Feel That You Are Loved & Speak Your Truth

lessons on learning to live in the calm center of it all

yogi tea

Sometimes, I feel like I have spent my whole life looking for home…you know, a place that I can snuggle in, sip some hot cocoa, and have people love me up and delight in my company. I imagine everybody wants that, and its not always easy to find.

I have been wondering about home a lot lately. I left one that was quite nice for no obvious reason other than my intuition telling me to get out of dodge. And I like my intuition. It usually seems to know more than my mind. We have had a lot of adventures together these past few years and it has led me to the lovely house I am staying in now, as I complete my book.

All good right? Unless you are my aunt who I think views my situation as an upper class version of homelessness.

But I am not here to try to live a life other people will understand. I have always been different. That’s the honest truth of things.

A friend today said she never has an answer to the question: “What do you do?” She said she has never had a job and she is doing things all the time. She is caring for the Earth in many forms. I have heard her mention goats, plants, stars and people. She lives in a remote area where she says it is easy to talk to stars, on a Native American reservation in Arizona where it is cold and quiet at this time of year. And she mentioned that when she visits New York City, people find her and talk to her. They resonate with her and want to interact with her. Its not a 9-5 job at all…caring for the Earth. My aunt would probably not understand and I felt less alone as I listened to her.

I try to write every week with something that might be valuable to share. Something I have learned, or struggle with and am trying to liquify and transform into another butterfly. Maybe that’s my job. Turning things into butterflies and looking for companions who want to play in the sandbox with me. Maybe you and I are here to make clouds of butterflies while we become new versions of them all the time in the process?

So, let’s chat about something that is hard for me still. Something that maybe, sometimes, just a little, may be hard for you too. I have worked on this something for years and still…I often feel like I mess it up.

And that something is honestly expressing how I feel and what I need.

It is nice to be able to do that anytime, and especially nice when faced with family holiday visits, or with spending a holiday alone. Either way, its nice to know how I am doing and what I would like.

So, come dive into the mud with me for a minute.

The oasis I am living in has other people who stay here as well. Young people who are relaxed about things like kitchens and keeping them clean.

Two days ago I went on a quest to see Dr. Emily, a holistic dentist. Juan gave me a special rate to take me to San Miguel, a three to four hour drive each way. I told myself I was crazy to make this trip even though Dr. Luis told me there are no holistic dentists in the huge city in which I live, and recommended her to me. Who drives eight hours to get their teeth cleaned? I guess only people like me who are different.

Dr. Emily spent three hours with me. She found mercury hiding under a filling I had, she whitened my teeth by hand for forty minutes, smoothed rough places I told her about, and cleaned them herself while her assistant stood nearby. While she was with me, two clients were in the waiting room who had flown to see her from the US. They waited the whole three hours.

Dr. Emily

Dr. Emily’s office

Juan took me to get an x-ray for her at another location. It was so nice he spoke French, Spanish, and English. He entertained me with stories and stopped on the way there to show me The Golden Bridge. Well…actually, he showed me where the remains of The Golden Bridge were as we stood on the new bridge that crossed a large river. The Golden Bridge had been similar to the Golden Gate Bridge with sweeping curves and cables that arched up to the sky. It was destroyed purposefully in the war.

in front of the dam are the remains of The Golden Bridge, Juan says this is his favorite place to stop

I have been thinking about that. It seems so strange to me that we blow things up.

I didn’t want to do anything like that when it came to the young men and the kitchen.

Juan drives a lot of famous people who come to visit the country. He told me he has questions he likes to ask them all. I think it entertains him. He asked me his favorite: “What would you do if you had 1 Million dollars?” I thought for a moment and told him how I would invest it. But then on the way back, I told him I had thought a little more and I would need more time, if that actually happened. Maybe I would want to help someone set up a business? There were so many possibilities…and I would want to pick something that would feel like it would help build a Golden Bridge, something that would add to the beauty and energy of the world in a positive way somehow.

Juan pointed to a Cathedral that is being built here called The Virgin of Fatima. I had no idea we still built cathedrals that look like they were constructed in the Renaissance, and we do. The one being built here has flying buttresses and stained glass windows. Juan said he thought it would cost 60 Million dollars. The ceiling will be a deep blue. I know that because although it was too dark to stop and visit, he sent me an article and I saw renderings of it.

Juan used to be Catholic, but he’s not anymore. But he also knew about a place where the Virgin Mary is said to appear.

I told him we need to go on another adventure together.

He stopped at a small lake he said was only a lagoon and told me he would like to live somewhere like that. The prices haven’t gone up yet.

Laguna de Apastepeque, in the department of San Vicente

Then, twelve hours later, he dropped me at Dr. Luis’s restaurant where I planned to have dinner.

By the time I got home after leaving at 7am, it was close to eight at night. I walked in the kitchen to put my things away, and was greeted by dirty dishes and general disarray.

While I was away, they had moved a large TV into the living room and taken out the coffee table.

I didn’t say anything right then. I just put my things away and went to bed. I was tired.

But then, I couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t just the kitchen. There were other things going on that made me feel more like I was living in a fraternity house than a mansion. I had an idea what that was like as I lived in one for three months one summer. I never went in the kitchen, for good reason I imagine.

The next day, after I went in the kitchen and saw one of them cooking a steak for breakfast while leaving drops of blood on the floor from it, I headed back to my room. The other smiled at me and said, “Hey Terra, we moved the TV. I hope that’s OK with you. It doesn’t make any sense to have it way back in the corner over there.”

And I thought about how the large TV was near the porch where I do my writing. The porch was messy now too.

And what could I say? How could I be honest and get my needs met? I knew young men like this and felt that in some ways they were simply unaware. But I didn’t want to berate them and I also wanted to honor that they were unlikely to live at the same level of cleanliness I enjoy and that how they chose to live was their business.

So, I responded cryptically, “I don’t watch TV.” Which was true.

But it wasn’t enough.

The next day they were streaming music on the TV and things were loud. I was sleep deprived and decided to move my desk upstairs on the porch. But the music was loud there too.

I began to consider leaving. Then, Iris came and cleaned the kitchen. She cleaned my room. I didn’t have to ask and one of the young men mentioned that we should work something out around using the porch, so I would have time enjoy it. He was trying to be considerate just as he tried when he asked about the TV, after the fact.

Meanwhile, the painting Mira made for me was going to be delivered the same day. I was excited. I asked that they send someone who could hang it and the gallery agreed. A large van arrived with the painting. I had added something additional to my order regarding the frame, after the fact. And somehow, our communication went afoul through Google Translate. It was beautiful, but not quite what I expected.

The man was kind and carried it up to my room. I wanted to move a few other pictures into new places and asked if he could put a couple extra nails in the wall? He looked at me sheepishly and pulled two small, possibly used nails from his pocket. He had brought them to hang my new painting and didn’t have any extras. He didn’t have a level or a measuring tape either, which I sort of expected, but we eyed up the wall and he did his best to hold it at different levels so he could hang it just as I wished.

But those two nails were not enough for what I wanted to do so I went hunting for Iris to see if there were any nails in the house. She looked at me sadly in response.

Meanwhile, the man removed a small hook from the concrete wall to use and figured out how to get everything hung where I wanted. It left a dark hole behind and I knew he was doing his best.

And I was frustrated. A cozy house, a cup of cocoa…I wasn’t feeling it.

But, hours later, Iris showed up at my door with two screws she found while she was cleaning. It was too late, and it was kind. My painting was beautifully framed and he had done a good job with the rest of my things and not complained at all. I gave him a tip when he left.

But the mess in the house and the noise was still causing me to want to crawl out of my skin.

I spoke to a friend and she reminded me that it is good to feel that I matter. She pointed out that I was curling in on myself, moving my desk upstairs and trying to stay out of the kitchen and away from the living room. Prior to this, I had been loving the house so much.

And I practiced again feeling my value and that I matter too. And she and I both recognized that I wasn’t going to change these young men. That would just be pushy and annoying.

The next morning I went to make my tea. Iris had left the kitchen clean and at 6am, I expected to enjoy it for at least a few minutes. But there was spilled coffee on the counter, a toothbrush by the sink, and the same dishes the boys had been using in a drainer I purchased, that they hadn’t put away for a few weeks. (By then I was drying my dishes with paper towels and tucking them in my own cabinet).

“Ok,” I thought. I am going to say something to the young men. Whether they change or not, it will be good for me to express myself with them.

But I knew I didn’t want to act like their mother, or to criticize them.

I put my tea bag in my cup and looked at the little paper message dangling from the string on it. “Let your heart speak to others hearts.”

Oh yes. Ok then.

I went to do my meditation. When I came back into the kitchen an hour later to make breakfast I saw that the coffee had been wiped up a bit with a paper towel without me saying anything. The paper towel sat dirty, next to the sink. Well, that was progress I figured. A wet t-shirt was spread across the wooden kitchen table to dry. I took it outside and hung it on the clothes line and sat down to eat.

As I was preparing to leave, they walked in. I looked at them both and smiled. “Hey you guys. I would really like it if you would do your dishes when you use them. And the drainer the dishes are in is mine. I haven’t been able to use it for two weeks. Would you mind putting the dishes away in it please?”

And you know what?

They did.

My habit is to be resentful. I don’t like to say things to people that might upset them because I don’t like to be around people who are upset. Maybe they don’t either and I just needed to give them a chance.

The truth is, I like both these young men. I don’t like the messiness and I can practice with it a bit. I can soften my clean streak and enjoy my bedroom when I need a little space, with my beautiful new painting hung in it.

And I can practice talking to them from a place of care, and caring for myself at the same time.

My friend who lives on the reservation said something about the heart in relation to the head. As she was speaking, an image came to me, of my mind cradling my heart. It was gentle and sweet. This is what I am learning to do for myself. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I don’t say anything, tell myself it won’t do any good, and suffer while I seethe with resentment. And sometimes I say something less than clearly. I add phrases like “it bothers me a tiny bit” when it bothers me a lot. My friend Sandra, said it felt better to hear me say: “it bothers me when the kitchen is messy” rather than “it bothers me a little bit when things are messy.”

Now, if you are reading this, you have to imagine the tone I wish to imbue the words with. It is not judgmental. It is not one that says: “You-are-terrible-young-men and why-don’t-you-know-this-by-now and didn’t-your-mother-ever-teach-you-this and I-don’t-want-to-be-your-mother…” You get the drift.

It is simple. It is true. “I don’t like a messy kitchen and I would really like it if you would do your dishes.”

They don’t have to do anything. They really don’t. But at least I haven’t put a lot of judgement into it. I hold my heart and I hold theirs too.

Because the truth of it all is I believe, that we want the same thing. We want to feel like we can snuggle in with people and have a cup of hot chocolate. We want to be seen and valued for who we are.

Next week is Christmas and the solstice. I don’t know what your plans are, and there is something beautiful another friend said to me. He spoke of the pause at that time, when the world goes from darkness to light. And I felt the beauty of that. I took a slow breath.

Sometimes, when I walk in the neighborhood here, I remember to pause and take it in: the beautiful cypress trees lining the street, the light shining through leaves that are green, burgundy, and fluorescent purple.

In the end, I think it is more about the journey than the destination. Whatever faces you this upcoming week, I hope you can cradle your own heart in your hand and care for it. Sometimes, when I express what I want and need, it doesn’t go well. Those times have contributed to my timidity. And that’s ok, I am learning. But if something doesn’t go well for you, I hope you can find a way to care for yourself. To take a walk and pause for a minute. To know that you are loved and are a spark of divine light in this tapestry of creation.

I am thinking of you. I am thinking of you right now.

I will leave you with these words from my guided writing this morning and I hope you can hear them like they are for you as well:

“It is tremendously important you feel my Darling child that you are not alone for only this is truly real. You are my divine creation and I am always with you and you with me. It is not possible for you to be alone. Feel that you are loved and speak your truth.”

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