What do you lock away?

What do you hide?

What is banging inside of you to be set free?

Let them come out. Let them join the rain drops and drain your sorrow. Let them wash away the tears. Let them evaporate into thin air and paint steaks of rainbow across the sky.

Let your truth power the downpour and lift you up into the sky. So that you can appreciate the beauty after the storm.

Crack the armor.

Expose the soft underbelly. Pierce the stubborn lies hiding your truth.

Let the truth pour out.

Another pre assignment: write a mythical character about myself.

A farmer brushes her eyes after a lazy afternoon nap. It’s the end of harvest season. Happy to have few months off before having to till the soil with her bare hands in the new year, with no help from her friends. San’s skin, no longer covered in dirt, is the color of deep ocean, a dizzying swirl of blue and green. Her eyes the shape of two half-moons illuminating the darkest of the night. Her hands and feet are long, covered with soft white quills. Atop her head is a set of curls like fuzzy white clouds rolling against the clear blue sky. She’d float away if it weren’t for the helmet she uses to hide her tamed hair. As she gets ready to leave, she puts on a grey jumpsuit, followed by sunglasses to protect her eyes. She applies white cream to her face and exposed skin as the blue and green turns pink and beige. San covers her hands with satin gloves and dons a pair of thick black boots.

Stepping out, her slow walk breaks into a gallop. As she runs through the night sky, her half-moon eyes  fill with stars scattered against the horizon. Giddy with excitement, she finds herself in front of a small house tucked behind a tree. She scratches and raps against the door. When no one answers, San peers through small window to find Nan, Wan, Ban, and Fan fast asleep on the floor covered with thick blankets.

She knocks on the door once more before blowing on the small house, startling them awake. She smiles and waits patiently for them to get ready. San is grateful for the small creatures she considers her best friends.

One hour passes. Then another. Then another. It’s almost midnight, and the teenies have yet to emerge. She pleads softly, “Please hurry. We’ll be late. You will be fed and you will be wined”

To which the teenies complain, “but it’s too far, and we are too tired to walk.”

San offers to carry two on her shoulders and another two on either side of her hips. Finally, the teenies emerge, with frowns on their tired and disgruntled faces.

“Off we go!”

This time, she slows her gait. San doesn’t want to scare her tiny friends clinging to her body. While tiny, they are dense and full of demands. They pull and tug against her jumpsuit, scratching and biting. But she’s used to them, and this is all she knows. Sweat runs inside her gloves and boots. Her head feels hot, and the skin doesn’t feel like hers anymore. They complain incessantly. They ask her to slow down and stop to rest. She ignores them.

She crosses dense woods and fields covered with thistles and thorns. After some time, she crosses the ocean dividing her home and the new world. San has only heard of this place, unknown (therefore feared) and mysterious, permitted by invitation only. Once she steps onto the soft sand, a set of colorful cosmos sway left and right, as if to welcome her into a new and exciting place.

San breathes in. Her lungs fill with familiar yet strange sensation. The heaviness lifts. Wispy clouds of her hair untangles and flows out of her helmet. Wan and Ban sitting on her shoulder scream and fall to the ground. She lets go of Nan and Fan as they fall to the ground. She peels off her gloves and boots. Shaking her hands free, she lifts them above her shoulder and removes her helmet. As she does so, she starts to float across the cosmos as tall as she.

Teenies protest from being abandoned and command her to return. They try to catapult to re-attach themselves to the floating creature as she disrobes her jumpsuit, and they have nothing to latch onto. San floats away. Teenies’ cacophony of complaints fades away.

Alongside smoke and steam, the mornings sun lifts the veil of night.

San follows her ears and nose. She hears pots and pans clanking against stove tops and open fire pits. Peering inside open kitchen, San can’t believe her eyes. Bushels of potatoes and turnips try to escape sharp edges with every chopping motion. Colorful vegetables slide across chopping boards, straight into the boiling water. A variety of meat is heavily seasoned with spices, pepper, and garlic. It sizzles and smokes as the aroma of burning flesh fills the wide-open space. The kitchen readies itself for an important guest tonight, as the head chef shouts out instructions. Sweat beads down blue and green faces marching to the beat of ordered chaos.

She laughs out loud, and her stomach rumbles after a night of traveling. She thinks it must be a special guest for all the fuss to be made.

She walks into a dining room to find a tall and grand table set for five. A crystal vase of clear liquid is in the middle, surrounded by five large plates and fancy cutlery. Luxurious table cloth covers the round table. An empty seat in the middle has her name tag in front of the seat. San notices four giants smiling and inviting her to join them.

They have different color skin and hair. Red and pink hair with white skin. Black and white hair with red skin. Yellow and green hair with transparent skin. Violet and white hair with black skin.

Scared and no longer able to disobey her stomach. San takes her seat. Smiling red and pink companion pours clear liquid in front of her. As she peers into the porcelain bowl, she sees a giant staring back into her half-moon eyes with flowing white hair covered with blue and green skin.

A curious child, she would ask why. She preferred to watch, listen, and observe instead of talking and playing. She would devour pages filled with Alexander the Great’s conquest through Europe, how earth was born, and story about a lady who would shrink, smaller than a silver teaspoon while babysitting a toddler. The girl preferred to read. Curious and bored at once, she lived inside her head. She was a monkey playing inside jungle gyms of her creation.

Life’s roller coaster of unknowns deflected her journey: deaths, moving to a new country, poverty, and the gift of language for mathematics. She excelled at math and science, eventually obtaining a degree in engineering. The analytical brain paid the bills, and the creative dreamer lay dormant.

Until she had to dig into shadows from which she hid, and awaken after a year of digging and sprouting. She started to write on anything she could get her hands on. Back of a receipts. Scrap papers. Laptop. Phone. Journal. Her mind. She would find loose leaf of paper scribbled with her illegible handwriting. Recollection of past thoughts. Reminder of human’s inflexibility to change.

She wants to write about her family spanning three generations. Her generation, her parents, and their parents. To serve as useful guides for her nieces and hopefully children of her own with a man she wants to share her life with. To chronicle the good, the bad, the ugly. Fights, laughter, sorrow, the art of starting over. To not let the same narrative survive. To break the cycle. To be grateful for those who came before us. Infinite decisions and actions that made it possible for us to be born. Every decision/hesitation matters. She imagines her writing outlasting her generation. Three years ago, she committed to write daily for a year. One word counted just as much as a well-developed paragraph. As long as she took small steps towards her goal. She got to day 250 before failing. She falls often, but she always gets back on the writing horse.

Benefits of the online creative writing course is to grow writing muscles she doesn’t have, as well as strengthening the ones she’s developed on her own. She wants to connect with other writers to support and challenge. Drive up accountability and mutual success. She wants to create a tribe of doers who tell engaging stories.

Challenges are plentiful. What fun would it be if it were so easy? She’s looking to change her career, to shift from operations to strategy. She reads more than she writes. She finds everything fascinating, but she must restraint her appetite, otherwise she’ll burn up like a moth attracted to night light. What else? She keeps physically fit and eat delicious and healthy food.

Her biggest challenge is herself. Her tendency to procrastinate. To not put her dreams and goals above everyone else’s. She suffers from engulfment and peace making. To succeed with the overall goal of writing, she’ll need to start being honest with herself and everyone in her life.

She is looking forward to the next eight weeks. She is ready to go.

Once a hermit. Now a wanderer. Good to experience the new world within this city I call home. But I feel as if I am losing myself again. Too much senses and not enough time for the mind. To let the day settle from the haze to see clearly what must be chronicled, is a pastime I treasure.

Do too little and be excluded from the world. Do too much and risk letting the inspiration fizzle away.

Well, it is Friday, and I shall do what my heart had been commanding me to do all week. Gym hard and write.

Do you play not to lose?
Do you play to win?
I look into the review mirror of my past to tally the wins and losses of some of the biggest life games I’ve played.

Most losses were result of playing not to lose. Anticipating opponents’ every move, instead of devising winning strategies of my own. Being rigid. Playing by perceived rules instead of changing the game to suit the situation on hand. Not developing weak muscles and skipping out on training sessions. Pretending. Keeping my eyes closed instead of watching the ball. Not passing. Not engaging members of my team. Not communicating. Doing without thinking. Thinking without doing. Just holding on, running back and forth, trying to keep the enemy at bay. Until I eventually grow tired, make a mistake, and the ball is taken away. The game ends. And I lose. Every single time.

I then took stock of my wins. I didn’t hold back. Setting high standards and saying no to things and people that failed to deliver. Asking for what I want without expectation. Waiting for honest answers. 9 out of 10, I got what I asked for, and then some more. I created winning teams to collectively execute against the goals we set for ourselves. I trained hard. I showed up. I compensated my weaknesses by using stronger members of the team. I played offense. To win the game, I had to kick the very thing I’ve been holding on to, at the risk of losing it all.

To let go is to open ourselves up to world’s infinite possibilities.

To play to win, we must let go of our inhibition. Take risky but calculated shots. Pay with blood, sweat, and tears. Develop, strengthen and cultivate muscles to score the necessary goals. Discounting luck, every point you get is as a result of the premium you paid to be the best at your game. Everyone must pay the price. I prefer to pay now. Later incurs interest and penalties. No thanks.

To win is knowing when to hold on and when to let go.

To lose is to hold on and never letting go.

Water beckons her outside. She puts on a pair of sneakers and covers her long threads with coral hoodie.

As she steps outside, the sky opens up. Droplets scuttle to the grey and tired pavement. Cars slow down and people shrink under their umbrellas.

She feels the water against her shoulders and bare legs. Her hands slide in her pocket as her feet pounds towards a local chicken joint.

Ravenous, she polishes her plate clean. Pushing against the chair, she feels the rain wash away the first month of 2019. The world is hers, this small and empty parking lot. No one is around. No one can hear her. She continues walking without a worry or a hurry. She giggles to herself. She lets out a hearty laugh. Isn’t it fun to play in the rain?

Into the pool of infinite possibilities filled with people and their stories. Their stories swirl and separate to entice and perplex those too afraid to enter the surface so wonderful and mysterious.

I am taking the plunge by freeing myself from chains made of lies, shame, and longing. I am freeing myself from imagined threats and dangers that are no longer there. I am freeing myself from self-imposed and false idea of who I am, based on who I thought I used to be. I am freeing myself from grief and hurt from the past. I am freeing myself to enter my body and not disassociate myself from the vessel that carries me. I am freeing myself from expectations and ideas to live life full of intention and meaning.

I am freeing myself from baggage that no longer serve me. Instead, I will feed on algae full of magic until I start floating effortlessly. Until I am free.

Bad things happen. You fall and bleed.

Is there anyone around to pick you up and tend to your wounds?

Good things also happen. You jump up and down.

Is there anyone around to share your good fortunes? Are you getting atta girl/boy pats on the back?

I hope you have worthy people around to take care and celebrate you.

Do they get upset when you are wronged? Are they over the moon when you hit the jackpot. Do they tell you the truth? Are they kind yet tough at the same time?

They are your cheerleaders, confidantes, and cabinet members.

So take care to surround yourself with quality people.

I am blessed to have so many cheerleaders who have vested in my overall well being. Thank you.

I stumbled upon Outside’s Do It Better columns by Brad Stulberg. I read six of his pieces, and I savored every word. I want to be his friend. I wish I had seen it earlier! It’s exciting to find someone you appreciate, isn’t it?  To celebrate, I decided to explore his thoughts from the column titled, “The Dark Horse Path to Happiness.”

According to Mr. Stulberg, we must know our core values to decide who and what we want to be. Then practice living those values, even if it means going against societal norms.

What do I love? Words. I know, how strange. Reading and writing has always been my thing. I love observing what may appear to be mundane, but exquisite once described using lyrical imagination. I like watching people grow. I like spending time outdoors when no one else is around. I have insatiable hunger for knowledge. My values? Growing and developing, as well as getting to know more about myself and the world is important to me. I like getting things done and moving on. I hate routines, except self-imposed ones, like doing squats and taking multivitamins every morning. I also hate chaos and so, I put routines in place to reduce mental exhaustion. I operate in the extremes.

Do I practice my values? Somewhat.
Is there room for improvement? Always.
Do I get stuck? Often.
Do I need help to get myself unstuck from time to time? Absolutely.

“In his latest book, “A New Republic of the Heart”, [Terry] Patten writes that life satisfaction is a byproduct of transitioning from being a seeker, or someone who wants a certain lifestyle, to a practitioner, or someone who lives that lifestyle day in and day out. “Practice,” Patten writes, “is about waking up again and again, and choosing to show up in life in alignment with one’s highest intelligence,” or what matters most… whenever you find yourself seeking, or wanting a certain outcome out of life, note what you’re doing and then refocus on practicing your core values. “When it comes, happiness is most often caused indirectly,” writes Patten.  It’s the result of repeatedly practicing the actions that work in service of your core values, a lifestyle that compounds with consistency and over time.”

Seeker vs. Practitioner. It’s easy to remember.

As I already mentioned in my previous post, I just signed up for an 8-week writing course to surround myself with like-minded lunatics and drive up personal accountability. Instead of wishing/seeking, I’m on my way to doing/practicing.

I’m excited.