Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Soup!

Feeling a bit under the weather today, but glad to be back in school nonetheless. Here is a little health-in-a-bowl. It has been proven that just looking at this picture will make you start to feel better.

Monday, February 11, 2013

want.

An intense conversation with someone tonight
 (on the phone, no less, which is harder than face-to-face for me, because it's like being partially blind- you can't touch the other person, or read their facial expressions/body language, etc).
Actually, it wasn't just intense. It was
VERY
intense. 
But here's the interesting thing: 
After over an hour and a half's-worth of emotional talk, during which we
went in circles
couldn't agree
couldn't see the other person's point of view
felt that we were looking for different things and we should give up...

He said what he had said many times before:
you are unhappy because you want. 
Stop wanting so much. 
You are killing yourself. 

And for the first time, I listened. 

I realized that there could be a kind of want, a hunger, that is simply... self-destructive. 
That you can desire and have ambition and the will to achieve and be happy, and that is good and can drive you forward, but
There is also a hunger that can destroy you from the inside out.
It can have razor teeth that gnaw on you and it can be a creature so ravenous that it is never satisfied. 
Nothing you do- and nothing anyone else does- will ever be enough and at the end of the day you will always be miserable.

I sat with that, in silence. I knew the truth of it.
Then I said how do you stop? Wanting?
and he said

You just stop. Meditate on it. 
The mind is a powerful thing. 

And I just sat there, listening, and strangely, I felt peace growing inside me because this was so much bigger than the two of us; it was... not the answer, but a start, and maybe the unravelling of some thorny issues that have been plaguing me for a long time. 

How do you differentiate between good desires, and the ones that are self-destructive? 
How do you train your mind to stop the nasty, rat-like gnawing? 
How do you stop wanting?

And damn it if I didn't walk away from one of the most difficult conversations ever feeling...
enlightened. Literally lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from my spirit. 

It's not the Answer- not by a long shot- but it's the right Question. 
And that's a step in the right direction. 

Sunday, February 3, 2013

What Superbowl?

I spent most of the day in a blissful state, which was so surprising and pleasant and also unexpected. It was a very lazy state of bliss, which is why I have no pictures to document it. I was petsitting at my brother's place, and I spent a large part of the day on his big comfy couch, along with the cat and the dog. They were my gurus of sloth, and I was their eager apprentice. At one point, my stomach full of a delicious home-cooked breakfast, lying back on the couch with my feet propped up, I chuckled from sheer delight. Later that day I saw that my sister-in-law had posted something about the wonderfully relaxing Thai massage she was getting (hence my petsitting duties), and I thought: you didn't have to go halfway around the world. You didn't even have to leave your place.
But of course that's the thing. You do have to leave. My brother and his wife's place is a sanctuary for me precisely because it isn't my place. In fact, with its right-downtown location, bland anonymous hallways,  highrise view and small square footage, I often feel as if I'm staying in a hotel when I'm there. A hotel where tumbleweeds of pet hair whisk by, but still...
I was so relaxed that I didn't even remotely freak out at the fact that I was going to meet my sweetheart's little girl this afternoon. And because I was so relaxed, of course she was too. She's five.  We had a lovely time together. I always forget how much I enjoy the company of children because I don't spend much time with them as a rule, but they can be so great. Especially once they hit 4 or 5 and are becoming little people rather than tiny tyrants with limited vocabulary skills and stability issues. (I'm NOT a huge fan of toddlers or babies, in case you hadn't guessed, although there are exceptions. I like people I can talk to and reason with, but I have always pretty much loved my friends' kids even when they were very tiny. Proof that I have good taste in friends, surely.) And so a momentous occasion happened with little fanfare or fuss, which is exactly as it should be.
Contrary to the title of this post, we did actually have the Superbowl on tv for a minute or two. For the halftime show, which I thought was an utter waste of time. Ignoramus that I am, I had assumed that a halftime show would be at least 30 minutes. Maybe an hour. Nope. And although I think Beyonce has a great voice her tunes leave me untouched. So mostly we watched Horton Hears A Who instead. (Hey, there was a 5 year-old around.She was a good excuse and I utterly loathe football anyway.)
And so a blissful day was had by all, except maybe the cat, who was slightly alarmed at there being a small child in the place.
A couple more weeks to go and I'll be having a 1-week break, which seems mighty soon after Christmas Break but I'm not complaining. They call it Reading Week, but it's basically our Spring Break. And I'll be chaffing at the bit for some kind of small adventure, and hopefully exercising a bit too. After all, there's a corset in my near future... I got on the exercise bike that's in our living room the other day and it felt really good to work up a sweat.
By the way, I don't think I've mentioned (and if I have it bears repeating) that I love school this term! It's funny how you can have such a 180-degree shift in attitude, and I think a lot of it is just that I've come through whatever depressed/overwhelmed state I was in and am feeling way more positive about everything in general these days. The giant chip on my shoulder about how nobody liked me and how out-of-place I felt just kind of...vanished, and I am getting along fine with all sorts of people in my classes.
I AM feeling pretty guilty about not working right now, though, especially since last term I managed to hold down a pretty demanding sound design job for the first month and a half of term. Plus I just miss being challenged, even though I always complain like hell when I feel overwhelmed and anxious about work. What happened was that my brother and I both have some money coming to us, courtesy of my granddad, who died last October, so I decided I didn't need to rush out and look for a joe-job this term. I know, maybe that's a lazy attitude, but my reasoning was:

  • I really wanted to enjoy this term without getting spread too thin trying to work as well
  • Weekends are pretty much the only time I can spend quality time with my sweetheart
  • My joe-job qualifications are in retail rather than restaurant work. It's harder (although not impossible) to find evening shifts in retail work than it is if you're a waitress/cook. 
  • It would be hard to find a restaurant that would take me on, since I'm nearly 40 and still have NO experience in the food industry
  • Murphy's Law states that no sooner would I land a joe-job than I would get offered a great music/theatre gig and have to juggle waaay too much stuff at once. Plus, I have to leave town in May, which makes me even less of a catch for any store that might be hiring. 
But of course I was counting on the money coming in early January (which I had been told would be the case). One month later, I'm still waiting. Ouch. It may be that Fate is telling me to grow some gumption and start creating opportunities for myself. Maybe I shouldn't be so eager to learn life lessons from my lazy feline and canine companions after all...