Sanity Still Intact (A Short Story)

I sit across a small table from my friend Sharaya in a coffee shop on a busy street in St. George, Utah. The room is dim, lit only by the glow of a single storefront window, and an array of red lights that reflect mutely off of the dark colored walls. We chose a table in the back of the long, dark main room, where we feel secluded. We are surrounded by pictures of famous musicians that hang neatly framed on every wall. The free thinkers of their time; Janis Joplin, the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix. Brass instruments have been mounted on the wall to serve as light fixtures; trombones, trumpets, french horns, all retired from what they once did best.

"I don't get it," Sharaya screams, in the middle of one of her vents about a friend she has been spending time with for six months or so. "I know he is not the man I initially thought he was, so why am I so needy of his love and approval?" Her usually smooth voice is shrill with frustration. "It's like I'm saying 'No, you're not you, you're this other person, and you just don't know it.' What is wrong with me?" She throws her hands up in the air in resolve.

Sharaya is a petite 21 year old, but she is wise beyond her years. Her youth was filled with drugs and alcohol, and a mother who was, from what I've gathered, slightly (or more than slightly) unhinged. She sits in front of me today, a devout student of Islam, sipping a decaf soy latte. I marvel at what she has been through, and how she has come to be sitting across from me here today, her sanity still intact.

In Utah, coffee shops are a good meeting place for the middle of the roaders like us. St. George is a fast growing city, but has yet to include any good social gathering places. For someone who is too conservative for the "One and Only" bar (pun intended), but too liberal to go to church activities, coffee shops are basically the singular outlet for meeting new people, and/or being among like minds.

"Wow," I laugh, trying to lighten the mood. "I hear you. That's a hard place to be in."

"So what's going on with you?" she asks, putting her tangent on the back burner for further consideration. She reaches for her drink.

"Well, I'm getting older," I say in dismay. "I can see the wrinkles around my eyes now."

I'm 25 years old, soon to be 26. I'm sure my wrinkles aren't visible to anyone but myself. But Sharaya sips her decaf coffee, and looks at me thoughtfully, without a shred of judgment in her eyes. That's what I like about her; we can both be our crazy selves, and really be "in our shit", with no judgment passed.

"You know," I start a vent session of my own, "what is our fascination with youth anyway? Why can't we all just age and be proud of it? Why do we resist the aging process?"

She nods her head in agreement. Her curly brown hair bounces up and down over her shoulders.

"Why do we get all this special attention from everyone when we are young? People are just automatically impressed when a young person does anything. 'He's a doctor and he's so young. She won an Oscar and she's so young.' Both of these things are great with or without the youth they speak of, so why do they even bring it up? Look at women's magazines. If they have a woman over 45 on the cover, they have to point out why. 'Look, she's 45 and she's still pretty good looking.' Why can't they just say, 'Look? She deserves to be on here as much as Taylor Swift or Hayden Panttiere. Who cares how old she is. There is beauty in aging too.'"

Aw, that felt nice. We both lean back in our seats, and look at each other in contemplation. By the end of the venting session, we've both resolved never to get boob jobs or face lifts. We'll approach old age with our dignity.

Frenemies

Frenemies

I found this radio show to be hilarious and fascinating! Please enjoy. And tell me what you think.

On the topic of Surrendering to Work

So I've just returned from a vacation that has brought me to an epiphany that I believe has been building up in me for a good three months now, and has finally come to fruition. (Thank goodness!) The key word for my post today is RESISTANCE. And this word has literally been the cause to all my recent sufferings, which although minute, felt pretty unbearable at times. These past few months (ever since Christmas Break really) I've been experiencing this huge resistance to my schoolwork. Now, don't misunderstand me, there has been a lot of it. I began the semester with four English classes and one Sociology Capstone, which adds up to a whole heck of a lot of reading. I'm probably reading a novel a week in addition to my textbook reading, and all the while having to journal about much of it to get credit for it. It's a grueling process for me, and one that has been made all the more so due to my resistance to it. Every step of the way has felt like such a stretch, like literally having to wrench the effort out of myself in order to accomplish anything. Needless to say after a few months of this, I was desperately needing a break; time to re-gather my girth. So my boyfriend and I, spur of the moment, planned a vacation during my Spring Break that we both hoped would lift my spirits (and his I guessJ).

Well, the vacation couldn't have been more beautiful. Although unusually cold (but not really to our standards), our destination, the Island of Kauai, nicknamed the Garden Isle, proved to be basically what it promised. The scenery was spectacular, the fruit was delicious, and we had some amazing meals at little hole-in-the-wall restaurants that we often discovered just by default. The island was small and largely undeveloped, which made searching for particular places somewhat difficult sometimes. If we were expecting a nice restaurant we would have been very disappointed. But lucky for us, we're both adventurous eaters. So we settled for local favorites, which turned out to be delicious. If you've never tried a good bowl of Saimen or some Loco Moco, I suggest you do so at the soonest opportunity. Am I going off subject?

So anyway, after a week in paradise, without much to gripe about, I was driving back to Arizona this morning, and feeling rather down because although I has just had a good week-long romp in the Islands, I was feeling no closer to overcoming my current discomforts. Can you believe it? Even beaches and water and fish and beautiful flowers and good food couldn't cure me. So, as is customary with me when I'm on a long drive, I popped in a spiritually based lecture series by David Hawkins. Dr. Hawkins is a man whose lectures I used to frequent down in Sedona, and who I find particularly inspiring. In this lecture, one from December 2002, he brought up the topic of work. And what he said, although I can't quote it verbatim, truly spoke to me. I'll do my best to explain it. What he said was that it's important for individuals on a spiritual path, or just in everyday life, to have a certain reverence for life, and what it encompasses; work, for example. He said that there are many people who show their reverence for life by surrendering to hard work. If you surrender to life, and to work, and stop resisting it, it can be quite fulfilling.

As simple as this advice was, it was exactly what I needed to hear because it's exactly the opposite of where my head has been these past few months. When I heard this, I immediately felt a shift inside myself. Rather than my inner being remaining back in Utah, or Kauai as it had been, it now feels as though my being is becoming more fully present here in Arizona. Just upon hearing this statement, my resistance to my work has, at least in this moment, very close to disappeared, and it feels very relieving. I feel light, and as though furthering my work here could be almost effortless if I surrender it to God. What a lovely thing to feel in this moment; very little resistance, and a large amount of release. I guess the Garden Isle wasn't the answer to my problems, although it did make for some good photos....

And there are certainly more to come soon....

On the topic of Connectedness

So I'm definitely not a big fan of sci-fi movies. In fact, I generally dislike them, and only watch them when in a mixed gender group, where they tend to usually be chosen over intensely violent films or sappy love stories. Sci-fi seems to meet somewhere in the middle I suppose. But a few months back, I heard about this so called "epic" movie, Avatar, and I decided, why not? It's getting rave reviews, it's in 3D which is supposed to be the new thing, it will probably be some gamer's sexual fantasy come to life or something, but who cares, I'll check it out. So, somewhat reluctantly, I went. I would subsequently go to see it twice more that same week.

What I found when I went to see this movie was an incredibly stunning array of imagination, scenery, and a depiction of a way of life that seemed to me to far surpass my own. This movie was so moving to me. The cast did a superb job, especially considering they worked mainly with green screen, but that was really beside the point. I felt like I was taken to a world, and shown something that I couldn't have, but wanted desperately, and I left thinking, "My God! What are we all doing here? Why do we live like this? Something isn't right here." (And simultaneously, it crossed my mind that I would be the next generation of Trekkie if I wasn't careful.)

I went again, and again, and each time I left having seen yet another detail that I loved, yet another subtlety about this movie and its message that felt so overwhelmingly important that I honestly didn't know what to do with myself. I was in awe, really, genuinely awed by James Cameron's imagination, and the depth of thought that he put into this movie, and its basis. I couldn't imagine how the writer/director of Titanic, and other movies that I have little respect for, could possibly have come up with something like this. I mean, incredible.

Well, by my third viewing of this movie, I was feeling rather desperate. I obviously couldn't go on watching this movie three times a week (which yes, though crazy, was tempting), and I couldn't expect this world or any other real place to be anything close to what this movie was demonstrating. So, I sat down with my mother, and with my good friend Sharaya, and we talked about this movie, and what it was that ultimately was the message hidden beneath the beautiful scenery and the beautiful bodies that these creatures inhabited. What we came up with was this: this movie demonstrates a great deal of what I, or we, call connection; connection with one's own body, connection with one's environment, connection with one's partner ("I see you"), and it is this deep connection that I found so moving, and so incredibly liberating in the viewing of this film. These creatures, though fictional, demonstrated a quality that I would like very much to strengthen in my own being; to really see myself, and those I love, in a deeper way. These creatures would get together, and through the phrase "I see you", demonstrate their love and understanding for each other, for their community, for their land, and their values.

And not only that, these creatures also had a good deal of equality between the sexes that was genuinely liberating as a woman. Women were expected, just as men were, to learn to protect themselves and care for themselves physically, and to brave dangerous events in order to gain a deeper connection with their peers, their land, and the other animals that inhabit it. It's something that you don't see much of in our society, and something that is talked about but rarely demonstrated.

Regardless of whether this world will ever be anything near the reality that I so enjoyed in this film, I feel like watching it taught me something about myself. As an individual I greatly value connectedness in my life; connectedness with my body, with my loved ones, dead and alive, with the earth, and with God/Allah/Whatever you wish to use to fill in the blank here. So the truth is that this neediness I was experiencing wasn't about the movie at all, and this realization actually lessoned the awed reaction I felt when I thought about this movie. Connection is something that I would like to attempt to be more aware of in my busy life, schedule, day, week, month, year, and I'm going to make a larger effort to stay aware of this connectedness, and how it is operating in my life.

That is all for now. But I leave you with this photo, which is purely for comedic value, I assure you.