Take it all in, my humans. That’s all we can do sometimes.
When I was in California, Jon and Jesse got rear-ended in the red car at Pennington traffic circle and the dumb car got totalled and yesterday we drove out to West Long Branch, New Jersey and bought another car with our insurance money. It was a funny car buying experience filled with way more stories from the dealership owner than I had ever expected to encounter that included that time his brother saved Warren Buffet’s life, the seven presidents of Ocean Grove (or something like that), a man named Blumkin and Nebraska Furniture Mart, all the churches in Asbury Park, his dad and the first Dotson dealership on the east coast….all the while I was wondering if we could go ahead and skip the Facebook pictures about a recent trip to Banff and just fill out some paperwork. No. Let this be a lesson: story is key, my friends. More key than a car key. Story is key.
So second car to die in Jersey, second used car purchase on a prayer and prayer yesterday in 80 degree weather.
It was my mom’s birthday. She turned 79 in San Juan Capistrano where, rumor has it, the swallows aren’t visiting anymore? Or maybe they thought, for branding purposes, birds are for business. I love you, Mom. You don’t know it’s your birthday, but we do. I love how peaceful and content you get to be in these days. I wonder what life might have been like had it been different.
Dreamer’s Club 12 week Group Coaching Program came to an end on June 1st and I am overwhelmed with gratitude and awe and those brave souls willing to shine forth and be brave in their wholeness and that I had the honor to hold space and ask questions. Feel into your bodies, people. The truth sits in the body with clarity and ease. Doubt is frenetic and never sits still. Be still and KNOW. Notice the darting target and identify as something other than truth.
Write songs, make appointments, lift weights, have friends over, drink beer, plant flowers, wash cars, write set lists, make new friends, connect, belong, celebrate, have courage.
Such things make for a beautiful life that is not without its challenges, but clarifies and gives good challenge instead of false ones. Choose living over evaluating. Choose creation over days and weeks over consumption to fill one instance of discomfort. Build the things you love and keep showing up with one more brick then one more brick then another over and over again.
I’ve been busy and I’ve been tired and I am practicing rest when needed. I’ve been lost and I’ve been found again and I am practicing the art of allowing for both. I’ve been working on my recovery time like Michael Phelps getting back into the pool after just getting out. To hear him talk, that recovery time window isn’t the absence of working out. It’s the presence of deep deep rest, nourishment, serious attention to all systems in a quietness that supports very serious activity.
And I have questions and doubts like always. Can I really make this next thing? Can I really create what I’m working on? can I really write these songs in strength and power and fearlessness? No matter what, I whisper ‘yes.’ Whyever would I consider an alternative? Yes in knowing, yes in presence, yes in process, yes on Saturday about to go play in Hackettstown for a Preschool Anniversary celebration where they say there will be horse and carriage rides.
High five.