It’s just before noon, and I’m still in Houston. I woke up a couple hours ago, ate a healthy breakfast, then read for a while. It’s been a leisurely morning. A perfect day so far. Now I’m blogging–obviously. I need to finish this and get on the road to Dallas. I have dinner plans. My current soundtrack is Fleetwood Mac’s “Monday Morning.” (I realize it’s Friday.) I’m struck by the lyrics that say, “I can’t go on believing this way … [I’ve] got to get some peace in my mind.”

Last night on our way to dance, my friend Sydnie and I listened to a CD of a spiritual guru of sorts (for fun, believe it or not). Anyway, the teacher said that every problem is automatically paired with a solution. It’s simply the way life works. Answers come built-in. There are no “just problems.” When we arrived at the dance, Sydnie said, “Those spaces in front are free, but you have to pay for the others.” At that moment, someone took the open spot Sydnie had her eye on. (A problem.) “Oh, poop,” Sydnie said. But then we drove closer to the door of the dance, and there was a single, solitary empty spot front-and-center. (An answer.) It was that fast.

You can say it was a coincidence–the way everything happened–but I think it was all connected.

The book I’ve been reading this morning is one I picked up last night–Myth and Body by Stanley Keleman (with my man Joseph Campbell). The book is short, and I’m only about a third of the way in, but it’s honestly one of the most profound things I’ve read in a while and helps make sense of and contextualize a lot of other material I’ve read over the years. In short, it says that our myths refer to our physical bodies (he compares the serpent in the garden to our spinal cords). In other words, our myths and dreams teach us and draw us into our interior, our personal cosmos or universes. I immediately thought of how deep and wide and wonderful the night sky is. I’m coming to believe that each one of us is THAT large and THAT wonderful as well.

Earlier I set down my book and stepped into the back yard. There’s a lavender bush (or something purple) out there, and I wanted to smell it. I’d just finished reading that parts of our bodies, like our necks and shoulders, can be rigid because we’ve literally “embodied” an attitude of fear or hesitation. And get this shit–the first thing I noticed when I opened the back door was a power tool that said, “Rigid.” You can say it was a coincidence, but I think it was all connected. Then as I smelled the purple plant, I saw a lizard crawl onto a flower-pot and puff out an orange-colored throat bubble (his dewlap). It was so gorgeous that I squealed. Then it scurried off.

It was this brief moment of beauty, and I was the only one who saw it.

Now I need to take a shower, probably shave my face. This last year I’ve been thinking about and talking about how “surely” there’s an answer to my problems, how “surely” my body is a mystery that has things to teach me, and I’m beginning to really believe it. There’s proof all around and in me. I wonder what it would be like to truly “embody” these ideas, and I just know it’s got to happen. Having lived for decades in fear and a state of being rigid, I know that I can’t go on believing this way. I’ve got to get some peace in my mind, in my body. And perhaps there’s not a difference between my mind and my body, even between this body and your body, between our bodies and the entire universe. I think it’s all connected.