Category: recovery

abundance · action · growth · recovery

Serenity Moths

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

First off, I’m embarrassingly late to work. My alarm went off early, but since the retreat, I’ve been ddddrrrragggging to get there. Luckily, I’m a temp, get paid by the hour, so, one hour less today…and yesterday…and Monday 😉 But, it’s also just news to me that this phase is coming to an end – both literally and spiritually. My regular temping with them will come to an end this Friday, and then I do have the option of coming in two days a week once school begins, but we’ll see what happens. I’m taking this enormous and uncharacteristic display of lateness to be a sign that this isn’t my gig. That I’m indicating to myself it’s time to try another door. This one is closing. I’m not going to burn bridges – though I suppose being an hour late is a way to do that! – but I am going to begin to place my energy and search into alternative sources of income once school begins.
Secondly, I’m dressed in all black today. My motorcycle jacket-looking shirt, black skinny jeans, and the black slouchy flat boots I bought recently, giving in to the whole slouchy boot look, but actually thinking it looks pretty awesome on me 😉 I began to buy a few pieces of black clothing last year – this was a HUGELY new development. If you’ve seen me, or know my closet, it’s like a colorwheel exploded in there. In fact, someone once told me that I looked like a box of Crayolas threw up on me, I wore so much color. And, I took that as a good thing. My mother wore bbbeeeeiiiigge throughout my early childhood – every shade of oatmeal, sand, tan there was. Eventually, she went black with stark red lipstick and leather pants (this was around the time of the divorce!). And now, she’s come into color, soft pale, kinder colors. Some bright, but for the most part, soft. Obviously, color means a lot to the way women in my family express themselves and their inner landscape.
So, when I began to move away from blinding, bold color, it was a major shift for me. Black. All black today. I’m thinking that for me at the moment, it’s not about goth, or despair, it’s one part blank slate – a tabula rasa period of resetting the color wheel before what’s next. It’s also one part, I’m cooler than I’ve let myself ever be. Black is cool. It’s also off-putting sometimes, but, now I’m rambling a bit about it – but I guess my point is that I’m observing change happening in myself and on myself from a very unconscious subtle avenue.
Lastly, re: Serenity Moths. Last night, I was reflecting about ways in which my life is unmanageable still. I began a list, which started with “Overdue library books.” And not like a day or two late, but like, I returned a stack a few weeks ago, and the amount I owed was over $20. And, last night, I had a stack that needed to get back to school, but with the miniscule amounts of time I have after work and on weekends to take the bus to and from school, these books are starting to accumulate fees.
Serenity Moth 1.
Serenity Moth 2: I have a battery-powered air freshener spray I got when I got my cat, because I am LOATHE to allow my home to smell like a cat lady’s!!! I replaced the actual spray, which had run out, about a month ago, but the battery has been running down. And instead of a firm spray at every 30 minute interval, it has begun to be a sort of sad pthhhhtt… dribbling down itself from lack of power. Every thirty minutes I’m home, I hear it go pthhhhtt… and think, I should change the battery. But I don’t.
It’s not like I don’t have batteries – I do. I just have let the thing wind down for a few weeks now. This is a Serenity Moth. Something which I could easily do something about to make my life work better and which I just don’t need to be thinking about! Wouldn’t it be lovely if every thirty minutes I wasn’t reminded how sad the air freshener was? Wouldn’t it be lovely if my brain didn’t need to have one more thing needling at it?
Lastly as an example (the list of serenity moths, as I’ve termed them, was very long – and included things like, waiting till the last minute to memorize monologues, not going to music shows, … being late to work) 😉 when I came home from the retreat on Sunday, I wasn’t ready to dive back into facebook or rush back into reality, so I decided I was going to cook a hearty winter vegetable stew. And I did. Stew done. Some imbibed. Time for bed. But… I had an entire pot of stew I needed to put away for storage. Problem? I didn’t have enough tupperware containers.
But, that’s not true. I did have enough. I had many. In fact, I had them right here in my fridge. But.
About 5 or 6 containers were in my fridge, filled with food which had been there for lengths of time ranging from a few weeks, to …. a year. Yes. Sadly, Serenity Mothingly, Yes. A year.
How do I know that? One of the tupperware containers belongs to my ex. So I wouldn’t have borrowed or cooked anything there in over a year. My fridge has been full of rotting food. A lot of it for a long long time. And I needed some tupperware.
So, I finally did was I was wanting to do, but could never bring myself to do for a very long time. I emptied out the science experiments. I held my breath, opened the containers, and dumped out all the bad, sad, self-defeating, energy-sapping, brain space intruders. And washed them till they squeaked. And now, I am currently storing my stew (in the freezer!). And I have zero zero rotting food in my refrigerator.
Perhaps that’s entirely gross, and you didn’t want to hear about that – but … the point is that this is all growth. Even the being late to work. I’m not chastising myself around it – which I could – but I’m seeing it as an opportunity to do something different. A chance to listen to what my body and my energy is telling me – which is that I need to be brave enough to try something else, because this option is no longer an option.
I’m willing to see myself as I walk in the world differently, as a woman who isn’t hiding behind color – cuz you can do that too. Distract people. I’m willing to let myself feel cool, powerful, visible, and allow for whatever wants to come next to enter slowly, and kindly.
And, when I got home last night I spent some time in action, and was able to cross about 5 Serenity Moths off my list. These are the holes in the sieve I’m going to need to close in order to hold the grace and abundance I have in my life and I have coming to me in my life.
And now, off to work. In my really hip new boots. 🙂
direction · maturity · recovery · relationships · spirituality

The Life of an Asparagus

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

There is a story I’ve heard about bamboo once, and about
asparagus once, and because they were intended as metaphors, I’ve never
bothered to look up their validity, as that wasn’t the point. It goes something
like this:
Asparagus (and bamboo) germinate under the soil for years, months.
For quite some time, on the surface of the earth, it looks as if nothing at all
is happening. The land looks quiet, unproductive, fallow. Then, as if by
miracle, overnight, the asparagus sprouts up through the ground all at once in
a burst of growth and joy. (“joy” added by literary license) 😉
The metaphor’s intended lesson is that, sometimes, when it
looks on the surface that nothing at all is happening, when you begin to lament
that nothing is growing, will grow, that the land itself is bunk, suddenly,
sometimes overnight, suddenly there is the evidence of new life. The point is
that “nothing” has not been happening; there have been great somethings
happening, we just haven’t been able to see them in the way we’ve been looking.
But in fact, a great amount of life, growth, germination, determination, and
nature have been happening all along.
This story occurred to me this morning, having come home
from my annual New Year’s women’s meditation/spirituality retreat yesterday.
What I felt is that this is going to be the year perhaps
right before the sudden overnight growth, or the year I begin to see progress.
In all likelihood, it’s not going to look like “by the end of this year, my
name will be in a playbill,” but it will look like something. The beginnings.
Forgive me if this sounds vague or oblique, but it’s sort of
hard to concretize what’s beginning to feel like satisfaction. The last several
years, according to the above metaphor, have been a lot of laying of groundwork. There’s been a lot that has
been happening under the surface. And sure, it’s looked like a ton of busy-ness
above ground – moving, jobs, school, relationships – but, in reality, there
hasn’t been as much movement or change above ground as you might think. (Being busy and changing are two different things, I realize.) A lot
of it has been happening internally, subtly, and slowly.
I’m also just coming back from this intense, sort of
un-summarizable weekend, so honestly, I’m still getting my head around what new
knowledge, support, direction, I’ve gotten. And, truly, I imagine that a lot of
what’s happened this weekend will take months to settle. And that’s cool. And
that’s what I like about them.
The retreats become this sort of psychic wisk, stirring up
all kinds of stuff, and it takes some time for the pieces to settle enough to
examine and integrate them.
What I can say for semi-certain is that I am feeling more
confident than ever about who and where I am and am going in my life. I had a
sort of montage-y thing happen in one of my meditations where I was
fast-forwarded through all the work I’d done since I’d sat in that very circle of redwoods around that very fire 4 years ago. It’s a lot. I’ve done a lot of work. I’ve excavated a lot, I’ve healed a lot,
I’ve been presented with some of the most frightening aspects of my past and my
fears and my blocks. And I was brought up present to what I have to do next.
It’s not surprising, and in fact, I’ve been preparing to head here, but it was like pieces falling into place. In order to move forward, in order to begin doing the work I want to do, this is what needs to happen next. It’s a very “If X, Then Y” scenario. I must address a very particular series of old and rather severe
wounds in order to really come out from the
side-lines of my own life — I have to address this long avoided and discounted pain. In order to “own
voice,” have voice, allow my voice to be heard, via song, performance,
presence, I have to unblock this constriction. A constriction which is and has been very
clear on saying, demanding, and indicating that I “shut the fuck up.”
Brightly, what was also indicated to me, and what I felt/feel
very strongly, is that I have allies. That I have the community to draw from
which I will need to get into, through, and out of this painful mutedness. And,
too, that any teacher or mentor I don’t yet have will become available as
I need it – and as I ask for and accept help. That’s been a theme for me lately
– about not being as isolated and fiercely independent as I’ve been. That I
don’t have to do this alone. I’ve begun walking into part of that process, and
it’s a lifetime thing.
So, asparagus. This will be a year of rubbing my hands over
the soil, brushing some of it back, and revealing the incredible tip of the
asparagus bounty that is about to happen.
I am grateful for the women who have helped me to come to
this place – and I’ll be reaching out to you for your wisdom, experience, and support as I move forward from here (if I don’t, text me) 😉
acting · dating · fun · recovery · self-care

Restraint of Thumb and Send

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, it’s official. I am still sick and am going to pick up
an Rx from Kaiser shortly. I called out of work, which felt so lame considering
I’d just had a week off, but my brain also feels as though it’s been gelled
into a jell-O mold. Perhaps bunt cake shaped, next to candied lemon slices.
Hence the delay of this morning’s blog.
The first time I got sick in sobriety, I was very confused.
I suppose that having a near-chronic strep throat from smoking til I couldn’t
swallow anymore made something as mild as a cold very unique and novel. Also, I
think that when your blood is half alcohol, it fends off most infections.
I’d woken up that time a little off, not really feeling much
gumption, and decided to go shopping. I bought a large cup of coffee and
wandered the stacks of shoes in DSW shoe store for about an hour, and left with
a purchase in hand and an empty coffee cup…and yet I didn’t feel any better. I
was very confused. Shouldn’t this have worked? Coffee and shopping? They make
everything better, right? They always cured the melancholia I assumed I was
having. But, nope. Still felt off. What could be wrong?
I swear, I really didn’t get it. Finally, I realized as if
inventing the light-bulb, OH! I must be sick! It was a moment of brilliance.
Luckily, I have gotten to know myself and my body better since then, and am
willing to take care of myself in ways that don’t involve retail therapy –
which, FYI, doesn’t cure a sinus infection.
As to the title of this blog. With my brain in the wonky
suspended state it’s currently in, well, it’s had a lot of time to latch upon
obsessing about the guy I went out with on Monday, and pro-ing and con-ing and
measuring the distance between here and where he lives. My brain likes to
satellite around it, like your tongue going to a sore spot in your mouth, drawn
there unintentionally.
So, if there’s “Restraint of Tongue and Pen,” I heard once
that in these modern marvel text-addicted days, there’s also “Restrain
of Thumb and Send.” I have composed lots of them already in my busy, befogged
brain. But haven’t yet sent any. I sort of feel like it’s the same advice as,
Don’t make any phone calls or major decisions after 10pm. So, don’t contact a
dude when your eyeballs feel like there’s marching band drum practice behind
them.
But. I might. 😉
What else is on my mind is the women’s retreat I’m going to
this weekend, which I’ve gone on for the last 4 years or more, and I’m glad I’m
taking care of this cold&sinus thing before then, as it’s also really hard
to meditate with said marching band practice. I began reading Shakespeare’s Henry
V last night, as I got a confirmation email
for my audition slot in two weeks(!!), and that’s one of the plays the company is
doing this year. From the introduction in my book to that play, however, the
consensus was it’s not the best play, but I’ve never read it, and perhaps a
commentary on an inflated political figure is a good parallel for our times.
Lastly, on my mind is fluidity. I met with a girlfriend on Monday
for coffee, and she’s an expressive arts therapist. She asked me what was up
with me lately, and I was again reiterating my non-desire to be a teacher when
school is done. That there’s a sense in me lately that I don’t want to be tied
to a geographical region. There’s some kind of impending knowledge that I want
more fluidity than that, than being tied to a region, besides my other
non-desires to teach at the moment.
So, my friend asked if she could do a little “work” with me
then. Sure, why not. She asked me to close my eyes and imagine that fluidity,
which I’d also called joy, and to create and act a movement to it. So, I closed
my eyes, and I wiggled and waved my arms and body, gently and arms open. We
both laughed, and then she asked me then to think about teaching, and to create
a movement to that. My arms immediately contracted in, and sort of harrumphed in a Rodin’s
“Thinker” pose, continuing to sigh and constrict in this closed pose.
It was very telling. She said there was more we could do
with it, but I had to leave for said date. This wasn’t “new” knowledge, but it
was certainly another underlining of the knowledge I have, and a kinesthetic
expression of where I want to go. Follow the joy. Follow the fun. Follow the
fluidity.
What that means in practical terms, I don’t yet have any
idea. But to commit to a teaching job at this juncture, to actively pursue one,
would be equivalent to dipping my soul in cement, and I want to be much lighter
than that. And, I believe I’m worth more consideration than that.

authenticity · creativity · fear · fortitude · performance · recovery · responsibility · spirituality

Ready Steady Go

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

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

I want
to heave you into oblivion and gently reel you back in.
fortitude · joy · laughter · persistence · recovery

Ocean Liner

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I retract my endorsement of Airborne.
Just kidding. I just am not feeling as better as I’d like,
especially as it comes up to New Year’s Eve tomorrow.
Although I remember the last several New Year’s, which was a
new development, none of them have been particularly outstanding. Last year, I
was on the roof of a friend’s condo in SF, watching the fireworks over the Bay
– which was wonderful – with my soon to be ex – which was less wonderful, but a
great attempt at shoe-horning romance into a moment.
This year’s remains to be seen, with a party with some local
friends’ bands, and some dances out in SF that could be a raucous good time.
But I’m not feeling particularly raucous at the moment. But things change. And
this is the season for it.
I was reminded this morning as I was writing my Morning
Pages about a conversation I’d had with my friend Luke on our Misfit Christmas. We
were talking about the economy, and he was saying that people’s expectations
are that things can change on a dime, in an instant, immediately show results.
Whereas the more accurate truth is that change is like the course of an ocean
liner. It.does.not.stop. when you want it to. (See: Titanic) ;P
He drew his finger in a long, wide arc along the coffee shop table and said that
as an ocean liner begins to change course, it continues to look like it’s still
going along its original path, it continues out into the treacherous water, slowly evening a turn-about. It is not instantaneous, and
it is not immediately obvious or apparent.
Which means, that for anything that does change in this manner, like most things in this world, it requires patience.
This morning, I was reflecting that the change of the year, a
sudden WHAM BANG HELLO NEW YEAR!, might not equate with the reality of the
subtlety of change. But, personally, I feel it. The planet changing
its course in the cosmos, slowly slingshotting back around. The impending
change of the year has begun – it’s not one moment at midnight when Dick Clark
leads us all in some bedazzled primal chant. It’s more covert, and ultimately more kind
than that.
Changes that happen all at once are called emergencies.
Lucky for us, life is not always in the habit of confronting us with change in
these violent manners.
I’m not sure of my entire point here, but I suppose I’m
attempting to provide a bit of cosmic comfort, reinforcement of the
positive course I am on and perhaps you are on, and g-d willing the economy is on! Or maybe I’m just being wistful at the close of a
year, which, of course, it also is.
I was 14 and at a new year’s dance and a girl friend of mine
was in near hysterics. She said that the change of new year’s always gave her
anxiety. I got a text just now in which a friend asked me if I didn’t also have
the new year’s depression.
Lucky for me, no. I’ve bought my ticket on this ocean liner.
Cast in my lot. Threw down the gauntlet. Thrown in my hat. I am down with you,
Ocean Liner. I am concerned that I don’t know where you’re going once you make
your change in course, but I’m also mildly thrilled to see where you will go. To call on the spirit of “Must be present to Win”
and “Just Row,” I will make my best attempt to stand like Rose at the bow of
the ship and throw my arms open unto the unknown. 
faith · growth · recovery · self-care

Vitamin D

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I sit here in the long, angled slants of winter sun, bundled
in my pjs, robe, and two blankets, with a bowl of cinnamon apple I just made. I
was told recently that Vitamin D is a really great healer, and as I’m sick and
had to cancel my plans for today, I’m sopping up this natural resource as much
as I can.
As I’m sick, this blog may not make much sense 🙂 and may
have contributed to the ‘downer’ mood of yesterday’s, but, c’est la vie.
I said a few months ago, around the time that I was preparing
to go home to pack up my house that I felt like my life was “Everything all at
once.” The money stuff was hitting a wall again, family was a beast, and I
generally felt overwhelmed.
A turn came when I also realized that “Everything all at
once” must include the good things too.
Right? If it’s everything, everything, all this drama and hardship and challenge and chaos, what must also
be happening and available is calm, serenity, growth, and gifts.
Perspective is everything.
So, if at the same time that I’m experiencing a profound
bolstering in my sense of inner strength, this doesn’t preclude that there is
also … life, with all its attendant twists.
To take a narrative turn, my only tattoo is on my left
wrist, and it is of the sun. In my senior year of college, the wall opposite my
bed had a filled-in doorway to the next room, but the molding for the door was
still there. When I’d painted the room, I’d left the molding white, so it was
like a frame. Knowing I was inching toward a tattoo of the sun, I decided it
would be a good idea to live with one for a while, to see if I got sick of it.
So, I began to draw on my wall in that frame, an enormous
sun, with each flame around it different and specific, and within the circle of
the sun was the infinity symbol drawn sort of like a ribbon or mobius strip, so
it was three-dimensional, folding in on itself, traveling infinitely.
These two images to me, infinity and the sun, were images of
“constants.” Things that would always be (though yes, the argument can be made
about the sun, but in my lifetime at least, it is a constant!). An anchor
amidst whatever else was going on, these things would always be.
When I brought my design to the artist, my wrist was too
small to take the detail of the drawing, and so we simplified it majorly.
Sometimes people assume that the lines within the circle on my wrist are of a
yin-yang, which sort of bothers me 😉 as I want to say, ew, no, I’m not that hippie, lol. But, I know what it represents.
Along those lines of constancy, for the last … maybe 4
years, I’ve been playing with another tattoo design, but have hesitated because
it would cover the entire right side of my body from top of my ribs to my
hipbone, and part of me feels “bad” or guilty rather to cover the work that is
already there – me 😉 The art G-d already made. It’s like graffiti – you never
tag over someone else’s work. Never.
So, twice, I’ve brought my design in to two different
artists. One was not quite my style, but still has my deposit, I believe! The
other, I found about a year ago, when searching online for someone who would be
good with the design I had in mind – and lo and behold, this guy had just
opened up a shop above Union Square, and I met with him, and we emailed photos
and sketches ad nauseum, and finally, we got it right.
Then, I got into grad school, and was soon to be unemployed,
and let him know, and he said cool, and to get in touch when I wanted to do it.
The design combines the images of the “hand of G-d” and the
“tree of life.” The trunk of the tree would be the wrist of a hand, with the
main branches as the outward curving of fingers. But it would look like a tree,
of course, and that’s what drew me to this guy. I’d seen some work he did where
the trees looked so intricate and phenomenal – it’s hard to do a tree! So, you wouldn’t be entirely sure, or
it wouldn’t be obvious, that it
was a hand, but it is.
The branches would be covered in each of the seasons, moving
from one to the next, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring (so that the sparse branches
of winter weren’t on an end, and also, to indicate that after the death of
winter, there is always spring).
The root system would travel down over my hipbones, equally
as massive and firm as the branches, because the degree to which we flower is
equal to the degree to which we are rooted, I believe.
I still think about this design, and it fits in well with my
first one with regard to constancy – the constancy of a Higher Power in my life
and the constancy of the potential to grow and flower continuously, infinitely.
We’ll see what happens, he still has my deposit too, and I
still have his final design. But I love the ideas I’ve chosen to live with, and
I don’t for a second regret the one on my wrist. And as the sun, here, now,
today, makes it’s slow way from behind another building onto me tucked into my
cozy couch, I am again grateful. For the reminder that it’s okay to be still
and mend today as tomorrow will come too; the reminder that growth is infinite
and continuous; and that there is always, always something to count on. 
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. 
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. 
generosity · healing · letting go · painting · recovery · relationships

The language of letting go.

Molly Daniels Hayes1 Comment

Two things occur to me about
this at the moment, situations that have come up. The first is that I’m
creating holiday cards to send out to friends and family. The second is that my
best friend from the east coast texted me last night to say that her childhood
home had been bulldozed.
To the first, I’ve stalled a little on the cards, partly
because of the insanity of my self-imposed schedule (even with the simplified
design of the card I’ve chosen to do for everyone, it’ll take 30 minutes, times
like 20 cards… = ten hours; and my list has more like 40 people on it!). And
partly stalled out because of the process around sending them, these handmade
items, out into the world. Some people may have no problem with this, and
consider it all a labor of love, but it’s nudged into a larger thing for me.
The cards will be okay, mainly because they’re all the same,
because they’re being made with the intention of being sent out. But earlier
this year, I hosted an art show with a group of my friends, and I sold a
painting. I didn’t actually think anything would sell and was delighted when
someone inquired, but also felt a sharp pang of “oh fuck”. The painting that
sold was sort of a companion piece, one was called “The Rebound”, the other, created
months later, was called “Safety or Before the Fall”. The first showed an empty
mussed up bed by candlelight, with a naked girl tucked into a corner on a chair
facing the bed, all you see are her legs wrapped up around her.
The second painting was of a woman’s hand resting on a man’s bare chest in sort of sepia-like colors, intended to connote a memory. The view most women will know instantly,
it’s the view of cuddling, the view of sleeping next to someone, to me, it was the
view of safety. That time in your day, whatever time of day it is you are
horizontal with your lover, and for those moments, nothing is wrong. You watch
your hand rise and fall with his breathing, you play with whatever strands of
chest hair, or trace lightly on the skin. It’s a moment of zen for me. Of “all
is right with the world.”
Now, of course, the second part of the title “Before the
Fall” speaks to the impermanence of that moment. Which led to “The Rebound.”
Obviously, these paintings are intensely personal and moments of my own life
which I created with my greatest ability to offer the honesty and vulnerability
of each of these moments. They were a part of me; a part of my past; and a part
of what will always hold a place in my memory and my heart.
So a woman wanted to buy “Safety.” And because it was my first
art show, and I was so excited to have an offer at all, and I didn’t know what
an appropriate amount was for it, I sold it. (The Rebound I marked as “not for
sale,” as that one, at least I knew was much too close a moment to let go of.)
Months later, I’m at an art show of a friend of mine who
makes very spiritual paintings, each radiating a kind of passion, divinity, and
connection. They are little portraits of love, and sometimes pain. And perhaps,
often both. I asked her how she feels able to let go of her paintings when
they’re obviously crafted with so much love and care. She said, firstly she
prices them in a way in which she doesn’t feel “sold short”, in a way which she
feels she wouldn’t “miss” them. (Not greedy, but not lamenting, like I am/was.)
Secondly, she said with a specific set of her work, she did a process around
letting go of each of them, in order to send them out into the Universe.
I didn’t do either of these with “Safety,” and I regret it.
Were it a higher price, I still don’t know if I would have liked to have sold
it yet. As such a fledgling artist, there’s still also a place in me in which
every piece I make is SO precious because I don’t know if I’ll have it in me to
do it again, and also, I am still sometimes astounded and proud of the work and
don’t want to let it go.
Earlier this year, I made a portrait of a friend of mine
that was very specifically for him, of him, of a San Francisco moment, and I
had no trouble giving that away to him. It was a gift for a major milestone for
him, and I wanted to honor that. And again, with the cards, knowing their
intention is to go out into the Universe to people whom I love, that is easier.
It’s these more amorphous recipients who I have trouble with.
Granted, I’m not in any art shows right now, “The Rebound”
sits in my closet, but I’ll be taking an advanced oil painting class in the
spring and imagine some more work will come out of that/be inspired by that
class.
I don’t know what all of this means in my scheme of things,
the ability to let go of my creations, but paintings have been different than
poems, or even performances. A poem, I own, I wrote, I know that moment, and I
have a document. Go ahead, read it, hear it, buy my chapbook 😉 Performances?
They only work because of you. A
performance, to me, is absolutely the love child of performer and audience, be
that performing theater or music. That’s part of the thrill of it to me, that
each night, each performance is different. It’s a thrilling moment of
co-creation.
I would like to learn how to set my paintings in a way where
they can go off to others with a sense of completion and satisfaction, even
joy, not with a sense of loss.
Lastly, I think having better documentation of my work than
my cell phone photos could help me as well 😉
To the second item of letting go, my friend’s house – I’m
out of time and room in this blog, but for now, a moment of honoring for that
house, the haven it was for me, the home it was for her, and the memories we
still get to share, 30 years later. Amen. 

 Safety or Before the Fall (June 2011)

The Rebound (March 2011)
humilty · letting go · maturity · recovery

The Buddha says hello first.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

It’s a good thing a friend of mine told me this yesterday in
regard to another situation, as I ran into a woman today who I have some discomfort with.
Earlier this year, I was attempting to make Oakland
friends and so was having lunch with this woman who I’d begun to pal around with a little. She was telling me about a person who’d offended her, and began to generalize about people who were “doing it wrong.” I got a little defensive at her blanket statement, and thought that her
thinking someone else was doing it wrong was wrong. Of course, I did not see
this irony at the moment.
Instead, at the moment, I pulled a Molly, and began to give her my own
bit of unsolicited advice. I am a Queen of unsolicited advice. It has so many
different disguises, it should own a costume shop. Sometimes, it looks like me
telling you what I’ve done, so as to
insinuate what you should do. “Well, I know when I was in a similar situation,
I did xyz,… [pregnant pause, where they’re supposed to get the hint of what I’m actually
telling them to do].”
Sometimes, my unsolicited advice looks like me telling you
what other people have done who I believe have done it the “right” way. “Well,
I know when my friend went through a similar situation, she did xyz,… [pregnant
pause, where they’re supposed to get the hint of what I’m actually telling them to do].”
“I’ve heard about this book/website/meditation/ointment that might be
helpful…”
“Have you considered…”
“I used to do that, but now I…” (ha! that’s
always a good one – people loooove that)
Cuz F U, Molly D. Who the hell am I. I don’t know what’s
“right”. What’s right for you – even what’s “right” for me. Places where I
get mired in the “right way” to do something are usually places where I’m
scared to let go of my perceived control. If I don’t tell you what to do, you
won’t survive. If I don’t figure out what the right way is to do this thing,
I’m not valuable.
All of these are crap.
I dated a guy once who had a gluten allergy, and when we’d
be out at restaurants, I found myself making sure he knew what had gluten and
what didn’t … as if he hadn’t lived for 30+ years without my help ordering from
a menu. I caught myself on it eventually, and laughed, but yeah, the idea that without
*me* people are not going to “be okay.” I
know where this comes from – there were years when I did have to take on doing things “the right way” to ensure that things got done at all, that shades got drawn in the morning, that hair got combed. But,
I’m not 10 anymore, and the situations are entirely different. 

And most importantly
of every single thing, these people are not asking me.
That’s something that’s pointed out to me regularly – “Are they
asking you?” Hey Friend, so you’re telling me about this situation in your life
(housing, job, money, love, family), and obviously I’m a guru about this shit,
so why don’t I tell you precisely what I think you should do.  …. No. 99.9% of the time that they’re
not specifically asking me my opinion or my advice, they’re not asking my
opinion or my advice. Actually, it’s
probably more like 100%, but I still want to get my wedge in there somewhere! ;P
So, anyway, back to the woman I ran into today. We haven’t
really seen or spoken to each other since our mildly combative lunch date
several months ago, when I began telling her her perspective was (perhaps) skewed, and she told me very directly that she was not asking for feedback on
her perspective, period. So, I saw her today. And sure, I still have my
opinion, but she’s not asking me, and really, it’s none of my business. (Mind
my own business and have business to mind.) And I remembered that quote from
yesterday, that “The Buddha always says hello first.” And so, I said hello, she
said hello, we were cordial with superficial pleasantries, and said goodbye.
I don’t need to be “right” here. And I would really like to
stop telling people what I think about what they’re doing when they’re not
asking me. As, no matter what costume I dress it up in, I end up looking like a
witch.