Impermanence

What does it mean to ‘have’ instead of to ‘be’? Our experiences are forever fleeting. Nothing is permanent and no matter how much we grasp, the sand will always slip through our fingers. Our time is a culmination of present moments. Impermanence is the only constant.

Lately I have been thinking about how so many of my struggles come from this age-old powerplay between perceived time and consciousness. It is becoming clearer to me that my urge to collect, take hold of, grab on for dear life—things, people, experience—instills a great fear of loss within me and jades my choices. The more I try to establish a grip, the quicker I am alluded.

Fully embracing this concept of impermanence means living with faith—faith that the universe will provide for me all that is necessary. And those that I love I have to set free.

It is an interesting thing in our culture, this concept of ‘having’ someone. I of course am alluding to romantic relationships in which you have metaphorically lassoed one another into a mutual contract supposedly to support growth, intimacy, and happiness in each other. It is no surprise when people in monogamous relationships report frustrations—no freedom, too much pressure, expectations are off, things aren’t what they used to be, this feels like emotional prison—because we are trying to grow in a soil tainted with fear.

How do we have relationships that support autonomy and passion alike? There isn’t a problem with passion, this is a gift—where we go wrong is when we kindle a fear of losing this euphoric feeling of belonging. For most women, myself included, infatuation is like a warhead candy—the sweet quickly turns sour once we start worrying about the void this magical drug is going to carve out in our brains and hearts. We habitually poison new wells because of a conditioned fear, internally and externally.

My tendency to want to ‘hold onto’ things in life inhibits me from experiencing fully, loving fully. If and when I surrender to the fact that everything is impermanent—that I can never truly have anything or anyone—I can build a life based on genuinely grounded content, there is an empowering freedom in that.

Lit

Now I see—it was just a spark.

I wonder if it ever felt different to you,

Or was I just another crumpled newspaper

Fed to the flames?

I thought we stoked it together, with secrets.

But now I see the beguiling—wit and whisky.

I can’t help but question my own light.

Was it always my choice?

It is difficult to see

The choice in a scheme. Were all conartists

Licking charred wounds—there’s no foresight

When we hardly see ourselves.

Yet I am no longer willing

To get involved with men who are content

With painting me a question mark in ash.

Now I see—matches are plentiful and easily lit.

i am the permeable membrane.

i am the permeable membrane.  
how to not lose oneself in a lover
 is a tricky boundary to be sure. 
 i am consumed….by the idea 
of his existence. he is the first thing 
i think of in any free moment. 
 i plan my schedule around the quantity 
of time i can spend with him. i have fallen…
for something inside him. some uncanny energy. 
 for what? why do we take these leaps
when we know the landing is unattainable. 
my oh my do i have a knack for men 
whose lives seem mutually exclusive to my own. 
and so we share this 'time capsule' of passion, 
in limbo….between metaphysical destinations. 
will i ever meet a man whom with i can just 'be'? 
perhaps i wouldn't be satisfied with the coincidence...
the smoothness. so i tease my poor heart 
with another wandering spirit. 
and yes…its been worth it.

A Wise Woman on Love and Relationships

 

Since very early this morning my mind has been reviewing my history with relationships, spurred by Amanda asking about how I've navigated certain relational terrain.  I didn't say much at the time she asked, due to my own uncertainty of how much to share at that moment.  Its an interesting and important line to walk as a therapist/facilitator of how and when to share my personal story or history.  I always ask myself whether doing so is truly in the service of the group, or client, and I have to really be clear on that.  I am pretty sure that for at least some of you, it could be helpful to hear an honest account of the important learning and growth I have experienced through relationships.  So, I will write more here.  If you don't feel that would be helpful to you, trust yourself on that and feel free to stop here!  I won't write an autobiography, but will try to speak to some of the topics and questions that came up last night in our group, and how they surfaced for me, and how I found my way through them.  And really, I feel like I have nothing to hide about any part of my life or myself, so do know that I am open to questions and will continue to be open with you, while listening to and honoring my own boundaries in the moment. 

In my twenties I had several serious relationships with men, interspersed by long periods of time spent being single.  I am pretty comfortable on my own, and enjoy my independence, so that was OK with me.  I also really love connection and relationship, and knew that I wanted a partner and put a lot of energy into relationships when I was in them.  During my twenties I was also moving forward with my career path, and along with that came embarking on my own therapy, and a lot of personal work as I was becoming a therapist.  My relationships during that time were under a lot of reflection.

My time single was critical for developing my sense of my self, getting clear on who I was and who I was becoming, and moving my own life forward.  It really helped build my strength and confidence in many areas, although at times I felt lonely and unsure if I would ever find a relationship that would sustain over time.

When I was 28, a relationship I had been very invested in ended, despite me doing everything I knew how to do to keep it going.  I was devastated.  I was in the midst of graduate school at Naropa, though, and had an amazingly supportive situation amongst my peers, and a therapist that I still feel so grateful for.   And probably because I was so well supported, for the first time I was able to consciously feel what was one of my core woundings: a fear that I was unloveable.  I feel sad even writing that now, that I lived so long with this deep fear, rather unaware of it, but it was always operating on some level.  It all made sense given my family dynamics, and how I functioned for so long, but to really feel it was a whole other deal.

I started to see how I chose men who were rather unavailable in some way, and my unconscious hope was that by getting them to love me, I would then feel loveable.  Because they were unavailable or "hard to get" in some way, my unconscious hope was that I would really feel loveable and special if I got the "hard to get" guy to commit, open up, and love me.  I was actually setting myself up, without knowing it, to be disappointed, and to be thrown back on my own unresolved pain, and face my fear as it seemed that these relationships were confirming my worst fear of being unworthy of love.  The genius in my approach was that I did have to eventually deal with myself, which is what needed to happen all along, and to attend to this fear I was carrying without expecting or needing someone else to do it for me (which no one can, anyway, I found out as well).  So, I spent more than a year picking up the pieces of myself that had been so disowned and gradually, somehow, using every tool I knew, came to a new way of being in myself that felt more grounded, safe, and reliable.  I now am actually grateful to all those men for not rescuing me (which they actually couldn't have anyway) from my own work that I needed to do to restore my own wholeness.

When I finally met my now husband, I was 29, in a much more comfortable place in myself, and ready to start again.  And of course, he was somewhat unavailable!  It was about a year from our first meeting before we actually started dating, and in that year I was just watching how I would have moments of being interested in him, then be completely turned off by his lack of availability, that before would only have made me doubt myself and then be more interested in him.  So I was happy that finally, I was not attracted to someone who kept himself at a distance. 

When we finally started dating, he was more ready and available and I was so much more clear that I didn't need his love to feel loveable.  It was a good start!  But we still both had more work to do.  In 3 and half years, we broke up twice, very painfully, him not ready to commit more fully and needing to do more work on himself, and me having to grieve and feel the loss despite thinking that it should work out since I had really done my work!  I was angry, heartbroken, and completely at a loss.  I finally was able to see that on a very subtle level, I STILL wanted him to love me and commit to me so that I could confirm my worthiness of love.  It was still there, and once again it took losing the relationship, TWICE, for me to see that and really get it. 

Still working with the same therapist, I just kept going with my own work, using the friendships I had cultivated for support, too.  After our second break up something really shifted in me, I was angry and I also felt my own certainty, finally, that the relationship was over NOT because I was unworthy of love.  I finally just knew it very deeply, that I was loveable, regardless of whether he--or anyone--loved me or not.  I wish I could say how exactly that occurred but I just think it was an accumulation of staying with my experience, for years, with really solid and skilled support around me, that I was able to shift how I felt about myself.  That simple, and that hard.

When we did get engaged, about a month after our second break up, we both had learned big pieces for ourselves.  I learned that I was OK without him, and he learned that was OK with me (his fears were more around losing himself, being engulfed, being abandoned).  So, then we were ready!  I laugh as I write this, what we had to go through to get to being Ok with ourselves.  The human journey is rich, challenging....and kind of funny. :)

Some of my friends and family were supportive of us getting married, and some were openly opposed, given our roller coaster of break ups, etc.  That was disappointing, but I also knew again that even if he decided to end the relationship on our wedding day, that I would be sad, AND that I would be OK, was very comforting to me.  Knowing I will be OK, whatever happens, allows me to take the risks in my life that lead to fulfillment.

We have an amazing marriage, I must say, and I think a lot of it is due to getting a lot cleared up before we committed to each other.  We both continue to work on ourselves, and take responsibility for our feelings, insecurities, fears, etc.  We support each other with doing our personal work.  We have a strong community of support, too.  We are both committed to and highly value personal/spiritual growth, and our relationship is a spiritual path for us.  We both work at staying connected to ourselves, and each other, and have a low tolerance for checking out.  And we have fun and laugh a lot.

There is so much more I could say but I hope that gives an overview of the path I have walked when it comes to creating a committed relationship for myself.  There is no right way, but I do believe that relationship is a path to growth, healing, and if we use all the opportunities that come our way, we will have no way to go but to evolve.  And that is fulfilling, whether it leads us to partnership or not.

SIDENOTE:  I just had Jayson (my husband) read this, and he added that he really felt something shift energetically and spiritually for him when I landed solidly in myself and my self love after our second break up.  He feels that shift, in combination with him doing his own work, allowed us to finally come together.  He also says I was more attractive to him after that shift in myself, however subtle it was, he noticed it, for what that is worth.  For me, whether it was attractive to him or not, I am grateful for the growth that I experienced.

Last thing!  All those years, in my twenties, struggling through relationships, I was "doing" self care.  Journaling, extensive time in nature, movement, yoga, meditation, social support, all the stuff we think of.....it was supportive to a point: none of it was touching the deeper work that needed to happen.  Relationship is what helped bring out my deeper work, which was so helpful, and feeling everything in my being as fully as I could, with support and awareness, is really what helped me grow and evolve.  So for me, self care is REALLY about feeling my experience fully, and doing whatever helps me to do so.  I think that is important to know so that we all make it a priority to figure out what actually is caring for ourselves, in a deep and meaningful way, that helps our life be as fulfilling as we will let it be.

That Kind of Woman--Warsan Shire

how far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps?
how often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?
why do you find the unavailable so alluring?
where did it begin? what went wrong? and who made you feel so worthless?
if they wanted you, wouldn’t they have chosen you?
all this time, you were begging for love silently, thinking they couldn’t hear you, but they smelt it on you, you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin?
and what about the others that would do anything for you, why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?
how are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?
where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?
where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay?

Her--Love in the Modern Age

Excuses for Why We Failed at Love-- Warsan Shire

More Warsan Shire. My sis shared this poet with me and I'm' absolutely pulled from my bones to her words. This video is melancholic and speaks to depths of male/female intricacies through simple figurative language I find powerful and moving--as if we can always find shadows of our love in the quotidian interactions of the day.  Enjoy.

for women who are 'difficult' to love-- Warsan Shire

you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

Illusory Cheddar

Flying over the Missoula valley, its golden belly punctured by the frosted Bitterroot mountains, a hum of familiarity rose up within me. After over 30 hours of jumping from airport to airport, paroosing the same magazine stalls and munching the same bland breakfast burritos—from Mumbai to Newark to Denver to Montucky— I was officially home.

            Upon exiting the plane, I was enveloped with that ever-familiar brisk mountain air. It filled my lungs harshly, as if the atmosphere could foreshadow the social adjustment to come. I waiting at baggage claim, in Chacos with mehndied toes and a tribal throw from the Nilgiris bundled across my shoulders, praying that my backpack caught all of its legs from the journey. Pack and mangled goat-leather carry-on in hand, I slowly exited the airport, half-expecting my girlfriends to run up to me, shrieking and giddy, champagne in hand. Instead I watched a young family greet their father, a rogue college student hail a cab, and an elderly couple cart suitcases towards their Subaru. I shivered and passed back through the automatic doors, finding a seat inside next to a Big Horn Sheep, fresh from taxidermy. 

            I will admit, it was an anti-climactic arrival home. I patiently waited, observing my surroundings with foreign eyes, overwhelmed with the recurring thought, “this is it. I am home. India is over.” It didn’t stick; it felt like a dream. I am sure most people can attest to this— the feeling of emptiness after you pour yourself into a grand plan, quiet and mounting as falling snow. For months prior to my journey, all that was on my mind was graduation and India. Quite frankly, given the tasks at hand that accompany graduating college a year early, and traveling around to a developing country for 6 months, if I did plan beyond that, I wouldn’t have made it. Self-imposed myopia was my saving grace.

I have been conditioned my whole life to plan, plan, plan. Because whatever cultural script running in our young brains tells us that to have a plan is to have success. We should always be yearning for that higher branch, the better bite, the most impressive lens. Like ropes these expectations constrict themselves around our psyche— from the moment we understand the concept of the self, we are already envisioning how we can morph it to fit into societal ideas of ‘the good.’

As kids, we devour any and every cultural message we can get our hands on, internalizing Manichean representations of the world: good and evil, fat and skinny, liberal and conservative, smart and dumb, right and wrong. In turn, we start to categorize ourselves in relation to this ‘Hollywood’ milieu; the sad thing is that our culture grossly promotes unachievable ideals, which children and young adults will never be able to live up to. And so an entire generation checks themselves into the box that says, ‘I will never be enough.’

            And so we make plans, we set goals, we bite, bite, bite for that illusory cheddar, programming ourselves out of today in search of a glamorous tomorrow. Perhaps we don’t bite our nails; we run five miles at 6am every day; we don’t have that 4^th gin and tonic and have sloppy sex with a stranger; we drive an Audi and decline cheese products with ease. Whatever your platter of insecurities, in this vision of tomorrow you are a better, more desirable person—a worthy person.

            I believe this doctrine of insufficiency to be the nascence of quotidian neurosis in my country. In India, I had to lie to rest this optimal version of ‘Kendall’ and rewire my brain to be content with and also appreciate my present. In surrendering, it was as if two decades of pressure released from my mental shoulders. I became more loving and patient with myself and with others. I recognized the blessing and opportunity in every encounter, however frustrating and menial. Most of all, I learned to listen to myself—to conjure the silence in my soul and open the space for self-exploration and growth.

            “Kenny Strauts!” Katie yelled from her dilapidated red sedan, dubbed ‘Diane.’ Jess jumped out of the passenger seat with pastel balloons as I hobbled with baggage across the street to meet them. We embraced with the ease of friends who’ve abandoned disclaimers in the wake of college drinking antics and went straight to shooting the shit.   

            “So, Jesus Christ girl,” Katie remarked as she manually rolled down her window and lit a cigarette, “you’re back.”

            “I know,” I smirked and nodded, “it’s fuckin nuts.”

            And that is the feeling I had all evening as we shared stories over box-chardonnay and bowls, lamenting over how much we missed each other. I retraced my steps, my belongings—where I left my life 6 months ago, neatly packed in soccer bags and hat boxes. I ceremoniously donned a familiar pair of tights with a statement necklace and hopped on the bus downtown. It was as if I had never left.

            We strolled into our usual watering hole, sat down at our usual table, and ordered our usual drinks. I made a toast to reuniting with my two favorite ladies; they repeatedly welcomed me back. I was truly grateful to be in their presence again. It is funny, how you long for something while you are alone and abroad. At times, there was nothing I wanted more than to just spit-silly-profane-nonsense with these girls over whiskey drinks in a crowded bar—where we pretend the door to the smoking lounge is a veritable catwalk fit for judging other ladies’ attire and/or possible men to bone.

They bear witness to my 20s-hot-mess state and ask no questions. This support network, however flawed and filled with too many substances, is what I craved when I was at my depths in India. Because it is the ultimate comfort— to be out with your friends who will have your back no matter what ill-thought-out rabbit hole you choose to plunge down. So this is was the solidarity I envisioned coming home to.

            “Kendall, you’ve really gotta stop fucking around,” Katie interrupted my welling nostalgia as she clicked a selfie whilst sipping a cucumber marg, “and get snap-chat already.”

            I rolled my eyes in the stench of déjà vu and irony. We had done this merry-go-round many times— her enthusiasm always met with my adamancy to never join another social media cult. My relationship to the twittersphere is the usual love-hate-mesmerized-obsession as my 20-something contemporaries.

I feel like it is an essential part of operating in society in this day and age, while at the same time I lament its alluring velvet vortex—where responding to an email can turn into ‘gypsy-blog-envy’ spirals or morally condemning every female which shows up on your ex’s ‘new friend’ FB scroll. Before I left for India, I had a (in the words of my father) ‘come to Jesus’ moment in which I concluded that Facebook is nothing but a source of negative energy and therefore, vehemently deleted it (Malbec in hand).

            It literally felt like mental shackles had been lifted from my brain; I had unplugged from the matrix. Creating that space made me realize what a toxic crutch facebook is for me—that I have to ‘upkeep’ this Internet version of myself. And in doing so, either radically boost my self-esteem via ‘likes’ or condemn my being due to a wrongly filtered photo without a ‘skinny arm’ pose. I am recognizing ever more how social media fragments my existence and my understanding of myself in the world.  

Back at the ever-lively Tamarac Brewing Company, I was glowing, thankful to be in a setting where I could merely blend in, the music, the language, the clothing, the whole vibe—I was certainly no longer an outsider. But in the strangest sense, I felt like a new anthropologist on assignment. I was observing my surroundings with keen eyes, highlighting cultural nuances with my Indian programmed psyche. Overwhelmed with the social dynamics of a place where most individuals present were born with every luxury, it was hard to reconcile the fact that two, so completely different social biomes could exist on the same planet. And I checked my watch, imagining what my dear friends Devi, or Rishi, or Selma were doing at this very moment and how they would react to this alien realm of privilege and facade.

It was at that moment, in my spliced cultural state, that I realized how tuned out my companions were. After the initial cheers and ‘OMG, I miiiisssed you!’s, everyone unlocked their iphones and plugged into the matrix with feverish intensity, as if every second they were missing an opportunity to document a faux pas of extraordinary proportion.

No one was present at the table; they were plugged in. My mind wandered to bonding with my Indian girlfriends, whom were all ears and eyes and handholding when we were together. When I sat silently at a train stop waiting for the ‘Loco to Chennai Central,’ I did just that—sat silently and waiting. I didn’t fill the space with music, or photo streams, or digital scrabble.

That night at the Tamarac felt anything but genuine compared to my interactions with friends in a (developing, mind you) country unpolluted by selfies and statuses and check-ins’s— Oh My! I can’t help but wonder what this constant buzz, this unremitting influx of advertising, relationship critiquing, and societal messaging is doing for our psyche. What kind of illusory connectivity are these ‘networks’ building? Was I witnessing the truth of Western solidarity in friendships—expressed through snapchats, and FB likes, and tags instead of face-to-face investment?

After a month or so in India, I reactivated my Facebook, obviously to spy on my friends and family whom I missed so much. But there, it wasn’t so much of a problem because there were a limited number of times when I had access to internet or Wi-Fi. When I could, I scrolled, typed, liked, tweeted, grammed to my heart’s desires, but then I would leave the internet café and be done with it. My realm of real-life and social media were kept separate, with the virtual world encompassing a miniscule part of my day-to-day thought patterns and interactions. This was manageable for me, and I enjoyed it.

The difference of being back here is the extent of connectivity. Literally everywhere you go, you can be plugged in. With Wi-Fi practically being a rudiment to any thriving public (and private) space, why wouldn’t you want the latest updates? It seems the line between real and simulated social interaction is blurred immensely; many of my generation are so consumed with their online avatars that they literally end up viewing their lives through the filters on their instagrams instead of experiencing some truly awesome memories in their raw, coherent state.

It is clear that a new age has dawned with a whole generation growing up on iphones and macbooks. I am extremely curious as to how psychological research is responding to such societal changes. Whether you call it a smartphone addiction, social media angst, FOMO (fear of missing out), mobophobia, the like thereof—we have to admit there is something seriously going on. Allow me to spit off some stats.

According to Psychology Today, on average Americans check their smartphones for messages 150 times a day—that’s about once every six and a half minutes. Based on Digital Insights data, Facebook has 1.15 billion registered users— mind you that is over 1/7^th the population on the entire planet— with 23% of that 1.15 billion who check their account at least 5 times per day.

Daniel Sarewitz, in an op-ed from The Oregonian, gives some riveting opinions,

“So what if your attention span has been fragmented into nanoseconds, if you measure your social life by Facebook friends, your professional worth by Google hits, and the worst words you can imagine are “airplane mode”? We are all one-marshmallow OCD narcissists, granted by our devices the magic of comprehensive instant gratification, of self-reinforcing worldviews, of control over the daily minutia of our fates and fortunes. To not be irrevocably addicted to our smartphones would be senseless.”

Okay so we admit it, we are all logged in all the time. Why—because we can! But how does this affect us psychologically? A 2012 study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, for example, found that the longer people spent on Facebook each week, the more they agreed that everyone else was happier and had better lives. Clinical Psychologist Craig Malkin described similar observations in an interview with NPR, commenting that the incessant consumption of projected and idealized images from social media results in rampant envy, social distress, hinders self-understanding and forecloses real-life intimacy.

It is well known that social media provides us with is a false sense of community. Even Abraham Maslow included ‘belongingness’ in his (ever-holy) hierarchy of needs, among the instinct for food, shelter, and self-actualization. Pre-google-circles, we satisfied this need through kin-networks—close friends and family in our immediate existence whom we would get personal acceptance feedback from in everyday life. The Internet has expanded this realm of feedback to infinite bounds, such that our brain feels the need to retain acceptance in the same style of Hollywood stars and highschool classmates who you never liked but ‘made it big.’ If you don’t have their sprawl of following and attention splattered across your feed, the message is, once again, ‘you are worthless.’

Theodore Roosevelt once said: “comparison is the thief of joy.” I couldn’t agree more that what is most damaging about social media is in fact its very purpose: to peek in on others’ lives. While the intention may be ‘staying in touch,’ one can’t help but internalize those images of perfection or perhaps a lack of ‘following’, even if underneath we know that no one is unblemished and airwave fanbases are superficial. 

Elliot Panek, of the Universit of Michigan, says of Facebook, "It's about curating your own image, how you are seen, and also checking on how others respond to this image. Middle-aged adults usually have already formed their social selves,” while the y-generation looks to this media for answers about ‘who we’re supposed to be.’ Perhaps my generation is more vulnerable to the dark side of social media, seeing as we are not fully formed humans.

Carl Rogers is one of my favorite psychologists—a humanist who believed that a fully functioning being had to have a coherent sense of self. He believed that all suffering and neurosis was a result of the gap between our actual selves, flaws and all, and the ‘self’ we wish we were, our perceived self. The key to content and fulfillment in life, according to Rogers, is addressing the whole landscape— thorns and all— and showering what you encounter with radical self-acceptance.

Personally, I have found this technique of, what I call, ‘loving your uglies,’ to be extremely transformative. But the catch here, is that you need the gift of age and hindsight to fully explore the dimensions of these multiple self-concepts we brew up. I fear that social media engenders the creation of selves beyond Mr. Roger’s dichotomy, which is tough enough to navigate alone.

Back to Panek’s comments: "social networking in general allows the user a great deal of control over how he or she is presented to and perceived by peers and other users,” ever-widening the gap between the real and perceived self. Malkin also argued that young individuals who get into the habit of always ‘touching-up’ their image, hiding their flaws, may develop a reticence towards intimate relationships with others and themselves. If we are constantly refraining from acknowledging our vulnerabilities, our humanness, how can we ever grow into a flourishing, whole human?

I was very quiet the first few weeks home. My internal dialogue-cogs were incessantly grinding as I observed those around me— the way they approached life, problems, desires, needs. I have been wrestling with multiple selves for a long time. During my self-exploration in India, there were delicate layers of my Americanness that I shed, which I wasn’t made aware of until I came home and had the urge to put those covers on again. So with each day I confront engrained neurosis, at times feeling like a conditioned rat pulling the lever in response to the pressures of society. And so it is my task to unburden each reflex through that every-god-damn-day self-awareness I always talk about. Starting with monitoring (and stopping) my interaction with the social media realm.

As of now, the jury is still out on whether or not my reunion with my beloved Mac is a blessing or a curse for my spiritual wellbeing. The most I can do is acknowledge this presence and, as with everything, it will be enmeshed in my lifelong sojourn to find that alluring notion of balance.

One of my favorite quotes from Mr. Emerson goes something like this: ne te quaesiveris extra—translation— do not seek yourself outside yourself. When I look to others for approval, or for comparison on how I should be living, I will only recreate an inauthentic vision of what my life ‘should’ be instead of simply glorifying what it ‘is.’ 

Photo-cred--Dust lookbook

                      

The Paradox of Our Age-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

We have bigger houses, but smaller families;

More conveniences, but less time;

We have more degrees, but less time;

More knowledge, but less judgement;

More experts, but more problems;

More medicines, but less healthiness;

We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor;

We built more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; 

We have become long on quantity, but short on quality;

These are the times of fast foods, but slow digestion, tall men but short character, steep profits but shallow relationships;

It's a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room. 

Chastity & Gold

Late one evening, in the damp belly of crooked city-canyons, I strolled hand in hand with Devi, my Indian guide and new bahen-- 'sister in Hindi'. We jumped over sludge puddles and darted out of rickshaw paths in sync, hips swaying, kicking our feet out in that subtle Indian saunter. Street goats hopsped out of our way as we stopped at a street vendor to buy ropes of fresh jasmine to braid in each other's hair in the morning. 

I watched her haggle with the wallah (vendor), she is a very slender woman-- probably the height of my 10 year-old brother and half his weight. She swims in her bright, double patterned salwar kameez, hiding her birdlike arms and legs. Despite her stature, she demands a presence in the honest, no-bull shit way she carries herself. I would imagine Taylor Swift or Dakota Fanning to have a similar voice, with such pure open heartened intonation that no one could ever wish to do them ill. She shows the world only love and when it does not reciprocate, her thin eyebrows and button nose crunch up on her specs in utter disbelief--a countenance so charming, no human is impervious. 

The jasmine vendor surrenders to her contagious goodness, offers her the right price for a handful of perfumed white blossoms--  "theek hai, challo bahen" she smiles at me, pinches my cheek, "okay, let's go sister." We hop off the crumbled sidewalk over some discarded coconuts and continue meandering. A few paces down, Devi grabs my forearm to cross the clogged street, we snake in between rickshaws and carts and camels and cars, I glance back towards the jasmine-wallah and could only make out the faint spectrum of sarees circumventing his street tarp amidst the honking and the smog. 

Devi is a staff member at MCCSS who has embraced me into her life, treating me like a long-lost friend from the moment we met. She giggles constantly and strokes my hair and lays her head on my shoulder in the train and feeds me too many chappatis and teaches me hindi and sings butchered Rihanna songs and plucks lice out of my hair--a true friend. 

Indian affection is a beautiful thing. It needs no incubation period, there is no guise-- merely honest, exuberant expression of love for human connection, the oneness that brings us all together. Once you expose your nuggets of vulnerable humanness to an Indian, showing them that you are the same at your core, they express their affinity in a deluge akin only to sisterly or motherly love in the West. 

She was walking me back to the train station, as she always did when I stayed at her apartment past dark, despite my knowing the way and it being only two blocks down. "Alone nihi bahen," she adamantly replied, wrapping a shawl over my head and shoving a third serving of rice on my plate, "finish and we go, theek hai?" Stubbornness is another ubiquitous trait of Indian woman--there is always an opportunity to impose their 'right' way of doing things, whether it be with eating, sitting, speaking, drinking, or wearing your dupatta. The pushy interferences that westerners would view as appallingly rude are just avatars of that intense affection mentioned above. 

We reached the train station and merged into the current of bodies being funneled up and down staircases to various platforms. "So much rush, na?" Devi shouted. 

"Bahut!" I replied, "too much!," shoving a man beside me. We struggled through the nightly wrestling match and perched ourselves near the 'ladies only' platform. 

Just then I heard the booming echo of the railway chai-wallah's chorus reverberate off the steel blue tented awning. "Chai garam! Chai! Chai! Chai garam! Masala chaiya!"---"Hot tea! Tea! Tea! Hot tea! Spicy tea!" I find it hard to pass up that baritone catchphrase, immediately scrummaging for my last 10 rupee note as I followed his voice down the crowded strip of cement between parallel tracks where vermin feasted. 

When I found Miss Devi again, she was squished between two plump older women busting out of their neon sarees with jaundiced skin and too many gold chains, South Indian style. They quickly made space for half my butt-cheeck--which is considered beyond ample room. I squeezed in and handed Devi her scalding paper teacup. She was in a daze--said nothing but sipped her tea slowly, holding it like an expert, with fingertips delicately fastening top and bottom lips of the cup so you don't get burnt.

"Kyaa baat hai bahen?" I asked, "What's the matter sister?" 

She sighed and murmured with tea in her cheeks, "Your Hindi makes me very happy Kand," using her new pet name for me. Indians very much struggle with the pronunciation of my name--it is either Kandle or Kenol, there's no middle ground. 

I stayed silent, observing the clucking ladies around me with faith that Devi would reply in due time. There is no place like India to teach you patience. The train was already 20 minutes late, yet no one was bothered. People drank chai, sat cross legged on the dusty ground to read the paper, tied knots of jasmine flowers in circles of silk and slick black braids, and caught up with those around them--leave it to India to find a sense of community in a city of 6 million. While it was obvious that everyone was waiting, there was no urgency in the delay, almost as if they understood this to be out of their hands. 

Things happen when they happen-- there's a bead of Hindu culture for you, the value of process, not destination. And it is true, that something I am truly learning is how to be in the present moment; Mother India demands this of us. And it seems irrationally constraining at first, the way in which your choices are limited-- you have to eat all your food, you have to cover your head and tits, you have to endure the heat, you have to wake up at 4:30am when the call of the Mosque invades your sweaty sleep. But in reality all of our life is boiled down to the simple choice of opening your heart up to new experiences or hibernating in fear. 

"You can't forget me when you go home Kand," Devi whispered as she lifted her head off my shoulder, interrupting my rumination and meeting my gaze with those caring onyx eyes. 

"Of course I won't," I replied, caught off guard by her quivering tone, "how could I?"

"We're family, na?--sisters," she cackled and slapped the back of my hand, "You come to my wedding, okay?" 

She burst out, rolling in laughter as she often did, even when the situation wasn't particularly humorous. I caught on and sputtered between giggles, "and just when is that going to be Devi-didi? Are you and Anandh going to elope?"

His name took the breath out of her--quieted down and eyes cast aside, she solemnly recounted her recent issues with her boyfriend. They had been 'seeing' each other for around 6 months now. Recently Devi took him up North to her home state, Odisha (Orissa), to meet her family, which is a very serious move in Indian relationship talk. The two hadn't seen each other in two months. He no longer called or texted; she was heartbroken. Like most Western women I know, she automatically blamed herself, "I don't know what I did wrong Kand, I thought we would get married," Devi said with a click of the tongue and a roll of her watery eyes. She twisted my hair with her bony fingers; "When we love, we give the whole heart." She paused and sniffled, "s'not so easy to find one to take it though, isn't it?" 

You must understand that the term 'boyfriend' in India is a hop, skip, and jump from the term 'fiancee'--so much so that the terms are often intermixable. When two people enter into a courtship, they seek marriage partners, that's it. And a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship entails meeting for coffee or strolling on the beach (most likely with parental chaperones) or texting each other the lyrics to a Bollywood love-song. Pre-marital one-on-one time is rare and often frowned upon if it doesn't occur in very public places. As another one of my colleagues chortled upon my inquiry with this subject-- "in India, people love chastity almost as much as they love gold," as he took a drag of his beedie, a sip of his chai,  "which is saying a lot my friend." 

For Indians, marriage is the apex of life. It is all they dream about, search for, work towards. Their penchant for familial expansion is a fascinating phenomenon; once you've had your marriage and given birth to a boy, you can practically retire socially because you have 'made it.' And until that point, every fluttering female in a saree will badger you, try to fatten you up or spread skin-whitening cream on your cheeks for beauty and consult the stars for guidance until you are happily settled.

Speaking of consulting the stars, I cannot touch on the topic of love and marriage in India without going into the common practice of arranged marriages. When Westerners hear the term, I think we envision some form of forced child marriage or people having no say in with whom they are matched. And while this more traditional version of arranged marriage is certainly still practiced in rural parts of India, as with everything in this transforming country, there is a modern, more fluid version of this concept emerging. 

"Things just kind of came together for us," a friend, Vijay, explained to me over a breakfast of aloo parota, sweet curd and masala chai. Vijay was very recently engaged, and I felt comfortable enough to ask him about the subject of arranged marriage. "We started communicating online, on a website for people looking for marriage, kind of like your dating websites in the West." He was always good at making these sorts of comparisons; as a Tamil Brahmin, the most prestigious Hindu caste, he was fortunate enough to study in the UK and is familiar with the cultural idiosyncrasies. "I checked out her profile, our stars matched and our parents were happy with the family backgrounds," he continued, stirring more sugar into his already tooth-achingly sweet chai, "so we met for coffee and now we are to be married in November." 

Arranged marriage for more affluent Indians is not as strict as we would imagine. Earlier Vijay had told me how he had met with other women before, and recognized that they were not a good match. And although his parents and family were very much involved in the prospect of marriage, with their approval meaning the world to Vijay, in the end the choice was his. He felt that this match was meant to be. His ecstatic energy was palpable, but my head was swimming with questions.

"So, does it not bother you that you guys have only known each other for such a short time? I mean you've hung out like twice. How can you be sure she is the one?"

He bobbed his head and smiled, looking at me like a naive child, not out of condescension, but with a sincere  desire to make me understand. "This is not America-- marriage is not so complicated. We both want a companion; we both want a family; we are both committed; our families get along; she is beautiful enough; that is all that matters," Vijay stated matter-of-factly with a wave of his hand. He finished the gesture by tearing off a piece of his parota, scooped it into the sugar sprinkled curd like a spoon and ate it with the expert grace of someone who has been eating with their right-hand all their life. He looked into the distance,  observing the view from the rooftop-restaurant, contemplating his decided future. 

Above us loomed a grand hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, the tip of the step-wise edifice slowly emerging from the morning fog. Monkeys swung from the chipped arms of sexy-lady statues lining the temple facade down to the terrace level, strategically perching themselves above overflowing fruit stands, waiting for their chance to swoop breakfast. "Everything else we will work out in time," Vijay started again, "with guidance from our parents, we will make a happy life."

The Indian conception of marriage is obviously quite different from that in the West. They understand it as a long term, life commitment, and not a flurried, passionate romance; marriage comes first, and then, if you're lucky, love will blossom out of mutual respect. It is understood that wild romance is a thing for the youngsters, puppy love if you will. And it takes a different caliber of relationship, a more mature, realistic and grounded relationship to make a marriage. With that lens grounded in real facts of married life, they're process of arranged marriage and ornery family intrusion makes more sense. 

The truth is that modern day arranged marriages cover a lot of bases which end up unraveling many matches in the West. Once a young adult has grown out of his or her puppy love phase and they are ready to make a commitment, they seek someone who is on the very same page, ready to take that leap into the next phase of life. They make sure the two families get along, that the in-laws accept the spouse, that everyone is making money in the same playing field (cause lord knows the epicenter of cashflow, and all its refracting quarrels, can also be the nascence of a deal breaker), and most importantly, that you don't have to be wildly fanatic about your spouse because in the end, all that matters is the commitment, the willingness to get through the tough times after the honeymoon fades.

  

India lays all her cards on the table in this way-- all of her uglies and vulnerabilities and raw humanness is exposed in such visceral manifestations that it can be overwhelming and seems almost ludicrous. Because it is a crazy way to go about life, especially for someone from a culture that makes a living out of shuffling pain under the rug, to say, ' hey this shit gets rough so lets be honest about it and stake out a support network.' And every genuine Indian countenance I have encountered speaks that life is brutal but beautiful, so we should trudge on with bright smiles, compassionate heads and light hearts because it's worth it. And in this willingness to be vulnerable, India has taught me the true meaning of courage. 

I believe our fear of shame, guilt, and ugliness in every sense of the word, is the bane of many relationships and other facets of societal functioning in the West. How can we expect to live a life full of light when we can't confront the dark?  The truth is, we can't. So we fill our time with surface routines and relationships, without ever diving into murky waters, out of fear--of being rejected, of being found out, of being a vulnerable, imperfect human. 

The common pattern with people my age in the States is to fill our lives with glittering career paths instead of filling our tank with long-lasting, meaningful relationships. This is a cop-out. In this routine, we get to keep to ourselves and never truly open up to another human--we stay safe in our own glorified quest for independence. I often find myself recanting the mantra, "only make decisions for yourself, don't let anyone infringe on your lifepath." But at what point can we decide to lift the strike, and widen our avenue of possibilities to include that of another whom we care about? 

Its the biggest game of bull-shit my generation faces. We all play it off like we don't care, like were only in this life to please ourselves and that we don't need another human to fulfill us. Granted, in college, this is easy-- an almost necessary adaptation to survive in the environment of erratic interaction savoring something of romance (when I say erratic I mean belligerent).  

I can recount numerous instances when I have been talking with my girlfriends in college, or even during my internal tete'a'tete, when a chic will be brought up. We will peel back each layer, starting with her fashion sense, overall demeanor, any embarrassing drunken stories, and finally to the topic of sex. And when it is found out that she has a long term boyfriend, perhaps from high school or since freshman year, even a few months, collective sighs will billow in between clicks of judgement, always masking resent. 

Being in a relationship in college is almost like a death sentence. In my experience, all of my girlfriends who got boyfriends, except one who is a badass (you know who you are miss jack daniels infused turtle-tatt), were practically unheard of from that point forward. Either because they had no interest in going downtown, because who really wants to go downtown when you have a wonderful person you can cuddle up to all night, or because they were subsumed by his friend group. 

And it becomes a part of the single gal's pathetic superiority complex--like "I don't need a man to validate me," and "those bitches who do are insecure or weak or too scared to fend for themselves and to feel the bitter-twinge of lonely soul-searching." But deep down, we all want the same thing---to be heard, to be accepted, to have someone who understands us, who knows us and wants to be there despite all of the bullshit; someone who is willing to explore with you in this terrifying realm of commitment. 

I think a part of me hung on to the idea that college, or just my twenties in general, should be this time of great personal development. Like there are caverns only I can explore, which is valid and bears definite truth. But after all the personal, psychological spelunking, one has to come back to the surface and share what they have found in the depths. I am coming to recognize that there are some things you just can't learn about yourself until you see them reflected in the eyes of another who accepts you for you.

Devi crumpled up her teacup and tossed it on the rail-way tracks in front of us. She then glided over to the rusty faucet under a sign, 'Water Good Drink,' rinsing the masala sweetness out of her mouth and hands. She came back and instinctively linked my arm, "Puah Kand," she fluttered, readjusting my dupatta and slicking stray hair behind my ears. "Even though the men they cause us the pain, we will have it a happy life, no? Because the man and the woman--we need each other, isn't it?" She grinned brightly, throwing her head back as her bellowing cackle was swallowed by the noise of an approaching train. 

I shoved my way into the ladies coach and staked out a seat with Devi shouting Tamil commands at her fellow sareed akkas from her perch on the platform. "And Kand?" she shouted. 

"kyaa bahen?"-- " what sister?" 

"God-willing, you bring your musician-man to my wedding too, theek hai?" 

And a smile from deep within my chest tugged at my cheeks. I nodded and waved goodbye as the train lurched forward, enveloped by the tepid Chennai evening, with that contagious courage to believe in happy endings wafting into the carriage with the dust and the street chatter and the eternal smell of jasmine. 

Empty Warmth of the Bed

“Enough has been made out of the cool side of the pillow. Enough with it. It’s just an unused side, nothing more and nothing less. A pillow with potential. It’s just lying there, naked by the headboard. Plenty has been made about the empty warmth of the bed too. The side of the bed, previously occupied, just recently deserted for a different bed. It’s never meant a better bed, necessarily, just a different one, one with different sheets and blankets, different pillows for sure and without question, a different person to share it with. Plenty has been made out of how that warm, oblong shape of space that we can run our hands over and get burnt by the touch is like an obscenity to behold, to have to behold. There’s no way around it. It’s not the same as the warm spot that gets left in the mornings, when the alarm clocks beckon our better half away to an appointment or a job. This is the permanent kind of heat loss. It’s there and then it’s gone like a vapor, the scent of those limp, resting limbs and necks still reeks like betrayal and love, more love, no - more betrayal.”

»—-> WORDS BY SEAN MOELLER (from bon iver) 

Deluge

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I drown in silken fissures as dawn

Inches across floorboards and into my sheets

Gliding her hands along my supple contours

I find your face in her hands, brush you against my lips

She scratches my tattered morning hair, like you did

Moaning, she licks globules of sweat,

Sweet baubles from dreams of you

Pulling off the sheets, and coaxed by a steam bath

She asphyxiates me with those lithe hands

To Spoon

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Rays of light spill across the room, a 9 a.m. wake-up call. The light brings shadows--they mock my hollow core. The sheets waft tequila and leftover spliffs. I roll over. He sneaks a peek through his curled bicep, but drowsiness wins over his eyelids. I wonder if he’s disappointed to see my face instead of hers. No matter, he pulls me close. 

            Whoever coined the term spooning? I can’t help but notice the irony in it. The lyrical curves of our bodies mirror the vacant ritual. We scoop the spoon to fill the void. The truth is I never went to sleep. My mind has been screaming out for you all night. I lay awake, tormented with the thought of you.

He snuggles closer, “Good morning beautiful,” in that wispy morning voice. My insides churn. I think of that summer, when the river reunited us.

            “What time do you have class?” I blink, unhinge the spoon and swivel to kiss him. He’s warm, just like you. He grins, “You’re amazing.” I have to giggle at this; it must have been directed at her. I moan and make a cute face, masking my agony. This is the universal language of lust.

            “Eleven,” I whisper.  

            “I just want to lay here all day with you.” I nod, give an acquiescing hum and a squeeze. In the safety of this bed keeps the emptiness from gnawing. We lie in limbo a little longer before rolling back to reality.

            We pull up to my dorm in his Volvo. He plops a pseudo kiss, the kind where you know he wishes you were her. “I’ll text ya later.” I feign a smile and skip into the building. In the elevator, you come to me; the day when I first had that horrid dream of you and her.

             When I finally worked up the courage to admit my angst, you assured me it was absurd.

            “Baby, that’s crazy. I could never see Jess like that. She’s your best friend. Come on. I love you. I only have eyes for you.” Your persuasion felt sincere. But if love were a coin, its flipsides would be euphoria and irrationality. That foolishness fed my denial.

            There’s no eerier feeling than watching a nightmare spin to reality. I sat, numb,  as a friendly glance turned into a laugh, a cig, a beer, a bowl, a line, a dance, a hug, an “I love you bro”. Me and Jess’ friendship deteriorated and yours grew stronger. I swam in my denial, but sought a new path. I knowingly abandoned you when I applied to study abroad.

            “Hi chica!” Sadie snaps me out of my daze, “How was your night with Dylan?” The daily recap commences as we walk to lecture.

            “It was really fun, we partied a bit. I dunno Sadie, sometimes I just feel like screaming when I’m lying in bed with him. Like a crazy recoil. I could only think of Sam… ” She senses weariness and jumps to refute; her words swift as a razor. 

            “Dude, he’s probably fucking your best friend. Like, game over,” slash. “You're gonna miss him and it’s gonna be weird dating other guys. But you have to just block him from your mind.”

“Well, we still don’t know for sure if they’re together,” I murmur. Sadie rolls her eyes. I dampen the sting from her words with the flow of students into the cavernous hall. Abstraction. I lose myself in their expressions; I wonder how many people are suffering from a similar defeat. “I just feel consumed by visions of him sometimes; of those pivotal moments, ya know?”

            “Well obviously, you loved him with all of your heart. Only time will heal that. Until then, don’t talk to his ass. I swear to God I’ll punch Sam in the face if we see him while we’re home. And Jesse too, what a slut,” she abandons the topic. “If I have to listen to this ‘Plain Jane’ professor ramble a lecture on flipping coins and rolling dice, I swear.” Someone shushes Sadie a few rows ahead. She laughs in his face, slings a gesture, “Check out this clown, yeah nice!” I can’t help but snicker, that girl knows how to spin a profane line. She keeps my mind off you though. My leg vibrates; it’s a text from Dylan, miss ur face. I cringe, he doesn’t miss my face. He misses the spoon. 

            After Math, Sadie goes her way and I go mine. “I’ll text you later girly,” she weaves into the crowd. Meandering back to the dorm, I spot a hookah circle on the oval. It reminds me of India, of the moment I told you I was leaving.

 “Well, are you gonna go?” Sam’s onyx eyes pierce through me. I pause; give the rings on my fingers a bony twist and meet his gaze, he already knows.  

            “Yeah I am. I feel like I can’t pass up this opportunity and they are only giving me a few days to confirm,” I ramble, spilling any pre-planned justification. That was all he needed to hear. His eyes glaze over; mind spinning into oblivion. I glimpse a single tear before his mask of indifference washes over. Silence envelopes us.   

            “Then I can’t do this anymore,” he says, withdrawn. I nod, his words sink into every vertebrae. The tears start to flow. Agitated, he stands, shuffles for his cigarettes. He slings a nugget of resent as he stalks out the door. “I can’t believe you’re leaving me again.” Slam. Withdrawal. Déjà-vu clouds my mind. His pup nudges a wet nose against my trembling hand; dogs always sense the strain. I pat his head and lose myself in the dancing willows outside.

            Back in the dorm, I pace, try to read, guzzle some coffee, anything to distract myself. This is the dumbing down of love. Looking back, I regret nothing. I remember levying the opportunities and acknowledging how my choices foreshadowed our demise. I left you once, oh how we pined for each others’ touch. The infatuation refused to flicker. During my adventures down under, the foundation for you and her must have been laid. I returned. We fell back into the blissful routine. I left you for a second time, and you must have dove for her, my best friend. All I have heard is rumors. My angst won’t abate until I have a confirmation that these rumors are true.

Anxious thoughts wiggle and scratch; they need to be unburdened. I rustle through my drawers, snatch my journal and hop on the bed. Favorite uniball uncapped, my pen begins to flirt with the page and like a distant memory, your ringtone echoes. Your face and those eyes light up my phone. I freeze. Nibble my nails to belie that devil touch screen. Luckily Sadie is on speed dial. She flings blasphemy at your name, says she’ll be right there.

In the fetal position, Sadie anxiously hovers, curious as to what the voice in my ear is spinning. I struggle to hide the staccato in my voice, “Don’t beat around the bush. You know what this conversation is about. All I need to know, is there something between you two?” Silence is deafening. Contradictions are the language of break-ups.

            And as if I should be at peace with the situation, he nonchalantly states, “Yes, there is something between me and Jesse. I wouldn’t feel right about going on with it if I didn’t tell you the truth.” Dissociation. The phone drops. Undulating sobs rock my body. Sadie braces the break down.

Many numb months ticked away after you told me the truth. Eventually, I peeled myself from bed and found a Zen in hiking. Trudging away from society, an ocean of wind lapped at my hair, washing away the angst. Sometimes I would imagine your face on the path, stomp, stomp, stomp.

I wonder if mountains remember the feet that surmount them. Footprints consolidate and carve a single trail, yet every sole that stomped the path is unique. One foot in front of the other, blood pulsates, breath quickens— passion fuels ascent. Surely these ruminations are a testament to my inability to forget, or forgive. I prefer the word acceptance. Forgetting would deem the lesson of the climb benign.