Inspired by forks. Or maybe spoons...

I ate my salad with a spoon on my dinner break.

Such convenience as a fork—

What luxury.

What if we all posed our left hands the task of eating

Salad with a spoon

Or soup with a fork?

Would the food taste that much better

Or would frustration bitter the taste

Of olive oil and herbs?

I’m not perfect.

I forget my forks at home.

I trip over cracks in the sidewalk.

These façades we wear,

These masks of false control  

And Independence;

There’s a break in the rational of the universe:

Eight-hour days, five days a week, no sick pay

No vacation pay, two holidays a year without bonuses.

There’s a gap in the reality of it all 

I work in a high-end bakery and I love my job.

Customer service is something of an art form
After all, it's the business of people we're talking about.

We put on a dinner party at 6am
Seven days a week.

Outside the parking lot is slick with ice and snow.
Inside, the spell of fresh chocolate glaze donuts satiates my nose.

Then there are the delicately pink Parisian macaroons filled with raspberry jam.
The dark chocolate covered marshmallows that are as big as my palm.

Croissants, galettes, gougère, cookies, tarts, pies to fill your mouth. 

Why might someone buy a sweet treat anyway? 

I hand out smiles and pleases and thank yous. 

I receive cash, cards, thanks, and the occasional sincere smile

Usually from children and those with no other agenda but to 

Indulge their confectionary desires.

Smiles come easy when needs are being met.

Pleasures erase those hard lines made by the word "No." 

I am a conductor for a symphony of sugar and souls. 

A gracious gift. 

The Need For Touch

The need to be acknowledged—

Like a child,

The necessity for touch never diminishes.

Craving intimate affection

Like a fly on shit;

We cannot help ourselves.

BE WITH ME!

Their language screams.

Palms face up.

I hold them,

In the roundness of my heart,

With the firmness of my eyes.

LISTEN TO ME!

Their language urges.

I’m here, I whisper

To their sensibility.

I listen with my mouth shut.

The longing to be recognized

Is overwhelming

At times.

Even those who

Are fully trained and

Qualified cannot do justice

To this business of listening.

Attention is left to those of us

Who have unoccupied points

Between our hearts and God.

And what then, when you sit there

Across from me,

And

“I love you” slips out?

Because I know it is not love.

It is gratitude for being witnessed.

It is thank you for being listened to.

It is recognition of Need

And my ability to hold space for our

Experience of intimacy to show up in.            

I sit very still

Listening. 

GROWING PAINS from July 29th

Where do I even start?

This process of growing up

it’s growing pains!

My legs ache just like they did when I was 12

and I would wake up screaming

because my muscles hurt so damn bad.

Just choose.

Make a commitment.

Stop fucking around and just make a decision.

This is about the time where I call my mom

and start crying

because my whole life is

Under pressure

3:15am my eyes open

the light on the clock blinks

back at me

I’m awake and there’s nothing

I can do about it.

This is about the time where I call my mom and ask her to tell me what to do with my life, my love, and aching in my heart that just won’t go away.

This is not being an adult, Shinay.

GROW UP!

Part of growing up is making choices.

Just choose a place to be for a year.

No, this is crazy, I’m afraid of commitment.

Part of growing up is taking responsibility for the bad days.

Part of growing up is getting off the couch, turning down the TV and calling up your mom.

It comes in the middle of the night

at 3:15am

as the lights from the computer

blink at my under the desk

as I lay awake on the fold-out couch bed.

It comes, between the lines on the highway

as I drive 70mph watching my odometer

turn to: 191717

It comes in the way my lover looks at me

over his morning coffee

and offers to make me an egg

and toast and

It comes in the newness of dawn

and the roughness of the stones

under my bare feet

as we wade into the frigid river

under the bridge

It comes as pressure, squeezing tight,

with his gentle kiss and his arms

around mine

as we whisper to each other

not knowing when or where or how

It comes in a phone call, an email,

in a side-long glance, a conversation

with a friend as she takes a shower 

Life, again and again, after all it's all we've got, don't give it up.

Well, it's all been a bit like a Shrek fairytale feature film. Everything's going great and then–BAM!–life happens. By Life I mean, REAL shit, like getting a cold which turns into getting my gallbladder removed. Life meaning, looking for a place to live, a place to put our art and our bookshelves and have sex in our own bed, or in the kitchen if we want. By Life I mean making dinner and doing dishes and going to work and then not going to work because I got sick. Life is the stuff that makes up... everything. As far as I'm concerned there ain't no vacation baby (read my book) because I don't want time "away" from the doing. I want more "time on" for the doing of the things that really matter; such as reading and writing and meditating and having conversations that bring tears to my eyes. I like that. Life happens. Life doesn't happen to me, it happens with me, while I'm sleeping, while I'm pooping, and brushing my teeth–that's Life. Life is the letter from my uncle, Andrew, just to let me know he's thinking of me. Life is my green tea in a red cup and Jesse coming home late from work and my belly growling. Life is, Just This.

The day I killed the basket and chewed a whole pack of gum.

“Hi,” I said with my mouth waded with gum. “I just stuff–ed an entire...–chew, chew–pack of gum into my–slurp, chew, chew–mouth.” We had a Skype date and the act just couldn’t wait. I was rushing home and I had to see if it would fit. I laughed and said, “Haven’t you ever­­–chew, slurp–wanted to see if you could chew an entire pack–slurp, slurp, chew­–of gum?”

“Well, yes, but I’ve never actually done it.”

“I only got half the–chew, chew, chew–sticks in my mouth and then I couldn’t–I take the entire wad out and show it to her–close my mouth.”

We laugh because sometimes if the desire strikes we just have to go and do it. We both know what that feels like–not to fulfill a desire. It hurts like hell and the whole worlds seems to be going all wrong.

“I just had to try,” I said after she finished laughing at me because I couldn’t talk with the wad in and it was running out of flavor fast.

On my way home I ran over a basket with my car. Sorry mom. 

An experience of Oneness

I join their families for moments

as I walk behind them on the boardwalk.

I can smell her shampoo, his aftershave I

could reach out and hold their daughter’s

hand.

I become linked to them for a small duration

of their lives, I listen to their inside

conversations, unnoticed. I am so close I

could pose with them for their family

portraits.

We affect each other as we stand,

side-by-side, unassuming.

They have no idea how closely I

watch as they come and go on the

boardwalk.

Or how strongly they smell of last nights

dinner. I am apart of their existence for

instances, brushing up against their rain

jackets, not bothering to say, “Excuse

me.”

For the moment we’re enmeshed. 

Manganese, 25

I just read The Joy of Old Age by Oliver Sacks and reflect upon what my "elemental age" is — I am Manganese: 25, Mn, a hard gray metal of the transition series. Manganese is an important component of special steels and magnetic alloys. The black dioxide of this as an industrial raw material or additive, esp. in glassmaking. ORIGIN late Middle English (referring to a mineral said to be an ingredient of the philosopher's stone). "A transition metal" they say. Yes, hard, grey, an element to add in the production of something else... Sitting behind a glass window at 5:39 in the afternoon I am roasting under in the sun and being worked by the flames of interpersonal communication, navigating the throws of my quarter-life crisis. 

The Periodic Table of Elements 

Rebirth by Fire

Is it any coincidence that both articles use "fast-moving" as their catch phrase? Fast-moving is the name of the game when I think about my life — the habit of a 25-year-old existing in the 21st century. Since the turn of the millennia I've been catapulted into adulthood; learning to make "wise" decisions and attempting to navigate the fact that life moves. This state of constant change, everyone knows it, everyone quotes it, but do we understand the reality of this particular condition? Change is a verb, it's an action, it's the opposite of static.

Fire is a great catalyst for change and my home town has been burning down. With the Yarnell Fire and the Doce Fire on Granite Mountain occurring within one week of each other, I've spent a significant amount of time pondering impermanence. The implications being, if we want to transform, heat and pressure are key, AND transformation requires impermanence. To change is to not carry on any filament of the past. In the past year I've moved out of my child-hood one, the house I was born in was bulldozed, I've lived in a dozen different locations, I've packed up most of my belongings and find myself, my computer, my folding bike, and my guitar outside Yellowstone National Park at the Tumbleweed Bookstore in Gardener, Montana.

I'm beginning to realize that Life is about not freaking out every time something doesn't go according to my plan. Not hating myself when my worst nightmare comes true. Not blaming others for the experience I have. Not knowing the answers is perfectly ok. And knowing what I don't want is half the form.

Trans-form. ORIGIN from Latin trans ‘across.’ ORIGIN verb, from Latin formare ‘to form.’ 

Observation of a Need for Touch

The need to be acknowledged —

Like a child,

The necessity for touch never diminishes.

Craving intimate affection

Like a fly on shit;

We cannot help ourselves.

As I meet them, eye-to-eye

We sit across the table,

Not saying a word.

BE WITH ME!

Their language screams.

Palms face up

My phone in my pocket,

Senses alert,

Unfazed by the barking dog.

I hold them,

In the roundness of my heart,

With the firmness of my eyes.

LISTEN TO ME!

Their language urges.

I’m here,

I whisper

To their sensibility.

I listen with my mouth shut. 

Roses For Kate

At the top of Mt. Pisgah

I came upon roses

waiting for “Kate.”

They lay there on the rock

lit up by the sun

like a tiny red fire.

My heart surged—

they were not for me

but they might as well

have been.

Because the presence

of a simple,

handwritten note

is not lost

on the living;

no matter how hardened

our hearts.

The wind combed its fingers

through my hair

and made my skin prickle.

Black clouds in the distance

spoke of rain

and I felt as though

I had intruded

on an intimate

exchange.

Thin blades of grass

danced

and waved their tiny arms

as a rainbow

formed below me

in the valley—

That vivid arch

reflecting prisms of color

through the meeting

of water and light.

Longing is absolutely

necessary.

Yet we must stand

in the presence of another

to fully know

ourselves.

As I descended,

those cardinal colored

petals lay untouched,

in a simple gesture

of remembering—

I wonder,

had Kate ever come?

Excerpt from my book on Pilgrimage (the reason why I've failed to write for my blog for so long)

On the path of pilgrimage,

one must be prepared to engage God,

themselves, and the unexpected.

16 April 2013

Leigh’s flat, Eugene, Oregon, noon.

I drove thirteen hundred miles northwest of my desert home to get some breathing room. Funny thing is down in Arizona with all that spacious blue sky above, even when I climb to the top of a small butte, sometimes there still isn’t enough room for me.

I came to get away. I came because I wouldn’t have to pay rent at my aunt’s place, I had a flat of my own and free wireless. Jesse, my partner on the path and love of my life, came because I asked him to and he had time off from work. Some people back home thought I was running away; others thought I should have left Arizona years ago. I tried my best to create this journey North as a pilgrimage for myself, rather than leaving in order to prove others right or wrong. We left in a hurry because I was afraid if I waited, I might change my mind.

It was lightly raining as we pulled into parking space #47, our four-door white Corolla filled with suitcases, snack food, water bottles, shoes and jackets shed during the drive hours before. Jesse and I had driven the coastal highway from San Francisco and before that from the high desert of Paulden, Arizona. Now that I’m here, I realize it’s no wonder so many artists find their way to this part of the country—It’s lush and abundant with wildlife. Water flows on top of the Earth, it’s green, and fruit grows freely on bushes and trees near the side of the road. The desert has its own splendor, for sure, yet it’s masked in spines and prickly things and hides out in the middle of the day. One has to look for it in the pause before daybreak and listen in the dead of night as that bowl of stars whispers into our ear. The Oregon coast wears her riches on the surface, like all the women in India who wear their wealth in gold: nose rings, anklets, bangles and necklaces for everyone to see. Here, tide pools house a multitude of universes, contained between the hollows in the rock. I wonder is it just coincidence I find myself in the Pacific Northwest on a Tuesday in April, with so much life around me?

The luxury I have to take the next six weeks just to sit here with my MacBook and write these words to you is overwhelming. Nevertheless, this is what I’ve been given, and I’m trying my damndest to make good use of the blessings being showered upon me. I’ve worked hard in this lifetime to live to tell a story—what story I’m supposed to tell I’m not entirely sure, yet it’s a true story all the same. This story is about God. This story is about losing everything, twice. This story is about living my life AS Pilgrimage and finding reflections of myself and God in the most unexpected places.

ð

The first time I joined the club of “loss and stolen,” I was three years old and the bag of books my mom kept in her car to keep me entertained while we drove around doing errands was taken from the back seat. I remember the heavy feelings I had of sorrow and disbelief. I couldn’t understand yet why someone would take those books. The second time was this past winter, 22 years later, when my backpack was stolen on a train in India. I recognized those same feelings of “Why me? Why now?” rise to the surface and now with some life experience and awareness I was faced with a choice: Do I continue to feel victimized or do I use this opportunity for transformation?

That night on the train I lost everything and the next day I realized none of it mattered. In the moment, I screamed until I had no voice left because someone had taken my belongings—they were mine, not theirs to have. I needed them. I wanted them. These possessions in my backpack had been imbued with my essence. They’d traveled with me for months. They were a part of me. Some of those things were not even mine; they were borrowed from someone else; I was only their keeper. Now what? It was 3A.M. on the night train from Mysore to Chennai. I was with Jesse returning from visiting my aunt Leigh, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who lives at a monastery in the south of India teaching English to the resident monks, among many other note-worthy projects. I had fallen asleep with my bag under my seat. I hadn’t bothered to lock it up that night because we’d been on trains a dozen times already and previously had no trouble. Except this time there were no other bags but mine under the bench and that bright blue backpack was a prime target.

I stepped off the train with nothing but cash and my passport in a small, zippered purse around my neck. I felt hollow and withdrawn. The most devastating thing (especially for a writer) was the loss of my notebook, which held all the accounts of my journey. I was preparing to write a book so I had taken the big journal instead of the small one, get the picture? That, along with expensive health supplements so as to keep from getting wretchedly ill, my dirty underwear, a few gifts and my favorite poetry books; all gone. At first I blamed India for having violated my personhood. I was angry and hurt; this loss was significant for me.

Returning to my friend’s apartment, a true sanctuary in the middle of the city, gradually the anger subsided and my tears stopped, and I realized how grateful I actually was at having had this experience. Two days later, before I left India and flew back to America, I kissed the ground, thanking Her for taking these things away. Essentially She had done the job for me, catapulted me into a whole new way of being—lighter, more free, less encumbered by “stuff.” Grateful.

When I got back to the States I managed to piece together most of the facts of my journey and add from memory the details and tenor of the places we visited while in India. Three weeks after arriving back in Arizona, I opened my computer to continue working on the 25-page essay I’d started, but it was not to be found. The document was not in any of the places I had saved it on my laptop. All my writing was gone, once again. All that time spent thinking of the right word and ironing out the details, wasted.

I felt my world coming apart at the edges. To start all over again was the only thing I could do. I was consumed with doubt, worry, and frustration at having worked so hard at something, only to have it wiped clean, like the last stage of a Tibetan sand mandala. The monks who make the design might spend years working on one painting and when they finish, with one stroke if their hand—the whole thing is destroyed. And if I put it that way, I really have nothing to complain about because their art is objective and my attempts at art had been mostly whining and complaining, with a few interjections of clarity.

Nevertheless, I chose to continue, and this time to pay more attention to writing from a place of objectivity. From what I’ve read in my practice of study, this is all part of the process—First one must arrive at nothing before the pilgrimage may begin. I have nothing. I’m at zero… and yet, I sit with so much abundance around me, in me, through me. I have this story inside me already, I just have to get it down on paper, and really, “It is already written,” reminds R. Ryan, a mentor, friend, and personal heroine.

ð

The thing is, each time I have to start again, each time I come to the page, I am new. I am not the same person I was when I sat down to write a month ago. My task is to remember what I have learned and continue to be informed and transformed as I move through life. To do this, I must pay attention!

I make journeys, not to find myself, but to uncover what is already in existence. I travel to gain new perspective and look from different vantage points onto life as-it-is. I am already here: I need not look elsewhere for myself. Yet, as I place one foot in front of the other allowing myself to be moved by Grace, I am consenting to that same momentum to place my attention on the Heart of what is Real.

ð

Eugene is my sixth physical location in five months. It’s April 30^th and being mobile is grand, but it also has its price. I have to get light, meaning I must illuminate, uncover, unearth, get rid of, throw out, clarify, dispel myself of cumbersome material both physical and psychological. I have a lot of shit to purge, like old clothes and the need to “fix people.” Both of those I can afford get rid of permanently. I want to be able to move with ease and clutter weighs on the cells and makes for a very cumbersome travelling companion.

Tomorrow I’ll head back to Arizona for my college graduation. I’ll also go through my storage unit and clear out some serious clutter. I’m using this time away to get lucid in my head and my heart about what it is that I really want. 

For God and Myself

I’m talking about blood,

It runs through all of us.

I’m talking about hate,

We’ve all felt that grip.

I’m talking about the adoration we feel

For something much more expansive than ourselves,

Be it the ocean, the mountains, or those tiny, newborn fingers that curl around ours.

Have you felt that?

I’m talking about not mutilating ourselves with objects or thoughts,

That’s unproductive.

I’m talking about stopping the hate,

That double-edged sward cuts deep and I don’t like how it feels.

I’m talking about carefully crafting my life

So that my actions and my words

Reflect the brilliance of this existence.

I’d like to hear you say you’ll stop hurting yourself.

I’d like to see you be kind.

I’d like to feel you wrap your arms around me every once in a while,

Nussle into my hair,

And tell me that you love me and you’ll never leave.

Oh God, don’t disappear.

Oh Shi-nay, don’t disappear.

Chef Shinay (mostly notes to self, but you never know, these may come in handy for you too!)

Rule number 1:

Never leave the kitchen.

I’m prone to distraction which yields burnt pot bottoms (while writing letters) or leaving the oven on (after I remember I need to run to the post office, bank, and then get caught in a book store)… all morning.

Rule number 2:

Taste everything before serving it. Key words: more salt (or butter, or Braggs or lemon or fire).

Rule number 3:

Don’t cook while you’re hungry. This yields consuming most of what I’m making before it’s all put together. (Which is fine but then I forget how much I've eaten and when it comes time to sit down, I'm no longer hungry.) 

Late Night Poem

There’s such a bad rap about staying up late lately

All the health professionals will tell you that it’s better to eat before 7 and be in bed before 10 (sounds like when I was ten).

But that’s when my muse comes out to play!

She’s satiated by late-night episodes of wine, cherries, and pop-corn.

When the sun goes down my synapses fire faster,

Because in the mid-day heat I can’t see strait. 

I’m 25 and I still believe I can have it all—

In a tea cup, a man, and a bag of whatever.

Would you tell your child not to reach for the stars?

Are you still reaching for the stars, or…

Have you succumb to that holler about low-carb, no protein, strictly green diets?

What about the craving?

Is She satisfied with one kind of herbal tea and oatmeal?

Are you neurotic.

Sometimes being Adult means choosing to stay up late, going out dancing, drinking too much, swearing just for fuck’s sake, and knowingly having unprotected sex.

It’s my choice

To let the muse out.

She’s bursting at the seams and needs a little Healing!

Too much, too little, not enough, wanting, caring, forgetting, indulging, being irresponsible, talk back to me and we can scream at each other until there’s blood on the page and, after all, that’s what they want to see—no guts no glory.

Get up early, greet the dawn as She steams in my open window.

It’s June and summer’s just approaching.

Let go of your inhibitions.

Try to BE somebody useful.

Make good art.

Say thank you, because later might be too late.

It’s late, and I’m not even tired.

The screen door’s open wide and the cool breeze prickles my skin.

Who is She and where am I?

Give me something to Work with!

I’m down on my knees begging, no better than that man on the corner with the sign:

“Homeless, Broke, anything Helps.”

So why all this separation and desperation to connect?

I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE!

What ever happened to those days when guys actually ran after the girls, catching up to them, gently tugging their arm, and asking with their eyes, “Do you love me?”

All I’m saying is fear and technology ruin everything.  

From July 2011

Ever wonder what shape life would take if you let it? 

Squares, they rule my world. 

Packing boxes, pillows, computer screen, picture frames, dance floors...

Square t-shirts, my bed, my kitchen counter, even my bathroom mirror. 

As I look at my reflection, I see no squares. 

To look at squares, nice clean lines, predictable limits–

Closed doors, open doors, doorways to walk through. 

Sharp right angles, cutting into time and space. 

Making boundaries where none were before. 

Fences. Dish rags. Billboard signs. 

Arbitrary edges in a world that's not so strait...

Circles, I wonder what life would be like if circles ruled the world? 

Don't blame me for bad poetry this evening. I know it's bad and it's okay. Just skip this one and hope the next time is better. 

They're at it again, those squawking ravens.
I think a squirrel stole their eggs, or tormented their babies.
They're at it again with loud shrieks of indignation!
If only the world were fair... to a crow it means life or death,
to the human beings it means a red car or a black one.

I'm changing it up a bit, or so I'd like to think:
10:30pm and it's my bedtime.
I'm dressed to go out dancing but instead I'll find my way between the sheets with only my memories of  your arms around me for comfort.
I want to be HAD by the Divine.
I want to be chewed by God and spit back out–
I'll take ABC Shinay any day over this half-brained, self-sabotaging, 25-year-old suit.

Goodnight.
Time to write but there's no more strings of wobbly words coming out of this one tonight.
So waddya say chickies?
Shall we meet in our dreams and go dancing for a while before those blasted crows start again?

Chennai, India Day 40

I'm wedged in the door frame. My knees butt up against the screen and my back presses the open door. My ankles grind into the hard stone tile just to get a bit of internet. It's almost five in the evening here and still hot. Jesse and Emmanuelle sleep off lunch and in the next room and I chew a Halls and try and write something down. There's something about being far away (physically) that coaxes me to write more than just words for entertainment's sake. What am I doing here? One might ask. To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure. Most days I'm not sure of truth, so all I have are the facts and my faith in the divine dance of life. Oh geeze what the hell does that mean, Shinay? Not another rant about G-O-D. Something's happened to me, when I'm in India (or maybe it's just easier here) I feel that there is no separation between dhal and god, or coconut juice and god, or smiles and god.

A few great metaphors for today:
First, driving in India. The Indian are terrible at backing up. At first I was like, What the hell guys, what is your deal? Then I realized that it is only my responsibility to pay attention to what is in front of me. The Indians automatically assume that if they are in front of you and they stop, it's your problem to go around them, or stop. Likewise, when I'm walking down the road (literally in the middle of the roam because sidewalks here are a joke) all I have to worry about is what's right in front of me going forward. No need to turn around when I slow down or change directions; that's their problem.

Second, (again walking down the street) I was in front of my friend, Emmanuelle, and we were just walking along going someplace and I didn't know where we were going, but trusted that she'd tell me if I was going in the wrong direction. But something inside of me made me turn around and ask, "Am I going the right way?" She smiled and nodded and said, "Yup! And that's a great metaphor for Divine Influence. We have to trust that if we're headed in the wrong direction, we'll be told (in one way or another) and corrected back in the right direction." Wow, that's a good one to remember.

We hopped in a jitney back home. Grabbed a cold Pepsi and walked the rest of the way down the road sipping our cold drink. The noise from the street and a crow sharpening his beat on the railing outside brings me back to the present.

Remembering to be present.