Letting Go

When I first moved to Panama nine months ago (!!) I sent an email to an author I knew who told me that after self-publishing his own book, he eventually got to the point where he had to have the majority of the stock destroyed because it didn’t sell.

When he told me this story – as we were sitting at a Farmer’s Market and I was trying to sell my cookbooks – I remember being astounded that he could admit it so easily and without any self recrimination (it was years later, mind you, and he did admit it was a really humbling experience) but I also remember having a sense of envy that he’d been able to let go without it being a sign to him that he had failed.

Somewhere along the road, I started to hate my cookbooks. There are many reasons for this. One, they never made me any money. Two, for the first time in my life I was (and am) in debt because of them. Three, I felt like a fake when it came to talking about wine; I learned a lot about local wine from writing the books, but it was also the part that I needed the most help with, and I felt like a fake pretending that I knew anything. Four, and most importantly, it felt like the books were tying me to North Central Washington when everything else in my body was telling me it was time leave: that my destiny and my heart lay elsewhere. Cookbooks were never what I wanted to write when I quit a corporate job in Bellevue to write a book, but there was a niche and I had the skills to fill it. Even if I didn’t know a lot about wine, I did and do know about layout, design, cooking, project management; I had just spent a year researching the publishing industry for books closer to my heart, and of course I knew how to write and edit. I also knew the people in the local wine industry. All of this made sense, but it didn’t really make my heart sing the way that other writing did.

Before I go any further, let me say that I know this is a skewed perspective. When my first cookbook came out it was invigorating; I was on a high and I loved it. It was only later that the cookbooks began to weigh me down, and that I realized I had veered off of the path where I had originally wanted go. Obviously I learned a lot from writing the cookbooks, and any experience that teaches you what you don’t want is just as important as teaching you what you do want, so I don’t consider it a complete loss. All I am saying is that I am finally processing some things that I pushed down and out of the way in the process of writing the books because what I was hearing and experiencing from everyone else didn’t jive with what I was feeling internally.

Anyway, when I first got to Panama I sent an email to this author, asking him how he had arrived at the point where he could let go of his books and simply move on. He gave me some simple yet profound advice: they will be important to you, until one day they aren’t. That day, his advice implied, you will finally be able to let go.

That day arrived about a week ago. In the midst of being sick, I have started to really look at my life: what I’m still carrying around that doesn’t serve me and the things that I keep to myself that cause me to be alienated. My cookbooks are something that I have wanted to let go of for a long time.

So I did. Without much ceremony besides a post on Facebook and some emails, I put them down. I deleted the Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest accounts that I only had because of them, I started selling them at cost, and I completely let go of what I had been holding onto, because it was no longer important.

Invisible audience, I have not felt this free in a long time.

I’ve been doing some SEO marketing work for a freelancing blog lately, and one of the final nudges I received was from this blog post. It talks about how many of the most successful people in business today never finished college, have never really followed all the rules, and that they know when to let go and move on.

It made me realize that not only was it ok to let go, but it was actually the BEST THING I could do: put down what wasn’t working to make room for something new, something that DOES make my heart sing, doesn’t feel like a drag and will make me money. Not only that, but I realized that with every other big life-changing decision I've made, I have had to leap first, and THEN the net appeared: with my cookbooks I had been waiting to pay off my debt before letting them go, instead of trusting my intuition and past experiences that told me that it was ok to let go first and find another income source to pay off the debt in the new space I'm creating.

It also made me realize that, as much as it appears I don’t follow a lot of the rules, I can actually disregard the rules entirely. I see a counselor here, and many of the conversations we have are comprised of me telling her something that I think is true and her asking gently, “Whose voice is that?”

The number and depth of these “rules” that I have internalized is staggering. I am selfish for moving far away from my family. I am selfish for wanting to take the time to figure out my own emotional issues and try to heal them when I should be focused on a career or starting a family. I am worthless because I’m not making more money. I am unsuccessful because I don’t have more to my name. That if I possess a skill, I am required to use it; if there’s a niche I can fill, then by God, it is my moral obligation to fill it. That there is something wrong with me because I write a blog like this one, where I share the parts of myself that should be kept quiet. There is something wrong with me because I need a lot of alone time; that the thought of the white picket fence “American dream” existence literally makes me want to run; that I will be burned at the stake for admitting that I am not Christian or atheist, but pagan. That no one will love me if I finally let go and admit that there is a growing part of myself that I have kept hidden for too long that is fascinated by a divine feminine power, astrology, the phases of the moon, tarot, energetic healing, and herbal remedies. 

There. I said it. All of it. And you know what? This is not new information. It is simply information that is no longer important to keep to myself. I have finally let go of the idea that I can control anything that anyone thinks about me by hiding the parts of myself that are most sacred for fear they will be trampled on. If you’re going to think I’m a failure because I gave up on my cookbooks, there’s nothing I can do to change that. If you’re going to think I’m loony because I would rather celebrate the solstice than Christmas and because I feel more connected to God, the Goddess or the Universe on a hiking trail or with my feet in a river, then you’re in the wrong place, invisible audience member. I have already let go of you, and you are welcome to let go of me.

I am letting go, and in that process I am making room for better things to come along: opportunities, people and situations that make my heart sing instead of making me want to hide my head in the sand; adventures that energize me instead of those that suck the life out of me and make me feel like I have to hide who I really am if I want to be loved.

So here’s to letting go, and the lightness of my new existence outside the rules.

Love and light kisses,

Morgan

What AM I Running From? Part 2: The Next Revelation

A couple days ago I went to see some local herbalists. I have been feeling worse and worse, and when I saw them at the Tuesday market, Elizabeth looked worriedly at me and said, “You look exhausted.”

“I feel awful,” I said, and almost collapsed crying in her arms.

I’m not very good at admitting that I need help. In fact, it’s not all that strange that I made it to this point before I reached out: in the last week I’ve been to three doctors, had 2 rounds of blood tests done and have now spent two hours with two wonderful women who offer natural remedies, all in the week that I canceled every plan I had because I can barely stand up without getting dizzy.
Anyway. I am tired, and I went to Elizabeth and Diane because the first set of antibiotics the doctors gave me for an eye infection didn’t work; next I thought they had misdiagnosed a bladder infection (I’ve had enough to know that I don’t have the symptoms) and the second round of antibiotic eye drops didn’t seem to be working either.

We got through my 10 page medical questionnaire, looked back at my history of antibiotic use, candida issues, general overall health problems and lab results and it seemed clear to them that 1) my immune system is shot from too many antibiotics, hence the ear infections, sore throat, cough and pink eye in both eyes in the last two months that will not heal 2) I am dragging ass because of a thyroid issue and adrenal system exhaustion and 3) I’m physically suffering from emotionally working through a lifetime’s worth of bad habits, defense mechanisms and fear.

We talked for a long time. They applauded what I was already doing for myself – I’ve been religious about the candida diet for a month now, plus in general I know enough to be eating and drinking a lot of the right sort of things to help myself – and it somehow came up that I have a copper IUD.

“You should take it out,” said Diane.

“I can’t believe they still are putting those into people. The toxicity is definitely not helping your system,” said Elizabeth.

I’ve had the IUD for three years. Before I had the IUD, I really and truly had nightmares of being a single mother living in a one-room shack, trying to comfort a baby, thinking to myself “Oh my God, this is real, this is not a dream and I cannot wake up,” and having no idea who the father was, let alone how to get support from him.

Since I’ve had the IUD, I haven’t had a single dream like that. I also recently heard a horrible story about an illegal abortion in a third world country that did not allow them, and after all the research about being on hormonal birth control for too long and how it can increase your chance of cancer, the IUD seemed to be a good option when I got it: no more nightmares, no worries about needing Plan B, the effects of long term hormonal birth control, broken condoms or even thinking about abortions or the emotional repercussions of having one.

Let’s be honest here, shall we? I am not sexually active enough that these are even THAT big of a deal, but when you travel as much as I do, finding yourself in rural areas in Catholic countries, the last thing you want to worry about is whether the resources available to you if you make a bad decision in the States are too far away to help you now.

At any rate, we discussed my peace of mind, other options, and the general state of my health and how it could be helped by my poor body not having to deal with yet another foreign object.
And then I went home, exhausted, loaded myself up with the tinctures they gave me and went to bed.

At 6 a.m. the house alarm went off. I’m house sitting and had been warned this would happen for often no good reason, which is what this was. Nevertheless, nothing scares the bejesus out of you like being woken out of a dead sleep…or a good dream, like the one I had been having, but didn’t remember until later.

At 3 p.m. that same day I laid down on the couch and suddenly it came back to me: the dream I had been having when the alarm went off for no good reason. I was looking at a little girl with chubby cheeks, and she was looking up at me over the edge of a countertop. She was my daughter.
In the dream, I was totally and completely content, and she was beautiful. I remember thinking in the dream that I was surprised I didn’t have a boy (a psychic coworker in a previous job I had predicted I would have a boy) but otherwise I just watched myself be totally content and interact with this wonderful little girl that was mine.

At 3 p.m., this memory of the dream set off huge alarm bells, internal this time but just as piercing as the house alarm had been at 6 a.m. Despite my exhaustion, I suddenly wanted to leap up off the couch and find the nearest sugar (which, due to the candida cluster in my gut, I cannot eat if I want any chance of getting better anytime soon); I thought about if there was any alcohol in the house (ditto for alcohol); I got a huge knot in the middle of my chest and found myself close to crying.

I stopped and looked at all this. What was this feeling, and where had it come from? It was not the dream itself that had caused the panic, but the thought that came with it: this could be my life. I could be looking at my future: I could be happy.

Something screamed NO! and tried to shut a door. The panic grew worse. Then it came to me: if I had it, it could be taken away.

This is so cliché it’s almost embarrassing. It is such a heard-of realization to have that I have thought about it many times before and always dismissed it. Nah, that’s not me; I'm not afraid of any of that shit. I am introspective enough I would know, I thought: if I was afraid of letting others get close because if they got close that meant I would be torn apart if I lost them, I would know it by now.

But I didn’t. Not in the way that hit me then. It was like realizing I had only lived in half a house, completely ignoring and unaware of the wall that blocked me off from all the best parts, and then suddenly one day I walked straight into it and panicked at the thought that once I started incorporating all the things that were on the other side, I would never be the same again.

And that’s true. And suddenly, I also know it’s true that I have purposely lived in a way that kept me cut off because it was easiest, best, because it hurt the least. This is separate from my need for alone time and quiet; there are plenty of people who have that AND have other people in their lives. This is separate from the many friends I have, but it does have to do with how much I am willing to open up to them. This has been something that was kept separate from me, because the realization that I was holding myself hostage was too much to bear.

Another realization on top of this one toppled onto me, and it rolled me right off the couch to cry on the floor in a ball. It was my grandmother. Somehow it became clear that I had gotten this idea from her death. I was 14, and Nana went in for a fairly low-risk surgery to remove a small cancerous spot on her lung – she had already survived having 70 percent of her liver removed due to cancer, for crying out loud – got an infection in the hospital and died.

And I still miss her. I was her first grandchild, and I was special to her. She’s the first one I ever remember baking with; some of my most treasured possessions are her recipes, several of which I have memorized, two of which I put in both of my cookbooks; in fact, one of those cookbooks is dedicated to her.

I don’t remember being especially devastated when she died, but it seems this idea may have stemmed from there: the idea that all you love dearly will eventually be lost to you, and therefore it’s best not to love dearly at all. That, and a lesson learned through her that cemented that idea: two weeks after my uncle, my grandmother’s first born, graduated college, he was racing a car on a track, lost control, regained it and was on his way back into the race when he turned his head to look behind him and was decapitated by a guy-wire.

I don’t mean to be dramatic, but that is truly what happened. I have heard the story countless times from my dad, who tells it without much emotion – he was 16 at the time – but each and every time, unbidden, I have thought of my grandmother, and the pain of losing the first child you ever poured your heart into, before his time and at the prime of his life, in a nightmarish and unexpected way.

So you see, invisible audience? Somehow it was hardwired into me: somehow and some way I began to associate the best kind of connection, intimacy and love with the inevitable pain of loss, before the intimacy was even there.

When I look back on the people I have let myself be close to, specifically the men I have dated, I have always been thankful that they chose to leave me, because ultimately and in hindsight it was clear that they weren’t right for me. At the same time, I never saw any other options besides them: it’s not like men have been beating down the doors to date me my whole life. What I never really considered, however, was that perhaps I didn’t even see them: that they weren’t even on my radar, that I wasn’t on theirs, either, because something in them picked up on “deeply and unconsciously emotionally unavailable” and just moved on without a thought, and I intuited “is someone I deserve and will be happy with; could eventually crush me to lose” and unconsciously turned away.

Jesus this is exhausting. I cried loudly and hard for over an hour, mostly on the floor, when I had this revelation. And then I got into a bathtub with a cup of naturally sweetened hot chocolate and laid there until the water went cold.

To be honest, invisible audience, I have to wonder if this is powerful or interesting to anyone but me; if you've gotten to the point that I have, where you wonder why you're still reading, because it seems the layers will never end and the cascading tears will never stop. I wonder at my need to write out loud, and whether it will always feel this way.

I wonder all that, and yet I know that writing out loud is the answer for me; even if all the traffic on my blog is spam traffic, even if it seems redundant and ridiculous to write this out into the internet when it's part of an important internal process, it feels important nonetheless. And therefore, if you've made it this far, I will simply thank you for reading, and I will keep writing all the same...for my own peace of mind, my own needs, and my own capability to process what I keep dredging up from the depths. Maybe what I write is helpful to you, but most importantly, know that the fact that you're reading this, whether you ever reveal yourself or not, is important to me.



Love and revelatory kisses,
Morgan

Release: A Poem

Hello invisible audience,

I'm not feeling well. I've been sick, and it's taking a long time to get better. Nevertheless, it has become clear to me that it's time to show an even deeper part of myself here and hope that this is a safe place to do so -- to face the fear that I have discovered I always unconsciously feel. I fear that the world I live in is not actually safe for me, and I want to choose to live in it fully anyway.

In her TED talk, Brené Brown talks about the power of vulnerability: to open up to others to create a connection, and how the root word of courage is coeur: the French word for heart. To act courageously is to act from the heart, and move forward despite the fear.

I am not physically threatened. There is no one threatening to punish me in any way for what I do or don't do (well, within reason). And yet somewhere deep in there, there has always been a fear that if I truly show who I really am, no one will get it, like me or accept me. It is only in realizing how deep this fear goes that I have realized how inauthentic I truly am when I operate from this idea: that I present only the parts of myself that seem palatable, instead of all of me: all of my geeky, caring, cheesy and sensitive nature. 

I write poetry. I have since I was really young, but I rarely share it. I've been writing more of it lately, and some of it is howling in grief and pain, but much more of it is simply howling: it's loud, insistent, and tired of playing the responsible girl that lives by the rules, letting myself be held back and diminished by some idea I learned somewhere that I should be seen and not heard.

Despite the fact that I feel physically diminished at the moment, laid flat by a series of maladies, I recently found myself doing a papier mache project that perhaps is the physical embodiment of this poem. She's not an award winner, but she's mine nonetheless, and her heart is out there in the air where anyone can see it...just like the me I'm trying to be.

So here's a poem for the week that I wrote a couple weeks ago. If you like it, well then, that's great. If you don't like it or don't get it, well then, tough shit. Please keep your thoughts to yourself, or at least don't share them with me.

Release

By Morgan Fraser


I am violent and vibrant in my glory:
The blind see only muted greens and docile smiles,
while within I have burst into flame.
It will not be long before I do not belong
it will not be long before the flame seizes the air I give it
and with a
WHOOSH
ignites the dry crackling tinder that is my past
It will not be long before the grief and sorrow
I have shouldered
feed the flame and turn to ash
as I am consumed finally by a blood-red heat:
a heart-led fire
its sound becoming deafening in my ears
as it builds to bonfire heights
and my dreams are carried skyward in the smoke, where they belong.

My arms raise to the full moon
to the stars, pale in comparison
the wind biting and invigorating
as I howl as loudly as I can
No longer the trapped wounded wolf
that has considered gnawing its own leg off to escape,
albeit forever maimed, to freedom
but the warrior with her war cry,
who has finally unleashed all the restraints put upon her,
shed her burdens, picked up her glistening blade
and cut deeply into her own chest,
to expose that beautiful beating heart to the air
so that she
and finally others, too
can hear that its rhythm
matches the waves that beat against the shore
because they are the same rhythm, you see:
the one brought about by the silver pull of the moon.

Love and rythmic kisses,
Morgan

The Pattern Part 2

Author's note: I wrote this whole post without having realized that I already wrote a post about my pattern this month. They are radically different, come to different conclusions about why I do what I do, and yet ultimately both are important parts of my pattern and have led me to make the same decision. Understanding them and how they fit together is slowly leading me to a better understanding of myself. Yes, to some extent they may be arguing opposite sides of the same point, and yet that is the beauty of being human: not always hanging on the logical, and instead reacting to and living with emotional responses.

Anybody who knows me knows my pattern; I’ve written about it, talked about it, and lived it for a really long time. Save up a bunch of money. Often, sell a car or the promise of a first-born child for extra cash. Pack everything into a ridiculously small (for the amount of time I’ll be gone) or ridiculously large (since I have to schlep it myself) backpack, depending on how you look at it. Go. Adventure. Peruse. Find the beauty and excitement in each new day in a new place. Be wowed by simple differences, by people with different cultures and practices; eat new foods and stand on the tops of new vistas or swim in new lakes, rivers and oceans.

One of the new rivers I've found nearby to swim in.

Often on purpose, I then take this to an extreme, in an attempt to suck every last endorphin, pleasure and moment of joy out of it. I call myself a travel addict, and this is why: I go seeking the hit, overload on the hit the way you would a meal that’s just too good to stop eating, and wind up comatose and lamenting your inability to know when to say when. I do this on purpose so that when I go home, the everyday will be welcome; the lack of new and exciting will come with a sense of peace, and I’ll be able to work on settling in without having to listen to the small voice in the back of my head that says, “But, I like it out there in the world.”

This is perhaps not really that big of a confession to make anymore, but my pattern was all about going to get what I needed and hoping, desperately, that this time it will be enough: that the 3 months backpacking through Australia would exhaust me enough that I would never need to do this again; that diving in the underwater caves on the Yucatán was something so amazing that it would tide me over for the rest of my life; that a summer in a hiker’s hut in the Alps working for a quickly degenerating alcoholic and beautiful views above the clouds from the summit would help me to realize that what I really wanted and needed was what was waiting for me at home: the chance to live a normal life, where these adventures are only part of the package, not the whole shebang.

I know, it sounds ridiculous to even say it. It sounds ridiculous to think that I could saturate my need for the unknown and the new adventure once, and never have to do it again. It sounds ridiculous, and yet somewhere in there, I thought it was the only way to do it, based on one small assumption: that I could not support my travel habit if I didn’t live in the States and have a job that would pay for it.
I kept coming back because I thought I had to; that that’s where the money was made. I kept coming back because I believed what everyone kept saying and what was implied: that there’s no way to make a living outside the States, that there’s no way to make a living without benefits, 401K’s, that life is not worth living without the creature comforts that are wanted and expected in the States. Ok, no one said that last one to me, but it’s apparent in the everyday there. In Boquete, I have seen perhaps one stroller; most women carry their children on their hips, without diaper bags. Most Panamanians don’t have cars, and therefore the public transportation – while fun, colorful and entertaining – is much more advanced than in a town of the same size in the States. It’s true that you can live on a lot less down here, but you also need less: there are fewer smartphones, two-car households, new fancy anything, multiple heavy bags of vegetables for sale at the local markets for more than $6. It is a relief to me because I live better here on less money, with fewer gadgets and a simpler way of life, and, despite what I’d always heard and always said, I’ve found work: more than I can do, and more than enough to sustain me while also giving me my time to write and continue to explore; jobs that could go with me if I left.

I was always looking at my pattern the wrong way, invisible audience. I thought the answer would come in figuring out how to fit into an American society; in getting a job that didn’t eat the life out of me, despite the fact that anything revolving around working for someone else outside of my own hours always has. I thought that my travels were a way to recharge, and yet I could never understand how people thought they could rejuvenate in the two-week window they would get a year at a corporate job. I had it all wrong not just because I was trying to work for someone else, but because I was trying to live a life I had never really wanted.

I am blessed, however, with an inability to stay in any single situation for a long amount of time if I am unhappy, and therefore I would escape again – even as I berated myself – almost every year, searching once again for the joy that I always found with little more than a backpack, a pair of tennis shoes and something to write in. I had my pattern wrong because I always believed people when they told me I was escaping, when in reality I kept running TOWARD my future, my joy, and my happiness, only to find it, get a hit and decide that I now had the strength of character to go back and try again: try to fit into a culture and a way of life that had never spoken to me, that I found confining and chain-like.

Even though I decided it awhile ago, and, in fact, on some level knew it before I left, I have realized that breaking out of my pattern has nothing to do with ending my desire to be abroad. Instead, it has to do with finally letting go of the idea that I am supposed to fit in the American box. Breaking my pattern has nothing to do with going back to a life that I ultimately always want to escape from. It has everything to do with running toward the life I have always wanted without apology, regret, or looking back. It has to do with closing the door once and for all on all the ideas I’ve had on the way I’m supposed to live, and finally wholeheartedly embracing who I’ve always been, and the truth that most people probably knew about me before I did. That’s right, invisible audience: breaking the pattern has little to do with going back, and everything to do with embracing the new adventures.

This morning as I sat outside in the yard, drinking local organic coffee and writing in my journal, a line came to me that I can't get out of my head:

If I want something different from what I've always had, I have to do something different than what I've always done.

You guessed it: I’m staying.




Love and new life kisses,
Morgan

Moving Forward Despite the Fear

I closed the door with the smile still on my face, but it dropped off with a big sigh as soon as I was no longer visible.

It is one of the somewhat fascinating parts of being human: the ability to experience more than one emotion at the same time. A stranger just drove away in my car, a well-taken-care-of 2002 Subaru Outback that was my pride and joy. I watched it leave from inside the slatted blinds with a mixture of excitement and stomach-roiling fear.

The stack of cash on the table looks so small compared to the car, and yet it presents an opportunity: it presents a long time in a foreign country if I live frugally: it is my escape hatch.

For months, I have been agonizing over the steps to take to get to where my heart has yearned to go. It was doubly difficult because the place was not a specific destination, but an idea: somewhere quiet, inspirational, and cheap.

I say that I’m going to write a book. Somehow I think this gives me a certain amount of credence; that I seem less like a flake if I have a goal in mind. It is true that I want to write a book, but it is also true that the real reason I am going is because I have found it impossible lately to hear myself think.

For months, I have tried to work up the courage to explain over and over again why I am leaving. For months, I have thought about how I will be received by many of my well-meaning friends that love me, yet either don’t know the magic words I need to hear, or can’t come up with them because of the emotions a move like this inspires in their own systems. I cannot know what anyone else is really thinking, and yet I have spent far too long trying to figure out the way to present myself so that it will be palatable, acceptable, understandable. It is only recently – although not the first time I have had to come to this realization – that I remembered something important a great friend told me once: it is none of my business what other people think of me.

I am not doing this for the shock factor. I don’t want the attention. I am not trying to inspire others. I certainly don’t feel as courageous as I come across. It is hard to admit because it seems so whimsical, illogical and ridiculous, but I am leaving because, despite having no idea what is ahead or where I will ultimately end up because of this decision, I KNOW, beyond logic, deep into my bones, that I am making the right decision. I have never been in a relationship like this, but I would imagine it is how people feel when they realize that the person they are dating is the one they want to spend the rest of their life with: that despite the unknown, the unpredictability and even a small measure of fear, the right decision is to say yes.

Next week I leave for Panama. I go in search of a simpler lifestyle, that can be fed with less paid work and more time to write. I go in search of inspiration I have not been able to find lately, and in search of silence. I am not afraid of the adventure – in fact, I have had more energy since I booked my ticket than in the last six months combined. What I still fear, despite my best efforts, is the look on peoples’ faces when I tell them – the energy it takes to explain myself yet again, to pretend that their doubts about my sanity don’t matter. I fear losing my footing before I even begin, and yet I am stumbling forward, the spent runner not quite at the end of the race. I am almost there, and yet these last few days will definitely be the hardest part. Once I’m on that plane, the phone is turned off and the doors are shut, I know from experience that I will finally be at peace. Not because there has been a mountain of criticism rained down upon me, but because once again I am making a decision that does not fit with the norm; the path I am taking has not yet been broken. 

The fear comes not from my seemingly uncertain future, but from the reflection of others’ fears on my behalf. As soon as I’m on the plane and there is no one to reflect their fear back at me, I will remember my excitement. I will remember my sense of adventure; my ability to fully embrace living outside the box. For now, surviving the box for another week seems like a formidable task all by itself.  

Love and New Adventure Kisses

Morgan

All Parts of Me

 

Tonight I gave a man a hug. I gave it to him because he needed it, but he wasn’t the only one to benefit.

The ashram is many things, but it is not the place to hug. It is a celibate community that does not encourage exclusive relationships of any kind – friendship or romantic relationships. Although it works to encourage introspection and giving people their space, human contact falls to the wayside. A couple days ago I showed my hot sauce stash to another man at the ashram, and he touched my arm in thanks. It jolted me to realize how long it had been since I had been touched like that by a man – not in a sexual way, but a squeeze to show me physically that my generosity was noticed, noted, and appreciated.

I forget where I read it – fact or fiction? – but somewhere, I read that babies can die if they aren’t held, simply from the lack of contact. Even if they don’t physically die, there is certainly an emotional component to this lack of touch. I know it because I feel it now in a way I didn’t before – when someone reaches out to me in love regardless of whether it’s platonic or romantic, my entire being blossoms in response.

It’s unfortunate that this lack of touch is what brought my appreciation for physical affection to my attention, but then again, it’s a very human characteristic to realize how much you miss something once it’s gone. I am still reeling at the thought that I get to hug Kyle Jaynes again because he was found alive after being lost for four days and thought dead after he disappeared on a hike; I ate a hamburger today because I got the chance to eat beef, and I haven’t had the opportunity to do so for awhile, since the ashram serves mostly vegetarian fare.

When I first came to the ashram, I thought it was the first place I had been in a long time where I could be myself, but that’s not true. This is the first place I’ve ever been that I could be THIS self, but that doesn’t mean I’m ALL parts of me here. I have found emotional support here, but not the physical comfort to accompany it; I have found a spiritual path, but it doesn’t leave room for my trucker’s vocabulary or my road rage at tourist drivers (many of whom actually come from British Columbia in their campers and manage to drive in front of me…regardless of where I am!)

Tonight, I feel enlightened, because I can focus on being here, now, without worrying about where I will go next, or what I want to be, when I’m already it…I’m already me. This morning, I didn’t feel enlightened. I will probably lose my enlightenment at some point – like when my alarm clock starts beeping at me tomorrow morning. Someone pointed out to me here that enlightenment comes in small pieces; in mundane tasks and every day moments, where you feel such profound joy to be where you are that all other thoughts are whisked away. In those moments, it doesn’t matter if I’ve reached some far off space that I hope to hold for the rest of my life; it doesn’t matter if I have everything I need or want to live the life I want and deserve. All that matters is that at that moment, I connect in a way that is tangible…as if I put my finger on a thread of the universe and can feel the vibrations resonate through me, as if I were the guitar body, and someone else is twanging the strings. 

Love and sometimes enlightened kisses

Morgan

Leap, and The Net Will Appear

There was little else I could do. I had a book to finish, and its end was inevitable. I was not forced by anyone but myself, but I had to come back just the same – perhaps I had to come back even more because I was the only one making me.
So I did. I left Mexico and leaped back into my life in Washington. I have seen friends and family, gone to funerals and concerts, and fought in vain against trying to spend money. Because, you see, it’s hard to make money when you’re working 12+ hours a day trying to publish a book with the thought that you will be paid in the future for all your hard work.

I’m glad I came back, but there was a point a couple days ago when I bent double with the momentousness of what I had just done. On that morning, I took one final look at my book’s proof and pressed a button to send an email asking who in town wanted to carry it. I nearly threw up when the confirmation came back that it had sent. What was I thinking??? Despite the fact that I keep coming back to Chelan, I try to keep a low profile while I’m in town, but that was immediately blown out of the water. I was going to have to go around asking who wanted to sell my book, asking people who have known me – or my family at least – for a long time. There went anonymity.

I can’t quit this job. I can’t leave this business, because I am this business. Certainly I can escape, but it’s not like someone will take me out to lunch, lament the fact that I’m leaving, then hire someone to take my place.

I have been fighting a panic since I hit SEND. It is the kind of panic that comes from knowing that you have just stepped firmly on the right path, your path, and there is no going back. It is the panic of someone who has always had a way out, who has always been good at follow through but not long-term commitment, and I am afraid, utterly afraid, that I will fail.

It has all led me to this: the jobs in retail, graphic design, my journalism degree, my travels, my Spanish, my sales experience. I know what I’m doing, and anything I don't know I can learn. I know the steps I need to take to succeed. I have started taking them. Now I stand on another ledge, however. It’s the ledge where I commit to all the things I need to do to sell my book and sell it correctly. It is where I decide that I will not be wishy-washy about my writing, and use this book to launch a name for myself. This is the point where I decide that I can actually do what I set out to do when I left my job in Bellevue almost 2 years ago. This is the point where I have to start acting like I belong here, and that will take courage; courage I still have yet to muster up. As I said, I am at least aware of the steps I need to take to get me there, and the first steps have already been taken. Now, however, I’m staring at empty space and I have to have faith that the step is there and sturdy and can hold me, whether I can see it or not. I have to have faith in myself, and despite all my talk, many times that is the hardest thing for me to find.

I have learned recently, however, that you have to start acting like the change has taken place before it actually does: you have to act like you’re going to make it before you will. So here’s to the actions that speak louder than words, and to the Zen saying, “Leap, and the net will appear.”

Love and leaping kisses
Morgan

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