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

Rewind to Center

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Heloise Jones

. . .This morning, waking before dawn, a litany of lists pulling at your sleeve,
you wandered through the quiet rooms of your house, waiting for the coffee to brew,
for something to take shape in the dark. You realize, often, how your movements look
a little on the shifty side, your path fashioned by a compass few can recognize or follow.
And yet here you are, covering ground nevertheless, leaning into the instrument of your heart,
building the map song by song, even when the notes toss you somewhere you never intended.
Especially when they do.
~ Maya Stein (from Tuning In)

*
Birds flying *

My word for 2016 is Balance. In fact, Balance and Success (my definition, my terms), if I can have two. Because my life’s been seriously out of balance, and I am over it. fine. done. no more. whew.

I wrote those words Sunday. I have not been enjoying life. It doesn’t matter the place we moved into Jan. 2 has nearly everything on my List for Next Home, including a responsive landlord who cares about our experience here. Or that I call my own hours, can drive when traffic’s light, love what I do. I see the good stuff, acknowledge it, but I’d tunneled into the space between my Ideal Life vision and where we are now re. work and income. I churned to fix things, fill in the holes. Felt behind, that perhaps the work I’d done the past months was useless. The wheels inside screeched in their spinning. Fear crept to my edges. Truth is I look so normal, and I don’t feel normal. My husband shared an article. I have the classic symptoms of a body overly stressed. Exactly how I was when I went to Santa Fe.

Saturday at the post office a small woman with no teeth walked toward me. You’re so pretty, she called, her smile big. I didn’t want to deal with her. Didn’t want to reach into my bag, pull bills from the wad of one’s and five’s I carry for people who ask. I questioned my coldness a mere nano-second. Not today, I said. And yet she came, stood 12 inches from me. Not now, I said. She opened her mouth to speak. Don’t beg, I said. We stood a full minute, maybe longer, looking at each other. I noticed her mouth heavily ringed with white crust, how thin she was. That her skin was clear. Don’t beg, I said again. I was in despair. Once in the car I grabbed a dollar, went after her as she left the parking lot. Buckling up, I saw she stood with another woman at the next car. The woman’s expression looked like mine. I was bothered. I knew what happened was something about me I had to figure out. It came right after I’d just spontaneously paid for a stranger’s chiropractic visit. Driving home I heard 38* that night. I thought, her out in it, me all warm. Gratitude. I’d forgotten Gratitude. I’d gone to where I had no room for another person.

The Universe was nudging me. A Facebook friend offered help to retrieve pics of Hawaii and little boy grandson lost in my iphone upgrade. A message to my mind I am not alone. A neighborhood newsletter I’ve never seen online got in front of me. A friend’s response to the prompt ‘Using one word, name something significant about your life today,’ her answer Balance. The word stuck in my chest. I’d been looking at people making art with the thought I’d once felt joy in creating art, felt no guilt of time wasted. I’d been looking at people in other places thinking I once traveled. As if all that was over. I’d forgotten there was still room for me. That night I dreamt a policeman carried me to his house in a car, gave me tiny bottles of liquid medicines – Bs, and one called Kwan Yin that was leaking into a plastic bag. I have to get back to my husband, I said. Stay, rest, heal, he said.

Next morning I did not turn on the computer upon rising. I cradled my teacup in my palms, tasted the tea instead of mindlessly sipping as I sat online. I read an article in print instead of on-screen. I decided mornings I wasn’t out before 6:30 traffic, I’d walk the streets here for sunrise. I’d miss the heart-stopping color and light and birds on the bay, but I’d hold meditation and first breath with the day close rather than distract in a car. I decided I’ll retire earlier, too. Read before sleep like I do when I’m alone, like I did before my husband and I started living together full-time four years ago. Read like a writer. And I’ll still take a chance on doing things by my terms rather than succumb to what I can’t imagine me doing. I’m changing my word from Balance to Center, though. That’s where I need to be. Rewinding to center.
How do you find balance when you need to?

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

A secret: Same spiral, different place. We can only begin where we are in the moment.
A favorite: I can see the full moon clearly, for a very long time, from our upstairs bedroom window. It took a few nights to realize the reason the room looked brighter was her fault.

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.

True Magic

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Heloise Jones

If you are to learn something of this day,
learn about magic:
how it is real,
and the explanation for everything
that matters most.
I’ve seen it,
and felt it,
and lived it in dreams too grand
to live out in a single life.
And I am all the better for it.
You too are like the star whose
entire reason for being is to
point the way
to the human heart.
~ Jamie K. Reaser

Chinese Lantern *

The Chinese lantern flowers at the entrance to the salon stopped me. Two trees chest high filled with the delicate, hanging blossoms. Coral veins on subtle yellow petals so beautiful, I lifted one with my fingertips, thought what a wonder to be so exquisite. My stylist stood inside watching. You walked across the parking lot, I thought an overcast day and she glows, he said.

The next day, Christmas Eve, the nearly empty market surprised me. I remembered crowded aisles, long lines at counters on Christmas Eves past. They must’ve expected it, too, because four staffed the deli. I was there for what I call my holiday leftovers – a pound of turkey + autumn kale salad with roasted pumpkin and apples. Then, wah. The order wasn’t right. No problem, the manager said. He sliced more turkey on his just-cleaned counter, arranged it so it looked as pretty as it could in a disposable aluminum box with a cardboard cover. His kindness an hour before his workday ended filled my heart, made my eyes well. I wanted to run into the street like Scrooge his awakened morning, sing Happy Christmas to everyone I saw. I went home, packed for our move New Year’s Day with a smile on my face.

Christmas Day I got the best gift ever. The longest conversation of relaxed connection with my son I’ve had all year. Could almost forget how far away he is, living in Taiwan.

Life and our minds can have their own ways with us, though. Two days past Christmas, longing seized my heart so tightly, entwined with my vulnerability. I despaired, couldn’t think how I’d get where I desire to be. The path between my here-now and there completely obscured, my plans seemed folly. All the wise words in the world wouldn’t help. Because it wasn’t about being stuck, but something like a tsunami of wrong stories swelling, overtaking me. I needed someone to listen, let me say my fears aloud, confess my inadequacy, tell me one (just one) right thing I could hold on to. I called Sandra in Asheville. And cried. Later, Lindy in Santa Fe called. She’s considering a network chiropractor I know well. It’s expensive, the doctor’s intense, she’s not sure about the process. Ask Heloise, they told her. Thank you, she said before she hung up. That evening Rachel in Albuquerque painted my portrait from the pic here, taken in Santa Fe. The one people who know me say captures my spirit. Monday morning I saw Celeste from Decatur. We met at a writer’s retreat, followed it up with our own writing weekend. It’s been three years, and she was in St. Pete, wanted to see the bay and birds I write about. She answered an hour when I asked how long a walk. I didn’t think I could do my usual 16 blocks + another hour, so I drove down for sunrise. Turns out an hour’s a short walk when you’re meeting a friend you love. It didn’t matter the sunrise was far less than the dazzling two days before, that the tide covered the sandbars where birds gather. She saw white pelicans bobbing like galleons. We had a reunion.

I read somewhere there’s an ancient tradition noting your observations each of the twelve days of Christmas as divination of the coming months. I’m not a devotee. I forgot the 11th day last year, already forgot 3rd day this year. But I’d like to think there’s something to it. That it’s part of the magic and web of connections in the Mystery. Because without stretching I see my October in Santa Fe held last season’s 10th day birds lined in a row, in sunshine. Know this past week holds 12th day’s promise of the golden dragon flying above. Because life feels giant and golden right now. I remember my work is loving this world filled with beauty, kindness, and horrible stories that overwhelm. That we’re all here for each other through it. Or can be, anyway. What do you say?

Dragon.1
*
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness.
I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful,
and don’t forget to make some art. And I hope,
somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
~ Neil Gaiman

A secret: I’ll watch January. 1st Day observation was hazy, then sunshine. With great family connection. And fifteen pelicans + four snake birds swimming in a pack, dipping faces again and agin into the water, feeding.
A favorite: Feeling the magic.

Flower photo: Pat Sullivan

Looking Up while Sowing Clover

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Heloise Jones

In the darkness of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
~ Wendell Berry

Up thru the Pines

I considered no blog today. I got caught yesterday in between here this minute and what I want. It messes with me. My mind acts like a kitten, distracted by what rolls through. It can feel an awful lot like stuck. Sometimes like biting nails, the metal kind. Even knowing what I do, having read the books, watched the shows. . .Be Here Now. Gratitude. Breathe. Transform limiting thoughts. Focus on what you want. Change your mind, change your life. Let thoughts drift, like clouds. This moment is not forever. et al

This morning I see how often a good twin shows up with bad stuff. A long awaited email saying the job my husband wants is finally in planning, in motion, a twin for the surprise $1800 dental bill that followed the $3500 to move and $1100 root canal. A $20 discount with the exterminator covering the $20 dinner bill I thought already paid. I see my whole year has been speckled with gifts next to challenges. The sweltering tropic summer I wanted to escape, and the magic of seeing a rocket launch glow like a strange bubble of light with a fat tail in the black dawn sky. That moment’s thrill and excited fear I witnessed an alien entry. The brain cramps condensing a 90,000 word multi-layered novel into a compelling one page synopsis, and the triumph of success. The annoyance of writing a complete CV, and the surprise satisfaction in four pages of writing classes, conferences, retreats, and workshops I’ve participated in. The longing for travel while grounded at home, and the morning I saw the entire dome of the sky turn into the inside of an oyster shell, stood in awe at the splendored everyday sight of a mollusk. Leading me to answer a question I’ve held for decades, a gift my father gave me as he was dying.

Just before bed last night I read The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Andersen in Parabola Magazine. This little tree wanted so mightily to grow up, experience what other trees he saw experience, that he couldn’t appreciate his own beauty or the gifts of life around him. And as I flossed last night at midnight, long past time for answers from a dentist, a piece of my problem tooth broke off. And I got it. Let go. Shift focus. Remember silver linings. Sow clover, gratitude and compassion.

This morning the dentist said don’t panic.
What visits by the twins, gifts and challenges, have you had?

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

A secret: My mouth is really small in dentist terms.
A favorite: The awe in Life.

Photo: painting by Tebbe Davis