Category: community

community · finances · responsibility · school · self-support · work

Thru my own contributions

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, to catch you up on the caffeine reduction experiment,
it’s still going, and going rather well – the one cup of regular, followed by
as much decaf and black tea as necessary. Which haven’t been hugely necessary –
but I’m still in the throes of the equalizing. There have been a few (like 2 or
3) days of 2 or 3 cups, which I think are prolonging the experiment, but
overall, I haven’t felt like I miss it. Although, I’m still rather pooped in
the mornings. I think this is more to do with my bed time than my start time
though. With the experiment, I think I need to allow myself to be in bed
earlier, and for a few days, I was, even a week or so, I was pretty diligent
about it – but I’ve fallen off.
It’s time to get back on schedule though. Yesterday, I was
up and out, semi-early, but not my normal early, to do some last minute errands
with the car before I returned it – G-d bless Enterprise car rental. (They
allow you to rent a car w/ a debit card, and the rates really aren’t that bad –
granted, I split the whole cost with my friend from NJ.) But after my bout of
exertion, I spent the rest of the day on my couch doing much of nothing – which
I spent a lot of this morning’s pages lamenting about – but, I can’t drink
yesterday’s orange juice today (as they say – as in, I can’t get double
nutrients, or activity, etc, today, in order to make up for yesterday – each
day is set new) – so there’s no use, really, in bemoaning my vegetative state!
What is wonderful to notice though, is that because I’ve
been using this tool of a daily schedule, planning in the morning when I’ll do
my R+D (i.e. income generating actions) and when I’ll do homework, or art, or
walk, or … nap, it’ll be much easier for me to get back onto track. Especially
with the end of school creeping up like a midnight stalker.
Thesis is due on Friday, signed, sealed, and delivered. I’m
getting the last copy of my manuscript that’s out there to friends back this
morning, and then today, spend time editing it all together. In the meantime,
I’m also supposed to be writing this new script for the performance class, and
I feel so far away from it – though, again, I was writing some about it this
morning, and think it’s doable and interesting and fun. But, thinking about it,
and doing it are two different things.
I bought this book recently called “Steal like an Artist.”
My friend and I were in the millionth Bay Area bookstore this weekend – though
surprisingly, not bored by them – and I saw this book on the counter. I picked
it up, read the first little bit, and thought, I’d love to underline and
highlight this sucker. So Many Gems. So,
I bought it. As you may know, I’m not a book buyer. I am a library fanatic – as
outstanding debts to several libraries have informed me over the years. (I
actually didn’t receive a diploma the day I graduated and “walked” for my
undergrad – inside the fancy black folder all embossed and engraved with the
school emblem … was a note that said, you owe the library $45 – please submit
to release your diploma. … Ha. Funny part is, I still had the books, knew
precisely where they were, I just hadn’t returned them, for no particular
reason. … a “quality to let go,” one may say, which I still need to let go.)
In any case, this book was not something I’d read and
shelve, never to see again, this was a reference book, in many ways. I’m
enjoying reading it, and getting a lot of great info from it – I recommend – go
buy 😉
One thing I will say it mentioned was an economic theory
that if you average your 5 best friends’ incomes, yours will be somewhere
around there. So, I began to think about my 5 best friends. The one on
unemployment, the one living on student loans, and the few others who are
earning income, but I realized that, yeah, my income is certainly somewhere
between nada and something modest. It’s not
a judgment of my best friends – moreso, it tells me something about myself –
and the truth that I know it’s time for me to make changes.
I am making them. Slowly. I met with a few folks on Sunday
to talk about income strategies, finance stuff – and a very interesting fact of
clarity came out of the conversation. As I’m working on this Creativity &
Spirituality workshop – one for free at school this month, and one for fee in SF next
month – we calculated that if I fill the workshop in May, as in completely full
(20 people) at the rate we agreed was adequate (balancing my modest skill level
with the value of my work and time), I’d earn nearly my entire expense costs
for a month. This, is really good news.
But also brings up fear of the future – does that mean I have to do the
workshop monthly – can I? How do you garner enough interest to make it
sustainable? Won’t I continually be marketing to the same people? How do I
branch out?
And then, I bring it back into the day. Today, I just need
to focus on what’s in front of me. I do
have to focus quite a bit, I realize, on the marketing of the workshop in May,
but that’s it right now. I have some great pointers, and I’m rather good at
that stuff, and I know a crap load of people, and I have a crap load of
resources to call on. Further, I won’t just be hitting up the people I know – as, duh, yes, that would be
annoying to them, and that’s not a sustainable resource – but I will also be
expanding my reach to new venues, and new networks – as people have told me
they’d love to spread the word in circles I’d never have access to ordinarily.
So, it is all the more important that I recover my bit of
structure with my daily schedule, as I had been, and that I get to sleep on
time so that I’m present enough to sow the seeds of self-support.

community · finances · reality · self-care · travel

My Morning Jacket – er, Blog.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

My wireless was down this morning, so you get this near-afternoon session. How are you? Have you done something different with your
hair? You look great today! It’s so wonderful to see you. How did that thing
work out that you were telling me about? Is that leak all fixed from last week?
Wonderful! I’m so glad to hear.
It’s nice that you and I get to have these little chats
together. They’ve become something of a moment of calm and clarity – I hope you
get something from them too. For any period of time when we miss each other, I
think about you – do you think about me?
I was invited to go to Florence Italy yesterday, but I will
turn it down I believe. Why? Because I would have to pay to be an assistant for
a workshop that I’m only mildly interested in, and assist a woman for 3 weeks
who I’m not sure we’d get along in that capacity too well. Basically, I’m being
asked to be worse than an unpaid intern for a class I don’t want to take in a
country that I’d love to see on my own terms.
After I got off the phone with the woman yesterday, I told
my visiting friend what all that was about, and she said, point blank, and in a
way I hadn’t considered… “So, what do you get out of it again?” … Hmm. I
thought. I’d have to buy my own flight, pay for my own housing, pay for the course, and
work for free in a field of mild interest … I might as well just go to Italy myself, if that’s the case.
It really hadn’t occurred to me that I might not want to do
this – again, it was only a case of “could I.” That’s really my only question
when it comes to jobs – can I do it, not do I want to – and then I back out, if
I can, of those that I’ve taken on when I finally realize I don’t actually want
the job.
So, I’ll make some phone calls around this, confirm that this
isn’t at all a right thing for me, and also take note that the idea of going to
Europe is still very strong – whatever comes of it, I have no idea, but, I’d
like to go.
I’m also very glad that I’ll get the chance to do it sober,
so it’s not like some people I hear, in their 20s at least, who pretty much do a
pub crawl through the continent, and may as well be in any bar in the U.S. if
that’s the case.
However, I am pretty clear that I’d like a wingman/travel
buddy. I love to do solo driving trips, but something about real travel, or
camping, or vacations, I want to do with
someone. I really want to nudge you in the odd trinket store and show you the
trinket. I want you to say – omigod, look at that and point to some local
intrigue or view. I want to share those memories with you later on, and in the moment,
I want to have that camaraderie of joint experience.
I travel better with people. Without them, I tend to get a
little forlorn. It gets lonely to look at something so beautiful or
awe-inspiring and not have someone to share that with. Or something funny and
no one to really laugh with. There are some things that I don’t mind doing
alone, and most of them have to do with local things – going to the movies,
going to a restaurant, a gallery. That’s fine, because, it’s local, and it’s
intermittent, but a real trip, well, I’d like to do that together.
So, if you’d like to go to Europe with me, travel around
with someone who loves curio shops, and hiking, and tourist traps, and little
known gems, and walking the course of a city in a day, let me know, because
like I said, you look simply gorgeous today – and I think you’d look great in
our photos. 

community · faith · gratitude · humilty · love

6 x 6 and 5 x 5

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Six years ago this very morning, the Monday after Easter of
2006, I packed everything I could carry – i.e. a few suitcases and a pillow –
into my car, and headed West.
I drove from New Jersey in the rising light of a near-Spring
morning, muddy headed, giddy, nervous, and a little puffy eyed. I got on the
highway, and drove.
This was a planned trip – albeit, not very well. Having
arrived home after my 2nd completed teaching contract in South
Korea, and a few pitstops along the archepelago, I found myself to be 24,
living at home, with no thought of what to really do next. It was March.
I thought, and had the idea, that I would “break onto
Broadway.” It hadn’t really occurred to me that people often spend years of
their lives in training and working their way through auditions and classes and
various local troupes, and still don’t make that leap. I simply thought I could “make it work.”
So, I envisioned that I would get a roommate or two in
Manhattan, get a job as a waitress (cuz that’s what actresses do, right?), and
start my way up.
I did get a job as a waitress. At a lower Manhattan Italian
restaurant, and was told that I needed to wear all black as the uniform, and
start the next week. Great – perfect – falling into place.
I’m in H&M clothing store. I’m in the stall changing
room, and trying on black clothing for my new job, and I have a sudden thought
– New York will eat me alive.
I suddenly realized that I had no business being in
Manhattan the way that I was drinking and drugging. That I would die if I
stayed. I somehow knew it. I was setting myself up to fail, as I had no coping
mechanisms and almost no community or friends, having lost most of those prior to
leaving for Korea.
I walked out of H&M without buying anything. I left the
black clothing, the representation of this pipe dream, and walked outside. I
called the restaurant, and told them I wouldn’t be coming in to work … That I
was moving to California.
What made me think that? I don’t know. But I had a
friend/acquaintance who lived in San Francisco, who’d invited me to come visit.
And somehow, San Francisco – California Dreamin’ – was for me. How ’bout I come to stay?
I don’t know what sense of intuition it was that let me know
that NYC was too much for the addled and fragile sense of self I was, but I am
grateful for it. In Korea, there weren’t many drugs around – a few here and
there, spilling off the army base – but mainly, it was drinking. And for that,
I am grateful. But, in New York? It was a buffet of ways to murder myself
slowly. And I had zero capacity to turn anything down. I knew it was a ticket
to the bottom, and I really didn’t have that much further to go.
So, San Francisco. I coordinated with my friend out here.
Let the Cousin know I would come to visit him in Ohio before I hopped on to
Route 66 – the cool way to go – and got gone. I bought the Lonely Planet guide books for California, and Coastal California,
and Route 66, and simply followed that map the whole way down. I arrived in
Santa Monica on April 25th, 2006, stuck my feet in the Pacific Ocean
(on this side of it) for the first time, and headed up north to San Francisco.
I arrived that night in time to induct my friend into my
nighttime tornado as she showed me around via a few bars. Two weeks later, I
got sober.
I had no intention of this, mind you. It didn’t at all occur
to me that I was heading West to leave a life I’d known for many years in
exchange for one I knew nothing about. I didn’t know that I would eventually
fix my teeth, live alone, go to graduate school, actually audition and be in a
few plays.
I just knew that SF was better than NYC for me.
6 by 6. Six years ago. I don’t know why I chose “by 6,” not
sure what it’s “by,” – perhaps “2006” – but 5 x 5, I get.
Five by five is the catch phrase of TV’s Buffy the
Vampire Slayer’s character, Faith. Which I
suppose is an apt name here at the moment. When things are good, in answer to
how are you, when life is not filled with monsters and demons and chaos, Faith
replies that she’s “Five by Five.”
My life is no longer filled with monsters and demons and
chaos. There are bumps in the night, and scary creatures that lurk still, but 6
years have taught me how to deal with, talk about, and work through those fears
and scary patches.
Over this past weekend, I have run into, at complete
coincidence, people from communities as variant as school, Jew, and recovery.
On the street, in a taxi, on the bus, on BART. I am “a part of.” I am a member
of. I am not a lost little pigeon anymore – I have community, and several at
that. I have been surprised and humbled as I’ve realized this weekend how many
friends I now have – people I now know. I arrived knowing one woman marginally.
And I’m learning how to “break on to Broadway,” or whatever
my current vision equivalent is, with the grace, fortitude, and support that I
never would have dreamed I’d have. For a dork, lost, wild, alone, sad, chaotic,
pipe-dreamy me, well, five by five doesn’t even feel adequate. 

action · community · family · Jewish · joy

Jew: Part II

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Sorry for the brief interruption of the daily blog, folks.
It was part intentional, part not. I’m not sure if I’m going to declare
Saturdays a non-internet day – at least throughout the day, before night. It’s
partly as a result of having spent some time with Jews on Friday, who take
Saturday off from electronics, and partly, just because I have a hard time
moderating my internet use – I’m sure you can’t relate 😉
It was also unintentional in that I was up and out till late
on Friday night, with said Jews, and slept in till my Sat morn commitment and
was off and running – more like galumphing – for the day.
Friday night was the first night of the Jewish holiday of
Passover. The first night, Jews all over the world come together for a ritual
meal called a seder, at which we retell the story of the Jewish slaves’
liberation from Egypt. You may remember this from such movies as “The Ten
Commandments,” or Disney’s “The Prince of Egypt.” 😉
I have heard, and don’t quote me, that if you do nothing
else Jewish for the whole year, if you participate in nothing else, do a seder,
and all-ish is forgiven. Basically, it’s another way of saying that the most
important holiday and event of all, is the seder. The retelling of the escape
from slavery to liberation.
I was invited this year to a friend’s not-a-seder seder,
which was to focus on social justice themes related to items on the seder plate
– i.e. there’d be a stand with an egg, and then all kinds of social and food
justice issues that currently surround egg production. There would be a focus on how are we today slaves to things, and talk about liberation from them. Where are people in the world actually in conditions of slavery, and what could we do. Etc. The room would host the
elements of the seder, but there wouldn’t, in fact, be a seder – the telling of the story.
I was surprised to find myself telling my friend that,
actually, I sort of wanted to go to a seder.
There are very few ways in which I still feel connected to
the Jewish community. I had worked at a Jewish non-profit for a little while
before school; then I’d taught at a synagogue Sunday school last year. But this
year, save the one time I went with my friend Barb to a “Young Adult” Friday
night service, and then was invited to her house for Rosh Hashana (New Year’s)
dinner … well, I’ve been pretty a-religious.
I am not religious. Haven’t ever been religious, and don’t
have a hankering to be religious. What I
do have a hankering for is the community. The stories, the mishpucha – family.
On Friday night, at this table of probably 40 people, even
though the majority of us didn’t know one another, we were family. There was a
moment when a particular part of the story was recited by 5 “extra” languages
around the table – English and Hebrew, of course, then Yiddish, Russian,
Spanish, French, and Japanese. It was the melting pot of Jews. The family next
to me was in town on holiday from Argentina. This gorgeous couple and 3
gorgeous children, and we all sang the songs the same. We read the Hebrew the
same. We banged on the table along with the songs, the same. That’s a hard
thing to get in most circles of life — that feeling of connection, belonging, and connectedness to a shared history.
I recently registered for the online Jewish dating site,
JDate. I’d really rather drink piss than a) admit that, or b) do it. But about
2 weeks ago, following a few more conversations with friends of mine, I signed
up, and actually paid. I’d been registered on this site for about 2 years,
apparently as it told me when I logged in this time, but I’d never paid for it,
and so I could see when people had emailed me, but I couldn’t read the emails
or reply. I was very unwilling then.
Problem is, I’m still unwilling now. But, I think it’s
causing me to see the absurdity of registering and demanding that the person I
date be Jewish when I have such a tenuous and almost laughable connection with
my own Judaism and my own community. What does it matter if the dude is Jewish
if I’m not participating in Jewish stuff anyway? Who cares, then, if it doesn’t
actually impact or change my life in any way. You’re Jewish, great, so am I –
let’s go get a cheeseburger. …
Not to say that I have an intention to go kosher, but just
to notice that I’m looking for a Jewish mate, but not looking for a Jewish
community. This seems counterproductive, or somehow just doesn’t make sense to
me.
If I want Judaism in my life, personally and romantically, I
ought to get out there and go participate in Jewish things. There are fun
things to do – I know there are – I mean Jews are comedians – there’s gotta be something to that.
I am not sure what I’ll do with my JDate account for now –
it’s rather depressing and makes me feel like there’s scarcity in this world,
or that if I were wittier, I’d get more replies, or lied about my height, or
something. If I want to be my authentic self, then I ought to start with being
authentic to my desire to participate in a community that I love – and whatever
happens from that will happen.
For me, Judaism becomes something that when I’m there is part of my blood – And when I’m not, I forget how important it is to me. When I’m there, listening to the “long time ago, Rabbi so and so was talking to Rabbi other so
and so, and they were arguing about chickens.” I want to hear that. I want to hear that this thing here represents this about
the earth, but this about the spirit. I want to hear the ironic laughter and the punchlines of
moral tales passed down through ages. I want to learn and I want to be a part
of. I don’t and can’t do that online,
But I can make an effort to do it in person. 
action · community · growth · love · maturity · self-care · work

R+D

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The past two days, I’ve been functioning according to
my new time plan – or schedule. My friend who helped me on Tuesday morning suggested things I would never think of myself (or let myself) like
“walk,” and then insisted that I write down “piano” in capital letters.
I spend more time than I like (cough – resentment) traveling to and from school because of the
shuttle schedule (though I am grateful to have it at all). On Thursdays, for a 4pm class, I’m on campus at 2:30pm,
because the next shuttle doesn’t arrive until after 4. So, I have over an hour to “kill” on campus before class.
My friend knows that a spiritual nourishment of mine is
playing the piano in the school chapel, and suggested I use some of that time
at the piano. If it weren’t written down, I wouldn’t do it. Like, take a walk,
or… the “important” piece, R+D.
Research and Development. That’s what we’re calling actions
relating to job, career, income earning. I like it so much more than writing
down in my new little schedule, “Job hunt.” That just sucks. Makes me dread and
despise it before I begin. But “Research and Development” sounds like something
significant and helpful for me. Just research. Helping me develop. Not a whip
or a chastisement.
So, over the past two days, I’ve spent 4 hours in R+D. This
is huge. Usually, it’s looked like a few minutes glances at craigslist, a loud
harumph, a resentment, despair, and click the browser closed … and then go off
to some other mindless activity to get my mind off my despair!
So, R+D for an hour, I set my alarm clock, then I have
something in between before the next hour. Something nourishing. A reward
perhaps. Tuesday it was “art,” and I made two little acrylic painted postcards,
out of the blank postcard pad I’d bought last week. I sent one off that
afternoon. Yesterday, my nourishment was a walk. Although it also included
calling my mom and coordinating logistics for her and my brother’s visit in a
month. But, that’s alright. I got out of the house, up into the gorgeous hills
near me with houses so beautiful (and enviable).
Yesterday, I also began “development” of a newsletter to
send out to the masses, announcing my new workshop that I’ll be facilitating in SF in May (G-d willing).
Part of my “Go big and go home” movement is to really take ownership of this
workshop, and to really put it out there. I have great support around it, and
have been encouraged by numerous parties. Now, the action ball is in my court,
and with those structured moments of time, I’m picking up that ball.
So, yesterday I went into Constant Contact, that mass email newsletter site. I logged in, actually, although I couldn’t remember when had been the last
time I did – I knew that I had an account with them. Turns out, saved in the draft
section was a newsletter I was working on in November of 2010. It was a very
ambitious letter about starting an creative events company. It’s more than
overly ambitious, and I think very sweet, now that it’s two years later. But
what it tells me is that I’ve been working on stuff like this for a while. And
there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work.
I went to brown paper tickets to check out their policies,
and saw you can have free tickets too, so as to be a great way to manage RSVPs
… not via a “Yes” on Facebook. (I don’t know about you, but I tend to click yes
to all kinds of things I later have no intention of going to…!)
Then, through a girl friend, I saw her website for her
creative coaching company. And started some work on one of my own. Because really, I
know if I were going to attend a workshop, I’d want to see a website.
So, here we are. Taking action. Moving along as scheduled
(although yesterday, despite being “art” time, I took a much needed nap!). I will
allow for the changes I need as I come to know how I work best. I know 2 hours
of R+D in a row is overwhelming. Splitting it up is helpful. I know that 15
minutes on dishes and cleaning a day will save me time in the end, and also
help me to feel proud of my home I’m trying so hard to keep.
I have been building toward things like this for a long
time. I have co-run this workshop before; I have a teacher singly devoted to
helping me put on the free version later this month; and, as irony would have
it, I have a decade of administrative, secretarial experience – so I know how to organize an event.
I’m supported in my effort of self love. Which in the end is
what this is. 

commitment · community · progress · recovery · self-care

Scatterbot

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I dunno why. Sounds about right. Scattering parts of me
hither and thither. My apartment reflects that disarray most of the time. And as
I’ve written, the disparate parts of me are scattered. And my thesis, scattered.
I mention it today, as one of my action items is to print
the last 9 pages that I’ve written and consolidate them into the whole. This
isn’t like tacking them on to the end, that’s not the way my thesis is written
– not linearly. It is more like a collage, and I have to figure out what makes
these disparate pieces a whole.
As you can imagine, this is as – if not more – metaphorical as
it is literal. And I’ve been stalling. Not long, just a few days, but long
enough to notice. I went to the local library to print out the 9 pages, and a woman
was on the computer, so I waited about 5 minutes, and left. And, it’ll be time
for me to do that again today – but, uh, stay
this time, and print them out.
It’s like … gluing an old vase back together. You’ve hung on
to the pieces because you couldn’t bare to chuck them; and so you’ve lost some
of the little bits that used to create the whole. But I notice the missingness
of the vase.
I’ve asked a girlfriend of mine from school to take a look
at it once it’s in order, and to read it with an editing, writerly eye. She’s
agreed, and I feel safe and comfortable showing the work to her – she’s been in
workshops with me, and I trust her eye on my work – she gets it. Plus I respect
and love her writing, which is helpful in a partnership of this sort. So, I’m supposed
to get something – by my own deadline – to her by Friday. The end of Spring
Break – which, doesn’t look much different to me than any other week, except
I’m not on campus two days this week.
The other thing I have to unscatter for tomorrow are my
numbers – I meet with someone weekly to talk through financial clarity and do
some work, and it’s my self-imposed deadline to load all my numbers into my
spreadsheet before I meet with her – as when I was only doing it monthly, it
felt too vague, like I really didn’t know what I had to spend or had spent in the categories
I’ve designated.
I also have an “action partner” now. It was suggested to me
last week that I get an “art action partner,” but as I was talking with my
friend last night, we agreed, they’re pretty much the same thing in our lives.
So, I have someone who I’m emailing now daily the tasks I’ll do today – like
the printing and the numbers – and then, theoretically, I’ll email her tonight
to let her know what I’ve done.
We’ll see how it goes. We’re playing the structure of it loosely, but I know
I need a daily list at the moment. My fear is causing my lack of structure to
dissolve into procrastination and paralyzation. (The three “P”s, I’ve heard
are: Perfectionism, Procrastination, Paralyzation.) So I’m trying to head the
cycle off at the pass by creating a structure where babysteps are acknowledged
and doable… and accountable.
It is by baby steps that I won’t fuck it up, basically.
Inaction has the same result for me as too much or big action – taking an
outsized step, and falling, and then feeling like See, I can’t do it. When in
reality, it just was an outsized step for where I am in my development, and I’d
set myself up to fail.
I’m looking forward to some of this structure, because I
feel like by standing on the foundation of it, I feel supported, and like I’m
taking estimable acts.
Scatterbot, powering down. Gathering time, commence. 

community · compassion · gratitude · recovery · self-care · spirituality

Hold the Space

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

It’s a very good thing I don’t have to do this on my own,
that I’m connected to friends and fellowships, and to a Higher Power that can
help me to hold the space for others. Because Lord, if today is not the day of
expanding that capacity.
Already today, I have sat and listened to the chaos and pain and
sadness of several people’s lives. I have been on the phone with someone who
asked to be given the space, for me to hold
the space, for her to share her grief. And then I sat one-on-one with someone
in chaos and pain, and offered action steps, encouragement, and hope.
I’m … well, I guess I’m not exhausted, because I haven’t
been doing this on my own power. Luckily, I have enough experience to know that
I cannot hold others’ grief all by
myself, and so I’ve taken moments here and there during this morning to call
upon the inner resources of strength to help me be present – not to check out
while they’re sharing, or to be in judgment of them, or think about my opinion about what they’re saying – but to really be present and listen.
I found it hardest first thing this morning, when for an hour that was the theme, and there were a few people grounded in their chaos, feeding
on it, and looking for relief in a way that felt toxic to me. That’s always the
hardest type. A friend informed me that Eckhart Tolle (whom, by the way, I
cannot stand…but that’s a story for another day), but that he had a concept
called the “pain body,” and it goes something like, when someone wants to share
their pain in a way that they want you to get stuck in it too – that they want
you to take it on. To stand nearby to someone, just aching to share their pain
body with you.
You probably know people like that – perhaps you are even
related to them. But they don’t want you to “hold space” for them; they want
you to become mired in it with them. A misery loves company kind of thing.
It’s hard to stand on top of the quagmire of trauma and
grief and sadness and suffering, and not get sucked down by it. One thing that
helps, and which has helped me today is gratitude.
For all the drama around school and finances, and even
around my trauma recovery, I am not where those people are, just for today. For
today, I am grateful that I woke up early, got to meet my commitments, and will
head this afternoon to the chiropractor and later to meet up with a lovely
group of cityfolk.
For today, there isn’t active drama or chaos or grief in my
life. And I am hugely grateful for that. I’ve heard it said that it’s a good
thing we’re not all crazy on the same day. Sometimes people hold the space for
me when I am in it. When I’m snot-bubble
sobbing the Ugly Cries and I can’t see the end of the abyss. And people hold
the space for me to cry it out, and likely sit in compassion and gratitude
themselves.
We’re not all crazy on the same day, nor are we all grieving
on the same day.
The other thing that I’ve found helpful today as I sit and
let the grief of others dissipate from around me, is that I did my dishes. All
of them. I vacuumed my apartment. And I will eat some healthy lunch before I
head on my way. Because no matter what resources I have available to me from a
Higher Power or from my community, if I’m not taking care of my basic needs,
I’m not at all available to others.
Water, Food, Recovery, Compassion, Gratitude. It’s been a
big day, and it’s only noon. But tomorrow someone may do it for me. 
community · fortitude · gratitude · grief · love

Be Lightning.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

It will be impossible to write today without acknowledging
yesterday. Puffy eyed and dehydrated, as if I drank all the salt water
that I poured out yesterday.
A bottle of root beer was spilled ceremony-like into a glass
of vanilla ice cream. Like when someone spills a person’s favorite drink onto
their grave in memoriam.
Someone chuckled at the number of women he’d slept with who
came to the funeral. That that said something, that they all showed up.
A woman he worked with told about the practical jokes he’d
done at work, like rearranging her cubicle when she was gone for lunch, so that
when she came in, it was all walled in and backwards, and she couldn’t get into
it.
What I thought of him was that he
was like the initial spark of a lightning bolt. That all of the ions became
electrified just by being in his
vicinity, just by being adjacent to him. That suddenly the whole place, the
whole sky was lit up. He had that effect.
I am not among the women he slept
with. I was not friends with him in a familiar, close way. But I was in his
vicinity, often, and I too had been lit up by him. Heartened by his just being
there, even if he was sulky and sarcastic, as he was more and more. It just
felt good to know him. Just to know he was here.
There were more than 200 people
there yesterday, with standing room only, and all the doors to the small chapel
opened wide for people to crowd in together. I shook with repressed sobs. His
mother was in a mildly hysterical, altered state that you associate with
someone with dementia – oh, isn’t this nice, what’s your name. …
In Judaism, parents who have lost
a child get a free pass to heaven, no questions asked. In Judaism, we also
don’t do open caskets. So this was the first time I’d been near a … one.
Awkward in his My Girl made-up face. The slight raised angle of his
eyebrows toward the middle that always made him look like he was eager, or
worried.
I’d written a blog a while back
about death, and how it occurred to me that what was left was love, and
children’s laughter. There was a child there yesterday, his nephew, playing
outside the opened doors where people were crowding in. And love is not even
the right word for what was felt in that chapel yesterday. It’s not even close
to big enough.
With no other course, I am
inspired to honor this life, his life, by attempting to be a fraction of the electric ion that he was. To quit my solitude and hiding. To love as
much as I can, as I know I’m here to do. And lastly, with no other course, to accept that this had to be done. That this was necessary. That he needed to go home. That he needed to go back. 
For all of the lives you brightened. For the one thing that held you back from “getting it.” For addiction’s baffling ability to cut us down. And for your legacy that poured from every eye in that chapel.  May you be at peace. 

adventure · community · cooking · joy · performance · self-care

Italian Hot and Sweet

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

First of all, thank you for the outpouring of love which
you’ve sent me over the last 24 hours. I am grateful for your love and care.
I took yesterday off from work at the suggestion of the
receptionist, whom I called to say I was running late and was dragging a bit as
my grandmother had passed away, and she asked, Why are you coming in? Stay
home. And I said, well, I have those projects I want to finish so maybe I don’t
have to come in next week, and I’ll be in as soon as possible.
After about another 10 minutes of semi-aimlessness, I called
back and said, you know what, I’m going to take your suggestion and not come in
today – I’ll be in on Monday. And, so I will. I do have one project, not to
finish, since it’s epic, but to show her how to do, to pass the torch, and once
I do that, complete that task, I will be done there. I say with a finality that
allows for change 😉 But, I am feeling so over it. Sure, lots of people feel
“over” their jobs, but I have the opportunity and the freedom to make a change,
and so, I will make it. Before I get too resentful, too late, and burn a bridge
I may need some day.
One of my options for alternative income will be approved or
denied on Sunday. I’m auditioning for the live modeling guild in the Bay Area,
and they pay well. Like I’ve said before, they also require “motorized
transportation,” but I’m not all too worried about that. I have a feeling
things are in the works around me and a car. First of all, because I reached
out for help around finding one, and second because I have the support system
of my financial folks to help me really piece together the amount I can spend –
although I haven’t sat down with them yet, I let two people know that I would
be reaching out to do so.
Today is my audition for a musical theater company, and true
to my Serenity Moth, I haven’t practiced whatsoever. I have the music for one
of the two songs I’ll sing, but am still not sure what my second one will be.
And, I wish I’d practiced. Duh.
It’s “funny.” I had done my numbers in December, and had
come to the conclusion that I actually didn’t need to work these few weeks before school started, but
greed and anxiety came in, and I took the two weeks at the temp job. “Funny” is
that last week I was stupidly sick, and worked one full day. That’s it.
Then, this week, with my increasing lateness to work, and then taking off
yesterday, I haven’t worked a full week anyway. It’s like the Universe saying, See, darling, sometimes things will end up the way they’re supposed to
anyway – and you would have been better off not fighting it.
Yesterday, I did meet up with a friend for tea, and we spoke
poetry, and school, and artistic integrity and honesty. And it was just nice to
sit in the middle of the day drinking a hot beverage with a beloved friend. I
wish I’d allowed myself the last two weeks to do that. But, c’est la vie.
Perhaps lesson learned.
Afterward, I took a walk up over the border between Oakland and
Piedmont (aka the rich section), and went up to my favorite tree swing. There
are a number of swings in the streets up there, hanging from the trees closest
to the sidewalk and street, and although when I first began to sit on them last
year, I felt self-conscious, like these were someone else’s and I shouldn’t be
on them – I’ve gotten over it 😉 And I sat for a while on my favorite swing,
swinging intermittently and letting myself oscillate back to center – which
sort of feels like a metaphor for yesterday.
The later afternoon I spent on my couch in the dwindling
sunshine reading Eat Pray Love, a book
I’ve read before, and which seemed exactly the book I felt like reading. And
perhaps influenced by the first section when the author is in Italy, and
influenced by her self questioning (What would you, self, like to do?), in the evening, I asked myself
what I wanted to eat. Nothing on
the commercial strip seemed like what I wanted, so I decided to go to the
grocery market, and just see what appealed and cook something. I had a vague
idea about a pasta dish I’ve made before (also likely influenced by the “food porn”
section of the book) but they didn’t have fresh basil (it’s not at all
basil season at the moment), so I started to pick up random vegetables that
spoke to me.
This blog perhaps is longer than I intended, but a long time
ago in a galaxy far away, I was a 19 year old suburban college student in the
summer between sophomore and junior year, and I was blazingly in love with an
Italian-American. Blazingly – burn hot, burn quick. He, of the red growling IROC
camaro, yes, really, and against-stereotype dredlocks, was a chef. (Well, at the
moment, he worked at a pizza shop, but…)
One evening, he and I were in the kitchen of my house and he
decided to cook up dinner. He began to do the most amazing thing. Something I
had never ever seen before. He started to randomly take items, vegetables, meat, out
of the refrigerator and prepare them for the pot. How do you know what to
put in?? I squealed. Without a
recipe??
I was shocked. I had never seen someone cook in this way
before – without a recipe. He replied, I just know what I like, so I throw it in.
It was so novel. It perhaps sounds ridiculous to you, but at
that moment, my entire world of cooking and food was cracked wide open – and
beyond that, my ideas of rules, freedom, joy, frivolity, experimentation were
cracked open as well. It was a pinnacle moment for me. And each time I just
begin to “throw stuff in,” I still get a thrill of adventure.
So, when, yesterday, I was in the grocery store, and had to
abandon my very specific basil recipe, I found myself creating something
entirely new. Would it work? Who cares – I want to try. So, with a basket
filled with locally-made pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, Italian sausage –
hot and sweet, a log of mozzarella, stalks of asparagus-thin broccoli, and a few sweet red peppers,
I headed home to the healing power of food, creation, adventure, and self-care.
P.S. it was marvelous! – but next time, ix-nay on the
capers 😉