Seeking Peace

Good Morning -

Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee yet this morning, but there's just something so peaceful about this image that I find myself staring at it for minutes on end without being able to coalesce words.

Peace was the purpose in creating this Virgen. I've had a hard time keeping my stress down lately. Between the potentials and uncertainties and Boris' health issues, I can feel a steady, high-pitched hum coming from my heart as it sits squeezed in my chest.

Yesterday was no exception to the stress. After a rough spot at work that had me missing Boris' 4:40 insulin training (rescheduled for this morning at 10) and getting home after 5, I decided that I needed to relax. To that end, I mixed up a mojito (I'm getting better at them) and paid the $6 to get Rob's extended audio horoscope for the week. His free written one was more abstract than I needed and hoped that the extended audio would clear some of that up.

(Side note: I have to imagine that if a doctor read this, they would be tsk-tsking the whole way through - reliant on coffee, stress up, late nights at work, alcohol consumption as a form of relaxation, belief in horoscopes and other unscientific nonsense, etc. Not a strength-based assessment, to be sure, but certainly one I can imagine being noted in a medical chart.)


Rob's audio was worth the $6 because he told a great fable that cleared some of the stress away for the evening. Basically, the story was about a wealthy man who was about to get robbed in an alley before a homely dog burst forth from the shadow and scared the robbers away. The man was grateful and offered the dog riches and fame. The dog, who could talk, refused these gifts. Finally the man, exasperated, asked what the dog did want. The dog replied that he wanted to marry the man's daughter. The man hesitated, then remembered his vow to give the dog whatever he wanted because he was so grateful, and so agreed. The dog and woman got married and as soon as the vows were complete, the dog turned into a handsome prince.

Feminists, lay down your weapons. Hard as it is, the crux of this story is about the man and the dog (certainly you can chew and rile about how the female character is treated as a prop. Absolutely.)

As Rob explained it, I am the dog (insert Sally of Harry and Sally here: I am the dog? I am the dog?!) in the story and he encouraged me to proceed on the assumption that I will be able to break a curse that has been put on me by doing a good deed. When that happens, I am not to immediately and eagerly accept any gifts, rewards, or pleasures offered to me, but rather to hold out for what I really want. When I receive that, I am to get ready for a dramatic upgrade that resembles what happened when the homely dog turned back into his true self - a handsome prince.

In the midst of my stress of late, this sounds like a great plan. After listening, I retreated to the sweat lodge with my mojito to ask for guidance in recognizing the opportunity to do a good deed when it happens. When I'm stressed, my vision is all colors of skewed, so much so that I don't often recognize myself or those I love, let alone an opportunity.

After relaxing some more, I made an egg/potato scramble and a salad for dinner and spent the rest of the evening finishing Still Life with Chickens. It's a lovely memoir of a post-divorce mom of a teenage girl and how she and her daughter recreated their life a la some chickens. It's good. Trust me.

I finished at 9, in time to make a Virgen and go to bed (when stress is up, sleep is deep and perpetual). In thinking about the Virgen, I toyed with the idea of something with chickens, or dogs, or other such imagery from either the book or the horoscope, but both felt too complicated and narrow.

Finally I decided that I just wanted a simple peaceful image and found this one in a gay travel magazine my partner got somewhere. It's for a hotel? An island? I don't remember (so, not a super-effective ad campaign), but it is just lovely.

I'm home today to monitor Boris on his first dose of insulin before I leave town, so the goal today is more of that - peaceful, simple, lovely.

Here's to that. Here's to breaking curses through good deeds and all sorts of transformative fun.