Vacation at Home – Part 6 

Solitude and Community

 

My Beloved Point Reyes

 I have found that alternating between solitude and community; reflection and activity, help keep me at my highest creative state.  I go out and experience life in all its vividness and color and then return inside myself to write about it. I try to capture the feeling of vacation with words.  Then, the pendulum swings.  I can only get so far on my own.  I need the connection and stimulation of relationship.  I spend time with friends and community, sharing activities, ideas and insights, learning about what gives them energy and joy.  We open our inner landscapes to one another and are enriched in the process. 

 

I experience my generosity and the best parts of myself when I am engaged and happy.   My heart is open and I am available to others.  I feel more connected to God, myself, the people in my life and to the place I live.  I realize that creativity requires time; free, unstructured, unfettered, gloriously unhurried time.  While I need time and solitude in order to create, I know that creation is impossible for me outside of community. But invariably the pendulum swings once again and I crave the alone time to fully absorb and saturate myself in what I have learned and experienced.

Women's Group - All Saints

 

Re-Inventing Karla a Year Later

 

 

 

It has been a year almost to the day since I started writing to you through Re-inventing Karla. I’ve continued healing and growing, rotated through four seasons, wrote to you from Paris parks and patisseries, skied in Tahoe, celebrated my 56^th birthday at the famous Bracebridge concert in Yosemite, went to Colorado’s Red Rocks with Karen, met mountain climber, Annie Whitehouse, braved the fierce spray from a waterfall last summer in Yosemite with Elise and Haywood, rolled through West Oakland with Lena, had tea with Gloria, and roamed through the Occidental Farmer’s Market on opening weekend, went on discovery walks through San Francisco with Ann, explored Point Reyes with Alexandra, discovered new cafes and rambled through a plethora of East Bay restaurants with a group of faithful epicures, kept my wild streak going and rocked at the Furthur concert with Maureen and Los Lonely Boys with Edie and the girls, and at the end of it all; cut my hair! And most importantly, enjoyed the solitude and the quiet and the ecstasy of the inner life with God that makes it all possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I realize what a good year it has been and I am grateful. The Daily Word reminds me that, “Life is meant to be lived fully and intentionally. As I string together day after joyful day I create a wonderful and blessed life.” 

I thought it might be fun to remind us all of my initial vision and how Re-Inventing Karla got started so I’m reprinting my first post . . .

 

For about three years I’ve been working on a book, Vacation at Home, Cultivating Delight in the Everyday.  I will post several of my ideas here; including the spirit of adventure, gratitude and love of place, being authentic, staying curious, keeping it simple, creating systems that liberate. . . the ecstasy of the inner life, embracing silence, listening deeply, engaging passions, sustaining rituals, rotation of the seasons . . . live music, movies, restaurants, theater, cafes, street life, energy and movement . . .expedition days, weekends, spa days and sacred grooming . . . the year of healing, retreats, books, reading, pots and more pots of tea  . . . holiday rituals, entertaining, designing experiences for others, re-creating home and moving the furniture on Memorial Day, favorite places, vibrant colors, eccentric characters, different identities, alternate stories, unlived lives . . .and keeping it fresh within the core structures. (Oh boy, rereading this gives me lots of ideas to write to you about during the second year . . )

 But my friend, Val, (a real writer, yes, the real thing) helped me to realize that all of this has been sourced by the core process of re-inventing myself.  I moved around a lot as a kid; grew up in several grade schools, three junior highs and three high schools, all in various parts of the country.  I experienced a fair amount of struggle and loneliness and self-consciousness trying to be clever and interesting enough to get some new friends every year.  Some years were good to me and some were brutal, especially in that hypersensitive part of the journey called adolescence.  I got a little broken there, but the strength and ingenuity I developed have served me through my life.  I know how to re-invent myself.  I’ve learned how to cultivate an awareness of joy and beauty and recognized the angels who have helped me along the way. 

I’ve rarely chosen to move as an adult, only three or four times, but each place has required me to re-invent myself depending on the culture, the work, the friends, my identity, my age and the gifts in that particular location.  I’ve never thought of myself as creative.  But I realize that moving through life itself is a creative process.  The most recent move was from folksy Eugene, Oregon to the Bay Area.  Some things were similar, like the progressive culture and the western vibe, but Oakland, California is very different from Eugene; very different indeed.  I didn’t want to go; I loved Eugene, I loved my friends, I loved our home, I loved the trees, I loved the wild Oregon Coast.  But seminary and ordained priesthood called to my husband, and I was part of the team.  When you’re married, their dreams are your dreams and their shit is your shit.  (Thank you, dear Judith for that quip.)  I worried about it for the two years before the move.  Alas, anxiety is one of my struggles.  But the day finally came and we loaded up all of our stuff and sweet Sammy, (our orange tom), and hurtled down the coast until we hit Berkeley.   

I worked through all the worry and moved down here with a decent attitude, thank God.   I immediately began to explore the area.  It’s so big!  There’s so much to do!  To learn!  To experience!  I loved it here and have kept loving it to this day.  I am enraptured in a love affair with the Bay Area!  We’ve been here for almost 15 years, the longest by far I’ve ever lived anywhere.  I’ve had the same job for over 10 years, the same husband for over 20, and most of the same friends.  But lately I’ve been very aware of being transplanted to a bigger pot where there is more room to expand my roots, my relationships, my experiences and my vocation into greater meaning and purpose as I get older.  This has been a new challenge without the forced geographic moves of my childhood.  I see so many people’s lives get smaller as they get older.  But time is so precious, (much more precious than money), and life is short and wondrous and it unfurls in its glory and its loveliness as I immerse myself deeper and deeper. I invite you, dear reader, to join me on the journey of reinventing self as we grow older, (not for the fainthearted!) in this wild, beautiful place. 

From my journals, Oakland, California, March 31, 2012.

 

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.  Forget yourself. 

- Henry Miller

 

 

 

Vacation Almost at Home - Part 5

St. Dorothy’s Rest Retreat House

 

This is truly a holy room. Lots of prayers have been said here, lots of listening, too, . . . the rain, the fire, the quiet, my heart, God . . .

I’m up at an Episcopal retreat house, called St. Dorothy’s Rest, near Occidental, deep in the Northern California redwoods. I can see the mist curling through tall pines, gazing out a long row of wood-framed panes from a four poster bed – oh, sweet God, there are windows everywhere I turn – I love this! There is even a gorgeous stained glass window with blue trim and a wooden cross.

 

 

A pot-belly gas stove turns on intermittently; magically to heat the room when it dips below 70 degrees. (I want one of these!) I kept it on all night; fell asleep watching its little fire; woke up once at dawn to its warm, dancing light, then nestled back into the covers and woke up around 7:30 to its sweet fire once again and got my first glimpse of the mossy velvet mist.

 

I feel like I’m a million miles from the city, but in fact, I’m only an hour and a half or so from Oakland. I’m on vacation almost at home.

 

Rob will join me tomorrow – he doesn’t want to miss his painting class and I love looking at his art; his prayer of many colors and interesting shapes, infused with his Rob-essence delights me and lifts my heart.

It is raining so I don’t feel like I have to go outside and be active. I can just stay here all day if I want to and write to you and pray and meditate and read and reflect and start my new mountain climbing book, Anapurna, written in 1951 by Maurice Herzog, a Frenchman, leader of the first expedition to reach the top of one of the giant 8,000 meter peaks in the Himalaya.

I hiked all the way around Bodega Head yesterday at Westside Regional Park outside of Bodega Bay. I strolled along, listening to the seals barking and the mighty surf crashing, gazing down, down, down (almost scary down!) at the magnificent rock and foam amidst the deep turquoise-green pools. Thank you dear CJ for going first and discovering this wild, wonderful area and sharing it with me!

(Can you even believe I forgot my camera?!?)

Dear reader, if you live in the Bay Area, come out here! It is a whole different world from the city. In fact, no matter where you live, go out to the closest wild place. Go out there now! Or really soon. It’s worth the energy. Walk in beauty. It will save your soul.

Rambling along spring green roads like the Bohemian Highway and Joy Road, (oh, dear God, so green!), I stopped at an antique store and bought a floppy black hat for $10. I’ll wear it to church next Sunday. It will collapse easily in a suitcase and will get to go on the next trip to Paris. And it will always remind me of this precious weekend near the end of this year of healing. Only a faint trace remains of the vertigo; the shoulder and toe joints are slowly healing. My spirit soars from a deeper, anchored place. Thanks be to God!

Vacation at Home – Part 4

 

Cultivating Gratefulness  - Learning How to See in the Springtime of the Soul

Field of Daffodils at the San Francisco Zoo

Purity of heart is learning to see clearly. 

John Main, Benedictine Monk

 

Cultivating gratefulness is a creative act.  I actually create something new when I am grateful.  I learn how to see. I focus and move into the depth of things.  There is so much life and beauty within a five mile radius of my home when I develop the consciousness of how to look.  I realized that I could start experimenting right at home.  What makes me feel hopeful, playful, spiritual and lighthearted?  What am I doing?  Who am I with?  What pulls me?  Do I have the courage to follow it?  

“Take a long, loving look at the real”.

Walter Burghardt, Jesuit theologian 

How can you make your own neighborhood interesting, no matter where you live?  Experiment with your intuition.  What do you see?  What engages you?  What does it feel like to be engaged?  How does it feel to be so present, you don’t want to be anywhere else?  What draws you deeper into your everyday world?  How can you discover the mystery and magic in the ordinary?   

One looks selectively and relishes the unexpected.

Henry James , “A Little Tour of France” 

My friend’s photography is not only a hobby, but a spiritual practice when she is fully aware of the world around her.  She has trained herself to notice, to really see the beauty in the mundane, the unexpected in the ordinary and the relationships between people, animals and the natural world.  Her photographs open up a whole new world within a world. 

Life is a wondrous journey. Romp in the kingdom! Get off the bank and frolic in the stream of goodness; that exquisite place of lightness and beauty. Go on vacation and stay there! 

The moment is to the minute as the atom is to the molecule – live gloriously in the very moment.

Me!

 

I wish you a joyous spring, new beginnings, re-creating and resurrection dear readers!

 

Vacation at Home – Part 3

 

The Flaneur

 

The flaneur – that aimless stroller who loses himself in the crowd, who has no destination, and goes wherever caprice or curiosity directs his steps. . . the flaneur is in search of experience, not knowledge.”  - The Flaneur, Edmund White

 

 

 

 Yes!  That’s exactly it!  I am a flaneur!  This captures the spirit of how to be on vacation at home.  I love being amidst the buzz of life, but from inside of myself, whether in Oakland or Paris. I am free to reflect and observe while surrounded by people at cafes, street fairs and urban parks.   

The trick to being on vacation at home is to cultivate this flaneur consciousness of finding things endlessly absorbing.  Learn how to loiter.  Stay curious!  Stay alive!  Keep it fresh!  Follow your nose.  What pulls you?  Take the detours.  Find the hidden gardens off the alleys, peek inside the pretty backyard porches, climb the stairways between the homes built in the ‘20s for hardy Berkeley walkers. Stop and take a quick look at the dining room of a new restaurant, grab a menu, wander in the neighborhood bookstore, delight in the flower arrangement outside of the florist shop. . . life is endlessly wondrous! 

 

 

Cultivate the state of being purposeless . This is vacation!  This is a lighthearted playfulness you can feel anywhere at any time.  Savoring the experience is a fun, interesting way to be in the world. 

 

 

Flaneur consciousness works best when I create a general structure for the day.  Studying maps and booklets and letting my enthusiasm build is an important part of the process.  But once I’m out there, I let go of the structure and abandon myself to unfettered spontaneity and curiosity. Every moment is an amazing opportunity to be present.  Be interactive with the environment, letting it reveal itself moment by moment. Be interruptible.  Don’t plan.  Let yourself be surprised. Let it open up like a wild, exotic flower before you.

 

His passion and creed is to wed the crowd. . . to take up residence in whatever is seething, moving, evanescent and infinite. - Baudelaire

Vacation at Home – Part 2 

 

Rockridge Oakland Early Spring

 

Geophilia – Relationship with Place 

Geophilia is cultivating a deep love of place. Isn’t that a cool concept? It was new to me when my spiritual director introduced it after hearing about my love of the Bay Area, Paris, Oregon, Point Reyes,Yosemite and the Rockies. People with geophilia actually develop a creative relationship with place. They not only have relationships with the people and the community, but they also have developed a connection with the place itself.  

 

Glorious Yosemite Meadow

 

I am one of those people. I yearn to discover everything about the place I live and know it deeper and deeper over a lifetime.  I will travel the world, but I don’t ever want to live anywhere else.   

 

Bois de Boulogne - Paris

 

Lake Tahoe - Rob Droste

 

I love the Bay Area. I want to share it with my friends. I want to write about it.  I want to explore its parks, bookstores, libraries, restaurants, music halls, cafes, natural areas, pools, waterways, and hiking trails.  I love my expedition days, (also coined by my spiritual director), devoting a morning, a day or even a whole weekend to exploring the place I live and its surrounding areas. It gives me great joy to develop and deepen the relationship I have with my home. I have fallen in love with the place I live.  You can, too. 

 

Japanese Gardens at Lake Merritt Oakland

 

Red Rocks - Colorado

 

 

No matter where you live; no matter how much money you have; no matter how many hours you work, no matter how many friends you have, whether you are partnered or single, you have yourself; your resources, your creativity, and your spirit.  You have that essential core of yourself that is deeply and irrevocably free.  You can be on vacation anywhere!  Even at home.  Even at work.  Now that is radical! 

 

My Beloved Point Reyes - Spring Wildflowers

 

Spring Iris at Point Reyes

Vacation at Home – Part 1 

Spirit of adventure, cultivating gratitude, love of place, conserving resources, being authentic, staying curious, keeping it simple, creating systems that liberate . . . 

A State of Consciousness 

I have spent a lot of money and time on carefully planned vacations in faraway places.  I haven’t always returned home rested, happy and rejuvenated.  Often I didn’t feel like I thought I would feel.  Sometimes I was anxious through much of it and couldn’t get settled.  Maybe it was too planned without enough room for spontaneity.  For whatever reason, it wasn’t as much fun as I had envisioned.  I had wasted that precious time and I wouldn’t get another big vacation for a whole year.  If I have to wait that long I started wondering how I might be lighthearted, curious, interested and engaged in what I was doing in my everyday life.   

It’s not so much that I wanted another vacation.  I wanted that joyful feeling of living in the moment, carefree and at ease.  I wanted that state of being where I was finally content, sated, no longer hungering for the next thing.  Isn’t that the true spirit of vacation?  It is not about what I do or where I go, but how I do it.  Vacation is not a place, it’s an experience.  It’s an experience I can’t force, I receive.  It is a whole new way of being in the world.  Vacation is a state of consciousness.   

I realized that I could learn how to savor my environment and get absorbed in that joyous way.  I could learn how to notice the beauty and the splendor that is right before me every day.  I could learn how to minimize the time pressures, the deadlines, the stress that robs me of joy, the needless errands and empty social engagements.  I could learn how to add luxury to my daily routine and feel like I’m on vacation while moving through an ordinary day.  

There are a lot of different ways to be creative.  Some of you create art, music, characters and stories.  I create experiences.  I realized that one of the ways I am creative is living life well and living it resourcefully; walking lightly, simplifying, lightening the burden of too much stuff, minimizing obligations and maximizing the time for play. There is an art to living life well and it is worth cultivating.  What could be a more lofty purpose than developing fullness of life?  

I have always craved experiences of deep meaning; I want to live a life of purpose; to keep learning, to stay curious, and broaden my perspective.  I want to live with a sense of adventure and unlimited possibility.  I realized that the most ordinary day can be special, new, electric and full of promise when I am on vacation at home.