I am surrounded by, swimming in, a sea of my stuff. I can look at each item and remember how badly I wanted it back when I bought it. My heart believed that that table/rug/lamp would solve my problems, fit perfectly in my space, make my home beautiful. That by extension, these items would make me a sort of person — the sort of person that values beauty, surrounds myself with it, cares enough to have a lovely home filled with…
I keep catching myself whispering the secret-not-so-secret mantra, “I wish I could just go home to San Francisco.” I miss my friends, my house, my routines, I miss my old life and I want it back. But spoiler alert, its not possible, there is no going back. After-all, what would going back really look like? My husband’s job is here now, am I going to go back without him? Or go back with both of us unemployed? In either case,…
Dear Reader — When I first made the big NY mistake ove, I did a brief blog series, ‘Interrupting our Regularly Scheduled Programming’ of an orderly progression of my path and instead offered some real-time insights about my move. Now, I have finally caught-up to moving day and would like to put these blogs back into the ‘proper’ order. So, for those of you long-time readers, you are going to see a few familiar posts, but with the new context, and…
Please bear with me Dear Reader. This particular blog post is not exactly a Dharma moment. There is no deep reflection, no further questions to pursue, no moral to the story. This is just a little context that I think it is important for you to be aware of before we launch into the New York saga. I had been pretty happy in San Francisco for many years. But my husband, Eric, struggled with his job and was looking for…
In October 2016 Eric and I left our home of almost a decade, San Francisco, for New York City. Lets just say it wasn’t the cupcake and rainbow experience we were expecting. It was dark. Very dark… In New York, sleeping dragons awoke; monstrous sides of my personality, that in sunny San Francisco had lain latent so long I foolishly though had disappeared, came to haunt me. There was hateful Alana. So angry I could kill Alana. Struggles with depression…
It has been over 3 years since I began this blog and, before we move to the next ‘chapter’, I want to reflect from the present day perspective a bit about some of what I have learned. The blog idea originally came from Neecha, but back when she suggested it –over 7 years ago — I felt like I was not ready to share my practice with the world, frankly I felt like doing so would make me a fraud:…
Before we set sail to New York, Eric and I decided to go on a 3 week holiday to Europe. I planned every last detail, booked us in the nicest hotels, chose upgraded flight seats, researched the best activities and routs. With so much prepping, preparing and thoughtful packed I couldn’t imagine anything going wrong. But, its travel –its life–so of course, plenty did go wrong. Some stuff was just inconvenience, some funny missteps or misunderstandings. But there were a couple of incidents…
It was a sorrowful farewell : I pulled the Porsche out of the garage for the final time and drove that tearful trail to Carmax. I took the wayward path, top-down, enjoying one last twisty turny mountain path before I hit the parking lot and went to speak to the dealer about making a sale. We were moving to NY City and the car had to stay behind. I would miss her, but I figured I could take the money…
I was walking along and suddenly got to thinking back on something strange I had seen a few years before: I was at a construction site, filled with tools and equipment, and near the center of the room was a ladder that had a post-it-note securely taped to it. The note, written in big black marker read, “Mine not yours.” I assume the owner of the ladder had put up the note to let others know the ladder was his/hers….
Once upon a time, in a land called Healdsburg, there was the most magical place called Shed. Shed was a mecca of all things delicious; it had a cafe, deli, grocery store, cookware, bakery, and more. Sometimes it seemed like every last tasty treat in the store was cooked in heaven. Sometimes, but, not always… Whenever Eric and I were even remotely close to Healdsburg we would stop for lunch at Shed. Ugh, I can still remember the first time…
It was a beautiful sunny day, and since I was already on an errand in Oakland I decided to pay a visit to the historical Mountain View Cemetery, just to check it out. I went into one of the crypts and was struck by how massive it was — hallway after hallway, 4 stories tall, and that was in just one of dozens of buildings. It was like a maze. I looked at one wall, filled with names, and I realized… all these plaques look…
In this blog post I would like to share a Q&A exchange I had with Mae Neecha the topic of Sakkaya-Ditthi, the first fetter, ego or self view. I offer it here because it provides an important clarification on the path to enlightenment and has since colored my own thinking and process. _________________________________________________________________________ Original Question: I was re-watching some of Mae Yo Q and As yesterday (way more interesting thank Lakorns to practice my Thai). In the one about “Important Qualities”,…
Eric had to take a particularly long business trip and I was left livin the single life for several weeks. I was so bored and lonely I decided to take myself on a little weekend getaway to Santa Cruz. I planned the perfect trip: A cute hotel where I could sit by the pool, a ride on the Santa Cruz Mountain Steam Train, Mexican at my favorite Mexican joint, and a hike near the San Lorenzo river. A perfect weekend to…
The Story My husband’s boss up and quits — it wasn’t exactly unexpected, she had been unhappy for a while. But what was unexpected was that my husband wasn’t immediately promoted to her position; he was the most qualified, had been groomed to be her successor, it was, we thought, ‘in the bag’. Only, it wasn’t ‘in the bag’, and now my husband and I started to stress about his career and what came next. Not getting the big boss job…
Wandering around a cute little town in Napa, starving, my yelp app navigated me to what looked like the perfect lunch spot, a restaurant called Ad Hoc. I walked up the front steps to peek out the menu and I saw a huge sign above the door that read, ” Ad Hoc — for the temporary relief of hunger”. After lunch, once my hunger was temporarily relieved, I started thinking more about that sign…here I was in a fancy foodie…
I was sitting on the beach in Maui, surveying all the stuff I had brought along on my sun and surf outing: sandals- mine, hat -mine, kindle – mine, beach chair – borrowed, beach towel-borrowed, beach games -borrowed. All these objects –mine and borrowed — just jumbled together, it made me start thinking what exactly is the difference between the two? I know, I know, in a conventional sense the mine stuff comes back home to SF, the borrowed stuff…
In this weeks blog I will share notes from an exercise I did exploring how I might apply the technique I successfully used to kill my obsessive fear to greed/desire for my belongings. Since this draws directly on my past contemplation it will be helpful to you, Dear Reader, to go back and re-read the Killing the Fear blog here. After I saw fear wasn’t fixed/didn’t live in a situation, I was able to conquer it by realizing 2 things:…
I spent much of the 2017 retreat racking my brain for evidence about myself and this world that might be found in my objects. Finally one object, another article of clothes popped into my mind — a special shawl that was worn by members of my Tibetan Buddhist community when we practiced. I remember when I got that shawl, I was so proud to put it on, so excited to go to the temple to pray wearing it, proving that I was…
Normally, I love my 911 Porsche convertible. I like to drop the top, cruise to all the fancy neighborhoods in NorCal and imagine people’s jaws dropping as my sexy self, in sleek sunhat and black dress, rolls by rockin out to my favorite tunes. In my mind, the car shows I have made it. It shows I am wealthy and sexy, chic and sleek. It is the ultimate accessory to the successful, vibrant 30-something Alana I like to imagine myself…
