Bits and pieces of life after America. © Amanda Whitmore. All rights reserved in absence of author's explicit written permission.
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Diquieting Monsters
I'VE MOVED!!!
(This poem continues at http://fiorituraventures.wordpress.com/)
Don’t color blue
A beautiful auburn day.
That heavy burden,
To their and your heart,
Only brings dismay.
These subtleties-
The cautions of Ash-
Self-proclaimed social acceptability advisor.
Sunday, July 2, 2017
Soul, to brain, to voice.
You can’t fake it
You can’t fake into this,
Into feeling good energy, where none resides.
“Fake it ‘til you make it.”
Trite phrases from childhood
Carried you so far, so long.
Never realizing,
They were the petroleum of emotional power
Finite and waning after 30 short years.
Social climber.
You see them-
Walking balls of angst and pretension.To remain, and one up with the Joneses,
It is impossible now.
The energy is all wrong
For that, you flee.
The longer you attempt,
Focusing on the goal,
The more the words invade
The front of your mind’s eye
You see them, and you know them to be true:
It is better to be genuinely nice,
Than genuinely rich.
Short simple characters-
Empathy, inclusion, and truth-
Are higher powers than
Than intelligence, superiority, and impressions of prestige.
Career climber.
You saw the renowned thought leader
The muse you thought a siren
Able to teach everything you need to know
To reach your goals
Only to realize
Behind the façade
Is a tiny person,
Seeking only validation
Solely available to those who may provide
Some immediate personal benefit.
Heart.
Be encouraged.
In every .org .com and .edu,
Every structure,
Tucked away,There is a kind Grandpa
A quirky-but-always-right Aunty
Maybe less posh than Mx. Muse
But authentic as hell
Just as well-networked
Quite a bit wiser
And they actually care about you.
Forget the narcissist,
Enough prying apart their tight white knuckles
Gaze beyond your limited field of vision
Hours of old school proverbs,
Hard truths taught with love
Are waiting in the outstretched arms
Of generous sages.
You can’t fake into it
You can’t fake play along
With egoism and pretension that know no bounds
It is not in your composition
Let it go.
Graduate student.
Some discomforts are, of course,
Worthwhile.
Finish the banal calculations,
And you will have a paper.
Validating your skills,
And perhaps giving you a few tools
To bring you to your dreams.
Be wary, though, of those who paint it as more than it is,
It is not your identity, your confidence.
You are you outside of the microcosm which you occupy.
You can’t fake into it,
You can’t fake play along.
As if numbers in a system
Determine your love or hate
For the very person you are.
It is not in your composition,
Let it go.
Single girl.
You see him.
And also him.
Smiling side glances and good intentions.
Those suitors.
There roughly half the time.
Even that
Being
A gross exaggeration
Of the passion
They ever shared for you.
Giving and giving.
Efforts in vain.
Finding strength.
You walk away.
More will come,
Some attempt to cheer.
Why don’t you just pick one,
Make it work!
They say.
You realize a truth.
A truth that perhaps they won’t.
All the while,
You have been quite alright; you are happy,
Just the way you are.
Needless of fixing,
Of attachment.
The trees embrace you, from your root to theirs.
When you close your eyes,
Opening your palms gently,
The sun asks permission,
And it proceeds.
Gently filling your heart and core,
Warm energy seeping into your fingertips,
While you simply breathe.
Breathe in, you are here,
Breathe out, you are in the now.
No regrets of the past,
No fears of the future.
Here and now.
Defying logic,
You experience
A peaceful presence that is beyond understanding.
You can’t fake into it,
You can’t fake play along.
As if we are not all together
Already in our humanity.
Wholly enough, as members of this single universe,
Abundantly connected and complete
In this present moment.
It is not in your composition
To pretend you need more,
Let it go.
Thinkers.
It will all be okay
You don’t need to fake it
It is beyond your capacity to be fake
Slowly, gently, your eyes opening
Look and see,
This earth
Will never ask it of you.
In that reflection,
Close your eyes,
And rest.
You’re beautiful.
Soul, to brain, to voice.
Complete as you are,
Deliciously authentic.
Dedicated to Ute, on the occasion of getting to spend her 30th birthday with her, as she did with me, in another world... <3 you to the moon and back, in all your real, raw, and blunt Germaness :)
Photo Credits: First one, me in Sai Kung Beach in the South China Sea, nearby Hong Kong. Second one, Ute, in El Nido, Philippines, just before the sunset and the algae lit up the water with its iridescent stars. Here's to many more swims together after the age when we learn to stop giving a ... well, you know.
Labels:
Career,
China,
Detachment,
Grad School,
Health,
Letting Go,
Lifestyle,
MBA,
Meditation,
Music,
Philippines,
Philosophy,
Photography,
Poetry,
Spirituality,
Travel,
Trekking,
Women,
Writing,
Yoga
Location:
Bologna, Italy
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
The Magical Rhythm of Rest Habits
Allergic to the dogmatic
Addicted to the soul-soothing
Few understand
But in the sweet spot of Sunday
I exhale
Just a few months ago, I was under the mind-destroying effects of Metrodol, a synthetic version of the stress hormone cortisol. When the body has excess stress, and cortisol levels spike, other, less vital areas of the body stop working, so that we can run away from the lion or play dead in the tribal war. If you get eaten by the lion, it won’t matter if you had a good libido or not. It won’t matter if the hippocampus, frontal cortex, or any of those other great things we use all the time, are helping us to think. It’s get out time. It won’t matter if you were digesting properly. It won’t matter if your immune system was fighting off a minor threat. That last part is the key for people with autoimmune conditions. With food allergies, the body starts an immune response to a protein, even a microscopic amount of a protein, belonging to a major food allergen class, like peanuts, milk, or seafood. So, any time I accidentally eat seafood, my tongue enlarges, eyes redden, and throat swells shut. My immune system goes into overdrive, and the only thing that can suppress it back to normal levels, is cortisol. Magic! After an accidental exposure, an epi-pen will dilate my throat muscles for air to pass through. Metrodol or another corticosteroid can be used to suppress this immune reaction and keep me alive for a few weeks as the protein fully leaves my body.
After my last reaction, I was put onto a super high dose of Metrodol. Extra prevention, I suppose. But the intense, stress fog of that cortisol, literally shutting down essential areas of my brain, was not exactly productive for a first semester in graduate school. I used to be good at stress management, back in the day. I also used to be quite religious. Now, not so much. I did a lot of self-help. Got into my writing. But mostly, I just tried to plow through the mountains of work as much as possible, every waking moment.
And on the seventh day, he rested.
Flashback to 2007. Honduras. I was living in an orphanage run by Seventh Day Adventists. They were mostly vegan, Christians, socially progressive, and had an interesting habit around Saturdays. Like ancient Israeli societies, everything would shut down on Friday evening, until Saturday at sundown. They had a biological rhythm set to this schedule. Every Saturday, just like me with Sundays back home, they would reflect on things like how they treat people, whether their purpose on this planet was amounting to something good, and examining the motivations behind their own actions. I learned so much in those few short months. My last day in Honduras, I wisped my eyelashes up with the small amount of mascara I had with me, and brushed a bit of pink onto my nails. Te pintaste! Eso no corresponde con la voluntad de Dios! A four-year old girl scolded me. I tried to joke, “God’s uniform looks different back home where I am going.” Dogma was alive and well in the USA, too. Aspects that were purely cultural, or even contrived, slipping their way into church as commands. Vote for the godly candidate this Tuesday, you know, the one who realizes economic policy and social welfare are mandates of the church, not government. Ah, it became too much for me. I attended less and less.
But as I left, I continued one habit. Every Sunday, even as I completed my most
difficult capstone courses at the university, I would meditate, write, walk in
nature, and reflect. I tried to think of
what I was grateful for, even when at times, my health would fail for reasons
besides the allergy. I would bask in the
sun, sitting on dunes, looking over the darkest of blues in Lake Michigan. I would do nothing at all, sometimes, not
bothering to get out of bed. Not because
of depression or some pathology. But
simply because, one full day each week, my body needed to rest. Sometimes, that meant staying past 10 p.m. in
the library, on a Saturday night. But I
was never alone. Yes, there are many of
us nerds out there. But it was always
worth that rich reward that would be waiting for me on Sunday.
And on the seventh day, she rested too.
Graduated, a year of AmeriCorps under my belt, a full-time job… And my schedule was not as busy as in university, but almost there. I filled it with volunteering, (trying at) being a good partner, yoga, and of course, working hard at my job. American dream. It was a good life. Then I wanted more adventure, found it, went to China, went to Italy. Enter the Metrodol.
There are times, people pressure you away from this. They argue, if your sacred day was during the local work week, no one would accept it. But that’s the thing, it is a rhythm. I moved from the USA to China, with a twelve-hour difference in time zones. Three weeks, typically, is all it takes to adjust the rhythm, if you are self-disciplined with it. In Honduras, I changed to Saturdays. In China, honestly, the work schedule was not that demanding and I could take off pretty much Friday afternoon through Sunday all day. Now, I simply had to get into the Sunday one again, as that pretty much works in places with the Christian calendar. If I were to live in Dubai or somewhere else, three weeks, easy peasy, it can be on Fridays. As long as there is one, delicious day to soak in what is right with life, soul search a bit, and truly, rest! Hang up your hat, take off your boots, and sit by a warm stove reading. Lay down a blanket, open some wine, and smell the sweet flowers in the field. Binge watch a series. Do whatever, hedonistic thing you like. Maybe think a bit. Make sure your day-to-day matches your true beliefs and values.
FAQs
1.) But Amanda, this is really difficult to do. Isn’t it?
A.) This is not rocket science. B.) It is mental health and self-care 101 with a bit of my snark added in.
2.) What if someone is dying and I am the one who can save them?
A.) This is not rocket science. B.) That is not work. C.) Save the person.
3.) What if no one else understands my rhythm and everyone wants to work that day?
Check if your day falls within Monday through Friday in most Western countries, Saturday through Thursday in Middle Eastern Countries, or in places with a high Adventist population, Sunday through Friday. Yes? Then probably you have to have some mental flexibility and switch your day. This is not dogma; it is anti-anxiety medicine that doesn’t require a prescription.
4.) Should I switch my day around each week depending on everyone else?
I don’t have all the science, but in my experience, no. It is a seven-day rhythm and for me, doing that makes the habit impossible to keep. The week after a switched day, I just get back to the exhausted, less pleasant version of myself that I am trying to avoid (we can’t even make eye contact without it getting really awkward). If other people can’t understand, and you have already explained it a bit, you do not owe them an explanation of the value of mental health. Honestly, you don’t. And if they cannot accept you having a boundary, it is probably because they themselves lack boundaries. Boundaries are key to reducing anxiety, and there is science on that. So do not let yourself feel pressured by people who have not yet taken the time to learn to manage their own stress. The only other explanation for their lack of acceptance is a lack of empathy, which is a nice way of saying they are being an asshole. In which case, refer to 1.A above.
5.) I don’t like that you said on the Seventh Day, she rested too. The seventh day is Saturday.
6.) Should I tell you about this if I try it out?
Yes, because writing on the internet is not very rewarding. Haha. I do it for free and for the 5 or 6 out of 300 readers who sometimes write me and say my stuff helps them in some way.
7.) So, like, do you have the links for the sciencey parts?
Of course! In my brain! Just kidding. I'd suggest the book Boundaries which is life-changing, but if you prefer a video, here's a good Ted Talk that just covers some of the neuroscience I talked about. Comment below if you have other resources! www.ted.com/talks/daniel_levitin
Good luck, loves!
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Into What Is Real
In need of your affirmation
Perhaps in some moments
She was
Indeed
But alas she moved
Across oceans, across cities
One by one she found
Moments
Glimpses
Of what could be
Questioning at times
Where it could lead
Harsh words you hurled,
If her departure was true-
She was bound only to hell,
Away from good graces,
The only requisites to love.
She was taught-
Alternative facts-
Pretty works too,
Others’ graces gained,
But just as easily lost,
As their basic views,
Constrained her.
The tendrils of her hair,
Knotted in their fists.
A bit rough,
But intact,
Quietly realizing
It was always her choice,
To remain in that river.
She lunged out.
Away from the patriarchal expectations,
For the first time,
She gazed up at the hot sun.
On her own
She plucked up a lily that’d grown
By her side as she swum
Then
Walking the path,
Between silver birches and giant oaks
Still in the river’s sight,
She tucked the bud into her tangles.
And laughed
What a ride she’d had,
Surrounded by farcical doctrine
Nearly caught in its snares.
Lightly running now
“Farewell, old river!”
She bids it, and all of its inhabitants,
In sincerity, she hopes, she yearns
That some will walk free also,
They often call out,
Vocals distorted by the current,
Rejoin! Rejoin!
Sorrowfully, she wishes she could help,
But she can no sooner give up her liberty,
Than she could give up her very life.
Occasionally, tossing in a raft, a ladder
A word of empowerment.
Sometimes it is lonely upon the shore.
Longing for this or that one to join
This new frontier
But much travel awaits
As those further than her
Reach also, bringing her forward
Into their embrace
Into what is real.
©
Amanda Whitmore 2017, Shareable with
author's written permission.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Fioritura
Fioritura
Darling, your realness is indescribable
Your raw self leaves me without words
Horrifying,
Scary,
Appalling.
No!
Refreshing,
Healing,
Delicious,
Beautiful.
Adjectives~
Scripts on pages,
Scripts you play to your sweet self.
An inner dialogue;
A fight.
A struggle.
How I wish it weren’t
If you could just see
The world needs more you.
More real,
More truth
So speak it loud,
Let it blossom
From your fingers and your lips.
Out of the winter,
The depths of composted greens beneath the frozen ground,
Spring tore out of its covers and awoke the sun
Melted is the shame,
Disintegrated is the pride,
The elements
Threaten to keep you swollen shut
They have disappeared
Without a vestige
Of their once tightly held power
Ah how the power would love to suppress your spirit
Lo, it cannot.
Now ascending outward, the fingertips of those luminous
petals
The core of your being
The world sorely needs
Let it emerge
Let them see
The vulnerable, powerful, unnerved
Perfect in imperfection
Edges smoothed by waters of untold storms
Too much to contain
For
At this moment
you bloom.
Thanks to my photographer friend Francesco Camassa in Bologna, Italy, for the perfect Italian accompaniment to this work. And to those who have gone before me in showing it is safe, okay, and even wonderful, to bloom.
©
Amanda Whitmore 2017, Shareable with
author's written permission.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)