My Uneventful Internet Closet Exit, a la 2017

So, I feel very strange exploring this facet of my identity publicly, via the Internet, so late in life: But I think I'm slowly realizing I'm gay.
Why announce this on the WWW? Because, I live on an island of straight male laborers. I need a shout out from my homies. Sometimes the Internet really is the extent of my social life. This isn't a reflection of how much I suck. It's a reflection of the fact that I have chosen to make certain lifestyle sacrifices in order to commit to a dream to have a viable career as a teacher and artist, so that someday I may be able to afford to completely be myself.

At first, I thought it was silly to even be thinking about whether I'm gay. Who really cares in the Bay, anymore? But, upon listening to an insistent voice, I realized: I do.

After years of uncomfortably calling myself bisexual, knowing I can enjoy physical and even emotional intimacy with men, I've realized that I just don't see myself with one. Then, at a time in my life that I'm prepared to actually LISTEN to my heart, I accidentally fell in love with a woman- and a really good one. Like, I'm thinking possibly the One. Surprise! To both you and me.

It's not my first girlfriend, nor the first time I've wondered if I'm gay. It's been a 20-year question mark. I've always been very open with myself and others about it, but there has been some confusion. I wasn't sure where I stood with it all, and it bothered me.

When I connected with Carol, things were powerful and fast, a direct line to my soul. I felt like her existence shone a bright sun on me, or maybe a mirror. I just instantly bloomed before her. It was weird. Good weird. We're all still figuring it out of course, What to do with all this sudden color and life.

She gave me an amazing gift: deep, perceptive, dynamic friendship. That's just part of it. But this isn't necessarily about my relationship with her. I may owe a lot of my healing to her, but it's really about my identity. She was instrumental in helping me find that peace, without ever talking about it, just by being a friend who knows herself so beautifully well.

Something changed in me. I stopped binding up how I felt. I woke up one morning, and I realized I had all these clothes in bags I was about to donate because I was feeling like my androgyny was not helping my social self concept. My eyes fell on the bags on this particular morning, and I realized I was throwing away a part of myself. That those clothes reflected the true me, and I was the one who was rejecting it.

All these years of dating men, even loving them, but reaching a deep well of confusion and frustration. Somehow it wasn't balancing out. It was in fact a downward spiral that led me to the bottom of me.

I put on my old clothes and saw myself breathe easier in the face of my mirror. It was one of those vests, you know? One that straight women wear, and look straight. When I wear it, I look like a big old lesbian. Ugh, why did I throw away all those cute flannels? Why did I listen to straight male friends trying to "help" me by letting me know I wasn't exactly looking the part? Why am I beating myself up for preferring my North Face jacket, but still loving being super femme? Why not love and enjoy being a multi-faceted lesbian while I still have 2 months of my mid-30s left? My heart hugged itself. I felt myself tear up from my own inner hug.

How did I go this long without realizing it? I don't say this with judgment, but awe, and little grief for the time lost with myself. Not to mention the misunderstanding of what sexual orientation is about. It's partly about the viability of a lasting loving relationship, at least for me. But an even bigger part is social identity. It's been an icy road out there. I've shared many turns with people- I'm able to appreciate my friends' chapters as becoming mothers and wives, for example, by drawing on my experience as a nanny. I've witnessed friends coming out of the closet, and cheered them from my own bisexual corner, grateful that someone put that "B" in LGBTQ for people like me. It's about knowing there are people like me, at all.

Super gay memories come flooding back... they all make sense. In more recent years, I'm suddenly recounting frequency with which men have asked me: "Are you sure you aren't gay?" To which I always answered, "I don't know," or in my later years, "No. I'm not sure. It's the person."
My 10-year-old obsession with Indigo Girls, and my youthful intrigue when my cousin told me what they WERE. I stared at their picture, feeling crushy. I saved a letter I wrote to Emily as a child and gave it to her after a concert in college. She graciously took it before they climbed into a limo, and I thought, Thanks for showing me what a lesbian songwriter might look like. All my favorite artists were beautiful women. I never gave a crap about those boy bands. My attraction to UC Santa Cruz, which I now recognize as a place that would accept me for who I am. It certainly gave me that.
San Francisco was a surprisingly terrible place to try and understand my identity. Living in the Castro, I was surrounded by gay men who loved me, but where were the women? I remember trying to go to the one lesbian bar in SF alone, in my 20s. Having no idea how to approach those intimidating women, just to become friends, let alone to date. Or years before, when I lived in the dorms, slipping into kisses with a straight girl after a few beers one night... only for her to run away the next morning and never talk to me again.

My experience of women? A combination of entrancement with the feminine, and an intense fear of rejection. The last part has improved greatly, but still persists.

In my 20's, all the women in the queer scene who wouldn't so much as talk to me, because I looked straight. Then there were straight women who teased me so their bored boyfriends would stay with them a little longer. That one is really far too common. Have a little respect, ladies. Don't tease someone you're not into.

But, I'm a hypocrite. It was so much safer and easier to date men. I thought I liked them. They liked me and it seemed rejection proof. I almost married men two, maybe three times. At the last minute one of us always freaked out and bailed. Honestly, it's been a 20-year flashing red light of my inner self trying to warn me: Wrong way! Go back! And me persistently throwing myself in, only to feel that good old life-long feeling of being distinctly out of place. Then I'd try to date women again, which usually ended in dramatic heartache because I didn't have the courage to try and date the kind of women I liked. My girlfriends were always cool, but crazy like me, and I didn't have the self esteem to really push past that and own what I wanted: a healthy girlfriend whose gender recipe floated mine.

We're all allowed to have our spectrums and we don't have to report them. But I want to share the freedom I feel, because I'm happy for myself and I want you to know what that's like. Like a little birthday party for myself. For all the pride parades I've been to, I never really gave that to myself on the inside.

I can't express the subtle joy felt tonight, to have joined a sweet little online Game Night meetup for LGBTQ people, and for the first time in my life not feel like I was a poser. There were no apologies, no questions. It was sublimely uneventful. All these years, I had felt like a poser no matter where I went. Straight crowds don't really feel "bad" per se, as I enjoy people for who they are and vice versa, but I never felt fully recognized. It reminds me of a game my older sisters used to play where they would pretend they couldn't see me. "Where's Danielle?" they'd ask. "I'M RIGHT HERE!" 2-year-old Me would scream. Only that game lasted a few minutes. This was my entire adult life. I'm right here.

LGBT crowds always felt like family, but sometimes I suffered from fear of being ousted by females because I've mostly had boyfriends. Like I said, my confusion about my orientation didn't go over well with the SF hipster lesbians, understandably. I now realize I was just a really late, really dorky bloomer. And I'm okay with all of that.

I don't really care what people think to that degree anymore, and I get to feel my skin breathe deeply from the inside. Settling in, feeling the ache in my heart melt into an unfamiliar sensation of wholeness. I feel right.

I want to cry. It's a good cry. And I want to be out in the sense of just not being alone in this anymore. I want to "be myself" every bit as the next person, because I've just realized that all these years I've been wearing a heavy costume that hid me from myself and now I feel light and free. I want to love myself fully, bravely, holding space for soft people everywhere to stay strong in their softness.

I am free of the heavy costume of self-doubt that created itself out of this sentence that I never want to hear again: "You just haven't met the right man, yet."

Own who you are. If you're an artist who lawyers by day, give yourself a chance to free up that shaky voice. If you're a sailor trying to run the family business, go gentle on them and on yourself, but be strong and cut that cord, and go be near boats. If you're a spiritual woo-woo disguised as a corporate square, or vice versa, come out to yourself and be very peaceful with yourself. Be so unapologetic that you can be completely soft, completely open to the silk dance you can have with your own inner and outer worlds.

When you do, you make it possible for others to really know you. Just being in their presence, you feel warm because they know how you feel. Silky with self-love.

Be a flower cave dinosaur magic monger. Whoever you are, we need you. I need you. And now that I'm more of me, I can see more of you. Let's unwrap that gift already.

My name was supposed to be Daniel, and I once dreamed of my birth, but I was a boy. I don't need to understand that, but somehow I do. We all have our own flavor. Here I am, 20 years late, shaking out my flag and adding a new section to the camp. It may be scary, but at least I've got a spot now.

31 Days of No Spending: Prologue

The Little Hunger Monster

I sit this morning, observing, raw and uprooted.  What a powerful, crazy month for all of us.  What a hunger we face.

The Buddhists say that attachment is the cause of all suffering, and that the ego and the mind can be problematic.  In my January challenge to face my relationship with money, the symbol of all attachments, I had no idea I was hitting on a giant universal spiritual and political nailhead.

I've decided it's about growing ourselves to be bigger than our own greed.  We can only do this individually.  We can hold the heart of the collective in mind, but we each must deal with ourselves so we can find our way to each other.

When I decided to take on this challenge, I deliberately made it very known.  People have different ideas about this.  Some say if you make a big deal about a step you take, people's influence can set you back.  Perhaps they will somehow undermine you, or perhaps you will be triggered by their efforts to help and "check up" on you.  I have tried the quiet route with my goals in the past, and I have found that it permits my sneaky little hunger monster more room to trick me into letting him hijack the show.

I'm so glad I made this process public, even though it meant airing out my dirty laundry.  I needed to out that little beast.  I needed to own my shit.  And the moment I did, angels in the form of humans arrived, guiding me to the bowels of my problems.  Literally, Yotam guided and supported me all the way to detoxing my gut, using food, self discipline and self love.

After all, this is about confronting that sneaky little hunger monster that is a universal part of human nature.  Why is he there?  What is the nature of this beast?

I have my own thoughts about this.  He is there to test us, to challenge us to rise up to our own potential.  He is potentially also there to destroy us.

Take a look around.  At this very point in time, our entire human family is in a major state.  Some of us are wondering when our next meal will come, or whether our family will be uprooted.  Some of us are fretting about 95% of things that really don't matter because we are lost in a world of money.  Some of us are losing our shit, grabbing whatever we want by the pussy, and choking the life out of our gentleness.  And of course, there's all the in-between.

We can't change each other.  We can love each other, and we can cheer each other on, but every single one of us has our own work cut out.

At one point in the process of growing my business, I heard someone say somewhere that people with a lot of power can be upswept by greed.  I noticed a twinge of guilt in myself.  Maybe I was working so hard to feed by hungry monster.  I didn't want to do all this work for the wrong reasons.

I sang a song to mother Kali for forty days, praying to have my ego wiped.  Please help me to clean my karma.  Please help me to take responsibility for my victimhood, for my power and for my precious life.  Please help me to do right by God, by myself, and especially by others.

At the end of that forty-day cycle, this challenge landed in my lap.

Owning a business has brought me to meet the face of the hungry little monster eye to eye.  He's a scraggly little beast and he jumps all over the place.  He shape-shifts and pretends to make an innocent request for something beneficial, only to stab me in the back.  He sweet-talks me and tells me he's my friend when I'm exhausted and alone at the end of the day.  He takes my naive kindness and shits all over it.  He has no respect, no boundaries, and no work ethic.  He wants what he wants.

He has destroyed relationships with people I thought were my friends.  I used to think I had to buy friendship with excessive kindness and generosity.   I used to think I could solve people's problems, that I could fix their poverty or their addictions in the same way I had fixed my own.  But I didn't fix it.  The hungry monster loves that shit.  He vampires it deep out of my neck, giving me a high and a false sense of connection.  The next day, everything I've worked for is gone.

My choices.  My karma.  My lack of belief in myself.

This month taught me to be loving and inquisitive about my hunger.  To suspend judgment, take my own hands and eyes in the mirror, and grow bigger than the monster.

Grow bigger than the rage and grief inside me, from the things that were taken from me.  Hold the ball of life force in my hands that is my karma, the accumulation of all the choices and actions I've made.

There is a moment of deep pain, that taps on my heart like a junkie.  And there is a moment when I finally tell him no.

Then there's a gap of time, the gap we all fear.  Am I going to lose my shit, without my fix?  Will I be alone forever?  Will I drown in sadness?  Will I ever be able to experience happiness without the surge of dopamine that was whatever vice allowed me to shut the door on my own emotions?

This morning, each morning I rise now to face myself.  I sit with yoga and meditation teachers online, and it may always be a challenge to convince myself to do that work.  Today I'm grappling with my coffee addiction, and a heart full of sadness because the trust I built in a work relationship has been broken.  I wish I could escape.

I wish I could escape the lack of regard my mom takes for the hell I have been through.  I wish I could escape the little girl crying alone on the playground, waiting for hours alone after school for a ride.  I wish I could escape the years of toxic relations haunting me, and the blame I put on myself in an attempt to tell myself those people were better than they really were.

But I can't.

The pain swims around in there in my heart and gut, and I've removed the stuff I used to chase it down with.  Now, I decompress and learn how to be big, how to grow up.

The hungry monster feeds on the repressed pain.  I've got to face him, to starve him, and ultimately to love him.

So it's a daily dance.  It's a brush with that curious feeling, a mixture of curiosity and fear.  It's a rising waterfall of tears that ultimately cleanse me and become the fountain of life.  I'm touching it, I'm swimming in it, and I'm gaining faith I won't drown.

And neither will we, the people.

Zero Spending, Days 26-28...

Days 26-28:  Getting to Angry

Let's address the subject at hand.  How is Danielle doing with the "no spending?"  Is she really actually succeeding?

At this point, I am definitely spending a little, but I've mostly really enjoyed my lifestyle shift!

Here is where I've strayed:
I've given myself permission to eat out a handful of times during high-crunch periods, for example, during my recital weekend.   I took myself to the movies last night upon realizing that my social life is back at zero, now that I'm not going to bars (I'd say that was below zero, so still winning.)  I purchased a few items off the contract when shopping for my detox- i.e. supplements and nuts.  I bought a book which has been supportive to my journey.  And, let's not forget that I started off continuing to indulge in my vices by allowing other people to buy them for me, or by consuming them at home.

That said, I have the overall sense of living life more on purpose. The crap is gone, or near gone.  My "no spending" trial has now morphed into a retreat.  Where my poor habits raged, I now hold a single flower, a commitment to myself.

The key for me was getting okay with staying at home a lot more, being alone on an unlimited basis, and being boring.  I've made friends with those skills and they have led to a new relationship with myself.  I've picked up reading and writing, playing more piano, and having fun in the kitchen.

I will need to now work on a social life that is based around things besides alcohol.  I'm looking forward to that next new challenge.  It will mean mustering up some courage to leave San Rafael.  It probably means tapping into "conscious community" of meditators, yoga people, artists, and the like.

I'm not there yet.  I'm at home learning to sit with myself more deeply.  In the letting go,  there is a period of discharging all this pain and fear.  Today I am revisiting and releasing a long-held sadness, a feeling sorry for myself for being neglected.  While I may sound dramatic on both of those accounts, I have come to realize those types of feelings are very real forces to be faced.

The unpacking happens through all these tools: mindfulness, breath, feeling, moving.  Most important of all these is willingness.

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Thursday

My retreat started with cayenne lemon water first thing in the morning.  I was weak, emotional and tired.  No coffee, no nothin'-- I was now consuming 100% healthy things-- talk about pulling the plug.

I didn't miss any of it.   "I know we're supposed to meet, but I'm so tired," I texted to Yotam.  He repeated his mantra:  Be present. Do exactly what you feel.  Remember to be peaceful in everything you do.  I did yoga, consumed a very green smoothie, and immediately went back to sleep until 11:30.  I awoke full of new physical energy.

I helped the sub get the students on track, did some house cleaning, and made a lunch of red lentils with butternut squash, a lot of kale, and avocado spelt toast. I had some serious work to do on the insides of my business, but I wasn't ready.  I packed a few things and went to my favorite local hill to pray.

The sun was out.  I clambered to the top, contemplating all the times I had come up here when the pain was too great.  Today, as the numbness started to melt, I told the Universe I was willing and ready to heal.  Please help me take the world off my shoulders.  Please help me help myself first, help me love myself and be strong for myself.  Even up here, my phone buzzed with new parents wanting piano lessons.  Please God, I'm so tired.  Please help.

When I felt a hug of light returned to me, I went back down the hill and home, where I faced an uncomfortable and angering work situation.  I'm the boss.  It's up to me to make my business right.

Yotam came and shared a similar challenge.  We supported each other, talking things through, and I realized how much I loved my new friend.  I took his hand and looked at him.

"You are really special to me.  If we're going to do all this work together, I need to know we are just friends.  I need to be able to love you safely and really trust we are on the same page.  I need my girlfriend to be able to trust me completely."

His face smiled, relieved with a wow.  "I am so glad you bring this up.  If you didn't, I would have.  I felt very strong from the beginning this is not sexual.  Everything is not sex.  We have important work to do together."  He looked me straight in the eye and firmed my hand.  "You can trust me, Danielle.  I will never cross the line.  We are just friends."
Our eyes beamed light, and grateful, we hugged.  I have never felt so much synergy and trust with a work partner.  There is remarked lack of doubt, a diminishing shadow.  Good people exist.

I recalled a prayer I continually send out: to have a team of people who inspire and amaze me.  I only want to work with people who give as much as they take, who contribute to the greater ecology of the community we are creating at the arts center.  Yotam is a symbol of my hope, my knowing that we can create a better humanity through consciousness put into practice.

We sorted through the evening's challenges, and he left me to video chat with Carol, where we saw each other "live" for the first time in a few years.  She gives me smiles up and down my insides.

For the first evening in ages, I slept through the night.

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Friday

I love my new diet.  It's fun, and makes me feel great.  I had a beautiful morning of yoga, meditation, and deepening my relationship with a healthy delicious kitchen.  I made pickled onions and cucumbers, improved my rice/ lentil recipe, and lovingly prepared the day's food.

Finally, it's time to do work.  I scribbled out my list of everything I need to take care of.  One by one, I peacefully addressed the items on the list with a present mind.

I had two readings to give in the afternoon.  I love giving readings, because  in them I see all my own answers.  Both women left glowing, feeling seen, validated and loved.

A beautiful 60-something woman brought me a picture of a guy she was dating.  She didn't have much money, and didn't want to burden me.  I nixed the whole thing and looked at her, holding her hands.  We cleared her past lives of being punished for her beauty and her happiness.  We cleared the protection being she channeled to avoid future hurts, driving away any possibility of real love.  And we re-programmed her belief that she doesn't deserve the full deal.

Crying and laughing together, we burned his picture in a metal garbage can in the parking lot.

I went to a student's mom's house.  I had texted her last week, knowing she is an acupuncturist.  She gave me an amazing treatment, filled with intuitive support.  I will be trading for childcare and readings.

In our session, she helped me realize I am filled with rage.

I contemplated this, leaving to realize I had the night open, and no friends.  I went to a movie, and the theater was empty.  I sat alone and watched, processing the acupuncturist's words.  It felt symbolic, somehow.

I don't mean to be ungrateful.  I have people who love me and show up for me.  I have many great things.

But when it comes to love, to having a home, to having any kind of foundation in this life, I have been so very alone.

My parents lied about my father's identity.  It ruined my life-- everything leading up to it, and everything after it.  The pain is staggering.  I have been drinking for the past decade to suppress the rage, lest I totally lose it.

I don't hate them.  I work hard to make the lemonade.  But, the feelings cannot be repressed.

I have to stop apologizing for being angry.  I have to go ahead and get angry.

For all the years I didn't know who I was.  For being depressed since I was five, crying on the playground, spacing out in class.

For the years I spent alone at home out in the country, isolated, helpless, not allowed to have friends, watch TV, or listen to music.  It was just....housework.

For all the housework I did, hoping for a scrap of love and usually not getting it.

For the complete mind-fuck that was my mid 20's.  Finding out why I was so messed up and depressed all these years:  my mom's guilt, hijacking my chance at having any redemption.

The lies that split my world open, that destroyed my ability to trust in myself, in life itself, let alone any other human being.  Life was one. huge. lie.

For the lack of love, care and consideration that was shown for me, a child, who did not ask to be an object of taboo.

For all the years I've wanted a partner, just a family I could do better with, only to be met with psychological confusion when I try to get close.

For having to "be strong," "pull up by my bootstraps," and run all over the West Coast alone, while trying to make sense of my identity and my biological father's Parkinson's with not so much as a shred of support.

For the fact that I am living alone in the back of a warehouse, at age 36 1/2.

Fuck. You.

Yes, yes-- this is the listener's cue to put things in the positive, to remind me that these are my lessons, etc. etc.

Please don't.  Don't uncomfortably change the subject and tell me about being positive, or that I'm responsible for my happiness now that those things are in the past.  I have built my life and career, completely alone, on being positive and responsible.  I know about it.  I'm doing it.

My dad was my dad.  And then, just like that, another man was my dad.  All these people who were supposed to give me some semblance of a foundation in life, gave me lies.  Fear and selfishness.  Greed.

I have come to realize that sometimes you've just got to get angry.  So the anger can go away.  So it can stop living in your bones, creating hell.

Life can be unjust.  And we have to cry, feel and grieve.  We have to feel the depths of it so we are moved to do better,

To Make Change.

Living Well, Spending Zero: Days 5 to 25

Art is my God

"Love is my currency," I often say to my clients when I give intuitive readings.  Sometimes I have a subject who needs much more time than allotted, or a hug, or a safe massage, or a meal.  I have lost track of time because I'm busy splashing about happily in the river of God's hilarious, joyful light running through my hands, eyes, ears and words.  I know I'm lucky to serve and be a channel, and the position of helping the innocent must never be abused, like a sword.  

To ensure proper usage, I know I must constantly maintain myself, remembering that I am forever just a speck.  So I count my blessings but also my flaws and mistakes, cleaning my eyes of judgement so that I can see myself with love, smiling, even when I'm doing everything wrong.

"It's okay," I must learn to say to myself as I watch myself fall again and again.  "I forgive you," I say as I acknowledge my lack of grace, witnessing the consequences, and observing the laws of nature passing through the medium of my life.  A traffic ticket.  A credit card bill.  A hangover.  These are indicators, not punishments.  These are opportunities to make myself right.

I see and I see and I see.  Yup, that child is aglow with the many months I've respected her, and now she loves and believe in herself.  Yup, that kitchen is full of too many dishes from all the days I've chosen to over-work, instead of self-care.

And who is this God? Despite common religious misuse of the word, I've decided to dust it off, and share my own personal experience.

God is art!  God is our camera buzzing and waiting with love on the table when the day glows outside with redwoods and the sweet smell of grass awakening the nose, hands, heart.

God is the food we lovingly received from the farmers, glowing with life and waiting to be sculpted into a fragrant offering for a circle of grateful and laughing friends.

God is our own blank canvas, our lump of clay, our ball of light who wants to sing out our unique and radiant truth.  God is the little voice that says, "sing and dance with your friends."

God is the funniest joke you've ever heard, and it came from a 5-year-old.  God is the tickle in your heart that makes you want to do something nice when you pass someone deeply suffering.  You've been there.

However, we all know that no one can really say for sure, who God is.  I'm just brainstorming.

It's all up to you.
-------------------------

Her name is Carol

I've been barking up a lot of trees.  "I have this amazing new space for community, art, and love," I've been telling anyone who would listen.  "Please, come share it."  And I pull and force and beg all these beautiful unready souls, who uncomfortably try to make me happy by attempting feigned cooperation.

I've been ready to find her, but I didn't know it would be a her.  There was one last piece to clear, the pool of grief hidden behind the fragmented place in my heart.

I have been going it alone.  Living in the back storage room of my arts school, on an industrial island in a city of strangers.  Happily loving on children all day, broken and empty at night.  Communing with the demons to fill my void.  Awakening the next day with a depleted face, mustering energy to face my devoted subjects, apologies in my heart.  I didn't know how to heal.  It's been here forever.

Lover after lover.  Why can't I find her?  Not being able to see her face, but feeling her heart call to me from all of time and space.  Learning from one relationship and then the next, so tired of learning. Narrowing it down, proving I was willing to commit to the right one, only to be rejected.

I awoke one morning a couple weeks after Christmas, broken and unable to move.  I couldn't do this anymore.  I had to stop going to bars.  I had to stop feeding my sadness.  I had to find my true meaning.

I pulled the plug on my wound.  No more spending.  This really meant:  I want to face myself.

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I want to be witnessed

You've heard it before: to achieve this kind of healing, you have to really want it.  Maybe you have to by lying broken at the feet of all your vices, face in the stink of your mistakes.  You're drowning in the quicksand of all your shit and all your pain.  To the outside world, it just seems like another day, like the mundane imperfection we all bear.  But inside, you know you are in hell.

I reached out to a friend in another city, whose writing had touched me.  I knew she was a teacher and thought maybe she could coach me.  "No," she said, "but do I need a writing buddy." We set up a schedule, which I failed to follow almost immediately.  She was buoyantly supportive and encouraging, despite my unconscious efforts to stay stuck.

It started with messages to each other, apologizing for not upholding our agreements.  Sincere attempts on my part to make time to read and edit her stuff.  Competent and thoughtful feedback on her part.

Our meetings turned into conversations that tickled me.  She made me laugh loudly, filling my empty studio.  Her kindness and willingness to share this work all the way to the bottom of things.  Are friends like this really real?  I knew I was lucky.

And all the way we went, one conversation after the next, learning about each other's past and present.  Really listening, Really listening even more.  Unable to not hear the beauty in each other's words.  Seeing myself through the love in her eyes.  Admiring her integrity, her self honesty, her relentless willingness to laugh at herself.

The beauty, the beauty is cleaning me.  The forgiveness, it keeps going to the bottom, and there seems to be more and more.  It's surprising how it doesn't seem to end.

I keep finding myself over and over in our conversations, find myself her sweet presence during the day and waiting to meet her at night.  My heart is moving things; I'm crying at the gift of being unwrapped, and known so deeply.

I don't have to beg.  She was always there, a swan in the waiting.  She's honest, and earnest, not to mention

Primal,
a premonition of
hair and cheeks touching and
hands and arms embracing into a oneness with all of life,
a tree of devoting its roots deep into the earth,
tickling the childlike light of heaven.

Oh, but it was hard to believe, and I tested its virility.  I called her on a Friday night, drunk.  My "friends" yelling in the background, hijacking my phone and shrinking the balloon of our growing trust.

I heard the fear in her voice, and that was it.  I was not going to lose this one.
I asked her to give me three weeks.

Knowing that restriction is my trigger, I cut way back without making hard-fast rules.  I stopped allowing active alcoholics into my channels.  I prayed for strength to truly face my wounds.  At night, my chest tightened as the demons threatened me.  I awoke with nightmares and called her to protect me.  She laughed and held me and soothed me.  You can do this, Danielle.

My true friend, my guiding light.
----------------------------

For the Child Within Me

I held my students' piano recitals on a Sunday.  Three recitals of 15-20 students in one day, means about 60-80 guests total per recital.

The night before, the accumulation of all my toxic patterns held me awake all night.  God wanted to talk to me.  Danielle, it's time.  The time is here to grow up, to learn, to work and to love.

In those tossing waking hours, I wrote a letter to Carol and gave her my heart.

I wrote a speech to my students and their families, and gave them my heart.  I addressed the times we are facing:  The inauguration of our new president, the millions of women coming together because they want to make a better world.  That music can help us to make the world better, that coming together is the answer.

I spent the next day in service.  With zero sleep, I gave them all my everything.  These children give me everything, they are my everything.

Children, children climbing up on a lit stage, bravely playing out their songs, pricking our eyes with tears as their innocent voices fill the speakers in the room.

We built an altar of thank-you's.  Little post-it notes counting our blessings, giving devotion to each other, to music, and to our many gifts.

After each performance, the room glowed with love and celebration.  The kids delighting in treats and friendship, feeling proud for their hard work.  Adults building community, expanding their village.  Your children are my children.  Let's watch them grow in our love for years to come.  Let's help each other build a world like this.

---------------------------------

Miracles Do Happen


The next morning, I was wrecked.  I couldn't teach.  I had to change my life so that I could take better care of myself, so I could be a stronger leader.

I scrambled to find help.  I've been training some teachers in my approach to teaching piano, and they stepped up to substitute teach.

I received a call from an Israeli man.  A parent had sensed that we could help each other.  He volunteers on this parent's intentional community.  He is an aspiring musician and teacher, and loves to serve God.  What he can he do to help?
---------------------------------

Let Go and Let God


Two young men with dark hair, accents, and kind glowing eyes walk through the door.  One sits and tells me over tea that he is starting a healing center with his father, but he needed to separate and go out into the world.  He is wolfing and going where God takes him, one day at a time.

They help me do the dishes, sweep the floor, take out the garbage, play with the children.  The children go to him like moth to a light.  He disappears and plays guitar, cleaning the space with his love.

We get in the car to go somewhere away from the business, leaving the substitute for the first time.  The substitute is as vulnerable as me: learning to make his life a prayer of art, love and service.  It's his first day and I'm proud of him. As we drive to a coffee shop, my heart seizes up.

My angel appears in the form of light on my right side.  She shows my Yotom's heart.  My whole body cramps up and I let out a sound.  "Are you okay?" asks Yotom.

Then, he feels it.  Something passes through him.  "Oh, I see," he says.  "You're letting go of something dark.  It's okay Danielle, I'll clean it.  I'm going to help you."
-------------------------------------

I Am Willing to Heal

We sit in the coffee shop and lock eyes.  His look like little suns.  "Do you blink?"  I ask.  He smiles, blinks, and says yes.

He tells me he is going to help me heal.  I must wake tomorrow and do yoga, meditate.  After yoga we will go together to San Francisco to the co-op to get my supplements.  I should eat fruit for breakfast, lentils and rice for lunch, and fish for dinner.  I should take the recommended supplements, and do these things for 21 days.  No more substances.  Prepare to sleep at 11, be deep in sleep by midnight.  Wake at 6 to repeat.  Within one week you should be feeling much better, no longer sick.

He will help me at the studio.  He needs enough pay to get by, no more.  He wants to be in my presence and see what I do.  He wants to help me grow the community, turn my school into a temple.  Let's do kirtan, make circles, do yoga.

We don't know what it will look like.  We have to decide in the present.
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I Deserve Love


I talk to Carol and we have lost all our inhibitions, in a good way, not in a careless impulsive way. After years of searching for truth alone,  We know a good thing when we see it.

I sleep with my heart linked up to God, to art, to Yotam and Carol and my children.  I finally sleep, and I wake ready to be a woman.

Spending Zero, Days 4-9: With a Little Help from my Friends

Click here for Lakshmi Mantra


Well, here I am... barely hanging on by a thread.  After two weeks of winter break from teaching, I'm back in the game, and it has truly tested my no-spending challenge.

An unexpected roadblock arose, during the past week: last Thursday I hit burnout and had ZERO energy to do the work I needed in order to get back to teaching yesterday.
It was hard to get out of bed.  It was hard to move.  Pretty soon, I was melting into tears on the phone with my bestie, who has warned me in the past of over-teaching.

I go through this from time to time.  I think I can work all day, every day, until one day I can't.  This particular semester, I was working 6, sometimes 7 days a week because I was concerned about staying above ground in my first year of holding a lease.

This was a huge mistake.  I cancelled my lessons 10 days this semester, due to illness.  All those extra days I worked, ended up backfiring big time.  I've pretty much been sick for the past 3 months.

Well, I decided to take a little road trip and get some perspective.  Do I have what it takes to be a solo entrepreneur in one of the most expensive regions of the country?  I had heard about a little community in the Sierra foothills, so I made a few phone calls, hopped in the car, and got the heck out of the Bay Area.

A good friend Teri, knowing I was determined to stick to my commitment, handed me a wad of cash.  "I won it betting on sports at a bar last night," she said.  "We love free money.  You need this trip.  Use it."  I was grateful.  I did need a break.

Man, what a breath of fresh air it was to float up the mountain roads, filling my horizon with trees and an oxygen-laden sunset.  I rolled into a teensy cowboy town that oozed with charm.  My good friend Bill met me with a warm hug.  He paid for my hotel room, saying he owed me a favor for stepping up during a hard time.  The gods were looking out for me- and yes, I have been chanting daily to Lakshmi, the goddess of beauty, love and abundance.

Aunty Teri sponsored a night of touring the town's old creepy pianos; incredible farm-to-table creole food; and a stop at the local saloon to dominate the jukebox with George Michael.  As we all sang along, Bill and I shared nourishing conversation.  It was great to see an old friend who understood the long-term context of my meltdown.

The next day, I awoke and went to the coffee shop filled with new energy.  I plowed through most of my work.
On the way home, friends of the family treated me to dinner and more amazing conversation.  I felt supported and loved by the Universe.

Upon my return, I surrounded myself with friends and tried my best to get the support I needed. They helped me take care of my work, and I did my best to reciprocate.

So, I suppose I cheated, but I'm okay with how it went in the past few days.  I still haven't personally paid for anything other than a few groceries, my gas, and some bills.

The thing I wasn't expecting was the support that has stepped forward.  My commitment has forced me to allow others to help me.  Rather than feeling deprived, I feel loved, and that is so much more valuable than I could have imagined.  It was a true surprise.

Yes, I'm still learning a ton about getting organized and clean with my space; about getting creative with the freezer and about sharing meals with friends; about slowing down and keeping in check my relationship with the material world.  All of those lessons are happening.

But in the meantime, I'm allowing the Universe to expand my definition of abundance.  It's sharing.

Spending Zero: Days 2 & 3 Get Ugly

Hi!

I write to you from planet No Spending, where I've already bent the rules a bit; spent the past 24 hours alone; and tackled some seriously ugly situations in my kitchen pantry.

This has been fun!

Days 2 & 3 Challenges:  Get the Kitchen Tight

1) Stock up on staples 
I was technically supposed to do this before Day 1, but upon realizing that a cute little field mouse had feasted upon many of my staples, I found a loophole in my the book that said I may stock up on staples during days 2 & 3 when organizing the pantry and taking inventory.

I headed to Costco and spent $247:
1) Apples and oranges (these will go in my morning smoothies)
2) Frozen ravioli
3) Stew meat; Frozen individually wrapped salmon filets
4) Frozen individually wrapped servings of organic broccoli
5) Large bag of power greens (spinach, baby chard, baby kale)
6) 4 bottles of wine (I already drank half of one of these to get me through the pantry nightmare;) and a liter of Patron (The author warned about the necessity for this)
7) 24 snack packs of cheese, almonds and dried cranberries
8) A lot of chicken broth
9) A lot of cans of diced tomatoes.

Let's discuss the booze.  I normally go out for 1-2 drinks and dinner after work.  This habit is obviously financially draining.  So, drinking at home with friends a couple times a week is a good compromise.  On other evenings, I've given myself permission to go out for tea when I need a social hit.

2) Organize the Pantry
Oh wow, I had no idea what a pile of paperclips this would turn out to be.
Here's how it went down:

• Empty out all pantry items onto clear tabletops
• Throw away everything gross- especially Mr. Mouse's party garbage- So yeah, almost everything.
• Sort out all the items from the previous business owner, who used the current kitchenette as a snack bar at his concert venue.  Plastic cups; coca cola; a lot of cleaning products.. all of these items were set aside to be stored in bins.  This was the biggest job.
• Vacuum and disinfect everything.
• Store any dry goods in critter-proof containers. 
• Face and organize all the cans, spices, broth, etc. for easy access.
• Make a lovely setup for dishes, pots and pans.
• Rearrange all the kitchen appliances for ease of everyday use.
• Clean and organize the fridge and freezer.
• Keep written inventory of every food item.

3) Make Meal Plans
This habit is one of those obvious ones at which I continually chip away, but its effectivity never ceases to amaze me.

• Go through the fridge and take stock of the most perishable items.
• Create meals based on each one.
• Make a list of the week's meals, prioritized by expiration.
• Continue to go through all the items on inventory list, and dream up a master list of meals based on all ingredients available in the kitchen.  
• Each week, use the master list and the fridge to guide the week's meals.

Thoughts

I must admit that this first couple of days were a real challenge.

This is not because I missed spending money, but because I became aware of how I "go out" both mentally and physically to draw on external sources of energy. 

What I missed most was going to my neighborhood bar/restaurant to eat dinner and shoot the shit with other people who worked hard all day, who also have no one to go home to.  I missed having an excuse to leave the house.

"Going out" became a quickly obvious analogy for the turning away from myself, from my stuff.  

As a result of staying in with a lot of time on my hands, I had to conjure up ways to clean up my inner world so it would be a place in which I want to reside.

I fell asleep at 8pm.  That's how much work this was.  I awoke at 7am feeling disoriented, yet refreshed and full of energy for the next challenge ahead.

I began my morning with my meditation and exercise routine, which prepared me for all the work ahead to face more of my STUFF, both within and without.

Gratitude

We've heard it a lot lately:  Gratitude is the name of the game.  In my morning reflection I became aware of the emotions swimming around in my consciousness, and with a non-judgmental set of eyes I allowed myself to deepen into acceptance. 

Thank you for this experience, thank you for this breath, thank you for the courage to get messy.  

Thank you for the patience with my boring and dense story.  Thank you for the health of my body. Thank you for the many resources with which I have been blessed.

If you read all of this, I'm impressed and thank you for joining the ride.

Danielle