smelling the creosote

my roommate, Ruth, one of my best roommates ever, provides our home with a cache of movies, mostly comedies--stuff i don't usually see in the theatre. anyway, i watched The Yes Man (YES MAN, YES MAN, YES MAN!) the other day, and besides really enjoying the movie, Zooey Deschanel, and the idea that we should all be saying YES to living and not just existing!, i found the running/photo group (they run and take photos at the same time) corny but, what-the-heck, interesting.

as i ran yesterday at dusk, when through the peephole at papago park, the sun slipped into something more comfortable for sleep, when at the canal, the water reflected a comic strip version of a cloudy sky, when the majestic desert stood tall and still, ready to shake in the blaze of the sunset, when feet pounded, breath was measured, and eyes widened, when a brave, white-tailed rabbit nibbled as an admirer observed its long hind paws, when the smell of the creosote bush told the air that rain IS possible in this teeming but dry desert, when the rising, iridescent moon invited the departing sun for a slow dance...when all of this glowed around me, i was reminded of the running/photo club and wished that i could capture a snap of such solitary beauty. here, i tried to catch the moon mid-opening dust dance...

today, after conference ended and i picked up speed again, i returned to papago park with camera in hand, ready for magic. the light wouldn't be replicated, though the run was completely fulfilling. again, i rubbed creosote inbetween my fingers, forcing open the fuzzy white pompom to leave its faint perfume on my tips for quick sniffing highs during the run. since i had my camera, i took a few shots (saguaros - the younger and the older). i'll keep doing the running/photo club thing, 'tho not from the treadmill.

the art of loving

okay, this title (below) is so full of itself but i don't know how else to categorize it!

4 memorable moments
of lasting self-discovery
in two months:

1. training for and completing a half-marathon - life changed. my confidence and ownership of my truest feelings went to the moon, while worry about everything waned and had a place-check. dissolve.

2. deciding to "break" from an unhealthy living situation - this decision, made immediately after i returned from the half-marathon while still in my stinky socks and running attire, was a leap of faith, but again, came from truth. it meant missing one of my all-time closest friends. for how long? maybe forever. it meant i would no longer have someone to cruise around town listening to Tiesto with when energy pushed me beyond the barrier of the walls at midnight. it meant searching and finding a healthy place and roommate so that i could breathe out and sink in comfortably.

3. M. gone for 2 months - i wondered why he wasn't here to help me switch classrooms, to help me move all of my belongings to my new apartment, to celebrate my dad's birthday with the rest of the family, to send a text when i felt ignored. i had to do it on my own (of course, with help from friends but without relying on him for my changes, which let them be MINE). i thanked him as soon as he returned. it reminds me of an ANASAZI principle called "the making of an asking." it is letting someone try to do it on their own before stepping in to ease their way. it is letting them decide when they need to ask for help and trusting that you will.

4. meditation - that meditation...wow. i'm going again this wednesday. i never knew that i stopped myself from being still with my own thoughts. i mean, i think all of the time. but, the point in the meditation was "no thought," which i relate to reading the scriptures and finding answers that have no logical base in the words read. without thought, but with focus, there is room for the most important. from the meditation, i started reading The Art of Loving again, by Erich Fromm. Here is what sticks with me so far, this round:

"Concentration is by far more difficult to practice in our culture, in which everything seems to act against the ability to concentrate. The most important step in learning concentration is to learn to be alone with oneself without reading, listening to the radio, smoking, or drinking. Indeed, to be able to concentrate means to be able to be alone with oneself--and this ability is precisely a condition for the ability to love. If I am attached to another person because I cannot stand on my own feet, he or she may be a lifesaver, but the relationship is not one of love. Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love."

i saw that movie, Adam, again. see it! in the film, Adam wants his girlfriend to move from NYC to California with him. He has Asperger's syndrome and has never left the city on his own. when she questions him - "why do you you want me to go with you?" - he stammers and then says that she is part of him, that he needs her to help him find his way to work and to say the right things to people, and to understand what others mean. "because i can't go without you." i won't give away her decision, but this supports Fromm's assertion that "the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love."