On vulnerability:
I’m feeling quite groundless and vulnerable these days. Not sure where we will settle. Not sure where we will end up. Vulnerable and open. and scared. The rawness of not having a “home” is setting in and I’m feeling it deeply. It strikes into my heart that I am indeed a vagabond. A homeless traveler in a world with a thin and wispy veil, trying to make herself seem real. Only, I know she’s not. She’s a total fraud. A fake. All dolled up, make up tutorials, hair glossy and gorgeous, sweet talking, taking her Xanax, Codeine, and then of course the Ambien. How can I keep up my own charade seeing through the veils of illusion? Why do I worry about a home when I know it’s all so temporal? Why do I dream of a homestead with chickens and goats and fields of strawberries and kale when it will all come to nothing?
I’m feeling the agony of what Ram Dass calls playing out karma. I’m feeling it deep down into the depths of my soul. The only way I can keep going is to live strictly in the right now. This present moment. I am alive. I am awake. Breathing. Heart beating. Allah. Om. All of it, Muhammad. I call on my courage to face only the present and leave the shirk that is living for tomorrow or yesterday. That is shirk. Shirk is not worshipping other than Allah, because indeed that is an impossibility when each one of our cells is in a constant state of remembrance. Shirk is the conscious mind dwelling in some illusion of past or future.
We will drive East again, because that is the call we hear. Be with family. Soak up spring and luscious summer there and all the while we will continue to pray that God will make our path manifestly clear. There is a plot of land somewhere that has our names on it. But first the call is clear. Help mama take care of baba. Be there for them in the hard days of his disease. Set up good structures that will serve everyone’s physical and mental health. Am I capable of making it all better. I certainly want to think so. I want to believe that I can cure him with my positivity, with my love. The love of a daughter, a newly made mother. Surely Love can heal anything can’t it? Even baba’s Parkinsons, right? A woman’s love is said to be the most powerful force there is. I believe that.
The truth is, I am human. I am afraid. I have doubts. I have judgements. I’m afraid of not being enough. But I am grateful because I am not afraid of being human. I embrace my humanity with love and mercy and pray that others do. My capacity to do is only as broad as my capacity to be. I welcome my fears that I will be judged because we don’t have a plan or a house and most of what else constitutes “success” to most. I am afraid of being judged by others because even this is connection. Judgement is one kind of connection. Same with fear. I welcome them to act and play within me to create beauty. I pray for my trust in God to grow so that I can let go of my own self judgement. I pray for deep trust. I call on my deep well of knowing that I am loved and cared for, that I am safe. I am content with my limitations. I am content with my creation. I am content with my lot. I am content with my humanity. I am even content with my illogical nature, my contrariness, and even my contradictory feelings. I am afraid and I welcome the fear. I am love and sometimes I hate myself. Vulnerability at work inside me is letting go of the “should” and trusting in what is, giving in to the ever present force of Love. Every time I open to my vulnerability, I find my ego challenged and my heart expanded. Without fail. Every time. I open the vulnerability that makes me human. Sometimes, I am not enough. Sometimes, I am broken by the world. Sometimes, I am the breaker. Sometimes, I fail. But always, I am human and open to the Love in all of it.
Practically:
There are fears that spring up inside me around driving across this country, looking the way I do. Should I make it easier on myself, and just wear a hat instead? Is that unfair to my own beliefs? Is it better to make those around me feel safe and non-threatened so that they don’t have to face their own egos and the diseases that have ravaged their hearts? Should I ease their hearts and make my own heavy? Should I challenge their prejudices with my scarf, smile and warm friendliness? I worry about these things because this issue is as real as it has ever been. So what is right? What do I do? I am struggling with these questions.
