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I stayed in this weekend. The “schlumpy” heavy feeling has returned to my body. Here I am feeling it right now: from the base of my neck and along down my spine towards my lower back. I don’t know if it’s simply exhaustion or the lack of proper exercise and movement this past week. I thought I’ve stretched some, but not as actively and as consciously as the previous weeks. I also missed out on eating mostly vegetarian this past week. And I didn’t take my daily vitamins and supplements.

I wonder if any of that has anything to do with it. I’m no scientist or doctor, so I won’t ever know that for sure. I’m trying my best to feel and intuit my way through this. If we go down the checklist of basic nutrients… I do not feel like I’ve had enough sun, water or movement this week.

Admittedly, I have been staying up really late watching a lot of YouTube videos on consciousness (i.e. I’m not sleeping very much either). It’s a mix of “revenge procrastination”, actual curiosity and some anxiety that the coming week is my last official week of working at the office.

It’s back to remote work and more idle time for this human.

I notice in my body that I’m not scared… but it recognizes up ahead, is this feeling of uncertainty. It’s a situation or moment that I can’t predict and have no previous information to fall back on. So since I’ve gotten used to the rhythms and demands of working a regular shift, I notice that my body is clearly a little unsure about what it means to having more idle time again. Sleep, is always delicious. I’m trying to remind my body that it doesn’t want to be on “productivity” mode. That this is meant to be a reset.

I’m also writing this on my trusty old Linux. It still works! It’s great for distraction free writing. I needed this. I haven’t been writing regularly, and as I’m sure it is for those of you still here, it’s one of those helpful and medicinal things we’ve consciously added to our hierarchy of needs.

Yesterday, I grieved my beloved emerald raw silk dress from Hanoi and a newly acquired 100% cotton t-shirt from a somewhat bougie store that had become a fast favourite. I have been trying to wear less synthetic fabrics and those were meant to be part of my main wardrobe. They are gone now. They, along with some underwear (RIP) and a bolster cover I had planned to give to a friend. All gone. How blissfully poetic that I cannot remember all items of clothing in that particular load, when I had just been writing about having a lot and how I need to re-look at my relationship to the material.

I was struck down with an illness again last Friday (at this point, it feels like a curse). I honestly can’t remember if it was Thursday night or Friday when I put the load of laundry in, but I was knocked out and next thing I know, I wake up and it was Sunday. The thought about the load of laundry just sitting there was in the back of my mind as I lay in bed exhausted and in a fuzzy state. And here is one of the main disadvantages of being a singular household, apart from having to change the bedsheets on your own, you have to do all of it on your own. Laundry. Folding Laundry. Cleaning house. Changing lightbulbs. Plumbing. General upkeep of your dwelling. Sometimes, searching for missing laundry. And it adds up to feel very burdensome. Especially, when you’re sick.

There was a little knot in my stomach when I finally got out of bed, but I still hoped for the best.

It was my first day feeling human, but I still moved with a weighted head. The migraine and aches hadn’t fully disappeared. Quietly, I walked towards the machines—then I noticed that the dryer was empty. Empty. Any item I expected to find, was not where I though I left them before the world faded for two days from my consciousness. They were not not even put in a re-usable bag on top of the machines, which is how some of the former neighbors would set aside forgotten laundry whenever someone needed to use them. Nada. The whole lot of it was just gone.

There was however, a load in the wash whirring and sloshing around as if to taunt me. I am not yours. These aren’t yours, Lady! For a second, I thought perhaps someone kindly put my load in the wash again. I was knocked out for two days after all. But that seemed highly unlikely. My neighbors are mostly straight patriarchal men and they have not been as neighborly as I have been. They fail to clean the lint filters after they use the machines, so why the sudden thoughtfulness?

As it happens with any precious attachments, when it finally sunk in that my favourite items and assorted possessions were likely thrown away, I let out a little panicked sound. A gasp. A muffled cry.

But, feeling too weak to express anything beyond the shock, I quickly composed myself. The moral of the story and TL;DR was loud and clear: Time to let go of these material lovely things.

Let go of these, and anything else you are still clutching on to. With every breath. Let go. And within the same breath, I also allow there to be sadness for these small, ultimately insignificant losses.

#writing

I keep forgetting that no one knows this writing space exists. I can write whatever I want. I can be as woo and as wild as I want, without the usual fears. Just like how it was for WT, which allowed me to do some work and deep reflection.

I am, like most people who still listen to some news, am gravely disappointed that at a time when we have so many billionaires and material wealth, we still have many people in the known world—because we know where everything is now, or rather we seem to know all the things—experiencing genocide, famine, and hardship.

I speak and move from a position of material wealth. I have all that I need and I know that me buying another thing (even another subscription) won’t change the suffering. The materialism will only keep going if I allow that chain to keep dragging me back in.

As I witness my ego, I am aware that this is the illusion that will continue to keep me in suffering: The endless loop of consumption. The seemingly endless loop of identity making.

Because that is what it is, still, isn’t it? This item, these objects, how they feed my ego and make “me” feel more like “me”. The attachments to things that preserve “me”. I may not be so attached to my opinions, but I am attached to my past habits and trauma and stories still. I am conscious of the loop.

I have started to make moves, but I am not ending the cycles of closing the loop. There is a bag in my home, full of t-shirts from lovers. I had planned to write something about them, but there they are. Taking up space and taking up space in my mind.

It was really refreshing (and sobering) to hear Danjo-san, our guest during our group meditations, share last week about how he too has a problem with letting go of even gift wrapping. Even he, a Zen Buddhist monk, who recognises that everything is made from the Earth using the planet’s resources has trouble with letting go. Both things can be true: how we can appreciate the preciousness of the material, but also that we may be holding too tightly to the material.

It sparked and nudged my consciousness to look at my attachments again.

I am still seeking solace in the material.

Does it? Everything I have here, I imagined having. This studio. This cave. This sacred space that I get to call home. These objects all around me. These books. Even these odds-and-ends in my computer. All of these things were once only imagined.

An image in my mind’s eye. Or a thought in someone’s else’s consciousness. We are all made up of so much wonder. Desire. Creativity. This is true.

All of the things that happened, happened to get me to this current moment.

This space where I am conscious of everything around me. Floating. Existing. Occupying space. Being.

I imagined a life with T but I did not want that strong enough. I imagined a life with J, traveling somewhere I’ve never been before. This one-way/far-away wanting, as I tried to explain to Sim when he shared something about imaginations and visions, seems to call upon a magic veiled with heaviness and darkness.

So instead of quietly imagining all these lives with others. Here’s my focus: here and now, and with myself. I don’t mean that in any selfish or disconnected and isolated way. I mean that in an all encompassing, all-consuming loving way that I have not ever granted or given or desired for myself.

The imagination is: My solid, goddess self, sitting peacefully and all these threads of connections to others, to people, places and beings—energized with and by love, propelling me forward. Slowly, unfolding with care.

Whenever I sit and meditate with the sangha, I feel this. The need for more quiet. For more quiet sitting together.

My brain and body has been bursting with too much energy/emotion.

I have felt I have absorbed too much of it in the last few days. People’s fears. People’s emotions. People’s projections. Everyone feeling everything.

That hammering and pulsating on the right side of the brain? Ever feel that? That’s me all day.

Granted, I also haven’t been hydrating but I know what I feel and I feel so much.

I let the “Une Femme Un Style” videos play as I continued to tidy my apartment over the weekend. The video series feature beautiful (obviously stylish) women of privilege from the creative industries, who are living in the most well-known cities: Paris, Copenhagen, etc. It inspired me to write my own mock-episode in my head.

What would be my “objects of affection”? What would I showcase and highlight about my studio? Would I have a nickname or name for it? Most importantly, what would I wear and how would I describe my style?

Off the top of my head, my objects of affection: a rock my friend gave from Antarctica. A picture of our now deceased lovely dog, Jesse. My rose quartz. My meditation cushion. I would highlight my kitchenette, which I’m very proud of. I installed the sticker black splash (made up of two separate stickers—one pink and a faux one-inch black tile) myself from a dollar store. I think it’s one of the most fun things I’ve done ever.

I also enjoy finally living with the artwork I’ve managed to collect from everywhere. From Barcelona. North Carolina. Ikea. Lol. That one is a Hilma Af Klimt Print on canvas. My home has become such a safe haven. I can’t imagine living anywhere else right now.

While the YouTube videos played, I managed to at least figure out where a lot of my stationery/notebooks/pens are. They have been consolidated in boxes and one particular shelf. I had such randomly grouped notebooks, of different sizes and paper types. This is an obsession. A sickness. And I wouldn’t consider any one of them an object of affection necessarily…

And how would I describe my style? It’s free.

I have been tidying my studio in little sections. Today, I found myself rummaging through my woo-woo drawer. Many things had piled up on my little dining table and while I was crouched in the hallway, and putting my tarot cards away, I noticed a book on my shelf by Deborah Levy called “Real Estate” and started reading. It has chosen itself as my next book.

It’s in moments like this, when I notice how quickly my attention gets captured by something and the letters “ADHD” also flash across my brain with some judgment. I might like to investigate what’s up with that. Sometimes, I let it be and attribute it to paying close attention.

My media consumption theme, which seems to spillover from last year, is “Women-Identifying Artists and Writers”. I devoured Miranda July’s latest book ‘All Fours’ in less than a week. Miranda July is a kindred. I have not felt such a closeness to an artist. I think I was in high shcool when I first discovered her works. She was as weird as I felt I was and aspired to be. She didn’t have to explain herself. I didn’t want her to. No one asked her to. She just was.

Her works have followed and kind of haunted me in magical ways. I happened to be working for a contemporary art non-profit when I read First Bad Man. Now, in my late thirties I picked up her novel about women in their pre-perimenopausal stage. It feels like a warning: Remember to be as non-conforming and weird as you want to be. Be formless. Or you’ll find yourself in a marriage-turned-friendship and kind of resentful.

I am looking forward to enjoying more of my borrowed real estate. I wouldn’t be staying put in this country if it weren’t for my apartment. I would likely be fleeing.

#writing

How did I used to do this? Wake up. Brush teeth. Meditate. Make coffee. Shower. Get ready. Go to work. Work. Have meetings. Eat lunch with co-workers. Work. End the day at 6pm. Arrive home at 7pm. Idle for an hour or two. Work my part-time job. Sleep. Repeat.

Sometimes I would find the time to write (when?!). On Tuesdays, I had a presentation to cram every morning at around 7am before the meeting at 9. I kept my house tidy and did my laundry and various chores diligently. The weekend had variations too, of course. But for most of the week, that was it. On some days, I barely got any sleep in. I had band practice. I met up with friends. I visited friends and their kids. I watched movies. TV Shows. Towards the end of the year, I even went out on dates. I also found the time to read at least 5 books.

How. Did. I. Do. All. Of. That…?

How are we all doing this?

The body is amazing. Truly. It is capable of so much more than we give it credit for. Always. We never give it enough credit. Gratitude. Or nutrition. Notice how I mentioned nothing about working out or exercising. That’s where I have felt I have neglected my body the most. I danced, sometimes. But, if my body wasn’t doing the everyday things, it was for the most part, exhausted. Depleted, even.

A couple of years ago, I woke up on a plane and woke up with a numb/lifeless left-hand. My dominant hand. I had lost all mobility of it. It was one of the freakiest and scariest things I had ever experienced. Once rehabilitated, I had made a silent vow to commit to being more active and present in my body. I didn’t get to stick to that vow last year. Something had to be sacrificed in The Lost Year.

I look forward to slowing down. To more movement. To unhurried motion.

To repair.

#writing

My body feels as though I’ve already left The Bad Place. Everything in alignment. Everything falling into place. I am enjoying living with it and in it again. It has already started to feel much lighter. Instead of taking my lunch break on Thursday, I went to the stationery store and hunted for a specific kind of pen (for my notebook) before heading to the office.

My last day was meant to be on my birthday next month, but because I still have some leaves to clear, I get to leave earlier. A whole week earlier. If it works out, I can meditate on the morning of the 7th (a Friday) with the sangha and take a long nap into the weekend.

I have been struck with an unapologetically happy face, which I can’t help but exaggerate and use to annoy the miserable people who will be left at the office. “What?” I ask, grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Must I hide how happy I am? I can’t! I love this.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve gifted myself with an exit from a place I had begun to despise. I have been here before. The edge of dread and an inch from joy, is a lovely place to be. Whenever I find myself here, I remember it to be lovelier than it is. That feeling of freedom, and any related feeling, is truly a marvelous, precious gift.

I also like the idea of becoming the person I most want to be on my birthday. A Second Chance. Or at least the attempt for one. Have I felt some minor success in being that person I wanted to be? I’d say yes, I had begun to. Then, I would hit a wall. Or find a person that felt and acted like a wall. And I would lose my focus or balance, or concentration and have to start over again.

Every time I had to put my heart back together from a heartache or heart trouble, to make sense of myself and my body, I would try to find something that was “normal” or “stable” enough to lean it against. I thought that was the right way to come back to myself. Compromise with a person, or a job. A situation, or a hobby.

To normalcy. But these compromises, never helped push me forward along the path, of what I envision, which includes my wholeness.

The normalcy always felt like a betrayal to the slightly strange person I have known I was meant to be. Maybe, this time, as I embrace myself fully. In the light, and in the shadows. And all in-between. The becoming will just happen. I will, get weirder and wilder.

#writing

It is a sweet and beautiful thing to be introduced to a lover’s love. I hope you get to come close that feeling at least once in your life. It felt like a divine hug from the Universe/God/Allah. Other-worldly and spiritual. Rewind to last November: Someone I dated very briefly visited the city I live in and introduced me to his partner.

I had really liked this person at some point in my life. We met at a networking event the year before the pandemic. I would have been lying to myself if I said I could see a real future with him—we were just so different—he was more corporate (definitely the kind who would use the word “liquid” to refer to money), I was more hippie-dippie, but I liked him. He was someone whose company I enjoyed and whose thoughts and opinions I welcomed openly and even, warmly. I liked that one of our hang-outs consisted of a really long un-glamorous sweaty walk.

When we were chatting at the coffee shop he and his girlfriend/fiancee(?) turned to me and said something along the lines of “Taking inspiration from you and your digital nomad life, we are both consultants now and only working part-time.”

Hearing that though, was funny, like an old timey gag where someone slips on a banana or someone’s face gets pied, and then the sad trombone plays. In my body, it felt more like a punch in the gut plus sad trombone womp womp womp echoing in my head for a long time. Because at the time of their visit, I was not only working full-time for one company, I had also been working part-time for another. I was exhausted. I wasn’t in my usual headspace. And I did not feel inspiring.

What a wake up call to get! A former lover and his partner telling you that you somehow inspired them. The two reminded me how hard I had worked to shape my life before I had allowed anyone/anything to derail my vision. It led me to face the current truth that whatever life I was living, did not allow me to be ‘myself’. Whomever I preferred to be.I felt suffocated and stuck.

Less than a month later, I handed in my resignation.

#writing