Life Force

Walking San Pedrito beach, I was thinking about the eternal nature of the ocean. The perpetual movement of the waves. Forward and back, forward and back.

And how, if you really pay attention, there's a pause in between. A sliver of silence, like the lull between breaths.



booby (credit)

But inevitably the wave is pulled down by gravity, sucked out, and returned. Just like our lungs, on their own accord, take and release the next breath.

I started to think about how I much I love this motion of life. The opposites, the polarities. In/out. Active/quiet. The waves of life.

A voice came into my head. Oh really? You love it ALL? Blossoming and withering? Life and death? You love that? It was as though an antagonistic TV pundit was jabbing his finger into my brain.

And what about Hitler? Love him?

I stopped and took a breath. Why does it always come down to that?

No, I don't love evil. Of course I don't.

The pundit smirked.

I've always felt the resistance in me when I sang along with the lines of the Byrds biblically-inspired song:

A time to kill, a time to heal...
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace

Those lyrics don't roll off the tongue as easily as:

A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together...

Instead of sprinting on the sand to escape my thoughts, I just let it all float in my mind. Killing, healing. Hitler...Viktor Frankl.

Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, believed there was meaning in all forms of existence. So is that what I mean by love? That bad things will happen but that, as Frankl says, we always have a choice about how to respond?

I thought about recent violence in the news. In the face of disaster--be it personal or global, be it human-made or borne from nature (like Baja's recent Hurricane Odile)--there's always an outpouring of creativity, solidarity and compassion.

I think that's what I love. But it's not a light love, a free-and-easy love. It's a mysterious love, a love of the messy bigger picture. It's a not-always-easy-to-maintain trust in the rhythms of life and the ultimate goodness, or maybe meaning, that we humans aspire to. It's a love of the enigmatic life force.

A few days ago, as I was walking on this very beach, a beautiful bird--a blue footed booby?--with pointy wings and beak sailed into my vision. It folded in its wings and feet then bee-lined into the water like a plunging knife. Seconds later, it lifted back into the air, a slash of silver writhing in its beak.

And then today as I walked the same beach in the almost exact same spot, a wave crashed at my feet. As it receded, I saw an uncanny thing. A silver, wriggling fish right at my toes. I picked up its slippery body and tossed it back into the water.
 

How to Fall in Love With Life

Did we earn this?

"I've earned this drink."
"I've earned this vacation."
"I've earned some down time."

Do fun and relaxation and joy have to be earned? Is life like a bank where you make forcing-myself-to-do-what-I-hate deposits in order to withdraw a-little-bit-of-fun interest?

I knew a woman who despised her job. That was pretty much all she talked about--how one day she couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. She had calculated the years, months, days and hours until she could retire.

She was obsessed with how screwed-up her job was and how much better other people had it. She was filled with a feeling of dread that she allayed with lots of food and booze. The job owned her even when she was at home.

Finally, well into her sixties, she reached that coveted retirement date. Literally days later, she was diagnosed with cancer. She spent the first years of her "earned downtime" undergoing medical treatments. Fortunately she had good insurance, and fortunately she's still alive.

When I hear anyone say, "I've earned a break," I often think of her. It was like she was swirling about in a hurricane of her own making. She had to grip tightly so as to not get blown away by her own winds.

And when she thought she'd done enough to earn calm seas, life had something else in store.

Like many people, I've been well-schooled in the notion that my personal value is derived through hard work and sacrifice. Anything that sniffs of fun or chillin' out is suspect. Sometimes I catch myself justifying my life, even to myself.

And now that I'm not living a traditional life of a "regular" job, a "regular" mortgage, and a "regular" schedule, a lot of people see me as lucky. They think I'm happy because life has treated me so well.

My little mind gremlin scurries in and says, I need to explain how I've made sacrifices to live the way I do. I need to explain that we're taking risks, that I don't have it all figured out--in other words, that life isn't easy, it's hard.

But at some fundamental level I know we are all worthy of ease. Of joy. Of love. Of living by the guidance of our internal light, no justifications necessary. We don't have to earn it. It's our birthright. It's our natural state.

And how we claim this birthright, I believe, is through gratitude. Through being right here, right now, touched with amazement that we are alive, at this moment.

I used to be like the I-hate-my-job woman. I was always imagining a better time around the corner. I bemoaned my maltreatment and could spin myself into a horrible funk about how everything was wrong. And I earned every beer I drank, damnit!

Over time I learned how to soften my attitude toward life. I got into the habit of appreciating what I liked rather than pushing against what I didn't. Sometimes it was the smallest thing: I like that I get free Post-its. I like the trees outside my office.

Sometimes I still fantasized about leaving the job. I caught myself and said, "Okay, quit. Or quit complaining."

It's not about quitting your job but quitting your resistance.

Eventually I began to enjoy my job more and more. It was amazing: There was so much more to appreciate than I'd imagined! And by the time I retired this year, I was saying not saying "good riddance" but "goodbye and thank you." Time to move on to the next thing.

It wasn't that everything was going my way and then I became happy.

First I fell in love with life. Then it got really good.

Upon Not Returning to School

With Candice (a former student who became
a friend and colleague) at her housewarming party.

My whole life I've been either a teacher or a student. As my friends fill their Facebook pages with pictures and stories of the return to school, I've become acutely aware that this is the first fall in more than forty years I'm not returning too.

Yes, at 50 it's an early retirement. I'm not retiring in the classic sense, though, which is reflected in the word's etymology: French for withdrawing into safety and seclusion.

In fact, my leap into retirement has been the opposite: relinquishing our home to live a traveling life. Not seclusion but reaching out into the world by immersing in experiences and writing about them.

And then the unexpected: seizure, brain tumor, surgery, healing. What timing. If I'd been going through all of this while having to think about what to do with my classes ... and to make sure my medical benefits stayed in tact ... and to plan to enter the semester partway through ... Well, that just would have been no fun for me or the students.

This timing has been amazing for other reasons. Instead of being in Hawaii this fall, we are in the Bay Area for my treatment and recovery. So I'm getting to spend time with some of my colleagues, who are also good friends. This is softening the transition of leaving the professorial tribe.

The other thing that has happened is this: As news has spread about my health, former students have been inspired to contact me, flooding me with appreciation. Many didn't even know I'd planned to retire. This conversion of forces is a thing of beauty. I'm feeling the love. Big time. I've received many special messages.  Here's one that especially touched my heart:

Dear Kate,

I don't get on Facebook much, so please forgive me for being behind, but I now understand you've been through quite an experience. I'm glad you are healing well and hope you continue to do so.

You might not remember me, as you've probably had hundreds of students since we were last in touch, but to this day I cherish having had you in my life. To borrow from The Artist's Way, you were a champion of my creative self-worth, and to borrow from a credit card commercial, that's priceless! All the while, you were always a model on how to soak up life, even in hard times, of which you've had more than your fair share. I don't understand life, but because of you I better understand how to love it.

If I inspired one person to love life, I'd say my days of teaching have been well spent.

"Let Your Soul and Spirit Fly..."

Last time we were in L.A., Dave got to test drive our friend Andy's Maserati.  This time, I drove the new BMW of our friend Jude.

Melissa and Jude, and his bro Brent

Cars are like citizens here.  They have their own personalities.  The BMW propelled itself down the road, smiling slickly at the Escalades, Jaguars, and the occasional Honda.  

I was driving the car because we dropped Jude and Melissa off at the airport.  They are generously letting us stay two days at their place while they're off to the East Coast. 

Marina del Rey

But first we spent a wonderful Thai-take-out-and-wine evening with them.  And we watched the video of our Australian friend Mark playing the piano.  

Jude was impressed with the love and commitment it takes to play with such skill and emotion.  It inspired him to take out his guitar.  As he often does, he played his sweetly gravelly rendition of my favorite song:  "Into the Mystic."

Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic 

And when that fog horn blows 
I will be coming home
And when the fog horn blows 
I want to hear it
I don't have to fear it

Sea air drifted in through the open sliding glass door, the ocean ambiance reflecting this mariner song.  And suddenly I realized the lyrics were speaking to me about my friend and mentor, Gabriele Rico.  It would have been her 76th birthday that day. I'd just read an incredible piece by her daughter about how as she was dying, Gabriele said she was experiencing an "awakening." And that she felt no fear. (I want to hear it, I don't have to fear it...)

These thoughts still resonated with me today as Dave and I rode bikes through Venice Beach to Santa Monica.  

I was thinking about how living isn't possible without dying.  And while we're alive, shouldn't we let our soul and spirit fly?  

Isn't it all about being in this moment?

I thought about how often we humans wriggle out of the present by drumming up thoughts about the past, by worrying about the future, and by harshly judging ourselves and others.

I wondered if riding a bike had any meaning--if that moment in life was really just about pushing my feet onto the pedals to move the bike forward and feeling the sun and sea air on my skin.  

I thought:  Is this really enough?  If I'm not going back to teaching, or raising kids, or going to therapy, or introducing bills to Congress...does my life have purpose?  Do we have to have purpose--other than to let our soul and spirit fly? 

Venice Beach

Later, as Dave and I soaked in the pool and jacuzzi, I also soaked in thoughts of the abundance of loving friends and shiny cars and blue water and vast stretches of white sand, and wacky, colorful Venice Beach characters.  

And I realized that on our journey of giving up home and job to travel the world, I'm digging around into this seemingly banal but bottom-line question:  What is life about, after all?

And I'm learning more deeply about what it means not to do, or to have, but to be.

Writing on the patio.