The way to give it up

Yet again, it is Lent.

For someone who is not a member of any Abrahamic religion (a book person who is not one of any of the People of the Book, go figure), I take this pretty seriously. Actually, I take it pretty seriously even for one of the faithful. There is no dogma between me and my reading of similar experiences in the lives of four of the most profound religious leaders of human history.

1) Moses went to the mountain to speak with God. He stayed there for a really long time. 40 days. He came down with the 10 Commandments and a life path that was not a question, or temporary. He knew what he was about, and God needed no more burning bushes to get him to listen.

2) Jesus went into the desert for 40 days. There, we read that he was faced by the Devil who offered him every enticement he could think of to move this leader of men from his path. The Devil failed. Jesus returned to the world of the everyday and did not, we read, veer from His life path, even though it led Him to death.

3) Gautama found himself seated under a Bo tree for 40 days, contemplating the nature of his purpose and path. Demons came and attacked him and as their arrows flew through the air, they were turned to flowers and fell harmlessly at the feet of the Buddha. When he opened his eyes and turned his gaze outward once again, he lived his life with clarity and purpose and did not veer from his life path.

4) Mohammed went into the desert. He stayed there for 40 days. Allah spoke. He listened. He understood. He returned from the dessert and gathered people together and spoke to them of the teachings of Allah. He became The Prophet and lived that path without question.

Rama was banished to the forest for 14 years.

That seems a bit much, if you ask me. But, I am young and have no sense of the meaning of time, and I do not always understand what the world means to mean.

Two years ago, I began to work to change my life. It worked. It is time to finish that work and learn to see that 14 years in the forest is only a short time.

So. We focus. Although: Got no desert or big beautiful tree or local mountain. Also: Got a job that I feel is pretty vital to life.

So. We focus in a different way: give up the distractions of coffee, booze, eating out (with specific social exceptions), big grocery store shopping, late rising, no yoga and no writing. Also, I’m not in the mood to be as cranky as I usually am when I start getting all healthy and feeling good. So, I’m going to give that up as well.

Just FYI.

Things I might want you to know...

Today is April 13 of 2010. It is a Tuesday. The wind blows with strength and sunshine and I am sitting upstairs in my parents' home, in the office that used to be my bedroom. This is not as nostalgic as it may seem. But that is not the story for today.

I have just posted 4 other blogs. Two of them bear today's date. Two of them are dated earlier.

Lent of 2010 was an extremely change-filled time for me. It is barely over and already I understand how much more alive and involved I feel. I kept a couple of journals during that time, and enter their contents as I get the chance. I change the post options to reflect the date on which I wrote the entries, though I very deliberately did not make them public until after Easter. The tag is Lent.

I have also got myself all excited about a reading list that I started to create in December of 2008, and begin to have things to say about it and the books that I've read and other work that I find helps to construct a foundation and shape for this massive project. And you know, I knew it was huge. I knew it was, and did I realize it? Nope. As such, there are blogs about that. The tag is LRP.

I hope that as you read, you do follow links within this blog and around the internet. I have a great deal of fun linking to sites other than imdb, amazon and wiki-anything when I can, though I will when the other options are icky, slow-loading or questionable.

Constantly striving to change one's life bores me. Which means that life is in a constant state of flux and therefore I am never bored. It makes sense. In context.

Quarter year & Lenten check-in

Today is April 2, 2010. The year is one quarter gone, and I’ve decided that it’s time to check in and see how things are. It seems a bit unnecessary, but at the same time, it is a year of many changes and I’d like to stop for a moment and consider.

Lent is over in two days. I’ve kept most of my Lenten fasts very well. Very well indeed. It is not pride that inspires this statement, rather a general belief that it was good timing for my life to change all of the things that have been changed in the last 45 days.

The closer I get to Easter, the less inclined I am to believe that a completely ascetic life is a good idea for me. Balance is a much stranger beast in this modern life, and it is right that it should share this path.

I have not read a book for 5 days. It is terrible. This is the worst part of this experience; easily the most difficult and the most isolating.

This separation from books is like being away from my own heartbeat. Admittedly, there are also other reasons for this besides the creativity trigger, which would be enough in and of itself, as I am in the position of having to fill many hours of my day without the outlet and ease of picking up a book on some subject or another.

It is difficult for me to balance the desire to read with the overflow of information and potential for knowledge that is sparked. I do not write papers or reviews as I think would be sensible for the amount of reading that I do. There is a disconnect between what I keep in my brain and what I share of it.

Now that I’ve complained about the reading briefly, let's look at the rest:

1} Lenten fast on drinking. It was a very good decision on my part to quit doing this at home, especially as it was taking up a great deal of time and money and I did not feel very good in the mornings. I have drunk on days not Thursday, though I’ve not had more than one beer on those occasions. I have gotten good and tipsy with the girls on a Thursday evening, and it’s been good fun. Probably because there was food involved and good company and the evenings ended relatively early, and I took advantage of the fact to drink water on my return home and sleep well. I look forward to continuing this habit, to be honest. I enjoy a drink or two, and it will be nice to able to actually enjoy them rather than just drink.

2} Lenten fast on smoking. Also a good decision and one that’s been relatively easy so far. As I come closer to Easter and the weather improves, it gets more and more difficult to not want a cigarette, though the financial benefits from not smoking far outweigh the desire to sit outside on the porch and just smoke my way through the day. I expect that it is a habit I will not pick up again in earnest at least until I begin graduate school. I do not know which of the decisions I’ve made has had any impact on my health specifically, though I’m sure that they have all helped at least a little bit. I certainly feel better. And I’ve gotten through the part where I feel cranky about it.

3} The DVD and the TV and the VCR are in the closet. I miss them. I’ve listened to lectures, so do not feel the absence as acutely as if I had also quit reading for Lent (can you imagine the stress and strain? Don’t even try. It would have been terrible.). I do miss the stories and the commentaries and all that, but there is also something nice about not having the screen anywhere visible.

4} I gave up not doing Yoga every day. And I’ve kept to that very well. I’ve entirely skipped 4 days, I think. There have been days recently that I’ve practiced yoga, just not the routine for that day specifically. Yesterday I practiced yoga twice and harbor desires of developing a morning routine geared toward the stretching of my legs and loosening of my hips and shoulders.

5} No meat but for Thursdays. I love this. I love it so much. I’ve got meat in the freezer and will add more to it today after I go shopping for the chicken for my Easter feast, which is a necessary part of the ritual, I now understand, but I’ve no real craving for it. I prefer rice and eggs and something with beans in it for dinner. It sits easily in my gut, I feel good and the leftovers are so nice. I feel like a weekly sort of treat is not a bad thing, nor is it bad to eat meat out at restaurants, but there is so much more in the world and this prohibition did exactly what I wanted it to do (and perhaps more): it convinced me to look around for different options and to consider different spices and ways of approaching my food habits. I truly do feel better. It is noticeable.

6} Work every scheduled shift. Yes. That worked. It worked really crazy well. I am thinking of ways to get myself to hold to that for the rest of my life. There were days that were difficult to get up and go, and it didn’t matter. I did it and I’m glad that I did. Now, I also quit my job when it became clear to me that it was going nowhere and was going to become unmanageable and there was no protection or respect available from the management. I have been unemployed for almost two days and I’m almost stir crazy for lack of work to do outside of the house. I’ve gone walking around town and around my parents’ house.

7} Coffee and chocolate are totally allowed. All blessings to the coffee bean pickers and the cacao bean pickers. All blessings to the people who process them and package them and get them here. All blessings to the people who introduced these amazing and wonderful beans to the world outside of their own purview. They are beautiful things and ought to be held in high esteem and respected more than they are in the world. I do not believe in being lazy about my coffee or my chocolate any more. Never again will I take it for granted. Never pretend that it doesn’t matter how good or how well made. Without these to bring me pleasure, I might well have forgotten about those senses entirely and without the ability to be pleased, I cannot see how joy has any meaning whatsoever.

8} Script Frenzy. I wrote 5 pages on my first day. I will write more today. I have until April 30 to write all 100 pages. I have no illusions about the mixed media nature of these script pages. It is deliberate and I rejoice in the collage.

Other observations and Behavioral changes: I have begun to pray. I have begun to meditate. Yoga practice is a time of day for focus and concentration and it is more and more challenging and encompassing. I do not begin to pretend that I have any idea ‘how’ to pray or ‘how’ to meditate. They are actions that I begin to take. I work to practice them with the same level of focus as I use for yoga, and I work to increase that level daily, in my everyday actions and responses and behaviors. I have begun to find myself experiencing levels of joy that are mystical to me as yet. I walk down a known street in this known city and the sounds are the sounds of prayer and life and there is nothing that is not beautiful in it. I am everywhere and anywhere and all of it rejoices.

I begin, slowly, very gently, to push my feelings to the surface, to share them with the people that I love. It is new to me and I find that I am nervous about it. Physical intimacy is much easier than emotional intimacy. But I do not have that option. And it is good that I do not, for these are relationships that are defined very specifically and they do not involve physical intimacy. I cry very easily and wonder at it, but have decided that it is not time to address the issue as yet.

I have kept two journals through this Lenten season. I am curious to read what they say starting Monday. I have begun to consider the definition of what is ‘real’ and how I interact with my dreaming life.

My contemplations on the nature of emotions in my life have not yet found words, though they are ever present in my days. They are positive and productive and I am pleased to continue them. I feel that I will start to see their results in my writing soon enough.

I have begun to save money and see that it is good and I am pleased with the results and would very much like to persist in this. Life is full and rich right now, and that is without great expense although it is by no means at the expense of good food or friendship or entertainment or society. I am pleased and gratified and feel that there are many things to say on the subject, especially as there are so many people who would love to change their lives and only see examples in people who have a lot of money, because they see that only money solves everything.

Lent sort-of halfway point

It is long since I sat down with a keyboard under my fingers and typed to write this way. I spent much time with the manual typewriter November, but had no laptop, no personal computer and so could not have this moment. I am uncertain about it, to be perfectly honest with you.

It is more quick than I would like, but that probably reflects more on the amount of time I would like to take on my writing than it does on the technology itself. Self-control is what is required.

I began Lent with some aim of exercising self-control for 40 days. I do not know how well I succeed thus far. It is halfway gone once tonight is done. I do not know that the next 20 days will be any easier than the preceding, though I’ve been so jazzed about the cooking and the reading and the time that I’ve spent in my home doing more than staring at walls, and getting something like healthy (although that was never really the goal), and I’ve had more focus. Focus is the constant struggle. I would rather look at life as something less confrontational than ‘struggle’ and generally I do, I would not mislead myself simply because the words flow more easily from fingertips on a keyboard than they do from a pen onto paper.

Left-handed writing has become less difficult since I began doing it every day, but it is still not as polished as my right hand. I have thought of many things in conjunction with the books I read and lectures I hear. I think of knights and valor and honor and the feudal system and how entrenched behaviors can really be. We do not even question them or seek to change them, it is not the nature of humans to notice that they can adapt to their own notions of life. We spend much energy in our lives, especially now that many of us have figured out the self-control of living, teaching and telling and showing and generally doing just that: adapting to our lives as we would have them and then living the life as it has molded itself around our living. Self-actualization was not the call word of the Crusades.

There are practical decisions that must be made. They are about learning languages: Hindi, Latin, Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Old English, Middle English, Icelandic, Norman French, etc.

There are also practical decisions about money spending to be made: as in, the date is sent for wedding in Calcutta (not mine): December 21st, 2010. And I have no idea how much money I will need or how I will make or save that money. It is heartbreaking to me that I may not be able to go. I will live through the heartbreak, but that doesn’t change its reality in the least. I was hoping to get a chance to be hired as an LAII at the library. Six months of employment would be enough to allow me to save a good amount of money and spend some time wandering about the world before going to graduate school. Of course, that depends on getting into graduate school.

A thing which I’ve begun working on: I’ve finished the first draft of my Statement of Purpose. It is not bad, and I think that there are some good sentences worth keeping and perhaps expanding into something else, but it needs to be focused and determined and stellar – I will not send in a an application that does not rise to my highest standards. I have a lot of explaining to do, and I intend to do it and give myself the best possible chance to learn more of my trade. I am thinking that it will make sense to get more than one degree, so that I can do interpretive work as well as physical work. That is a bit idealistic, but it is a notion that finds much favor with me.

The last several days have been so full of moments of déjà vu that I hardly know when I am awake or asleep. My dreams flee from my in the morning, giggling as nymphs at the tidbits they have left me, tidbits which I find it more and more difficult to remember to pick up. I do remember that last night I dreamt of meeting Danielle in France, at an intensive language course/school. The scene was so real to me that I began to question my waking history and wonder if I really had experienced such a school and if our personal history was really that connected and perhaps we’d just forgotten and needed the dream to remember it. There was another dream that left me with much the same story not too long ago. Questions that it raised stayed with me for some time. I enjoyed them: were the girls dreaming their future as friends? If so, how did the phone numbers that they all remembered still work?

Lent Day 5

Careful and deliberate breathing.

It feels almost unjust to record these days and responses, however it is not, and keeps me writing, which is also part of the bigger goal: the specifically defined life. I have not taken time for such quiet and focused contemplation in too long to think about.

I have read today of the Sybils and of Hypatia. I have considered cataloging and the ordering of the mind in its cycles and distractions. I have wondered of the wisdom of recipe-less cauliflower and cheese soup. That may have to wait. I am not so certain of cooking yet and still must wash many dishes.

I found myself staring at the radiator in the kitchen, sparking with the possibilities of its inner life.

The bathroom floor & the sink are cleaned as are the desk and one of the bookshelves. I feel a bit like the kid in the picture book I had as a child who only washed one part of himself a day and at the end of the week was still half dirty!

It is not entirely surprising that I've begun to sweep more now that I spend much more time than before in close contact with the floor. I see the crud and smell the air. it is a completely different perspective.

Four of the clutter-keepers I made have been emptied. One of them is on the ironing pad - pinned (bottom & lid) to finally take some kind of shape that is well-defined. I had fun making those bowls.

It is noted that there are still many sore spots in the re-establishing of certain habits. I am uncertain what to call my responses to them. I am not apathetic, nor am I inclined to anger or re-created hurt (that is to say: there is old hurt & the recognition of its source, but without addition) from whining or a sense of unfairness. There is some lingering dismissiveness (as, for example, my predilection for some kind of ceremony of tea) which I feel is as harmful as any other lingering resentment. It is acknowledged and I cannot be honest and say that any more is required. The soreness will pass away, as the soreness of muscles kept working toward the goal of greater strength and flexibility. The pain exists. It is no meaningful distraction. It is more than I thought it was, which makes sense: if I did not know how tense and inflexible my body had become, how could I guess at the same stagnation in my ego and my heart.

I stretch my reason and my emotions must needs reach out. It is good to be gentle. It is good to clean one floor and let the rest be there on a different day.

Lent Day 4, later

I've found a way to make some kind of peace with Circular Motion. It seems best. Noticed that while my back is very tender right now (that I've sat funny) I did not feel the same level of tension today or tonight. It was neither as strong nor long-lasting.

It is late and I am uncertain about my next activity. I believe that I will take out my contacts and go to bed with vitamins, water and Dr. Nussbaum. It seems balanced that long work days will be short reading days. Also, there has been much sleeping, and that strikes me as correct. I wonder when my dream life will leave more remnants in my waking life than it already does? I know that I dream. That is enough. It is likely that it will always be enough.

Lent Day 4

Fourth day of yoga will be practice late today, as I've not eaten for several hours and had quite a long walk home from work. Rice reheated with ghee and a side of cottage cheese. After yoga, I may have a bowl of soup. Such good soup.

Much as been on my mind today. Dreams crowded and alive and more unremembered than usual. Places in the day where instead of doing one thing, I do another - interesting how right now the temptation is not so strong, as I just have rules and am to follow them. Confidence in full acknowledgment of fragility and human weakness. No room for arrogance.

Nor any room for apathy, neither. As I discovered in terse conversation with a sort-of colleague today. "Except that I love what I do, so it's not like any other job."

My now assuaged hunger in conjunction with teh delay in yoga practice brings the memories of my first husband even closer. That terrible night when he left. For six hours he was gone and I could have left him then. I could have been home with my mother and on my way wherever and I stayed. And the hurts layered. And he read my journal. And I stopped registering the pain. I know that I must have lashed out in anger and hurt, though I've no idea at whom. Or for how long. We were a couple of people made of reactions to each other.

It has never been comfortable for me to feel that he was fully aware of himself, that he was completely reasonable; and yet I do pin responsibility on him for his actions. My own lack of awareness does not remove culpability. All it does, and this is not small, is serve to remind me that I have the right (and responsibility) to make better choices now that I am aware. It is time to change when the time happens. I believe that I have a certain degree of input there, but I do not have the ability to understand a thing, I will have to gain that understanding before learning can be said to have happened.

Gentleness and patience are not at odds with persistence and honesty. And there is already such joy in life and in living. To be able to fully involve myself, that may be additionally joyful.

It is not necessarily possible, I believe, to exert complete control over thoughts and attention. it is not impossible to be present and engaged most of the time: even in the even that 'present' is somewhere .... else.

Lent Day 3

Right. Day 3. I have spent the day thinking, while knowing full well that it was not the case, that today was Day 4.

Realized that to think of this 40 days as a test is to establish it as a challenge that is perhaps not what I'm interested in facing. It is not whether I will keep the rules that I've set myself or not, it is implied and known that I will. What is unknown is the experience of doing so and also the experience of life in this time.

Today I found myself paying very close attention to my muscles stretched and held an form all twisty-round. The seconds and breaths were about awareness of posture and tension and musculature.

And red lentil soup. On which I have just stuffed myself. (by the by - always have a recipe for this, along with an onion, tomatoes, red lentil, cardamom, garlic, cinnamon and a bit of chili powder on hand. you will thank me later. really.)

Last evening's reading of Bozo Sapiens brought this wonderful information into my life: 'Want to be more perceptive and engaged in the world? Stop eating: ghrelin, the resulting hormone, boosts learning capacity to such a degree that the researcher who found the connection speculated that "perhaps the cognitive brain is a side-effect of hunger." (Nature Neuroscience, vol. 9, Feb. 19, 2006. p 381-88)( New Scientist, Feb. 25, 2006, Andy Coghlan) - Must here say that I very much distrust speculation - if the evidence is there, that is fine, but speculation is bad science.

As for yoga: The Circular Motion exercise is the only one that has never really made sense in practice or on paper. It still doesn't.

There is no real certainty in this. Decisions must still be made whose impact on my life will be felt beyond Easter. Also, I've to do dishes and want to wait until at least tomorrow evening. If not the day after. I have a very long day tomorrow and am very tempted to take a shower and get into bed and read Martha Nussbaum until I fall asleep and dream of characters as letters moving in a dance over a broad stage, singing to me their names and various histories, presenting to me more layers than one night's dreaming can reveal or understand, while outside the steps where I sit for many nights in focused attentiveness, the world begins to name itself with symbols and sounds carried proudly aloft or discretely sewn in a pocket, perhaps tucked away, as mine is, just behind an ear, protected by the hairline and the relative grandeur of the appendage.

I remembered today to buy toothpaste.

Lent Day 3

Starting to get throat cold and cannot have spicy soup as has pork in it. Reading Manguel opens wolds of annotative potential. Find myself choosing to live the experience rather than mapping it. Though as I track my pages read count, I leave clues for later me to re-trace and even perhaps to record again. Boileau.

I walked downtown and learned that I have temp hours for the near foreseeable future, but am still reminded of the need to be frugal and responsible with time, energy and money. Frugal is not fearful. It is aware and creative and resourceful.

Slept very soundly last night. I was, quite honestly, somewhat surprised.

2nd day of yoga shows more of what the 1st day did: tense tension tense. It's more than a little surprising, honestly. Ah, ego. Also, I think more than a little uncomfortably of my first husband and wonder how much I've been carrying around with me that is that kind of old and potentially harmful. It's only certain moves thus far, though I've not yet come to the back push-up and I am nervous about it.

I've made black beans & rice - started it & washed some dishes before yoga. Seems a good balance of time - start something that takes 30 or so minutes to cook & spend the time well, then rest and have some water and decide what to listen to during the meal.

Finished the Byzantium lectures tonight. Will have to take some notes: Crusades, Greek history 19th & 20th cent., Latin, Ancient Greek, libraries in Constantinople, the Crusader kingdom, Kingdom of Heaven (the film), superstitions, angels, gates of magic, doing penance to gain God's forgiveness & favor <-- now that's one I relate very strongly my personal experience.

Probably I would not use the word God or appeal to God. It is more about gaining the right to forgive or release myself from whatever routines or mindsets or debts I owe to the world or specific people or my past. While iconoclasm is very definitely not how I approach such action, I understand the motivation to make every act one that finds favor with God. My own impatiences tend to be riled in less visible ways, though I am no less severe with them (if not nearly so effective).

Home is place of almost endless possibility for creativity and learning. It is overwhelming and sometimes seems distracting.

Lent Day 1

Today is the first day of Lent, 2010. The decision to change much about my daily habits is, I allow, completely insane. It is also something that I've wanted to do for months, and as I do not see myself moving into the forest for 40 days in search of understanding or enlightenment or closeness to God, I have made the choice to go without in different ways, no less shocking, tho far more modern & possible. Also, there will be coffee and chocolate. Yes.

So. I've eaten no meat today - 2 bean & cheese burritos, coffee, chocolate cake, tea, iced lemon muffin. I am hungry for rice, I think, so may make some and hard-boil an egg for a late snack. I've dumped the last mouthful of wine from a leftover glass and unplugged the TV stuff. I've also read more than 60 pages of a book about A History of Reading, and have determined to finish The Story of Language by Mario Pei before I embark on A History of Writing (1984) which must naturally have a place in all this study. Also, yoga - haven't done that yet - this it will be a nice segue into the evenings' craft work and listening - I think I shall hear more of Byzantium tonight. Tomorrow will be a good day for the red lentil soup, I feel, and to finish cleaning and clearing out the refrigerator and freezer.

My dreams begin to resist my efforts at keeping them from terrifying me. I am not sure what this spring will bring.

NaNo has given me the ability to believe that I can accomplish ridiculous things & now it is about perpetuation of that behavior, the place where it begins to become habit.

For change to be meaningful and the world after it's done to be sustainable and positive ans what was aimed for, even a little, it must be deeply felt and in this case deliberately enacted and carefully considered. Oddly, once I made the Life List of Lent*, it all made sense and there was no need to add or subtract anything. Today involved a certain degree of awareness and I anticipate more than a little antsy behavior as the 40** days continue.

Evening walks are good and there are enough projects to keep me occupied and invigorated and walking the rails through lands of reality & imagined surrounding & the dream life for me to be at once involved and overwhelmed and maybe even learn how to get used to it and feel more self control with it also. It is slow and requires faith and focus and deliberately chosen food.

Change, for me, is in the depths, not the details.


*Life List of Lent
**technically, it's 47 days. minus Sundays. Because that's how New Math works.

Lent 2010

Life List of Lent

no drinking
no smoking
no meat
no TV/DVD/VCR in the house
yoga every day*
work every scheduled shift

...which is all fine and good. I allowed Thursdays off for the meat and alcohol as that is the night of dinner with friends and there are enough dietary restrictions already, I had no desire to add to them.

*My yoga practice will follow a book that I bought when I worked at a bookstore some 16 years ago. I've begun the program before, but never stuck with it for the entire 28 days and am convinced that it is time to try it again. (again)

Also, I am allowed as much coffee and chocolate as I can stand and whenever I need it.

Still working to reach my reading goal of 100 pages a day. Will keep daily journal to track yoga progress.