What am I waiting for?

Reading Jonathan Mead's #Trust30 prompt and the quote from Emerson, my only response can be "Fuck, yes." I have spent my whole life wishing and waiting and nothing has come and I don't have any practice, creative or spiritual. Or I cannot maintain consistency. So with a week left, what would I do? Say goodbye? Make apologies? Probably not the latter. I've apologized too much already in my life, often every other word out of my mouth has been sorry. I suppose I'm a sorry ass, have the word written all over it.

So what would be the way to go out? Reverentially, thankfully, gratefully, respectfully, appreciating what now is? Hedonistically, taking every pleasure I have hitherto refrained from? In recent days I have been seeking a balance, self-care, family, friends, work. What would have to go? the 'puter. I am tied to it and unconscious. Would I get on a plane to France as I resolved to do yesterday and see my brother and his family? Would I express gratitude to my parents, who scrubbed me when I was fresh out of the womb, sheltered and clothed me, gave me an education and sent me on my way and continue to treat me generously? Seek out teachers throughout my life, as well as friends, thanking them for what they have given me? I can't think of any places I really want to go, what can I say, I like it where I am, I always see something new and that makes me feel alive, can't say that has always been true or always will be, being on the depressive side. Put my "affairs" in order? Say goodbye to my children? Say, I will not leave you comfortless?

Interesting this question is asked today. A friend of mine's daughter-in-law has a form of terminal cancer. A young woman with a young husband and a young child, and with the loss of her income they are in the midst of significant financial hardship, so my friend made a plea to which I responded, but truly I cannot comprehend anything like this, cannot grasp it in the roots of my being, even as I cannot understand the flattened houses on TV from the tornadoes last week.

And the day will come and part of me accepts this, maybe it is only intellectual, maybe it is postural, but what if it was said to me right now, have I really understood this word?

After all, I cannot keep it simple. And I know I've done the best I can with what I've had and I can still do better. Finally, in the last days, I would write more gratitude lists. Final rounds of thanks like roses unfolding their petals until they come to the end of their time in the sun.

And I have to say thank you for the #Trust30, I would not be addressing these questions otherwise or make a commitment to daily blogging, and I feel myself coming alive that way, FWIW. I feel a little bit of hitherto undiscovered strength and energy, maybe something I lost years ago and forgot. Thank you an exponential number of times.

Questions of Travel

Today's #Trust30 prompt from Chris Guillebeau is about travel. Where would I go and what would I do to get there?

I'm not much of a traveller. Throughout my life I've experienced free floating anxiety whenever the prospect of going anywhere is on the horizon. "Airport stomach," my first wife and I used to call it, and she claimed she never had it until she met me. I suspect because I made a lifetime of putting things off for tomorrow, a travel date represented the most anxiety-provoking thing for me, namely, right now, today, I have to do the thing that was planned, not just put it off for the future.

I've relaxed a little since then, feeling life's hold a little more loosely. Just starting a new job I don't feel I can take time off in the future. I have traveled little. My favorite city is Paris. I love the historic buildings, the art, the gardens, the Seine. However, I would like to visit Strasbourg, where my brother has lived for years. He has a new family and a baby on the way. Many times in the past he has asked me to come visit him in France. We connected twice in Paris (on each of my visits with former wife and current wife,) but I've never seen his French city on the Rhine where evidently the streets still have German names.

And this not visiting my brother, saving money, making arrangements, making a commitment, is part of a larger picture, hiding from my brother, hiding from fear of being judged unworthy by him and feeling the lash of his criticism. We've both grown and I've relaxed over many years and we see each other differently. He has never not been supportive. Whereas I would be influenced by his opinion, I can follow my own influences, and we can disagree and I can not take it personally and assume I'm wrong or that even being wrong is the question. So engaging with this man to whom I am closest genetically and biologically and yet there is such a gulf between us, not just geographically, carries meaning for me to make this a priority with time and money. And it would be great to take the kiddos, though I am not sure how David will react to the French, he's probably watched too much South Park.

Today (Response to Liz)

Since I need prompting, I've joined a 30-day challenge, #Trust30 on Twitter. I'll take any help I can get, of course I have to act on the help I receive. Liz's post asks me who am I today, in one sentence?

My answer is: I am happy and confident.

If I were to say more than one sentence, or why I would say that sentence, those words out loud, write them, it's because I know I'm not alone. I know I'm loved. I know I can be useful. I know I have work to do. I know I have inner resources. And I know I have priorities. I am at the beginning of something amazing, and not knowing, watching things unfold, even as I move within it, doing what little I can, but always taking action.

Rhere have been times when I've dreaded the day that comes with no escape, when I would have to do what I said I would, take a trip, move, face disruption, face reckoning. Can I live daily with some feeling of urgency, without the desperation, without the dread, with gratitude, not from fear but from purpose, as Mastin teaches.


And for me there is usually an undertone of anxiety or uneasiness which I need to learn to be with and then take action. Years ago I worked briefly with a man named Jose who said, to my incredulity, no harm can come to you, they can hurt you, they can kill you, you're still you. I don't know if my saying that to someone else will give that person comfort, but I am a small part of something far greater than me that will take care of me, that I matter and don't matter, am responsible for what I can change and powerless over what I cannot change.


And I am grateful. Perhaps not at every instant, I am not conscious every instant. When I consider the landscape of my life, where my feet have walked, where my body has stood, sat and lay down and risen up again, the greater part of my life has been and continues to be unmerited gifts.


Today I have work to do for my new job, work that demands my attention, meeting with my counselor who always starts me off with relaxation and a smile, and time with my children whose company I enjoy even if they are not always enjoying one another.


On my way to the interview for the job I was eventually offered and accepted, on the highway, I found myself following a cement mixer with the word "Advance," on the back. It became my word for the day and I found what I needed from within and I know not from whence it came and I am still advancing. And happy and confident.