Category: gratitude

action · art · creativity · fortitude · gratitude · inspiration · progress · school · trying

Through the Tunnel

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Well, I suppose I’m better than yesterday. A number of
contributing factors. Met up with friends in the morning, got asked to go see a
play this Sunday, got asked to go to that Dharma Punx meditation group tonight,
made plans with a friend for tomorrow afternoon, made plans with a friend for
Sunday afternoon, got my thesis paperwork signed by the folks I needed and it was
confirmed that the last signature I need can
be gotten on Monday without penalty, was congratulated (even without the
uploading) that I will now have an MFA degree and that that’s an accomplishment
even if I don’t feel it right now, ran into my professor who’s helping me with
next Saturday’s workshop and got some details worked out, got my locker
combination from the sports center and put on the sneakers I’d hidden in there
almost 8 months ago, took a REALLY long walk through the awesome grounds at
school, had a lovely little conversation with a lizard, walked through the
school’s herb and healing plant tour, got some good rehearsal in for acting
class, had some good convo’s with student friends of mine, came home and wrote
the performance piece for May 1st and really like how it turned out,
and then had a long convo with a great friend of mine.
So…. yes, things pass. I needed ALL of that to get through
the funk, and there’s still the lingering notes of Beethoven’s funeral march
playing in the back of my head, but I don’t feel quite nearly as pissy or whiny
as yesterday. This is good.
Plus, I’ll babysit for nearly all of today, and kids, even
though I’m always nervous to babysit for that long of periods (how the f can I
entertain kids that long!), they’ll help me get back into the more playful,
much less self-serious frame of mind.
There was an enormo orange cat perched on the garage
overhang as I was writing my morning pages this morning. I always try to get my
cat to notice these things, and tap vigorously out the window, but she rarely
seems to get it and thinks I’m just playing. D’ah, well.
Luckily, it feels, there’s really nothing more to report.
Getting through my emotional tornado was enough news for me. Oh, I also got a
few new books from the library before my scheduled phone call with this woman
who used to work at galleries, and now works for a law firm or something for
art and artists – i forget exactly what she does, but I wrote it down. I wrote a lot down.
We’ve been trying to schedule this call for nearly a year. I let the thread drop sometime in October, and finally picked it back up
this month. And we finally got to speak. She was really helpful and informative,
as I gather information about what jobs there are in the fine art world. She
asked why I was more interested in the art world than the writing world, and I
said, I guess I just feel so surrounded by writers, that I like the avenue of something
else. Plus, I told her that personally, I love painting because it gives my
brain an alternate route to process and develop things – she said to definitely
use that sentiment in interviews.
Plus, she gave me info on the other worlds of fine art. The
trifecta, apparently, is galleries, museums, and auction houses. She said that
my writing background shouldn’t deter me (as in my lack of fine art/art history
background), that as long as I “present well,” and do good work, there’s no
reason that this world should be prohibited from me. Which is great news.
So, now I have more info on jobs in that field, a website
for fine art jobs to check out, and a contact to run things by. She’s actually
a friend of my ex, and he’d put us in touch a million years ago, so, shout out
to him. I toyed with texting him my thanks, but figured the best thanks is to
just go forward with this work. He doesn’t really need to know. … As my ability
to let go of all outcome or response from him is limited, and it’s better that
I just leave it be. But I am hugely grateful.
A lot got done yesterday. My eyeballs are quite red and dry
from all the computer hours logged, so I’ll be glad to focus on kids today, the
most anti-computer screen-like things of all.
It’s just sloughing off the old, I suppose. Fear is normal,
but really, it’s just boogymen, and I have a massive flashlight powered by all
y’all. So, thanks. 

community · faith · gratitude · humilty · love

6 x 6 and 5 x 5

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

gratitude · honesty · joy · love · poetry · school · time

Cacophonous Joy

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday, I finished my draft of my poetry thesis. It is
dark, and humorous, and sad, and scared, and thoughtful, and loving, and aimed
toward health. It represents a period in my life, which I’m glad to recognize
as not current, even though the feelings may arise as current.
This is a memoir of sorts. It chronicles a period of time
which, I see now, I do have a degree of distance from, in order to be able to
write about it so fully. I know too it leaves gaps and holes, but I don’t mind
– it’s show, don’t tell, right?
Yesterday, I sort of fell apart around 3pm, as I knew I
needed more time to edit it, little visual changes and some word sorting here
and there. But, I was also supposed to be at class from 4-6:30, and be at a
poetry reading/open mic at 5:30 – 9. How was I to be in so many places at once?
Well, I couldn’t. And the reality of that fell on me at
about 3pm. I made some phone calls; I was told that my main job right then was
to finish my thesis – perhaps you remember some of the craziness when I hadn’t
turned one in, and may not have been graduating in May? Yes, the thesis was my
main job – all other things were secondary.
I spoke briefly to a few friends, wrote emails of apology to
my class teacher and to the organizer of the open mic, and got back to work. I
was not to use the club of
self-flaggellation on myself, I was told. I was not to think that I’d done it
again and over-booked, and I’m a bad person, and here was this opportunity to
put my work out, and I’ve missed it.
I had one job. Thesis.
So, I left those internal critic voices at the door.
Strangely enough, when I did, something miraculous happened.
I finished my thesis. I sent it in multiple document formats
for maximum readability; I cc’d and bcc’d to ensure maximum accountability of
the documents. I sent it off. It was now out of my hands.
I called two friends, let them know that I had sent it, as
I’d told them 3 hours before that I would. And I felt relief. I felt relief as
though it were that cartoon image of someone getting hot, and the thermometer
level inside them fills up with red from the bottom all the way to the top and
bursts out their head. I felt swallowed with relief.
I told my friend, Now, I’m going to drink some water, make a
nice healthy meal, and watch a Disney movie. – That was going to be my celebration. She found that
hilarious: “I’m going to drink … some water.” How times have changed.
So, I did, but as I was cooking my chicken and broccoli and
yummy organic pasta, I had my iPod on shuffle, playing my joy into the kitchen.
And Metallica came on. And for why, who cares, it was that moment. I began to bob and jam and jump around
as I stirred that chicken. Then I abandoned the chicken to just rock out in my
kitchen to the raging flare of electric guitar and passion.
The song finished. But I wasn’t done. I placed my delicate,
hearty, thoughtful meal on a plate, and went into the main room of my studio apartment. I
proceeded to happy dance. That thermometer level radiated out of me and I
DANCED – I shimmied and kicked and ska danced and booty danced and jumped as
very high as I could. I waved my arms like a lunatic and smiled till all of my
teeth shone bright.
This was more than relief at finishing a project for school.
This was pride and gratitude incarnate. This was my joy at having released a
clog in my emotional arteries. I’d moved something. Something big. And I danced
until I couldn’t dance no mo’.
I have released something big here – truth, despair, hurt,
trauma – I’ve let it go. And I’ve opened it to you. I’ve let it have its own purpose outside of my
experience. I’ve given it, and myself, life. It feels like I’ve surrendered
something I’d been holding on to. The clogged artery metaphor feels pretty apt.
But more, it was my throat, my voice, constricted by these stories – and now
that they’re out, birthed, something new can be said, or seen, or felt.
I am humbled by the process of putting this out into the
world. I do hope people enjoy it, or get
something out of it, or find their own voice through reading it. But the
personal gift I have gotten, I could not have predicted: the grin of sheer
bliss as I tucked into my bed last night. … and woke up with again this morning. 

friendship · gratitude · poetry · progress

Toodling Along

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, perhaps it’s the marked decrease in my caffeine intake,
but I feel pretty good. I’m about a 3 or 4 cup-a-day girl, and have been for a
very long time. But, since Monday, I’ve been trying to make… 1 cup a day. I’m
supplementing as much as I need with black tea – but that’s been not all that much. And although I was in bed at 8pm on Tuesday, and had a massive nap on
Monday, I’m wondering if the worst is over or not?
Partly, this is a health thing, partly this is a vanity
thing – I read a few message posts from people saying their skin cleared up
without caffeine, and as embarrassing as it is to say, I still have mild to
moderate bad skin on my back and shoulders, and have since I was a young
teenager. In fact, when I was about 13 and at summer camp, I was so embarrassed
to take of my shirt at the pool that I made up a story that my best friend had
recently drowned and now I had a fear of water. … I don’t think they bought it,
but I never had to go in. I will say, at this point in my life, I’ve given up the hiding – it is what it is, and I do my best, but c’est moi.
The health thing is pretty obvious. Despite the copious
amounts of water that I drink a day, it was recently suggested that I’m still not hydrated enough – Whaddya want me to do,
mainline it?? Caffeine is one of the main culprits in cancelling out my
hydration level.
And so, here we are. It’s an experiment, and we’ll see. But
I liked reading things like “I don’t crash at 3pm anymore” or “Once I was past
two weeks, I felt fine, like I had energy throughout the whole day.” I’ll let
you know.
Other things that may be contributing to my general sense of
calm or low brain activity may be:
I’m almost done with my poetry thesis draft, and will hand it in TONIGHT! It’s basically
a book, is what we have to turn in, and although there are some things that may
be objected to (“It’s not long enough”), I’ll take my chances with what I’ve
got. I actually -almost- like it. Although I’ve been washed overboard by some of the
emotions it arises in me at time, I’ve also found a few moments when I’ve
actually been able to look at it like an editor – with a mildly detached eye
from the content, and more to the flow, what works, what’s extraneous, etc.
That brings me a great amount of relief. And maybe was/is
what this whole project was about. To allow me to get to a place of detachment,
not rejection or dismissal, but of curious observation. Hm, that’s an
interesting poem. Or, yes, I remember that – I’m glad it makes a good piece of
work now. Sure, it’s still my experience, and at the moment it’s still got the
capacity to chuck me off my groundedness, but, I’m learning to dance with that
a little.
Coincidentally, I’m using the “20 minutes on – 5 minutes
off” technique I learned when I was training to be a live art model, although I
didn’t pursue that. But the technique works for writing for an hour (or an hour
and 15 minutes, to be exact). Enough time to get into the work, but not long enough to get mired by it.
And then, 5 minute break. Sometimes I’ve just sat and stared, glassy-eyed and
spun for the 5 minutes. Mostly, I get up, make tea, use the bathroom, move
around a bit. It’s been a useful technique.
And just to round us out, other things on my mind are pretty
positive: I am reading at a poetry/open mic on campus tonight – although what I’m reading I have NO idea, and I haven’t advertised
or invited people mainly because I’ve been so concerned about what on earth I’d
read – not sure if I want to read from my thesis or not, in a 3-5 minute slot, but I might. But I’ll
be happy to be up and out there again.
Also, today is the day that I perform my monologue for my
acting class. It’s Dennis Shepard’s speech from The Laramie Project, about Matthew Shepard’s murder in Laramie, WY back
in 1998. I still remember when it happened, a few folks in the class do, but
most are too young to know about it, being 10 years younger. But the teacher
chose this play, and we each chose a monologue, and I’ve actually, SURPRISE!,
been practicing and reading it over the last two weeks – as a marked difference
from previous auditions when I tried to cram the few days before.
And last, just to say, my very best friend, whom I’ve
written about here before, is coming out to visit from New Jersey in just two
weeks. I’m really excited. Also a bit nervous. 5 days in a studio apartment
with anyone is a lot, but I’m sure it’ll be alright. I’ve learned that
Enterprise Rent-a-Car is actually cheaper than Zipcar if you need it more than
4 hours, and it also takes a debit card, so we’ll be some mobile cats around this fair city.
So, that’s about it. Feeling generally good. A mite nervous
about what on earth I’ll read at tonight’s open mic, but I’m sure it’ll work
out just fine. (I’m even bringing my old chapbooks from last year’s Art Show to
sell – who knows!) 

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

Hold the Space

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

Be Lightning.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

action · adventure · compassion · courage · creativity · finances · forgiveness · gratitude · growth · joy · recovery · relationships · responsibility · romance · self-care · spirituality

Wet Concrete.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Today is the last day of work before the winter break. And
although mine is polka-dotted with gorgeous adventures with wonderful women,
what i’m really looking forward to is sleep! And cleaning my apartment.
There’s some kind of shift happening, or a solidification
rather. I feel the cement getting stronger beneath my feet. As though I have
poured the foundation, and it’s looked messy and strange – like getting a
degree in poetry, putting together an art show, cleaning out my childhood home
for sale, getting out of a relationship, beginning to audition for theater. I
haven’t known what any of these pieces have meant as they’ve come up and I
examine them and lay them down, like Indy choosing the right chalice at the end
of Last Crusade, hmm, consider, lay aside.
I’ve just been picking up these pieces with curiosity.
And now they’re all poured into the mold of my life’s
foundation, and I can’t explain to you why, but there is a joy that is arising
that feels so uniquely new and pervasive, that I know these are associated.
With a stronger foundation to stand on, I’m freer to explore, create, test
theories, fail, try. I’m no longer standing on quick-sand, undermining myself
as soon as a notion crosses my mind or path.
I also know that there are likely a thousand more things
that will go in this foundation, that it won’t ever be “complete,” but isn’t
that the point of life? (She says with any idea like she knows what “the point”
of life is!!)
But, I tell you, something is happening. Which is a good
thing, because I can spin out into “I have no idea what’s happening/going to
happen”-land really quickly.
For now, today is my last day of 2011 working at a job I
enjoy. I’ve been asked to come back on January 3rd when the office
reopens, and it has been suggested to pay off my credit cards with this money
I’ll earn, instead of ear-mark it for a car, … but we’ll see 😉 My credit cards
don’t have high balances (no one ever trusted me enough to give me too much
credit! – including myself), but the interest rates are exorbitant, and one of my tasks is to call to ask for a lower
rate. I’ve done this before, and they’ve said no. I’ve done this recently, and
they’ve said no.
But the woman who suggested it said that this is one of
those holes that needs to be closed up. Why pour water into a sieve? In order
for me to hold abundance in my life, there are places where I need to be ready
to receive it. So, this is one of those action places, a place where the
foundation can become firmer. The woman also suggested a script for calling
them, some key phrases and an attitude, that scare the crap out of me. Because
they mean taking true accountability and responsibility for myself and my
finances by letting someone else know that this is not okay. Paying almost 20%
on a credit card, and not touching the principal is (apparently!) not okay. And
I need to close these holes. I also will let go of the results, because they
may still say no, but the action of taking action to care for myself and
respect my own boundaries is the lesson, and the trial.
I get reflective around the turn of the year, and around my
birthday. For all the floundering I sometimes believe I’m doing in my life, the
truth is that progress is being made. It has not been the easiest year, and the
hardships have variously set me to a variety of tasks and new things:
  • the
    breakup caused me to lean on my girlfriends, and have the experience of getting
    through that “slammed by a mack truck”ness of early breakup;
  • the breakup led to
    rebounding, which produced my best painting yet (in my opinion) – lol;
  • the
    japan disaster prompted my friend to host an art show with donation to japan at
    which she asked me to read my poetry, for my first time in public outside of
    the school community;
  • my bitterly harrowing lack of income over the summer
    caused me to get in with a community of people who work on financial security
    and abundance issues;
  • later, working too
    much caused me to come up against boundaries of self-care and are helping me to
    say yes     and no with integrity;
  • packing up my childhood home for sale caused me to root out the sadness and
    grief that lived there, and here in my heart, and to begin to perspectivize 😉
    it with more serenity;
  • having that wonky conversation with my mom over the
    summer caused me to take space to reassess how I am able to engage with her in
    ways that feel mutual, responsible, respectful, and loving to us both;
  • being
    single caused me to pick up     Calling in the One to help foster love and care within myself and help
    to radiate outward;
  • my grandmother, my dad’s mom, is dying, and this is causing
    me to see my dad with more compassion than I have, perhaps, ever, and to listen
    to him as a person, not as “Dad” with all its attendant baggage and
    expectations.
So, there’s just some reflections which come immediately to
mind. There are more. But as the saying goes something like, “out of every season of grief, when life seemed heavy or unjust, new lessons for life are learned and new resources of growth and courage are discovered.” And for me, these seasons of grief were simply filtering out the junk in the pouring concrete. 
authenticity · gratitude · joy · love

Errands

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, are you also feeling a bout of “senioritis” at work
lately? Like, duuuude, it’s almost the winter break, I’m here in body only, my
mind is with egg nog and ice skates and Jewish Christmas (movie & Asian
food) land?
Where my body did get
to go yesterday was some pretty wonderful and fanciful places. My temp job is
downtown SF off of Union Square – this is, to use a terribly evocative phrase,
Ground Zero for SF shopping. The (fake) enormous Christmas tree, every
department store you can imagine, and jewelry stores that make me stop and ogle
just the mastery and beauty of what the earth produces.
Yesterday, we needed some fancy ribbon to wrap the fancy
presents for the fancy clients of the fancy place where I’m working. So, I was
asked to go down to Britex fabric store. I’d been there once last week, and
felt like a kid walking into FAO Schwartz. Colors and patterns and buttons, oh my! And yesterday was no different. I felt like saying “Thank you,
Mood!” on my way out. I found a gorgeous double sided satin crimson ribbon and
walked slowly out of the store, stopping by the display of beaded and lace
appliqués for wedding dresses, and some that would make any drag queen’s
costume sparkle with glamour 😉
After returning the ribbon to my boss, she applied it to a
wreath and asked me to take it across the street to the hair salon that the
“big” boss goes to. I’d looked up this salon last week, just out of curiosity
as I was logging in contacts into Outlook, and the website says they do free
haircuts for volunteer models. So, I put my name in. But yesterday, when I was
there, I mentioned that I’d seen the invitation on the website, and the woman
asked me to write my name and contact info down – so, looks like I may get a
fancy haircut sometime soon too!
Now, lest you think that I’m in the lap of luxury, the times
when I was at work, I’m in their library cataloguing all of their books… They
have one that looks like it’s out of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast! So, it wasn’t all joy, and in the skirt I was
wearing, I wasn’t really feeling getting down on the floor to the bottom
shelves.
Now, lest you think I’m ungrateful, I really hope I’m not. I
gave my boss a bottle of wine (which was given to me by the people I babysit
for) as a thank you for throwing this work my way. And as I’ve said before, I
know that not all temp jobs are like this one – and I’m truly grateful for it,
and for the people who work there.
So, that interruption aside, will you let me gush a little
more? Indulge me, the poor student who got thrown a bone by the Universe? 🙂
In the afternoon, I was asked to go pick up the gifts from
Neiman Marcus and Macy’s. These are fancy presents for the big boss to give
out. And while I’m waiting for the makeup counter lady to get all the things on
my list, I get (easily) coerced into letting a makeup person slather me with
foundation and some blush.
Sure, my skin looked flawless, but it also looked so fake.
I’m a makeup wearer. Dyed in the wool MAC fan (my mom took me to the original
MAC store on Christopher Street in NYC for my 14th birthday for a
makeover – I was later told at school that I’d be remembered as the girl who
wore too much purple eyeshadow) ;P But, needless to say, I’ve worn a lot of
makeup of different kinds, and though I looked like a china doll, it covers up
all that is there. The freckles that appeared on the top inch of my forehead
after I got badly sunburned while
snorkeling the coral reef in Cairns, Australia in 2006. It blistered and was
all bad – when one half of your face is in the water, there’s still one half
exposed to sun – be warned. They’re age-spots, or sun spots, and they sometimes
make me worry what they’ll look like when I’m older – how much “worse” they’ll
get. There is the increasing crepe-yness of my eye lids, and she doused on a
ton of concealer under my eyes.
And, I felt fake. It was fine – it wasn’t a day ruiner by
any means(!), but it helped me to reflect that I don’t want to be like this 60
year old woman with caked on foundation to look like she’s 20. Because even me,
30, I don’t look like I’m 20 – and really, I’m cool with it. My eyes are crepe
because I’m alive and healthy and going through the world, not sequestered from
it behind a masque of anti aging. My forehead is dotted with freckles (that no
one else can see by the way!) because I was on an adventure in f’ing Australia.
I’m all for makeup, enhancing my looks, playing around – my
face was my first canvas in many ways. But, I still want to be Molly, with my
entire history.
I walked out of Macy’s with a few free gifts they threw in
for me too, and back at work, wiped off some of the foundation, and saw again
my face, not “what I want you to see.” What I actually want you to see is that
I am many things – young, yes; lived-in, yes; happy – well, how about that? –
yes.
I got to be surrounded by beauty on my errands yesterday,
fabric and fashion galore – but the very best moment all day, was when, in
Macy’s, a gay manboy at the Benefit counter said to me, “This (insert hand gesture up and down) is really working
for you. You look great.” As I warm up to myself, it shows, in how I hold
myself, present myself, and choose to acoutrement myself. This really is working for me. 
compassion · gratitude · growth · healing · love · recovery · relationships · self-care · spirituality

Today’s Lesson: Love. (Don’t Vomit.)

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Today is affirmation day.
Per the last exercise of Calling in The One workbook/coursebook/spiritual revolution catalyst,
today, I’m supposed to affirm my availability and openness to Love and to meet
love, not just in a romantic partner, though that is an aspect, but to meet
love within myself, my life, and in all other people.
When I got sober, I used to hear people say
“We’ll love you until you can love yourself.” At the time, that sentence felt
like I just got slimed on Double Dare.
No way, dude. Get it off me. Keep that gross thing, “Love” you’re calling it?, to your own
damned self.
At the time, “love” to me was a series of fabulously tragic
relationships and an invitation to be hood-winked. I imagined love was like The
Simpsons’ Nelson, asking me to sit in this
lavish chair, and just as I was bending into it, he’d pull it out from under me
with his catch-phrase “HA HA!” I can hear it. Love was not to be trusted; love
was a lie; love was an invitation to be hurt.
So you can imagine, that when people also said that “G-d is
love”, I threw up in my mouth a little bit, every single time. I still think
it’s an extremely gooey phrase, but I
don’t get (as much) acid reflux from it anymore.
For quite some time, I used to say that I received
compliments like one of those lamp-light bug zappers. Compliments, and we can
extrapolate “love,” would only get so far toward me before ZAP! Dead. You ain’t
getting in here, no way no how.
One of the meditations in the workshop I went to this weekend asked us
to envision the light from various teachers and positive sources coming into us, and to then to allow that light to pour out into others. I did this
meditation a few years ago, about 3 or 4 I suppose. At the time, I vividly
remember that I wasn’t going to let these people’s “light” come anywhere near
me. I’ll send light out to those behind me, sure, but keep your light to
yourself. I would send from my own bucket, tap from the (limited) source within
myself. I didn’t need your light – I can do it on my own.
This past weekend, however, sure, I recognized I still was very uncomfortable accepting the light from these loving
sources, but I let it in. It was like slipping into a fur coat that’s been in
mothballs for years – comforting but icky. 😉 That said, to know that I was a)
willing to accept light, and we can substitute the word “love” here, from
others was a huge shift, however uncomfortable I am to receive it, I was
willing to do so; and b) I didn’t have to send my love/light to others by
depleting my own reserves. Instead, I could be a funnel, a filter, a channel,
as is often said.
So, here I am. 30, single, hesitant to believe in a thing
called love (to quote the song with a cringe) ;P but opening more to it.
There’s been a level of conceit which says I’m able to give love and you’re not
allowed to give it to me; a level of conceit which says I know the right way to
love and you’re giving it to me wrong. These have kept me quite alone over the
years.
The reality is that I haven’t fallen in love with an addict,
alcoholic, unavailable, or taken man in a long long time. Doing these things
helped to cause my belief that love was a cruel trick. I haven’t had proof of
this for a long time. Instead, what I’ve been given evidence of as “love” has
been self-less, light, thoughtful, and consistent, and this love has come from many people, not only lovers or boyfriends. I’ve begun to give myself the same
respect and consistency, and finishing this course (and because I mainly just
read through it with lots of underlining(!), and didn’t complete all the exercises, I will now go back
through – there are a bunch which I know want my attention to help sever these
old ties of beliefs) – finishing the course, going on my date with myself, not dating jerks, all of these are helping to firm up
the new system of belief which is that your love (and my own) is not going to injure me, but
rather it is going to bolster me in my climb out into the sunlight.
For all that, I thank you, friends, readers, little secret
gnomes, who are sliming me with the support and generosity of love.