throw a party…
dance under the stars…
fall asleep outside…
dream the day away…
…watch the clouds go by…
bask in the shade…
slip down a slide…
open some windows…
skip out of work…
soak up the sun…
smile at a dog…
kid around…
ruin your appetite…
break a sweat…
go with the flow…
sit absolutely still…
blossom…
follow your heart…
capture someone else’s…
take a moment…
carry your shoes…
enjoy the view…
hold hands…
watch your shadow grow…
lose all track of time…
drift…

The first day of  school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to  know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a  gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find  a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up  her entire being.

She said, ‘Hi handsome. My name is  Rose. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a  hug?’

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, ‘Of  course you may!’ and she gave me a giant squeeze.

‘Why  are you in college at such a young, innocent age?’ I  asked.

She jokingly replied, ‘I’m here to meet a rich  husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…’

‘No  seriously,’ I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be  taking on this challenge at her age.

‘I always dreamed of  having a college education and now I’m getting one!’ she told  me.

After class we walked to the student union building  and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant  friends.. Every day for the next three months we would leave class  together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this  ’time machine’ as she shared her wisdom and experience with  me…

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus  icon and she easily made friends wherever she went.. She loved to  dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the  other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the  semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never  forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium.. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her  three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little  embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, ‘I’m sorry  I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing  me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you  what I know.’

As we laughed she cleared her throat and  began, ‘ We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old  because we stop playing.

There are only four secrets to  staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh  and find humor every day… You’ve got to have a dream.. When you lose  your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking  around who are dead and don’t even know it!

There is a  huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If  you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t  do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am  eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody can grow  older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up  by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what  we did, but rather for things we did not do.. The only people who fear  death are those with regrets.’

She concluded her speech  by courageously singing ‘The Rose..’

She challenged each  of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives At the  year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all  those years ago.

One week after graduation Rose died  peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college  students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who  taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly  be.

When you finish reading this, please send this  peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they’ll really  enjoy it!

These words have been passed along in loving  memory of ROSE.

Anyway, I got a message today from a FB friend — a beautiful woman whom I’ve met once who was reaching out and just wanted to see how I was doing. I was quite moved.

My response follows:

You know, I have this policy in my life to live as authentically as possible. I could give you lots of shallow answers — I mean, hell, we barely have met, right?

thanks for asking. you have no idea how much that means. truly.

My last few months have been something like this:

• March: Rebirth
• April: Uprooting
• May:   Opening
• June:  Reconnection
• July:  Crazy

So I call forth for my August: Grounding

The other day, Michael forwarded me this clip of the US Naval Academy performance from the Kings Firecrackers, an all girl jump rope crew. The caption on the bottom of the video is really great: “Girls Do Incredibly Intricate Jump Rope Routine. At one point, the only way to explain their fancy moves is CGI.” This screen capture, for example, shows three girls jumping on their lower legs — yes, while they are kneeling!

Hope you enjoy this clip as much as I did.

In February 2001, I left my corporate job — the reasons for which I’ll leave to another post. Over the course of the next year, I went through many changes and lots of development. I began exploring my Self as an artist, communitarian, dancer, DJ, event producer and more. I gave up my “normal” life of stability and I opted to explore living from a place of authentic expression of my deepest truths even if (perhaps especially if) that did not include a normal job. I was determined to find a new job that allowed me to wear glitter to work since it was not okay at my corporate job. For me, that expression was one of the base criterion for my next full time job.

In Spring of 2002 I did an open studio’s show in Hunter’s Point. As I was preparing for the show on 4.20, I met a woman whose name was Hetana. She and her partner were using our warehouse space for a 4.20 party, which is how we met. I had enjoyed interacting with her and I went to say goodbye to her before leaving the warehouse and she said to me, “Nice meeting you Isa” or something like that. I mentioned my name was Lisa, but now that she’d said “Isa” I was thinking I was going to change it. Something about it just rang true to me.

Being a bit more conservative than I am today, I wasn’t as willing to trust my instincts, so I decided to sleep on it. For whatever reason, that night I slept in the loft over the kitchen. When I woke in the morning I looked down into the kitchen and, as if it was a sign from God, I saw my roommates girlfriend’s back have a tattoo of the letter “I-S-A” on her. Now, you have to understand I’d been living here for 4 months and Green (my roommate’s partner), whose name is also unusual (though that is her birth name also), had never worn a tank top while I was around the entire time. The letter in her tattoo are easily a few inches high.

Thinking I must be in a daze or dreaming or hallucinating or something, I call down to her and we have a conversation that goes something like this:
Me: “Green, what’s that on your tattoo back?”
Green: “It’s Isa.” (Pronounced e-SA with the emphasis on the SA not the E)
Me: “What does it mean?”
Green: “It means the one in Tagalog.” (Filipino language)

In that moment, I thought, “Wow. This is a sign from God. What are odds this would happen?” And so clearly seeing my name in writing on Green’s back was the clincher.

I had been having challenges actually feeling comfortable with my choice, but it seemed God was certain this was my choice. Less than two weeks later, one of my best friends at the time calls me up to tell me, “Do you know what Isa means? It means “Jesus” in Farsi.”

So I changed my name, dropping the “L” along with my corporate jobs, my preconceptions of who I should be and the limiting beliefs that had held me back in the past. I’m so glad I did.

Then I took a look at him and I almost instantly started to cry. His manner was unassuming. He was polite in asking. He walked away and asked someone else when I said no.

He had no shoes on. His feet were black and rough looking.

I went into this cycle of thoughts around it and why my own immediate response was to say no. Lately I’ve been giving more frequently on the street. Not because I have more to give fiscally, but I have more openness to “feeling into” people’s experience and pain. And I remember what my friend Chris said to me years ago when I asked him why he gave so often. His
response was, “Because I would hope that if I were in that position, someone would give to me.”

What I also noticed was I was nearly debilitated by the experience. I’ve been doing so much work opening up in the last month that witnessing this man asking for help and shoeless had me crying before I was half a block away. My heart ached.

I ask:

How do you stay open and still stay functional without crying all the time or feeling sensations that stop you in your tracks? Maybe I’m just that sensitive. Thoughts?

I particularly enjoyed the first portion of this video because the message was, IMO, a powerful reminder of how both being in our stability and allowing ourselves to step out of our comfort zone is, in fact, a gift to our development and our lives. Thanks Oliphant for sharing this!

The idea is that if one shares information with another person with the intention of creating change in the listener’s life, then the information being shared is coaching. If, on the other hand, the information being communicated is being said just for the sake of talking about one’s own experience, the information is then being shared.

I wondered how this was useful in my own life when Mark shared with me. Over the years, the biggest thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes I want to help my friends — give them ideas or advice — to help them have a better life. Of course, what if they don’t want that help? What if me sharing things with them is coming from a place of me thinking there is something that
needs fixing when in their world, everything is fine?

The interesting thing is that you could say the same sentence and be coming from two different places in your intentions. For example, imagine saying, “I remember when my partner treated me that way. I didn’t think he was good for me so I stopped dating him.” You could be saying this from the place of wanting the other person to stop dating someone you think is bad for them. Alternately, you could be saying this from the place of trying to empathize and just share about your life. You may even have both sentiments going on for you.

Learning to recognize my internal motivation for sharing things has really helped me to have a more clear idea of what my intentions are and what information is therefore appropriate to share. I also notice that I can sometimes be attached to people making some sort of change when I’m coming from the place of coaching rather than sharing and by simply recognizing the different, I am able to be a better friend to others.

I’m curious what experiences you have with these ideas. . .

That all said, what is the big deal? I’ve thought about this a lot. As someone who has done quite a bit of singing in choirs and enjoyed a bit of success as a musician and performance artist, I examined the clip a bit critically, as I’m want to do — after all, extraordinary is the standard around here.

The conclusion I came to in conversation with my friend Renee today is this: Ms. Boyle, while having an amazing voice, was not so much amazing in who she was, but rather, in helping people see (the audience for starters) how they had unconscious expectations of what amazing or excellent might “look” like.

I was not shocked to hear her belt out the excellent choice of songs with the strength and passion with which she sung. I thought she sang quite well. And, at the same time, excellence is every where, so I was not at all surprised. What did surprise me is that people were so impressed by it. Is this phenomenon because we (humanity) has such limited views about what is possible? Is it because we expect certain things to look a certain way — in terms of voice, dress, character and aesthetics?

Frankly, I think people being so surprised – at least surprise is what I perceive when I watch the whole clip with the judges conversation — is a result of their limiting views on what’s possible, not a commentary on Ms. Boyle. So I proudly salute you Ms. Boyle for helping people see how they are allowing themselves to have such limited views of what can be so in this world.

Of course, as I said to Renee, I’m sort of an unexpected walking incarnation of my dreams, so maybe I just believe hope and possibility lives everywhere.

As I was walking toward the door, a tall male Caucasian with big, not-so-brushed-hair, a baseball cap and outstretched arms approached me. I tried to side step him and he stepped back in my path. Again I tried to side step him, and again he stepped in my path, the entire time walking forward. I took out my headphones and looked him square in the eyes, thinking, “I can take him…” and I attempted once more to side step him and and step back. He continued to approach me and I said, “Dude, get the f*ck away from me.” I pushed him with my left hand out of my space and walked brusquely past him and directly into the WalGreen’s. I walked inside, a bit stunned, aware that the look on my face was not normal. A woman at the counter (customer side) asked, “Did that man just accost you also?” To which I replied yes.

She asked the man (he might have actually been a teen, I’m not sure — he looked young to me) behind the register to call the police. The register guy went outside and because he didn’t see the guy, he didn’t call them.

While I was standing at the register, two people walked in and asked if they sell cigarettes there. WalGreen’s, apparently, no longer carries them. I thought that, at least, was good news.