Grace – A Poetic Journey

By Meagan Grace Elliott

Grace – A Poetic Journey is my adventure beyond fear, into foreign lands, among people of diverse cultures. It’s my adventure of breaking out of the lost-child shell that encased me, into the adult my soul longed to be. I felt misplaced in the world, but inspired by unexpected lessons and interactions, I developed a deep trust in synchronicity and inner strength. It’s my story of opening followed by resistance, longing followed by disappointment, excitement followed by dissatisfaction. An adventure into ancient teachings and modern techniques. Was I called or forced into the aliveness and fulfillment of Grace?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781623099350

Book preview

© 2012 by Meagan Grace Elliott

Cover design by Ryan Adair, The Ryan Adair Design

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without the written permission of Meagan Grace Elliott.

This book is a memoir. Some names and places have been changed. Some events have been condensed. Everything has been told to the best of my memory.

Published by Meagan Grace Elliott

ISBN: 9781623099350

To the Thais and travelers who taught me to live with an open heart. 

May all beings be free from suffering.

Table of Contents

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART ONE

Why literature? The professor pauses for a moment, darting his eyes around the room before repeating his question. Why literature? He wears khaki cargo pants. A light blue shirt accents his baby blue eyes, contrasts his dark hair. He’s attractive. Shy. He looks young, in his early thirties. Is this really my professor? He appears American and speaks perfect English, though he claims he was born and raised in France.

His eyes continue to dart around the room, briefly making eye contact with one of us before fixing his gaze on the floor, a fixed spot on the wall. It’s my freshman year of college, but I’ve enrolled in my first upper-division French class. There are eight of us. I delight in escaping the large lecture halls to learn in a more intimate environment. Our first lecture will be in English. The following lectures and reading materials will be administered strictly in French. 

A grand master of his second language, he entertains an assortment of words I’ve never heard. I struggle to write down what he’s saying, but can’t keep up. Today, don’t take notes. I want you to listen, just listen. So I put my pen down. His language is complex, like deep rivers full of hidden treasures. I dive into his lyrical abyss to explore, but am still a peasant in his kingdom. His words bounce off the walls before hitting my ears to penetrate my core, every cell. These words echoing from his mouth are the most beautiful words I’d ever heard – like a purple orchid, a first orgasm, a red sunset. These words come from god.

My heart races. I’d been a zombie, caught up in the motions of living, abandoned by my soul. His words coax me back. Time stops for a moment – a unity with god, the cosmos, the students around me. I feel the joy of being. Of being alive. Tears come to my eyes. I struggle to keep composed. And that is why we study literature. I’ll leave the syllabi here on the desk. I look at the clock. A whole hour and fifteen minutes has passed.

The professor leaves but no one moves. We gaze at each other with open jaw. A girl breaks the silence. Whow! He’s amazing! The other girls in the class let out simultaneous gasps of Oh my god! There’s only one guy in the class. He smiles. Oh great, you’ve all fallen in love with him. Though this professor is a beautiful man, he could’ve been short, fat and ugly. We weren’t in love with him, but with the song he sang. Like the sun, his words blanketed us in warmth. Outside only the cruel wind spoke in verse. Before this class, it had been a gray world. Like an artist, he’d painted the bright oranges and deep blues around us.

I read the assigned French poetry for the following class. The professor unlocks so much meaning from a couple of lines of verse, opening me to another dimension, a world of poetry. Each class is amazing. A desire is born inside of me to one day also create something so beautiful.

I take three classes from him. His other classes are based around a piece of art, an old film, an excerpt from a novel. He transforms one piece of art into a critique of culture and society. We’ve become so bound by time, we wear it on our wrist. It holds us captive. We’re handcuffed. The following day, my watch is stolen from my robe pocket while I shower in the communal bathroom. I never replace it.

In another class he speaks about technology. We used to walk as a mode of transportation. When we saw someone, we acknowledged them, stopped, exchanged a few words. But with industrialization and the rise of the automobile, we’re moving so fast we cannot connect with one another. In cars, we’re encased in metal and glass. Perhaps on the freeway we can look at the person driving next to us, but we cannot speak to them. He acknowledges something I’ve always felt but never been able to describe. Isolation. 

*  *  *  *   

A haze engulfs me at my graduation party. I proceed through the motions of entertaining, but am not in my body. I watch myself interacting with others from a safe distance. There are my college friends, my older spiritual friends, work friends, partying friends, exchange student friends, and my twelve new roommates. A melting pot of people who represent parts of myself. Seeing them mixed together overwhelms me. I curse myself for dreaming up this party. I’d kept them separated, but now the walls crash down. I scramble to introduce people, to encourage conversation. 

OK, keep my divorced parents on opposite sides of the room. My dad makes small talk with a roommate. My mom speaks with a spiritual friend about achieving your goals. Now keep astrologer John away from Christian Bethany. I’ve never tried to hide who I am. Though I relate to a variety of people, I’m not sure where I fit in.

Rather anticlimactic, this graduating college. So much hype, but it now feels like no big deal. After everyone leaves, I clean up, bid my parents farewell, lie down, and stare at the old chandelier. I gaze at it until the dozens of crystals melt together.   

My new home is an old Victorian converted into a twelve-bedroom boarding house. My room has a fireplace in the corner. My desk, bed, and bookshelf fit snugly inside it. Two large windows flood the room with afternoon light. The house engulfs me in soothing warmth. She is a wise, old woman, this house she is. How many students have passed through? What have these walls seen?

My heart pounds from drinking so much ice tea. I curse myself. Adult. Adult. I utter those words, look in the mirror and say them again. My anxiety increased as graduation approached. What next? I studied, wrote papers, and managed a job. But I worked harder on myself, motivated by my intimate college companions Anxiety and Depression. I read self-help books, journaled, visited a therapist, pulled all-nighters, moved – nine times, ten times. I won’t make it. But I found those last drops of energy deep inside to get it all done. 

I asked the universe to send me my own room in downtown Santa Barbara for no more than $500 a month – unheard of in paradise. I believed. The universe delivered, just like she always has, just like she always will. So I crawl into her womb. Vulnerable, I ask if I can stay. Wise old woman protect me, don’t make me leave!

Monday morning I’m back at the teller window. I hate the job, but go full-time. I’m promoted to merchant teller, which allows me to form relationships with a few regulars. I request the early shift, letting me open the bank with Bobby. We spend the first hour of the morning counting money, emptying ATMs, and unlocking vaults. Bobby’s a musician who dreams about moving to New York. I dream about traveling the world. He introduces me to new music, we contemplate the elusive male race, our therapy conquests and how much we hate the bank. It’s our only respite from a never-ending line of angry customers.

The manager instructs us on pitches for the day – credit cards, lines of credit, checking accounts. I loathe sales quotas. I work with a number of bright-eyed, white-teethed, Abercrombie-garbed, fraternity boys who helped one another get hired, anxious to climb the corporate ladder. These meetings fire them up. We finish with a small cheer, GOOOOAHHHH TEAM! I never meet these sales quotas, but float by on my exceptional customer service.

*  *  *  *   

I’m an addict. A coffee addict. It makes me high, happy, alert. The alarm clock rings. Heaviness weighs me down. Pain claws my shoulders. I cry myself awake in the shower, examine myself in the mirror. Nose, too round. Breasts, too small. Hair, too thin. Thighs, too big. My beauty lost, facing a lifetime without it. 

I throw on clothes, fill my mug and run out the door. Drinking breakfast, I downshift, coasting through yellow lights. The branch doors open, waves of people flood us. I become a robot for a day of repetitive tasks, motions, words. I can help the next person in line. What can I do for you today? Deposit? Withdrawal? Cashing a check? How would you like your cash back? Can I offer you a credit card today? No? No? OK. OK! Have a great day. Have a great day!

I survive on coffee. I shake. I jitter. Though we’re always busy, the morning creeps by. I count the minutes until my lunch break: 9:04. 9:07. 9:11. By afternoon, my high wears into a low – strafed till I’m lethargic, tired, depressed. I swear the following morning I’ll cut out my six cups of coffee. 

I balance my cash and run outside. The sun’s yellow rays, mountain’s pulse and ocean’s humid fragrance remind me I’m alive. I’ve survived eight hours of robotic work. Once home, I pass out, ground down by a full day at the bank.

*  *  *  *   

I fall into a void. College was challenging, but there was a goal, an end in sight. Now, only monotony. Along with sadness, a raw sensitivity takes over so I feel everyone’s pain. Is it their pain or mine? Daily, I face so many people with financial problems that my own angst about survival is stirred up. 

Their plights touches me – the blind woman, the mentally ill, Joe the jolly 500 lb. man. Mr. Black who checks his account balance daily. His fingers curl under his hands and his hunched spine causes him to limp severely. The shaggy layer of hair covering every part of his body is frightening. He slurs his words and spits when he speaks, but it doesn’t take long to learn his language. He struggles with a briefcase, smiles and shakes our hands at the teller window. He beams when we’re done. So hungry for human contact. What’s his life like when he walks out the doors? Does he have a family? Dog? Or is he one of the lucky ones who feels the joy of being? Of having completed a bank transaction? 

On my nightly walks, I pass a homeless woman with bright blue eyes that shine from a block away. Her skin is sun-baked and craggy. She chews a cigarette. Can you spare any change? I never have my wallet. 

No, sorry.  

You have a great day. God bless. 

Her politeness touches me. Someone who has nothing asking god to bless me. What would it be like to be on the street at her age? Seeing her generates guilt about the luxuries of my life – the bed I sleep on, the job I have, the food I eat.

*  *  *  *   

With so much suffering in the world, my depression feels indulgent. I studied globalization. Big corporations are moving business overseas to the lowest bidders. American jobs are being lost to desperate people who’ll work for pennies. The rich become richer – the poor, poorer. Each class I took increased my anxiety. George W. Bush has been reelected. The war in Iraq is still blaring full force ahead more than a year after it started. How will we survive?

On the bus, I notice a guy tapping away on his laptop. I’ve seen him skateboarding down my street and at the farmers’ market. We bump into each other again at the Summer Solstice Celebration and begin dating. He’s an environmentalist and will be moving to South America in a month. Within a few days, he’s staying at my place. He’s well read, assertive, opens my eyes to a spectrum of injustices. I admire his confidence. His righteousness turns me off. 

The world is plagued by injustice, poverty, and environmental destruction. What’s my part? Can one person really make a difference? Do I fight for what I believe in? Submit to such injustices as part of life? Trust that god’s hand touches everyone?

After dating him, I’m hyperalert. Think about how long your showers are. Think about all the people using disposable coffee cups. Think about the energy you just wasted keeping the fridge open four seconds longer than it needed to be. My mind berates me unrelentingly. The world is coming to an end.

Being so concerned about current affairs doesn’t help my emotional fragility. I quit giving time to issues beyond my control. I quit reading the news. My anxiety subsides. Ignorance is bliss.

*  *  *  *   

I arrived at UC Santa Barbara after a year abroad. I was raised in a small town, but always dreamed of grand travels. My year as an exchange student was my first taste of it. Bittersweet, it opened my eyes to the world’s grandeur – yet more difficult than I had reason to imagine. I was placed in an industrial, blue-collar city, once home to Belgium’s largest coal mines. It had declined into the country’s most crime-ridden city. God had turned back the hands of time, dropping me into the nineteen-fifties, still engulfed by darkness. A full year lay ahead. People were kind, my host family sincere. But I was foreign. Weird. Alone.  

It wasn’t the constant cloud cover, nor the black soot that covered the city, nor the cold weather that wore me down, but everyone’s dreary outlook. Life sucks and then you die.

I’d arrived as a visionary with grand aspirations, yet found myself surrounded by people who saw the world only in black and white. I pressured myself to learn the language perfectly, to know the culture as my own. I failed to meet my unrealistic goals. In my struggle to assimilate, self-doubt plagued me. Life was small - homes miniature, cars tiny, water pressure low. People owned so much less. In the States, I cooked for myself, had a car, an after school job, a rich social life. In Belgium I couldn’t speak, drive, or cook. 

School didn’t get out until late afternoon. Life revolved around studying. I was invited to all the parties, but those were few and far between. In the cold, the rain, in this godless place, I found my god, goddess, universe. I asked her to help me see the light still shining brightly behind the clouds. The pain and darkness ripped open my soul, but she held my hand as I walked through the year. Though I doubted its existence, spring arrived – but only after I surrendered to the darkest days of winter. Like the tulips that opened after the frigid chill, au printemps I was born again, blossoming from the joys of friendship and the euphoria of travel. 

I chose UC Santa Barbara because it possessed an overwhelming beauty which soothed my depths. I watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean every evening my freshman year. This was god’s perfection. Fellow sunset watchers always accompanied me. Everyone appreciated Santa Barbara’s palpable beauty. The air was moist, but not humid. The Santa Ynez mountains hugged Santa Barbara, while the Pacific Ocean came to rest on her shores. The harmony of mountain and ocean created a peaceful aura.

I arrived at UCSB with a newfound faith in a loving universe. I thought everyone would want to debate the meaning of life, ponder god’s existence. This new SoCal culture blindsided me – consumerism, partying, hooking up, everyone obsessed with looking good. There’s an unspoken competition for who could wear the least amount of clothing. I searched and searched, then realized, oh, this is how it works. So I played the games, partied, hooked-up. But I longed for real connection. Am I the only hungry one here?

I lived in Isla Vista – twenty thousand college students crammed into one square-mile. I moved ten times in five years. I watched my father’s health deteriorate. There were good times too – my four-month exchange in Spain, the spiritual group downtown, the plethora of men in my life. Fun, wild nights dawned to awkward mornings. They wore me out till I longed to break free from Santa Barbara. I dreamed of traveling again.

What had changed? I remembered loving Santa Barbara so much when I’d first arrived. Had I been blinded by her beauty? People in Santa Barbara seemed out of touch with reality, unable to look beyond themselves. Everyone was attractive, yet no one was beautiful. The town was suffocating me. I longed to take a few deep breaths. While on the one hand, I aspired to live a simple life and make a difference – maybe join the Peace Corps. On another hand, I wanted to take out a loan, buy lots of clothes, and get breast implants. These material things would guarantee my happiness, right?

*  *  *  *   

That fall, I have another short-lived relationship. A friend introduces us. Our courtship is initiated with sex. That makes me anxious. Will he stick around? I know he has honorable intentions, but a week into it, I freak out. Another failed love affair fuels more questions about the male race. 

I’m too turned on, it hurts.  

It’s too soon.  

Do they need it so badly they can’t hold out a month, a week? 

I should have given him back his hand and told him to take care of himself, but late in the night I ceded to his desires. Has our society turned sex into a first-date exchange, a casual embrace? Is it my generation, the beach culture? Are good men really so hard to find?

My roommate has been dating the same guy for a year. They see each other daily. She’s accompanying him home for Christmas, but he refuses to call her his girlfriend and insists they can date other people. Or there’s Joey, a lead teller at the bank. He’s on the phone with his roommate every morning. I have to interrupt his dude-who-was-that-chick-in-my-bed conversation to get a transaction approval. He’s always polite enough to include me in the conversation, "Dude, Meagan. This chick was soo hot. But I don’t remember last night, or how we ended up at Hotel Santa Barbara. This is usually followed by, You can’t tell that I’m still drunk, can you?" While these are isolated examples, they’re rather the norm than the exception.  

I long to escape this culture. Is it a culture? Maybe it’s me. Am I unconsciously creating these interactions? There have to be some good guys in Santa Barbara. There’s always someone interested. I want to take it slow. That never happens. I keep walking down the same street, hoping the potholes have been repaired since last time. 

I wanted to know sex in the arms of a lover. When he failed to appear, I waited. And waited. Then I acquiesced. My first sexual experiences were wild, fun, freeing. Years later I’m feeling scarred, still longing for a lover who will take my hand, massage my back, hold me all night.

My second chakra is blocked. I’m attracting the wrong men. I vow to heal myself. I’ll abstain from sex – for a while. I’ll make peace with my body and my breasts. I’ll love myself unconditionally. I’ll explore the curves of my own body, tour the pulse and rhythm of my own nakedness. I want a love that will transform time. A lover who will quiet my mind and see my soul. I want to explore the sacred side of sex - tantra. But first, I have to rediscover my own beauty.

*  *  *  *   

My anxiety increases with the coming Christmas season. Christmas feels phony, corporate. With so much poverty in the world, why should we rich Americans buy each other things we don’t need? I’m barely getting by each month. My mom insists on giving me money, so I go to work buying. Buying. Christmas presents.

My dad’s partner Olivia calls. He’s in the hospital. Dad’s been in the hospital before. He always recovers. I just saw him, and he was