you are right where you need to be...

Gaan Canyon, first waterfall 

you learn a certain thing about a certain person. you realize anew that you are someone to be proud of, that you have come a long way, and that you will go far in the years to come. that in this moment you are someone special. that you are right where you need to be. right now.

Canyon

Kim Harrington Photography

It happens sooner now.

Your feet are steadier than they once were as you boulder-hop downstream between high canyon walls. You pass through splashes of sunlight and shade. You are small. The pressure and force of water that has carved out this passage is mind-boggling to you, as are the house-sized boulders through whose shadows you must sometimes slip. You hold your breath as you do, knowing that once, this 60,000 pounds of granite fell out of the sky, dislodged by who knows what large or small mechanism -- the expansion of frozen water in a crack the size of a fingernail, perhaps, followed by that icy fingernail's inevitable melting away.

A shiver ripples down your arms, mapping your skin in goosebumps. You tuck a strand of wet hair behind your ear and squint through a shaft of bright waterfall. You have just rappelled 80 feet into chest deep canyon water. You have swum out of the pool. You are cold.

Canyons are not friendly places, despite their beauty. They are harsh and treacherous, boulders loose underfoot and poised deadly overhead, rappels and down-climbs steep and slick along water-polished rock. Your trail is a bushwhack through cat's claw and poison ivy tangled among innocuous vines.

You are here to do business with your true nature.

You imagine it like this: You stand in a suit and dress shoes, your hair neatly combed, your eyes sharply focused. Your true nature sits reclined behind an uncluttered cherry-wood desk. Casual, unconcerned, your true nature stands and shakes the hand of your eager, ambitious youth. Smiles. "You're here to learn."

"Yes, yes. Teach me."

"You'll need to go away from here. Go and undress and walk naked in the deep places. You must forget your own name."

The dry-rot log collapses under the weight of your right foot. You slip and catch yourself on a sharp rock, cutting your hand. The blood is like the flash of a cardinal's red wing caught in a sunbeam, beautiful.

You laugh quietly -- everything is quiet in a canyon, noise being appropriate only as appointed. Your blood delights you. The pain is a sweet, throbbing reminder of how alive you are.

More quickly, the chatter in your brain grows quiet now. You do not push out the voices exactly -- the ones fighting for real estate in your mind, the ones that whirl through your insecurities, that question your timetables, fight your dreams and longings. You let the voices clamor. You let them fade into the sensual curves of rock, striated with color from layers of sediment. Fade. Into the dense fecundity of this riparian oasis, nestled in the folds of a land of desert cacti and vast blue sky.

Here, fish leap in the creek's clear blue water. The scent on the air is wild and ripely sweet. The longer you move, the softer your own voice. Your feet feel more yours, and somehow also less. Each step is more difficult, in spite of the mineral-thick water you guzzle at momentary pauses, in spite of the nuts you chew and swallow for their energy. Each step is also more sure. Your arms move through snarled foliage without hesitation, thorns raking your arms as an artist's brush drawing beads of red along your skin. Your legs are heavy with fatigue but steady and resolved. Sentences form only vaguely now in your mind and do not slip past your lips. There is no need for words. You are beginning to think like the canyon.

Inside its walls, you are beginning to disappear.

A Guide to Understanding Your Workplace

OR

When to Quit Two Jobs in Two Weeks

Do you notice the following practices being observed at your place of work?

1. Providing break room chocolate is a positive workplace gesture, to be availed of in addition to providing break room cockroaches.
2. Workplace basements should avoid giving quarter to squatters, haunts or spooks. This generally is easier in theory than in practice.
3. It's a good policy in bookstores to hire employees who can count.
   
4. It's a poor policy in bookstores to hire employees who can count in order to perform manual yearly inventory. It is, however, acceptable to task an employee who cannot read with such a counting project. 
5. When assessing items at the trade counter, employees are expected to refrain from raising eyebrows in the face of:
• dead rats
• dead beetles
• dead human parts (hair, skin, nails, etc.)
• live rats, beetles, scorpions, etc.
• knives, guns, bombs
• complete collections of McDonald's Happy Meal toys
• condoms, dildos, S&M toys
• bad self-portraits
• self-pornography
• child pornography
• blatant racist artwork, etc.
• stashes of empty liquor bottles
• stashes of half-full liquor bottles
• drug paraphernalia
• drugs in little plastic baggies
6. It is appropriate to smile at the trading customer and suggest that they take their valuables down to one of the nearby thrift stores, as "we aren't able to use any of your treasures at this time, I'm afraid."
7. Being caught filching "treasure" from the trade counter is strictly prohibited.
8. When in need of personal favors:

• DO preface your question in a private place and then ask politely of a trusted coworker
• DO REFRAIN FROM the urge to enter your trusted coworker's office, close the door, and remove your clothing (jacket, dress, bra), before asking your question.
9. Female employees are expected to dress professionally; "remember that you are representing the agency." Translation: Female employees are expected: 
• to turn heads as they enter the workplace
• to be complimented and to compliment others on their appearance at appropriately frequent intervals throughout the workday
• to blush when complimented or otherwise act demurely if unable to blush (lower eyes, flutter hands, murmur rather than enunciate gratitude)
• to present polished fingernails and toenails (if clients, customers, and/or male coworkers might be otherwise offended or uncomfortable)
• to wear makeup (if clients, customers,  and/or male coworkers might be otherwise offended or uncomfortable)
• to wear dresses or skirts whenever feasible; legs must be shaved or covered by stockings, boots, tights, leggings, etc.
• to wear perfume, lotions, and scented deodorant if and only if your body odor could offend or discomfort clients, customers, and/or male coworkers
• to laugh at jokes, but not too loudly.
10. Break room coffee creamer can be a point of contention; provide individual non-dairy packets to prevent the forming of hostile cliques.
11. Encourage employees to take frequent advantage of smoke breaks: to strengthen moral and more importantly to allay financially encumbering mental health incidents, such as panic and anxiety attacks, which can often precipitate reputation-costly events.
12. Above all, encourage employees to say "yes."

Dear Writing Bracelet,

I know you are not much for all this seriousness, but bear with me.

I was reading a book the other day and getting excited about revisions: Blueprint Your Bestseller by Stuart Horwitz.

I came to the first action step, and in rushed anxiety.

Why? Why all this fear just thinking about doing something that once brought so much joy?

Then I realized: When I'm doing the work of a writer, I am outside my body. Writing, I'm in my head, talking to people who don't exist, working in worlds that aren't real.

Dear writing bracelet, I have spent the last 12 months intensely focused on being present in my body to recover from certain traumas from which I used to escape by writing.

Now, writing is terrifying. To write, I must intentionally extract myself from the present. What if I don't come back? What if I can't come back? I don't trust myself to be careful and to listen and to return . . .

Yet.

Writing bracelet, you're going to help me.

When I slide you on my left wrist -- in my culture the left hand is reserved for promises -- you will give me permission to leave the present, to leave my body. To enter a new world.

With you, I will be safe. I will be true to the many Parts of me who each needs nurturing and care.

When I slide you off my wrist again, your departure will free me to return to this body I have learned to love. To this place where I am safe.

Perhaps, I will not need you forever. But for now, my muse thanks you.

Sincerely,
Lora (and all her many Parts)



***

To the reader:

This concept of the self being not one but many, and my reference to "Parts," draws on Dr. Richard Schwartz's IFS therapy model. It's helped me process a lot of hurt and trauma. It's still helping! The model was intuitive enough for me to work through on my own, without professional guidance. I read this book.