seeing potentialities

"anything seemed possible, likely, feasible, because I wanted everything to be possible… because I had no power to make things happen outside of me in the objective world, I made things happen within. because my environment was bare and bleak, I endowed it with unlimited potentialities, redeemed it for the sake of my own hungry and cloudy yearning." 

richard wright, 'black boy'

[The Feynman Lecture Series on Physics: Mechanisms of Seeing, Page 6 of 12]

don't become who hurt you

"Don't become who hurt you" posted a dear friend just now ...

when i was a teenager i looked around and said 'no matter what, i'm not becoming like them', that decision would prove to be one of the finest i ever made, i'm flawed but at least i'm not like them.

throughout the darkest years of the depression i stripped myself bare of bitterness and focused on the good things that came out of it ('that heart of yours, you know, right?!' ... yes, i do know, i fought very hard for it. courage it means heart.)

this year i made a conscious decision to not let hatred and anger manifest itself, even though those were readily available and i wouldn't be faulted for it. but simply put, i've had enough sadness to last me a lifetime, i don't need any negative emotions in my life. they serve no purpose, and that is not who i want to become.

in general, i try to rise above, the whole tit for tat isn't my scene, and some people mistook/mistake that with being oblivious and assume they can do whatever and i'll stick around forever. but it's not that, i just choose not to speak of certain things because it's too common place. and heaven knows, i'm not common. people blissfully trample others and then act like it was nothing. come in and out and think people are like revolving doors. this girl isn't one. and she's big on closing doors and windows and walking away.

i used to be more forgiving, then i got hardcore trampled over and i became unforgiving. i'm now back into a middle ground, unexpectedly, maybe it was this year, but i surprised myself recently by giving a second chance i rarely have given in my life. but just now, i realized i did it for myself, i did it so that i would be me, because the core me hidden behind the tough bitch in general treats others way better than she is treated (that's why i'm me, and they're them). i did it to rise above myself and the losses and disappointments in the past 6 years which made me so unforgiving. i did it because no matter how others behave, your path is your own.

above all, i did it, because after this year, i've gotten very practical with people (hello insta-block. bye bye!) and because i know i can survive. what i fear is losing more good parts of me at the hands of self-absorbed people. but i'm still here, and some of the better parts of me are still here with me despite everything that happened in my life, so that fear is a bit silly if i'm really honest.

i can either hide them away and be that ice queen some people in my life have become to fear (an ex said that when i was mad, i gave out frost bite that rivaled narnia's white witch), or i can let them outside my fortress and keep in mind i know how to protect myself (and way better than most people) and let myself be the winter goddess somebody saw in me recently ... the difference is in warmth and inner light ... and being true to your core self.

in general, most people don't even realize that they're hurting others. it's an exercise in empathy that eludes most, it's too hard, to put yourself in somebody's shoes. if the other person doesn't say anything, obviously the other person will do the same. and it's not even intentional. there is a cycle that can only be broken by communication and self-awareness. so, don't become who hurt you ... you don't have to say, you don't have to stay, but you do have to be better than those who hurt you ... not for them, but for you!

love & light, ana

on the welcomed sight of friendship

this ... i needed this to stumble into my life today ...i need to buy this book *stat*
this ... because hello *me* and *my* life ...
this ... because hello *this* year ...
this ... because hello *my* friends

"«The welcome book would have taught us that power and signs of status can’t save us, that welcome — both offering and receiving — is our source of safety. Various chapters and verses of this book would remind us that we are wanted and even occasionally delighted in, despite the unfortunate truth that we are greedy-grabby, self-referential, indulgent, overly judgmental, and often hysterical.

Somehow that book “went missing”… We have to write that book ourselves.»

We write that book, Lamott suggests, in large part through our friendships — those delicate yet supremely secure embraces of welcome, woven of what Emerson memorably termed “truth and tenderness.” We nurture these voluntary relationships to heal from the involuntary ones that failed to nurture us when we were coming unto ourselves. Lamott writes:

«The reality is that most of us lived our first decades feeling welcome only when certain conditions applied: we felt safe and embraced only when the parental units were getting along, when we were on our best behavior, doing well in school, not causing problems, and had as few needs as possible. If you needed more from them, best of luck.

[…]

They liked to think their love was unconditional. That’s nice. Sadly, though, the child who showed up at the table for meals was not the child the parents had set out to make. They seemed surprised all over again. They’d already forgotten from breakfast.

The parental units were simply duplicating what they’d learned when they were small. That’s the system.

It wasn’t that you got the occasional feeling that you were an alien or a chore to them. You just knew that attention had to be paid constantly to their moods, their mental health levels, their rising irritation, and the volume of beer consumed. Yes, there were many happy memories marbled in, too, of picnics, pets, beaches. But I will remind you now that inconsistency is how experimenters regularly drive lab rats over the edge.»

And when “the system” does eventually drive us over the edge, we drop — if we’re lucky, if we allow ourselves to fall with grace — into the ungrabby, ungreedy, wholly welcoming arms of those we learn to call friends.

«Trappings and charm wear off… Let people see you. They see your upper arms are beautiful, soft and clean and warm, and then they will see this about their own, some of the time. It’s called having friends, choosing each other, getting found, being fished out of the rubble. It blows you away, how this wonderful event ever happened — me in your life, you in mine.

Two parts fit together. This hadn’t occurred all that often, but now that it does, it’s the wildest experience. It could almost make a believer out of you. Of course, life will randomly go to hell every so often, too. Cold winds arrive and prick you: the rain falls down your neck: darkness comes. But now there are two of you: Holy Moly.»"

please read: Anne Lamott on the Greatest Gift of Friendship and the Uncomfortable Art of Letting Yourself Be Seen

smug resolutions

"And I say to myself: A moon will rise from my darkness." Mahmoud Darwish

[Catherine McNeil for Numéro #137 (October 2012); Photographer:Jean-Baptiste Mondino; Editorial: Girls Meet Boys ... you see that amazing smug look she's sporting?! that's similar to the smug look that's been permanently on my face for awhile now! *game.on!*]