Serious Business

 To think of shadows is a serious thing.

-Victor Hugo

We all have things in life we dread doing, big or small. For me some of the worst are folding socks, calling people back when I know it's been waaaay too long, renewing the tabs for my car, and emptying the little filter thing in the drain that is always full of indescribable yuck.

There are daily tasks I avoid like the plague, as well. Namely flossing (slacking mucho since month one ended, by the way, but who knows but me?), shaving (let's be honest - I'm married, my husband is blind as a bat and here in Seattle short weather doesn't come around until late July at the earliest; I still have a few months where I can get by being hairy), and putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher. And some that somehow just slip by like watering plants (I'm sooo sorry, you poor dehydrated flora) and paying bills (once the letter gets opened & put in the pile, I lose all sense of urgency).

In an effort to get more organized and to persuade me to actually accomplish annoying tasks I decided to spend a month tackling the not-so-fun-but-necessary serious. This month has many facets, all of which I am dreading, but are key in alleviating stress and helping sort out priorities in my life.

It won't just be spring cleaning and paying taxes, although those will certainly have their place. I also plan to tackle goals for my future with a serious sit-down to figuring out what I want to do/be (from my original notes back in January: mommy? doctor? writer? cook? teacher? midwife? naturopath? photographer?) and figuring out what steps I need to take to get on my way to becoming/doing whatever it is I decide I want to try to be/do.

Another key element, possibly the most important and certainly the most dreaded, is a serious examination of my relationship with fear. I plan to take an honest look at my fears, from the tiniest most insignificant to the monumental, including things that might not be seen as fears but that make me uncomfortable. The next step is to find a way to challenge each and every one of them.

This month will probably not be the most fun month I've ever had, but I am in anxious in all senses of the word to get started. I am apprehensive, of course, but I am also excited to get over this hump because I know that overcoming these obstacles is huge in the grand scheme of things. What better way to connect with yourself than to challenge your biggest fears head on?

What is the what?

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

- पतञ्जलि (Patañjali)

The general idea of this project is to work on rebuilding, strengthening or creating new connections within many fundamental aspects of my life. These can be broken roughly into three parts: me, you and everything else. Solely for reasons of simplicity I have chosen a year as the time frame for this project, and thus each part is dedicated four months in the spotlight. Each month will be assigned a specific theme (for example, connections with the body) and within that theme I will assign myself specific tasks (for example, drink enough water) with the ultimate goal being that I will feel more connected to the theme at the end of the month.


Some specific tasks will seem simple or mundane (floss) and others grandiose or abstract (find what is sacred). Some months will have many boxes to check, others seemingly little to grade. 


I am reserving the right to change any aspect of this project at any time for any reason. I often make quite lofty challenges for myself and then fail to complete them out of fear of failure. If I find a task too demanding, I will ask myself why I am struggling and adapt accordingly, keeping in mind that it is not the end of this enterprise that is the most important, but what happens along the way. If I make any changes I may or may not make it known to the public, but my general goal is to write every day of my trials and tribulations. I believe that you, as well, are an active part of my reconnection.

I am not so good with sticking to dates, so each "month" of the project will start on the 15th of said month and continue on until the 14th of the next month. That way I get to mull things over for what seems like two months (who cannot say that February feels much different than January and September from August?) when really it is only one. For daily tasks it is assumed any given day begins upon waking, not necessarily at midnight. For weekly tasks, I am considering Sunday the first day of the week, thus the task should try to be completed by bedtime the following Saturday night.


And so, as of 9 o'clock on the eve of day one, here are the monthly themes for reconnect:

Act One: Me

Month One : January 15 - February 14

Connect with Body/Image

Month Two: February 15 - March 14

Connect with Mind/Intellect

Month Three: March 15 - April 14

Connect with Soul/Spirit

Month Four: April 15 - May 14

Connect with Serious

Act Two: You

Month Five: May 15 - June 14

Connect with Love

Month Six: June 15 - July 14

Connect with Family/Friends

Month Seven: July 15 - August 14

Connect with Community

Month Eight: August 15 - September 14

Connect with Play

Act Three: Everything Else

Month Nine: September 15 - October 14

Connect with Passions/Desires

Month Ten: October 15 - November 14

Connect with Earth/Nature

Month Eleven: November 15 - December 14

Connect with Life

Month Twelve: December 15 - January 14

Reflect and Connect

Details within each specific act and theme will be elaborated upon and discussed during the corresponding month.

Why & wherefore?

I didn't always feel disconnected. There was a time when I felt very connected to everything around me. When I felt the communal pulse of my city. When I knew anecdotes about my neighbors. When I found beauty easily in the ugly and mundane. I saw the interconnectedness of the world as a crazy twisted web, and every time I made a new connection another strand stretched out across the universe to bridge the gap between us. At times strands became twisted or knotted or wore thin with constant use, but very rarely was a strand broken or lost.

And then I hit my head. Hard.

It was the beginning of the last quarter of my senior year in college. I was working on my thesis for my B.A. in History and finishing up classes for my B.A. in French. I had a large group of incredible friends, I had a loving and supportive family and I had a passion for getting myself into crazy adventures. But then I had a very bad week that April involving three concussions. Suddenly everything was hazy.

I woke up in Taiwan.

It was sometime in July. I had somehow graduated (and successfully written a thesis). I had taken a job teaching English in Asia. I had left my friends & family (including my roommate, who I left without saying goodbye or really moving much out of our apartment) and trotted across the Pacific to the other side of the globe to a place where I had no knowledge of the language or culture. While I remember a very distinct morning when I suddenly felt like I had actually woken up, as opposed to the feeling of waking yet still dreaming I had become accustomed to, I told no one of my realization. I wasn't sure exactly how I had gotten to Taiwan but I was having fun. I went with the flow.

Fast forward to the following autumn. I had taken a job teaching English in France. I had returned to the United States with only enough time to get my visa and then had fluttered away yet again, this time across the Atlantic. I was living in a very small town in central France and was slowly coming to the realization that I had absolutely no idea who I was. I couldn't remember much of my past, couldn't for the life of me figure out what I had ever wanted to do with my future and struggled daily with the now. I would wake up, open my closet and stare at the clothes as if they, too, were foreign. "This can't be what I actually wear, can it?" I would ask myself. I took to getting dressed based on old pictures I had brought with me. I did activities friends and family told me I had once enjoyed. I felt very very lost and very much alone.

Something happened in me then, a shutting off of sorts. I had lost all the connections in the haze and perhaps as a defense mechanism I shut off all possibility of forming connections in the future. I retracted deep into myself as I desperately searched for something recognizable, some tiny fragment to remind me who I was.

Much time has passed since then and I have tried to open up. I have made great progress in some respects. I no longer feel lost or alone (thanks in large part to the kindest person I have ever met - my best friend and husband). Yet there have been many steps backward for so few steps forward, often "caused" by some situation or event. What I have realized is that my reactions to events have changed so much that I tend to make myself out as the victim wheras before I would dance around the negativity until it had passed or was made into something positive. A simple occurrence can not cause me to be unhappy. I have to choose to react with that specific emotion. I want that adversity again. Voltaire once wrote "the most courageous decision one makes each day is to be in a good mood." I am choosing good moods these days.

But happiness is harder when you've cut yourself off. We've since moved back to the States, but instead of re-embracing life back home I've gone into severe and prolonged culture shock for the better part of a year. I have let the least important parts of life (a soul-less job, for example) get in the way of the most important, keeping myself busy to keep life at a distance.

Something needed to change. And so this project came into being. What was the catalyst? I myself don't know. Maybe it was seeing family and friends over the holidays. Maybe in was recovering from a serious back injury. Maybe it's the prospect of a new year and all the possibility a fresh calendar brings. Maybe it was simply a matter of being ready. Either way, I am hoping that this year of dedication will allow me to reconnect. With myself, with those that surround me and with life in general.

I don't expect it to be easy. I don't expect it to be perfect. I don't expect to reweave all the strands that were lost long ago. But my hope is that in making an effort to branch out once again I will find some semblance of wholeness, stability and peace that I can hold on to.

Follow me, join me or just browse. Wherever you find yourself reading this, I hope this finds you well.

(Quote: Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter XII.)