Prelude

I feel particularly poised for the future like I never had been before.

Living alone is WONDERFUL. I don't think I'll ever do the roommate carousel again. For the first time in my life, I am not finding myself compromised by obligations and needing to navigate through another's emotional weather.

I don't think I've had this much freedom ever. I had no idea how much noise there was until I met with my silence. It's not that I don't like sharing space but it's refreshing to not hear the various drones that had filled my days in the past.... They are all normal "white noise" that has its own comfort level.

"Did you eat yet?" "You should get some sleep." "Are you doing anything?" "When will you be home?" "What are you doing this weekend?" "Can I borrow this?" "Let me tell you about how today was the worst day of my life!" "Let me tell you about this new guy at work..." "Let me tell you about..." yada yada

I am not as patient as other people who enjoy the questions and daily ritual of soap dramas in living color at home. My metronome setting is moderato though I enjoy episodes of adagio and presto. I'm finally free to sit with my own thoughts and rhythm and I like it. I'm not finding myself uncomfortable in my own skin. I'm happy as I've always been and learned that I've been stretching myself in being a source for others.

Tomorrow I am hosting a party with a handful of close friends. I've traditionally thrown big parties in the past. It makes sense that I begin my year with my round table... my royal court...

My kingdom is poised for a good season of strategy and good fortune.

This time to myself that I've been enjoying is just the prelude. I'm looking forward to an exciting 2007.

JNET

Keying Up For The Future

It can be tempting to indulge in frustration.

I sat with my injured leg today and felt like a clipped little bird. My thoughts were trying to have a go at me. With the close of the year coming up, the last thing I want to usher into the new year is an attitude of disappointment.

I decided to read my blog and see where I have been the past two Decembers and cheered myself up. In 2004, I fell in love and fought against being consumed by it. Not being ready to build a serious relationship with another, I was inspired to build a better relationship with myself.

By my sweet catalyst, I became more aware of toxic friendships that were compromising me. In admiring someone special and being honored by him, I became acutely aware of the relationships around me that were taxing me and becoming more agitated as my attentions found peace in enjoying my affections. My true friends rose in support and compassion.

2005, I threw myself into new projects, joined a dance company, took on a coach to help me with my technique in classical piano and wrote more to find my voice. I passed on playing house with my handsome muse. I was not complete with my experience of independence and felt that I would lose my identity in a relationship.

I decided to take on a roommate instead and found that the compromise of personalities wasn't worth having half the rent shared. I managed to keep my independence and my identity but felt like I was going out of my mind living with a person who would say anything to live in my apartment (while sober). We were two different creatures but I learned that I was able to always assert myself in challenging situations. 2006 was a difficult year of growing pains.

I learned that I was ready to drop the roommate dice and play at living with only myself.

I am now more ready to take on the "relationship" conversation. I am no longer concerned that I will lose my independence nor individuality... after having to be strong and maintain myself graciously and with integrity in a roommate situation.

If it is possible to be loving in a relationship where I have no dreams of a future, then I can handle being loving to someone that I really want to build a future with.

I hadn't been living in limbo going nowhere these past couple of years. I've been practicing and I've been creating the necessary clearing I need for a successful and healthful future.

2007 is going to be very exciting for me.

Each year, I find new keys for creating my future. I have no regrets though I miss my muse very much having put him in the background of life to do my life. He likewise, has disappeared into his studies; a Phd in musicology and a master's in math theories keep him busy. Somehow, I believe one of the keys in my future will bring me back to the conversation he and I shelved.

I wouldn't be here without him. He's always been my "why" along these adventures of mine.

JNET

Walking Past the Illusion

The phone rang late last night. A friend was in distress...

In walking through with him and his challenge, the conversation began to swirl around my belief that all things natually lean toward wholeness but sometimes we project ourselves in such a way to negate the inclination.

"Your spine wishing to fuse to your hip bone seems quite surreal, JC. Broken bones heal but unbroken bones acting outside of character tells me that something in not aligned. Perhaps you've been more stationary than ever and your body is trying to accomodate and evolve with a new way of being... thing is, your moving is creating a conflict..."

And my friend's distraction into his pain is not helping his condition. He's panicking. He's 25 and was seeing a future of back surgeries and pain... something that needed to be nipped from his mind.

"JC, you've heard that your body responds to your moods. Are you open to looking into ways you can be a bit more proactive in taking care of yourself? (JC says "yes")... Can you see that your vision of your future, if continually negative, won't allow you to get well?"

"I'm praying so much about this JNET..."

"That's good. Let me help you by sharing how I pray... I THANK God as if everything has ALREADY happened... Thank you, God for the speedy recovery. I am so happy to be designed in such a marvelous way to feel healthy now. I am enjoying doing my martial arts and I'm enjoying taking yoga.... etc... JC, you're going to have to train your body to believe in being well and whole and demand that your body agree with you. It's not going to be easy. The pain will want to distract you."

"I KNOW."

"But you can't be lazy and let your body win. You'll have to keep suggesting to yourself what you ultimately want of yourself."

And so JC was able to go to sleep with some peace of mind and a resolution to take his own thoughts into account...

The conversation did not end there for me... I reviewed some of my own conflicts and came to a response from my "Salt Shaker" entry...

This came in from a stumbler friend:

"If you have a lovely relationship with yourself, that's a gift. It is something you have found, sharing it with another is found in developing a new relationship. .... It doesn't mean you have to give up on yourself; or that you have to be everything for him."

AND I HAD TO WONDER.... perhaps I do glorify my solitude and haven't came up with a clear vision how to consider sharing myself with someone.

I do have a vision. But it is in conflict with some other things that seem to flavor my life with. I would like a boyfriend but haven't met yet a sane single guy that is happy with their life and is looking at sharing it. I keep meeting guys who are already boyfriends to someone else. And the single guys I meet are not happy.

In talking with JC, I wondered if I was a clearing for unavailable guys and single unhappy men. It is what keeps showing up. I found that I needed to get clear of what I'm looking for and distance myself from the "pain"..

Funny, how life comes up with a lesson when you're busy helping someone...

I'm going to start imagining building a wonderful friendship that is happy, romantic, independent and interdependent that's going to develop as beautiful as a dance or a symphony... free from creating sadness in anyone rather... capable of inspiring many... and ever evolving into deeper and profound love....

How's that for a beginning in being specific???

JNET

SS: Salt Shakers

That is what I call "couples"... salt shakers. They come in charming, matching pairs.

I've been practicing stepping out of my solitude. I'm rarely found as "half of a set" and I dread the thought of myself being a shaker.

With an identity so ingrained in being the flower vase or maybe the solo art piece that's never had to share a spotlight but delighted in the individual installations around me, I have serious thoughts that I am designed to be a solo persona. My friends and family would go in a bit of shock if I should ever appear with a special someone. My patience and curiousity to go beyond the ascetic life is so "un-shakerish."

But I am searching for a balance and the right medium that expresses myself in a complementary way. And so comes in Mr. B who's been sweetly trying to tango with me and despite my protests and steps to reiterate myself to him, he seems to take my waves with a certain grace.

I don't know if I am going to last. I keep everyone at the periphery and rather enjoy company with myself than want to join the masses at the movies or restaurants. Mr. B's best friend's enthusiasm for the ritualistic double date is making me nervous. I don't want to relinquish myself into becoming a salt shaker.

I have a very patient suitor though who is amused by the odd courtship he must endure to get to know me in friendship. He has been in my circle of friends for several years... but most of them he focused on his career and not knowing me. After a two year sabbatical he's returned to creating a social life and he thought of me. He's also wishing to create a balance in his life. And so I've decided to practice sharing a tiny bit of myself as well as he.

I prefer yet... myself.

It's very unsettling to share. I don't know if I ought to cry. I feel nothing and he is fine with my nothingness in our conversations. I'm an interesting puzzle for him. I see a gulf between us and he sees something else. In this space of discomfort I am trying to get clear with myself to show up in honest bravery despite all my fears or discern that building with the incongruities I see will only make for an inauthentic friendship.

Until then...we are having a lot of conversations... silliness and friendship.... learning about each other platonically and seeing where to go from there. It is refreshing and not complicated... something that is rare to me.

JNET

An Occupying Obsession

I don't know how to define my love for words. As a musician, I also have a romance for notes. But my love for words followed me through music school where I journaled daily and manifested little futures that became marked with little stars as my wishes came true.

I'm under a spell... if I could live on music and writing and never have to eat or sleep, except for pure pleasure and not necessity.. What would life be like? Can I write a concerto with words? A part of me scoffs at the idea of gracing myself across libraries...

Isn't LIFE itself the great symphony? A part of me thinks of Mendellson, Bach.... Beethoven especially... pouring their souls into their work because their essence demanded the freedom to be expressed. And what their souls created couldn't be contained within the four walls of their private worlds... IT breathed its existence beyond... where libraries only TRY to contain them...

Could we all live like that? Be so free and expanded that libraries celebrate you by holding onto a remnant of you that breathes yet beyond their walls..

JNET

Unwinding

I came home and made myself a martini. Actually, I couldn't stand so little vodka take up so much space and in the spirit of cleaning... I made myself a martini... to enjoy while scrubbing the stove and counter.

Hey, a girl has to have fun.

Mr. B has been so good at saying hello and wanting to make plans that I have the strongest impulse to make a run for it.

I feel like a deer in the woods.

Mystic has been calling more than usual as well. Is the universe kidding around with me? Mystic had disappeared into his work for awhile to rehearse his group Soul of Anatolia and called to tell me to listen to him speak and perform on Pacific Radio (90.7) It was nice to hear him sing and play with his group. I know it brings him great happiness.

I wonder what the universe has planned for me... I'm intrigued and excited. I am only expecting wonderful things.

I am questioning my fears with each day, welcoming the challenging conversations that come my way. Aware that I am a bit unconventional, I'm trying to be sensitive not to be reckless with people's hearts as I drive forward to my personal actualizations. It's a bittersweet and profound road. Full of beauty, art, music, intention woven into purpose that there are no small talks between the worlds of personalities. Impatience and divine patience creates an interesting dynamic.

Even my waking moments are colliding into my dream world. I am having the most sleep I've ever had in years yet I feel like I get no rest and still I don't feel tired.

I am unwinding; unraveling myself... in process of revealing myself.

JNET

Making Up For Lost Time

It's been over 2 years and I was in the middle of a board game just about to free myself from the rat race of Cashflow when the phone call came.

I let it go to voice mail. But he didn't leave a message. I called him back the following day...

"I've missed you."

How surreal. He's lived 20 minutes away in Beverly Hills all this time and finally got his head out of his work. He was proud of himself and his accomplishments though. I had forgotten what had charmed me so much about him though. But he showed up after a 2 year disappearance, all smiles and cheer. His conversation through the evening was a bit adventurous and unexpected.

Having passed the board game litmus test, gracefully handling refusal as distinct from rejection; he listened though I know I frustrated the heck out of him.

"Go away if you want Paris Hilton. Los Angeles has a bounty of gorgeous women that will not refuse you."

"Wow. You're interesting. I like that about you. I'm going to marry you."

"You're thinking a bit ahead of yourself. So you want to be one of my suitors..."

It was an interesting evening. If he can call out of the blue after more than two years and act like not a day has passed by, I am interested in seeing what will happen after the mathematician calls...that kind of time hasn't lapsed between us.

Meanwhile, Mr. Beverly Hills says he wants to make up for lost time.

"Let's go to an opera. I haven't been to a music hall in so long.. Want to be my opera buddy?"

"Sure... I can be your "opera buddy."

Let's see if he'll wait another two years to become opera buddies.... haha

JNET

Playing With Dolls

I have ambivalent feelings about playing with dolls. When I was little, I was afraid of them especially the ones with the eyes that open and close. It was easier to play with stuffed animals. I didn't have to think of personalities for them ALL the time. They can simply be themselves; soft, cute and quiet.

But a doll... hmmm. That is like playing with a dead person and having to give life to them all the time. If I couldn't think of thoughts for them, I'd worry that they are thinking about me. I would lock up the few dolls that I had (just a few... 2 or 3) and put them in the far side of my closet.

They are STILL THERE at my mother's house. I am not afraid of them anymore. But it was funny to open my closet last Thanksgiving weekend and see them there as I had left them... (kind of with mom's storage stuff squeezed in with them)

I digress... Anyway, sometimes I wonder if playing with dolls though capable of fostering social skills in play time can grow unhealthy social skills. I WONDER if that is why guys complain that they feel like girls are always PLAYING GAMES with them.

Perhaps GUYS are just a SOPHISTICATED DOLL that sometimes goes TERRIBLY WRONG in some girl's play world (except they are still growing up.... like EVERYONE)... They just have a doll handicap.

"Why do you have to BE THAT WAY!" (naughty doll) "Now be quiet and drink the tea and enjoy the tea party that I made for you." (naughty doll) "And play nice." (naughty doll)

It can be demanding to a little girl to carry on the doll imaginary world. The dolls might attack when you're sleeping so you created a world where everything went your way.

Stuffed animals are the way to go. I have a diverse and happy world of cuddlies; a baby moose, a panda, a swan, a bunny.. You got the picture? I was practicing for world peace before I was aware what world peace was.

It was easy for me to accept them and I knew that if I left them alone with each other, it would always look like they are enjoying themselves and NOT TALKING SMACK about me (like dolls when they gather without the little girl.)

Now I'm curious.... if a guys plays weird games with me... can I suspect that he played with dolls when he was little? Some guys like to impose their personalities on me and sometimes INSIST that they know my own thoughts BETTER than me. I sometimes feel like a prop instead of a person. Why must they have such a surprised look when I speak?

Yes... I have movable arms, legs, and hips but I don't have a string to pull to say predictable programmed words to build your esteem on demand.

Perhaps he too needs to get complete with that inner child...

Dolls or stuffed animals????

JNET

A Little Turbulence But Still Okay

After a bit of a bumpy week of unexpected expenses and not having my cell phone. I must say that I'm still very happy because there's really no personal drama in regards to friendships, relationships, etc. My arena of human interactions is running smoothly though I did deal with putting up higher barricades from unwanted male attentions and putting my thoughts on the table about a wishy washy friendship that was frustrating me.

Life goes on.

The squirrel and mouse that wrecked havoc in my garden outside my bedroom patio doors are no longer keeping me restlessly up nor eating my plants anymore.... thanks to a little device that makes funny chirping noises from mom.

My brother gave me a "new" computer so I can continue writing while my laptop is at the geek squad's care for maintenance. How very sweet of him! And mom has chilled out from her "you should date and get married" speeches. Thank God!

My car had some minor work today which was done for FREE ... AND they gave me a superb discount on parts. I'm taking my car in for body repair FINALLY after getting dinged in the spring.

And I gained 4 new students this week... one returning after a bit of a break and a doctor, his wife and child wish to begin studying with me as soon as I can clear a suitable place in my schedule to accomodate them.

Meanwhile, I also memorized 5 1/2 out of 6 pages of the Chopin waltz I've been working on these past couple of weeks. I'm digging out Debussy's Arabesque #1 and want to work on Petite Suite for the new year.

Christmas music just doesn't appeal to me. I only play it with my students as I encourage them with their Santa letters. I also have a few students celebrating Chanukkah working on Dreyll Song.

The season suits me best in being left alone as I work on closing my year smoothly and wish to begin the year with positivity and focus.

Bah humbug? Not at all. It is a good time of the year to feel jolly without an artificial fix.

JNET