The reality of the AR Team: a real dream

I can measure it all in hours
2 hours in Cahuita at dinner
2 hours walking, dancing, and listening to reggae
30 some hours instant messaging
60 some hours of interrupted long distance phone calls
30 some hours of kissing
35 hours of sleeping, well I slept while you spent the night meditating and studying
10 hours of bathing
20 some hours of holding hands
2 hours of dancing to bad 80s music
12 hours of riding in cars
168 hours minus 20 hours--our total honeymoon
I can measure it all as if I were counting it on my fingers
I can measure, the life of Anne and Ruben, in a chapter that ends with no words
There is nothing more to say than, my reality of this feels much more as a dream
Teaching us beauty and helping us find a little more of who we both are
I can measure you in hours, I can measure us in telephone bills
There are no fairy book endings dear one, there is just the reality of this
We dared to dream of a life together, and reality set an alarm clock that was set much earlier than I expected
It's been 48 hours...I've already let go

Being human

Being human is fragile

Beautiful beyond expression

Dangerous for the most unexpected reasons

Joyful for the dance we take and make

Heartbreaking for the love we share and cannot humanly keep

Stressful for the burden of power we carry

Inspiring for the possibilities we have been granted

Reassuring with soul companionship

Believable when we see the sun and moon

A dream when we wake to find our body breathes

Energetically driven by the food we grow

Desired by the animal inside

Passion from the center of our every nucleolus

Being human is something to be respected

With our great power comes great responsibility

It's so easy to play in the shadows to search the light for more

But it is our bodies that protect us from the energies that shift

It is our bodies that make us human and allow our spirits a place

A place to manifest the ingenuity of something much larger

Being human is a gift of light

We have the ability to see what the power of energy can create

from the smallest seed to the largest galaxy

We are impeccably awesome and impeccably blessed

Jump

When do we learn to jump?

Is it before we run

Is it before we hide

Is it when we find joy

or is it when we are scared

When do we learn how to defy gravity?

Is it on the high dive

The graduation podium

The one-way ticket to a land far far away

How do we jump?

With eyes open or closed

With our nose plugged or unplugged

With a scream or with silence

How do we know?

With love

With pain

With intuitive wisdom

With our heart wide open

Where do we jump?

In our heart

In our homes

In foreign soil

On stage in front of 1000s

When can I jump?

Now.

Jumping is something we use as a way of expressing joy, or when we have no other choice. But, in my life jumping has meant facing fear. It has physically meant jumping off 70 ft waterfalls. 

Jumping has been a metaphor in my life that often did not involve the physical "leap of faith" but the "leap of faith" in myself. The physical examples of it are the best ways to describe the "leap of faith" --waking up one morning and deciding that I would ride my bike without anyone at the age of 4, climbing a 500 ft exposed piece of rock, doing my first back walkover on the balance beam, moving to Chicago without knowing anyone, and performing on stage in front of hundreds of people.

 

I have jumped so many times, and have fallen more times than I can remember. 

But, now there is a jump that seems higher than any of my previous ones. One that will land me in a valley unlike any place I've ever been. I keep wondering when the timing will be right. I keep wondering...I keep postponing this jump...this leap of faith.

Take my hand

I'll hold on tight

we'll walk this rope

we'll fight this fight

Together

there is no letting go

interlaced in love

enlightened through life

Take my hand

I'll do my best to empty 

the promises of yesterday

into the truth of today

There's nothing to fear

my strength is strong

if you can handle

where I'll lead you

Take my hand

let me show you

what I need you to know

what I need me to be

where I need to go

Take my hand

trust that there will be 

a road

a sign

a resting spot

a journey with hope

for you and I

wherever we go

Can we move on from here

Can we move on from here

It's isolating

cold and dirty

slippery when spoken

a hole when silenced

takes peace and 

empties it with the noise 

of a garbage disposable

grinding to bits the seed

that was to grow 

Can we move on from here

the pollution is suffocating

boiling up with tears that

won't come 

dehydrated it is this place

ground unfertile to grow

Can we move on from here

I hate it here

it's dark the sun doesn't shine

words misspoken descend

like storm clouds

detonating lightning 

wiping out connection

Please can we move on

I cannot... 

I cannot stay

not here, not with you

not now

Please let me move on

these walls

I was laying on my nasty bedroom floor tonight, eating sweet potato fries with hot sauce and a good ol' cup of chamomile tea staring at the same bedroom ceiling and walls that I've been embraced with for 4 years. Cancun blue walls and a ceiling that's hardly white that holds one light bulb. 

I laughed. The ceiling is crooked with signs of water damage and foundation shiftage. Over a hundred years old, this house has held many secrets and has been called home by many people. I thought to myself about everything that these walls have witnessed in the past 4 years, and I couldn't help but feel all those memories rush back at me pulling me into the past. 

A lot of love, a lot of pain, a lot of sickness, and a lot of late night work. And through all the memories I saw change, I saw myself become who I am right now. All the stuff in this room makes me claustrophobic next to all of the memories. I see shirts, sheet music, shoes, and stationery that I never use or haven't touched in years. Some of the stuff just takes up space and I don't even know what it is. 

I want to get rid of it all and keep only what I need. This room, this house, reflects stagnancy and the past, yet it is a place where I have found comfort, yet never felt completely at home. The moments it's felt most like home have been the moments when I lose track of the space that I'm in. Therefore making the point that home is not about material buildings. 

These walls have held me safe, but as I look around all I see is the possibility to change. To make the choice to stay or leave these walls will be change. 

I saw another set of walls tonight that were very foreign and empty of memories, but full of peace and possibility and requiring me to simplify. They offered me a new opportunity to live with my beautiful friend and her adorable little dog Nutmeg. The synchronicity of where I'm at and this opportunity couldn't be more aligned. 

Of course, I hover. I hover on this change because of the responsibility it involves. 1)Simplify by getting rid of everything large (car, furniture, etc) 2) Helping to take care of Nutmeg 3)Living with a new person.

How it aligns is that 1) I have flexibility in staying 2) It's cheaper 3) I get to have a dog 4)I get to walk to work 5) I'm going after a dramatic shift that's already happening in my life.

As I stared up at the ceiling, I realized that this felt like a road sign and that it was a blessing. I am given a chance to go a different direction. An unexpected direction, but a direction full of many possibilities. 

When it comes down to it, I don't think this decision is about the money that I will be saving. It will be much more than that. 

Contradictions

When we look around at things in nature there is this juxtaposition of rough and smooth. A rough surf  next to the smooth sand of a beach. The porcupine's thistle next to the smooth outline of a bird's feather. The color blue next to the edge of a mountain peak. 

We take these visuals as normal presentations of how things are and use them to define our world. Smooth and rough--textural differences but a reflection of natural contradiction present in ordinary life. Contradiction in the sense that the eye sees and feels two different things simultaneously, consecutively, or disproportionally. 

Yet in human speech and human thought we often find contradiction as a place of weakness in thought, intelligence, or in ethics. We judge and assimilate inaccurate opinions of contradictions supposedly apparent in our own experiences, yet, without realizing it, we are also "walking contradictions." 

Deciding to believe something one day, and then changing our minds from one moment to the next. Evolving in opinions and dissolving into the line "to err is human." But, I'd like to argue that we are not erring, rather discovering that there is never an absolute and that there is always change present. There are great things to discover in contradictions about yourself and others. 

Rules contradict, words contradict, time contradicts (it's 9 am here, it's 10 am there). 

You are allowed to contradict. The important part is the reaction to contradiction. And in many circumstances contradictions can cause upheavals and judgments passed upon others that are frightening. Hence, the evolution, the cycle of change, the unavoidable nature of life.

I contradict so often I cannot keep count. But discovery always occurs. And forgiveness is always needed--whether for myself or for others.  As I move forward, I realize that promises are not a good way to live your life, because you're up against an absolute. More often than not promises have only led me to broken promises.

So I say this all now, and tomorrow it all may change.