Confessions of a Homebody

The fact that I’d rather be at home on a Friday or Saturday night reading a book is probably one of the many contributing factors to why I’m still single. Why battle the bar scene when one can be safely ensconced in the comforts of one’s own abode?

I have always been a homebody. Not much has changed since I was little. When I was a girl visiting my grandparents in Wisconsin my grandma would suggest I play with the neighborhood kids and I typically elected not to. I preferred to just hang out at the house instead. My grandma and I would bake cookies and she would help me on knitting and sewing projects. When she was busy, I’d play in the yard, explore in the basement and attic and spend hours reading.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-social or agoraphobic. But underneath the deceptive exterior, I am a true introvert.

By some miracle, for the most part I work from home (when I’m not teaching a class somewhere). I also have an office where I see clients but it feels like an extension of home. There are chairs and a sofa and a lovely view. And most important, it’s quiet.

Some people like suiting up each day where they can collaborate with others and sit around a table. Yet the days when I had to work a 9-5 pm job forty hours a week at a cubicle were torturous. I would fantasize about eating lunch at home and doing work from my own desk with a cat on my lap. I day-dreamt that one day I would hear the sound of birds chirping outside my window while my fingers tapped on my personal key board. And I would feel a gentle breeze coming in through my screen door during the middle of a week day.

When they give people career aptitude tests they should also ask questions about what kind of environment best suits a person because it is quite important. We spend a lot of hours working. Best to make the time magical.

House Stark

While some of the Starks on “Game of Thrones” might have recently been killed off, Riley Stark, owner of Nettles organic farm on Lummi island is alive and well, providing a wonderful bed and breakfast experience for his guests.

Nettles farm is located on Lummi, one of the San Juan islands two hours from Seattle and an hour and a half from Vancouver, BC. It is home to sustainable fisheries, organic farms and views of Mt. Baker.

To get to Lummi island you have to take a ferry which is really more like a barge because the cars ride on top.

Starks also founded the Willows Inn and renowned restaurant that the New York Times once included in an article entitled “10 Restaurants Worth a Plane Ride.” Everything at the Willows Inn is locally grown, picked, fished and plucked. To eat at this restaurant, you have to be on a waiting list.

The island is quiet and beautiful.

And quiet and beautiful is good for all of our souls.

What We Do For Love…

It has been a rough twenty-four hours. My cat Hafiz has been trying to pee in anything but the litter box, which usually means he has a UTI. For two hours last night I listened to him rummage in my shoes, the bathtub and on the computer printer straining to “go.” In the morning, I found little pools of blood and he had missed the litter box entirely.

We immediately went to the vet for I also have a plane to catch this afternoon. And of course the Rock N’Roll marathon had all the streets near my vet blocked off so I carried him for many blocks in his carrying case. If he wasn’t already freaked I’m sure the sound of cheering and live music gave him a mini panic attack.

I have another cat, Rumi who has only been to the vet one time in his life. He never has health problems. They are both the same age and from the same mother but one has “conditions” whereas the other does not.

I know all of this pales in comparison to what parents of humans go through. Parents rush their kids to the ER for broken bones and concussions. Some parents even have to bail their kids out of jail every now and then. But my pets are my substitute children and medical problems of senior kitties can be frustrating and complicated. Every time I leave the house for work I am plagued with guilt. “Are Hafiz’s health problems caused from stress? Am I the reason he has these medical issues?” How do parents go to work each day leaving their kids in the care of a nanny or baby sitter? I can barely trust how Hafiz will do with a cat sitter.

Recently a friend reminded me of the beautiful book “Le Petit Prince” in which the fox tells the prince, “You become responsible for whatever you tame.” How we all need to tame each other and have that connection. “But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.” And so I tame Hafiz and Rumi and they tame me. And it is a hassle yet as the fox says of love, “It is the time you have lost for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

As I anticipate the day Hafiz will no longer be able to keep on keeping on, I reflect on the profundity of love whether it is for a child, a family member or a pet. We hurt for love. Period. It is what we do.

As C.S. Lewis wrote, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

Why A Neurotic Like Me Surfs

Surfing involves a degree of rigamarole. Unless you live right on the beach, you have to find a way to transport the equipment which typically involves expensive contraptions. You have to carry a tub for your wet suit, wax for your board, flip flops for your feet and shampoo for your hair. And it takes you a good couple of hours away from email, phone and responsibilities. Which is exactly why a neurotic like me needs to surf.

Time stops when you’re in the water. There is only one focus and that is on the present.

Summer waves, which are typically mild and rolling rock you on the water. God reaches her hand down from heaven, tipping the basinet back and forth in a soothing fashion.

The salt water has an incredibly healing quality. It can be bitingly cold in winter but soft and warm during the summer as it takes on the quality of glass.

A neurotic like me surfs because when I look up at the sky from the sea, I hear all creation sing.

Yes, there is a fear factor when it comes to surfing. Never mind that one can get injured by a board or eaten by a shark. I worry about the key in my wet suit falling out or perhaps worse, not working once I set it back into its electronic device. Because I am a neurotic and worry about things like this.

But then a wave slowly moves towards me and I get myself in position. And if I’m so lucky to be in the right place at the right time and the wave takes me, I feel the effortlessness of being; the magic of letting something bigger than me support me. I walk on water and realize this is exactly how God intended living to be.

Desiring Desire

In religious circles, desire often gets a bad rap. Thought to lure one into avarice or lust, desire is often represented as the devil incarnate or that wanton woman leading a man astray. In Buddhism, desire is thought to be the root of all suffering and thus craving is ideally eliminated.

I’m a fan of desire nonetheless. Related to the affect states interest-excitement and enjoyment-joy, desire represents a primal evolutionary force propelling our species not just towards procreation but towards learning, expansion, creativity and growth. And desire is not exclusive to sexuality although it is often relegated as such. Case in point. Little kids feel desire. Desire to get up in the morning and to start the day. Desire to play, learn and explore and to go to places like Disneyland.

Dogs too register desire. They wag their tails in anticipation of a walk, the beach and/or a bone.

Desire is an impulse within us motivating us hopefully towards positive things. In its best form it is a spiritual catalyst igniting our hearts to burn for God as we understand her.

Yet many of us adults lose touch with desire when we’re fatigued, worried, burnt out or depressed. When I’m on a complete overload the most I desire is quiet and my bed. But even that desire is good for it motivates me towards rest.

And it is in the resting that replenishing occurs and then the slow flame of desire begins to grow again…

Managing Abundance

Years ago in the Psychology 100 class I taught, the assigned text book had a chapter on stress. In it, they discussed how making choices can be stressful. They then gave examples about how we can have a choice between two bad things, a choice between a good thing and a bad thing and a choice between two good things. All are stress inducing but of course choosing between two good things would be the better problem to have. For instance, do I choose between banana cream pie or pumpkin? A vacation in Hawaii or Europe? Obviously, these are more pleasant choices to contemplate than which type of cancer treatment to have…

Lately I’ve been inundated with positive choices mostly related to vocation but choices nonetheless. Yet like a kid who has eaten too much candy, I am feeling a little sick on all the stimulating activity. So how do we make choices when our cup runneth over? And how do we come to terms with an abundant life when so much of the world lacks?

Years ago I read an article about an American visiting a country somewhere in Africa. Out to dinner with a native, the two decided to have ice cream for dessert. There was one choice of flavor on the menu. The American shared that in the US there is an ice cream shop that has 31 flavors. “That is too many choices,” the African said.

We have an incredible amount of choice in this country. It is obscene and yet a privilege I don’t take for granted. Where some in the world are starving for a bowl of porridge, we have hundreds of varieties of cereal.

When you talk with immigrants one of the things they always say is how lucky we are in America to make our own way. We can at least partially decide what we want to do and can aspire to have dreams for ourselves. When some of these dreams actually materialize, it can be a little daunting and demands a certain degree of responsibility for true abundance centers on far more than money or goods.

The other day when I was trying to make some decisions regarding my time and work schedule, a friend asked, “What is your priority?” Such a simple yet profound question that needs constant asking. Another friend said, “I don’t think God ever wants us to be so busy that we don’t have time for him.” So, I cancelled something I very much wanted to do tomorrow because right now I simply don’t have time. And it’s a reminder to me to make time for what’s important and for the actual Creator.

All the Pretty Horses

Last night I dreamt of horses grazing in a meadow.

Beautiful red, black and brown animals standing in Steinbeck’s pastures of heaven.

And I was on a quest to join them…

I had the afternoon free so in my dream I jumped into a vehicle and headed to find a ranch or venue where I could ride.

The first person I ran into said, “We have horses you can ride,” and then led me to a little ring where I was to ride a saddled pony in a circle. “No! No!” I said in dismay. “I want to be with the horses in the meadow over there,” and pointed to the rolling green hills and ascending mountains. “I want to gallop – not walk around a ring inside a barn.”

And so I left and resumed my quest to find all the pretty horses under the blue skies.

When my eyes opened in the middle of the night I remembered the beautiful animals and went back to sleep, eager to return to them and the wide open plains.

On horses Rilke wrote:

Tell me, Orpheus, what offering can I make
to you, who taught the creatures how to listen?
I remember a spring day in Russia;
it was evening, and a horse …

He came up from the village, a gray horse, alone.
With a hobble attached to one leg
he headed to the fields for the night.
How the thick mane beat against his neck

in rhythm with his high spirits
and his impeded, lurching gallop.
How all that was horse in him quickened.

He embraced the distances as if he could sing them,
as if your songs were completed in him.
His image is my offering.

Sonnets to Orpheus I, 20