I am scheduled to give my defense in Pelton Auditorium at Fred Hutchinson, Tuesday 2/12 at 1:30pm. This is an open event if you’re interested in the science I’ve been buried under all these years…
the map is here :
just walk into the D-building and the lovely person at the desk will point the way….
After the biggest adventure of a year which included having our son, Hagan! in September!! We are slogging through the Seattle rain, packing up our belongings to stay with SX’s auntie and uncle on Vashon so CZ can finish the dissertation before heading EAST! The job is all aligned for University of Pennsylvania! New adventures await!
We took a trip back to SX’s hometown… and it was more than wonderful. Family, beautiful land and lots of relaxation, playing and music- what more can you ask for?
pictures, you say?
knock yourself out: PIX!
Lately I’ve been wanting to write songs.. and sing them. Feelings of inadequacy try to keep me from this task as I have never in my life written a song… but stepping aside and trusting I flow. and I want to share what came to me this morning which i have been singing ever since:
“Waking To Flight”
*When it all started
I was on shaky ground
not sure if I was flying
or falling, falling into the Sound
The ground was soft
at first but then
all of a sudden
it grew before me
trapping me in
I stood there staring
up toward the sky
wondering softly
why oh why
do I feel so small
*When it all started
I was on shaky ground
not sure if i was flying
or falling to the Sound
I was almost comforted
by my fears
of crawling inwards
away from his tears
Then like waking
to an alarm
I jumped up screaming
out of my skin
Angry for all of the
truths that I held
away from him
*When it all started
I was on shaky ground
not sure if i was flying
or falling, falling into the Sound
I look up toward
the star-filled sky
remembering my strength
and feeling oh so full of light
When it all started
I was on shaky ground
not sure if i was falling
but now I know I’m flying high
I sit within myself as I can do nothing else and watch others provide beautiful examples of what it means to live full, truthful, adventurously and most of all courageously. Most would say I provide the same insight… but if I am not always searching to strengthen and grow I think myself dead, or even worse; lifeless. So, I look to others for inspiration as always, watching them trip, fumble and fall toward betterment. I cry for them but not in sadness but for the camaraderie i feel with them. This is where I find my sense of community.
I watch her. She proves to me over and over to just stand in truth, as best you can and everything else will undoubtedly fall into place. Like puzzle pieces magically aligning to their partners to make the picture come into focus much faster than if you were to manhandle with dexterity and control each piece. She stands for herself and the magic pulls the pieces into the prettiest picture and I am drooling all over it with my cucumber eyes.
Now it’s my turn. I am grabbing for the reigns of control knowing that if I just trust and let go.. I will find my own pretty picture.
The brief tour of camaraderie, community and magic still lingers around me while I am firmly distant and calculating. I am purposeful in my appreciation of freedom and yet excited to be bound to school, to my dream. What was once a strong smell of spirit around me that felt like smoke from incense pulling at me in different directions has been replaced with a strange calm, a crystal clear direction. My gaze is steady, my thoughts are forceful. It’s as if the magic that keeps me dreaming has stepped aside to allow this steady focus. But it was this magic that made me dream of you. There is now nothing keeping me from my pleasure. I am free to dream toward you with all my might…. and dream I will!
Connections flourish when the mind’s pupil stands alert. They flow like a constellation and you, swinging like a monkey from one shiny coincidence to the next. Trust comes after the first few and the fear diminishes as the bounty grows. We are talking of course about following the dream. That one deep inside that makes your body tick and flow. The one that makes you glow. Your cheeks red, your heart slow.
Thankfully we are blessed with the cognitive ability to make the connections meaningful. To follow the road signs that your body points towards as it speaks to nature. My signs come in many forms and right now they are flying at me in spades… in the form of crow feathers. Everywhere I step… there is one sitting there confirming my way. Knowing that I am right, I continue.
The dog days of self torture and pity are not long gone but fewer and farther between like the coming summer weather. The rain comes around a little less while the sun peaks out occasionally to warm the heart. As the weather changes in my heart there are sudden, unexpected downpours that swamp my head and cause mildew to grow in my lungs. But overall there is more warmth, more hope and more sunny days… I can see the flowers springing out of my heart while my tummy makes way for the pretty butterflies of excitement. Hope clings to me like a heavy perfume overwhelming my sense of being.
During the initial adjustment of change I was overcome with doubt and grief, so much so that I could not even wink. The twinkle of my heart had sank… and though I pulled myself up and out, I had nothing more to give. I could not bear to write thinking I would only have darkness to share or conversely I would swing abruptly to the other side and write only bright and silly things that even Hallmark would find tasteless or flat.
I started pondering with a friend that to write with effort and with feeling one must be tortured and trapped. I must say at this turn on my path that I do not feel so darkly… and I can see the magic that burns beyond the self torture where true beauty stands and only the grateful feeling of self trust remains.
I was painfully shy when I was younger, quiet with huge eyes. I took the world in but didn’t speak about it. As the years progressed my shyness faded into the background and words came easier however I still kept my beliefs my own. I became a master of finding ways to get others to talk and, like a voyeur step into their opinions, thoughts and feelings. I still didn’t really want to share.
Years went by and I found someone to share my life with. We spend a great deal of time together while I listened to his beliefs and thoughts on the world. Occasionally I would start sharing small bits and pieces of mine.  They were different from his and sometimes that was okay but sometimes it wasn’t. The times when my differing ideals seemed to flow easy was when he hadn’t thought about it, liked the way i thought about “it” and therefore adopted my exquisitely chiseled idea as his own. And the times that my ideas/thoughts/beliefs challenged his own, well that was where trouble brewed.
Years flew by as I felt stagnant in my thoughts… or my creativity of thought seemed to slow to a flow more like honey than wine. Â I kept mulling over and over his ideals/thoughts/beliefs and felt that there were always room for more, that ultimately it didn’t matter that we didn’t share the same feelings on everything…..
Years passed still. And like a volcano, I erupted. It was no longer okay to feel rejected over some beliefs and not others, that I was open and he was not, that he kept mine without finding his own…. and selfish as it was I left in a skoosh of personal ideals belting from my mouth as if I were a waterfall.
I found this furry little seed a long time ago. It almost seems like another life now. The seed was brown, egg shaped with many hairs cupping its shell. I don’t know this species but it looks cute to me so I tuck it in a pocket somewhere.
Many years pass and I find myself deep in the recess of some dark cloth, crumpled. I am cold and damp. My hair is disheveled and my skin is hard. I don’t like my surroundings so i dig deeper and deeper until I start to feel the minerals of the soil. They soothe me, nourish me in ways I that make me feel endlessly thirsty. I wallow here among the nutrients of life feeling loved by the surround.
The love grows and I find myself popping out of the soil, yet firmly rooted in my being. Still nourished from my friends, the minerals while soaking my head in the warm rays of the Sun. Love pours out every cell, radiating my surround like the sun radiates on me. A mutual appreciation ensues.
And then I grow.
