curiosity, kitten, doesn't have to mean you're on your own

and i'm not.

i walk along these hillsides in the summer 'neath the sunshine.
i am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me.

- counting crows "a murder of one"

mere gurudev

krishna das' "mere gurudev" is playing as i'm doing savasana after my yoga session. my eyes are closed and i see/feel myself spinning like a dervish, face up to the sky. everything is golden yellow orange and i am basking in the bliss of all creation.

i see the the people from my past. i see their faces as i let them go; they are dissolving as i spin. i thank them for their lessons and i let them go. i no longer need the lesson of love given and love withheld. i no longer need the lesson of abandonment. i'm free of it.

finally. finally, i can allow myself to have more in my life. more authentic love, more truth, more. finally i can say that i deserve happiness.

pried open

i wrote this back in april while i was in santa rosa.

i've learned some pretty harsh lessons over the last couple of years, the most recent – and the most cruel – having been learned over the last 6 months from some of those who claimed to love me the most.

these aren't things i'd hoped to have to learn in my life. these are things - embarrassing things, humiliating things - that gullible people in the newspapers and on oprah and dr. phil learned. not me.

but i know the fact is that these things exist, that there is incredible human cruelty. and i know that it's often that those you are closest to are the ones that willingly and ruthlessly choose to harm you the most.

this is just a truth in the totality of the human experience.

because i want to know the totality of the human experience, i have to embrace this lesson. and I have. this lesson has allowed me to embrace, rather than hide, the parts of me that feel duped and betrayed and abandoned and ...

this culture teaches us that it's "proper” to suppress emotion – to suppress our humanness - out of shame and out of fear of appearing weak, while some cultures celebrate human emotion out of the joy and appreciation of the full range and depth of the human soul.

after 47 years, i have finally begun to relinquish my shame over being a human with human emotions. i can laugh more authentically and cry more freely, all without apologies to those who are uncomfortable when faced with such openness.

pried open by the experience of such cruelty, i now have room in my life for more experiences of openness, of authenticity.

with that new room, there have already come new people, and they have brought much more sensitive lessons. lessons of love, truth and safety.

what goes up must come down

so i was doing a little yoga the other day and couldn't focus. couldn't just be in the moment. couldn't do the ending savasana. and i realized that it's been quite awhile now since i could just enjoy the moment for more than, well... a moment. and what's up with that, especially since i'm living in a fairytale right now?

so what is up with that? a bunch of crap has been swirling around and around in my head for weeks and i just need to get it out. but i've been unable to get it out of my head for fear of the repercussions.

wait a minute. did i just say i haven't been doing something out of fear? did i hear myself right? would you look at that. look at the control i'm allowing to be exerted over me from across the miles.

if you're a good girl and you don't tell, if you just walk away quietly with your tail between your legs, and certainly if you don't dare to use the law to recover what it rightfully yours... well then maybe someday you might get a little bit of your money back. but only if you don't tell. shhh, be quiet. don't tell. just walk away.

fuck fear.

shut up. shut up. shut up! don't talk. stop whining. don't tell. buck up. move on.

so what if someone stole everything from you and then bullied you - and those around him - into submission. just shut up. talk about something nice. something fun.

isn't the water just be-yooo-teeee-ful in budva?

From Judith Herman's The World’s People:

"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil.

...In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim.

If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he martials an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization.

After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it on herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on.

The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of the pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering."


so here's my remembering.

and for the record, i don't consider myself a victim at all. don't care for the word. i'm simply the target of what appears to me to be some really disturbed behavior.

:: legal disclaimer ::
anything i've said here is only my opinion based on my personal experience, and may or may not be a statement of absolute reality - if there is such a thing as absolute reality. or even based on reality at all. i mean, philosophers have argued the nature of reality for ages and still can't agree.

the old double hitch-a-roo hitchy hitch hitch

hitched with z from jaz to budva today. ok, it wasn't all that far, but it was our first hitch together - and z's first hitch ever.

as a female who has always hitched alone or with another female, i wondered how travelling with a male partner - a really tall, shaven-headed, kind of scary looking male partner - might impact the amount of time it would take to get a ride.

apparently not at all. it took us less than 2 minutes to be picked up by a guy in a mercedes.

so there's that.

the poetry of a language barrier

z, trying to find the words in english to describe a particularly warm and fuzzy hug-in-progress: "how can i say? if could just disappear into you, that would be best."

budva montenegro: internet access has never been so good

ok, it's not good in the way i would normally define good. it's slow and i have to pay tourist prices to buy beer in order to use it, but take a peek...


my favorite table at "the prince" internet pub in budva's stari grad


to the right of the internet pub


why i get bird poop on my keyboard when i use the internet



the "street" in front of the pub

the end of the street in front of the pub

the end end of the street in front of the pub...

caffe greco, budva montenegro stari grad

caffe greco is the most popular bar inside stari grad.
my balcony overlooks the place...


the music starts pumping somewhere between 9 and 10 and then i've got myself my very own private vip balcony lounge overlooking the teeming throng.

nothing like a nightly dance party to keep you fresh!

and i ask again, how did i get so lucky?

the first dinner on our balcony


life doesn't suck.

i live in a fairy talehow did i get so lucky?

budva, montenegro is 2,500 years old. they don't have a date for "stari grad", the old walled stone city, but they can accurately date one church there back 700 years. this is where i'm lucky enough to get to live in. look closely, my place is circled...


this is the vine covered balcony patio where i get to lounge, read, eat, drink and dance - as is the upstairs flat in the stone building behind it.


this is the street i get to walk down every day, and the doors to the stairs that lead to the incredible balcony patio.

these are the stairs i get to use every and to the left, the vine that climbs up and covers the patio.

the mailbox i get the privilege to call mine for awhile.

my balcony patio.

the vines above.

the nearest cross street to my place...

uh, oh yeah. and this is the beach almost right outside my door...

breakfast of champions

before.





during.


after...

things i'm not very good at yet

• dealing with a shared kitchen in an open-air hallway
• mosquito bites
• the uncertainty of waiting to see if we'll get a vendor license and trying to find an apartment while wondering if - given the economy - the tourist season will be good enough to even pay for our start-up expenses
• being comfortable with the whole busking lifestyle thing
• how long it takes to get anything done in montenegro

made it to budva, montenegro

budva old town - called "stari grad"


grabbed a room here while we're looking for a more permanent place to stay. here's the view from the window.

skopje, macedonia

next stop, skopje (pronounded "scope-ya" ) macedonia, birthplace of mother teresa, to visit ratko, another of zeljko’s old friends. the “busker festival” touring montenegro was in skopje for 10 days and ratko was busy making more money there during that time he could make in 6 months at a “regular” job in skopje. air brush tattoos. who knew. people were lined up waiting for him when he arrived each afternoon and he didn’t get a break until the last customers wandered off around 1 in the morning after the rest of the place had closed down.

safe in belgrade serbia, but internet access still tough...

visited mitza, a high school friend of zeljko's, and her family on our way to skopje, montenegro.






a little damage courtesy of uncle sam.

belgrade has a rather large gypsy population, many living in cities of shacks in, on, and bounded by hills of rubbish that are packed in for what seems like miles under large modern freeway overpasses. for those of you have been to tijuana 30 years ago and seen the squalor there, it’s similar. so strange so see in the shadow of rush-hour crowded multi-lane freeways and semi-modern high rise buildings.

bosnia: the bottom-line

ok, i could talk about what it was like when i first arrived and zeljko met me at the bus station, or what it was like to see my city again, or zeljko’s mom marija and brother zoran. i could talk about tea teodora and vuki and goran and majda… i could talk about the feeling of complete at-home-ness during zeljko and my daily walks through banja luka.

but the bottom-line is that it’s really good and real and that lots of time has been spent in bed, awake, asleep, and somewhere in between. reveling in the feeling of sinking so completely into someone, someone whose skin and scent is so familiar at a soul level, someone whose voice is so deep and rich that just hearing it soothes every jagged edge in me, someone whose mere presence makes me feel safe in a way i’ve never felt safe, and someone who knows me so intimately that there is nothing to hide, nothing that i can hide, nothing that i want to hide.

how is it that i found this soul - that i am so at home so many miles away from what i once thought was my home?

in - and out of - slovenia

unlike the last time i was in this neck of the woods, i am in and out of zali log and slovenia within a few short days. weird to leave so quickly, but i’m happy that i got to see tine ever so briefly (and to happily do his laundry for him since he’s the busiest man I have ever met) and happy that i was able to meet his really cute girlfriend brigitta.

this leaving is so different

i was sitting in the train station in kranj, slovenia thinking about how much more travelling was in front of me before i finally would make it to banja luka when i wrote this. here it is, unedited:

this leaving is so different. last time i left, i left the ugliness of the stress of house building, a lawsuit, being stalked, and the deception of a loved one.

but this leaving - this leaving.... i leave a circle of friends and family that stood by me and with me in my need, and whom I cared for in their need.

i missed no one, really, in my first leaving. i couldn’t.

i miss so many in this leaving. those whose presence in my life and love was cemented when i returned. my family. my mom & dad, whom i would love to be with at this very moment. my brothers and their families, who have always been next to me although we have been separated by many miles for many years. my niece heather, who simply just gives a shit about me and always will, and will always do what needs to be done – even if it’s a hassle. allen and kim. and jane. jane, always close in the way weird twins souls like us are close, but who fused together, intertwined completely over the last year or so. jane and our new life we built when i was back in the states. and schmitty. schmitty babaganoush hanuman. what can i say?

this leaving is so different.

so I sit in this train station where nobody speaks english, drinking my “union” beer and I remember that the excitement is in every moment.

so what if the bus that tine said would arrive at 1 didn’t arrive at all. so what if I paid 5 euro for a taxi (down from 7 because the driver’s wife is from banja luka and he’s been to zelenkovac many times) to drive me to the train station because it was 2km away and my packs were so heavy and it was so f'ing hot out that it was actually worth it to me.) the excitement is in the daily adventure and here is my daily adventure. i will arrive in banja luka late, hot and tired, but i will have had an adventure along the way.

on leaving samir and switzerland

when I first arrived in zurich and caught a glimpse of samir through the glass wall separating the baggage claim and waiting areas, i couldn’t stop the huge smile that immediately broke out. well, not that i’d want to stop it, but i’m just saying that if i did, i wouldn’t have been able to. anyway, that smile was immediately matched by samir’s. how i love that face! i rounded the corner, dropped my bag and we shared a huge, huge hug, then immediately fell into conversation as if i were only gone for a day or two.

we are so completely comfortable together, from the casual way we day-tripped together to the ease in which we both fell asleep on our respective couches during our nightly star trek (in german) marathons - it’s as if we’d grown up together. i’m happy to have been able to meet his friends – all very interesting and cool. and particularly honored to have shared an evening of patio dining with his parents. i’ve gotta say though, that i’m still disappointed that i missed meeting samir’s sister that we had planned to visit, and his girlfriend that currently lives out of the country. but there is always next time, and there will be a next time – and a next. there’s no doubt about that.

how is it that i found some of the people i feel the most at ease with the closest to, across the globe from where i spent most of my life?

switzerland day 3: bern and the borg

why quit when you've got a good thing going? on this, my 3rd day in switzerland, samir and i continued our newly established tradition (which includes getting home around midnight, then watching star trek until we pass out on the sofa) by heading to bern.

bern is the federal capital of switzerland and has a charm all its own (my camera battery died). the center of the city was built in 1191 and einstein lived here when he developed the theory of relativity.

after a day in bern, we visited samir's friends who live there in a flat with an amazing oasis-in-the-midst-of-a-medieval-city of a backyard and then, true to form, finally made it back home around midnight. after samir whipped us up an amazing dinner, we settled back onto our respective sofas for an evening of star trek. tonight, the episode where Q throws the enterprise to the far reaches of the galaxy - and their first encounter with the borg. all made even more exciting by the fact the dialog was all in german.

the zytglogge (clock tower)


the bundeshaus (federal palace)

switzerland day 2: zurich, einsiedeln, luzern, zurich

so to continue the tradition of 12 hour days that samir and i started yesterday upon my arrival, day 2 was a road trip. first stop, the einsiedeln cloister. a swiss holiday and catholic holy day, our arrival was rung in by the bells in the two towers and the start of the "divine service." the word "ornate" does not begin to describe the interior of the cathedral....

just a little roadside stop on the way to luzern

shot from a wooden bridge built in the 1500's (ok, parts burned, replaced, shored up... but still...)

and the bridge

how to avoid jetlag after arriving in switzerland

immediately after your arrival, climb the tower at the grossmunster cathedral and take in this view of zurich


dangle your feet in the zurich lake whilst taking in the view of the swiss alps

gawk at (but don't eat) one of these babies,

and spend at least 12 hours walking, eating, drinking and generally hanging around with samir and gerome before even considering doing anything else!

does this pack make my butt look big?

on the road again

with the wind in my hair!!!!!

mom and dad's 60th anniversary

then


now

mmmm, delicious!

crisis over.

pneumonia gone and my mom is finally home from the hospital.

check out this little beauty...

how i spent my day today

dad and i visited my mom in the hospital today - as we have done every day since the 22nd. but this time we took a little detour... even though he was using his walker, my dad still managed to take a header whilst making his way up the hospital corridor. a blood test, urine test, ekg, pelvic x-ray, ct scan, tetanus shot and 3 bloody bandages later, i wheeled my dad in a wheelchair up to see my mom.

i think my head is going to pop. which would be a blessing, frankly.

oh yeah, don't stop. keep going. don't stop. keep going.

mom revisited

just got a call from the doc. make that pneumonia or heart failure or both.

trying to roll with the punches here.

don't stop. keep going.

mom

still in hospital. knee's fine, but she's got pneumonia.

an ever-deeping experience and understanding of gratitude - found in the oddest of places

I want to express my gratitude to my ex, my former someone, something or another… for creating the opportunity for me tonight – for the first time in my entire life - to hug my father so tightly and to sob so completely, so uncontrollably, so totally raw and exposed, on my father’s shoulder. I am 47. My father is 89. I don’t know that I would have had that opportunity if not for the events of the past 3-ish years, and most recently the actions of my former whatever-you-want-to-call-him over the past year and half, culminating in the “news” I received this evening. Thank you ex-somebody. You unwittingly gave me, perhaps, the greatest gift I have ever been given.

I also want to express my gratitude to and for my friend Kim whom, once she heard the news, immediately came over and made dinner for my father while I sobbed. (I am taking care of my father while my mother is in the hospital.) And to and for my friend Allen who, tonight, reminded me of his simple motto that has seen him through many events, including prostate cancer: “Don’t stop. Keep going,” when I wanted to stop. I have extreme gratitude for his incredible blues guitar playing tonight, improvised around my sobbing and turning something ugly into something beautiful.

And Jane. Always. Miles away tonight but right next to me.

And finally, I want to thank the phenomenon of sobbing. While public displays of deep, wrenching emotion is shunned and ridiculed in this culture – sobbing, really truly sobbing – breaking apart - is one of the most liberating things I’ve ever done. I am naked in front of my friends and we are closer for it.

I am stepping off the cliff into the void.

mom

knee replacement surgery for my 85 year-old mom today.

sent to me from a long lost, but never forgotten love

our own life unfolding

a tidbit from jon kabat-zinn’s “wherever you go there you are”

“As a human being, you are the central figure in the universal hero’s mythic journey, the fairy tale, the Arthurian Quest. … This journey is the trajectory between birth and death, a human life lived. No one escapes the adventure. We only work with it differently.

Can we be in touch with our own life unfolding? Can we rise to the occasion of our humanity?”

my shiner

shiner, day 3


shiner, day 8

shiner, day 12

yes, that's a phillips screw in my head

the world is calling

the sound of van morrison’s "astral weeks" is drifting from the house out to the porch where the three of us our laying on our new daybed, jane across from me and schmitty curled up between us. it’s a perfect blue afternoon and i’ve just pulled “the world” and the happy-rainbow-family 10 of cups for the umpteenth time. jeremie (canada/france) and emelie (france/bosnia) emailed last week, tine (slovenia) earlier this week, yura (ukraine/france) called this afternoon, and zeljko (bosnia) just texted.

what an incredible life i’ve created.

my beautiful hosts

schmitty hanuman babaganoush

another perfect moment.

j and i are enjoying snatum kaur's "grace", a little pinot noir, chevre and crackers. i find myself laughing from the gut, pure joyful laughter as schmitty, both saved and savior, crazy little wild spirit kitty maneuvers around on my leg and leans hard into me. his spirit wraps around me, pure playfulness and simple joy.

schmitty hanuman babaganoush, healer love kitty extraordinaire.

knocked into consciousness

i think that describes what's been happening for the last year or so. just gettin' knocked into consciousness.

grace

snatum kaur’s "grace" is playing and i am dis-integrating again. i am atoms, each with its own awareness of and appreciation of the music. an orchestra of awareness so much more rich and layered than the flat dullness of the single awareness of the “integrated” concept of self.

beautiful.

thank you.

dis-integrating

sitting on the cottage deck at dusk in the face of the rawness and power of the ocean, i’m trying to find a word to describe the feeling in my gut, in my soul. dis-integrating. that’s the word. it’s as if each crash of each wave is working its way between the pulled-tight fibers of the outer me, the costume i wear in the physical world, the false me - and breaking them loose and washing them away.

the outer me is dis-integrating and as it does there is more room for the source of that me to expand. and expanding into that space, the “I” becomes more diffused. I am loosing the heaviness of this world. “I” am dis-integrating, diffusing, and becoming so, so, so…. light.

dis-integration rocks!

An Ocean Refuses No River

Sitting with jane on the floor in the streaming sun looking out at the ocean on the Mendocino coast. The previous nights rain has given away to blue skies punctuated by large long white and grey low clouds. Smiling smiling smiling inward. Everything we do is right.

a short retreat

jane and i are spending a few days at the harbor house inn on the mendocino coast of california. this is the view from the bathroom in our cottage.

forgiveness

i'm searching for a way to find forgiveness, but i'm not even close yet.

so much for miracles

It's official. My ex, with no sense of guilt whatsoever - not even an acknowledgment that he is breaching an agreement that I relied on to my detriment - has rewritten history in order to justify stealing $145,000.00 from me (update 4/23/09 - make that $194,000.00). He agreed to pay me back, and based on that I said he could wait 6 months before paying me back - you know - to make it easier on HIM. And at the end of that time, he simply decided he no longer wanted to pay me back what owed me. And because you cannot enforce an oral agreement regarding real estate, he legally doesn't even have to pay me back. And two of the most important people in my life who said "we're here for you" apparently agree that that is "fair", and are nowhere to be found.

Betrayal. I've never used this word in my life. It always seemed so melodramatic. I guess that's because I never associated with people capable of such cruel and unethical actions. But now I understand the depths of that word.

So I sit here homeless, possessionless, and penniless (I'm now living off of credit cards) while my ex has the house I built (into which literally every cent of my life savings went), the furnishings I paid for, the love and trust of the people that were once there for me, a six figure income - and of course a pre-made family ready to move in and take over my old life. Now all he needs to do is get rid of her husband and it'll be perfect.

Although he has stolen nearly everything I have, I am left with one thing - the truth. And although he has spent most of the time I have known him trying to deny truth, surpress truth, twist truth to suit his needs, and isolate, manipulate, and control people to insure nobody hears the whole truth, the truth is now all I have left and he cannot take that from me nor stop me from speaking it.

profile of a sociopath

Glibness and Superficial Charm

Secretive, Manipulative and Conning

Authoritarian and Controlling

Grandiose Sense of Self

Pathological Lying

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt

Shallow Emotions

Incapable of real human attachment to another

Need for Excessive Stimulation

Callousness/Lack of Empathy

Rationalizes the pain they inflict on others

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature

Irresponsibility/Unreliability

Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause.

Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

*The above traits are based in part on the psychopathy checklists of H. Cleckley and R. Hare.

the preferred method

They ”often pick energetic, loving, successful, passionate people. They seek out in others what they lack, then begin the process of appropriating what the other has for themselves. In this sense they are true emotional vampires, robbing their victims of their personality, their energy, their passion for life - metaphorically killing them.

Their preferred method though, in the end, is to have the victim self-destruct, allowing them to walk away in triumph seeking sympathy for what they've had to endure with this crazy person.

- Sandra L. Brown How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved

The Joy of Pain

I healed my back last night. After four days of back spasm, then hit-by-a-truck pain, I decided to just heal it. So I did.

Awhile back, I set the intention to joyfully embrace the totality of the human experience. So, uh, pain is a big part of that experience, right? Rather than embrace it, I’ve spent nearly my entire lifetime actively trying to avoid it. Physical pain, emotional pain, financial pain, you name it. My decisions have most often entirely been based on the attempt to avoid the myriad of painful possibilities laying in wait for me out there in the world through logical and careful planning. Well, at least that what I called it for a long, long time. Now I just call it fear.

Given that all that logical and careful planning hasn’t worked out too well for me, last night I decided to just dive in for the first time in my life and embrace, rather than avoid physical pain. So I did, and done so, the pain left – left my body and left me in awe.

OH the gratitude I have for that pain now, because when it left and I finally was able to begin to stretch, it was as if I was moving for the very first time. Like an infant just out of the womb suddenly aware of the seemingly boundless range of motion available after being curled up for so long, I could see-feel my muscles like the drawings in an anatomy book. I was aware of each one individually unbound, moving, stretching – surface muscles sliding over deeper muscles. Unglued, unstuck. I could feel each vertebrae articulate as I slowly stretched my spine. My body felt completely new and joyful in its movement. Brand new, one of the most freeing and joyful experiences I can remember in my life.

back and forth and back and forth and back and forth....

between san fernando and santa rosa 8 times since my return to the states in october.

couchsurfing in california

this is the california craftsman bungalow i'm lucky enough to surf in when i'm in northern california. it comes with a friend and a kitty!

the return to california: culture shock and the unkindest cut

The return to California has been, uh, interesting. I thought I was going to return to California to get some loose ends tied up and then spend some quality time with my friends and family before returning to Europe and the continuation of the journey I began in April. What I returned to was the astounding visual and auditory overload of Western culture; the news of the growing global economic crisis; raging wildfires threatening my family and friends’ homes; a sister-in-law who had just undergone brain surgery to remove a tumor the size of an orange; my family’s failing business and their personal financial crisis; and to the progression of my 88 year old father’s congestive heart failure and the waning of his energy.

And I returned to California to the unkindest cut of all. My ex-partner - the man who in November 2007 kicked me out of the home that I had just finished pouring two years of my heart and soul into designing, sourcing the materials for, managing the building of – all while defending my right to do so in a protracted legal battle with a neighbor who tried to stop us from building via malicious and false claims- emailed me that he no longer wished to honor our agreement to give me back the cash – my life savings - that I put into the house. When he kicked me out of my home shortly after its completion, he robbed me of the future that I had just spent two years pouring my heart and soul - and life savings - into. Now he is trying to rob me again, this time of the new future that I found for myself. I’m not angry, just blindsided, stunned and incredibly saddened.

I’m trying to hold onto the abundance of the last six months. I’m trying to hold onto the assuredness deep in my soul that everything is going to be ok. I’m trying to find and heal the part of me that was betrayed in such a ruthless way. I’m trying to navigate all of the family health and financial crises and gain the wisdom of these lessons. I close my eyes and remember the exhilaration, the sense of everything-is-right-the-way-it-is-ness, and the human kindness and generosity I found on the road. I close my eyes and recapture that feeling. But when I open my eyes, the culture shock of returning to California and the seeming meltdown of everything around me is a bit staggering. I am a stranger in a strange land, overwhelmed and overloaded. And oh how I just want to run away from it all.