As in

Core Values

Here are some values given to me by others throughout my years:

communication,

hard work,

accountability,

trust,

leadership,

diversity,

loyalty,

love.

Like guides, these themes have led me to

well,

here.

And now what? Who guides me now that I get to choose?

One beloved English teacher once said that in the practice of literary analysis, there are those who see the theme first, the whole, and then work to find the anecdotes, the parts, and then there are those for whom the parts appear first and so they work from there to find the whole — I think I work outside in — I identify themes, like the image of the whole body standing alone, and only then do I see all the bones and the organs and the blood and the flesh that make the body move, the parts that equal the whole, the anecdotes.

In this study of myself that I have begun, I am looking at my anecdotes, trying to find my themes:

I have come to believe that maybe they are

Courage

Gratitude

Health

Courage is quite wrapped up in my individuality — having the courage to live differently, having the courage to be vulnerable,

be soft,

be quiet

One of my earliest memories moves in my mind as a playback of young Alex;

I will call her “Peanut,” with my mother’s tenderness;

dancing in the park my family frequented, infected head-to-toe by reckless abandon and attached to a brand new iPod by headphones. Peanut is my courage personified. If what I’m doing is not something she would choose for us, I’m not doing it. To be courageous, I must put her in the driver’s seat.

Gratitude is a guide for my every day living —

What it looks like: my hands pressed palm to palm, in front of my heart-center, a slight bow of the head to those I’ve served; a list in the morning time, next to my coffee; an open-mouth sigh; scrunched up toes at the end of a long day on my feet

Health feels like my most important theme at the moment: health being all-encompassing; health being holistic, health being social, mental, physical, and spiritual; also,

testing the edges of our limited language,

health being beauty.

And when I say I want to be beauty it is quite different than wanting to be beautiful and altogether different than wanting to look beautiful.

I want to be beauty the way a long-anticipated hug from my little brother feels like beauty; the way the full moon in the city shines like beauty; the way thoughtful words sing out like beauty — the beauty of an ecosystem, the beauty of our world — it is health,

all of it is health.

Health seems to seep into every corner of my life: I try to buy only if I know it is sustainable or, even better, regenerative — for the health of our world. I try to make lists and set intentions so that I can tick off accomplished goals and I go out in the sunshine because it feels good — for the health of my brain and my chemical balance. I try to take deep breaths before meals and experiment with foods that will nourish my bones and muscles — for the health of my entire bodily ecosystem.

I believe, also, that integrity is in here or out there somewhere, I just do not yet know where to put it — I do not yet know what parts make up integrity because if all my anecdotes are the bones and muscles and guts and such that enable a dynamic existence and

courage, gratitude and health

are the body that guides me,

integrity is then the space the body occupies —

the aura,

maybe?

“Do you vow to wake up each morning with the understanding that the woman next to you is completely new, to reassure her each morning that this being altogether new is the exact point of existing, and to each day evolve right alongside her?

Do you take this woman to be your ever-changing constant?”

I think when I wrote the above, I was writing to myself in the language of sacred commitment– as I am in partnership with myself — there are many more than just one or two versions of me and the deeper parts of myself hold truths that the outer shell of me cannot access and vice versa — here, I think the deepest part of me was asking the outside version of me if she was ready to join forces, testing her loyalty —

Anyway,

I think We got married last night.

I think this is integrity,

maybe?

The integrity I chase is a feeling of togetherness with oneself —

that is

the self with the Self,

the two holding hands, waffle-style, walking down some perfect street, knowing that nothing is perfect and that is the whole point.

xx

Until You Know Better

listen to comfort music even though you didn’t think you even liked country music like that because that southern twang sounds just a little bit sweeter with a tinge of nostalgia

Great Artists Steal

Citing a few of my high school teachers, actually, energetically — I hope you all can feel it and I wish I would have known then just how really, truly good I had it sitting in your classrooms all those years xx