Notes from an Open Life

The Journey - revisited

Life is full of changes. Today is Sunday, August 7, 2011, and I was just remembering a draft blog entry I wrote almost two years ago now.

I'll let my two-year-ago self riff on this first, and then add a bit:

So at a quarter to two this afternoon, October 20, 2009, this huge thing dropped into my head - or maybe my being. It was one of those moments where everything comes together. It's like a framework falls into your life and suddenly helps you make sense of so many things.

And today it was the image/icon of the journey.

My life has been about journeys. I love road trips. My good friend Greg and I took an iconic road trip across the US in 1988. When I was in high school and in my early 20s, I would often go on long trips in the car, often by myself.

But the journey is more than just travelling. For me, it's a way of being in the world. I love to start new ventures, to try something I haven't tried before, to journey in and be the student, the learner. I get bored with what seems to me to be the same old thing.

There are so many ways the journey echos through every stage of my life. Moving when I was young, exploring, even my dreams echo this. A common dream theme for me is going someplace. Usually I don't even get to the place I'm trying to go in the dream - I just am on the way there.

And that's as far as I got back then.

So the image/concept of the journey is back in my head and my life again. What I would add to this entry is that, for me, the journey is not necessarily about the destination. It's about the trip. I often times enjoy myself so much just getting to where I think I'm going. It makes me smile just to think about this.

Another thing that popped into my head recently is a quote that really resonated with my father (who has since passed away). It's from James Thurber, which surprised me, as Thurber is one of my favorite authors, and this quote surprised me.

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.

Apparently this is written on a wall somewhere in Cambria, California, which is where my dad saw it. I always used to think the quote was kind of trite, and to some extent obvious. Yet it seems to resonate with me now, or at least more so, and I think it's worth another look.

I don't know that I have anything else to add at this point, except that I think I'm on some kind of psychic/spiritual journey right now. My life has changed so much in some ways since October 2009. I've completed my Masters in Counseling degree. I've experienced success through my business. I've grown in ways I really never could have foreseen. I've opened myself up to the world and found it a truly wonderful place. It's truly amazing. And this journey, obviously, isn't over yet.

The journey is wonderful and amazing and terrifying all at the same time. In its entirety, the journey is beautiful. It can be no other way. Because our journey is ours, and ours alone. Don't get me wrong - everyone in our lives is part of our journey. That's why they are there. But the beauty we create for ourselves is what makes the journey worthwhile. Worth every minute of it. I'm really glad to be here. I hope you are too.

Last post from the road...

...though not really from the road. We've arrived in Portland and now have the task of rearranging all the stuff we've brought into some semblance of order. The plants all survived, which is good, and the cats all survived as well. Technology (read: Internet) is in place after 24 hours or so, so all is right with the world.

The last day of driving, the cats behaved extremely well. I think they were getting used to the routine: truck during the day, motel at night. If you'd seen them in the room, you'd think they'd been in motel rooms all their lives. Very casual.

Gorgeous scenery coming down Highway 84 - through the Columbia River Gorge, and seeing the amazing Columbia River.

We made really good time and then, coming into Portland, I didn't make the right turn. And I lost it. Portland is an easy city to get lost in (at least for me, a newbie), and being lost in a city with lots of narrow, one-way streets with a 20-foot truck and towing an auto trailer is exponentially worse. After three days on the road, to be so close to our destination and suddenly having a whole new challenge was just too much. I don't usually curse a lot, but curse I did, upsetting everyone. The problem was solved relatively quickly. But, I can't say that if it happened again, I wouldn't curse up a storm again. But we made it, and here we are. Things are much better after having a good cup of coffee after three days of in-room coffee. (Boy, I'm a sad case.)

Driving a car after three days in a truck and trailer is very very easy. Now that we've unloaded, and the car is off the trailer, it's kind of a joy to learn a new set of city streets. I'm sure I'll get lost again. But in a car, it's nothing that a few right turns can't fix.

Not King of the Road

Day two of the move. Both cats fared better today, but Desmond takes the crown as "Not King of the Road". For the first hour, he sat on Grace's lap underneath a towel, with his head buried in the armrest. 

Yes, that is Desmond. After the first hour, he retreated back under the seats. 

The last two hours of the drive today, Trixie was going nuts trying to get in my lap (while I was driving). I don't know what the obsession was, but she kept trying. Finally, at about the last hour, Desmond, who I think was sleeping underneath my seat, suddenly burst out under my feet, meowing, while I was driving 65 miles per hour (remember, with a loaded truck and towing a car). Disaster averted, and Desmond eventually went back under the seat. 

Comparatively, the rest of the day was uneventful. Three states (Wyoming, Utah, Idaho), the plains of Idaho, saw three wind turbine blades being hauled along the highway. Chest-high fields of bright green grass. Curtains of gray rain in the distance. Tomorrow, the final haul into Portland. 

Queen of the Road

Part of me is wondering why I'm blogging after a very long day in a truck with my wife and daughter and two freaking-out cats. But I wanted to take a few minutes to share some of the experience of the day.

We were fortunate enough to run into two friends and neighbors before driving off, and then had a great sendoff from friends. It was tough, and not without tears. Then, getting used to driving a fully-loaded 20-foot trailer, also towing a car and trailer. We made our way up through the Wyoming high plains, where we had a rainstorm. I've never seen the plains of Wyoming so green, with actual wildflowers of purple and yellow. A couple of wind farms (which made the "Awesome" list). And finally into Evanston, Wyoming, just a few miles from the Utah border.

The biggest adventure was the cats. Desmond essentially crammed himself under the seat until we got here. He was exhausted and panting, and we got him some water right away. He seems to be OK; we'll be taking special care of him tomorrow.

Trixie, on the other hand, despite starting out yowling and fighting with Desmond, halfway through the trip turned into the Queen of the Road. She was on our laps, acting as if she had ridden in cars and trucks all of her life. She stared intently at all the trucks going by.

I hope they are both willing to get back into the truck tomorrow. Not entirely sure I am.

Moving into meaninglessness

For several months now, I've had the idea for a book floating around in my head. Working title: "Meaninglessness, and what you can do about it."

Why meaninglessness? Because I think a lot of people - myself included - struggle with making meaning of their lives, or some part of their lives.

I believe that we make meaning by making sense of all of what is in our world - physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. If we can make these realms make sense together, then we have meaning in our lives. If we don't - or can't - make sense of these, then we feel some conflict or dissonance in our relation to ourselves and the world.

Here's the thing - this meaning-making process goes on for us whether we consciously do it or not. I think there is something naturally within us that needs to have the world make sense. And if the the conscious part of us is not working on this process, the unconscious part definitely is.

What can happen is that the unconscious part can make some pretty strange sense of the world - but we don't have the chance, really, to review how the unconscious has made sense of the world before it becomes a part of our way of being. It just happens.

Let me give you an example.

In doing some of my own therapy work a few years ago, I was working with a wonderful therapist who was helping me explore my past. She suggested that something significant had happened to me when I was two or three years old.

Now, I literally remember almost nothing about being two or three years old. But she asked me, "What would you have been doing? What would your life have been like at that time?"

And a vision came to my mind of me standing in the kitchen with my mother. I was waiting for her to get me something. As I talked about this scene with the therapist, and started to piece together what I actually knew about my mother and my family at that time, I realized that the strong FEELING associated with all of that was one of anxiety and worry. Which made sense: circumstances as I know them at that time were VERY anxious and tenuous.

Now, before we go any further - the question in my mind was, "Am I reconstructing a memory that didn't happen?" We've all heard the issues with false memories. I asked myself that, and continue to ask myself that. And what I realize is that the FEELING of that time is really the memory - a memory that has stuck with me. The scene itself doesn't really matter.

The WORDS associated with that feeling run along the lines of: "The world is not a safe place. The world is going to fall apart. And I need to do something about it."

As an adult, I can connect back with that feeling as a kid. And, as an adult, I can PUT WORDS to that feeling. Which helps me understand the message I was getting.

Here's the kicker: The feeling impressed upon me a vision of the world and a vision of myself in that world - without using words at all.

When I was only two or three years old, I was constructing meaning about myself and about the world - and I was still carrying that meaning 35 or 40 years later.

I think I've written about this before, but this concept still floors me - mainly because I was completely unaware that this was a driving factor of my life for years and years. This was an unquestioned belief running in me, without me entirely knowing it.

So this is what I'm talking about - how we make meaning for ourselves in conscious and, more importantly, unconscious ways. When our meaning structures conflict, or conflict with what we see in the world...well, it gets pretty interesting. In some ways, the sheer amount of information that comes at us every day contributes to our struggle with meaning, as we try to integrate it all. These are the topics I would like to explore in this and future posts.

I think the writing of this will be a meaning-making exercise in itself - helping me clarify my approach as I go along.

Interested? Have a similar experience? Well, come along, then, and let's see how we make meaning.