Daily-ish Duelings

A compilation of todays and yesterdays...

March 2024

Today, I sat in a corner with milk tea and a journal. The sweltering pre-monsoon heat hanging, weighting down each drop of wet air. In a room of crowded people, I sought peace and quiet. Peace from the anger that hides inside anxiety’s wind tunnel. Quiet from the warring words that stream unapologetically in my mind. Quiet from the quarrel of self-judgement. Peace from the feelings of broken trust and unrequited depth of those around me.

Today, I told myself to be grateful before I gave my mind a chance to speak freely- even to herself inside the sanctuary of the mind.

Today I noticed how I judge and quiet my own emotions like the quieted little girl inside of me whose love is unrequited.

Today I experienced how I invalidate my anger, my disappointment, my dis-ease and my impatience with those who don’t feel or see the energies that I can.

Today, I validated all of my unmet expectations.

Today I noticed that anxiety truly is an old friend whose inner noise is the raising of a white flag. A truce laced with emotions: Frustrations, anger. But grief underneath it all. Asking to be heard and seen.

So today I scribbled out words I would usually hush before they got a chance to be witnessed. Words that are quieted even in the echos of my own mind. Words that would leave fire on your breath if I dared speak them. An act in courageous solidarity with finding inner peace.

Only a few sentences into my process I shut my journal and left the crowded room. I released tears that had been masked by gratitude and rationalization.

Today I asked myself how I dare to feel these feelings from my privilege when others are dying from hungry bellies, thirsty hearts and war-torn streets.

Today I know it’s because I am also human. And I have the privilege to feel these emotions that others cannot access due to unstable environments. So I feel them and devote my peace to the healing of all beings.

February 2024

Today, I barely got onto the trail head when the words began to pour out of me. They come from my heart and knock at my temples. I had to sit down and let them organize themselves before I could continue. It’s the only reason I’ll bring my phone along. For when the words come.

When sacred spaces are in your backyard it’s easy to fall into routine. I drop a friend at the airport, and dip in the river afterwards. It’s convenient, only ten minutes away. 'May as well,' I say. Therapy on Tuesday mornings merits a cleansing rinse in the cool waters of the sacred stream. But I know it’s always been more than convenience… And when you have precious weeks left in a place you’ve called home, familiar places that became routine begin to illuminate in a new way.

I guess it’s similar to leaving a lover. Their voice takes on a new reverberation within the hollowness of your chest cavity, it would seem. And each expression that stretches across their face slows down. They are seen with fresh eyes again. Watching them becomes magic unfolding before you. All of the time spent in familiarity, routine, is replaced with a cruel and pleasant enthusiasm...

The tempest you’ll feel to maintain the familiarity of the life you grew comfortable with will brood within you.

Do not get caught in the storm. Your life is calling you forward.

Enjoy the moments of slowness... of new eyes for intimate relations which have grown comfortable. When your inner pulling toward curiosity for what lies beyond the next page builds up as friction within you, don’t be afraid to turn it. The same page with a new face: its' mirror. You’ll know very well that the old story is in the past, as it was an integral part of your evolution. Your story will continue, new words and phrases will arise, new timelines, characters, antagonists, protagonists… will all entice you forward to continue to turn the page.

Each time.

So this is my devotion to the river. Iao. To its symbol and reminder of our ever changing, regenerative nature. How time after time I still have never once dipped into the same river. As I have never once embraced the same friend or lover. But how our deep, familiar association with our present moments create illusions. Illusions as though what is familiar has lost its luster. Is if what is known is not also changing. Illusions that trick us into feeling that each human is the same in every moment or that the river contains the same drops of water I cleansed myself in last visit. As though that version of the river had not long ago been released back into the sea.

Can I continue to know when it is time to turn the page… but in each of my encounters with life, realize the newness, the freshness, that unfolds before me. I pray to hold both with grace. May I learn to cozy up with the comfort of familiarity, while enjoying the friction of the ever changing moment.

As though my eyes are new like this each time.

January 2024

Today I arose and scribbled words on the page in a fervor. Sipping tea and allowing consciousness to stream through mind to limb to pen to paper.

I thrifted a pair of small glass mugs at an old church on the hillside. I spent the rest of the afternoon clearing the dust from my sinuses.

Today I made a list and closed the book. I drew water for a bath and promptly forgot about all that was pressing me.

I steamed myself in a tub, bathing among lilting flowers until the water turned cold. And when it did I bathed again.

Today, I picked herbs from the garden and added them to the stovetop. Soup bubbling as I tossed them in, I steamed my tired face in the brew.