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Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters

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I use to be fairly obsessed with J.D. Salinger’s work. It was a cool high school thing. I was anything and everything but a cool high school kid in 1966. But, oh, I tried. I loved Catcher in the Rye, of course. And Salinger’s Nine Stories. How I loved the stories.

And I especially loved the book, Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters. I can’t remember the plot at all now–how strange–but I so loved the title–then and now.

I would like to live in a way that my delight in the moment forces the expansion of the roofbeams of my world.

I would like to live in a way that my gratitude at being Here and Now blows up the current dimensions of my personal world.

I would like to celebrate my new book, it’s humor, its depth, its sheer existence–in a way that puffs open the roofbeams of my literal and figurative house.

I’m not exactly there yet. But I love my book, Not Over Yet. I think it is smart and deep and sincere. And I hope to be able to feel my love for this project, as I let it go into the world. I so loved writing it–the roofbeams were surely vibrating then. Now?

It’s harder.

Especially the good stuff…..

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It’s so interesting and funny, that which occurs as hard in my life. I am so use to the great STRUGGLE for whatever, in whatever moment. That which I think should be happening in the moment has been a life-long focus, for so long. As I begin to let go of my need to wrestle the moment down to the earth, to be the crafter and carver and One Who Determines What Happens (good luck with that, by the way), like a smoke-screen being removed, I am more aware of other patterns.

I see a primary other pattern emerging: it is hard to be with the good stuff. The good stuff, especially the good stuff, kicks my butt.

Here’s my good stuff of the moment: my new book, Not Over Yet, is out and about, having its own experience on the shelves of the Kripalu Bookstore and Life in General. This should be a moment of great easeful celebration, right?

Not really. I feel: kind of sad, a little bereft, empty……just kind of funky. Well, so funky, it is. So it’s a funky moment. So?

Nothing to do–nowhere to go. Just–a funky moment.

Getting on the Winning Side

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I once heard someone define surrender as exactly that, “Getting on the winning side”.  It stopped me in my tracks.  Really?  What is there to “win”, what’s the “victory” in surrender?

Well, take today, for example.  I am exhausted.  I did one of my famous/infamous sleep experiences of falling right to sleep, sleeping deeply and soundly from 10:00-12:45 and then, boom! Awake and up.  The portal to sleep was closed to me for the next few hours.  Hence, today I feel: shaky, crappy, irritated, headachy, negative, and hugely spacy.

What is there to do?

Surrender.  Surrender?  Really?  To what?

To the feelings.

To not fight the shaky, to relax with the crappy and the irritated, to let the negative and the spacy be– eases so much struggle.  Just to let it be.  And as I do surrender into a crappy/spacy/headachy day, it is so much easier.

To struggle and to suffer less!  Big yes.

And perhaps………..to sneak a nap later on this afternoon?

Am I Complaining?

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It’s all good.  I have a remarkable life.  I know this.  I recognize this.  But when my work life collapses into itself, when programs are back-to-back, when I don’t think I have enough “decompression” time, it feels like too much.

I get a little wonky.

Wonky?  Yes, that’s the technical term.

I get a little scared.  Then I get a little cranky.  Then I get a little tired.  Then I want to check out.

Right, wonky.

But it’s all good.  And when I just relax into each moment, I don’t have to leap ahead to next week’s program, or yesterday’s issues.

Just to stay right where I am–to snuggle into this perfect moment, no matter what it is giving me–and it always is beyond-manageable.

If I were complaining, I would be lying.

And you?

Sometimes It Just Feels….

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Really.  Sometimes it just feels like too much.  I have several big projects hovering around my head.  The Monday-Project is clammering for my attention, but it’s only Thursday, which takes me away from the Thursday-Project.  The Monday-Night-Project wants email responses.

It all feels like too much.  Stop the world.  Wasn’t that a Broadway song?  “Stop the World–I Want to Get Off”?

I tried that for about twenty years.  It didn’t work.

Here is what I know: as I stay right here, RIGHT NOW, the moment is spacious, generous, and delicious.  As i worry about the Mondays and the Tuesdays and all their moments, I am lost in space.

Okay–my commitment.  Here it is:  I choose Now.

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