On Receiving a Grace (Blog #1041)

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It’s ten in the evening. Tomorrow morning I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn for work, which will last until well after midnight. So in an effort to blog and get to bed earlier than normal, I sat down thirty minutes ago to start writing. Alas, my internet hotspot is dragging ass, and I just got tonight’s selfie uploaded. I can’t tell you how frustrating this is. On the one night I need faster upload speeds! Oh well. Once again I’m encouraged to be patient, to accept this moment as it is. Plus, it’s not like I’m going to get a ton of sleep anyway. You know how it is when you’re revved up about something.

I’ve gotta get some sleep tonight, you tell yourself. So you don’t get any at all.

Currently I’m thinking about not trying so hard. This afternoon I bought a painting (“I think it’s a high school art project,” the lady at the vintage store said) for four dollars. Then, so I’d have something to put it in, I bought an old frame at a consignment store for eight. And whereas the frame was a little smaller than the painting, I thought, No big deal, I can trim the painting down. Since the frame was a bit beat up, I imagined this whole project, glueing it back together, spray painting it black or gold. But then I showed it to a friend of mine, and they said, “I don’t think you need to paint it all at. It matches the painting perfectly.”

All this to say that this evening after I shored up the frame with a few nails, trimmed the painting, and took a look at everything, I decided my friend was right. It looks super. And whereas I COULD fill in some cracks and do some touch-up painting on the frame, I’m going to try not to.

Why, Marcus?

Because all too often I have a tendency to overcomplicate things. Or just to complicate things. Like, this isn’t a tough project, Marcus. Clean the frame up, wipe the glass down, put the painting in, and hang the damn thing on the wall already. What’s the use in turning an hour-long task into a five-hour one?

I guess I’m USED to things being complicated or difficult. For decades I’ve read hundreds of books and tried dozens of methods and modalities all in an effort to heal mentally, emotionally, and physically. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I got it in my head that no matter WHAT you try, it’s not going to work. But also that you HAVE to keep trying. It’s the whole story of Prometheus breaking his back rolling a boulder up the mountain. Sure, he makes it to the top, but the boulder just rolls back down to the bottom. Back to the drawing board, Prometheus.

Of course, this is frustrating and depressing.

Complicated.

Fortunately, I’m learning that things don’t have to be complicated. For example, thanks to upper cervical care, recently my body and I have made great strides with respect to headaches. Seriously, I can’t tell you how much better I feel. I used to dread headaches the way I dread sinus infections. Now I’m like, Oh, yeah, I remember when I used to get those. My point being that the treatment itself is simple, easy. This reminds me of something my Reiki teacher often says–“Doing the right thing IS simple. Knowing what’s the right thing to do, however, is another matter.”

Amen.

A word that’s been coming to mind lately is receive. That is, after we run around and try everything under the sun TRYING to heal, if and when we do have the blessing to find something that WORKS, it behooves us to RECEIVE it. To, rather than pushing it away because we’re used to everything being complicated, fully embrace it with simple gratitude and humility. Gratitude because your forty years in the desert is drawing to close. The Promised Land is near. Humility because no matter how much personal effort you put toward healing, you ultimately can’t make it come your way. This is why healing is always a grace, a grace that’s to be accepted with heads bowed, eyes closed.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We all need to feel alive.

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On Receiving (Blog #421)

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It’s 3:30 in the morning, and I’ve been acting like a twenty-one-year-old all day–eating, drinking, and partying as if I’d never heard of a calorie before in my life. Bonnie and I just got home from Nashville’s Five Points area. Bonnie’s husband, Todd, and their two sons and their respective significant others were with us until one, but then they couldn’t hang (they have jobs). So since it’s Bonnie’s birthday weekend, she and I stayed out for one more drink, one more plate of brisket nachos. (Yum.) Now back at the house, a few minutes ago I slipped on some sweatpants and am in such an insulin-laden stated that I could pass out any minute.

This whole blogging-at-night thing is really getting ridiculous, even for me.

This afternoon Bonnie and I walked around an area of town with hipster stores, yoga studios, and taco bars. It was super cute, but I honestly don’t remember where it was. Still, we took a lot of pictures. Here’s one of my favorites, me with the “Rolling Stones” lips and tongue. I’m sad to say it’s the most action I’ve had in a seriously long time. (I live with my parents.)

Here’s another picture that I love that turned out exactly how I wanted it. It’s me beneath a “receiving” sign, my arms outstretched toward the heavens. My idea was that I was signaling God or the universe that I was open to accepting good things. Like, bring it on the best.

Later in the day while I was looking at my photos, I found another “receiving” picture Bonnie had apparently taken and not told me about. Take a look, y’all. It’s not exactly what I had in mind and–I think–sends a completely different message.

This evening our crew went to a stand-up comedy/karaoke club. It sounds fun, I know, but it was a rough night for the comedians. (They weren’t funny.) Still, our group had a good time–we ate, drank, and caught up with each other. (That’s Bonnie, Mallory, and me below. Mallory is Bonnie’s daughter-in-law.) Then we drove around to a couple other places until we settled into the Five Points area and hit two or three different bars/clubs/pizza joints. Y’all, I ate a lot of carbs. But what can I say? Decisions were made.

Now it’s 4:00 in the morning, and I guess we’re doing all this again tomorrow. How I’ll survive, I don’t know, but maybe I can knock out another blog tomorrow afternoon so I can just pass out when it’s all over. We’ll see. Anyway, all day I’ve been thinking about the receiving thing. Bonnie and I turned it into an inside joke. Like, when we saw some eye candy walking down the street in our direction this afternoon, one of us would say, “Receiving.” But internally I’ve been using the phrase as a reminder to accept whatever it is that comes my way–tacos, pizza, and beer, for sure–but also this headache that’s lasted all evening and my body that’s been out of whack for a while now.

I’ll explain.

You can’t pick and choose.

This last year it’s often felt like I’ve only been receiving “bad” things from God or the universe. That picture of me bent over under the receiving sign is really how I’ve felt, like I’m getting screwed here. So when I posed for the picture with my arms outstretched, I was thinking, I’m ready for something different. But as I’ve gone about the day, I think it’s less a matter of new things coming into my life, and more a matter of me recognizing all the good things that have already come into my life, even recognizing the benefits that are coming out of the challenges I’m facing. For example, my health issues are giving me an opportunity to rest, and I’m MUCH more patient and compassionate with myself than I used to be because I’m finally recognizing the stress I’ve been under for so long. What’s more, I have compassion for others who struggle and search and can’t immediately find answers. I get it now. So what I’m learning is that you can’t pick and choose what you receive from life, and you can’t always accurately label something as bad. After all, if good things–things you really like–come out of challenging things, then why would you push the challenging things away? Why wouldn’t you receive all it–the good and the so-called bad–with open arms?

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You can’t stuff down the truth—it always comes up.

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the great letting go (blog #13)

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Several months ago, I sold most of my possessions in an estate sale. One by one, all my things were picked through, broken up, and sent in different directions. Before the sale, all my shit fit comfortably into a 3,000 square-foot house; now everything I own fits into my Honda Civic. There’s part of me that’s still shocked by what I did, willingly starting over and effectively hitting a giant “reset” button. Some days I wake up and think, I really should have kept a few more t-shirts or maybe a chair. It would be nice to have a chair right about now. But for the most part, I feel a lot lighter, less weighed down, and less attached. Plus, dusting goes A LOT faster.

I’ve noticed that when I go shopping, my experience is greatly different than it used to be. Before, I’d see so many things that I wanted, things I thought I had to have. Now, I see very little that I want. It’s like it’s got to be really attractive and useful (and be able to fit into my car) in order for me to even desire it, much less buy it.

The only piece of furniture I kept (other than a couple of lamps) is a mid-century modern bookcase. When I had the estate sale, I went through hundreds of books, and decided all the ones that went with me would have to fit on the shelf, which only has a capacity of about fifty. I told myself I would only keep a book if I truly loved it or thought it was important enough to read within the next year.

Well, the process did a few things. First, I’m left with the cutest little bookshelf, and I love every book that’s on it, so it brings me a lot of joy. Second, it took off the pressure I was putting on myself to read all the books I had paid for. In one big stroke, that was gone. Let someone else read them. Lastly and most importantly, it proved that I could let go of things that I love. (This is huge, since I’ve been hanging on to stuff since I was a child.)

I can’t say that letting go was easy. There were some bookshelves that my sister and I grew up with, and I thought she could get them in the sale, but she didn’t. When she found out, she cried, and some days I still wonder if I made a mistake in letting everything go. But then I think about one single book I found at a junk sale in Tulsa, and how that one book deeply changed my life. Someone decided to let that book go so that I could find it, and along with it I found my meditation practice, more peace, and more compassion for myself and others. So I can only trust that the things I let go of are working similar miracles for those who own them now.

My therapist says that a positive thing about “the great letting go” is that it’s helping to make me more discerning, that I’ll be more careful about my purchases in the future. Also, she says that letting go of all your stuff makes room for more stuff/better stuff. Well, I think she’s right about the discerning part, which is why I haven’t bought a lot of things in the last six months. As for the making room for more stuff/better stuff part, there’s definitely a lot of room over here, but the stuff hasn’t so much shown up yet. So I’m going to keep waiting, and I’ll have to get back to you on what happens. In other words, don’t go sell all your stuff and think that more stuff/better stuff is going to show up on your doorstep the next week. The universe doesn’t work that way. Apparently.

Tonight I had dinner with a dear friend of mine who’s one of the few truly magical people that I know. What I mean by that is that she hasn’t let life make her jaded. She’s still in love with the sound of leaves blowing in the wind.

When we said goodbye, my friend gave me a belated Christmas present, five crystals spheres made for hanging in a window, breaking up the light, and sending it dancing in different directions. “It’s for your new home, whenever you arrive there,” she said. “Every window should have these.”

So maybe more stuff/better stuff does just show up on your doorstep. And whether it happens little by little or all at once, I’m sure that at some point “the great letting go” will become “the great receiving” again. And whereas I used to think that the receiving was the exciting part, I’m starting to see the letting go as equally exciting. Just like light that hits a crystal, isn’t it beautiful when things are broken up and sent dancing in different directions?

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"That love inside that shows up as joy or enthusiasm is your authentic self."