In it and Awake

I want to remember today forever.

I want to document every feeling I have as I drive home. 

Today my color was red and red is not usually my color. It is not a color I feel very deeply or very often. It is not a color I'm attuned to. I see it everywhere on the road leading home. Red brake lights. Stop signs. My dashboard all lit up and beaming. All a passionate hue. What does red feel like to me today? I've decided it is change. 

I'm going to be so many different variations of this person. There's such a palatable feeling of being ready for that. The prospect of continuing to be who I am is sitting so neatly and comfortably inside of me. Who I am and who I was and who I may become in the future is all a construct. Something ancient in me recognizes that I am but a fluid spirit dancing through all of these forms. Caught in an endless dance of creating meaning, attaching to shapes, and then disintegrating all of it into a holy fire. 

I just met Gabi Abrão and I held her hands. She signed my books. I gave her a letter. It was the most nervous I have felt in a very long time. Knots in the stomach. The experience gave me first date jitters. Witnessing her read from her new book was very emotional. Struck with so much curiosity and summon, my heart felt entranced by her words. She tells the truth and I know this because the truth in me recognizes this. The best part of the night was feeling my own sense of confirmation that I must write while I am here.

Lately I have been managing writer's block-adjacent symptoms. There's so much I want to convey. Essence, feeling, thought, absurdity, revolt, awe, melancholia, instinct, romance, perversion, spirit, confusion, mercy, sanctity, the ache of belonging. Acknowledging yourself as your own lush sovereign island, as Gabi would say. Every cell in my body buzzes as I drive home from this experience of meeting her. In my mind, I can clearly see all the future work to be done. The ink to be spilled. 

In my heart I hold the idea that one day I may meet Sotce or that Hitomi and I will be in the same room. These are teachers that I genuinely want to honor. The funny thing is that I do not know these people. I'm only familiar with their work. These are not women I know but women I see. What they want the world to know falls upon my willing ears, and it means so much. A thought of gratitude visits me over and over again...I am so glad that I am alive at the same time as these people. 

Today was a day of so much love. I'm reveling in this feeling of 'I am here'. 

Yesterday my friend was sharing her perception of me with me. She said that I live with so much joy and optimism. It appears that I have no problems to others because of the happiness radiating from me. We laughed at that together. What a funny thing to hear. If I had transcended all suffering, you'd know it and I'd be teaching some class about it somewhere not in America. Of course, I genuinely suffer. Just like you. But I am grateful to any suffering I experience. I am working to transcend my suffering every day, but I am also in it and awake. There is so much to learn from hurting. 

The other night I was laying on my bed, in the dark. Listening to music with my kitten and sobbing with myself. It was terribly sad. In that moment I remembered the deep sadness of being a fifteen-year-old girl. The pit of melancholia. This feeling hit me like a semitruck. It was all at once beautiful and cliche and self-indulgent. It was dark and I was bowing to it. Now I am here. Here in this moment. Driving. Red everywhere. Overflowing. Change. Transcendent of whatever misery stopped in a handful of days ago. Water leaves me. Pieces of me float back to the ocean and dissolve in the air. 

I remember that I do nothing and God does everything. The mystery of it all is at play. Are you aware of how a part of it you are?