maybe.

I guess my word for the week is curious.

Just when I think I know something, then that something gets called into question. I have some hippy friends who only say "maybe" when they are invited somewhere, because they have decided to follow their hearts and not go somewhere if it feels like something else is where their hearts are at, at that moment. Plus my buddhist friend in Nashville's parting blessing was "follow your stomach!" which he went on to explain thusly: "well, we often encourage eachother to follow our hearts, but I think alot of buddhists realize the place in the body that really knows whether something is good for us, is our stomach. We get nervous stomach ache's when something is amiss. We get beautiful happy butterflies when something is the way it is most whole or healed." And somehow, even though those two feelings sometimes have similar repercussions (loss of appetite, like my brother had for nearly a year when he first fell in love with Ashley), we humans (I would say, when we are bothering to listen) can distinguish between them. And follw our stomachs. There isn't anything in particular that comes to mind when I say "maybe" and "curious" this week (though finances, employment, relationships, and volunteer are all question marks today); but I feel mostly peaceful, and that is something that is new since I began meditating. And growing. And I am so grateful.

My friend Amy wrote in her blog recently that sometimes life is like a cookie with only one chocolate chip, and sometimes it is like a cookie with way too many chips. I think right now I actually hope for life to be as simplified as possible, and perhaps that is why so many things are question marks right now. I am tempted to say, "wouldn't it be simpler if I could find an ideal job that pays exactly what I need (enough to also pay off my student loans and car loan); than to have more question marks than I know how to deal with?" but that last part of that phrase catches me. For when I know how to deal with something, somehow my life becomes immediately less simple. I don't know how to explain that phenomenon. Perhaps it is tied in a little bit with depression (though I honestly don't think much depression is visiting me this season... I smile at all the things, instead of feeling like they are drowning me, though I still have no idea where to begin to do, or let go). Maybe it doesn't really matter.

Maybe what really matters is even more simple than the unknown. Maybe it is love. And, as a friend said yesterday on the phone: "Maybe it is always about love, and maybe love is its own definition. Maybe we weaken it by quantifying it or limiting it to "friendship love" or "romantic love" or such-like." (side note, I take a little editorial freedom when quoting people because I don't remember word for word. But I do say exactly what I think the persons I am quoting meant.)

I am sure a beautiful ending to these ponderings will come to me. When it does, I will write. (yet another paraphrased quote, this time without quotation marks. That is how Hafiz ends one of his poems in "The Gift." and I love it). When it does, I will write. Curious. Maybe. Okay bye.