empowerment – Spread Your Dreams

just write it out

there’s nothing particular that is on my mind, but a little stream of consciousness is good for the soul

i’ve starting lifting weights and today i did hex cage deadlifts – i think that’s the term- i know it’s dead lifts but i’m using a trainer for the first time ever and she’s tracking everything for me. i’d love to keep her on my team but i could only afford 8 sessions and so soon i’ll be finding a new, traditional gym. anyway, this morning at 6:30 I found myself deadlift 35kilos or about 77lbs – plus whatever the cage weighs – you don’t get credit for the weight of the apparatus that holds your weight, but I digress. the point i’m making is I did 6 reps at 30k and then 4 sets of 8 reps at 35 kilos which calculates to a total of 1300 kilos or 2860 lbs, thereabouts. when it adds up it’s kinda mind blowing.

presently my trainer writes out all the numbers. soon i’ll need to do that and i’m not looking forward to it but also it will be interesting to watch the numbers and how the correspond to my changing body. same goes for tracking food.

it all feels a little obsessive, but successful change doesn’t happen by chance. to make change last, for consistency to become transformative you have to stay on top of things and systematically create the consistency in your life. Or at least that what i’ve read from a lot of people who seem to be making change last.

new things

I found an old journal from high school. The entries feel awkward and painfully earnest- cringe is the term one could use- but they are real, unfettered, and filled with a sense of absolute certainty. As a teenager, everything feels immediate and intense because it’s never been felt before and there’s no possible way anybody else could be having These Big Feelings. Only later do you realize EVERY ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS was having those Big Feelings. In my writing, the only thing bigger than my feelings were my plans for my future. A numbered list was nearly printed in the front cover and continued through the 2nd page.

(Un)fortunately, I shared this journal with my daughter & we had tears in our eyes laughing through some of the entries. I let her keep it, but now she claims to have never seen it. I am wagering she took it to share with friends and it was misplaced. I’d be terrified to tell me, too, but it’s a Big Emotion I’d hug her through because those pages show I knew as little about the world as we all do at the tender age of 15, 16, 17. The thing about that journal & the dreams within its pages is that I completed very few of them, but I also have done things I had yet to know existed or that I’d love.

At 51 years old I’m just beginning to live a whole new version of another life. People talk about getting older, bodies hurting, and the word ‘can’t’ seems to generously pepper to many conversations. I recently had someone ask me, “Why are you doing so much? What are you training for?” I had to smile because I have barely gotten started, but I answered, “I’m training to be able to do whatever I damn well please when I am 90.”

I am blessed to have avoided injuries or to have worn out parts of my factory model, but that’s in part because I was not a sports kid. I was fairly strong and had decent endurance while in the Navy, but didn’t really start getting into strong condition until my kid was a toddler and I decided to train for a Tough Mudder race. Then single parenting hit and I more or less stopped. Then got serious about Krav Maga for a few years. Then Covid stopped the world. Now, I am getting going again with weight lifting, learning to breathe fire, and reconnecting to dance.

I can’t wait to see what unfolds when I have access to a strong body I’ve built to climb, lift, dance, swim far better than most people ”my age” who made choices not to find the new things, but to regret what they never did.

Keep moving. Live Large. Don’t say can’t.

an improv life

Through postponing dreams I learned how to be with myself. I learned to listen more than talk. I learned the power of patience. I learned that life is not a train to be ridden in whatever direction you hop on. You can get off the train at any moment because there is no script – Life is improv – and with that I will spend the next 20, 30, 40 years beginning each day not with what I wish could be but with the joy of choosing: yes, and.

fall a little more

fall a little more in love
	with life

expand your perimeter
	of possibility

take risks
do not gatekeep your life’s potential

your soul moves with direction
sit & listen to that direction

& then journey
	toward
	the
	story

	YOU

came to tell

sometimes the journey is shit

“Toxic” gratefulness negates the journey we are on – some things in life are just shit and maybe you don’t need to be grateful for the shit, but for the ability to keep moving forward. Accept the moment, live in it fully, with dignity. Recognize the obstacles, even on the slowest roads there can be speed bumps, and then look past those obstacles to a future where you can be grateful for your resilience. Build a life that allows you to sit in the moment you’ve created and embrace with a joy of self-reflection that acknowledges you survived some shit.

Accept the now – there is shit in the world and there is beauty – they co-exist – do not let either consume you – move through both with centeredness. Do right by those you meet. Navigate around those that block your joy/journey. Do not fear calling bullshit on bad news shit stirrers.

Present the present …. give love now.

To Be

If you are unable to sit in the stability of simpleness – a simple life – there will be no satisfaction in more. If you are not grounded in your core, more will never be enough, different will never satisfy, because your nervous system has not learned to be still. Once simply being is a place that doesn’t make you anxious, you will be able to step into new levels of growth because you will see there is not starting over or failure, but simply rebirth and completion. Simple does not mean less, but rather simple means To Be.

sixteen returns

I was contemplating all the things I contemplate when I masturbate. The places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, a couple of the people I’ve done- because they’re only a couple that really turn up in the darkness of my solitude- and amongst all of those thoughts 16-year-old me came roaring through and mad-as-hell.

Suddenly, we were back together on a train in 1991 and heading into Athens, Greece. She looked at me and said, “What the fuck happened to you? We were going to see the world, learn languages, fly planes, embed into war zones. TELL THE STORIES. Where you are today … that is not US, but I am stuck with YOU. I did not sign-up for the bullshit life your decisions have made for us, but there I am- sitting with you in a fucking office- day after day- feeling blood pressure and cortisol spike.”

“I get it. I don’t want to be there either, but Arwen is my heart and I can’t live all those dreams things until she’s launched.”

“I love her too, she’s my kid too and she wants the adventurous life you HAD, but better. SHE said it. So why did you fuck it up? Why did you stop being free and living your adventure?”

“I fell in love a man who had potential.”

“Was it really love,” it wasn’t a question, she knew the answer.

“We know now it wasn’t … it was hope, but it felt like what I thought love should feel like. I fell into the arms of what-if and potential felt safe.”

“You/me/us. We were the ones with potential. We always made our-self safe. You let us down.”

“I am fully fucking aware, but I love my kid and WE will get to launch soon too. The dreams never stopped, they just got delayed.”

It was enough to calm the 16-year-old that still sits within my heart. Her dreams will come true.

Resistance

Watching the country unravel under chaos puppets and knowing so much is up in the air so taking deep breaths, staying vigilant, and ready to step up if I see something going down. I know what to say and what my rights are and the rights of others- papers for me & kiddo are in order (though I do need to make copies). I’ve frozen my credit & opening a bank account with no connection to other companies or IRS. Building community and finding ways to be joyful.

As I watch what’s happening though, hearing about more folks in hospital for flu, avian flu decimating flocks, immigrant workers refusing to go to work for fear of ICE, and recently learning that prisoners are regularly allowed to fight fires in California for barely any wage. All these together send me to predictions. Our population will get hit with another pandemic soon- it may spread past our shores. Labor will get harder to fill for low wage jobs. The prison pipeline will become a larger economic boon to the government and their private contractors cronies. Soon immigrants will either be sent home or put in labor camps and victimless crimes will be prosecuted more harshly to provide able bodies for jobs from farming to firefighting. For the systems that hold power in this country, empathy has had its hands bound and voice gagged. The company store just gained an exponential boost.

Everything has a wave- a high and a low- good & bad- toward & back. We’ve just lived through a high spot in history- improved quality of life, equality, and a move in the right direction towards equity. It wasn’t the best, but it was high for the history of this nation. Now that we’ve had the high there is a low that must be survived and that part of the timeline has begun, but we can fight it from tipping too far down. We must see each other & within communities we must look out for others, pick up those falling behind. We can watch out for others and build longer tables. Come together in love and acceptance – embrace those who simply want to live their lives. Love has always been and will now continue to be the greatest resistance.

new year, new day

happy new year … time is shorter than ever for us and I intend to sop it up with glee. I will write more and read more and walk more and watch the world instead of screens and meet new people and try new things. I will keep in learning to fix old things and re-use instead of replace. I’ll meet more dogs and observe more birds. I won’t keep my mouth shut when my soul nudges me to speak. I hope to share most of my days with friends, and maybe lovers, but space and time will not be wasted begging people to join me in the joys of life that I have left to celebrate.

Some days will be hard. Some days will be sad. Some days I will want to be entirely alone and feel even more empty, and it will all be too much, but those days will pass, as they always have because life is cyclical.

I will miss some things and be surprised by tripping into others- I won’t be stingy with my presence by worrying over where I could be- I’ll open my heart and marinate in where I am. If I am no longer engaged, I won’t lose myself in wondering if I should stay, but arrange a graceful exit- or just cut strings depending on the situation.

In this new day, let it be known both my home and heart are always open to break bread & hold space for others who want to grow, heal, love, and live. I am here to celebrate each of us and to hold you when all you can do is cry because the tears prove we are still surviving.

We are each a beautiful soul- each a speck of the universe that is a universe in each of us. It is inconceivable that we are in these meatsuits topped with an organic computer, the likes of which the most advanced of the organic computers can barely conceive, and we just incoherently fumble through our lives- barely looking up from the machines we’ve made and are now using as oracles to guide us on how to live. It’s an obscene waste of the miracle of life’s magic and while they are useful, I vow to re-connect with the world beyond the screen, using these machines to grow human connection, rather than limit my time from others. I’m 50 this year and life is only going to get bigger. I’ve been learning and letting go and now I get to use all those tools to really begin loving & living.

From those of you near my age (or for godsake younger), I don’t want to hear how your body is too old now or how something you loved can no longer be done. Do not excuse yourself out of living because you’ve lived your days into a bored or stifled place. Your body may ache from inertia, but it’s not done unless you let it be. Each day is a new day and each day we are gifted a choice whether or not to let our soul shine brightly through the conduit of our meat suit or to let our soul dim. Our big ol’ brains will work to compute a shoulda-woulda-coulda triangulation of the easiest path of decisions on living to draw out the baseline shelf life of your meat suit, but is that really that life your soul deserves? In the end, our brains short circuit and our meat suit ceases to function, but that small voice that has believed in you more than your brain could ever imagine … that soul light wants to shine. Your soul doesn’t want to live at baseline, your soul wants to be the MVP of it’s universe and as we are each a speck of the universe and a whole universe within- BE your MVP.

I will do nothing if not encourage others to declare the same joyfully reckless assault against inertia & apathy. We haven’t survived all the bullshit life has thrown at us just to sit in the corner and wait to die. Every day we wake up, life is a new opportunity, a new story to write. Let your soul shine. Claim your story.

free range mama

I was sitting in a very hot bath, enjoying a semi-silence, but Zach Bryan cooed in the other room.

The other room, my daughter’s was a spotless room, because she cleaned head to toe, while she had COVID, but no fever that day. As I sat in my bath, she was completely locked in on her chemistry, advanced chemistry, thank you very much. She’s incredibly capable and it’s fascinating to watch her navigate this complicated world with such grace.

Meanwhile, my room was a complete disaster. It’s true. I had worked all day, and it was not as bad as it had been in the past. I suppose, at least, clothes were not strewn across the floor, but random computer cables were and jewelry adorned my dresser top with scattered indecision. There were papers out because I had thought I might need them someday, and that someday has passed, but I hadn’t had the gumption to toss them yet. There might be another someday. It was just a hot mess.

But I lounged in my bath and I dreamt about a future where I can spread my dreams. My future and what I want to do and where I want to go in this world. And I know I want a place.

I want a place that my baby will always be able to come back to, a place that both of us can always call home. Presently, that’s my mom’s land, the last bit of our family land. I know my mom won’t always be there. She will die at some point. It’s just the guarantee of living. Once she dies, I don’t know if I still want the land where she lives. It’s just outside of Austin and it will get busier and more crowded. Water will become more of an issue, as we may or may not continue to get rain. And so I thought about it. I thought maybe I will look for a place far north- somewhere where things are damp and green and water and food grows with the seasons.

This idea of place is something to think about for my future, but it’s not required for me. A place in the future comes down to: I want my child to always have a place to come home to. She has commented, “I don’t really have a childhood home.” It’s true, I bought and sold two houses- the first sold because of divorce and the second from being overwhelmed with managing a home on my own. Selling both is one of the few regrets I have in life, but there’s no reason we can’t create one for the future. A place her children will always know, should she choose to have them, and a place she can return whenever she needs.

I want to work toward that and in that, I want a place that I can lock up and leave and go away from for months at a time. I still dream of volunteering with Peace Corps. I should have done it with or without her dad so many years ago, but he said the psych evaluation was foolish and dug his heels in against having one done. I acquiesced and dropped the application process. A bit later, an opportunity opened for me in New York and I was able to leverage that into a move to the City for us. While that was an experience I would never trade, it’s not the calling of volunteer community development and support I still crave. Once my daughter has flown, that will be a goal to achieve- serving in Peace Corps or with another organization.

I also want to hike great distances- the Appalachian Trail- America’s southern borders- at least some of the Pacific Crest- to walk the Santiago Trail in Spain- the caves in France where it is said Mary Magdalene lived after Christ’s ascension. I don’t have a goal to scale any mountains, but I want to see the world on foot. Maybe a little on bicycle, but there’s something about my feet to the earth, step after step, crossing miles and passing through time, that makes me really happy.

While I walk, I want to hear the stories of the people I meet- collect them like a bowerbird, collects shiny objects. I want to collect the stories of people’s lives and wear them in my soul. Woven like the stardust, they are. Stardust that is now only atoms of air that rest upon our ears, and I can carry with me. I want to learn the fiddle so I can play the woven songs into the night.

I want to learn ASL so I can share the stories of people that can’t hear my language. Other languages as well- a babel fish placed in my ear would be a wonderful addition- so long as I can reply to all.

I just want to be of the world, and I want to love within this world. To me, that is love. It’s your soul sharing with souls. Stop for a bit here and there and hither- work in kitchens or learn massage so I can make due. Wherever I go. There’s cooking. There’s writing. There’s organizing. I’m sure I can get it together to be on the waves of the world. Then quietly there will always be a place- that place I’ve set aside for us. Small and simple- accessible from a second bus and a ride from a local to the top of a long road, at the end of which will sit a little house overlooking a nice, low, curving hill that ends with water. It will always end with water.