The other day I emailed my ex-husband how happy I was to be dancing and performing again. He has known me since I was 17, so I knew he would understand this more than anyone, and he emailed me back: “Thinking big or thinking happy – or whatever the objective – where that feeling enters the cells of your body and becomes a physical part of who you are is a good thing and increases the possibility of achieving the dream.” In other words, where we put our attention is what we will manifest. But too, it’s deeper than that. When a friend showed me the Atlas Center at Colorado University, I marveled at all of the sound and film equipment in one area and the possibility to create almost anything. Her assignment is to bring in shows or displays that cross boundaries – technologically, artistically, and culturally – like performance art on crack. I tried to imagine what I would do and it was almost so much possibility that I didn’t know what to do with it. Thinking bigger than we usually think is a result of rubbing up against new ideas and perspectives. Maybe the feeling generated by this ineffable awe of what is possible increases the possibility of achieving dreams I have yet to imagine. His sagacious quote also reminded me of Henry David Thoreau: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.” Maybe simplicity has to do with where we turn our perception (reducing the mind's clutter) and where we spend our energy. I am grateful and fortunate to have friends like my ex-husband who support my dreams - the ones I know about and the ones in process.

If your health doesn’t humble you, then your children will – or a curve ball you don’t expect. That’s why I never get too cocky about anything. When the director of the dance company uses a photo of me for the poster, my daughter stands in the midst of the dancers studying the mock up. She stares aghast. “Oh my God! You can see straight up your nostrils!” So, all we see, of course, are nostrils. I tell my friends and family about the show never expecting so many to buy tickets. This would be wonderful except that, well, in one of the pieces I end up in my underwear. The same daughter consoles me, “At least you don’t have to be nude.” Naturally, it is integral to the idea of the modern piece, which is about death, and when I do this most beautiful piece, it does not feel uncomfortable or unnatural. After all, at the end of life, we all stand naked and withered on the threshold. Still, when I take it out of context and think that I will be in my underwear in front of my my family and neighbors, I sigh a breath of humility. It resembles some of those dreams where the bathroom has no walls or I don't know my steps before I go on stage or I'm in my underwear in front of... oh wait, that's not a dream. Okay, so I want to be vulnerable and open, and if that means being half dressed on stage then I’ll do it – happily, or at least willingly.

I am enjoying happiness that was granted to me almost overnight last year – well, it happened in a dream, but that’s another story. I did not know that the result would be a profound inner peace and a powerful knowing that I am not alone. Anything that seemed difficult before this incident is no longer so challenging. Naturally, I still argue with my children, but without rancor. If my preteen daughter is in a foul mood, I move into an objective place within myself that enables me at once to observe but also to remain in joy. When I tried to explain this state of being to a friend he refuted my condition: “If your children died and your house burned and your pets ran away, you probably still wouldn’t be happy.” He assumed that my state of being relies on desires and needs being met, but we all know or know of people who have all the money in the world but little happiness. I felt superstitious about outright denying his claim while knowing that what I am experiencing is beyond explanation; that I have been plugged into an infinite and powerful source that I believe is God. It’s not a unique or special experience; I think it is available to everyone and once you cross into this place of peace and compassion it is impossible not to begin helping to heal the world just by being. That is, maybe I will eventually be called to teach or heal in a more direct manner, but for now I am one of many people holding a space for joy as I follow my artistic muses. Collectively, we enable our brothers and sisters and the earth to take a deep sigh of relief.

Ask anyone who knows her and they will agree that my mother is one of the wisest, most intelligent, and vital women on this planet, but while she tells me my daughters are amazing, she seems to think I am too lenient. I believe her exact words were: "A mother’s job is to tell a child what needs to be done and when." She worries that I allow my daughters too much freedom and too many rights. I, on the other, hand want to trust them until they give me reason not to trust. I want to let them make their own mistakes and find their own boundaries. It’s not easy when it could mean their lives, but both of my girls have good heads on their shoulders and I believe it will not reach any extreme.

This all brings me to a moment I experienced last year while teaching middle school creative writing. One boy in particular was known to have all of the answers. I found that he knew quite a bit of trivia, but often had not heard of what I was teaching, yet he felt compelled to pretend he had heard of it, as though his life were at stake. He was able to write nonfiction, but when it came time to use his imagination, it was clear – he had none. When I pressed, he appeared bewildered and deflated – as though I found his Achilles Heel. I took him into the hall and suggested he close his eyes while we brainstormed good topics. A woman down the hall glanced over and her eyes widened with alarm. She strode over and asked “What’s going on here?” I did not take kindly to the interruption and replied, “Why do you need to know?” to which she responded, “Because I am his mother.” His eyes, of course, had flown open when he heard her voice, but there was no happy embrace. I explained that we were brainstorming. She looked as though she smelled something disgusting and told the boy: “Well, for God’s sake, sit up straight so that oxygen can flow to your brain!” When she was out of ear shot, I countered, “Sit up straight when you are writing essays, but while daydreaming for short stories, slouch, squat, stand on your head – do whatever you want.” But it was too late. The mood had been ruined. He sat as though he had a board in his back and did not come up with a single idea. This year the boy did not return to the school, but he spent the summer learning Latin and was sent to a boarding school in London.

I have nothing against intelligence and rigor, but not when it is driven into a child at the expense of creativity and spontaneity. My Lithuanian mother grew up in a work camp in WWII where doing the correct thing meant sparing your life. But in an era of relative peace, something else is going on when intellectualism is valued over mysticism and creativity. (And my mother is one of the most mystical and creative women on earth, so the only reason I can think of she flips into this other side is old survival patterning, which declares that it is better to do the right thing - often based on some unrealistic model of perfection - than honor personal truth.) This is no small issue. In fact, I believe it is the basis for whether humans survive or perish. It will not be our brains that save us from ourselves, but our brains it the service of our intelligent hearts.

9/6/07

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been strip searched by the Universal Power. I’m looking up, arms out to my side: Now what do you want from me? This time I blame unrequited love for my anguish. “You only have an idea of me. The reality is not so romantic,” he tells me. Not to mention he already has a girlfriend, but once he told me that he is not in love with her, so – whether it was conscious or unconscious, I kept trying to slip my foot in the door crack to hold it open. Romantic? I’m not particularly romantic. I like feet and sleeping naked. I don’t care about flowers, although I appreciate them. I like expensive dinners but only to share in the pleasure of the delicacies. I want reality: taste it touch it feel it... fist to palm, diving in the cold water swim to the platform in the middle of the lake. No use. He doesn’t love me and I understand that. He’ll probably fall in love with a woman who would not kiss his arm the place the sand mite bit it, a woman who will harrass him for forgetting some anniversary. But, just when I think things are totally hopeless two things happen that make me wonder about this tyrannical God.

The first occurred while I was brushing my teeth yesterday. Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a fire breathing dragon on my roof. I look at myself in the mirror with alarm. My bathroom is essentially sound proof when the door is closed, so that I was hearing what I was hearing loud and clear was of definite concern. I quickly ruled out dragons and realized it could only be a hot air balloon. Often, while feeding my goats, I watch the mammoths lift off from Boulder and drift through the sky. My particular favorite is the rainbow balloon, because rainbows have always riveted me; their colors are so intense – a perfect magic: intangible yet larger than life. I am convinced that if I could touch the light it would tingle on my hand. At any rate, I raced from my bathroom and out the front door and, indeed, a hot air balloon was skimming my honey locust and coming down quickly on my mailbox. Fortunately, it landed 10 feet past my mailbox in the street. I dashed back inside and located my camera. Needless to say, of the many possibilities, it was the rainbow balloon. I have heard it said that where we put our focus or intention is what we will manifest, and as far fetched as it seemed, I wonder if my passion and adoration for this balloon called it to me.

If the second event occurred out of context, it would not seem particularly unusual, but the timing of it is what caused me to question if we are not truly supported by angels and ancestors offering us signs of hope that mostly we miss. This morning I slept in a bit because my ex-husband drove the kids to school. Admittedly, the thorns of unrequited love kept me up into the wee hours. But my pony and goats were waiting, so I rolled from bed and pulled on sweats and a t-shirt. Normally I walk directly out the back door to feed the animals, but for some strange reason I decided to change the cat litter box in the sun room. It’s not even my job! My daughter changes it. My eyes are half closed as I stagger into the sun room and clean it out. When I stand up and stretch and finally open my eyes, my vision is blurry; however, through the blur I see the arc of a giant rainbow. At this point, I feel like a child actor on a Hollywood set, rubbing my eyes, blinking them purposefully, sticking my head out past my neck and then staring bug eyed. If the neighbors happened to look out at that moment they would have seen a stunned woman with wild hair looking like maybe today was the day they would arrive to her away to the institution. The rainbow was gone within minutes. Maybe all I am supposed to remember is that timing is everything... that the rainbows and balloons and men will appear at the perfect time, and if the governing principle is chaos, then I will trust that eventually I will collide with a kindred spirit on the same page as I am.