Taking Off My Clothes

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Heloise Jones

Jeff's tea I always say a birthday starts when you think about it, and ends
when you forget you have one. Can be a day, or a month.
Not having friends close in community here,
the moment I opened this b’day gift of honey was special.
*

Saturday was my birthday. I’m four years away from one of the Big 0 birthdays, and feeling the pinch to get on with things undone. To move into my Ideal Life. Because I changed as I’ve gotten older, and want to slow down, take life easier, let go of the go-go and guilt. The thing is I’ve been telling the story of my life for a long time a certain way. Fitting it to meet standards for outcomes or expectations. Face-to-face trusts. Business trusts. None a lie or fabricated, but I feel fractured. I’m an artist archetype. A natural empath, sensitive to energies, noise, and non-verbals. Everything else you see I taught myself or learned out of necessity. And now, when I want to choose the story I tell, I have this urge to tell you the stuff I don’t typically share. Say, I get it.

Last weekend I flew coast to coast for a three-day seminar experience about online business. My trip prompted by a strong intuitive hit as I watched yet another webinar. It made no sense if you balanced costs with what might be called realities. Right off the bat I stretched to show up. It called for business casual. I’m sitting in my jammies as I write this now! I let go, assembled outfits from my closet I liked, felt put together in. Found the perfect designer jacket with distinctive, artsy lines in the perfect color, exactly Me, at the consignment store. By the time I took off, I held my original intention of clarifying my niche and market lightly. A new one received the day before from my medium-psychic hair stylist (go figure, right?). Listen, he said, repeating the word twice more. Listen. And I did.

I did not volunteer for laser coaching tho I wanted it badly, or raise my hand when shares from the group were solicited. I went second when we pared off. Stepped to first only when four of us sat, others hesitating as the clock ticked. I listened to feedback, did what I do well, saw patterns. Style, my smile across the room, you belong with professionals. Asked why when I got a generic ‘you’re fun’ from someone I hadn’t met before. Understood I stood out, was seen, and it was okay. Realized I no longer want words like amazing, great, awesome, smart. Tell me how or why you think it. Give me something to hold on to. Saying my words speak to you counts. So does saying I’m a blessing.

I’ve been taking inventory since I returned. Two days ago I wondered what it would feel like to come out, tell you all the things I’ve experienced that make me a good writer. That prompted high-powered New York editor Marjorie Braman to say with her rejection that I have “a gift with character,” continue with it’s “something I’ve always thought took true talent because it’s not easily learned. I felt that I knew her characters and sympathized with them, even in their less sympathetic moments.” Because what I wish I could’ve told her is that it is learned. From life experience. From listening to your gut. Caring about why people who are different think and feel the way they do. From taking time to listen, see, accept stories without judging.

I’ve felt absolutely naked writing this blog since I started. I didn’t have a clue what I’d say when I sat down that first day last March, a year ago. Others actually told me what I was doing. Creating small journeys, sharing so others see how they might navigate life, too.

I long to take off the rest of my clothes, tell you more after you read this , which is all true. More, like I’ve experienced heartbreaking divorce, am married thirty years now and it’s not easy or perfect. I was a single parent for nine years, moved a lot as a child, was repeatedly abandoned by my mother. That I’ve cared for a younger sibling, and a husband who’d been run down by a car. I’ve been flat broke with no job more than once, and once accepted food stamps. Been cheated on and cheated, lied to and lied, done drugs and drank too much, had a season of promiscuity. I’ve been physically battered for years, carried myself calmly to the edge of suicide, been saved by a mystical experience with Jesus. I’ve had mystical experiences with Buddha and whales, too. I feel the world, see and hear colors, and things some would say are not there. I’ve had a boss from hell, been fired from jobs, disinvited from a group, and was once kicked out of a business I helped build & a partnership I loved. I’ve broken or sprained limbs 11 times, had 5 surgeries, barf everything but advil or tylenol, walk with an artificial joint. I’ve had my house catch on fire. Been stalked. Watched a home remodel go $150,000 over budget, landed us back on our feet afterwards. I walked away from an abusive relationship with no help or assistance, cured myself of an extreme phobia of spiders, faced fears that stole my breath and made my legs cramp for hours. I’ve stopped habits at will when they cost me what I wanted, and at times when I realized I no longer wanted them. I got my bachelor’s degree with a 3.99GPA on the 5th try, and created miracles others said were impossible. Found my passion while sitting two years in a writing group, facing mute response to my words, years after the half dozen psychics I’d seen ALL said I’d write. One seeing me at a golden desk with a golden pen. Another asking for my autograph.

In the end, I’m the heroine of my life. I sat with my father as he died. Held space for my sister when she lost her best friend of a husband. Have coached friends, family, and colleagues. That to the truth I’ve only begun traveling like I want, and could be judged, I believe we’ve probably experienced much the same, even with our different stories.

Now, will you have tea with me?

One day we will see everybody….

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: It’s weird with no poem here, but it’s weird standing naked, too.
A favorite: Birthdays

A New View. No Flash Fiction.

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Heloise Jones

Window w:Jennifer 2 Freaky big, in LA.
*

By the time I checked into my room in Los Angeles Thursday night, it was past midnight EST. I carried organic chocolate covered almonds for comfort food, lemons in case water was precious, raw bars, and my favorite loose tea. I was grateful for my tea as I ate my $10 oatmeal. Grateful for the almonds after I bought the $10 toothpaste in the hotel. A tad of grounding and normal in the start of three long days of workshop-seminar on how to grow an online business. It didn’t seem crazy to fly coast-to-coast, Florida shore to CA shore, to do this. I’ve been melting my brain studying and writing with little joy or satisfaction, by myself. And the pieces weren’t coming together. I felt less-than for not being further along in my plan for offers. By the time I flew out, it was all about my failing. Lack of sleep, being out of sync in another time zone seemed small potatoes.

I immediately connected with a coach whose clients need a writer (me?!). Chose a seat between an energy healer already in the presenter’s program and a kindred spirit actress turned coach with a fascinating story. Alright! I’m no odd duck. But end of Day One, after failing to complete the clarity exercises for niche and tribe I came to get, I sunk low…way low. Next morning others shared they considered leaving, felt like failures, too. Alright! Not just me. And we all decided to show up, anyway. Open, kind to ourselves, listening and trusting. What I don’t know is how they got there. Answering Yes screams in their heads as they watched yet-another-webinar, like I did.

Day Two, everything fell into place. Why what didn’t make sense in my months of study didn’t. The difficulty and time it can take to distill a clear message so you’re seen, heard in a noisy world. That meh to message can equal a quantum leap. I was buoyed. Convinced by who I saw in the person on the dais, the meat in my notebook, the format of the day with minimal rah-rah. And again, I wept that night, because I also learned I can’t do this by myself. Tribe is far more than the people who’ll benefit from our offers. More than friends or kindred spirits we meet every day or along the way. Tribe is those with us in the journey we’re in right now. And I could have every.single.piece needed for success at a reasonable price. And I wasn’t ready.

Because after I got past the money argument (never an issue once I decide to spend it), the husband won’t understand argument, it came down to me. Despite little income, my study and intent, the financial investment already made, my desire and ultimate vision, I don’t believe I can sustainably show up 120% for a solid year in a dig deep do-it fast train creating it program. It’s not a head thing, but a gut thing. And regular support + accountability won’t make a difference. Core foundational work’s missing. I had to sit, be sure this wasn’t an excuse or effort to hide back into comfort. Then I shared it with people there to help me enroll. And my shame dissolved. They nodded affirmation. Because Life is, after all, about how we show up.

I was calm flying home. Up at 2:30 for a 5am flight, only two hrs. sleep, the shift in direction strong inside me. I’ll write the book on the Writers Block Myth I put aside. Another Getting to Wise journey about getting past stuck for me and readers. Something I wanna write. I still wish I’d enrolled in the program, would have that tribe seeing me thru. Still feel scared I won’t pull off my intents. Still wish it wasn’t so much work. And I’ll find another way for help. Hire another branding coach. I feel brighter. John Lennon said, Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. Bottom line, the view depends on which road you look down. I’ll start with my mirror, my evidence journal. What others said they saw in me. 100% where I’m at, open. It’s another good day.

What do you think? Tell me here, in the comments.

*
What we really need is to gather
in the street and talk to each other.
Any street. Lined with shrubs
or tenements. Paved or dirt
or cobblestone. With orange cones
or with wooden barriers
to set off the block so we can talk,
can talk and listen and watch the day go by.
Some will join us. They will wonder
why we’ve gathered. They’ll
pull out their binoculars
as if there’s something more to see.
There’s always something more to see,
like the way the light comes through the hedge
and makes it more gold than green.
Hey, did you hear that nightingale?
When’s the last time you heard one
All my life I’ve been too busy. Rushing
from one here to the next. But look
what happens when we gather
in the street and gawk in whatever
direction. We start to become a we—
you, me, the man in the yellow plaid shirt,
the cop, the woman in white tennis shoes.
It does not matter how we vote or
where we’ve been or how much we make
or if we pray, here we are in the same place
on the same day. Not because someone died,
not because someone’s done something wrong.
There is no one to cheer for but us.
We’ll go back to our homes soon enough,
but for now, here we are
doing the most important work,
gathering in the street to notice together
the scent of fall, the warmth of mid-afternoon sun,
the way all our shadows fall the same direction.”
~ Rosemerry Trommer (It Won’t Make the News)

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
*

A secret: I’m learning I glean from the musicians who uniquely show up. I hear their messages.
A favorite: John Lennon

Loving Yourself. How Hard Can It Be?

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Heloise Jones

The Goal of Yoga (No, it’s not the handstand)

The yoga pose is not the goal. Becoming flexible is not the goal. Standing on your hands is not the goal.

The goal is to create space where you were once stuck. To unveil the layers
of protection you’ve built around your heart. To appreciate your body and
become aware of the mind and the noise it creates. To make peace with who you are.
The goal is to love, well. . . You.

Come to your yoga mat to feel; not to accomplish. Shift your focus and your heart will grow.
~ Rachel Brathen

*
winter low tide2 What’s usually underwater, now easy pickin’s.
*

When I read those words, I didn’t see the word yoga. I saw Life. I thought, there’s volumes written on each point – self-help, psychology, spiritual. I’ve read a lot about each of them. I never figured how the heck I love myself, though. I can look into my eyes in the mirror, say the words I love you, but I haven’t located the feeling inside. Not the way I feel love for the world or another person. I wonder, does Dalai Lama say he loves himself. Mother Theresa, did she? Muhammad? Jesus? Or is it implied in messages we see others as one with ourselves. I don’t know.

I don’t think either of my parents learned how to love themselves, either. My mother, a first generation Armenian-American, worked beside my traditional grandmother in the kitchen from the time she was three. Married an older man to escape when she was eighteen. But he was hard, sometimes abusive. She returned to her mothers’ home with her baby. When I was seven my grandmother moved next door. She was my mother’s best friend.

My father ran away from home when he was ten. By seventeen he’d sailed three times around the world, and joined the merchant marines. He taught himself to read, studied everything he needed or that interested him, including the siege of Leningrad. Somehow these two people who never experienced a childhood got together in their mid-thirties.

I remember John Travolta saying he knew he was lovable. His parents thought he hung the moon, he said. I walked across the room, they’d applaud, he said. I had lots of evidence my parents loved me, too. I believe they did. Thrilled when I was born, they felt proud of the smart, artistic, perfectionist child I became. Having my father’s curiosity and sense of wonder, I was his favorite. I had passion, emotion, strong will, but it never translated into me being lovable. Not until long after I left home at seventeen did I think about the days, weeks, sometimes months, I spent with relatives and friends. Only eighteen mos. old the first time mom sent me off. Sometimes my younger sister with me. I asked my sister once if she ever felt abandoned. No, she said. I always had you.

My first husband, a Viet Nam vet, was love at first sight. So smart, funny, and full of demons and issues long before war. Eventually he told me to shut up in front of his lifelong circle of friends. When one of them wanted a business partnership, ingratiating the wife was important. Surprised I wasn’t the mindless bitch he expected, he spread the word and the circle enfolded me. I attribute him with saving my life. Eventually my husband hit me, a lot, and stayed out all night. You didn’t talk about those things back then. At some point I started writing the weekly grocery check for $5 more, stashing the money. When I got a 25cent/hr. raise, I hid that, too. When I knew I was strong enough, I took my seven yr. old son, the $325 I saved and left with a set of dishes, a rocking chair, and a rug. Each night I stared into the dark, so scared I couldn’t breathe. It was a year before I decided my friends were either nuts for liking me, or I was. I taught myself to hear kind words by turning them all into glass figurines in my mind. At the end of the day, I set them on the table so I could see them, accept them. I trained myself to say Thank You. But I still didn’t get I was lovable.

It’s only now, lifetimes later, that I have an inkling what loving oneself is. After decades of reading, workshops, trainings to understand the world and human beings. Years of contemplation, working on myself. Learning to recognize what stuck feels like, what space inside feels like. What making choices, shifting focus, reframing means. After letting go earning my breath. Letting go apology for knowing what I want. Decades connecting to Spirit, the Universe, God. Letting my natural-born compassion seize my heart without fear, accept I may be weird, and that’s okay. I don’t know why some people get it young and I didn’t.

The other morning a thin misty fog hung in the air. The really wet kind. I almost didn’t head to the bay for sunrise. But the small voice said go, there’s something there for you, As I crossed the street to the park in the dark, a woman said hi as she passed. Heavy-set. African-American. I noticed her voice, how she answered with more than one word when I said ‘how are you.’ I circled along the wide promenade by the water, paused to take pictures, walked past the thick mangroves. There she was, on *my* bench. Rather than move on, I asked if she minded I sit. I always stop here, she said. I could go into our conversation. How I learned she’s a social worker, her thoughts after seeing so much. Her mama’s wisdom. How she kept saying the word choice as she talked about parenting and life. The main thing, tho, was we agreed the generation that frustrates us in so many ways is the one that will save us. That beautiful both-and of humanity. And we both felt we got a Blessing that morning. If you’d asked me then if I love myself, I would’ve paused for the feeling, said yes. Yes, I do.

How do you love yourself?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
*

winter low tide1 Low tide seemed to stretch halfway across the bay, the birds with it.
Winter low tide, they call it.
*

A secret: I never bought into the thought you have to love yourself before you can love others. I think love works any way it can.
A favorite: That time in the circle of Friends sharing music, books, discoveries, concerts, food, when I first learned how community feels.

Thank you, Susan, for that morning on the bench.

Stuff Piled Up. Face the Sun.

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Heloise Jones

That place is different for everyone – that place where you can breathe easy,
be yourself, feel spacious both inside inside and out. That place where you feel enormously grateful for all that you have and excited for everything yet to come.
Only you can know where that place is.
Only you can swim there.
~ Amy Tingle (118: Paradise, or How to Breathe)

fresh water west *

This morning, 6:15, off to the bay for sunrise I left the radio on as I backed the car out. I usually turn it off. But Saturday I accidentally caught the tail end of On Being. It was wonderful. This morning, older Arab men buying young Egyptian girls as throw-away brides. The girls sold by family and brokers. It was two blocks before I switched it away. I wasn’t even listening. I’d sunk into wondering how it must feel to be that girl. How trapped she must feel inside. The violation of her body penetrated. At the end of my drive, I walked the long way to the water, saying Gratitudes aloud the whole time. Because Gratitude under the last fade of stars feels especially holy and heard, especially when things feel hard.

I know my problems are first-world problems. A former landlord’s plans to steal $800 from us, with travesties as justification – $24 for mismatched lightbulbs, $39 for shipping charges we could’ve driven five min. to avoid, rent charged for days after we vacated, silly pictures and blatant lies. Someone said to let his pettiness go. $800 and being abused don’t feel petty to us, though. There’s always something worse or better to compare. And my husband and I are arguing, in ways we’ve not argued in thirty years marriage, for the third time in as many days, in ways that make me want to run away or fly high into space. And my hard drive crashing to dark screen tonight, the laptop with my creative files. This after a stressful move. After months of other stuff. I’m calm – call the lawyer, drive off for errands, close the lid – but the truth is I’m swimming like crazy these days.

And I have a choice which direction to go, even as I say ‘this sucks.’

I’m pulling out my artifacts of better things. Things I do, like from two weeks ago when I sat in the chiropractor’s office, early for my appointment, and a man waited with me. His expression strange. I wondered if something was wrong with him. He rose, went to the counter. ‘This is a complimentary visit, right?’ No, and she showed him what it would cost. He turned to leave without the adjustment and without thought, I rose, ‘I’ll pay his visit.’ He wanted my address to repay me. I wanted to give him a gift, asked if that was okay. I learned he’s lived with severe chronic back pain for years. They caught me a week later at the door, handed me the sweetest Thank You card in the most beautiful handwriting. It had stickers of a sunflower and butterfly on it, and that touched me deeply.

Things others do, like the little cards made of construction paper I discovered in my mailbox in Asheville, twice. One says ‘U R AWESOME.’ The other, ‘Dear you, hope you have a GREAT easter. from, me.’ Someone teaching their child to spread love was my guess at the time. I loved that. Kept those cards on my desk where I could see them. I’ve moved 3 times since then, but some things are rout in my organizational mind. I can find them.

Gratitude helps, too. With Gratitude I can remember how it felt to breathe easy. Can remember that feeling of spaciousness inside and out. Remember I have books to write, and I love writing. That the birds have returned to the bay. Hundreds from all the water tribes. Remember after I climb into bed my AppleCare’s still active. Remember moment by moment to carry me thru. And as the main character in The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean said, “We’ll just go straight and eventually we’ll get there. What I mean is that we’ll get somewhere. Out of here. I mean, logically, we have to get out as long as we walk straight. I’ve done this millions of times. Whenever everything’s killing me I just say to myself, Screw it, and go straight ahead.” Yep, I’ve done this millions of times. Straight ahead. Facing the sun. Like the sunflower on the card.

Tell me. How do you face the sun when hard stuff piles up?

*
Nasa shot The Australian coast, from space.
Far away.
*
Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

All I ever wanted in life was to make a difference, conquer the universe,
travel the world, meet interesting people, find the missing link, fight the good fight,
live for the moment, seize each day, make a fortune, know what really matters,
end world hunger, vanquish the dragon, be super popular but too cool to care,
be master of my own fate, embrace my destiny, feel as much as I can feel,
give too much, and love everything.
~ Tatsuya Ishida

A secret: Be Here Now.
A favorite: My organizational mind…I found the little construction paper cards.

Photos:
Jonathan Bean – freshwater west, United Kingdom
NASA – Australian coast

Hearing Angel Messengers

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Heloise Jones

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.
~ David Bowie (Let’s Dance)

*
wings-angelsm

Last week was the first time I didn’t write since I started this blog in March. Endless bending over boxes packing and unpacking, puzzling to fit both in and out, my brain melted in ways deciding words and commas never causes. My bones ached. I sat down last Monday thinking I’d be there a moment, woke two hours later from a dream I still ponder. One where I completely spaced my flight to Santa Fe, so hopped a plane sans bags, clothes, money, anything. Landed with thoughts I’d find my friends. And people familiar to me I’m not sure I know pull up, know me, and my best friend changed her name to Cathy. I woke knowing neither Art nor I will let go our winter clothes because we’ll go back to the mountains, but I wasn’t clear enough to blog.

This week I planned to tell you how I loved my two kitchens in Asheville. The one I designed I worked with granite fabricators cutting counters so the garnet-studded crystal quartz arms splayed from the center, ran diagonally across surfaces. And after four years, this third home in FL, I finally love my kitchen again. We both love it, in fact. Express joyful pleasure twelve times a day. Was gonna tell you how 2016 is the year I reclaim my writer’s life. How once I spent 7 months clearing obligations and commitments to create the life I envisioned full of psychic space, writing, and reading. How I lived it 7 weeks before my husband was run down by a car 48 hours after our return from a research trip in Yosemite for my second novel. How all that space I carved dissolved.

But this morning I learned, long after others knew, that David Bowie died yesterday. And something socked me in the chest when I read it. His passing felt like an embodiment of so much passing these days in the world. I can mark my decades by Bowie, all the way back to the 70s. And when I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s words, I felt the middle of the earth move…

“For the last 18 months (we learn only today) David Bowie has known that he was dying. He kept that information private, while spending his final months doing what he’d done his whole life — making outrageously original, beautiful, complicated art. He made a gorgeous album. He created a show, playing right now in New York. And then he released his final video just a few days before he died — on his 69th birthday.

‘Look up here,’ he sings, “I’m in heaven.’

Can you imagine, to be making art like this (fearless art that both comforts and challenges) right up to the moment of your death? How do you do that? How do you BE that? To work with your death so imaginatively, in order to perfectly time out the last beats of your life? What a magnificent creature of creation, right to the end.

I am sad today, but mostly I am overwhelmed by awe. This is what it means to be a great artist…Inspiration, to me, is THIS.”

…because the truth is I’m courageous, sometimes bold, but I’ve rejected myself as flawed every time someone’s said I’m weird, different, particular, raised their eyebrow when they said artist. I internalized the blank stares at my Wonder and Awe as evidence I clearly see things with alternative perspectives, ones that exclude me. I interpreted messages of me being too much as meaning not good enough. Because I don’t stand out on the street, have no flag that says I’m artist or out there, I thought it must be about me. With Liz’s words of fearless art timing the beats of one’s life, on the heels of two people saying they missed my blog last week, I finally get I was wrong. I loved Bowie and other originals for courage I thought I’d never have. I listened to others’ voices instead of seeing messenger angels in kindred spirits like Bowie, Yoko, O’Keeffe. Messengers who told me to simply BE, and embrace what the BE of Me is. Now I claim that kind of courage. Claim my assets.
Who’ve been your angel messengers?

And the stars look very different today…
~ David Bowie (Major Tom)
*

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: My Bowie markers were early yrs. – Major Tom, Heroes, Cat People (Putting Out the Fire), China Girl, the film “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”
A Favorite: Angels. I seem to have one in every room.