Welcome to India

Arrived at the airport after 31 hours of traveling and immediately put on my bitchy, 'I got this figured out all by my self, thank you very much’ face and wandered out into the street as a blonde backpack sandwich thinking I knew shit. I didn’t.

Even though I’d been told the hotel was right across the street from the airport, it was a ridiculously big airport and an insanely big street filled with enormous amounts of screaming, sweaty, honking people. I walked half a mile in my instantly two sizes smaller Nike’s before I faced reality. Mission abort.

I turned around with my tail between my legs (those sticky MC Hammer pants that makes me look like Mayladdin) and walked right back past all those people I told a taxi was the last thing I needed in the world.

Back at the airport I persuaded the entrance guard to let me re-enter and exchanged money for a ridiculous rate in order to take a Norwegian priced taxi to the hotel right around the corner. Well now, it was a pretty ginormous corner filled with thousands of Indians on scooters, tuktuks, taxis, cars, and buses all fighting to fit into one lane simultaneously.

Welcome to India!

Full circles and new beginnings

Two years flew by since I snuck in, grabbed a bagel, poured a cup of coffee while spilling half on my pants, and tried to silently merge with the group of over 100 fresh faces by sliding onto one of the last unoccupied chairs in the back row.

This year I was one of the first to arrive. I set up  tables. Strategically placed signs across the building. And was one of the first to get hold of a bagel which I hid strategically under the welcoming table, and attempted to inhale quickly when I thought no one saw me. Of course that is when the largest clusters of people emerged from the elevator to get my “welcome, please make a nametag” with a voice served freshly from beneath half-chewed bagel hamster-cheeks.

The next step came by taking the first steps up on stage. Somehow I went from hiding in the darkest row to presenting in the light up front. It surprised me how comfortable it felt to be up there. I reflected on how I came in as an outsider, slowly made my way into the community on campus, and now stood there ready to speak to all new students about the center for career and community engagement which I now work for. Sounds like a pretty full circle to me.

A new chapter has arrived. Finally, I am stepping out of the eternal student role and entering fully into two new positions: one as a worker and the other as a dissertation proposal writer. I guess I am finally growing up. Add one dash of work and two teaspoons of dissertation and there you go: instant adult. 

Teaching and Callgirls

My yearning to teach struck me while reading the book callgirl.

Now why on earth would a book about being an escort fully ignite the passion for teaching in me?

Because this callgirl was extraordinary, she combined an academic life with the life of a luxury prostitute. And she almost succeed. Until her less acceptable professional persona slowly seeped into her societally approved one, and fused together into a class on prostitution. Actually, even then she excelled and the class became the most popular new topic that semester.

Through this, I learned the importance of picking a subject of deep personal interest. Something igniting a passion for teaching in you, and the desire to know more in your students.  When you pick a topic you have personal experience with, you are in a position to deliver the most intriguing material.  

Sometimes it’s the most random sources that give us the final nudge in the right direction. Towards what we crave, what seeks us out, and ultimately what fills our hearts with joy and life with vibrancy.

Curiously, my desire to teach emerged through reading the words of an escort. But not just any escort, a professor and an escort. Not only did the book open my eyes to teaching, but to the ability to combine two utterly different professions and ways of being. I take it as an invite to be all I am: perhaps I can be a teacher, writer, community engagement assistant, artist, bartender, and coach if I so desire? 

Belong Here. You Deserve It.

On a particularly cloudy Oakland morning, I wandered down the street enmeshed in my net of thoughts on “should I stay or should I go.” My introverted bubble burst once the black writing on the white wall next to me proclaiming “Belong here, you deserve it” grabbed my undivided attention. It all happened in the same split second as I thought “I’m probably overstaying my welcome.”

Maybe Oakland holds space for us all? A plethora of nationalities, ethnicities, and spiritual inclinations. People who were born and raised, and the forever young who migrates. Smelly hippies, thugs, techheads, burners, nutty professors, hipsters, yogis and artists all co-creating a hub to call home.

After four years I feel like a true Bay Aerian. At the same time my rootless nature pokes me with bursts of restlessness as never before. Maybe that’s part of it as well. Perhaps this is my Shangri-la and I need search no more?

Home is where the heart is according to the saying. What happens to the divided heart who equally resides amongst a Norwegian winter’s first snowflakes and the Golden Gate Bridge? The lesson I take from the writings on the wall is to practice feeling like I belong wherever I am, inside and out. Because I deserve it, and so do you regardless of where you’re from and where you reside!   

Women's World?

For the first time in history it’s pretty ok to be a woman. Well at least in Western countries. Most of them anyways. And if you dig deeper into ancient history it’s probably not the first time either, but forget that for a moment. Point is: women now can mostly do what we want. Travel alone, work, get higher education, and decide when or if we want to get married and have children. Freedom rushes through our veins. Along with profound responsibility and a dash of loneliness.

The more choices, the higher burden rests on us making right ones. Women are so lucky we can now become mechanical engineers, software developers and firefighters and if we are extra productive all of the above. That simple fact should make us jump for joy. But, what if some of us want to be taken care of? Should we look at those women with eyes tainted by disgust, and judge them as weak, old fashioned, and a disgrace to modern women? Males’ feminine counterparts who should now ideally love running down Manhattan making a deal on the cell phone for one of her businesses, while the other rings profusely in her pocket. 

I’m not saying I want to be a housewife or have anyone needing to take care of me, god no. But what if I one day want to have children (or child) and spend some extra time taking care of them for a year or two, do I then fail at being a modern woman?

When it comes to equality, no one can put their hand on the bible and make a truthful claim that women really make the same money as men in the same positions or that we are judged by the same parameters. If they do, they probably think racism is dead too.

Truth is many (but not all) women have more opportunities now than ever before known to mankind. In fact, we have so many that one of us can sit at work and reflect on all her opportunities and almost make it sound negative. How ridiculous! After a thorough reflection on my capability to even reflect on such matters, I have to conclude these are all signs we are living in damn good times!

When the Fire Fades

Ever noticed the over-bubbling of ideas in people fresh out of a workshop? Everything is possible. The world is their playground. Human beings now exist solely to guide them along their path. Suddenly, even grumpy Mr. Ross at the corner seem to smile at them, the sun shines brighter, the 0 in their bank account is an open invite to the universe, and yeah, they probably lost some weight too.

What happens to the magic once the afterglow fades? Reality quickly sucks one back in, and the totally doable idea gets shot further and further out into the cosmos until only a mirage remains. Perhaps it pokes you in the side after a meditation or shakes you up when you dream at night. Certainly the bittersweet taste of an unlived life remains.

How did I ever think I could start a coaching business, I can’t even coach my cat to pee in the box. Become a private yoga teacher, yeah right, I barely threaten myself to do 10 minutes in the morning. A spiritual teacher who drinks wine every week, enjoys multiple partners, and prefers to wear miniskirts and heels would be stoned to death with hate-mail after the first public appearance. And further and further away they go. Ideas, dreams, and visions slip away as preset boundaries close us into our safeguarded comfort zone: a zone of uncomfortable comfort where stagnation rules and disbelief of self reigns supreme.

Are these visions kept safe in a dimension of forgotten futures? Do they wait for us until we’re ready, or forever dissolve?

Burnmarked Bipolar

5 years. No medication. 2 ½ university degrees. 8 countries. And a dozen heartfelt connections later I am still terrified. Scared to death to share my story because of its sacredness. A sacredness more commonly ridiculed, demolished, and locked away than unfolded.

I spent months and years wishing I could wash off my label. But it burned deep into my skin. Like someone tattooed 'psycho' on my forehead. Even after it's been laser removed, the scar tissue remains.

Bipolar. Not just any bipolar. Bipolar type one. Manic depressive. The highest sort of maniac. Infinite times more likely to self-destruct before the age of thirty than ones peers.

No wonder. As I sat in front of my psychologist at the age of twenty-fucking-one and received a paper to file for permanent mental disability, I too would most likely have self-destructed by now if I followed my prescribed path.

Speaking of prescriptions. The cocktail of numbness they shove down your throat hoping you'll forget enough of who you are to ever consider alternatives. I feared myself for years because I was told I was a danger to me. Now, I find it far more dangerous to never face oneself and one’s army of demons and wait until they violently erupt to the surface, than to turn around and say "hi, you're part of me for a reason, I'd like to know why?"

Path, Potential & Perfectionism

Strangled by fear of failure and paralyzed by perfectionism I do nothing but wait. Wait for the day lightning strikes and erases every inclination to self-sabotage.

Until then, I jump forward at any chance to do everyone else’s work but my own. Because I trust myself enough not to fail for others. Why do I then fail myself by not even trying?

I am a writer that never writes, a dancer who never dances, a singer who never sings, and a healer who stopped healing because it hurts too much.

All that makes me me I let be. Because in a twisted way, it is safer to spend my time thinking of doing things, fearing the failure of doing them wrong, and doing other people’s things than actual action for my own satisfaction. All the things I love the most, I also fear to death.

I do actually love my job, but I wonder if I can do my job and my work at the same time? I believe the answer is yes. Not only in the case of me. I think there is a perfect opportunity for people’s day-to-day jobs to feed (or be part of) their higher purpose. Simply notice how what you do now feed into what you might do later, whether it is a skillset, connection, or inspiration. I viscerally felt my writing block start to crumble as I watched a presentation on writing tools yesterday. And today, I finally write again…

Lately, I have taken one step forward professionally and two steps back personally. I am ready to merge these fields and take three collective steps in the right direction. Hopefully, it won’t be as hard once I’ve seen how my job can feed my work, and any action is better than inaction.