What My Life is Actually Like These Days
Submitted by jacks_ashley on Sat, 01/27/2007 - 10:48pm
The impulse to write this came originally from a woman, with whom I am entirely smitten, who lives in London. We seem to have formed one of those connections that convinces you you are in love with someone you barely know, and inspires you to cram as many of your life stories into a few short days together as humanly possible. But the picture of daily life is so different from the recounting of adventures and insanity, heartbreaks and visions and dreams and disasters. Different, and yet part.
These days are rather quiet, except when they're not. When I am in New York City or I am traveling my days are packed full to the brim with people and conversations and organizing and subways and Icaristas and dashing about eating exciting food and dreaming up revolutions and watching birds fly and getting things done. But when I am home, I am not so madly busy, and my hours are not so hectically crammed.
I live in a quiet beautiful house in the country that is filled with morning light and surrounded by meadows and trees. My housemates are often in the city, and I spend a lot of time alone. Today was fairly typical. I woke up early while everyone was still sleeping and put breakfast on the stove: steel cut oats with raisins and sunflower seeds, boiling on low for half an hour. While it cooks I meditate on my little black cushion, and then make my bows and say my small prayers to whatever might exist that can guide me. Then I went upstairs to feed the chickens, eat breakfast, and hang out with the cat. After that I got dressed and went to an AA meeting. Today was my one year anniversary being sober. While I was in the UK, I stubbornly did not go to any meetings, and now that I am back I'm reconnecting with all those people who help keep me sane and share skills about how we can live in our own skins.
An incredible woman told her story today. She was locked up in a psych ward from age 16-20, and her life was a massive disaster until she got sober and started learning how to live. Today she is really peaceful and genuinely kind. Her energy is light and calm and alive. She was very inspiring. I was so glad I went.
After the meeting I went to a coffee shop and did a little reading. I read a lot of spiritual books, mostly books coming from a Buddhist perspective. I am totally fascinated by human consciousness, and how we can establish daily practices and forms of inquiry that allow us to reconnect with our basic awareness, slow down, become present, and open to liberation and compassion. At this point, I've had so much suffering and insanity in my life that I am not really interested in staying stuck in all my delusional bullshit and self-destructive habits. I really want to wake all the way up. So I study and I sit. I risk space and quiet and time.
Then I wrote in my journal for a bit, and drank tea, and ate the most gorgeous chocolate spelt pound cake to celebrate my one year anniversary. And then I started writing this piece about being an alcoholic and having to deal with it. You can find the beginnings of it here: https://site.icarusprojectarchive.org/drugs/addiction/one-year-sober-today-musing-and-abusing-old-friend-alcohol.
After that I went to yoga class. A very intense yoga class. I am totally astonished by my body these days. I am blown away by what is possible with persistent effort, by what happens if we continue to show up. I learned this amazing sequence of poses today, from arm pressure pose to flying grasshopper to crow pose -- and I can actually do this now! me, who was always the sick weak kid who got picked last at sports and had too much asthma to walk up a hill. it is quite amazing.
Then I went home, and everyone had left for the city, and the house was quiet. I returned some phone calls, ate some lunch, and took a nap. Eventually I woke up and, after feeling panicky and bored for a while, convinced myself to focus enough to keep working on the piece about being an alcoholic. Writing is hard. I don't get any writing done unless I a) allow myself to be alone and b)sometimes allow myself to get bored and agitated and c) become willing to focus. This is hard. We live in a culture that encourages us to be terrified of space. But if I don't give myself space I just do not end up creating, and if I don't create I get sick. I have to create. It's part of me. It's all connected to my heart and my spirit and my sexuality, all these circuits of energy, awareness, and generosity. If I suppress them it is bad. But to honor them is sometimes hard. Very hard.
Anyway. I did some writing. It's hard to write about hitting your bottom and things getting very black. But then I think that it is good to see the truth. I mean, the clear and centered part of me knows that it is good to see the truth, but then all the terrified traumatized selves inside of me are horrified about the idea of seeing the truth. Hence all the drinking and running away...
But there it is. I wrote for a while, and then it was too much to look at, so I ate a grapefruit and looked up recipes and eventually started reading the San Francisco Zen Center's e-newsletter, which I love, and which kind of breaks my heart, because that place feels like my spiritual home -- it is where I started meditating, and I have a deep love for their farm and mountain monasteries -- but it is so far away right now, and I wish I could be closer.
I get very heartbroken about all the paradoxes in my life sometimes. Part of me wants so much to go be a farmer-monk at green gulch and give myself fully to that practice. Part of me wants to have wild sex and mad adventures all over the globe. Part of me wants to move to New York City when my lease here is up, and part of me wants to go to the desert. Part of me wants to sail on ships with beautiful women and part of me wants to stay right here, with the chickens and the cat. There are so many lives I want to live, so many people inside of me, so many things I love, so many ways of being, and they just don't all fit at once. Sometimes it just ties my head in knots.
Anyway. Eventually I made some dinner, simple food that I make when I am alone: eggs with garlic and greens. I love some very simple things, like the good knife for chopping, and the way beet greens braise, and the taste of herb salt, and the nice blue skillet I fry everything in. Eventually I will do the dishes. But for now, I am typing, putting up blog entries, reporting back to the world, allowing the world to witness me. I have a profound urge to be witnessed. Not in an ego-inflating way, just in a wanting someone to know I'm alive way. I did not get witnessed as a kid or a teenager. My dad was in the basement watching TV, and my mom was passed out drunk. Friends did not come over. No one knew anything about me. And then I got sent to boarding school, and no one kept track of me at all. I think that's a lot of why I became a writer. I have so much to say about the world, so many thoughts to think, and I can't bear the idea that they will all go unseen into the void, or fester in my head. So here I am writing on a Saturday night. Tomorrow morning I am planning to get up and make celebratory pancakes with buckwheat and coconut. Mmmm.
This has been a good day. many of my days alone I am not able to use this well, and my brain claws at me, and time feels wasted, and the abusive voices in my head start beating me up. But today all the space and quiet was good, and I feel more connected. Tomorrow, I will see people. celebrate my anniversary. Go ice skating on a local pond (!!). Baby-sit for the sweetest little kids. And then Monday I will deal with bills and "work" again. Returning emails, scheduling, planning, editing, being accountable, so on and so forth. Hopefully I will work on my current painting, which I am so excited about.
That is one version of my life right now, some answer to "what do you do?" Minus 1000% of the texture, the music, the colors, and the love. Being a human being is so much...
These days are rather quiet, except when they're not. When I am in New York City or I am traveling my days are packed full to the brim with people and conversations and organizing and subways and Icaristas and dashing about eating exciting food and dreaming up revolutions and watching birds fly and getting things done. But when I am home, I am not so madly busy, and my hours are not so hectically crammed.
I live in a quiet beautiful house in the country that is filled with morning light and surrounded by meadows and trees. My housemates are often in the city, and I spend a lot of time alone. Today was fairly typical. I woke up early while everyone was still sleeping and put breakfast on the stove: steel cut oats with raisins and sunflower seeds, boiling on low for half an hour. While it cooks I meditate on my little black cushion, and then make my bows and say my small prayers to whatever might exist that can guide me. Then I went upstairs to feed the chickens, eat breakfast, and hang out with the cat. After that I got dressed and went to an AA meeting. Today was my one year anniversary being sober. While I was in the UK, I stubbornly did not go to any meetings, and now that I am back I'm reconnecting with all those people who help keep me sane and share skills about how we can live in our own skins.
An incredible woman told her story today. She was locked up in a psych ward from age 16-20, and her life was a massive disaster until she got sober and started learning how to live. Today she is really peaceful and genuinely kind. Her energy is light and calm and alive. She was very inspiring. I was so glad I went.
After the meeting I went to a coffee shop and did a little reading. I read a lot of spiritual books, mostly books coming from a Buddhist perspective. I am totally fascinated by human consciousness, and how we can establish daily practices and forms of inquiry that allow us to reconnect with our basic awareness, slow down, become present, and open to liberation and compassion. At this point, I've had so much suffering and insanity in my life that I am not really interested in staying stuck in all my delusional bullshit and self-destructive habits. I really want to wake all the way up. So I study and I sit. I risk space and quiet and time.
Then I wrote in my journal for a bit, and drank tea, and ate the most gorgeous chocolate spelt pound cake to celebrate my one year anniversary. And then I started writing this piece about being an alcoholic and having to deal with it. You can find the beginnings of it here: https://site.icarusprojectarchive.org/drugs/addiction/one-year-sober-today-musing-and-abusing-old-friend-alcohol.
After that I went to yoga class. A very intense yoga class. I am totally astonished by my body these days. I am blown away by what is possible with persistent effort, by what happens if we continue to show up. I learned this amazing sequence of poses today, from arm pressure pose to flying grasshopper to crow pose -- and I can actually do this now! me, who was always the sick weak kid who got picked last at sports and had too much asthma to walk up a hill. it is quite amazing.
Then I went home, and everyone had left for the city, and the house was quiet. I returned some phone calls, ate some lunch, and took a nap. Eventually I woke up and, after feeling panicky and bored for a while, convinced myself to focus enough to keep working on the piece about being an alcoholic. Writing is hard. I don't get any writing done unless I a) allow myself to be alone and b)sometimes allow myself to get bored and agitated and c) become willing to focus. This is hard. We live in a culture that encourages us to be terrified of space. But if I don't give myself space I just do not end up creating, and if I don't create I get sick. I have to create. It's part of me. It's all connected to my heart and my spirit and my sexuality, all these circuits of energy, awareness, and generosity. If I suppress them it is bad. But to honor them is sometimes hard. Very hard.
Anyway. I did some writing. It's hard to write about hitting your bottom and things getting very black. But then I think that it is good to see the truth. I mean, the clear and centered part of me knows that it is good to see the truth, but then all the terrified traumatized selves inside of me are horrified about the idea of seeing the truth. Hence all the drinking and running away...
But there it is. I wrote for a while, and then it was too much to look at, so I ate a grapefruit and looked up recipes and eventually started reading the San Francisco Zen Center's e-newsletter, which I love, and which kind of breaks my heart, because that place feels like my spiritual home -- it is where I started meditating, and I have a deep love for their farm and mountain monasteries -- but it is so far away right now, and I wish I could be closer.
I get very heartbroken about all the paradoxes in my life sometimes. Part of me wants so much to go be a farmer-monk at green gulch and give myself fully to that practice. Part of me wants to have wild sex and mad adventures all over the globe. Part of me wants to move to New York City when my lease here is up, and part of me wants to go to the desert. Part of me wants to sail on ships with beautiful women and part of me wants to stay right here, with the chickens and the cat. There are so many lives I want to live, so many people inside of me, so many things I love, so many ways of being, and they just don't all fit at once. Sometimes it just ties my head in knots.
Anyway. Eventually I made some dinner, simple food that I make when I am alone: eggs with garlic and greens. I love some very simple things, like the good knife for chopping, and the way beet greens braise, and the taste of herb salt, and the nice blue skillet I fry everything in. Eventually I will do the dishes. But for now, I am typing, putting up blog entries, reporting back to the world, allowing the world to witness me. I have a profound urge to be witnessed. Not in an ego-inflating way, just in a wanting someone to know I'm alive way. I did not get witnessed as a kid or a teenager. My dad was in the basement watching TV, and my mom was passed out drunk. Friends did not come over. No one knew anything about me. And then I got sent to boarding school, and no one kept track of me at all. I think that's a lot of why I became a writer. I have so much to say about the world, so many thoughts to think, and I can't bear the idea that they will all go unseen into the void, or fester in my head. So here I am writing on a Saturday night. Tomorrow morning I am planning to get up and make celebratory pancakes with buckwheat and coconut. Mmmm.
This has been a good day. many of my days alone I am not able to use this well, and my brain claws at me, and time feels wasted, and the abusive voices in my head start beating me up. But today all the space and quiet was good, and I feel more connected. Tomorrow, I will see people. celebrate my anniversary. Go ice skating on a local pond (!!). Baby-sit for the sweetest little kids. And then Monday I will deal with bills and "work" again. Returning emails, scheduling, planning, editing, being accountable, so on and so forth. Hopefully I will work on my current painting, which I am so excited about.
That is one version of my life right now, some answer to "what do you do?" Minus 1000% of the texture, the music, the colors, and the love. Being a human being is so much...
