“Independence - is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes” - Mark Twain

I remember I was in 8th grade, or maybe even High School, before the message actually sunk in that the 4th of July (in the United States anyway) wasn't the day the colonies won their independence from England, but rather the day they declared it.

I've been thinking a lot about that over the past few days, how we have to have the intention first that we want independence from something that's holding us down (financial worry, heartache, etc.), then we need to declare our intention (though perhaps only to ourselves), and then finally we can gain that independence if we have enough determination and focus and in many cases, sheer grit.

But we face a lot of monsters on such a journey, and the monsters within us can be just as powerful, or more powerful, than the ones we face on the outside world. I know this has certainly been the case for myself. I spent much of my life assuming I just didn't have the energy to go for my heart's desire in any sort of passionate way, that first I had to focus on what my parent's and the media and the world was telling me was important (having status in the business world, looking great, and things of that ilk).

And so I did. At 21 I became a very diligent workaholic in an uncreative industry I really disliked but I moved forward with as it allowed me to speak Italian every day (which I had gone to school for) and because my mom's boss got me the interview. I got the job, and desperate to have my parents proud of me, and desperate to feel legit (as I'm sure many young people feel, heck many of us feel) I hung in there and wracked up the years.

Choosing a different path, a more independent, creative one for me has been a long process. The first step I made was to keep writing. I have kept a journal very diligently for over 25 years. The second step I made was to marry a creative man because I simply didn't think I deserved, or could afford, just to be a creative person on my own. What I know now, which I didn't know then, is that if you earn your way into a relationship you'll never stop paying. Romantic relationships aren't earned, they just are, but at the time it was the only way I knew how to be, and his talent and my ideas seemed like a huge lifeboat of possibilities. And for many years they were.

It's easy to regret a marriage that went wrong, especially one that in hindsight you can see the cracks in the foundation of from the very beginning, but I've decided not to regret my marriage because we did the best we knew how to do at the time, and we created a company and pieces of art that I'm very proud of. Yes, I truly do wish I could have relaxed more then, and owned with some grace what we were making happen rather than being frantic and still wanting desperately to feel important and right in my choices. I couldn't see any shades of gray back then. There was constant tension between my ex-husband and myself over the fact that I was the one who recognized his talent and came up with the idea for his company (though while married it was supposedly "our" company, but that was a bone of contention as well) and supported and cajoled and challenged him to live up to what I knew in my gut he could do.

Now I'm learning to support and cajole and challenge myself to live up to the talent I feel I hold within. It's not easy to do, it's scary, it feels arrogant at times on a whole different level, but still the siren calls from within...do your own thing, declare your independence.

I remember years ago reading that there is very little difference in the way the body experiences fear and excitement. I've been spending time chewing on this of late, I'm feeling both actually - but excitement seems to be winning out. I'm seeing hearts everywhere again (including in my chocolate chip ice-cream the other night, that was pretty cool). One would think I'm waiting for him to call right now, but there is no particular him at the moment (though I know some lovely men), just life unfolding in fascinating ways.

Some of it is very scary because I'm facing an old old pattern and doing my best to look at the current manifestation of it with curiosity and not with blame. I'm realizing the more I can be still and allow myself to get clear on how I want to feel in a certain situation vs. the obvious emotion that automatically comes up, the more space I have to experience something new. Things shift, sometimes in oh so subtle ways, sometimes dramatically. Whatever is going on it's certainly invigorating. I now have the energy and focus to clean and organize in my apartment in ways I haven't been able to in months!

And I'm very excited that I've finally got the beta version of DatingLikeGrownUps.com up and am expanding it slowly. Wow, I've been planning it for years so it's nice to have it finally moving forward.

I listened to speakingoffaith.org today while working on my own website (finally!) and was struck by the open and mystical humanity of Abraham Heschel. I jotted down so many of his pithy phrases like:

"Every word has power. The meaning of life is to build a life as if it were a work of art."

Um, wow. What is there really to say after that?

I not only enjoy listening to the delightfully engaging and enlightening show every week, but I have also immensely enjoyed host Krista Tippet's new book "Speaking of Faith - Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It."

So my dear friend Becky needs to clean out her closet and I need to clean out much of my studio apartment, after that watch out! We may take the world by storm with our gatherings on romance and sex, or we might just create a few little flurries here and there. Whatever happens I know we'll have great fun, and have many great discoveries. Of late I've been having many very funny and honest conversations here and there about romance and sex (after being on a bit of a hiatus about it for awhile) with friends and co-workers and it has been a great joy how blunt everyone has been about what they like, miss, yearn for etc. It's always so enlightening and assuring when both sexes get real.

Yesterday I spent much of the day in bed with a nasty migraine. I've done too much of late and let myself get out of whack and I just needed to reset. I prayed for some obvious guidance (really really obvious) in how to move forward right now with balancing my work-for-pay vs. the writing and workshops I want to do for myself and I dreamt of going into my bedroom and finding the bed covered with Deepak Chopra books.

This made me smile as I am the owner of several Deepak Chopra books, two of which are heavily dog eared and underlined and from which I've created many of my "intentions" that I keep in a special journal - all of which I haven't been good at looking at or affirming much at all of late. So yes universe I hear you. After finishing my other work today I finally figured out how to better lay out my own website and even updated a dating article I wrote two years ago and posted it - for all of those confused people who look me up as a dating expert.

These days I'm pondering not only the myriad of ways we keep love out of our lives, but specifically romance, whether or not we're in a "so called" romantic relationship. I say "so called" because we all know that often we're in romantic relationships less to create romance than we are to hide from loneliness, even if we started off with the best of intentions. I am coming to believe that it's our combination fears of "not being good enough" and "loneliness" that are the double whammy of keeping romance at bay because it keeps us scrambling to settle for less. As long as we're busy, and not alone, we can't be still and figure out what we truly want to feel like in a romantic relationship and make it our true intention, nor can we allow the universe to fill us with its own mystery and magic.

What an interesting time it is for me right now, so full of blessings and fascinating insights (to me anyway).  My two biggest New Year's Resolutions were to have a real live in person social life rather than just emailing people while huddled up at the computer, and to reach out to my social network and let it be known that I was available for creative marketing and p.r. projects and other interesting things in order to find projects I really loved to work on, and of course, increase my prosperity.

So it's been really wonderful that both have been unfolding so gracefully in my life, in quite amazing ways.  I just got home from a local "Green Drinks" meet up and met some great people, Sunday I'm

To be sure I still have the tendency to think I have to work work work all the time, so I am doing my best to be open to what a healthy balance really means to me right now.  And right now that means that I'm staying focused on how I feel - do I want to stretch, meditate, eat a delicious meal etc. etc. rather than write another article, blog, email, etc., or am I "in flow" with the work and want to keep going?

Nuance and intention feel so important right now.  I am constantly seeing how coming from ego puts my guard up and disallows me to connect with another's humanity.  If, instead, I come from kindness so often something shifts, and even the most annoying situation eases a bit, or radically, and I realize the person who originally acted in a way that brought my hackles up is just tired and frightened and worried - like the rest of us.

At least those of us who haven't reach full enlightenment yet - which would certainly be me.

But oh it's lovely to feel so much happiness, and moments of real magic and wonder.   To relax into what is right now.

Isn't it fascinating how certain songs just stick in your head, freezing a time, a place, and a feeling?  And isn't it even more fascinating how the music you often have the greatest sentimentality for are those from your childhood and early teen years - not your young adult sow-your-wild-oats years as one would guess?

Yesterday walking to T's car we passed a garage sale and I was the lucky buyer of a wooden bookcase for only $2!  Such a deal for a book crazy person like myself who really needs to organize her tiny apartment.  I am mired in magazines and papers that need to be gone through, thrown out, rearranged, etc.  It is driving T a bit crazy and he has a point.  I get a bit overwhelmed when I try to dig in and start working on it, but I'm trying to move forward with a new mindset that I have plenty of space for everything and everything will have a place.  I'm trying not to make it a huge job to organize my apartment because I have the tendency to make everything a big work project.

Pandora.com is playing some lovely songs on my "Rickie Lee Jones" channel this afternoon.  It's a very ecletic mix and today I heard both one of my favorite Alison Krauss' songs of "My Ain True Love" from "Cold Mountain" and "Get Happy" from the "Partridge Family" plus some great K.T. Tunstall and Corinne Bailey Rae.

The need to create space in my life is a big theme right now.  I tend to cram it full full full, full of ideas for projects, full of article ideas to pitch to try and get in national magazines, full of my day job, and other possible jobs to help fill the gaps still lacking in income.  It comes from that delightful old protestant work ethic feeling that if I'm not working I'm lazy.  And having been so slow for so many years with the migraines and fatigue the minute I feel better I think I have to start making up for lost time.

But I'm trying to be open to the fact that no time has been lost and if I take the time to organize my apartment that's just fine - no matter how long it takes and how many baby steps it takes to get there.

I've just had the most lovely evening.  A friend sent me the following link:

http://www.bordersmedia.com/shows/bookclub/gilbert.asp

On it you'll find a book group meeting with writer Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" which has done so well  it's now in paperback.  Another friend sent this marvelous book to me last year and I read it in a weekend. It's truly the book for anyone who's on any sort of personal/spiritual journey to better understand themselves and who longs to simply be happy.  Oh, and it's great for anyone who's been divorced too.

A nutshell synopsis of the book is that it's about the year long journey Gilbert (whose book "Stern Men" I loved as well) takes to first Italy, then India and finally Bali.  In Italy she eats, and eats and eats and makes you hungry for the amazing Italian food, in India she prays and meditates while living in an ashram, and in Bali she spends time with a very wise medicine man and falls in love with the man she's married to today.

What is so refreshing about Gilbert is her honesty about her feelings.  This is not a journey of all sunshine and roses.  It's a tough road for a woman who feels guilty and broken hearted and angry at the end of her marriage, but who wants to feel okay again.  I especially loved her pieces on meditating and to find out that I'm not the only one who feels strange sensations and energy in my body while doing so (I am still a novice at meditation six or so years into it, but I hope to take my first class in it next week).  It's a wonderful read, especially for anyone who feels a bit stuck on their own path and wants some inspiration, honesty and laughs.

I feel remiss about not keeping up this blog and plan to do better by it in the future.  Each time I visit vox I am either guided to, or stumble upon, someone whose posts really make me smile, i.e. art and tea's featured profile, or make me think, i.e. sujatin's blog on free burma! int. blogger's day post about tomorrow being a day for bloggers to help remind everyone the atrocities going on there - you can find out more at:   http://www2.free-burma.org/index.php

Today my guy and I went to see Sean Penn's new movie "Into the Wild," the movie based on the book by Jon Krakauer on the tragic ending life of  Christopher McCandless, a very bright and charismatic young man, who upon graduating from college, donates his lifesavings to Oxfam and heads out on a two year odyessy that ends in his death in the Alaskan wilderness.

It's a beautiful, touching movie.  I feel Penn handled the material with grace and dignity.  Particularly sad to me was not only that Chris dies (I believe I'd seen a 60 Minutes profile on the story some years ago) but the flashbacks of his growing up with parents who frequently and savagely fought, but hung in there together tooth and nail, obsessed with status and the things money can buy.  I have some familiarity with that scenario.  Oh the amazing and varied ways a couple can be mean to each other, and how little their children's real happiness seems to interfere with their need to rip each other apart!  How especially tragic and ironic it is when they have health and everything money can buy and yet they can't see the forest for the trees to happiness.  And of course they aren't acting out of a vaccume.  They too learned that behavior from someone else, perhaps their parents, and so it goes on and on until someone decides to choose differently, to stop the madness.  So Chris goes out into the wild to get away - and has amazing and wonderous adventures - but ultimately finds that he is lonely and ready to return to society, only to find it impossible.

Simply, ordinary kindness is so underrated as a mode of behavior in our every day society these days, let alone romantic relationships.  Perhaps most especially in the United States.  We are so quick to judge, to blame, to point the finger.  I am so grateful to the buddhist teachings I've read that stress kindness both to ourselves and to others as a better attitude to adopt.  Certainly I fall short on my kindness goals too many times to count or mention, but I feel better as a person having kindness now firmly as a goal.