Category: fear

action · change · fantasy · fear · integrity · responsibility

Magical Accidental Orgasm

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

In The Vagina Monologues,
there is a piece in which a woman comes to the realization while in a
“Vagina Workshop” that she had avoided finding her clitoris. That she had
believed that orgasms happen to
her, that they weren’t something she should… have a hand in. She was
occasionally the recipient of magical, accidental orgasms (on horseback, or in
water, she says), but had never actually made one happen herself.
When she was instructed in the workshop that it was time to
find her clitoris, she noticed she began to panic. She had to now give up
the idea that someone would come along and give her orgasms, she had to now give up the
idea that someone was coming to live her life for her.
Her lines occurred to me as I walked toward yesterday’s professional
development seminar for writers. The sense that I was having to give up the
idea that someone would come along and live my life for me – that someone else
would make the decisions, take the actions that would enable me to be a something. A writer, an artist, a worker.
I have magical, accidental thinking too. And as I noticed I
was experiencing a strange sense of sadness on my way to the seminar yesterday,
I realized this was why. It is becoming time for me to “find my clitoris.” To
stop waiting for someone to do this for me, to stop waiting for someone to hand me
the roadmap for my life, and time for me to begin actually taking action if I
want results.
This brought grief. The death of my magical thinking. The
death of my hope that I could float along on half steam. Because I have floated along on half steam, the recipient of
magical gifts from the Universe. The problem with floating along without my own
power is that I now come to approach the job market, the work world, with no
sense of self-esteem. What have I
done? Where have I been a real
asset?
Sure, I have a long resume, with a host of attributes, but
none of them have anything to do with what gives me fire. When a friend
suggested recently that once May comes along, I’ll find my “fuck yeah” job at
40 hours a week with benefits… I thought I would vomit. Or rather, my whole
internal organ system went momentarily into a freeze. FUCK NO. 40 hours a week
with benefits sounds like a prison sentence. But it’s always what I’ve fallen
back on. I’m a good little worker bee; under half-steam I can coast along on
charisma and menial labor.
That is not my “fuck yeah” job. So what is? Because I have
ultimately avoided finding my “spot,” I have no idea.
But, I have now realized that I’ve been wishing that someone
would make those decisions and take those actions for me. That I would
magically and accidentally end up in the career, field, job that I love.
And I’ve realized that this is not true. And further, back
to the self-esteem thing, it doesn’t build it. Being gifted by the Universe has
been wonderful; I’ve been able to walk through the fire of dramatic uprisings
in finances and personal relationships. I have done this with as much work as I
thought was necessary, but not much more.
I am frightened. I have never really done much of the
showing up wholly and fully, and so I don’t yet have the experience that I can.
But, I know for absolute certain that if I don’t let go of my magical thinking,
I will “end up” in another cubicle, and I have promised myself, sworn to
myself, and begged myself to not do that.
This means accepting that I am worth the effort; and that I
am worthy of the effort. That I am worthy of my full attention, and don’t need
to be dependent on or subject to the random twists of fate. 
It’s time to take
matters into my own hand.
fear · fortitude · poetry · responsibility · school

Make It Work

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

True to the mixed bag that life is, yesterday was a mixed
day. I’m insanely grateful that I wrote my confirmation of the goodness of the
Universe blog before I checked my email
yesterday morning. Because in that email was one from Thursday from my thesis advisor
which stated that my blog cannot be my thesis – that it is being rejected. …
And further that she strongly recommends, “no, let me put it more firmly,” she
writes, that I must go “thesis in progress.”
TIP means that I pay about $500 for the luxury of not having
to turn something in this semester. It means that I pause the thesis process
and am able to work on it and deliver something and meet with her still over
the course of the next year. It also means that I cannot “walk” for graduation
in May.
I write her back that this is my reluctancy to do this. And
that for the love of G-d, I want to be “done” when I am done. But I don’t tell
her that this time; I’d already done so in our previous … terse email exchange
before I handed in my blog in a “well, I don’t have anything better to give”
moment.
She says back that, okay, bring all the poetry I’ve got when
we meet on Tuesday, and we’ll try to make something work, “no promises.” Cobble
something together out of poetry and prose, and to clear my slate for the next
month to do a lot of revision, and who knows, she says, “you may just like it.”
Sniff. Ahem. It’s not
that I don’t like writing, or haven’t enjoyed writing poetry in the past. But, she asked me, I just don’t get
it, didn’t you come here to write a book? And this is where she and I are on very different pages. What
I have to inform her, I don’t know if I do. But, no, lady, I did not come to school to write a book. I have no
aspirations to be published. I believe there is a rich landscape of poets whom
I consider awful to not my style but have much merit to striking and inspiring. Do I really feel the overwhelming
need to put my voice in with them? As a book? In that limited particular, stick
on a shelf in some dusty graduate school library and possibly a few books
stores with shelves already lined with a million books in an underlit poetry corner?
No. I don’t have an overwhelming need to do that.
Do I believe in my voice? Yes. That’s what I’m doing here,
in this blog. With my community, and in other creative manners. Do I believe that
even if there are a million other people
on the shelf that I have as much a right as any of them to add my voice? Of
course. But that doesn’t mean I want to. Not now. Not in this way.
But, I’ve now recognized the pattern I have with her, which
is her as the little man in The Wizard of Oz in the circlular porthole
of the gigantic green Emerald City door saying “No way No how, nobody gets in
to see the wizard.” And we exchange a few emails, and then she says, Well,
we’ll see what we can do.
In the time between No Way No How, and We’ll See What We
Can Do, I am thrust into a dither of indignation, righteousness,
misunderstoodness, and despair. And then, on the other side, I am back to feet on the
ground, Okay, cool, we’ll see what we can do, hope, things can and will work
out – they always do, and I have faith that by doing some work it will.
That, dearests, is not her fault or her problem. That I get thrown WAAAAY overboard into a tizzy is not her
fault. And now, especially that I see the pattern, I am more prepared for it,
and more able to do what I’ve heard other people say, which is “to wear the world as a
loose garment.”
The reality is, yes, my family has plans to come out to see
me walk for graduation. I don’t believe they have their plane tickets yet
though. I do want to walk at graduation.
I do want to be “done” in May. I do want to move on to other things, and take a
flatbed of gratitude for the time that being in school has given me to pursue
all the other angles of healing that I’ve needed to pursue.
The reality is that if it does come down to it, I will take
the thesis in progress. I will be disappointed, my family will be disappointed,
but this really is the best I can do. And I have to allow myself that
compassion. If I could have written a book of poetry, I would have. But that’s
not what I’ve been doing. So be it. I am where I am now, and that’s looking at
making something work. I’ve seen Tim Gunn say his catch phrase in both his dubious, one-eyebrow-raised tone, and in his hopeful get-er-done tone.
I don’t need hope here, I just need to do the work. Satisfy
this requirement and get on with my life. This woman is not my enemy. Nor is
she my judge and jury.
So, beginning Tuesday, I will not be a poet, I will be an
editor. I can do that. 
abundance · fear · finances · letting go · love

Two-Way Street

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The phrase I hear in certain spiritual circles, You have to give it away in order to keep it,
has always bothered me. So, lately, knowing I’m coming up against this as a
block, I’ve been altering it to, I have to share it in order to keep it, just to make myself feel better about it.
I made a few realizations recently about my reluctance to
share. Notably, in each case when I’ve been “down on my luck” financially, and
have gone into what I call “lock-down mode,” I’ve been forced to surrender, and
let go of my pride, or my ideas, and let other people know what’s going on, and let them help me.
It occurs to me that lock-down mode is a closed circuit. It
says, anything that I get, I must hold on to fiercely, because I don’t know if
I will ever get more (this goes for love, and finances, and jobs, and
creativity, and more, I’m sure).
Lock-down mode is also a closed circuit because it is like
battening down the hatches of a ship, bracing for a storm. Don’t move, or you’ll be swept overboard.
In these circumstances when I’ve locked-down, it’s been like
increasing the speed of a flushing toilet, I realize. It’s gotten worse,
not better, faster.
Abundance, community, love, creativity, require an open channel, an open circuit, one which allows energy in, and allows energy out.
I reported on here a little while ago about a meditation
where I noticed that although still reluctant to do so, I allowed energy to
pass through me into those behind me, instead of, as I’d done in a previous
version of this meditation, simply fill others from my own bucket, denying and
absolutely refusing to take in from those sending to me.
Either ends of this constriction is a closed circuit,
depleting, and ultimately self-defeating.
Whether I choose to lock-down, and absorb, reach for, demand
everything I can, and horde it; or, whether I choose to close off the inflow,
and simply – and resolutely – give to you from my own bucket. This, is not a
channel.
When someone had mentioned to me recently that I have to
close these holes in order to be able to hold abundance, that there are places
where I’m letting it seep from me, and will never in fact be able to hold it,
this is a place of that fissure. Seems ironic that in order to have abundance I must begin to stop holding it, but, such is the paradox of spiritual
axioms.
To quote what I’ve heard, There is enough time, there is
enough love, there is enough money. Therefore, if there is enough, then I don’t need to hold on to it.
And, I need to address the other side too, the part of the
inflow. Like in Tuesday night’s class when I’d recognized how little I’d been
letting other people “give” to me.
In the moments when I’ve been broke, looking at the price of
Ramen noodles in the discount grocery store, I’ve let go. I’ve stopped folding
the end of the hose, and let it open, fear or not. And, miraculously, I’ve been
taken care of … abundantly 😉
So, there are two sides of this constriction that I would
like to address. The part that says, I can give to you, but you can’t give to
me. And the part that says, once I’ve got anything at all, I’m holding onto it
for dear life.
The “dear life,” it seems, occurs only, only when I do let go of strangling it. 
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. 
authenticity · creativity · fear · fortitude · performance · recovery · responsibility · spirituality

Ready Steady Go

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

About 3 years ago, when I was living in Cole Valley in San
Francisco, I went for a walk. I was packing to go home for a visit, I remember,
and was feeling overwhelmed, and decided to take a walk through my new-ish
neighborhood. I took a left instead of a right, and walked past a sign, The
Sword and The Rose. Maybe you know it. Maybe you’ve walked right by it. As
unless you notice the faded paint on the cracked wooden sign, you wouldn’t know
to walk into the alley between two buildings. You wouldn’t know that beyond the
trash bins was a gate, through which is a sitting garden, overgrown with vined
plants and a running water fountain with a stone bench. Beyond this is a small
one room shop, that looks like a hobbit’s house, and you have to, well, I have
to, duck slightly through the Dutch door.

Inside is one of those curio shops. There’s a small wood
burning stove that always seems lit, around which are two high backed cushioned
chairs with ancient knitted throws. In the cases are crystals of every color and intention,
ones to wear, ones to put on an altar, ones smoothed or raw in form. The shelves are stacked high with
different types of sage to burn, candles created on different days of the week, jars of loose incense with yellowing labels of handwritten ingredients seen only in spell books.
And in the corner is a small circular table set with a stained glass lamp, a shawl, and two small straw woven chairs. It is here that you can have your cards
read.
And once, I did. Not that day, having walked breathlessly
out of my manic and nervous packing session into this stalled garden out of time.
That day when I was able to collect myself in the mystery and magic of the
darkened, perfumed room. But I knew I would be back.
The man read from Native American animal cards, which I’d
never seen or heard of before. I was not very “into” Tarot before, but I have
learned enough to know there are many paths to the mountaintop, so to speak.
It is my belief that under the right circumstances, and with
the proper intention, we are told, not “the future” or the unknown, but rather,
truths about ourselves. It is my experience that what is revealed to me,
through cards, or meditation, or other spiritual practices, are knowledges which I
already hold, which are simply being drawn out from the shadows, or crystallized
in more accessible terms.
So, when the man drew a card he called Grandmother Spider in
my reading, and told me that this card was the most creative and powerful card
in the deck, I was not surprised, but rather challenged. Challenged to live up
to this truth which I had known about myself, and which continues to be
mirrored back to me and bubbled up within me.
You can go Google the card if you like; it says that the
Spider wove the Universe. Is, in essence, the Great Creator. I don’t deign to
think that I am unique in having this spark (truly, I believe we all have it), but I am beginning to honor its
presence in my life.
Performance. People have asked me what I mean when I say I
want to perform. They ask, Act? … And that’s not the entirety of it at all. I
wrote a poem in August of last year, which I’ve pasted below, called
Pyrotechnic Performance. In my first blog-a-day posting on this website in
November, I wrote about it. (Pulling a Carmen.) And, this morning, I wrote
about it, in my Morning Pages. What do I mean by performance? And why am I called to do it?
I’ll quote here from those pages, because this is the
change of course of the Ocean Liner, this is the portend and promise of the New
Year, and most critically of all, because this is still is my challenge. I have a
financial mess, which means I cannot afford an acting coach. I am willing to
pay $50 for a zipcar tonight to get to New Year’s Eve parties, which I have
rented and am psyched about, but I am still on the sideline of my own commitment to this truth. I know this is
eroding, this stagnation, this hesitation, this fear. To loosely quote
Nelson Mandela, it is not our darkness of which we are most afraid, but our
light. Hiding in financial crises, dead-end (and deadening) jobs, being late,
being “shy,” these are the snakeskins which I am shedding.
Because I want to be available, I am coaxed by this light,
this promise, and as you’ll read, I have a commitment not only to myself to
fulfill, but one to you as well. So, to a new year, to a challenge I am becoming
brave enough to face, and to the undocumented bounty of facing a truth I’ve
known all along.
A Safe and Happy New Year, Friends. And as Bill Murray says
in Ghostbusters, See you on the other
side, Ray.
Performance, A Challenge (12 31 11)
I want to perform. I want to ignite, excite, catalyze, engender, enmorphize. I want you to witness me. I want you to be changed in the witnessing. I want the love in you to awaken and stir as I open myself to you. I want to be there for it. Present. My best, most available self. I want you to fall in love with yourself in the process. Discover the ancient and cavernous depth of your heart. I want to be your tour guide. To lead you where you are ready to be led. I want to change the world, for good. One heart at a time, beginning with my own. And I am becoming Ready. I am ready to transform.
Pyrotechnic Performance: What I want to do when I grow
up. (8 5 10)
I want to startle your emotions and steamroll you with
feeling. I want to seize and agitate the flames of my inner fuel and fury and
ignite and catch you on fire too. I want to blast you out of your seat aghast
at the wonder that is G-d bellowing through me. I want to own this. I want to
master play and expand this. I want to hone sharpen and broaden the depth of
what I have to offer you. I want to journey with you through the lands of the
psyche and crash you upon the shores of revelation. I want to allow you to lick
and contemplate these wounds as you stagger toward the exit when I’m done. 

I want
to heave you into oblivion and gently reel you back in.
acting · action · courage · creativity · fear · laughter · letting go · performance · self-care

Must Be Present to Win

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

There’s a parable that goes something like this: A man in
Italy goes every day to a statue of Jesus, and prays every day, “Jesus, please
let me win the lottery, please let me win the lottery.” This man, every day
goes to the statue with the same prayer. “Please let me win the lottery.” One
day, the statue comes to life and says back, “Then buy a ticket.”
So, today I bought a ticket. Metaphorically. I threw my hat
in the ring. … Also metaphorically, I really like my hat.
If my audition back in April or so was a belly flop with my
eyes open (OUCH), then this was a belly flop with my eyes closed. So, it means,
I’ve learned 😉
On my way out, I texted several friends to say I sort of
blew it – my 2nd monologue went better than my 1st, the
first being too much of a Shakespearean tongue twister I just couldn’t get
memorized. But, that I did it.
A friend then called me and told me her story of her first
audition and not even knowing what they meant when they asked what she’d
“prepared.” And so, we learn. I learn. Sure there’s a twinge of disappointment,
but more than that twinge I feel like I now know several things: first off, I know how long it takes me to memorize something – and it’s more than 12 hours!!
Yep, I really only started to memorize today, although I chose the
monologues…yesterday? Friday? So, yeah, good to know. and then also good
information to not beat myself up. I gave it a really good go. But it was also,
as I’ve said, a week of insanity with school and work, and so, good enough is
good enough here.
I give myself an “A” for effort. And next time, perhaps I
can prepare longer in advance.
The other things I’ve learned are, a) I can show up (Hurrah!
good for me!) 🙂 b) where to get headshots done; c) I have allies.
More than any of my other times of leaping off a cliff, this
time I asked for more help, followed through on those suggestions, and
reached back out to people – this is a
newish thing for me – as I sometimes feel that if I’ve asked you for help once,
that’s it, my lifetime supply of asking that one person that one favor or for
one bout of help is used up. No more, well dry, try someone else.
That’s.Not.True. Sure, some people aren’t the giving type,
but for the most part, the people in my life are invariably giving, kind,
supportive, and generous. So, I asked for help a second time, and my acting
friend showed up for me. And you know what? She’ll probably even take my call
next time too 😉
So, that’s the end of this one round (at least I believe so – callbacks are
tomorrow, so I’ll know soon enough whether I am or not). But it’s one round,
not the match, or game, or series.
I’m also more willing this time to “fail,” which I’ve heard
is the key to any success. Being willing to stumble is the only way to learn to
walk, right? Persistence. Patience.
And maybe my next belly flop will be a cannonball instead.
(Whether that’s a “better” thing or not, I have no idea) 😉 (thank you friends, for your support)!!

acceptance · fantasy · fear · letting go · love · relationships · school · spirituality

"This Rare Human Life" – P.C.

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Before I go any further, I must report the variety of
references that occurred in tonight’s Shakespeare class:
Zombie Romeo, Dr. Who, the youtube video of a gosling
falling asleep, The Twilight Zone, and a graphic novella by Neil Gaiman.
And, most surprisingly, were all pertinent to our discussion
– well, except Zombie Romeo – he’s just fun to talk about.
Grad school is weird.
Next, it’s a very
good thing that the topic for today’s Calling in the One was about Abe Lincoln’s quote that we are “all as happy
as you make up your mind to be,” and to actively practice being happy in the
situation we are in, in the life that we are in no matter what it includes or
doesn’t include.
This is a very good thing I read this last night before bed,
as when I woke up, I did a dumb thing – I looked at an ex’s facebook page. Now,
now! I had good intention, there was this link he just needed to have, it so referenced inside jokes that happened
when we were together – it was pertinent…necessary…
I’ve pasted the link into the comment box … and then I see a
recent tagged photo of him with a girl. … My gut goes PHOOM – CLUNK – GAK and
STAB. Now, I have no idea who this woman is – could be his cousin – though I
doubt that. I delete the link. Ack – how that spun me. For several minutes I was …
triggered? I guess could be the word there?
Now, yes, I broke off our relationship. Yes, we both know
that we weren’t suited for the “long haul.” Yes, I really do believe there are
people who we are both more well suited
for – but F8ck! did you have to find one first!
Ha, as if it’s some contest. As if “happiness” is a contest.
Nannynanny poopoo I got there fiiirst.
So, there were a few minutes of pain that I don’t really
know what emotion it was – jealousy, envy, sadness? And I texted a few friends,
and then as I was putting my coffee in the microwave, I see on my fridge is a
card that has that very same Abe Lincoln quote on it. About being as happy as I
make up my mind to be. And I go back to the CITO book and I look at the wording for today’s “assignment,” and it’s to
affirm that I am happy with everything that I have and everything that I don’t
have. Everything as it is.
So, I say that a few times, sip some coffee, and text my
friends back and say, I’m okay, it was just sort of a kick in the chest, but
that I know that I’m making myself available for something phenomenal – and, in
fact, that I really do wish him to be happy. There’s nothing “wrong” with him –
as really, there’s nothing “wrong” with anyone – just things that don’t work for me or that I may not agree with.
So, there’s nothing “wrong” with any of this at
all. I mean, my life is chock full at the moment. I left the house to go meet
with my fellows this morning and had some good chuckles and a dash of support –
and I got to hold a two-month old baby and told my friend I’d be happy to
babysit – he seemed quite relieved to imagine an hour or more when he and his
wife could have silence. Babies sort of readjust your soul I think.
I went to the dentist for a check-up, I ate some lunch, and
then I met with my Shakespeare professor about my final project. … It may not
have Muppets. Sorry folks. He said, although he loves the um, enthusiasm,
perhaps I could thing of a more “robust” frame. So we spoke for quite some
time, and I also asked him what he thought of a female monologue from Shakespeare
for my audition on Sunday, and gave me some alternative ideas (I still have to
get my headshots printed. … gak).
Afterward, directly as I was walking down the stairs from
that meeting, I get a call from a girl friend whom I love dearly but hadn’t spoken
with in months. We chat for nearly an hour, then it’s time for dinner and
class.
So, yeah, my life is full. Of action, activities, love,
self-care, friendship, community.
And two of my friends texted back this morning to say that
my reaction was human. Just human. Normal, and human. And for me, another
thing to accept is that “human” is not a curse word. 
abundance · action · courage · direction · faith · fear · finances · Jewish · joy · letting go · life · responsibility · synchronicity

Effective but Wordless Chant

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So I did look at one SF apartment ad today. It was through
my old employer, a property management company, which is how I got my sweet
deals on my SF and Oakland apartments. Granted, it wasn’t a handout-out, I
worked well there – maybe not that hard, but it wasn’t that challenging or enticing, and
eventually I found myself overcome by the Ugly Cries (maya’s accurate term) in my car at lunch one Friday on the phone
with a friend having another job existential crisis.
That day I gave my two weeks notice, that night I threw my 1st pre-Valentine’s party, the following day, I went blonde. This was almost 3 years
ago now. My boss wasn’t pleased, but he knew I wasn’t happy –
that I wanted to do something creative, anything.
So that began several months – two, to be exact – of
job hunting. I remember I didn’t even tell my parents I’d quit my job and was
looking for work cuz I just couldn’t face their “Are you kidding me, in this economy??” spiel. It was hard then – I had notes all
over my SF apartment – “This is a world of grace and abundance and I am letting
go.”
A friend afterward told me to change to wording to “–and I
allow myself to receive” – more “open.”
Two years before that, I’d been “downsized” from a corporate
real estate firm, my first long term gig in SF, and was on unemployment for the
full 6 months. The first month? Awesome – yay paid vacation. By the end of six months? I was desperate. I began to
answer every ad. The very week my unemployment was going to run out, I had two job interviews one day, and I’m driving to one of
them, out somewhere near Bayview, and I’m in my car and I have this
mini-epiphany: I had every single thing I needed at that moment. I had eaten
breakfast, I had coffee in me, I had gas in my car – I didn’t need anything
else at that moment – no money in my hand, nothing. For that moment, I was
completely taken care of.
I forget what it was now, but I even began this little chant
while I was on my way to that interview. Something about being content and
caffeinated, or something? That afternoon, I had my other interview – at the
property management firm. And I got that job. The woman I was replacing
happened to be out sick that day (she was going on maternity leave), and so I
interviewed with the owner of the company – and we got along fabulously. (A big part of me feels that had I met the woman instead, I wouldn’t have made it through the door.) The
mug that I’m drinking out of now, he gave to me because he got tired of me
using the one that had a photo of his kids printed on it for my coffee (it was
the biggest mug!, What?). The one he bought has sort of colorful swirls on it,
and he said it reminded him of the tattoo on my wrist.
So, yeah, he wasn’t pleased when I left my job with them,
but, obviously still liked me enough to let me have parties in my SF apartment,
and to move here into the Oakland one on a slight deal.  – actually, it’s a really good deal, i
should be (and am!) really grateful – the rent isn’t that much cheaper, but I didn’t
have to pay security deposit, or pet deposit, so that’s quite generous.
Reminds me the theme of today’s CITO is generosity …
But, back to grace and abundance, and letting go – or
“receiving” rather.
I quit that job with the property management, and spent two
months looking for creative work, again. And finally what happened was I woke
up one morning and asked myself, still groggy from sleep and receptive to the universe, What else
am I interested in?
The reply came, Well, I like being Jewish.  … So I typed “Jewish San Francisco” into
Google, and applied to every position there was.
I got one of those positions. (Actually I applied to one I didn’t get, but my resume got passed along to someone else in this Jewish
education non-profit, and I got that job
– for which I was surely more well suited.) … 

Then, on a not so whimish been-looking-at-the-college’s-website-for-three-years whim, I apply to the MFA program, and get in. (Note, there: I actually intended to apply to the Master’s in Literature Program, but didn’t have a current academic paper, and am pretty sure none of my professors from college remember me … but the admissions coordinator for the English Department told me that the MFA program, I just needed 15-20 recent poems. How many did I happen to have recently? 16.) Nudgey McNudgerson, you sly Universe, you.
I dunno. I guess I’m feeling reflective about all of this –
about all of my “being taken care of” and steered into a more … “Molly” direction — because I have no clue what’s going to
happen when school is over in May. I quite imagine that it will work out well –
and I also imagine I’ll freak out a bit anyway.
But, if any of the above isn’t evidence that I’m being
gently but firmly guided, I don’t know what is.
So, Universe, Let me be receptive to the strange and unusual
nudges you have to give me. I sit here, in a heated apartment, with food in my
belly, electricity running, December rent paid, and I’m chanting the tune to
that chant whose words I no longer remember. Amen.

action · courage · fear · growth · relationships

Exile.

Molly Daniels Hayes1 Comment

So, it’s finally happened – i’ve admitted that being in
Oakland is really lonely, and I’m
willing to do something about it. So, I called/texted 6 East Bay friends
tonight to see if they wanted to go to the Saturday night “cool kids” meet up
place, and I got 6 denies. It’s okay. I had to read for school and had a pretty
awesome day of out&about self-care (the trees are finally turning colors –
they look incredible), but I actually took action around it, which was a long
awaited step.
I have a few, mainly school, friends here, but most of the
friends I consider my closest live in San Francisco – yes, only across a
bridge, but that’s an immense distance if you’re on either side of it (It’s
like Brooklyn to Manhattan: you likely ain’t gonna make it) – I remember back
to times when in SF, venturing to Oakland seemed like crossing Egypt. Which
means, if I’m not willing to cross Egypt to hang out with people I know and
love, I better get willing to reach out to people on this side of the Nile …
Sorry, extended metaphor collapse!
I didn’t really realize it until last weekend at that
meditation workshop I went to – which was about relationships with others. I
said it out loud in my “hey I’m Molly, this is why I’m here,” and that was one
of the things that came out. Being so busy with everything is a good
distraction from making friends, and making effort to make friends.
Cuz, that’s what it really boils down to – there are plenty
of people out on this side of the Bay – I just have felt petulant to make any
new friends, and I have 5 years’ worth of friendships built up in SF, and
friendships take work. To form, to grow,
to create trust and intimacy, and I just haven’t been available for it since I
moved over here – it was just too exhausting to think about “starting over.”
In the beginning, last year, when I still had my car, I made
effort to get to the “cool” meet ups, but I didn’t feel any connections (or
make effort to go much beyond a few cursory hey how are yas). Then, I
had no car, and it was much easier to stay cocooned.
It’s pretty funny, cuz the first thought that I had in the
workshop last week which I shared with a friend (as there were two girl friends I hadn’t seen in ages, and just seeing them brought such relief – here
are people who know me, who’ve
seen me grow and change, as I’ve seen them – it was seeing these friends,
feeling that relief, ironically, which made me realize how starved I was for
them, and how non-friend-having I’d been over here). So, I say to one of them,
that my brain immediately goes, Maybe I should move back to San Francisco.
Of course, the simplest of all answers, Molly! That makes
perfect sense! It doesn’t. School is over here, which it’s why I’m over here,
“exiled” in the first place. – Just like the “simplest” answer to my
punctuality/time problem is to get a car, of course…
The simplest answer is to make friends over here. To admit
that it takes effort, and it’s scary, and I still think I come off as terribly
uncool around new people. But, it’s that, or me and my cat on Saturday night,
and I’m at least cooler than that. Well,
not this week, maybe – but I made the effort!
Next Saturday I’ll be in the city modeling in my friend’s
fashion show for her non-profit (that’s cool, right?) ;P but the following
Saturday, I now have plans with a girl I sort of know to go hang out with the
cool people. … in Oakland. 

abundance · creativity · fear · joy · maturity

T.I.M.E: Twisted Ideas Miraculously Erased

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Feeling decidedly better today. And I realize that “decide”
is the key word there.
I awoke this morning, early, again (although, yes, I do
realize that 6am is not that early for some people!), and as I was writing my
Morning Pages, and staring at my clock, and writing “I have to figure out
how to manage my time better, I spend 5 minutes grumbling out of bed, and 2
minutes heating up my coffee, and 15 minutes on my morning pages – though
really they take 30, so I scrimp on days when there isn’t time…”
And I sort of went off on this vein, but somewhere in the
middle I decided to simply take the full time it was going to take and write all
three long-hand pages of my morning pages. Somewhere in there, I was struck
with the thought that I have been treating time like I’ve treated money – addressing it from
a place of scarcity instead of abundance. As something I have to struggle for and will never have enough of. When I was done with the pages, I
stood up, and although technically this would be the moment in the morning
where I would bolt a shower and stream out the door with wet hair, I said
aloud, “I’m hungry.” … then I answered myself, “Then you should eat.”
And so I did. I cooked my eggs, like I’m known to do, and I
sat and ate them and drank my cup of coffee, not at a brunch-y leisurely pace,
but not shoveling them down either. Something had unlatched in the region of my
guts, and I was consciously reminding myself to breathe, and that I was giving
myself this time. “There is enough time, There is enough love, There is enough
money” are some affirmations my little financially savvy friends use 😉 (They also use “I am enough, I have enough, I do enough” – crazy notions, huh??) Then I
took a shower and it took as long as it took. I had my clock in the bathroom,
but at this point, I was past the time I would usually catch the reliable bus,
and had somewhere inwardly agreed that I would take the unreliable bus and
whatever happened would happen.  ~
I even blowdried my hair – I haven’t done that in the morning before work in …
a while. It’s a luxury of time (but also helps to keep me healthy in winter months). Then I did my makeup and got dressed, and got a
snack ready for work, so I knew I’d have something to eat and not starve again.
And I walked out of the house – two days ago, I literally
(well, not literally I guess!) flew down
the stairs and nearly knocked into the person also going out the front door at
that moment. But this morning, I walked. In my purple coat and teal scarf and
green bag, and warm hair and world-ready face. And you know what? I ran into a
friend as I was walking to the unreliable bus, and I asked him if I could get a
ride to BART, and he said it was about time I took him up on his many offers
for a ride.
And I got to work 10 minutes late. Only ten minutes late. But the difference between how I
walked in made all the difference in the world. Sure, maybe next time, I’ll get
there in better time, but somehow, the minute yet immense change in my attitude toward my time – how I was
spending it – addressing it – and now hopefully making it work for me, instead
of breathing erratically in the face of a ticking clock – hopefully this will
turn into change. Not feeling like I’ve got a vice on my heart and being
preemptively guilty about not being “where I’m supposed to be, when I’m
supposed to be” feels like a good start.
And, by the way, I got let out of work early (for a work
errand, so I was told I can still bill my full time), and I went to BLICK art
supply store and bought envelopes for my holiday cards – because under the
decreased pressure in my temples, I get to be creative. And give myself time to
be so. 
Holiday card #2: watercolor&embossing on paper 🙂