Unpacking

So, the writing weekend. Wow.

It was so many things....

I was my typical hand-wringing self the week before leaving.  It's entirely possible that I put more thought into packing my suitcase than I did into my grad-school thesis.  I fretted over how Rich and the kids would manage without me (for THREE WHOLE DAYS!).  I attempted to calculate the statistical probability that my plane would be struck by wayward space junk.

Nothing like a healthy handful of ersatz dilemmas to avoid having to address the real concern. 

Am I right?

Bottom line:  I went up there terrified that I would discover that I was a farce.   That I had no skill.  That I had no right to think I had a story, let alone that anyone would want to hear it.

I was also TOTALLY freaked out about sleeping in a room with 5 strangers.

I flew into an airport that was 2.5 hours away from Kripalu.  I drove North on the Taconic Parkway, a narrow, winding highway that requires a level of attention not demanded from most major roads.  The rain came down sideways, slowing me down and forcing me to be present.

I sang for most of the trip.  Frank Zappa (Jammin' in Joe's garage), Tanita Tikaram (Twistin' in my Soberity), and Joni Mitchell (trust me, two heads really are better than one).  I sang loud and proud.  I sang out my fears and my doubts and my insecurities.

I arrived with a slightly sore throat and a commitment to myself.  I was going to be fearless.

I checked in and dragged myself and my (very well-packed!) luggage to my dorm, where I quickly discovered that I'd arrived too late to get a bottom bunk.

Yes.  There were actual bunk beds.  

I refused to be afraid.  Not of falling off the rickety ladder on my way down from the top bunk; not of the other women coming in and out of our shared room; not of the large crowd of strangers in the dining hall;  not of the 40+ other writers gathered to learn how to tell their stories. 

My tendency is towards inhibition, though only the people who know me the best really understand this about me.  I am often one of the first to speak up and share my thoughts.  I appear confident and poised.   And it's true -- I am confident and poised and willing to speak up.  But if you look closely, you'll see that I'm almost always speaking from the perimeter, rarely the heart, of an experience. I don't surrender to experiences, I think about them -- even as I'm having them.  I dissect them and craft their descriptions.  In part, my inhibition, my lack of full presence and participation, is what makes me a writer.  It's what allows me to observe, and, eventually, describe an experience -- to bring it back to life on paper.  It provides, almost de facto, the sense of perspective one needs when writing about one's own experiences. 

The downside to this de facto perspective is that it's not fully authentic.  Authentic perspective is earned.  Authentic perspective comes from being fully present in an experience and then allowing the experience to take root in your psyche.  Authentic perspective is what happens only AFTER you've allowed yourself to be transformed.  Authentic perspective demands courage.

I knew, intuitively, long before I arrived at Kripalu, that I was going to have to climb inside this experience.  I was going to have to be transformed.  I was going to have to be fearless.

And I was.  I was fearless and I was transformed.

What surprised me most was that I was not transformed by the writing seminar (although the seminar itself was great and I came away with pages and pages of valuable information).  I was not transformed by the time I spent writing or the time I spent in mediation or the time I spent doing yoga. 

I was transformed by having made the choice to be fearless.

I was transformed by living that choice for an entire weekend.  

I was transformed by being fully present.

I was transformed by letting go.

I drove away on Sunday afternoon, on the beautiful back roads of the Berkshire Mountains, and I thought about what I would remember most about the weekend.  It didn't take long for the answer to surface:  I would remember how it felt to be fearless.

Fear.  Fear of not being enough, of not having the right to be where I am -- is what binds me to the perimeter.  Fear is what makes me settle for de facto perspective.  Fear is what keeps me from being authentic.

Fearlessness came easily at Kripalu, surrounded by strangers and enveloped in beauty.  My focus wasn't challenged by the demands of daily life.  There was no laundry to fold or dinner to cook or homework to supervise.  It's easy to see why people want to live there, or at places like it. 

Fearlessness is hard to sustain in the larger world, there's so much noise and so many distractions.

I know it's in there somewhere  -- I have the well-earned perspective to prove it.

I know it's there and I'll continue to reach for it amid the din of daily life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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