2008: What was that all about?

What a crazy, mixed-up year 2008 was! In February I declared it would be The Year of Balance, and that proved prophetic. 2008 was a roller-coaster of intense stuff, but I think, sitting here contemplating it all of a piece on January 1, 2009, that I mostly held center. OK, so I'm still working on Scorpion pose and probably will be for a looooong time, but if I learned anything at all this year (and who am I kidding: I learned a lot) it's that practice doesn't make perfect. Practice IS perfect. When things are hard or challenging, just keep going, just keep working it.

Things that definitely sucked about this year, not necessarily in order of suckiness:
- the economy
- Alex getting cancer
- my sister Carla getting cancer
- Laurent having repeated tonsillitis, then a tonsillectomy
- Joe being in the emergency room for bike crashes more than once, including the spectacular Nov 1st run-in with a deer
- my job, most of the time
- my dad losing vision in his right eye (macular degeneration) and not being able to drive or read

Things that definitely did not suck and were really great this year:
- doings lots of yoga, especially with Laura and the whole Marin Anusara kula - awesome!
- seeing a red octopus on the beach at Bodega in January (what a beautiful weekend that was)
- going snowcamping at Lassen last February
- taking 6 total weeks of vacation, including 10 days in Oaxaca and 3 weeks in France and Italy, pretty sweet
- volunteering at WildCare for a few months
- getting the blissbug idea and working on it with Martine and Terence
- Laurent moving back to San Rafael, doing well in school and at work
- spending a weekend in SF with Marianne and Heather
- getting along with my parents
- writing lots, including starting the blog, and
- generally feeling super-connected and surrounded by really, truly great friends

Taken alone, the Suck List above would feel crushing, but when I shuffle it together with the Awesome List, it no longer feels so bad. In fact, even with all of the insane sucky shit that happened this year, the year was amazing -- crazy, but amazing. It's as though at the same rate that some things got bad, the good stuff just got so much better. And I mean SO much better.

I'm 85% clear on the theme for 2009, but am going to spend a little more time savoring the complexity and many deep satisfactions of the past year. Yes, it was hard, but damn, it was really good.

The real status: the one I don't put on FB

I don't think I've ever been so tired in all my life. I wake up every morning, marveling at how tired I am, and just dragging my ass to the coffee pot for sustenance. And this coming from a Morning Person. What up? Part of me worries that I am depressed or that I'm feeling my age or something. Another part of me resists the temptation to pop a pill to just get through the day and the frustrations of a job that has passed its shelf-life for me. Then there's the stress of Joe's business in this economy and keeping everything afloat and covering the tuition and never feeling like I have a moment to do nothing. Except when I'm at yoga. That's when I feel some space and the support of my friends. I can ride on that high for a few days, then invariably will crash out (generally in the morning, when the energy is low). The mania of swinging between these extremes is exhausting too, so I'm looking for a middle path. But the serious and true exhaustion and anxiety of this economic time is real and deep for us. I alternate between ignoring the anxiety or being possessed by the anxiety - I know there is a better way. And if I weren't so dang tired, I could probably access that better way!

And shit, I forgot to mention the whole issue of my sister's possible cancer diagnosis and shortened life expectancy. Right, there's also that.

So for me, this Christmas feels like the hardest one I've ever had. I am so looking forward to some total, 100% down-time this weekend to think and feel without running around and doing and fixing and leading... I truly want some Xmas spirit. Santa, help me out here!

The Great Big Glittering Party

My sister Carla is in the intensive care unit, has been since last Wednesday night when she blacked out after getting out of her car. She'd been having, apparently, severe headaches for about 7-8 weeks. These were not ordinary headaches by any stretch of the imagination, though I suppose if you'd never had a migraine, you might think that's what they were about. But no, these would come out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning, and come on blindingly strong. To the point where she'd be awakened from her sleep by the pain, then have to feel her way along the hallway walls to the bathroom, too dizzy to stand on her own, fumbling for ineffectual tylenol. They were working with her doctors to figure out what it was. Then the black-out came and she wound up in the emergency room.

Where they did a battery of neurological tests and discovered the headaches were caused by a back-up of cerebrospinal fluid in her skull caused in turn by an obstruction at her brain stem, a mass of something. Two days ago they installed a drain on the right side of her skull to relieve the pressure of the backed-up fluid. They're testing the fluid to see what it might contain that could indicate what is happening in there.

All of the possibilities are bad. They've mentioned multiple sclerosis, lymphoma, glioma. The glioma is what they keep coming back to. Of course, I've googled and read everything I could find about glioma - none of it is good. All of it is bleak.

After a few hours at the hospital Friday afternoon with my dad, keeping Carla company, doing what we could to keep her spirits up, I found myself out with friends at a club, listening to music and dazzled by the sparkle of the holiday decor and the conviviality of everyone in attendance. And it struck me, as the music washed over me, as I leaned into the sound of everyone singing lyrics they knew by heart, their voices louder than the singer's on stage, that life is a glittering amazing party that we are so privileged to attend. It's so easy to forget how remarkable is the body we walk around in, how sweet the friendships and food and colors and everything else. And it breaks my heart, absolutely and utterly, that my baby sister might have to leave this party early.

Carlita's prognosis, at least right now, is bad. Because it's the weekend, we are in a holding pattern. And in the absence of information, she is terrified, and we all breathe, trying to go moment to moment until we know something for sure. And when we know something for sure, we will keep breathing, moment to moment, figuring out this new situation as we go.

Meanwhile, the party is still going on and we are all of us, even Carla, still there. Every breath, be grateful.

Talking 'bout my generation: OBAMA!

As my old friend Scott wrote on my Facebook, "we were born for this" -- the "this" being this historic moment of electing Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States of America.

And how true it is! He is our age after all, those of us turning 46 and 47 this year and next, product of the same time, the same late 60s/early 70s melting pot of music and neighborhoods, the same post-Civil Rights era feeling of one-ness. How well I remember walking with my parents for civil rights, protesting in the streets as a child, holding up handmade signs for peace, for farmworker protection. What a triumphant moment it is now, to see the impact of the people on the office of the Presidency. A proud moment, too.

And I can't stop thinking, either, about television's contribution to this moment. From "The West Wing" to President Palmer on "24," we have been laying the groundwork for this new era in the public imagination for some time, building the hope for a government we can believe in, for leadership that truly inspires and connects.

President-elect Obama is so right: "This is our moment." Let's seize it, people, our time to re-make the country as we know it should be.

Happiness: the name of the game

After a really amazing weekend -- attended the OYou! event in San Francisco with my best friends, spent the night, hung out more on Sunday, I feel a little bit dizzy with all of the possibilities, with the feeling that something BIG is coming, a really big change that we all need and that we're all a part of creating. All of the old forms no longer serve, it's a new time calling for new ways. I've been feeling a little bit crazy from this feeling, honestly, but also overjoyed.

I started reading "Happier" by Tal Ben-Shahar yesterday. I can't remember exactly what drove me to Amazon to search for this title, but anyway, there it was in the mailbox yesterday, Used: Like New, with some yellow highlighting throughout.

I've long thought that happiness was the whole point of everything, that it's the state that we are all striving for all of the time. In my youth (!) I think that there was a romantic obsession with melancholy, with misery that demonstrated how smart you were. Only stupid people were happy. And who the hell wants to be stupid. I don't know exactly where I learned that, but I clearly am not the only one. I still know some people clinging to that old way.

Probably my weekend really helped prepare me to read this book "Happier." I felt like I was on vacation, even though I was in my hometown, 20 miles from my present home, in the same city where I spend 5 days a week. The difference was that I was completely engrossed in activities with people I love, for long stretches of time, with no obligations to be anywhere or please anyone but ourselves. No too-heavy thought of the future, just the sweet Indian Summer air and the company of friends. And a Sunday morning, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying my dreams and listening to my friends' breathing. Motionless, thought-full.

So I'm really working on it now, being happier. As Aristotle apparently said, "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence." It's now my whole aim, stay tuned for details.