The Return of Sweetie Cream Cheese?

Marla's a friend of mine who works in radio.

I write that and as I do streaming through on my I-tunes live feed is WTMD outta Baldamore and they are talking about this event at the Rutger tomorrow night featuring Charm City Rollergirls and Gilded Lilly Burlesque performances and all I can ironically think about the music here at the beach is not exactly my kind of radio...but whatever works...

Guess who's back I tease her yesterday morning at work.  It is 6 am or so, maybe 6:15.  The orange light in the coffee shop glowing warm.  Peaceful.  I may hate, hate getting up that early because of the thin metal tiredness accompanying me at all times, but it is quiet in the morning there, waiting for the sun.  It is still.

WHO?  she scampers around in a whirlwind til she's turned sharp and petite in my direction and three espressos in, looks at me all Marla-wild.  I laugh I can't help myself, I love her so much and did immediately, she is one of those rare people who simply and unapologeticly is who she is.  She thinks I am referring to someone from work, one of our bosses or board members or some thing I can tell by the frozen way she stops.  Noooo no, no.  That's not what I meant!  I am smiling and full of ease. 

She calls me Feeney, as in Shirley Feeney.  Like from Laverne and Shirley because she is so brass and I am so often aiming for some unaimable tempering and calm.  Without realizing how, I've learned working with her that this is nothing to strive for:  it simply is who I am.  My nature to be loving and accepting, overexuberant and full of praise for all living or loving things.  It comes out so bubbly and innocent most of the time because I'm just being who I am.

I meditate, and have for years.  I practice several different techniques, from occultist trance to prayerful christian exaltion to tantric-mantra chanting to simple pranayama or minimalist buddhist watching.  The point is to go within, to be unfearful in confronting me.   The wisdom of Anicha, which is a sanskrit word I learned at a 10-day silent meditation retreat using the technique of Vipassana, means changing.  Change is the ego's, or self-talk always on rev and going going up there, way.  When our minds are full only of ego than the state of our consciousness is pliable, easy to be swayed.  AND, Anicha teaches that the state of our emotions and reactions are always in a state of flux.  So meditation helps us watch them but not BE them.  Hence, this too shall change, or pass...and therein: peace. 

Sweetie Cream Cheese I tell her.  Sweetie Cream Cheese is back!  Sweetie is the name I gave myself when she explained why I was Shirley to her Laverne, and the only reason I was even aware of Sweetie when Marla pulled out youtube clips and laughingly started calling me Feeney is because that particular day, after many that felt just like it, I was full of the dry, tired irreverence that is the underside of having Feeney-nature.  So I could see the fluffy cream cheese Shirley Sunshine part that day really, really well.

And that's the thing.  Changing.  I was driving along yesterday listening to Marla's radio station.  A hair-rock, one-hit wonder band was on it reminded me of Skid Row and Sebastian Bach (my first long-haired 1980's crush, followed by Slash of GnR ha!)  My ipod's battery was dead, my hair smelled that fabulous ripe smell of hormony sunshine because I was laying on the beach in 60 degree weather for an hour, I was on my way to cook dinner for Valentine's dinner with a girlfriend.  The sun was low in the sky and yellow in that burnt way that makes the clouds edges look bluer than they really are.  I had one of those moments--I've been exhausted lately, run down with the wintertime, and waiting for this phase of my life to pass.  But after several experiences that I had to make happen of quiet, of meditation and devotion to my own sacred-ordinary life, my perspective is centered again...until changing changing it isn't once more...!  Today I have the peace that is under it all, though.  The watcher's peace, the quiet ok.  It's all always changing, passing on by. 

Sweetie Cream Cheese, while maybe not so enthusiastic as she naturally is, always helps remind me that none of this, not one part of my funny random life do I ever want to miss.  It's precisely this cold, tired shit, these miserable 80's bands and me and Marla rolling our eyes at the watching eyes of bosses and board members and us sharing too much sugar and coffee amplifying our natures in the mornings that make me laugh.  And makes me get quiet, appreciative of it all.  Appreciating the burnt sun blue edges of all of it.  Sweetie Cream Cheese!? Marla screams in that loud funny way.  She slams her low-carb sugar-free but with one Splenda double shot 20oz drink she is not paying attention to me it is coffee and not smoking cigarettes on her mind.   Then she says I missed you Shirley Feeney and I am laughing again, life's not passing me by I am with it, with her and all the people I love and we are changing and trying to keep up or be still or work on moving on.