Ads

I have ads on my blog now. It's called "monetization." If this annoys you, I apologize. I'm experimenting with the cost/benefit analysis. We shall see.

Thanks to my anonymous benefactor for the Body Glove wetsuit.

At the beach this morning, I watched a surfer wipe out painfully. Standing on his board, he tumbled headfirst in an awkward somersault over the front of his board. From my spot on the sand, I thought it was really ugly, exactly something I wouldn’t enjoy. Like flipping over the handlebars on a mountain bike.

When I got home, I did yoga and then my spirit traveled to the River Niger, where it often goes for relief and sustenance.

The river spirits are different from the ocean spirits, calming and purifying rather than exhilarating and enlivening. Near the shore, a man sits on the ground under a saggy canvas lean-to. He is a skinny black man with very dark skin. He looks like an ebony statue coated with dust. His tent is cool and I am always damp from swimming when I visit him. He shows me a fish flailing out of water. It suffocates in the air, out of its comfort zone and desperate to return to the familiar.

This morning, the cell phone got shut off. Other expenses press down as well. There are choices to be made: between kids’ shoes and auto repairs, and honesty and pretending that, financially, everything is a-ok. I have been here, in a multitude of ways, many times before. Cliche alert: Financial desperation fits me like an old shoe.

On the road to her dreams, every heroine encounters a sign that announces in large letters: “Make U-Turn Here.”

Below those words, in lines of smaller print, it continues: “You are not one of the people who is allowed to be happy. You are one of the people who must scrape and suffer and watch others have fun.” As if it were an eye chart, the words diminish in size: “You are in danger. If you continue on this path, you will lose everything you cherish: security, stability, your home, your family. You will lose the love of everyone you care about. Do not continue. If you are wise, you will make this U-Turn and let everything return to the way it was.” Today that sign would emphasize: “Get an office job. Cell phone bills are very important.”

In the past I have stopped to read this sign, and I have heeded its warnings. I have been courageous, but only up to a point. Honestly, who wants to lose everything she cherishes? Cell phone bills are important. Today, however, there is more than a sign on a desolate road. There is a man, and a fish, and the river and the beach.

When we promise to do something for others, when we promise to do something for the sake of something greater then ourselves (like humanity, like the ocean, like the planet), the hardest part is making the promise in the first place – and then keeping it. The hardest part is not coming up with the money to make ends meet, the hardest part is having faith.

I am the fish out of water. But it's not really me. It's the me I was before today. I am not alone and I can ask for help every step of the way. I don’t have to figure this out all on my own.

Will the money really follow?

May 13, 2010

I may have found the wetsuit I’ve been looking for on Craig’s List for sixty dollars. It’s a Body Glove 3/4 size 11. Of course, I don’t seem to have sixty dollars to pay for a wetsuit right now. I have sixty dollars for groceries. For phone bills. For auto insurance. But for a wetsuit?

Finances are very tight in this family and an enormous component of this project is to demonstrate my commitment to creating a rewarding life for my family by pursuing a dream. I’ve always heard that if I do what I love, the money will follow. I’ve even said it to other people. But I’ve never believed it. Not really. Not in a “pay for the wetsuit instead of the phone bills” kind of way.

Last night I had a dream I was doing some kind of water training. I was practicing diving under waves that would otherwise knock me down. I wasn’t on a board. I was in the water. Treading or standing, I’m not sure. Over and over, I would watch a wave approach and then dive under to avoid getting tumbled. My coach was an older, almost portly, football-coach type guy: a balding white man. All business. Shirtless.

After a few rounds of this drill, the next practice was to keep my head down, facing away from the waves, and dive under without seeing the wave first. The purpose was to be prepared before the wave hit. It made sense in the dream, now not so much. Facing away from the crests of giant waves, they would wash over me without my knowing when they would hit. It was suspenseful, scary and I was so apprehensive it was hard not to sneak a peak at what was heading my way. I think the exercise was about mastering surprise and always being ready/prepared.

In another part of the dream, I was pregnant and already showing. It was too late for an abortion. How hadn’t I noticed? I remembered having unprotected sex with Brian, but it had only been a few nights earlier and I was already so pregnant. I wasn’t exactly happy but I was resigned: gearing up to take a deep breath (!) and do it - have another child.

Maybe it's this project. It's too late to turn back. Because I want it to be too late. I'm tired of quitting things that go to slow, that get too hard, that don't look like they're paying off. I'm tired of being that person who has a believable excuse for every unfulfilled dream.