A Whole Lot of Talking About Self-Directed Lifestyle

I'm alone in my house today.

After this trip, being back in old haunts is bringing up a lot. I have lists and plans. I have resources and time to make it happen, but I feel as though I'm reaching around in the dark, with a tiny candle to see in front of me, and I carefully take a step at a time. 

Everything I've done, up to this point, has given me the tools, the perspectives, and the relationships in order to help me move forward. I've spent time alone before. I've traveled a lot. I've observed different lifestyles. And now, after having been with Classroom Alive, I've learned what it means to structure a lifestyle in a way that comes from my heart. I think this is what it means to live creatively--without a template, but being able to draw from my own resources to make something new, something that looks like me.

As I sit in my mom's house today, I'm being confronted with a lot of old fears and insecurities. There's a lot of difficult memories. When I'm alone here, in the middle of the day, I have a scary feeling of not existing, as though the world is going on somewhere else, and I'm sitting here, wasting away. I don't trust myself.

When I was doing yoga this morning, I got a sense of having a structure inside of me, and not having to rely on structures that already exist in the world. I texted my friend Ava right after, telling her that I think I'm afraid of my own power. Any sort of wavering or sadness or indecision makes us think that we can't also be powerful. But what if I embrace the not-knowing, and still forge ahead with the knowledge that I'm doing what I feel called to do. I will make mistakes, but that's part of taking risks. 

I think it's incredibly powerful to be able to create my own structure. When I am able to see that everything in the world is constructed-time, money, work, communities, society, culture, our image of ourselves, mealtimes, manners, laws- all made so humans can flourish, then I'm also able to see that I'm a vital part of that. I have a role in creating it. Instead of feeling oppressed by structures, I can use them to my advantage. I can see the tools, resources, people around me, and I can apply my dreams to them.

Classroom Alive gave me this energy to be able to move through the world as if I was swimming. Pursuing my own interests and passions, seeking out what I need, and maintaining a structure in the middle of uncertainty and unknown obstacles.

My energy changes during the day. I can structure my life around that energy. When I need people. When I need to be alone. When I need to make messes, when I need to clean up. When I need to curl into a ball in a pile of blankets. When I need to dance and run. When I need to talk. When I need to write. When I need to draw. When I need to take in inspiration. When I need to read poetry. When I need to pray. When I need to sing. When I need to learn. When I need to express. When I need to ask. When I need to be in touch with my needs.

The upcoming month in Alaska brings a lot of uncertainty with it. It's easy for me to fall into bad feelings--that I'm 23, that I'm living with my mom, that I don't have an income. It's really easy to see my life in terms of what it's lacking, instead of what is there. It's easy for me to feel lonely, and to need to have some outward security, instead of seeing the friends that are around me. It's true that I always have what I need, I just have to open my eyes to it, and to know how to ask for it, and to use it when it's there. It's exciting, that I have this time to plan, structure, set intentions of what I want to learn, skills I want to gain, people I want to meet, learnings I need to seek out, places I need to go, and ways that I can do it.

I set aside this morning as a time to create structure for the next month. So, first of all, I'll begin to list my goals, which I'll put in a few categories.

Harvesting ClassroomAlive

In order to process what I learned, I intend to write a thesis paper of my experience. I want to incorporate the books that I read, the ideas, the discussions, as well as the traveling, the people I met, living in community, and other learnings I gained. This lets me see what skills I gained during the trip that can help me as I go forward into the unknown. It's to help me see what I'm looking for, what my motivation is in everything I'm pursuing, and give me clues as to where to look next. I want to structure time to write, allow myself to process, remember, and be transformed by the act of writing.

Writing Comics

Closely tied with this is involving myself in the comic-world. I wanted to turn my thesis paper into a comic, which might expand to a larger narrative. My style isn't necessarily "comicky," but I'd like to begin to marry my interest in comics with my love of drawing characters, and of my obsession with writing, observing how people work, and forming and understand of the world through doing this. I want to spend time reading comics and copying styles, as well as practicing different ways of rendering characters and stories in a way that feels satisfying to me. This will take time just to practice, play, be curios, and allow nothing to happen except pursue a love of comics and telling stories and remembering things. 

Being Involved in the Community

                Being involved with the Alaskan community has become something that's important to me, that was never important before. I've only seen this community in terms of what it lacks, and pushed it away forcefully. This has made me extremely disconnected from my roots. I've never appreciated the significance of this community in this specific place. I want to become more involved. Some things that I need are here. Some things aren't. It's up to me to find what these things are. 
                  I'm also interested in how I can bring more of what I want to this community. Arts, events, conversation about issues, a creative place. An art house? I want to read the local paper events, and have conversations about political issues, resources, how we survive in this area, and what people are thinking about. I want to find the gems that are already here: the arts, the support, the events, the schools, and the programs that I can become involved in. I want to volunteer, or find a job somewhere. 
                On a broader level, I want to read more online news and find reliable sources to check regularly in order to have more awareness of whats happening outside of my immediate surroundings. 
     

Planning Ahead

                        To dream. To turn those dreams to plans. To research places, people, organizations, collectives, and schools that I'd like to seek out. What does Alaska give me? What else do I need to learn, and where can I find it? It means recognizing pain and confusion as unmet needs. It means getting in touch with what's important to me. It means gaining confidence and strength. It means exploring the spiritual aspects of my life. It means looking at how spirituality and art and lifestyle are closely related. It means making a structure of the next year, the next five years, the next ten years. It means calendars. It means looking at housing in Portland. 

Studying

                      Another source of strength is continuing to pursue my questions. Learning self-directed study methods and finding online communities can help this. This also means looking for  study groups I'd like to join in the future in Portland and Bellingham. I'd like to structure time for reading books and articles, making lists to see where they're leading, how they're related to my lifestyle. 
                     To begin a rough sketch, they'll involve spirituality, art, community-living, anthroposophy, education, perception, materialism, consumer-culture, nature, poetry. 
                     This also involves the time to check in with the Classroom Alive study group, and Skype with them.

Time to Play

                      Structured play. My sewing machine is set up with nice light. My mom has a pottery studio. In clay and fabric, as if I was a little girl who had never gone to art school and could approach it with curiosity and love. 

Exercising My Body

                Mostly in the form of walking, skiing, and yoga.

Being with Friends

                              Exploring what it means to be in relationship. Meeting people for coffee and talking. Writing letters and postcards and emails. Skyping. This means making film night dates and dinner plans. This means skiing together. This means asking people to go get beers at Taproot and seeing live music. This means going out to the theater, or other events together. Cuddling. 

Caring for Myself

                           Time devoted to giving myself a firm base. Making sure I have the tools I need, like a computer, a camera, and art supplies to complete the projects I'd like to do. Caring for my body and having time to meditate that check in with myself. Creating an image that feels like me. Spending time looking for clothes, and underwear, and a pair of glasses. Preparing good food and eating it with appreciation.

      *             *             *

I'm looking at the bubble of goals I made on a piece of paper, and I think this covers most of what I wrote down.

The next step is to flesh out, with a calendar, times that I'll actually do these things. It will be an ever-moving process, as I learn about events and make dates with people and find a balance of being with people and being alone. It means finding the times of day that I do these things best, and also creating timelines for myself to accomplish these things for the empowerment of just doing them.

It's a good feeling, to sit here and write these out. It feels like play, like life isn't really real, and that I'm five years old again, and can just explore what it is that I can do with my wild and precious life.