Everything Must Go

Write the damn book, that memoir. What have you got to lose? A reputation I don’t care about. A story that’s not mine. An outcome that has already occurred. So, nothing. 

Except for those little things like time, energy, the will… well, I will do it because the impetus to write it––climb that hill in my own way, so to Pink-Floyd speak, is stronger than the tendency to sit and twiddle my thumbs and “see what happens” over the next year or decade of this evermore fleeting life.

The truth is, I like making things happen. I like new beginnings. I like closure from dead ends. I like trying and failing and trying again, sometimes in the same way, sometimes more learned or more wise. Sometimes I just like making better mistakes.

I like taking risks. 

Eleven years ago I took a big material risk. Together with my husband at the time, I sold the house and its contents––all things I’d lovingly poured my heart into, quit the job, and started travelling, which spanned the following 10 years. 

At that time, I thought that big risks were outward oriented. Now I’m seeing that while those risks can be rewarding and at times necessary, the bigger risks are the ones we can’t see, the inward ones that require us to stay with all the deep, deep feels that make us squirmy and squeamish and agitated in our own skin, our own minds.

To really just be with it all, not as an act of tolerance, but using it all to know ourselves better, know the nature of mind, know this bigger broader world more. 

To be okay with not being ready to let go and recognizing that any attempts we make to let go of something we’re not ready to let go of are just fake.

The risk of remaining attached to whatever it is we’re attached to and seeing the attachment for what it is, without lying to ourselves that it’s anything else. 

And when I say you or us, I really mean me, but I believe it’s a shared human experience, condition, joy, or heartache––however you see it.

I want to share this with you, in case there’s some part of you that needs the encouragement to breathe deep, pinch your nose, and take the plunge––whatever that plunge may be. I certainly need the nudge, which is why I composed this list in the first place.

So, take from it what you want and toss the rest. My path is not yours, nor yours mine, but as my beloved teacher, Ram Dass, says, “we’re all just walking each other home.”

So let’s walk each other into the New Year with a commitment to truth and to freedom, which ultimately begin with ourselves, and demand that we risk it all––all.

The risk of big steps down an unknown path. 

The risk of being silent and listening to what’s inside. 

The risk of having a voice.

The risk of giving up excuses.

The risk of honesty. The risk of integrity. The risk of love. 

The risk of giving up the idea that love is risky.

The risk of stillness, of feeling everything there is, including the fear that it might just crack your heart wide open.

The risk of living in the space between extremes.

The risk of trying out a new brand of coffee 😒

The risk of letting go of what wants to leave and letting be what wants to stay.

The risk of holding what matters with your whole being and simultaneously surrendering all attachment to it.

The risk of trying, at least, to do something that feels alien.

The risk of disappointing others with the choices you make.

The risk of being disappointed in yourself and others. 

The risk of believing in something you can’t see. The risk of faith.

The risk of giving up the idea that faith is risky.

The risk of falling in love, losing yourself, and discovering a new, changed you.

The risk of staying when everything in you says run.

The risk of getting naked with someone new 😏

The risk of reaching out without any guarantee that there will be someone to receive you.

The risk of telling people you love them.

The risk of loving people, even if that love feels wasted.

The risk of relationship––real honest-to-goodness-fucking-hard-at-times relationship.

The risk of defining your limits.

The risk of demanding honesty, even if it creates conflict.

The risk of softening your own hard edges, or at least trying.

The risk of peering into the dark, private space of your own heart.

The risk of creating something, building something, starting something without knowing that you’ll ever be able to see it through.

The risk of failing at whatever you try.

The risk of making music, mosaics, and new friends 🤓

The risk of trying again and again and quite possibly again.

The risk of finding out that you’re not good enough by some invisible, self-imposed measure, and doing it anyways.

The risk of being seen just as you are.

The risk of climbing to the top of the mountain to discover there’s no such thing.

The risk of writing it all down. The risk of making it real.

The risk of admitting your mistakes wide out in the open 🧺

The risk of saying I’m sorry without being asked.

The risk of surrendering hope.

The risk of forgiving and forgetting. The risk of remembering.

The risk of ending a promise.

The risk of feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling it all.

The risk of feeling your whole body as one big huge, at times, uncomfortable or painful cloud of sensations.

The risk of not just taking another’s perspective, but actually sitting in their perspective.

The risk of driving your motorbike down some treacherous, unpaved and unnamed road 😱

The risk of throwing it all in the fire and paying reverence to the ashes.

The risk of living at zero distance with truth.

The risk of writing the damn book 😅

The risk of sitting and watching the whole drama, start to finish, as Ram Dass says, just the way it is, just, just the way it is, as the watcher, the watched, the watching, and that projector light coming from somewhere in the background.

Then after sitting with them for a while, the risk of giving up the enchantment with it––the oh what I’m learning!, wow the progress I’m making!, ahhh the insights I’m having!

The risk of sacrificing everything we think we know, everything we think we are and offering it all up for a greater freedom. The freedom of Truth. 

“Truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing.” – The Tao (via Ram Dass)

“You say the hill’s too steep to climb, chiding
You say you’d like to see me try, climbing
You pick the place and I’ll choose the time
And I’ll climb the hill in my own way
And every day is the right day…”

– David Jon Gilmour / George Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)