Did you live happy? Did you live well?

March 17, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I don’t really believe in heaven and hell. I suppose if I
believe in anything, I believe in some kind of version of reincarnation. Not
that my soul gets inserted into some new being on the planet, but that the
anima that makes my heart pump disseminates into other things – surely, the
worms, and dirt, and grass that’ll be fed by me, but also, I feel like there’s
some way our spirit gets to try again.

Maybe not. Maybe we’re all worm food. But I think about the
concept I’ve heard that we choose the life that we’re born into. That
we somehow float cosmically one step outside of this reality, and when it’s
time, we are born into the lock that our life provides the key for – and the
lessons and situations we walk into in life are what turns the key. Toward
what? Who knows. Enlightenment sounds like such a heavy word. I don’t know that
there’s ever any “fixed” or “done” for us. I think that’s part of what our
souls, for lack of a better word, enjoy about the whole thing.

It’s sort of like an infinite book of Choose Your Own
Adventure. We’ve all heard me talk about how the lessons we’re here to learn
aren’t always the ones we want; it’s not like I would have chosen some of the circumstances that have surrounded my life
or the situations that occurred in it. But, on some level, perhaps I have and
did. And perhaps for some benevolence greater than my own. – Or not.

Sometimes I ask my cat what she did in former lives to be a
cat this time. What she was before? And who she bribed to get to be as pretty as
she is?

Sometimes I think about the Indigo Girls’ song Galilleo, and how maybe the being we’re born into next time will
have so much baggage from our fucking things up, or not “evolving” enough, to be
the next great writer and artist, or inventor fixing the world.

Sometimes I sit home sick and watch Saving Grace on Netflix and write a blog about theology. Like
today.

I have heard about the whole Pearly Gates thing, and we (or
Christians, at least) get asked questions. And I wonder if I were asked the
questions in the title of this post, what my reply would be? And if it will
continue to change, as it’s surely changed before.

A friend of mine has a mission statement for herself and her
life, and squares the actions and activities she engages in against it. If it
doesn’t jive, then she finds a way to align her wants with its message: To be
of maximum service to myself and others, for the good of all involved.

The other day, as I was sitting in my car, waiting for
the call with my potential new somatic therapist, I was struck with a phrase for
me and for my life that feels pretty appropriate. It was less a mission
statement at the moment, and more a simple observation of the sum total of my actions & endeavors, at least in
adulthood: To voraciously expand my consciousness of love.

It’s sort of what I have been doing lately, I think. It’s
sort of what I think I want to continue to do. It’s a tall freaking order, for
sure. And it’s uncomfortable and vulnerable and occasionally plain biting, but
at its base, at my base, I think it’s a pretty good mission for my soul to have chosen.

Once, in meditation, I got this edict for my life: To love,
as much as you can. What comes to me from that is that it’s also really as much
as you can on any given day. Do your best on any given day, and that level will
change, and sometimes will be really freaking low. But if I believe, which I
do, that I am here for a purpose, and if I believe today that that purpose is
to voraciously expand my consciousness of love, then it’s sort of like when
they put those bumpers in the gutters of the bowling lane: I’ll never be too far off center.

commitment · fear · intimacy · love

The Lionhearted

March 13, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I didn’t want a cat. I sat for a friend’s once, and their
constant up-in-my-grillness was off-putting to my isolatory nature.

My aunt had cats; was/is the stereotypical cat lady,
unmarried, living alone, 3 cats of circulation when one dies.

They’re nice and sweet sometimes, and good for petting. But all
that fur! Forget it.

My ex had a cat. It was good enough, companionable enough,
but there were so many things in his apartment that identified him as a cat-lover/owner: the framed New Yorker cover
with a cat; a magazine about cats (that he swears his brother bought him as a
gag-gift); the industrial vacuum meant for all that fur.

It took me almost a year to put up curtains in my last
apartment, because to do so would mean that I couldn’t abscond in the middle of
the night. I would have to unscrew it slowly, with meaning and intention; I was
committed to something.

Commitment was the largest reason I didn’t want a cat. Not the commitment of keeping it fed and littered, but the commitment of
caring.

My brain would go immediately to, “I don’t know how I could
deal with its death.” The hypothetical death of a hypothetical cat. The
consequences of feeling that deeply for anything frightened me.

And yet. During the time I was with that ex, I moved to
Oakland from San Francisco for grad school, and I was living a bridge away from
anyone I knew, and things were a little lonely here in my studio apartment.

After a side-track story I won’t tell now, I ended up adopting Stella from the SPCA. A green-eyed (no freaky yellow-eyed cats please!), silken, mottled
brown/black two-year old cat.

She has been one of the best things that’s ever happened to
me.

She’s not an in-your-face’r. She’ll hang when she wants to,
and over the 3 years we’ve lived together now, she began to sit more and
more in my lap as I meditate in the morning or nap on the couch. Over time,
we’ve grown more accustomed to one another; and over time I’ve gotten to see
how much my love wants to express itself.

I say things that only my mother must have said to me in
endearment. They come naturally and without thought, these names and phrases
that I whisper to her, or chide at her. The sweetened names of love that were
hanging out inside me until there was a vessel in which to pour them.

I didn’t want a cat.

I didn’t want the responsibility of love.

But it’s opened rooms in me where there were only walls.

courage · fear · happiness · healing · love · relationships

"Forget Your Troubles, Come On, Get Happy"

March 11, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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So you’ll have to bear with me – I haven’t totally got this
one down.

I was on the phone with a trusted friend Sunday morning. I
was giving her the update about this potential Cupcake Situation, the pros and
cons, the merits and demerits. The gnawing maw of my brain.

I fully expected her to say something like, That sounds
reasonable. It makes sense to not do something that has potential negative
consequences. Yes, continuing on the path of solitude sounds like the right one
toward health.

Instead, she surprised me by saying, Life is meant to be
lived.

Instead, I surprised myself by beginning to cry.

Somehow, hearing her “permission” enabled me to feel what
was actually happening in my heart. The joy, the longing, the contentment, just
in the idea and fancy of anticipating being with this Cupcake.

And I said something to her, actually I sobbed something to
her, that I’m not sure I ever admitted or understood – “I don’t know how to be
happy.” And I cried some more.

I don’t know how to let myself be happy. To admit good
things. To trust that I’m able to face good things – that I even think I have
to “face” them is evidence that I still think happiness is something to be
battled.

In my early experience, happiness wasn’t reliable, and so
you mistrusted it. You forced away the “temptation” of happiness because if you
allowed it in, it would corrode. Better to be mildly miserable than submit to
betrayal.

It’s astonishing to me that I’m still facing this same
demon. This same old pattern of beliefs and behavior. But then, I must be at a
place where I’m ready and able to uproot it in a new way.

I read an email from the Cupcake (the person I’ll potentially spend a few days with next month) telling me that he welcomes the chance to
melt with me, open his heart, sit in lazy contentment. That the idea of doing
so stirs something in him, emotionally and physically.

When I read this (for like the 8th time), I was walking
outside my work, trying to get away from the gnawing Pro/Con-ing catalogue
inside me. I reread it on my phone on a side street in Berkeley. I had to stop walking. I crouched
down in the sunny afternoon, held the screen toward my face, and felt the same feeling I would have on Sunday when my friend said, Life was meant to be lived.
Something moved, something heard this. Something within me allowed the
possibility for even a moment to trust that someone was honestly saying, Let’s
be happy. I offered myself the possibility that I could be happy.

And on that sidewalk, my eyes filled with salt water, my brain
temporarily ceased arguing, and I felt in my heart.

I just felt in my heart, being in it. hearing it, feeling
it. I was moved.

I don’t know how to be happy. It’s not something I know how
to do. Like a learned skill, this will be something I will have to try my hand
at, and be inexperienced at, but try anyway.

I’ve been amazingly dexterous at learning all kinds of new
things–grad student, performance poet, bassist, actor, painter–physically at
least. Emotionally, I’ve learned how to be more honest, how to have more
feelings than anger, depression, and mania, how to be more visible and trust I
won’t be shot.

I don’t know how to be happy. But if my emotional responses
are any indication (whether this whole Cupcake thing comes to fruition or not),
I am apparently, on some level, ready to see if I can be.

And I hereby give myself
permission to try.

addiction · detachment · faith · family · fear · love

On Witnessing the Inevitability of Life

March 3, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

My mom and I spoke yesterday for the first time in a while. As in, really talked, not a quick check-in, how are you, okay, gotta go. She and I can speak for hours, on subjects ranging from all manner of depth to superficiality.

Yesterday, she wanted to ask me my advice about a situation she and her long-time boyfriend (for lack of a better term for a live-in adult partner) were facing. His son, my age, was having consequences (severed tendons) that seemed to refer to alcohol (after an altercation with a guy at a bar).

This apparently wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, and despite the stories he told about it (he slipped and fell on the sidewalk after the altercation), my mom and her boyfriend were concerned that this pattern of incidents pointed toward alcoholism.

So, she called me to find out what they should do.

I gave the best advice I know for the families and loved ones of someone in an addiction: Get the help for yourself that you wish the person had. I suggested Al-Anon, or CoDA (Co-Dependents Anonymous), which are geared toward the families of folks facing addiction.

Because, I told her simply: There is nothing you can do.

Apparently, the son had texted to cancel a brunch with his dad yesterday morning, claiming he’d not been able to sleep well, and would be a zombie. His dad texted back, Okay, but we need to talk.

I suggested to my mom that her boyfriend change his tactics. If the son is really in the grips of a disease and an addiction, then he needs to know he has allies. And, really, what would another conversation do about it, as they’d brought up A.A. already and talked about their concern? Play the tape: What do you hope to accomplish from a talk with him that hadn’t already been said? So, the son will say (again), you’re right, I’m sorry, I’ll do better, different. The dad will sit back in his chair with relief and triumph. – And then the son will do whatever he was going to do anyway.

I told my mom some things that sound harsh and even crass when speaking about a loved one in a hard place: That ultimately, the intention of a conversation like that is to get the result that the son’s dad wants, that my mom wants: relief and reassurance that the son be happy, be healthy. And if he is happy and healthy, then they two can be as well. Ultimately, these desires are selfish: I want to feel better; I want to feel relief. (And I know that’s a hard thing to hear when speaking about a parent’s love for a son.)

Furthermore, though, their desires for his changed behavior proclaim that they know the best course for the son. And they don’t. We spoke about “not robbing someone of their bottom;” that getting sober isn’t the way for everyone; and that the person very very much needs to come to the conclusion themselves that they need or want help.

You cannot tell someone to get sober. They have to want it themselves, or it won’t stick; and if you demand it from them, they’ll feel pit against you and your expectations, instead of aligned with you against the terrifying proposition of giving up the one thing in the world they know how to do.

To let go of the results of someone else’s addiction is a grave assignment; that’s why there are support programs for the people who are in that circumstance. It isn’t easy for the people on either side of the bottle.

I told her too, that the thing she does have control over is how she chooses to engage the situation. I talked about Loving Detachment, which I haven’t mastered at all, but have less antipathy toward. I told her she could “pray” for him, in whatever way that meant for her (the agnostic Jew), even if that meant sending thoughts of hippie rainbows toward him. I suggested using the phrase, “I pray that he gets the same peace love and happiness that I want for myself.”

Because it may not be this kid’s path to get sober, to stop drinking, to stop getting in bar fights. It may not be his path to live past 35, is the ultimate truth of it. And that’s where the enormous task of Loving Detachment becomes so painful. And, that’s where help for the loved one’s comes in handy. There are people who have been where they are, and some of them are not there anymore.

The thing about 12 step support, I told her, is that you hear others’ “experience, strength, and hope;” you hear them telling the same stories, not from 3rd person hearsay, or generalization: you hear your own story coming from someone else’s mouth, your own feelings being mirrored back at you, and you realize you are not alone in your struggle. That these folks were where you are, and they aren’t (hopefully) there any more. How did they do it? Stick around and listen. There is hope here.

The last thing I suggested was that the boyfriend amend his text to his son about “needing to talk,” and simply say, “You know what, I’m here when you need me, if you ever want to talk. Otherwise, I’ll just see you on Thursday for the game.” (or whatever.)

It’s not that people in their addiction need to be coddled or allowed to behave inappropriately toward their loved ones. They simply need to be given enough rope to hang themselves. To come to their own desperate conclusions in their own time.

And if you have the strength, or the exhaustion, to let someone you love do that – you all have a better chance to be helped.

* Disclaimer: Opinion and interpretation is only that of the person who gave it, and by no means representative of any other group or entity.

confidence · courage · fear · love · self-esteem

You Must Be This Tall…

March 2, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I still haven’t submitted my photos to the “real people”
modeling agencies that my friend suggested to me after seeing some of my photos
from my October photo shoot with a friend. Or sent the hard copy photos to the
modeling scout who saw me while I was busking in Union Square on Black Friday.

This morning, I was querying why I haven’t done these
simple, low risk tasks, though they’ve been on my internal and external to-do
lists for months. The answer was simple: I’m afraid I’m not good enough.

When I first stopped drinking, I read this memoir by a guy
who’d also stopped drinking. In explaining why he drank the way he did, he writes,
and in explaining why I drank the way I did, I quote: “I always felt one
drink behind—One drink behind being funny enough; one drink behind being smart
enough, cool enough, attractive enough.” One drink behind being good enough, in
essence. So there always had to be one more drink, then; and after that,
oblivion.

It’s ridiculous, however, to think that I’m not “good enough”
somehow to submit photos to professional agencies of myself, I wrote to myself
this morning, because that’s like saying, I’m not tall enough to ride a roller
coaster. That I walk up to the measuring stick in front of the ride, and the
sign with the painted finger points to five feet tall. … I am 6 feet tall. But I tell myself, I
convince myself, that I’m not tall enough. I’m not yet enough to ride this
ride.

It’s absurd. But it’s the truth of how I (sometimes) interpret myself in
the world.

Many years ago, I wrote a poem that included the line: [Fear],
you Nancy Kerrigan my knees before I even stand up. (Or something like that.)
That fear takes me out before I even have a chance to try. I wrote that so many
years ago. And fear continues to pull a Tanya Harding on me.

I am pretty sure that the only cure for this, let’s
call it, personality dysmorphia (like anorexics have body dysmorphia – seeing
flaws and fat that aren’t at all there) – the only cure for this is
self-esteem, self-care, and just walking through the fears anyway.

To walk up to the measuring stick at the roller coaster, see
that this ride is actually accepting me,
and walk onto it. – The ride is Life, if you haven’t figured that out.

I am enough. I am healed enough, sane enough, funny enough, smart
enough, pretty enough, engaging enough, lovable enough to participate in life,
to have relationships, to have valuable friendships, to throw my photos into
the hat, to show up to auditions, to even show up to musical auditions. I am
enough to have this, to be this.

Because, I am six feet tall, by god! – And I want to ride.

beauty · love · poetry · writing

Grandfather/advised me:/Learn a trade/I learned/to sit at desk/and condense/No layoff/from this/condensery ~ Niedecker

February 20, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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For reasons unknown, I reached for the book of “Modern
Poetry” that I bought for a class during my undergrad days. It lines my shelf with the
Norton Anthology of Poetry by Women, one by Langston Hughes, and even a book on
Greek Mythology that I haven’t wanted to part with in the 10 (jeez, can’t
believe it’s been such a short time!) years since undergrad.

Maybe part of this memory-lane path was struck by my friend’s
photo on Facebook of an abandoned shopping cart in New Brunswick, New Jersey,
where I spent my undergrad years. Maybe I just wanted to read some poetry this
morning.

It was interesting to me in grad school, one of the teachers
asked us, poets all, if we had any books of poetry at home. My shelves, besides
those few relic anthologies I rarely look at, pretty much housed some novels and a bunch
of “spiritual” books.

I kept a few of the mandatory books we were required to
purchase during those two years at Mills, and even found myself going to the
poetry section of the bookstore once, purchasing from titles alone, Mary Karr’s
Sinners Welcome and one with this lovely
title:

If
there is something to desire,/

There
will be something to regret./

If
there is something to regret,/

There
will be something to recall./

If
there is something to recall,/

There
was nothing to regret./

If
there was nothing to regret,/

There
was nothing to desire.

by Vera Pavlova.

Tell me that’s not a great title! And message.

Poetry is a strange thing to “read.” There are some books you want to read page after page, because it does read like a novel, and you
are impelled forward through the pages of the “story,” the landscape.

But, much of poetry insists that you sit with each piece,
each page for longer than 30 seconds.

Much of poetry, in my own limited estimation, calls you to
allow the words to melt like a fine piece of dark chocolate. You sense the
bitterness, the sweetness, the texture, the mouth-feel. You turn it over and
under your tongue, attempting to pry all the secrets out of this square bit of
matter before it is gone. And afterward, you notice around inside your mouth
where the taste remains, what it reminds you of. If you “liked” it.

Poetry is like that.

A marathon, not a sprint. An 8-course meal, not fast food.

Here is a piece from Pavlova’s book I shall choose at
random, because I actually haven’t read the book, though I bought it two years
ago – because poetry requires that time, and most times, us modern folk won’t
allow it. So, here’s to taking a moment to savor the delicacy of language:

Eternalize me just
a bit:

take
some snow and sculpt me in it,

with
your warm and bare palm

polish
me until I shine…

acceptance · change · community · love · trauma · truth

in.to.the.light.

February 15, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Over the past two weeks, I’ve had occasion to sit with two
friends who shared with me about trauma in their past, as well as reading an article by a
sexual abuse survivor about the upswing of the Dylan Farrow case.

A little less than a year ago, after I completed chemo, I started reading a book
about healing that kind of trauma. As you may remember/know, it’s my
understanding that disease can be a function of underlying emotional or
spiritual dis-ease, and after my bought with cancer, I was (and still am)
determined to do all I can to root out causes and dis-ease that may underlie
the causation of cancer. The book suggested that before you really begin, you collect your army of support
because the work would be intense. So, I sought out a somatic therapist, as the
book suggested, and saw her a few times. I wasn’t a good fit, and I soon
stopped seeing her, and soon stopped reading the book, maybe a chapter or two
in.

However, this morning, I was toodling around on my phone,
compulsively checking my email for the rehearsal schedule for the play in which
I’ve been cast(!), and I clicked on the “Notes” app I have on there, wondering
if there wasn’t some old “to do” list that may have good ideas for me.

Instead, I found a series of quotations from that book. A
series of words that struck me, applied to me, and offered me compassion,
understanding, and hope.

I … don’t really want to do this. Read that, re-read that.
Tell you here. But, my friends, it is all related. Don’t worry, I won’t get
specific here—it’s not appropriate, and not necessary—except to say my abuse
was not incest or young child abuse, but simply a series of events from a youngish age into my 20s when I didn’t
understand what No was, how to stop things, how to not
go along.

But, apparently, several things in my current life are
pointing me back at looking in that direction. And, from my own understanding
and cosmology, the “Universe” tends to bring things up when you’re ready to
deal with them. … And, if you don’t, you’ll be given occasion to deal with them
later, we promise.

One of the quotes in my app says something about moving out of
isolation into relationships. Va voy, if that’s not what I’ve been trying to do. And
here is a hiccup I didn’t see coming. A gentle nudge from the Universe saying,
Hey, there are these unresolved things. I know they’re hard, but you’re not
alone, and we’ve already pointed some support structures your way, if you want
to work on this now.

I may say, Fuck you. I don’t wanna.

I may call on the language I read once that said, Stop
Identifying With Your Trauma. Don’t use it as a shield and a sword to say, LOOK
SEE THERE’RE THESE FUCKED UP THINGS THAT HAPPENED, SO YOU CAN’T GET CLOSE TO
ME, AND I’M TOO SCARED TO GET CLOSE TO YOU—BACK! OFF!

I could call on that language and say, see, I need to not look at this, because then I’m just wallowing in my
past, instead of moving out of it.

See…. but the thing is. I haven’t wallowed. I’ve avoided.
Plague-like.

Partly because “it wasn’t that bad.” Partly because it’s
so damned fucking common. Heartbreakingly.

Partly because there have been other fish to fry.

And mostly because it’s really really hard.

I have some Louise Hay “Affirmation Cards” over my kitchen
sink, so I can look at them when I’m doing my despised dishes. The one that
calls to me about this reads, “All these changes are easy to make.” These
patterns are easy to heal and change. Maybe. Maybe this is easier than I fear.
The big boogey man with a flashlight projecting himself on the wall much larger
than he really is.

It’s happened before.

I know it’s a heavy thing to lay out to you here, but I also
know some of you are there, were there, get it, and are curious, like me, on how to go
through this stage of healing. As always, I write this for us.

fear · friendship · health · honesty · love · self-care · vulnerability

Welcome To The Jungle–We’ve Got Fun & Games

February 5, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s
Head,

Don’t Freak Out.

Dear Suspicious Lump Under My Right Shoulder Blade,

Don’t be an asshole.

Be a mutated muscle, embarrassing adult acne, a rogue tooth stem cell that formed in the wrong place in utero; even be a benign
cyst that I have to go through biopsy limbo to confirm. Just don’t be an
asshole.

Today, I go to the doctor. I am grateful and lucky to have
the community who shows up for me, available at 6:30am-text notice. One of them
is coming with me to the doctor visit–though I didn’t ask, I just “wanted to inform someone who isn’t my mom and wouldn’t freak out,” she offered. I wanted to
ask, but asking for help… especially help to attend to an amorphous, “Am I just
paranoid?” symptom…

Yesterday at work, I spoke with someone who also has
intimate experience with things like this. She said, it’s not paranoid. It’s
not hypochondriac. We have reasons, and good ones. She said she gets alarmed
too. And so, what do we do? We get things checked out.

I was trying to play it cool. Sure, I’ve just been really tired; it’s normal, you’ve
seen my lists of activities. It’s nuhhh-thing. And MAYBE IT IS. But you know how I tongue the other
side of “maybe.”

So, I went to get labs drawn yesterday afternoon. My blood
is all normal. Leukemia Negative.

But, this lump. I noticed a few days ago.

Is this too much information? Is this too soon to tell you
anything? Is this just me mental-masturbating onto the page to diffuse some of my worry by spewing it onto you?

Maybe.

The same friend who will accompany me today once said,
“Don’t Worry Twice.” It’s the best advice I’ve ever been given, and a thousand
miles toward following it.

But, I remember it. I try to do that.

I’m as worried as the situation warrants. Which is, hmm,
this is suspicious. I am not a doctor, I should get this checked out. The end.
It’s why I got my blood tested finally; and glad that I did. It’s why I’ll see a doctor today, who may really seriously in fact tell me, this is just a really bad zit
under your skin, Moll. Use some ProActive and get on with your life.

The thought that occurred to me this morning, waking up and
deciding to get this zit-in-sheep’s-clothing checked out, was “Rule 62.” Don’t
Take Yourself So Damned Seriously.

A thousand thoughts go through one’s head when….

No.

One thought went through my head when, yesterday morning, I
wrote my blog to you, got ready for work, and broke down crying in my closet. I’m
so tired of being brave.

The thought that follows that is: I won’t go through this
again.

The thought that follows that is: Of course I will.

Because tired of it or not, bone-weary or not, to gain a
year of hell, perhaps five years of health, perhaps one perhaps twenty, I would do it.

I hate that I would. I hate that I love this all so much. I
hate that I have such a burning, singeing ambition to do more. I hate that I
want to have my own life story to hand to someone to type. To have someone
record and note my life, my legacy, my
experience of living a full and long life.

I hate that I love myself and most especially you and all of
this so damned fucking much, that I would do whatever it took to stay.

And then, of course, I don’t take myself so damned
seriously, I eat my daily eggs, and I don’t worry twice.

Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s
Head,

Don’t freak out.

Reach out. Follow up. And get back to the business of being awesome. No.Matter.What.

P.S. It is a nice change from the 25 y.o.- should I/shouldn’t I argument. So there’s that. #SilverLining

distance · family · love

"I hate it when you call me, ‘Bro.’"

January 30, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

(*a line from face/off we invoke often)

I dreamt this morning that my brother Ben and I were jumping around while singing this really funny camp song in the kitchen where we grew up. It’s this Hebrew
song called “Ochel,” food, that starts
with the word, Hummus, has the word Pizza in there somewhere, v’Steak – “YEE HA!”

I don’t know all the words, but somehow it’s stuck in my
neurons all these years. We learned most of these songs at sleep-away camp in
the Poconos mountains growing up.

Working in a synagogue now, I get to see parents of nursery
school children, Hebrew school-aged children, summer camp children, and I get
to notice something that as a child of course doesn’t strike you: Parenting
costs a lot of money, and our parents
shelled out.

We did all of those things. “Growing up” was a mixed bag, always, but
when it came to our education, our extracurricular activities, paying for
summer camp, they did. Granted, they were both full-time working parents, and
needed us to be somewhere. But, you don’t realize til you’re older that all those things were
value judgments for our parents, and they valued us in that way, the fostering
of our education, our fun, our play.

I was the kid with
the off-brand Troll doll, and got made fun of for it. I was the girl who in 6th grade was told that there was a
bet for what I’d wear the next day, since my outfits were so few. We did shop at the discount mall.

But, I also was the one who played Gin Rummy with my dad,
and my brother played chess with him. I was the girl who used the round white
plastic things they use in pizza boxes as Barbie tables with my best friend
from next door. And I was the girl who got to go away to camp, even though none
of those summers was perfect (teasing, breaking a tooth, waking up with a
spider on my face!).

But my upbringing was American, I guess. With “American values,” and
the striving to provide me and my brother the kind of life that they envisioned
as successful.

And in so many ways, they did.

Besides gratitude for knowing that song and its nonsensical
joy, knowing that flailing around loudly in our kitchen is totally something my bro and I would do, as I woke up this morning, I also felt a little wistful, wondering if Ben
and I would really ever get to do that again. He lives a life on the East
Coast; I see him maybe once a year if we’re lucky. Will we get to sing camp
songs, exchange movie lines, wallow in the hilarity of our non-sequitors?

I remember one day, sitting on the couch with him in the
house where we grew up, we were in our tweens. Somehow we began making up a
non-sequitor story that included the phrase, And then the tree crashed through the
window, scattering the gnomes.

How much fun would that story be to continue?! and it
was.

I know I write about it often, the distance from my family,
and how hard it is for me. And these are the reasons why. It’s not just about
“getting to see one another;” it’s also about
getting to share the one relationship that you are likely to have the longest
in your life, getting to share memories, laughter, and change with one another.

I instant message him sometimes during the day. They’re usually
short conversations, since I’m usually at work. But, I get to float a balloon
of humor and love in his direction and he gets to tell me how he’s adjusting to his move
to Baltimore. We each text one another quotes from Back to the Future or Bill
& Ted’s Excellent Adventure, to remind us both that we have this network,
this shared history and connection.

I’d tell you, “It’s enough,” but it’s not. But, maybe just
like feeling grateful for the way our parents raised us, warts and all, I can
feel grateful that we have the relationship we do. I know neither of these
things are commonplace.

abundance · adulthood · change · growth · love

Progress, Not Perfection…

January 29, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

When I have clarity of vision, pretty amazing things tend to
happen.

About 2 years ago, when working my way through the Calling
in The One book, I decided it was time to
get that 2nd bedside table to “energetically” be more inviting to a partner. The one I had on my side is sort of shabby/chic, wooden, painted white, with a little storage and
soft, almost country structure. Very soon thereafter, I wandered into a garage
sale down the block – and wouldn’t you know, there is the perfectly
complementary bedside table – different shape, but same country feel, wooden,
painted white, same height too.

Over last summer, I decided it was time to upgrade my
ever-chipping, ever-depleting plateware and bowl collection. I had one bowl left. And a stack of gray, unappealing plates
that I’d bought for cheap thinking they’d be “sleek,” but were instead just… gray. Very
soon thereafter, I was in Cole Valley, waiting for my band to
play at the street fair, and lo, there was a stack of multicolored, almost
Fiesta ware bowls and a stack of bright blue plates to go with them—for free.

Within the last two months, a man was crossing the street in
front of my car as I drove home from work. He was dressed “smartly,” wearing a sweater over a button-down shirt, well-fitting jeans, and real shoes, not
sneakers. I said to myself, I want someone who wears clothes like that. (Though, sure, I would have barfed at such a preppy [pulled-together??] look in the past.) This wasn’t the first time I’d thought that, as I
noticed men milling about the world recently. And, you guessed it, very soon
thereafter, I met this new boy, who wears
smart clothing, fitting the above description to a T.

So, point? Well, my coworker would smirk at my “manifest-y”
meanderings, but my point is more that when I have a vision of what I want,
more often than not (and so often with housewares!), I get it very quickly and
with much ease.

I took a personality test about a year ago, the
Meyers-Briggs, with a friend who actually processes these tests for a living.
Part of the reason for my wanting to do this type of test was to find out what
I “should do” with my life—if there were places and arenas in the world that
would benefit most from the assets I already have, the things that come easy to me. And wouldn’t you know, for
“appropriate jobs,” my particular personality type listed all kinds of artsy
things (writer, painter, actor), also counselor and clergy, all of which I’ve contemplated in the past.

What it also told me about me about my “type” were the
pitfalls, and how to counter them. How to counter idealistic, magpie, not detail-oriented leanings?

“Focus, Prioritize,
Follow-through.”

Eesh. Yuck.

But, see all my above Manifesty moments? These were ALL born
of something called “focus.” I had clarity. I knew what I wanted, and made
myself open to receive it by participating in the world.

One of the final meditations at my annual meditation retreat
in Napa a few years ago left me with the following directive: Use Your Time
Efficiently.

I’ve been SO F*ING BUSY, it feels. I’m doing and going and
participating, but I’m not focused or prioritized, so I don’t get done the
things I really want to do; I don’t move forward in those places.

Be it career advancement, monologue learning, song writing.
Gardening.

There are areas in my life I want to deepen. I want to strengthen
the roots of these priorities. I want to make forward motion with them. Which
means, I want to make time for them,
real, expansive, focused, invested time.

Running hither and thither is great. My life is FULL. So
freaking full, I don’t know my ass (non-essentials) from my elbow (essentials),
and, as example, I spent way more money on take-out food this month, since I
haven’t had any time for food shopping and cooking—something which actually does
feed me, in all the ways.

Focus. Prioritize. Follow-through.

If they came naturally to me, I would have honed them
already. They don’t. A personality test, and 32 years of knowing my own
personality have proven that these are not inherent.

However, if I want to
live the life that is more about quality than quantity, I need to (strike
that!) – I would like to encourage myself in learning how to do this. I know
it’s possible. My free amazing couch that I sit on right now is proof of vision
equaling results. But, in order to even have time to let the dust settle in the
glass, I have to sit still, listen closely, be open to asking for help in how on earth one “focuses, prioritizes, and follows-through,” and
most of all, allow myself progress, not perfection.