...it's this which makes me sing

i named this journal years ago after an augie march song:

"in biting down on the great foam world,
what is the looming thing?
not money, not flesh,
not happiness,
but this which makes me sing."

when a special person in my life played it for me, he said, "not even happiness! just... this..."

augie march called it this. Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of my university, called it that:

"once we do have a sense of commitment to relating with things as they actually are, we have opened the way to the flash that reminds us: that, that, that. "That what?" does not apply anymore. just that, which triggers an entirely new state of consciousness and brings us back automatically to mindfulness of breathing or a general sense of being.

...This basic sense appreciation is another aspect of the background that makes it possible for the spontaneous flash of the reminder to occur more easily. this is said to be like falling in love. when we are in love with someone, because our whole attitude is open toward that person somehow or other we get a sudden flash of that person--not as a name or as a concept of what the person looks like; those are afterthoughts. we get an abstract flash of our lover as that. A flash of that comes into our mind first. then we might ponder on that flash, elaborate on it, enjoy our daydreams about it. but all this happens afterward. the flash is primal."

...and the world comes into focus for three breaths. back to homework :)

knock knock.
who's there?
TRICK OR TREAT!
oh, it's you...my fucking ego... again.
not tonight! i'm an astronaut!
oh... ok...hi "astronaut"... again...
look! i can float!
um, no that's just part of your costume.
you're no fun, rachael.
oh, ok... (sigh). i'm tired and i'm all out of candy.
what do you mean you're out of candy?
i mean it's time to try the next door. i gave it all to children with more creative costumes.
oh, well... when will i see you again?
probably in ten minutes from now when you show up at my house uninvited and unannounced... again.
will you open the door?
probably.
cool! i'm gonna change. you'll never recognize me!
(sigh) ok. see ya.
bye.
bye.

knock knock.
who's there?
TRICK OR TREAT!
oh, look, it's a ghost... in a bed sheet. that's never been done before.
(giggles) (inner dialogue: she probably doesn't know it's just me in a new costume!) BOOOO! are you scaaaared?
i was for a second. but now i'm not.
surprise! it's really just your ego again.
clever.
where's my candy?
i'm out. you can try these flax seeds though. they'll do you good.
gross! grown up food! 
ok, well i'm going to go back to my life now.
oh, rachael. will i ever see you again?
i'm sure you will...

i should be doing my transitions posting, but livejournal posting is almost as good... right?

am at one of those points when things happen and i can't for the life of me connect them to triggers. so i sit back and say, "yeah, i'm psychotically anxious; no, i don't know why." what a weird transitional space. i am usually comfortable in it these days. the answer tends to come eventually. friday i was having such a good time with friends, and then suddenly i almost had a panic attack. what brought it on? waiting on that one.

i'm not afraid that he doesn't like me, though that's the voice it carries. i'm afraid that he is imperfect--that he won't be the lottery ticket to my salvation. this is why i am scared to get to know him. i don't want to know if he likes me or not. i don't want to know if he is perfect or not. i want to just assume both are true and live out the end of all sorrows in my head. it's no wonder i go for unavailable guys. it's not wonder i give them mixed signals so it will never progress into what i pretend i want. i could live in this state of fantasy and tension forever. it's cozy in here. i've got hot chocolate on the stove. my boots are still drying by the fire; i don't dare take them back outside.

so what could be so scary? that he isn't the end-all perfect answer to all my problems? yes, it feels like death. but by that logic, i've never been alive. there is only one reasonable solution: surrender. he's not going to solve all my problems. but still, if he is a man that will bring new joy into my life, he will. i won't suddenly blow my last chance at happiness because i made one wrong move. if he isn't meant to bring new joy into my world, well, that's not so scary either. it just means that my next meaningful relationship doesn't have a face yet. crazy... we don't have to put our lives at risk to hunt down grizzly bears anymore, so instead we get the same feelings of doom, of guardedness and groundlessness in the smallest everyday encounters.

last night was really meaningful. i was relieved there were none of these obsession objects there, because then i could introduce my emotional piece of reading by saying it how it was. "there were many fires that year slowly corroding me. the biggest was LOVE ADDICTION." i could read to everyone. if he had been there, they would have disappeared into the periferal blurs of a telephoto lense, and for a night i would have lost so many beautiful friends to my obsession binge.

in tern, i was more present than i had ever been in my entire life during a reading. i was there again. and i was there with 30 people, in my home, still standing. and i was there to listen to my friends have the space to express themselves, and embrace vulnerability, and share their beautiful talents. was that the life, the him-less life, my neurosis calls 'death'?

and then, when the last of the party cleared out at about 2, i was struck with profound loneliness. i locked all the windows. beer bottles were still cold; it was so quiet. it must be because he wasn't there; silence doesn't exist in a world with him.

this afternoon, an obama banner brought me to tears. i don't want to embrace the excitement, the change. it's good; it could go bad at any moment. isn't that what good is? the calm before the storm?

...maybe.

Barefoot Samsara:

As young, vivacious, travel-addicted Eve Minnesota continues on her spiritual journey to heal her soul through Buddhist meditation high in the Himalayas, she recalls the paradoxically shameful and ecstatic eight months in Chile that led her to see how brutally her ego had been destroying her since childhood. Arriving depressed and only half-alive, Chile’s youth sweeps Eve into a spiral of raw addictions, desires, obsessions, senseless dancing, and an explosive affair with damaged and unlovable troublemaker Ignacio Diomedi. Lost in the lunacy of Samsara—the world of suffering which Buddhism aims to escape—Eve falls in love with the touch of her bare feet on the earth in the most extreme of its pains and glories. By letting go of trying to control, or perhaps run from, her wild emotions, the world outside herself slowly comes into focus. Her darkest experiences bring her the most meaningful of bonds with those who she would never expect to understand.

Now two years later, with the clarity and empathy Eve has gained from her Buddhist practice, she is more enthralled by the earth than ever. Though Buddhism offers her tranquility, she wonders if she is ready to give up all the beauty that comes with the hurricane of Samsara.

listening to the soundtrack for her rivers presentation:

eno and cale- spinning away
en gallop- joanna newsom
bright eyes- another traveling song
heartbeat and sails- augie march
can't be sure- the sundays
let it be- the beatles
summer's cauldron- xtc
paper cuts- boy least likely to
hey that's no way to say goodbye- cohen

rachael is sitting in solitude, but not in isolation.

i didn't sleep last night. i popped a klonopin and didn't sleep still. that pill, the one thing i could trust, had walked out on me. i was lost to myself.

something happened today at naropa. i saw the demon of shame hanging over my head. i'm so ashamed of everything. i'm ashamed of eating. i'm ashamed of sharing. i'm ashamed of loving. i was held, and kissed, and told i wouldn't be abandoned.

i woke up from a nap feeling nurtured by my sheets. i wanted to give myself food. naked, i went into the kitchen to make a sandwich. reading my words about vomiting in a bar bathroom, i burned the toast. i pulled out my extra avacado, and it was covered in mold. there i was on the kitchen floor, naked, crying, trying to stomach a burned sandwich. i removed the bread and kept going, wrapping a slice of turkey in some leaves of arugala. after a couple of bites, i realized the turkey smelt rancid on my hands. i ran to the bathroom, hoping i might vomit it up. an exhausted, fighting anorexic, i collapsed on the cold bathroom floor, let myself cry, and gulped down what i could find of a muffin.

amazing what a feat a muffin can be.

for anyone who can't handle this journal entry, you are really gonna struggle with my novel. but i'm sick of pretending.

but here i am, still alone on my floor. and i am eating ginger kale. i am smiling. i am feeling warmth all around me. i am not isolated anymore. no one can take that away. the universe and i, they and i, we are one forever. i love that one.

Rachael is wondering how when she opens microsoft word to work on her novel, within five minutes, she is sitting in front of facebook.

Rachael is not; Rachael is anything but.

Rachael is experiencing passing weather and wishing she had gotten hurricane shutters for her apartment.

Rachael is letting go of resisting the storm.

Rachael is getting really thrown around.

Rachael is giving up searching for her umbrella in her closet. nothing makes it out of there alive anyway.

Rachael is contemplating strapping into gortex.

Rachael is realizing gortex is lost in the closet too.

Rachael is realizing that she bought a home in the 100 year flood plain.

Rachael's grateful for flood insurance, even though it doesn't seem real.

Rachael is trusting those around her to help get her through this alive.

Rachael is addicted to pseudo-community.

Rachael realizes that really talking is her biggest fear.

Rachael would write a novel about her fantasies about you before she would talk to you.

Rachael doesn't want to die with a string of novels to show for her life; she doesn't want to create her reality alone in front of her computer.

Rachael wants the world to write her a novel.

Rachael still likes writing though. it doesn't have to be an escape.

Rachael is ready for someone real.

Rachael is ready for someone who's wandered the earth within a ten block radius of where he was born.

i don't want to get over you
i guess i could take a sleeping pill
and sleep at will
and not have to go through what i go through.
i guess i should take prozac, right
and smile all night at somebody new
somebody not too bright
but sweet and kind
who would try to get you off my mind
i could leave this agony behind
which is just what i'd do
if i wanted to
but i don't want to get over you!

cause i don't wanna get over love.
i could listen to my therapist
pretend you don't exist
and not have to dream of what i dream of
i could listen to all my friends
and go out again
and pretend it's enough.
or i could make a career of being blue
i could dress in black and read Camus
smoke clove cigarettes and drink vermouth
like i was 17
that would be a scream
but i don't wanna get over you!

ah magnetic fields... you've been there for so many beautifully stupid mistakes. you've been there for so many not-getting-overs....

yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and now i get to see you on wednesday! may my future be filled with many more stupid mistakes and your words...

boots, hookah, Cesar, Barefoot Samsara, the coming of October. I'm lighting a candle and having a date with myself. i haven't done this in a while. i've been going through all these motions the last few weeks, trusting the universe that if i keep putting one foot in front of the other down these paths, i will feel myself existing again. that i will feel something again under my skin-- that i will feel something more than who i'm with, then this guy or that, the thing i say that could or could not exstinguish me from my tie with the ground, shaking like an earthquake.

tonight, after weeks, i feel my feet pressed against the universe.

all i can give is gratitude-- for naropa, for community, for guidance, for love. for being born into the most beautiful mountains on earth. for the dirt i swallowed from them as a child, and the strength it gave my immune system.

all i can take is faith.

buzzing everywhere...

please anything but reading this text--anything but writing this chapter.

anything but Now. it's too loud to be present...

I am my facebook page.

i am a collection of 374 people from around the world. I am still frames of mountain adventures. i am confusing artsy sentences. i am a cool job and a cool college. i am a wall of cute, one line messages from people who think about me. i am a list of good music. i am a string of clever statuses. i am hunter s. thomson's wisdom. i am a girl looking like she's having the time of my life. i am a collage of james dean, the earth, a creme brulee torch, a heart, a corset, a digeredoo, and a scuba tank. i am the current phase of the moon. i am a map of visited countries. i am an assortment of electronic gifts.

i am friday's party.

i am unstable. i am unsure of my numbers. i am a list of maybe's and haven't replieds. i am a theme. i am the fear of of unknown people. i am a potential rejection. i am a cool apartment. i am a mix of my school, my neighborhood, and the people i have randomly met. i am too awkward a cluster of conversations for some people. i am a sloppy room of alcohol consumption. i am a night people are talking about. i am a night people will remember. i am the chance to meet someone new. i am an agenda of blind dates. i am an excuse to get dressed up. i am written in your calender.

i am my novel.

i am a 400 page secret. i am a mix of poetry and slang. i am so far only in electronic form. i am a being that has not yet reached its goal of form. i am a story of love, addiction, and codependency. i am a story of clarity, vastness, and compassion. i am an obsure title. i am a setting foreign to most of my readers. i am full of run on sentences. i am a string of misused semicolons. i am divided into chapters with names and themes. i am double spaced. i don't know my future formatting. i don't know how long i will be. i don't know who will take the time to read me. i am daunting for a lot of my friends. i am a mix of two languages. some of my sentences are fragments. i crash from the heights of ecstasy over, and over, and over. i end with a beginning and begin with an ending. i feel like all my pages are filled with someone else, but really they are filled with me. i am in first person. i am not like others. i have subtle and not so subtle references to things that not everyone approves of. my future depends on the trends of the industry. most everyone who's seen me has only seen tiny fragments of me. i have been written to the sounds of wordless music. i'm too honest for some people's tastes. i might offend some people.  i will inspire other people.

rainy days boost the sales of chocolatey  caffeinated beverages, says the man in the coffee shop. i find a table in the corner... stoked that at the unexpected day off. my nose buries itself in whipped cream. interesting things in my life:

-I went climbing a million times with conor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you don't know, climbing is my biggest fear, so this was kind of a big deal. and i made it all the way to the top!!!!

-on the seven hour drive home, i tried to listen to a book on tape, but instead couldn't help but start writing my own in my head. i came home and put page one on paper...mentally exhausted. so novel #2, working title Colorado Kind (if mountain sun lets me use the name) is officially underway. it will stretch my my talents in new and exciting ways, including but not limited to erotica, present tense, and third person. no... this does not mean novel #1 is finished yet. but since one is kind of a sequel to the other, they will both have to be finished, so i'm not worried.

-orientation for grad school is MONDAY!!!!!!! yes, i am terrified. but fear is merely excitement without breath. so if i breathe, then i'm excited. trying to breathe....

"so after a few drinks i finally say to mick, mick, i mean, someone's got to ask, what the fuck was up with big audio dynamite? rach, you really should come to london and meet mick,"

and i just nod, dumbfounded while he goes on to tell me about what life is like living across the street from the pogues. yeah, my family is pretty much awesome. i slept peacefully the whole time, and cried when i left. amazing to think that people who i've barely met have been aware of my existence longer than i have--that they got excited calls concerning my birth. unconditional love, even if i barely remember them. i wish i could have stayed longer, but know we'll be in touch soon.

right now i feel the travel bug way more to go on a boston/london trip, or hike the colorado trail. exploring the lands linked to my blood and my soul are calling me. all my writing about colorado i think is going to turn into a really awesome book in the next couple of years. i know it will be the next one. i'm stoked.

now i'm in durango, being a cowgirl with my favorite cowboy (conor). it's pretty wonderful to be able to come down here and just step into his world for a few days. it's so raw and pure and wordless. dancing to bluegrass my first night as the old bar's floor began to cave in, i realized not just that i admire conor's life, but being around him brings out some really amazing parts of my soul. it makes me understand and love my homeland, my genes, my life.

he runs into my room this morning, jumps on my bed, grabs all my pillows and blankets and runs out the door, telling me we're going climbing. we both know how terrified i am of climbing--not of heights, but of trusting my hands and feet. but i go. he simply brings along another pair of shoes, but doesn't say a word. i put them on all by myself. and i climbed! i can't really explain what a milestone it was for me not only to face my fears but to actually enjoy it... so i'm going to write a longer piece about it and put it in the cowgirl book.... ; )

glad to be here. glad to be nowhere, anywhere, everywhere.

what is it about the laughing goat that makes me want to update my livejournal? i haven't been here in a while... i guess if i'm gonna write, sitting in a bikini on the patio with the hookah and a smoothie, jumping in and out of the pool, has just been more appealing than a coffee shop these hot summer days. it's nice to be back in here though. i feel strangely at home. in line, some guy asked if he could cut my hair for free. this doesn't seem out of place. i like that i can walk around barefoot and talk to strangers. anyone within the cafe limits is fair ground. and there are always so many pretty artsy hippie boys...

right now my life's just been about getting to know myself. it's kind of like a love affair/relationship counseling all in one. i guess the biggest revelation of the day is that the journey doesn't just end at understanding your feelings. you have to push yourself through the life you want to lead while you do it. acknowledging you're depressed is one thing; pulling yourself off the couch to go camping or hiking or writing with that same mindfulness is a whole new game. it's a balance i've always struggled to reconcile.

i'm outside a lot. and i'm writing about being outside. i've got a short story to finish about the near-death rafting experience in aspen, and then i think i'm going to be ready to dive back into the novel. i needed a growth spurt before i could really write an effective final draft. perspectives are maturing and i think it's really going to give it that little boost of kick-ass-edness that it needs. the process of this novel is something that has always been out of my control. it was out of my control to begin it and keep it going for nearly a year. i always explained it as being impregnated by the world; once the water breaks, out it's gonna come and it's really a matter out of my hands. that's how the first draft came out...and when i had my insomnia breakdown, i really had no say in the fact that it needed to be put down either. like everything i suppose, it's out of my control. this novel will tell me when it wants me to finish it, just as it told me to start it, and what to say in its pages (really, i sat down knowing i was writing a book, but i hardly knew what it was going to be about. it just kind of came out). i'm excited for the day the final draft starts, and i sense that day is coming soon.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! and life is moving so fast!!! tomorrow i am going to nantucket for the week, then i'll be back for a few days and off again to durango. by that time it will another cycle of the moon, and i'll have one last full moon before i dive into grad school.

it's crazy how fast it's all going by. i must say though, gardening puts me in touch with it in a whole new way. i watch the season move so carefully. each week something that had always just been a leaf to me becomes a flower. each week a flower shrivels up and dies, and i have to cut it back to a leaf. and each week a leaf turns brown the the ground, must be pulled out, its existence invisible for another year. gardens are so wonderfully transient and cyclical at the same time. anyway, it's really too hot to be gardening, but for some reason, it doesn't really bother me. and i see that in less than a month, i'll be balancing these gardens, naropa, and probably continuing writing all at once. for some reason though, i think it is supposed to be like that. i think i'll be ready.

"Funny how we think of romance as always involving two, when the romance of solitude can be ever so much more delicious and intense. Alone, the world offers itself freely to us. To be unmasked, it has no choice"

-Tom Robbins

not posting much right now. turning it all inside...

but at least it all gives me incentive to rigorously soul search and to meditate and to analyze the dreams i do have and to excercise and to cleanse and cut caffeine and alcohol and excessive sugar and dairy and to juice, and to readjust to the world instead of feel miserable. so i guess it's ok. i just hope it doesn't last forever. i'm tired! 

i didn't sleep again last night. all the things that would make me sleep i'm too tired to do. all the things i want to do i'm scared to do cause i'm afraid they will keep me from sleeping. i haven't felt this angry at myself in a long time.

and i miss my dad.

i woke up this morning feeling very healthy. that's an awesome feeling. i had an amazing massage before bed and slept for the first time in four days. i feel good on day three of my parasite/candida cleanse... the perma-bloating in my stomach has deflated and i feel so energized. i picked my own salad yesterday at work. and the birdies were chirping...

i know i've been bad at updating. what would an update look like at this point?

the theme of my life right now is FRIENDSHIP~ FRIENDSHIP in my dreams has recently been represented by giant portabella mushrooms~ i didn't sleep last night~ this is the furthest i've been from being in love in years and years~ i'm learning to set boundries~ i suck at watering my plants, but i'm really motivated this time to keep them alive~ i have a lot of REAL FRIENDS in boulder and denver!! ~ i have a lot of fake friends here too~ every time i look at the rose bush in our courtyard, i want to PRUNE IT~ i think wind chimes are important~ my feet are cold~  it feels amazing to get a paycheck~ my ankles are cold too~ i'm learning how to give other people what other people have given me~ my favorite glass broke, it was blue and gold and came from morocco and was his favorite glass too, i got a red glass with grapes on it yesterday from my neighbors, and life goes on~ i still haven't cleaned up the fallen portabella next to the grill from my birthday party... maybe that's why it's haunting my dreams~ all my plants are still alive!~ i judge people's gardens when i'm having a bad day~ i'm waiting to go to work until i feel i will be in a state of mind that will keep me from doing that~ maybe i can't today, but i should just get up and go to work anyway~~~

it took a couple of margaritas, but in a fit of rachael-ness i finally climbed into the flower beds on the pearl street mall and pulled all the giant weeds... wednesday 2 AM. and i gave a bouquet of dandilions and thistles to a guy sitting outside whilst we mused of the nature of destruction as my friends went into the pub to find jacob dylan. there was also dancing on this night, and singing, and tree climbing and stranger hugging and moon worshiping as usual.

boulder is finally opening itself up as that place in the universe where i simply be myself and other people who are like me come do just the same thing by my side.