Immensely Fortunate

I’ve changed in the last months. I’m on my path, well, the one I’ve always been on, but now I feel like I’m coming home, that there are answers to my questions and reason to my expectations. Now I know I can live life by myself, as myself. I know I can continue my self-growth in any circumstance, and that is empowering and reassuring.

I’ve been thinking a lot about self-love lately, and feeling for the seed within myself. I know it’s there, though dormant, and I’ve had a lot of feelings grow up around this expectation of self-love. I expect to feel a glow, a warmth, to feel untouchable in my me-ness; what I’ve come to understand is that I have to take care of myself first.

What does that mean? It means I do basic personal hygiene. I meditate. I communicate my confusion or assumptions or fears, I do activities that feed me and I don’t do what I really don’t want to – if I don’t want to go hiking, then I won’t. If I don’t want to work, then I won’t. If I don’t want to climb, then I won’t.

Doing these things keeps me whole. It balances me. I can approach a situation with an open mind and heart, look at the people involved, see what it is I can contribute, and give freely, openly, wholly. Without helping myself first, I don’t have enough energy for anyone else; I lean on others for their energy, their interest, their direction.

I am finding my way my way, learning to do for myself. Other people have found their ways, have found their personal practices that keep them balanced; this is what I feel I’ve been lacking all this time. When there was always a someone (be it boyfriend, or best friend) there to lean on, I wasn’t willing to develop a personal practice.

Now I am just myself, a realization that makes me . I almost said alone, but no one is ever really alone in this world of 7 billion people.

Now I can see that when I felt alone before, and ate and ate and ate to feel full, that I was really scared to look at myself.

Is that true? Was I just scared? Of who I might really be? I think there’s more to it than that. Why did I feel so alone so often in Bend? Because I shut myself off from everyone, didn’t ask for help because I was afraid to show myself, to open myself up to scrutiny when maintaining the façade of “being ok” seemed to be easier. It’s easy to lie about being happy, to fake it, to hide my true feelings so well that even I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. I don’t cry during sappy movies anymore, and I don’t allow myself to express anger. Both of these are important, big emotions that need outlet. I’m learning to feel them, accept them without judging (oh, the hard part, not judging) and keep an open mind to what’s next. The whole year I spent in Bend, I didn’t allow myself to become truly close to anyone for fear of being found out – for not being honest. And from the fear of finding myself, of examining who this Anchen person is and what she really wants in life, what she’s capable of, what her weaknesses and strengths are, and what foot she puts forward?

I was afraid of looking at me and not liking what I found.

Luckily, I found two fantastic friends who have helped me find the courage to follow through with my desire to look at myself, to recognize and name my issues, who appreciate me with or without my bullshit, who recognize when I’m faking it, who don’t judge me for faking it, who are here to listen when I’m ready to be honest. Being in this environment has helped me to become me, a process I’ve been saying I want to go through for the last year.

Immensely fortunate is how I feel. Thank you.

Perfectly Me

I’ve said that I’m a climber, a writer, a girl who’s finding herself. What I’ve been learning and thus realizing is that I’m not anything; I just am. I exist. Simply existing is enough for me to be Anchen – I don’t have to do anything else, be anything else. I can’t be anything or anyone else. And in this way I am perfect.

Perfect, you say?

Is that possible?

What about the popular saying, “Nobody’s perfect” ?

What does perfect mean, then?

Well, it means that I, in my uniqueness, my Anchenness, am perfect with all my flaws and, ahem, imperfections. Because I’m me, I was born, I exist, there is no one like me, no one else who can fill my spot in this life, in this universe, and in that respect I am whole, complete, perfect.

This is not to say I don’t have things I want to change about myself. Au contraire, now that I see myself as a whole, I am better able to see who I am and who I have the potential to be. Or rather, what I have the potential to be? My potential, in any case, and it’s

Frightening.

Yeah, really scary.

I see myself being great. I am slowly realizing that I am a great person, that everyone is fantastic in their own way (if only they would step out of themselves and see it!) Everyone is good at something, everyone has that skill or the passion or the knack in something. It’s a matter of recognizing and embracing whatever it is.

What is it for me? Why do I think I have such potential?

Because I feel it. I want to make the world a better place, as in help people to realize their own potential greatness and give them courage to explore and utilize it. Maybe this isn’t making the world a better place, but helping people to be happier living in it.

I mean, what if everyone in the world was happy?

Is that even possible, you ask? Personally, I think Americans are some of the unhappiest people alive, and they’re good at spreading the discontent. If I start with America the rest of the world should be a piece of cake, right?

How am I going to accomplish this making people happy thing?

Well, I believe people don’t get out enough.

Not “out” as in bar-hopping, drinking and dancing out, I mean “out” as in Outside. Into the Great Outdoors. Just taking a moment to enjoy the sight of spring leaves on a Maple tree, to watch the park ravens trolling for trash and listen to their gurgling call, to pause and just be and to remember where we all came from, remember what we’ve built our cities on, what provides the means for food and life – that’s what I want to remind people of. That’s what I believe will make a difference in people’s lives.

A better option could just be to take people by the hand and lead them outside, show them the beauty all around, how the natural environment affects their world no matter where they are.

Touching people through words accesses the intellectual part of the population that would rather pick up a newspaper than step outside – and for me, that’s the people I relate to, the people I think can take this and make a difference themselves. And how cool is that?

This whole meditation thing

Two weeks til blastoff into the Grand Canyon. A little less than that left to chill here in paradise.

Who knew that’s how I’d view myself and my life here in Yose? And I know the two weeks will fly by just like all time does. My main objective is to live each moment (eating yummy bread, feeling exceedingly annoyed in tai ji, although nothing compared to how aggravated I used to feel in the mornings.

So here’s me, embarking on Alternative Medicine to help myself. Growing up in Eugene, I always waved off the hippies and their day-glo wandering eyes, the sighing breaths and the way they end every sentence with ‘man.’ As in, “it’s hot today, man.” Or, “I had this crazy dream last night man.” I’m not interested, man. Not interested in appearing to be as out of it as they are, as far off into the horizon, so far separated from reality that they can’t tie their shoes (“That’s why they invented Birkenstocks, man”).

I never ever wanted to be classed into hippie.

But here I am, being asked if I am one by the cute Russian wife who’s younger than me and has two kids already, being taken for a vegan by the tourists (this kid said, “see, dad, I told you she was!”) and living up to every stereotype I’ve been running away from since I noticed how closely I resembled them.

I figured the only way for me to shave my head and get away with it was to become aggro – a mini GI Jane. Get away with it meaning I didn’t want to be taken for a vegan or someone who believes in that ‘mind-body’ connection.

Why not?

I didn’t want to be associated with those darn hippies I know so well from the Eugene Saturday Market, the panhandlers in patchwork pants, the drummers with the dreads and nose rings and a picture of ganja tattooed on their calf. Not me! Not me! I’m not one of them! Don’t group me with them!

Now I realize that I was never one of them. It’s only a problem of perception. The way I see myself is the only way that matters. Thus, me being a vegan, learning tai ji and accepting the mind-body connection, and me looking like everyone else’ idea of - what? A healthy vegan hippie? - is just a coincidence. Perhaps this is what happy, healthy people look like.

What about Vegas, the land of two-dollar breakfasts (cardboard bacon and rubbery eggs, granted) and 24-hour gambling? What will I do then? How will I continue my routine – that sounds so mandatory – how will I continue to do the things that make me feel good when no one around me does them? Rising at five a.m. to meditate (I’ve already thought of driving out into the desert when it’s not truly that hot, then sleeping by the pool for the rest of the day), do qigong and practice the form? Will I really do this? Even getting two hours a day to meditate is going to be difficult, since no one else in my family does it.

*Unless I spread the love.*

(Arched eyebrow and mischievous twinkle).

Unless I convince my once-Buddhist parents to give it a go, to try what I’ve newly discovered. We could have a family meditation party, make it a part of our day, use it to enrich our experience together as a family and on the Grand Canyon.

I wonder why my parents don’t meditate anymore. When my dad asked my sister and I what the last thing we would do if the earth were going to disappear, we both said “learn to fly”. My dad said he would meditate.

One, what is so great about meditating that it’s what he would do at the end of the world?

And two, why isn’t he doing it now?

I realize that meditation is not just sitting on a Zafu and counting your breaths. It can be anywhere, doing anything. When I go to class from 5-8am, it is three hours of meditation. The first hour of sitting meditation gets me started and the last two of qigong and tai ji are simply movement meditations, where I focus inward on my dan tien, on its rotation and on spreading qi throughout my body. I can do this anywhere, make anything a meditation. The hard part is focusing. The hardest part is focusing. But maybe that’s what my dad does for himself, the way he makes it through his twelve-hour days at work. Sure, he loves his work, but it’s got to be exhausting, all that energy output. He’s got to get something back somewhere.

We all do, somewhere. We get some energy from food, some from sleep, some from doing activities that “feed” us. What feeds me, I’m still trying to figure out, to separate what nourishes me from what I think should.

Like climbing.

But I don’t climb anymore and I finally feel like I have energy to put into myself. I don’t want to climb right now. The cons outweigh the pros at this point. Squeezing my feet into nerve-cramping shoes? Torqueing and twisting my hands, shoulders, back, ankles and knees to get up a route? Risking a fall so I can claim a redpoint or onsight?

I admit, I’m not letting it go. I’m exploring this energy work, this inner development, this mind-body connection, this dan tien rotation as a way to improve my climbing. I move through the form and imagine myself floating up the rock face, propelled from within, focused inside with the movements expressing themselves outside. I think there’s a way to combine climbing with tai ji, and I believe that with enough work and attention to myself I will be able to make the connection. I will move from the inside out, and climb for the right reasons.

Until then, I don’t want to climb. Because if I’m doing it, it’s for the wrong reasons, all those ego-traps I get caught-up in so easily; the show-off in me, the fear of falling… all the things that make climbing not fun.

What I do for fun now is meditate, practice standing posture, and sometimes I practice the form. I take naps after lunch, I spend less time on the computer and reading books, more time taking care of myself, figuring out what it really is that I want and doing that.

If rising early and meditating is what I really want to do in Vegas and on the Canyon trip, then it shouldn’t be a problem, even if no one else is with me.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it, though! (Mom, dad, Bree, Tris...and anyone else out there)

End of Days

Today was my last day at the Cone Stand, forever immortalized by the Cone Stand Rock, tucked safely into Zen and the Art of Conestand Maintenance. Five days of eight hours is not enough time to actually do anything with the rest of your life. I’m too tired, exhausted really, at the end of this five day week to think much farther beyond bed. And that’ where my thoughts take me, is to sleep. I fell nothing profound or really even intelligent, just like repeating myself over and over…

Hw do I feel about the end of my CS time? Relieved and already a bit nostalgic. It’s a job I can add to my list of things I never want to do again (along with bussing and retail) but there are certain things I’ll miss. I told one lady today about meditation and how it’s helped me; she took the advice to heart, ”I got an ice cream cone and life advice.”

That was cool.

Ondrej was teaching me to sing today – last night we tried to make a tune for the ConeStand rock, and it came out to be more like me rapping or raging like Ani, neither of which was very impressive, apparently, although liberating. So the last hour of my last day at the Cone Stand, Ondrej decided to help me out a little with my voice. He ordered, “stand like this. Open your mouth. Breathe through your belly. Imagine you’re a scuba diver.”

What?

A scuba diver? What does that have to do with hitting the high notes?

He said it didn’t matter, just to do it.

I forgot. I was concentrating on breathing and projecting and enunciating. Na ne ni no nu, la la la la

I think we’ve got a date to practice tomorrow.

Something Tangible

As my time here in Yosemite comes to an end, as my summertime friends leave, as I realize that this completely unique experience will live on only in a few people's memories, I decided to leave something tangible. A song to commemorate our time sweating it out in the Cone Stand.

Thus, I present:

(Read this with the influence of the Fresh Prince, Weird Al Yankovic and the Beach Boys)

The Cone Stand Rock

Climbers come here for the walls

Tourists come here for the Falls

But why do I keep comin’ back?

For me, it’s all about the Cone Shack.

Chorus: I’m comin’ back for the Cone Shack

Cone Shacka lacka lacka Cone Shacka lacka

The kids inside are oh-so friendly

If they can hear my order over the Public Enemy

Personally I go for the double scoop

And I just pick off the mouse poop

Brightly lit and clean is how it’s supposed to be

But the way they keep t, it’s light-free

The Devil’s Cone Shack

Open three months of the year

Hot dog stinky, the windows never quite clear

Employees who’d rather be outside than in

The Devil’s Cone Shack Den

The air back there is hard to see through

The haze of hot dogs and nacho cheese goo

Sticky and slippery, the floor all wet

But that hasn’t stopped them from serving me yet!

Chorus

I walk up to the window through a blast of hot air

“Hey, what’s cookin’ in there?”

I order my double then change my mind

“A banana split is healthier, right?”

The dude behind the counter gets upset

He hasn’t been trained on the register yet.

So we wait and we wait for the Cone Shack Queen

To return from her lunch out under the trees

Swingin,’ swaggerin’ thru the back door,

She assesses the situation and almost goes for more

Lunch

But she stays and straightens and unruffles and scoops

And hands out freebies and clean nacho goop

And the guys get credit but she gets her liberty

Which is better than a fat check any day of the week.

Chorus

A steady succession of Cone Stand fill-ins

Are trained regularly for the interim

While the real Cone Masters step out to indulge

In cranking finger cracks over a bulge

These fill-ins, these imposters

Start out as babes the Cone Masters must foster

Put thru the paces of the register and restocking

They realize the amount of work to get this place going is shocking!

Occasionally help will be sent from the Food Court

An untrained cashier with whom speaking English is more like a sport

“Yes? No? How do you say?...”

Seems like that’s what I hear all day.

But I’m patient, I explain, I even learn to repeat

“Carbonation is Czech is bublinki?”

Chorus

Colby and Anchen are the Cone Masters

With one in school and one with a Bachelor’s

Working together, they’re just faster

Reunited every Monday, Tuesday and sometimes weekends,

They sweat and scoop and remain good friends

Is this what it takes to make you appreciate the life?

School work ain’t so bad compared to this strife

Where you work and you sweat and you injure your wrist

“All in a day’s work,” your manager grins

I don’t agree. Call the union, call your friends

It’s time to take a stand

This mistreatment of employees has got to end

And we’re starting with the Cone Stand

“Is it really so bad?” You ask

“If only you knew,” I tsk

One hour to prepare, restock and reassess

From the previous day’s disastrous mess

Out of everything, the floor’s not mopped

(You can tell from the ice cream cone outline they dropped)

Wash the windows, collect the rags

Set up your bank, change the trash bags

Answer guest questions like,

“what time does the pool open?”

When the sign’s right there, I could just point to show them

Or they ask, “Where are the Falls? How about the bathroom?”

Holding their knees together and looking wildly about

I get some satisfaction telling them it’s down, around and out.

These people, these tourists, it’s like they left their brains at home while they’re on vacation

They expect me to think for them, to whisper incantations

And save them from themselves and their relations

What’s even better are the folks who forget

About vacation and are just here to vent

Who carry their stress up inside their heads

Until steam comes out their ears

And you hear

“Hurry up! Don’t train now, if I don’t eat I’ll be dead!”

And I say, “Relax, smile, pretend you’re fine,

And remember you’re on vacation, you’re not on company time.”

Chorus

Now the Dream Team’s disbanding

Our lives are expanding

To include TaiJi and school

We’re no longer the Cone Masters at the edge of the pool

Colby’s off, back to Utah

Anchen’s off, to sit Vipassana

This summer in Yosemite’s been a blast

Lots of grumbling, complaints and not enough time off

But we’ll both be back, our hiatus can’t last

Betwixt the walls of Yosemite we can’t get enough.