Soft power, quiet certainty

My dad got back from India last night! Hurray! I was missing him so much! (No silly thats Ramana, not Daddy! But he has that same look!)

I went to SFO and picked him up and drove him home in the rain. He said he wasn't sure if he even remembered how to drive! It was raining so hard all the way there and back. It was scary, driving in the dark and all the weekend traffic and the clouds of spray coming up from all the other cars, but I was so careful and concentrated real hard. I had precious cargo!

Its a funny feeling to be responsible for someone elses life like that, driving in bad conditions, knowing that if you screwed up, it could be bad. I saw like 10 ambulances with their lights flashing rushing to accidents too, and passed one where a car was turned facing traffic in the fast lane with a terrified woman being comforted by her man standing next to it waiting for someone to stop the traffic and rescue them. I am most cried seeing it! Well actually I did! They were standing on the thin little strip between the fast lane and the divider holding each other tight...

But we made it home safe, and I had a fire laid and even though Dad must have been tired he was excited and happy and we stayed up till after midnight talking.

We killed a bottle of Cab and he told me all about his trip. Well probably not all about it, but the highlights. He started with a Vipanassa retreat in Dharamsala which is in Northern India and real close to Pakistan =0 and when that was done, he did a touristy thing to some of the parks and conservation areas that they have along the base of the Himalayas.

Then he went into Nepal and climbed Everest....Just kidding! He just visited Katmandu and then went and stayed in local type places in smaller towns for a while. He says he meditated every morning and every evening the whole time, and sometimes even with other people he met.

After Nepal he went back down into India and visited the holy city of Varanasi, which is full of temples and is on the Ganges, and then to New Delhi for a week and back home from there. He said the flight home was full of people who work in San Jose in computers!

He's different, he's like real calm but sort of like more alive too. He used to be quiet and calm and steady and happy too, but its like he has his same calm but with a sort of excited ness about it too. Kinda like there is a bigger smile behind the calm. Not that he doesnt smile! He always smiles, but now its like there is a youngerness to it.

I'm so happy for him! I was worried he might get depressed like I do, with missing Mom and all, but he really never went there. Thats good too, 'cause I don't know what I'd do if he did!

I made waffles this morning, my favorite thing in the world for a sunday morning, and later I'm going to make him go to whole foods with me and reintroduce him to American culture! He says it will be fun!

Taking my Dad on a date to the grocery store, Oh Yea!

You don't realize how much you miss someone sometimes until their back!

:)

I've been quiet

     I've been quiet lately. Its the other side of the manic me. My summer was Chloe the go-bot, all doing this and thinking that, and I used up all the extra energy I had.

     School has taken up where my leisure ended, and I am making a real effort to see if I can make it work for me. I am undecided still if its the path I want to go down. The obvious benefits are the acquisition of accepted experiences and formal validation. You go to school, you get a degree and people know you to be of a certain quality.

     But what I see is a certain sameness and fear of not being previously validated, that feels to me like something I don't want. I think I want to write, but do I really need a degree, and then a masters, and some awards and participations in workshops to do that? Well yes If I want "those folks" to take me seriously. Academia can be a trap, or a sort of private club, or even a trade guild!

     I so want to say "fuck you" to some of that. I'm lucky that I don't need to struggle to succeed just to feed myself. Whoring out my life, following the rules, because of fear of failure/starvation/homelessness.  Yet I fear. Just the unknown of it, when the known path is right there in front of me!!

     I've got time to figure it out, and support and resources too, so all the above is just intellectual goofing.

     Dad came home a few weeks after me, and its been great to be around him. He's chilled and relaxed alot and isnt so sad anymore. He's wistful at times, but not depressed. We can remember mom and laugh at stuff she did or would have done and not "go there".

     He is going to go to India later, maybe early next year or in the spring. He's going to do a meditation course, http://www.sikhara.dhamma.org/  and then travel a bit without too much planning. I think he's officially in his own mind, retired, although I suspect he will consult some now and then just because he loves it.

     I wish Shelly would hurry up and have a baby! I think Dad would be a good grandpa. Or maybe I should just find some random guy and get knocked up with out telling him. That would give me something to write about!  But then I have probably used up most of the family support karma I had, so maybe not. But if there are any applicants for the position, random knocker upper, I'll give it a look.

    I've bogged on my Novel. I need to wait for the next manic attack! I've got a firm concept, a rough outline, and maybe 10,000 words from stuff I've already done that can be reworked into it, but still don't have all the plot elements in line. Tentative title; "Projection, an Autobiography", cause that's what it is! Have I mentioned the concept? I don't remember..    :)

Maybe I should just let it happen. I think what is holding me back is the lack of craft. I am enthusiastic, but when I read others work and see how tight and beautiful it can be, I hold back. I don't want to go halfway into something big and then be disgusted by my lack of skills.

     Fear is a funny thing, it keeps me from going where I want sometimes, or makes me go where I don't want (school). Someone wise (Gangaji, a real cool woman, gangaji.org ) said recently to "go to the center of it and see whats there". Something I've tried a couple of times, and when I did go to the center of my fear, nothing was there. Its an illusion I create myself. Its kinda a lifting yourself by your boot straps kinda thing. Fear is an illusion created out of fear!

     Maybe the rule I should make is that I should do stuff just because I fear it. We'll see how that goes!

:)