April | 2016 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

From our walk this morning

In the most recent issue of The Sun magazine is a beautiful little essay called The Sudden City by Brian Doyle. He writes about when his sister went to Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969. She didn’t spend her time doing drugs or dancing in the mud, but rather when she saw the sheer number of people, “she immediately sought out the medical tent and anyone with a shred of authority who would know how to distribute food and water, and she spent the next three days handing out water and sandwiches and blankets.” He says that the stories that are told about that festival are mostly about the music and how many people attended and all the mud, but that “perhaps the deeper story, the better story, the more substantive story, is how a sudden city of young Americans arose briefly on a hillside for one summer weekend, and not one got beaten up, and hundreds of people like my sister handed out water and sandwiches and blankets.”

I’m uncomfortable with politics and protests — anything involving large crowds and yelling really. Even in cases where it’s clear which side I agree with, it’s difficult for me to take sides, to be engaged in the tussle, involved in an argument. I’m much happier being the peacemaker, the helper. I’ve always said that when there’s a situation where there are people with signs and opinions and bullhorns, I’d be much happier handing out sandwiches, baking cookies for everyone. So this essay really stuck me as so true, so right. Doyle goes on to say,

People still do that sort of thing all the time, every day, in every city and country in the world, and we never talk about it, because most of the time we are hearing and talking about the reverse.

I’m weary of the reverse. I do not think that evil and greed and violence are the definitive characteristics of our species. Many readers will sneer at me for this, and they are right to be cynical and skeptical, for evidence of evil and greed and violence are everywhere at hand. Yet there are also millions of people who hand water and sandwiches and blankets to millions of other people. What are we to make of that?

Which makes me think of two things: that quote from Mr. Rodgers about helpers, and a video I saw the other day.

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In the video, Ken E Nwadike Jr aka the Free Hugs Guy, visits both a Trump and a Bernie rally to give free hugs, and (not shockingly) gets very different responses.

This is the kind of brave I want in the world, the huggers and the helpers, not the kind that wants to punch people in the face, not the ones confused and blinded by their own hate. More water and sandwiches and blankets and hugs. THIS is who we are.

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I taught a workshop last weekend — Wild Writing, Crazy Wisdom, a mix of yoga, meditation, and writing practice — and only two people showed up. Don’t get me wrong, they SHOWED UP, but…

This is why I got certified to teach yoga, so that I could teach this very thing, this magic mix of practices. I’ve been crossfading, or trying to, from my job at a university for the past six years. Laura Simms talks about the crossfade a lot, that time when you are still working your current job while also trying to grow your new career, so you essentially are doing two jobs. I feel some days like I’ve got what amounts to three jobs, and then there’s the laundry, and bills that need paid, and my floor is covered in dog hair and the toilet needs cleaned and my dogs are bored and I can’t remember the last time I flossed my teeth and I really want to go to the gym if only I had the time or the energy — and that doesn’t even include the things I want to do because I love them, like read a book or watch a movie or take a nap or hang out with my husband.

The truth is, when I teach my 7 am Tuesday morning yoga class, I’m only paid $3 per student, and a few weeks ago no one showed up, and last week my one regular student said she was starting a new job so probably wouldn’t be coming anymore. And my weekend workshops? The yoga studio gets to keep 40% of what I make, and then another 25% might go to taxes, so when only two people show up, there’s not a lot left — certainly not enough to justify a shift to a new career.

And I’ve been blogging like it’s my religion for six years. My weekly “Something Good” post is republished on Yoganonymous — they are partners with Wanderlust, and when I first started sharing my list, the editor was a friend who valued my work and paid me $25 per post. As soon as she was gone, they stopped paying me, offering me the “exposure” instead, which I gladly (sort of) took because the mission of my list is to inject some basic goodness into everyone’s Monday and “exposure” helps me do that, but again… no change in career is going to happen there.

And there are some really good reasons to stay where I’m at — my boss appreciates my work, I get tons of positive feedback, most of my colleagues are really good people that I love working with, it’s that magic mix of what I’m good at being what someone else needs, I have really good benefits (health insurance, paid sick leave, yearly raises, retirement, and summers off), and I have no way of knowing if the new career I’ve imagined in my head will be any more fulfilling or any less stressful than what I’m already doing, (and once I leave, it’s not like I can come right back if it doesn’t work out).

I’m not complaining, just giving you the backstory for my point: recently I’ve been thinking that maybe my university job is what I do to be able to fund the gifts I offer in other ways, that it isn’t about changing careers or making enough money somewhere else or getting anything like fame for myself. If money weren’t an issue, I know what I’d do, how I’d spend my days — but money is an issue, and I can’t pretend like its not.