By the way...

Internet speed in Bali sucks. If I ever return to working in the US, it will feel like my own personal technological revolution. Bali is not connected to fiber optic cables. All internet is connected by satellite to major cities like Jakarta (or so I’ve been told). So apparently, this is why I am able to write a blog entry while I wait for the page to change. I don’t know much about how the internet works, but I do know that Merkins should be thankful that they moving just as quickly as the advancements. Don’t take it for granted the next time you click, and you see the next page right away!

I need therapy.

You know that pic below of that guy making the jacked up face on the phone? I just put it as desktop wallpaper on my laptop. Every time I go to open a file, I am assured a smile. It’s going to be a long day on the computer. Wait, let me put that pic up in the “tile” format. LOL.

Damnit.

Today I set my alarm for 6:00 am because I needed to start the work day early. I really woke up at 10:30 am. Today is not starting out well. 4 ½ hours behind schedule… the water mysteriously won’t work in the kitchen only. I don’t feel like doing dishes in the bathroom sink. I’m still also thinking about what was bothering me last night, and my back is killing me. I really need to get a descent mattress. I need to get out of this funk before it gets any worse today, but Mondays are always the busiest for me, and when I’m on a time crunch, it’s hard not to be in a funk. Damnit. (update 2 minutes later: I just spilled my coffee.) Come on Leah… happy thoughts.

The phone and me

I’m tired. Today ended not so great. Long distance phone calls do not work when one of the people does not do phones. That person would be me. I have a strong aversion to phone communication. I think it has something to do with my personality, which tends to choose between extremes. For me, it’s either in-your-face, one-on-one conversation (preferably sprinkled through a normal daily life that we actually share), or it’s a message here and there via internet or postcard. If we do not share daily life, I prefer not to fill you in with a play-by-play of what’s going down, and how I’ve been feeling. It’s just not easy for me to offer up a synopsis with someone listening on the other line. I know it’s strange. I’m not sure how to explain it.

I don’t like being asked “How are you?” by phone. Even if I am good, and the question is well-meaning, I always get a lump in my throat, and my thoughts start to paralyze. “What did you do today?” will conjure similar reactions from me. I have no clue why this happens. I don’t like to fill in the gaps between my life and others’ lives on the phone. When the physical circumstances are impersonal, I prefer that the communication match. That way you can tell me what’s really on your mind, I can do the same, and there’s little small talk. I hate small talk. Maybe this sounds cold. Maybe I just get nervous on the phone, and I don’t know why or how...

Anyway, today ended with a phone call that did not go well, and it was my fault. Today also marks 3 weeks that I have been alone here. I wish I didn’t detach from people so easily. I always have. I love them and think about them often, but I don’t lack them.

Ok, we are having a tiny earthquake tremor RIGHT NOW AS I TYPE! MY BED IS SWAYING. THIS IS WIERD! It stopped.

If anything were to happen like a bad earthquake, yes, I would call the people I loved, and I would wish to be near them. But when the news of the day is that the temperature raised 2 degrees and Bush said something stupid, I don’t like to pretend there is more news than that. Wow, sounds insensitive. It would take an earthquake to get me to want to talk on the phone to my loved ones? LOL… I didn’t mean for it to come out that way, but I am too tired to explain. I just hope tomorrow I can make things better to the person I made feel bad on the phone. I’m going to sleep, good night. I hope my bed does not move again.

Red Alert

What is the first part of your body to go haywire when you feel stressed? I think everyone has one body part that reacts first with pain (which I believe is like a warning signal telling us to take it easy). Mine is my heart. It always has been. Sometimes this scares me. My heart rate can go from 60 to 180 standing still in less time than if I were on a treadmill at 8mph with a +10 incline. I also get palpitations, my face flushes at the drop of a hat, and sometimes I even have chest pains. My heart literally hurts. Milder nagging stress always puts my back out, to the point where I cannot stand or sit upright, and this leaves me out of commission for at least a week every time. I’m guessing some people get migraines, stomach pains, reflux, and other ailments, but I am also guessing most people are struck with the same thing when the alarm bell rings. The body is smart. Where does your alarm ring first?

Reaching for Light

When it comes to my relationship with food and my body, this is the most stable I have felt in a long time, ever since that dreaded “flick of the switch” 4 ½ years ago that began the struggled surveillance of what I never thought to notice before.

Intake. Quantity. Output. Restriction. Shape. Size. Awareness before need. Punishment before pleasure. Consequence before action. War with between the body, mind, and spirit. Today I know they are all one, although I do not pretend that every day I let them be. This cannot be an ongoing struggle for me. It just can’t. All signs point to progression, and that is all I can afford to believe in.

But addiction to control is just like any other… you carry it on a leash day by day, moment by moment, second by second. Sometimes you frolick so far from it, that you forget it is even attached to you. Sometimes you are so aware of it that you tug the leash closer, leaving little slack between you and the animal. And some days, you feel no leash at all, and realize you have become it… as you struggle for breath in your tight collar. “Why not just cut the ties altogether?” I ask myself. But even though I know it is possible, I hold tight to the pleasure that all addiction betrays us with.

I used to keep a photo as a reminder. It was a picture taken of me in Lima, Peru during my semester abroad in college. I was standing on a cliff at a famous outlook point above the ocean. My hair was dry and thinning under my baseball cap, my ribs visible beneath my black tank top, collarbones protruding, eyes sunken, chest flat, smile on my face, but no happiness to be seen. At the time, I didn’t see the physical sickness I had become… I only knew that I had to run around the neighborhood park exactly 16 times that evening in order to offset the sandwich I had eaten that day while I was out with my roommates. And this is at a time I truly thought myself to be improving.

I thought myself to be improving because I was now beginning to binge after restricting, and therefore was “eating better”? Because I was no longer in the comfort of my home gym, where I could run 5 miles on an empty stomach, and buy “safe” foods I had befriended from the local Giant? I was getting better, but I would write poems about death, mutilate my own face, and drink alcohol until I had no more mind to worry with. This was improvement in my sad, sad world at that time. This was the picture I kept around for a while, to remind myself how I didn’t want to hurt again.

Today I awoke to a healthy breakfast…. enough food, and the right nutrition I needed to begin my day, but safe and measured all the same. I remain always vigilant of what IS enough food, and what IS the right nutrition, but do I know to what extent? Today I decided to not do any deliberate exercise, and to rest from what little I did yesterday. But still, my reflection changed in the mirror the moment I decided that. I wonder if I am kidding myself with my idea of stability. I’ve seen the picture, I know how sly false assuredness can be. All I can be sure of today is that I am physically and spiritually healthier than ever. The brain is the one, of this trinity of wholeness, who still needs a babysitter. The mind is not as smart as it is clever. It clings to control. So until my leash is cut, which it will be, I will not let it remain in the dark. That is why I choose to share… because nothing unwanted can survive in the light.

What do you know?

Several weeks ago, Francesco and I got on the subject of the similarities among religions, and in their stories and beliefs. Francesco told me he thought he was a "relativist". I had never heard of a relativist, but I believed him if he said he was one. To him, a relativist is someone who doesn't take any scripture or story literally, but that takes into perspective the collective messages of many religions. I think that makes sense. I'm not a "relativist", but I understand where he is coming from. He jokingly asked me "What do you believe in, the Pachamama?" (alluding to my love of Peruvian/Inca culture). I told him, "No. But I do know what I believe, though." I didn't say what that was. He didn't ask.


Just a few weeks after that, I was emailing my mom back and forth... tiny, short and quick emails on random things we wanted to tell each other. We joke about religion often -- about the hypocrisies, about the "funny" things that somehow cannot be explained, about the drama, etc. I'm pretty sure out of all of the four siblings in my family, I am the least "religious", but I was a little surprised when my mom light-heartedly called me her atheist daughter. I wasn't offended, but I was sure that I was not an atheist, so I wrote her back to tell her what I believed. It was important to me that she knew.


I don't have the exact words that I wrote her that day, but it felt good to tell her, so I am going to put it in words again now. Sometimes putting feelings to words can make you surer of what it is you feel.


I believe in God.
I believe I am God.
I believe you are God.

The ultimate power, the creator, the decider, the puppet master, the spirit, all that is, the person behind the mirror, the you that knows the you, the me that knows the me, the anti-ego, the invisible constant...

No big white beards, no gender, no physical image. No books about it, no rights or wrongs about it, just the white canvas before the paint, light, and possibility,
I believe that we are all droplets of the same big splash of water. We each have our own shape and path, and our own unique reflection, but we came from the same place, and we will return to it.

I believe I have nobody to pray to except my inner being, and no one to worship besides my own spark for life.

I believe that we have all lived before, and we will all live infinitely again.

I believe we all chose to come to this planet.

I do not believe in coincidence, good or bad luck, fairness or unfairness... but that we are all in complete control of our paths and how they pull circumstances, people and places into them.

I believe we are each all powerful and all knowing.


There is much more to what I believe, and I feel it as clear as crystal water. I know these truths because I have lived them, and I am them. Do you know what you believe? Do you feel comfortable telling others? I can laugh at what I find amusing in the religions of others, but I am aware that anyone can just as easily laugh at what I have said. The most important thing is KNOWING what you believe. This is where we each bridge the connection between thought and spirit, and that is what true faith is.