Doing Less

These days of December have been difficult for me – the winter months are all about rest, recovery from the rest of the year…not doing anything in payment for the frolics of the spring, summer and fall. And here’s me, unsure of what to do with myself in this “resting” period. Resting means…not moving, right? So when I read books, it’s resting, right? Knitting is resting, right? Writing is resting, right?

Well, if the mind and body are connected, when I engage my mind, my body is engaged as well. So reading, knitting and writing are not resting.

To rest. What does that mean, exactly? Can I watch movies and rest? Can I meditate and rest? Is it resting if I just lie here, unengaged with my friends, but present in body? This resting thing is not exactly boring, but the idea of the things I could be producing with all this downtime floods my mind whenever I ask myself what I’m going to do today, whenever I think of what I’m not doing.

After two weeks of concentratedly doing less, or nothing at all, the urge to Do Something is still strong. I’m afraid that I really will like not doing anything, that I will turn out to be a lazy bum, and that doesn’t sit well with my expectations of myself, or what I think others expectations are of me. In one sense, doing less is one of the hardest things I’ve tried to do, just in the way it makes me aware of what I fill my days with and how little it all mean anyway. Emails, reading books for fun, knitting hat after hat for no other reason than to be productive, ‘just for something to do’ – it makes me realize how little I need to do, and hey, maybe I’m a little afraid of myself, or of the nothingness within that’s not taken up with an activity. An activity that distracts me from myself, from seeing me as I am, a person who is trying not to pay attention to the elephant in the middle of the room. What is the elephant?

The nothingness within myself.

Does everyone have this?

Does everyone distract themselves? Seems like it.

I want to think there must be more to me than nothingness.

What if there’s not? What if all I can do is experience each moment and that will be enough to fill me, occupy me?

Life would be simpler.

Meditation would be quieter.

I could think about things other than myself.

It could be a good thing. This stillness, this nothingness within me, within all of us.

The world would be quieter. You could hear the birds outside, the snow falling. People laughing in the tent next door. Humanity.

Instead of insulating yourself.

We all insulate ourselves. From ourselves and the rest of the world. Because we’re scared of ourselves?

Is this why everyone gets depressed in the winter? Distractions are distilled to their essentials in winter, until we’re finally confronted with ourselves.

That is what I’m confronting; myself. So many are afraid to look at themselves, but what better time of year?

With this, I’m taking a hiatus from blogging. I don’t feel the need so much to write, more of the need to Not.

Not do.

It’s difficult, let me tell you. I’ve already got plans for my non-blogging time.

Like nappingJ

Being Me

I just figured out that I’ve actually been doing, been living the life I want. I like my life. I like myself. I set up my room the way I want it to be. I set up my schedule the way I want it to be. I do the things I like, like knitting, cooking, walking in the woods. Hanging out with my friends. Without planning it, without even realizing it, I’ve set up the ideal life. I am where I want to be and I’m happy with that. I may be a little tired, sleepy even, I may be a little manic, I may be still searching (for what I don’t know) but I’m here. I’m present, clear, living with purpose (to be happy) and achieving it.

What more could you want?

Well, one thing I’ve been struggling with lately is my energy. I finally feel a little like I used to. This morning I felt the tug of possibility roll me out of bed and hit the ground running. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve felt that. What I realize is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Continuing to take care of myself, love myself, eat well and exercise correctly is all key to my improvement and maximum self-realization. I realize that whatever I create is just that – something out of my head, no more or less real than the skating rink behind my tent, or the sleep dirt in my eyes. I realize more and more that I create my reality, so whatever I want to have happen, can and will.

I just have to decide.

Waiting and doing nothing is the hardest part. Doing nothing is all relative. In reality, doing nothing is life. I think of myself as a child, the middle child who actually got her chores done for Saturday morning cartoons, who was so concerned with not being lumped in with her “lazy” brother and sister that she did a lot of things she didn’t want to, just to be the ‘productive one’. I was doing those things for my father’s approval, to make my mom happy, to get a good word from my gymnastic coach.

Never for myself.

How far did this go?

I was with a guy for almost six years because his approval meant so much. I was afraid of life without it – afraid of life with myself. I’m beginning to recognize my cycle – I take a turn and reach the exit, that point of self-love and liberation, that self-solidity that I’ve been searching for. Instead of taking the step, leaving the cycle, I find a distraction, I run away. After Dan, I found Charlie. After Charlie, I moved to Bend. After Bend I moved to Yosemite, where I’ve finally become aware of my cycle, where I’ve found friends to help me exit it. I want to stop running. I have stopped running. And I am left with nothing.

I’ve given up climbing. I live far from my family. I realized I don’t want to write literary anything, that I knit to design, not because the process of knitting is that fun, that I read to escape, that I walk to exercise.

Where is the enjoyment in my life? What do I do because I want to?

I cook. I design knit things. I read silly and serious books. I spend time with my friends, usually doing nothing. I’m learning to give myself acupuncture, to evaluate my diet, my condition, my tongue, I’m learning to trust myself.

I’m learning to trust myself.

Because what I just learned, walking back into my tent after crying out my confusion and frustration and fear and sadness to the ever-willing listener and verbal distiller, John, is that what I’ve been doing here is what I’ve wanted to do all along, that all this really is just for me.

I’m not doing it wrong! I’m doing it right! This is my life. And I’m ok with that. I’m ok with whatever I might become because right now, I’m ok. Ondrej of Cone Stand fame explained it to me this summer – he said, “I live in a tent, and I’m ok. I scoop ice cream and say ‘our flavors are chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and cookies-n-cream’ and I’m ok.”

What I didn’t realize then, John reiterated for me now. It doesn’t matter what I end up doing with my life, as long as I’m happy. I could be an ice cream-scooper, a garbage collector, a window-cleaner, the president of the United States, a roomskeeper, a knit designer, I could be paid to speed-read bestsellers, it doesn’t matter. What matters, all that matters, is that I’m happy.

And happiness is a process. Just as I change every day, every second, so does what I like, what I get enjoyment from. You could call it an evolution of tastes, except my tastes at the end may not necessarily be better/more sophisticated than what I started with. It’s all relative anyway, ennit? It’s just somebody’s opinion that making $100,000 per year is better than $10,000. That having a family is better than staying single, that traveling the world is better than living in the same place.

My current reverie (from this morning’s possibilities inspiration) is to live sustainably on a farm, producing all that I need to live, with a group of my friends, working in our small way to live in harmony with the land. Sounds peaceful, doesn’t it?

Thank you, John Blue, for listening to me. I suspect that you make this process much easier than if I was on my own. For that matter, thanks to all Yosemites and the other people in my life – Bree, Marina, Kelly and Ivy, Lasey and Shannon – thank you for sharing in my life with me.

Practicing Life

Practice life.
Every moment can be perfect in its imperfection. I am every moment changing, growing, becoming more myself, deciding who I want to be. When I spend a perfect day, it's an experience. When I botch it, when I speed through Curry Store picking out all the vegan junk food which I then speed-consume solo, when I hate myself for putting down my friends; a thousand "when's" - it is a lesson. Granted, one I learn and re-learn daily, hourly, but it does not make or break me. Eating a cookie is not going to kill me. It might even be better that I gave in to the temptation and experienced sugar bliss and sugar crash, because it strengthened my resolve to do better. That's all you can do, right?

Breezy introduced me to the idea of practicing living. I was beating myself up about not doing enough, not making enough progress with my health and happiness, when I was feeling frustrated at being frustrated. Now with the help of Goenka's equanimity, which is observing things as they are without reacting, and Breezy's "practice life" philosophy, I feel much better about everything I choose to do.

And everything is a choice. A conscious choice to an action or non-action - whatever it is, it doesn't matter, what matters is me making the choice. Ah, these decisions!

Everything I do now is a sign of my improvement - the fact that I make conscious choices to eat junk or to read all day. The way I consider what I eat so carefully, who I talk to, how I spend my time, the way I make healthy practices my life - and make a conscious effort not to overextend myself.

Oh, it's hard, and I slip often. I'm finally feeling more energetic and with a clearer head and I want to do something with this. I have a hard time stopping myself from taking a big hike or claiming I want to climb something. The physical exertion and exposure to the cold would take me back to dragging-ass. I feel too good, I like myself too much for that. I'm realizing that I'm here to take care of myself, to love myself as much as I can, as well as I can, so that there will still be ME left when I'm 40 or 50. What's funny is the way I used to be so upset with Dan about using his body up and I didn't consider myself at all. It's true that in comparison, I'm a shining example of health and balance.

But I don't compare myself anymore. One of those changes I'm making.

Back to me and my health, my happiness, and my life practice.