Partner

What is the job of our partner? Our wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend. Partner. What is their role? To love? Support. Explore. Nurture. And to Challenge. To keep us accountable. Not to some moral standard. Not to blame. But to keep us accountable to our own goals. Our own life path. To poke and prod that part of ourselves that sabotages, and blocks. Partner. We are part of a team. On the same team. In the same boat. And that means we support each other in all the ways we can. Part of supporting is to nudge us in a particular direction. To call us on our stuff. To re-spark. Help us re-light our own fire. Partner. Together. Moving in a shared direction. Alligned. And in that sparking, we keep our own fire lit.

Mast & Flag

What is it about a job that gives us that feeling of security? Money. Survival. Self-worth. Sense of self tied to approval. I am dependent on looking good. On being ok. Stamp of approval. Because I have been hired. By someone else. This is the distinction. I can create my own work. My own projects that make income. But when it's all dependent on looking good, what other people think, getting approval, then it waivers, like a flag in the wind. Why do we do the work? Why do we write? For comments? For likes. For someone to say, "You're awesome." I approve of you. You have made it. You are competent. But what if it isn't liked. What if someone disapproves. Dislikes. Is it not the same thing? And if all our work is dependent on what other people think, we are forever at the whims of circumstance, of people's opinions. Waiting for yes or no. What if we created our work, art, writing, presentations, interactions, projects, as an expression of us, as a vehicle for our own brilliance to flow out? And then acknowledged both the compliments and criticisms as the effect of that art. As expressions in their own right, of other artists, everyone standing in who they are, grounded, rooted, being the mast, not the flag.

Failure to Thrive

Failure to Thrive. Stamped on River's medical form. Failure to Grow really. Stuck. On Pause. Active. Happy. Thriving really. In every other way. Except up and out. The same height and size as one year ago. Stopped in time. We take biology for granted. Our hair grows. Our food is digested. Our liver filters. And when something doesn't do it's function, it's role, what do we do? How do we respond? Out of our control. Beyond what we know. We get up in the morning, and our heart is still beating. Our lungs still exchanging air. Really, we should thank our organs every morning for keeping it going, doing their thing. Thank you heart for pumping my blood around, feeding my cells, allowing this body to carry this mind around, allowing me to be. To exist. And yet, what if biology fails, if the pituitary doesn't produce growth hormone. Not pulling its weight. Pituitary slacker. One little part, not doing it's thing, and the rest doesn't grow. All the other parts can't change, can't become what they are. The block to everything else changing, growing, thriving, the block to being. And I think of that part of ourselves that blocks. Our own Failure to Thrive. At this age. At this stage of life. The part that slacks, keeps us stuck. On pause. Not growing into who we can become. Following our dreams. Our passions. What we truly love. And what is the answer? The solution? The prescription that will fix it, cure it, solve it. Tidy it up. Neatly. And what if there isn't one? What if Not Knowing is an opportunity. An opening to meet new people, be vulnerable, ask for help, a gift really. A chance to learn, to overcome, to create a miracle.

Reach Throw

Reach.
Throw.
Row.
Go.
Tow.

The order of rescue from childhood swimming lessons. Reach. Are we the ones in the water? Or on shore? Are we the victim or rescuer? Or are we both? And can we choose? Can we step out of victim, and be grounded in who we are? Throw. Be the one who supports, who offers help, who tosses ropes to connect, to nurture relationships, to build community. Row. Without diving in. Without putting ourselves in danger of the thrashing drowning victim. Go. And when the victim is us, keeping out of our own thrashing, so we aren't pulled down. Used as a ladder for part of ourselves to stay above water, that part that keeps us under, not breathing, stuck, stopped, tangled in flailing arms, and panic. Tow. Can we stay anchored in our own boat, in our own power to make change, to create, to generate how we want to live. How we want to be alive. 

Life Line

There is that moment before a deadline when time seems to open up, the river starts flowing, creativity explodes under the gun. It has to be done, so it just happens. We create, we make it happen. But why not before that moment? What is it about that moment that lights our fire? Where we suddenly become efficient. And productive. That nothing can stop us. We are a force. A powerful creative force.

It is the deadline that forces this. And if there isn't a newspaper that needs to be printed, we can make up this moment. This arbitrary time in which all things will fall apart if the project is not completed. But the deadline only works if we place it in the world outside our own heads. If we commit to someone else. Making a promise to do something by a certain time on a particular day, and telling someone.

Otherwise, our little wiley monkey mind as a way of widdling its way out of it. Coming up with excuses. Reasons. Ways around it. Justifying why it can't be done. But if we have that other person, that group of people outside our own head, we have a tether to accountability. A rope to the world outside ourselves. A kind of life buoy.