Wednesday, June 10

6:45 - Woke
7:15 - Morning Sitting

Passing into the Ballroom I notice several Intros in the Ratty Room. I join them, thinking RF will be presenting the exercise. When he doesn't arrive, I worry. This is, by far, the shortest-feeling 45 minute sitting I've ever had. After raising a false alarm, I find I had either misunderstood or failed to hear that he was presenting in the Wonder Room this morning.

Breakfast of slimy, tepid porridge.

9:30 - Staff meeting
10:30 - Orchestral Maneuvers
10:30 - Guitar Mechanics Intro team in Ballroom with Curt and I

"Curt, are they allowed to breath?"
Afterward, a moment's rest is stolen in the cabin.

1:00 - LUNCH - Borscht

Short meeting with Sandra regarding tomorrow morning, short meeting with Joe regarding a good time to work with the kitchen team.

During housework, a table is moved to the patio just outside the Ballroom for my use teaching private lessons. It has a view of the lake.

Have I mentioned it's bloody hot? And humid.

3:00 - Intro team in Wonder Room (using our arms and legs, looking around the room from the occipital joint, etc) / BNI repertoire in ballroom

It is a tight squeeze in the room (which is bright, with hardwood floors, a green chalkboard on one end and windows lined pleasantly with rainbow-colored curtains). As with the previous day's teaching, there is a moment where I wonder what the hell I'm going to do and whether or not anything I'm saying is making sense to anyone. I stick with it. This is a responsive group who are, for the most part, holding open a space for the teaching. Several great questions at the end of the session by several students who have hung back. In some ways, this moment is the most instructive. I see how one good question from a student can change things for the entire group. Some hesitation and curiosity about what the BNI team is doing in the adjoining room.

4:00 - Tea

Curt skipping stones.

Sitting on the bench with Frank overlooking the lake. This is the closest I've gotten to the water. He's interested in the fish - how they cross from their world into another the moment they break the surface going after a bug. He's hard of hearing, but can understand me. Have I been trained? No, but in the last few years I finally got up the guts to sing karaoke. Which songs? Julie London, Cry Me a River and Stray Cats. Would I translate for the meeting? Of course.

Tuesday, June 9

6:30 - Rise and dress

7:15 - Morning sitting

A moment walking in, a choice is made to sit on the right-hand side of the room. I realize as I am following my feet that there is sunlight falling on this side of the room while there is still darkness in the corners of the other. I take a seat, feel the cool air from the open window behind me on my shoulders and back. 45 minutes. First, circulation of attention through the body, two rotations of LHM and once through the 60-point exercise. A very asleep left foot needs awakening and I'm up.

8:00 - To breakfast. Eggs and oatmeal with strawberry yogurt. Silence visited, but I was not there to greet it.

9:30 - Staff meeting in the Small Room

Aim: Allow myself to follow the right impulses as they show up and support the presence of AT on the course.

The meeting is underway. Several scheduling bits and pieces are called out. I have a clear sense that the right place for me is with the Intro team at 3:00 pm but, I hesitate. I feel unsure. Is this the right time? Perhaps I should save it for after I've had a chance to get Sandra's feedback. Lunch maybe?

The meeting adjourns and, as we walk out, I realize I have just missed an opportunity to follow through with my Aim. I mechanically move to fix this mistake. I pull aside PG, who is in charge of the scheduling and let him know my 3:00 p.m. intention to work with the Intro team. TG overhears this and seems to assume responsibility for my mistake.

10:30 - Orchestral Maneauvers (OM) with Sandra (first two relationships) - I am late due to an unforeseen complication.

I feel as though I can't write until I have my own apartment again. There's a part of me I reserve for private places. I need privacy. I need solitude. Even if a thousand noises rise up around me, thump and bump at all sides, it doesn't matter if a particular space is mine. It gives me an excuse to be free with myself, to take off my mask of intellect and strip myself of expectation. I'm slow to know how I feel. I need places, physical places, where I can explore my internal landscape unencumbered. 

Change is coming.

Sometimes you can feel your center of gravity begin to shift before anything has really happened - the future reaching into the present, pulling you forward. My tiny boat has begun to rock. It's strange how prepared I feel coming out of AT training and yet I find I am still scared. Will I be strong enough to face the days ahead? Will I find any help? Can I do any better than I've done?

And the small community of friends and teachers I've had over these last three years has already begun transitioning from the old to the new. These relationships will never be the same. I find this reality difficult to face without some measure of sadness and feeling of loss. I do, however, recognize how necessary all the steps to get to this point have been and am trying not to get too sentimental about the next one, wherever it takes me. 

out of darkness

The most honest moments of my life have been in longing. Not for your arms or your comfort, which are great, but for death. My journals are full of it. My heart is full of it. Too much to ever forget. How can I tell you this, lover? Without being misunderstood? That life without death is empty.

The summer I went from church to church like a beggar and none would admit me. Even the last (whose doors I thought would open) left me stranded outside the sanctuary. But I stayed. I knelt. And through a crack in the door I felt the slow leak of heavenly air-conditioning on my face and caught how the mingled scent of wooden pews and Frankincense filled the place. How can I tell you this? That I was born impoverished? That I was born from horrifically glorious moments of utter certainty that nothing I can do is right. That I was born as light is born - out of the darkness of night.

where the action is

It's raining in Santa Monica. Were I in Atlanta I would call this a drizzle but here anything that's wet and falls from the sky qualifies as rain. It makes for an interesting mix of odors - of asphalt and atmosphere, potted lavender in one doorway, a homeless person sleeping in the next.

I'm not complaining, but too much sunshine lends an invisibility to things after a while. Weather changes can inspire us to look at the same things differently, or look somewhere else entirely. Driven indoors I remember that, while California is endowed with great weather and an abundance of natural beauty, not everything worthwhile happens outside. 

The Viewing

his nose hadn’t been that big.
his face had been round,
not sallow and oval.

his hands alone were
recognizable; their rough
strength knew the way

of the soil and also
the Gardener’s secret:
casement broken,

the seed is the sapling is
the tree is the blossom is
the apple is a glass of

spiced cider or Nana’s
last jar of preserves.
of these nothing is lost

but it’s not understood.
we step forward unsure,
are unconvinced

by the makeup.
of the two, death
is the greater deceit.

departures and arrivals

Why do I keep ending up where I am not?