Slushy surfaces

For some reason I woke up fuzzy-headed this morning, my brain cottony as the clumps of snow clinging to everything outside. I have cabin fever, yet I don’t want to leave the house. I was supposed to go visit my parents today in NH, and the roads are certainly passable. It’s warm and the roughly 8 inches of new snow we got over the two storms Friday and Saturday are melting fast. As of 8am, the street out front had 2-3 inches of slushy sandy mud on it, as measured by little dog legs. I imagine great splatters of it hurled by passing motorists against my windshield and the sides of my car if I go out. But I’m staying home. I called my parents and excused myself – ah the roads, ah the work I have to get done, ah the planning for my trip…

I’ve been obsessed with my trip. A week from now I’ll be on a plane to Mexico, from Boston via Houston to Leon. Last night I was reading The Course of Mexican History, which I managed to buy used for about $10. I am only about as far as Cortés taking Tenochtitlán from the Aztecs. Yikes, I have a long way to go. I particularly want to read up on the colonial period and the wars for independence since Guanajuato is an important historical area. I also skimmed through one of my travel books and thought of all the things I need to do: get traveler’s checks, make a list of addresses so I can send email and postcards, buy batteries for my camera, figure out what clothes to bring. I also need to wrap up my work, including a case study I was going to work on Friday then yesterday and somehow I never got around to it. Must do it today.

Being snowbound yesterday had me out of sorts. But I needed to be. Forced to face myself alone, I had to stop and notice how I wind myself up, dislocate myself out onto my surfaces. That’s where my interactions with people have been coming from lately, high-pitched surface level distractive reactions full of flash and sleights of hand and no depth. When I was younger, this outer surface was all fog and mirrors. A psychic once told me he couldn’t read me. Years later, in therapy, I realized I’d developed as a child a way to protect myself from the arbitrary emotional demands of my upbringing by disappearing behind a vague veil that others would, hopefully, read as pleasing them, giving them whatever it was they needed from me. Meanwhile who I really was could stay safely hidden inside behind the facade. The therapy (some 10-12 years ago) allowed me to, first of all, recognize it was there and then allowed me the option to use it or not as needed. There are uses for our masks after all – making nice with difficult clients is one situation that comes to mind.

So I’m a lot more transparent than I used to be. The “me” on the surface isn’t disconnected from a hidden core. However it’s more reactive than responsive. And it’s still more concerned with appearances and pleasing than with listening, taking in and digesting, and responding back in an authentic and deeply felt way. That’s where I want to be more often, in that center, with the busy outer layers dropped away. Or at least to be able to more consciously go back and forth between the two.

One thing that travel does is put things in perspective. Yes, wherever you go… there you are. I am not running away from myself. But I will be removed from the rutted patterns of everyday living. I’m open to seeing new things, meeting new people, but also meeting myself if that doesn’t sound too corny. I’m looking forward to my trip.

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Oh yeah, for the astrologically inclined, this tidbit: This trip is coinciding with the transiting North Node conjuncting my natal South Node in Aries in the 9th house - the house of travel. I've been working so hard on that 3rd house Libra North Node thing (everyday communications, relationships) that I've gotten all out of balance. Going back "home" to recover myself a little.

Comments

[alyssa]

oh man, i miss mexico. i love mexico. what's your itinerary?

[leslee]

I guess I should post it before I leave, but it's essentially: 2 days Guanajuato, 5 days San Miguel de Allende, a week in Guadalajara and environs (the last couple of days at a spa). Where have you been?

[alyssa]

hiding at the pottery studio. there, or data entry. grrrr