Outing Myself

I'm not the type of person to get nostalgic and long for the good old days. But the one exception is my longing to return to my "golden age" of blogging. Between 2009 and 2011, I was blogging regularly; I was inspired to write and felt free to post whatever I wanted, and a community of other bloggers formed that gave me a wonderful sense of belonging and affirmation.

I really miss that. And I've been thinking about it a lot lately because of this crowdfunding campaign I'm in the middle of. I feel this constant pressure and inner conflict, because I know there are things I could and "should" be doing to spread the word about the campaign and encourage people to back the project, but I have tremendous inner resistance to doing these things, and that resistance is tied in with the reasons I don't blog anymore.

I just finished reading the book, The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer. In case you're not familiar with her, she's a musician who raised over a million dollars on Kickstarter to produce an album. (The book came about as a result of a pretty amazing TED talk she gave about that.) There are many factors that contributed to her campaign's remarkable success, but what she really emphasizes in the book is that people were willing to back her because she had spent years connecting with her fans and creating a true community with them, via the Internet.

The only way I can relate to that is in the community I felt connected to when I was blogging. And reading the book made me envious, not so much of her successful crowdfunding campaign, but of the online community and her ability to consistently connect with it. My blogging community fell apart, and I've often pondered why that is.

Out of the variety of factors at play (including the rise of Facebook and the tendency we all veered towards of blip-posting and endless scrolling), the personal one most troubling to me is how much more hesitant I became to put stuff about myself out on the Internet. When I started blogging I had just moved to a new town and didn't know anyone; the people who were reading my blog weren't people I knew in "real life." It was therefore "safe." Now that I'm widely connected in this town, and am friends with many locals on Facebook, I have much more fear and self-consciousness about sharing publicly at the level I used to on my blog.

That really bothers me.

I even made this collage recently to help me try to get over myself. It now lives on my fridge.

The other major thing that Amanda Palmer talks about in her book is that these relationships she's built with fans over time are based on trust - she really puts herself out there, not just on the Internet but in face to face interactions. She allows herself to be vulnerable. And this is what I have such a hard time doing anymore.

That's why I'm writing this post. I've been feeling like a coward and it's making me sick. I used to write and post with abandon, and I want to be doing that again. Even if nobody reads it. (And of course, part of me hopes they don't, because it's safer that way, ha.)

So I'm treating this post as a confessional, I guess, just putting it out there, admitting my fears and being vulnerable in the hope that, at the very least, my courage will be generally bolstered (which it actually already is just in the writing).

And if any of my old (or perhaps even some new) blogging friends happen to read it and comment, well, that will just be a tasty bonus. I'm guessing I'm not the only one out here who struggles with such things.

Amanda Palmer's TED talk

Merry Meltdown

Almost every year, at some point on Christmas Day, I find myself in tears.  You might say it's a tradition - not planned and anticipated like wrapping presents or making my eggnog cheesecake, but just what spontaneously seems to happen.  I think it's largely because of attending Midnight Mass at the Ranchos church the night before, the way it opens and softens me. Also, being up so late means I'm tired on Christmas Day, and that adds to my feeling of vulnerability.

This Christmas crying is not a bad thing.  As Kahlil Gibran pointed out, sorrow and joy are inseparable.  And for either to exist, the heart has to be open. 

Christmas is about the birth of a baby - the most vulnerable, crying kind of creature there is.  When the Holy Child is born in my heart, joy cracks the brittleness inside me a little bit more, and I see the remaining brittleness more clearly.  The desire to freely and fully love is ignited anew but starkly contrasted against that, I see where I still fail, where I am still frozen in fear and resistance, and in noticing that, a little of it melts into tears.

Though God’s wisdom and holiness remind us of our limitations, it is precisely within these limitations that wisdom is often revealed.  The incarnation represents the moment in which this wisdom enters the human sphere in all its contradictions, so that nothing is left without transformation and transfiguration.   

~ William J. Danaher Jr. (via Edge of Enclosure)

So here I am the day after, and I can treasure these insights and begin again.  It's perfect that the new year begins soon after Christmas; I can plant seeds in this darkness and water them with these tears, and watch a new thing grow.  The light has been reborn, the world has been reborn, and I am in these movements too.  This beautiful day is mine to live, to surrender and surrender to the flow of grace in each moment.  And when I fail, to surrender again.
 

  Always we begin again.

~ St. Benedict

At the Crossroads

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of pilgrimage lately.  It has been one of those themes that starts coming to me from several different directions at once until I find myself viewing it from a number of interesting angles. 

During the writers' conference that I participated in a couple of weeks ago, I had a major epiphany about my relationship with the San Francisco de Asis church.  From my very first post about it, I used the word "pilgrimage" to describe what I was doing in walking over there.  I said it was like taking a little daily pilgrimage, but what I've now realized is it's not a series of small pilgrimages, but only one, a long and profound one.  It's not a long journey in terms of physical distance but of time and moving through layers to an essential core.  

And today on Claire's blog, her post is titled "Pilgrimage as Inner Journey," and astoundingly connects with my own experience and thoughts.  She starts the post with a pilgrim's prayer, and one of the phrases that really jumped out at me was the plea for "a guide at the crossroads."  Because a crossroads is exactly where I am.

Ever since the writers' conference I have been dealing with the sense of moving to a deeper level with my relationship to the St. Francis church and the book I'm writing about it.  The piece I submitted for the conference workshop was woven together from various blog posts about the church, and the thematic thread I used was that of nakedness.  Some of you may remember my post last fall called "Naked in the Town Square."  I drew out the theme from that post to encompass the whole piece, and found it developing in my heart and mind as I did so.  Today in Claire's post, she talks about inner pilgrimage as a process in which she hands over to God all her life, both inner and outer, a process which feels like "stripping bare."

I am naked at the crossroads right now, because the conference made me realize that this book I'm writing is no longer hypothetical - I'm really doing it, and that process means getting more deeply involved with the church.  It occurred to me that it's time to talk to the priests and let them know what I'm doing, that it's only respectful to do so.  And also that one of my desires is to weave journalistic writing in with my memoir-ish stuff, and in order to do that I must connect with actual members of the church, get to know them, interview them.  It's time to move beyond the courtyard and enter the building, the body.  And this frightens me, for a number of reasons:  Fear of approaching people I don't know, doubt of myself having the "right" to be writing this book, boldness to claim that I'm doing so, putting myself and my writing out there to be scrutinized by people who have been members of the church all their lives.  Naked, naked, naked, in the stark light of day.  It would be so much easier to keep sitting in the courtyard with the hummingbird moths.

But honestly, the thing that frightens me most is in how I will be altered by deepening my relationship with this church.  I fear that I will be swept away, lose myself to it.  I have been flirting with the church, and now I'm confronted with the choice to make a commitment that I have no idea where it will lead.

Claire speaks of pilgrimage as a time of testing and says, "There is always a moment when it gets too much."  And to continue beyond this point requires surrender.  This is the crossroads where I now find myself.  Will I, as Claire puts it, allow the path I'm walking to "walk me?"  Even as I write this though, I realize it already is, even though I still have strong resistance.

Just now the church bells began ringing, calling the people to worship.  Today is the feast day of Santiago, and the annual Taos fiestas honoring this saint are in full swing downtown.  Hearing the bells, I feel an aching longing to be at the mass, but fear holds me back.  I'm not Catholic and I don't know how to do things like enter the pew and even if I did I would feel like a fake going through those movements.  I don't know the words spoken and sung during mass that Catholics know by heart, many of which are in Spanish, which I don't speak.  I don't know if they have childcare for Eliana or if I'm supposed to keep her with me, and I'm too afraid to ask.  And so I don't go.  I sit here and write about it instead.

Interestingly, the specific pilgrimage Claire refers to is the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and she writes of currently being elsewhere in the world, missing that place, knowing that today there is a huge celebration of the saint for which it's named. 

An amazing thing that came to me through the conference was in a discussion I had with one of the other participants who said she sensed that my deepest connecting point with the church is through St. Clare, not only in terms of the statue in the courtyard that I love, but also her story, that this woman perceived wants to be told and lived through me.  So today I am thankful to both my Cla(i)res for being my guides at the crossroads, and the awesomeness of this interlacing is not lost on me.

The name, Cla(i)re, of course, is related to clarity and light.  I have many photos of the statue of Clare in which she is framed by incredible clouds.  This is the metaphor I turn to today.  Recently I closely inspected an iron cross in the courtyard that I had never paid much attention to before.  I discovered that there is a Latin inscription on it, "Occurrent nubes," which Googling led me to learn means, "Clouds will intervene."  I love the mystery of this, I love that I can look at the clouds of my own doubt and fear and see how they interfere with my clear direction, but also in some way contribute to the overall pilgrimage.  A pilgrimage is not a straight walk from here to there.  Clouds refract light into variegated beauty.  They soften the harsh light that exposes nakedness.  They intervene on behalf of clarity if I only pay attention and keep walking the path, however haltingly. 

The Ruthless Gardener

Bell near St. Clare's statue in the San Francisco de Asis courtyard

As I continue to practice dropping out of my mind and into my body, several interesting things have been occurring.  One is that my normal state of intense study and research is becoming less normal.  I simply don't have the same intensity of thinking, which also means less writing.  I've been finding myself at a loss to even comment on all of your blogs.  Even this post is more like an eruption than a coherent thought process.

At the same time, my level of physical activity has accelerated quite a bit.  As I'm spending more time in my body than my head, really listening to it, I hear that it wants to move and work, for the sheer joy of it.  I have taken up running with a zest I didn't know was possible.  For most of my life, physical activity was something I thought about doing, felt like I should be doing, but didn't actually want to do.  Now I look forward to it, and find myself having to temper my enthusiasm so I don't OVERdo it.  I've also been working in the yard, gardening.  I planted pumpkins, and they sprouted!  My arms are sore today from pulling up weeds.  There is an incredible level of satisfaction in all of this.

But nothing stays the same.  I simply don't know from day to day what my perspective will be.  It's as though things are shaking loose within me, swirling about, uprooted.  I worked hard on trying to let go of a thing I wanted.  That didn't work.  So I started praying earnestly for that thing, something I'd never tried before.  I prayed specifically and articulately every day with all my heart.  Until I discovered I didn't really want what I was praying for.  What a paradox - when I tried to not want it I wanted it more, and when I gave myself over to wanting it, I stopped wanting it. 

Now the loud voice of wanting in my head is shrieking with rage because I've abandoned it and it doesn't have an anchor anymore.  It's desperately trying to seek one, and I'm just watching and listening.  Not judging, not giving in to its ludicrous demands, just seeing.  Just hearing.  Go ahead and rant and rave, I can't stop you anyway.  I will just wait here in the quiet you can't touch until you diminish, which is already happening and is in fact the reason you're being so obnoxious, trying to cling to life.

Nothing stays the same.  Everything shifts and sometimes that looks "wrong" or dangerous.  "To enjarre or not to enjarre" got pushed way into the background this week because I got very sick.  I won't go into the details, but I was showing exact symptoms of a pretty serious condition.  However, by the time the doctor looked at me, the symptoms were gone and my tests came back fine.  I'm convinced that I made myself sick by listening to the shrieking voice.  I let it take me over for a couple of days, and became unguarded enough that the tumult of emotion that accompanied that rotten thinking caused something like an oil spill in my body.

When I finally felt better physically, and could listen to the shrieking without being taken over by it, I was eager to go for a run.  It had been days since my enjarre encounter.  I waited until evening so there would be no crowds at the church, since I was still not quite ready to deal with that challenge. 

Nothing stays the same.  Have I mentioned how very much I love the little grove by the church?  Well, they cut down most of the trees.  They only left the ones around the perimeter, but essentially, the grove is no longer.  It's just an empty lot full of tree stumps.  They took down the tire swing my son and his friend strung up with an old garden hose; in fact the tree it was hanging from is gone.  I'm welling up with tears as I write this, as I did when I first saw it. 

Nothing stays the same, but everything outward is reflected inwardly with an eternal tint.  I think of the metaphor of pruning in John 15.  Some prunings are bigger than others.  Sometimes life is pruned so radically it's alarming, and doesn't fit my idea of how things "should" be.  Do I really ultimately know what "health" means?  Do I really know what is for the ultimate good of myself or the world?  

Oil spills, sickness, destruction of trees.  All ranting and raving is a wall of nothing against such things.  These things happen, and I see them all together.  I see in them meaning and connection that suggest a story I cannot fully tell.  I hear in them only the call to awaken, the thunder of tremendous bells. 

Jarred by Enjarre

Notice the individual pieces of straw in the adobe.

The cloud formations just around sunset the other night were the most amazing and bizarre I've ever seen.  I was sitting at the computer when I looked out the window and noticed the unusual quality of light outside.  It had that otherworldly pink glow that sometimes happens when the sky is partly overcast and partly clear with a certain angle of the sun.

I put Eliana in the stroller and went out for a look-see.  A layered variety of clouds in the west hovered above the setting sun.  Some were sinewy and fetal, and these were superimposed with intense depth over what looked like calm waves on an ocean.  The whole configuration appeared to be a world upside down.

As I walked down the street toward the grove, the sky was intensely blue in certain places, but the overall quality of light was orangy-pink, and within this, the arch of trees over the road appeared electric green.  We walked slowly through the grove and I felt like I was dissolving into light and green, the scent of grass.  But when we got to the passage between the gift shop and rectory, it was blocked by a parked car, and I could see and hear a group of people in the courtyard.

I tried to wedge between the car and the gift shop wall, but the stroller wouldn't fit.  In frustration, I turned around and went back through grove, and we went around the neighborhood a different way instead.

The next day, which was yesterday, I discovered that the cause for the group at the church that night was that the annual remudding, called enjarre, was beginning.  I went for a morning walk with Eliana and was startled to see that the entire church parking lot, front and back, was packed with cars.  Even the side streets were full.  I could barely navigate the stroller in certain places.  The courtyard was packed with people, and there were two large trucks bearing cranes parked right next to the church.  Groups of two or three were hoisted against the walls of the church in little boxes, beginning the process of giving the church its annual facial.

As I walked back through the grove, another large group was busy pruning and cleaning up.  This was sort of a shock to see, as in all the time I've been walking through that grove, I've only run into a couple of other people doing the same, and there's usually a startled mutual acknowledgment along the lines of "Gee, I never see anyone else here."  It even has a slight undertone of propriety, like, "This is my place - what are YOU doing here?" 

Once I went specifically to the grove to pick up trash, and this was actually the first time I saw another person there.  An older man was doing exactly the same thing I had come to do, so we naturally started talking.  His name was Ray and he's a lifelong member of the church who periodically tends the grove.  He told me about the family who owns the lot, how they live in another part of town and won't take care of it, how the church keeps trying to buy it from them but they won't sell.

In that conversation, I felt a kinship with Ray.  Yes, I'm an outsider, but we were just two people taking care of a place we love, and I learned something about that place from him.  But encountering the enjarre masses, I felt a mixture of negative emotions that surprised me with their force.  I felt alienated, irritated, jealous, displaced.

Usually it is only members of the church that participate in enjarre, but this year they announced in the newspaper that it would be open to other committed volunteers.  I felt a pang when I read this because I knew I would not sign up, partly because I don't know how much time I'd be able to commit because of having Eliana, but that's not the only reason.  And I didn't really want to think about what that other reason is, but now I've been forced to:  I don't want to share the church with others.  I don't want to be part of a team, naked in the crowd.  I want to have my little private love affair with that place.  And this made me realize I'm like the other woman, refusing to recognize the wife.

And yet I do fiercely want to be involved.  I want to go be a part of that whole huge thing.  I want to contribute.  I want to touch the church, smear mud in her cracks, share in this sacred communal act.  I can't even believe such petty emotions are holding me back from it.  I'm realizing that I might actually be attached to being an outsider because that makes the church uniquely mine, and if I let go of that, I'll lose it.  It won't be special anymore.

Writing all this now makes it so very clear how ridiculous the ego really is.  

Somehow, I foolishly thought I could just bypass this whole event, just sort of walk around it without touching it.  But I see now I'm being called into something that isn't going to let me go.  This event will continue daily for at least a week and maybe two.  I have no idea how it's going to unfold, what I will do.  At this point, I feel like I would be insulting the church and myself if I just avoided the place until enjarre is over. Will I let life distract me away from getting involved, or will I stop being such a chicken and just jump in?  I honestly don't know.