Elephant

For a while now AM has been telling me I'm a lesbian. And I got it, mostly. Some things started to make a little sense -- all of adolescence being nothing but mostly feeling like I just didn't get what everyone was going on about. I tried to figure out the whole dating boys thing, but it never felt like anything other than hanging out with some guy and all this strange tension around him looking at me funny. Ugh.

A couple of days ago he commented that it has been the elephant in the house with us for a few years. It has been a quiet elephant. Keeping to itself, generally neat and tidy, unobtrusive. Still an elephant, taking of space and required that we work around it. But since things have been relatively comfortable, companionable and safe neither of us has really wanted to address the issue of the elephant.

Now that we've looked at the elephant, talked about it, we're both able to see, acknowledge the depth of the disconnect. Both of us pretending we were the exception, my sexuality had a "grandfather" clause in it that meant I wouldn't have to change. AM and I could stay together, best friends who happened to be passionate about the other despite the fact that our sexuality did not align in such a way.

The level of change is pretty damn big. AM at this point in time is still sad things have changed and will continue to do so, but happy we are both moving towards who we really are. We're both missing what we were, what we thought we had. Things change, relationships change, people change and here we are acknowledging that they changed a while ago and we just ignored it.

I'm mostly feeling overwhelmed at details. It will make more sense to do the legal things more quickly than I thought. It will help AM get things arranged from himself more easily and quickly. He won't leave quickly, taking most of the next year, but he's figuring out what he can do now. It feels strange. I'm debating when I should tell my Mother. We'll have to start telling friends soon and have already told SJ who is coming up next week.

It isn't grim and angry, not like when I fled out of the house after telling AP I wanted a divorce while cringing in the shower, where he had followed me, yelling. No packing up some things and fleeing to a friend's house until AP had gone to Los Angeles. We enjoyed dinner together and are watching episodes of Top Gear online; a pretty ordinary Monday.

When CK and I were hanging out yesterday we talked about some furniture issues. Making this house some place she will be happy in for a few years while we figure out what to do. I realized when I assured her it was fine to think about such things, to be excited about them, that I was happy about the same things.

After talking with AM today I felt more of the sadness of acknowledging the disappointment we've both felt for some time now. It also felt good knowing we were both going to be OK, it will have some challenges, but we're both moving towards what right. That knowledge took me back to the happiness I felt hearing CK's excitement on sharing a home with me, how I can finally just enjoy it.

HB told me last night not to feel any emotion just because anyone or situation seems to dictate that I should feel any particular way. It finally occurred to me today that I was feeling guilty for my sexuality, feeling guilty that who I am is causing everyone to change. Regardless that it is "just biology", as HB also said, and we all have the chance to change for the better, I felt guilty.

Most of all I felt guilty for being happy about CK. Not because I behaved unethically, but because I assumed I should feel guilty for shaking up everyone's comfort zone. I assume everyone is going to think I'm doing something wrong, inappropriate, and unfair. I need to keep focused on the fact that I'm choosing to live as authentically and ethically as possible. Lying to myself that it didn't matter because I didn't want to upset the calm was not ethical.

I'm going to try to start allowing myself to feel the happiness that is there through the work and pain. Just as much as I need to honor the friendship AM and I are rebuilding, I need to honor the happiness at CK & I fostering a life together. It will be work telling people, but the people most important in all of our lives honor the truth and will be able to share our happiness too.

The Hands Speak

I was too tired to write last night. I know when trying to approach writing as a practice one must do it daily, just like zazen. I also forgot to sit Friday night... and it is ango, when I am meant to intensify practice. Not to mention my commitment to taking Jukai next October. I am trying to let go of the inner task master, espeically given the intensity of last week.

My hands tell the truth of my anxiety this past week. The cuticles red and tender. I feel guilty looking at them today. I've been trying to catch myself when worrying them, but haven't been that good at it. The increasingly chilly autumn weather only adds to the tendency of my hands to be dry, peeling at the nail beds.

I'm in this strange space where shock and sadness co-exists with growing closeness, honesty and love. HB shrugged when I said this, "That's life." was his response.

The next year will be challenging and interesting, joyful and sad. I find myself not looking forward to sharing the planned changes with friends. The same conversation, assurances, and explanations over-and-over again. Time we need to spend reassuring everyone that this is not an end so much as a change allowing several people to live more authentically.

As for my hands... clearly I need to go back to the practice of constantly putting lotion on them. Whenever I feel the urge to, or notice that I am already picking at the dry skin and making things worse I need to run lotion into them. This helped before -- both in helping with the skin being dry in the first place and giving me something to do with my hands that is less destructive to them.

Shared Practice

My hips ache from mostly sitting for six hours today at teacher training.  I can easily see how people train for 500, 800 hours.  Even the over 200 hours I'm doing means some things are done quickly.  Part of an afternoon to discuss the limbs of yoga when each limb could easily be taught in over 6 hours apiece.  

I know that I will be studying all of this for the rest of my life.  Reading more translations of Patanjali's sutras.  I look forward to reading from the teachings of Pattabhis Jois.  I've been so deeply steeped in the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar and I look forward to studying the works of the other students of Krishnamacharya.  

It is through this practice that I think I may be of most help to others.  Today, while studying additional pranayama methods, I felt more ideas come together around a workshop for working with trauma.  The time broken up between deep, supported poses, pranayama to balance the mind, time for writing in a journal, and meditation.

Last night I got to watch CK come up into half handstand.  The teacher in me watched the assistance my teacher offered CK; learning how to help a student in this pose myself.  The rest of me just watched with absolute pleasure to be sharing this moment with CK, being there for it and the joy of seeing her smiling at meeting this challenge.  I barely did the pose myself because I wanted to watch.

I don't think I've ever shared a practice with someone.  I was the only one in my family who really swam or bicycled.  I had some cousins who hiked, but I often felt like a hindrance than really a part since I would struggle with my asthma while hiking.  It feels very special to share practices with someone.

Rails Off

This past Sunday CB noted that in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism there are many guideposts, ways to let you know you're on the right track. In Zen you're sat down on a cushion, encouraged to be still and all the other rails are taken off.

In the past few days it feels like I've gone about dismantling and taking down some of the few remaining rails on my life. I have a great weight of mourning, of feeling pain at disappointing people and leaving the comfortable safety of routine. I also feel a humming undercurrent of excitement on the changes that will be in my future. I told HB last night that I believed I was making the right choice for myself, what was true, however, that didn't lessen the difficulty of it, the pain of it. So pain, mourning, excitement, and love all at once.

Since I've taken the rails off, pulling down all my roles, make-believe ideas about myself, everything feels as intense as it really is. All I can do, again and again, is be present for it. I'm aware of all the ways in which I wish I wasn't, the times I'd like to just crawl in bed and hide, sleep the time away. Practice and love brings me back.

Generosity

This first Dharma talk during Ango was given by CB on the topic of generosity, the Paramita dana.

She talked to two main points: the ways in which we can manifest generosity and how we must cultivate a peace that we carry within us. Towards the end of the second period of zazen she asked to consider what we could do to project generosity there, upon the cushion, without speech or movement.

Metta came to my mind immediately, projecting loving-kindness and opening the heart. This called to mind to me the difficulty I have offering that back to myself. I thought about my pain, how I just work around it, let it be this dull, background noise accompanying the humming and drumming of my daily life. The physical pain particularly, but the emotional pain as well.

It had been a long day. The chair made me ache at the restaurant where we met to discuss the fund raising dinner around CB's new book, Mindful Eating. My stomach was a little upset and my back and hips ached, a spot in my right quadratus lumborum particularly so. Really, I just hoped the bell would ring soon so I could stretch out.

I took a moment and just thought about compassion for that spot that ached. I offered some sympathy to myself for the constant pain-noise, always somewhere in the back or hips. I acknowledged that it is tiring and hard to manage chronic pain. I didn't feel sorry for myself, just recognized the effort. Just focused on trying to be generous to myself.

The Risk to Blossom

Last night, while writing, I became aware of the the fatigue and eye strain I was feeling. I was seeing rainbow tracers across my vision, a whole arcing line of them. I went to bed feeling the effort of my yoga practice and heavy with the size of the change in my life.

This morning I woke up and my head ached from the sinuses, to my jaw, and wrapping around the base of the cranium. I got up, showered and headed in regardless. Under the fluorescent lights of the office it began to feel as though I'd been both hit in the face with shovel and as if the skin of my scalp was too small. Some ibuprofen at 11AM helped for about 30 minutes but by 12:10 I was about as bad as I'd been when I first got there. Finally I just went home and attempted writing some documentation instead of the code I'd been working on.

I am feeling a bit more scared today. Have had time to consider the enormity of the tasks at hand. I'm grateful to not have to try and get them all done in the next few weeks, but even working on them over the next months seems a little overwhelming.  It is trying to figure out the details that feels like too much to manage.

I found myself considering a quote from Anais Nin today, "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

Today I do not feel like I'm blossoming. I can certainly see that I was feeling the irritation at remaining with what is comfortable, safe, and has the trappings of societal approval -- in the bud, as it were. I don't know, perhaps all the pain of change, the pain of knowing, seeing, and admitting the truth, that is all the pain of blossoming.

I've not been known for my risk-taking. Even in my daring I was a cautious child. I would only sink into the thrill of something only after I'd assured myself that I'd be safe doing so, at least when it came to the physical world.  I can recall not being so cautious with my emotional body, throwing myself into trying to be popular, talented and smart, but not ever really fitting in with those groups in school.

I don't feel safe in these changes right now, like I've not tested the route, checked for the safety features or anything. It feels like nothing but risk and very uncomfortable.  Part of me would like to just check out, not be present for these changes, distract myself somehow.

What keeps me present, aside from abiding Love, is the direct knowledge from my combined practices that distraction doesn't work.  In asana the mind tries to take off, abandon the effort of the body. That very effort, and the direct experience of it, draws the mind back to be present to the discomfort.  The understanding I had found that all the distractions of my 20s could not alleviate the fear and sorrow I felt inside is what brought me to Zen, that and knowing I needed help in knowing what to do while being present.

So here I am, I don't feel like a blossom but at least I'm present for the changes.

Woosh

Suddenly the world is changing again in big ways.

Really it hasn't stopped changing in years. In a way it is always changing, of course, but big changes. It seems like I really just started by wanting to improve my cholesterol level. At some point I became aware of not liking the way I interacted with people and just started being mindful of each person I interacted with.

Yoga practice started in 2003. Zen practice started in 2005. Big changes that have always felt subtle. I guess doing things the right way leaves a feeling of effortlessness. Life just moves along and I with it.

More pieces of who I thought I was are falling away again. Not bad, good really, but still hard work. I'm aware of the feeling of being exposed. Guess I'm getting used to it, slowly, as each bit of me is revealed. Consistent input that I'm accepted and safe helps, but it is just shaky. The "rails off" way of doing things, as CB would say.