Holding on

One of a baby's first instincts, along with suckling and screaming, is holding on. A baby will hold her breath until the moment's right, and stick your pinky finger by her newborn hand and she'll grab it fast and tight. I remember babysitting a newborn once when I was seven... well, ok it was my oldest brother babysitting me and the newborn, but I played a part by holding the baby in my lap as she slept. And even in slumber, this child gripped my finger as if it was a life or death situation and letting go would terminate her dreamy existence.

Holding on is primal. You see it in every mammal species (I'm pretty sure, at least). And every time we adults see a newborn baby responding to instinct appropriately, we ooh and awe and reward her with smiles and cuddles and love.

So what the fuck happens to that sort of approval when we are reborn into a new life situation, boyfriendless and all, as adults?

A little back-story: Despite my catholic upbringing, I truly believe in reincarnation. I had a school bus conversation with my BFF, Caryn, once in 3rd grade. Somehow, on the way home from a field trip to the DIA, the topic of life after death came up. I remember wanting pretty desperately to believe in a plain and simple heaven like everyone else around me in my white, middle class, revived farming town brimming with happy Christians. It was the expected thing for a 9 year old kid to believe in there. Other suggestions had not ever been proposed that I can recall. But as I sat there dazing out the sliding glass window at the streets of downtown Detroit, trying to ignore my motion sickness, I found the concept of being in one cloudy place in the sky for all of eternity rather far fetched.

After several minutes of wrestling with the language in which to explain these radical thoughts, I said to Caryn, "It just doesn't make sense that all this LIFE we have when we're alive could just go away or float into the sky. How can our souls exist without our bodies? It must go into something new... it must get recycled somehow. The Earth must be able to sponge it up... right?"

A little stunned, Caryn quickly labeled my insight. "So, you believe in reincarnation?!"

Reincarnation? - Not a word I was used to. Not a word tossed around at my weekly CCD classes at St Andrew's anyway.

"Uh, what?" I asked.

"It's what you just said! Non-Christians believe when you die, you come back as something else. If you're bad you come back as a frog. I thought you were Christian?"

(Conversations like this would later explain why I had nightmares about not being a good enough church go-er, and I'd scream things in my sleep like "I CAN'T DO THAT I'M A CHRISTIAN" and highly disturb my parents and neighbors.)

"Oh... no..." I muttered, "I don't believe in reincarnation..."

Though I doubt any of my other peers on the bus were paying any mind at that time, this discussion was a pivotal moment in my social standing. I'd do anything to avoid being judged for my apparent non-Christian introspection; what would people have honestly thought of me? Even now the idea of this display of individuality and freedom of thought at such a young and impressionable age still lends me to a queasy stomach and chills down my spine. I would have leper-ized myself.

So I paused a moment more before on withdrew my previous statements and proclaimed the "truth." "No, I believe in Heaven. I guess our souls can be without our bodies. That does make the most sense. God! I hope there's a Heaven!"

And it was settled.

Years and years later, past my conflicted, Catholic-guilt driven sleeplessness, after experiencing tragedy and death and heart breaks and some growing pains, after depression and antidepressants and asking myself the really big life (and death) questions, I was reintroduced to reincarnation in a Christian-college philosophy course. The possibility of reincarnation made a lot more sense to me at a slightly more educated and experienced 19.

I recalled my childhood conversation and determined that my open hearted, honest 9 year old self instinctively knew something I couldn't admit for another 10 years.

How often do we get to say that, by the way? - That our child-self was right all along? Right for me at least. Whatever happens at the intersection of life and death is up to each of us to decide, if we want to, on our own, but reincarnation certainly edged out in the debate for me.

Without going into all the details of what it is or how it works, I can say the philosophy has given me calm in the most personally chaotic moments of my young adulthood. My mantra echoed in every crazed, stressed out, dire, mood-swinging, desperate moment: "Slow down... be good... your next life will be rewarded." I knew I'd screw up, lose my senses, I would feel the weight of the world, and I’d weave myself into an emotional blizzard again... "Slow down... be good... your next life after the next life will be rewarded. Live intentionally, be godly, and your reward will be just that: Being. Godly."

I can't tell you how much this has improved the quality of my present life. The fact I had this intuition as a child only proves to me that 1) Children are always right, and 2) I should always trust my instincts. I am grateful I held onto this particular childhood memory as it has crystallized my jig-sawed philosophy on how to live my life as an adult.

That moment in philosophy class opened me up. It inspired me to leave that Christian school and transfer to The University of Michigan, even though the campus was in my parents' backyard, because I knew the cultural and spiritual impact it would have on me, and that is what a college education is all about.

It was this decision that led me to post-college job prospects and big dreams and desires, and finally to the idea to leave Michigan and go to an even more progressive, cultured place on a tiny peninsula in Northern California.

It was this decision that has led me to the series of fortunate and maybe more frequently unfortunate circumstances with employers, roommates, boyfriends, and the ebb and flow of general happiness, which has then in-so-fact-o led me to write it all out with the stomp of my fingers on this here keyboard... and write, and write, and write I will.

(And it is writing that best allows me to tap back into my wide-eyed, childlike intuition and instinct; and good GOD it makes me feel better! It is really the best feeling I ever feel, and the best thing I can offer this world.)

But I digress. I say ALL this so I can share an insight I had just the other day. You see, there's a photo going viral on the internet, and a story to that photo:

The picture [taken August 1999] is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by a surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. During the surgery on little Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed, hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, "Hand of Hope." The text explaining the picture begins, "The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life."

For some reason, this picture, too, reminds me of my philosophy. I was told once (by graffiti art on Haight Street) that every time I die, I am born again. Hmm. I'm thinking back on my last post about being reborn so...

It makes perfect sense to me that in every life we have, we have the opportunity to experience many mini or metaphorical deaths and rebirths. I suppose it's how you choose to frame it when shit hits the fan. But for the really really big things, when that shit hits and blows the roof off, you have an instant to choose, from your heart of hearts, "Do I want to keep living this way?" And if you don't, as I didn't, you can start over with a fresh set of eyes. Each life is a journey of its own that plays into a much larger and longer network of consciousness, and we really do have an opportunity in this one little life to learn and grow to our maximum potential.

Recently I seized the chance to let my old ways die. I had a 19 month long relationship with a man that I thought, or hoped, would last forever, but as the gods of chaos would have it, the relationship itself had to die, thus I died with it. And now I'm a wide eyed babe.

But even 21 week old fetuses hold on tight, it's unnatural not to, so I cannot be blamed that there are parts of my old life that are hard to let go of.

A month after I moved out of the apartment I shared with my boyfriend I finally gave back the keys. Even with 3 new keys dangling from the key ring, it feels uncomfortably light without the old ones.

I am relearning many new habits to replace those of my past life, like what exit to take when I'm driving home from work, what side of the bed is best to sleep on, how much rice to make with dinner, how tightly to hold the person sitting next to me on a Friday night, and so forth. Some of these habits are harder to extinguish than others... coming home to someone in a warm 1 bedroom apartment and hugging and talking about the days' events is a hard thing to let go. How much rice to make? I can probably figure that out sooner than later (though there is still an extra half cup of it sitting next to me now... but I'll get it right...)

Learning these new lessons and habits is truly testing my patience, but they are the most important lessons to learn, as they are lessons of the spirit, and that's what a life's education is all about. Though, while I learn them, I do feel bad and shamed and angry and annoyed that I still have loving memories of my past life. I miss a lot about the way things were; yet at the same time, I'm bitter that life got so off course and I didn't end up as happy as I planned. It seems like this bittersweet juxtaposition and emotional confusion may be slowing down the progress of my new life. This must be why babies don't make memories between birth and 3 years of age - they need a buffer period to get over their old knowings. Maybe check in with me 3 years from now - I'll be 30 1/2, and maybe I'll be totally over this destruction - creation cycle. Maybe everything that is happening now will be logged into my subconscious like a forgotten dream or as it is in Being John Malkovich, and I won't have any recollection that this time was swollen and bleeding with vexation. Maybe in 3 years my dreams will start coming true. But maybe not, I don't want to jinx it. 

Either way, I do know for sure that I will hold onto my philosophy on starting over. I will not forget that chaos happens, and all I have to do is slow down... be good... and remember things will be better the next go around. I will hold on tight to that truth. I will survive all the spiritual deaths before me, no matter how often they occur and no matter how terrible the stretch marks get. I hope they happen often so I can get closer to my full potential. I will hold onto the memories of my most recent life for a little while, but I'll hold onto hope a little tighter, and throughout all the transcending, I will write my truths down.

Home is whenever I'm alone...

My body had wandered off again. It walked out the door without saying where it was going. It roamed aimlessly, my self inside, imprisoned as a silent witness, for hours and hours, for days? weeks? - time is obsolete for the wanderlust. My limbs had wandered off so far and for so long that my silent self had been growing anxious... "How will I get back HOME?"

I walked barefoot across the beach and I stared out across the ocean, and I trailed up the cliff-lined path watching white globes of fuzz from the dandelion blossoms float abound the pebbly way, and then, where my body sat, I saw the glowing salmon-colored bridge pillaring mightily into the clouds while a perfect white sail boat bobbed beneath in it's shadow. The waves, the most beautiful, enforcing yet pliable, majestic waves stretched across the infinite blue and gold plain. My eyes watched them attentively as they slid into the rocky beach like sex in silk sheets then subtly but erratically shifted emotion to crash and drum against the already diluted boulders, making the sky and peace around my body jerk up in fear of danger. On a far off rock in the water there were birds that looked like small people trying to stay dry as they watched the sun fall down and patiently waited for the tide to curl back into itself as the moon filled the sky.

I later found myself sitting on an outside stoop in the dark smoking a 3-year-old Clove cigarette. A black woman who I had never seen before drove into a parking spot, got out, locked the door, and briskly walked past me as she held her breath and started into the building I was sitting in front of. "How are you?" I heard myself ask.

"Good. You?"

"I'm good," and I felt myself give a polite smile.

I was smoking a 3-year-old Clove cigarette, but I am NOT a smoker. How could I be good? Why did I lie to such an innocent stranger? She didn't deserve the lies my mouth automatically spat out. I needed to get back control of this body.

I read some old journal entries to get some perspective. Apparently in the time I was just going along with my body, 5 years and 29 days, I had wandered to the Lands End region of San Francisco on a Sunday in 2008, and several pages and bindings later and exactly 3 years and 17 days later, I had discovered disgust for myself on a Friday. That was 3 days ago. Within my California wandering, pen ink inscribed my movements and behaviors. I had:

• Moved into a new apartment 6 times.
• Started 4 new jobs, the most recent of which I had taken 3 promotions but never saw a cent added to my salary.
• Sued 1 landlord. I threatened another.
• Saved lives with passionate mentorship and suicide prevention, reproductive health, nutrition, and teen dating violence workshops.
• Witnessed death.
• Contracted a life-threatening bacteria and shat intestinal tissue and blood for about a year.
• Dated 20+ guys... 1 who had a self-tattoo of a skull and the letters "L.I.P" which stood for "Living Is Pain." One who was secretly involved with cocaine. I dated a guy for 2 months before we both officially concluded he was gay. I dated a guy for 1 week who weighed about 100 pounds and never slept, ever. Another guy I dated briefly lived above a car stereo shop and was making a documentary about the car made famous by Back To The Future, the Delorean. Most recently I fell in love with and moved in with a married man. Well... separated. Eventually divorced. Whatever. We were together for over a year and half and he was my first adult love. My first adult heart break.

Flash forward to present day confessions: I'm in a studio apartment that costs more than half my monthly income. There's a hornet that's crawled on the windowsill above my bed since the day I moved the bed in. The shower faucet has two settings: frost bite and hell. The bathroom smells like smoke, and that bothers me. Me, the one who smoked a 3 year old Clove. Those things are made with fiberglass! How did I get here?? How will I get back home?

I idealized my "home" to be like the home in Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zero's "Home," which coincides as my iPhone's ring tone...

Home, let me come home,
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Oh home. Yes I am home.
Home is whenever I'm alone with you.

But now that I'm alone, actually alone, I can see that song is bullshit. God bless it, it is a great song, but it's a song for happy people in happy relationships and big 4 bedroom houses with white picked fences and a 2 car garage with a riding lawn mower and 2 yapping mongrels pissing on everything. It's a song for the illusioned who are also going along with their bodies and buoyantly bobbing through the Bay believing they can BE someone. HA! It's impossible. The home I've propelled my body toward is a manufactured fallacy. Home does not exist... not for the wanderlust... not for the mind-tramp.

Not that home anyway.

Something in the act and motion of breaking up with my "partner," saying goodbye to his family that had welcomed me in, and saying adeau to the friends he had temporarily shared with me, and moving all my furniture and things we shared out of our tiny abode, and letting go of the dream of building a home and a family with him, something in all that has allowed something else to awaken within me. The plug that connects my mind to my body was reattached.

Reattaching is an interesting process. Watch anyone coming out of a coma and you know what I mean. They open their eyes, that's usually the first step. Then slowly... very slowly they regain conscious function of their digits and voice, they become aware of their senses, and they reclaim their human power with their human spirit.

For me, my reattachment (one could even call it my rebirth) began with opening my eyes, gasping for breath, and crying. I wish there was a stronger word for the type of crying that took over me, as its violent nature was incomparable to the cry of cut skin or broken bones, or to that of the misfortune of being laid off from a job you actually like. I heaved with sadness and sobbed until my stomach ached. Reality was too harsh for my vulnerable new self to accept at first glance - I wanted to go back into the womb of my relationship, where happiness was make believe, but at least it was happiness.

I cried until I fell asleep, and when I woke again it was like only parts of me were turned on. I could use my body when I told it to move, but it felt numb. I could follow through with previously arranged appointments, but even meetings with friends looked hazy and ever dream-like. Waves of tears would crash into me unannounced, taking total siege of my attention, and then slowly drift away. I rode this ebb and flow of dazed emotion for weeks.

Then one day I opened my eyes once more and I saw light. There was light at the end of my tunnel vision where the image of the boy used to be. I don't really know why it suddenly appeared - maybe just a credit to time - but I told my body, "Go towards that!" and my body followed. My mind called it's first shot in years, and my legs and torso and butt did as I commanded, and I trailed toward hope.

Still, I had a lot of relearning to do. Specialized therapists needed to be scheduled to help my mind take full and confident control again. I had to take extra vitamins to help my soul stay fueled through the exhausting process. I had to dig deep into my memories to remember what self-love and compassion and intentional, spiritual living felt like, and I had to trust that those feelings could be rebuilt inside my current, previously mindless, machine.

Reattaching is a process and I assure you, I am not yet fulfillingly self-actualized. It's a path to be on - a journey not a destination. Occasional slips of unconsciousness take hold... hence the 3 year old Clove... but I am making a practice in leading with my mind and my heart, not with my body.

Living this way feels like a throw back to my senior year of college, which was the last time I actually lived alone. It was the best time of my life. My heart was free. I walked through the world with a slight skip in my step and a smirk on my face, and I patiently waited for the "real world" to arrive post academia. That was the year I felt truly, indescribably blessed with life; I had very keen awareness of what was important, and I felt the presence of god daily if not moment by microscopic moment.

The circumstances are right again - I'm single, I'm living alone, and my eyes are wide open for the next big thing. With this re-found worldview, each step I take on this journey is a step in feeling more alive, earthed, and whole. Every place I plant my foot, I feel a little more me, and a little more home.