Today began with Qigong in Julliard Park with my favorite teacher and fellow students and something I said yes to this week. One of the southern belles from Texas advised me to say yes to something and so I am hoping it might turn the tide for me. I have no idea if it will and it seems like a long stretch though I understand what she meant. Opening a door and stepping across the threshold is the stuff of life and saying yes can change the Qi.
One hopes and hopes when you are looking for a job and it can be exhausting riding those waves and having it come to nothing. If you have faith, unemployment tests it every day and if you don't, it makes you want to find some. For me, I said yes to balancing the checkbook of an elderly woman who lost her usual gal Friday. Though it is not my specialty, I can easily do that for her. The pay is very little and it doesn't help the sucking sound from my savings. I worry about money every day. I worry about my inability to find a good job. I sometimes feel like I am going nowhere fast and I have lots of company.
However, I listened to the elderly woman's stories with genuine interest today, shuffled her mail and sorted it and balanced her checkbook. My efforts helped her and by helping her perhaps I shifted the negative energy that seemed to overwhelm me this week.
I then stepped two apartments down and did some weeding for another woman who can no longer bend down to tend her garden. She and her husband who died had many gardens and it is frustrating for her to see the weeds start to take over her small patch of flowers. This too was a way to show kindness and hope to shift my focus on myself which always needs tending, like her garden. I pull her weeds and talk with her as she sits nearby and I pull the weeds from my own tired and worrisome thoughts.
My faith is sometimes threadbare and as I balance my own checkbook, I blanch at the shrinkage there. I am unable to get recognized in the marketplace and though not alone, all I need, all anyone needs is one person to turn and pause and say yes. What comes next, I cannot know. Today, faith and balancing a checkbook were next door neighbors.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
People With Tentacles
Even if no one ever reads my blog entries, this venue has set me free in so many ways. It is not an absolute in the way that decisions can sometimes feel but rather giving freedom to a voice that I hear inside of me. I know that spirit. I know myself. So many times I have failed to believe in myself, my value of honesty and integrity and my own ethics. Frank taught me about those things. This blog gives that voice the place to speak, to assert and to fly free over this city that I call home.
I have had a strange week in many ways making my re-entry from Texas. I have done all the things that help me center myself because I am a sensitive person. I volunteer, run, swim, walk the dogs, meditate, read and cherish the people whom I love. I feel things strongly and take in many too many details. I am affected by kind individuals that I meet and people who seem to have gone over to the dark side. There are people in this world who act out of instincts that are less than generous, less than kind and less than helpful to those of us striving to be of service and contribute to the world. You know who you are.
Perhaps that is why we love Harry Potter so much-because he is an innocent-and his nemesis is everything but. However, he who shall not be named is a part of Harry and that is what each of us deal with in life. The people who bug us, evade us, trample us or simply those people with tentacles that seem to wind their selfish tendrils around us just when we aren't looking are actually a part of us. I hate that. I don't want to admit that the people who give me the heebee jeebees have those qualities that I despise in myself. However, some of them take it too far. You know who you are or do you?
Sometimes in life, those people with tentacles are in a position of power and they have the ability to fire and to hire. Such was the case for me this week. It took me two days to finally trust what I knew though like so many people looking for work, I was tempted. I was tempted by the dark force. I was tempted until his henchman went a bit too far and showed me what I would be in for if I allowed the dark mark to be placed upon me for a temp job, a temp paycheck. It wasn't until I found that ping pong ball in the church parking lot, miles from any ping pong table while walking the dogs this morning that I felt Frank looking over my shoulder.
I want to stress that I trusted what I felt and what I knew from other people who work for the dementor in question. Everything comes with a price it seems if you are unemployed like myself. It is so hard to know what is the right thing to do. I am still dreaming of the job that I applied for this week that makes me tear up with hope. I will keep hoping until I hear the nay or the yeah. However, I am quite certain that my "no" to something others might say "yes" to was the right one and an opportunity to break free of one of the people with tentacles that crossed my path this week.
I have had a strange week in many ways making my re-entry from Texas. I have done all the things that help me center myself because I am a sensitive person. I volunteer, run, swim, walk the dogs, meditate, read and cherish the people whom I love. I feel things strongly and take in many too many details. I am affected by kind individuals that I meet and people who seem to have gone over to the dark side. There are people in this world who act out of instincts that are less than generous, less than kind and less than helpful to those of us striving to be of service and contribute to the world. You know who you are.
Perhaps that is why we love Harry Potter so much-because he is an innocent-and his nemesis is everything but. However, he who shall not be named is a part of Harry and that is what each of us deal with in life. The people who bug us, evade us, trample us or simply those people with tentacles that seem to wind their selfish tendrils around us just when we aren't looking are actually a part of us. I hate that. I don't want to admit that the people who give me the heebee jeebees have those qualities that I despise in myself. However, some of them take it too far. You know who you are or do you?
Sometimes in life, those people with tentacles are in a position of power and they have the ability to fire and to hire. Such was the case for me this week. It took me two days to finally trust what I knew though like so many people looking for work, I was tempted. I was tempted by the dark force. I was tempted until his henchman went a bit too far and showed me what I would be in for if I allowed the dark mark to be placed upon me for a temp job, a temp paycheck. It wasn't until I found that ping pong ball in the church parking lot, miles from any ping pong table while walking the dogs this morning that I felt Frank looking over my shoulder.
I want to stress that I trusted what I felt and what I knew from other people who work for the dementor in question. Everything comes with a price it seems if you are unemployed like myself. It is so hard to know what is the right thing to do. I am still dreaming of the job that I applied for this week that makes me tear up with hope. I will keep hoping until I hear the nay or the yeah. However, I am quite certain that my "no" to something others might say "yes" to was the right one and an opportunity to break free of one of the people with tentacles that crossed my path this week.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
If Wishes Were Fishes
As my girl and I each got ready for our respective days, I told her that if wishes were fishes I would have a boatload of carcasses. And so it goes for me. I applied for a job that I am trying not to hope for because that is the kiss of death for any wish. An investment of expected returns can bring suffering in its wake.
So how does one let it go yet feel deeply inside that you are skipping rope at the thought of stepping into your new job on your first day? How does one hope and yet not attach? The human dilemma. I ask for guidance and a man at the gym tells me a story with a lilt in his voice born of struggle and acceptance. I have seen this man on many, many mornings over the past nine months running on the treadmill or working with weights. He has a prosthetic leg and foot and yet he is as ripped as the twenty somethings who groan and punctuate the air with heavy weights dropped on the floor. This man has a way of smiling at you that is genuine and fun loving. He has a brilliance to him that seems real and tangible in that strange environment of the weight floor.
Today, he told me a story and it brought light to my angst today because he shared something deep and real and loving with me. He spoke of his wife who has stood with him through a dozen surgeries before his leg was removed and many dark times where he did not know what was coming. None of us really do but we think we can edge our way around the holes in the sidewalk with our distractions. This man knows all too well that a cramp in your leg can end everything you thought you could control.
A story, again told to me by a stranger because I stopped to listen and I stopped to be right there, right then for my comrade in arms. I wish tonight that the world would turn and look to the person next to them at the grocery store, at the coffee shop, at the pool or at the gym and open and listen for a few moments to a stranger who might just make your day.
.
So how does one let it go yet feel deeply inside that you are skipping rope at the thought of stepping into your new job on your first day? How does one hope and yet not attach? The human dilemma. I ask for guidance and a man at the gym tells me a story with a lilt in his voice born of struggle and acceptance. I have seen this man on many, many mornings over the past nine months running on the treadmill or working with weights. He has a prosthetic leg and foot and yet he is as ripped as the twenty somethings who groan and punctuate the air with heavy weights dropped on the floor. This man has a way of smiling at you that is genuine and fun loving. He has a brilliance to him that seems real and tangible in that strange environment of the weight floor.
Today, he told me a story and it brought light to my angst today because he shared something deep and real and loving with me. He spoke of his wife who has stood with him through a dozen surgeries before his leg was removed and many dark times where he did not know what was coming. None of us really do but we think we can edge our way around the holes in the sidewalk with our distractions. This man knows all too well that a cramp in your leg can end everything you thought you could control.
A story, again told to me by a stranger because I stopped to listen and I stopped to be right there, right then for my comrade in arms. I wish tonight that the world would turn and look to the person next to them at the grocery store, at the coffee shop, at the pool or at the gym and open and listen for a few moments to a stranger who might just make your day.
.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Sweeping The Streets Of America
A warm day in Sonoma County, I swam with the older gals and met a very bright, elegant, lovely nurse who took a break from her job in the middle lane this morning. She seems like someone who was destined to be a nurse and lucky are the patients who find themselves within her care. She seemed sincere, dedicated and full to the brim with enthusiasm for her tasks. She swims, as I am sure she walks the halls of hospital, as a graceful woman with her future all ahead of her.
I then went off to do some volunteer gardening at a Quaker inspired retirement community that I have come to love and admire. I work for a man who came to New York a few years ago as an immigrant from Europe and now works tending a sweet seven acre, landscaped campus with his coworker. They hold down the fort at this retirement community and it is a constant effort. He was a diamond cutter in his native country and now says that he sweeps the streets of America.
Everyone has a story that crosses my path and I am one of those people who like to ask and then listen. This has been my calling in life and people want to be seen and to be heard. I feel fortunate when my comrades on this planet share something that is deeply true for them. For the man I worked for today, his skills that traveled to this country outweigh his current job. However, he holds a jewel in his rugged heart and it is very easy to see the twinkling stone if you pause and care enough to watch the sun catch its' facets.
I then went off to do some volunteer gardening at a Quaker inspired retirement community that I have come to love and admire. I work for a man who came to New York a few years ago as an immigrant from Europe and now works tending a sweet seven acre, landscaped campus with his coworker. They hold down the fort at this retirement community and it is a constant effort. He was a diamond cutter in his native country and now says that he sweeps the streets of America.
Everyone has a story that crosses my path and I am one of those people who like to ask and then listen. This has been my calling in life and people want to be seen and to be heard. I feel fortunate when my comrades on this planet share something that is deeply true for them. For the man I worked for today, his skills that traveled to this country outweigh his current job. However, he holds a jewel in his rugged heart and it is very easy to see the twinkling stone if you pause and care enough to watch the sun catch its' facets.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Falling From Grace
This morning I stepped outside into the Sonoma County morning that had a chill to it that drove memories of fall to the surface of my flesh. Even though it is still August, our summer has been cool and our tomato bushes tell the tale of cool mornings and evenings with lots of green fruit hanging on Jack In The Beanstalk frames. We are lucky though the garden needs heat to ripen all of those veggies. Lush but not yet edible. My thoughts flew to Fall, my favorite season, and my body knows the path.
Fall brings a change in the light of the world, turned golden, slanting through the day unlike summer's intense gaze. For me Fall brings vibrant colors that are richer, deeper and humming with art. I feel as if Fall brings the shadows across the trail ahead and it is here, in the darkness, that my depth of experience lies. Maybe it is my Celtic genetic code or simply that I search the world for stories every day to understand myself and others.
And so, for me, Fall is a type of grace that comes after a summer of struggle. I wish for myself, a good job, having spent a year seeking one. I would be a most excellent employee and I have excellent references to prove it out. My search is still my search for a change in the season.
Fall brings a change in the light of the world, turned golden, slanting through the day unlike summer's intense gaze. For me Fall brings vibrant colors that are richer, deeper and humming with art. I feel as if Fall brings the shadows across the trail ahead and it is here, in the darkness, that my depth of experience lies. Maybe it is my Celtic genetic code or simply that I search the world for stories every day to understand myself and others.
And so, for me, Fall is a type of grace that comes after a summer of struggle. I wish for myself, a good job, having spent a year seeking one. I would be a most excellent employee and I have excellent references to prove it out. My search is still my search for a change in the season.
Monday, August 15, 2011
The board lights up behind me
Monday comes whether we are ready or not. All over the county, those of you fortunate enough to have jobs you appreciate and not bow your heads as if plunging forward into the week. For me, I am returning to my body and running, feeling and thinking. Today, I ran around Spring Lake and now off to do some office volunteering.
It was as if the board lit up behind me as my plane to Austin took off last week. There were lots of jobs twinkling on Craigslist and beyond this morning and I applied for a few. My blood pressure eases up a bit imagining a produce job. I see myself there in my dark green apron. It could happen. It could. The board lights pulsed and offered something bright and promising this morning. However, as anyone who is out of work knows, it can be a ruse, a diversion for employers who are already going to hire someone else, a white lie that is not so white.
I shall move forward today with a renewed sense of my search for a produce job, doing what I can to be of service to the world in the mean time as a volunteer, tending the home, organic garden, exercising and spreading the love I have to others. Even though the board lights up behind me, taunting we job seekers with the promise of a living wage, I live, I breathe, I care.
It was as if the board lit up behind me as my plane to Austin took off last week. There were lots of jobs twinkling on Craigslist and beyond this morning and I applied for a few. My blood pressure eases up a bit imagining a produce job. I see myself there in my dark green apron. It could happen. It could. The board lights pulsed and offered something bright and promising this morning. However, as anyone who is out of work knows, it can be a ruse, a diversion for employers who are already going to hire someone else, a white lie that is not so white.
I shall move forward today with a renewed sense of my search for a produce job, doing what I can to be of service to the world in the mean time as a volunteer, tending the home, organic garden, exercising and spreading the love I have to others. Even though the board lights up behind me, taunting we job seekers with the promise of a living wage, I live, I breathe, I care.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Jiggity Jig
Sunday morning in Sonoma County, before the sun has risen off of its own bed near the horizon, feels like home. Ah, I am now home after a flight that I slept through and had to be wrestled awake by the nice woman next to me, and a quick coffee and a bus to a bus to my sweetie waiting for me last night. I feel like someone who just had a hike through the time tunnel. If you are old enough to remember that TV program, you will know what I mean.
This morning, looking out our front window to our garden is to view a full color palate. That is just it. The palate of nature's colors here spreads out before my hungry eyes. Yesterday morning, I woke early and went out to look for the paper, meeting the eyes of the thirsty deer girls and the heat of Texas. Today, I went out to check on the roses and it was cool, golden and brought my feelings up to the surface. They are sitting right here in my chest fighting one another for space on this page. Can I give them flesh?
I may need a few days to sort out the week. I feel somewhat disappointed in myself or just sorrowful that Austin was not a definite. Yes, I cannot find a job here. Yes, I still seek a produce job that is entry level because vegetables and fruit are part of my life's blood. You should see the garden! Yes, I miss my family. Yes, I met the most amazing three women at lunch and no one here has ever opened the door to me with such enthusiasm. Yes, I wonder where our people are here. Yes, I am so glad to see my girl and bend over and hug each of our dogs. Yes, I still don't know what the hell I am doing. Yes, this is home and I know it. Thank you Sonoma County. You are inexplicable in a way that reflects the full spectrum of your colors and your soul. Thank you for being here to greet me this morning.
This morning, looking out our front window to our garden is to view a full color palate. That is just it. The palate of nature's colors here spreads out before my hungry eyes. Yesterday morning, I woke early and went out to look for the paper, meeting the eyes of the thirsty deer girls and the heat of Texas. Today, I went out to check on the roses and it was cool, golden and brought my feelings up to the surface. They are sitting right here in my chest fighting one another for space on this page. Can I give them flesh?
I may need a few days to sort out the week. I feel somewhat disappointed in myself or just sorrowful that Austin was not a definite. Yes, I cannot find a job here. Yes, I still seek a produce job that is entry level because vegetables and fruit are part of my life's blood. You should see the garden! Yes, I miss my family. Yes, I met the most amazing three women at lunch and no one here has ever opened the door to me with such enthusiasm. Yes, I wonder where our people are here. Yes, I am so glad to see my girl and bend over and hug each of our dogs. Yes, I still don't know what the hell I am doing. Yes, this is home and I know it. Thank you Sonoma County. You are inexplicable in a way that reflects the full spectrum of your colors and your soul. Thank you for being here to greet me this morning.
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