contented

When I was fifteen, twenty or even twenty-five, "contented" was not a state I pursued. A simple, grounded, in-my-bones kind of happiness-- a happiness wedded to peace, not to ecstasy-- was a foreign and perhaps undesirable state of being.

It's possible that at twenty-five I was beginning to look for it. I can't quite remember. But certainly the much-younger me had too much energy and ambition and craving to accept a state of deep satisfaction. Deep satisfaction definitely would have sounded like a cop-out.

For right now, deep satisfaction is highly pleasurable. There is no peripheral pull for it to be otherwise. It walks slowly, listens to the birds, tastes the coffee and just says "thank you, this is good."

utility

A lot of things have a purpose though you may have to look hard for it.... I save a lot of stuff. I simply hate throwing things away unless I absolutely have to.

The little plastic clamps on the Iggy's bread bags, for example. They've been piling up in my kitchen drawer and last week, I figured out their purpose: they fasten the plastic tarp around my bike so it doesn't blow off in a rainstorm.

I love that.

The same is true for experiences. Looking hard, I can find the purpose in every one of my experiences. If I don't have to, I don't want to throw any away. Every lame boyfriend I ever had was a lesson drawing me closer to Cristiano. Every job-- no matter how mundane or ill-suited-- a patch on the quilt of my career.

Peace is figuring out how to embrace it all. Even the wars. Even the oil spills.

I'm still working on the big stuff.

frayed

Yesterday was interesting. I always know that I'm in a (relatively) good place when I am able to maintain the position of Observer to my own drama and to study my upsets with curiosity.

I made a decision, while of sound mind and body (again, relatively), to blow off studying this month in favor of internship search, extracurricular work, and a much needed return to sanity.

As a result, yesterday's macroeconomics exam was something of a shit show (to use V's new favorite expression). I crammed the day before, and learned that cramming does not serve me.

Crucial but overlooked for the last few days is the fact that running saves me. B. asked, "What do you do to unplug and reset?" to which I glumly replied, "I don't know." Well, I do know. I had just forgotten.

Running allows the frayed and splintered ends of my day to float to the surface where I can examine each, and smooth it, from a balanced state of mind. By the time I am home again, every seeming crisis and strain has been reviewed and filed, each given the appropriate amount of space on the landscape of my thoughts.

Rachel's Frabjous Staycation

Sun or rain, it did not matter. This long weekend made for a marvelous staycation. It just may have realigned me.

A. recommended the staycation. No airfare or luggage to cope with. Just instant life-evacuation.

I was seriously off my rocker last week and cranky as all get-out. Drank beers Friday and carried on, sang karaoke Saturday and was hugged repeatedly. Sat in church on Sunday listening to the dulcet tones of Reverend Dave. Bonded with my girl Jia-Rui (she is a treasure) on the phone.

Today has largely been spent on my duff, but I have luxuriated in it and spent very little time chastising myself for my sloth. I did run, so I'm not complete oatmeal now, but I've been lounging around and, in the process, feeling back in my body and in my right head and in my creative juices. It has been too long! I've been silly strung for ages.

To close, a few lines of Mary Oliver because I love her so...

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Rice by Mary Oliver

Rice

By Mary Oliver

It grew in the black mud.

It grew under the tiger's orange paws.

Its stems thicker than candles, and as straight.

Its leaves like the feathers of egrets,

but green.

The grains cresting, wanting to burst.

Oh, blood of the tiger.

I don't want you to just sit at the table.

I don't want you just to eat, and be content.

I want you to walk into the fields

Where the water is shining, and the rice has risen.

I want you to stand there,

far from the white tablecloth.

I want you to fill your hands with mud,

like a blessing.

Follow your bliss

I remember these words like a mantra as I crawl through my final first year days, dazed.

Yesterday, I saw my Myers-Briggs test results. Nothing shocking there. Just a quiet and firm reenforcement of who I already knew I was. While it's normal to get tossed around in graduate school, as spring bursts forth and the sun pours down, it feels like the right time to stop questioning my character and priorities, and get back to basics.

Follow your bliss, which Net Impact founder and Babson resident Mark Albion boomed from the pulpit of the Entrepreneurship Forum, is truly a mantra. It's course-correcting pithiness, which is all that a mantra really is.

To me, when I am following my bliss, I am walking tall and proud. When I step off the road, and start wandering around in the underbrush looking for something else, thinking where I am and how I am and how I'm doing it is wrong, I am slamming the door on my heart, and on God, I dare say. This is a different matter from exploring, which is deliberately pursuing a new, clear, and valued goal. All of the difference lies in the quality of the detour. When I'm in the underbrush, my frame collapses, and I'm full of doubt, insecurity, and contrived enthusiasm. When I say, Let's go look at what's over there!, and march confidently and playfully toward a new world, that is where my bliss is taking me. To something new, expansive, and enriching.

uncertainty

I never knew at that age, in my 20s, that "I don't know" is actually a legitimate answer that you're allowed to say. You're allowed to say, I don't know, and you're allowed to ask for as much time as you need until you do know. And if somebody doesn't wanna give you that time, they're allowed to leave. But you're allowed to sit with your I don't know. And I never sat with it because it was uncomfortable. Nobody likes that place. And so I always said yes. Oh, sure. Let's move in together, let's get married, let's buy a house, let's do all this stuff that I was sort of half yes, half no.

- Elizabeth Gilbert