Card of the Day: Son of Cups

When I was in my mid-twenties, working at a corporate job, I would walk to work. I had a Nomad mp3 player that could hold around 13 songs, and I would make super-dramatic, emotionally involving playlists to be the soundtrack to my super-dramatic, emotionally involving fantasy life.

Twenty years later, I was talking to my therapist about the Rolodex of fantasies that I call on during long meditation retreats. Like so many years before, they were largely about tragedy and grief. Without batting an eye (therapists can be so amazing!), she asked: “What’s happening in the fantasy?” I said, “People are paying attention to me, caring for me.” And with those words, something that I had felt so much shame about shifted. After that, when those fantasies arose, I’d use them as a signal that I might be needing some attention and care. Most times, I can offer that to myself. Sometimes, I need an assist.

I was listening to an amazing interview with Roxane Gay the other night, and she was talking about how when women have needs, we’re “needy,” “high-maintenance,” “difficult.” I’ve internalized this shitty conditioning, too, and have to be alert to judging or shaming myself (or others) for having basic human needs for care, love and attention. Kind of mind-blowing, right?

I’m still learning to distinguish between the emotional ups-and-downs that result from being lost in fantasy, and true aliveness, which I would also call eroticism. That word tends to get immediately associated with sex and sexuality, because I think that’s a place in our culture where it’s acceptable to seek and find aliveness (although a lot of times that can just be drama, too.)

I’m practicing using the moments of an “ordinary” day to touch that thread of aliveness: stepping into a hot shower, snowflakes in my eyelashes, the joyful face of a friend, painting dots on paper. It’s so much better than a life lived in my head, but it takes practice.