I love yoga. I’ve been a half-assed student (which might be an asana, I’m not sure) for close to twenty years. I remember the moment I fell in love with the practice. It was at Kripalu. The teacher was Stephen (Kaviraj) Cope. The pose was trikonasana/triangle. Following Kavi’s precise verbal instruction and watching him model the pose with his beautiful (and beautifully human) body, I suddenly found that I was suspended in space in an unexpected way, my body draped into an unaccustomed but oddly thrilling design. It can do this, too?! I thought. How cool.

Kavi gave point-by-point instruction on how to find the proper alignment. Once there, we were encouraged to feel into it and then relax, including the awesomeness, including the oddness, the beauty, the discomfort, and the enjoyment of not knowing what it was supposed to feel like. His instruction to establish the pose but “relax around the holding” has served me to this day, on and off the mat.

From this, I learned that the first step in asana practice is precision. Each pose has a magical kind of integrity that is awakened only when animated by your body. Without alignment, the integrity goes away. From this precision, an opening of the energetic body is created. The pose then starts to animate you. And the third step, to let go—of expectation, judgment, hope, and fear—allows energy to continue flowing. In this way, honest transformation, the kind that transcends mere self-improvement, can occur.

Precision. Opening. Letting go. I had never related to myself in this way before and it changed the way I felt inside my body. I still love yoga for the same reasons, only more so.

Since then, I’ve been to like a zillion yoga classes: Iyengar, Ashtanga, Kripalu, Anusara, “Power,” Bikram, heated vinyasa, and on and on. I’m not a yoga snob and I pretty much like them all. As long as I shvitz, I don’t really care what the style is. Wherever I live, I just go to the studio closest to my house.

A long time ago, I stopped caring who the teacher was, too. (Apologies to all the incredible, devoted yoga teachers out there.) This is because I stopped being able to count on the skill of my instructor. Some time in the last decade, I found that deep knowledge of asana was replaced with an unchanging posture sequence spiked by a coaching vibe. I don’t care for this, particularly. It’s not that I don’t like repetition, I do. I actually prefer it. But I don’t want just anyone getting all up in my grille with their ideas about who I am and ought to be. First and foremost, I want them to know a lot about asana practice. If their knowledge on this score is great, I would maybe trust them to sneak in some ideas about life. Otherwise, hold the deep thoughts. I can tell when you’re posing, so to speak.

And so I arrive at the point of this post, which is already turning into a bit of a rant. (Apologies.) Yoga teachers, I would like to be taught by you, not “invited” to do this or that. “Make it feel good” is not an instruction. Neither is “do what feels right to you” or “this is the pose I suggest, but if you prefer another one, go ahead.” When I hear things like this, I can’t help but sneak a peak around me. Often, people seem a bit confused, like they’re supposed to know what this means, but don’t. Most interpret it to mean something sloppy or embarrassing. They may start rolling around or making some kind of baby sounds.

“Do what feels right” is actually a super-advanced instruction that requires tremendous self-awareness. Unless you know the proper alignment of a pose, doing what feels right is not a release into an internal energetic shift, but more of a self-indulgent collapse.

Please, before offering too many choices, help the poor guy with his shoulders up about his ears in Downward Dog. Give the young woman who is jutting forward with aggression in Warrior Two permission to rise up out of her waist with elegance instead. I’m not saying we all have to become mini Iyengars, moving our femur bones about and whatnot—but it would be so awesome to focus on meat-and-potatoes alignment. The basics.

Encouraging us to do what we want is more often than not an encouragement to fidget and I’m already pretty good at fidgeting. I excel at doing random stuff just to entertain myself. I would love to hear a yoga teacher counsel stillness. Waiting. Silence. Space. Allowing discomfort, rather than chasing it off. What I really need to practice is the discipline of being with my experience, not creating endless distractions from it.

We live in a culture that eschews discipline as punishment. The truth, though, is that through discipline we find spontaneous, self-arising freedom. On the yoga mat or off. As a student or a teacher.

Discipline begins with coming back to the basics, over and over. Only then can real transformation occur. As the great transpersonal educator and psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo said of music, “spontaneous innovation can only arise from repetition,” and this is one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard anyone say. Ever.

Beloved yoga teachers! I “invite you” to stop inviting us, your students, to do anything and instead to instruct us clearly. Teach from a place of your own inner knowing, from your own intimacy with the practice, from having screwn (yes, a made up word) it up a thousand times, gone back to the mat, worked it out again, and learned each pose from the inside out of your own body.

Don’t humor us. Teach us. Don’t overestimate our skills or the body’s ability to take care of itself, which we so easily confuse with wanting to feel good/look good/deny the realities of age, injury, and anatomy. Don’t assume we need you to make us feel good or create any type of experience for us whatsoever. We can definitely create our own experience—but only when your authentic (honestly attained, personal) wisdom is there to anchor it. The example of your personal presence will always be a thousand times more instructive than your words.

Deepen your practice and deepen it some more. Commit to your own journey and from that commitment allow love for your students to blossom spontaneously. Then take your seat as an adept and teach us what you know.

Me. Albert King. Another planet.

About 25 years ago, I was driving cross country for the reasons you might expect of a 20-year old who was utterly lost. Where the hell was my life? It had to be somewhere. It was not in the big city suburb I grew up in. Not in the rows of desks at that sheep factory called High School from which I barely graduated and not in any of the sheep factories of higher learning, none of which I bothered to apply to in favor of a succession of waitress and waitress-like jobs and hanging out in bars, and not in the telenovelas of the lives of those I met but had no way to connect with because no one spoke my language. Where was my life? Where were my people? Some hints could be found in books, yes. In music, certainly.

But what did art and music have to do with me? How could I find a life to relate to when I didn’t even know my own location? I could find no discernible roads, no apparent steps to climb, no conceivable destination to maneuver toward. Lost. So I figured, what the hell, I might as well drive around. At least that way my body would be doing what my mind already was, and there’s something oddly satisfying about matching those two up. I got behind the wheel and headed in the only viable direction for a music lover in Boston (or anywhere, really): South. And West.

After a few weeks, as luck would have it, my car broke down in Austin, Texas. According to my navigate-by-vibe road plan, I was heading there anyway, mainly because I heard you could listen to actual people play real music on instruments they were born to hold. You can tell the difference between music played because you’re trying to get over and music played because that’s what your momma and daddy did and so you picked it up too, to see what you had to say. I heard they had players like that in Austin, especially the blues guys.

This is what I wanted. I wanted to find the world that resonated with such sounds so I could live in it. With the great purity of adolescent longing, my aim was to eviscerate the opaque presence of whatever was marketing my own life back to me. Music could do that. Hey, we’re talking music here. Music is food. Music is life. Music is the proof that goodness exists, and that there is a way to meet joy and love and despair and all manner of inner states in their non-conceptual form. So of course I loved music, all kinds, but for this skinny white girl, Blues cut the deepest. If I was going to drink in any tradition, it was going to be that one.

In fact, without music and Texas, the trip never would have happened. One night, I was sitting in the front seat of my cab (yes, my cab) at 2am outside a Boston nightclub on a sticky August night, waiting to see if anyone had misplaced their designated driver. My cab had no A/C because, well, girl cabbies don’t get respect, so I had the windows down, seat slid all the way back, smoking a cigarette, feet sticking out the driver side window, radio on. Loud. Two songs came on in sequence that presented me with my own personal one-way ticket out of Palookaville.

First: “Dancing in the Dark,” by Bruce, which had these killer, killer lines,

Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself…
…I want to change my clothes, my hair, my face.
I ain’t getting nowhere, just living in a dump like this.
There’s something happening somewhere, baby. I just know that there is.

I heard that last line and I don’t know what happened next. I snapped.

It was over.

I was done with the cab, Boston, this version of being alive, you, me: my clothes, my hair; I didn’t care if I ever saw my own face again. Done. There was something happening somewhere and for sure that somewhere was not here. I didn’t know what I was going to do tomorrow except that it was not in any way going to resemble today.

Next up, “Cold Shot” by Stevie Ray Vaughan. My reaction this time had nothing to do with lyrics and everything to do with the scream of joy that burst from my heart at the sound of a Texas shuffle and, more, something about the naturalness of SRV, 80s drum sounds notwithstanding. In this moment, I got what “cool” was in general and in music in particular and I stand by my definition to this day. It means not being in a hurry. Even if you’re playing fast, you take your time. Texas musicians are the ultimate in what’s-the-rush musicianship. I mean just listen to any Willie Nelson song from any era. With every verse, you’re not sure if he’s even still in the room but then, just in time, without a bone in his body, he comes in a moment before the moment disappears. That is cool.

But I digress.

So I quit my job, put everything in the back of my sister’s car (somehow I scammed her into “lending” it to me) and began to drive.

South.

West.

Until one night many weeks later when I was heading into Austin and realized, oh crap, I’m about to miss the exit, swerved to catch it, and ran over a meridian strip, busting up the front end of my poor sister’s car. Wallet check revealed about $119. Poof. I lived in Austin.

I needed a place to stay while I figured stuff out and so did what anyone would do in such circumstances. I went to a bar. I waited and watched for someone who might give me a place to stay in exchange for as little as possible, which, when you’re 20 and cute is basically everyone. Soon the people at the table next to me were buying me drinks and it turns out that amongst them were two other cute girls in their 20s, sisters, Kathy and Linda, whose 3rd roommate was moving out in two weeks to go live with her boyfriend and I could have her room if I didn’t mind sleeping on their floor for awhile. Mind? I was thrilled. As fate would have it, Kathy was a waitress at Antone’s: Austin’s Home of the Blues and she said they were hiring and I should apply, which I did, trembling. Antone’s? Antone’s?? If you knew anything about blues music at that time, you knew this was where Stevie got his start and also the Fabulous Thunderbirds and that at Antone’s there was a crew of musicians who could nail your heart to the wall without looking up. They were called the Antone’s House Band and if there were ever a group of musicians who were not trying to market themselves to you, it was they. Soulful, deep, deep, soulful, night after live-music night, backing up John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, James Cotton, you name it. The night I went into apply, Otis Rush was playing to about 10 people and I had what was as close to a satori experience (as I now might call it) as I’d ever had, before or since. Don’t ask. I can’t describe it. No one could.

I was hired, due to having been a cocktail waitress twice before, once in a nightclub in DC called The Bayou (only recently defunct) and the other time in the bar of a restaurant, lunch shift. If you’ve ever worked lunch hours in a bar, you’ve pretty much seen it all in terms of drunks so  I was in and it was at this exact moment that my real life started.

Pretty much everything good in my life can be traced back to that moment. I found a home for my love of music. I learned everything you could ever want to know about how to listen to music and I heard things that would blow your mind, if only I could turn my ears inside out and broadcast what they have taken in. The house band produced a serious boyfriend for me. I heard and hung out with and deeply dug all the blues guys mentioned, plus Albert King, Memphis Slim, Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Junior Wells, Barbara Lynn, Hubert Sumlin, forget about it, the list goes on beyond, beyond, beyond.

After about a year, the happiest year of my life for sure, Antone’s started a record label. I didn’t work in the daytime, so was deemed an eligible employee and that’s how I started a 10+ year career in the music business. Anyway, there’s so much more to this story, endlessly more, but suffice to say at this point that I made a lasting and potent connection to the Blues, the kind of connection you know will last because it had always been there to begin with, you just didn’t know it.

So that is road #1. But one road does not a crossroads make. The Buddha produced the second road and at some point, a point to be later described, I drove to Mississippi, sat at the intersection  of Highways 61 and 49, picked up the live wire of blues in my left hand and the live wire of dharma in my right and stuck them together to see what would happen.

Stay tuned.

September 12, 2011

There is a Buddhist meditation practice called Tonglen. In Tibetan, tong means “sending out” and len means “receiving.” So Tonglen is known as the practice of sending and taking, or of exchanging self for other. Instead of inhaling what makes us feel good and exhaling what makes us feel bad, this practice asks that we do the opposite. We breathe in the suffering of others by visualizing it as dark, hot, sticky, soot and smoke coming into our lungs. We breathe out what is positive in the form of air that is light, bright, clean, and cool. In this way, we volunteer to take in some portion of the world’s suffering and offer up to it whatever good we possess.

On this day ten years ago, I decided to drive into Manhattan.

On September 11, I was in Washington, DC and was scheduled for a book signing at Borders in the World Trade Center on September 12. I woke up early that morning, unsure of where to go. Should I try and make it home to Boston? Would the roads even be passable? Would the streets be lined with armored vehicles? Would there be checkpoints at every on-ramp? Low-flying helicopters? Terrorists speeding for the border? At the very least, I imagined that the highways would be crammed with motorists now that the skies had been shut down to flight. If not terrorists, then for sure I would encounter rental cars full of businesspeople who had met at airports and formed groups heading to Cleveland or Atlanta or Toronto. I decided to to get an early start and take my chances. So I had a cup of tea and was on the road by 6AM.

Although the drive from DC to Boston would take eight or so hours under normal circumstances, I was prepared for least twelve hours in the car, maybe more, maybe even a few days. I was thinking I might have to spend a night or two on the road, what with all the detours and slowdowns that I was sure to find around New York City. I considered heading west and up through Harrisburg and then across the Hudson Valley into Western Massachusetts, bypassing any and all routes into Manhattan.

As I entered the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I looked around. Pretty quiet. Very quiet, actually. I decided to continue on with a direct route, thinking I’d divert when I came upon the first delay.

I had moved to Boston a few months before 9-11, from an apartment on West 23rd Street. I loved my running route—down the side streets of Chelsea and across the West Side Highway, south toward Battery Park, a look across the river at New Jersey, a view of the Statue of Liberty and on to the World Financial Center Plaza, weaving through throngs of Staten Island dwellers departing the ferry. At this point I would slow and cool down by walking through the World Financial Center to the World Trade Center, always against the crowd of men and women in suits who were moving through turnstiles, boarding elevators for work. You could feel them still trying to wake up, clothes pressed, bits of hair still wet from the shower. These sweet signs of morning were a tender contrast to their staring-ahead expressions (another day at work) or gait (I can do this). I on the other hand was not pressed, not fresh, and heading home; I always loved that I was going the exact opposite way of everyone else. As they streamed up the steps from the subway, I threaded my way down, underground, past the shops, past Greys Papaya, Starbucks, Borders. Every morning I would stop at the newsstand at the turnstiles, buy the New York Post, and read it on the ride back up to Chelsea. Then off at 23rd and 8th for a short walk back to my apartment. Someday, I hoped, I would build up the stamina to run down and back. Or not. Which would have been OK, because I so loved the routine as it was.

As I drove, I tried to picture what this route would look like today. What parts of it still existed? Who had been walking there when the planes hit? What had the Ferry riders seen? Who had gone in early to get some extra work done, or late because what the hell, I’m sleeping in this morning? I kept the radio on in the car. I heard that entry to Manhattan via the Holland and Lincoln tunnels was prohibited and it made me incredibly sad to think of New York in isolation like this. And so along with everyone else, along with our country, the other countries, and with all of New York, I cried.

Several hours into the drive, it appeared there actually weren’t carloads of businesspeople or terrorists racing hither and yon, nor had I seen a single armored vehicle or helicopter, or passed through one checkpoint. In fact, the roads were eerie and deserted.

Suddenly I noticed that I was approaching the Tappan Zee Bridge. Suddenly I noticed that my right turn signal was on and I was taking this exit, heading into Manhattan.

Apparently, I was the only one out driving that day who felt they had to go in to New York City. I was downtown and in Union Square within about 20 minutes. I parked in the garage next to the yoga studio my friend owned and went in. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there, how long I was going to stay in NYC, or who or what I was trying to see, exactly. I made my way up the stairs to the yoga studio on the second floor. It was open. I didn’t recognize the person behind the desk—a new employee. She said “are you here for Tonglen practice?” Apparently I was, so I said “yes.” She said, “we’ll be starting in 10 minutes” and indicated the front studio. I took a seat on a cushion in the back and watched as the room filled up. I looked out the big picture windows that faced onto 14th Street and imagined what was just beyond—St. Vincent’s Hospital, the Village, Soho, Tribeca, the Financial District. We were less than 2 miles from what wasn’t yet called Ground Zero.

September 12th was as bright as September 11th had been. The sun was streaming through the windows and the light was thick with dust and particles. The air smelled heavy, like burning rubber and metal. I briefly wondered what exactly it was that I was breathing in. But there was no time to consider this further—practice began. The gong rang. The 30 or so people in the room began to settle. The first minutes of practice involved simply attuning to the breath, coming in, going out. Breathing in some sense of this new reality and breathing out to meet it. We can’t undo it. We can only be in it.

In Buddhist thought, to die unexpectedly is considered the most difficult circumstance in which to find one’s bearings in the bardo. You are likely to be quite surprised upon finding yourself dead. You don’t know where you are. It is a state of extreme disorientation and suffering. Thus, family and friends are asked not to beseech their dear ones to return, or even to long for their presence—this furthers the confusion of the being who is now moving on. Instead, we say and feel something like “You are dead now. It’s OK. We support you on your journey. You have our love.”

Tonglen practice began. We imagined that we were surrounded by innumerable unseen confused souls, very surprised, very upset, very, very frightened. In silence, we offered companionship and courage. The instruction is first to connect with your own suffering and then extend to take in the suffering around you. Breathe into that. Relax around it. Then connect with your own goodness—your sadness for others, the strength you have to offer, your very willingness to help, even if you have no idea how—and breathe that out, offer it, give it away. Do it again and again. Imagine the suffering around you as dark, thick soot and breathe it in, offer to take it. Now breathe out light, bright, cool air. Now do it again. And again. And again. As we practiced, I realized that the air itself literally met the description. It was dark. It was thick. It was sooty. I tried not to space out and reject it. I failed. I tried again. We breathed in the dust of the World Trade Centers, the particles of blood and bone and computer keyboards, and breathed out, maybe, something cleansed and pacified.

After the practice I went back out to the street. I was going to try to walk as close as I could to the site. The first thing I did was look up for the Towers to get my bearings, but they weren’t there. I started down Sixth Avenue, normally so loud and chaotic, now closed to all but foot traffic and emergency vehicles. Droves of people were wandering slowly, some alone, some in pairs or small groups. The streets of lower Manhattan were full. No one wanted to be alone, yet there was nothing to say; there was silence, broken only by police or fire sirens coming up behind people, trying to get by. They parted for them without looking.

Manhattan was closed off at Houston Street so I turned and walked back through the side streets of the West Village, also full. The crowd grew bigger as I returned to my starting point, Union Square. I looked up to see it filled with people—wandering about, crying, embracing, sitting expressionless. Someone had unraveled a huge roll of brown butcher paper, at least 40 feet long. It was weighted down by dozens of candles and vases of flowers and was already largely covered with scrawled prayers, drawings, questions, words of shock, words of pain, attempts at explanation. Most were exhortations against hate of any kind and sorrow for all victims. For the thousandth time since I’d moved there and away, I thought how decent New Yorkers are, how kind, how open, and how passionately and always I will love New York City.

To close a meditation practice, Buddhists do something called “dedicating the merit.” It’s a way of saying “whatever benefit may have been generated by my practice is offered for the benefit of all sentient beings.” You give it away. My teacher says that not dedicating the merit is like not pressing the save button before shutting your computer off—you may have done a lot of work but you’ll probably have to start over. So this is what I wrote on that long scroll of brown paper, weaving words between candles:

By the confidence of the golden sun of the great East,
May the lotus garden of the Rigden’s wisdom bloom.
May the dark ignorance of sentient beings be dispelled.
May all beings enjoy profound, brilliant glory.

I circled around Union Square a few more times and returned to my car for the rest of the drive home.

I think I could turn and live with animals,

they are so placid and/self-contained

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself

Recently, I’ve been asking you lovely readers to let me know if you have any questions or topics you’d like me to address in a blog post. I’ve received some amazing, deep, and deeply heartfelt questions. Stay tuned to hear riffs on issues such as:

“How can I maintain hope and foster hope in others in difficult circumstances?”

“I am interested in the subject of empathy – and especially cases when empathy is so strong that some people’s emotions and thoughts trouble you for days after. What to do?”

“How to overcome the fear of loneliness with an open heart. I’ve been longing for love and missing the intimacy that I had with my ex since our relationship ended fifteen months ago.”

“Any tips on maintaining relationship w chronically negative people? I’m a pos person…they’re bringing me down!”

Great, great questions/issues. But thought I’d start off with something a little more personal. This one was from Angela:

What is the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn so far in your life?  and….  (I have to ask two):  if you were marooned on a desert island and could have three things along to make your stay more tolerable, what would they be?

First off, I appreciate the personal questions, Angela, so thank you. The hardest lesson I’ve had to learn in my life is that aging is real. It is so painful to watch the greying of those around you, much less your own. When I see that my husband’s black-as-coal sideburns are now flecked with gray, I feel overwhelming tenderness for him and connect on the spot with his vulnerability. (btw, I may have an entire head of gray hair, but since I’ve been dyeing my hair every color in the rainbow since I was about 16, I would have no clue.) I see his aging and death unfurl before us and I feel a sock to the gut. And forget about my own aging. I can hardly bear to look at myself in the mirror. When I catch a glimpse, I wonder who is that middle-aged lady and then I look again and by some optic trick, re-image myself as someone I recognize/want to be, someone youthful and smooth. It’s almost like some inner terror gets its hands on the lens and refocuses me into a more pleasing visage. It’s weird. Aging is painful for everyone, but for Westerners and women, I think we make it especially hard on ourselves. Worship of youth culture and whatnot. So that is extremely difficult.

As far as the marooned on a desert island question—I get three things?! Excellent! I would like the words of my teacher, my husband, and lots and lots of paper and pens. We could scrounge for bottles to stick our missives in, toss them into the big blue sea and hope they end up where they’re supposed to go. Hey, that’s not too different than what I do in my non-desert island life. Weird.

Thanks, Angela

And if you, dear reader, would like to suggest a topic/ask a question, let’s do this thing. Email me or post in comments.

Are you (or do you know) someone who is looking for an unpaid internship that will give an insider view of publishing, writing, and building a business to support your creative habits?

Building a business around my writing has taken a toll on my writing and I’m looking for an intern to work with me 10-15 hour/week.

We can work together in person and/or virtually, although Boston area is preferred. I will help you figure out how to get credit if you are in college studying related topics.

Tasks:

• Manage social media contacts
• Research best practices for self-publishing print-on-demand books, e-books, and audiobooks
• Research best practices for developing apps that extend the brand of my publications
• Stay abreast of current social media trends that could benefit marketing efforts
• Post my writing to the various platforms I use (Wordpress blog, Facebook, Facebook fan page, Tumblr, Twitter, and so on)
• Assist with administrative tasks relating to travel, mailings, database management, and so on

In 2005, I was on the TODAY show to discuss my now 0ut-of-print book, The Hard Questions for Adults and Their Aging Parents. For some reason, they just featured it on their site today and someone sent me the link, so I’m sharing it with you.

In the last few weeks, I’ve come across some articles (here in USA Today and here on CNN.com) about the necessity and difficulty of talking about death and dying with your parents (and/or your children). My parents have been kind enough to have such discussions with me and my siblings–about their wishes, fears, plans, hopes–from both practical and emotional standpoints. There is no question that entering into such a conversation is one of the bravest and kindest things a family can do together. My book captures such questions and offers suggestions for how to enter into this extremely difficult (and rewarding, moving, confusing, sad, loving) dialogue.

If you want to check out the book, you can find used copies on Amazon and the like, and you can also purchase a new copy from me. If you’d like me to inscribe it in any way, just let me know. I admire any and everyone who is willing to open up to this topic, even just a little bit.

I remember when I was 8 or 9 years old, lying on the floor of my bedroom, begging, pleading, gripping an arm to pull an invisible his ear toward me to say, Please. Make. Me. Pretty. Please. Pretty. Please. Lying there, thinking oh no, what if I’m not, what if I’m not? I don’t know where all this came from–from the ether, I suppose, the TV, the movies, music, all the venues where beautiful women were exalted, showered with love, wealth, power. Power. Power comes from beauty–for women. Now, with age, is power lost or can it finally be discovered?

Power granted isn’t actually power, is it? Power assumed, is.

Do you feel powerful today? Powerfully genuine, that is. Open. Fearless. Unapologetically passionate. Protecting and radiating your brilliance and tenderness with the power of a hundred thousand suns…that kind of power.

Turn on the pilot. Light a match. Drop it. Go. Assume the power.

PS Thanks to Danielle LaPorte and Susannah Conway for hipping me to this clip.

Hiro Boga, Jennifer Louden, Mahala Mazerov, and I have taken it upon ourselves to write on the same topic, and publish our work on the same day. This is the second time we’ve done this; the first time, our topic was writing. Today, it is home. Click on their names to read their lovely pieces. It is an honor to co-create with them!

When I was a little girl, I used to hide under my desk with a blanket and a book, pulling in the chair to erect an unseen gate, hoping against hope to go unnoticed for as long as it might take me to think my thoughts. (One day I heard a cough and realized that my brother, on the other side of the wall, was also under his desk…) This, I now see, was my first attempt to create a home, one where I could be who I actually was, although I would never have described it that way at 5 years old, or 8, or 12. This was just the beginning of longing for a place where the gate would swing open and I could safely emerge. By last count, I’ve tried to find a home in 20 domiciles in 6 different cities.  The last attempt was made just a few months ago when my husband and I moved from a house in the suburbs to a big loft in an industrial artists’ building.

This space suits me more than any I’ve ever lived in and so my desire for home is at a high pitch. If I can’t make it work here, then where? I like the big sweep of open space. The enormous skylights. The community of painters, sculptors, designers, and those who love them. (Or rent a room from them.) Most of all, I relish feeling the presence of others while being able to maintain solitude, which is a dream come true for one who loves people beyond all reason but is an inveterate, incontrovertible introvert. Given all the choices in the world, I will pick an apartment every time. I am a city person, there is no doubt.

I left my parents’ house in the suburbs when I was 16 and from that moment searched for a place for myself, with no frame of reference whatsoever. The only thing I knew was that it would probably be outside of conventional life—that I wouldn’t find it in an education, a relationship, or any lifestyle I had ever seen. So I didn’t go to college, didn’t create a household with another until I was almost 40, and have ended up with a job that requires/allows me to be alone all day long. (I really, really, really like being alone. I didn’t even live with my husband for the first 3 years of our marriage.)

From the outside, people look at my life and tell me how “brave” I’ve been for undertaking this search, for the risks I’ve taken, the stands I’ve made, the adventures I’ve been on. But I know the truth. I know exactly what has motivated me and it’s way more about fear than courage. I’m terrified of walking into my own home, showing exactly who I am, and not being embraced or even noticed; that the inner and outer noises will be so loud that I won’t be able to hear my own voice—and that if I am seen, am heard, I will not be loved. I’m terrified of finding myself in a place that looks like home but doesn’t feel like it, where the only spot that feels right is under my desk, unseen and not looked for, sunk in silence and not listened to, unrecognizable.

Today I sit at my desk not under it, but my posture is the same: I am poised in silence, listening for the opening of the secret gate. It is so easily missed.