Expanding: a lesson never learned

Maybe it's chemicals or hormones that makes it all so real. Maybe they are why I'll never learn this lesson, no matter how many times I learn it. Bad times are not permanent. Good times are not permanent. There's no sense getting all wrapped up in it because soon everything will change.

This is most important for the impermanent bad times. I just went through a week of the blues- crying in public, feeling betrayed, misunderstood, ugly, annoying, hated, hopeless, on and on. I knew what it was- could identify "depression." And I knew the right things to do to get out of it- time to myself, more sleep, eat well, exercise (especially that one), write, color on long sheets of paper dripped from my ceiling. The objective observer was working overtime and getting props, but none of this changed a thing about how I felt. My life had wriggled itself into a confusing and seemingly inescapable corner. (I'll spare the details).

Then, today, I picked up a professor I respect highly at the airport. And the whole world shifted just a little up and to the right. My research interests: essentially organic rice in Bali. His research specialty, essentially rice farming in Bali, with an activist tint on returning to organics. We spent 20 seconds talking about weather, then got right into it. He came with news today of several rice fields in an important section (okay, my favorite section- pictures below) on the way to becoming a World Heritage site. This has many ramifications (most of which I don't understand), but an important one is funding to help farmers return to organic techniques and recognition of their amazing farming practices (in a word, subaks) from the world. What does this mean for me? He suggested I jump on board with some researchers from Sweden, that he could use me in his project over there, suggesting perhaps I think about applying to a program in Stockholm for which he just became a fellow. That I might have a place in a UNESCO project in Bali having to do with rice. My head was swimming and I tried not to react too intensely for fear of scaring him. He is sending me the UNESCO proposal and said he had a feeling this was our first of many meetings. I'm not making any sudden moves and am trying to check the daydreams at the door, but it's hard not to notice a whole shift in attitude and the way there's an extra glow about the world.

So quickly it all happens. I went from feeling like I had chosen a wrong path with no way clear, thinking maybe it was time to think about being a housewife or returning to waiting tables. Then the Universe shoved me from behind, back into the flow. I'm not saying the world makes sense again. That's always been an illusion. I'm just saying... the air here has become a little easier to breathe.