what am i?

A week in California
...San Diego to Santa Barbara


Surfers bathing in late afternoon light spilled across the grey-green ocean like a golden lightning bolt thrown from the clouds dancing from the horizon to the wet footprinted sand.

San Diego.

A typical "run" for me...
The moment I lift my eyes off the paved footpath and gaze out over my left shoulder to see the coastline my mind starts heaving poetric descriptions of what I see.
A story starts spinning...
And I find I slow my roll, unlock my iPod touch and start typing as I walk between the crashing California ocean I grew up and was born beside... And multimillion dollar mansions perched on the cliffs, hovering over highway 101, as though scrambling to sir higher and taller... Bigger and better.
This is the America I know.

A world where a million dollars is nothing.
"you can't live on million dollars forever. No way. You need at least 100K a year to survive here."
I've heard that so many times ad I get it... But I just don't get it.

I have been caught in this dilemma in my mind for quite some time.
I have this privilege, this almost unfathomable gift and honor to live here and yet it repulses me.

As soon as I tell myself that I can leverage this for the good of the world... Take advantage of these options and opportunities I am presented with, with the intention to give back...
Then somehow I can swallow it but it gets stuck a little on the way down and burns and i can still feel it later on.

Finally I arrive at the Self Realization Fellowship... Lovingly known in Encinitas as "swami's" which is the name of the famous wave that breaks right in grit if the grounds.

I got married at 'Lake Shrine' which is the Self Realization fellowship temple on Sunset Blvd in pacific palisades where I grew up.

Paramahansa Yogananda founded the SRF after growing up in India, studying with many magnificent gurus and teachers and finding that most religions say the same thing.
The SRF honors all the sages and prophets from all cultures and customs.

I love this all-encompassing unity consciousness vibe.

It makes me feel like I need to make peace with the 1% here in America.

There is a huge occupy movement happening here in America, people stepping forward to defend and fight for the other 99% of the population.

But I know a fair few one percenters. I love them. They are my family and friends.. They are hard workers and generous loving beings. They just happen to be gagillionaires.

I guess its just hard for me to come back from India- which feels like the 99% of earth... And every single person here in America fighting and believing they are struggling- well they are blogging on their iPads and driving priuses and I am NOT hating on them... I'm not judging them or saying they shouldn't have what they have a do what they do... It's just hard for me to see it through their eyes coming from a year spent in developing countries living on street food.

There are of course endless causes that I believe in and support. Both my sisters are fighting the good fight as activists in education and environmental policy...
I give thanks to them eternally.

I don't know what I'm trying to say.
I'm stuck between two worlds.
I want those amazing knee high leather boots (eventhough i recognize i do not need them) and i want a condo in venice i can decorate and leave all my stuff and just come back to when i'm in town and i want a snowboarding season pass (eventhough there is no snow) and I want enough airline miles to fly my friends all over the world to meet me as I travel.

But I also want to give everything away so I have no need for a Venice condo or knee high boots. (I already have three pairs anyway)...
And I want to return to India and teach and learn for a year... All I need is $10/day MAX...
(far from $100,000/year).


I want to hold sick and starving children in Asia and Africa and look into their eyes and tell them it's gonna be okay.
I want to take away the pain and suffering from every being on earth... And I believe I can.

I just have to figure out how to do it... All of it.

I want everything, and when confronted with the question "who am i?"
my soul responds, "i am everything."

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A week or so later I found myself on a train headed to Santa Barbara.
I needed out.
Out of this world... Out of my parents house (eventhough theyve been nothing but wonderful to me)
I just felt like I was crawling out of my skin.


So I jumped on a train bound for Santa Barbara to see my Goddess sister, Erin.
She came with me on my first adventure in Asia...
We went to the islands together and have always been reflections of one another.

I sat on the train and set intentions, knowing full well that by time i left Erin, I would have a whole new set of intentions (and i did)

I wrote in my journal what i was seeing... inside the train and inside myself:

The sunlight poured through the train window across her forehead and seemed to drip down from her wispy auburn hair.
The ball of gold hovered above the horizon to her left, painting the clear sky shades of orange and yellow.

Across from her sat an old man who's newspaper-like hands delicately sat on the seat arms. His eyes watched out to the right as rolling hills of iceplant and purple California wildflowers basked in the last rays of light for the day.

Both young girl an old man sighed simultaneously.

Hers held promise of a new day... a new chapter...
Ready for her to swan dive into.

His was weary... Heavy with life's memories... Like Old Man River.
Tired of living but scared of dying.

The train bounced and shuddered along the tracks splitting the two worlds.

On one, the girl, the sea, the setting sun and watercolor sky over the channel islands.
On the other, an old man and some mountains set before a twilight backdrop.

I watched both worlds from a row behind and tried to wrap my mind around both worlds at once.
I tried to find where I was between the two.

I was on this train... on these tracks... but was i inhaling or exhaling?
were things beginning or ending for me?

It was hard to say.

Oil rigs floated in the silvery sea and I suddenly felt more connected to them... out at sea & looking back to land.
Kind of alone and without a road or route.
Off the tracks.
Floating.

I had felt like this recently in a yoga class... weightless... Floating.

Ironically and somewhat amazingly it was while practicing one of my least favorite poses - Danurasana - or bow pose.
You lay on your belly and grab your ankles, arching into a bow and arrow looking thing.
It's intense and hard to breathe sometimes when deep in this pose, but somehow it came to me to just let go (without physically letting go of my ankles of course.)

I fluttered my eyes closed and sunk away from my skin - there was no push, no outward pressure - and suddenly I lifted higher and higher as though angels swooped down and scooped me up towards the heavens.
I felt like I could have stayed there forever.
Weightlessness.
What an idea?

I feel as though i have been carrying weight since my divorce and subsequent post-divorce relationships.
The weight I have carried, i created myself.
I somehow created pain and guilt that has never needed to exist.
But i was beginning to see that I could also just as easily lighten my load, create weightlessness, ease and just FLOAT.

I remembered a poem I wrote a million years ago... before i even thought of splitting up with my husband...
"the ONLY thing that holds you back is the reigns of fear that YOU have placed upon your own shoulders.
calm your mind and wriggle out from your grip that holds you.
only you can choose to let go"

I keep getting it.
Over & Over & Over...
Clicking.
Ah ha's...
And then the bell rings too soon...
the trip ends...
and the conductor comes over the loud speaker to tell me that my stop is approaching.
Time to get off.

I close my eyes and remind myself to remember to let go...
Let go of everything.
But hold on to the memory of holding on.

______________________



My goddess sister and I juiced for 4 days... we made divine concoctions... we watched documentaries on nutrition... we hiked... we painted... we walked on the beach... we purified... we cleansed...

we meditated on the beach and set intentions.

At one point i wrote:
I am teeter tottering.
I feel this overwhelming urge to run in totally contrasting directions.
My angels are arguing.

One spirit says
"stay in California. reacquire your stuff & your power.
Enroll in nursing school ASAP."

One says
"Keep being a gypsy. Run Run Run as fast as you can - go back to Indonesia. Go to Australia, Thailand, India. Keep learning and lapping up all there is to lap up... Keep abandoning the stresses and chaos of the world. You could be gone tomorrow."

My life unfolded before me the less i gripped on to the "YA?... AND THEN WHAT?..."

As i let go, it let go...
The world told me what it wanted of me.

Time with your friends that reflect you (while juicing, painting and being awesome) is PRICELESS.


______________________________

On the train returning south I wrote:

At the end of the day, how will i best explore what i am?

How will i best harness this magnificent energy i was born with?

How can i best be a human BEING, not a human DOING?

How can i best hold space?
(Remember that atoms are 99.999% empty space.)

I guess we could all ask ourselves these things.

___________________________


in conclusion (kind of)... i think the closest thing to what i am is this...



i laughed so hard i almost cracked a rib.
this is GENIUS... and pretty much the best reminder to laugh at myself ever.