upon reflection...

I reflect, sometimes, upon what I've written here. I'll have pondered and typed and posted, and then felt uncomfortable about the way I phrased a sentiment or stated a view.
a statement I made yesterday has been niggling away at me, and I need to modify it's stark declaration.
I stated that I've forgotten what abundance feels like.
too much of the time I have; the world is tossing ugly news around like a giant badminton game rife with dirty, gray, hopeless birdies. war, depression, pain, death, negative indicators, joblessness and hopelessness, recession, inflation, climate change, resolute despots and bickering politicians . . . and then my own personal loss has added to this low-hanging, oppressive atmosphere so that I have, for great chunks of time, forgotten how to connect with an understanding of abundance.

however, I do still feel abundance, more often than the collective me realizes.

I feel it when leaning back on my couch, looking out my windows and watching thick flakes of snow float down to the earth.
I feel it when listening to my favorite songs on my ipod, when my heart swells and my body wants to move with the rhythm and my voice aches to burst into song.
I feel it in the library, surrounded by so many thousands of books that I realize I will never, ever want for a story to fuel my soul.
I feel it when I look at the snow covered mountains that surround our valley, steadfast and decisive and resolutely in place for hundreds of mere mortal lifetimes.
I feel it when I see tiny shoots of spring green grass hiding under the weary and worn surface of my lawn.
I feel it when I have time, opportunity, and a soft and gentle couch upon which to curl up with jake's blanket and ugly doll and take a nap.


I know abundance. I feel it, it's familiar and valued, and I know that once the world recaptures its breath and rights itself, we will all, once again, feel it more deeply and truly and consistently.

possibilities

as old as I am, I haven't yet lived long enough to thoroughly learn that everything changes.

I want to believe that I've learned this, that I understand it, that I hold it to be true.
but I haven't, and I don't.

I'm literal, I believe in what I see, what I experience. I rely on my past experiences to explain to me how the world works. which isn't all bad, but it's a way of being that struggles valiantly to preclude a belief in possibilities.
and I want to believe in possibilities.
in new outcomes.
in visions of a different way of being.

william blake, some two hundred years ago, wrote these words:
what is now proved was once only imagin'd.

this is difficult for me to internalize. of course at a logical level I understand it completely, and can throw out examples right and left, beginning with airplanes and moving on to the internet and ipods. but I also remember growing up, watching the Jetsons and buying into the belief that by the time I was a full-fledged adult we would all be flying our own little personal cars along the sky freeways above our city.
and that a robot would cook and clean for me.
no one on the Jetsons ever suggested that we would use computers to converse with people around the globe, nor that we would be playing movies and tv show episodes on the desperately slim conversation devices we all carried around with us. though most of us still drive old fashioned gasoline engine cars, the world wide web and iphones and blackberries now exist.

my imagination is too timid.

one day, near the end of last year, I was talking with a friend about dreams, not the nocturnal ones but the ones you have for your life, for your children, for those who inhabit your personal world as well as the great big world itself. at that moment I realized that I had become someone who was afraid to dream big. that there was this something within me that squelched my desires, bisecting them and cutting them down into smaller pieces that would fit in scanty, slight boxes that I labeled Reality, Possible, Likely.
that I had become someone who dreamed little.

I can no longer imagine world peace, and it's hard for me to consider that enough people care about others to make a difference in the way we interact with each other.
I've forgotten what abundance feels like.
I can't imagine that I'll ever ride my bike fast enough to set a new personal best on any route.
all I can envision is me, plowing along, doing the same old thing I've been doing.

now this isn't entirely true: I do have dreams and visions of a different way of being. but I have to fight myself to get myself to accept them. the No You Can'ts and Uh-Uhs and Dream Ons are so very loud they outspeak the quiet voice that insists on a prosperous, successful, competent and capable and happy me.

someday, they'll prove things that I haven't ever even dreamed of. that my mind doesn't know how to imagine.
but I also like to believe that someday, I will prove to myself that those things I've dared to dream, that I've fought back and conquered my pesky ego over, will come to fruition.

cleaning

this morning I've been cleaning things. rag, warm water, soap, elbow grease.
and since I was on a roll, cleaning things, I decided to throw my bike into the melee, and get it cleaned up as well.
I have been terribly neglectful of my bike. I rode it on december 19th, and then again on january 30, and those were probably the only 2 times I touched it after november. both those rides were on roads thick with grit, cinders, and rivulets of melting snow, so it probably won't take much use of your imagination to picture what the underside of my bike looked (and felt) like. not to mention the chain, thick with dirty black grease.

the impetus to throw my bike in with the other to-be-cleaned items: an upcoming visit to the bike shop. because it's time to finally install two of my fabulous Christmas presents that have been leaning against my office wall for the last 7 weeks: new wheels.
which adds pressure to my biking, as they are supposed to make me faster. cool.
but what if they don't?
what if power camp doesn't make me one bit stronger/better/faster?
what if I'm still old clump along me?

at least I'll have a clean bike?

I was cleaning things to give them away. some of jake's things, some things that will be able to help someone else. his car seat, his wheelchair, a few other things. things that I didn't worry so much about cleaning until it was time to give them to someone else.
what does this say about me?
that I don't clean things until I know that other people will see them?

what it really says, I suppose, is that I'm doing my best. and that life is so very full of Things That Need To Be Done.
that even though I want to live in a spotless house and drive a shiny clean car and have a bike in tip-top-tuned-and-cleaned shape, it just is not going to be that way. I will at times, feel caught up and ahead of the game, and at times operate in a Tackle What Needs To Be Done Now manner of triage.
and more often than not, this latter kind of system works.
because as much as I like to be prepared, some things in life you can never prepare for.
and as much as I wish I could, I can't make my kids' school lunches two days ahead of time.
some things just have to be done at the time they need to be done.

thus jake's cleaned car seat and other things were ready to go when they were picked up.
and my bike is clean and ready to go to the shop.
dinner plans are made, I have gas in the car to get my girls to their piano lessons,
and tomorrow morning, I will make lunches for my kids to take with them to school.

then during the day tomorrow, I will tackle whatever needs to be tackled.

cipher

today I have nothing to say and I'm not going to make anything up, as I usually do when I have nothing to say.
today I'm stopping here.

credit and a half

I am worthless in here today.
that's what I said to bob and andy in the weight room this morning at 6:35.
bob's response was,
if we compared your worthless and my worthless, I'm sure you'd come out ahead.
that made me feel better, to know that it wasn't just me.

I want to feel energetic and powerful and capable all of the time, and my reality is this: I don't.
and since I can only live inside my own head, and not those that belong to other people, I struggle when doing self assessments.
this is what I wonder: do other people in power camp climb on those bikes in the morning and think, oh God, another day of spinning my legs around and wishing it were over and feeling like I just can't keep going?
do other people in the weight room think to themselves, gosh, why is it that this doesn't seem to get any easier, and how do weights get heavier from one week to the next, and, gosh, why does everyone else make it look easy?

nick was in the weight room this morning, nick my swiss friend who in 2009 lost his wife of half a century or so and also broke his back in a water skiing accident.
prior to this morning, I last saw nick right before Christmas, when he was still having difficulty navigating stairs. he wasn't quite ready to return to working out at the JCC, and he didn't look as though he was quite ready to return fully and vibrantly to the community.
this morning he looked good.
this is what he had to say about it:
I see myself every day, and I can't see any change from day to day. but this week I'm better than I was three weeks ago, so something must be happening.

this is when faith keeps us going. a belief in something that isn't readily visible or measurable each day. a belief in the process, a belief that we are growing, changing, healing, progressing.

this is when I need to go do a headstand. because my headstands are markedly better than they were a year ago. they are not perfect. they are still slightly wobbly and I'm not yet ready to do one away from the wall. but the day will come when they will be even more stable than today's, and I will be able to do one in the middle of the room.

and perhaps the reason that I don't feel stronger and more capable in power camp is that I keep raising the bar. I take for granted the progress I've made and how very, very far I've come. it's no longer enough to survive the experience: I want to excel, to thrive, to conquer. so each day that I perform adequately I give myself credit for surviving, when in reality I should give myself credit and a half because I did it better than I allow myself to acknowledge. I am better than I was two weeks ago, a month ago.
I need to give myself a pat on the back for my iotas of forward movement, whether they appear to be measurable or not.
because they are there.
scooting along, moving me toward . . . the next best version of myself.

on being preprogrammed

this is my first thought upon waking each morning: maybe I can get a nap today.

I am weary, and tomorrow morning's class is a very challenging one. The workout scheduled is one of the toughest I've ever done, which has caused me to question why I am doing this.
who am I trying to be? why do I feel I must do this?
and the answer that comes to me is that I am internally programmed to continually seek improvement. it is my job to keep moving toward becoming the best version of myself possible.

that doesn't allow for much slacking.
at least not in significant areas. if improvement is possible, I will feel a tug. yes, I experience numerous tugs each day of my life. I feel them during conversations with my kids, during interactions with colleagues, while doing chores around the house, and when deciding what to next put into my stomach.

I'm apprehensive about tomorrow's class. but to skip it would be to chicken out, to avoid an opportunity for mental and physical stretching. stretching which will hopefully lead to new levels of strength in both those areas.
and then, maybe, after class, I can have a nap.

the day job

this is the best part of my job: I'm able to be a silent observer of human kind at its best. I am a voyeur, let in on people's secrets, their compassion and gratitude and love, without their real awareness. they don't know who I am, or where I am, or anything about me. and still they trust me with missives that travel across the country, reach out their slender fingers and touch the very core of the human beings to whom they're sent.
I, the silent witness, am gifted in an extraordinary way by this process.

I've written love letters, notes of gratitude, brief messages of condolences and of congratulations. I've transcribed wishes for a return to health, wishes for peace and healing. I've passed along beautiful quotations and simple, heartfelt declarations of love.
this business of mine is all about gratitude, love, healing, manifestation: these are deep and powerful aspects of our humanity.

I've often thought that if I'd been wise, I would have gone into business selling some commodity, something that is purchased and then used up, so that the consumer must buy my product again. candy, maybe. or lip gloss. cookies, hair products, gourmet pretzels, something.
instead, I created this item that sits, patiently, durably, and is basically indestructible, forever holding a message of depth and truth.

every time I receive a new order with a message to relay to the recipient, I see and touch divinity. which is really not a bad thing in a day job.