Getting centered, People!
I didn’t mean to yell that. Maybe I did. Like, ‘hey, shut the door!’
It seems I’ve somewhat exhausted my expansive, sometimes porous boundaries. I put a lot of myself out there, on purpose. That’s all I’ve ever done. If I haven an art, that’s it. Though there isn’t a lot of artifice to it other than the ability to deliver it. That comes through years of practice. I guess that’s not nothing and it is a very satisfying way to do what I do.
I have felt a leveling-off lately that I think may be progress. Like I’ve landed somewhere within myself that isn’t bad. I’m not sure. This could all change tomorrow. It might be changing now. I will let the thoughts come and go.
The loneliness and fear and grief and isolation that has been happening over the last year has tossed me around quite a bit. Instinctively or reactively my brain and body has been driven to distraction, food, compulsive thinking, sex, PTSD, massive bouts of depression, anger, loneliness, ecstatic nostalgia, crying, emptiness, insane empathy, self-loathing, guilt, prayer, etc. All the feels and behaviors. It’s the nature of the shift in my inner and outer reality. It’s the nature of human sadness.
I relied on friends and strangers to buoy me and keep me engaged and loved and supported. I relied on movies, music, books, cooking, coffee, exercise and TV to keep me distracted and mostly healthy. It really comes in waves and when they hit they seem to wash all the work and strength away, but only for a bit. It is in place. I am in place. I just realized this.
I have never been more in place and that place is myself. Wild.
Now I have to reel it in a bit. Now I have to accept the me that is now and quiet the noise and the needs down. Now I have to sit quietly in myself.
I have been doing it. I have been doing the meditating. I don’t know if it’s working but I have all of sudden been wanting to keep some more of me to myself.
I’ve recently been hit with the story of me. I’ve been setting up an office in my house and I was going through this stack of old photo albums of my family starting before I was born and up through high school. Seeing kid me in the '70s feeling weird and uncomfortable and scared and seeing my glamorous, selfish parents not really knowing how to handle it. All of us moving through the years. I don’t think I reckon with all that I come from spread out like that very often. It hit me kind of hard, but good hard. I think I can let that kid live with a little comfort now. I’ve dragged him through a lot and he has been freaking out the whole time. For maybe 50 years. He needs to feel okay and I think I can let him. I feel strong enough to do it.
Thanks for all the help.
As a side note I’d like to say that turkey is really a pretty awful meat. It’s a tough, gamey bird that we all feel the pressure to make appetizing once or twice a year. There’s a reason it’s almost always cold cuts and never on restaurant menus. It’s because it’s kind of bad. I’m sorry. I just really noticed it.
Today I actually talk to James Caan. It was nuts but it was good. I wanted to engage with the tough Jew. I loved it. On Thursday I talk to John Densmore from The Doors about… The Doors (and other stuff). Good talks!
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron