How Alive Are You Willing to Be?

HELLO PEOPLE! I was THINKING of taking a smallish break from blogging, but hadn't INTENDED to do it SO SOON. It's amazing how our thoughts become realities for us. Will you forgive me, if I indulge in a list of reaons? First, there was the fact that work got crazy again. then there was the visit from Garham's sister and baby niece. Then there were internet issues and then, well, the WEEKEND and then, (ahem) a migraine. I still have the migraine by the way, and the screen looks all WOOZY, but I just COULDN'T STAY AWAY.

Our first morning alone, without our houseguests, was eerily quiet. It was like the day after a slumber party. You look around your room and ask, WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE? Graham and I got up early and went for a walk in Central Park--something we had been doing once a week, but subway construction, coupled with Graham's total bummer of graduate school work wouldn't let us have it for a number of weeks. On this day, it was sheer perfection. The reservoir was smooth as glass, and the air was soft. The trees were blossoming in fat pink and white blossoms. We literally both teared up at how happy we suddenly were. Earlier, as we walked towards the park, I told Graham how the writer Henry Miller had grown up in our funky neighborhood fo Brooklyn. He said, "You see? I love living here. I mean, Henry Miller grew up in BUSHWICK? Hot damn!"

In the park, I was having one of those moments where I felt suddenly that EVERYTHING WAS RIGHT IN THE WORLD. I didn't yearn for anything, I was with the person I most wanted to be with, and in the place I most wanted be. I didn't have to struggle. Spaulding Gray calls this "the perfect moment." In those moments, it is SO IMPORTANT just to stop and TAKE IT IN. I complain and worry and am frustrated so much of the time, but I have to admit that since I've moved to New York, a lot of things have also slipped into place. I am more artistically free than I've been in years. I'm in a relationship that just TICKLES me every day. When you're not desperate or in survival mode, you're able to let in EXPERIENCES more fully. It's been a slow, gradual move towards this place, and I am still learning and still wanting more, but I loved to see that the daffodils were like starry eggs on stems, that the sun filled me up gloriously. I don't often feel pretty and I felt VERY PRETTY. Nothing needed to be changed.

Do I need to tell you that when I got up that morning, I didn't FEEL like going to Central Park? It was a LONG WAY and I was starting to get a migraine, but when I stepped out into the sunny streets of the Upper East Side, I was GLAD. If I had listened to that voice in me, I would have missed out on a PERFECT MOMENT. So much of life is getting up and wondering which voice to go with--the one that is a GRUMPY wet blanket or the one that says C'MON, let's GO. In truth, BOTH voices are asking the same thing: HOW ALIVE ARE YOU WILLING TO BE? I am grateful when I can step over the grump and out into the light. I always find, I am the person I always wanted to be.