Currie's Gratitude 2 December 2012

Sorting things out

I assume a focus or

Intention

That oftentimes I canNOT discern

BEcause thoughtsandfeelings cloud me

Like a thick morning fog

A month largely devoted to reflection could sound LONG and BORING. At least it would have sounded long and boring to me in the NOT SO distant Past. Mostly I was content to have made it through, the PHEW that was a close one sort of person I am… or was.

Now, however, I find it curious. And even a little deLIGHTful. So much that I have forgotten, I thought I never wanted to remember, has come out from the shadows and let me see it with new eyes, deeper understanding, and some healthy shakes of humour.

I remember this collage, more a vision or dream board, and who I was when I made it. So full of wishes and hopes and unformed incomplete ideas. Back at the start of 2012 I was still under the spell of MORE yet I included those words in the very bottom corner: TO LIVE CONTENT WITH SMALL MEANS…

Perhaps there is nothing greater than how those 6 words have BEcome part of me this year. I no longer seek MORE. If anything I seek Less, and have BEcome intimately acquainted with Enough. It has been quite a year.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 December 2012

Isn’t it better to BE Here

Now?!

Rather than to stare too long

In the rearview mirror?!

Why look back?!

BEcause back there is

Treasure

Wisdom

and Hope

To BE found.

As this month BEgins, I BEgin my annual month-plus-long period of reflection. And planning [or dreaming out loud] for the year ahead. How and Why I “look back” is BEcause in What Has Been there is such rich Wonder to BE discovered. Oftentimes in the places where I just squeaked by.

I realise it might BE indulgent to take an entire month+ to DO this. So BE it. I can indulge and NOT need anyone to agree or even understand the point of it.

THAT… Now, THAT is why I look back. BEcause when I see that timid uncertain ME who wants permission, agreement, encouragement, and support to DO what feels right for me for Now, I also see that I have moved away from that position.

I spent a huge chunk of this year wanting and hoping, BElieving I needed approval, a sort of nebulous good housekeeping seal of A-okayness. Understanding, too. Oh how I craved that. And oh, how it did NOT come…

I have grown so much BEcause of that lack. That unfulfilled seeming necessity. And I have learned to give it to myself…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 November 2012

Sometimes it seems I should already know something

When I first realise it

Yet I don’t [didn’t]

MayBE it is like that saying about the student and teacher

The first BEing ready

The latter appearing…

I feel reflective and mayBE even a little expansive this early morning. It was a strange sleep, yet again, and I leaned into that strangeness rather than trying to outrun it, avoid it, or simply deny it was what it was.

In the course of the Day that was Yesterday [a statement which could BE true any morning when I come here to write] I had realisations about Life, about WHY ____, and about myself. The trifecta some might say…

One thing I realised was that I am scared and I am going to take care of myself and that scaredness.

Another was that it is less about my wanting what I think I want and more wanting just to BE seen, heard, and known. I don’t want to throw myself up in anyone’s face or to jump up and down in desperation to BE noticed. Still, those are two things that aptly describe me.

And the last, though NOT in any way least thing is that I am so darned amazed at what I have done, am DOing.

Can I say that?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 November 2012

Everyday

Everything I DO

Every success and failure

I learn

Something

And usually it’s wonderFULL

I’m NOT at all sure how this might play for anyone else, I am only certain of how it plays for me. Learning is The Point of Everything.

It’s NOT to learn thus BEcome smarter. Nor is it to learn so I can get the upper hand. It is just learning for learning’s sake. I have always loved it and I likely will pursue it until that time when I am no more.

My teaching days reveal this in an unusual way. I go in, prepared, knowing what I am wanting to get across so that I can stay awake and aware of the learning. And this never disappoints. What I learned, yesterday for example, puts things into a whole new perspective.

That is what I love so about learning. The constant shift and unfolding. I am never EVER “done” and I have no desire to EVER BE “perfect.” I live always in a learning mode, I practise and practise and practise yet some more.

The kids yesterday taught me what I love about teaching and they also let me glimpse what I don’t so much. I would have preferred the former and none of the latter, yet the thing about learning is…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 November 2012

What I really want

It is so simple

[and I fear too simple]

I am afraid to ask for it

This is what goes on BEtween my ears somedays. Realisations. Seeing What Is for what it is. Looking it straight in the eyes. Fearlessly. [or at least intending to BE]

One of the things about me that feels like we just met is really something I’ve known for decades. It is my habit of upping the ante, always raising the bar, and making sure I never quite measure up.

When will I stop?! When will I say WHEN?!

Here is an example: I was writing last week about the work I want to DO with Ticket-To-Work. I wrote that I would love to rock babies. I would love that. Something so simple. So enJOYable. For me. For the babies, too…

Instead, what I DO is create a busy and dizzying description of working in a school as a resource sort of person.

Why is it I canNOT allow myself to say “THIS IS WHAT I WANT. WHAT I REALLY WANT is to rock babies.”

For whatever reason or conglomeration of justifications, excuses, and long-winded explanations, I think I need to DO more than what I really want. This is mind-boggling and makes me want to shake myself sometimes…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 November 2012

So what if others laugh

Ridicule

Call you names

Listening to yourself

Knowing what you need

WHEN you need it

This is an art

I’ve long been one who pushes through, goes to the point of exhaustion and then uses that to justify DOing something else that I know better than to DO. And the cycle starts. Push, Regret, Ignore.

I think that this is how I have managed to NOT realise so many of my dreams and goals. Pushing past where I needed to stop. To rest. To recharge…

And it is NOT just the DOing of things that brings this cycle into action. It is my thinkingandfeeling, my focus, my OVER-focusing on what is really marginal and insignificant. I think somewhere along the line I woke up to realise that I had just adopted some really skewed and [to me] insignificant priorities.

So again my learning is all about Letting Go. Giving myself over and into that Next Right Thing rather than repeating the pattern that squeezes my toes.

How is it that I didn’t even feel the pinch BEfore Now?! Was I asleep or is this some wild and crazy fad that I am passing through, realising so much I stood upon, firmly, was nothing more than a pile of dust?!

Hmmmmmmm… I DO know

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 November 2012

Even though it is hard

[harder than I would have imagined]

And I would like the chance to fiddle it different

When I can accept what has happened

Only that one thing

Makes everything a little sweeter.

I’m guessing if I could BE in a peace summit with anyone from my “failed” past relationships, nothing would BE able to change BEyond Acceptance. Mine. Whatever they might think [or NOT think] is irrelevant. All of that is just the story in my head anyway…

Still, I spend an immense amount of creative energy thinking how things could have been different. Sometimes “if only I…” or “if that had been instead of what was…” And other times with a certainty that startles me with how seriously it takes itself. [how seriously I take MYself…]

The Gratitude in this whole mess is that I can SEE it Now. Without ridicule. Or rancor. Even without shame. What a gift it is to BE clearer than I was. Even a moment ago.

Little things seem to BE floating up into view for me, catching me, sometimes, totally by surprise. Moving me ever so gently BEyond wishing. Settling me, comfortably, in a delicious chair where Acceptance wraps itself round me like a hug.

Whenever I feel that old pull Now… I reach for Acceptance.

I love you, Currie