Generation ?

The other day I followed a trail of blog links and found myself engrossed in a forest of blogs written by 20-somethings.

Nothing against our Gen Y friends. It's just that reading their stuff drives home the point that I'm a person who may have hit her technology wall at the iPod. I got one, couldn't make it work. Gave it to my twenty-something brother. I'll take my eight-tracks, I mean CDs, thank you.

I'm not on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, or Flickr...don't own an iPad, iPhone, or e-reader. I'm sure that one day, as a wildly successful author, I will need more of a social media presence. I can see the allure of Twitter...it's like daily poetry. Poetry rocks.

But maybe I'll just get an intern to do it.

Back to the blogs. Rambling, hip, unfocused streams of consciousness fueled by whopping cups of extra-tall vanilla hazelnut espresso-shot latte, Lady Gaga, and the mad energy of living with five roommates. Or whatever. Energy drinks and pizza. One in particular was really funny, talking about her vagina like it was a fashionable girlfriend who lived in New York City. She had a gazillion followers and all the comments went something like this:

Follower: OMG that last post was so ON! i luv ur blog!!!!! xoxoxo LOL
Blog Girl: No, i luv UR blog!!!!!!
Follower: No, i luv {{{UR}}} blog! it TOTALLY KICKS ASS, when i graduate from high school i want to BE U.

And so on.

I can't help but wonder (shades of Carrie Bradshaw...I'm such a 30-something...) :

Does a flippant blog about your vagina make you hip and popular?

TTYL.

Open...or closed?

Something has shifted.

I was in yoga class the other day and the instructor said that at any one moment we have two choices: to be opening, or closing to what's in front of us. And it hit home for me: I have had a big CLOSED sign up lately. CLOSED to almost every facet of my life. That means I was CLOSED to new things coming my way! Oh no!

The instructor also talked about getting through resistance. You can either fall into a mental swamp when you get into a position that's uncomfortable: oh my god, I hate it here, why am I here, let me back out of this, I think I'm going to pull something, I can't do this.... This holds true for asanas - yoga poses - or for your random life situation.

OR you can breathe through it and see what opening this seemingly uncomfortable place brings.

Stop resisting your life, I told myself. So I hung out the OPEN sign and things are moving. Forward.

Helloooo, 2011!

Tracey Emin's "You Should Have Loved Me," 2008.
Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art - on current exhibition

Today I braved Maine-like windchills to go the North Carolina Museum of Art. I was thoroughly impressed with the exhibitions, the space, and the redesigned grounds.

Above is the most delectable piece. Raw, gorgeous emotion. I saw Tracey Emin's "Love Poem" (another neon, in glorious hot pink) in Vienna a few years ago and it left me breathless.

Oh...speaking of breathless, she says girlishly. Said trip to the museum was a first date. With a lovely redheaded boy.

And he brought me flowers!

Threshold

I am at the threshold. Everything in my life is in transition. Starting over.

Let's look at that phrase. Some may focus on the "over," as in lost it all, rock bottom. I focus on the "starting," because once you've cleared out all that's come before, there is so much space. Vast.

My lovely friend M - who provided me much love and care when I was immobile in Mexico last week - gave me a statuette of Ganesh, the beloved Hindu deity. He is the remover of obstacles and he dwells in the threshold between the old chapter and new.

I have no reason not to be scared absolutely shitless. But all I feel is done. Calm. Ready.

So here I am, dancing with Ganesh in the space between. Nowhere to go but up. Nothing to do but allow myself to be filled with new resource, new experience, new adventure.

Everything brand new. Dancing.

Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha
Salutations to Ganesh, remover of obstacles

Hello, me

So things didn't turn out as planned. Here's what I came away with. It hit me - not that I didn't know it, but it really sunk in, you know? - that I was staying in the exact hotel room where two years before, I had decided to quit my job and start writing, looking down at the same waves, out at the same palm trees, and up at the same stars. 2009 me was so yearning, so broken. And 2010 me thought:

Knowing what I know now, will I still pull her through?

Yes. The answer is yes.

And that, for me, may have been the whole reason I was back in Vallarta for that short, painful, and poignant time.

I surrender

Well, the biggest surprise thus far is that my lower back threw out on the third day here. I have been on bed rest in my hotel room, unable to even reach the beach because it is four flights of stairs down. No elevator.

I do have an ocean view, palm trees, and the sound of waves.

The pain has been enormous. It is abating.

The immobilization meant surrender was the only option. And in that, I discovered that surrender doesn't mean laying down arms but just trusting, more and more and more.

So I trust that I will leave Mexico the better for it, having had some enforced rest.

las olas (the waves)

Sleeping and waking to the sound of the ocean. Why am I back in Mexico? Well, why wouldn't a writer and lover be?

graciasgraciasgracias

I am seeing how much I have changed - from frazzled confusion to wild art - this past year, even in the few months since I left Mexico.

I am here for sabor: taste, experience, senses.

And I am here to surprise myself.