The danger of the written word

With each word I write, I take all that I have learned in my 30 years… I sift through for the thoughts and the lessons that are relevant at this very moment. I bring with me so many experiences… things I have lived… stories I have heard and books I have read. And it is only with the sharing of these words that anyone could possibly understand what it is that I have inside of me.

"All the colors I am inside have not been discovered yet" This is a Shel Silverstein quote… a magnet on my fridge. I feel the same way about writing… that until the very moment that we put pen to paper or (in this case) fingers to keyboard… these words can only exist inside my head and I do not even know sometimes of their existence.

There is no such thing as osmosis of our thoughts… no matter how close your head is to mine, you will not know my thoughts. I love that. I love that we can live a whole universe in our minds, and we are the only ones with the key. I find such comfort in that at times. And then, other times… I long to give you a glimpse… to pull the blinds and let you all peer inside for a moment… to see into the depths of me… perhaps for a moment to see what I see.

Ah, but the danger. There is always the danger that you will see something different that what I wanted to show you. I can think that something is so clear and you may see something altogether different. I forget sometimes that we each bring with us our lifetime of experience and stories and books we have read. And for every interaction between two people, there are two perceptions of what took place. And they are both right… they are both the truth. We each have our own truth.

Misunderstandings are so easy… especially with the written word. I have learned this lesson the hard way a few times. Lessons that ended with harsh words that I have never really recovered from. My response used to be to run and hide. For a long time this stopped me from sharing my writing… always afraid what the person reading my words might be thinking… how they might perceive them. I am still sensitive to this. But now I have also realized that people will read what they want… they will see what they want. I cannot control it. All I can do is choose to share or not.

I choose these days again to share what I have inside of me with all of you. I write for myself to set these thoughts free. And I write for you.. whoever you are. I hope that you will be touched by them. I hope you will see some truth in them.. that maybe sometimes you will relate to them. In each of us are aspects of all of those around us. In that way it is natural to look for ourselves in the writing of others. To try to understand perhaps how we fit into each others lives… how we fit into our own lives.

For me, the best writings are the words that touch me so deeply that I cannot help but to take a piece of them with me. Perhaps in them I see a recognition of myself. Perhaps a lesson. Perhaps they are merely thoughts I have had myself before.

My experience is that usually the words that affect us the most are those that hold the most truth to our lives. They hold to us a mirror that we do not necessarily want to look into.

I remember the first time I read "The Road Less Traveled". That was one of those books for me… it held a lot of truths that I didn't want to see. It took me years to read it the first time… I kept putting it back on my shelf. I wasn't ready yet. Now.. many years later I have read it a few times.. I am no longer afraid of the mirror. With each book I read I look for the truth it holds in my life. There is always a truth.

The other thing about words is that I believe they always find us when we need them most. I can without fail go on to my shelf and pull a book that is calling to me.. open to a page at random and know that the message in there is meant for me. Without a doubt, I know that I am meant to read it. That's just how it is with words. I trust in that.

I will do it now... having just moved and unpacked my books. My bookshelves have been calling to me today… to just pick up a book and become fully absorbed in it and let the rest of the world fade away…

The book I selected tonight is called "love, freedom, aloneness – the koan of relationships" by Osho. I have been reading a few of his books recently and I find them to always hold a lot of truths for me. This is the page that I just opened to… of course there is relevance for me, as there always is. Those who know me well and know of my journey of the past six months will see so much relevance in this. This book has been part of my journey…. it held a mirror up to me that I needed to force myself to look into. And when I looked and saw only myself there I struggled at first… with feelings of loneliness and sadness… but in time I saw the beauty and I saw the strength and I found the love.

But no one is courageous enough to be alone. You need someone. Why do you need someone? You are afraid of your own loneliness. You become bored with yourself. And really, when you are lonely nothing seems meaningful. With someone you are occupied, and you create artificial meanings around you.

You cannot live for yourself, so you start to live for someone else. And the same is the case with the someone else also – he or she cannot live alone, so he is in search to find someone. Two persons who are afraid of their own loneliness come together and they start a play – a play of love. But deep down they are searching for attachment, commitment, bondage.

So sooner or later, whatsoever you desire happens. This is one of the most unfortunate things in this world. Whatsoever you desire comes to happen. You will get it sooner or later and the foreplay will disappear. When its function is done, it will disappear. When you have become a wife and husband, slaves to each other, when marriage has happened, love will disappear because love was just and illusion in which two persons could become slaves to each other.

Directly you cannot ask for slavery; it is too humiliating. And directly you cannot say to someone, "Become my slave." He will revolt. Nor can you say, "I want to become a slave to you." So you say, "I cannot live without you." But the meaning is there; it is the same. And when this – the real desire – is fulfilled, love disappears. Then you feel bondage, slavery, and then you start struggling to become free.

Remember this. It is one of the paradoxes of the mind: Whatsoever you get you will get bored with, and whatsoever you do not get you will long for. When you are alone you will long for some slavery, some bondage. When you are in bondage you will begin to long for freedom. Really, only slaves long for freedom – and free people try again to be slaves. The mind goes on like a pendulum, moving from one extreme to the other.

Loved doesn't become attachment. Attachment was the need; love was just the bait. You were in search of a fish named attachment; love was just the bait to catch the fish. When the fish is caught, the bait is thrown. Remember this, and whenever you are doing something, go deep within yourself to find out the basic cause.

If there is real love, it will never become attachment. What is the mechanism for love to become attachment? The moment you say to your lover or beloved "Love only me," you have started possessing. And the moment you possess someone you have insulted him deeply, because you have made him into a thing.

……

To love freedom, to try to be free, means basically that you have come to a deep understanding of yourself. Now you know that you are enough unto yourself. You can share with someone, but you are not dependant. I can share myself with someone, I can share my love, I can share my happiness, I can share my bliss, my silence, with someone. But that is a sharing, not a dependence. If no one is there, I will be just as happy, just as blissful. Is someone is there, that is also good and I can share.

When you realize your inner consciousness, you center, only then will love not become an attachment. If you do not know your inner center, love will become an attachment. If you know our inner center, love will become devotions. But you must first be there to love, and you are not.

No Diving

there's a four year old girl
with the mane of a horse
and the will of a monk

she stands alone
determined
staring at a tree

why does she stand like that
where does she get the strength?

why won't she listen to the voice inside her head
the answers come clearly
No Diving
yet she dives...

she puts her hands over her ears
to block out the sound
she closes her eyes
takes a deep breath
and looks again for the challenge

she fights against herself
again and again

when will she realize she doesn't have to fight?!!

Fight or Flight

there is a darkness when i close my eyes
there is a heaviness deep within
there is an ache in my soul and a knot in my back

i do not pretend to understand exactly what it means
or how to stand here when a part of me longs to run the other way

and i'll argue with myself again
to stand tall...or run fast
fight or flight...

i look to the sky for the answers
i listen to the trees
i search deep within

and i decide...

i will be strong this time
for you... for me...
for the challenge
for the lessons i have yet to learn
for the opportunity for growth
and for love

i choose to fight
i choose to stay
i choose to try
because i don't want to run away.


i will chase the darkness away.... overwhelm it with my light. replace fear with love. hurt with patience and understanding. i will not let myself be hurt this time... i will fight for myself... i'm a good fighter.

You are nothing... yet you are everything...

these words feel like they are not my own.. they feel foreign to me. i close my eyes and i type and this is what wants to come out of my head tonight... but what do they mean? three distinct thoughts present themselves.. these words do not belong together. yet... tonight... they want to be together...


if all the days in the world were within this day.. i would hold out my hands forever to you. i would take you under my wing and i would love you for all eternity. i do not understand any other way. how we can hold on so tightly and let go once all is said and done. how we can remove our hands so quickly... why we empty our pockets and love another without first knowing what it is to truly love. i do not pretend to understand.


there is an emptiness... a longing...a silent void, yet i do not look at it. i do not see. i am happy now.. here. this day, i am happy. i am free and loving and full of life. i want you to understand as i do.


i lay awake most nights in the thought of you. i try to empty the noise... the clutter... i try to push you away, yet i long to hold on. to the thought of you... for a thought is all you can be. tonight... as i lay there... you are so far away. and you do not understand.. nobody can really understand what i do not even know within myself. how could i expect you to understand?!!

you are nothing to me... yet you are everything....

The want of you

random thoughts
they come often these days

i sit here wondering
what it would be like to hold you.
to feel you close to me,
your breath, my neck..

what it would be like to love you
and then lose you
to feel that ecstasy
followed by pain

and i wonder sometimes
why i cannot just let things be as they are
for things are as they are meant to be

but I sit and wonder still
and I dream still
overwhelmed by the thought of you
the want of you...

48 to choose from

sometimes i like to go back in time. to pick up an old journal off my shelf and open up the pages to words i wrote years ago. and i am surprised sometimes by their relevance still. by their appropriateness on the days when i randomly open to a page. the words are my own, yet sometimes i do not remember them.. do not remember what i was feeling when i wrote them. i just counted... i have 48 journals in my livingroom. there are probably more scattered around the house.. and of course always one that i carry with me. and i don't write as much as i used to, and i find i miss it sometimes.

today... i looked at the shelf and i selected two journals... now at random... i will open them up and see what i have to share with all of you today. see what i have to share with myself.


07.11.2001

a creative process - a moment meant for me alone to create, to love, to hold the water of the world in the palm of my hand. and each of my fingers itch with anticipation of what could become of this time.

in my heart, in my breasts, in my swollen hands, i feel the pressure of that other world but the soft voice sings to me from here. for my own space and my own time and my own jumbled thoughts that somehow carry me through. my body cries out for the fresh air, the trees, and the green grass. away from the buildings in which i spend my life - away from the concrete worlds of roads and gas powered moving vehicles. i long for so much more and so much less. a space left unfilled and untouched - not yet harmed by a human's hand, and today i cannot give myself what it is that i crave but the thought alone gives me hope.


10.14.2003

I feel it – strongly – calling out to me – YELLING – saying 'what about me?' Pay attention to me! I am the most important one and I need you now, more than ever. I question the choices I make – the ones I have already made…

Will I be happy with these choices? And all I know is that I can only live for today – now. for I do not know what the future will bring…

And perhaps I spend too much of my time thinking these things – and there is so much more/else to be doing!!

I can not stop… I won't stop now. I need (there I go, always needing) to be free… to go once again on a spiritual journey into myself. I need to sometimes let myself be free – I need to let myself feel. And sometimes I need to let go… to write big and messy – let it flow – feel the words as they reach the page.

So unaware was I of this need for so long – I had forgotten about this feeling of letting go – of discovering what it is that lives inside of me. and so I'll set out/embark upon this journey of solitude and self discovery and at the end I expect I will barely recognize myself.


random thoughts 09.29.2003

I do not know where the words will take me tonight
On a journey to a far away land
I sit here, so very much wishing
I was somewhere else - somewhere nearer to you,
Or that you were here, nearer to me
I close my eyes to the day
A silent longing heart
Lies broken
Wanting so much more than I can give myself
And I wonder why…


random thoughts 11.03.2000

In that beautiful isolated moment when the words flowed freely from you to me, nothing could have been more perfect. And I finally understood that I wasn't the only one who felt it. All those people out there looking at you and falling in love. You laugh to think about it, but it's true. In this life where innocent love is frowned upon, I sat witness. Your words filled with such emotion, drained me of mine. I felt silly. Felt stupid. In realizing that you could have any one of those people take you home and love you, I understood why I could never be the one. And to think I let myself think (and really believe) that there could be something you might see in me – that very thing which I saw in you. What a silly girl. Love everyone and everything in moderation – think that's what I've got to do. It's easier on the aching heart. Easier on my cat. Think I'll take my leave, listen to the beautiful words always. Feet a little heavy. Heart a little light. Stuck it on my sleeve again for all to see.


random thoughts 05.30.2002

i'm not sure why i let myself feel so small when you're around. in the universe that revolves around you and perhaps was created solely for your benefit, i cease to exist at all. and so i sit alone and let the words unfold onto the page - outside of your universe, peering through the double pane, bullet-proof window. and i see you laughing and running the show and i know that you're content over there with me over here. where i can't hear you and you don't have to listen to me. and so often i wish that it hadn't come to this. and every once in a while i think that maybe things will change or perhaps i forget the way things really are. so i try to come into your world again for a while - think that somehow it has to be big enough for the two of us to co-exist contently.

and so i dive in again, deeper than i would normally be comfortable with. and when i surface, i am far away from the shore and soon the anxiety of being so far from safe grounds begins and i become frantic in my struggle to keep my head above the water. and then somehow i make it back - having a sudden burst of courage or energy and i lay on the sand and think that i will never do that again. and for a while i hold onto that fear. and then when it starts to fade into a distant memory, i try all over again.

Risk

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." [ANAIS NIN]

I wish that every person would reach that point some time in their life - when the risk it took to remain within the comfortable life that they were used to would be overpowered by the desire for more. I do not wish this because I want to cause uproar and confusion, but because I think it is important to question our lives – to live to the fullest. I believe there is potential for happiness – in all aspects of life. I believe there is more sometimes than what we choose to allow into our lives. What is it that we are afraid of? I see so many people who find comfort in their unhappiness because it doesn't involve risk – it is at least predictable. And I wonder to myself how it is that there are so many beautiful people who do not even know of their own beauty – so many people who do not know how to love themselves. So many people who will choose to never be free.

I won't pretend to know the answers today – not even of my own life. All I know is that today, for me,… it is more painful to remain where I am, than to see where I can go. I don't expect every person will reach this point – many will never allow themselves.

Sometimes I wish I could go off to another country, another planet – and just find myself there and maybe then it would be clear what I want from this life and this world. What a silly place it is where we are supposed to only love one other person – of the billions of people – the thousands that will cross paths with our own lives. I did not choose this. I do not pretend to know how to do this. With this I may forever struggle, or I may meet that person one day who fulfills me in so many ways that I never dream of needing or loving another again.

I suppose there is a part of me that will always wonder "what if?" – to various questions, various people. I suppose there is a part of each and every one of us that wonders "what if I had chosen to turn left instead of right today". What if I had chosen to accept that other job, date that other person… who would I be today? I suppose we will always question these things. I suppose this is normal.

I just want a peaceful life – a happy life. I want to love and feel loved. I want to be surrounded by good friends. I want to be comfortable. I want to feel free to breathe, to play, to sing and dance, to be who I really am. I want this not only for myself – I want it for every person.
Is that all too much to ask?