy, and timing that is running this show.    and unlike things we make ourselves--talismans or mantras or rituals; grace, mercy, and timing never run out, never lose their magic.  they are always running head of us, sweeping up behind us, hanging up fresh curtains and changing our linens out, holding us in these incredibly gentle and unseen hands, so that even on days when we stumble, days that are hard, days when we are not our best and brightest selves, there are soft words and tender feelings to make it not so bad, not so very bad, at all.  

we talk about baseball and miracles--water into wine, the respendent universe inside a little butter-thief's mouth, loaves and fishes, and sunrises.  we know this.  we think about this.  we have a whole pile of things we think about with each other, together and apart.  and that's worth losing sleep over...this streak, this no-hitter, this miracle season for the books, and knowing we win.  

we win.  no curses, no rain delays, and even when the winter comes and kills the grass and ivy, we'll take our business inside, and work on fundamentals until spring rolls around, again.  and all things shall be well. 

mil besos,

rmg

babylonian time zones

time (tīm)

 

n.

1.

a. a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

b. an interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration:a long time since the last war; passed the time reading.

c. a number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval:ran the course in a time just under four minutes.

d. a similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes:checked her watch and recorded the time, 6:17 AM.

e. a system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned:solar time.

--american heritage dictionary

i believe in intuition and inspiration. … at times i feel certain i am right while not knowing the reason. when the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, i was not in the least surprised. in fact i would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. imagination is more important than knowledge. for knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. it is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research. ---albert einstein

“one’s personal legend is what you have always wanted to accomplish. everyone, when they are young, knows what their personal legend is. at that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. they are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. but, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their personal legend…

whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, 

it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. it’s your mission on earth.  

--paulo coehlo, the alchemist

mostly, time passes in a flash and a blur.  sometimes, i can catch snips of what's happening at the edges,  if i look out the corner of my eye, but things are usually so fast and furious, i keep my head pointed straight ahead and capitulate to the tunnel vision that comes to take over, and help me not feel like i'm about to throw up everything i've eaten in the last seventeen years.  it's hard for me to remember that time is a convention we've invented, in our wisdom and our blindness, to help us not feel so...small.  

sometimes, when i watch my favorite movie, and see that fresco of lions painted 30k years ago (a full 20k years before our voices had developed enough to speak words you and i would hear as intelligible), i almost can't breathe.  we leave such small and stunning things behind us, to mark our time.  some of what we leave behind will never be found or uncovered.  other pieces, moments, poems, paintings, remnants of bone, hand prints, etc...they end up staining the walls of where ever we live and move and have our being, and the people who come after us will come to know that while time has passed, it is somehow mysteriously still in motion, with everything still happening, still rushing and flowing and shaping us with it's unseen and ferociously tender hands.  i can look at those pictures on that cave wall and believe in a forever that i was never able to see, before.  

i remember the first time i left the central time zone.  we were on a family trip, to new mexico.  i was six, and my brother was two.  ...white sundress with tie straps and red piping and smocked down the front, and little white sandals, and sitting as still as i possibly could while the man with the box full of colors drew a picture of me for my momma to hang on the wall... eating the hottest enchilada of my entire life, and my poppy smiling the whole time, while my eyes watered and i giggled the whole way through dinner... kachina dolls and getting lost in a giant truck stop at carl's corner.  there was something mystical about the idea that this trip to an enchanted land (tip of the hat to you, new mexico...) was a WHOLE hour different from the life i lived in my little yellow house in btex.  i was very insistent that EVERYONE adjust their watches, when i read the road sign that proclaimed "NOW ENTERING MOUNTAIN TIME".  i was fascinated by the idea that just by moving yourself around on the face of the planet, you had to change your clock to keep up with where you were.  at least, that's how i believed time worked, when i was six.  frankly, i still kind of believe it works that way.  

in babylon, it's easy to believe that some time passes more quickly than others.  it's so easy to believe-- i make up shit that isn't true, just to pass the time.  i tell myself that mondays are forever long, and that the week between christmas and new year is the fastest week of the year.  i agonize over time away from things i need to do, accomplish, finish, start, sew up, love, grow, weed, burn, bandage, rock, and carry.  i forget, in my haste to cross things off my list that every minute is 60 seconds long, every day is 24 hours in length.  i get the same time, every day.  

those hours seem to be flying by when i am  actively engaged, even if it's active engagement with something i'm not crazy about...sometimes, that same exact amount of time drags when i have to do maddening tasks  or have tedious conversations or fold laundry or be sick or spend time with people i don't like in places i'd rather not be.  but, i don't always get a vote on where/how/with whom i spend my time.  i do get a vote on how i choose to view it, on whether or not i allow it to spin by me in a blur, or take it by the reins and slow it the eff down.  the real trick is to keep this at the front of my mind: "make every minute count".  as long as i remember that, remember that the shot clock and the game clock are one in the same, i do fine.  and that clock isn't one that lives on the wall, or one that's regulated by some cesium core in a basement in brussels.  that clock belongs to G-d, and has numbers on it that i can't read.  i have no idea how much time has been counted by that clock, nor how much is left in the tank.  truth be told, i could care less.  all i can do is hold the time i have gently, and make every single second count.  and sometimes, annoying as it is, i have to say that out loud to myself, and sometimes to other people.  i can't lose track of that.  can't. won't. must not.  but i have to hold it like an egg...one of those faberge jobs that goes for like $10k at an auction.  

the tighter i held on to my idea of time, timing, and what it all meant, the smaller my idea of G-d and love was.  letting go of that clock, my clock, the shot clock i was convinced i would never beat, never best, never fully comprehend was harder than anything i've ever had to do, ever.  harder than burying people i loved, because time is tied up in that bit, too.  i stopped wearing a watch when i was twenty-five, as part of a lenten discipline, but also because i knew i was looking at my watch way more than i was looking at the faces around me, more than i was looking out the window of my office, more than i was looking at anything else, to tell the truth.  i didn't like that.  i didn't pick up another one until i had to wear one at camp.  i was so glad to take it off at the end of the summer, to see that inch of untanned wrist glow in the dark, to be unshackled from that band of time that made me hurry and rush from one thing to the other, when what i really wanted  to do was be still and sit and process. 

being in babylon is all about time, the illusion and the reality of the concept of time.  it is totally analogous to "doing time" in a strange and somehow familiar/slightly unknowable jail.  it's hard to make my peace with that.  we are captives here. 

the upshot is that every now and then, we can find these spaces and these people within which and with whom time becomes very fluid and thin, and we can just peek over the walls and into that place of promise. sometimes, we even get visits to that place.  we get to sneak over the wall or under the wire, and hike back into that green and lovely morning-place where it's all new and flush and vivid and there are no clocks or alarms or hourglasses or punch cards or anything, not even a stuffed crocodile with a clock in his mouth to remind us that we've won this part of the war.  there's just the sun and the trees and the clouds and the birds and crickets and centipedes and a flock of turkeys and something new to see around every corner.  we don't get to stay there for long, because even though it feels like time stops in this place, it really doesn't... but we can find the way back, any time we like, if we're willing to close our eyes and believe in the space we make between ourselves, when we are honest and good and kind and true.  it's very much the Kingdom of G-d between us, it's the intersection of the-already and the-not-yet.  and it is breathtaking.  

it's not magic.  but it is a miracle.  

he says we have our own time zone. 

mil besos,

rmg  

Job Description

"as time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had left behind her?...wendy did not really worry about her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave her complete ease of mind. 

what did disturb her at times was that john remembered his parents vaguely only, 

as people he had once known, while michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother. 

these things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination papers on it, 

as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school…

 --peter and wendy, j.m. barrie

"when she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman."

--betty friedan

"i do not believe that the accident of birth makes people sisters and brothers. It makes them siblings. 

Gives them mutuality of parentage. 

Sisterhood and brotherhood are conditions people have to work at. 

It's a serious matter. You compromise, you give, you take, you stand firm, and you're relentless...

 --maya angelou

"the highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose."

 --garrison keillor

"remember how it's always been...you and me against the world...how we always said we could do anything, as long as we did it together?"  --laban seth graves

honestly, it's the only job i've ever done that i felt remotely qualified to do.  that's probably because i was four years old when i took the job, and didn't know i was allowed to doubt my qualifications.  it's a good thing mom and dad didn't wait until i was six to have my brother.  and while i'm sad i didn't get to meet the baby lost between my brother and myself, or the one lost before i was born, i am grateful every single day that my little brother is mine. 

if he hadn't come along, or not been so entirely himself, all the time (even when i sometimes wished he was a sister or a dog or just not so loud and rowdy)...if he hadn't been such a good teacher, such a worthy opponent in damn near everything, i shudder to think what a wreck and ruin i might have become.  everything i know about how to live my life, navigate my life, relate to Jesus...everything i know goes back to being my brother's sister.  it's the job i've had longest.  being that kid's sister, learning how to do it, over the last 30 years, has made me better at everything else i've picked up, from actual jobs to being a girlfriend to working at a church for a wide and varied group of people...everything, everything, all of it goes back to being a sister.  

we have screamed terrible things at each other.  he's the only person i've ever been in a fist-fight with.  we have left marks on each other.  there are stories we would rather not remember.  but when push comes to shove...i know that he backs my play.  

he's the first person i'd draft into my army, if i had to go to war.  he's the person i would trust to broker the peace, once the war was over.  even on days when we don't understand each other, we have a bond that goes all the way to our bones.  nobody but us can ever belong to that club.  and my little brother...that kid could talk the devil into lighting himself on fire.  he's smarter and funnier than i am.  he knows this, but pretends that i'm the smart one.  and on days when i drag ass, or need to laugh, or need to remember the middle of who i am and how i am, my little brother tells me ridiculous jokes and puts my nephews on the phone or has my sister-in-law just laugh into the phone.  he is always teaching me how to be a better sister, holding my best self up to me, reminding me of who i am, of who we are, and where we are going.  

he's the reason my best friends are people i fold into my idea of family--he's the reason for all the brothers from other mothers and sisters from other misters i have spread all over the country.  he's one of the best ways i understand family, and have applied that sense of community, of unconditional love (relationships have conditions...but love does not...remember that...), of intentional focus on honesty and vulnerability, and serious, wild, crazy, unfettered fun.  he's the reason i like having roommates, most of the time.  he's the reason i think farts are hilarious, and don't gag at toilet humor.  he's the reason i never minded having guy roommates.  he's the reason i know i'm not supposed to talk in movies, or during tv shows, or even some commercials.  he's the one who explained football to me, and even though i know how, and can do it myself, he's always willing to bait my fish hook.  

when babylon comes calling, and it does, bidden or not, it's important to know my story.  it's important to know what i'm good at, what perspective i need to call on to get things done.  i have to know what's in my tool box, what's within reach, if it's a solo project, or if i'm going to get some help with the task at hand.  my little brother, my brave and strong and wildly talented little brother, the kid who has given me a thousand nicknames, who pulled the most incredible stunt at my 16th birthday party...he's one of the ways i know G-d has a plan, and that i am loved beyond measure or understanding.  

...my little brother...  he's been the face of Jesus on some hard days, in my world.  both of them, my Brother and my brother, have taught me the best things i know, have taught me a posture for life-- one that makes family out of all of us.  and in this foreign and strange place, this Babylon, living fully and freely and unashamedly into that posture is the way i live to make my life good.  

mil besos,

rmg

be careful what you wish for...

i have a simple philosophy. fill what's empty. empty what's full. and scratch where it itches.

--alice lee roosevelt longworth

all we demanded was our right to twinkle.

--marilyn monroe

'well, I'll eat it,' said alice, 'and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way i'll get into the garden, and i don't care which happens!'

--alice, alice's adventures in wonderland

i remember a night, not long ago (maybe a year, maybe less, but definitely before i left san antonio), on the phone with jax, out on my porch, righteously indignant and in tears, yet again.  i don't remember exactly what i was upset about, or maybe i'd had a major session with therapy mary, but i was real.wound.up.  i vividly remember saying to jax, " i really don't even care what happens next, as long as it's something different.  this sameness, this always-winter-and-never-christmas...this, i can't stand much longer." and jackie, wise woman that she is, reminded me, "girl, you best be careful what you wish for." 


 and she was right.  i had best be really, really careful.  and by" best be careful", i mean i  stopped wishing...for anything.  i stopped hoping, for anything.  i caved all the way in, put my head down, and just kept going.  because that's what i do, it's how i knew i was supposed to do it, not because of anything anyone told me, but because of how it felt when i finally stopped being such a cry-baby about how hard it is to be a real grown up and make a life that means something, and freaking acted like a real grown up and realized i had a life that meant something to me, and meant something that was deep and profound, and good, even when it was really, really tough to understand or feel like i was doing anything more than treading water.  and it was absolutely the right thing to do. 


it was hard, not hard like four years of therapy, trying to figure out how to be someone who didn't feel strung out and crazy and like a constant disappointment, and anxious about getting shit right, the first time EVERY TIME, but it was hard.  those four years of work made it not awful, though.  even when all the wheels came off, and there was that scary six weeks of waiting to see if pieces would fall into place, i never considered that something wouldn't work out.  that's the strangest thing, the thing that i've always managed to believe, even before therapy mary, even at the worst moments...i always believed in my heart of hearts that i'd figure it out, that G-d and the universe would hand me what i needed, when i needed it, and i would figure it out.  


and things did change.  everything changed.  and it's still changing.  it never stopped, really...even though it felt like geological ages passed between when things got nuts and when things started to smooth out.  the cool part, the part i didn't imagine, that i didn't even dare to wish for, was at some point, it wouldn't just be me figuring it out, navigating the rivers, looking at the calendar.  and now, it's not just me.  


we figure this out, now. we figure this out. 
that's kind of amazing.  


mil besos,
rmg

no quarter

"we are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist."

--Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, 

of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, 

Defender of the Faith, 

Empress of India

so live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. show respect to all people and grovel to none. when you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. if you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. when it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

--tecumseh

as a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. to make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. to make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. 


--henry david thoreau

two christmases ago, sitting in st john's with momma, grammy and aunt sue, i heard my buddy ripp preach one of the best sermons i've ever, ever heard.  he related a story about two little boys with two very different world views, one totally pessimistic and jaded, and the other a precious little idealist, living off hope. to sum up... the boys woke up christmas morning, to find a giant pile of horse manure in the middle of their room.  one began immediately to weep and wail and bemoan the mess that he was about to clean up.  the other little guy just lit right up, and exclaimed "i just know this means there's a pony here, somewhere!"  

i felt so challenged by that story, and from the moment i heard it, i clung to it, dug into it like a tick, put my head in the well of this story and drank until i couldn't feel my tongue and throat, anymore.  2011 was a bruiser of a year, but that story kept me focused, because G-d knows there was a TON of shit to shovel in that twelvemonth. and it all smelled really bad.  i mean really bad, like the kind of smell that hits like a brick, and immediately makes you throw up a little bit in the back of your mouth. real graphic, i know.  but i'm making a point here...

i struggle not to be the little kid who wakes up, just looking for something to bitch about, loudly lamenting the poo on the floor.  i so want to be the kid who wakes up and begins to cheerfully clear up the mess, knowing that underneath it, there's something profound and beautiful and unexpected waiting to show it's face.  it's a choice, really--do i wake up and immediately start looking forward to going back to sleep, and just do what i have to do to get through the day, or do i wake up and start shoveling and smile about it, because I KNOW THERE'S A PONY HERE, SOMEWHERE?  i ask myself that question just about every morning when i wake up, and have since i heard that sermon.  and most days, the baby jesus puts a hand on my shoulder, and i pick up a shovel, and we start to work with a smile on our face,knowing that we'll be going for a ride, at some point in the day.  other days, and they don't come around very often (thanks be to G-d...) all i can see/smell/hear/dread is that giant and stinky pile of poo in the middle of the floor of my life.  and that's ok, too.  

those bad days make me miss the other kind so much that i work like hell to avoid them.  being my best self is important to me, to believe that i'm bringing it every.single.day.  but the reality is that i have some days when i am not awesome, when i'm kind of bitchy and neurotic and need approval from EVERYONE about EVERYTHING, because LOOK HOW I'M SHOVELING MY SHIT WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE AND MY 8cm PEARL EARRINGS AND TWIN SET AND EVERYTHING. ADORE MEEEEEEEE.  

it's hard to admit that, internets.  it is HARD to admit that.  but when those days happen, i do my best not to ignore them, to make them count, even when i'd rather just punch out and go home, and pull the covers over my head, and start over in the morning.  because we don't get re-do's.  there are no make-up pictures.  this final is cumulative.  there is no parlay.  there is no time-out.  and i don't have the time to waste whining or wishing away any part of any day i wake up alive, on the green side of the grass.  we're working on a clock here, people...tick-tock.  

the stakes for this game of choices are incredibly high, because it's not about ponies or poo or really good sermons, or that cute shirt i keep waiting to go on sale.  it's about this life, about choosing to see as many sides to an issue as i can, and to do my dead-level best to find a way to celebrate the good angles.  it's not about being pollyanna and constantly running the sunshine hose up people's...noses. it's choosing not to get stuck in believing all i'm doing is shoveling shit, waiting for shoes to drop, listening to whether the phone sounds ominous when it rings, etc.  it's choosing to be grateful, even in the face of the unknown, and to be confident in the face of the unknowable.  it's having the stones to be like moses, and stand with my face unveiled, just to glance at the glory of G-d's back.  and that is worth everything. it's worth being different over, worth being misunderstood by people who don't get it or think i'm just a little bit silly about my approach to how i do life.  it's worth knowing that G-d takes no prisoners, that i will be annihilated by love and grace and mercy... that picking up that shovel and getting to work and singing at the top of my lungs while i shovel, instead of wailing and gnashing my teeth, makes all the difference.  

mil besos,

rmg

refuse to fall down.

if you cannot refuse to fall down,

refuse to stay down.

if you cannot refuse to stay down

lift your heart toward heaven

and like a hungry beggar,

ask that it be filled,

and it will be filled.

you may be pushed down.

you may be kept from rising.

but no one can keep you from lifting

your heart toward heaven — only you.

it is in the middle of misery that

so much becomes clear.

the one who says nothing good came of this,

is not yet listening.

--clarissa pinkola estes

throw down your arms...

**from the American Heritage Dictionary:

rad·i·cal

adj.

1. Arising from or going to a root or source; basic:proposed a radical solution to the problem.

2. Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme or drastic:a radical change in diet.

3. Relating to or advocating fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions:radical politics; a radical political theorist.

4. Medicine Relating to or being surgery that is extreme or drastic in an effort to eradicate all existing or potential disease:radical hysterectomy.

5. Linguistics Of or being a root:a radical form.

6. Botany

a. Of, relating to, or arising from a root:radical hairs.

b. Arising from the base of a stem or from a below-ground stem or rhizome:radical leaves.

7. Slang Excellent; wonderful.

n.

1. One who advocates fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions:radicals seeking to overthrow the social order.

ac·cep·tance n. 1. The act or process of accepting. 2. The state of being accepted or acceptable. 3. Favorable reception; approval. 4. Belief in something; agreement. 5. a. A formal indication by a debtor of willingness to pay a draft or bill of exchange. b. An instrument so accepted, especially a bankers' acceptance. 6. Law The demonstration of agreement with the terms and conditions of another's offer so that the offer becomes a contract between the two parties.