reverb10 batch two, sort of

This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? ~ Patrick Reynolds

I'm pausing for a while here. I've never thought of it that way, mind and body in some kind of baseline parallel. They're agents of one another, integrated all the time. My mind has words. My body has twitches and gulps and dilations. Mind and body have their ways of echoing need or joy or fear, as one senses in the other.

Integration sounds to me like those flashes of consciousness and elegance of being. Fresh air and a full belly, but not too full so that you have to undo a button and lie on the couch moaning. Maybe all that plus a pretty view or good company or a met-deadline or something that otherwise makes you feel pleasantly situated. That happens all the time. Little flashes, sometimes cumulative and sometimes not.

When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step? ~ Scott Belsky

Draft two of my second book. A re-engineering, a mammoth, a pillage.

What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it? ~ Victoria Klein

Collaborators. I express my gratitude for them by doing my best to not stake tents in their yards. These best of intentions have been proven effective 4 times out of 5 with a margin of error of 2.3 percentage points.

Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010. ~ Patti Digh

Help! My brain is melting.

How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst? ~ Martha Mihalick

I make a point of never changing my perspective. It's much more comfortable. Unfortunately, my conviction to never change my perspective is a gradual phenomenon rather than a sudden burst. I'm not finished cementing it yet. And so several friends have caused a change in perspective under my NO MORE PERSPECTIVE-CHANGING, DAMMIT wire. This is most displeasing.

What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward? ~ Tara Weaver

To speak more gently with a microphone in-hand. To remember that I'm not in my own kitchen with a beer, even if it feels that way in my head.

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? ~ Kaileen Elise

Next year, I'd like to make some progress on our debt, taking steps so that we're not spending as much on credit line interest as we do on childcare. I'd also like to see what it's like to drive a carrot car. I imagine it would not excel at handling, particularly on the highway. In 2010 I was not successful at making progress on our debt. I tried, but a yellow worm on a monoski knocked over a truck loaded with watermelons, and the watermelons rolled down our little mountain, upsetting Mr. Orange's Apple Stand as well as all our winning lottery tickets and kidnapped rap moguls. That yellow worm's title is yet-to-be-confirmed and so for the time being, he is known locally as Mr. Author Ha! Ha! Ha! (with exclamation points).

Reverb#10 is all about hindsight and crystal balls. What about you? Reverb Lite. I like knowing what you're up to. Pick one.

Comments

[Alison]

What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it? ~ Victoria Klein

I had an answer for this one straight away: doing nothing. I've had a lot of incredible, exciting, over-stimulating, HOORAY experiences and moments this year and they've all been wonderful. But in the past five months, being away from that side of the world, being by myself a lot, missing Joey, missing the chase (where I chase myself (and my bags) around North America until I have no money), all I've wanted is to have the littlest things back. Sitting at his desk watching things on youtube or listening to good songs or each of us doing something completely different on our own computers, but side-by-side. Talking. Sitting in the park. Dozing off.

Concerts and shows and trips and parties are wonderful. Contentment and simplicity in good company is better. Stilling. Quiet. People don't realize how much they want it (more than wanting BIG BIG BIG) until they've had it, I don't think, and maybe not even then. So I'm glad to have figured that out, this year.

xo

[Jen/LA]

If I set the alarm to remember something about 2010 it would be this.
I THOUGHT 2009 sucked, 2010 was far worse, the most challenging year of my life. I don't know that I'd change it though because I like myself better now. But it absolutely sucked and I don't want to foget thAt so that I don't forget to appreciate the good stuff!

[Angie]

"Integration sounds to me like those flashes of consciousness and elegance of being"

Fuck. That is a beautiful idea-integration of mind and body as the elegance of being. It reminds me of that Chainsaw Kittens line, "I'm not smart enough to be depressed." Perhaps I am not elegant enough to be enlightened. That would explain a great deal. Thank you for that meditation fodder. The elegance of being is going to be bouncing around my grunt-filled brain and my fart-filled body for a while. *burp*

[Shauna MacLeod]

Wow, those are pretty deep questions! I think the thing I'd most like to remember about 2010 is that I can do it. I have been through a lot this year and I don't want to do it again. At the beginning of the year I didn't think I would get through it...at all...not even "unscathed"...just not at all. So, the big one, the colossal realization is that - I can do it. I can, and will survive.

What a glorious feeling that is.

[Rachel]

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? ~ Kaileen Elise

Debt. The recurring theme. We've paid off a mountain this year and have $25,000 to go. We went for it, we got lucky and we worked hard, we had huge results and now... it is slow. Paying the rest off will take some time with only one income.
Next year I want to try eating slower. Both as an attempt at better digestion and mindfulness.

[Avitable]

I think we should petition for an International Debt Forgiveness Day and all start over fresh.

[mamie]

i thought about writing on that first prompt up there because i find it such an odd concept to have mind and body disconnected. these days, it seems like such a pervasive idea that they are.

it probably has a lot to do with my dance training and love of all things scientific, but i cannot fully imagine dis-integrating the two. having said that, i find myself most fully attuned to the connection during a really hard yoga class, the ones that flow and the ones that don't. the flowing good days make the seamlessness of the connection so apparent. the stoppered rough days make me realize i have to tell my mind to shut the fuck up and just let my body go where it will.

and holy hell, woman, your elegance with words is just so so fine.

that prompt about losing the memory of 2010? that one kinda' scares me. brain melt, indeed.

[Gal]

The thing I learned most vividly this year is that I am a damn good mother. I always knew it, even before I became a mother I knew I would be a good one. But this year I really truly came to believe it. Not by doing anything in particular, maybe just by dropping in and stepping back and just seeing myself in it. Feels good.