Learning the Steps for the Process
Submitted by LesQuestes on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 21:53
I cannot name my piece before I've written it, but sometimes I feel the urge to give it a title. I want to somehow know what it is that I am called to write to, and sometimes it is the title, not the written words that follow, that determine what will be shared. It is clear to me that writing is a written process, or journey, that is important for me, as a means of reflecting, learning or letting go at the end of the day.
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Cleaning Up the Past Debris
Submitted by LesQuestes on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 10:01
My writing is not meant to generate new ideas, so much as to share my experiences. It's reflective in nature and is an experiment in making myself vulnerable to an unknown possible readership (though there may also be no one reading this, for all I know). It is a dialogue to push myself, to explore my boundaries, to understand who I am, in the context of my communities and the world around me. It is me coming to learn how to convey my most authentic voice, in a pursuit for a life that is meaning-filled, purpose-filled and contributing.
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Feeling the Responsibility of the Process: A Lesson in Letting Go
Submitted by LesQuestes on Wed, 02/10/2010 - 00:32
Today is a practice in letting go. Just a bit ago, I watched my car round the bend into the snowy night and thought to myself, "There goes a small part of my story. May it arrive wherever it needs to be." Two friends are driving my car cross country to my sister in California, and a part of me rejoices in the experience of letting go of a huge material responsibility from my life, and the other yearns for the comfort, the symbolic gesture, that the object--my car--held. It wasn't just that it my car, but that it was a car that had faithfully transported me across a distance of nearly 40,000 miles. It was a gateway, a possibility, towards freedom. That responsibility, and that distance, is a significant amount of relationship-building. So I let go of the material. Read more »
12:16 and 27
Submitted by LesQuestes on Fri, 01/29/2010 - 01:39
I have been twenty-seven for sixteen minutes. The square root of which is four. There's something somewhat spine-tingling about the reality that I am about to enter the end-phase of an entire era in my life and to embark on a new kind of journey, one that will move away from a self-centric world perspective and, perhaps, one into service, into listening, into giving of myself more readily to others. I find myself bringing the first minutes of this new year of my life with aches in my body and a sadness, tinged with hope, in my heart. My last day at the age of twenty-six was, remarkably, filled with meetings, with eyes to futures, concerns for wellbeing, and the themes of empathy, trust, community strongly running through the currents of conversation. I was in eight separate meetings today, stemming from advising, giving feedback, brainstorming, and sharing. Throughout many of those moments, I became aware of my own vulnerability, my own youthfulness, and yet felt the shifting of the cusp from something to another, a slight, almost invisible, supersensible experience that spoke to me and said, "And now...." Read more »
White Hairs and Wonder Years
Submitted by LesQuestes on Sun, 01/17/2010 - 00:39
Yesterday, I stood in front of the mirror, my hair all mussed, my shirt hanging off the kilt of my shoulder and I noticed one lone hair, shining brighter than the rest, attempting to craggily stand itself up into the air. I smiled, pulled it away from the rest of its brunette companions and marveled: this white hair was proof that I was again! It was not silvery gray, like many others that tuck themselves here and there; no, this one was white! A shimmering beacon of the next frontier for my life. Unlike perhaps many I know, I didn't freak out, I didn't immediately think, "Now I need to start dyeing my hair." No, I just thought, "I guess I am living." And so I tucked the lone hair back with the rest and went on my way. Read more »
Stumbling Sundays
Submitted by LesQuestes on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:18
How do rocks run away when they need to get away?
I awoke this morning with this lump in my heart, and when I took a deep breath, I could feel it slide from one side of my heart to the next and then switch into my lungs. I gasped and my eyes shot open and I thought to myself, "I am tired." It wasn't the kind of tired that comes from lack of sleep, it was the kind of tired that comes from inner wrestling. I am not sad. I am not angry. I am not depressed. Read more »
Bumbling Meeting
Submitted by LesQuestes on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 22:43
"Bees bumble. Cats bumbile. Even little babies bumble, so I'll bumble, I'll bumble along."
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Processing
Submitted by LesQuestes on Sun, 12/06/2009 - 22:30
Another email slides into my inbox and the computer pings at me. I stare at it, chewing my chapped lips and wondering to myself, "Do I have to answer this one?" Sometimes I find myself just wishing it were a bit easier, a bit different. And then I remember that this is all happening for a reason, even if I cannot detect the reason itself. In those moments, I find myself going, "Bumbly, bumbly, bumbly dum." Truly, these are the moments when a sense of humor is important.
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A Mirror Reflection
Submitted by LesQuestes on Mon, 11/23/2009 - 02:32
Relationships are a breathing in and out process. They are an investment of time and patience and they require a fine balance between tact and direct communication. Relationships are wrought with interest, emotions and questions. When we encounter someone else, someone new, someone outside of our selves we are challenged to face the mirror of who we are in the world. Sometimes what reflects back, resonates, and sometimes we push and push, hoping that this picture being shown to us is somehow lying, somehow misrepresentative. Read more »
