Category: courage

beauty · courage · modeling · sex

LadyScaping

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The very first monologue in The Vagina Monologues is “Hair.” It begins, You cannot love a vagina
unless you love hair. – This, is something of an outdated sentiment it seems
these days.
Why discuss this? Two reasons, firstly, reading some
articles yesterday on the effect of porn in our bedrooms, and secondly, because
I modeled nude yesterday.
The reality is that nowadays, having no hair down there is
very much a norm. Much of that is the proliferation of what it looks like in
porn, and long from men associating that look with an 11 year old girl, they
associate it with sexual maturity. From a woman’s point of view, this is often
not so. I’ve had a few conversations, and run the gamut myself from all kinds of
ladyscaping, including the nothing at all – for myself, not for my lovers,
though that plays in, of course. But for the majority, it’s like another
accessory we get to play with.
However, in art, in drawing and in painting, it’s a
different world. I’ve been in art classes where we’ve had live models, and
those with hair are much nicer to draw or paint. There’s a feeling of
femininity about the look, the fluff, and the mystery. It looks mature,
basically. There was the girl with nothing, clean as a baby’s bottom – but
really, is that the association you want to make when looking at a woman?
The associations have skewed and diverged somewhere along
the line. The artist yesterday made her own approving comments about the state
of my ladyscaping, and confirmed that many of the women she sees now don’t have
any hair, and it’s, again, nicer to draw this way. Let’s not say it’s the
Amazon. We have pride. But, I knew what my job was yesterday, so I “dressed”
accordingly.
To tangent from the above, yesterday, I did model nude. It was my first official drawing 3 hour
session. Recently, I’d modeled for a photographer friend of mine, but I was
very wary of that, considering the state of the interwebs, and the fact that
employers, my students’ parents, my students, all have access to it. But, I
trust this photographer a lot, and I knew his vision was not porn, but art, and
you wouldn’t really be seeing me, as much as shapes and crooks of arms and
legs, etc. That said, … nervous fun as it was, I don’t think photography is for
me. It’s just too close to life, and for whatever reason, for me, feels too
close to intrusive and the fuzzy edge of my own values about my body.
So, drawing. Much better. You get a real sense – she says
from her one day’s experience! – of what the artist wants – it becomes a
collaboration and a mutual exchange of artistry and creativity. I loved it. I
had a great time. It was physically
demanding, and I’m getting to learn my body and the limits of my body, but I
was also surprised at how well I could hold some of the poses.
And luckily, some were laying down. The artist is currently
working on a “death pose” series, so there were some gawky awkward, laying
down poses to do. We worked for 3 hours, we chatted, we listened to music, she
drew, I posed, it was lovely.
And at the end… she paid me. I got paid!! I wasn’t expecting
that at all, as I thought this was just a trial “let’s see if I have what it
takes” session, but she handed me a check at the end and was very pleased with
my work, and is going to forward my info to other artists, and she wants me back again in a month! How ‘bout them apples!
So, the female form, live, in the bedroom, in the studio –
stylized in the interwebs – who is to say what is beauty, what is reality? I
have nothing against porn – I’m known to visit on the occasion it strikes, but
ladyscaping is personal. And too, I do believe and hope it remains that
sex is personal – not virtual. 
courage · fear · growth · loss · maturity

Tell the Truth, Tell the Truth, Tell the Truth.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

This was the inscription in someone’s book I read once,
quoting someone else. I’ll have to look up who. But it occurs to me this
morning.
So, it is true that by vomiting out my thesis and the
actions therein that I have opened up lines to things that I didn’t have access
to before. This morning, I got to see one of them.
A while back, I’d written here about an “individuation meditation” I’d done regarding my mom. It was an exercise
out of that Calling in The One book, and
it was helpful and powerful and sad, but freeing, then.
This morning as I went in to meditation, I thought to go one
place, and instead was drawn to go elsewhere. So, I did. I ended up at Ocean
Beach, basically the end of the continent hemmed in and eroded and maleated by
the wide Pacific Ocean. There stood a large figure. It was my dad.
I’ve written some here about his ability to throw me off
course, with his demands that I live according to his ideas of what is right,
or with his pure denial of facts about his life and our mutual familial past.
Maybe I’ve even glanced at some of the violence that occurred when my brother
and I were young. But I don’t really talk about it. Hence, the title.
The truth is, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what I hear in others’ lives, and I
discount and play down the ability that man had to scare the … nearly scare the
life out of me. He is a large man, at 6’3”, with a larger voice, fiercer eyes,
and my brother and I would tense at the sound of his car pulling into
the driveway, as if getting ready for battle defenses.
There is a story that I’ve been told, that when I was about 7 or
so, in the middle of an altercation, I turned to my dad and said we were too old to be hit anymore. – No seven
year old should ever have to say or feel that. And my brother at 4, then, shouldn’t
either.
These are, granted, my own interpretations. But, my father,
abandoning physical violence, started in simply using his voice to holler. And
his hollering shook the foundation of the house. — Although there are some
poignant moments in my past when he took up that old tool of intimidation again. …
He was not a pleasant man – though you may not know that in public. You
probably sense you don’t want to cross him, but he’s like that Scorpion in that
legend – it’s in his nature to bite.
And then, too, it’s not in his nature to bite. He’s scared.
He never had proper fathering, never knew how, had his own shame about being a
bastard child, and then hated his step-father. He grew up in the army. Learned
how to make beds and keep time and everything in a row and in order.
Children are not on time or in a row or ever in order. This
frightened him. I know that now.
But, in my meditation, the phrase that I repeated several
times, as I sobbed a bit in real life, was, You don’t have the power to kill me
any more.
…
See, because, last night, I wrote a mini G-d letter, and
asked for some guidance on earning income, what I should do. And the letter
back asked, What do you want to do? I
cannot produce vagueness.
What a novel question: what do I want to do?
And so when I went in this morning in meditation to find
some answers within myself to this question, I found myself face to face with
my dad. My dad who has wanted me to live life to his rules for a very long
time, even though it’s years since I’m out of his house. I still feel the
stamping thumb of a demand for “normalcy” or whatever his idea of the “right”
kind of life is for me.
So, that’s what this morning was about. Of course I haven’t
really been able to consider what it is I
want to do in my life, if I’m continuing to struggle against what his ideas are for my life. My therapist has tried to
instill this in me over several years – Molly, this is your life. It hasn’t made sense to me. I haven’t known
what that’s meant. When I’m trying to struggle against the idea that I might be
swatted or, as the fear puts it, killed, of course I don’t have the time or
wherewithall to consider what I
want to do with my life. First things first, right? Survival.
To move from the stance of survival to the stance of growth
means to move out from under the fear of elimination. It’s a “fancied” fear at this point –
but it makes my heart flutter and tells me to stay hidden and to stay safe.
Which is what I’ve done for a while, and doesn’t fucking work for me.
I invited him to leave. I told him, as the exercise in the
book suggested, that I was sorry I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be, and
that I forgive him for not being what I want him to be. That without his anger,
he’s just a scared old man, and a scared little boy. I have compassion for the
little boy. And I need to learn some right-sizedness around the man. To begin
to step into my own britches is to believe that they belong to me. In the face
of anyone else – good or bad decision, right or wrong, lost or found — this is
my life.
I don’t know how to do that yet, but inviting him to stop
throttling me is a good start. 
authenticity · cool · courage · growth

Stay Cool, Boy

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

“Cool.” It’s something I want. Something I want to be, but
it’s not an acquisition piece.
Cool and Brave were the two things that came up in some
writing yesterday – qualities that I want to be or have more of. Both require
similar levels of self-assurance and self-acceptance.
I went into the word “cool” for myself – what did I mean by
that? What does it mean to me? Well, cool, to me, means being calm, confident,
not boastful, involved in a variety of activities, engaged in the world, having
a sense of ease about oneself and place in the world. Cool means knowing you
have a right to be where you are. Cool means a lack of self-consciousness. And
a lack of worry or fear.
Similar to brave, I imagine.
A few months ago, I fell in desperate infatuation with a
black leather jacket. This is how I want
people to see me. This is how I want to see myself. This piece will make me cool.
See, but it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t buy the jacket
on the spot, and instead received it for half the store price from an online
site as holiday present from my dad. I got the jacket in the mail in December,
and it sat in my closet.
I was scared of this jacket.
What it would mean of me, or of what I projecting into the
world. Can I own this jacket? Not in the
possession way, but in the dominate way? Instead of the jacket wearing me, can
I wear it?
The jacket stayed in my closet until earlier this month. I
would take it out occassionally. Fawn over the delicateness of the leather; the
instant cool it gives. But was it me, or was it the jacket?
Finally, I wore it. I felt both impostor and proud. I felt
both seen and the desire to not be seen – can you see through me as I wear
this? Do you know that I don’t have many tattoos or a Ramones album?
Over the last month, I’ve worn this jacket a few more times.
And each time, it does for me what I hoped it would – it’s helped me to embody
the coolness that, somewhere, I do believe I have – if we define “cool” as I
have above – as a calm sense of self-assuredness and place in this world.
The jacket is becoming a tool, not a costume.
I struggle with my own feelings of worthiness around many
things in this world, including obviously a black leather jacket. But owning
this piece of clothing, this visible statement to the world, helps me to feel
like I’m approaching a different place in it.
No longer content to hide from it. No longer content to hide
who I am in it. Yes, I am that girl in the black leather jacket. And I might even
have heels on, too. 
change · courage · poetry · vulnerability

We have Lift-Off

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, on Wednesday, I called my girl friend from school, and
my first words on her voicemail were, “I need help.” She called me back immediately.
I asked her if I could just come over to work on my thesis
in her presence, just to have another human around as I was attempting
to compile and sort and order my poems into a cohesive whole.
I used to do this as a kid, have a parent just sit nearby –
I didn’t need their input or help, just needed a person there to help me feel
calm enough and supported enough to do the work. She said sure.
So I went over with snacks, like a good Jew, and actually,
she did begin to read it. Some are poems she’d seen before, some are
new. She really liked them. Moreover, one of my concerns is that because my
thesis is basically about me and my story, was it too “myopic,” too personal to
reach anyone else besides me? She said no – she said, in fact, reading my own
stuff helped her to think about her own – she said it was important, and that
she liked how it was written.
She had some good insights and points about how to make it a
cohesive whole, and although my innards scream, “REALLY?!?! YOU LIKE
IT???,” she did.
Yesterday, I went to a coffee shop with everything I’ve got
and began to edit some of them, and to look at the few edits my friend made. It
was interesting. She’d suggested that I consider, as I’m editing and working on
this, to remember that this isn’t “my” story, this is a work I’m giving to
others. That perhaps that could help to take some of the emotional charge and
swept-awayness out of it. Because it’s the same as most “selfish/self-less”
work – I get the benefits of sharing this and someone else gets the benefit
from hearing it.
I tried to keep some of that in mind yesterday. But mostly
what I was struck by was, indeed, how much my writing has changed over the last year. It was a year ago around
this time that my professor “accused” (she says still slightly burned) my
writing of being melodramatic and cliché.
So, I wrote in reaction to that comment, and began to write
in the most “non-emotional,” facts only way that I could.
Turns out – it’s good. My friend asked me this week if I
knew that my strength lay in minimalism – I said no, I had no idea! I had no
idea this writing, this style would come out of me or this master’s program.
But it has. And I like it. She said, she likes that it’s snarky. And indeed it
is. I like that that comes across. It’s quite tongue-in-cheek. Very “lay this out in front of you without any affect,” because the affect is
in how you are absorbing it, what it arises in you – When someone tells you something horrific in a
flat tone, you think serial killer. Well, it’s sort of something like that. The
non-emotionalism is allowing me to tell the story.
Perhaps, one day, if I choose to come back to this content,
I will flesh it out or approach it differently, but for now, this is the only
way I can let you know what happened without freaking out. And you don’t need to know how I felt. Your reaction is likely the same as mine – and that’s the
important part for this writing, or maybe any. To get the reader to feel
something.
So, as I sat, surrounded by other people, my safety blanket,
at the café yesterday and began to chop off whole parts of my earlier work, I began
to see that this body of work may actually work, and that perhaps my writing is
worth while. 

courage · love · responsibility · self-care

Arrangement

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

One phrase a single woman should never utter: Cat, stop
eating my flowers.
I bought myself flowers this week, as I now do periodically, and the
man at the flower stand, who went off on a very long monologue about the
upcoming new year for his religion, which I believe I gathered was Russian
Orthodox, told me that he’d been thinking about me. This older gentleman, who I
didn’t believe worked at the stand the first time I saw him there, and I
waited for the woman who I normally interacted with. I thought he was some sort
of flower stand hanger-on, or the woman’s husband (which he is), but a person
who didn’t know much about flowers or flower arrangements.
That time, he began to randomly pluck flowers from their
black watery bins, and show them to me, “This? … This?” and as I shook my
head, I became more convinced that he did not in fact work there.
Turns out, he did, and he does, but that first time, I
waited for his wife anyway, and walked away with a beautiful spray of day
lilies – the kind that smelled, as many in California do not, I found out from
the woman – that the kind that do, come from places where the land does get
cold in winter – like back in New Jersey, where we grew them along the side of
my house, and every summer the whole length of the house smelled of day lilies.
So, I always hunt for the ones that smell.
This week when I went, it was just the man, and his strange
information about seven things that they put on an altar for their new year,
including hyacinth and some sort of branch, which he said is why he’d been
thinking of me – that it was all very beautiful, but not as beautiful as me. …
Now, I play along, I’m charming, and he’s very delightful to have made up this
story on the spot, or maybe it was true. But it was a strange ending to this long religious info session. And
I walked away, with my bunch of flowers.
These flowers, this arrangement, is not pretty. It’s got
some spiky, scaggy deep purple sprays of some sort. An anemone-looking orange
one that probably eats live things in its other life. A stalk of not-so-fresh
looking sunrise flowers. A few branches of pussy-willow, and one stem of day
lilies – the smelling kind.
It sort of looks, overall, like a thanksgiving/fall style
color palette, and it is not pretty in the conventional way that I usually like
my flowers to be. But, it is beautiful in its own way. It is not something I
would have chosen.
I suppose I’m moved to write about it, them, this
interaction, because it sort of speaks to a few things for me. The first is
that, when someone compliments me, I assume it’s bunk. That it’s to get
something from me, like more business in this case. The second is that I knew I
wasn’t liking the arrangement he was making, but because of his compliment and
certainty in his work, I let it go, and took what I was being given. And third, of course, not all beautiful things are pretty.
The third, I’ll accept. It’s true. Things in this world are
to be marveled at, but they’re not always attractive in conventional ways, and
you may have to squint to see its beauty. So, this is partly about letting go
of my ideas about things in general. My proscribed black-and-white, good/not
good, thinking.
To the second, I ought to have said something. Just because
I was complimented doesn’t mean I have to take
what’s being handed to me. I am glad I have the flowers, but I do wish I had
asked for something other than a handful of motley and slightly craggy plants.
This, speaks to many things in my life and how I’ve lived it up to now.
And to the first, about dismissing compliments, well, that’s
back to the accepting support thing that I’m working on currently. To believe
that I am worthy of notice, support, love, and encouragement. And that perhaps people aren’t pulling my chain, or trying to get something from me, that perhaps I have something genuine that people like and are attracted to. To believe, as it were, that not every
rose has its thorn … 

art · authenticity · courage · honesty · love · maturity

Occupy Life

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Don’t worry, this won’t be a political diatribe.
As perhaps you’ve been garnering from some of the recent
writing, I’m becoming more open to be available to my own life. To occupy it,
as it were.
This has happened slowly, and is still a work in progress.
But I remember back to the “Life of an Asparagus” blog, about beginning to
sense that some of the seeds I’ve been sowing over the last few years are
beginning to peek through, and show me their colors and flavors.
I’m excited by this prospect, and still, afraid of it. Will
the asparagus be green enough? Tender enough? Snappy enough? Will I, as I begin
to show you more of who I am, and what I have to offer, be enough?
The un/fortunate truth is that I don’t really have a choice
to pull the emergency brake here, and say, WHOA buddy, let me make sure that
this is all kosher and “molly-approved” before I put it out there to you.
When I’d been contemplating The Cousin (*not my cousin*) a while ago before we ended, I said to a
friend that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a shelf, to pause him and our
romance. I wanted the time to figure myself out, get “well,” get fixed, and
then take him back down and continue the romance, with me as a whole, well
person.
Problem is, life isn’t like that, and people aren’t like
that. I don’t get to put anything on hold – others, myself, the world, school,
my finances, time – so that I can get a better handle on it.
It’s a constant game of changing the tire while the car is
in motion.
Constantly evolving means being willing to give up control;
to give up the demands for the future.
In all of this “lifeness” that’s going on, however, things
are changing, and have changed, and I find myself at a different place than I
had been, having arrived here somewhat circuitously, but somewhere where things
are, where I am, different.
I haven’t had to pause the world for me to get here. I’ve
had to, in fact, jump on board with the fact that this train is leaving and
will continue to leave, and I can ignore the fact it’s moving, or I can enjoy
the view. And more than that, I can let myself be shaped by its movement.
That “letting myself be shaped” has been the hardest part.
Or one of them. To accept that I’m not exactly sure what I’ll look like, who
I’ll be, and if I’ll or you’ll like me on the other side of it. But keeping my
eyes closed to the brilliance that is outside and inside, well, it’s kept me
pretty lonely and forlorn. And in the end, it’s not fair.
Who am I to shut my eyes to what I’ve been given, what
others are offering me? To the love that is being offered me – the help, and
the hope, and the encouragement, and the desire I’m told for more… of me. Who
am I to deny that?
I begin to think about this, and write this today, as I
start to recognize this new path of thought and action. One which, although I
may not be taking all of the action steps that are suggested, I’m becoming open
to taking them 😉 I see their merit – I see that these actions are helping me
to fill out my life, like an underinflated balloon that could be buoyant and
loved, if it only let itself get full.
Perhaps that analogy fell flat. But, I think I’m
understanding what it means! It means that I’m changing. It means that I’m
becoming more available to my life, and to my gifts, and to others. It means
that I’m beginning to choose community and vulnerability as opposed to
contraction and “safety.”
I’ve had to tell a
few more people a little more about what I’m doing, and what I like to do,
because those were the indicated responses. (I write, I sing, I act, I paint.)
Every time I tell someone one of these things, there is the reactionary twinge
of fear and the cavernous echoing “NO!!!” … but, I do it anyway, now. And every
time I do, I’m staking one more claim to my own life, and allowing it to open
up to me as I open up to it.

abundance · courage · family · forgiveness · fortitude

My Life is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

My Body is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order

My Home is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order
My Finances are in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order
My Time is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order
My Family is in Harmony and in Perfect Living Order
Now that you’ve vomited, gagged, or simply stopped reading,
this is the phrase that occurred to me this morning. Particularly around my
family.
These are affirmations, which means that they may not be
precisely “true” at present, but the point is to work at believing them, and to
bring them into being. Affirmations have a long history, with me too, of being
thought of as poppy-cock, and nonsense, and sooooo gushy icky lovey for only the really far out
hopeless cases of wishful, magical thinkers.
And, be that as it may, what harm can they do.
It’s like the removal of the paintings of women hidden from
the viewer. What harm can it do? It’s like seeing a holistic chiropractor who
recommended gargling with (diluted!) apple cider vinegar because I was getting
sick. What harm can it do? It’s like believing that my parents will behave themselves when they see
each other at my graduation.
Like the anxiety/control bug will do, this parasite will
glom onto anything to maintain its existence. And, currently, now that it looks
like I may well graduate (WHEW!), it looks like my parents are coming out to see me
“walk” for graduation.
I’m… anxious in advance. My parents were not the fighting
kind when they were married. They were the not talking kind, speaking, toward
the end especially, only about who has a dentist appointment that day, or when
they’ll be home, etc. So, it’s difficult to imagine a reality in which they
talk less, but, I’m in it. We’re in it.
In fact, it’s worse. Because now, there’s rancor and
distrust and dislike. There’s resentment basically. And for the most part,
since their divorce ten years ago, a) they do not talk, email, communicate
(except through my brother and me), and b) if they mention each other, it’s
with bile.
So, my anxiety bug has been glomming onto the event of their
being in the same place at the same time, and how uncomfortable their tension
makes me.
It’s been suggested that I can let each of them know that
this is on my mind, and that I look forward to a happy occasion. They don’t
have to be best friends – they never really were – they just have to get along
enough to celebrate a happy occasion. My happy occasion.
My therapist said yesterday that it’s typical for people who
have had to take on adult responsibilities prior to adulthood to get a little
paralyzed and fearful when faced with adult rites of passage, such as
graduation. That we have put on such a show and action of being adult before our
years that when we’re actually faced with real acts of adulthood, we don’t
really know what to do with that. There’s a feeling that we haven’t in fact
grown up enough to take on the responsibilities we’re being asked to take on.
The fact is, I didn’t graduate undergrad with my friends and
roommates. I was in a mental institution at the time, coming off a combination
of drugs and alcohol, most of which noone knew I was abusing so much. I
remember my fear of what would happen when I graduated. This fear of going home
to live with my dad (my parents had only divorced that year) and knowing that
he and I were at odds. Seeing that my roommates and friends were all getting
ready to prepare for it, and I was in some bar, occasionally some bar in Philly, miles
away from school and responsibility.
And in a final act of “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing
– H E L P!!!,” I shaved my head – bicced it – in a moment of defiance, rage, and desperation.
I didn’t know why I was really doing it then – it seemed … logical? It seemed
like my only recourse. It felt like I was on that electric walkway at the
airport, and its moving along underneath me, but I’ve lost my footing, and its
dragging me, scraping me apart as others stand so calmly heading toward their
future.
I did graduate, and “walk” a year later, once the chaos all
settled. But, certainly, it’s been on my mind as I set to graduate this May. The
same sense … or maybe it’s just a similar sense – of not knowing what I’m
doing; that I don’t know what’s on the other side of this change; that don’t
you know how lost I am still, and I’m not sure I’m ready for this.
However, the truth is much different. It’s different than my
fear, and it’s much different than the reality of 9 years ago. The truth is, I’ve
been told by my academic advisor that this fear is normal. I’ve been told by my
therapist that this fear is normal. And, I’ve been told that I am certainly not
who I was 9 years ago. That the resources and foundation that I’ve worked to
build is actually quite solid, and my fears are no more than that. Just fears.
Just worries that Molly doesn’t know how to do it perfectly.
That Molly is at a different place than some of her high school and college
peers with their children, spouses, and minivans. I’m just worried that I’m
still a foundering vessel – but I’m not. I can let myself be. I can let myself
fall into the abyss of despair, worry, and self-pity. But that really doesn’t
take into account the facts.
The fact is, I’m much more capable to take care of myself
and my life than ever before, and I have a host of people to help me when I
feel like I’m failing at it. And, the fact is that whatever happens between my
parents when they come visit is not a reflection that I have somehow failed. That their tense relationship is an
outside reflection of my inability to have a normal, sane, happy life.
Not true. And, so I will repeat the above mantras, in their
purpose to solidify from wish and desire to truth. And maybe even get a little
excited and proud that I have accomplished something rather remarkable. 🙂
anger · courage · honesty · integrity · life · school

Adaptation.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

In the movie Adaptation,
Charlie Kaufman struggles to adapt a book for the screen. His struggle at
adapting the book becomes a part of the screenplay, and in essence, he writes
himself into his own movie. At this, he says, “Oh no.”
I have decided what my thesis will be – it will be my blog.
At this, I say, “Oh no.”
Unfortunately, due to all the everything else I’ve been
working on, my thesis draft due date came and went. Not that I didn’t know it
was due, but more that I had no idea what on earth it would be.
It wouldn’t be poetry – as that’s not at all what’s coming
out in my writing right now. It wouldn’t be the watercolor language and visual
art – there’s not enough time, and I’d want to develop it and experiment with
it more. And so, like Charlie, so consumed with the struggle of artistic
production that the drama of that struggle became his body of work, so it is
with mine.
Or, at least until my thesis advisor rips me another one on
Monday.
This, is part of the problem of the honesty and visibility
of this type of artistic forum – you may recognize yourself in these pages.
But, so be it.
To catch you up on nearly a month absence from this daily
blog, … well, i’m not entirely sure how to do that. But, I will say that I did
miss this. I know that my ego loves it, but I know too that I love it – and,
some of my friends love it too. I like this style. It works on the level a
friend suggested I write: “You should write the way you speak.” I don’t know
how to do that in “poetry,” but I know how to do that here.
The requirements for the thesis are as follows:
The thesis should be a minimum of
48 pages of creative work. In general, most theses average between 60-100
pages. The thesis should consist of the best work you have written while at
school. You are encouraged to write a thesis that is risky, investigative, and
confident.
I’m pretty sure that the work I do here is investigative,
confident in its honesty to my wavering confidence, and risky perhaps in the unabashed woo-woo spirituality of it. And, likely, risky in that
I let you know much of how I process the world, with all my foibles, fears,
shenanigans, and humor. – That feels
pretty risky (and thrilling) to me.
So, after a series of tense emails between my thesis advisor
and myself, in which I was accused of “not taking this seriously enough,” I
will be meeting with her on Monday following my submission of the first 3
months of this blog.
The irony, and the motherfucking craw sticker of her
accusation, the thing that wounded me the most, was her assumption that I
wasn’t doing any work.
On poetry, no, she’s right. On every other goddamned thing,
for fuck’s sake, YES. I have been working my ASS off to address, face, and work
through every goddamned thing that is holding me back.
EMDR with my therapist: check. Working one on one to get my
financial life in order: check. Clearing out the boxes from New Jersey that
contain the diaries of a madwoman and a sad child: check. Seeing a holistic
chiropractor to address physical manifestations:
check.
The truth is, I have been doing A LOT. And when her email
came through, as raw and vulnerable as I’ve felt with all these processes going
on, I was thrown WAY overboard. Suddenly, what someone else thought of me meant
more. Suddenly, I felt that all of my current work was worth bunk. That my
experience was being invalidated.
And that, for me,
dear reader, is my very worst trigger. To feel that my experience is not valid,
that what is happening for me is not important, or indeed is not happening at
all, is a VERY old, and VERY strong catalyst into despair.
Did she know any of this? No. Did I let her know that I was
unsure about my thesis? No. Does she have any idea whatsoever of any of the
other work that I’m currently doing? No.
So, is it reasonable, therefore to assume that from her
point of view, I wasn’t doing much? … Yes. Stupid perspective, Yes. 
It still hurt. And I’m still showing up anyway. I’m going to
hand in the work I have. The work that I’ve written here since November charts
a course, not of my daily lunch, but of my daily struggles, successes, progress,
hope, and failure. Of my relationships, my loneliness, my gratitude, and my
attempts.
This blog is the best
work I’ve done while at school, because, ultimately, it has the very most of me.
Thank you for reading, and welcome back. 🙂
courage · fear · recovery

Light Dispels Dark

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Methinks I may need to reread the Lighten Up! blog again
before I head out this morning, or at least take heart the theme.
Today, I will be beginning a process called EMDR (eye
movement desensitization and reprocessing) with my therapist in San Francisco.
It’s a therapy that is used to reintegrate and desensitize traumatic memories
by stimulating both sides of the body, either with eye moment, as the name
suggests, or tapping on both knees with your hands, or little alternating vibrations in each hand in order to help store those charged memories back in a way which more resembles the way we hold non-traumatic memories. 
Perhaps you can imagine, I’m a little … freaked out, is the
“lightest” word I can use at the moment.
I have resisted her suggestion to do this for several years.
But, it seems, and in fact is, time to
do this. I’m terrified. I terrified I’m going to hysterically cry and leave her
office a mess and get struck by a street car in my haze. I’m terrified I’m going to find
out things that I really don’t want to know. I’m terrified, mainly, and most
likely, that I will cry, a lot, and then I’ll be walking around for two weeks
til our next session with all of this “up” stuff.
To be true, though, a lot of the work I think we’ll do today
is actually about grounding in some positive resources. i.e. if we’re going to
talk about the most disturbing memories, we’re today supposed to talk about the
most positive and joyous memories. In fact, I was supposed to write them down,
but have felt like even that was too big a step toward “the final product.” So,
I’ll head into the city shortly and sit at a café and write my 10 best
memories.
There was the option to also write the 10 most disturbing,
and when she saw my trepidation (and terror), she said there’s always the option we
can do it in her office together, and so we will. I’m relieved for that.
As a blog, I feel that there’s some responsibility to care-take your feelings, reader, and let you know, don’t worry, it’s all okay, this
is all “normal” trauma, and I’m just particularly invested in spelunking my
inner caves and gutting them. But it’s okay, I’m okay.
But, I won’t.
I know that it will be okay. I know that in this moment it
is all okay, and I am safe. I know that somewhere under my solar plexus and
behind a sheet of iron walling, but outside of that? I’m … scared. And, that’s
okay. Feels normal. I trust my therapist. I trust the work that I’ve done which
has pointed me in this direction, in the direction of working on, and through,
and ultimately OUT of this stuff.
It’s just like anything else. Light dispels the dark. This
is a particular area of bogeymen who are particularly vocal and wear neon-green
shark teeth as necklaces around their craggy and sagging skin. They are
bogeymen. Just rattlers in the dark. And like anything else that I’ve addressed
and faced and dispelled, like the soldiers in the BART blog, they’re a protection agent.
Underneath my terror and fear and hesitation and reluctance,
I know there’s safety and compassion and freedom and light. I know, as my
teacher says in meditations, “It’s safe to go here because of all of the work you’ve already
done.” I know, as my post-it in my kitchen says, “I am able to go to scary
places because I have a firm foundation of love.” And I know too, that this is
a wound. My therapist is a doctor. And I can trust a doctor to help me heal. 
acting · courage · intimacy · letting go · maturity · modeling · poetry · sex

The Hero’s Journey

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

See, perhaps it’s not that San Francisco is actually cold.
Perhaps it is the proliferation of single-paned windows and inadequate heating.
The wonderful high ceilings don’t do much to trap in the heat either. So,
solution? Munchkin houses. Winterized. lol. See, there’s even a word,
“Winterized.” I’m not sure that the Bay Area has much acquaintance with this
notion, as we all sort of seem to believe that it doesn’t actually get that
cold, or that we’re more like Southern California. Perhaps this is what they
meant when they said “California Dreamin’.”
In any case, drafty as my home is. Grateful for it.
Especially on what are Bay Area winter days.
There is a big part of me that wants to write an addendum to
yesterday’s blog. To somehow mitigate and soften the “I haven’t had a great sex
life” theme. Most of that is because I want you to see me “better,” some of
that is that I don’t want to insult anyone I’ve slept with who might be reading
this and tell them of course there are occasions when it’s been marvelous.
But, that’s only wanting them to like me too, another way of “seeing me
better.” So, I will leave the truth as the half-truth it is, because, for
certain, there are the good experiences, and there is the truth that it’s less
about them, and more about my inability to ask for what I need (in most areas
of my life).
And, I will hold the truth that, still, I feel naïve and
unexperienced or uneducated in this way, and am holding that with compassion,
and an intention to head in that direction. There’s a fair amount on one of my
collages that’s the phrase, The Joy of Kissing, and I wonder if perhaps part of
that is a call to start again at the beginning, you know? To start with one of
the most tender places, and just meditate there, pause there, let myself savor
it, and not skip to the main course.
Also, I want to soften the “this is not an invitation” line,
because although it’s not a plea for you, reader, to initiate me into the
softened world of pleasure, I actually DO
want to offer an invitation into the world/Universe. This IS an invitation from
me to the machinations of the world to head there, to gentleness, and intimacy,
and … well, whatever else I feel I’ve been missing in this area. So, Universe,
this is an invitation, written in velvet, in loopy script, and something less
intimidating than red for experiences of physical intimacy on a softer plane.
Speaking of physicality, I had my orientation for the art
modeling guild yesterday, and 12 year old girl that I still am, it was hard to
not giggle when the facilitator said, “And men? No Erections! Ever.” Lol. “Any
man who tells you he can’t control it is lying. And if he really can’t, then he
shouldn’t be a model.” It’s nice the systems of protection and comfort that
they have set up, which is why I’m really glad to be doing it this way, rather
than freelance, which can be ICKY (see
former blog about older man with vagina skulls).
After the orientation, I went directly to my audition for a
Shakespeare company, and guess what? Not that bad. 🙂 THIS TIME, I didn’t blank out in the middle of the monologue.
I futzed a few things, but, if you didn’t have a script in front of you, you’d
never know. Point being, I actually did better than my last spoken word
audition, and really, “Better than last time” is all I’m lookin’ for. I also,
miraculously, ran into a girl I have just been beginning to see around lately
over here in Oakland with some of the financial healing folks. She’s been doing
this circuit for a long time, it seems, and knew nearly everyone who walked in
and out of the building, and chatted with another girl about, “Are you working
with David? No, with Bobby.” and other such insider speak that I am totally
novice of. But… now, we both have an ally. Someone showing up and letting go of
the results, and also some who’s willing to sit with me and initiate me in some
of these lingos, and people, and classes, and companies. She even suggested a
company she thought I’d do well with. 🙂 Go G-d.
Finally, for today’s blog. I had a very vivid dream last night about an older friend of mine
who I found out – in the dream – had killed herself suddenly. I was shocked and
devastated, and went out from where I was directly into her funeral. It was
packed. And yet, even her husband, who was shocked was actually not as shaken
as you’d expect.
Part of Saturday’s spirituality workshop included a story about Minos
and the Minotaur, using the myth as a frame for us to see perhaps what part of
the story, what part of our own hero’s journey we are in. Minos made a deal
with Poseiden. Poseiden said that Minos would become king if he sacrificed this
gorgeous white bull. Minos said sure. Became king. … And then decided the bull
was too special and meant too much to him, and so he sacrificed 50 goats
instead. (This did not go well in the end.)
I said that I feel like this is the part of the journey I’m on. In order to ascend to the next
level, the next stage, the next iteration of myself and my life, I have to
sacrifice my attachment to what it had been, aka my bull (dying we awaken to a
new life, kind of stuff). Instead, I’ve been hemming and hawing, and saying,
well, what if I give you this
instead, what if I sort of dance around the issue, and lop off my foot in the
process – won’t that give me the result that I ultimately need?
No dice.
I also said, that I also felt like the part of the story
when they kill the Minotaur, when this beast that cannot be a part of society,
but it’s really not his fault, is killed. With this spirit of sadness and also
with relief do I … intend? to kill my bull.
I think that part of my dream was about that, the death of
these attachments to my past. I put up a whole host of new (to the blog) poems,
and as I was editing what work I had, I felt like all the family stuff, all the
blamey stuff and most of the trauma stuff didn’t need to be up anymore.
Which leads me to wonder: if what I wanted my thesis to be was an excavation of old stuff, a laying to rest of it, haven’t I already done
that? In the very writing of it, and even in the sharing of it with my
professors and classmates, haven’t I given voice to this? Is this actually what
I need to say anymore? Is this anymore where the charge is for me?
I’m not sure. Well, no. Actually, the answer is no. But I’m
not sure what that will mean for this specific piece of writing I have to hand
in.
But, I also said in the workshop on Saturday that despite my
reluctancy to sacrifice the bull, my reluctancy to grieve for what was lost and
misplaced in my youth, the fact is, I’m already in it. It’s no use saying, I don’t
want to. Or I won’t. Or I can’t. Because, baby, I already am.