Tuesday

I haven't written much lately but I sure have been thinking a lot.

My current personal challenge is dealng with irritation, mainly my elephant neighbors. I think what annoys me most, other than the noise, is their attitude about it.

They said the landlord threatened eviction, and I think that's not right either. So now I don't know what to do to get them to stop stomping.

Also, I cut my hair and the hardresser got scissor-happy and cut off literally twice as much as I asked her to. She lopped off 8 inches instead of four. So I miss my hair and am still in shock but it doesn't look bad. I'll have it back by summer. She did a very nice job with my highlights though.

So the irritation thing...it's something I really struggle with. And the city makes it worse. I crave silence like a drug. I crave open space. Nature wthout the street a few feet away. The smell of grass. Dew. Looking at the horizon as it fades into the distance with no buildings in sight.

Being irritated makes me feel distant from the bliss of god. I haven't been specifically meditating lately except in my normal thoughts. I believe the reason for this is becasue I was on spiritual overload with so much comng at me in such a short time and I'm just taking a needed break. Or I'm lazy and feel mildly depressed. Or its everything.

And the thumping of the neighbors disturbs my meditation. They are awake very early 4, 5am...I feel a loss of quiet morning solitude. It's affecting me. I feel like I've lost somethng important.

Oh, but I passed my test from the other week!!!

Holy Shit

Re: Dear God post I just made 5 seconds ago...


THANK YOU

!!!

Dear God

Dear God,

I understand and accept that there are some things I am very good at, and some things I am very bad at. That's just fine with me.

I also understand that sometimes in life I will be called to do things that I am very bad at. But...please, why does it have to be algebra? Please help me understand why I still get the answer wrong when I plug all the right numbers in the right places in the right formula...pretty please help me out on ths one.

Because I have a lot of formulas in my near future.

So I need a lot of help. Quickly. The test is on Thursday.

Love and kisses,

J

Solar Plexus

I'm waxing verbose today!

Guess everything is ready to come out.

That uncomfy feeling? It's my solar plexus acting up again. It's nowhere near as bad as it was at this time last year though.

Let me explain. When everything happened and I moved out, something happened to my solar plexus. I don't know if I sustained some sort of metaphysical injury or it was just a manifestation of what I was going through, the fear and insecurity, but I had some really bad pain and discomfort for a long time. I'm not talking at all about physical injury- my chakra was somehow hurt or damaged in the front. And that hurts just as much as physical pain. It took a long time to heal- 7, 8 months.

So my solar plexus hurts now, again. Which explains why it's taking a while to go away.

*******
There's some scary stuff that happened that I never talked about to anyone...it's not the kind of stuff I can really discuss with people. Because its weird-scary stuff.

Things started happening around my apartment when the X started going crazy and being generally evil. I know that he was bringing stuff home, so to speak. Some of it on purpose. Looking back, I should have gotten SO MAD about that, most especially since I was pregnant. Except getting SO MAD would have been dangerous though, and I knew it, which accounts for my exaggerated passivity.

***
My bedroom in 204 had its own bathroom. The mirror over the sink faced out into the bedroom. As a rule, even way before I met the X, I never slept in a room with uncovered mirrors. They are doorways. I knew that. What I never had direct experience with was things coming through them. Something very malicious started coming through that mirror. I was awake and aware of it when it first happened. I felt it. I told the X and he said he'd take care of it. And he sort-of did, except his patch-up solutions never held up for very long. I saw his patch job on the dreamscape. It had hands and patrolling the barrier. But the patch job never held up long, and when things came broke out, they always did right at the 3am hour. I would have those waking dreams about it. The X had a katana that never shut up. Ironically enough, it helped me on more than one occasion. I don't know if any mystical kanji teaching still exists, but kanji can be used very effectively in energy work, much like runes. In lucid dreams, the sword showed me sequences to block the mirror-doorway. It wanted a kanji to seal but I don't have a kanji database in my mind. Eventually I broke the mirror with the sword in the lucid dream state, and things got much better after that.

Then, whatever was trying to get through hit the other mirror in the other bathroom. That was never as much of a problem, though.

**
My cat does not spook easily. One evening I came home from work and found her absolutely stark terrified. Her water dish was always kept in the bathroom in the bedroom, and it was knocked over, very far from its original location. The cat wouldn't go near the bedroom for hours. And she had to be coaxed back in gradually. I still never know what terrified her so.

**
Daya was born on a Wednesday. The Saturday before she was born I was home alone (as usual) . I had been home all day and in the evening went to the kitchen to make dinner. My kitchen sink was filled with bloody water. I was in shock;   Then, with no action from me whatsoever, it drained away.

Fears

I don't know quite why I feel so unsettled inside. It's going away slowly. Very unpleasant. I know it's not premonition and I know everything is ok. I think, pure and simply, its just work-related fear and insecurity. Just part of being human. Part of being a woman in a man's world. Part of being a single mom.

After graduating art school I ended up on Wall Street. Weirdly enough, I ended up doing what I went to school for. And I like that just fine. One of my most personal major milestones was passing my Series 7- with an 82%. (That's the stockbroker's license test.) That, to me, was an accomplishment that told me I can do anything I put my mind to. Because I am not oriented towards the financial markets. And anything beyond basic math scares me. I understand the basic stuff, but afterwards I struggle. I can do it, and I taught it for a few years in the classroom, but it's not my forte. And, I have been away from working directly with the markets for a while, and now I'm back to working more closely with them, as my role is a trainer to our clients, who are financial markets professionals.

Later next week I am taking the first in a series of internal certification tests. I know I'll do fine, but I feel...inadequate. This stuff doesn't come easy to me. Give me oils and pigment load, liners and filberts, turps, color contrasts, glazes, conceptual composition, and I'm in heaven. Algebra? No. And yet, I know there's a connection somewhere. I just might not be very interested in it.

One of my gifts is that I can take two completely unrelated things and draw the simlarities and correlations betwen them. Apparently from the test I took that told me this in the analysis, this is not a common way of thinking. So I need to use this gift to find a way to make the thinking part of this financial markets stuff relevant to me. Cats, I feel like I'm back in high school Algebra!

My spirituality is extremely yin. I crave feminine flow. My personality has a yang imbalance- too much yang. And for whatever reason, and I know for a fact that it wasn't arbitrary, I am here wth the financial markets instead of working for someone like Pixar or in a creative capacity. Perhaps it is preserving my creativity, otherwise I might be tapped out. For sure it would be re-directed and perhaps thinned out. I don't know.

Sound makes geometric dimensional patterns. Fractals. I think perhaps those patterns are different sound waves woven together in some spatial place, but I don't know. I just know that I see them. Sometimes they are planar wth patterns, sometimes in color and sometimes in black and white. I see them often, especially if I am very relaxed and a loud sudden noise happens. And I sometimes see them with music. They are very beautiful. They move and are dynamic. I am absolutely fascinated by them.

I've really diverged from the original intent of this post. So yes, I think I'm just at a low point in my internal cycle, just feeling a bit weak or delicate inside.

What I need to do, and I will as soon as Daya goes back into her own room (have been painting the room, more on that later), is take up my morning meditations again. I feel unfocused and distant. Ready to continue agin. I need it, and I can hear that inner voice of guidance gently helping me. Because of that inner voice, I have started taking daily vitamins and flax seed oil, and I do truly feel so much better physically lately. Now I need my regular spiritual diet and I think that will help this unsettled feeling.

But really, it's ok to be scared as a human sometimes. This world is a scary place. We are delicate creatures, up against constant onslaughts of fear and insecurity. We can die at any time. Or be incapacitated. The most important thing is to remember that we are always taken care of. And I truly believe that the more you actively involve Spirit in your life, the more that energy is able to come to you and help direct your life accordingly. It's a relationship, just like any other. You get from it what you put into it.

Perceptions and Realities

I've been absorbing some stuff for the past few days. I'm still feeling slightly unsteady inside but I know it will pass.

Back on New Year's I mentioned how my intention is to make my inner peace and my external self congruent. I guess that learning process has started. This may prove to be an interesting road.

A few days ago we had performance reviews at work. In this company, part of the review process entails peer review. The bottom line is that you get reviewed on your work, but also on everyone's perception of you. I am used to being a high performer and I did get a very good review. But the truth is that I do not do corporate politics. And unfortunately they're necessary to advance. I do have a direct nature, and I am quiet but usually very friendly. Most of the feedback I got was extremely positive, but some of the negative stuff I found to be very suprising as it's actually quite far off the truth. But I do understand why the perceptions are as they are, and part of that has been my job role and that I haven't had the opportunity to be visible in certain areas. My manager basically summed up my review as being 80% to the next level except for the social schmooze factor.

And the truth is that I am also in a new environment where people don't really know me. I've come through a hell of a lot of change in the past year, and I do think I've done a damn good job of it all. I do not want or expect my co-workers to see or even know about all of it. The truth is that none of them could ever know or understand exactly what I have been through this year. As with everything else, in order to balance everything this year I just do my best. I am carrying a lot of weight. I have been through massive adjustments. Only I can see exactly how well I have handled all of the stress.

The truth is that the social schmooze thing has never been a strong point for me. I am the kind of person who has a few really good friends. I am not a large-scale social person. I hate large parties. Throughout my life I have always been different from everyone around me. And that is something that I am ok with, in fact, glad of. But it does come with a price of being misunderstood. If I am calm, people think I am sad and moody. If I am lively, people think I'm stressed out and high-strung. Also, I am an artist working with financial markets people. There's a big gap right there. My spiritual perspective, I know for a fact, also stands me apart. They don't (and shouldn't) see it, but I do. And I don't know how to say that wthout it having perhaps negative connotations, but it's just true, not a judgement. That doesn't make me or them any better or worse, just different.

Intelligence and personality tests rank me in a very small percentage of the population as well.

The point of all this is that I need to learn how to better understand/be aware of/manage perceptions. Not that those perceptions are bad, but there are certain things I would like to, I guess for lack of a better word, emanate. I also have to wonder how those perceptions would be different if I was a man, because I do have a lot of outwardly male personality traits. And often others don't like to see that in a woman. So what would be perceved as ok for a man is not as ok for a woman.

As an example of something I would like to emanate, I would like to be seen as someone who is kind. Which I generally am. My shadow to that is irritation.

When I was with the X there seemed to be a lot of pressure to be a "correct" spiritual way. For example, being a "peoples' person". Which I'm not, though sometimes I would like to be. It's an interesting paradox, that I'm not really a people person, though I do have a deeply compassionate heart and I enjoy helping people. So I'm learning that my nature doesn't need to be changed in order to be aligned with god. But my ultimate goal is to be a being that emanates pure love to everyone.

The other thing that I know to be true is that we all see ourselves in each other. So, I cannot expect people to see me (or anyone else for that matter) clearly because they are looking through a lense clouded by their own stored pain, issues, self image, insecurities, etc. We can only see ourselves and others to the level of our own understanding. That's just how it is.

What really turns me off though, is petty meanness. People lie all the time. They are false. About things they don't need to lie about, even. My sister and I were talking about this very thing, because one of my perhaps weak points or naivety is that I don't notice it because I am not like that. She is not either, so she understands. I very, very rarely-to-never tell a lie. I prefer dealing with honesty and in honesty. That is something I take seriously to my core. And I don't think it of other people either. And yet, it's all around me. Human meanness and dishonesty is something I really, really dislike. It makes me want to leave humanty and become a monk.

So anyhow, this post has been swimming around in me for a few days now. My heart still feels a little funny, totally unnecessarily I know, but I know this is all learning experience. I sincerely hope and pray for the wisdom of clarity and understanding.

Mental Diets

One of the things having a child did to me was to increase exponentially my sensitivity to hurtful things happening to other people. While I was never insensitive, I was a lot more buffered before.

I sometimes think that I just don't have the heart for this world, for the violence and cruelty. Kindness is such a fundamental thing. We (hopefully) teach our children to share, be nice to people, do unto others, etc. And somehow, we live in an environment that contradicts all these things. Seriously, the nightly news content would be R rated in a movie!

Probably a lot of people will tell me to chill out on a lot of things, and perhaps they're right. But mainstream television, sitcoms...there is so much focus on mean come-backs, sexual references, violence, and shallowness.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- there is nothing funny or entertaining or amusing about people getting hurt. This is nothing new; it's been a part of humanity since we've been around. But I do not want my daughter growing up numbed out to the way people treat each other. I don't want her to say "Mom, it's just a game!" or "Mom, it's not real!" Because that doesn't matter- the concept and images are part of the overall mental diet. And you are what you eat.

The Buddhist concept of Right Association is something that I take very seriously. And I know as a parent that I'll have to find a happy medium, becasue I also cannot and will not raise my daughter in a vacuum. That's just as unhealthy as total exposure. She will need to be able to discern healthy from unhealthy for herself one day.

Many people have commented to me about my raising Daya vegetarian. Some say I'm depriving her. Some say "What if she wants to eat meat when she's older?" If she does, it's her business. Her choice. But while she's under my care, I have made a decision. As she gets older I'll explain to her the basis. If she goes on meat when she's a teenager, she'll just have to cook it herself. End of story.

I do feel children should be educated about the different types of dietary intake- food, sound, and visual. They all affect us. It's just as important to keep the mind healthy as the body. And often, especially in today's world, it's harder to raise kids on a healthy mind-diet with all the mainstream popular stuff. I'm still shocked over what's popular in music...and MTV is soft porn. Holy Cats, I feel so old!

Sometimes this particular area of parenthood scares the crap out of me.

Shout, Ludmilla!

I have somehow managed to misplace (read: lose) my spray bottle of Shout. As anyone with a toddler knows, effective stain removal is an absolute necessity.

It's been days now, and I'm beyond clueless to know where the damn thing went. I looked everywhere (ok, everywhere except where it is, obviously), and there is just no explanation for the disappearance.

This is really annoying. It's annoying simply because I can't find it, not because of the white shirt with chocolate blob on it needing treatment. Unfortunately I tend to get fixated and obsessive/compulsive about finding lost items, so I've been really stewing over this for the past few days.

When I was a kid and things would disappear and I denied involvement (often in truth!), my mother would meanly and sarcastically yell at me that it must have been "the ghost".

Until one day I said the ghost's name was Ludmilla.

She never mentioned the "ghost" again.

Read Me

I'm something of a book fiend.

As a child and into my adult years I was a compulsive reader. A fiction junkie. I read during class, after school, after bedtime, you get the idea. My mother used to punish me by taking away the book I was currently reading. I would always find where she hid it, and finish reading it before she eventually returned it to me.

The past few years I have been reading less. I didn't read much at all when I was married. Now, other than a few books here and there, I read more blogs than anything else, and I miss reading. Miss that addictive compulsion of having to read the damn book until the end, even if it means staying up until 3am. My mind doesn't seem to want to focus as much, or, perhaps I just need a decent novel. The Girlfriend's Guide to Toddlers, while interesting, doesn't hold the same allure. Maybe that's because it's too much like real life.

Good fiction has always been a staple of my mental diet. Which isn't suprising, because I'm a dreamer by nature. I love love love a good story with well-developed characters, interesting personalities and conflicts. Intelligent writing. I've just found reading a little harder to get into lately. Also problematic is that I somehow insist on owning books that I like, and I have way too many as it is. The solution to the book over-population may not be to stop reading though.

My friend gave me a War of the Roses romance novel she loved. I started reading it last night. I do not think I've read a romance novel since those Harlequin novels my friend Marcie and I read in 8th grade. It's ok, I like the historical setting. But the beginning annoyed me and I wanted to yell at a few people for being so ridiculously stupid. Romance novels are too fluffy-dramatic for my taste, but I'll probably finish it because the historical detail is interesting. At the very least I know that I still find romances a bit drippy and shallow.

I want my compulsive reading bug back.

2007

2006

I am glad this is the last day of 2006. What a year it's been. Such a journey of discovery. One of those things that you know is necessary to go through but you can't help looking forward to being at the end.

Usually I don't make a big deal out of New Year's. This year it seems significant in some way. Perhaps it's because I am so optimistic about 2007, in other ways the end of this year is laying to rest my transition.

Circumstances bringing me and Daya into the New Year are good. My tiny tiny studio apartment feels so far away- this new apartment is wonderful. Financially I am moving into the new year with a little extra, and my financial planning for next year will have me and Daya in a good place. My goal is to completely eliminate the marriage-debt next year, and with the way things are going that is within my ability to do.

2007 will bring me finalized divorce papers. I wish that had happened this year but it shouldn't be long now.

******
In September of 2005 I had a dream that I was in a race at night, on horseback. A man lay by the side of the road, dying, and a woman was trying to save him. I stopped to help them and I healed the man. Stopping meant that I would not place first in the race. I finished anyhow, and a voice told me that I had won after all- not because I came in first, but because I had stopped to help the dying man. Then I was racing quickly and smoothly towards my destination, a dark tunnel towards the water and a boat. I could not see them but I knew they were there. Tiny pinpricks of light guided me at every step. There was light at the end, and bliss.

That dream gave me comfort and a solid peace when I had it. Though I was told by the Ex it meant my death in childbirth, I knew differently. I feel that I am somehow going towards that place of bliss, and I look forward to the next leg in my Journey.

*******

If I had New Year's resolutions, mine would be to make my inner peace and my outer behaviour congruent. I would like to learn how to go above everyday irritations. Often I find myself misunderstood, and I would like to come to terms with that and understand why. I wish for a solid peace to surround me.

How different would I be of I was out of this urban environment? That, too, will come in time.

True freedom begins in the infinity of the mind.

Tigers and Teeth

Daya update email

Mar 5, 2006

Hi everyone!

I am 3 1/2 months old.  Because I am so big, people
always think that I am about 6 months old.  They are
always so suprised to hear that I'm still mostly
brand-new.

People like me because I am very cute and I have lots
of hair.  So they do nice things for me.  A few nights
ago my mom and I were on our way home.  We were
waiting for the bus, and it was very, very cold
outside.  An off-duty bus driver picked us up!  We
didn't stop until all the way to when we got home.
That bus driver is a very nice man.

My mom gave me her Tiger.  He lives in my crib.  She
says he's very special because she had him since she
was three years old.  (I am not sure what three years
old is)  But I like him a lot.  I like his stripes.
Every night he helps me fall asleep.  We have a nice
long chat with each other, then he snuggles with me.
I put pictures in to show you.

My mouth is doing funny things.  I'm starting to itch
or something.  My mom says it's because I am just
starting to teethe.  I'm not sure what teeth are but
they don't sound good.  I hope it stops soon.

I think my cat wants to be friends.  One time she
sniffed my hand before she ran away really fast.  That
must be a definite sign of friendship.  I am convinced
we are building the foundation of a lasting
relationship.

Enjoy the pictures!

Love,
Daya (and Jessica)

3 Month Update

Archiving old emails from when Daya was a baby into my blog.

**********
Feb 2006

Hi everyone,

I turned 3 months old last week.  In celebration, I got:
1 (one) shot from the doctor and
2 (two) ears pierced!

I barely cried at all.

I am HUGE. I already weigh 15.4lbs, and I am 25 1/2
inches long.  The doctor said I am in the 98th
percentile for size and growth.  In the last month, I
gained 4 lbs!!

Mom says that because I am 3 months old it's time
for me to try and sleep through the night.  I don't
think this is a very good idea.  Mom keeps saying
something about how I'm old enough now to learn and it would
be really great because she has not had an
uninterrupted night's sleep for 7 months.  Unfortunately the
doctor is on her side. I think I need a new doctor.

I have 2 hands!  They're really cool.  Mom keeps
saying someting about I have feet too, but I don't
know what the heck she's talking about.

I want to talk sooo badly, and I'll have a good
conversation with anyone who will listen.  And talk
back.  The cat won't talk back to me though, she
just runs away.

Yesterday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It was my very first museum trip ever.  People
looked at me instead of the paintings, and lots of people
kept saying they loved my leopard print socks. 

When I was at the museum we went to the gift store
and I picked out some fun presents for my friends Yumiko
and Miu who live in Japan.  I think it's cool that I
already have friends all over the world.

My mom says she'll teach me to paint, too, when I
get just a little bit bigger.  I think I will paint
better than those museum paintings.

Mom keeps trying to get a picture with me and the
cat,but the cat doesn't like me very much (yet).  She
won't sit anywhere near me, so I took pictures with
my horse instead.  (Thanx Christine for my horse!)

Thanks to **everyone** who has given me such nice
things.  You are all so wonderful and thoughtful.

Check out the attached Word document for the latest
pictures of me!  There are 4 pages.  Don't forget to
look at my leopard socks!

Love,
Daya (and Jessica)

A Cool Thing

My desk here at work is right by the window, directly facing the pole the New Year's ball drops from in Times Square.

The ball hasn't been put up yet, but as of this morning there are a few workers up there doing the electrical wiring.

About Nothing

I've been waiting out the rest of 2006. It's been a full year, and I am ready to move on to my future. I feel very optimistic about 2007.

A co-worker and I were talking today about how people are judged by physical appearance in the workplace. Women, specifically. She said it's just life, that's just how it is, what are you going to do. And I said what I am going to do is not be like that.

Really, it's things like that which make me so disgusted at humans. The superficiality of peoples' opinions. I go back and forth on humanity in general---I hate that poeple are so mean. Maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm just stupid, but when I encounter stuff like this I'm glad that I'm such a recluse.

Terrible Photos

Daya refused to take decent holiday pictures. I got one picture, from over 40 bad shots and two photo sessions.

Here is how she felt about having the picture taken:





And the one sort-of decent picture!

The Stupidest Question Ever

I used to firmly believe there is no such thing as a stupid question.

Today, this was proved wrong.

Co-worker: How did you make that screenshot?
Me: YOU made it.
Co-worker: I made it?
Me: YES, these are your files, YOU made them- don't you know your own work?

********
This week I have been angry a lot. At the above-mentioned co-worker. Really pissed off, actually. I do not enjoy being angry, though it's just part of experiencing life. So while being angry I try to observe it as much as possible. I find it unpleasant. It makes me feel distant from god. I don't like how I am when I'm angry like I've been. I'm very bitchy.

Goodbye, Lump!

I have a lump.

It's right near my left hip, and I first noticed it when I was 12...? 14...? I can't even remember, but I've lived with the lump for over 15 years. I've never been concerned about it and I'm still not. It's taken 15 years to get to a size of 3cm.

But today, the demise of the lump is at hand.

I do not think I will miss it very much.

********
Update: The Lump is gone. (yay) Turns out it was a cyst the size of a golfball. (ew) It sure didn't seem that big! Surgeon lady was super-fabulous.

I am still skeeved out.

I do not miss the Lump.

Tackiest Presents Ever

Its holiday time, retail mayhem, tree holocausts, the crowds of buying stuff and stuff and more stuff and more stuff after that, and I hate it.

That's why I try and steer clear as much as possible.

But enough about my anti-holiday spirit...let's talk about gift giving!
Here is a list of the worst presents I've ever gotten. I'm very sorry to say that they all came from the same person.

*For my high school graduation I received an oven mitt, pot holder, and dish towel that said "Mi casa es su casa". Because I studied Spanish.

*For my college graduation I received (with a Wal-Mart sticker) a matted print tryptich of Anne Geddes baby photos wearing cactus hats. Because I like cacti.

The other thing that peeves me off about gift giving is the mindset that anything given MUST be attached to an occasion to justify it.

Giving should come from the heart, not obligation to an occasion.

And that's why I don't have a holiday list.

Today's Wisdom

It always amazes me how the universe communicates in such small, subtle ways that really speak to the core of our beings. This weekend I've again been struggling. Once again I've received my encouragement.

Perhaps most people would think me crazy, stupid, flaky, whatever. But I don't care. I am a dreamer. I have a vast inner life and I feel the force of the goddess in my heart. I believe in faith and flow, and the power of intentions and thoughts. When I feel a bit lonely and strange to the world around me, all I have to do is think of how I do NOT want to be- so many of the traits I see around me constantly.

As a side note, personality tests and intelligence/thinking tests I've taken rank me in a very small percentage of the population. I also have a rare blood type.

Anyhow, here's today's wisdom, which was exactly what I needed to hear, and what appeared as a single sheet of paper in a box of kitchen things I was unpacking.

"...one needs to become a professional waiter. Amateur waiters wait inside their emotions, they fret and worry and pine, and they focus on what they don't have, rather than on what they do have. The professional waiter is more Zen, he or she waits inside their eternity. They sit and wait because it is in their nature to do so, nothing much moves them. They are detached from the tumbling mental scenarios usually associated with waiting.

Professional waiting usually deals with tangible things: planes, boats and train, waiting for stuff to arrive. But beyond that there is the intangible, the unseen things we wait for. I term that 'deep waiting'. It doesn't involve logic; it is a form of waiting that asks you to hold an idea sacrosanct in your feelings knowing it will come to pass, when there is no logic of any kind to support the idea. It's a kind of spiritual waiting, a deep sense of trust in God."

-Stuart Wilde

Differing Views

As of yesterday, it has been one year since I moved out. And I forgot, which is a great thing.

Daya loves her pacifiers. She doesn't have a favorite, she just loves them all.

I do NOT love them and am just biding my time until they all disappear for good.

No More Baby

Over the past few weeks, a slow and sinking realization has been settling in: I don't have a baby anymore.

I have a toddler.

Oh. My. God.

I am very, very scared.

Does this mean I actually (really and truly) have to stick to a routine more involved than waking up at the same time and going to sleep at more or less the same time? And change my bad habits stemming from the laziness acquired from living alone?

Oh Shit.

The Snoring Cat

I was having a lovely dream in the early hours of the morning when, suddenly, in my dream I heard a strange high-pitched....sound. I thought, "What is that noise?", then promptly woke up to the cat snoring in my ear.

!Tengo Vergüenza!

Today started a new day with the new babysitter. I was to bring Daya there at 8am. An extra hour in the morning for me, no more busses or crazy travel. I set my alarm for 1 hour ahead. Everything went according to plan. I dropped Daya off down the hall, and stopped home to get my laptop. Clock said 8:15. Great.

On the train, I looked out the window at one of the station clocks to check my time. Why did it say 7:36? I seriously thought that the subway people forgot to change the clocks a few weeks ago. But I still had a suspicion...

...that was confirmed when I got to work at exactly 8am. I called the sitter to apologize, they said it was fine but I am so embarassed. On the first day too!!!

Since the new sitter doesn't speak a word of English, I need to remember all of my Spanish.

Here are my words of today:

desempaquetar- to unpack
vacunacion- vaccination

Thanksgiving

Last year's Thanksgiving fell on 11/24. A year minus a day. I have a lot of trouble comprehending that at this exact time last year I was still living with the ex, 2 apartments ago, on maternity leave from a different job. I really have trouble with the time thing, because not even a year has passed and it feels more like 5 years. I look back and the time is so short, but the distance is so vast.

Last Thanksgiving was my breaking point. It was one of the most intensely painful days of my life. It was also my 8 day old daughter's first Thanksgiving. Also the last time I spoke with her grandparents.

When we take a leap of faith and jump off a cliff, we grow wings. Spirits come to catch us, but we have to take the initiative to jump. Which is the scariest thing in the world. Perhaps that is why the distance between then and now is so great; I haven't been walking, I have been flying. Sometimes through rain, sometimes soaring through brilliant sun, but this entire year has been such an amazing journey.

So this Thanksgiving, like last year, I am alone again, except it is by choice. My feeling of gratitude is so great, there are no sufficient words.

Thank you, to all the unseen forces that have guided me, helped me, spoken to me, and given me the strength to make it to where I am right now.

Thank you to all of the physical hands that have helped me.

Thank you to my Teachers who never knew they were Teachers.

Thank you.

Alkaline Living

I was talking to my sister the other day about TV. She's getting to the place where she can't really watch it anymore. Which I completely understand, having been without a television myself for the past 10 years. Ditching the tv was one of the most liberating and healthy things I have ever done.

Often I feel like a complete oddball in mainstream social situations, like with co-workers. To maintain and preserve my spiritual connection and focus over the years, I have felt the need to distance from popular culture. So I just keep my mouth shut, because my framework is so different. I woudn't be able to explain my perspective even if I wanted to. Someone recently told me that finding a similar person in this city is like finding life on another planet. It's so true.

Lately I'm trying to be conscious of the thoughts I project towards others. I'm not silently nice when I'm annoyed, like on the crowded subway and that woman just cannot move her sharp cornered bag in front of her so it doesnt impale the poor soul next to her.

But I'm working on just loving people actively and silently. There is so much nastiness going around and it makes me sad. I really don't want to be a part of it.

I grew up on a steady diet of nasty sarcasm. Both my sister and my mother have very mean, nasty sarcastic streaks. Nasty sarcasm is on my hate list, actually. Yesterday my sister threw some of that nastiness my way in an email, so I just stopped emailing back. I'll get over it and I didn't speak to her about it because I just don't see the point. It's just her own shit she's throwing at me, and I don't want it. But even after all these years, it still stings.

Last Day on the Q10

Today is our last day going to see Neashaw. I cried when I told her Daya and I were moving, and Neashaw cried last night. Switching babysitters won't be easy, Daya is literally a part of Neashaw's family. This whole thing is Neashaw's fault anyhow because she was burning that money incense. And it's a good circumstance for everyone, the good-byes are just hard.

I will NOT miss the Q10 bus though. But I've spoken to a lot of really nice strangers on the bus over this past year, and people know who I am, they recognize me from my daily routine. They like Daya.

First Birthday

Exactly one year ago I was in the hospital with a needle in my spine and an oxygen mask. And huge baby that was STILL stuck underneath my right ribs.

Then, right after 1pm, exactly on her due date, Daya appeared after forcible removal by c-section.

Here she is, exactly one year later, in her mop-head impish glory.

Happy Birthday Daya!

Elephants Upstairs

I'm a little cranky today because I was awake until midnight. Listening to the elephants upstairs. I've got some serious ceiling thunder, and its getting annoying. Called the super today and he'll talk to them. I hate complaining, because I'm sure they're lovely people, but I also dont like nights (and days!) filled with constant overhead stomping. I can literally hear every single step they take. I've been bad at getting apartment work done the past few days. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, but much of that might account for my morning schedule, which is thankfully only in effect until next Wednesday. It takes me an hour to get to Neashaw's house in the morning. I have been riduculously late to work, and leaving earlier, inexplicably, isn't helping. My body aches. And I'm going to lunch tomorrow with a guy I met while getting a newspaper. I'd like to be friends but I'm not interested in anything further. I think he is. Even so it's kind of cool that someone asked me out. Whle I was looking less than presentable, no less.

U-Haul, I-Haul, All-Haul

The move kicked my ass. I was laid out cold. My body quit. I'm exhausted. I'll never move again.

U-Haul rented me a diesel truck with gasoline in it. It died in the middle of Queens Blvd. So after being awake for 20 hours doing hard physical labor, I had to sit in a dead truck for over 3 hours. It was cold. I made them tow it.

I have the best friends in the world, who helped me move my couple-thousand books.

A Chinese fortune cookie told me last night: the attainment of one goal is the starting point to the next. The guide lights on my road are steady, not so far-spaced as they were before.

I feel like I am turning a new page in my life. I am somewhere new. Where he has never been. I have finally moved away from the events of last year and this year. I have a real apartment, a place that I can make a home instead of having an emergency roof over my head.

And...I have a dishwasher!!!

Ask and ye shall receive

These are not just idle words.

In my most stressed and difficult moments, I take a moment to breathe and ask for help. And that always help appears, in a perfectly orchestrated symphony. I am always in awe when it happens, each and every time, and deeply grateful.

It is an amazing flow to be part of.

It's Don't Get Dressed Day!

No, it's NOT Naked Day (sorry), but it is the day to not give a squat what you're wearing.

See, I was up at 4am. Woke up from a dream that I was packing, and I thought I was awake. But I wasn't, which means that none of the packing that I did in my dream actually got done. So I was very bummed.

I broke my sugar-free vegan fast with a Lindt White Chocolate truffle. At around 4:10am. Oh sweet Goddess.

Then, because I really did have to come into the office today, I decided I should get dressed. Except I didnt feel like it. So I'm wearing the same (yoga) pants I wore yesterday and a little t-shirt that probably lies just outside the bounds of the dress code. And my old doc maartens. And since I didnt get dressed today, neither did Daya. She's still in her purple fleecy feet pajamas, at the sitter's house.

Some days you just have to do these things.

The Grumpy Pumpkin

Well, she really wasn't as grumpy as she looks...

Today is the last day of my vegan-sugar free month. I think I need to pick a different discipline next time. Not dietary. I can do dietary discipline standing on my head, backwards, with my eyes closed. There's no challenge in it. I have actually maintained my sugar-free status and there is white chocolate in my apartment- the good quality stuff too.

Something with sleep...now that would be hard. I'll take sleep over food any time.