lauren zuniga

1. I am home from two months of zig-zagging this great big beautiful country. From San Francisco, CA to Portand, ME and all kinds of glorious places in between, we figured up we traveled something like 9,000 miles. We met almost that many dreamy poetry fans and listened to a grin-zillion poems. So. Many. Stunning. Poems.

2. You don’t expect that after all that traveling, after coming out of your skin with missing your babies and being home-sick that when you finally arrive at your house, sit down on your own soft bed that you will collapse into tears. Well, I didn’t expect it. I sobbed for at least an hour and finally got assurance from my well-toured friends that I am not crazy and that I should expect a period of decompression. 

3. I don’t know if I am fully decompressed but I am definitely back to reality. Lawn is mowed. (Got a violation from the city because my lawn was so high. Thanks, housemate.) Gas is back on. My kids started fifth grade and second grade (Holy Mother of Aging, is it that time already?) I’m looking for a part-time job. I am booking shows for spring. There are still days when I am not sure why the hell I chose this career path. The good news about reality is that I get to co-create it. I am visioning for the future, planning out new shows, new art projects and asking the grand Universe, WHAT ELSE CAN WE CREATE? 

4. In solidarity with my sweetheart who is thriving with chronic illness, I am starting the Body Ecology Diet. Get ready for 21 random detox posts from the frontier of my glorious toxic body. When I was on the road, I spent a lot of time asking my body things like: 
Body, are you sure you don’t want another glass of whisky? I am pretty sure you always want another glass, what is wrong? and Oh, Body, why do you keep asking me to do yoga and stop eating bread? Can’t we just NOT talk to each other for the rest of our lives?  I am excited to see what conversations some up when I stop eating sugar all together and my face becomes a light bulb made of chard.

5. I am also questioning a lot of other things about my life. Including, but not limited to: Why have I never lived anywhere but Oklahoma as an adult?  Why do I continue to have my kids in our dysfunctional industrialized education system? How could I create co-operative parenting relationships with other single parents? How can I continue to support myself as an artist, create a thriving love relationship and be a functional conscious parent all at the same time?  I’ve heard this thing about questions. When you ask them, the Universe shifts to meet your request.

6. Speaking of questions, my daughter asked me what queer means. She was six when she asked me “what does gay mean and why are gay people going to hell?” and since then we have discussed all aspects of gender and sexuality including cis-gender vs. trans-gender but somehow I guess I have never really explained what queer means. Luckily, I was in the living room with Jerre B. FIne and Tatyana Brown and we are all wildly different examples of queer but I am curious, what would you say if a ten year old asked you that question? 

7. All I want to do is see this movie and it is not showing in Oklahoma City. 

8.  All day, erry day, I am trying to do this: 

Be present as the watcher of your mind — of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations.  Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react.  Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future.  Don’t judge or analyze what you observe.  Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction.  Don’t make a personal problem out of them.  You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher. 

9. I am planning a big, big show in Oklahoma. I can’t tell you where or how yet but best believe, it is going to be the opposite of 114 degrees of miserable heat and very much like a monsoon of spectacular cooling sensations. Maybe involving kind/adorable octopi.