The 100th Name of God

The Qur’an lists 99 names for God. The final and last name will be revealed to each of us only when we draw our last breath.

I’ve awoken from dreams
to feel his breath
soft on my ear
the syllables indistinct
nudging me into insomnia

And in the wind
that batters against
my peace of mind
the words
are still nothing more than
a rebel wail

Sometimes in the sighs
of love
I’ve almost heard it
whispering
always whispering
I know you
you are mine

Every day I tell myself I’ll come back to these pages. And yet the days pass.

Sometimes I barely recognize my life any more. I’m living alone in a small studio over the garage at our old house in Susanville. It’s beautiful in a sad sort of way. I look out the windows and I see my life ten years ago. Both of my boys were at home. We had hound dogs and pickup trucks in the driveway. Now my oldest son is working in Pasadena and my younger one is about to leave home.

I came here because i could no longer live my old life in southern California. I came here seeking solitude and peace. So far I haven’t found it, but I trust that it’s coming.

The truth is, my life has been turned inside out. I didn’t see this change coming until it was already upon me. My marriage behind me. My children are growing and gone. There’s nothing clean cut about this change. It feels like a ragged tear in my heart. This isn’t how I wanted things to go. This wasn’t part of the plan.

And yet I’m here because I felt like I was spiritually dying. There were too many people in my life. Too many stresses. My resources, both financially and emotionally had been stretched too thin.

I came here to save myself.

It’s been incredibly hard lately for me to come to this online space and write. It’s been hard for me lately to write. I think that will change, but for now it seems like it’s all I can do to focus on the changes at hand. In a week or so I’ll be gone, moving on to Susanville. Moving back to Susanville. To a place where the wind blows incessantly and coyotes howl in the night. Owls perch on the branches of the pines and the stars look close enough to touch.

Changes are never easy, but they’re usually necessary. This one is. Ever since returning from China over a year and a half ago I’ve felt displaced in my home in southern California. There are too many people living here and they aren’t necessarily people I would choose to live with. The remodeling job isn’t one of my choosing and I feel like I’m living in a maze of tiny rooms, low ceilings. The rooms are small and dark. I feel trapped and claustrophobic. This isn’t the way I would choose to live.

So I’m moving on. And as is often the case, life is falling into place. In the past I’ve so often felt like I’m struggling to make something happen. I guess I’ve quit resisting life and now it’s coming easy for me. I have work waiting for me and new connections.

This last week is stressful, but all will be well.

For the past several years I’ve been freelancing for publications in the gemstone and jewelry industry. I became captivated with the glitz of the jewels, the fashion, the dazzling, shining colors. Two weeks ago I went to Tucson to the world’s largest gemstone and jewelry trade show in the world. And I’ve come away with a new perspective.

Call it a crisis of faith, but as I’ve been sitting here recollecting the different things I witnessed, I just keep thinking what does it matter? This is jewelry for gods sake. Shiny baubles. People in this industry are taking themselves way too seriously.

I started writing for this trade while living in China and inadvertently became caught up in one of the latest “gemstone controversies” in relation to a stone known as Tibetan sunstone. Questions arose to its authenticity. Did it really come from Tibet? Is it a natural stone or has it been treated? I sat through a presentation from one of the players who has been studying the stone. I came across jewelers selling the stone. I’ve heard so many different opinions.

Mostly, though, I’ve been watching the drama unfold from a distance. Accusations fly.

I have tried to talk to people from different parts of the industry, but because of my part and the piece I did write about my experience, they won’t talk to me.

This all seems petty beyond belief.

A few days ago I sat in a room with a woman in a tears. Her husband of 46 years was just diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. I recently read a book about Paul Farmer, a Harvard doctor who has devoted his life to bringing medical care to the poorest residents in Haiti. People are dying of AIDS and breast cancer. Children are starving. People are losing their homes and living on the streets. Life is too precious, too uncertain and too valuable to waste on an argument about jewels.

I still love my career and I still love to travel. I still want to write about miners and mining areas, about the culture of gemstones and jewelry.

But, I’m backing out of some of this. Do I want to look back on my life and see one of my biggest accomplishments as being part of a jewelry and gemstone controversy? I’d like to make a positive difference in the world however small. I’d like to teach someone to read or help an alcoholic find help. I want to live my life on a higher plane than I have been.

I’m stepping back. I’ll leave the fighting, the arguing, the small-minded bickering about jewelry and gemstones to those who care. I will not be part of this any more.

Some things in life we’re simply powerless over. So it is with me. This past week has forced me to be honest with myself in ways I never dreamed I could. Or would need to be. I’ve learned that I’m not alone, that there are others like myself.

I feel like I’ve lived a double life. On the outside I seem competent. Skillful. People generally like me and think my life is fascinating. I’ve traveled around Asia and now North America writing about gemstones and mining, interviewing people and publishing my articles.

On the inside I’ve been dying. I’ve been running from myself and my problems for years, many more years than I was willing to admit.

But something has happened. Life has brought me to my knees and as a result new people have come into my life in just the past few days who I see now are guides and teachers. And I’m learning to embrace life in a way I wasn’t able to just a week ago.

For the first time in many years, maybe the first time forever, I have hope that my life will daily become clearer and more honest.

It’s that time of year. And, really, looking back at the past year and making decisions for the new one is a pretty good practice. Most cultures do it whether their new year is January first or whether it follows the lunar calendar.

I have a couple of resolutions. One is to try to see the bigger picture of things. Sometimes I zero in on some small aspect of a situation or a person and I miss what’s really going on. I want to step back more and look at a situation from all angles and from different points of view.

I need to become unstuck. My husband and I have made the decision that we need to separate for a while. This is a very good thing. He has a lifestyle that I’m just not comfortable with and I’m tired of carrying the financial weight of things. I don’t know if I will ever be able to pull a head and get out of this rut until I’m gone. I’ve already sunk every penny I have into finishing my studio up north and it’s still not ready to move into. Somehow this has to happen very soon.

I’ve lost a lot of weight this year and I resolve to keep it off.

I will do whatever I need to do to help my youngest son, Zeke, get off to college and get a good start in life. He deserves it.

Show my appreciation.

I also need to focus my writing. Be more consistent with my blogs and websites. Learn to podcast.

Something about this time of year is hard for a lot of people. The nights are long and cold. More stress. For me, I’ve been doing lots of soul searching. Wondering why I’ve been pulling back in so many areas of my life, while others seem to be taking on a life of their own.

I’m in limbo. Have made the decision to move yet am still in my old life.

Pulling back from travel writing, too. I feel that my creative sprite is nudging back into my life. Times are hard. Times are what we make them.

For the past few months I’ve barely written in here. This isn’t the only thing that seems to be getting swept aside. I have articles that I can’t seem to get to. My other site, World Culture Jewelry is just sitting there. I’m putting so much time and energy into things that I’m not seeing any pay off yet, that I’m beginning to wonder if once again, I’m off on a wild financial goose chase.

Money.

This is the thing that has come back to bite me. As a young girl, I was so disdainful of it. I was especially disdainful of women who saw it as a criteria in marriage. I was a romantic. 

So what do I get? A long marriage that has been a financial challenge as I struggle to support my family. I’m so tired of working all the time and never getting a head.

Maybe we all feel like this in these times.

It happens sometimes when I’m walking the hills and the only sound I hear is a humming. A few times it comes from the earth herself. At others it’s from the sky. It’s the language of living things from granite to clouds and everything in between.

 I just came from the Sonora Desert where I watched shadows turn with the passing sun–and clouds that were bright pink and glistening…where the land is full of cactus, rocks, things with sharp edges, things with thorns.

I would like to be walking in the hills more.

Without really intending to, I’m getting interested in photography. I’ve had to learn how to take basic photos to document some of my articles and now I’m drawn to exploring the visual world more than I have been in the past. You see the world differently through photography than you do in writing and it opens up my eyes to move between the two.

The same with writing. I like to have articles assigned. A lot of writers I know only want to write what they want. It would be hard if I were only assigned articles, but I like to be in the position of learning something new. Right now I’m working on a piece about the economy and the future of credit. When my editor assigned it, my stomach dropped. I can’t seem to balance my checkbook and I know the economy is a mess, but I really didn’t want to deal with it. Now that I have to, I’m seeing the world in a slightly different way. And I’m finding photos to document it.

Maybe that’s what I’m getting out of photography. A way to document. There are some amazing artists out there with the camera. I don’t really have a big desire to do experimental work. But I love photographing people and faces. I love looking at things metaphorically, both in words and in pictures.

In that sense, the camera is becoming a great friend.