7 Jul, 2008
bachelor bachelorette deanna game jason jesse loser love reality tv televsion tv win winner
I’m an unabashed reality show junkie from wayyyyy back in the “Real World” days. Besides Real World, America’s Next Top Model, Top Chef, Project Runway, yes even Joe Millionaire (I read, too. I swear. Big books with big words!)
Yet, for the most part, “The Bachelor” and later “The Bachelorette” eluded me. Sure I’d watch now and again, usally at the end, some bachelors (and ettes) more than others, but only with half an eye (while blogging, usually).
But tonight, maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my lack of full-on bachelorette participation, but
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4 Jul, 2008
calm calves clear climbing colors exercise love meditation mental health peace stairs walking wash writing x365 zen
I tried meditation. A bunch of times. It helped, if for nothing else that for sitting sans computer in the quiet and kindness. But I couldn’t relax, couldn’t focus on meditating, focused on the noise I was making, the meditation I wasn’t doing, racing, racing thoughts.
I went for a one-on-one with the leader of the class, who suggested I try walking meditation. I liked the idea. But I didn’t try it.
A few months later, work launches a stairclimbing challenge. Simultaneously and separately, my sweetie and I decide to start walking on the paths behind his house or the city streets toward the Mall near mine. I am walking, more and more, beyond my walks to and from work.
And it is working. Beyond strong calves I feel calm coming in. Clear. Zen.
It is the most beautiful color of all.
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Note: Happy 4th to all!!! I have also added a few posts to X365.
3 Jul, 2008
dependence feminism friend independence love mental health poetry trust writing
In college, contemplating and confronting so many things at one – love, feminism, liberty, life — I began my wonderings about independence.
I wrote poetry in bluegreen notebooks:
“ Dependent, from Latin,
meaning: to hang from
So tonight I am wondering:
Do I hang from you? “
Hanging from was not a good thing, I concluded then. I would not hang from, not from him or anyone.
So I didn’t. Didn’t say “I love you.” Didn’t love fully. And didn’t hang from.
I thought it would protect me. From hurt, from risk, from giving too much, losing myself, blending into another. But the walls I built were sheer and cool and blew over in the wind. They were poor fortresses.
In came the stabs and embraces and hurts and loves of the people around me, whether I wanted them or not, whether I depended or not.
I am still careful with loving, with depending. I am an independent woman, with a good job, real estate , a life, a world. To me, that’s the easy part.
Being a “dependent woman” of sorts – depending on and being depended on – has been harder to learn. And it’s been 4th-of-July-fireworks explosively fufilling – a kind of love that grows and widens and stuns and satiates. I am still learning to hang from, to trust I won’t blow over or become an unnecessary appendage. Sometimes I do fall. And sometimes, if I let them, someone or someones catches me.
