Oblivion

She suffers from anxiety, like many of my favorite people.  She said to me, "I heard that someone had died, and my first thought was, 'Lucky them.'"  She insisted that she had no desire to off herself.  I believed her.

I believed her because I immediately recognized that feeling -- the sweet Siren's call of oblivion.

Probably the same day I saw her, I was walking down the street considering how easy it would be to just . . . not be.  How comfortable to just fall into oblivion.  I pictured a placeless place, through a black hole and a universe away from everything.

Let me assure you, I have no wish to go and seek oblivion.  There are moments, I think, when all that is unsettled in my world speaks with its many-headed voice and gestures with too many hands to count, and the only way I can find a space to breathe is to consider the possibility of Nothing.  Nowhere.

To imagine that emptiness is to clear out just enough room to breathe again.  And to breathe is to take in life itself.  And life trumps oblivion. Every time.

While I was travelling, I heard and thought much about the Buddhist concept of dukkha. (Most simply translated as "suffering.")  Our lives are unsatisfactory at times, this is the nature of existence.  Without dukkha, there can be no happiness, joy or contentment.  Contrast brings focus.  Touching the idea of oblivion illuminates the hunger to live.

So as I continued my walk, thinking of oblivion, I breathed into that space and caught the first whiff of thawed ground and the return of spring.

Love My Way

Isn't is funny how someone comes into your life and changes it by ripples and waves in ways he never even intended?  I am feeling grateful all the way to the tips of my toes this morning for a friend and all of the joys and complications he has introduced into my life.

See, he introduced me to his good friend, who then introduced me to her good friends, and all of this is how I ended up eating meals with two very different but equally lovable groups of humans this weekend.  One of those humans got me to read this article.

Such perfect timing.

I have been thinking a lot about love lately.  Wanting it.  Missing it.  Wondering if I am even capable of it.  Wondering if I have it and I just don't see.  And like so many things, the love I am thinking about is a thing constructed of images, curated news stories and formulaic novels.  (I blame you, Jane Eyre, but I will always -- well-- love you.)

I have love.  Bits and snatches of moments of tenderness and connection which can be very satisfying -- if I just pause and live in them.  Like: the other night when the man-whose-status-I-can't-quite-define just held me tenderly through some whacking great cramps.  Like: Friday when I sat at a crowded table for a friend's birthday and really understood what a warm and true-hearted person he is.  Like right now, when I am thinking of my Heartbreak Tour Guide and how much knowing him has changed my life.

I have love, I have warmth, I have sex and sometimes I even have intimacy.  Mostly, this is enough.  What I am still lacking and missing is companionship.  So, the task for my new year is to figure out how to create and define that in a way that suits me.    Let's go.

Little Runaway

Ten days in October.  Two weeks in November.  At least a month in January/February.  An unspecified amount of time in September.  I am getting out.

Not all of this is fun vacation.  There are intense classes and long stints of caregiving in there.  But I am getting out.  I pulled out the underused trampoline of my trampoline life, repaired with duct tape and I am jumping like my life depends on it.

People are telling me I need to relocate.  One friend in particular insists I do not belong where I am, and I only need to come to that realization.  He tells me this without pausing for breath or waiting for my reply.  He is only a "friend" because "guy I sort of know slightly" is too much to type.

People are telling me I need to stay.  Friends (real ones) send me encouraging messages while I am away, and gently remind me that I am missed.  They want to hear about what happened while I was gone flying, and they want to hear about it in person.

I am trying on new places, ten days, two weeks or a month at a time.  But the thing is, I respect Science.  Gravity is a real force.  So I know will land.  The Laws of Physics apply as well.  I am changing shapes while I am in the air.  I take off with a heart and soul tattered and worn, and before I go to land they are not just repaired, they are replaced with a shiny new upgrade.  This changes my trajectory and where I land will be different.

Which is just a long long way of saying, the time has come to indulge my inner runaway.  It is the season of restlessness.

Trampoline Life

I am at an airport again, phone off, headphones on, thinking of sweet things to pick up for dear friends.  It feels good -- this feeling of being zippered out of my life for a while, but keeping the zipper attached so I can fit myself back in.  Maybe.

It is more accurate, I think, to say I am starting to feel like a trampoline gymnast.  I do touch down, land, and land, and land again -- because gravity needs me to.  But the real work, the real beauty and flight happens between the landings.  The sins and flips, the turns, the mesmerizing views of a body spinning in space.  This arc up and then down -- that is where the real life is happening.  the landings are points to regroup, gather strength and pull on what I learned in my last flight before I launch myself again.

This.  This is the life I want.  A trampoline life.  And if someday I can do it all while holding the hand of someone who loves to fly almost as much as he loves me -- all the better.

But right now, this moment-- I am breathing into this moment and the freedom of being so much on my own.  No plans but those I make.  No need to answer to anyone unless I choose to.  It is the up side of loneliness -- this freedom.  I am arcing down from my latest flight, having changed and expanded while I was in the in air, glancing down I see my base gently moving towards me. I will sink into it with gratitude and collect all my energy until I am ready for the next jump.

anx*i*e*ty

anx*i*e*ty (noun), "desire to do something, typically accompanied by unease."

That is actually not the primary definition of anxiety, but it is the one that lives with me. Remember when I thought I could smell Ativan? Yeah, that still happens. I am meeting people -- actually meeting and getting to know them as people. The common thread in every person I meet is still anxiety of some kind. It even got to the point where a friend who treats anxiety disorders has offered to form a "Survivor"-type therapy group of the men I have met. The man who makes the most progress in the group gets to date me.

This "suggestion" grew from me talking about a date with yet another man who was broadcasting anxiety.  As our conversation continued, though, I realized that I kind of want the anxiety.  I mean, I get anxious about stuff, so that's something to have in common.  And, really, people who never have any anxiety about anything are kind of ---- well ---- boring.

bor*ing (adjective), "not interesting, tedious."

I am in a space where I am actively exploring and nurturing my creative self.  A certain low level of anxiety fuels this, and I find that people without even the smallest levels of anxiety are often not understanding of this drive to be creative.  Of course, high anxiety also kills creativity, so it is a continual balance.  I need my anxiety to be a passenger in the boat with me, and I really need a partner to bring their anxiety along too.  Otherwise, we just end up with an unbalanced boat.

Our anxieties are necessary to allow us to build something new -- a work of art, a structure, a relationship -- anything.  So, I am embracing my anxious passenger as part of the whole flawed tapestry.

Take us out, Kierkegaard:

Defined by Loss

In general, I try to avoid New Year's resolutions. Every day should be an opportunity to begin again, and I just don't like the pressure of the January 1 festival of resolution announcements.  I recently returned from my self-directed retreat, though, and during that time one resolve emerged clear and strong.  Not because of the new year, but because it is time, and I am ready.

Resolved: I will no longer define myself by what I have lost.

As I was walking in the woods last week, reflecting on the last year and planning the year to come, I realized that much of what I have done in the past year I am seeing and interpreting through the lens of what I no longer have or am.  This does not mean the past year was sad -- quite the opposite.  Most of what I have done brought me joy, growth, and fulfillment.  There is a reason why people I haven't seen in a while are all telling me that I look happy and confident -- because I am.

Yet I still define those things by what I am not.  I could travel when and where I want because there is no other person to include in the plans.  I could accept any work that interested me and spend as much time as I want in dance classes because I don't have to think about being home for anyone.  I can take risks because I had already lost the one thing I used to think was unloseable, and I emerged just fine.

While there is strength in measuring my year against all that came before it, I now realize that this is keeping me tethered to a person I have outgrown.  No, not my Ex.  I mean my former self.  That woman who never knew how fun it could be to just dance like an idiot in the street to Sixteen Candles, and who never thought to go free range with her career.  That woman was lovely -- compassionate, kind and even joyful at times.  But that woman lived by anxiety.

So now, even though the anxiety is still a passenger (more about that in a future post), it does not drive.  All that I do this year will not be because of or in reference to what I have lost.  Resolved.  I believe I can keep this one.

Essentialism

This weekend I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in quite some time.  Our conversation turned to life plans, and how we are structuring our living arrangements to support what we want.  I talked about my plans to downsize, to greatly reduce my living expenses so I could afford to travel, and maybe take a day off every once in a while.  She was doing something similar, and she told me that there is even a name for it -- essentialism.

How perfect is that?  Essentialism.  Identifying and spending energy only on those things which are essential to your life.  I felt lighter just thinking of the concept.  

Then I promptly forgot about it.  I have spent the past few days not sleeping enough, running from client to home to other thing to who knows where, with no clear idea of anything beyond the next thing on my calendar.  This morning, in the clear light of exhaustion, I knew that I have been addressing all the things that are essential to those around me, but not to myself.  Without a partner to see me from outside myself, it is difficult to catch these bursts of frantic activity.  This is another continuing adjustment in living Mapless -- the external view from inside.

Today, after an evening doing something I love, and (finally) a good night of sleep, I am back to essentials.  Sleep, eat, move, breathe, and love.  All things with love.  

Competition

I have been thinking lately of why women compete with each other so much.  I see that we are set up to compare ourselves to one another -- by media and pop culture in general -- but I wonder why we choose to accept this setup.  As a woman in the midst of dating, of trying to find a partner, it seems like the whole world wants me to put down other women in order to raise myself up.  I'll admit that sometimes I fall into that trap, but I am trying hard not to do it.

It has been said to me: "You can't compete with all those 20-year-olds out there." Lately I am fully comfortable responding: "No.  I can't. And I really don't want to." This is a comfort born of a lot of struggle and continual nourishment.  Most experiences of my growing-up years contained implied competition.  If my friend looked good, that somehow meant I looked less good.  If that boy dated her, it meant he wasn't dating me.  If I lost weight, that meant someone else's body didn't look as good.  

Now I see how ridiculous this is.  I am trying to spread this message to other women around me, but it is shockingly difficult.  "Listen," I said to a friend of mine, "If you are at a party, dressed to kill and feeling confident and a beautiful woman walks into the room, that does not make you any less beautiful.  You can acknowledge that someone else is attractive, or smart, or talented -- and the magic is that it does not take away any of your attractiveness, intelligence or talent."  

My friend nodded, and looked skeptical.

Last week, I was around a woman I have known my whole life, and I expressed some frustration about not having any clothes that fit and she cut me to the core, saying, "Stop bragging about how skinny you are." 

I'm fed up with keeping quiet about how wonderful I am because I fear the consequences.  I am not in competition with 20-year-olds, or with anyone.  I am making a resolution now to tell everyone I know how wonderful, talented, and beautiful they are as often as I can.  Because since when do kind words become boomerangs that come back and cut me at the knees?  If they are boomerangs that return, then they return with strength to build me up.  I'm starting now.

You (yes YOU) are lovely and amazing.  Pass it on.

Back There

"You don't have anything you can throw yourself into," my friend said to me.  About twenty minutes later in our conversation, I heard it.  Heard it and knew without a doubt that it was true.  

What do I throw myself into?  Being a life-loving, optimistic person, it certainly isn't going to be a river or a pit or anything like that.  What did I throw myself into before?  The Ex.  I threw myself into the Ex with absolute abandon and something I called joy. It was my mission in life to be part of that relationship.  So, maybe that is the thing.  I throw myself into a relationship.  I keep working and constructing a backup life, but my real job becomes finding a relationship to throw myself into.  

Except.  Until. There is this glimmer of an opportunity which pulls together things I am passionate about --creativity, wooded land, women (and men) stepping out of their lives to find transcendence.  Just a hint of a sparkle in my eye, and then:

(1) --I won a raffle prize from a local business.  The prize: a consultation with an entrepreneurial law expert.  

(2) --piffing around on the internet, I saw these things:

   "I just wanna go on more adventures. Be around good energy. Connect with people. Learn new things."

    "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.  --Winston Churchill"

    ". . . a new surge of creativity invariably emerges out of a period of instability, and life unfolds in greater diversity than before whenever it takes a shock wave in its stride.  --Margaret Silf"

(3)--I checked in with the person whose support I most needed, and their response was simply, Yes. 

It feels like the edge of a pit, or a high drop into a river.  But I want to throw myself into it. I think. 

Everything is a Metaphor

While working on developing glute muscle control for hip shimmies, M says, "The release is as important as the contraction.  Maybe even more important."

This is another lesson of my current life.  I am trying not to call it my "new life," but it is still too new to be just my life.  Anyway, release is the lesson -- knowing that letting go means letting go all the way.  If you don't let go all the way, you can't grab on to the next thing, and eventually the shimmy falls apart.  We practice letting go faster and faster, trying not to trigger a horrible cramp.  Back to basics as the foundation for all things.  Hold. Release. Don't move, or even try to move yet.  Don't worry about layering or the size of the movement.  Just hold.  And release. 

 Eventually we can move up to switching moves, traveling.  We practice letting go gracefully and completely as we move forward into the next thing.  Focus.  Keeping it simple. I think of this as it is finally spring, and I finally feel creative again.  This moment is lovely, and I mean to enjoy it.  I see a vision of myself far down the road, back to all of this on my way to a different kind of life.  More and more I feel that this is true and will happen.

But not yet.  Not yet.  Now is good.  Hold, savor, release.  The release is the most important part.

Not Yet There

I have been thinking of escapes.  Packing a bag -- or not -- getting into my car and pointing the direction of milder weather, then driving until I stop.  Or -- locking my front door, crouching down in the living room with a bag of chips and my dance playlist and not coming out until every light bulb in the house burns out.  Or even -- taking a walk in the woods, turning off the trail and just keep going.  

This is the fragility of emerging happiness.  It needs such long periods of rest to survive its first few months of life.  When it rests, the rest of me is restless.  I feel like my brain itches as it tries to once again produce contentment.  

Today I spent some time with my friend and her toddler.  My friend is a model of calm, compassionate parenting.  As her toddler started to wind up for a tantrum because he couldn't go down the slide, she calmed him in such simple words as she rubbed his back: "Yeah.  I know. It's frustrating when you can't go down the slide.  Come on, let's have some water."  I wish I could capture her manner for my emerging happiness.  I think of it as my toddler emotion: unpredictable on the surface, changeable and quick, by turns delightful and maddening.  If I could have her manner, I could maybe start to see that what I think is unpredictability is really just a normal stage of development.  

But I am not a patient parent.  I wear out my emerging happiness, either by hovering protectively over it, or asking it to do too much too soon.  Then I start thinking of escapes.  Because, truly, it is frightening to put this toddler emotion to bed so it can get the rest it needs.  Somehow this last year I learned that there are countless unknown things ready to pounce on happiness.  Cats to steal its soul.  

But, I must remember, I am a ginger.  I can steal souls too.  Rest, emerging happiness.  Grief and I are going to catch up a little.  Grief's stay is so short these days, I need to pay attention.

Never Have I Ever

My life now is like one long, drawn-out game of Never Have I Ever, and I am getting wasted.  Never have I ever paid property taxes on a condo I own free and clear.  Never have I ever gone an entire week without shutting the bathroom door.  Never have I ever received payment just for being married once.  Never have I ever left my spouse.  Never have I ever had my heart broken so thoroughly and so well that I had to grow an entirely new one in its place.  Never have I ever given up on a marriage.

It is that last one which still rankles, and will until the end of days. Never have I ever given up.  I got indifferent.  I took for granted.  I hid and stayed silent, but I did not give up.  Now, when it would be in my best interest to give up, I'm not sure how.  I know how to look like it, but the doing of it is difficult.  Never have I ever.

Two weeks post decree, I felt like a half-finished puzzle where the table got shaken and overturned.  I thought a picture was emerging and I had everything at least organized.  Blue with blue. Red with red.  Yellow with yellow.  But it wasn't organized and there was that same helpless, irrational rage you feel when you're 5 years old and all your toys are gone for no reason.  I didn't understand why everything was different all of the sudden.  I had been preparing for months.  I was ready.  Who the fuck turned over the table in the middle of the night? And changed out all the pieces? And took the picture away?

And this, I realize, is where I am really Mapless.  It's not my relationship with him, it's my relationship with myself.  Never have I ever lived completely on my own as an adult, and that's the truth.  I look at my profiles on dating sites and wonder who it is I am writing about.  Some woman half in and half out of a door.  I can identify part of her as me, but the rest is obscured.

Meanwhile, I am slowly ticking off milestones in my ongoing game of Never Have I Ever.  I hope that I am the one of us having the most outrageous sex.  Because never have I ever been curious and unashamed . . .

Solo Travel, Complications

I am sitting in Liberia Airport, using the compass app on my phone to find West so I can chant the sun down. This trip is ending as it began -- with as many complications as possible.  A brush fire kept us sitting on the runway for two hours, then just as we were about to take off, a mechanical issue sent us back to the airport where we learned the flight was cancelled and we had to wait until tomorrow to fly out. 

Oddly enough, none of this phases me.  I am stuck here true, but here is a warm paradise, removed from the life that I have determined to adjust.  I am not alone, not really.  One other person from the retreat was on my flight, and she is sitting here with me, commiserating between our solitary wifi binges. And when I feel panic rising, I remember that I can chant down the sun.  One of the things I learned this week.  One more thing I thought I would never do in life.  Ever. 

The sun is truly down, and dark is descending over the feeble lights from the airport and the hotel across the street.  All the families with small children have been sent to hotels for the night.  The only frustration I feel comes from the overstimulation -- so many people talking, conspiracy theorizing and complaining.  It is a sharp awakening from my week of retreat.  It is hard to realize again that not everyone leads with compassion.  

I hoped to gently ease back into my life after this unhoneymoon, but it seems I am being tossed.  I can kick and scream and join the over stimulating chorus.  Or I can jump without fear, remembering that I can fly.

Solo Travel, the Video

The teacher of our retreat showed that "Alexander's Transformation" video that has been making the rounds of the internet and I lost it.  Lost.  It.  I ended up sobbing into my hands in the bathroom.  The idea of the courage behind that transformation just struck me in the heart.  The perseverance and the positive talk even as he fell and fell and fell again.  Just knowing that these things are possible -- so what's my excuse?  But really, it was the song.  That Coldplay song.  Because the truth is, no one can fix you.  Only you can fix you. And as it turns out, my day of tears had only begun.

After the video, we got all warmed up and practiced our little combo.  Our teacher turned us to face the panoramic seascape, and told us there was a person way out on the little spit of land in the distance, and next time we went through the dance, we had to project our dance out to that person.  We had to somehow make that person feel the joy and the power and the love that brought us all together, dancing together.  She put the music on, and I just felt full, so full of all that I am and will be.  I started to cry again while we were dancing.  I thought to myself, this is the water that mixes the cement that puts me together again.

In the evening, we practiced yoga, then we walked down to the beach to chant down the setting sun.  Sitting on the sand, facing the water, with lovely voices all around, all chanting about the light of the sun and the light of ourselves, I filled up and overflowed again.  I started to despair of ever being able to recreate the calm, tensile strength of this retreat after I got home.  My voice broke as the last edge of the sun slipped below the waves and we ended our chanting.  In the absence of human sound that followed, the mortar set around another section of my brick house.

Solo Travel, the Flight

I fell asleep on the plane and when I woke up, we had fallen off the edge of the world -- outside was nothing but water and a few cotton ball clouds.  There was a horizon, but I couldn't see it because the sky and the water were the same color.  So, there I was, wrapped in infinite, putting the full hard stop on the person that was.  The person that was part of, companion to, connected with -- and this took my breath.  I needed the full hard stop so I could gather enough voice to speak the person who is.  Complete.  Entire.  Imperfect unto herself.

The day did not start off well.  I woke up to a message that my flight had been cancelled. I panicked.  This trip was the thing I had been looking forward to for months.  This was the mortar I would use to put together the brick house that is myself.  I ended up finding the earlier flight and I booked it without hesitation, rushing to the airport thanking the personality gods that I am always two hours early for everything.  I booked it even though I can't afford it, because of the moment.  The moment in the mirror, just after I got the cancellation message, where I looked at my frightened self.

In that moment, my frightened self wondered how bad it would really be to Chuck the trip, stay home and be safe (if bored) for a week.  The frightened voice was small, thank goodness, but still comforting.  So, I marched myself to the internet, found the earlier flight, threw everything in my bag, and got myself to the airport in plenty of time.  My fingers and hands shook so much, I could barely complete the reservation online.  Somehow it happened, and I got on a plane where I could fall asleep and wake up to find we had fallen off the edge of the world.

In the taxi on the way to the airport, I noticed a bright, clear full moon.  It was glowing brown in a deeper brown sky.  I felt the last layers of panic shake down through my body and out my feet.  The only shaking I would be doing for the next week would be for sheer joy, dancing.  I felt inclined to be peaceful, patient, to love and trust in the good nature of all people and things.

Kentucky Building

I was in Paducah, by myself, and some friendly Kentucky boy tried to sit down next to me while I was trying to write.  I politely turned him down, and he sat on the next bench down, furiously texting someone and occasionally glancing at me. This derailed my planned Deep Contemplative Thoughts and led to me becoming a 13-year-old, writing in her diary about who likes me and who doesn't.

When did my heart stop growing?  Was it at 11 when my parents divorced?  At 13 when I was so deep in despair that I wanted to die?  At 18 when my first serious love broke up with me?  I picture my heart in my mind as a solid foundation, incomplete but well made, with a random patchwork of rooms and floors stacked on top.  Dead end hallways.  Windows on brick walls.  Rooms with no doors.  Some living spaces are bright, clean and full of air.  More often, walls are patched over with crumbling plaster and duct tape.  Bit of a mess back there -- under construction with nails sticking up and tools scattered all over the floor.

The foundation is strong, but this feels like a gut rehab.  I only hope I have the energy to see it through.

My Kind of Man

Yesterday a man asked me what kind of men I am attracted to.  I found that very difficult to answer, but now a picture is beginning to emerge.  I am drawn to men with anxiety issues.  Men like the one who asked the question.  Men like the Ex.

I don't know where this began.  With the ex?  Before the ex?  Who knows.  S says I have a caregiver personality, that that is who I am.  I question whether I should even try to change that.  Is it really so unhealthy?  Is there a way to make it more healthy?

This morning I got a text message from the man who asked the question, saying he was feeling "crushed under the weight of loneliness."  I feel for him in his anxiety, but it is not my task to make him feel better.  He says I am working through something psychological and I am, but so is he.  He says he feels calmer focusing on others -- and I think that is because then he isn't focused on himself. I have compassion for his suffering.  I will try to help as far as I am asked and able, but the digging and remodeling is his alone.  Just as mine is mine alone.

Couldn't these be thoughts from a healthy caregiver?  Couldn't this be a glimpse that there is such a thing as just anxious enough, just nurturing enough?

Music is Back

For about the first six weeks after he told me he was done, I couldn't stand music at all.  That was almost harder to take than the leaving.  I used to love dancing around the kitchen while I cooked, listening to ridiculous pop songs and waving kitchen utensils in perilous ways.  (He always warned me to be careful, but usually he was the one who cut himself.  It was the protective powers of ABBA, I think.)

But right after my life split open, even the opening notes of my favorite songs felt like knives in my stomach.  One day, being careless with the car radio, I heard a few notes of Pink's "Learn to Love Again," and I started crying so hard that I had to pull over.  Every pop song is about love.  Finding love.  Losing love. Quiet love.  Loud love.  Love in the time of cholera.  I couldn't take it.

My solution was NPR.  Lots of it.  Morning Edition as I got dressed became a soothing background hum, and at times a reminder that my brain was pretty hungry for material.  This American Life at the gym was both a perfect timer (since most podcasts are just about an hour) and pleasant fuel for my little crush on Ira Glass.

The music is starting to come back, though.  It started when my good friend took me to see Sixteen Candles (the band, not the movie) at some street fests.  They play 80s music -- the music I loved before I knew him, and still love now.  A couple of evenings dancing like an idiot in the street, and I was ready to try some music in the car.  I learned that Taylor Swift still needs a hobby, Ke$ha is still ridiculous, Adam Levine's voice still makes me cringe, and that I can sing along to ridiculous pop songs again.  I reopened my playlists and started dancing around the kitchen again.  I don't feel that open, artless joy I used to feel yet.  Sometimes that damn Pink song still makes me cry.  But music is back.

Right now, I'm listening to a playlist I created a while ago, when things at work were unpleasant. The name of the playlist is "Defiance."  Time to dance.

**********************************

Some songs on the Defiance playlist:
A Better Son/Daughter. Rilo Kiley :  http://youtu.be/Lh6liDtDThk
Titanium. David Guetta: http://youtu.be/JRfuAukYTKg
Girl on Fire. Alicia Keys http://youtu.be/J91ti_MpdHA
Dancing with Myself. Billy Idol http://youtu.be/FG1NrQYXjLU
Lose Yourself. Eminem http://youtu.be/jgn-rq3ibzE
Lover of the Light. Mumford and Sons http://youtu.be/nMJUbZrNnA8

Interior Design

I have a fresh, new perspective.

I literally have a new perspective.  I just re-oriented the couch in the living room to the way I wanted it when we first moved into this place together.  Little cat got over her dislike of the change when she discovered she could now move from the window to the top of the couch without touching the floor.  She is playing "the floor is lava," and I am playing "I am an entire, complete human being."

He didn't like the couch in this spot because to him it meant you could only see a wall of concrete.  I see that wall of concrete, yes, but I also see a wall of windows and my own building reflected in the late afternoon sunlight.  I see spaces created and subdivided on a human scale -- carved out to hold and protect these lives we carry around.  In my view, but out of my sight, people are living their joyful, contented, complicated, messy, happy, grateful lives.  If they can do it, maybe I can, too.

Little cat comes down from her perch at the top of the couch, sniffing the cushions and silently meowing at me.  Briefly, her pupils enlarge and she pulls back into fight mode.  I understand her fear.  Change makes me want to fight, too, little cat.  I scratch her head and she relaxes, just enough.  She wanders back to her water dish, familiar and unmoved.  Meanwhile, I look out at the view and feel . . . different.  Joyful, contented, complicated, messy, happy, Grateful.