Fun with Moving

When you meet a guy on Bumble, it's a crap shoot. Ian is 11 years my junior. Usually, I go for contemporaries. But he was a hoot, and our first talk was honest. 

He told me he was a smoker even though he had had cancer. I admire that --because you feel like a real asshole when you smoke with cancer. I respected that Ian told me stuff that didn't make him look good. Crazy how that makes a person look good. As my coach says, "We all want to be loved 100% for who we are, but few have the courage to represent ourselves accurately." 

I agreed to a date. 

"Ian, we must do something about the smoking because I'm not out of the woods yet with my addiction. If you want to meet, great, but I do not want to smell it, see it, or be reminded of it in any way."

"That's fair." 

Our date was great. And I didn't have to keep telling Ian he was a big winner, which can be tedious with some guys. Most of us cannot see when we are tap dancing for approval. I can't. 

I didn't have to fend off advances, either. I could relax.

"I owe you; you inspired me to quit nicotine." Ian surprised me with that.

"You owe me?" I joked. "Well, I have a big ask if you owe me!" 

I told him I'd like to get my stuff up here in Philly from my storage in Baltimore, especially a super heavy dresser --a four-hour round trip. I was kidding. 

The next day, Ian told me he had another date with a woman in the interest of full disclosure. He said he felt like I might be a mentor rather than a girlfriend, and I was okay with that. The idea that you might have real romantic chemistry (what I love to call The Monkey Factor) with another human is also a crap shoot. 

We had something, but we didn't know what to call it. It's so much better when two people relinquish attachment to the outcome, hang out and see what arises. And there are so many forms a connection can take. 

After our first date, I guess Ian still wanted to hang out because he texted this crazy idea the next day. 

Let's drive my F-150 to Baltimore to get your shit!

I ended up giving him more money than he thought it was worth. I don't use men anymore. Read my last essay. 

We had so much fun on the ride down. Some of the magic juju was the novelty of getting to know each other, but some came directly from my devotion to peace in my heart. And whatever self-help stuff Ian was doing. 

I've been meditating twice daily for 20 minutes for weeks. I plan to do it forever. They say impartial observation is the key to self-realization. All those old fuckers say that. Just kidding. They're not fuckers. But I love being still. 

Only in stillness do you access the field of pure potentiality in which all life's details are orchestrated for you. There's a Deepak quote for you. 

In Baltimore, Ian and I realized there was no way we could lift one of the heavy pieces into the truck when, magically, hello, a truckload of humans began to admire the piece and practically move us out of the way to move it into the truck. Then they left—magic humans. 

After we filled in stuff around the big piece, we realized we couldn't get it all. 

"Never mind," I said. "That big dresser was what I needed help with. I'll just come back tomorrow with my Prius." It was the end of the month, so the Prius trip had to happen the next day. Mr. Public Storage had received about $2,500 from me just by owning a freaking 5X10 square of this planet. That was going to end.

If you don't know what car dancing is, it's the best. It's primarily hands, shoulders, and drumming on the dashboard. We car danced for an hour. 

When we went through tunnels, Ian got all excited. 

"Close your eyes," he said. "You're not closing them! Okay, are you closed? Okay, now open them and look. Are you going down, up, or flat? You don't know, do you? Isn't that cool? It's a perception thing." 

"All perception is a gamble- Husserl," I said. I'm big with the quotes.  

"The brain takes a chance on anything it sees. It fills in blanks and defaults to the known," Ian said. He was clever. 

"Well, I'm glad no one told my brain that moving sucks because I'm having fun!" 

It has to do with your posture, what you perceive. Most people would think a day of heavy lifting in sweltering weather, in traffic, and in the rain is the definition of a crappy day. 

Oh yeah, the rain. We had put netting, not a tarp over the truck bed. Then we drove into one of those strangely still, dark pockets of reality.

"Hahaha. I know exactly which books I intended to read that I won't be reading now! Lol. I said lol." 

"Acceptance is everything," Ian said. 

We put the bigger stuff in his garage when we got to his place. The smaller bags and boxes went in my car. 

We hugged; I drove home and unpacked.

The following day, I prepared for the drive again.

I get a text from Ian. He has this crazy idea. Let's do it again. 

Anyway, we do it again!

On both days, we noticed that we got testy at times, but there was a longer time than usual between the testiness and the reaction. It wasn't even a reaction. It was a response, a choice. So that's what's beautiful. He's done enough of his AA work, and I've done enough of my meditation that we can calm the fuck down and not react when our hands slip, and the other person isn't being conscious of that --you know, the ins and outs of moving.

This isn't just for me. This is for you. What do you think you can't have fun doing? I have fucking cancer, and I'm moving so there. Yes, I pulled the cancer/moving card.

You can have fun doing anything, and you have to practice it. Even sadness can be fun. You can whistle through a divorce or applaud through a colonoscopy, or most of it. You can have fun doing anything, and I mean even just dull shit. You can even bring it when you're meditating, and your mind wants to chatter and be impatient -- like your to-do list is so frigging urgent. Really? Is it more critical than tapping into the spaciousness that you are? Your sweetness and the peace in your heart? To hell with that person. They'll call you when you get in tune with your nature. Anyway, I love you guys, and I hope you have fun doing your funerals, your hospitals, your holidays with your family, and all that bullshit. When the best friend dies, the dog has to be put down, all that stuff, I mean it. I'm not saying don't feel your feelings. Feel them. But enjoy the intensity that this life is. It's so fucking intense. 

I know it's a Rumi poem; It really is. We don't walk around like life is a Rumi poem, but it's a Rumi poem. There's the magnificent and the magic sitting right next to the mundane. The pedestrian and provincial next to the exotic. 

This isn't New Age stuff. Epictetus said It's never what happens to us that disturbs us. It's our thinking about what happens to us that disturbs us. 

So go. Have fun.

I'm so happy. Having all my shit in one place for the first time in years grounds me. I'm growing sunflowers. Ian's coming by soon to see them and share a meal. I feel I'm not alone and that someone's in my corner, helping me with the hard stuff. Those feelings are priceless.

in whom I am well pleased.

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