My Stage

In this story we start with a stage, not just any stage but the platform I hold with the upmost protection in my mind.  When I stand on it I sometimes feel like I'm going to fall off the edge.  I sense the coolness of a slight breeze, the energy is unbelievably intoxicating.  The lights are warm and bright and beads of sweat drip down the back of my neck.   I can see faces not any that I can make out, I know they are there, watching and waiting.  The anticipation of them fuels my slight nervousness mostly caused by adrenal pumping through my veins.  I have arrived, I am home.  I am in no better place then in the center, band behind me.  I am doing this and it all feels a tad surreal and every fiber of my being knows that this is me.  Its always been me, it's always followed as sure as the shadow I cast.  Doesn't matter the distractions that seem to push it aside it always remains there.

There is no more important time then right now.  As I sit everyday conceptualizing my new project that is 100% mine,  I have become like a proud mommy protecting my newborn child.  Although it is in it's infancy, I write today while building on this new project at an incredible rate.   Never have I been so influenced, never has it felt so right.  The idea's flow like a raging river filling the holes I once couldn't see or possibly wasn't open to seeing.  The doors keep opening, where I don't have an answer suddenly an answer comes days later.  This new process couldn't have come at a better time and for once there is one thing thats not following me;

Doubt:  To fear, distrust, uncertain, is considered questionable or unlikely and a hesitation to believe.  

I threw my hands up in the air months ago and although I didn't have the answer when I wanted it, each day brings new enlightenment.  There is much to come, so many changes and this new adventure was supposed to happen regardless of how I got here.  Creating out of thin air removes doubt and fear and for that I am forever grateful as none has followed me.  Trusting the process is crucial even through the unanswered questions.

The world is my stage, the stage is my home.

The Chivalrous Man

Things are making a come back, we can't all really buy into the fact that this is all working.  Sometimes progression is good other times maybe not so much.  Within the dynamics of a relationship where I once thought chivalry was dead, I am here to say its not.  Woman shouldn't expect it, its the way in which one holds themselves to receive it.   

While being monogamous the chivalry obviously died overtime but now that I'm single I see it everyday, in fact I can't get away from it.  The man that opens the door, carries the groceries and lights a cigarette he's all around me.  This chivalrous man that had a good mother and possibly sisters understand the soft nature of a woman no matter how hard the exterior.  The more hurt the harder the wall and the deeper the layers.  Monogamy works, high expectations does not.  I believe it won't be full-fledged 1950's but I think the common man is starting to realize that there is some sustainable thoughtfulness that needs to happen and woman are taking guards down to receive it.  

The games have become to difficult and blurry to read and follow, that I'm pretty sure we are all sick of them to a certain degree.  The harder a game we play the further away from love we become and the less we understand about one another.  

Lets look at this even further shall we.  For every 100 single woman there are 88 unmarried men out there.  43% of people over the age of 18 are single.  Whats going on?  Are we not understanding each other or projecting too much on one another?  I have watched successful couples and I see the secrets that make them work like a well oiled machines.  I am happy to see this kind of man back into my life, ladies it is what you see out of it and a standard that you hold them accountable for while ALWAYS REMAINING INDEPENDENT...(yah I missed that one in the last marry-go-round, lesson learned).  

Start looking around you and allow the chivalry to happen for you, open yourself up to it..sure some guys try hard but don't shut them down they are engrained to try, to court and be thoughtful.  Let it happen.  To the men I see with chivalry, I commend your bravery and say thank you for always opening up the door for me.  

There's something happening, don't believe me?  Read this:

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-19/living/single.in.america_1_single-fathers-single-mothers-single-parents?_s=PM:LIVING

Dear New York City and Myself

This journey has given me so much both high's and lows however my proudest moment was moving to the Lower East Side, Manhattan.  On January 2 of this year I packed up my things and drove from Minnesota to a giant monster of a city.  I recall not thinking much about it until I was white knuckling the steering wheel.  When I read my Breaking Manhattan blog I am reminded of how amazing that opportunity was for me.  For that I am grateful because I will be making the move again on Oct.16th of this year however this time by plane and this time all by myself.   

I may not of moved by myself so the greatest blessing was moving there with someone and this time will be even better because I will be doing it alone.  No crutch this time.   My way, my journey and not for someone else's career. I felt such a sadness leaving the first time to do yet another move and this time I will be staying.  Hitting the ground running..

I see Manhattan as this massive ball of yarn, intermixed with opportunity and despair.  Its dark and hopeful, unforgiving yet welcoming..easy yet complicated.  I feel like from a distance I am a bird flying over the top of it wondering how to become it, conquer it and find my place within it.  My blessing is this vision I have been having and it's up to me to weed through 8 million people, find the right ones to make it my reality.  

When I first moved back from London, every fiber of my being said "this is your home but not your place in this world"  I then received a phone call and a spot had opened up for me in the LES (lower east side) I knew this was fate knocking.  I answered it and now I sit with just months away from yet another move.  

I am writing to you to share this experience however this is also a letter to myself.  To remind myself to stay above water because Manhattan is many wonderful things its also harsh and sometimes cruel.  This is to remind myself of perseverance and persistence, trusting my instinct and taking my journey one step at a time.  I always want to see New York as my opportunity, rejection is only part of the game.  Patience and gratitude and holding oneself with grace and forgiveness. When Manhattan seems heavy make light out of it.  Become the streets, many great things came from Bleecker, Houston and of course Park Ave.   Stay in but don't be afraid to go outward.  Meet people, eat great food and when things get hard call your family first.  

If only before every journey we could write a letter to oneself... 

Table for One Please

The constant need for the presence of another person at all times is a screaming desire to not be alone.  It masks itself, act's as a quilt always hiding your layers of discontent within yourself.  It feeds on having someone, anyone by your side and it will make you settle and left with a lingering discontent that will surface overtime.  Your always searching for more and you will never know that you in fact had it all.  You have yourself.

I sat on the waters edge, alone.  I walked barefoot on the beach sand between my toes and felt my presence which was all I needed.  It wouldn't be fair to be with someone right now and to me even though my bed (sorry couch) seems cold I am quickly reminded that I'm my own best friend.  Its not a impulsive neediness inflicted on someone else, its a calm place that takes time to get to.  I still feel it sometimes but not enough to run to someone else.  These things must be felt or they will become masked only creating an even colder heart.  You create walls and will eventually turn on your new replacement.  Overtime this is the cycle.  I watch it, I see it and I don't admire those that are on the constant search because little do they know it actually starts with them.  You can't have 2 without 1, you can't love 2 without loving 1..you see how people skip the first step.  

So your alone perhaps after a divorce or a messy breakup, you feel every string of your heart play.  You have been so used to someone that you find yourself still setting 2 places at the table..thats the feeling that makes you move to someone else.  It sometimes is unbearable, nasty hole in your gut.  The air doesn't smell the same, food has no taste and the colors of your world are black and white.  Your bored with yourself, sick of the feeling of your perceived aloneness. You search for a replacement, anything will do and that you will find.

 The overall definition of need is delusional in this matter.  We need water to live, we need food to survive and sun to cultivate life.  We don't need love we only want love and if we don't get it, it turns into a neediness for love.

NEED-I-NESS:  Privation, a state of extreme poverty.

Is that anyway to blossom love or relationship?  In order to grow the real kind of love not the fake stuff, all conditions have to be right.  The seed has to be whole, the water from a pure source.  There are many generic wannabes with love.  Don't be fooled, in fact you won't be as humans we can sense the unconditional love when we see it.  Its when my dad wakes up 30 minutes before my mom and makes her coffee and starts her car.  Its seeing my grandfather bring flowers to my grandmothers grave.  Its in the way my brother rubs her pregnant belly.  Its when I see an old couple split a coffee and sit in silence.
It's simple not complicated.  The complicated stuff is the step brother of love, a fake.  The drama is fake, the hate turned against one another is fake. Fighting is fake.  Leaving someone for greener grass, is fake.

But then again there are many bad seeds out there, be choosy whom you grow love with.  For now I choose the high road and say a table for one please.

Summer Tomato

Have you ever tasted a summer tomato?  Ripe, red, juicy summer sun kissed goodness.  Umm there is nothing like it.  Not in winter, spring or fall only a summer tomato tastes as pure from the earth as soil itself.  You can just taste the golden sun and breeze dancing romantically with your taste buds.  Its saying yah this Earth is pretty bad ass, it can grow a summer tomato.  Only it can harvest the most decedent sugary berries and only it can grow the coveted summer tomato.  Whatever happened to keeping our fair Fruit and Veg pure because when we really taste something in its purest form why would we except anything less.  Everything else can progress but why does the energy we put into ourselves have to change, be altered or messed with?  I want my summer tomato year round  but its never the same.  My pico never tastes the same, my tomato sauce isn't right and I have ruined too many Caprese Salads.  So why make a second runner up tomato?  You know the flimsy tomato on your sad Subway sandwich, the one that looks light pink and almost see-threw? Ya thats the one.  Its like summer tomato's second cousin but yet we still think their eatable and ask for extra's.

Then there's the apple, only 4 TIMES ITS SIZE.  Sorry didn't mean to do cap's but my fat apple was weighing my hand down.  Clunk Clunk, just dropped it on the floor.  This can't be right, no one can think this is right..But yet we eat all of it, all 4 servings of it.  Have you ever compared a store bought strawberry to one straight from the berry patch?  I did it this summer and let me tell you my Driscoll's looked like it had 2 heads and an ass.  But we think it's ok and continue to buy them.  I mean overtime it goes to show that "things" progress but why alter nature, its already perfect.

We mess with seeds already evolved past perfection.  We think it's ours to mess with, like an experiment.  We are the 5 year old with a magnifier and the seed is the ant and here come's some light.  I know its human nature to evolve but I think somethings should remain sacred, coveted or better yet protected.

Why do we conform to this,? Why do we say this is going to work for us? When obesity rates are at its high we collectedly still buy the produce we know isn't real.  Farmers markets could be our grocery store and our summer tomato would be ripe and juicy instead of limp and see-threw.

Just sayen..

Can I Get a Thank You?

In the commonality of life, the repetition of waking up and going to sleep and with every media outlet blasting constant images.  You make the morning coffee at exactly 7:15, everything seems to flow according to the tick tock.  You rush out the door after putting on the clothes you laid out the night before.  You are being pulled in multiple direction, constant lists and futuristic thoughts.  Your day either flies by or creeps as slow as if every minutes was a drop of sap falling from a tree.  Its the cycle of life, its the flow of a working man and it becomes so consistent I wonder if we factor other things into this routine.  Its like we almost shut off our brains (even though we are clearly using them) and go on autopilot.  Like a pilot on a commercial jet, we sit back and go on cruise control.  I always hear people say "man that year flew by" as if they weren't the driver in the race car, the pilot in their plane or the writer of their story.

Now I stop you and I'm going to ask you to consciously think.  I want you to be quiet enough to hear your voice that no one else can hear.  I have a question for you, when was the last time you gave gratitude for everything you have?  Maybe its been awhile since you have observed your world and gave some amount if any amount of thanks to it.  If you can't see any good in it how can more good come to you.  You have legs, eyes to read this fabulous blog and enough comprehension to use your computer.

Without gratitude this life can be seen as pretty cruel and equally as dark.  After a very bad breakup, all I could think of was how grateful I was.  Even through the confusion and despair of a broken heart I couldn't help to not see the good and blessing in it all.  Part of the blessing was never having to deal with it again.  But I gave it, I saw it and I released it.  During the battle I watched those around me pull together and no matter how bad it got it could have always been harder, darker and more cruel to me.  Instead of seeing it as a bad, I turned it around and saw good.

And now I must ask you to stop, clear your mind, sit in calmness and ask yourself this question, what are you grateful for?  When you hold it in your mind and feel it in your heart, what makes you feel thankful?  What is strong enough in your life to say thank you for?  When was the last time gratitude has been given to the things around you..

Today is the day to give gratitude and trust me things won't seem so dark and cruel.  I challenge you to factor it in everyday until your gratitude grows like a seed in your heart that will eventually bloom flowers in your life.

Right now I am grateful that you choose to be one of 1,000 people viewing my blog, for that I say thank you to you! 

 

Intuition and Karma

Its' a tug on your shoulder, something that makes your feet stop.  It summons your inner voice to say that something isn't right.  This thing whatever it is acts as a tour guild in this crazy journey called life.  Its like a higher presence that sends you a message.  It shakes you, slaps you and makes you stop and listen.  Some have it stronger then others, some ignore it all together and mine makes me sick till I listen.  Any degree of it is better then none at all.  Its like a 5 years old following you and tugging on your shirt, its a welcomed annoyance but beware once you open the door it only gets stronger.  

In·tu·i·tion:

Direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension. A fact, truth, etc., perceived in this way, a keen and quick insight.

It seems to surface in the beginning stages of a calmness right before major changes or as they say a calm before the storm.  I heard it many of times but isn't there a certain degree of paranoia associated with receiving messages from what is perceived as out of the blue.  Perhaps its not out of the blue at all, foreshadowing that kept on knocking on my castle.  I remember when it first happened and it felt like a heavy, unstoppable force deep within.  My thoughts were of "oh shit, something isn't right." This was well before New York.  This was knocking like a 1950's door to door salesman.  I didn't want to listen, I sent it on its way.  But it kept coming up to my door offering a sale, a buy one get one free and it continued to knock and then when shit hit the fan it was still waiting outside for me. I finally let it in. Perhaps my guardian, something I can't physically see but it allows me to never feel alone.  When things get messy I say help me, lead me to my right way.

Don't you have that inner thing that says "the starbucks lady gave you too much change, return it" or "you lied, tell the truth."  This may also be a inner consciousness, your voice. So if intuition is the first stage guess what the next phase is?

Good or bad, in one way or another its a debt you pay off eventually or that will reimburse you  overtime.  Its not immediate, sometimes it is.  It works on its own time but eventually it finds its way to each of us.

Kar-ma:

Action, seen as bringing upon oneself-inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in incarnation. The cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished according to that person's deeds.  Fate; destiny.

So intuition will stop you and failure to listen and correct will bring like results or your karma. Good or bad depending on your situation.  It's this a simple concept?  You reap what you sow, what goes around comes around and you get back what you put in.

So when I talk about my 2 friends its not to say that you are bad or I am bad, its a human condition that we are all a little messed up sometimes. However there is opportunity in those situations, to do differently next time.  What I am going to say is that we can all make right, learn from our past and not cheat or hurt others because its only a matter of time when someone will hurt or cheat you.