Sorrow Prepares You For Joy… Rumi

Me & My Shadow

The first 5 words of this quote from Rumi have given me insights that I have to say weren’t at all what I’d expected coming into this module. Such is Life, eh?!

Oftentimes, when I come to writing, I feel a large mountain of thoughtsandfeelings. I have to move them, or squeeze myself into the space they have NOT completely swallowed whole. It is big and it is difficult, and if I am honest I will say that mostly I work in the spaces BEtween them. And often with no more than a wish or a prayer.

As this week unfolded, and as I was absorbing and watching the volume of words and stories and discoveries in Module 30: Transformation of A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com, I have, as seems my way on this Journey, come face-to-face with someone I never imagined Me to BE.

Here’s the thing: I’ve heard so much about My Story that I really didn’t know whether My Story was even something that I knew, that I could, if necessary, pin down and put into words. TELL IT. Share it. Claim it as mine.

Of course, that is all preface and preparation and my ridiculous effort to control what YOU will think of ME when you KNOW, even a little bit, MY STORY. [it is truly humbling how many times I decide you won’t like it so I don’t risk telling it without all the appetizers to distract you from its essence]

While there is so much that is good and juicy in Module 30, I kept coming back to those 5 words: Sorrow prepares you for joy… BEcause I am still trying to make some sense of what has happened in my Life & World since the end of 2005. BEcause Sorrow has surrounded these years. BEcause that same Sorrow has made room for immense JOY.

Sometimes, especially in the past week, I get to stand at a bit of a distance from myself. To watch. To listen. To notice. To simply see Me in the World.

And some of those sometimes I get to see how upside down and inside out things are from my perspective.

I spend WAY TOO MUCH time reflecting, leafing through the pages, and reconsidering what is Past. Over. Done. I keep trying to follow the thread back to the BEginning of all this, to see in a moment of great AH-HAH how indeed Sorrow prepared me for JOY. And sometimes, though I really hope you won’t think even less of me for saying so, I actually think that other people are staring down at me DOing this. Are standing with arms crossed, eyes glaring, and foot tapping, wondering just how $^(#*@ -up I REALLY am.

Truth: No one’s watching. Nor waiting. Nor really all that interested. It’s just the Currie Show. Broadcasting Live 24-7-365/66. Like a closed circuit television. Or the snow after the channel shut down for the night. [remember that?!]

Well, mayBE I will amend that to no one ELSE. Really, even this post, like about 98% of what I write, something I DO a lot of, each and every day, will MayBE BE read by 3 people. Even if I were to post [read:blab] it on Facebook. Makes me ask: if I am blogging and no one is reading does it even matter?!

Back to my friend Rumi’s 5 words of wonder: Sorrow prepares you for joy… What does this mean, today, Right Now, today???

It means that Life is messy. Imperfect. Unable to BE contained, weighed, or measured on a closet door, marking parts of the Journey, that is “the story” [or mayBE My Story]. Wouldn’t have imagined that when this module landed in my emailbox last Monday.

It’s funny how each week of this year has revealed a ME to Me I hadn’t seen BEfore. In fact, the title, A Year With Myself, is so telling. At times I want there to BE more camaraderie and sharing of process, but that really wouldn’t BE A Year With MYself, would it?!

Whatever it is that is My Story, it’s only memory, and selective memory at that. VERY. I have stayed focused on some parts, certain characters and places and circumstances, but that is all “in my head” quite literally. Those people I stare at and the times we shared are over and done except for the Life I give them up in BEtween my ears. And I suppose too, in my heart.

The “sorrow” I have had, YES, it has prepared me for new experiences of JOY, new sorts of JOY. But I often feel much more like the Wizard of Oz, BEhind that curtain, nothing more than an ordinary and quite imperfect woman [in my case].

When I have an AH-HAH these days, it’s almost laughable. I remember BEing about 7 or 8 and insisting vocally and incessantly that my parents WATCH ME dive into the pool when we were visiting my grandparents. Now, though, I am my only audience. I am the one who can [and DOES, if I’m BEing honest] SEE and who CARES, always. As it should BE, mayBE…

My sorrow has often been realising and remembering that I am IT. So, too my JOY is in realising and remembering I am IT.

PLAY, What DOES It MEAN?! No, REALLY?! What?!

Play as a verb means to engage in enJOYable activities, take part in games or sports, to compete against someone or another team, to have a certain position or role on a team, to hit [such as to hit a ball] or to use a piece or a card in a game, to use an instrument while performing music, as well performing another composer’s music, act a part or a role in theatrical productions, to act as if… this goes on and on. And I question whether everyone finds all the above “enJOYable” going back to the first meaning.

Play as a noun is more about enJOYment, and enJOYing activities one finds pleasurable. Of course its interpretations and variations fill another nearly inexhaustible list.

Play has, as a result, many synonyms. I can only imagine how confusing this must BE for someone who does NOT speak English as one’s first language. We can well assume anyone would know that Play is considered fun and enJOYable, but sadly this is NOT always the case.

There is a term I have often heard, Free Play. What is that?! For me and in my little World, anymore it means letting Gracie run like the wind sans leash. And, frankly, much as it does spend her energies, it is oftentimes terrifying for me and for other people. EnJOYable?! Hmmmmmmm…

Play is a desired quantity. Ask most anyone would they rather Work or Play. Like the two are mutually exclusive and never could meet happily in that field somewhere…

I am someone who, BEcause I worked and paid into Social Security, no longer have to work for my income. Of course, sweet deal that it may sound and seem, the reason I have been receiving money from Social Security for the past 10 years is BEcause I had to medically retire from teaching in 2002. People who only know me Now, or in the past several years have a hard time registering that. They think and often have said to me, “Must BE Nice” or “I wish I could have all that time to…” [whatever their version of Free Play] but never has anyone immediately understood that the “Free Play” I supposedly enJOY was paid for with my loss of health, dwindling-down capability to function in my Life, and a few years of sheer hell where my body and I were “playing to the death” one against the other.

Anyway, I have spent this week of my continuing Journey with A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com examining and pondering and marinating a bit in what PLAY really means to me NOW. It is well and good to look back and see what once was or wasn’t, same for looking ahead, planning, and setting intentions and goals. Yet the heart of it is Right Now & Today. How DO I play, how much enJOYment is there in my play?  More valuable to me is how much play is essential for me to live well Today?!

You see, I’d turned Life inside out, upside down and shaken its pockets of everything when I made that decision to stop teaching in February of 2002. I was “throwing in the towel” on the one thing I’d done, work-wise, that felt so right for me. The one thing I had NOT done in the 26 years of my adult working Life up until the two years I was there, teaching a mixed-grade K-3, and then, the second year, 2^nd, 3^rd & 4^th. That’s the part I never tell, the part I never want to remember. BEcause, you see, that work was, for me, sheer and utter enJOYable PLAY.

I’m actually a bit taken aback just having written those words. Now I see why Cigdem A. Kobu, the curator of A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com called her remarkable program: A Year With Myself. BEcause, while I’ve been along every step of the way in this Life of MINE, I’d never even “met” some parts of me, never given them “airtime,” or even the tiniest smidge of respect. 

[I suppose this, too, is why I have called this blog A Year With Myself & Other Characters http://ayearwithmyselfandothercharacters.blogspot.com/.]

In the past 29 weeks I have met more parts of Currie, more versions of mySelf, and many until Now unknown or at least unacknowledged transitional roles who are, past and done or Right Now on the menu, ME.

When I said I was “in” for AYWM, I wasn’t blowing smoke up anyone’s skirt, including my own. I was LEAPING and simply holding onto the knowledge that when I’ve leapt BEfore, a net or wings were always there. They just wouldn’t [or could NOT] show up until I took that leap…

Play? A vastly defined word according to Webster and pals; still revealing itself to ME…

Redefining Things ~ Week 28 A Year With Myself

BEgin With a Few Small Changes Ó2012 Currie Silver

Life has some mighty effective ways of getting my attention. I'm one of those people who didn't grasp the difference BEtween Stress and Normal for a Way Too Long Time. Much as I did when I was a very little girl, I continue to make up my own "rules about things" and then simply accept them as fact. Sometimes my misconceptions are pointed out to me, but I think mostly I frequently carry on BElieving the thinks I think even the sometimes very kookalu crazy things...


The cracks in this practise started to show up in little bits and by slow turns about the time my son was born, 1978. I have to say that from that time until 1989, pretty much all that I'd built my Life upon shifted, leaving me with NO foundation and the necessity of finding a better Plan BE. 


BEcoming a mother woke me up to Responsibility. I came to very quickly [though in retrospect it seems a long while BEtween waking up and taking significant action] and deep in my heart KNEW I wanted my boy to have a better roadmap for himself to find his way in the World. 


As I watched this tiny infant grow into a sturdy and curious little boy, I BEgan to feel Very Unsteady. I wanted so to have him know peace, constancy, and love that didn't shift in the wind. In actuality, I don't think I did too well at this. Yet somehow he has grown into a man who seems to have all that and a whole lot more.


The week's focus in AYWM has been on Stress and how to eliminate it, transform it, and, for me, REDEFINE it. Again, as I have felt frequently on this Journey, I saw that I've done some remarkable work on Stress and how it plays with me, I with it, and how we basically dance together.

I spent my week staying open, curious, and willing to see what part Stress plays for me. I had several nights of strangely punctuated sleep, and a couple where falling back to sleep was a long drawn-out affair. I was teaching 2 mornings and the so many people and so little time wave sucked me under more than I'd guessed possible. Still, I stayed open to it all.


Then, suddenly,on Friday, it was like the sun burst through the clouds. I started to take action on this thing, that thing, this situation, that snafu. I was like the Energizer Bunny, but everything was done peacefully, calmly, with a sureness I enJOYed but which is generally much more elusive.


From Here, Now, Monday with that rearview look, I can see that most all of the "problem" in each of the matters causing me "Stress" was How I Was Seeing It, What I Was Calling It, yet NOT really the thing itself at all.


Curious...


In the past 3 days I have taken bold definitive action on each thing that I would have called "stressors" in my Life last week. While it was NOT the action itself that shifted things and what I'd call them Now, it was my willingness to make the small changes in perspective, in action, and in DOing what I CAN DO that made the "difference" I feel today.


I know one thing, and it is something I am 100% SURE of: my own thinking or fretting about something is the cause of my "stress" and NOT the thing itself. I didn't understand this power of my brain when I was a little girl, and I was still very unsure of most everything when I BEcame a mother. 


When I am Willing to put on my "Responsible Glasses" and step up, I can ALWAYS shift my perspective and perceptions. I can ACT, if there is action to BE taken. I may NOT BE able to change other people or situations, but I CAN change ME.


Sometimes this seems manageable, yet more often I am still overwhelmed by Life FIRST. I have learned that when I AM overwhelmed I can take a step back, I can LOOK FOR my part and whether I am playing my part or, like when I was little, making up stories and rules without considering that I only know a little bit.


It seems simple, and I realise it actually IS simple, but Life is a Present Tense Adventure and NOT an in my head make-BElieve thing. Willingness, Curiosity, and oftentimes tiny Actions are my best allies with Stress, when it visits unexpectedly or I discover I've invited it in for tea...

Dancing With Time

Module 27: TIME

It was quite amazing to me to read through this module, to take in that so much of what Jennifer Gresham and Ali Davies shared were things that I am at a place of deep peace with, most of the time…

MayBE it is BEcause I have had over a decade of BEing on disability. Or mayBE it’s BEcause I have upended Pretty Much Everything about my Life and recreated a Life where I am only concerned with ME and Gracie, my dog. I know both those play a part in this rediscovered peace, yet even as I wrote that I was aware of an undercurrent that isn’t altogether remotely peaceful.

I suppose it could also BE my age. In any case, Time and I are very good friends. I have created routines, practises, and habits that encourage me from the moment I wake up [very early] until the moment I close my eyes and go to sleep [also very early]. I am no longer plagued by my moods shifting serendipitously and I no longer consider whether or NOT I am “feeling like” DOing something, something which made BEing ME a daily crap-shoot for 50+ years…

Time and I have found a rhythm that is similar to the one Gracie and I have. I have completed and accomplished more in the past year+ simply by DOing what I’ve chosen to DO. Who knew?!

However, there are days, and today is one of them, where I feel swept up, like in the ocean, when the tide is far stronger than I am. Time feels all wobbly and I keep having to talk myself in off the ledge. I know that this happens when EXPECTATION steps onto the stage.

When my Life was first turning upside down, in the Fall of 2006, I started this way of talking to myself, talking myself through the “wobblies” and over time, I have reworked and refined this practise. I was exhausted yesterday after Day 1 of camp [and really, I am only DOing 2 days, 3 hours total, so it’s a little unnerving and embarrassing that I let it swallow me up so…] and I don’t think it was even 7 o’clock when I fell into bed.

BUT… there was my busy brain at 2-something this morning, jabbering and jabbing me awake. I was so all over the place and most of all on my case about how things didn’t go as I’d hoped. I started making excuses and getting pissy indignant, and the entire show was going on in my own sleepy head!!

Needless to say, I didn’t fall back asleep until FINALLY, around 4, which is generally when I get up.

Oh well…

I suppose the gist of this is that Time and I try to dance together, but sometimes toes get stepped on and one or the other of us forgets who is leading, who is following. When we DO this we seem to BE at cross-purposes.

Breathe, Currie…

Woo-Woo Takes A Holiday

 How I Met My Energy & Turned My World Inside-Out

Gracie In Her Red Rock Playground
Sedona, Arizona July 2008

I lived in Arizona for nearly a year while in college, and 7 years more later on, and I never went to Sedona until I was heading out of Arizona to move East, or so I thought, in January of 2004. In fact, I thought that the road from the freeway into Sedona was a private road, as I’d driven a ways on it once, but felt sure I was going to BE trespassing if I continued further.

Oh the games our minds can play, eh?!

My 3-day stay in Sedona in January 2004 turned into 5 and a half years. And you know what?! I never EVER stopped having my breath taken away by the place.

My health, upon arrival, was at its greatest ebb, so much so that I only saw myself as having “health” in blinks of space drowning in utterly ridiculous waves of feeling just awful. I needed a walker, was BEyond depressed, and I was no one you’d want to spend 5 minutes with. I suppose the Very Worst Thing I can label myself with at that time is NEGATIVE in the extreme. And it took a whole LOT of Sedona’s “woo-woo” BEfore I could BEgin to make out daylight at the far far edges.

In the first day I was there I knew something was “up” for me. I looked around me at this gorgeous place and felt sure I’d been dropped inside the Grand Canyon. That is the same way I felt when I drove out on June 24^th in 2009. The place is magical. Even when I “go there,” as we all DO when we stop and breathe and close our eyes to envision our “happy place,” I AM there. It’s a place that is forever imprinted on my Spirit. It is as essential to my BEing as my heart.

And to think I once BElieved, fervently, it was all just silly and potty woo-woo…

Here’s the thing, though: It wasn’t Sedona that “healed” me. It was ME who, ultimately, got brave enough to Let Go of BEing “sick” and only experiencing “health” in itsy-bitsy waves on alternate Tuesdays for mayBE 5 minutes if I was facing in the right direction.

Sedona was instrumental; in fact I can even say it wrote the music for this turnabout, but I continue to heal and grow into a whole and healthy ME even Now, living in steamy Delray Beach, Florida.

The “woo-woo” that people point to about Sedona [and other magical and utterly breathtaking places round the planet] is in the way I let it open me up and BE seen just as messed-up and impossible as I had BEcome. It did this so gently, unobtrusively, and with extraordinary lovingkindness. It never rushed or pushed or insisted. It simply encouraged me.

I suppose this is what I’ve been thinking about all throughout Module 26: Energy. Like unravelling a sweater and returning it to a ball of yarn, I rediscovered where and when my “woo-woo” was stuck in OFF and remembered it was indeed as simple as my willingness to BE completely wrong to get on the Very Right Road I Now enJOY travelling.