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.

 I CUT MY HAIR! 

Photo by CJ Hast

I cut my hair!

I am just so happy!

I love it!

And by this time, dear reader, you know that I’m going to mine the full meaning of everything, even a change in hairstyle. So, of course I had to write about it and share it with you. It’s been a community effort, that’s for sure. It’s not because I necessarily need the opinions of others to make up my mind, but it’s just so much FUN to involve my friends in the big movements and changes.

I think that hair may be the single most important feature of outward identity. And this is an outward manifestation of an inner shift that has been percolating for a while now. In reinventing Karla, I’m moving closer and closer to the essence of who I am and who I am becoming in this third chapter.

After seventeen years of cutting my hair, Rosie really knows me and knows my hair. Loyalty is big with me. She encouraged me to go for it, to go for the change, even if it meant going to another colorist. I was positively flooded with relief. I had a choice! The pressure was off. And after talking it over, I could feel my enthusiasm rise as we talked excitedly about the changes in cut and color. She was so confident, she so obviously knows what she is doing; a real pro. And she made it all sound like so much fun, which is always a hook for me. “Let’s do it!”, said I.

http://www.panacheoncollege.org/ (Rose Bouvier) 

Even after that first pile of hair dropped, I felt so clear that this was what I wanted. But my God, there must have been a half of foot of hair and several years of growth that came off in one quick snip. As the cut progressed, I felt so safe and secure in her expert hands. I’ll never forget my sheer delight when she handed me the mirror at the end. I felt like I was in a movie! We took several pictures as I danced around the salon, exclaiming how much I loved it.  We hugged and then we hugged again and I went out into the world with a brand new look and an overwhelming sense of freedom. 

Photo by Rose Bouvier at Panache Salon

Karen was thrilled.  She’s been encouraging me to cut my hair and tone down the blonde for years. We sent a flurry of texts, forwarding the tiny little picture on the cell phone to her daughter, Allison who loved it, too and her husband, William, declaring me a “mature, lovely woman”. And listen to this! Karen had just bought a magazine with a cover of Susan Sarandon and she was just getting in the car to tell me NOT to do anything until she had sent me the picture of the cut and then there was my picture text with my new cut and it looked exactly the same as the picture! It was the exact same cut! How spiritual! 

Lucy was so much fun. A fellow Sagittarius, she knows how to mine the spiritual story out of everything. I was on my way to Point Reyes, and I spontaneously decided to call her from the car and ask her if I could come over and show her my new hair! She met me at the door all excited to see the new me.  

Girls can spend hours, and I mean hours talking about hair. It demands a lot of resources for it to look good, (or even passable), and a good deal of time and money. And the economist in me wants to efficiently allocate those resources. So we settled on the couch to have a long talk about, well, hair, and she looked me deeply in the eye and said, "It's just so ... you."  We realized that the best beauty consultants, stylists, etc. recognize the true essence of a person and bring that out and enhance it. How do you really look? How did you look when you were little? For example, this darker hair matches my eyebrows. This is so much closer to how God created me. What colors did She choose?  

Again, Rosie knows me.  She recognizes me and enhances my essence. 

Work was so much fun, too. I twittered all morning about my hair with anyone and everyone who would twitter with me! I heard that I look ten years younger, that it is softer, that it brings out the real me; Va’Nechia shook her head marveling at how much difference hair can make.  I even got enthusiastic, supportive energy from the guys. (However, John appeared totally mystified when I told him I was going to spend Saturday morning playing with my hair. “Playing with your hair?”, he inquired a little confused, “How does one play with hair?)  

CJ, while not a twitterer, but a great photographer, (and friend), put together a before and after four-part series of Karla and her hair, featured here in this posting. The pictures have been E-mailed far and wide to the vast reaches of the country. Pretty much everyone in my life, past and present has now witnessed my new hair!

"Before" by CJ Hast

"After" by CJ Hast

 (I’m not sure if I’ll ever really master that gigantic round brush with the scary wire bristles, but Rosie assures me I will become adept in no time and she’s ordering me one.)  

I held on to the long hair for a long time; the long blonde hair. I was a rock and roll girl. I was afraid that cutting my hair would mean I had sold out; that I would be so straight. (remember that description of people?) It wasn’t so much about getting older, but God forbid, going straight, soccer mom-ish that I was so worried about. I am so grateful for the courage (and it takes a lot of it, let me tell you!) and willingness to make such a big change in appearance. 

I came to realize that there is an elegant essence to women in their 50s and 60s. Our icons, Susan Sarandon, Rene Russo and Diane Keaton, inspire us. As much as I love her, Goldie Hawn just isn’t looking so good to me anymore. Even my icon, Stevie Nicks, hmmm. . not quite the look I’m going for these days. Stevie Nicks in her 20s  - yes. Stevie nicks in her 60s - no. Maybe I should encourage her to cut her hair, too! 

Everyone, and I mean everyone in my life loves it. Rob just keeps looking at me and nodding, "This is a really good look for you!" Can't you just hear him? 

Let us grow older elegantly, dear readers. Let us walk hand in hand, side by side, occupying our authentic points in space as we grow and change and reclaim and reinvent God’s perfect creation.  

I choose to see my life as a gift I’m still creating. 

How Do You Keep Your Wild Streak?

A trusted counselor recently suggested that I explore my adventurous side. Me? Really? I’ve always thought of myself as very adventurous. But you know, the truth is, over the years I have held my desires and impulses in check, which is probably not a bad idea, given some of the “decisions”, (can we even call them that?) I made in my 20s. You get older, you start caring a lot more about security. You hold it down; keep yourself reigned in, stay firmly on the ground. Then, pretty soon, you wonder where your spontaneity went.

I’m fifty six years old. Over the past two years I’ve had a horrendous bout with vertigo, a frozen shoulder, a joint that needs replacing in my big toe and more than a few knee problems. Let’s just say my body is not what it once was. I’ve worked the same job for ten plus years, lived in the same place for almost fifteen years, (can it be?) and been happily married to the same man for over seventeen. I don’t want to change any of these things. I love the structure of my life. It holds me, keeps me rooted in myself and in God.

But I have a wild streak. Always have. It’s a definite hallmark of the Crouse family from whence I sprung. I’ve been wondering lately about how I pay attention to that part of me. How do I give her air time? How do I let little pockets of it out in a safe and healthy way?  Here are some of my ideas:

·         Go see live music, preferably loud, raucous rock and roll.

·         Wear what you want.

·         Stop to watch the hawks fly.

·         Pray a lot with yourself and others. I recently heard about praying on the floor, prostrate, that intrigues me . . . I’m pretty sure that the wildest part of me is connected to God.

·         Put the top down on a cold day and turn up the heat.

·         Go skiing.

·         Live in Oaktown or Baltimore or Brooklyn. (I don’t understand my fascination with this last city, never even been there, perhaps it’s the Avett Brothers?)

·         Read books about mountain climbers.

·         Read Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

·         Stay on top of the Mavericks situation. (big wave surfing)

·         Go to the movies at midnight.

·         Go to Point Reyes (or elsewhere) and walk under the open sky. Do this a lot.

·         Go out and get really cold – or really hot.

·         The exhilarating feeling of letting go.

·         Change your hair. (maybe)

·         Wear a leather jacket with a dressy skirt.

·         Read the Rolling Stone.

·         Keep learning.

·         Tell the truth with no intent to harm.

·         Get up with the dawn and go somewhere new.

·         Eat and drink a lot of chocolate.

·         Power walk with your IPOD - recent play list: (unabashedly 70’s) 

o   Sweet Home Chicago – Eric Clapton and BB King

o   Second Hand News – Fleetwood Mac

o   Rough Justice – Rolling Stones

o   Farther Along – Flying Burrito Brothers

o   Heads in Georgia - JJ Cale and Eric Clapton

o   Throwing Stones – Grateful Dead

o   Mama Kin – Aerosmith

o   Write Me a Few of Your Lines – Bonnie Raitt

o   Bring it on Home – Led Zeppelin

o   On Your Way Down – Little Feat

o   Throwing Stones – Grateful Dead (had to hear it again)

·         Go to cafes, sip hot chocolate and write.

·         Go to Paris as often as the pocketbook allows.

Dear reader, how do you keep it wild?

 

SKIING AT TAHOE

 

 

I can still do it! It’s that sacred rhythm I love so much about skiing and I got it back after a couple of runs. I wouldn’t say that it’s exactly like riding a bike, but there was some vestige of muscle memory way down deep that I was thankfully able to access and it felt marvelous. 

However, I think my black diamond days may be over. 

Edie and I started on green for our first run, quickly moving to blue, but every time we rode up, I was itching to try that mogul hill beneath the chair lift. She warned that it looked pretty steep. “Oh, no”, said I, “I love moguls!” and off I went, turning eagerly at the top of the hill, toward the deadly “Little Dipper”, yelling over my shoulder, “I’ll see you down at the lift!” 



Me and Edie on the Slopes!

 Hmmmm. . . it’s taking a little longer to get my ski legs back on this one. Hmmm.. . . I think I may even be going over . . .down, down, down, I plunged into the snow . . . ok, not a bad one, I brush myself quickly and get  back to vertical. Hmmm. . . well, isn’t this interesting? I can’t seem to turn. What’s that about?  I remember being a pretty decent mogul skier in my day.  It must just be the heavy snow of Tahoe; I’m used to skiing in the powdery Rockies. . . . Oh, God. .. I really cannot turn in this stuff … BIG FALL! Both skis popping off kind of fall. A hat full of snow, goggles iced and fogged completely, a cold, wet sensation underneath my jacket kind of fall. Hmmm. . . do I even remember how to get my skies back on my feet? 

You have to understand I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t scared because I have no pride. I will cross the slope in a wide traverse snowplow, (aggravating anyone else who may be interested in actually skiing it), or heck, I’ll take the skis off and walk down if it actually comes to that.  So I waved up at Edie on her first ride above me on the chair lift, somewhat nonplussed and trying to appear optimistic. Her second pass found me on the ground, declaring, “This is clearly above my ability.”  By the time she rode above me on her comfortable chair lift for the third time, I briefly considered asking her to get the ski patrol.  

And then it happened - that magical moment of surrendering to reality.  I am 56. I have not skied in 20 years. I have not skied moguls in over 30 years. Yes, there was a time that I bounced through the bumps in Wyoming in my early 20’s but alas, I am no longer a hot dog. I wasn’t frustrated. I wasn’t even discouraged. I was gifted with some semblance of grace and gratitude that I can ski at all! I recognized that I am now a solid intermediate skier, (Edie assured me that my form was perfect), and I can enjoy that for the rest of my days. But you know those times when you’re just up against it? The aging process gets us all one way or another. I want to grow older well. I want to be able to just surrender in the middle of the mogul fields. I’m sure there will be more up ahead. . .

Me and Edie On the Deck

 

The guys were great.  Kevin and Rob were formally our “pit crew”, (coined by my good husband).  They drove us up to the hill, picked us up, carried our skies, helped us off with our boots (how did I ever get my own boots off?), drove us back home, eased me in the hot tub and cooked us dinner. Small correction:  Kevin cooked us dinner. That man can cook! Imagine coming home from skiing to the following meal:

• Salad with all sorts of goodies (and perfect vinaigrette).
• Rib eye steak with the bone removed (cooked a perfect medium rare, sizzling with butter).
• Mashed potatoes (with lumps).
• Spinach casserole (with buttery crumbs and cream).
• Fresh bread and butter. (just in case we needed more carbs)
• Chocolate (always a hit). 

View out our Window - Rob Droste

Three days of this! Eating and skiing and laughing and telling stories with good friends. What’s not to like? What a different world up there! That is something I absolutely love about California.  In the space of a few hours, one can be in a very different place. Compare the magnificence of Lake Tahoe, seen right out of our window, and up close on the slopes, with the grittiness of Telegraph Avenue in Oakland! I feel like I really got away. Skiing on that mountain seems almost surreal looking back on it. The bracing cold blew any cobwebs remaining from the vertigo clean out of my mind. Oh, good, gracious God, I skied again! I never thought I’d have the balance to do that a year ago. And I’ll have you all know that two short weeks later, my knees are finally beginning to bend again.

 

View out our Window - Rob Droste