Silence, Surrender and a New Blogsite

So, this is really the start of the blog. The ones below highlighting Truck's story were just some things I needed to express somewhere. Unless you were involved in the fiasco, or are somehow into car theft and the mob, it probably won't be all that interesting. But it's how I got here and for all things great and small, easy and difficult, there is something to be thankful. This is my "opening statement". I so look forward to this inspiration...

Moved from the old blog:

I've decided to take a quiet weekend retreat. I'm not going anywhere but I think it's time for me to keep my mouth shut... and my eyes away from email, Myspace etc. So I am taking from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday to remain quiet, to feel my tongue on the back of my shut teeth and to open up so I can absorb more.

A lot has happened in the last few months and things are finally settling into place- Truck is back, Dan left for Africa today, school is taking its nosedive turn into complete immersion. I am beginning to feel overwhelmed again. Faced with the dichotomy of the fight or flight complex, I was reminded a few days ago of a third option- surrender. (www.hitrecordandplay.blogspot.com).

I came across the idea during my quietest (might say loneliest) days of my trip in Bali.



I started going to meditation in the evenings to have something to do, and stayed after one session for the class. In it, the instructor gave us a list of virtues (love, forgiveness, patience etc) and told us to choose one to meditate on silently for the next day. I picked surrender and he said to choose a backup because surrender is complicated.

He was right.

By the end of the day (which I did not succeed in being silent in), I was confused about all the terms involved - is this a solution? What is a solution anyway? How do we feel surrender? What do we surrender to? But I came out of it all...happy. Happier than I had been in a long time.

I feel like I've just come out of a time in which I was making constant decisions to flee or fight, and whereas I got in more fight than usual, it wasn't satisfying... just like running. So I am focusing the third option for a while- and surrendering. Melting into the situation and letting it unfold around me, surrendering to the smell of changing leaves, the feel of the asfault under my bike, the sensations of sinking and buoying that have been running my life as of late- "not moving to hide it, fade it or fix it."

I've run across some great blogs lately and it's inspired me to write a little every day. Not because I am good at it, but because I need to get back on the horse. With all my journals stolen (save one), I have felt all clammed up and quiet about my thoughts- like if I expend all that effort again, it'll all be gone. It makes no sense whatsoever. And since all those thoughts are apparently out in the open somewhere (creepier than someone stealing your underpants, which happened too), I figure my next effort should just go ahead and be public.

So I am stepping off the Myspace blog (because they delete one every time I add another) and writing at www.itsastretch.blogspot.com- cheese name, I know but was pressed for time. It's clunky to start, but so goes. And in these days of silence, I am allowing myself posts- for sanity and in hopes that my thoughts will begin to straighten out soon. Perhaps I'll see you on there:)