Wandering Alone in the Woods

I had the odd experience not too long ago of watching myself walk into a room. The off-centered feel of it reminded me a little of an exhibit that's up at our local museum. At this exhibit, you walk up stairs and there, on one landing to either side of you, is what looks like a random collection of tall wooden slats standing propped in cement holders and painted with colors and vague tree-ish shapes. You could walk right through it and continue up the stairs. You could wander through the slats looking at them more closely. Or maybe something could catch your eye, a movement a flicker of something up to the left there. When you look to see what's caught your attention, you see yourself wandering through a forest. Through a clever placement of cameras, the artist has created the illusion that you are off having an adventure you don't know anything about in some forest primeval. It takes you by surprise, when you see it, if you see it.

That feeling of stepping through the looking glass is very much how I felt at this cocktail party, chatting and laughing with family and strangers, looking up to see 2 young women walking towards us, and one of them was me. Only of course she wasn't; she was (and is) a close relative, more than 20 years younger than me and taller when I looked more closely. I hadn't seen her for years, and the last time she was still a child. We could all see the obvious similarities back then (red curly hair is hard to miss) but she was too much younger for us to see that she was actually going to become me.

My first feeling was envy, a strong stab of it, looking at this beautiful vibrant young woman striding confidently towards us, smiling. Almost as though she was me, but the improved version, what I wish I could have been then. Self-pity was bitter in my throat; why couldn't I have been strong and confident and happy when I was 18?

Over the course of the next several days my feelings went through a transformation. First, I realized that in many ways I was strong and confident and happy then; it's just that I was also a lot of other things, too: scared, insecure, exhausted, a perfectionist and therefore hard on myself, uncertain what the future might hold. And I was really really good at hiding all of those things from the people around me and projecting only strength and confidence. Maybe, I thought in a flash of insight, maybe she isn't as strong and confident as she looks either. Maybe she doesn't know how beautiful she is. And that might mean I was beautiful then, too, and just didn't know it.

I worked hard then at letting her know what a shining star she is. I can't send a message in a bottle back to myself in time, but I thought at least I can give her something to carry with her into her future. Probably what it means to her now is that she has some kooky relatives. But that doesn't really matter.

What matters is something I discovered in my thirties returning to ballet after many years away. I loved the dance as a child and it was home to me, until I began looking in the mirror and seeing something that only existed in comparison with something else. It became not the joy of barriers melted away, but a slamming up against lots of walls built up out of nowhere, an isolation, so I left it. When I went back, I found the joy of it again, the connection, and realized that I had built my own walls. Instead of looking in the mirror and at the women around me and seeing myself reflected, and the strength and beauty of all of us together, I saw only what I was up against. Any strength and beauty I saw automatically became not mine, separate from me, only desired. But I wasn't seeing truth.

And when I first looked at my young relative, the irony is that I saw myself, but a self that was not mine, a self that I didn't believe in, a self I couldn't live up to, a self that I wanted to have for my own and I had to protect myself against it. When I was able to soften and let that self back in, I could give her an offer of love and acceptance for who she is. Somehow I think that the message in a bottle may have made it back there after all. Maybe now it will get a little easier to glance up at a stranger, and see myself looking back, not a trick of a camera or of genetics, but truth.

copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles

Crossing the Line

Have you felt that line before? That line where nothing has changed, the exact same things are going on, but suddenly everything is different because it matters to you?

Backing up...I didn't intend to write this today. I have a whole long list of things to do and writing in my blog isn't on it. But I've been thinking so hard on this I just have to spit it out of my brain and onto paper, a piece of half-chewed gum, to get it out of my way for something else. Because I felt that line last week and now it's tripping me up. Something I thought I could step over, designating the difference between point a and point b somehow got bigger and bulkier and three-dimensional on me, not, apparently, a line at all.

You've felt it too, haven't you? There you are with someone or a group of someones, or maybe just by yourself, and you're doing something, or maybe you're not, and if you had a little soundtrack in your brain it would go something like this, "This is nice, I like this, I'm happy, this feels good." Then it's like something sits up and listens in, ears perked, "Ohhhh, you know what? I DO like this! This IS nice! Wow, I AM happy! And oh gosh this DOES feel really good. REALLY good..." And does that something then snuggle in all content and pleased with life? No it does not. It panics. "I want this to continue. What if it stops? What if it doesn't stop? What does this mean, that I like this? Is this okay that I feel like this? Hey, who gets to decide that anyway? Why wouldn't it be okay? But what does it mean? And what if it never happens again? It has to happen again. But what if I get hurt? And what if I get what I want? And what do I want? What does it mean that I want something I didn't know I wanted? What will this change? I don't want change."

This has been my soundtrack all weekend. I'm a little tired. The inner witness has been chiming in periodically as well, "Isn't that interesting that now that you care, now that it matters, you've become attached to outcome? I wonder if there would be a way to care deeply, to have it matter terribly, and still release attachment? Can you desire this and be clear about your desire, and truly feel just fine no matter how things turn out?" All of this internal conversation reminded me of a book I had read a couple of years ago called Open to Desire: Embracing a Lust for Life by Mark Epstein. He says in the beginning of chapter 3, "...desire forces us into a place where our usual modes of relating are upended, where success can only be found when...we risk making fools of ourselves. This seems to be one of desire's primary functions: to keep us off balance, in between, on the verge, or just out of reach." I want I want I want seems to go hand in hand with I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared.

It would be nice don't you think to let go of them both? Desire and fear right out the window; then we can all just be placid and satisfied. Unfortunately, it seems that I want I want I want and I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared also have a couple of important friends: I love I love I love and I live I live I live.

So I guess I'm just going to sit here on this line between point a and point b, off balance, in between, on the verge, and rest here a little. Because I DO love and I DO live and I DO want. And I AM scared. From Mark Epstein-"Touching desire, meeting and gratifying another's desire, lets us know God." God and me, we're just going to sit here a little. Get to know each other.

copyright 2008 J. Autumn Needles