finances · generosity · spirituality · synchronicity · work

Creativity and Spirituality

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

Savage Beauty

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

(if you haven’t read it, you may want to glance at
yesterday’s blog for continuity)

(p.s. I have to say, I love the double meaning of “savage” as the colloquial for totally awesome)
So, guess what? I went back “down” today to find out who
that woman in the other penguin habitat was. Yesterday on my way out, I’d
assumed it was Depression, because of the scene around her.
On the lower left end of the enclosure, a woman stood, her
back to me. She stood on what looked like the dangerous rocky shore near a
nasty storm-driven sea. Above, the sky/wall dripped in large blackness. She
wore a tattered dress, and her hair, too, was wild and matted.
Yesterday, I simply backed away from this woman, partly
because it was time to leave (the drumming on the tape indicates when it’s time
to return), and partly because her anger or darkness scared the shit out of me,
and I wasn’t ready to investigate further.
But, it wasn’t sitting right with me since then that she was
Depression. It just didn’t make sense to me. I thought maybe perhaps she was
Loneliness, but I wasn’t sure; I just knew that whoever she was, she was mad as
hell, and wasn’t going to take kindly to me yet. So, I began to think that
whoever she is, perhaps she herself isn’t a “negative” emotion, maybe she’s
just surrounded by that.
Turns out, my curiosity, despite my fear to explore further,
took me back. I listened to the tape of the shamanic drumming again this morning, and
went to go check it out. And, as you might have guessed from the title, indeed,
she was not Depression – she is Beauty.
I have a lot of mixed … experience when it comes to
honoring, holding, acknowledging, or accepting my own beauty. I am not
surprised at how impersonable she is, or how raging, fuming dark and mad she
is. For me, since the (first set of) braces came off, the contacts replaced
glasses, and I got my first set of make-up near the age of 15, suddenly, I
became visible. The ugly glasses, the frizzy hair, the gawky tall figure, these
started to fade, and suddenly, people – boys – saw me.
I have used my anger at this “suddenness” for quite some
time — why didn’t you see me before? Is this all you want from me? I have had this interpretation reinforced by my own behavior, and by the behavior of
others. I have wielded my beauty as a double-edged sword, slicing those who
acknowledged it, and thus slicing myself.
I didn’t trust anyone to see me for who I was, and because
now all they saw (so I inferred) was my outside, I spent very little effort or
time discovering who I was on the inside. At the formative middle-teen years,
this was a tragic oversight.
It now meant that my beauty was a Siren song. I would lure
you in, and crash you upon the rocks. I didn’t care how you felt, or felt about
me. I wanted you to know that my visage was all you would get, and when we were
both done using it, I was done using you – on to the next.
I know this pattern of mine is not unique, but it has
dictated my behavior and thought for a long time.
When I was outside her exhibit today, I didn’t go in. Her
anger frightened me, and I still don’t know how to hold or approach her/it/my
beauty. Mostly, I hide it. Because of the pain inflicted from self and others
in reaction to how I look, I’ve decided it’s best to turn away from it – to
turn it down. It comes out occasionally, but it is rare.
And surely, there’s not much I can do to “turn it off”
altogether. I am who I am, and p.s. I am grateful for it. I know this is a gift
I’ve unrightly used. However, I can hide it, minimize it, hunch over it, and
protect it, I suppose. Which I have done, for a while now.
A few months back, I wrote about wearing this fabulous new
skirt to class, and later to a party. I wrote that I felt “embarrassed” or
something like it. I suppose, I can see now, I felt that duality of
defensive, and brazen – offensive. I don’t yet know how to just let it be. To
understand that my beauty is not to be wielded at all. It just is.
The lack of humility – of “rightsizedness” – I have around
it. It’s just another aspect of me, like my humor, or my intelligence. Which,
both, I will admit, I do much the same hiding of.
Rather you make your own inferences and be wrong about me,
than to show you who I truly am, and have you judge me.
The problem with the beauty thing is that I was/am
defensive/insecure even when you judge me positively. Because of the trauma that has come as a result of
being an attractive woman, and largely in my development, a drunken attractive
woman, the idea of showing you how I look or can look feels like a dangerous
risk.
After standing outside her “cage” for a little while, and
asking what I should be doing, I remembered a suggested question we can ask
when in meditations like these. How does she feel about you? How do you feel
about her?
I feel mistrusting of her; she feels betrayed by me. Great
relationship, eh?
So, in the end, I left. But I get it. I don’t trust my
beauty because it has brought me physical, mental, and emotional pain. She
feels betrayed by me because I haven’t used her rightly, and have then locked
her up.
She’s mad as hell – and she’s not going to take it anymore.
That said, I believe some kind of reconciliation will need
to happen – an understanding – before we can both move forward. It’s not like,
just let her out. She’s too pissed, and I’m too wary. So, what can I do? I can
slowly begin to shed my hiding. I can slowly, and safely, begin to reintegrate
those items in my wardrobe which make me uncomfortable, and attract attention.
Not like booty shorts, but like “nice” things. Pretty things. Things that make
me feel beautiful. This won’t be a
hurling of myself off a cliff into a different way of being; this will be a
slow dance toward intimacy and trust.
Which sounds like a great way to support myself as I look to
build that with others. 

compassion · love · maturity · self-care

Savage Love

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

This morning, I couldn’t get quiet in meditation, tried a
variety of different techniques and styles, and then decided, fuck it, I’ll
just do a journey. A “journey” is a shamanic journey, and how I do them at home
is via a tape of drumming on my ipod that I listen to. I’ve mentioned some
about this here before, and believe what you will or won’t, but it’s one of the
surest ways I find to get in touch with whatever’s going on, and to find
clarity and, potentially, resolution. 
NOTE: I feel that describing a journey is much like the way some people tell others about their dreams – they’re fascinating to the dreamer, not so much to the listener, so feel free to read on or not. 
I usually shy away from doing journeys at home (as opposed to when I
do them in a group), because they are so powerful for me, and usually provide a
level of information that is hard to sit with when I’m by myself.
It was none too different this morning.
Back in January, when I was on the women’s retreat up in
Napa, we were talking a bit about how people get to the various places of these
shamanic “worlds,” and I mentioned that every time I go to the “lower world,”
as I go down, I pass through this room that’s like the indoor penguin enclosure
at the zoo. I usually just walk right through to the exit door, and on down to
the lower world, but I was curious as to what that room was about, if it was
just a “silly” fluke of my brain or what.
I’d never really looked around the space, having been told early that I was
supposed to be getting to a place in nature and if we hit a man-made environment to just keep going. This space has always been there during my journeys; it’s a dark
room/hallway, with that eerie blue lighting that happens in those enclosures
as it lights up the exhibits and penguin habitats and water.
It was suggested in January that I take a look at the nature
of the space, that maybe it is trying to tell me something. And, if you’re with
me so far, your suspension of disbelief will be needed further. …
So, today, in the journey, I head down, and when I get to
this room, I stop and pause. I walk through and go out another door, but I
just walk into a whole mess of large leafy plants, and I’m pretty sure this
isn’t the “right” way. So I walk back inside.
Then I walk up to one of the two exhibits, lit behind its glass, to see what’s inside. It’s not penguins. Perched on the craggy,
bird-shit stained fake rocks that you normally see, is a woman, naked, and
hunched over herself. Her head over her bent knees.
At this point, I call up one, then two of my teachers/guides, cuz I’m starting
to get a little anxious, and I ask them who she is. This dirty, matted hair
naked woman is Love. She is the part of me that is love.
I ask what I should do, and it’s indicated that I go and
approach her, so the glass in the exhibit between me and her disappears, and I
walk through, and up onto the stained rocks, and crouch down to approach her.
She looks up at me. Her eyes are wild, fearful, non-linguistic, but meaningful
nonetheless. She ticks and jerks, like we imagine cave-people did, like savages
did. Moving without grace, and in non-self aware spurts.
I ask her what she needs. She “says” she’s cold. I put this
enormous fur coat around her I’d gotten previously (like a prize in a video
game I can now cash in). It’s warm, and filled with love and calm. I give her
some pajamas.
— She throws herself on me, supplicant with gratitude, but
this strong, muscular woman is crushing me with herself. With her love. Her
thanks are out of proportion with the gesture. And she wants to hold on to me
with such force.
She, is Savage Love.
I ply her off of me, and don’t know what to do, where to go,
if I should leave. Instead, I take her to this safe place I have, this desert –
the cave of the penguin exhibit fades and we both find ourselves in the wide,
open, dry, sunlit desert.
I don’t really know what to do with her – this force that is
too big, doesn’t know her own strength, and once is shown affection wants to
consume the giver, to keep it.
I bring in my little 5 year old self who likes to hang out
in this desert, drawing at a picnic table. I sit my primitive, wild self down with
her to draw, and she makes a whooping and hollering mess of stabbing the
crayons onto the page. The 5 year old self tries to tell her no, that she’s
doing it wrong, and messing with her space, and quickly, she has had enough, and
gets up to go to the sandbox, an elsewhere safe place.
Savage Love is furious, rampant in her rage at this
rejection, at being chastised and rejected. She is dangerous.
I call on someone else, a woman who represents adulthood to
me, who isn’t me, but surely, as these all are, is of course me.
She comes in, and holds the untamed woman. Like a mother
calming a child. The differences between a toddler and a savage aren’t much.
And that’s when I realize that’s ultimately what this woman is. She’s an adult
in form, but in her manner, reaction, and action, she’s very like a small child
– you give me something nice, I want it all and more, and I don’t care or know
if it’s crushing you or more than you can give. If you reject me or chastise
me, I’m enraged and destructive.
This part of me does not know or have boundaries. She
doesn’t have language, or common sense. She has been in a sealed glass cage for
nearly a lifetime – of course she doesn’t have “people skills.”
And, to get “real” for a moment, I resonate with these
reactions and actions she portrays as I consider my own actions in
situations of love. If you show me affection, I will drape myself over you, and
become dependent upon you. If you put up a boundary or behave in a way I
perceive as rejection, I will shove you away and cause as massive chaos as I
can doing it.
As you can imagine, today’s journey has caused a great deal of
self-reflection, but is bringing about a great deal of self-compassion. This
part of myself has not grown up and has remained in reactionary patterns of
behavior that in the end cause isolation and solitude.
When I had to leave, which, by the way, I was considering
the entire time during my interaction with her – how can I get away from her –
which is interesting… well, I left her with the adult woman comforting her,
calming her. She was calm. And she will learn.
But, on the way out, reluctantly, I took a look in the
second penguin-like exhibit, to see who or what was in that one.
It was Depression.
And I backed away, knowing that would need a whole ‘nother
day of work.  
action · adulthood · finances · progress · self-care · surrender

Chaos Theory

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Chaos, perceived order, chaos, perceived order.
I won’t say “order,” because I’m not sure that’s exactly what
it is, but it sometimes looks like
order, in that things seem to make sense, and life is calm or happy, or the
check comes in time, or the person you were just thinking of appears, or the
trains all arrive just as you step down to the platform.
Order? Maybe.
My ferret brain is currently perceiving chaos. And
terrified, gnawing on its own limbs in visceral worry, that there will never be
order, even of the perceived kind.
I know that this is
part of the pattern of life – I’ve watched others go through it, I myself have
gone through it – but each time the chaos occurs, it’s like order never
existed; faith, calm, ease, joy, never existed, and never will again. We’re at
the end of days, and time’s up, and meter’s run out, and you’re screwed.
Do you ever get that?
Fear brain is in hyper-drive, and so the small action steps
I’m supposed to be taking are all the more important. My fear brain is stuck in
the gear of “you have no income, no prospects, no job, no career, no ambition
to a career, you’re lost and will never be found, and get used to asking for
handouts…again.”
Silly brain. I feel it. I get it. I am thrown by it, and
sometimes owned by it. Like today.
But, there are a few chinks in this armor of fear, and one
was an exercise in the Money Drunk, Money Sober book: “What would it feel like to let go of desperation? Explore.”
Hmm. Let go of desperation? Well, as I wrote in my Morning
Pages today, it’d feel like freedom, calm, availability, faith. It’d feel like
being open to what’s around me, the perceived order where coincidences do
happen, and help is available, and guidance is sure and strong.
To let go of desperation, would mean letting go of
smallness, isolation triggered by fear and financial insecurity (or fear of
financial insecurity). You know, “No, I can’t join you at that awesome event, I
don’t have any money.”
I was sent an email from a friend who I’m in irregular touch
with, so, it was rather unexpected. It’s for a job that my closed-off brain
says is too low paying, sounds too overworking, and is in a non-profit, which
usually means (or has meant in my experience) that half the time, if not more,
is spent on trying to beg funds from people.
I do that enough in my real life, eh?
That said, one of the other suggestions I read last night in
that book was: Step 1: Get. A. Job. And,
hello, applying to something is not the same as taking anything. And it would
be good for me to get off my high horse/pity-pot and just start to apply to
shit.
Cuz…here’s the fear brain ferret’s mantra: You don’t have
rent for May.
Here’s the recovery brain’s mantra: Next right action.
I have rent and all expenses for April, covered. I have
shelter, clothing, food (though in my typical pattern, I’ve scrimped on getting
to the grocery store this month, and thus have spent much more in eating out than
planned). I have this internet connection, hot water, shampoo, coffee, art
supplies, happy yellow rain boots.
Plus, I have all the resources of friends and fellowship
that I could want, if I avail myself of them.
There’s a line from another book which states something like
the following: Given the choice between going on to the bitter end, blotting
out the reality of our situation, and accepting help, we often balk at the
choice. Stall, hem and haw, measure our options.
Options: go to hell in a handbasket – OR – take an action
step. Hmmm…..
It is as much perceived
chaos as it is perceived order. There isn’t chaos here in my life at the moment
– there’s a tantrum. And a choice. I can give myself the gift of clear
direction, and let go of desperation by taking action. Or, I can continue to
pin abundant affirmations to my walls and discount unexpected emails.
My best ideas continue to send me to the edge – may I now
please accept a different solution?
commitment · community · progress · recovery · self-care

Scatterbot

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I dunno why. Sounds about right. Scattering parts of me
hither and thither. My apartment reflects that disarray most of the time. And as
I’ve written, the disparate parts of me are scattered. And my thesis, scattered.
I mention it today, as one of my action items is to print
the last 9 pages that I’ve written and consolidate them into the whole. This
isn’t like tacking them on to the end, that’s not the way my thesis is written
– not linearly. It is more like a collage, and I have to figure out what makes
these disparate pieces a whole.
As you can imagine, this is as – if not more – metaphorical as
it is literal. And I’ve been stalling. Not long, just a few days, but long
enough to notice. I went to the local library to print out the 9 pages, and a woman
was on the computer, so I waited about 5 minutes, and left. And, it’ll be time
for me to do that again today – but, uh, stay
this time, and print them out.
It’s like … gluing an old vase back together. You’ve hung on
to the pieces because you couldn’t bare to chuck them; and so you’ve lost some
of the little bits that used to create the whole. But I notice the missingness
of the vase.
I’ve asked a girlfriend of mine from school to take a look
at it once it’s in order, and to read it with an editing, writerly eye. She’s
agreed, and I feel safe and comfortable showing the work to her – she’s been in
workshops with me, and I trust her eye on my work – she gets it. Plus I respect
and love her writing, which is helpful in a partnership of this sort. So, I’m supposed
to get something – by my own deadline – to her by Friday. The end of Spring
Break – which, doesn’t look much different to me than any other week, except
I’m not on campus two days this week.
The other thing I have to unscatter for tomorrow are my
numbers – I meet with someone weekly to talk through financial clarity and do
some work, and it’s my self-imposed deadline to load all my numbers into my
spreadsheet before I meet with her – as when I was only doing it monthly, it
felt too vague, like I really didn’t know what I had to spend or had spent in the categories
I’ve designated.
I also have an “action partner” now. It was suggested to me
last week that I get an “art action partner,” but as I was talking with my
friend last night, we agreed, they’re pretty much the same thing in our lives.
So, I have someone who I’m emailing now daily the tasks I’ll do today – like
the printing and the numbers – and then, theoretically, I’ll email her tonight
to let her know what I’ve done.
We’ll see how it goes. We’re playing the structure of it loosely, but I know
I need a daily list at the moment. My fear is causing my lack of structure to
dissolve into procrastination and paralyzation. (The three “P”s, I’ve heard
are: Perfectionism, Procrastination, Paralyzation.) So I’m trying to head the
cycle off at the pass by creating a structure where babysteps are acknowledged
and doable… and accountable.
It is by baby steps that I won’t fuck it up, basically.
Inaction has the same result for me as too much or big action – taking an
outsized step, and falling, and then feeling like See, I can’t do it. When in
reality, it just was an outsized step for where I am in my development, and I’d
set myself up to fail.
I’m looking forward to some of this structure, because I
feel like by standing on the foundation of it, I feel supported, and like I’m
taking estimable acts.
Scatterbot, powering down. Gathering time, commence. 

courage · love · responsibility · self-care

Arrangement

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

One phrase a single woman should never utter: Cat, stop
eating my flowers.
I bought myself flowers this week, as I now do periodically, and the
man at the flower stand, who went off on a very long monologue about the
upcoming new year for his religion, which I believe I gathered was Russian
Orthodox, told me that he’d been thinking about me. This older gentleman, who I
didn’t believe worked at the stand the first time I saw him there, and I
waited for the woman who I normally interacted with. I thought he was some sort
of flower stand hanger-on, or the woman’s husband (which he is), but a person
who didn’t know much about flowers or flower arrangements.
That time, he began to randomly pluck flowers from their
black watery bins, and show them to me, “This? … This?” and as I shook my
head, I became more convinced that he did not in fact work there.
Turns out, he did, and he does, but that first time, I
waited for his wife anyway, and walked away with a beautiful spray of day
lilies – the kind that smelled, as many in California do not, I found out from
the woman – that the kind that do, come from places where the land does get
cold in winter – like back in New Jersey, where we grew them along the side of
my house, and every summer the whole length of the house smelled of day lilies.
So, I always hunt for the ones that smell.
This week when I went, it was just the man, and his strange
information about seven things that they put on an altar for their new year,
including hyacinth and some sort of branch, which he said is why he’d been
thinking of me – that it was all very beautiful, but not as beautiful as me. …
Now, I play along, I’m charming, and he’s very delightful to have made up this
story on the spot, or maybe it was true. But it was a strange ending to this long religious info session. And
I walked away, with my bunch of flowers.
These flowers, this arrangement, is not pretty. It’s got
some spiky, scaggy deep purple sprays of some sort. An anemone-looking orange
one that probably eats live things in its other life. A stalk of not-so-fresh
looking sunrise flowers. A few branches of pussy-willow, and one stem of day
lilies – the smelling kind.
It sort of looks, overall, like a thanksgiving/fall style
color palette, and it is not pretty in the conventional way that I usually like
my flowers to be. But, it is beautiful in its own way. It is not something I
would have chosen.
I suppose I’m moved to write about it, them, this
interaction, because it sort of speaks to a few things for me. The first is
that, when someone compliments me, I assume it’s bunk. That it’s to get
something from me, like more business in this case. The second is that I knew I
wasn’t liking the arrangement he was making, but because of his compliment and
certainty in his work, I let it go, and took what I was being given. And third, of course, not all beautiful things are pretty.
The third, I’ll accept. It’s true. Things in this world are
to be marveled at, but they’re not always attractive in conventional ways, and
you may have to squint to see its beauty. So, this is partly about letting go
of my ideas about things in general. My proscribed black-and-white, good/not
good, thinking.
To the second, I ought to have said something. Just because
I was complimented doesn’t mean I have to take
what’s being handed to me. I am glad I have the flowers, but I do wish I had
asked for something other than a handful of motley and slightly craggy plants.
This, speaks to many things in my life and how I’ve lived it up to now.
And to the first, about dismissing compliments, well, that’s
back to the accepting support thing that I’m working on currently. To believe
that I am worthy of notice, support, love, and encouragement. And that perhaps people aren’t pulling my chain, or trying to get something from me, that perhaps I have something genuine that people like and are attracted to. To believe, as it were, that not every
rose has its thorn … 

art · authenticity · courage · honesty · love · maturity

Occupy Life

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Don’t worry, this won’t be a political diatribe.
As perhaps you’ve been garnering from some of the recent
writing, I’m becoming more open to be available to my own life. To occupy it,
as it were.
This has happened slowly, and is still a work in progress.
But I remember back to the “Life of an Asparagus” blog, about beginning to
sense that some of the seeds I’ve been sowing over the last few years are
beginning to peek through, and show me their colors and flavors.
I’m excited by this prospect, and still, afraid of it. Will
the asparagus be green enough? Tender enough? Snappy enough? Will I, as I begin
to show you more of who I am, and what I have to offer, be enough?
The un/fortunate truth is that I don’t really have a choice
to pull the emergency brake here, and say, WHOA buddy, let me make sure that
this is all kosher and “molly-approved” before I put it out there to you.
When I’d been contemplating The Cousin (*not my cousin*) a while ago before we ended, I said to a
friend that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a shelf, to pause him and our
romance. I wanted the time to figure myself out, get “well,” get fixed, and
then take him back down and continue the romance, with me as a whole, well
person.
Problem is, life isn’t like that, and people aren’t like
that. I don’t get to put anything on hold – others, myself, the world, school,
my finances, time – so that I can get a better handle on it.
It’s a constant game of changing the tire while the car is
in motion.
Constantly evolving means being willing to give up control;
to give up the demands for the future.
In all of this “lifeness” that’s going on, however, things
are changing, and have changed, and I find myself at a different place than I
had been, having arrived here somewhat circuitously, but somewhere where things
are, where I am, different.
I haven’t had to pause the world for me to get here. I’ve
had to, in fact, jump on board with the fact that this train is leaving and
will continue to leave, and I can ignore the fact it’s moving, or I can enjoy
the view. And more than that, I can let myself be shaped by its movement.
That “letting myself be shaped” has been the hardest part.
Or one of them. To accept that I’m not exactly sure what I’ll look like, who
I’ll be, and if I’ll or you’ll like me on the other side of it. But keeping my
eyes closed to the brilliance that is outside and inside, well, it’s kept me
pretty lonely and forlorn. And in the end, it’s not fair.
Who am I to shut my eyes to what I’ve been given, what
others are offering me? To the love that is being offered me – the help, and
the hope, and the encouragement, and the desire I’m told for more… of me. Who
am I to deny that?
I begin to think about this, and write this today, as I
start to recognize this new path of thought and action. One which, although I
may not be taking all of the action steps that are suggested, I’m becoming open
to taking them 😉 I see their merit – I see that these actions are helping me
to fill out my life, like an underinflated balloon that could be buoyant and
loved, if it only let itself get full.
Perhaps that analogy fell flat. But, I think I’m
understanding what it means! It means that I’m changing. It means that I’m
becoming more available to my life, and to my gifts, and to others. It means
that I’m beginning to choose community and vulnerability as opposed to
contraction and “safety.”
I’ve had to tell a
few more people a little more about what I’m doing, and what I like to do,
because those were the indicated responses. (I write, I sing, I act, I paint.)
Every time I tell someone one of these things, there is the reactionary twinge
of fear and the cavernous echoing “NO!!!” … but, I do it anyway, now. And every
time I do, I’m staking one more claim to my own life, and allowing it to open
up to me as I open up to it.

inspiration · joy · love · writing

And so, she falls.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I am in LOVE. This is no mere crush.
The feeling that the very molecules of your DNA have
rearranged themselves, and that the world has possibilities where there were
only plain corners. That by standing on the back of this wave of pure
inspiration, I too can achieve great things and greet the world with an
untrained eye, a new eye, an unfettered, welcoming, curious, open eye.
Yes. I am in love. With Jeanette Winterson and her
writing.
She was only just introduced to me by a friend who happened
to be reading Jeanette’s latest memoir. My friend said she had a quote about
poetry to send me, I said great, not really thinking much of it. And then I
read my email.
The quote was like walking into the room and locking eyes
with the person you will later have a torrid, fiery affair with. I was lit by
it. And so I followed it, her trail, to her website. And began to read the
excerpt from the book, the first chapter. I was mesmerized.
Like listening to someone on a first date describe what they
do and are interested in, but you actually care. You’re actually hanging onto every word as if it were laden with the
truth of the Universe and a single dropped syllable will leave you dangling off the cliff of sanity.
I read the chapter like my life depended on it – like the
meaning of my life depended on it. And I followed her to Amazon. And to the public
library.
And yesterday, I captured her. I caught up with her in the
school library, in the stacks, far in the back, while students ticked away on
papers and palms jutted into their weary faces.
There she was, nestled among others I had no eyes for at
all. Glittering gold and the miasma of the universe could have split open
around me, and I’d see nothing but Jeanette. I grabbed her. I went to the
other section where she was, and I stock piled her. I pulled her out and on top
of me. I melted under her weight and was levitated by it.
I radiated purpose and joy. The sense of purpose only pure
love can bring. The moment of Ah Hah, the moment of clarity. The moment of
infinite future, and complete finite utterly lostness of the present. Just
here. In the musky scent of pages and binding. I gathered her up.
I absconded with her, like a Sabine woman, this taut,
witty, tawdry, brutal, reluctantly tender woman. I ran with her out into the fading
light of dusk, and I opened her up to me.
I ployed with her skin, brain cells fainted in her wake
overcome by the fullness of witnessing her. And by witnessing her, I
witnessed myself. I witnessed the magnitude of the human experience. I watched her
dissect the grand Truths of the World into aching wisps of language that got tangled in my hair and singed my eyelashes.
I ingested her the way only lovers can do, wholly, boundlessly, allowed her to come inside and rearrange my organs to her pleasure.
To kick my heart out of my lung and into my throat, to choke on her
brilliance. I lay submissive to her steer-branding of every blood cell, let myself be mottled by her, cleaved apart by her, and culled back together with the
mortar of her.
Yes, I am in love. And I am different for it. 
family · love · maturity · recovery · self-care

Family Planning.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

(oh, who doesn’t love a little tongue in cheek!)
I spoke with my mom yesterday. It’s a new record. Twice in
6… well, more like 9 months. It went well. Better than with my dad at least,
but I know part is that she was simply excited to talk on the phone with me and so was on “good behavior.”
I’ve had to watch my balance between “maintaining boundaries” and silent
scorn/punishment. Because I can tend to tip the scales toward the latter, still
making my parents make up to me things they don’t know need to be made up, and
punishing them for things they do naturally, as if punishing someone for
breathing.
But, it’s becoming, and had become, time to step back into
our relationship, and hope that this is a dance floor not a boxing ring. I’ve
needed to time to cool off, to solidify my ability to say things like “That’s
not my business” or “I’d rather we didn’t talk about that.” And, as yesterday
at least was proof of, I am becoming better at it.
This isn’t to say there weren’t the few tinges of the same
old, but, they were few, and I wasn’t thrown by them, as I’ve been so easily
thrown into the drama of despair and self pity that my family is nuts, always
has been nuts, and ever thus shall be, amen. Including myself.
There’s been a lot of need for differentiation work. My life
being mine, and not a carbon copy of hers, or dictated by the mandates of my
father. Coming to believe that the life I’m living is actually my own …
well, it’s been harder than … it is for some people.
It’s something I’ve been repeatedly told over the last few
years. Don’t you understand that you are
the one doing the living? Don’t I understand that these are my decisions to make?
It’s been hard to take that ownership. To believe that I actually am the captain of the ship, or the one
doing the breathing of this body. When much of early life is focused on the
needs of others and falling in line with those desires, the questions as, “What
do I want?” take on magnum
proportions.
Although the aim of school was to accomplish a number of
goals, one of them was to really do what I
wanted. This decision, let me tell you, was NOT supported in some corners of my
nuclear family, and they were very
vocal about that. About telling me that I was making a wrong decision, that I
was making a mistake. That I couldn’t have what I wanted. And that I was stupid
to think something I did want was a viable option. … Only the first two were
actually stated – the others were interpreted by me, and my fear brain which
loves to tell me much the same thing.
I will here state, however, my mom has always been in my
corner around school. She hasn’t always understood what I’m doing creatively, she
hadn’t always supported it (or been aware of it, is more accurate), but she is now. And she has for a few years.
And part of my untangling my knot of self-sabotage is to
begin to see the support in my life around my creativity – and although it’s a
“nice to have,” not a “need to have” that she supports me, … well, it’s
*really* nice to have.
She’d contacted me earlier this week, perhaps the day after
I had my activating conversation with my dad, to ask about coordinating for the
graduation – my graduation. And, so, I told her I’d call her. And I did. And we
talked, and when it was getting a little maudlin, I kept it light and aimed
toward getting off the phone. And when she mentioned her retarded work schedule
(by which I mean 12 hours straight with no breaks, so that she sits with
clients while eating a Clif bar as lunch… <– no judgment there, eh?) I didn’t tell
her what I thought. I didn’t make suggestions. I didn’t, in fact, tell her she
was doing it wrong.
The thing which I so despise being told.
There were a few other minor things like that, where I
wanted to say, WOMAN you are marvelous and talented and beautiful and
intelligent and hilarious and creative and brilliant – OF COURSE you can find
something nice to wear for the graduation day. Of course you deserve to treat
yourself better than your work schedule. Of course … Well, Of course I love you.
Which I suppose is what it boils down to for all of us. All
of us, in this nuclear family, and all of us, us.
So, yes, it is nice to be having my mom coming out to visit.
To celebrate. She agreed she and my father (and his fiancé) will be cordial,
and that’s all they need to do.
I’m looking forward to putting that phone call in my
experience bank, diminishing the deficit of my negative thinking around both of
our “brokenness,” and letting myself live my own life, as I begin (continue) to let go of hers. 
action · balance · fortitude · love · recovery

Talking Alarm Clock Meditation

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

When I sit for meditation, if I’m timing it, I set my alarm
clock to the setting where it plays back a recording. I can record whatever I
want, 8 seconds long.
I bought this little clock before I set off to teach English
in South Korea in 2004, and had my mom record herself telling me to wake up,
so that I could hear her voice on the opposite side of the earth.
At some point the recording got recorded over, I
accidentally pushed the recording button, and it got erased, so I’ve gotten the
chance to have it say whatever I want it to.
For the past few years, I’ve recorded and rerecorded myself
saying “Thank you,” so at the end of my meditation time, instead of an alarming
beeping as it’s set to wake me up, I hear a soft voice repeat that phrase till
I hit the stop button.
Today, I accidentally erased that recording, and went to say
“Thank you” again into the little microphone in the back, but instead, I
recorded myself giggling. 😉 And I played it back, and it giggled, and I
giggled back at it, cuz it’s so silly but infectious, and at the end of my
meditation time this morning, it giggled at me. And as I reached to shut it
off, I giggled too. It’s very silly.
And yet, I’ve been hearing and reading more about the power
of laughter and smiling. A friend of mine’s been participating in a heart-smile
meditation with a friend at school. She said basically, they just sit around
for an hour … smiling. She said it feels weird, but sort of funny and cool, and
that the facilitator/friend of ours said that you have to actually smile with
your face, you can’t just smile inside.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this. In fact, I
think I probably read it first in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love during her sojourn to Indonesia and to the Balinese
medicine man, who told her to smile “even in her liver.”
And in another book I’m reading, they talk about the healing
power of laughter. About the frequency that gets emitted when we laugh, about
how it can heal us, about how we can change our current thoughts, simply by
laughing.
I haven’t done the meditation, although I’m curious, and
probably will sit in with those girls sometime soon. But, something this
morning – well, I just didn’t want to record the staid “Thank you” again. I
wanted something lighter. Laughier.
I think this whole “power of positive thinking” thing has
its merit. And I’m also getting to notice the needed balance between magical thinking
or “visioning” or collaging with the very earth-oriented action steps that I’m
having to take. I believe there’s a dovetailing of these two actions. Visioning
and taking action.
If I don’t use my imagination to concretize or even
vague-itize what it is I want in this life, I will be a 50 year old secretary.
If I only spend my time “manifesting,”
creating collages, or being in my magical accidental thinking, then nothing
will actually change.
However, I need the basis of those visions, those dreams,
desires, callings, whatever people are talking about when they say “follow your
bliss,” in order to figure out what the hell my bliss is.
Of course, the second part is the action. And luckily, I’m
at a moment in my life when I’m becoming more open to the baby steps that it
takes. These look small this week. But, they’re not.
I called my credit card companies to close my current
accounts. I called those store credit cards still listed on my credit report
which I haven’t used, or seen, in years (Mandees anyone?). I have one more
“hard” call to make. I have a collection agency on my report, with initials below it that are the same as one of the hospitals I was in when I was 21. I don’t know
if that’s what it’s referring to, or if I still owe money to them or not. But, clarity is better than fear or
vagueness.
Other action items of this week are to let you, and my other
communities, know that I’ll be participating in a reading at school at the end
of this month as a part of an open mic/party night. I told this to someone on
Sunday, and she insisted that an action I take this week is to LET PEOPLE KNOW.
To continue out of my hiding and isolation, and to let people know.
In that vein, I’m to work on a chapbook for the reading.
Basically, a small collection of my poems, so that I might be able to sell them
there. It’ll be about the same time my thesis final draft is due, and I should have a good
portion of work at that point.
Putting my work out there; putting myself out there; closing
up these holes of old accounts and fears. These are what enable me to move a
mountain one spoonful at a time. And if a giggling alarm clock helps me get
there, so be it.