Category: finances

abundance · community · debt · deprivation · finances · growth · integrity · recovery · self-care · self-support

No Soup For You.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

It’s astonishing, the lengths I’ll go to deprive myself.
The thick pattern of deprivation, living small, quietly,
unobtrusively, knocks on the door of all my actions and insists on being
allowed in.
Luckily, my latest personal recipe is: Me + G-d + Friends +
Action.
I was on the phone with a friend the other day discussing
the fact that I needed a spending plan for my upcoming trip to Seattle and
Boston this Saturday. I told her that I’d already “found” $235 in my usual
monthly spending plan, which means whittling funds from other line items, like
entertainment, personal care, household purchases–line items that
fluctuate anyway, so I consider them “fundgable” when they’re really not. (I’ve
learned.)
This isn’t to say that my spending plan is a monthly set of
10 Commandments, chiseled in stone and fatal when not adhered to. It’s an
ideal, a goal, a guideline, and the actuals that I tally at the end of each
month tell me the story as it happened, instead of how I thought it would.
Usually they’re pretty close these days.
However, when my friend and I were speaking about my trip,
and we calculated aloud bus fare, BART fare, coffee&food at 4 airports in
10 days, groceries, eating out, incidentals, tchotckes, gas money… well, we
figured it out to about $400, a number I’m supposed to double check before I
leave.
Immediately, I begin mentally looking at those fundgable
categories, which I’ve already cut thick slices from this month to support the
trip. And I start to get panicked and fearful about the trip and how much I can
spend, and try to pre-manipulate how I can spend less than I actually know
I’ll need.
This, friends, is the compulsion. How can I whittle down my
needs, how can I deny what is actually true about my needs, hide them, dismiss
them, and discard them, so that I can live in a way that I misguidedly think
will support me?
Luckily, I was on the phone with my friend as we spoke all
this out, and I admitted to her that I have nearly a grand in my vacation
savings account… but, I told her like a child revealing they’ve stolen a
Snickers, I’m “supposed to” be saving it for my hypothetical trip to Paris with
my mom next Summer.
I don’t want to give up my Snickers. I don’t want to break
part of it off to eat now, because I believe I just need to save it for later,
or there will never be enough.
This is preposterous. And where voices that don’t live
inside my own head are so valuable.
She didn’t even have to say anything, as I admitted my
vacation savings money could easily provide the additional $200 that I’ll actually need for this trip. I just talked myself through it,
admitting it, accepting it, saying that I see the fallacy and the deprivation
in that kind of save it ALL for some unknown date and live in fear
right now thinking. And I told her I would
move that money over this week, so that I could use it in today, for the
intended purpose: vacation.
It’s not actually called “Paris Vacation with Mom” savings
account: It’s just called Vacation. And if this isn’t the time to use those
funds, when I need them, when I’m plotting to slice myself and my funds even
thinner than they already are this month, then I haven’t learned a thing.
Yesterday, I did move that money. It felt illicit, illegal almost. I felt
nervous and anxious and excited and proud to know that I was supporting a
vision for myself without putting myself in deprivation.
The ridiculous part is that I will easily replenish that money in the vacation account over the next few months. “Vacation savings” is a
line item in my spending plan every single month. It’s not like I’ll never get to go
on a vacation again because I’m using this money now.
But my addiction to deprivation and fear continues to knock
on my door and insist entry into my life and my decisions. So, luckily, today I have
an antidote: Me + G-d + Friends + Action. 

authenticity · dating · finances · frustration · grief · relationships · romance · work

Bus Stop Boy

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Well now.
So, I guess I should tell you about Bus Stop Boy, now that
I’ve finally broken down and updated one of the people I have in my life whose
main relationship with me is about helping me work on relationships.
Over the summer, I began to see Bus Stop Boy, as you might
imagine… at the bus stop. I was temping in the city, and was sometimes taking
this bus, sometimes that. I’d just begun to pay attention to how I interact with
men, trying to focus less on if they’re noticing me or not, how I’m interpreting
or internalizing that information. And Bus Stop Boy was one of these people. I
was aware of him, and he was aware of me. There was nothing more or less than
that, but a definite vibe. Not even flirty, just aware.
One morning, a few months ago, I had come from meeting with
the aforementioned woman the previous day, highly aware now of how I was walking in the world, and I saw him at the bus
stop. Suddenly, I had no idea how to behave. I didn’t want to be all coy, I
didn’t know how to just stand there. I felt a wave of panic wash over me, and
as some of you may remember, I had to leave work as soon as I got there and come home and crawl into a fetal position. Everyone
on BART was standing too close. Whatever it was that my being aware of who and
how you were reacting to me – it had acted as a buffer somehow between us. And
suddenly, seeing Bus Stop Boy, … it was like seeing the Matrix. Suddenly I
could see that everywhere I looked and every move that I made, I was hyper
aware of it, and I was aware if you were aware of it. I felt stripped of some
defense mechanism – I felt utterly exposed, and completely unsure of how to
act.
A rather large reaction to simply seeing a dude at the bus
stop. But, that’s what happened. It took me days to get back to feeling right.
And, in fact, I stopped taking the bus, and opted to take carpool with a friend
of mine during the rest of my temp gig.
I’m still aware of how others react to me, and, duh, that’s
going to continue to happen. People interact. However, I am trying to pay less attention to if “he,” whoever “he”
is, saw me. Noticed. If you’re noticing how I’m holding myself or not. I’m
trying to keep myself to myself when I’m out and about. Not closing myself off,
but simply focusing more on me, and what I’m doing, not on you.
This said, things have progressed.
I ran into Bus Stop Boy when I was on the bus going into the
city for an interview about a month or more ago. I was aware, he was aware. We
both went for the one seat that was open, and he let me have it. When getting
off the bus, I got off in front of him, and turned around and thanked him for
the seat, held out my hand, and said I’m Molly, by the way. He took my hand, said his name, said he hadn’t
seen me on the bus for a while. I replied I hadn’t been on the bus for a while, we both smiled, said see you around.
In reporting this later to my friend, I talked about
“getting a hit” off it. I was nervous about this job interview, and I knew I
could get a little hit from talking to this guy. Sure, there’s the normality of
introducing yourself to someone you see nearly daily just for the sake of that,
and I could file this under that, but I know my underlying reasoning – I wanted
to feel better, and talking to an attractive guy who seems to think I’m
attractive too is a reliable way to do that. (I was about to write it’s a “good
way” to do that, but, this is where I run into trouble.) I felt more spring in my step on my way to my interview, now that I had gotten that burst of acknowledgment from this stranger.
A little while later, I am on my way to another interview,
and I see him on the street in plain clothes with a girl, walking a small dog. Girlfriend, I think, and keep walking. Well, I say to myself,
there’s that taken off the table. He’s got a girlfriend.
A little while later, about 3 weeks ago, I’m on my way home
finally for the evening, having had an awful day at work – feeling my feelings
of despair around administrative work, around having worked so hard for months
to get something so menial, I’d come home from work bawling on the phone with a friend, before I went back out to meet up with some folks for an hour. Suffice it to say that I was drained of
all emotional guile. Of all resistance. Of all pretense.
Funny, then, that I should walk into Peet’s coffee, and
there he is. Bus Stop Boy at 8pm on a Wednesday evening. My eye make-up long
cried off. My incognito hat. Glasses. This is not the look of a temptress. He’s on line
ahead of me, and so I say hello. We chat a bit; we’ve both started new jobs. We small talk, laugh a bit. I
say see you around.
And now, suddenly, we are seeing each other around a lot. I
next run into him unexpectedly on the shuttle from BART – again on a day when I’d sat at the bus stop from work in near-tears. Waiting – FORTY FIVE MINUTES – for a
bus from Berkeley. Taking me nearly two hours to get home from ONE TOWN AWAY.
And there he is. The second time in a row when I’d felt
depleted, and, perhaps, open. 
It hasn’t eluded me that these unusual times that I’ve seen him are at times when I could most use a nod from the universe, some semblance of, Molly – you’re not a worthless, aimless, trundling-along broke spinster. It has not escaped me that during my new days of data entry, receptionist calls, arguments with xerox machines, I’d begun to think of that morning’s conversation with Bus Stop Boy, and it takes me out of my vile existence. It reminds me that I am more than my job. It reminds me that I am something more than that. Simply by recalling the smile of a near stranger, my chest feels less constricted – I feel less trapped. Is this “meaningful”? Is a nudge from “THE UNIVERSE”? Is it just a coincidence? Is it simply pointing out to me the pleasure I take in fantasy rather than reality?
I moved my bags, and he sat down next to me.
After some chit chat, I said, I think I saw you with your girlfriend walking
your dog a few weeks ago (she says leadingly). He got a sudden look, and said, “Ex…” That was their goodbye. She
came to visit for two weeks. She’s been living in D.C. for the past year,
looking for work there and here, and she got a job there, and, as he told to
me, he wasn’t ready to move back East.
He seemed pretty bummed. Secretly, I thought two things.
One: emotionally unavailable. Two: Single. …
So, finally, friends, here’s the kicker. What I admitted to my girl friend earlier today: I have invited him to
come with me to a party my friend is having this Saturday. “As friends,” I
said. But as I spoke to my friend earlier today, … I have no interest,
really, in being this guy’s friend. Nor do I know that I want to be in a
relationship with him. I barely know anything about him. Do I want to get to
know him better? Yes. Am I dating right now? No. Is he? I should hope not! Long-term relationship break-up does not really equal available for a new one any
time soon.
So, what to do? Well, my friend and I spoke earlier about
some “bottom lines” I could set around this. The only thing I could come up
with, which she suggested, was not hanging out one-on-one.
She asked me at the end of our meeting how I felt. I said Stubborn. (She laughed.) I said, Disappointed. The addict part of me wants those hits. Those doses of feeling
something other than overwhelmed with money or lack thereof. With feeling lost
as to my life’s direction or purpose. With feeling lonely, mainly.
As I begin to get some “recovery” or sense of what is
healthy behavior around relationships, I realize that the majority of my recent women
friends are actively engaged in behavior that I just don’t
identify with anymore. I just don’t have anything to say to my friend who’s
texting an unavailable dude daily. Or who just bought sex toys for a threesome. Or who is in and out
of her relationship with the phases of the moon. Which means, and has meant
for me, that several close friendships I’ve had are being let go of — are fading.
Further to the “lonely” part, as I said to my friend this morning, I haven’t been
dating for a year. I haven’t had sex in a year. I am only human. And there’s only so much I can take.
She said she gets it. She felt the same when she was going
through this work. The truth is that I’m doing inventory on my relationship
past, and I don’t want to be involved with anyone while I’m going through this
emotionally raw stuff. I don’t (really) want to use someone else to band-aid the work that I’m doing. The truth is also that I’ve finally gotten paid, and much of my financial crisis is averted, so I finally have the chance to feel a
little less stressed out.
Yes, there is only so much I can take. Luckily, I feel a
modicum more freedom right now, yes, due to money, what-the-fuck-ever to people
who say it won’t make you happy – sorry, food in my fridge makes me fucking
happy, assholes. But that release from imminent worry creates a little more
ease. That little more ease means I won’t have to reach out to false idols for
solace, false idols like the green-fade-to-brown eyes of the Bus Stop Boy.
I can do things to help me bolster and support myself, now
that I’m not as “man the battleships!” Things which will provide more
sustainable relief and support – I can reconnect with friends who aren’t stuck
in unhealthy patterns. I can finally feel the room to write and paint again. 
Do I still absolutely want to just rest my head on his
shoulder and relax to the marrow of every organ in my body? YES.

adventure · decision · faith · family · finances · judaism · say yes · shabbat · work · writing

Go Toward the Open Door.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Wise women have told me this occasionally over the last few
years. And, this is just the opportunity I
got this weekend – to go toward the open door.
Originally planned for this weekend, was helping my
immensely talented and ambitious friend by volunteering at her art show
benefit for Japan. My volunteering for her had come as a status reduction from being in the art show, as during the time of my unemployment, I
realized I was not energetically inclined toward creative production, nor,
unfortunately, toward the donation of any art I currently own. So, I
downgraded myself to volunteer last month.
Then, I continued to be unemployed, and although now (halleLUjah) employed, I don’t get paid until the 15th
of this month. Her show was planned for last night, Saturday night, and I have
$40 to my name until Friday. I had to tell her I couldn’t do it. I simply couldn’t afford the roundtrip to the city. It just wasn’t feasible.
Do I/did I feel like a flake? Yeah. Was there anything I
could do about it? No.
In the meantime, having unceremoniously bowed out of
volunteering, on Friday morning my office was in the midst of heading out for
the weekend to a “Shabbaton,” basically, a weekend at an overnight summer camp
in the Santa Rosa mountains, where 250 members of the congregation (did I
mention I work, now, at a synagogue?), kids, grandparenty-types, Board members,
staff members, would all gather and have a hella Jewish weekend (well, hella Reform Jewish weekend – which includes guitars, LOTS of
clapping on the up-beat, and the community-sanctioned use of a cappuccino machine on
Shabbat).
I, was not going to go. I told them over this week and a
half of my new employment that I wouldn’t be able to go, as I was volunteering
with my friend’s art show. And, part of me didn’t really want to see these
people, as I was still feeling rather resentful at being a freakin’ secretary,
answering phones and manipulating mail merges.
However, there was another part of me who is, about 7, I’d
say. And she, every time I heard someone
wish me a good weekend as they were departing on Friday afternoon,
would say to me, I wanna go to
camp!.
I wanna go. I wanna go to camp. I wanna sleep in a bunk,
and clap during song session, and eat at long uncomfortable tables, and see the
mountains. I wanna go to camp!
She whispered this to me all day. Indeed, she’d been
whispering it with increasing intensity all week, but adult me was too pissed at
these people for having supporting roles in the drama of my life that was once
again entitled, “Molly: The Disgruntled Employee.”
Then, however, came the reality that I would not, in fact,
be joining my friend for her art show. And I’d been offered a ride by another
reluctant employee earlier in the week, that she was going up on Saturday
morning, coming back on Sunday, and I could ride with her.
She’s new to the office as well, and I could sense that
perhaps we could get along. So I told her I’d think about it. And, as she was
generously giving me a ride the the bus stop on Friday afternoon, long after almost
everyone else had defected for the mountains, my little girl was screaming to
be heard.
I was, in fact, on the bus home when I finally gave in to
her. I called the woman, and I told her that if she was still willing, I’d love
to ride with her to the Shabbaton.
Because, in reality, my alternative now, without the art
show, was to sit on Saturday in my apartment, continue to read my Zadie Smith
novel, see a few friends, and putz around, as per usual. I saw that very
clearly as I rode that bus through Berkeley. Everything as per boring usual.
I have been camping once
this summer. Several months ago now. I have kept my childlike spirit drowned
out with the adult business of interviewing, resumes, finance planning,
budgeting, cost efficiency, worry worry worry. There has been nearly NO play in
the last 3 months. At all. A few movies here and there for a break from the
awful soul-crushing of unemployment, but other than that, no glitter, sparse laughter, begrudging fun, and a riotous need to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
So, I said YES. I went toward the open door.
The adult in me was also very calculatingly clear, with its
Cheshire cat smile, that this weekend away would not cost me a penny. That I
would have good meals I didn’t have to cook, pay for, or clean up from. That I
would get the chance to go to the mountains, and hike there, as I did, without
paying for a rental car, gas money, a camp site, anything at all.
I would be able to get out of dodge simply by saying “yes.”
To think that I almost didn’t makes me laugh at myself.
The weekend itself was both satisfying, and exhausting.
Exhausting, as I was “on” the whole time, schmoozing with people, making my new
presence known. It was not an entirely selfless or avocational decision to go up, obviously –
it was/is also important to me that people got to know me as more than the
receptionist, should the ears of the executive director be listening to the
chatter in the water. Phrases like “raise” and “room for growth” come to mind
as I go forward with this job. It was a political decision. – Also, it
exposes/d me to people who might be good contacts later on.
Indeed, there was a published/working poet there with whom I
got to spend some good conversations. The last one included my bald question,
“Is it worth the fight?” [to be a writer, to pursue this {or indeed any} art, to continue to
put one word after another as a sign that we mean something to ourselves, others, this world we live in – that we are not floating mindlessly through it – that we value our experiences – that we mold and shape them and
ply them and tongue them and pinch them into these characters we imprint on paper
and screen … Is it worth the fight to do this?]
His answer, after the knowing laugh, was yes, if you believe
it is.
I believe it is. I believe in marking my existence. I
believe in questioning it, turning it, shaping it, and being shaped by it.
I believe in inviting you to share it with me. To tell me how you see it, to let me have my own world shaped for a
moment or more by how it is you walk in the world.
By saying yes to this weekend, I allowed cherished and often
dismissed parts of me to sing in the sunshine. To look at the Milky Way, for
Christ’s sake. To dance in a circle of women, to talk blogging with a
stay-at-home dad. I got to see a fawn pounce through the brittle brush and pet
baby goats, and to sing at my most favorite service in
all of Judaism, Havdallah, the closing of Shabbat, where we say good-bye to the
week we’ve had, and we welcome the week to come. The service where we invite
the sweetness of Shabbat to come with us into and sustain us through the coming week.
It is a service that dances the edge of wistful, grateful
endings and limitless, renewed beginnings. And, simply, it has the best music.
Shavuah Tov, friends – May you have a happy week.  

acceptance · dating · fantasy · fear · finances · growth · maturity · progress · relationships · romance · sobriety

"Love as Burrito" or "This, or Something Better"

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Grateful to my friends who gave me feedback, I texted the okJew yesterday morning
that I was a fan of getting to know someone before getting physical (I couldn’t
help but hear Olivia Newton-John as I typed it), and if that was something he
was interested in, then I’d love to continue getting to know him, and if not,
no hard feelings. He texted back to say that, in fact, he was looking for
something else, and didn’t know how that fit in with me or not.
So, I got to sit with that. Tall, attractive, well-built
Jew? What’s not to like? Oh, unavailable.
And, I did sit, I questioned, I turned inward for a few minutes to test that
option, and ultimately, gratefully, I said I was looking for something less
tenuous, and good luck.
Then …
I sat and stared at a wall of books.
I was shocked, honestly, at how “air out of a balloon” I
felt, without all that funny noise it makes. It made me realize that I still do
have some work to do. I identified very clearly the feeling of a crash after a
high. I could almost smell the cigarette smog and late 90s radio.
Hm. Love as Drug. Huey Lewis has a song about it. And, duh,
it’s not “love” as in Love. It was intrigue. Oh, Intrigue!! – when’s the next
text, what do I wear, how flirty do I be, funny do I be, do I invite him in,
scheduling plans, etc…etc…etc… Something to think about, and then the plug was
pulled yesterday mid morning, and I sat deflated and comatose for a few minutes
on and off till lunchtime.
When I went and bought a burrito. My friend texted me to say
that it’s normal to feel feelings, and we get to let them pass. I said my feelings now
feel like a burrito in my belly ~ Real feelings TBA. And that much was true. How
much easier it is to feel full, or to
buy something to feel better – not better, to just feel different. My burrito
accomplished both of those. Better to eat, feel full (and mildly grossed out
that I ate a pound of tofu and salsa flesh), and to get the thrill that I spent
money on lunch when I had a perfectly decent one in the fridge at work.
Cuz, what do I feel when I’m not caught up in the nonsense?
Fear. I feel fear about money and work and job applications and
directionlessness. Who the hell wants to feel that?? No one. But, better to feel those feelings, and
thereby get into action around
them, than to stuff them with something else, and continue avoiding the
elephant in my psyche.
There’s another okJew who I’ve been talking to – and I’m not
entirely sure that I want to pursue it at the moment. I met up with some of my
new “relationship/emotional intimacy” folks last night after work, which was a
very good use of my time. I’m so glad
I’ve chosen to fall in with them – and they were talking about dating, and
showing up, and boundaries, and desires, and how to be honest. These are things
I want. I want to have desires –
I have no … desire… to be celibate, or nunnish. I am a hot-blooded woman with
hot-blooded needs, and a great big bag of tools that don’t work.
That said, I obviously do have more tools than I used to (burrito
coma aside) – because I did let this dude know what I was available for, and he
said he was glad we got that worked out early – and it’s true. I know plenty of
times when I’ve let my “fear of looking needy” keep me from speaking up about
my discomfort at the level of murk in a relationship or sexytime companionship.
Once, it took me almost a month, and when I finally broached the subject with
the dude, he said he wasn’t available or looking for more. So, I said, great,
and was glad to know, and left his house feeling better and confident in my
ability to state my needs, and let go of the results.
Sure, I didn’t “get what I want” in that situation – who doesn’t want the person to say, of course, I’d love to
continue to get to know you and see if there’s something substantial that can
come from this. But … as my “sugar crash” yesterday proved to me, there’s more
work to be done. It’s not at all fair to place that amount of expectation on
anyone – because they’re not really being asked to be themselves, they’re being
asked to fill something in me, or distract something in me, or fix something in
me. And, that, my dears, is an inside job.
When I said a few days ago, that if relationships are
Miracle-Gro for your character defects, then surely they are/must be for your
spiritual growth – this is why. My defect here being the desire to run away
from the reality of my professional and financial situation – and when someone
says they can’t be that for me, I’m left simply with my situation all over again, like
the ugly step-sister you lock in the attic. Still here.
So what do I do? Well, firstly, I meet up with folks and I
ask for help. Done, and will continue to do. Secondly, I continue to work on
the job front. I was invited to go camping this weekend, and had accepted, as I
love to camp, and getting out of dodge sounded so very nice. But last night, as
I was compiling job listings into an email draft so I could take a look at them
in my spare moments at work… it occurred to me that perhaps going camping was
not the best use of my time at the moment.
This temp job will likely end in the next week or two, and
after that is a blank horizon. It’s time for me to assist in coloring it in.
Lastly, I offer myself kudos. I made my intentions known,
quickly. I listened honestly to what another person was telling me about their
intentions. Which I didn’t take personally at all (a thought, I recognize, is
also huge progress, but seems so “of course” now). I can try to treat myself
kindly with how I treat my body and not go food coma on myself.
I showed up. I got in the ring. I made out. And, I can be
confident that what’s available for me is “This, or something better.”

adulthood · courage · fear · finances · recovery · relationships · sex · the middle way · willingness

Romance & Finance

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The Third Thing. That’s what a woman told me yesterday,
after I met up with this new group of folks who, apparently, talk about
intimacy, relationships, and habitual avoidance of (or indulgence in) such things.
I was telling her that for years, I’ve been trying to find a
balance between Betty Crocker and the Vixen, to find the middle way between
them. And she said something I’d never heard before – that likely, whatever it
or I turn out to be, it’s probably neither of these – it’s a Third Thing.
I’ve said sometimes, that I don’t like the analogy of
“living in the gray,” you know, the balance between black and white – between
black and white thinking, all or nothing. Some people call this middle, attempting
to live in the gray area. But to me, that sounds pretty awful, like living in a
fog bank (looking at you, San Francsico!). And so, I’ve said that instead of
the middle of black and white being gray, I call it color. That something other
than black, or white, is color. And so, “the third thing” thing makes sense to
me (she said it’s a Bill Clinton quote, and g-d love Bill – I’ll have to look
it up).
Romance and Finance. I hear so often that these are the
things which so often plague, worry, or motivate all of humanity. I’m reading
this book on the art and history of Europe (“for the traveler”), trying to get
some more info, things I slept through or didn’t care about or was too worried
about the aforementioned “ance”s to listen. I have a few books on European
travel on my desk, and this one is giving me the history, the why and wherefore
of how come art and architecture look like they do. And here’s what I’ve
learned: people, throughout history, have fought and been motivated by romance
and finance. Kings marriages, new religions, revolutions. Many have been about
who has what, who doesn’t have what, and how they can get more.
So, I’m not alone, apparently, in the grand scheme of these
issues. Of working on them, and my own grating relationship with each.
This is good. And there is a solution, but as Jung said, (I
think I’ve mis/quoted him here recently!), You can’t solve a problem on the
level of the problem. And the problem here is that I have only my well-worn
resources, patterns, and behavior to help me “solve” these problems of romance
and finance. So it’s time to look for help.
My romantic life as having fallen in either Betty Crocker or
Vixen territory is very much like my relationship with money. I’m either
restricting, meagerly existing, and isolating – or I’m burning money to quench
and balm the pain of all that restriction. Binge, remorse, restrict. Repeat.
Many people can notice these traits in anorexics or bulimics, and so far in my
life, knock on every piece of wood and mock-wood in the vicinity, that has not
been an issue for me in that particular way. My binge and restrict is with
emotions, money, and sexuality.
And if the middle way is not indeed the “middle,” then I
have to keep coming back to those who know a different way, and can help me to
get there.
This morning, I queried in my Morning Pages about this desert
I go to in meditation. How was that desert, I asked. I hadn’t been there in a
long time, and it was a place that I’ve gone to occasionally in my meditations
for years, and one which I was encouraged to solidify in myself and my brain
while I was doing some EMDR work with my therapist earlier this year.
She said it was interesting that I chose a desert as my
“safe place,” that many people choose cozy small place, places where they feel
protected. But, no, for me, I want a wide wide field of vision. There are no
surprises, no sneak attacks, I have full view of every single thing for miles
and miles. It’s a desert like those you see in the southwest, with ocher
colored mesas in the distance. And the flat, flat, cracked earth expanse of
dirt and dust and a hawk flying lazy circles in the bright, expertly clear
sunlight.
This, is safe to me.
I suppose I’m reminded of it today, as I am going to be
needing to touch into places like this – safe, calm, where I feel almost in
charge. There is nothing hidden, nothing freaky, nothing to shake me or scare
me or surprise me. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of surprises
and shakes and scares as I begin to dive into this romance stuff. This
emotional intimacy, undoing this very deep pattern of all or nothing. And so,
it’s time for me to strengthen my base, root within my safe places, and get the
hell out of the way.
This is like a geyser, this work. Or maybe it’s not, what do
I know. What I do know is that I am grateful for the help I have available to me,
internally and externally. I was asked in my meditation from my Feminine, as I
reported the other day, if I was ready – I guess I was being asked if I was
ready to work on this stuff – because she/I have reawakened, and is powerful as
fuck. It is no wonder to me, then, that it’s taken me as long as it has to come
to this place of beginning to integrate and work on my
sex/relationship/intimacy stuff – I’m going to need all the resources I’ve
acquired, and many I have yet to discover.
Here’s to an assault on old ideas, however that looks as it
is coupled with a cosmic cease-fire. 
acceptance · adulthood · commitment · discovery · finances · growth · maturity · TEACHING · time · work

Sucker

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Dear Folks,
My new “normal people” hours are conflicting with my ability
to write this with coherence, and eat, shower, become fully conscious. So,
forgive its in/coherency, if it is so.
I had two phone calls yesterday that sort of count as
informational interviews. One was with my darling Aunt Roberta (technically my
mom’s cousin, but all those cousins are sort of like aunts and uncles – that’s
how it was when you played stickball in the streets of Brooklyn in the ’50s).
She has been a professor of English since the sun was born,
and had some great information and tips for me. She sent me her teaching resume
to take a look at, as I’m beginning to apply for teaching jobs – something I’ve
viciously avoided for so long, I almost
forget why. … but I do remember.
For as long as I can
remember, what with my interest in literature, and writing, and reading,
well-meaning folks have said the following to me:
Well, you could always teach English.
Somehow this phrase has turned into an anathema for me. Is this the only
thing that I can do?? It begins to sound like a default, like welp, you could
always settle. It has calcified into a job title that brings to mind aging high
school professors, eking out their little lives in some underappreciated,
underpaid job. My vision of “teacher” has come to also mean “sedentary,” as
once you get a job teaching, all I hear is “tenure” and that’s all people are
working toward – all they want is to stay as absolutely still as possible. No
room for exploration, movement, change. You got it, you keep it, you pipe down,
and suck it up.
Obviously, many of these ideas are unrealistic and quite
ridiculous, but that hasn’t kept them from keeping me away from the whole idea
of teaching – teaching English, teaching high school, teaching college – as if
I’ve ever thought that I could.
But…
The reality.
Firstly, as Roberta was quick to assure me, teaching does not mean wasting away in some small town or inner city
for eternity – it doesn’t have to mean that, and particularly in the beginning,
it doesn’t mean that – as chances are, as a beginning teacher, you’ll have to
sort of go where the job is.
Secondly, … and here’s the hilarious irony … I like teaching.
Sure, it’s hard work – I’ve done it before, but never
considered what I’ve done as “real” teaching. I had a job at a Sunday School last year, once a
week (and had lots of lesson planning experience to really really learn that lesson planning.is.not.paid.). I also
taught ESL in South Korea for almost two years, but I don’t “count” that either,
as I was hung-over most of the time, and worked out my lesson about 10 minutes
before class, if that.
However, I do like being in a classroom. I also think I have
a lot to offer – I, if I may be so unhumble, think I’m pretty cool. I’m funny,
performative, creative, a good listener, and a very good judge of classroom
dynamics and social cues (i.e. they’re not listening – change it up, or so and so is
interested in so and so, so I better move them). I also have a lot of outside
interests, which makes for a well-rounded incorporation of things into the
lesson plan.
Thirdly, I’m technically qualified to do it now, with my degree and all. 
So, I could do it.
And as I’ve reminded myself a lot over the last year, “Can I
do it?” is a different than “Do I want to do it?”
But here’s the change occurring. My wonderful sunshine ball,
Maila, came over for tea last night. Here’s what she said:
“If it wasn’t hard, they wouldn’t have to pay us.”
BAH! Oh, right. It’s work. The ideal is that work include some play or interest, or a lack of
soul-crushing mindlessness that leaves zero energy available for outside pursuits. And the thing
is, I want and would love to pursue a LOT of outside pursuits.
As she was leaving, I thought of something else which has
probably helped to keep me at arms-length from a “real” job. I’m reminded of my
life several years ago, which I know is similar to a lot of folks I hang out
with.
In the cheepy-birdie hours of the morning, in the hours when
the sky is beginning to lighten, and the new day is dawning, I and we, were
usually heading home. Weaving and wending our way to some pass-outable
location, or so red-eyed and clench-jawed that the chirping birds were a
mockery of all that is holy (Shut the fuck UP! Don’t remind me it’s a new day,
I’m still … still … STILL up!).
And as we were wending home, or at least one well-worn path
I remember particularly, as I was wending my way home in my second tour of
teacher duty in South Korea, I would pass by a church on Sunday morning. There,
people, humans, were walking to church. And I would sneer, Suckers.
These people, in their pressed, clean clothes, with a full
night’s sleep, and a full refrigerator. With brushed teeth, and combed hair,
and a place to get to at 8 or 9am. Who paid rent, and taxes, and didn’t have
their utilities turned off monthly. Whose teeth were not ground down with
clenching, or livers distended with liquor, or clothing bathed in a cheap bath
of smoke. These people, with real jobs, real lives, real responsibilities, were
Suckers. They knew nothing of the way things ought to be, the nocturnal,
hedonistic, nihilistic counter-culture. They were suckers.
And as I begin to accept that it’s time for me to take on
those same responsibilities, there’s a part of me that calls myself a Sucker.
But, I’m not a hedonist anymore. I don’t reek, or steal, or
slink anymore. If a balanced check-book, paid rent, cat and people food, and
some bass lessons are what I want, then I have to do what they do. I have to be
a Sucker,
which I guess is another word for Adult. 

change · finances · health · integrity · recovery · work

Positions.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Over the last few years, I have gone from smoking maybe half a pack or so a day, down to
nothing — this, by no virtue of my own. There have been times when I was
smoking a pack a day, and sometimes hardly at all, having started back in college, when I said Fuck It, I Need a
Cigarette, following a dramatic break-up with my first “real boyfriend” my
freshman year.
But, over the last two years or so, I’ve had to stop.
Despite having developed strep throat several times a year in the past, and continuing
to smoke until really, ultimately, I couldn’t breathe fully or swallow,
whereupon I’d “quit” until I could get that nicotine relief back into my lungs,
a different ailment began to happen when I’d smoke recently – after several a
day, at night, I began to wake up from my sleep, not able to take a full breath
properly. So… slowly, I cut back, and realized that even after one a day, I’d still get this tight chest pain, and
shallow breathing, which was always not so fun. And slower still, testing the
waters still… I’d go down to a drag from someone else’s or splitting half a
cigarette with a friend. No. Dice.
Without fail, I’d go to sleep, only to wake up a few hours
later unable to breathe. So, I “quit.” Or rather, I stopped. I had to – it
wasn’t my choice, I’d rather not have, despite the health and smell and cost
and yadda yadda – If I could, I would, but I can’t.
Yesterday, as I was sitting at my temp job in SF, I had
a similar experience. Something being crossed off my list by no virtue or
choice of my own. Within a few hours of sitting, doing data entry basically
(I’m organizing the massive library for the interior design firm that I’ve
temped with before – hired to work with them until it’s finished – so about two
weeks) – my back began to hurt. And this isn’t like “oh, silly back pipe down,” this is
like “stop sticking a fucking fire brand into my lower spine.”
I’ve known recently that sitting for extended periods of
time has been aggravating my health, but it’s been easier to moderate as I
haven’t been working full-time. So, yesterday by about 3pm, with near tears in
my eyes, my three or four lower vertebrae about ready to jump out the back of
my skin, I told my boss that I was going to leave for the day.
This was fine – she knows the work is grueling, and I’ll be
back this morning, and I’ll attempt to moderate my sitting time more
consciously. But, when I came home yesterday afternoon then, and came to my
computer to apply for jobs, what am I looking at? Admin jobs.
For the love of Christ.
This, is being taken away from me as an option through no
virtue of my own. Sure, I’ve been applying to admin jobs at cooler places, like
the SFMOMA and galleries and art schools – places that seem more aligned with
where my values lie – but, it seems, and is evidenced, that this too is not an
option – or not in this way.
I simply cannot sit down for 8 hours. The job that I applied
to yesterday listed under physical requirements that I be able to sit for 80%
of the day and type for 50% of that. It’s a cool-ish job too. And yes, I
applied, before I began to put two and two together.
So, this option is being wiped off the slate, and I’m left
with another question mark. I’m honestly glad that it is being taken away from
me – it’s a default position, it’s a fall-back, it’s what I’ve always done, sit
behind a desk like a good worker bee. I’m good at it, but like I recently told
a friend when she asked me if I liked those kinds of jobs, I said it’s like
(forgive me) farting – it’s something I can do, but really I’d prefer not to.
Sorry. 😉
So, it’s been suggested for me to make a list of all the
jobs that don’t require sitting for 8 hours a day, or more schooling at this
point – though, maybe that’s just what will happen – though, sincerely, I hope
not. And doesn’t require standing for 8
hours, like waitressing. Although, I do have a few offers for some catering
work over the next few months, … which I haven’t replied to yet.
I was with a group of folks last night, and we were
listening to a tape of a suggested meditation. This was about money, our
relationship to it. We were to stare at a monetary bill of some denomination,
and really look at it, and imagine it nearly animate – we, Americans, Humans,
give money a lot of power and anima all the time, may as well find out what it
has to say! The first question we were to ask it was, How do I (Molly) feel
about you (money)? Its answer: Distant. … Duh, no wonder I am where I am.
There were a few other questions along these lines which
need some more marinating and change, but as I change my relationship to money,
how I can earn, how I can earn respectfully and with integrity and health, how
I can be of service to others which is reflected back to me as a monetary value, how I
can be responsible to myself, to money,
to my jobs or career … I will apparently also be changing my position, physically
and otherwise. 

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. 

finances · generosity · spirituality · synchronicity · work

Creativity and Spirituality

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I got two emails yesterday. On suggestion from a friend who knows the woman who runs it, I’d submitted my resume to a tutoring company in SF. She said that she just hired an
English mentor, but would love to keep me on file. And that she loved seeing the “mixture of spirituality and creativity that seems to be the hallmark of your professional life.” (She also asked
if perhaps that also echoed in my poetry, to which my answer is, not yet. But
reminds me I want to read more David Whyte.)
I was surprised by her summation of my resume, which to me
reads as: secretary, secretary, secretary. – And not in the sexy Maggie
Gyllenhaal way. But, as I look at it from the outside, she’s not far off, and
that makes me happy to see that despite my self-identified squabbling for a
place in this professional world, I’ve been apparently creating a space for
myself at the cross-road of topics that not only interest me, but which
continue to be places where I do more seeking and reading and learning. Perhaps
what I like to do does intersect with my
professional life.
The second email I received was a reply to my resume
submission for a job with Kitka, the non-profit organization of vocalists who
travel world-wide. This was the job earlier this week I’d received from my
friend out of the blue, and which I’d immediately dismissed as underpaying,
overworking, and non-profit = non-stable/sustainable financial flow.
But, I applied anyway, despite my protests and whining. And
I got a call back.
So, we’ll see. I would like to continue to apply to jobs, as
it felt like an exercise in willingness and letting go of my ideas of where I’m
supposed to be or what I’m supposed to do in this world. Besides, as I’ve heard
quite recently, which I love to death
is: “Sometimes you shake a tree looking for apples, and oranges fall out.” Aka
– who knows? The Universe is pretty creative and wise, and likely has my best
interest in mind.
Plus, it was actually nice to update my resume and take a
look at what I’ve done since arriving on this here coast. The second half of my
resume is “extracurricular work” and lists the volunteer or creative work I’ve
done over the past few years. This includes my position as facilitator of the
creativity and spirituality workshop I did last year… and will do again this year.
So, want to hear some cool shit? So, this Dr. Palm
Reader/chiropractor I’m going to now (as a result of woo-woo coincidence), well
he has a space in the basement of his office building (it’s an old Victorian
house) that I’ve noticed gets used for yoga classes and the like. It occurred
to me as I consider marketing this workshop to a wider audience than my college
(where it’s been held) to ask what the deal was with that space – is it
available for rent, etc?
Guess what? It is. And for relatively cheap, and the space
is gorgeous, and perfect for my needs, and I’d get a key, and a lease for 6
months on the space. WHAT?? You want to trust me with a key to this wonderful place? Well, yes, they do.
I haven’t pulled the trigger yet – but it’s totally looking
like a viable option for me – and I really wanted an accessible place in SF for
people to come to. It’s in Hayes Valley; super public tranport accessible; and
just super cute space with hot water and tea provided by them!
I’m humbled just thinking about how amazing and grateful I
am for the a) idea; b) opportunity.
Lastly in this vein. I met with my professor who has been
helping me to organize the version of the workshop that will be held at school next month. A workshop which
I’ve been planning with and through her for several months. And it looks like
it’s coming to fruition. I love the idea of having the opportunity to do the
workshop for free as a “test run” and to help me get a clearer idea of what
works and what doesn’t. Surely, there’s a lot I’ll learn as I go along.
But here’s the thing: this is a workshop I’d want to take. These are topics I’m passionate about. I’ve realized that sort of without
my knowing or planning it, I’ve been preparing to do something like this for a
few years. And my professor reflected back to me that people want
this. Many people are looking for ways to
tap into their creativity, for a way to get still, or for a roadmap to try.
Ways to access what their intuition is trying to tell them, to access their
internal nudges.
If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, you
will know that’s precisely what I do and have been doing – however haltingly. Trying to get closer and
more attuned to what I want in my life, who I want to be, and how to do that.
Here’s my last story: I have a friend who was a very well paid CPA (Accountant). She was financially
rich, but felt spiritually bankrupt. She hated her feelings of
single-minded material acquisition. So, she gave it all up. She threw her hands
up, sold most of her everything,
and went to India for 6 months to live as an ascetic Buddhist. There, she found
herself to be spiritually abundant, but materially bankrupt.
And then she returned to the U.S. This is not the land where
materially bankrupt works. So, she knew she had to find a balance. How to be
able to hold financial and spiritual
health. She began to do a lot of work, research, reading, healing. Finally, she
realized that the work that she was doing, the research she was doing for herself, and the
knowledge she was finding would be of value to others as well. Her own life’s
path could be of service to someone else.
So, she started her own business, and now coaches others on
finding their balance in holding the material and spiritual. She loves it; she is fed emotionally and financially by
it; and others find help through her.
This is a model of what I’m realizing is happening for me. I
know I can discount it and say, Oh I’m just rehashing what I’ve learned from
xyz books and workshops myself, but as my professor said yesterday – people
will pay for that summarization. They may not have the time – so I can offer to
them what I am and have taken the time to find out.
So, we’ll see. I’m feeling more optimistic and confident in
what’s happening and what’s next. And that feels pretty good.