This isn’t mine

I do this thing to help myself set an energetic or emotional boundary, particularly when it feels challenging to do. I say, “This isn’t mine.” This is not mine to carry, react to, spiral around, or emotionally labor over when no one has asked me to. (And it’s no help to anyone, anyway; in fact, it’s usually detrimental to all, as well as the cause of self-imposed suffering.) Sometimes when I really need to really emphasize it to myself, I’ll do a whole hand motion thing and even look myself in the mirror and say it. (This is not mine.)

I also heard something recently about how learning to take things less personally is an indicator of personal growth. This feels like part of that.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

Sometimes, someone says something you’ve heard before, lots of times, and it’s like you’re hearing it, really hearing it, for the first time. You know?

This happened to me last week at the eye doctor’s, a stylish spot on Abbott Kinney in Venice with all and only international designer frames, exposed concrete walls and big coffee tables books about LA and California that had me daydreaming even though I live here. (I loved it.) I was reading those letters with one eye covered, alternating, right eye, left eye, as instructed. Then I could see it all again, with both eyes. I think I said something to the optometrist like, whoa, that really makes a difference, to which he responded, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” And I sat there, feeling like I was hearing that for the first time ever, seeing clearly again, and it all felt very profound. Maybe it was adding another sense in that made it all make deeper sense.

I looked up the origin of the quote and it seems as though it’s a misquoted quote of Aristotle’s, as it is really, instead, I guess, about Emergence, the properties of a system, or that which “…refers to the existence or formation of collective behaviors — what parts of a system do together that they would not do alone.” (From the New England Complex Systems Institute. A complex name.) This author says the quote would instead be something like, “The System is something beside, and not the same, as its elements.” (And now I know, thanks to that site, that there’s something called an International Council on Systems Engineering and that one can become certified as a Systems Engineering Professional and this is all feeling very complex, but also makes sense, and I’m reminded of how complex is not a synonym for complicated.)

Things have the meaning we give them, anyway, and I think both quotes, both concepts, both aphorisms, feel special and make sense. Or, makes senses.

Life is meant to be enjoyed

Over the past years I’ve come into the belief that life is meant to be enjoyed, and that life doesn’t have to be hard; in fact, life is meant to be enjoyed; it’s meant to be easy, and it’s meant to flow.

It felt like a big, obvious secret to discover, or more like, rediscover, because I think it’s a concept that I think we’re born knowing and, ideally, grow up embodying as freewheeling, playful, imaginative, open children. Then, most of us lose it or are convinced out of it, convinced otherwise, through this conditioned concept of “real life,” and the “real world” and such. (Especially in the U.S., I think! A country founded on the Puritan work ethic, where children were treated as “little adults,” where this world was a necessary, get-through-it earthly stopover to show just how worthy of deliverance to heaven in the afterlife, or whatever.) For more on this, too, I super, super recommend don Miguel Ruiz’s writings of Toltec teachings, like The Four Agreements, which talk about “the dream of the planet.”

I remember hearing at one point that…

Buddha’s famous quote “life is suffering,” is actually a imprecise translation. It’s more so that, “life is enduring,” and it speaks to the idea of the continuity, the forever flow of life.

It’s not a justification for suffering; not as setting ourselves up to expect that whole human experience to be that way. (And that’s the interesting thing about translation; it reveals so much about the values and energy of a culture. I loved reading and writing about this concept, especially in relation to Jorge Luis Borges’ writing on it when I studied Spanish literature in college. An aside.) I heard that so long ago I can’t remember when or from whom, but it’s stayed with my powerfully, “empowerfully,” I’ll invent a word to say, since.

So, here they are, the big secrets of life as I’ve intuited and discovered them so far, through my one narrow, singular and also somehow universal (as we all are!) lived experience.

  1. Life is meant to be enjoyed

  2. Life doesn’t have to be hard—in fact, life is meant to be easy, easeful

For Dawn, whose name alone represents the coming of light, and who has so gently and sweetly guided me through so much of my own spiritual exploration.

Both of these things are true

When I was thinking of creating this blog, this is one of the first sayings I can remember repeating with friends: Both of these things are true. It was back in Brooklyn, and that summer when that first heavy wave of COVID lifted and we all got a little reprieve, to be outside in parks, to reunite with a little less fear, to be in some form of revelry and normal. I spent a lot of that summer with a core group of Brooklyn friends after moving across the Williamsburg Bridge; we started most weekends on my rooftop and then walked up Berry Street to The Lot Radio, which somehow could stay open past midnight, everyone sitting in clusters on the triangular street corner among warehouses, a church, and McCarren Park, between Williamsburg and Greenpoint where no cars really went and the little Lot Radio stand could blast music and there was, one time, a pop-up fashion show at 2:30am. We called it the vortex, bopped around to different groups, had conversations with a lot of lines like “I have a lot of air in my (astrological) chart,” and ,for a suspended time of reality, felt like anything was possible in those endless summer days-to-nights.

At some point “both of these things are true” started to come up, be said and ring true. Things were hard and weird in the world, and, still, we were really having a great time. We were holding all these truths and, in acknowledging them, I found capacity for so much more. I learned to be able to hold them without them having to be so heavy. They could just be there, in the same space, and I could be with them, coexisting. Life got richer, easier, fuller, more beautifully complex, in acknowledging the multitude of a moment, and the prismatic refractions of any one experience.

I had dinner with one of these friends, who also had since moved to LA, last weekend. It was our first time getting together in a couple months, and it felt like a homecoming, that way it always is when we reconnect with people with whom we have a relationship of love, acceptance and knowing. I told her how challenging the week had been in my personal life, and also how some big, beautiful things had come from it, like registering for Reiki Level 1 training. She held the space for me and thanked me for sharing with her. It was a less emotional moment and, still, I felt that deeper level of processing and sharing do me good. We continued with the evening, laughed about instances where we were like, it’s not that deep, and made plans for a beach cabana getaway in a couple weekends.

A few days ago she checked in and said she had been thinking of me this week. In the message, too, she shared a heartfelt reminder: “Friends are here for the worries, too.” The worries, the fun; both of these things are true. I guess, after all, it is one.

For Sam, who thrives and alives in both NYC & LA. Happy to have had you in both places for days & nights of saying & playing.

Let it be light

In the last half-day, I’ve heard the phrase, “It’s not that deep,” in a few moments. Said in a show I was watching, shared in a TikTok that found me, mentioned in a memory to myself. Rather than dismissive, it’s been it a welcome reminder. It’s also had the power to gently dissolve the intensity or heaviness that often accompany something “deep” for me.

I’ve followed it up and filled it in automatically for myself, too, with a reminder I had on repeat about a month ago: Let it be light. Let it be light—”it’s not that deep;” it doesn’t have to be. It’s not that heavy; it doesn’t have to be. It’s not that intense; it doesn’t have to be. Something can be light and easy and still have impact, still have resonance.

Let it be light. Let it it be easy; let it be with you; let it lift off you. Let it leave you, and let it return to you, if it’s meant to. Let it be light. And, in being light, it can also illuminate.

Let yourself receive

I visited my friend’s apartment this week for the first time, her first place on her own. I had accumulated these little gifts to give her, including an extra pair of shoes I’d been sent, for free, (Soul sisters and sole sisters; we’re the same size), and a Matisse cutout that had hung in my old apartment in Wiliamsburg, where we both lived prior, before she moved West and I realized, in a cold, hard NYC winter, that felt like a really good idea, too, to live in LA. I followed six months later.

When I saw the Matisse print in my closet it automatically felt like hers, and I remembered I hadn’t yet been to her place, so I invited myself over. She received the invite and was happy to have me and offered to cook dinner; it was salmon and Japanese sweet potatoes and salad and perfect, and I brought a bottle of wine to toast with because, while neither of us drink much (California sober. as they say), it felt right and special for that Tuesday night, like a ritual. She asked me about life and listened, and the way she listens feels like such a gift, to be received that way, she is always present and patient, sharing insight and responses in the right way at the right moments.). She shared that she’d received a raise, and she hadn’t even asked for it, and we celebrated that. Close friendship is like that, all of that.

When I was in Puerto Rico in December, I felt like I was grasping to try to understand what I was meant to do. Stay, and take more time off? Leave, as originally scheduled? I had an Akashic Records Reading + Healing with my incredible friend Roya Pourshalchi right before Christmas. I wanted big, clear answers; divine guidance. “It feels like you are meant to receive,” she shared. That was the overarching advice, the archangel message, of the session. Images of receiving at a feast, seated at the end of the table, abundant plates and joyous company.

The next morning, Elida, my aunt’s longtime house help, was there. When I walked into the kitchen she asked if I wanted coffee, and breakfast. Oatmeal? “Oh, it’s OK; I can do it…” and I stopped myself. Let yourself receive. I love the oatmeal and coffee she makes; she cooks the oatmeal slowly with the full cinnamon sticks, simmers the almond milk over the stove and then combines it with to the Puerto Rican coffee bubbled up to ready in the Moka Pot. I said yes, and it was a perfect breakfast. She beamed when I told her how much I liked it. In receiving, we also give. I stayed two more weeks.

My friend offered me tea after dinner, when we were watching Love Island. I paused initially, not wanting to create more work for her, to take more from her. That was silly, of course; she has a generous heart, and I know she was offering because she wanted to. “Oh, you’re going to like the message,” she said when she opened the teabag.

“Let the opportunities come to you,” the tab read.

Let yourself receive. A compliment, without feeling the need to return it right away. A new day for being there, predictably, and, also, differently. An opportunity, whether you take it or not. Giving and receiving, the same flow.

Later, when I pulled my bike out to leave, there was a spider weaving a web, against all odds, across the entryway. “She does this every night,” my friend said. Spinning a web; an existence of being through receiving.

For my LA Lolo: To giving and receiving in friendship, for forever!

Everything is play

Everything is a canvas; everything is play. Life is an act of constant creation, and, therefore, an act of infinite creativity.

We use “working on” so much, so much in our capitalistic, output-oriented society. So much so that it’s even used to describe how we’re feeling pulled to explore, evolve, change. (Eg: I’m “working on” this with myself.)

Since I started substituting the term “play” when I would use “work,” things have gotten so much more fun. Really, really so much more fun. There is right/wrong in play; no outcome to strive for except the joy of doing it. Plus, if we’re “working on” it, then we’re already doing it. (When we’re trying, we are doing.) So, why not make it fun. Playing on a blog > working on a blog. Playing around with writing > Working on writing

(Also, thinking about even my full-time job/”work” in the traditional sense as “play” has reframed even what at first feels like the most menial of moments and tasks.)

Play in this moment; play with this idea; play through this process, through learning and exploring. Everything is play. We are creative, creating and creators.

(Recommended reading for further play in this space: Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert.)

Dedicating this post to childhood neighbor and amiga, Carissa, with whom I still live and play on an infinite timeline of weekends, evenings and afternoons on Meadow Lane in our yards, in the pool, on swing sets, around the block and in our imaginations, To continuing to play through, and in, life. <3