Category: change

adulthood · change · intimacy · sex · sexuality

Sex Ed.

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There is more right with you than wrong.
I had a therapist once who used to tell me, “As long as you
can take a full, deep breath into your lungs, there is more right with you than
wrong.”
Today, on the most gorgeous day we’ve seen in the Bay, I finally succumbed to the pseudo-strep throat thing
that’s been passing around work, and this afternoon, I’m performing a preview scene of
the play I’m in that opens at the end of the month.
So, I take homeopathics, vitamin Cs, a heavy dose of
over-the-counter Western, and The Show Must Go On.
And I’ve been thinking about sex. Because, who hasn’t?
I’ve been thinking about the unintentional self-imposed
celibacy I was in from August of 2011 through October of 2013. You can do math,
and understand that’s more than two years
without sex.
And, it’s not like there were some clandestine, but
ultimately PG-13 moments in there, either. It was pretty much a white-out
period.
Granted, about 8 of those months I was bald and a sallow
shade of green, but, the year prior to cancer was not a wanton, robust one.
It was sort of intentional. I’d broken up with my ex in the
early months of 2011, had two rounds of rebound sex that left me feeling more
empty than fulfilled, and a few months later, found myself back in bed with my
ex in a misguided attempt to see if we could pump (pun intended) life back into
our relationship.
We couldn’t. And I finally realized that giving the milk for
free was wearing me down.
And so began the Great Celibacy of my 30th Year. The year
women are purported to have the greatest libido. Probably because our bodies
are sending Morse Code messages through our hormones, stating, Get on with the
baby-making thing, lady, Time’s a marching.
I began sending texts to two girl friends as each month
passed: Two months, no sex. Six months, no sex. A YEAR, no sex. It was
appalling but also, I wasn’t about to jump into the sack with anyone just to
get my rocks off – because, honestly, you can’t ever be sure that your rocks
will get off with someone you don’t know that way. It’s a crap shoot, and is it
worth it to have lackluster sex with someone who you know you’re not that into?
Hm.
It’s not as if I denied myself the pleasures of carnality; I took
matters amply in hand. But it wasn’t the same. It’s never the same—as good sex, at least. Sure, you’re pretty sure you’re gonna
get your happy ending, and don’t have to think about what you do afterward, how
long you wait for him to leave, or if you cuddle or not. But, part of a poem I
wrote during the celibacy goes:
i only ever imagine the weight of
you
when i’m alone with myself at
night
i can find folds that you can’t
and pace myself as you won’t
but alone, i can never press
myself into the
evaporating softness
                                 or grip the muscles of your back
as if you were my life preserver
I once read a story that included the line, “At night, she
masturbated herself to an unsmiling orgasm.” What a waste.
I broke the celibacy last Fall with a very pointed and mutually
understood bootie call with someone I’d been on a internet date with twice, but
who wanted to just hook up, and though there was certainly physical chemistry,
I didn’t want that and we parted amicably. A year and a half after that date, my hair grown back to something I could pass as feminine, I
asked him if he was still interested in something “casual,” and he was, and I
was, and we were, and it was…Awesome.
But, that poem of mine concludes:
how does this alchemy work?
lead returns to lead as
i bolt the door behind you
the moment gimped
by an awkward exchange of
‘see you’s
what tangle the sheets are in,
still warm,
i climb back into them as if
i could coax them into being
you
and you were something else
So sometimes, celibacy is the better answer, isn’t it?
“Life is meant to be lived,” has been going through my head, though. And my body is still one of a woman in her early thirties receiving and
extending messages that say, Virile and Viable. And sometimes, it’s worth the
awkward exchange, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you eat the cupcake, and
sometimes you don’t. And sometimes you take a full, deep breath and remember
that there is more right with you than wrong. And perfection is an illusion,
“really.”

change · community · friends · gratitude · health · perseverance

Time: in fair and foul

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Oops, I did it again — I changed my clocks on the wrong day! (Last time, I changed them in the wrong direction!) I don’t think I’m cut out for this. 
In speaking of time, tomorrow will mark one year from my
final day of chemo. Last year, today, March 8, I was in Kaiser hospital, 6th
floor, on the “off day.” Since I had Leukemia, the
treatment is different than you hear for outpatient breast cancer treatment or
even lung cancer (not that they don’t go through hell, too). How the treatment
went is that each month I spent a week in the hospital (after the initial first month in),
and would get chemo on days 1, 3, 5, and then on day 6, if I looked healthy
enough, I could go home. 
“Healthy enough.” Sheesh. What a thing.
A year before that, I was probably working on and
procrastinating on my MFA Poetry thesis at Mills College.
There was a moment after my diagnosis during which I was
sitting at this same kitchen table, likely in these same pajamas, when I looked
out this same window at the cypress trees that grow over the roof of the
building next door. I’ve always watched them, since I’ve lived here. They’re
one of the few trees in my area that loses leaves, and then regrows them in
full regalia in the spring and summer.
I sat at this table, and as it was October/November, I
watched it shedding the last of its leaves for the year. And I wondered if I
would see its leaves return. If I would be alive to witness it.
And I was. And I will be when, once again, the brown tree suddenly sports those green buds that never cease to surprise me, like an overnight graffiti
artist.
Perhaps some people think my marking of this time is morbid.
And maybe it is. But, it’s impossible for me to turn away from. I don’t always
think about it; in fact, over the course of these few months, the “this time
last year” thought has become pretty scarce. But sometimes, there are moments to remember, to recall, measure against, and
praise to high bloody heaven and hell and all the imps in between that *I made it,* through all of it — the terror, the loneliness, the unknowing, the isolation of it. I made it through alive, and healthy, my eggs still ticking in my ovaries, my blood producing what it ought to. I made it through the arguments with doctors, through giving myself injections, through Christmas in an inpatient bed. 

I made it through with your soup waiting for me in the hospital fridge, with the cup of coffee you went out of your way to Peet’s to buy, with the fuzzy blanket and the neon socks you brought to keep me warm. 

I made it through with the green shakes you made for me, and the protein drinks you sought out at Whole Foods. With the burritos you bought and the chicken you made. I made it through with our conversations about leaving your store, leaving your soon-to-be ex-wife; about polyamory and the ’89 fire. I made it through when you held my hand as I bawled into your chest, heaving the Ugly Cries because I knew you could take it. 

I made it through when you brought a big book and a 12 and 12, and we sat and talked about other things anyway. But the praying helped. 
A year ago tomorrow, I will have been awoken at 6 in the
morning. I will have had my pee measured, my temperature and blood pressure
taken, and swallowed the pre-medication meant to stave off nausea. I
will then have gotten dressed, eaten whatever plastic-wrapped breakfast they’d
provided, done my morning pages, meditated, and perhaps written my blog if I
could get it in before I got hooked up to the IV pole.
The nurses will have come in in yellow apron suits over their
scrubs, and thick blue gloves and goggles. The two, always two, would call
the numbers of my ID back to each other, the volume of the chemo, confirming
the three hours it was to drip into the port line that entered my chest and
pumped into my heart.
A year ago tomorrow, in the evening, they would do the same
12 hours from the first one. And by the time the bag of clear but ominous
liquid was empty and the machine was beeping loudly for the nurse, I will have tucked into the stiff hospital bed with that fuzzy blanket, curled up maybe with a book, maybe too tired to
read, and they would come back in their yellow suits and thick gloves, and
unhook the tube from my chest. 
And I will have had my last round of chemo. (Ever.)

change · fear · perseverance · sex · sexuality

Nightmares / However…

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Nightmares
I have noticed over the last several years that I only get
nightmares when I’m about to change something really big. When something really
big is changing. I never had nightmares growing up, or none to really take note
of, but in the last near-decade, I’ve had about 3 or 4, plus last night’s.
The first time it happened, I was still in therapy, and was
able to process with her. I came to realize that, for me, my nightmares were
like big boogeymen waving me away from the work I was doing. However, instead of
being something that frightens me away from the path I’m on, I realized that if my subconscious
is going to pull out all the stops and create a massive ‘hell dimension’ for
me, then I must be doing something right. I must be on the right track toward
health, and the scared part of my ego, my habits, my core fears must be truly
shaking in their boots that I’m about to abandon or walk through a pattern that
doesn’t serve me. I am about to shed whatever it is that’s blocking me from my highest
good, and, altruistic though the nightmares’ goal is (to “keep me safe” by
holding me back in a stagnant pattern), that pattern I’m working on is about to go.
For me, nightmares are actually a guidepost that I’m on the
right path. And desperately terrifying though they are in the moment, and in
the moments after I wake in a panic, like last night, I do know they are simply
showing me that the work I’m doing is poignant and positive.
My brain can be a bit of a dick sometimes.
However…
To continue the thoughts from yesterday about discovering
the necessity of wearing or having some kind of buffer between me and the
untoward thoughts that come toward me as I walk in the world, there is a
rub—and not the good kind.
The rub is that I also want to be seen, I also want to be
attractive, I also want to be asked out. So, if I conclude that in order to be
“safe” in the world, I have to put up a boundary between me and you, then that
means that I’m deterring positive as well as negative attention.
And then I’m back to the thought of being “the undefended
self,” a book I’ve heard the title of, and am loathe to pick up (yet).
How to walk in the world with enough self-ownership that I
don’t feel corroded by the lascivious thoughts of some, but attract the
interest of others?
I mean, surely, we all know, (well, for me this is true) –
physical attraction means a lot on first impression. But, if I’m walking with
some kind of “you can’t touch me” attitude, then the guys who I may want to touch me will get that message too.
I don’t know the answer yet. I think much of it will lie in
the work I’m doing and starting to do that caused my nightmare in the first
place—around healing my relationship with sex, sexuality, and trust. I probably
don’t know the answer yet, because I’m trying to divine it out of the same
information and pattern I’ve always had and used. 
There’s a phrase I’ve heard: “You can’t fix a broken brain
with a broken brain.” And extreme and diagnostically critical as that notion
may be…
My brain can be a bit of a dick sometimes. 

adulthood · change · commitment · sex

The Runner

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I attended the new writer’s group on Sunday that my friend put together of East Bay folks. We
were circled in plastic chairs, old-fashioned arm chairs, and couches tucked inside
the spacious two-car garage that had been repurposed into a
library/workshop/extra living room. (Only in the East Bay!) I was one among 9
of us, the only girl, and though we spent copious amounts of time arguing
whether Stephen King was a writer or a storyteller, and if David Foster Wallace
was a genius or simply mentally masturbating onto the page, eventually, we did
actually write some.
We wrote from a prompt I’d invented that morning, “You walk
into a coffee shop and etched into the linoleum are the words:….”
In response, I came up with this story. No editing, no forethought, you
just write, and when the time’s up, it’s up, and we shared around the room. I
love that part of prompt writing in a group (not that I’ve done it much), but I
love the variety of ways people go with something. The disparate styles we had
became obvious, and also, we all visibly relaxed a little after the reading was
through, as if we’d marked one another with a nod of approval, Yes, you are a
writer, I feel comfortable having you in this group. It’s funny, but it’s also
important, I think, to have that kind of respect for one another in a group like
that.
We’ll see how often I’m able to attend. But I’m very glad I
went.
The thing that’s been occurring to me about this story I
came up with spontaneously is that I am the girl in it–the one we never meet. I am the girl who gets
up in the middle of the night and leaves her lover. And then unceremoniously
dumps him.
Fiction though that story may be, the seeds of myself are
there. I was curious to find who in the story I was, since, well, I have an
opinion that we are all or some of the characters we create. I am both the
runner, and the lover calling after myself to please stay.
I think I’ve reported this anecdote before, how in college I
was in a casual “relationship” with this guy, who was by all rights a decent
fellow. One evening after we’d been in flagrante, he was holding me in his
strong early-twenty’s arms and intoned that he’d like to take me out sometime, like, to
dinner. I gasped, Why?? And he replied, because he liked me, and wanted to get
to know me.
I never called him again.
I am the runner.
I have two songs in draft form, one that
goes
Send me somebody that I can say Yes
to.
Send me someone who I can come home
to.
Just gimme somebody  somebody to make me say
Yes Yes Yes
and the other:
Married men make it so easy
To wanna misbehave
I never have to do their dishes
Just be their    sex slave
CHORUS:
I wanna be the girl who spends the
night
And doesn’t sneak out around two
I wanna be the one who stays over
To wake up next   to you
I think my ambivalence about commitment is pretty clear! And
to clarify, “Married Men” is a song, not an autobiography. It’s an impulse, a
thought, a cop-out, a desire, a fantasy, an avoidance, a way to stay stuck and
alone, since ultimately, I won’t follow through on those impulses.
So, I’ll work it out in song, in fiction, in blog. I’ll tell
you how skittish I am, I’ll let myself be surprised at how I show up in my own
work and reflect myself back to me. I’ll warm up to the sword-wielding, 2-a.m.
sneaking, rabid runner. I’ll tell her that commitment to living in one place
has only brought me health and stability; I’ll tell her that, in owning a cat for
the first time, the love I have for her I’m happy and proud to give; I’ll tell her that in the many places I’ve used
“Stability First,” I am the better for it.
And then I’ll let her go on a run. But maybe this one will
be shorter. 

acting · adulthood · change · community

Oh Envy, Have a cuppa tea & be off with yourself.

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A coworker asked me what my plans were this weekend, and
along with my regular commitments, I am also going to my friend’s poetry reading, the
first meeting of a new writing group, and a shamanic journey group I
attend monthly.
She said, Wow, I wish my plans included things like writing
groups and journey groups.
I asked what her weekend plans were, and she said, they were
having some friends over for dinner. That’s about it.
I said, Wow, I wish my plans included things like having
friends over for dinner.
I live in the strange time/place between apartment- and
house-dweller; between the young able-bodied, go-into-the-city-at-10:30pm-er (as I was invited to last night) and the slightly more cautious, actually-10:30-is-my-bedtimer. I live between the single person world, and the time of
coupledom.
And in this place, though there is a ton to “do,” I feel a
little lonely. Not for the partner, per se, but for the friendships that begin
to fall away as a single person in a paired up world. Nostalgic for the times when
a gathered group of women would carve pumpkins together on a Thursday night,
for the time when there was occasion to take photos of a gaggle of folks, and a
little longing for the camaraderie, simplicity, and elegance that “having some
friends over for dinner” could offer.
I know life has different phases, and the majority of
the things I’m doing right now (though they are communal, simply aren’t
friend-inclusive) are in support of a grander plan and dream: acting classes,
auditioning, rehearsals, practicing my lines and reading scripts. I know that
this is an exciting part of my path, and, believe me, I am *stoked* to get to
do these things, but I also recognize that a shift is occurring. I am on the
blank page after one chapter has ended, and before the other has begun.
My friends will be at the writing group, the poetry reading,
and the shamanic journey group. These are people who I can have hours’ long
conversations with, and last week, did have coffee with one of them, but, I
don’t know – there’s a zest of communal living that I haven’t replaced from the
days of late-night group dancing and diner-ing.
Perhaps all things in order and in time, but I’m just
noticing. I notice that I’d like to be someone who goes to dinner at friends’
houses. Maybe I just want to be able to invite people over to dinner, like I had been able to in my 1-bedroom in the city, but not in my studio in Oakland. I know that’s a part of it too. 
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the grass is always
greener?
I have plenty of people I consider friends—I’d just
like to see them more often. And apparently, in groups. (I also recognize that I
don’t want to be your token single friend in that group to whom you say things like, “Have you tried internet dating?” For more on this, see this article my
friend sent me!)
That said, there’s a viewing party for ONCE upon a time I’m
attending in a few Sundays at a friend’s; there’s a birthday party at my
friend’s house in Discovery Bay next month that will bring out some of my most
cherished friends and their families;
and, anyway, this navel-gazing blog is boring me. 😉
I have some people to go see, followed by shopping for a
jewel-toned top for Monday’s new headshots, and a facial to help those
photos come out awesome. Then line-learning, vegetable roasting, and poetry
attending. My life is certainly full—now if it could also be a little more
stocked with you.

acceptance · change · community · love · trauma · truth

in.to.the.light.

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Over the past two weeks, I’ve had occasion to sit with two
friends who shared with me about trauma in their past, as well as reading an article by a
sexual abuse survivor about the upswing of the Dylan Farrow case.
A little less than a year ago, after I completed chemo, I started reading a book
about healing that kind of trauma. As you may remember/know, it’s my
understanding that disease can be a function of underlying emotional or
spiritual dis-ease, and after my bought with cancer, I was (and still am)
determined to do all I can to root out causes and dis-ease that may underlie
the causation of cancer. The book suggested that before you really begin, you collect your army of support
because the work would be intense. So, I sought out a somatic therapist, as the
book suggested, and saw her a few times. I wasn’t a good fit, and I soon
stopped seeing her, and soon stopped reading the book, maybe a chapter or two
in.
However, this morning, I was toodling around on my phone,
compulsively checking my email for the rehearsal schedule for the play in which
I’ve been cast(!), and I clicked on the “Notes” app I have on there, wondering
if there wasn’t some old “to do” list that may have good ideas for me.
Instead, I found a series of quotations from that book. A
series of words that struck me, applied to me, and offered me compassion,
understanding, and hope.
I … don’t really want to do this. Read that, re-read that.
Tell you here. But, my friends, it is all related. Don’t worry, I won’t get
specific here—it’s not appropriate, and not necessary—except to say my abuse
was not incest or young child abuse, but simply a series of events from a youngish age into my 20s when I didn’t
understand what No was, how to stop things, how to not
go along.
But, apparently, several things in my current life are
pointing me back at looking in that direction. And, from my own understanding
and cosmology, the “Universe” tends to bring things up when you’re ready to
deal with them. … And, if you don’t, you’ll be given occasion to deal with them
later, we promise.
One of the quotes in my app says something about moving out of
isolation into relationships. Va voy, if that’s not what I’ve been trying to do. And
here is a hiccup I didn’t see coming. A gentle nudge from the Universe saying,
Hey, there are these unresolved things. I know they’re hard, but you’re not
alone, and we’ve already pointed some support structures your way, if you want
to work on this now.
I may say, Fuck you. I don’t wanna.
I may call on the language I read once that said, Stop
Identifying With Your Trauma. Don’t use it as a shield and a sword to say, LOOK
SEE THERE’RE THESE FUCKED UP THINGS THAT HAPPENED, SO YOU CAN’T GET CLOSE TO
ME, AND I’M TOO SCARED TO GET CLOSE TO YOU—BACK! OFF!
I could call on that language and say, see, I need to not look at this, because then I’m just wallowing in my
past, instead of moving out of it.
See…. but the thing is. I haven’t wallowed. I’ve avoided.
Plague-like.
Partly because “it wasn’t that bad.” Partly because it’s
so damned fucking common. Heartbreakingly.
Partly because there have been other fish to fry.
And mostly because it’s really really hard.
I have some Louise Hay “Affirmation Cards” over my kitchen
sink, so I can look at them when I’m doing my despised dishes. The one that
calls to me about this reads, “All these changes are easy to make.” These
patterns are easy to heal and change. Maybe. Maybe this is easier than I fear.
The big boogey man with a flashlight projecting himself on the wall much larger
than he really is.
It’s happened before.
I know it’s a heavy thing to lay out to you here, but I also
know some of you are there, were there, get it, and are curious, like me, on how to go
through this stage of healing. As always, I write this for us.

change · faith · letting go · life · surrender

And now for something completely different!

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in the eventuality of time, there is a sacrifice that must
be made.
we are never sure what we must give up in order to move
forward,
but we come to a bridge with a toll and are demanded a pound
of
flesh in exchange for passage to the new place.
it is never clear if this new place is where we intend or
want to go but our anima will impel us forward along
the continuity of movement.
how many bridges we already traversed
does not factor into how many we must pass again. 
we may have already sacrificed pride
love
pain
fear
desire
isolation. and this bridge requires from us another token.
perhaps you feel like the knight in a monty python sketch,
quartered from limb and limb and limb, a torso now, you are
asked to divest even more from what you carry. perhaps though,
you are a lancelot, fueled and lifted, freed by all you’ve
been asked to dispense with, grateful for the chance to
expel another pebble from your shoe.
in the eventuality of time, we will all offer this sacrifice.
we must, because we are alive
and so, we do. 

acting · balance · change · grief · priorities

Sword of Awareness.

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Yesterday morning, I was on the phone with a mentor of mine,
talking about how busy I am, and how bone-weary I am as a result. Sure, busy
with good things. That’s what I tell people at the “How was your weekend?”
congenial Monday-morning chat. “It was busy, but busy with good things.” So that,
of course, makes it okay.
My mentor asked me why I thought I was so busy – and I know, and have known, the answer: TIME.
Damacles’ sword. The tale of the king(?) who had a sword
suspended over his throne, he sat and ruled from under the constant threat of
annihilation, never knowing if it ever would indeed fall.
How do you live from that place? Certainly, we all are
living under that sword. Some of us are more aware of it than others.
Sometimes I hear people talk about things they’ll do when
they’re old, or older. Things like travel, or tell their grandkids, or when
they retire. All of these future plans, all under an assumption of life. All
under a naïve assumption that life will be there when they get there.
Ignorance sure is bliss. Because when I listen to them
say this, my heart steels and in my head I say, “Maybe.” By which I know I mean,
loathe though I am to admit it to you, “Maybe, or you could be dead.”
So, TIME. I am so very busy, because I don’t believe there
is enough time for me to be The Great And Powerful Molly that I want to be.
This wasn’t a cancer-causation. I felt this way long before cancer, that I have
missed the bus on things, or that I just know there are so many things I want
to do, I lament how to do them all – while I’m alive.
Cancer just rubbed rock salt into the wound. Brought my attention to a pin-prick of the value of life. And cancer has made me a little sour on others’ assumptions that it will be there.
Hence, my goal to prioritize. What is important now? What can’t wait? What feeds me the most, brings me
the most joy, is a 5 on a joy-scale of 1 – 5?
That’s what my friends and I spoke about yesterday morning,
after I got off the phone with my mentor. As I’d said, I wanted to get help
with how to prioritize the bevy of interests I have. And, we did. We
talked about a lot. I cried a little. I got to see how fear, rather than joy,
is motivating many of my projects.
And they told me it was okay. I’m allowed to feel frightened and desperate if that’s what I’m feeling. I’m allowed to feel sorrow over the uncertainty of it all. I’m allowed to feel a sour-green envy of those not aware of the sword, and I’m allowed to feel self-righteous over them, too. But, I’m allowed to not feel this way also.
They charged me with the task of focusing on
one interest, if only for one week. We created a “time plan,” sort of like the
kind of money spending plan I have each month. It’s a goal, it’s an allotment
of values. Everything is a choice, even paying rent. If I’m willing to accept
the consequences of not paying rent,
sure I could not pay it. But I’m not!
Performance, acting, right now, came up as a higher priority
than anything I’m currently involved in. Though painting was the only thing
that earned a 5 (though, I imagine, mostly because I’m not engaged in it at all
right now).
This value judgment will have consequences. It means the
reduction and phasing out of other things I’m involved in. AND, it’s only a
guide, this new time plan. That’s the important thing for me to remember. It
can change. And if I have more time for rest and centering, there may be more
ease to do other things.
When we plugged in “Acting Activities” (e.g. researching
roles, practicing monologues, etc.) as the only creative activity this week, I could feel my hackles rise: “But what
about painting??” My two friends encouraged me to just try this, just for one
week, just to see how it feels.
If my goal is to “Focus, Prioritize, and Follow-through,”
this is their suggestion. It’s just a trial. How does it feel to commit to one thing fully — oh my G-D –
COMMIT?????
Oh Lord, grant me strength to focus… to (gulp) commit. (shiver)
Because though the sword be there for all of us, for me, I have learned
that racing to it all is wasting my time. I’m not getting better at any of my interests, because I’m not spending
…committed… time on them.
It is an imperative in my life to use my time efficiently.
And this is an avenue I’ve never tried before. 
Results: TBD. 

change · gratitude · TEACHING · travel

Gung Hay Fat Chance

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

(*have no idea if this will go there, but I had to use that
phrase!)
I didn’t graduate college “on time.” All my roommates and
classmates were getting their tassels aligned and family convened, and I was
lining up for Seroquel, my family convening in a sterile hospital cafeteria.
So, when that episode was over, I got a rinky-dink job at a
local drug store, and when that was enough of that (and my hair had grown back
somewhat), I got a job as an admin in an insurance claims company, finished my
degree with night classes, and graduated in May of ’04, instead of ’03.
That summer, I applied for the Birthright program—a program
which sends Jewish teens and 20s to Israel for 10 days for free if they’ve never
been. I applied and was accepted to the “graduate” program, the older group of
folks, between 22 and 26. I spent 10 days in a dusty bus gaining some of the
most incredible experiences, and information—nearly all of the people on the
bus were “doing something” with their lives. One worked at a magazine in New
York City; several were in law school; one taught high school English in a
Catholic school. I… was a claims adjustor.
When I got back to my cubicle, under the fluorescent lights,
I decided it was time to call this episode over, too. Incredibly, my dad had met a
woman on his commuter bus who was an editor at a New York magazine, and through
a short interview process, I was hired as their Editorial Intern.
It was amazing. It was probably the job I’ve enjoyed most of
any I had. The differences were drastic: although I was working longer hours with a much longer commute, I was coming home more “happily tired” than simply
exhausted, as from the claims job. I loved
the work. Writing copy, coordinating with off-site editors, proofreading &
editing. I even wrote my own article about Bill Nye The Science Guy’s endorsement of a new
brand of contact lenses.
I loved the pace, the investment I had in the work, the
creative input I was able to have. The respect I had of my superiors for my
intelligence and ideas. I loved working at 6th and Canal, walking the street
vendors at lunch, earning real dough, even for an intern.
But, summer ended. It was a post-9/11 market still, and small
optical trade magazines didn’t have much of a budget for an editorial
assistant. So I went back on the market.
The market was bare.
My aunt suggested I go teach English abroad. She’d done it
in Taiwan, and there were plenty of recruitment companies to choose from. I
found one, and in conversation with them, found out that although there were
plenty of South East Asian jobs, the most money was to be made in South Korea.
So, after a 9 pm phone interview with a school director
outside of Seoul, two days later, I’m buying my first real luggage at Target. Two days from then, I’m on a plane to a place I’d never been to work with
people I’d never met in a country whose language I did not speak, to remain for
the next 18 months.
Sure. Why not?
My experiences were wide and varied and not always pleasant
in that peninsular country. I won’t engage the story here (I’ve got to
leave for work), but the school year always ended and began around the Chinese
New Year, a.k.a. today.
Today would be the day you would be assigned or reassigned
to a classroom of sometimes wily, sometimes endearingly shy 5 year olds. Today, as
the cherry blossoms bloomed outside and streets were hung with red paper
lanterns and students’ parents handed you red envelopes full of “thank you”
tips, you listened to the 5 year olds who had cried at the start of the year,
“Teacher! Water!,” ask you, “Molly Teacher, I’m thirsty. Can I have some water,
please?”
It was more beautiful than the blossoms. 

abundance · adulthood · change · growth · love

Progress, Not Perfection…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

When I have clarity of vision, pretty amazing things tend to
happen.
About 2 years ago, when working my way through the Calling
in The One book, I decided it was time to
get that 2nd bedside table to “energetically” be more inviting to a partner. The one I had on my side is sort of shabby/chic, wooden, painted white, with a little storage and
soft, almost country structure. Very soon thereafter, I wandered into a garage
sale down the block – and wouldn’t you know, there is the perfectly
complementary bedside table – different shape, but same country feel, wooden,
painted white, same height too.
Over last summer, I decided it was time to upgrade my
ever-chipping, ever-depleting plateware and bowl collection. I had one bowl left. And a stack of gray, unappealing plates
that I’d bought for cheap thinking they’d be “sleek,” but were instead just… gray. Very
soon thereafter, I was in Cole Valley, waiting for my band to
play at the street fair, and lo, there was a stack of multicolored, almost
Fiesta ware bowls and a stack of bright blue plates to go with them—for free.
Within the last two months, a man was crossing the street in
front of my car as I drove home from work. He was dressed “smartly,” wearing a sweater over a button-down shirt, well-fitting jeans, and real shoes, not
sneakers. I said to myself, I want someone who wears clothes like that. (Though, sure, I would have barfed at such a preppy [pulled-together??] look in the past.)  This wasn’t the first time I’d thought that, as I
noticed men milling about the world recently. And, you guessed it, very soon
thereafter, I met this new boy, who wears
smart clothing, fitting the above description to a T.
So, point? Well, my coworker would smirk at my “manifest-y”
meanderings, but my point is more that when I have a vision of what I want,
more often than not (and so often with housewares!), I get it very quickly and
with much ease.
I took a personality test about a year ago, the
Meyers-Briggs, with a friend who actually processes these tests for a living.
Part of the reason for my wanting to do this type of test was to find out what
I “should do” with my life—if there were places and arenas in the world that
would benefit most from the assets I already have, the things that come easy to me. And wouldn’t you know, for
“appropriate jobs,” my particular personality type listed all kinds of artsy
things (writer, painter, actor), also counselor and clergy, all of which I’ve contemplated in the past.
What it also told me about me about my “type” were the
pitfalls, and how to counter them. How to counter idealistic, magpie, not detail-oriented leanings? 

“Focus, Prioritize,
Follow-through.”
Eesh. Yuck.
But, see all my above Manifesty moments? These were ALL born
of something called “focus.” I had clarity. I knew what I wanted, and made
myself open to receive it by participating in the world.
One of the final meditations at my annual meditation retreat
in Napa a few years ago left me with the following directive: Use Your Time
Efficiently.
I’ve been SO F*ING BUSY, it feels. I’m doing and going and
participating, but I’m not focused or prioritized, so I don’t get done the
things I really want to do; I don’t move forward in those places.
Be it career advancement, monologue learning, song writing.
Gardening.
There are areas in my life I want to deepen. I want to strengthen
the roots of these priorities. I want to make forward motion with them. Which
means, I want to make time for them,
real, expansive, focused, invested time.
Running hither and thither is great. My life is FULL. So
freaking full, I don’t know my ass (non-essentials) from my elbow (essentials),
and, as example, I spent way more money on take-out food this month, since I
haven’t had any time for food shopping and cooking—something which actually does
feed me, in all the ways.
Focus. Prioritize. Follow-through.
If they came naturally to me, I would have honed them
already. They don’t. A personality test, and 32 years of knowing my own
personality have proven that these are not inherent.
However, if I want to
live the life that is more about quality than quantity, I need to (strike
that!) – I would like to encourage myself in learning how to do this. I know
it’s possible. My free amazing couch that I sit on right now is proof of vision
equaling results. But, in order to even have time to let the dust settle in the
glass, I have to sit still, listen closely, be open to asking for help in how on earth one “focuses, prioritizes, and follows-through,” and
most of all, allow myself progress, not perfection.