creativity · integrity · joy · love · relationships

Moi, Toi, Nous.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Me, You, Us.
As I was ogling through Cartier on Thursday’s lunch break, I picked up a copy of their magazine on my way out assuming it was simply advertisements, but I am heading into collage-making land, personally and for the workshop I’m running in the Spring and need magazine fodder. Turns out that aside from being a long advertisement, there were also several almost academic articles on marriage customs, the heart, as organ, as art, as personified valve, capable of being heavy, light, hard, open.
One of the pieces of ‘heart art’ had the scribbles of “Moi, Toi, Nous” painted on a large heart, with a caption saying this is one of the old ways of inscribing love. Me. You. Us.
In Calling in The One, we are challenged to begin to walk in our lives as part of a “we.” Not just romantically, but as a member of the world. Not “me first”, but us first. How to engage with the world with mutual interest – to perhaps begin to model what it might or could look like in a romantic partnership that could last a lifetime. It’s likely impossible to maintain a “me first” attitude and a successful relationship. Of course there’s a balance with maintaining personal integrity as well, but I feel like I’ve tended to the opposite extremes of self-preservation or people-pleasing, so walking in the world in an “us” manner is different and good practice for me.
Another exercise, which then feeds into yesterday, was to begin to acquire collage pictures that speak to our vision of love in our lives. So, about a month or more ago, I began with a photo of a man and a woman from a Tiffany’s ad, holding hands in marriage garb, walking away from the camera down what looks to me like a Central Park footpath. Calm, beautiful, mutual. But, I also began peppering my collage with photos that I thought I “should” put on. Ones that weren’t as feminine, ones that were more gender-neutral or masculine in nature or in mood. Because isn’t that part of this, to open space for “masculine” energy? So, I put on some stripes of more masculine neutral colors, and … What I’ve come to realize are more drab, dull, and boring.
I wear glasses, and so when I wake up in the morning and look at the wall opposite me, I really only see colors, not images. Over the time that I’ve lived in this apartment and put various collages on that wall, I’ve been able to wake up to vibrant, moving color. But, over the last month or so that I’ve had this collage in progress, it’s been like looking at a bowl of oatmeal! I’ve realized this only recently, how unmotivated I was to finish the collage, and how little I’d been looking at it.
Usually, my collages continue to capture my attention. The phrases I cut out, the images that still move me with their beauty or humor or joy. Every collage I’ve made over the last few years has had teal in it. I didn’t notice this until earlier this year, when I’d made a new one, and waking up, TEAL, there it is. The color of Mediterranean oceans, and somehow, to me, joy. A beauty, an inspiration. I followed this nudge finally, and bought a perfect teal scarf. I’d apparently wanted this incorporated into my waking life as well as my art life. And I love the scarf. It still brings me joy.
So, knowing the power that my collages have to inspire me, and to continue to nudge me, yesterday during my day of cleaning, I began taking down the CITO oatmeal collage. This is not the collage of love, inspiration, joy, fulfillment, creation, happiness. There are a few images I’ll keep, like the Tiffany ad, and a crayon-colored drawing I did earlier this year that sort of envisions … my vision! But, I sat down yesterday and began to cut out new images. Images that made me smile, who cares about masculine or feminine. What I recognize is that if I am happy, I attract happiness. I don’t need to try to manipulate what I think I should be looking for or how I think it “should” look – even on something as “inconsequential” as a collage.
And so, there is now a ton of red – the color of love, passion, emotion – and, of course, there’s now teal. I look forward to putting it all together, and waking up to what feels like a shift in my approach.
Finally, about “Moi, Toi, Nous.”, it reminds me: In Hebrew “Mah Tovu” is a common and gorgeous song and prayer recited upon entering a place of worship. It means “How Good” – How good it is, here, this place, now.
Coincidence? I think not. 🙂 
Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy Chanukah. Love, M.

adulthood · healing · holidays · home · letting go · self-care

Hearth and Home

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Winter cleaning has begun. The clean laundry that was
occupying the “other person’s” part of the bed is now put away. And the
cleaning will continue. I’ve decided and recognized that this “free” time off
work will be an excellent time to dig out those boxes from NJ and begin to
empty them.
First, sure, there’s all the surface cleaning I need to do,
and I have a girl coming over at 1 for coffee and chat, so the surface will
need to look decent before then. But after that? Today feels like a good day to
begin, gently, with the NJ boxes.
When I began CITO, it
asked us to make space, literally, for a partner to come into our lives, and so
I emptied a drawer in my closet and a shelf in my bathroom, and I bought
silvery grey sheets, which felt gender neutral, but also pretty sexy.
My place began to feel lighter, like I was creating space,
and allowing for “Nature abhors a vacuum” to occur. Then, I sent back 6 or so
boxes from NJ. They have pictures, and old school notebooks, and old poetry,
and old journals. A girl friend of mine called me up earlier this month to say
that she was taking a page from my book when she goes home for Christmas and
wanted to know what I did with my old journals.
I said, nothing. That’s not entirely accurate. I packed them
up in NJ and shipped them here to SF, uh, Oakland, I mean. I knew that there
was enough emotional upheaval to not want to or be able to process what to do
with them when I was in NJ, and so I just packed them up and shipped them here,
and they’ve been in my closet since October.
Which is fine. And I don’t yet know what I’ll do with them.
There’s the part that wants to honor what they hold, there’s the part that
knows that the childish records of who was in a fight with who and who was
wearing what in 9th grade are not things I feel tempted to keep, but
they are funny too, now, and so, what to do with them?
There is a lot of sadness in them too. When I was home, I
was doing some sifting and sorting and discarding, and there’s poetry from
grade 2 and 3 that is already about loneliness and isolation. So, I think there’ll be
some spiritual work or process or ritual I want to do around them. Maybe my
friend and I can do something around them together.
When I got into grad school last year, another friend of mine encouraged me
to do a ritual of thanks for the gift of this opportunity. We wrote down old ideas that no longer
served us, and burned them. Then we wrote down one idea that would carry us
forward. I still have it, in my closet. It says, “We can.” Sure, a little
reminiscent of the whole Obama campaign, but it still speaks to
the same sentiment I’m continuing to address: I don’t have to do
things on my own. I don’t have to deplete my own limited resources; there is a
world of abundance around me of people, resources, help, and love, if I avail
myself of them.
So, I’m not sure what I’ll yet do with the old journals. I
know there’s a reading series in Oakland where people submit from their jr high
era journals, and then if chosen, get to read them – pretty hilarious stuff, I
hear. One that comes to mind reported to me – I haven’t been yet – is a girl
who wrote, “Maybe if I got a pig they’d like me.” 😉 She apparently grew up in
an agricultural setting…!
It also feels like an appropriate “end of year” activity, to
clean the closets, to put my apartment back into “other person” readiness.
Nature isn’t the only thing that fills in a vacuum, and I’ve begun to encroach
on the newly emptied space I cleared, filling it back up with my crap.
There’s plenty of other stuff in the boxes to go through and
set aside, organize, or discard, and it takes me a long time to decide whether
some things are worth keeping, as you sift through old high school photos,
which do you need? What is “for posterity” in my drawings, poems, items? What
is now simply junk?
But, I will recall the belief I want to carry with me – I don’t
have to do this alone – and I can call on some guidance, clarity, and a heavy
dose of lightness(!) while I sift through the remnants of my childhood.

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

Wet Concrete.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

Errands

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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

Weird Science.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Winter solstice approaches. So despite the dwindling hours
of sunlight and what feel like dwindling hours of productivity, change is on
the move. I love thinking about stuff like that – my brother is an “earth
scientist” – basically, he’d steeped in physics, chemistry, and biology, and at
the moment is working as a cleaner upper of this here our earth.
He once sent me a text photo, when he began his job last
year in environmental remediation, of a teeny tiny little frog balancing on my brother’s blue hazmat gloves,
with the note saying, “I’m cleaning his home.” 🙂 It was the very sweetest thing.
Once, Ben and I heard the rumor that on the equinoxes in
spring and fall, you could balance an egg on its end in a window of like 3
minutes, and it wouldn’t fall over because the earth was positioned in such a
way that the gravitational pull was completely equal. – It worked! It totally
balanced on it’s little fat bottom end for about a minute or two before it
lopped over onto its side like all other days of the year.
We used to sit at home on the couch, and he’d basically
translate what he’d just read from Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a
Nutshell, and we’d talk about the expanding
and contracting of the universe, and about black holes, and just science-y
stuff in general. It was great. I rarely, if ever, get to talk to people about
stuff like that, mainly because I’m so novice, and also, it just doesn’t come
up – so, did you hear about Pluto doesn’t really count! (And p.s. I feel bad
for Pluto’s demotion!)
When I was in college, heading toward, well, I wasn’t always
in my right mind, I was taking a physics course, and one of the classes was on
relativity. And in the “Whoa, man” state of mind I was in, after class, we’re
all outside waiting for the bus, and I don’t really know anyone in the class,
being an English major, and I say to one dude as the bus approaches, isn’t it
crazy, the bus is moving relative to us, but we’re moving on the spinning earth, and
the earth is moving in orbit… You can see why lots of stoners get blown away by
such concepts ;P
But, it – science, math – comes up for me. Strange as it may
seem. My brother was a double major in geo-physics and music theory. Art and
science aren’t as far apart as they may seem. All my painting is is increasing
the viscosity of a pigment to deposit it on another surface 😉 One thing that
came up repeatedly for me over the number of times that I did the Artist’s Way
was to take a math class. Weird, I know. But we’re asked several times
throughout the course to list – without overthinking it – 5 classes we’d want
to take if money and time and fear weren’t an issue. And each time, math would
be on that list.
I was proctoring an SAT exam about 2 years ago for some
extra cash, and I was looking at the test in the aching silence of the room as
these poor students are having meltdowns and panic attacks about their future,
and sine and cosines swim in their graphing calculators. It was actually fun.
To feel these very old creaky wheels in
the back of my brain trying to remember the formula for triangles and circles.
I didn’t remember the harder stuff, but there was an inner perking up of, hey,
I know this stuff, and hey, do we get to do this. (I actually did better on my
SATs in math, twice, than I did in english, so…)
I don’t know what it means, but in keeping with listening to
my inner nudges, and knowing that this math/science thing has come up several
times over the last 4 or 5 years, maybe it’s time to listen. I actually looked
to see if I could do one at my school, but they are waaaay advanced, and I need like algebra 1 again! Not
lecture and lab. Math can be fun. Science was way fun the way my brother and I
used to talk about it. The way that he would explain these concepts to me, and
we could converse about them.
Keep ‘em coming, little nudges. I don’t know what yet to do
with you – but I have utter faith that I will. 
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. 
dating · family · fun · holidays · joy · laughter · responsibility · self-care

Best Date Ever.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, if, as has been said to me, a first date is simply an
interview for a second one, then I totally nailed this interview.
The date began with ice skating. Now, I almost talked myself
out of it, seeing that there were mainly families on the Union Square Ice Rink,
but after checking in with my date, I knew this is what we were there to do.
And I had a blast!!! It was so much freaking fun. I didn’t
fall, but I certainly flailed. I laughed and grinned and was a terrible skater
having a wonderful time. It was incredible. The Christmas music on the
speakers, I barely heard over my squeals of delight and intense concentration to not knock into anyone. People
standing outside the rink watching laughed and smiled at me as I laughed and
smiled. They were as delighted to see I was having such a good time at being
awful as I was. 🙂
After making it for only about 40minutes though, having
worked up a bit of heat, and my ankles not nearly as strong as they needed to
be, we called it quits, but we were both cool with it.
I’d promised my date that we’d go see Hugo in 3D, that
Martin Scorcese kids’ film that was supposed to actually be pretty good. But
what we needed first was … hot chocolate.
After trying to corral my date into being okay with stopping
in Ross (the discount clothing store) for a minute for some socks, I agreed
this was not what I wanted to be doing either, and we left, to get hot
chocolate with whipped cream. Now, I would never normally do this, the sugar
factor for one, and the cool factor for the other. I was in line very tempted
to get a chai latte with an add shot – seasonal and fun, but adult, you know?
But, when I went up to order, hot chocolate it was. It was delicious. I really
felt like the old days.
My “crazy cat lady aunt” as I’ve been fond to call her, but
realize perhaps it’s time to stop calling her that. It’s pretty mean. But, you
get immediately the type of person I’m talking about. Well, she lives in
Manhattan, as she has all of my life, and each year growing up would take me to
Rockefeller Center. There, was Teuscher’s Chocolates. And in Teuscher’s
chocolates were something called Champagne Truffles. Now, I haven’t had them in
a few years, I had one about 4 years ago, but wasn’t sure if that was “okay” on
the whole sobriety front, so I don’t have them anymore, but that one was as
divine as I remembered them to be.
My aunt, for all of her foibles and human fallibilities,
really loved/loves me and my brother. She took us to see the famous tree, to see the Radio City Rockettes, to
stand on the lines to go see the holiday windows at Sak’s Fifth Avenue – which
were monumental in our day – themed and mechanized and just opulent. 
She, in fact, wrote me an email about 2 weeks ago entitled
“The Return of Kevin,” and said she was flipping through the channels and came
across Home Alone, and remembered
vividly, though I don’t, when she had taken me for tea at the Plaza hotel (she
loved to do these totally chi-chi things, like we went to the symphony, and she
took me on my first airplane ride). Apparently, standing out front, I said “I’m
standing where Kevin stood”, with such a look on my face of joy and radiance
that she remembers it to this day. Now, sadly, I know this must mean that I was
referencing Home Alone Two,
because that one takes place in NY, and loathe though I may be to admit it, I’m
sure this story is completely accurate.
So, I love all the shlock of Christmas, holidays, even the
pushy crowds. When I left the ice rink yesterday, the smile and sheen of joy
coming off me was palpable. I was so happy I went.
My date ended after Hugo in 3D with buying a package of
sugar-free hot chocolate on my way home (the invasion of sugar from earlier was
not kind to me), rented a comedy and came home to curl up
with some tea, and, hey, here’s honesty, to “spend a little time with myself,” to quote Tom Waits.
You may have guessed much earlier than this, that my date
was with myself. And it was awesome. Part of the whole Calling in the One thing and my path in general is to become a woman I’d want to date. And, judging from the careening,
fanciful, contented joy of yesterday, another date is sure to follow. 
faith · intuition · love · persistence · responsibility · self-care

The Power of Love (yes, I mean the song)

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday, I went to the 3rd of a series of 4
workshops my friend has been facilitating over the last few months. Yesterday
was Relationship with the Divine. I imagined I sorta had this one “down,” that
I could relatively expect what would come up – places where I trust, don’t
trust, know I’ll be taken care of, am scared I’ll be taken care of(!). But, a
bunch of things happened that I did not expect.
The first of which was in response to the question, What
would happen if we shift our current (and assumedly not completely accurate)
belief system? What would happen if I really allowed myself to step into full
faith in my path, my internal nudges toward art, into the fullest idea that
this is a world of abundance? What would happen then?
What occurred to me was that I would need to begin to take
responsibility for my dreams, for these nudges and instincts toward joy. And
that’s when it happened.
I’ve known that I have shirked responsibility for my needs
and my dreams for years, hiding them under “just stay within the lines.” I know
that it has become so painful to stay in the lines that I’ve quit jobs with no
safety net, moved across continents and countries, and previously fallen into
addiction and self-defeating behavior to cover up the distance between what I
was doing in my life and what I wanted to be doing. So, I’ve known that I’ve
not been responsible to myself.
What I didn’t know was that in sitting with what would it truly
look like to step into that responsibility would bring up the fiery reaction of
an inner child saying F.U., I’m exhausted from responsibility, responsibility
sucks.
Now, sure, many people feel this way, but many don’t. To me
what this question tapped into was that my previously held beliefs of
responsibility were of ones that were beyond my resources. Like I’ve said,
responsibilities that I had to take on when I was younger, like a lot of people
I know, were beyond what a child normally ought to take on. Responsibility came
with resentment and a feeling of exhaustion.
So, to sit now with the possibility of stepping in and
taking full reign of my dreams, nudges, creativity, “power” even, I come up
against this out-dated idea of what responsibility means, and of course I’ve
run away from stepping into ownership of them. If, to me, responsibility for
myself has equaled a burden, something beyond what I’m able to give, a
frightening amount of giving, then it is no f’ing wonder that I’ve avoided it.
The bright spot on all of this, is that now I see it, and
can dismantle these false ideas. It would be nice to assume responsibility for
myself in a way that felt nurturing, caring, and perhaps even refueling. My
needs are not exorbitant, they are doable, if I also am willing to tap into the HP (sorry to get G-dy for a minute)
and the abundant source of energy that is there.
I’m not a religious person, but I believe there are things
beyond me which are much more powerful than I am, and if I can tap into that
resource, I don’t get  depleted. If
I act as a channel, instead of charging off my own battery, then I don’t get
depleted.
So, I’ve known that it’s been hard for me to color outside
the lines, to stick to the course that is within me. But i haven’t really known
why I’ve continued to avoid the path, besides the normal fears(!). We’ll see
how I am able to incorporate this new idea, how I’ll be able to shift the
belief system, but awareness is the first action.
Secondly in this workshop, lol, if you’re still reading!,
there was a meditation on impermanence. This was So crazy intense, I’ve never
had a meditation be so evocative – and I’ve had some whacked out powerful ones
that I still remember. The meditation was to ourselves as a very old person, on
the doorstep of death. We were to enter the space of this person, and make
ourselves known to her (in my case), and to ask what she had to tell us. The
whole time, nearly from the beginning of the meditation, I’m streaming tears.
Not from grief or sadness, sadness was there, but it was just more this
overwhelming sense of emotion.
The woman, me, all frail and skeletal nearly, had my eyes,
and they were still bright and kind and alive. There was the smell of cinnamon,
something baking elsewhere in the house. And as I held her hand, she told me to
“Love, as much as you can.” And to be with my family (which I am not entirely
sure what she meant, my current one, the one I’ll have, my family of my
friends, or all of these). She was content with her life, ready to go.
Then we were to imagine her passing away, and not to get
gross, but imagining her decomposing, to bone, to dust, and perhaps blowing
away, and then to sit and “sense or feel or imagine” (as my teacher likes to
say) what remains. What remained for me, as I continue to drip saltwater all
down my neck, was both the Love this woman had, had around her, in her, in her
life, and gave to me, and the edict to
Love. Which I interpret as two different things. The sense of love, and the
command to love.
What also remained was the sound of children’s laughter
somewhere else in the house, downstairs or down the hall. In my meditation of
impermanence, laughter and love remained. In my meditation where I literally
(sort of) watched myself die, what was left in the world wasn’t diminished.
You can imagine this was pretty intense 😉
But how encouraging. And I’ve been given something to do. To
love, as much as I can, and to hold my responsibilities for myself with love,
not rejection.
Big tasks, but apparently, I have a very long time in which
to accomplish them. 
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)
fun · holidays · laughter · self-care

The Joy of Flailing.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, here I sit at my last desk shift at the gym for a while. I gave my “two week’s notice” to them last week, when I realized that a) I wasn’t taking advantage of my free classes, and b) … I want my Friday mornings back. I am on deck as a “sub” person, and I also said that once school starts again and I have a more regular schedule that I’ll be back fora regular shift. 
The instructor I’ve been working in tandem with for the last 6 months or so just brought me a pastry and a sad face 🙂 she’s so sweet. As we have an early morning shift, no one is usually here too soon before class, so she and I get to talk dating, men, life, etc. She said she just ordered the Calling In the One book. Ha! You never know what happens with these ripples. 
But, I am looking forward to not having to scramble to cover my shift, trade my shift, cover other peoples – cuz obviously I’m feeling a little “put upon” by this – which again tells me that I’ve spread myself too thin – because actually this thing is pretty rad – the classes are great and I’ve realized I like the community aspect of working out. It helps that almost all of the women are older than me, some over 60, and are holding these poses and positions better than I am! It helps to keep me motivated. 
So, I’ll come back as soon as I can, but I need the time off. 
After my shift here, I’m getting picked up to babysit for a family up in the Oakland Hills. Although I’m a little nervous to have the two girls for the entire day (I’ve only sat for them at night – which looks like play, dinner, play, bedtime – so there’s not too much need to be entertaining) – but I’m sure it’ll be fine. i’m actually looking forward to it a little bit. I love the energy of kids. I’m such a kid myself – I love to be silly and nonsensical. Kids love that stuff – morelike,when you say something like, “You guys are monkeys,”  they love to be like “Noooooo, We’re not monkeys!!!” Seems like a silly thing to get indignant about, but when I was teaching a class of kindergartners in South Korea, the thing they most loved to respond with was, “Teacher, we not monkeys!!! You a monkey!!” ~ Their English was a little better at the end of the year 😉 But I love that. I love that kids play along, are silly, and when you make up Surrealist shit, they’re totally on board. 
I’ll babysit for them also next Monday, then the rest of the week with the interior design firm … and then, release. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is entirely mine. 
On Sunday, I’m intending to go ice skating in Union Square. Strange though it may seem “ice skating” is one of the items of my list of “Forbidden Joys” that I wrote 3 years ago through the Artist’s Way. Not that *that* should be such a big deal! But it is. It’s not like I’m good by any stretch – and I’m not being modest. I’m one of those arm-waving flailing people you don’t want to skate anywhere near, because there is a strong likelihood that I will accidentally careen into you and grab onto your scarf for balance and take you down with me …. This actually did happen last time I went skating about 3 or 4 years ago – IT WAS GREAT!!! hahaha!!! I loved it. I didn’t actually take the guy down – but it was close. And we all laughed, and by the end of an hour or so, I wasn’t flailing as much. 
I ski much the same way, and I love that too. The joy of being a beginner, of not caring that I’m not graceful or skilled. Of just the joy of moving continuously around in a circle to the mash up beats of Katy Perry songs. 😉 I love touching base with that kid. So, as part of my “restorative rest” goal of this break, I will be going ice skating. There’s a party at the same time on Sunday that I just found out about, so I’m weighing my options, but I really want to skate. By myself, if other people want to show up, great, I’ll put it out to some friends, but it really doesn’t matter. I end up on my own with my novice-ness anyway. 
I also want to go see some live music. I’ll look up what’s happening at Yoshi’s – the jazz & blues club in the city – there’s one in Oakland, and find out from my musician friends what sort of shows our friends may be playing. I might take my friend up on the “stay-cation” and stay at her apartment in SF during that week off. I might choose to stay in Oakland and follow-up on my intention of hanging out with people more here. 
Those are the two things I know I will do. Music and ice-skating. Ways that get me in my body, out of my head, and into the joy of life.