Balance

every thing is

balance

we strive for balance

we struggle 

because we are out of 

balance

we yearn for balance

we need balance

koyaanisqatsi

too much

is not balanced

to compete or compare

is not balanced

to lack

is to lack balance

when we feel empty

we have no balance

how 

how do you find balance?

it materializes with

no fanfare or noise

escapes us like vapor

powaqqatsi

balance in

little things

one thing at a time

in the now

in the now

balance in

silent minds 

peaceful heart

clear mind and heart

open, receptive,

humble.

balance in 

giving and 

loving others

sharing in love

and peace.

balance when we 

fight the currents

of false alarm 

and urgency.

balance when 

we remember

what is 

and always will 

be important.

balance in not

getting absorbed

by the little picture

but the grand 

masterpiece

of everything

and every one.  

balance in love

is love

always 

as a nautilus shell.

Our first game

versus KIPP...it was a close game.  I really believe the girls tried their hardest, and were nervous because most of them didn't know what to expect...most didn't know what a game looked like/haven't played an official game before/never watched a game.  Also, playing in a gym is very different indeed than playing indoors.  Personally, I LOVE the gym.  I will still play VB outside anytime, but inside makes the game feel REAL.  I love the sound when someone bumps a volleyball in a quiet gym, a deep boom with a low echo.  I love the clear boundaries, the controlled air environment--a controlled environment so players can truly focus on their body, awareness, and the game. 

DREAM LODGE

I recall not wanting to wake up because I was dreaming of the x-men....

I recall also something like my family was trying to get on some tv show, but there were snags, and I was trying to find something to wear in a closet.  I ask from a banister upstairs in whatever house I'm in if it'll be cold, Maki says "Yes it will be cold tonight."

I recall wearing an elaborate witch hat but it was heavy so i eventually took it off outside a popular hangout spot and lost it.

I also recall taking a bath and then going out to that popular hangout spot, wrapped in a black towel.  In the dream I don't really care about it, I have my black dress with me.  I put the dress on tactfully without showing myself.  People watch but I don't care.

Epiphany #2 early Sunday morning while cooking grits.

"Use visual art as an outlet to express feelings you probably shouldn't say in a room full of people."

Still traumatized by my bad choices obviously, but something good:

while cooking breakfast this morning I have a vision of myself heavy into visual art, something I really dive into.  A vision of my house, on the walls I will have my thoughts actualized into art, things I hold in all day at school or in public settings.  A vision of this art on walls of public settings; through art, now, instead of holding it in, there I am screaming it loud and proud--and in color!  A vision of people celebrating my self-expression.  A vision of me celebrating, too.

I have realized that it is very hard for me to keep my mouth shut and censor myself; when I hold it in, I get diarrhea of the mouth.  It's so disgusting.  When these things happen I feel overwhelming tides of shame, embarrassment, guilt, terrible ugliness.  Sometimes this overtakes me and I feel like destroying something in my environment.  But I never do this--I live minimally and anything I might destroy will be hard to replace.  So instead I hit myself in the head.  I really do.  

It's a terrible thing, I know; but you see, the overwhelming feelings of embarrassment are really too much for me.  I am a true victim of my embarrassment--especially because usually when I say something inappropriate, it's due to the fact that I HEARD SOMEONE ELSE say it to me before in casual conversation.  I tend to be real and just accept how people talk.  But this isn't what everyone does.  Some are really sensitive or overly PC or even unaware of such classifying of people that when I do say the inappropriate thing people are equally overwhelmed (as I am later with shame) by shock and it shows on their face.  "Oh, I can't believe she said that," their face might say.  The shock is undeniable.  Their trying to suppress their shock but it showing anyway is undeniable, too.

The whole thing makes me sick.

So to end it all, I have a vision of myself taking refuge in art.  This is a beautiful and totally attainable vision.  I would also love it because I need to anchor my personal life so it doesn't float away--leaving me to live a work-eat-sleep life.  It is very very VERY important to maintain a personal life when a person--ESPECIALLY A WOMAN--becomes a professional.  It is also very very VERY easy to become a drone.  It's so subtle, that's the kicker.  It's like it overtakes you like a weed in your brain, next thing you know, you're not romantic anymore, your house is a mess.  You come home with thoughts of work, already thinking of work the next day.  No true relaxation, centering on the spirituality, or anything.  Just work.  Yuck yuck yuck.

That also makes me sick.  

So to end it all, I will have visual art.  

Art as therapy.  

Thank you Tita Jet for teaching me about art therapy.  I will never forget this about you.

DREAM LODGE

-a great (dot)indian feast

-my sister was in my dream, hasn't appeared in a dream that i recall ever...she was dressed as if she was to help cook, but she was just sitting on the sidelines talking with her friend mabel...

-there was a great party before, and we were all dancing

-afterwards was the feast...one indian guy was cooking, reminded me of smiral, but i don't think it was him...he had a calm disposition like smiral...

-i remember walking into the kitchen...i watched mainly, and the one thing i did to contribute was to tell the guy that the pot was getting full of water and it might overflow...since i didn't know what he was doing exactly i didn't want to intrude into his business, so instead of just turning the water off myself i felt better just alerting him...

-i remember all the great indian dishes laid out onto a big table...we were about to eat...

-i don't know why i didn't get to take part in the actual feast...i didn't actually sit down with everyone to the food...instead i (and this sounds admittedly kind of disturbing but i'm not really like this its just what i dreamt) was in bed with like two other people...one of them being an older lady with flaming red hair...like WAY old, like grandma old.  and i was totally having some lesbian sexy moments with this lady...

-i remember someone walking through the room to get to another room, and i just pretended i was asleep.  in my dream, i didn't really care about "getting caught"

-i remember looking up and there was a hole in the ceiling through which i could see a tin roof

-i also remember looking to my left and seeing that there were some breaks in the wall through which i could see a raw, open area of the house.  i went through the holes and there were children playing, like my cousins.  i played with them too

-i saw my dad.  he was just sitting there smoking and supervising.

-it was then i remembered about the feast...in my dream, i was even excited about the leftovers

but that was all, i didn't get to the food...i woke up...

Positive thinking.

I believe in the power of positive thinking.  It has gotten me this far, I believe it will also help me through these rough times.

I publicly declare to everyone out there that I believe with all my heart and soul that positive thinking is faith.  In the words of Mr. Norman Vincent Peale, "through prayer you ... make use of the great factor within yourself, the deep subconscious mind ... [which Jesus called] the kingdom of God within you ... Positive thinking is just another term for faith." He also wrote, "Your unconscious mind ... [has a] power that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong enough." 

This is not witchcraft, not hippie garbage, but real power within us all.  


So, in faith, I imagine Clay coming home from a good shift at work tonight.  I will see his sweaty brow and big smile and we will both experience a moment of relief in this sea of stress.  He will come up to the door and say hi to the dog and me.  I also imagine him coming home with a brew or something, as a small celebration.


He will say that it was pretty busy at work, due to the flyers he made, the festival, or just because it was a weekend.  Somehow, I believe this will happen.


I believe in positivity
I believe in the power of faith
I believe in my faith
I believe in my positivity
I believe in the power within myself
I believe, especially because I have moved mountains before with just my mind...when there was no other evidence it was possible except my faith in myself


I believe that July will fly right by and next thing I know I'll be working in the school.  I will be loving it.  I will wake up every day excited to go to work, at the thought of fulfillment from my job as a teacher.  I will appreciate every day I work there, not taking anything for granted, because I have worked so long and so hard at getting to this point.  


I will wake up, make coffee, take a dog for a walk, pray.  I will dress up, fix my hair and makeup and go to work, chic yet modest.  At the school, we will all get along and feel positive that we can improve our students' lives and the school's over all performance.  We will be a strong team, working side by side with Lafayette Academy.  We will have productive team meetings and parent conferences that create a strong bond between the families and the school.  We will all love where we work, and the children will love us too. 


I will come home, maybe get to a weekday mass.  Drop Clay off at work if he's still working.  Otherwise, Clay and I can make dinner together.  We can relax with nice drinks and good food.  I will give up smoking by then--I won't be as stressed as I used to be, so I won't feel the need to smoke.  



If he is working still, I can cook dinner and have it ready for him when he gets home.  I can make him a plate and warm it in the oven...


We will be able to save lots of money.  We will feel more secure and less stressed.  I will even be able to send a couple hundred over to my mother every check.  I will feel so proud that I can finally give back to the woman who brought me into this world.  I know she worries too about money so I will be so happy to be able to lift some weight from her shoulders.


We will finally get Clay to school.  We will work it out together.  We'll probably get married before.  I will continue to work at the school because they loved me so much and saw how well the students responded to me.  


We will not spend frivolously but will save the majority of our money just to save, and for Clay's school.  We'll look back on all this one day and feel proud that we got through it in tact, together.

Times of Trouble

In my times of trouble, I withdraw inward.  Thinking about it now, it's something I've always done...as a young girl I'd get in trouble, retreat to my room, get in bed, and lay there.  As a grown woman I still do that...

As one can see, I retreat to my mind, my dreams.  I listen to my dreams, look for some clues.  I'm not sleeping to get away, I sleep to open my mind to solutions...or if I don't sleep I'm thinking thinking thinking...I watched this movie, What Are Dreams?, that I found on Netflix...it talks about that, dissecting the whole act of dreaming, the science of it, the REM state, the pre-REM state, and the nightmares...

According to this documentary, it seems that bad dreams aren't bad at all, this is the way the mind works out troubling situations in real life.  Dreams where a person is being chased, for example, harps back to the time when we were cave people, what to do if we are being chased by dangerous animals trying to eat us.  Over time in my personal life, in these kinds of dreams, I have since stopped being the victim, and have learned to face those things chasing me.  I've learned to attack back, and conquer.

Such as I have done in my grown waking life.

A couple posts ago, my tone was one of relief and triumph, and now with my personal financial woes (this is gonna be another tough summer), and my new car troubles, I am back in the valley again.

I think about all the other valleys I've conquered, and although this current time has a stressful air, I am not entirely succumbing to it.  I've been through worse, and knowing this, I wouldn't want to find myself in any past valley I've conquered.  I feel like THOSE were really tough!  This car shit, and the financial woes...I'll pass over this too...like my friend was telling me last night, "Girl, you made it this far!"

Enouraging words...I really appreciated that...thought about it the whole bike ride home from work.  Yes, I HAVE made it this far.

However I can't help but wonder: is this what life is about, dragging my feet through muddy situations, conquering troubling times, basking in jubilant moments?  Because if so, I think I could get tired of life!

I am getting older indeed.  When I was young, I was content in my suburban environment, then I got antsy in it, yearning for more like Ariel in The Little Mermaid.  All the while realizing a core inside me brimming with energy, potential, creativity and awareness.  In my early twenties, I found myself enthusiastically expending my energies, challenging myself with life experiences, creative projects, testing the waters, as if I was saying, "Finally!  I can let myself do these things I've always wanted to do!" This was my peak I'll call "Answering the Call to Arts."  Like at the end of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, when Daedalus has escaped all the labyrinths of his upbringing and accepts his destiny as an artist.

Then I graduated college.  It was a monumental time for me, as my mentor Jack said, "Paula, you are a bud that is about to blossom." My potential was explosive, finally catalyzing my exodus to New Orleans years later.

I was saddled with the reality that shit hit the fan and my parents couldn't pay my loans like they said they would, even though I kept my end of the bargain (finishing school).   That was a "valley" moment too (I'll call it Valley of the Realization of School Debt), very harsh indeed, where I had to accept the fact that this debt, greater than any debt I could ever imagine for myself, exists and I alone would have to pay it off.  That enthusiastic, creative energy I was riding on for the first half of my twenties was kind of squashed by this valley.

So then I tried to be good.  I found myself as a reference librarian in the Houston Public Library.  The highest paying job yet--$12/hr starting, then raised to $13!  This was before the economic crisis and they had to downsize.   I should've been happy.  I was more/less financially stable, living close to the family, in a city that I always loved, with a boyfriend I'd had for 4 years.

DREAM LODGE

-a performance, like in middle school band...in fact Ms. Brown was there, my middle school band director...
-for some reason we do not have music stands but tables...these tables were messy...i remember propping up my music on a few HUGE buds of the highest quality, all red
-i remember one minute they're huge buds next they're all broken up like they've been through a grinder, not of my doing...then there's me wishing they were still huge buds...
-then i'm on a road trip...feeling anxious...like when i was en route to houston via amtrak, studying nervously for my teacher's exam...
-i dream of a huge man, he is huge because he is next to us in the car, i feel the ground shake and i hear the stomp of his footsteps...even in my dream i can't believe it...
-he is not scary though, he is in a rush...getting smaller by each moment he is rushing...could this be symbolic?  the more rush/stress you have, the "smaller" you become?