Back to School......Again.

Going back to school is where I find myself again for the 3rd time since high school. Only this time, it has been ten years since I last stepped into a classroom of peers.  And these peers are younger now than my youngest child.  Which brings me to a personal, emotional and social level of which I have never entertained.


Am I struggling this time?  You betcha.  Struggling to find the information that is buried under ten years of work, businesses, kids, marriage, and other assorted and useless crap that floats inside a cramped brain.  My husband applauds me at times when I can “pull stuff out of my ass” like names of obscure songs or an acquaintance from 20 years ago, whose name will disappear for another 10 years till I perform one of these miracles again.

Struggling to find the terminology.  Use it or lose it they say.  Truer words were never spoken.  Why the need for me to remember (I am pulling out my book right now to find one of those lost terms just to type here.) “ethnomethodology” or  “exogamy” when I can easily come up with personal experiences that describe each?  I have lived in exogamy for 28 years when I married my husband who was way outside my group of peers and family.  Explain THAT term to me, all you 19 and 20-year old classmates!

Yet, when I try to use some of that experience when talking about how children use (another term) critical thinking (I know, because I watched my children use that skill over and over.) I get slammed down with more terminology and textbook rhetoric by some young woman in class who has yet to take her savvy into the working world or family dynamic.  My “I will take no shit” attitude, honed well after a few years in the big world outside the campus, is tempered that day, thanks to the years spent arguing with my own children, and I bite my tongue, smile to myself, and vow to “get her” another day.

I just need to get my chops back as musicians say.  Work out the cobwebs that have multiplied in the school section of my brain.  It will all come back I try to convince myself.  In a sociology class on inequality, where race and gender are hot topics these days, I add that age is a huge area of inequality.  That statement falls to the floor with a huge bang and is accompanied by blank stares from my fellow classmates.  I know, how could they possibly understand?

After class, the Marxist zealot, Mary, asks if I want her phone number and email, “in case I need some help.”  Was I that pathetic in class?  Do I look like I am lost and need help?  Will she gain points by helping the poor old lady in class that appears lost and is babbling about weird things like age inequality?

Ok, I say.  Sure.  Why not? I will take it.  Then I pray she won’t give me her information first and force me to take my no name, Verizon LG phone/text only phone out of my pocket to enter the data on the old fashioned keyboard so she will really know how old I am and start talking to me in a louder voice, s-l-o-w-l-y so I can catch the words of a young student. Thankfully, she has her iPhone in her hand already and enters the data.  I answer her text later when I am alone.  Dare I explain the added costs of two more iPhones in our household when the children are the only breadwinners at the moment?  Dare I tell her I really don’t need an iPhone?  I have a first generation iPad.  What more does one need?

That night my son, the same age as my new school chum Mary, asked me where we were going that he was forced (God forbid) to pick up his brother from the airport.

It’s Usama’s birthday party.

Oh, how old is he? my son asks.

I think 61 or 62, I said.

And he is still cutting hair?

        Yes, I answered.  And he is still breathing.  And can walk without help, too.

He looked at me, puzzled by my sarcastic answer.  Same look I received when talking to my classmates about age inequality in the workplace.  I almost replied to them with my mother’s constant retort to me, “just you wait till you get my age!”  I guess we all become our parents at some point, a little more understanding, patient, and willing to let some things slide.  Not everything.  Just some.  When my school brain gets back in shape, just you wait, you little whippersnappers!  I will find something useful to say, once I can find it and pull it up from the bowels of my overpacked noggin!

The Universe Closes its Door to 2012 - Sat Chit Ananda

As the universe closes its own chapter on this year, I look at all it has done.  We all have great expectations of this world we live in.  We end up placing huge expectations upon ourselves at the start of each year and if we don't achieve those expectation, we fall back on the universe in blame.

I lost my job because of....  I broke up with so and so because of...  I was passed over for a promotion because of.. and so on and so on.  We blame everything else in this universe but ourselves.  I have done it myself.  It is hard looking within at our own foibles and lack.  But then again, we are looking at ourselves and the world with our egos which aren't really us to begin with.

This grand universe that allows us to live within, giving us air to breathe, land to live on, food to sustain us.  It asks nothing in return except acknowledgement of its existence.  We are all one within it, this massive collective conscious.

Imagine if this entire universal collective looked towards this new chapter in 2013 with only the expectation of love given outwards, beyond ourselves.  Imagine the moment at the stroke of midnight if we were all to hold it in pure love, pure bliss, pure existence.  Sat Chit Ananda.  This warm embrace of love would be glorious if only for that one moment.

Sat Chit Ananda is the Sanskrit phrase for truth or love, consciousness, bliss.  It is always there for us. When the mind unwinds and becomes calmer, Bliss, Love and Happiness naturally arise.  Imagine living this always.

All of the troubles, pains, fears, hatred that enveloped the world this past year;  all those that were let down, broken down, broken apart (me included); let them go this night, for good.  If all of that pain was embraced, loved unconditionally as we let it go and send it on it's way, imagine the peace that would follow.  The empty space left behind would be available for goodness to refill it.  We would allow Sat Chit Ananda to be revealed as it is always here with us.


My wish for myself and the universe is that unconditional love that heals the heart, heals the world. Imagine yourself within it now and always.  May this new chapter open you to infinite possibilities, dipped in love.  Peace.

Connecting to the Power and Breath of a New Year

As I leave this year behind me, with its' positives and negatives, all vying for a place in my life, I choose to enter 2013 with nothing but a wink to the past and the love of potentiality.  I give thanks to all of the ups and downs, all the gifts of truths and consequences, all the people lost and found, and I breathe deeply into the possibility of infinite love and my own power.  I have no control over anything else.

I cannot control or even guide the thoughts or events of this past year that I would love to see change.  They are not mine to change, only to accept and love for the lessons they provided.  I forgive all those who have hurt me intentionally or not.   Though they may or may not be in my life currently, I need to let go of the hold they have on me.  They can no longer hold me in a place that doesn't fit me anymore.  As I let go of the grip that those events had on me, I am free to put that energy to loving the present and the gifts it holds.

I will wake with a new breath tomorrow and breathe in new air, new life and all the potential that has always been there, always been waiting for me to tap into, sighing, "It's about time you noticed!"

I've given up on what doesn't work and acknowledged I don't necessarily know what works now, but I ask that the universe show me what will.  The nothingness I feel today holds lifetimes of potentials within, bursting at the seams to get out and breathe in that new air and become my miracle; become me, whoever me is in the fresh air of a new year.

Happy New Year!