Brand new person, brand new life
March 23, 2002 | 12:00am
Look at this. Tell me, isn’t this a soft, lovely morning? This is what people mean when they say dawn cracks. It’s a night-black egg that suddenly breaks open to release light blue sky with streaks of broken golden yolk. It’s the start of a brand new day and I am up and looking forward. Who is this person I’ve become? Who is this who wonders as she laces walking shoes, what will happen next? Will a snake cross my path? Will the buds on the new wild weeds I saw last time have opened? Who will I meet on my walk today? Perverse construction workers? Friendly neighbors? Long-lost nephews? Stray dogs, cats, chickens? What new wonder will this morning bring? I’m ready for anything.
I remember how grouchy I used to be in the morning. Drag out of bed. Drag around the house. Drag to work always late even if there was nothing particular to do earlier. Drag into office, drag through inbox. While I walk I try to pinpoint the moment when my job lost its fizz for me. I should have left then, but maybe I wasn’t emotionally ready. Emotional readiness seems to be the key that unlocks the door that leads to freedom. Freedom means looking forward. Dragging is either looking back or being stuck. Hmmm. I didn’t know I knew that.
Other days of the week I have a different perspective on mornings. Perched like a bird in a Makati skyscraper I sleep about an hour later. The room is air-conditioned, windows draped to protect me from neighbors and light. In Makati, I do not walk. I journal instead, let my fingers do the walking. In Makati, I pace up and down thinking, organizing, composing. Up and down I pace in my nightgown or sarong, a caged lion perplexed by the limits of her cage. Round and round I pace tracing the steps of an idea. The pacing stops when I’m ready for my computer and then I sit pounding away. The maid watches me from a polite distance. Out of the corner of her eye she observes the writer in her natural habitat. So, that’s how they behave, how they write. Maybe she is grateful that her job is simpler.
I have become a frugal person. My financial position is not the best it’s been but my mother’s words ring in my ears. "Freedom has a price," she said all the time. "If you want freedom, be prepared to pay for it." It’s one of the right-est things she ever said. The currency for freedom is not cash. It’s courage to leap into the void empty-handed, trusting that at the right moment you will flap your wings and fly. As you let go you practice restraint, sacrifice, sometimes, the good things in life, things people who hear me laugh think I’m incapable of doing. But that’s not true. I can give up much and live on very little. A small example, I put all my thesis drafts into an old three-ring binder to create my 2002 journal. Now when I journal, I come across stuff that did not make it to the final thesis. Why not? I wonder. It makes sense, it reads well. What made me think it wasn’t good enough? I must have been tense and uptight. The mind, that elusive thing, closes when we’re tense and uptight. It becomes as unimaginative as a rotten clam, and as hard to pry open. Hmmmm. I didn’t know I knew that.
It is time to dress! Ever since I was a child and my grandaunt, one of my surrogate mothers, let me dress up in her clothes, I have loved dressing up. When I was working, dressing up was the best part of the day. When I was socializing, dressing up was the highlight of my night. Now finally enjoying myself, dressing up is just one more fun thing to do. My blazers and suits hang clothed in plastic in a closed closet. I’m wearing long skirts, T-shirts, and funky baubles, bangles and beads.
One rare recent morning I had a business appointment, so I wore a suit. "You look intimidating," my friend said.
"It’s just my old CEO costume. What’s intimidating?"
"You look like you mean business." How true, I thought, this was one of my I-mean-business outfits. Don’t I mean business anymore? Is that what has fundamentally changed? I still mean to make major money. I am crafting right now a fun and effective course that teaches non-writers how to write. I’m testing and the results are impressive. I want to offer it primarily to accountants who taught this writer-non-accountant how to account. Soon I will offer the course publicly (if you’re interested, send me e-mail) but first I’m going to the middle of nowhere to do nothing for 11 days. Do not expect a response from me until late in the first week of April.
Why am I traveling so far to go to the middle of nowhere to do nothing? I’ve asked myself this. My friend, whose island I will be visiting says, "There is no bread, we have to bake it ourselves. There’s electricity but only a few hours a day. We can swim naked in the sea." That doesn’t appeal to me frankly. I think I will be impregnated by fish. But I’m extremely excited about going to the middle of nowhere to do nothing. I think it’s the ultimate adventure, the ultimate trust exercise, the real leap into the void: Two old women in the middle of nowhere. Will it be a reprise of Thelma and Louise?
Whose life is this? No angles, no spikes, no crown of thorns. What happened to the sharp shiny edges of irritation that marked my days, that grew sharper and shinier into the night when they would have to be dulled with a drink, maybe a few. That must have been unhappiness. Kindly I didn’t realize I was so unhappy until I wasn’t unhappy anymore. This bliss, if you can call it that, comes from not working for other people any more. That’s the change. That’s the shift that makes dawn crack magically, happily, daily. I am not enslaved any more. Look at this. Look how fine, how shiny, how true. This is my brand new life! Should it be yours too?
Send your comments to lilypad@skyinet.net.
I remember how grouchy I used to be in the morning. Drag out of bed. Drag around the house. Drag to work always late even if there was nothing particular to do earlier. Drag into office, drag through inbox. While I walk I try to pinpoint the moment when my job lost its fizz for me. I should have left then, but maybe I wasn’t emotionally ready. Emotional readiness seems to be the key that unlocks the door that leads to freedom. Freedom means looking forward. Dragging is either looking back or being stuck. Hmmm. I didn’t know I knew that.
Other days of the week I have a different perspective on mornings. Perched like a bird in a Makati skyscraper I sleep about an hour later. The room is air-conditioned, windows draped to protect me from neighbors and light. In Makati, I do not walk. I journal instead, let my fingers do the walking. In Makati, I pace up and down thinking, organizing, composing. Up and down I pace in my nightgown or sarong, a caged lion perplexed by the limits of her cage. Round and round I pace tracing the steps of an idea. The pacing stops when I’m ready for my computer and then I sit pounding away. The maid watches me from a polite distance. Out of the corner of her eye she observes the writer in her natural habitat. So, that’s how they behave, how they write. Maybe she is grateful that her job is simpler.
I have become a frugal person. My financial position is not the best it’s been but my mother’s words ring in my ears. "Freedom has a price," she said all the time. "If you want freedom, be prepared to pay for it." It’s one of the right-est things she ever said. The currency for freedom is not cash. It’s courage to leap into the void empty-handed, trusting that at the right moment you will flap your wings and fly. As you let go you practice restraint, sacrifice, sometimes, the good things in life, things people who hear me laugh think I’m incapable of doing. But that’s not true. I can give up much and live on very little. A small example, I put all my thesis drafts into an old three-ring binder to create my 2002 journal. Now when I journal, I come across stuff that did not make it to the final thesis. Why not? I wonder. It makes sense, it reads well. What made me think it wasn’t good enough? I must have been tense and uptight. The mind, that elusive thing, closes when we’re tense and uptight. It becomes as unimaginative as a rotten clam, and as hard to pry open. Hmmmm. I didn’t know I knew that.
It is time to dress! Ever since I was a child and my grandaunt, one of my surrogate mothers, let me dress up in her clothes, I have loved dressing up. When I was working, dressing up was the best part of the day. When I was socializing, dressing up was the highlight of my night. Now finally enjoying myself, dressing up is just one more fun thing to do. My blazers and suits hang clothed in plastic in a closed closet. I’m wearing long skirts, T-shirts, and funky baubles, bangles and beads.
One rare recent morning I had a business appointment, so I wore a suit. "You look intimidating," my friend said.
"It’s just my old CEO costume. What’s intimidating?"
"You look like you mean business." How true, I thought, this was one of my I-mean-business outfits. Don’t I mean business anymore? Is that what has fundamentally changed? I still mean to make major money. I am crafting right now a fun and effective course that teaches non-writers how to write. I’m testing and the results are impressive. I want to offer it primarily to accountants who taught this writer-non-accountant how to account. Soon I will offer the course publicly (if you’re interested, send me e-mail) but first I’m going to the middle of nowhere to do nothing for 11 days. Do not expect a response from me until late in the first week of April.
Why am I traveling so far to go to the middle of nowhere to do nothing? I’ve asked myself this. My friend, whose island I will be visiting says, "There is no bread, we have to bake it ourselves. There’s electricity but only a few hours a day. We can swim naked in the sea." That doesn’t appeal to me frankly. I think I will be impregnated by fish. But I’m extremely excited about going to the middle of nowhere to do nothing. I think it’s the ultimate adventure, the ultimate trust exercise, the real leap into the void: Two old women in the middle of nowhere. Will it be a reprise of Thelma and Louise?
Whose life is this? No angles, no spikes, no crown of thorns. What happened to the sharp shiny edges of irritation that marked my days, that grew sharper and shinier into the night when they would have to be dulled with a drink, maybe a few. That must have been unhappiness. Kindly I didn’t realize I was so unhappy until I wasn’t unhappy anymore. This bliss, if you can call it that, comes from not working for other people any more. That’s the change. That’s the shift that makes dawn crack magically, happily, daily. I am not enslaved any more. Look at this. Look how fine, how shiny, how true. This is my brand new life! Should it be yours too?
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