The big H kinda gives me the creeps

but I want to be h****🥹

Hi! 𓃘

A few days ago I finished this book called Active Hope (Hope is another amazing topic, but not for today) and it is a great resource for encouraging tools facing the state of the world. It also reminded me that there are sooo many things making me feel tired and exhausted and longing for a break, but are not constantly in my awareness. While I don’t watch the news daily, even if I tried hiding under a rock (and I’m not, mostly) I would feel things are rough, threatening to get out of hand or probably they already are?!

I might not always be consciously thinking about the human shit show, but the impact is still real. I find myself looking for an individual explanation for my exhaustion, something tied to my own personal failing, a reason within me. But clearly the moment someone comes around the corner with a new life hack, after a short second of curiosity, I sigh. There is no short cut out of this. Once I zoom out, seeing the bigger picture, it becomes more obvious (again and again) that all this is not only on me. And of course it’s also not only me who is exhausted. To be tired and exhausted seems to be one of the most relatable things around. I know that there was, maybe still is, some badge of honor around being exhausted from a busy life, but there is more to it. There is more complexity even than all the exhaustion living in a world that is so far from perfect, that is so marked by human’s worst qualities, which manifest in systems that seem inescapable. I see that life outside of the box is hard. I see that life trying to fit the box is hard. I see lives going back and forth, in and out of the box, are hard. Pfft am I writing a piece right now about how life is… Hard?

Life in many aspects has been so beautiful recently, but it being hard nonetheless seems to be something I can’t get rid of.

Help?!

Beneath the exhaustion though, beside it, in between, in the nooks and crannies, there is something else that holds it all together. Something that becomes palpable in moments when the exhaustion seems to fall away and something else takes its place.

The big H?

Happiness??!!▶️

I must be ignorant, celebrating superficial satisfaction by giving stage time to the big H, when there is all this Hardship all around. But I want to refuse that is only my privilege or my shallowness that gives me excess to this other part of experience.

Like in one of those ancient tales it goes something like:
The big H is some mystic creature and in my endeavor to live a happy life (I have much so scorpio, but I’m also libra sun & rising!!) the big H comes to me with a soft and immensely soothing voice, saying:
You can have me, you can feel bliss for a short moment in time, but only if you will let me go again…

That sounds so much easier than it is, but here friends I say it, although I don’t like blunt advice giving:
Take. the. deal.
Take your chance.
Don’t be a needy clingy gripiddy gripper.

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Say I’m here, take me, like Tiffany in the classic 1996 Independence Day (anyone remembers that one?)

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So all this to say, that I’ve built a new relationship with the big H when I was showered in it in July.
Here are some of my favs:

• Waking up alone in my studio/work space, on the tiny mattress, to start writing at 8am while still in bed, with an amazing group of fellow creative online co-workers (join us)

• A change of scenery. I came to live on a flat desert island almost 2 years ago, and I don’t regret it. But finally mid July my partner & I went to our neighboring Island Gran Canaria for a 4 day trip. GC is pretty much one big green hill raising out the Atlantic

• Spontaneous slow dancing with my partner while he cooks, in our freaking cool Cave-airbnb (!!), crying, because life is beautiful, to this song:

• Re-reading The Artist’s Way in an amazing group of creatives. Feeling partly like a veteran, because I have finished the book this year already once, yes the whole book, all 12 weeks #legend

• Dancing through the kitchen with loud music on, preparing food for guests, something I have not done for much too long, realizing I freaking enjoy hosting

• A walk at dusk with my partner around the quiet neighborhood from around where we have been housesitting. Discovering houses and streets, plants, and so much we had not seen before- what an absolutely underrated activity

• Taking a pause to drink iced coffee when painting the walls of our van in the summer heat

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I realize the big H cannot be controlled.
It cannot be planned.
It catches you half way jumping head first into uncertainty.
It creeps up from behind when you are innocently following an impulse of the heart.
It sinks down into you while listening to your favorite song for the ten thousandth time walking the dog along the same road like every damn day, but just that moment the temperature, smells and color of the sky are coming together in a way that touches something in you, that makes everything just ok for now.

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I know, I’m two weeks late for a piece on July’s big H moments, and too late for the Olympics too, but just as with the big H I don’t seem to be in control of time, but that’s a story for another day… So, have you seen the swimmers at the Olympics jump in backwards for the backstroke competition? Like what the hell. And then they backstroke like their lives depend on it.
When I backstroke I’m the chillest person existing, but there are people who are competing doing that. I guess we people are just funny and I want more of the absurd funniness in my life. I’m coming to appreciate more that the big H is a fleeting thing, brief flashes rather than containable certitudes. To build the awareness for all the possible places where it can catch me, is a superpower in my eyes.
And I’m going for Gold! (yeah that is a Olympia reference, and I’m not ashamed of it!)

the outfit I’ll be wearing- iykyk(photo by Charles Ripon)

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♥

Your donkey

𓃘

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