' I live in cotton flannel jamas inside out...'

This evening I disovered the extraordinarily breathtaking work of John Robison at: http://jerobison.blogspot.com

Some extracts of this longer piece of poignant beauty and depth are shortlisted at the bottom of this page. They're taken from here:
http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2009/09/part-ii-of-females-view-of-aspergers.html

***
I'm learning.

And I think, I wasn't wrong that day.
Everything, I think, actually is going to be alright forever.
Because I'm learning. And it's beautiful. It's actually very beautiful.

***

Step outside the glass box.

You're beautiful.

And I love you.

And I am safe to be with.

I'll work harder to understand you.

If you can let me go a little. And trust that I am going still to be here.

You have an awareness that is extraordinary and multidemensional.

I don't mind that you interests are broad or narrow - only let them be more than just an interest in 'us'.

You're different.

And pure.

And gentle.

And loyal.

And dedicated.

And devoted.

And deserving of having the brilliance and gentleness that infuses you reflected back to you.

I know that somehow you feel everything even when you can't say a word.

And I know that you know what's right even when you say all the wrong words.

You can not stand the speed and force of my expression.

We're different.

But I'm ready to go slower.

And You - you will teach me to be kinder.

A prism of awareness.

A rainbow of learning between us.'


***

What i read this evening:

On:

Language:
'our play on words is not understood by anyone except ourselves! Also there's a Tourette's kind of way we blurt out what we really think and feel...'

Age:
'We are age-inappropriate. We are childlike and innocent and naive, even when having experienced many harsh experiences. It's a childlike innocence that pervades our entire being...'


Obsessions:
'I go very intensely into one or two topics at a time. Then, I'll move on to another one. These obsessions last years, decades. And while I'm focused on it, that's all I want to do...'


Teasing
'We don't get it. It's so obviously laced with an ugly intent. You can feel the undercurrent pulling you down. Why are you making fun of me? I don't understand. I thought you liked me. I like you. How can you not like someone who likes you? See? It's very painful..'


Sensitivities
'We are sensitive to noise, light, textures and smells....Perfumes? Forget about it! I can literally vomit from perfume...Sounds? I can hear electricity in the walls. I have to unplug everything in the house sometimes just to get to sleep...Textures? Cannot stand, STAND, seams!! Why in God's name do idiots use fishing line to sew clothing? That and these 2 inch seams are asinine. Period. So I wear my clothes inside out. I live in cotton flannel jamas inside out...'


Insomnia
'The brain simply never stops. I can be laying in bed breathing like I'm asleep yet fully aware of everything going on around me. ... I am always aware...'


Social Faux-Pas
'I'm a big old puppy. I'll come bounding up to you with a big smile on my face full of enthusiasm and friendly intent. I don't know that you think I'm trying too hard. Trying for what? I don't understand that one at all. It is true genuine enthusiasm (my favorite word en - Theos -asm meaning having God within), the real deal, not any manipulation to win your favor...'


Routines
'We hate our little routines to be disrupted. I have my little things I do every morning and I will not allow anything or anyone to get in the way of them..I do love to go to foreign countries and meet new people. There they just think I'm a crazy American....'


Overwhelm
'Crowds seem to send me into hysteria....'

I know all of this. I know all of this.

The Shorter Story (Love of Mine)

Last night in the Hilton, at LAX I was blessed by a living saint.
She held me to her, and spoke words in my ears.
When I got home at 4am, I saw West Yorkshire in my dreams. These images:











There were no people in the dream. Just a piece of music. Which played in its entirety from start to finish, as if carried by the wind:




***

I had another dream. An aunt, whom I haven't had been able to connect with for a long time invited me in to her home: I was happy at some news she had, and she was happy to see me: she had a plate of fruit: green grapes, sliced oranges, and I think strawberries.

The fruit tasted sharp and sweet and wet.


***

Today, at a picnic brunch, eating home made waffles with berries and maple syrup, sitting on the grass at the top of the cliff, looking out at the Ocean, I asked L if he dreamt last night after being blessed by the Saint.

He told me in his dream he saw the world in the form of vibrating light and energy waves and felt himself as a body of light.


***

In my dream I saw the town I lived in with the man I had married, 8 years ago, six thousand miles away. The last time I was there it broke my heart to leave.

And I shared fruit with an aunt it's often broken my heart to be far from.

Two events that broke my heart that flash up on the screen of my dreams on the night of a blessing from a saint.

***

More healing.

Still more healing.

I wonder what I have to do. I wonder what I am being shown.
I wonder why I dreamt what I dreamt.

Was it release or was it a sign of more work to do.
How much more work do I have to do be healed?

The only thing that has come and settled on me, first as a gentle melody in the back of my mind, then a hum on my lips and then finally I found myself singing the words out loud:



Healing, I think today, is gentle, delicate and ongoing and is happening in different known and unknown, seen and unseen, dimensions of our minds and therefore the universe - throughout time and space.

Blue Eyes You're The Reason (A Love That Encircles Me)

Someone close to me told me once, some years back : 'You won't get it all'.

He was talking about the life I said so openly I wanted: California, New York, healing, study, financial security, abundance, a love that enriches and encircles me and is a foundation on which to build a family of my own.

He couldn't believe it would all happen. He's 12 years older than me. Been married for 24 years or more. Had a secure job all his life. He was offering some friendly perspective. He said 'You won't get it all'.

I said I don't intend to create a life except for that one.
I won't settle for anything less.


It's nearly three years later.


It's all here.

California. New York. Healing. Study. Extraordinarily deep and connected friendships.
And a love.
That enriches me.
And encircles me.
A love that wants to be a foundation with someone who wants more than anything in the world for me to say I am ready to create that family of our own.

He tells me everyday he'd be the happiest man on the planet if I say 'yes'. He says that whatever I say this love that he has for me, will encircle me and protect me for the rest of my life - in this and all life times.


A love that encircles me.

And yet it's not perfect. And I remember my friend saying 'You won't get it all'.
And I reflect on how important are the things that I feel are stopping me saying yes. Just yet. 'Not Just Yet' doesn't get to last forever. There comes a point where you have to decide.

I always thought I was so good at walking away.

Only it's a total surprise to me see how prepared I am and how committed I am to staying. Surprised at how prepared I am to look harder at myself. To understand what it takes to be able to say yes. Surprised at how much I want to say yes.

I think about my friend's counsel.

But I still don't believe I 'won't get it all'.

I believe I will get it all. And I won't accept anything else.


A love that encircles me.


***


There's a story in the Hindu epic of the Ramayana.

Sita and Ram were a divine couple - the ultimate pair of devotional married partners.
Committed, devoted, gentle, forgiving, insperable.






But one day Ram was tempted in to the forest by a demon disguised as deer.

Sita was left alone in the forest without her husband in the company of his brother Lakshman, a noble but less wise, more human being.

Eventually Sita thought she heard her beloved's voice in distress. But actually it was the demon mimicking her husband's voice.

Out of fear she insisted that Lakshman go to his brother's aid.

Ram is the seventh incarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu: the Presever of balance and equinity, harmony and divine sustenance in the Universe - you need Vishnu to live in peace, without the vitality or chaos of creative or destructive forces. Perfect balance.


Lakshman knew his brother couldn't need help being always in perfect balance, but out of fear and a sense of duty to his brother's wife, he agreed to go his brother's rescue - on one condition.

He drew a circle in the dust: a circle of protection.
A circle of Love and protection.

And he told her Sita she had to stay right inside the circle whenever he was gone.





To step outside of the circle drawn around her, would make Sita vulnerable to the evil of an impure world from which he believed he could not protect her.

She had to stay in it.
Exactly as he drew it.
And then she would be safe. All would be well. All would be well.

Sita was standing in the center of a circle of love.

***

She didn't stay in it.
She stepped outside of it.

And she was abducted by a demon.





His name was Ravana. He had 10 heads, representing his all worldiness, and was virile, irreverent and aggressive in his relations with women. He took Sita away to live imprisoned with him in a tower in Lanka where she daily was surrounded by demons and fallen angels who attempted to corrupt her purity, taint her innocence and lure her from her devotion to her Beloved.

Ravana thought he could usurp Sita's devotion to Rama.
He wanted to marry her and have him as hers, that she could belong to him - an evil and destroying force.

But Sita every day would chant the name of her Beloved.
Praying for him to find her.
And set her free.


***

She stepped outside the circle.

***

I think about that story now as I think about the love that encircles me.

It seems human relationships in the 21st century are no different to those lived by the gods of the Vedic period - there are conditions, and they arise essentially from our less wise, more human expressions of self - essentially from fear:

Do this. Don't do that.
Be like this. Don't be like that.
Like this. No, not like that.
Stay here. Don't go there.

All will be well - like this.
Like this.

And all hell will break loose if you step outside this circle.
Stay inside the circle.
Stay inside the circle.

***

But Lakshman was wrong.

It wasn't a circle of love that he drew around Sita.
It was a circle from his fear of what would happen in his absence that he drew a circle around Sita.

It wasn't a circle of love.
It was a circle of fear.


Because - as Ram would have told him - you can't step outside of a circle of love.

There's no start or beginning, or with you, or not with you, or like this, but not like that: a circle of Love would be endless and infinite and unconditional beyond time and space.

That's a circle of love.







The love that encircled Ram and Sita was still encircling them when she was abducted by the demon in the tower with asuras from a lower realm: it was so enormous in its influence and size that even in a different part of the world, Sita was still sitting in the center of the circle of that love, speaking the name of her Beloved over and over and over again.

And it was so enormous and infinite and immeasurable in its size that even when she had visibly vanished from his world, it placed Ram at its center and guided him through the help of all the animals in the universe to bring him right to the demon's lair where he would slay the demon forever.





That circle of love kept these two right at its center when they were re united after their separation, each having shown their immeasurable love for the other: Sita having silently prayed for his return every day, and Ram having moved mountains to find her, wherever she was in the world, and having slayed the demon forever.

That Love didn't care about a circle for her live inside of and to never step out of.

It was that Love that there to support and ultimately unite them in their quest for togetherness - whatever the torments, complications, burdens, trials and ugliness of an impure and imperfect world.


That's the love the encircles them.
It's way bigger and more powerful than anything Lakshman was suggesting when he drew a circle around her.

It's without limitations. It's more than galactic. It's beyond time and space.


***

So I think for me to say yes, I'd have to be certain that the circle around me is a circle of love.

And not a circle of fear.


Do this. Don't do that.
Go here. Stay there.
Wear this. Wear that.


I don't want to be at the center of a circle of fear.
Staying on the inside in the belief that it's Love.

I want to be at the center of a circle of Love that's big enough to still be around me in an imperfect universe - not one that forbids me from coming in to experience of anything just because it might feel tormenting and unsettling...



I want to be in the center of a circle of Love that gives me, in those situations, the steadfastness to take the name of my Beloved over and over again knowing that we are committed in our unity and will preserve the integrity of our togetherness in the face of all distraction.

Because we are the center of a circle of love that is beyond time and space and measure.

A love that encircles me.

Like Rama and Sita.


***

It's the first time in my life I've ever really wondered about the story of the Ramayana. But I think it might meant this:

Like Sita and Rama - the ultimate couple, all couples have to choose how they will preserve the integrity, purity, divinity of their togetherness.

By yielding to less wise and more limited, more human perspectives like Laskhman - drawing circles of fear around one to protect the other.

Or by seeing that in reality a circle made of Love includes us, protects us and provides for us unconditionally - way beyond any artificial lines drawn in the sand that our human minds want to limit it to.

Love or Fear.

I choose Love.

A Love that encircles me.

***

I think back to my friend who said 'You won't get it all'.
The reason, I realise for my surprising commitment to working on this is because I feel so close. It's all here: California, New York, healing, study, service, connection, security, abundance and love: a love that he says encircles me.

And because we're human, there's some fear too.

But we're so close. That's why it's worth working for.

I'm remembering the circle of Love.

I'm hoping we'll leave behind our less wise, more human expressions of self like Lakshman.

I'm hoping that he'll wipe away the lines drawn in dust and meet me in the center of a circle made of Love instead.

And then I get to say yes.

And that's how I create it it all.
It's close.
It's possible.
And I won't won't settle for anything else.







Through time and space.

The Right Time to Discover / 'The soul and the spirit, each have got their own limit'

It's my birthday.

I've learnt these last few days about Pesach - the celebration of the end of slavery for the Jewish people.

Two days ago I was at a Seder at the house of a dear friend. We read passages about the ending of the slavery of the Jewish people and sang songs about freedom and Adonai.

Tonight L took me to the temple to experience 2nd night Seder. The Rabbi talked about the end of slavery - and we sang songs to Adonai.

I realised i am a Passover baby. Born in the middle of a people becoming free. I was born in the time of freedom.

I had the thought for the first time that maybe I was born to be free.

***

I reflected on how many times in the course of my lifetime that I have agreed to things that made me feel like a slave: dynamics that involve me giving more than I am comfortable with, giving more than I want to, in ways that exhaust and drain me - in ways that almost finish me.

"You forgot how you got there
And why you never meant to stay"

From somewhere a song I haven't heard for over 1o years flew in to my mind.




I've done this often I thought.

But this evening I realized: I am a Passover baby. I was born in a time that marks freedom

'The soul and the spirit
Have each got their own limit...'

This year, I thought, will mark the start of the rest of my life where I live life like I am free.

'I can't waste a single second,
Living in hell like it's some kind of heaven..'

That's my birthday wish for me.

It's time.

'If one truth leads to another,
There isn't one that I can't uncover...'

It's my time.
To believe in my own ability.
Ability to be Strong. Successful. Safe. Capable.
To live my life with confidence and self belief.
It is safe for me to be free!

Finally. This year. On this day, my birthday - I get it.

'It's Our time.
It's the Right time.
It's Our time to discover'.

Hometown: 'I ain't ever going back'.

I had a really vivid dream about Mcr. I was back there and I was in Night & Day. Faces I haven't seen for over 10, maybe more years were talking to me. Telling me things they didn't tell me a the time.

When I woke I felt like I really understood some things I had never understood before. Some sort of healing had happened. It felt sweet, and I felt settled. It stayed with me all day.

All day I was wondering what it meant.

L decided to take me to experience some thing American I'd never seen before. We ended up in this place. And sitting there, on the inhouse muzak system I heard these words:

"I ain't ever going back.
Back to the place that I can't stand
But I, I miss the way you lie..."


The track is by a band called Doves. The man I built my life with in Mcr had developed the album for the band. It was released the year he and I got engaged. He and the band were awared gold discs for the album.

It was a line of song about a former life on a day when I was wondering what a dream about a former time and place could mean.

I looked outside the window.
The piece of Americana L had brought me to for lunch was called Hometown.




L kissed me on the forehead. We talked about what the rest of our lives might look like.

I kept hearing the last line as: "I miss the way you laugh."

Love carries us through.

Time and Space.