"Awe" plus "Aaah"

On Tuesday nights, when I lived in Spain in my twenties, I met with a writing group at a smoky Madrid bar. We argued for hours about writing and life, and drank wine the color of bull's blood.

It was past midnight by the time I got off the subway in the working-class neighborhood where I lived. I remember cold air, the sound of a garbage truck clanging its way through the dark streets, the lingering smell of fried potatoes and chicken fat from the asaderia on the corner.

But mostly I remember the way the cold air seemed to enter my veins on those nights, so I could feel my blood flowing through every limb of my body. I’d rarely felt so alive.

People keep asking me how I decide what scares me each day. But it’s not just about fear. Instead, I want each action to both carry a slight edge of fear and have what I call the “awe plus aaah” factor.

“Awe plus aaah” comes from a question I was asked a few months ago: “What does love feel like to you?”

Here’s what I said in reply (I was living in India at the time):

“This morning, in my little roof-top apartment in Delhi, I remembered a time when i was traveling with my boyfriend through Morocco. I thought, during that trip, of "the cool green touch of a lover" in contrast with the hot chaos of the markets we roamed during the days. 

I was thinking, this morning that "cool green touch" still describes pretty well how love feels to me. Just as I had that thought, I heard a rumble of thunder outside, and within about a minute the day's big rain began.

I went outside on the roof and saw the leafy tops of huge mango and banyan trees shivering under the drops, and whole flocks of green parrots taking off at once, as though shaken out of the trees. Pure awe.

I thought, "That, too. That's also what love feels like." 

So love feels like awe. Plus a feeling (after sweating in a desert town in Morocco, or after feeling a storm build up in Delhi) of "aaah."

You know, a sort of glimpse of that place where we're meant to be, a place that feels like it's home in a deep sort of way, and that beckons to us with the knowledge that we could be there all the time.”

So back to this “365 days” experiment: I want each of the daily “things that scare me” to have the “awe plus aah factor” – that is, to seem like it may lead me to a place that is bigger, truer, more alive.

Writing has always had a huge element of “awe plus aah” for me, so that one I sort of expected.

But one thing I’ve been noticing as this experiment progresses is that it forces me to be aware, in a big way and every single day, of which things really carry that frisson of aliveness – that sense of feeling my blood somehow alive and flowing through my veins.

This week’s “things that scared me” included: pitching an idea for a super-short film to a guerrilla film production group; a freezing dip in the ocean; and replying to a very scary and very personal email with some scary and personal thoughts of my own. I also dug deep into my hippy upbringing, memories of nearly drowning as a kid, and thoughts on my thighs for my writing, and read it to my new writing class. I dedicated a whole day to really being with, and mourning, a betrayal I’d experienced in a relationship, rather than shoving it to the back of my mind and forcing myself to “move on” before I was really ready.

On Friday night, my plans to scare myself by taking a tango class fell through. As a “Plan B,” I went to dance salsa with a friend (salsa, unlike tango, not being scary but just fun) and brainstormed to see what scariness we could come up with. I considered ripping a woman’s tiara off her head and putting it nonchalantly on my own, or taking the floor just after the (amazing) local salsa troupe performed, and putting on a solo show of my own… But the woman looked like she could take me down and neither plan had any real “awe plus aaah” factor.

I mean, I could jump into a pit of snakes, but what’s the point, really? Instead I took another emotional risk and told one of my deepest, darkest, weirdest secrets – something I’ve never told anyone else – to a stranger.

It was really clear, with the “things that scared me,” this week, that some of them really hit the spot in terms of “awe plus aaah” (for example, pitching the film idea and writing) and others didn’t as much. I think I’ve decided to see this, rather than as an “Oh my God, I need to come up with better ideas,” as a great chance to learn what really gives me that feeling of “blood flowing through my veins.” After years of trying to decide what my life purpose is, I think a side effect of this experiment may be getting a much better picture of that.

I mean, after all, what is our life’s purpose but that thing or things that really leave us feeling alive – the way that I felt on those cold Madrid nights when I could feel the blood in my every limb?