odds

Odds mean nothing if you're in the exceptional few.
This can be a blessing, or it can not.

touch

Monkeys need touch. People are monkeys (well, okay, apes. Well, okay, it's more complicated. Just go with me here). Ergo, people need touch. We seem to forget this. In fact, we seem to put effort into ignoring it, detaching from it, burying this most primal of needs.

Are we nuts?

Over the years there have been studies. Lots of them. They all seem to show the same thing: yes, we really do need touch; no, ignoring it doesn't work; yes, we actually need the brain and body chemistry caused by touch, and no, it's not all about sex.

consider this: cuddle parties.

I had this idea yesterday. An image. Riding the subway, standing on the bus, the person behind you reaches forward, says, May I?, gently puts a hand on your shoulder. You turn around, say, Thanks, that feels nice.

Can you even imagine?

intention

Several years ago I got intentional about intention. Prompted by friends and my life, I started paying attention: to what I wanted, to what I really wanted, to the extra doubts and thoughts that could get in my way, to the expectations of failure which do, in fact, function just like expectations of success and beauty.

I have gotten lost along the way several times, but I have kept practising.

And now, it seems, the intentions have caught up with me. I have learned that when I am very clear about what I want or need, it is good to articulate it, write it down, refine it, and reread it. If it is supremely clear I make sure to keep a copy or two. I do it without really thinking about its efficacy, partly I think because thinking too hard makes room for doubts which undermine the whole thing. I double-check it in the way of people carefully making wishes, to make sure that there are few or no misinterpretations. I also check for unnecessary restrictions which are likely to make the whole thing unlikely. Then I go on about my life.

I did this recently out of habit.

I just got what I asked for. Very nearly to the letter. Now I don't believe in an intercedent god. What I do believe in is a universe which tends toward the good.

And thank goodness for that. *smile*

turning up

Sometimes thing turn up, and sometimes they turn upward. Sometimes the task, then, is to accept the upturn and not question its presence too much. Certainly it is bad form to try and figure out why an upturn is really a downturn, especially if it isn't. Really, I must remember that more often. Sometimes things turn up, and sometimes they turn upward. Sometimes, they do both. *smile*

building it in

Many years ago, I discovered creativity. I figured out that making stuff felt good. I made stuff without thinking too much about it--it was just what I did. Then I started to grow up, and my to-do list got longer, and "make stuff" wasn't on there. No drawing, no painting, no hammering and nailing, no writing stories or poems...
It never occured to me to write it down, so when my life got busy and the to-do list took over, it disappeared. By accident. Yes, really.

...but as an adolescent I was still doing stuff: playing flute, writing stories for English class, singing in choirs, being a theatre techie. It wasn't quite as good, but there was enough. By university it was starting to fade. Flute was gone, English classes were pure analysis, theatre tech was a job instead of an avocation, and when I graduated, it all came to a grinding halt.

I didn't even realise what I'd done to myself for years. I couldn't figure out why I was more depressed, more tired, and less inspired than ever. I went to India for eight months, in relative cultural and linguistic isolation. I took a copy of Julia Cameron's The Artists Way. And I figured it out.

Hallelujah! I had the answer! I returned home, determined to make writing my life, get an MFA, teach and write and teach and write.

Then I got back. Needed a job. Needed an apartment. Had a job. Had an apartment. Wrote my to-do list. "Create body of work for MFA application" was somewhere below "dust refrigerator". Besides, it was now work in itself. It never got done, and meanwhile I ran into a tangle of experiences that led me down this other path to seminary. "Knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back." (Robert Frost)

Somehow, though, I keep picking up arts anyway. I use my needs as an excuse to take up knitting, sewing, woodworking, ("Oh, I'll just build that table instead of buying it...")

...and that has been my saving grace. Creation is built in. It doesn't show up as a separate, insignificant item which can be shuffled to the bottom. Thank you notes are a fifteen minute drawing exercise (thank you, Strathmore!) and a five minute gratitude meditation. Wool socks are a quick two-week project, preceded by a tactile play session choosing yarn. Do I sound like Martha Stewart? The trick is balance. Always balance. When it slips from joy to stress, simplify. When the stress is lack of joy, slow down. This works for food, transportation, life.

May I remember this more often.

missing tree

My landlady hired a company to cut down the only tree at this apartment building. It stood in the corner of the parking area, shading the yard and being green and pretty in the view from my east-facing window. Now it's a barren expanse of concrete.

The tree cutting guys said it's probably a liability issue, mandated by the insurance company, even though the tree was healthy.

Dammit.

suddenly

good enough to eat
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