Flirting With Hypothermia, Part 4 - Healing Through Winter Swimming
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Photo credit: StockSnap on Pixabay
Journey of a Thousand Cranes, Part 5
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Photo by me. I really wish I’d taken pictures right after I put the cranes up.
When my count was at 900 cranes, I slowed down in the folding of them.
I was anxious about the wish because I realized how much I wanted it to come true, even if I didn’t know what I was wishing for.
But the folding, meditating, and focusing on love and my personal roadblocks to it was confusing.
I was reluctant to let go of my initial motivation to be a conquest diva. I wrote in my journal about it incessantly and I decided any one of three things had to happen to prove the wish had come true.
And then I was done.
In several boxes were a thousand cranes that took me four months to fold, not including all the ones I gave away.
I wasn’t in a hot new relationship by the time I finished, and my phone was not ringing off the hook with people yearning to take me out on splendid dates.
I finished my semester in the outdoor studies program I was enrolled in, and rented a ladder and platform to complete the art project.
Heather, one of the friends who had taught me how to make the cranes, came over and helped me put up the white Christmas lights that I lined along the ceiling and down the 90° corners and across the bottom of the walls to illuminate the paper cranes in soft golden light.
After that, I was on my own. Grabbing a box of cranes that had been folded in tie-dye patterns, I started with the narrow wall in the stairwell and pinned a bird to the top left corner and pinned two cranes below that one.
From there, the project just finished itself.
It is impossible to describe how I felt in that process, but there was no “I” putting up the paper cranes flying in full circle from the kimono from which they came.
I put the kimono Jeff had sent me up at the top of the staircase, with one arm spread out, one arm bent akimbo, and one half of the front opened, with cranes coming out of the neck, the shoulders, the arms and the bottom, in formation and ready to fly.
With each turn in the wall, lined up according to species – solid color, tie-dye, manuscript, book, or magazine - the paper cranes flew in formation towards the stairwell, whipping to the left, and to the left again, over the banister to fly back to the Mother Kimono.
Creatively, this was the most satisfying thing I had ever done and the end result was really something.
“This is absolutely stunning,” said my neighbor, Jacque, as she stood at the top of the staircase and gaped “It’s overwhelming.”
It was the middle of December. I threw a Christmas ‘n Cranes party to celebrate. All my core friends showed up and many people have visited since to see it.
I had just finished the project late that afternoon, so I was pretty exhausted at my own party.
But looking around, I saw that I had a very diverse group of colorful characters for friends, and I didn’t have to do for them to get them to like me.
Something definitely changed as a result of this wishing meditation.
I didn’t get what I wished for, but what happened was probably what I needed.
And it was definitely what I focused on the most.
As I said before, I fumed and raged inside at my family while I was folding paper. And I’d been having problems with them for a couple of years.
I could no longer stand to be in the shadows, watching, listening, and wringing my hands over their doings and dramas.
As conflicts like this usually go, my parents and brothers were united in keeping the status quo alive and me in the same role I’d always played.
I was expected in Florida for the holidays.
The night before my flight, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned and agonized.
I knew I didn’t want to go, and I was exhausted from accommodating people who had always been so wrapped up in themselves they were oblivious, and possibly indifferent, to the pain they caused.
I dreaded going back to the state I grew up in.
At four in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep. So I got out of bed to make some tea. As I got to the staircase, I flipped the switch and immediately felt better.
Does not do them justice. But it’s all I have.
The cranes were flying in the golden light and the effect was incredibly peaceful. I sat in the middle of the stairs, leaned back, and stared at the paper birds I’d folded for four months and put up for two days.
“What is the point of doing all this work, if I keep doing the same thing?”
That question came from deep inside me as I stared at my work. I realized that nothing would ever change unless I did.
I didn’t get on the plane.
It was one of the most exhilarating and frightening things I’d ever done, and I had no idea if I was doing the right thing. In fact, I wouldn’t receive the validation that I had made the best and healthiest decision a few months later.
I wish I could claim that my family had an epiphany as a result of this. I would have loved it if they became the loving parents and supportive siblings out of an orphan’s wet dream.
They didn’t.
But that was my first step towards empowerment. That step led to another, and another until I felt the satisfaction of being a stronger woman who treats herself like she’s worth something.
Some of them have come around to treating me with more respect. Even if they are still wrapped up in themselves, they don’t expect me to be.
The jury’s still out, but things are looking up.
As for my original wish, I’ll just say it’s always a mistake to insist the Universe prove itself.
The following months after the Christmas n’ Cranes party were the last roar of the dinosaur just before it expired.
I pursued every type of mistake I had ever made, in an aggressive campaign to make self-centered narcissists ache with desire for wonderful, lucky-in-love me.
In response, the Universe whacked me upside the head until I came to my senses.
I can’t say that I’m bitter about that. What was I thinking?
I’ve had some fun dates, but I don’t have a line of people pounding on my door to take me out on a Saturday night.
Maybe there’s something bigger at work here that I don’t understand.
Maybe it’s my destiny to fly solo in life.
I feel more comfortable as I embrace the role of a woman unto herself and I no longer see myself as a failure for it.
I think my relationship with love has become much healthier and if somebody special comes along, I think I’ll be ready to contribute to something real.
In the meantime, I’m in love with my freedom.
Maybe folding cranes is a healing thing to do, after all.
And maybe I should have just asked for a good relationship.
Journey of a Thousand Cranes, Part 2
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“Your cranes are beautiful,” she said. “What are you going to do with them?”
I hadn’t thought about that.
I had folded over two hundred of them, and they were starting to pile up.
And then I got a vision of my paper cranes flying up the stairs as they were stuck to my wall.
I had bought a townhouse condo with a tremendous wall space, and for two years, that space had me stumped.
Since the small upstairs bedroom didn’t extend across the stairwell, the main wall at the bottom of the steps was fourteen feet from floor to ceiling, and at the top, it was seven feet. The wall space was 270°, resulting in a wrap-around effect as it turned in the narrow width of the stairwell and turned again where the outside wall of the small bedroom faced the main wall of the staircase.
With such a big space to play with, I wanted something more special than the usual pictures, posters, or prints. I couldn’t think of anything, so I did nothing and that massive wall space remained bare.
All of a sudden, my wishing meditation had a purpose.
Not only was this going to change my life, it was now art in the making.
I went from origami paper to folding photos from magazines, yellowed pages from my favorite book, bright white pages from my abandoned novel to make the cranes that would transform my staircase and make it magical.
I folded cranes everywhere I went and got a lot of people’s attention.
I gave them away at random for I had so many and it seemed like good karma. I left them with the tip in restaurants I ate in, to the barista who made my mocha, to the florist who arranged the flowers. I gave them to classmates, to friends, to strangers.
At work, I covered for the receptionist for a week, and my respite supervisor sulked when I gave other colleagues a crane and didn’t think of her. So of course, I let her pick her favorite.
I’d look up from wherever I was and see somebody smiling at me as I folded those cranes bringing me closer and closer to my wish.
The anti-war movement had a dedicated following here in Juneau, and I strongly suspect many people thought I was folding peace cranes in protest to the President (George W at the time).
But I was only thinking of myself.
Around 300 cranes, a good-looking bad boy entered my sphere.
I thought he was obnoxious, but I also thought I could get him if I wanted to. We disliked each other, but our conversations were loaded with energy because we didn’t agree on anything.
It was exciting.
I also had my eye on a gym rat with a questionable reputation - sought after and commitment afraid. What a conquest!
We had a couple of dates; and it didn’t matter that the gym rat was leaving town to travel for six months - I was elated. I was finally on my way to being lucky in love.
And it occurred to me that I didn’t even know what that meant
When I first made my wish, the image I had in mind of what it was to be lucky in love was to win over the ones I yearned for.
But the more I observed those sought after beloveds, it was obvious that they were not the ones who yearned.
Most of them were good people.
Others were nice in some ways and not so nice in others. And there were plenty of beloveds that had all kinds of unlovable attributes – shallow, vain, self-absorbed, rude, vicious, cruel, selfish.
The list could go on and on, but they all had one thing in common. They loved themselves. It didn’t matter whether it was too much or just enough, but matters of the heart were not something they fretted over as they went about their day.
One morning, I was folding cranes in my favorite breakfast joint, occasionally catching a phrase here and there from the table across mine by two out of town men who were in Juneau for a hunting trip.
The cell phone of the man facing me rang; he answered and sounded very happy to have been interrupted.
The person on the other end was probably his wife and I believe his child was also on, because he ended each chat with “I love you.”
Of course, that got my attention.
He seemed like such a good man and I was so struck by the ordinary scene I recorded it in my journal, where I wrote that the people who were his wife and child were very lucky indeed.
Meditation is a strange trip, leading to unexpected places within one’s psyche.
How Loneliness Became Blessed Solitude
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Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay
In my former home of Juneau, Alaska, more than one person has said that there’s no lonely like Juneau lonely.
And it’s true.
It was there that I developed a problem with being alone for the first time in my life. And it was in Juneau that I learned to contribute to community and to fill up my inner space.
But if you don’t have everything you need there, the loneliness is excruciating and only gets worse with time.
So much that I left Juneau and moved to Portland, Oregon.
But I brought that writhing anguish of loneliness with me, and it continued to consume me for several more years.
Of course, there were a few short-lived dating disasters during this time. But the long gaps of dateless years continued.
I prayed, meditated, begged, bargained, and even threatened God, Goddess, and the Universe to fall in love and have the relationship of my dreams. There wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t have done to meet somebody special.
During this time, I didn’t just sit around and mope in my self-pity.
I filled up my life with all kinds of wonderful things. Fortunately, Portland, Oregon is a creative city that makes it very easy to be single.
There are so many things to do while flying solo here where one can find connection, and sometimes even touch — like Ecstatic Dance, Silent Disco, Contact Improv, Dinner Salons, and Cuddle Parties to name a few.
Image by Michael Pajewski from Pixabay
That’s not to mention all the meetup groups and 1–3 day workshops around anything and everything you could want in creativity, meditation, breathwork, energy work, sexuality, Tantra, kundalini, and expanding consciousness.
And hot springs. Lots and lots of hot springs.
The possibilities were endless.
Yes, my tastes run to the hippie/New Agey end of the spectrum. But fuck it, those things work.
It was incredibly healing to bring my lonesome self to natural highs. Those moments of self-created bliss and ecstasy gave me relief, and the afterglow was pretty gosh-darned lovely as well.
Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay
Those moments gave me relief from that incessant gnawing ache of reluctant solitude.
In spite of all this loneliness and personal strife, by some miracle, I have at my core a reserve of self-respect and self-esteem. I’ve never been one to settle for less than what I want.
Ironically enough, those desolate years built up my self-worth. I knew from the depths of my being that I was not so wretched to deserve the isolation I endured.
I also built up an eclectic network of beautiful humans as friends.
That did not come easy either.
Even though loneliness has become an American epidemic - to the point that it’s considered even more deadly than smoking or obesity - there’s little support for the isolated.
To admit that you’re lonely is to beg for ostracism.
Loneliness is a repellent.
Isolation makes you vulnerable, and thus makes it challenging to attract healthy people who have integrity and would make quality friends.
Friendships that are false or weak, riddled with judgment, and bereft of understanding will make one feel lonelier than ever.
I suffered numerous fall-outs, and many times I walked away from various individuals and groups who didn’t support me or treat me well.
In the short term that made the loneliness worse, but in the long run I built up a marvelous community, which I am so grateful for.
With each authentic friendship I forged, a chunk of loneliness fell off me.
Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay
I had a ridiculous amount of freedom. And I would later regret not appreciating that freedom while I had it.
An energy worker told me she could feel the anguish of my loneliness in my third chakra. She also paused and said:
“Mana, you really need to get comfortable with being alone before you can have the relationship you want. If you don’t, the kind of person you call in will be a reflection of your loneliness. And it will not go well.”
I knew she was right, and I wanted to be able to heed what she said. But I had been so lonely for so long, that pain was unbearable. I simply couldn’t.
Falling in love was all I could think about. And I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being alone.
The energy worker was right.
I finally met somebody about 6 months after that session. I was on a dating marathon through OkCupid, and she was date #8.
Our hungers drew us together. Both of us were desperate for different reasons.
The first three months were incredible. To be gratified in love after being long-denied was one of the purest ecstasies I’ve ever known.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
