I wrote a really good post last week. I think it may have been one of my favorites. Maybe. I have a bunch. That I love a lot. That, when I go back and reread them, resonate just as deeply or the language pulls me just as strongly. Writings that I feel are beautiful or powerful or touching on that soul level so that when I share them with you they connect you to me.

Here are a few that I keep going back to. I hope you like them as much as I do!

My Light, Airy Musing Is Really A Deep-Seated Need To Connect With You. I wrote this one at the very beginning of my weekly writings. It is my second post on what is now a two and a half year blog. My first post was kind of light and funny, but it meant a lot more than this. This one is the follow up. It still speaks to me in clear

The Ever Stronger Woman Warrior. This piece runs deep. I actually didn't realize that I was going to be writing this one when it came out of me. A visit with old demons and a nurturing of selves. 

Sharing A Truth On A Puppy Walk Day. The idea that we need to keep talking and sharing and honoring and understanding so that those things that we feel are perhaps wrong or off or not quite as they should be - and that we then feel shame and embarrassment or upset about - can come into the light and be seen as normal and good and right and just what they are, life as it is in any given moment. 

I Climbed A Mountain - but this is not my metaphor. I love love love this writing. 

​Being Scared And Standing In The It Of It. I wrote this at the beginning of my three months in Massachusetts. I was actually down in Philadelphia visiting first my sweet, middle daughter's most dearest friend, and then a friend of mine. And I was sitting in the discomfort of being uncomfortable. Because this is often how I feel even though I think I hide it well.

The Practice Of Speaking Our Truth. Just what it is.

Thank you for reading my writings today.

So I have this thought-idea-concept-revelation-understanding-introspection that has been swirling around in my head for a couple of weeks. A way of being-pattern-of-coping-addiction-to-behavior-and-the-input-that's-received way of being that I know I do and see in others quite often, too.

The idea is that we are addicted to the high of fixing things. 

Not fixing things like getting our car repaired or gluing together a broken vase kind of fixing, though those things can be very satisfying. No, it is not that.

It's the fixing of interactions and relationships.

There is something about that instant when you feel the shift in the air between yourself and another and you know - in that intuitive way that settles in your chest and skin and not just in your mind - that something has gone a bit off path and needs to be resettled back to right again. And with that knowing - for me anyway - is a bit of an adrenaline rush. It is an I-can-do-this-make-it-right kind of rush and then we ramp up in a subtle or a really big way. Maybe just a softer difference in our voice, or a leaning in of our body. Or maybe in more grand gestures of acknowledgement for that other person in phone calls of appreciation or lengthy explanations about ourselves.

And when things are righted and all feels in balance and we think that we are in the clear, our heart settles down again to a more steady rhythm and we breathe a bit more easily even while enjoying still the afterglow of that rush from making things good again.

This happened a lot when I was younger. And I was very aware that I loved the rush of it. The one time that stands out in my mind most was a time when I worked for Macy*s. This was back in the day when Macy*s was the place to be in retail. The Macy*s training program was the best in the country and I was in it. My plan was to be a star in the retail world and this was the beginning. And for one of the training modules that I went through that summer I shadowed the diamond buyer. Yup, that is what I did. I got to play with diamonds for three weeks. And go to vendors and look at precious stones. It was almost as good as being around shoes. 

And one day something happened in the office, a miscommunication with another buyer who shared the same space and I felt it, that shift to misunderstanding and their disconnect and pulling back from me. And I can still remember the slowing down in the air around me as though everyone else was suspending in that moment as the feeling of sitting in the I-have-to-make-this-right-again-and-know-that-I-can-do-it rush filled my head.

And then I was in it.

I honestly don't remember what the incident was and also don't remember what I did to make it be all okay but I can see the office space so clearly in my mind's eye and I can feel, as I write this piece, the churning in my belly as the drug of fixing entered my veins.

And then it all was good again.
​
Actually even better, so I thought, because my ego felt renewed and validated from within myself and from the feedback that I got from the other person in my story. I got that input that I needed. That drug of shining bright in a moment so that this other person likes you and thinks that you are good and sees you with appreciation and wow - how awesome I am because I made it all right.

But here's the thing: if I didn't have the knowing that I could set back right the thing that tipped slightly and almost shattered on the floor, would I have been more careful with it in the first place?

See, this is why this is so complicated.

As we grow up, and not in age though that certainly plays into the growing and knowing of things, but when we grow up in our soul's journey and we begin to see the interplay between our ego's need and our true light that is our self, I am finding that two things happen.

One is that we stop looking so much for input and validation from outside of our self. This, because we realize we don't need it. Our ego does, but we don't. Because that true love of self love is really the only love we seek, and once we love our selves fully, that other, outside of our self, love is no longer needed.

That doesn't mean that other love is not good love, as in the love from our children and partners and friends. But we don't need it anymore. We are enough with the love from our self to our self.

The other thing that happens, as we settle into being enough on our own, is that I think we are more loving in the interplay with others. When we come from a place of love we are able to love more. When we come from a place of compassion for self we are able to see others with compassion. When we accept and understand and value ourselves we are able to see others clearly and accept them as their own selves, too.

So how does this all relate to the rush of the fix?

I have no idea...haha, just kidding...well kind, of.

Our ego is a funky friend who not only seeks outside light to feel illuminated and bright but also tends to sabotage our true self when we are free from those, outside of our selves, sources. And so in those moments where we may be shining brightly in the truest sense of our selves - without an outside agenda or a need for validation from anyone else because we are complete enough and grounded in the goodness and the good enough of our being - our ego finds a way to make it all go a bit off so that we will feed them again with those things that are not aligned with our internal knowing. And the ego does this by clouding the calm and simple with perhaps a momentary complication and a not quite right in an interaction so that we will feed it with that druggy input.

​Like the rush of the fix.

And so this is what I think: I think that there are times, not all the time because often things happen regardless of the role we play, but many times where we would be more mindful of the interaction we are in if we remember that this is our only opportunity to be in it. If we see each moment that we have with another person or situation as the only moment that we have and that we can never replay or rework or remix it, would we be in it differently?

I think that we would. I think that we do. I know that I do. 

I have truly mastered the art of doing nothing all day. Well not really nothing. I actually get up very early. Often by 5:45, sometimes a bit after 6, and I take my perfect and brilliant Doberman dog for a walk through the orange grove and then to the dog park to throw the ball for her just like she likes it.

This is certainly not nothing.

And I write this blog. Weekly. And this is not a nothing thing either. Not at all.

And I sew a lot. Remaking clothing that I have or redesigning a pair of shoes or dying something a new color. So there is that.

And I play Words With Friends. Incessantly. God, I love this game.

And I had been dancing in a more structured way. Weekly ballet and tap classes that fill my soul as only those repetitious movements can.

And I walk my dog again. And we play more ball.  And very often we nap together. Which I love. And I know she loves, too.

And my day feels full with the simpleness of it. 

So it is not a nothingness that I do. It is a simpleness. I like this word.

But lately, lately I have actually been very busy with things that come not from inside me, like my writing and my sewing and my napping with my dog. I am now doing outside things also. Things that involve others and keep me more involved.

I am now on the board of an amazing theater - The Echo Theater - which you really must check out. Like seriously. Best theater around. 

And I am volunteering for an incredible organization here in Ojai called The Nan Tolbert Nurturing Center. I am what is called a Parent Care Volunteer which means I go, twice a week, into a new baby's family's home and help with whatever they need. Playing with an (awesome and so much fun who I just love) older sibling, doing the dishes, folding laundry, taking a walk and supporting a family, and holding and helping care for this sweet and new baby. It's the best thing!! 

And I have this TV show that I wrote with a writing partner, that I am talking with someone about and we are seeing if we can move it forward from just - what I think is - great characters and stories on a page, to a series on TV. So this is very cool.

And I joined the gym.  The Ojai Valley Athletic Club. Specifically to swim in the really great pool that they have. I used to swim. A lot. But, as many of you know about me, I get bored with things quickly, my mind needs something new and so, though I stopped swimming to move onto a new way to work out, I have circled back around to this again. It is a good activity for me. My poor and not quite the littlest toe that I broke almost six weeks ago now still won't let me dance and spin so swimming will be a good thing.

My days are full. Lots to do.

And so this morning, getting out of my car after the walk in the grove followed by the trip to the park, I noticed that I needed to take a moment and notice more. I could feel it as I stood in the now somewhat warm morning sunlight. I could sense that I needed that extra few minutes of not just doing the things I do, whether the simpleness nothingness things or the more structured and outside of myself things. I needed just a moment to stand purely in the taking in of it all.

And so I walked over to the edge of our driveway, full and sweet with these lovely blue and white flowers that I love so much. And I let my eye gaze out on the mountains that hold this valley in gently. And I smelled the coolness of the air and heard the silence of the morning. And I stood for just a moment more before snapping a photograph to capture this moment so I could share it with you.

And then I went inside to write this writing.

My cat eats grass. And not the pot brownie kind of grass which you would think he might gravitate towards considering he spent time as a kitten surrounded by the ganja. I think that is why he is so laid back. Regardless, this is not the kind of grass I am talking about. I am talking about the grass that grows outside our house. The lawn grass.

Here he is, the handsome and most awesome Phoenix Pussycat, standing outside the fence that we have to keep my perfect-and-beautiful-not-so-much-a-puppy-any-longer Doberman from getting eaten by the coyotes that live near us. 

In this picture you can't actually see him eating it. The grass. I did take a video of it, to send to my son since Phoenix was/is originally his cat. Your cat eats grass! I posted on his wall on Facebook. Because I thought it was funny and because I did not know that cats did this.

So this video, I included it with the Facebook post but can't include it here because I am cheap and don't want to spend the extra money each month to have a website plan that allows me to post videos. In it, my cat is eating grass. Like a lot of it. Really munching away on it. 

I truly did not know that cats do this.

I know that dogs do this. My dog, this perfect one that I have now and also all my other pups that I was so blessed to have in my life, they all eat/ate grass. A lot of it. Quite often. To help with that upset and/or irritated stomach that they may have had. With Nava, my perfect not-quite-a-puppy Doberman, she does this, too. When she's not feeling on her game. But also when she is completely  100% navalicious. She still grazes on the grass each day. I think she just likes it. 

So my cat. Since he was eating grass and I did not know that cats do this, I googled it. Ah Google. What would I do without you. Do cats eat grass? ​I put into the search bar. And low and behold, there is was. Page after page of grass eating cat facts. Turns out that they eat it for just the same reason as dogs, to settle their bellies.

Perhaps Phoenix has been eating grass for years and I just didn't know. Though I am going to stand by the belief that this is a new occurrence for him. I have proof in that in-the-middle-of-the-night-when-I-hear-that-hicupping-retching-oh-shit-my-cat-is-heaving-I-hope-he's-not-on-the-rug-maybe-my-dog-will-eat-it-so-I-won't-have-to-clean-it-up sound that propels me out of bed. There is just mice. Or parts of mice. 

There is never any grass.