Best vacation-Worst Homecoming

I returned to work the day after I landed from a 3 week US crisscrossing adventure.  Went to VA to see my family, Corvallis, OR to see the Yousey family, San Diego for a sort of flamenco burning man weekend and then the Big Apple before returning to paradise.
It was an incredible time of feeding my hunger for dance, the outdoors, delicious fresh food, big cities and family time.  I took classes, hiked mountains, watched shows, cooked, ate, walked, biked, walked while looking up at buildings, and ate the most amazing blackberries I will ever eat right off of wild bushes.  It was a definite escape from my normal reality.

Then I came back.
To reality.
Every little annoyance at work, every bit of other people's drama, every minor inconvenience that I forgot about during my blissful, restorative time somehow grew in magnitude while I was gone.  I am back to my good life and I can see are the things I don't like.  I feel myself getting caught up in the the principle of things, which I make it a practice not to do, because I feel like one's own principles applied to others can be a recipe for attempted murder.  Like for instance, someone broke one of my pastry brushes while I was away.  They broke it and just left it on my station.  No note.  No I'm sorry.  Nothing.  So, I can take this two ways.  1)  This is how I normally react:  This is about a brush.  I need a new pastry brush.  Cool, I'll go pick one up this week.  They really must have needed it and maybe don't have the resources to get another one.  However I can be helpful.  I have lots to give.   or 2)  This is me now:  What the hell?  Do you people have no respect?  Who breaks someone else's belongings and then doesn't f***ing replace it?  These people!  Were you raised at all by humans?   So rude!  Blahblahblahnegativeblah! 
As much as I feel a certain amount of righteousness in door number 2, I feel like that approach is health problems amassing exponentially.  Plus people all over have real, non first world problems.  In the grand scheme of things, it's a pastry brush.  No, it's about respect!  No, it's really just a $5 brush.  I don't want a heart attack.

I had extreme mood swings my first day back and I wasn't even PMS'ing.  One minute, I was genuinely experiencing pure joy from creating and organizing and getting back into my job.  The next minute, I was angry, completely engulfed in a silent rage at the shitshow that is dealing with humans in a complex dynamic.  I had the next day off, but today, the second shift I've worked, another double, I wasn't much better.  Everyone at work says that I should have at least 2 weeks of happiness before I start getting upset.  As Borat says:  NOT!  Definitely not the case this time.
Perhaps, that's an indicator of how stark the difference is between the experiences I had while away and the experience of being back at work.  I suppose that's a good thing in a way.  Maybe it just means I did vacation right.

I oftentimes have trouble telling people how I would like things to be.  I don't think it's low self-esteem that keeps me from speaking out.  I really just forget sometimes that I am a badass and I'm allowed to ask for things and fight for things.  I hate that I forget that I'm a badass, but I love when I remember.  It feels good to remember.

I am also having the epiphany that I do not have to be perfect in order to give someone constructive feedback on how I would like to be treated.  I think from formative experiences with my pops, I frequently act out of fear in an attempt to AVOID being a hypocrite.  It's as if my request or feedback is only valid in my own and others' eyes if I have never contradicted what I am asking for.  And I have a terrible memory.  I don't remember this stuff.  I always leave the door open that sure, maybe I could have done that.  Who am I to ask someone else to do/not do something and I am not even able to?  So, then I don't ask/say things because I don't want to allow the possibility that I could be being a hypocrite.  As I write this, it feels completely illogical.   Because dammit, I DO have that right!  I can ask anything I want.  It's just a question.  I think letting go of attachment to a particular response is paramount. I also think I need to make these questions/suggestions with the clear INTENTION of making things better.  Intention will almost always override fear for me.  It is when my intention is not clear that fear can easily steer me away from doing the good stuff.

So, the next time my coworker sips his open beer while he gives me a lift home, I can confidently ask him not to do that with me in the car, intending good things for both of us, but secretly wondering how he could be such a rude, narcissistic piece of shit.  I'll keep working on it.

Wrecked

This word has recently become a usable  unit of vocabulary.
6:30 am spin class wrecks me.
Working a double after only sleeping 6 hours wrecks me.
And the movie Wild.  It wrecked me.

**spoiler alert**

Her mother dies.
That is something I don't even want to think about, my mother dying.
The tragedy though comes from getting to know the character of her mother.
Her mother is AWESOME!  She is love.
She reminds me of my mother.
She reminds me of the mother that I would someday like to be.
And all I could see in this movie is this beautiful mother who vanishes and this beautiful mother that I may never get to be.  I was crying in the movie.  I was crying in the restroom when I peed after the movie.  I am crying now.
I suppose I am supposed to let go of something.  Let go of my attachment to desired outcomes, let go of the things that I want and have always wanted.  Let the chips fall as they may.  But I don't want to.  I don't want to let go of falling into a giggle pile with my children.  I don't want to let go of teaching them to dance and be free and be strong and be honest and accepting.  I don't want to let go of rubbing their hair and encouraging them and helping them be the best humans they can be.  I don't want to.

But they are imaginary. 
These children I want to love are not real.
I am attached to figments of my imagination.

I just need to return to the now.
The now where I am not letting go.

I find that drunkenness is something that I encounter much more here in the Cayman Islands compared to my life before the Cayman Islands.  Tonight, I joined some coworkers for a beverage after work because I wanted to share a cab with them.  My scooter blew its back tire last night on the ride home from work and my scooter guy wasn't available today to fix it, so I am stuck without wheels.
So, I have to pee.  I go to the one room ladies' room and it is locked.
I come back five minutes later.  Locked.
Later.  Locked.
Later.  Locked.
I'm getting annoyed because I really need to pee.
So, I get the waitress to unlock the bathroom.  There is a woman inside.
I find out she has been in there for over 30 minutes.
The guy she was with left her.  She kicks the door closed (she is sitting on the floor in the restroom).
So, I decide, screw this mess.  I am just going to pee in front of her (side note:  I detest using men's rooms because they always smell overwhelmingly of urine).
So, I get the waitress to reopen the restroom and I force myself into the restroom to check on her.
She is sitting next to a pool of her own vomit.  She is so vulnerable, like a caged animal not sure how to deal with the other animal entering.
I spend the next hour or so taking care of her.
It's like taking care of myself.
She is a little older than me, I can tell.  Single.
She makes a point to let me know that she is embarrassed and never does this sort of thing.
She starts to cry about the lack of a love in her life (I believe this to be the reason she got wasted to start.  Evidently the guy who left her, according to the waitress was a real jerk.)
Everything she says echoes things I have cried over before and probably still would if I would allow it.  I spend at least 20 minutes holding her hair and rubbing her head while she continues puking into the bushes.  Strangely enough, all I can think about is all the kindness that I have been paid in my life and how there is nowhere else I would rather be, than comforting someone in need of comfort, because right now, I feel exactly as she felt, eluded by "love".   How much I would like that right now, just for someone to stroke my hair and says encouraging things. 
I hate that my hope has been reinspired by someone so many time zones away!  I think I might have a better outcome clinging more to my hope than to the person that rekindled it. 
My day began with a random act of kindness, and my shift at work, ended with a random act of kindness.  All this kindness!!  I think I shall go dream about it now.  Sweet dreams.

Why do I stop before I start?

"If all that stands between you a d your dreams is yourself, then you know your enemy, all of his strengths, all of his weaknesses and victory is not by chance, but by choice alone."

So, I went to this bootcamp workout class tonight and as I am perusing the website discovering how to sign up, I see this quote.  Not an hour ago, I was having dinner with a fellow pastry chef and we were discussing our dreams of working for ourselves.  Yesterday, I was dreaming with a friend about opening and Italian place in Costa Rica- coffee and pastries in the morning and wine and pasta at night.  It smacks me in the face, this question I am ashamed/scared to answer:  What is stopping me?  What stops me from developing a business plan, finding investors and getting on with it?  Why do I choose not to be victorious?  I have so many dreams and ideas and things I would like to do in this life.  I think a big part of me is scared that once I fulfill them, then what next?  But I am a dreamer.  I will never run out of dreams.  I think what really keeps me paralyzed is the fear of failure.  I am reading The Alchemist and Slaughterhouse Five and I can't really remember which said (I think it was the Alchemist), but one of the authors makes the remark that people who actually pursue their dreams are prone to devastation if it doesn't work out (or something like that). 

What happens if we fail at something we truly want and work hard to achieve?

There is part of me that does not even want to face this question.  That same part of me is the part that is holding me back from my dream of working for myself.  It held me back from my dream of having a dance career.  It holds me back from doing a lot of the things I feel "called" to do.  I am content most of the time with the distractions of fun and enjoyment with no real product or progress and I think that is exactly what this chapter of my journey needs.
But with the 2 conversations with 2 people in 2 days and the books I am currently reading, the universe is converging once again to make me answer this question.

What happens if I fail at something I feel destined to do?

I don't know.

I'll cry.  I'll shut down.  I'll try to figure out everything I did wrong.  I'll be in debt.  I'll suffer irreversible damage.  I'll realize I can't trust myself.  I am crying as I write about this hypothetical failure.  It shakes me to my core to even contemplate failing at something I care deeply about and invest all I am into.  It shakes me to my core to even think about giving 100% to something because of the potential of failure.  I suppose I can't fail if I don't really try.

But maybe there are more useful and positive reactions after the initial pain.

I'll realize maybe it wasn't my destiny.  I will rise up.  I will dream another dream.  I will let go of my attachment to a specific vision and accept instead of judge.  I'll pay off the debt.  I will take the lesson that the opportunity came along to teach me.  I will continue to cultivate gratitude for all things and what they bring that is useful into my life.

I am not fully convinced of my own words.  I love them in the theoretical sense.
I'd like to make them more practical.
This is going to take some serious work.

Yummies

                                            I think there was chocolate cake inside there?

 

Chocolate Duo "Soup and Sandwich"

 

First attempt at Semolina Bread

 

Bacon-Pecan Ice Cream

 

Apple Baklava

Leadership

I have been thinking about leadership a lot lately.
In light of my current employment, I have been reflecting on leadership in my own life from my early training in it, to my assuming roles of leadership and the leadership shown by people in and out of positions of authority in my life.

I listened to a short talk about leadership on Thinking Allowed (a youtube channel) and the thesis of his talk was this:  managing comes from the hands (metaphorically and etymologically-it comes from the word manos which means hands) and leadership comes from the feet.

Managing is about controlling and manipulating and maintaining the status quo.  Our hands control, manipulate things in the place we are.

Leading is about moving, about changing directions and taking people toward something.  Our feet locomote us, change directions, provide a foundation which we can stand on to manipulate things.

I am sure that holes can be poked in this metaphor, I can think of a few myself.

But it did kind of make me see that my views on leadership could be somewhat limited.  I suppose if I had to have a top 3 tenets of leadership, they would look something like this:

• Lead by example.  Clear actions first, clear verbal communication second.  Both essential.
• Respect your followers as humans.  Belittling treatment is unnecessary and counterproductive.  Fear should not be used a tool for manipulation.
• Know what you are working toward and plan accordingly.

I suppose a fourth one, which is probably the most important (but I would say does not apply exclusively to leadership, but to all that living is), would be to bring love/Tao/quality/duende/a million other words that all hint toward the same thing to all aspects of leading.

I think that in my own style of "leadership," I would make a decent manager.  I am able to build rapport with about anyone (except really strungout crackheads and they scare the crap out of me) and I believe through my own experience as a leader and a follower, it is the most effective tool to getting people behind you.  But I also believe that true leadership isn't about getting people behind a person, but getting people behind a greater something for everyone to believe in.  That's where I run into trouble-determining what is it I am working toward.

I suppose this is where the feet kick in (i'm so punny) and set the direction and get people moving.  This is an area of personal growth for me.  I have no particular direction.  I have enjoyed living my life up to this moment tackling the opportunities presented to me, instead of "creating" opportunities for myself and others.  I feel like I am ready to build something.  I feel like I want to create a place where people can feel free to be free with the goal of taking that freedom into their "real" lives.  Take that creativity and acceptance in freedom and offer it to everyone.

I think I am just rambling on now.  But I do feel like so many people feel trapped in their own lives.  They live in impossibility.  They live in fear.   They live thinking they can't take chances because their entire lives they have been indoctrinated to believe a lot of things they haven't gotten around to questioning yet.

For once I don't feel that way.   I want everyone to feel this way.

It feels like love all day,with every person (almost everyone.  i still have work to do), in every task.
it feels transcendent.  it is beautiful.

i've had an idea for a while to start a movement called the re-love-ution.

gotta start fleshing that out.

Discovery

Discovering that I am not the person I thought I was has been enlightening, awful, wonderful, embarrassing, rewarding.  Since this is a process that is perpetually happening, it can be overwhelming feeling all of those emotions all at once, all the time, well, at least when I think about it.

This is where I would like to remember 2 things:
1)  I would like to let go of my attachments.  Even my attachment to letting go of my attachments.
2) It is what it is.  Whatever I make of it is up to me.   I was well on my way to letting go of a judgement mentality and somehow I have lost it.  Nothing "is what it is" lately.  Most things are generally frustrating.  I think though that when things are very frustrating in my home space, my only? refuge in the world, it trickles into everything else.  It's like that scary movie Leeches.  Basically, leeches go around killing people.  And when one leech gets chopped up, it's bits regenerate into individual killer leeches.  So one leech who accidentally gets chopped up in a salad multiplies. And you are taking a hot shower releasing the stress of the day and suddenly one is crawling on you.  And then two. And then it's exponential immigration to your shower and almost instantly you are over taken by leeches and you die.

So, that's kind of dramatic.  I had not so great dreams last night.  I dreamt I had a panic attack in a grocery store and I was trying to hide it from everyone.  Ick.

So, anyway the whole leeches thing is reflective of my recent experience with fearful and anxious thoughts.  If I am not careful to torch the hell out of that first leech, the just keep coming until I am fear-overtaken.  So, I am thinking that maybe I should herd all of those leeches, put them in a contained space, perhaps a box (more on boxes later), look at them.  Observe them.  Thank them for whatever it is they came to teach me and then banish them to the outer reaches of the galaxy where they will eat, drink, be merry (which of course leads to reproduction).  I can just hope they don't remember the way back.  I will put wrinkles in space and time and they will get lost in any attempt to come back to this reality.  They can end up in some Uchronia,maybe the one where I am a witch and have super powers against leeches and all things leechlike.  But more like a Glinda, not an Elphaba.