hips

walk in my new-ish jeans.

They are too long and too baggy and are only staying up

by barely hanging on to my hips.

My hips are made for birthing babies,

my AP Bio teacher once said as she had me stand

in front of the class in my junior year in high school.

She never commented on my breasts.

My hips were once a symbol of shame, and I wore

baggy pants to hide them, baggy shirts to hide my breasts

so that I could pass in a man's world.

I walked between the worlds of male and female

In my secret time I learned to dance

like a woman:

tribal dances, hip shaking dances,

with bells and coins attached to my hips to bring notice to them,

to break away from the shame.

I wrap my hips in denim.

I wrap my hips around my love.

back in boulder

I was up at SMC yesterday and today. It was wonderful to be up there, to be on the land, to be able to hike up to the stupa, to to talk to the students and the faculty, to see a student presentation, to ring the big gong (one of my favorite things) and to get to sit and look at my own mind.

I had a great conversation with one of the faculty who is around my age, and she's going through something similar to me. We talked about boundaries and projections and relationships. We spoke of how complicated and amazing and painful life and loving is. How sometimes we want to go back to sleep...to ignore the thruths we've discovered within ourselves. Waking up and moving toward a more authentic life is difficult, and I hope that awakening will eventually lead to less suffering.

It is hard to love yourself when you know that you're causing so much pain to the ones you love the most.

Ani concert in STL

My life is in chaos right now. I'm crashing at my best girl Dol's house for now and trying to sort out what next.

I haven't been on this myspace land in a bunch of days and am now taking a few minutes break before my 4 hours of meetings begin at noon. There was a bulletin post from Ani DiFranco about tour dates, and she'll be in St. Louis on July 20 playing a FREE concert on the riverfront. That's only 4 days after my birthday!

Anyone want to road trip to my hometown of STL to see a free Ani concert in celebration of my 30th Birthday? (or for the folks in STL, you wanna meet up for this?!)

We can even stop at the Oz Museum in Kansas on the way or stay at the fun B&B I visited with my sister Lindsey last summer.

my sister is funny

I got to talk to my sister, Courtney, today for a long, long time. Courney lived with me for 8-10months in San Diego before she moved to her fabulous life in LA. It was so much fun living with her and I miss her (and my other sister and brother) a lot. It is weird sometimes that the 4 of us are each in a different time zone...crazy, modern world.

Anyway, there were several times during our conversation that I started cracking up and just had to write down what she said. I never knew she was such a wise philosopher and a hilarious comedian. OK, maybe I knew she was a comedian (see some other blog where I mention the Mr. Peanut walk). So here are a few nuggets of wisdom from her to me:

"I'm your sister and I won't screw you over. And even if I did, you'd have to like me anyway."

"I'm having a quarter-life crisis and you're having a mid-life crisis". (Please note that I'm not quite 3 years older than this girl who will turn 27 in 2 days!)

"You don't want to be unhappy for the rest of your life because that would just suck."

"In this time of deep stress and despair, do what you need to. If everyone is focused on you, they won't be paying any attention to what I'm doing."

Ok, so I think these are funny. They were probably funnier in context, but they make me smile as I copy them off my little notepaper.

P.S. I looked back over the blogs and realized that the blog that references the Mr. Peanut walk did not tell the original Mr. Peanut walk story. The basic story was that sometime when I was still living in San Diego and Courtney was in LA, we went on a hike somewhere in the LA area and Courtney and I started walking like Mr. Peanut. Imagine leaning way back when you walk and taking big, exaggerated, strutting steps. We were cracking up during our Mr. Peanut hike and well afterwards for what felt like hours and hours.

thanks for the support

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has posted comments, emailed, and called. I really appreciate all the love and support I'm getting.

As you can tell, I'm going through some stuff, some written about and most of it not. Having a support network of ya'll, plus my trio of supervisors at work (and other folks like my best girl Dol and my BFF in Boston who won't touch this myspaceland) has been really great.

I'm not at a point where I'm going to reveal all my stuff for the whole world to see...I do have a filter. But just to say thanks for reading, thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and thanks for letting me know in lots of little ways that you care.

alpaca liquidation

We've started the process of selling off the herd. We've connected with some folks in the area that do alpaca consignment, and our first two animals are going to their place this weekend. With a little luck, they'll sell quickly.

My farming days will eventually end. I loved having a farm and I still really love each of my animals (even the chickens), but farmer jennie isn't working for me, and the truth is, it hasn't been working for me for a while. I need to find a life that is more true for me. I don't really know what that will look like yet. I'm sorting a lot out right now.

The two hour haircut

Today I got my hair cut. Perhaps the last major haircut before I shave it all off later this summer.

aside: yes, I am planning to become the bald miss J in a month or so. I've been thinking (and talking) about doing this since last summer when I finally got my hair down to my waist. Since it was right before the start of school, I opted for short but not too short.

But back to the story. Today I had a haircut that took 2 hours. It is shorter, it is cute, and it was really a bright spot in an otherwise all-around cloudy/glum day.

My stylist, Robbie is awesome. He's sarcastic and opinionated and can hold a conversation with me for 2 hours about politics, religion & spirituality, music and math/science. How often do you find that in a stylist?! The only time we talked about the weather was when we talked about global warming! He is really the first person to ever cut my hair to really want to TALK to me. I usually get the people who only want to ask the same general "I'll ask you about yourself but don't really want to know" questions. With Robbie, I just put it all out there and it got met. When he learned that I have a degree in physics, he responded "cool, my girlfriend is getting her degree in engineering." Not the typical response :)

Perhaps 2 hours is excessive for a haircut, but let me tell you, having someone in constant contact with just you for 2 hours is pretty amazing.

I forgot how wonderful it is to have someone else wash my hair. I get my haircut at an Aveda salon, and they don't just get your hair clean as fast as they can, but they work in a head and neck massage before, during and after the hair washing. heaven.

After he cut my hair, he spent nearly 30 minutes styling it. My hair is wavy on its own and can be pseudo-curly with a little help. He created curls on my entire head lock by lock. I can't even describe how awesome it was to have him brush my wet hair straight and then starting at the back of my neck finger twist every single lock of hair. And then blow dry it with the diffuser! Goodness, I could never replicate the same thing on my own.

Thinking all this over, I'm hesitating about getting rid of my hair completely...there's something really relaxing and therapeutic about this whole haircut thing.

some days the universe gives you what you need

wow, I've been in a funk this week. I'm starting to feel the funk lifting a little, even if for a moment or two.

Today started out with a fun farm mini-drama. I went out to feed this morning and discovered the boys in the girls' corral and the girls in the roundabout area near the hay barn. Yesterday when I was hauling hay from the haybarn I must not have latched the gate closed and only loosely put the chain around the gate because the gate was wide open this morning!

those critters are so smart. As soon as they saw me, they knew they were in trouble! The boys started heading for the gate back toward their area and the girls were doing the same. Once I got everyone securely back where they belonged, I pulled out hay to feed. As I was bringing in the hay to the boys, little Amcharo decided to be mischevious and slip past me through the open gate into the backyard! When I was chasing him back in, Teddy the llama went out through the open gate! After a little chase, I got Teddy in the boys corral. Some days I do more llama wrangling before 6:30am than most people do in their whole lives

Then I got to work expecting a busy day since we had 12 visitors coming for interviews. As I was getting ready to send off half of them to interviews and the other half to a class observation, I learned that there were going to be student presentations in the class today and we couldn't send the visitors to the class. My whole day changed and I spent most of the morning doing Q & A with the prospys. I usually love doing this part, but (as you may have noticed) I'm a little out of sorts this week and instead of feeding off the energy of the visitors, I felt pretty flat. I got a little recharge in the afternoon with a hug from a 1st year student (he asked how I was and I told him honestly that I wasn't having a good day), my 12-1pm meeting was good, and I even squeezed in 10 minutes of self care by going to sit in the meditation hall!

In the afternoon I got to see a few 3rd years and that got my energy back up. Yay 3rd yr for bringing smiles to my heart!

And afterwork I got to see my JohnGuy! It was SOOO good catching up with jg and having a sympathetic ear for my heartache and being a sympathetic ear for his life updates. And he's just so fun to be with. Ya'll who know him love him too!

I'm just feeling so grateful for my life right now. even the hard days bring me good lessons. I feel so lucky to have found the courage to try to live a more authentic life and have a job where I can be real with the people around me, where I can use my head and my heart. As crazy as it may sound, I feel grateful for the opportunity to get my heart opened up so much at work that I even get my heart broken sometimes. Love (and life) is weird, eh? Sometimes the universe gives you what you need.

p.s. had weird dream last night where Paul and Tanya & Michael and I were all in a big bed chatting like the grandparents in the movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". having dinner with Paul and Tanya tomorrow. 3rd years wove in and out of the dreams too.

had dreams about Nemo, my recently departed cat the last 2 nights. Was good to see him again and hear him purring as he curled up with me like he used to when he was alive. crud. crying again now thinking of my Nemo, but again I think this is what I need. I needed to talk to Nemo, and really tell him how much I cared for him and how I miss him. so thank you to the universe for sending me nemo while I sleep.

tenderheartedly yours,

j

the coconut poem

TIMELY RAIN

by Chogyam Trungpa





In the jungles of flaming ego,
May there be cool iceberg of bodhicitta.


On the racetrack of bureaucracy,
May there be the walk of the elephant.


May the sumptuous castle of arrogance
Be destroyed by vajra confidence.


In the garden of gentle sanity,
May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.



20 October 1977

sometimes you need to smell like a man

Do you ever have those days where you know you're in for a rough one so you do everything you can to build yourself up? You wear the clothes that you know work for you, the boots that don't quit, you play the right kind of music in the car ride to work and at your desk (quietly playing Billy Idol can't hurt, right?) You get the juice blast for breakfast and avoid the caffeine all day. You even use your guy's deodorant because, as I said a little too loudly to my best girl in the hallway at work "sometimes you need to smell like a man".

And all these things that you're doing are all external. They don't change the way you really feel, they don't remove the jitterybug in your belly. The old masks don't work. The old ways of building walls seem ridiculous.

I'm tender and brokenhearted. The 3rd years are only a month away from graduation, and that class is dying. The ending is so much harder for me this year than any other. I can't believe how much I procrastinated getting their syllabi farewell packets together. Writing the letter "To the class of 2007" makes me ache. This ending, I know, is inevitable.

Layers of heartache and longing. Seeing students sitting in the suite and wanting to reach out and not knowing if I should. Can I keep it together for one month more? Sitting at my desk can be excruciating. Sitting out there with them is too. Lean into it and be brave? hide in my office and be cowardly? Being awkward and embarrassed for feeling like this. Love takes a warrior.

Wow. This post is not at all what I had planned. I've gone all goofy and swoony and done pretty much the opposite of what I had planned with all my armor. crud.

What I really planned on writing about was my Saturday. I had such a lovely saturday with my EmilyG. EmilyG is my...well, I don't quite know what to call her. She's like the piece of me that got replicated in the bardo and got born a few years later to some other parents in the midwest. The number of things about us that are the same are uncanny. She's a freak like me for pumpkins and has the same ideas about gardening and sustainable living and chickens and hapa peartinis and midwest life and city girl/country girl struggles and Ani(!) and well, I could go on and on.

So EmilyG and I got together for the first time since my birthday in July! We had lovely brunch at a place in Denver. I forgot how much I love being in the city. Our little urban cafe was quirky and fun and the food was great and the wait staff were all a bunch of queens (literally drag queens). So we had our lovely time dining and being envious of the fact that some men look better in womens clothes than most women (Oh to be that tall with those tiny hips...).

And we caught up each other on our lives and then went to the Denver Art Museum! Hooray for art museums. I love Boulder, but Boulder doesn't have the kind of deep and varied culture opportunities that I've been craving. We spent hours and hours at the art museum and she is even the kind of person (like me) that really looks at the pieces and reads the little notes about when things were made and who made them and where they came from. We spent a lovely time looking at modern art, modern native american pottery, and the place we spent the most time: the floor with the asian art. There was a whole section on Buddhist art, scupltures, and even a sand mandala. There was a lovely section on swords that got me thinking of a friend that is into swords. There was a museum staffer by the swords showing kids (and adults) how to handle the swords properly, bowing and turning the blade toward yourself. It got me misty for sure.

We saw only a small section of the museum, and I'm certainly going back! Wow, I'm tangenting again. perhaps this story is long enough. Time to crash out and read and knit! Whee!

still crazy after all these years

well M and I have been together for almost 10 years. someone recently asked me, "what do you work on after 10 years together?" (I work with therapists, ya know). What a fantastic question. I didn't have a great answer at the time...after a day of being crabby and being crabbed at, I have a better answer.

How can it be that after all this time, we still say things that hurt each other? Neither of us meant to, and we both have tried to come to the other with our heads hanging, but we haven't quite gotten this blister to pop.

I'm just waiting for him to come home so we can try to clear things.

travel planning

I love to travel. I love to think about the places in this world I want to visit...places rich with history, art, food, language, culture, literature, scenery, and people. I had big dreams for being able to join my friends Dan and Andie on a piece of their 8 month around-the-world trip. They are having such amazing adventures! Alas, Michael and I got caught off guard when we learned of their trip and hadn't saved up for an international trip...we try to go international every few years and have been with Dan and Andie to China (2001) and Turkey (2005).

While I'm not heading too far, the summer travel bug has bit and I'm planning some solo-ish adventures for later in the spring. I've been talking to the BFF who lives in Boston now about coming out to see her. It's been a year and we've got a lot of catching up to do! I've only been to Boston once before, more than a decade ago, so it is right proper time to get out there for my girl.

I'm also hatching up a scheme to visit my friend D in the super exotic town of Killeen, TX (pop. 100,000; an hour from waco and an hour from Austin) before he gets deployed to Iraq later this summer. I originally thought I'd do a quick fly in, quick visit, fly out trip would be the way to go, but I started looking at driving distances and a solo road trip is starting to sound like a mighty fine idea...or at least more of a travel adventure than I might otherwise get this summer.

ah...lovely things to dream of and plan and plot and scheme. I bet there are all kinds of quirky fun off the beaten path things to to in Boston and Killeen

$#%&!@%$#&%#@

so i'm in freakout swearing at self mode at the moment. Today I was back up at SMC setting up the next retreat and spent a good chunk of time talking to the staff about expectations. I have a whole speech about what is and is not appropriate behavior with students (sex with students bad, boundaries with students good) and realized that somewhere along the way last week my boundaries started to disintegrate with the soon-to-be graduating students.

When the hell did that happen?! When did i become creepy bad boundary lady? f'ing red room. OK, OK don't freak out. There was NO sex with students. There wasn't even anything remotely close to sex with students. But was I creepy bad boundary lady when a student said flirtatious thing and I blushed? What about when other student gave me a gazillion hugs (ok maybe 2) as he was waiting for the rest of his carpool peeps to get their stuff. or what about when I said "I love you" to student bringing warm chocolate chip cookies to me straight from the oven?! Well, I meant that I was happy about the cookies, right?! crap.

And then there was the one thing that I knew was over the line as soon as it happened and said so and then dismissed it. student picking me up to give me a hug. shit.

even the fact that I shared personal stories with some students is a problem, isn't it?! I mean I wrote (or at least recently edited and approved) the line in the manual that says dual relationships include sharing info with some and not all.... "...staff should take care not to enter into a relationship with a student in which the student is privileged to information about a staff member that is not available to all students....staff should be particularly mindful about speech." fuck.

home from retreat

I'm back from a week-long meditation retreat and my heart is open and achy and tender.

I got home a little before 5pm on Saturday and slept 15 hours. I spent most of yesterday in bed and took today off to mope and to recover from this cold/cough that started yesterday.

While I was on retreat Nemo my cat died. This weekend one of my chickens, Big Mama died. I suppose the message from the universe is "LET GO!" or perhaps "Remember Impermanence!"

I'm so attached to this graduating group, and I know I need to let them go. They are so amazing and brave and strong and talented and smart and loving and wow, I guess I could go on and on. This group has been my "baby"...I started a few months before they began their journey, even interviewed some of them. I sat in on classes with this group, learned to meditate with this group, mourned my first pets, Chicken and Duck, with this group, watched them develop as a community and as therapists.

I am so proud of them all. And it is so hard to let them go.

Tomorrow I head back up to SMC to set up the next month-long retreat.