Monday, January 15, 2007The LongingI recently had a very unnerving realization about myself. It's a habit I have that is so natural to me that I've never thought to even think about it. But when I did start thinking about it, it revealed something pretty significant about how I go through life.When I go to sleep I usually indulge myself in some good old fashioned yearning... usually (but not always) something to do with the comfort of having a warm body beside me. It's not usually sexual. It's more about wrapping myself up in a sense of security. Like cuddling up with a stuffed animal in order to settle myself into slipping off into sleep. Which is odd, since I'm really yearning for something I don't have and finding solace in the yearning, rather than finding comfort in the things I do have... but I'll get to that part later. I guess it's kind of a girly thing. And it's steeped in cultural icon. It's very much "Someday my prince will come" stuff. And I've never seen any harm in it whatsoever. I comfort myself with dreaming about things that might be, people I may be with, places I may go. Someday my prince will come... and I'll be sleeping in a villa in Tuscany... and I'll have lots of money... and pretty soon I'll have yearned myself to sleep. OK. Hold that one aside. Because I have another confession to make before I get to my point. I recently spent a very pleasant afternoon with a friend in front of Buster's, in South Pasadena. We were comparing notes on mutual friends and places we'd been. We both love Paris, although he's been graced with far more time there than I have. It was a winter afternoon and as we talked, the light went from the warmth of the late afternoon to the cooler tones of early evening. The amber lights of the store windows across the street came on, as did the Christmas lights on the awnings and trees. Periodically as we spoke a Metro train would roll through the Mission station. At one point in the middle of the conversation, my friend looked around and said "You know, this could be Paris." I stared at him, my mouth slack with disbelief. South Pasadena? Paris? I said something to that effect. And then for a few seconds we looked around: the cafe on the street, the little stores, the sense of a little community intersection huddled in amongst the larger metroplex. The colors of the stores, the clarity of the light, the intermittant sound of the semaphore bells as the trains came and went... yes, I finally saw for a transformative two seconds: it could be Paris. That few seconds of looking at my world a different way lodged inside me in a way that I have found hard to shake. It happened again the other day when I was walking my dog on the pallisades above Santa Monica. It was another beautiful winter's afternoon but this time I didn't have a tour guide to point out the highlights. Nor did I have to lapse into metaphor. I was simply walking along and noticing the people I was passing, the glory of the Pacific stretching out with its aching blueness to my right, the PCH below me flowing up towards Malibu -- symbol of all things Beach Boys and California Dream. And then I had transformative thought #2: God, I love this town. I nearly stopped walking, the idea was so radical. What? I yelled to myself internally. You love this town? Like love love? And the answer came: Yeah. Sometimes I do. Like right now. Driving home through downtown I was still kind of shaken to the core by the enormity of that thought, when I realized what was going on: I've lived most of my life in a town that I don't love, and longing for another place is as normal to me as breathing invisible air. It is just how I walk through the days, wishing I were somewhere else. And then I started putting it together. By day, I long deep in my soul to be somewhere else. By night, I long deep in my soul to be transported into a life free of care. What else do I long for? And the answer came: just about everything. I long for more time. I long for more ease about money. I long for a better body with which to do yoga. I long for better words to come out of my fingers. I long for a more challenging job. I long to be able to play bass better (that's a whole other blog). I long to do martial arts again. I long for all the people who are no longer in my life. I long for people whom I've never met. I long to be nicer to my children. I long for more quality time with my dog. Oh my GOD. I am a bottomless well of longing. It is so part of me to long for things that I don't even know what it would be like not to. Is this really true? I don't think of myself as a greedy person, a person who wants stuff. I really don't. I actually long (there we go again) for less stuff. So it's not a greed thing, or an acquisition thing, it's more a sense of having this yearning, this ache inside my heart for something more. And I don't think it means I'm unhappy or discontented. I have an equally long list of things I am deeply and passionately grateful for in my life. When I say I'm happiest right here, right now, I really mean it. I do love my life and my kids and my friends and my dog. I love all of it and I long to embrace it more. So what kind of person am I here then? Can I get out of this by saying I long but I don't want? I long but I'm happy where I am? Sadly, the writer in my knows that that's splitting hairs. Longing and wanting are certainly in the same family. And being in a state of longing is really not all that far from being just a garden variety malcontent who is cranky about the state of her life. It's not really a pretty confession, is it? It makes me feel unbelievably graceless and clumsy. And pedestrian. And unevolved. But with this revelation comes some indicators of how I can fix it. First of all, instead of going to sleep at night longing for something or someone I don't have, I have started listing off people and joys I do have. That's actually a much better bedtime story to tell myself, now that I've done it for a few nights. Instead of a fantasy, it's real. It's like soothing yourself with a documentary of all the good things that are really going on, instead of going to sleep with an ache because you don't know if the fairy tale will ever have a happy ending. And when I wake up, instead of listing the things I want to do with the day, I try to start off with the same exercise. It doesn't work as well actually (because I am a huge lister of things to do with the day), but it does carry on through into my productive hours. I've found myself noticing things and mentally saying "thanks" for them. I'm not sure but maybe my restless soul is finding this soothing. Without a doubt, it feels better (even though I feel like I'm in some kind of remedial AA "Attitude of Gratitude" bumper sticker land). Mainly what I've realized is that all this longing is really a serenity-buster. You can't really shoot for full-on (or even half-on) serenity, when most of your life you are thinking that life is OK here but boy wouldn't it be more OK somewhere else? You can't really settle into being here now, when deep in side... you'd rather be in San Francisco, or Paris, or New York. All the longing does is put a kind of huge disclaimer on everything in my life. And it's so big it's almost invisible. Oh yes, I'm very content (except that I don't like my hometown.) Oh yes, I'm happy with where I'm at (except if I had a really terrific boyfriend I'd be that much happier.) It's not to say that I need to be complacent and cease striving for better things. It means that the longing for things I don't have becomes an underlying minor chord that subtly diminishes everything I do have. Instead of filling out the song, it detracts from it -- causing me to listen only partially rather than opening up all senses to the full beauty of the moment. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 7:27 AM  
Comments: Dear Kathy, First of all, as a Walden parent myself, I have to congratulate you for your success and thanks for sharing your authentic feelings.."longing" is a natural feeling but you will be transformed when you act as if you are living in "there" now. It's all in the mind. Remember, the "kingdom of heaven is within"..and the longer we look for answers outside of us. the longer it will take to reach. Congradualtions again! Frieda My blog: www.racket-free.blogspot.com # posted by  Frieda : 11:40 AM
it's me again..I loved this in your bio: "She is a seeker of truth, an adventurer of the spirit, and considers that living life mindfully is one of our few true imperatives as human beings." I truly identify with each word... # posted by Frieda : 11:44 AM
I know, Peach! Life is full of longings and yearnings and using them to go to sleep at night and wishing for that we have not.Then I get up in the morning, drive onto the Universal lot and there's this guy Harry, the traffic cop at the main gate. I'm in a bad mood. He's not. Tells me to have a great day, calls me "Mister David" and shakes my hand. My day is better. But I still want to live in Paris. Or Provence... # posted by Unknown : 8:40 PM
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