Samalama Spins

Leaving Oz

2012-01-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

I thought you

would move mountains
to be by my side
but now I know

some mountains divide

and you are there
and I am here

This is a test
an eternal test
and I cannot
pass or fail
just be

Your freedom
your brains
your courage
your heart
the oil can
they are all yours now

We are wizards
there is no curtain
it's all magic without
smoke and mirrors
we make our lives as we must

The rainbow and that
gleaming yellow path led me
straight to your heart
the moment I saw you

Now, I have no dog

and I hate wicker baskets

but my feet are clad inrubies and I

believe in the love of alifetime

So go.

May your road
bring you joy and home.

May you always
remember me fondly.

The TALK

2011-11-04T10:01:00.001-04:00

Two nights ago I had this conversation with my almost 7 year old son...

"But how does the sperm actually get to the egg? Does it float on waves through the air?"
"No, honey."
"Well, how does it get there?"
"You're going to find it hard to believe, are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Well, the man puts his penis into the woman's vagina and the sperm comes out to meet the egg."

Horrified look...

"Inside? Actually inside?!!"
"Yes."
"But why would he want to do that?"
"Umm, to make a baby. And it actually feels good."
"REALLY? Inside?! I'm never doing that!!"
"Ok, you don't have to if you don't want to."

Grin...

Sense of Wonder

2011-08-27T20:27:00.000-04:00

I was just reading my love's description of Halloween. He loves Halloween! Not for the candy, but for the creation. When he was younger he created haunted houses with 20 friends and volunteers playing their roles. He made costumes and coffins, collected props and created a sense of wonder for the children and families nearby...

And I remembered something.

That is how I want to live EVERY day.

With a sense of wonder, knowing the unexpected lurks behind every appearance of normal, and having the footing to roll with it, unfazed. And I remember that a huge part of this ability to live with wonder is faith. And I remember all too well what it feels like to be without that faith, without that knowing that wonder is all around us, and I remember too that I am a creator who is currently not creating.

What I am I afraid of?
That I'm not good enough.
What am I doing?
Not trying.

Certain soul-death.

I remember that creating does not always come from a place of knowing I am "something." It comes from a desire to be fuller; more aware; stronger and able to try and fail and eventually try and fly. I remember that 10,000 hours is the number of mastery, and if I want to master anything I should not be spending two of my precious hours playing Angry Birds on my iPhone.

What if it doesn't work? What if I'm not enough? Not perfect?
What if I am alone forever?

Ha! Silly girl.

I remember that living is an art form. That patience needs to be mastered. That all of us are imperfect. That if it doesn't work, I will have learned and loved a ton. That I will likely not be alone forever. That love and parenting are dynamic, with many levels, but to give up is not an option. That fear equals soul death, it's not worth the time. I remember that work is the surest path to a sense of wonder.

So here I am, remembering, and wondering what it looks like to work all the time when the "work" is the life.

Time to find out.

post-divorce thoughts

2011-08-09T18:34:00.000-04:00

for those of you who think this is a never-ending topic...

it is.

there is this myth that exists in my mind -- that the father of my children will have some form of positive regard for me and my well-being just by virtue of the fact that I mothered his children. i am unfortunately continuously reminded of the fact that this is simply just not true.

and the real problem is that i still fail to integrate that reality into my mindset.
time for a change.

some post-divorce truths, as i see them:

no matter the level of kindness that did or did not exist previously, none will exist ever again, even if i continue to offer it.
if it were up to him, i would vaporize and all traces of my existence would go with it.
i somehow do not feel that way, except when he proves yet again what a great move it was on my part to get divorced.
if there is an opportunity to screw me or be generous, i should anticipate and expect the default screwing
life is separate and not equal
our children think he's wonderful, and i must perpetuate that myth
the years spent devoted to marriage, childbearing and child-rearing cannot be recaptured, will not be compensated for, and cannot be reclaimed in living or the workplace.
freedom and faith never make sense on paper
no matter what he says or does, i am worthy of everything good
it is always worth it, except when hormonal or clinically depressed. and that passes.

Vacation Bliss

2011-07-26T14:58:00.001-04:00

Well, it definitely started out that way. First time with OTL and his daughter together with me and my kids. They did well... for the first two days. Then it became clear that the two girls wanted nothing to do with my son, the younger brother.

So what does he do?
What everyone in his situation would do, of course.
He annoys the shit out of them!

He yells, he interrupts, he ruins things, he starts fighting and then runs to tell the grownups when the girls get him back.

AND, worst of all, I can't get him to stop.
Meaning, at first I felt for him. Tried the whole "inclusion, hurt feelings, how would you feel? blah-blah with the girls" until that really only made things worse.

But now he's just behaving badly. And all the trouble spots that I have been working on and making some progress, have gone back into negative numbers.

I'm ready to drop him off somewhere, let the girls make jewelry, then curl up in a hot-tub and hibernate. I seriously want to cry. This is my first "family vacation" since the divorce, and all the vacations during the marriage were just a boatload of misery. So here I am, charting new waters, negotiating new relationships, and as much as I love and adore my children, I want a vacation.

Independence

2011-07-04T11:50:00.000-04:00

Today I remind myself that I am free. That freedom entails responsibility -- to live my gifts, to find joy, to sparkle and shine against the darkness.

I've been down lately. Partly because the summer holds no schedule, no ongoing opportunity for me to do what I do well in front of people. Partly because my brain is mean to me. Partly because my house is a mess, my supports have fallen to earthquakes and tidal waves, partly because a living love still means going it alone most of the time.

I forget sometimes. That the reason I left the comfort and security of my marriage was to ford the waters of the unknown, to find my own way, and that the going is rough. I haven't been doing it for that long. I haven't been doing it that well.

Or maybe I'm doing it just fine, it just takes longer, with more renewed effort, more persistence than I have recently been able to muster.

Really? Does independence really come down to getting the laundry and the dishes done? I thought it was writing the novel, creating works of art, holding a family in the arms of my disheveled but loving house and hoping for the truth to shine through. Now I see that I had dreams, dreams that weren't realistic. But are any dreams really realistic? Do I have to shelve them for the practical? I am not what I thought I would be. I am brilliant and beautiful and lazy and depressed. I am searching for a way to find God in all the mess, and sometimes I cannot hear, cannot see, and yet I must keep going.

Independence. It is what my parents always wanted for me. From the moment I could speak. Yet, I still long for the comfort of partnership, of companionable work, of not doing everything by myself.

But today I will do the work so I can feel accomplished. So I can have the home I want in which art and love and living can flourish. Today I will celebrate that which I left behind for a new start, and I will recognize that independence is not easy, is hard-won, is a victory worthy of fireworks and sparkle and show, and I will get to work.

Responsibility. Work. Fireworks. It's all there for the taking on this hot fourth of July.

The Same Things All Over Again...

2011-06-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

I've been wanting to blog lately, but I've been waiting for things to change. Ha! Or at least for my mood to lift, or to have found a way to stop obsessing over the ways my ex-husband nullifies me at every turn.

I know, I know, only YOU can prevent forest fires! He can't make me feel anything I don't let him, yada yada... The thing is, my skin is thin these days. I'm not saying I'm not responsible... I know I am, but I have to find a way to toughen up... It's been challenging.

In divorce there seems to be a few trade-offs I wasn't aware of as acutely before I got divorced as I am now.

1. Time or money: The payoff of time, i.e. the faster you settle your divorce, the less money you end up with.
2. The meaning of the word "primary" - I'm not talking colors here, but parents. Apparently, we still live in a world where most often ONE parent is designated as primary. Not in the written divorce agreement but in life. Apparently this designation is tied to a) address b) money c) order of parents listed on forms d) who fills out said forms e) ex's absolute need to prove himself to be primary and make me secondary -- MUST WIN AT ALL COSTS
3. Division of property. While theoretically 50-50, this actually means whomever stays in the house keeps most of the stuff. After all, they're primary! And they keep everything from the yard, the garage, the shed, the patio, the patio furniture, household appliances, household maintenance tools, gardening supplies, garden additions, plants, and children's toys. Even and especially if parent moving out was the gardener. Oh, and all of this is without review, opportunity to question, argue, change or divide. It just is. Or we can go to court. Nice.
4. Whomever gets a new partner first wins. The second person to find a partner will be subject to scrutiny, judgement, and passive aggressive behavior up to and including the schedule, vacation time, vacation designation, family "rules", referring to the parenting agreement at every turn that suits first (should I say primary?) parent but ignoring it completely when it comes to second parent's rights and obligations...

OK, enough bitching for today. Tune in next week for another installment, hopefully more positive...

A Long Time Gone...

2011-01-13T20:37:00.001-05:00

"i've been a long time coming, i'll be a long time gone, you've got your whole life to do something, and that's not very long..." - ani difranco

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. I've been nourishing myself, my body and soul, spending time hunkered down and healing. It's been good. Very good! Deliciously good! And next week, I get to go back to work.

Perhaps we all need times like this. Time without work to regroup, cast ourselves in a different direction, focus on the changes we want to incorporate into our lives without the constant struggle against the stream of information that threatens to overwhelm us.

Some important questions to begin to ponder: What am I doing? What do I want to be doing? Why on earth do I think I can't do that? What is it that is right in front of me? How can I navigate this flow as gracefully and beautifully as possible? What makes me feel good? How can I do more of that? What makes me feel bad? Do less of that.

No value judgments, just ask and wait for the answer. Small increments of time add up to larger experiences. No stress, just ask and answer. Listen. Don't forget to listen. Are you listening?

Good. Don't forget how loved you are.
S

Shabbat Morning Love

2010-12-18T09:58:00.003-05:00

My hips are awake before I am,

moving against the light of you that is here

but not here, but will be here soon,

the invisible luminal body that you cast forth

so strongly (and gently) in my direction,

wherever I am.

7:05am

The air is dry, the bed is warm, and I feel you,

my sweetest love, the love of delight

that has been set in motion from beyond and above

and I feel you, glowing, inside me

before I even open my eyes.

sleep follows again

9:02am

and then I am startled

swift intake of breath

slow exhalation as you slide

beside me, above me, within me

and we are one

the way we have always been one

the scent of you

remembered, drifting on ancient wind

carried from sooo long ago

fills the dry and aching air

transforms the deep, parched longing

into the slow, delightful ache

of a wound healed and forgotten,

the gentle, insistent pulse of a river

teeming with life

the current of soul

that crosses every barrier

leaves behind every enslavement,

changes every bitter word and thoughtless act

into the lush oasis of completion

dropping pomegranate seeds and date palms

in its wake

riding the endless wave

that is part electricity

part touch, part tender endearments

whispered in the darkness of alone and wanting

murmurs and whispers carried

to the two ears that hear,

beauty and truth recognized by eyes that see,

hard season of bleak and barren

finally touched by lips

that kiss and smile, whisper yes

and here and now and

my love

forever

eternally

yours

Ahh, Procrastination

2010-12-17T21:08:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's that time again. The time when I have let the work pile up and continued to do other things -- bake cookies, listen to a new book on CD, basically everything except work.

I have a lot of excuses. Not the right chair, not comfortable, bad lighting, the list goes on and on... the truth is a combination of things. 1. I am lazy 2. I don't know where to start 3. I am overwhelmed 4. you name it, I'll think of a reason why I am not doing what I am supposed to do.

So, now I am faced with the buckle-down reality. The shameful, buckle-down reality that will keep me holed up in my house all weekend. Or perhaps send me to Starbucks without a computer, so I don't do anything else. What am I doing right now? Writing a blog entry...

Ha. I laugh at myself. Then I feel crappy. Will I ever really write a book? How?

One thing at a time... first, three classes worth of journals and final papers. Worry about the book another time. And no, I do not need to go to bed now and wake up early. I never wake up early. Get to work!!!

Progress post coming soon...(I hope!)

Smoke, Fires and Melancholy

2010-12-13T18:53:00.000-05:00

This time of year usually gets me down. It's the short days and the long, cold nights... along with the "holiday" season that seems to highlight more of what is lacking than what is present.

But this year, I'm doing battle against the doldrums. I'm on a quest to quit smoking, and it's starting to happen. I went two days without a smoke, then found one in my car and smoked it, bought a pack, had two... but I keep reminding myself that LAST time I quit (after smoking for close to ten years) I had this cockamamie system that I made up that worked for me. I went as long as I could without smoking, then rewarded myself with a few cigarettes. Then I doubled the time that I went without... It worked! So I am on the same track again, perhaps with a fast-track. But it is in focus.

And I bought a bunch of firewood, stacked it up next to my fireplace, and I'm ready to go! As soon as the semester is OVER (like really, completely over) I will clear away all the ashes, get ready, and light it up! I plan on spending a whole lot of time in front of that fireplace this winter. Writing, sewing, musing, lounging, doesn't matter. There's really nothing quite like the glow of a fire to spread warmth and well-being. It doesn't matter if there is snow (the less the better in my book!) and although I love to snuggle, I'm picky, so it will have to be that special someone (you know who you are) or me and the kids. Sounds good to me.

I'm looking forward to having a month off. I have big plans... writing, curtains on my windows, video project under way, friends, cooking, the basic rhythms of life in slow speed (Sam speed!) with the possibility of the unexpected lurking around each corner. The days will start to get longer. Eli will turn six. I will plan my classes more thoroughly and set up websites for updates ahead of time (so help me God!!) and I will practice being. Being with myself, and taking care of myself. Health, sleep, food, routine...

I can't think of a better way to ward off the melancholy, can you?

Cul de Sac

2010-12-08T10:32:00.000-05:00

I drove past your street this weekend, on my way to lead a writing group, and for the first time I was able to say goodbye. Out loud, "Goodbye! I wish you well. You and your family. I hope you are happy and growing. I hope you learn some things as you travel. I hope you fulfill your soul!" And I kept driving. No tears. No remorse, no sadness even. Curiosity, sure. But I know I will see you again someday (Barnes & Noble, book signing, 2015? or so...) and we will smile as we look into each other's eyes and remember what was and what came to be and it will all be as it should be. Thank you for seeing, thank you for loving, thank you for not leaving. It will all be well. All is well. I hope you are well.

Sunlight

2010-12-04T17:24:00.000-05:00

Spent my morning (late morning) in the glorious new location for Daniel Sheff's shabbat service. A converted barn with beams and light galore! To tell the truth, I was nervous about a new place; I didn't think it would be as nice as the Zen center. Well, that'll teach me!!! It was better!

So as the sun streamed in and the wood glowed, I got to sing and stretch, yoga and pray my heart to contentedness that has been elusive in these last weeks. Ahhhh.....

New poet rabbi post going up soon. I wrote it this morning in the parking lot before going in. Yep. That's how I am. I'm good with it! Seems the listeners are too (phew).

Home at 2 and now it's 5 and I am STILL procrastinating. Ugh! OK, caffeination in progress. Even if I am up all night, these papers will get graded.

Peace and light.
S

there are days

2010-12-03T10:12:00.001-05:00

when you realize you really do not have your shit together, that you have just as much ego as everyone else, and for all your good intentions, you just keep fucking up over and over again.

i hurt someone's feelings yesterday by enforcing boundaries. it was a boundary that was drawn, then i wavered, then i reinforced it. the wavering part was what got me. then the hurt was unexpected, i thought i was clear and it was ok. it wasn't. i feel like shit.

boundaries have always been an issue. i am one who goes for context, not rule. turns out the world doesn't really work that way. samalama world, maybe, but not the larger world. sometimes this is a very hard place for me to live. today i want to run away, disappear, hide out, take a vacation, find someone who will take care of me, remind me i don't suck ALL the time, that i still have gifts and talents, that someday i will be forgiven by those whom i have hurt, or not, but i am still worthy.

i hope that over time, i can learn to navigate more cleanly. make fewer mistakes, perhaps some of less significance. but this learning curve is steep and i am not beating the curve. mastery? maybe someday.

i hope this is true.
i really do.

Ferrari (written 2/2010)

2010-12-01T22:36:00.003-05:00

My friend Alisa says maybe my vagina is like a Ferrari.

Meaning, maybe it’s a high performance vagina, instead of one of those fuel-efficient ones that glide so neatly and easily over the roads without making any noise; or one of those off-road gas-guzzling trucks you use to haul your boat to the dock and your trash to the dump, and if you drive it drunk into a tree at low speeds, no one gets hurt.

She says maybe my vagina is one of those fancy-schmancy types that you have to treat with tenderness, keep in a warm, humidity-controlled environment, spend hours polishing in the driveway on Sunday afternoons in the warm midday sun.

She says, “Sam, you don’t really think you can turn a $192K high-performance vehicle into a charter bus, do you? I mean, come on! Some cars are just made for different things. You, for instance, need a highly skilled mechanic. One who knows cars inside and out and decides this is the one he’s going to pour his life savings into, to tune up until it purrs, who tinkers and fixes, adjusts belts and hoses and fuel to air ratios until he finds just the right balance and that Ferrari becomes the vehicle that carries him through his life with elegant ease and a little bit of flash, a little bit of pride, but he really knows how to drive it.

When he gets into that driver’s seat, that car becomes a natural extension of himself. He knows how to handle it on curves, he knows when it’s too snowy or rainy to take it out of the garage, and when something isn’t right, he sets his heart on figuring how to fix it.

So stop trying to make your vagina into some cheap thing you picked up at WalMart! You’re a Ferrari. Get over it. Now you just have to wait for a real driver!”

Ahh, I said. Now I get it.

Turkey Day

2010-11-25T23:00:00.002-05:00

aaaagggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Don't Stop Believing

2010-11-24T13:12:00.001-05:00

i am holding my heart lightly by the reins, letting it lead, letting it wander down the paths it has always been meant to go.

i see your eyes smiling, waiting, ready to rejoin the journey. i draw alongside and you pick up the pace, sometimes leading, sometimes following. the bridge of trust that travels between us knows it almost doesn't matter where we go, only that we travel alongside one another.

there are stoppings along the way. times of rest and recuperation, times of learning, times of silence (both shared and solo), times of joy, times of waiting, times of wanting.

we weather this journey well, knowing the other is there, knowing we are wholeheartedly open to whatever lies ahead.

the journey itself is not easy. there are rivers and mountains to cross and climb. there is swirling sand and hardscrabble rock. there is death and illness, temptation and frustration, but there is also an oasis (or several), there are springs overflowing, there is light and dark, sweet and bitter.

we are in motion. above all, we carry with us all that has been and all that has yet to become. we hold light and faith, tenderness and joy, fear and missteps in equal measure.

we sing. we sing our souls and give thanks to the eternal oneness of all things that set us forth, alone and together, and it is good.

Stats

2010-11-23T12:08:00.001-05:00

Blogger has this cool feature where I can see general stats about how many people look at my blog, where they live (country, no more specifics than that) and what pages people are looking at. I am so curious!!! If you are reading this, send me a note and say hello. I'd love to know how you found my blog and what you think.

I also welcome suggestions from you bloggers out there about how to actually use the features in Blogger to draw more readers, track stats, and see how to make myself more visible in the blogosphere...

All good things for all of you!
Thanks for reading,
Samalama

The K-O of a New Day

2010-11-22T19:17:00.000-05:00

Nothing lasts forever. In the blink of an eye we can recover ourselves, or we can see the places that need healing.

I received four letters in the mail today! Three from far away, so beautiful and treasured, and Real. And one from myself written six months ago, then mailed by my beloved yoga teacher last week.

I told myself: Remember you are chosen by god. All the rest is back story. You are healing. Love, Sam

So on this day, post-fall, post-stitches, while my body aches and my eye is swollen half shut, I remember. I am healing. Even in this form, even in this now, when I am still hurt, I am healing.

When TEx and I were first dating, he went for a run, then returned, shaken and wet from the rain. He said, "A funny thing happened while I was running. I had a vision. You stabbed me in the heart with a steak knife."

He saw it. It was the first few months of our courtship and he saw that.
I felt I had to defend myself against this future that he had somehow foretold. I was put on red alert that I would one day break his heart, betray him, be the one to wield that knife. I saw that I was being watched, I had to make sure that didn't happen. And yet, it happened. I stabbed him in the heart with a steak knife.

Funny thing is, I knew he could see.

And now, steak knife and all, two years after the decision to divorce and eleven years after the decision to marry me, he has the right woman. And we have our children.

So don't go thinking that the things you see aren't real, even if they don't make sense. Pay attention. Life knocks you down sometimes, puts nine stitches in your face and still tells you you are beautiful. That someone special loves you. That you have a future and a past unfolding in tandem and you are the link in the chain that holds it all. See?

We have to see. It's part of who we are, so pay attention. Notice. And act. Go forth into the new day, even if it's a knock-out steak knife in the heart fall down and split your face open shiner of a black eye day, and act.

Boy

2010-11-21T19:31:00.001-05:00

This is a response to Jamaica Kincaid's poem (or story) entitled, "Girl"

Boy

You are loved and you will be successful but you will also be privileged in a way you may not realize. Girls will always be in a different place than you, so stop being jealous of your sister and recognize that you are on top. Know that humility (not shame) will be the hardest lesson for you to learn. Know that every time you try to win, you will, just know there will always be a cost somewhere.

Respect your mother, even if she drives you crazy, or if she is crazy, or if you drive her crazy -- her mother was crazier, so she is trying to learn something new. She will always be a little bit afraid of you, that you will join leagues with your father and judge her not good enough.

Know she loves you in a way she never expected; fiercely, viscerally, with pride and admiration.

Know that you are so beautiful, the girls and women will flock to you. Luckily, you are picky. Know that pride and fear can both be overcome. Know that holding yourself back from love is the worst thing you could do.

Don't do this. Love it all. As you are loved.

ER Visit

2010-11-21T10:48:00.000-05:00

Nope, not the kids. Me.

I have one piece of marble in my entire house -- not a countertop or a sink, but a raised threshold between the hallway and the kitchen. And for some reason, my hardwood floors in the hallway are really slick.

So, picture me, 8am groggy, wearing my fuzzy chenille socks like I always do, getting a phone call, dashing down the hallway to answer it (fucking telemarketer!!!), wiping out on the hardwood hallway, bashing my head on the marble threshold, lying there stunned and bleeding, not moving for a little bit, then grabbing a kitchen towel (think hands and knees, groping), splattering blood everywhere, groaning, wondering what the fuck I'm going to do next.

Press yesterday's kitchen towel to face (gash above right eye) all the while knowing it is definitely NOT clean but I am dripping blood, slowly make way to bathroom, look at horrifying gash over eye, wonder how I will get kids to Hebrew school, get self to emergency room, get kids home from Hebrew school, get self home from ER, wonder if I am overreacting, wonder if I have a concussion, look in mirror again... NOPE! definitely not overreacting, call ex, no answer, call Hanna (spiritual mentor and protector), think through steps, call friend who offers to take kids to Hebrew school and me to ER (thank you!), cry, receive call from ex, who comes over with GF (both docs) and agree yes, need stitches.

Friend brings kids to Hebrew school, comes back (with coffee, bless you Steve!) to bring me to ER, and here I am, towel filled with ice pressed to my face, eye already blackening, and wondering how this fits into yesterday's torah portion about Jacob wrestling with the angel, struggling to speak and know his own name, ultimately emerging, injured and transformed and able.

I'll tell you after the stitches.

Soul Shaken, not Stirred!

2010-11-17T09:44:00.000-05:00

Wow! When god, the universe and everything really toss you into the mix, look out! I didn't sleep last night, not really, too buzzy, excited, elated, freaked-out, emotional, sad... and grinning. Even through it all.

Students, friends, possibilities of love, everything is in the mix and turned up to eleven. I don't mind, I feel alive! I had an awesome morning with the kids, got them to school on time, not even a moment of yelling or frustration, and as I was returning home, the rain stopped and the sun broke through the clouds... yay!

When I left my marriage and entered the realm of a soul-driven life, I believed "it" would happen, but I couldn't see how or really even what "it" was. I wasn't seeing then; only glimpsing the shimmer of potentially seeing.

But now...

Even with the hard things: grief and loss, sadness, and the knowing that I can only be who I am called to be, there are many things I am not, and many ways of being that I am not. This will not sit right with some. There will be casualties.

And yet... students are coming to me, not only for grades. Respected members of my community are reaching out, to check in, to show love, and to ask for help from me in whatever capacity I have to offer.

This isn't an ego-lauding session: this is wonder! I don't have a fancy piece of paper that makes this happen! This is my soul speaking to others. Those who resonate, emerge. Those who want to continue to speak, come.

I am alive! I am grateful! And at the risk of sounding hyper-religious, which is not how I would describe myself, I am in god's hands and feeling held.

A Poem by David Whyte

2010-11-14T23:38:00.002-05:00

Sweet Darkness

—David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

in the depths

2010-11-12T13:31:00.000-05:00

some things are to be endured, not celebrated. the loss of a friend, exile, the wandering, the not knowing. i believe i have goodness. i believe i have judgment and morals. those who don't agree are voices in a chorus, sometimes singing louder or solo or fighting for center stage. taking a break from the singing right now. quiet. need quiet. and comfort. and peace.

Ask, And You Shall Receive

2010-11-09T22:50:00.000-05:00

So, on a whim, after re-reading the endless list post, I plugged in the dead hard drive (for the forty-seventh time, I kid you not!) and it worked!!!

All the photos from the past year and a half, recovered!

So, seriously, what are you going to ask for today? Make it good, because it's gonna happen!

(grinning! can't help it.)

Goofin' with Z & E!!

2010-11-09T22:25:00.001-05:00

Couldn't resist... they are just too much goodness! :)

This is too good...

2010-11-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

some people think i should laugh a little more often... this helped! :)
Do I Feel A Thumb?

Not in Kansas

2010-11-09T15:29:00.000-05:00

Tin Man,
Scrap the guest room.
Bring the oilcan.
--Dorothy

Treading Water...

2010-11-09T14:57:00.000-05:00

...on a bicycle, while climbing up a mountain (or, what have i done for me lately?)

bupkis. not much. at least it seems that way, what with the relentless flow of school papers to keep track of, the darkening skies, the rain, and the leaves crowding my driveway.

last week i went to get a massage (much needed for this achy-breaky body) and my massage therapist said "i know you don't want to hear this, but your muscles aren't sore from overuse..."

DUH!!! so much for my relaxing 80 minutes, and guilt-free $135 spent on myself! apparently, i should have gone to the gym instead.

yes, i have not been exercising as i want to. i am aware. yes, my body hurts from sitting too long in the car, in the classroom, at the table reading papers, and in my bed trying to catch up on the ever-elusive concept of "enough sleep."

and i know that my body loves me much more when i feed it well, and give it all kinds of attention, put it through its yoga paces, and push my heart and lungs beyond their current capacity. i get it.

however, my schedule doesn't get it.

here's today's to-do list.

1. kids off to school without running for the bus and having eaten something, and with backpacks appropriately packed (check!)
2. poetry performance for my friend wayne-daniel's poetry class... includes one hour in car each way on a day i don't have to go to school, but hey, he got me the job and i love him, so... (check!)
3. bring car in for 15,000 mile service (at 16,800 miles to the tune of $300) (check!)
4. take loaner car to fabric store for mindless perusing in the quest for living room curtains, since i have lived here for more than a year and my neighbors could see me having sex in the living room, if i were to be having sex in the living room, which i currently am not, nor anywhere else for that matter... $20 later and no curtains in sight... (check!)
5. call lawn guy for leaves situation (check!)
6. call home warranty company to place request to fix ailing stove (stove called Modern Maid, which btw, has subsequently been phased out... probably due to the name!)to the tune of $95 dollars... (check!)
7. wait for return phone calls
8. make ridiculous list while waiting for cute son to get off school bus (check!)
9. eat something, finally! (check!)
10. wait for adorable daughter to disembark forty minutes later
11. entertain son until daughter arrives, then ready them for TEx's girlfriend to take them to gymnastics class as a special treat
12. claim own special treat of getting to go to yoga (usually circumvented by gymnastics class travel and timing) -- thank you TEx and girlfriend!
13. ready kids for bed, including gathering of all items they will need for five days at TEx's house

Still on List:
grade papers
send emails
organize endless papers
eat dinner
load and edit video for free lance project
get dead back up hard drive restored (please, god) so haven't lost all photos from the past year!
back up current photos and music, remove all photos from former life off current scrolling screen-saver library
return loaner car
fax refinance documents (due last week)
report bumper scrape from gymnastics parking lot three weeks ago!
get said bumper fixed!
make hanukkah lists
figure out what the hell kids these days get for hanukkah
locate used piano and arrange delivery (all for under $400!)
figure out torah reading for saturday, so can write poem
cook something for chamonix trip reunion on friday night
write recap of classes so can see what else needs to be taught
breathe
stretch
find new massage therapist

i'll let you know how it goes... (check!)

dreaming of phone calls

2010-11-04T21:14:00.000-04:00

perhaps sooner rather than later?

surrender

2010-11-03T15:54:00.000-04:00

they say timing is everything, and i believe them... even if i don't really know who they are. but i have learned (slowly, kicking and dragging my feet all the way) that you can't force anything. it has to happen as it happens. i call it the unfolding.

when i was in chamonix in july, i asked alan where i was in torah. "go forth from your native land..." he said. and i have. then i was still in process, now i have actually gone forth, and it (whatever it is) is really beginning to unfold all around me...!

i asked him, too, what was left to do.

"surrender" he said. and i had no idea how.

but now, i'm starting to see. starting. you engage in the process, try not to try, try not to attach yourself to outcomes, and know that whatever unfolds, you will be in the midst of it, walking toward the promised land with your hopes and dreams intact, fears smaller shadows fading into the past.

i am learning, slowly, about this surrender. and i'm loving the steps, not predicting the destination.

jackie told me, "you can't cross the desert and gorge yourself on milk and honey. you'll get sick! slow sips. small tastes. soon enough, the whole jar will be gone and you will beam with sweetness..."

i get what she's saying. it's so different for me, i usually gorge, drink down the whole jar and hope another comes along. but here i am, sipping slowly, writing my daily bread, weaning myself from the urge to predict the future.

i can't predict the future. i can be here, now, and do all that i can to love.

alan asked me yesterday, "how does it feel to be loved?"

"good!" i said, taking him by surprise. "alan, i feel loved. not because i am x or y, but because i am. i'm still learning, and i'm *so* not perfect, but i feel loved."

i could feel him smile through the phone.

"a-ha! it's happening."

"i know. can you believe it?"

"i can. can you?"

i can. and i am so grateful to those who love me, near and far. but most of all, i can see now, that i am lovable.

i surrender.

Remember

2010-11-02T10:07:00.001-04:00

to be gentle with your soul. it takes so much love to heal, so much kindness and patience to look in the mirror and see the love that others (and god) sees. do not forget this.

we all face hard truths, we all stand down demons, we all make hard choices and then realize they are mistakes (or fucking-growth opportunities!) but we could not have done otherwise, it's part of the process.

do not fear, all is not lost. another leg of the journey begins.

when hagar left sarai and went into the desert, she was seen by an angel who called her by name. she was known, and she returned, belly full of the unknown child (an ass of a man!) and still she knew what her destiny was. she returned. we are all returning, once we are known by name. we are all cast out into the desert to hear god.

keep listening.

and know that when you are seen, it is forever, it is eternal, it will hold you as you journey into sacred space and time. that's what we are all doing here. it takes time in the desert to transform the bitter into sweet. but the sweetness is worth every step. you will have what you need, keep looking, keep walking.

and know there is love waiting, teeming with life, once you cross.

Memories from Montreal

2010-10-30T12:03:00.002-04:00

Weight, yes. Responsibility, no.

I remember seeing you. Your eyes were everywhere I was. Oddly, I don't remember the Indigo Girls concert, but now that you mention it, I slowly remember. I remember Coltrane and Freddy. I remember your wild hair, your clear eyes, the notes that made my heart leap. I remember you cleaning my bathtub, filling it and ushering me in as you needed to leave. I remember a night out with you playing music, meeting your friends, feeling young but unashamed. I don't remember the 4am movie, I remember Coltrane peeing on the bed. I remember the ghost of another, watching us, unhappy at my presence. I remember your joy at my presence. I remember my striped comforter, the chaos of my small room, the oddness of my two roommates -- premed and male and studious. I remember the breath of spring that took hold and bloomed. I remember that love shone in your eyes. I remember your eyes. I don't remember the first date, the first kiss, the first of much of anything, just your smell, your kindness, your gentleness, your heart. I remember that you had much that wasn't yet revealed. I remember feeling alive in the mystery and comfortable in the not knowing. I remember the line, "I have never returned to a love I have left..." I remember the shadow of your presence and the yearning that remained after you turned to go. I remember the dreams I had, and the difficulty I had letting go. I remember the people who did not understand, thought this a case of young and foolish, rather than begun and unexpectedly cut short. I remember the hardship of "not me, but circumstance" and the youthful disappointment that I did not yet understand how to integrate. I remember the questions that went unanswered because they had to. I remember the urge to find you, thirteen years later, and the inability to do so. I remember the feel of you in my bed, the comfort with which I unexpectedly slept. I remember only gentleness and calm, patience and compassion, curiosity and possibility. I remember the desolation of the following winter, the slow sink into cold and dark and nothingness (not your fault, brain chemistry and winter and life.) I remember the knowing that this was not my place to be, and the endless questions of where was I supposed to be, to whom and to what did I belong. It took twenty years to answer these questions (in part). I remember very little specifics, only feelings, only flashes of short times and moments of feeling known. I felt known. That was new, it was what I was looking for. When I was no longer known, I had to go. I didn't know it then, but I had to leave that place and presence behind me to find some other way of knowing. It was a slow road, but ultimately fruitful. Unbelievably blessed in its fruitfulness. But I couldn't have known that then. Then, it was dark and shadowed. Then, I was blessed with grace and a whole lot of luck. So much luck! Thank God. thank god. And now, I remember that I always dreamed of more knowing. Still do.

I remember you.

Week Alone

2010-10-29T19:31:00.000-04:00

I have had the whole week to myself after ten days of full-time, solo parenting. It goes by in a flash! I somehow manage to fritter away much of this time, not always getting to the things I must do, and yet it is restorative. It's a strange ebb and flow, this half-time parenting.

Today, I picked Z up from TEx (The Ex) and took her for a haircut and a quick trip to AC Moore -- I have it in my head that I want to make a couple of clocks, so I needed clock hands. $60 later, I have clock hands, friendship bracelet embroidery floss, pipecleaners, new paintbrushes for the kids, and some wooden plaques to decorate. Sigh.

But the hour alone with Z was heaven! It always is. I wish there was a way to get more of that with each of them, without paying for babysitting. Perhaps TEx and I can work something out more regularly. Z is hilarious! She is making up new ways of talking, most of them obnoxious... and funny! I can't help but laugh, and frankly, the more laughing I do, the better. It's good for both of us.

And now it's Shabbat and I am sitting down at an empty table, thinking about the ways the up and down cycles both help and hinder my growth. There is no question that I cherish my alone time. I have more of it now than I had when I was married, but that's the "without kids" part of it. The companionship piece is the part I didn't have all the way through, and that is still with me. I find when the kids are here, I'm crazier and more exhausted, but I somehow feel more complete. As a person. I might be a little more sane when they are with TEx, but I miss them and the feeling of completeness that comes along with them being here.

Tonight, I will grade papers for two hours. Then I may sew or read, or watch the new disc of "Lost" episodes that arrived from Netflix today. Tomorrow will be yoga in the morning and then some research at the library for my classes... I don't know how people do all the things they do when they have their kids with them. I don't get that much done without them, let alone with them! But we're all chugging along. Of course, when Z has real homework and more social activities, when E continues to make friends and do more sports, I don't know what I will do! But that is then and this is now, and right now, it's ok.

Last night, I had dinner with a friend in Torrington, where my dad's (and sister's and uncle's) furniture store is. It was wild to see the women who have been working with my dad for about thirty years! They are the same, but not. I am the same, but not. They think I look just like my mother. This now makes me laugh -- I look like myself! A mix of my mom and dad, in features, but in reality I am me. It took me a long time to realize this. But I know it is meant as a compliment, so I smile and say "thank you."

I spent the night at my parents' house and then woke up to have coffee with my dad and say hi to my mom before she left for work. The small things, coffee with another human being before beginning the day, a smile, a knock on the door to make sure I'm up -- the "normals" of family life, I find myself without those every day. I didn't have them in my marriage either, TEx was up and out so early and I am not a morning person. But we didn't make it happen, either. Maybe I didn't make it happen. We couldn't get it to work. So, another thing to welcome for the future. Will my future companion drink coffee with me in the morning? Greet me with a smile?

I hope so. In the meantime, I will try to do this for myself. Smile in the mirror. Make the coffee the night before. Give myself a little time to wake up kindly. I have hope that in time, this will get easier, more pleasant, and someday become more complete.

Still Love Getting Mail

2010-10-23T16:37:00.000-04:00

so much more to say!!! Eli's quote of the day, "Mommy, I really like your friend's music. Let's listen to that again, ok?"

this, from the boy who hung on me, hid behind me (under my shirt) while I read my poem today in sacred community.

to be honest, i started to get mad, then moved through it, found the rhythm i needed, the measure of words, and honestly i forgot about him, his head tunneled under my shirt, me standing with bright sun sky behind me, reading my truth to the people before me.

later, my friend J said, "you amaze me!" and i looked at her blankly. "your son was climbing under your shirt and you still could get up there and proceed...I would never have been able to do that! i guess there is a silver lining to the ADD!"

ADD or not, i truly did forget about him, loving the fact that he wanted to be close, no longer hindered by whose will would win. i thought about pushing, asserting my will, threatening punishment, but i would have looked like a meanie -- and it probably wouldn't have worked -- and so i just kept going.

the silver lining is it didn't bother me. the silver lining is he heard me. the silver lining is there is always a silver lining. so today, i tore open that letter when i got home, grateful to receive it, grateful that this poet's words are heard and not rejected, grateful to have this connection that rushes forth into the world.

how could i turn away from that?
the silver lining: i can't.

Poem from Yesterday's Class...

2010-10-22T14:42:00.002-04:00

so much of writing
is the feeling, not the words
probably true in
songwriting too --
though i haven't been able
(many tries, good friends
strumming along...)
to make the rhymes fit
without giving in to cheese

and i don't like
rhyming that much, anyway
but i can always
pick up the right cadence
to read to --
poems fitting themselves
to the beat, rising with
inflection and intonation
somehow

for me, that's where the heart lives:
in the blending of gifts
words and music,
cadence and intonation

but i can't make the music
myself...
i can't do it alone

and for me, the rise
and fall of words
fit my heart to the soul

and what else is there, really,
on a suddenly stormy
Thursday in October?

This Is Not a Test

2010-10-17T13:36:00.000-04:00

Except everything is a test -- of will, of spirit, of fortitude, of walking the path. And when we are on the path that does not lead where we are supposed to be, the extrication and resulting chaos can be terrifying. And exultant! Feelings reign supreme: am I what I believe? What can I strip away? What stories have I told myself over and over, hoping they were true, knowing they are not true. And when I know they aren't true, what the hell do I do?

Go forth into the great unknown. If you haven't been here before, you're doing the right thing. If everything is the same, familiar, been there-done that, it's not the right way. Readjust, course correction time.

For those of us with fragile hearts, luminous souls, this is an imperative. We must. Or we die. We must, or the world loses our gifts. We must, or we will become shadows, lurking the hallways of our future selves that didn't find their way home. We must, because we must.

It's all a test. And when we fuck up, we get more chances. Until we get it right. We only have this lifetime, in this form. What are you doing today? What are telling yourself that isn't true? Change is inevitable -- welcome it openheartedly, trust the universe, know you will fall and get up again. And there will be others on the path, who greet you with kindness, understanding, love and friendship.

It's all a test. It's not a false alarm.

On Loneliness

2010-10-07T22:47:00.000-04:00

speak to me of loneliness and i will tell you about the waiting time, the time between what is to be and what is, the distance between a raindrop and the ground, the time between bud and bloom. speak to me of hardship and i will tell you mine, the darkest night before the stars shine their faces into the clouds, the wallowing of waves in the middle of the ocean, the longing for sand and shore amidst an endless sea. speak to me of love and i will show you that we speak the same language -- we all do, the music of the universe that compels us to live and live and live. there is always music, even in the loneliness, if we tune our ears to hear it. there is always a brush against canvas, words on paper, the language of what is becoming against the backdrop of the night sky. the baby cries without words and is comforted by scent, by touch, by taste and soothing murmurs. we have all been there, even when we were not soothed or brushed or stroked. and yet, here we are, speaking the language of love amid the loneliness, amid the darkness, amid the fear that threatens with long shadows, even as hope lingers, luminescent and strange. this is how it is with the mortal soul. fear, shadow, light then clarity. it fades, it grows, it buds to bloom, then dies with autumn rain. speak to me of all that is, and i will listen. in turn, i too will speak.

Learning

2010-10-07T17:35:00.000-04:00

Long day of failure. Failure to prepare, failure to arrive on time, failure to get to two (2) post offices before they closed. Time to buckle down. To remember the priorities: work means working; kids mean planning and enjoying; life means showing up on time and getting enough sleep.

Had to pass on the yoga tonight. Much as I wanted to go, the stack of 60 journals I received today, along with the 30 short stories I still have to grade, seemed to be screaming at me from the back seat.

So I will sit at my desk, contemplate what I am learning, what I want my students to be learning, and how to make that more fluid. I won't continue to berate myself. I'm just going to work.

the silver lining...

2010-10-07T01:05:00.000-04:00

...of celibacy

well, for me it's running a little thin. but here goes.
1. can continue to spread out in the bed, flipping and flopping at will without disturbing anyone but my cat...
2. could choose to sleep with whomever i wanted to, as long as they aren't a) married b) have girlfriend c) only into casual sex
3. because i can't really do casual sex gracefully (trust me on this one)
4. can cook whatever i want, use as much garlic as i want and/or eat cookies and ice cream for dinner
5. have plenty of time to focus on all those great-big growth learning opportunities that have landed me in the silver lining
6. have plenty of time to write stupid posts about not getting any
7. must handle conflicts and loneliness on my own b/c i don't want to be calling all my friends who ARE getting some some loving and interrupt their joy
8. get to wait around for the right guy to show up
9. get to whine pathetically to all the boys with girlfriends or wives, knowing that if only things were different... (wait, that doesn't go in the silver lining column)
10. more time to focus on how clean or not clean my house is at any given moment
11. more time for words with friends on my iphone (most of them married or with girlfriends)
12. read and grade student work without any interruption (except for the overwhelming feeling that i could be doing something else...)
13. whine whine whine
14. don't have to share covers, pillows, toothbrushes or be responsible for "did you bring the condoms?" conversation
15. would gladly trade all these perks for a handsome man ringing the doorbell...

the world is at your command...

2010-10-06T01:02:00.001-04:00

why is it so easy to realize that simple things become complicated very quickly? that integrity and will do not always go hand in hand? that to face what is directly in front of us can be sooo hard when we are going it alone? the kids help. they keep me in the now when i can really enter the now and be with them. and yet, there are so many swirls of dreams (again with the dreams) and threads of past, future and fate intertwining. sometimes i need a break but what i really want is for it all to be here right now. now!

it's hard to be alone. after so many years you learn that it isn't just you, that it is most people, but when you see the ones who are living what you wish for, it is heartbreaking. i am not a jealous person, at least not in theory. i don't begrudge anyone their happiness, not even my ex (except for sometimes)... but i've never been good at shielding. i'm much more of an open book, full throttle, don't-hide-behind-the-mask of work, life, small talk, shopping... i'm more of a sex, death and god kind of talker. and yet, i long for the spoken, the seen, the real, the stuff i haven't had, not in family, not in marriage, finally now in my jewish community. i want to find the openness in companionship. the complicated messiness of knowing and being known.

and here i am, typing riddles in the dark, never able to sleep before one am, even with kids who have to be on the bus at eight. it's how i am. i don't hate it anymore, don't rage against it. others have different crosses to bear -- i know what my feelings are. i know what i want and what i dream. i don't wake up early. it could be worse. (how very jewish of me!)

and yet, i wonder. will this be something that i have in the future? all signs point to yes. but the waiiting, the always waiting, and the doing while waiting, and the knowing that even when it arrives there is still the doing, doesn't take away the wanting. i'm impatient. my rabbi tells me i will know things are really humming when i'm no longer impatient. i believe him, but i'm not there yet.

some of this makes sense, right?

maybe.
i'll read it again tomorrow. everything looks different in the morning.
it always does.

the morning after

2010-10-02T11:58:00.000-04:00

wow, headache.

i keep feeling like he is moving toward me, getting closer, things are building, but i have no idea who or what or when...twice this week i woke to the sound of the doorbell, went to answer the door, there was nobody there.

i have to remember that this journey is not about me. it's the soul's fulfillment through me. i want a love, not someone else's love. i have to remember that freedom comes with responsibility. i miss my children.

i (and here i go again with the"i") love going out to hear EBS. I went alone last night, and yet made some new friends, drank too much, performed a poem onstage with EBS back-up, and had a great time! But... is that what I should be doing? When I have papers to grade, a retreat/workshop to lead tomorrow and a yoga class to teach on Wednesday (which I've never done before)...

I dreamt last night that I was telling my mother that I'm at a point now where I should be sending stuff out, she kept telling me to get a typewriter. I dreamt that the kids woke up at 5:45 -- they're not even here! That my house was white everwhere inside -- it isn't, it's full of color! But my houses growing up were white walls everywhere.

Something is drawing closer, and I'd better get some of my shit together or I'm going to miss it. I have no idea what it would be like to be in a relationship and yet I want to be in one. I have the responsibility of holding my students' words, fears, and dreams, and yet I'm not listening as well as I could.

Hung over. Got my period. Too much to do today. I'm writing outside. It's beautiful out. I will do what I can do. I will find the fall in all of this, the beautiful fall that I once saw in vivid color -- you and I standing in a field surrounded by family and friends, dreaming together of what must be, what is to come, and didn't. But I am sitting in my beautiful yard, sunlight and crisp air reminding me of living and breathing and possibilities.

Closer. Come closer. I'll find a way...

Bloom (Grow Light 2)

2010-10-01T21:35:00.000-04:00

A New Vision of Love -- 2010 terms...musings

what are we, as lovers, if not witnesses to the heartache and joy of our own lives unfolding before each other's eyes? offer your heart, your soul, generously -- with kindness and respect, hopefulness and joy, and i will do the same. trust includes the willingness to say i don't know, i don't need to fix you, i don't need to change you in order to love you. i don't need to hurt you or be disappointed in you in order to make myself strong. it is the truest restraint -- to remain one's self in the face of love and allow that self to be changed by it but not for it, knowing that we are standing in service to something greater than we are -- something in which we play a part; and our willingness to channel and receive is what makes us stars, not the winning or the applause, the accolades or the success of getting it right, but the beauty of bearing witness to another soul deepening its roots, utilizing the sunshine and rain in order to grow into the unforeseen future of the specific and stunning creature we behold right there with us -- the one that hasn't bloomed before, the one that shines its own beauty to the world and we are given the gift of standing right there, present and free, bearing witness, basking in the glow of life unfolding all around us.

come grow with me, come stand in the grove of trees beyond this place, on this night, and bloom.

How I Love Getting Mail!

2010-09-27T21:56:00.000-04:00

for JR

After so many years, 19? 20? it is wonderful to hear your words. I must confess, I haven't cracked the cds yet -- but soon, I promise. Here are some of the things I remember about you...

We didn't have much time. Oddly, this seems to be a running theme in my life! But when someone slips a note under a gir's door speaking of fate and destiny, what does this romantic girl do? Fall, of course. How could she not?

I remember we never said, "I love you" but I did. It was you -- your scent, your kindness, your words and music, and your smile. How could I not love the kind ways you tended to me. I always thought that tender swipe of the your finger from my third eye down my nose said it all. Perhaps it was my imagination... I never had a chance to thank you for the unexpected kindnesses. A sandwich delivered to the library, a loan to get me through the last few days -- I think I still owe you $60!

And to hear of the women: it's heartbreaking to me. What's with the crazy fetish? Oops! I must be in that camp... Not because you don't have kindness to spare, but because you don't receive it in return. Know you are seen in this light, even after all this time.

I remember Coltrane, her devotion, her playfulness, and how much I didn't know dogs! I still have Malik, my cat whom I picked out at the MSPCA in Montreal, and here he is: 19 and meowing as I write.

Was I writing when I knew you? I don't remember if that had quite begun yet? I had to enter the depths, find myself floundering many times, sunk under by depression, before figuring out how to save myself and swim to the surface. It's been 20 years of swimming. I think the surface is up ahead... at least there's light there.

Some music for you to make sure you find: Patty Griffin (Living with Ghosts and Children Running Through), Lucinda Williams - everything!, Lori McKenna, still Ani, but less now than before, Death Cab for Cutie, Carbon Leaf, and so much more that isn't here in my head right now.

I dreamt of meeting J soon after you told me. That always stayed with me. I have met so many men in the last five years who are thwarted by responsibilities that are not fulfilling to their souls, but what they must do. I get it, but I mourn for the love that is lost to the world by the dimming of lights, the shouldering of burdens, the hunkering down to do what must be done.

I married the wrong man for me and ended up with two beautiful children. I adore them, and I am plagued by all I don't know about how to raise them, show them kindness, love and respect when my modeling wasn't about that. I struggle and go on. I do what I can. I am starting to understand that my life isn't all about me... and I must change and shoulder all that I can for them.

I am teaching writing to college students after not working for seven or eight years. I got a master's degree in broadcast journalism and fell in love with documentary video -- another form of storytelling. I still have never learned to play my guitar.

I have found an incredible spiritual community and find myself more loved and truly honored than I ever have before. This is a gift. I am a self-named poet rabbi for this community -- you can read about it at www.poetrabbi.blogspot.com

I hope you are still dreaming, I hope you are still loving all you can. I hope your gentleness is seen and valued. I know you must be a wonderful father. Keep writing, and don't stay too long in the wrong place. I'm pulling for you.

Hugs,
S

Yom Kippur 5771

2010-09-18T23:02:00.000-04:00

What To Keep, What To Discard

Keep burning. Slow flame, low grade hunger, all forms of inspiration.

Discard self-doubt, familiar trappings and fear.

Keep loving, keep loving, keep loving.

Discard unnecessary words, hurtful memories, pieces of untruths we used to believe.

Keep knowing the soul is luminous, keep the memories that remind us of joy.

Discard deeply held tortures, romantic endings, the unReal.

Keep the gifts that have been given.

Discard the gifts that were really guilt or expectations given in disguise.

Keep forgiveness in your back pocket. Know it is never given foolishly.

Discard hurts that are no longer relevant. Know the universal soul can absorb them and love them into healing.

Keep all sources of strength. When the reserves falter, know the well is not dry, only waiting for rain and the shifting of tides and water tables.

Discard any drain on your energy. Reduce, conserve, reuse, recycle.

Keep joy whenever it comes, let it refill you for when it goes.

Discard the things you have said that you regret. Offer kindness in its place.

Keep connecting, keep connecting, keep connecting. Don't make people come to you as a test. Test your own capacity for openness.

Discard hopelessness. Fill the hole with self-love. Breathe more. Worry less. Breathe. Trust. Sing.

I Answer My Soul or I Afflict My Soul

2010-09-18T22:49:00.002-04:00

When I listen, really listen, I know the difference. Standing, afraid but undeterred, facing the Real truth, the hard (and easy) truth of who I am, what is being asked of me and still I am standing, mountainous and present.

The mind circles round, birds wheeling the updraft, giant hands in the clock of time, naming the fears, the deterrents, the distractions, the pros and cons, the potential outcomes.

Here's the thing:
A. That's what the mind does.
B. The soul answers the call, not the mind.

When God asks you to move mountains, to walk through the doorway, the only answer is yes or no. Sing or afflict. Yes will change you forever. Yes is harder, and easier, both. Yes is the only answer.

No is choosing, "I afflict my soul."

And we have chosen that so many times before -- that bag we carry around with us, that heavy sack of regrets and could-have-beens, roads laid out before us that we knew led to joy but we left unexplored, they live there, bumping against our legs as we drag it along behind us.

Drop it. Yes. The soul sings yes.

It's heavy and beautiful. What we are being asked to do, to sing our souls, seems impossible. And yet the task holds joy in its teeth as a promise, an offering.

We are the wild dog, the tenacious tendril of joy clinging to brick that survives. When the mountain doesn't move, the doorway that cycles round presents itself again and again, moment to moment, year to year, hands spinning like frantic birds, until we say "I answer my soul. I will not afflict my soul. I am. Yes."

And walk through, mountainously strong, fiercely joyful and soaringly open -- so heartbreakingly open that truth and hardship become easy, the joy and the real reside in one place now, and we answer, truly answer.

We answer yes. We sing our souls.

Ode to the Broken Boys

2010-09-16T23:36:00.001-04:00

I know it is hard to see
that we are all broken
before we are made strong
that falling apart i
s the only way to put ourselves back together

I'm sorry they tell you
you must crawl out of the womb
strong and fighting;

the heartbreak and horror can kill us
before we even know what happened,
the aloneness its own form of torture,
the layers of armor shellacking the soul
before we even have a chance to sing.

When we really need each other
and think we shouldn't need at all
we are fragmented fragile eggshells
clinging to the skin of a smooth and rounded possibility
stomped crystal glasses that used to hold dreams
in the curve of bulb meeting stem
we are old cities, destroyed temples and
burned out bridges that never get repaired

but we would be mistaken
to shutter our windows, close our doors
and think we deserve this darkness.

Oh, broken boys, trust me
we are all warriors at some point
and we are all felled in battle somewhere along the way

if i were to fall
i would want to be picked up
and gently tended to
until i healed

so walk with me
calmly, slowly, gently, in time

follow my lead until you have found
your own way to be made strong again
and then, if you wish,
take your place beside me
as a warrior of the light.

the 28th: Feeling sorry for myself

2010-08-28T20:04:00.000-04:00

Here’s the rub. He comes over the other day to drop the kids, all distressed, all bummed. I am kind. Kinder than I need to be, kinder than I should be, but I know him in and out, I say the things that are true, I offer warmth because I can, without expectation of reciprocation, because I am in a good mood. And he doesn’t recognize it, but who cares?

But today… today they are getting ready to go to family camping. The one week a year where we would return to his old summer camp on Lake Winnipesauke, sleep in a tent, eat in the dining hall (three meals a day NOT cooked or planned by me) and swim, walk, boat, lounge.

I loved it and hated it. Loved it because it was beautiful. Hated it because it made him anxious. Loved it because it was our only vacation. Hated it because it took him the whole time to return to himself and then it was time to leave. Loved it because there were other people there to talk to when he was having his fits, hated it because he needed to organize the tent properly every day before he could relax. Loved it because our family was making memories, hated it because I spent five years there either pregnant or nursing and he insisted on tenting, not a cabin with a bathroom.

If I have to tell the truth, and I do, because I believe in it, today, when I drop the kids off, I am jealous. And feeling afraid.

He has our house, our rooms, all the stuff that used to make up my life. And now he has a girlfriend, whom I like, who loves the kids, and the kids love her, which is what you want – seriously, better than having her be an evil awful witch – but...

when I drop the kids off today and see them as a family, all participating together, all doing things that he wanted, things that I wanted but could never seem to make happen, I realize it wasn’t me. Or it was me. We didn’t work. But he thinks it was just me. And there are the flowers I planted and the paint colors I chose and the memories I built for six years in that house while he worked six days a week, and it just hurts. And he’s having fun.

And here I am, trying to get my shit together, and it seems like it never ends, it may never happen. And when he marries her, which he will, I won’t have health insurance any more. And when he marries her, and he will, they will have more kids, and I won’t, and I am jealous – I wanted a third.

Irrationally, but wholeheartedly.
I wasn’t done yet.

And now I am sad, tearing-up, and he asks me why, and I shrug, and he follows me out to my car, and I start to tell him of my sadness and fears, and he gets defensive, tells me to stop pressuring him to marry his girlfriend!!!

which I didn’t do, (duh!!!) it does not benefit me in any way for him to be married, and I think what a fool I was to take some of the terms of the divorce without thinking them through further, who knew he’d find his second wife within months of me moving out?

And I think what a moron I am for thinking I could even tell him why I am sad and scared and on my own, while he is the same, just with a new twist to things, and I think what a moron I am for thinking he has the capacity for kindness without his own self front and center (duh, that’s why I divorced him!) and then I am thinking that I once again fooled myself into thinking that friendship or co-parenting or whatever the fuck it is that we have now together would include his interest in my well-being (duh) and isn’t that sad?

That I spent ten years trying to be right for him when I wasn’t and couldn’t and wouldn’t want to be and still, he has never, ever said he is sorry.

Those Summer Nights

2010-07-29T00:35:00.001-04:00

It is a warm night -- not too hot, but humid. A good night to sleep with the windows open, ceiling fan going, not too many clothes. I have spent the day working on the bathroom. Stripping away the rest of the paper and glue, washing down the walls, sanding the tile, then taping the floor. I will put the first coat of primer on before I go to bed.

There are forty other things I should also be doing. Folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, packing for Story Land, calling Subaru to bring in my car for service, calling Apple to figure out where the hell my iPhoto library went, mailing back the final papers my students wrote, paying my tax accountant, finding a new backpack for myself, writing out lesson plans for the fall classes I will teach, getting rid of the clothes I don't need or want, paring down, getting organized, figuring out when and how I am going to quit smoking, typing up all the poems I wrote in France...

but tonight I am sitting outside in a lawn chair listening to the crickets, smoking, and practicing surrender. I will put on that first coat of primer in a few minutes. I will get myself ready for bed. I will sleep and wake and all the mess I have created in my constant starting of new projects will all still be there in the morning. This is my life now. I am not going to magically transform into someone methodical and organized. I am going to chip away at stuff and somehow it will get done. I am going to continue to be myself and not feel bad about all the things I am not. I will remember that many of the gifts I have are valuable, even if they aren't neat and tidy and don't travel in straight lines. I will find my way.

It is beautiful out here. I could abandon myself to the night, the faint traffic sounds, the breeze, the smell of mint grown wild over my rosebushes.

Freedom is a pricey choice. It isn't simple or neat and tidy. It doesn't include all the perks of a partnered household. It is messy and oblique and there is a ring around the almost full moon that makes me remember all the ways I have yearned for freedom and found myself here -- paintbrush waiting, thoughts of what has passed flashing by in a river of memory.

It's not that it's all good; it just all is. And I am. And it's a beautiful summer night. Everyone I have loved and who has loved me are with me. This I know. It's almost enough.

And now, for the primer, the bathroom, the messiness of being in all of it, forty things hanging over my head, chipping away with a spackle knife and an orbital sander.

Surrender, I tell myself.
You can do it.

Single Woman's Blues (or Porn and the Garden of Eden)

2010-07-26T17:27:00.000-04:00

I must admit, I'm really getting tired of porn on the internet -- free, of course, not saved or paid for... It started with the stories, sort of like the Penthouse forum that really turned me on when I was twelve and found a stash of mags under my cousin's bed. But some of the stories I'm coming across now are so crass (c'mon, she HATES it when he rams her cervix!!) and some of the stories take so looong to get going, so I ended up, well... looking!

Here's the part where I bitch about porn -- about how so many of the women (and men for that matter) seem to really NOT be enjoying themselves. How the whole thing is about parts, not the whole. How "Baby" is interchangeable with any name, how this transaction is so very clearly stimulus input, stimulus output, so to speak.

BUT... (yep, there's a but) I guess there is something there... The noises. The sounds of orgasm, the unscripted utterances that happen when pleasure, stimulation, sensation, that sweet spot is found -- I remember those noises. Not from my marriage, which was silent and controlled, but from other lovers -- even myself when I was less disappointed, more open and moving, sweet centers and kindness, passion and sexy and damn this is good! and I remember that it's not just the input/output equation, it's supposed to be fun, like let down the walls and play, like let's know and be known, like it's not all work or duty or like that but not this, it's sensation and skin, compassion and soul, it's joy and breath, it's you and me and the ride, not the always predetermined destination, and I'm growing more and more discontented with the fake boobs and faceless cocks on the screen, the dull drone of my vibrator, the silence and drudgery of solo sex, and I remember that once we stood together in the garden and loved each other.

I remember your skin and your eyes, and this exile has nothing to do with all the separate parts, real or fake, but the longing for wholeness, the integrated joy of a life, the sounds of the garden that used to sing in our veins, and hopefully, soon, someone else will come along and request entry.

Doldrums

2010-06-06T02:37:00.000-04:00

I haven't been writing that much lately. I've been too sunk by depression and the overwhelming reality of what it really is to be a single divorced mom in the burbs with two great kids, an ex-husband who is not my friend and ally, and without supportive family around.

There is a steep learning curve involved in getting into a new stage of life where you (I) are responsible for everything from paying the endless stack of bills on a much reduced budget to cooking, cleaning, learning to maintain a house, a yard, friendships, your kids friendships, a support structure, some fun things to do, find work, fix ailing appliances, price out new windows, learn to mow your own lawn, and hopefully find some creative time, some structure and continuity within a constantly rotating shared custody schedule, as well as grappling with your own mistakes, failings, ethical and moral mis-steps, and not completely losing your own small and ever fading center.

These were things I was not overwhelmingly successful at as part of a married couple. Now I'm doing them alone. The ex has moved on, he's happy, in a serious relationship, his family loves the new woman, still hates and shuns me, and I am buried under a mountain of shame and self-doubt exemplified by the ever growing pile of laundry that lives in my spare bedroom.

I keep thinking if I can find a structure, a routine, a group of habits that helps get some areas on track, the rest will happen. But to be completely honest, I'm failing right now.

And the biggest fear to face is a) I didn't leave to fail and b) the kids are happy and healthy, but I am forever feeling marginalized by my inability to get systems running.

Truth is: I often want to run away from it all, find escape, find anything that will make me feel like I am worthy of these beautiful children, the opportunities to use my talents, the big shining heart that I have -- but the daily life activities take me so much longer to do than normal people, I can't balance it all.

I need a housekeeper. I need to stop making excuses. I need to feel better and more alive. I understand strategies and what works for other people, I just don't know how to DO those things.

And maybe this will pass. But what if it doesn't. Think of all I could do if I could just master the activities of daily living so I didn't have to think about them. Is there a boot camp out there for that? "How to get organized and stay organized, cook three meals a day, pack lunches, make phone calls, clean the gutters and mow the lawn, enjoy your children, get them to help out, get them to eat healthy food, stop whining and listen" -- all for under $250 and still leave you time to exercise, write, quilt, and visit with friends?

If you have any ideas, let me know. Until then, I am going to chase my tail for a while longer, and hope that I can muster a little more energy, a little more resolve to figure out what the top 83 priorities are and then live them.

Messenger

2010-06-01T11:19:00.000-04:00

i know we say don't shoot the messenger, but really it should be "don't fall in love with the messenger" -- that sweet angel of god sent to whisper in your ear, sent to see you, really see you, the way you were meant to be seen, and then relentlessly and ever so gently shove you back to your life, the life you will now lead, forever changed, freeing yourself slowly from the chains of unseen, unfree, but still alone, longing yet again for those soft lips brushing your ear, that kind smile emanating from the crinkly eyes that see, the beautiful mouth that spoke your name in the same sentence as the words truth and beauty and allowed you to see yourself the way you really are.

but that angel does not return, he was a messenger, so now the life is fueling yourself with god, all around you, within you, beside you, healing the broken places and the deep wounds of unloved, unseen, the true wounds even you, with years of therapy and introspection, had been afraid to look at.

no one can tell you how long you will wander in this wilderness of healing. god's voice, gravelly and unreal, comes to you in meditation, trust me, and you do, but like labor, you have no idea of the real outcome, only the real belief that someday if will be done, you will heal, this is god time, eternal and fleeting, 39 years and mowing the lawn yourself, waiting to be reborn, wheeling that lawnmower up the driveway when it dies, hacking branches off trees to make a clearer path for the new circuitous route you must take around the yard, hoping the gas and oil you add in the garage will be enough to allow you to finish the job, to circumvent the returns department at home depot, to allow you to make yourself ready before sunset and blessings, candles and challah, children in your home this week, knowing that one day they will know truth and beauty and your real name. hoping you taught and lived enough forgiveness that they, in turn, will offer it when it is sought.

On Stopping

2010-05-23T20:32:00.000-04:00

These days I am thinking a lot about how ridiculous it is to stop loving. It's like stopping breathing -- you can't do it or you die. Can't even fathom it, so it's a ridiculous pursuit.

Instead, I'm focusing on stopping expecting -- expecting things to be different than they are.

In yoga and in Torah study, it's all about getting down to the real of what is. Only then can you step into the possibility each present moment holds. So for me, the real is this: the people I love and have loved, love me they way they are. Not the way I want them to be, or the way I wanted them to love me, but the way they are. Facing that hard truth is the essence of moving forward. Not an easy task as I stand before a mountain of loss, but it is real.

So I can't expect my ex to be any different than who he is. And I can't expect my family to be any different than who they are. And I am fortunate to have a small collection of souls standing alongside me as I dig and shovel and heft my way through the grief of facing the real. No one is going to bail me out, no one is there to cling to when the going gets tough, saying, "Don't worry, I'll shield you from this." But instead, the witnessing of the struggle, the being known by some as a woman who can move mountains, is the real, the heart, the truth of who I am and the truth of those who see me. They can't do it for me.

I have been longing for someone else to dig. For someone else to say, don't worry, this mountain isn't really that big.

But it is. And although I feel incredibly lonely as I dig, I know I am not completely alone. Just alone in the ways that follow when I expect the ones who don't see me, who don't stand with me, to hand me a shovel, to take a turn at the mountain, to whisper, "You're doing great. It's just a little further now."

And when I look around, there are mountains everywhere, each one of us with a shovel or a teaspoon, a big enormous rock in the path and no way around except up. And so I remember that the only one who moves this mountain, this specific mountain, is me.

I can long for something that isn't. But it will be disappointing, because it cannot be. People are who they are. Only by digging and jumping, falling and flying, will I find my way. Focus on expectations, the real, the truth of who I am and the immense capacity I have for love.

It's like breathing. You do it without thinking or you die. But expecting someone else can breathe for you is certain death. So, I breathe and I dig, breathe and dig, finding my way to the light that is certainly buried within this mountain of grief and regret, unmet expectations and needs still strong and roaring.

Someday I will be a lion. Someday I will watch those whom I have loved stop breathing. Someday I will be known as a woman who moved mountains. Right now, I am sitting with the real -- rocky and dirty and exhausting as it is. But I chose it. Whatever I struggle against, and through, I chose it. And so I dig.

Birthday 2010

2010-05-14T23:19:00.000-04:00

You know those days where everything is just off? As in BAD? Unfortunately, today was one of those days.

Don't get me wrong -- I am so grateful for all the birthday wishes that came through facebook and the people who called, thank you. But somehow, it was still a crapola day.

Part of it is endings. The end of the semester, the end of my routine up until now, the end of the expectations that my life is going to be transformed without having to put one slow foot in front of the other. And some days we trudge with heavy feet, knowing we chose the mud and the walk and we have no right to complain, but today this walk sucks. So I am walking. And the complaining is here in words but it is so much deeper than that. It is an empty pit that never gets filled. A dark cloud of thunder on a beautifully sunny day. An understanding in the core of your being that gratitude is better for your soul than hopelessness and still you feel hopeless.

Today, if it weren't for my kids, I would have holed up and waited for the day to pass. Chalked it up to a thundercloud of being, and hid under the covers. Sometimes I wonder why I am doing all of this. Whether I truly believe it is worth it.

I do. But I have my doubts about my ability to live beyond the cloud. There are some days that I am electric, life force flowing out of me without hesitation. Other days, I am a black hole of need. An endless cavern of yearning for all that I never had and will not have. The bright flashlight doesn't do much for the dark on those days. Some people seem to always have a flame for dispelling darkness. Some of us burn bright and then fade. I worry I will always flip-flop like this, that someday the darkness will win out and I will crawl into that cavern of need and die.

Maybe that's how it is. But I want so much more than that. And yet, my wanting doesn't necessarily translate into the ability to get up and shine the next day. I wish it did. I wish it were that simple. Decide, get up, go. Maybe it is and I am just lacking. I don't know.

My birthday was saved by my best friend. She and her son baked me a cake, had me and my kids over dinner, showered us with friendship, homemade challah, cake and presents, showed me I was loved. I haven't had a birthday like that in years. I am so grateful.

From my cave, looking for the lantern, I am so grateful.

Poem For My First Class

2010-05-06T08:20:00.000-04:00

What I want you to know:

I fail every day.

From not getting up on time to not cleaning the kitchen, from saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, to procrastinating when I should be doing something productive. But I also succeed. When I find the right words to explain what I mean, when I answer the phone at the right time, when a friend needs me at this particular moment.

Life is a mix of failure and success and hopefully the balance of good surpasses the bad. Do not be afraid to fail. You will, and everyone around you does, don’t worry that its only you – it isn’t.

Everyone you meet has teaching in them. Not the way you might think, but listen. Pay attention. And know that you, too, have something to offer in the way you are in the world.

Do not be afraid. You are good, even when you aren’t. You are. Trust me.

Shed shame like a snake leaves its skin behind. You will have to do this over and over. And then again. Keep going. The essence of who you are lies under this scaly shadow. It’s important to notice, and then let it go. We all hold shame in our bones – give it back to the earth, off to the sky, let the self that emerges be beautiful.

Do not fear the body. It doesn’t matter what size you are, what you look like naked, how you compare to anyone else, it’s about how you inhabit your skin, the way you move through time and space. Love this body as though it were sacred. It is. You will find pleasure and joy, pain and sorrow, but do not fear it: this is what we are meant to do.

Take time to notice your feelings. Name them. Share them if you want, but do not fear them. We all screw up in this arena – its how we learn. It’s painful and disappointing at times, unbelievably beautiful at others.

Remember that our feelings are telling us something. Don’t discount them, don’t rationalize them away, don’t bury them under all the bedrock of the past or the potential future. How do you feel right now? Own it. Maybe write about it. But know it for yourself, then you can move on.

Spend ten minutes a day in silence. Close your eyes. Breathe. Notice where your mind goes. Remember who you are. Then go about your day. Enjoy it.

When things get rough, remember you are surrounded by a web of love. People you know, friends, family, the energy that flows between us. Anyone can be lost and then found again. Trust this. Truth and love are there for the asking.

If you want to explore, then do so. There is nothing that says you are supposed to follow a path that is laid out before you. If you are on one and it fits, you will know. If you are heading in a direction that doesn’t work, adjust course. You don’t have to be anything you are not.

For the women: remember that love, marriage and family are not the sole path to fulfillment. They may be part of the path, but they are not the end game. You still need to know who you are and what you will bring to this world.

For the men: remember that work is not everything. It is part of the journey, part of what is expected and necessary, but if it takes up more than 60% of your energy overall, you need to look up and remember the other parts of yourself. Don’t bury them. Let them live and run free.

For all of you: We are sacred vessels that bring forth life. Scary, yes, but such an opportunity for growth, change and connection. Love wholeheartedly and you will find peace.

Remember that couples are meant to stand separate, but closer than anyone else. In relationship you get to find out what no one else knows about one another. If you know it’s temporary, say so. If you know it isn’t for you, own it. Don’t wait. Don’t let the other decide. It’s your responsibility. It’s your life.

I want you to know I have learned as much from you as you have from me, probably more. In this community, I have had the chance to step into a new phase of my life, a new path, a new role. You made me a teacher. I am ever grateful. I am so glad it was you.

Last Day of Class

2010-04-29T20:30:00.000-04:00

Last class today (sigh). I asked them to write 3 things they learned that they didn't know before the class.

A couple of quotes:

"I didn't know how creative I actually was and I didn't know what I really had inside."

"I learned we are Professor Libby's first class. Which is ironic considering I attended this class more than all my other 8:00 classes since freshman year. I love writing but hate writing fiction. Professor Libby changed all that for me."

"From you I learned to be open and that through writing you have the ability to portray your life without ever mentioning yourself in the story. I learned like you learned from the old man at the bar that everything happens for a reason and to learn from the past but not dwell on it. I learned that if it is bothering you, put it on paper and just keep writing. Straying is good. I learned that yoga in the morning not only takes minutes away from classtime, but also loosens you up and allows you to get your thoughts on paper. I learned our animal instincts and what truly drives us as human beings is to do what we do and be who we are."

I am verklempt.
I think I became a teacher.

How You Know God Wants You To Quit Smoking

2010-04-26T16:02:00.000-04:00

So you all know I started smoking again after I moved into my house. I kept saying to myself, "This won't be a long-time thing. It's temporary." But then all the other work of living alone, raising kids, starting a new job set in, and I set it aside as a "soon" thing but now "now."

Today, National Grid was doing work at my neighbor's house. I don't smoke in front of my kids, ever. But my babysitter was at the house and entertaining Eli for a bit, and I snuck outside for a few drags before going back in to grade papers.

As I sat on the wooden walkway to the side of the house (where Eli would never see me, even if he popped out unexpectedly) I asked the National Grid guys what they were doing. "Putting in a new gas line. We're doing that for all the houses." Oh yeah. That little door-hanger a few months back... I called the number, got no answer, and then it went into the theoretical category of "someday" or "soon" but not now.

"I think I need one of those too..."

"Oh yeah? Let me see your basement."

I stubbed out the just-begun cigarette and walked into the house with him. Showed him the gas line, the meter, then we walked around to the side of the house (not where I was sitting originally, the other side) and he agreed that I do need a new gas line. Then he showed me where the gate is at the front of my property where it meets the street, and told me he'd put my address into the planning book.

I thanked him and then went back to my unsmoked cigarette, and lit it. As I walked to the place in front of the garage where I often stand to steal a few drags, I noticed a spreading patch of black in front of my house, right up against the house, in the mulch behid the bushes. On closer examination, I realized that it was smoking -- as in small puffs of smoke were coming from the ground!

I put my hand out and the ground was hot. Electrical fire? House on fire? WTF?!!!

I called the National Grid guys over and they are baffled, pull out a shovel, dig up the top layer of mulch and confirm that indeed, it is smoking. They grab their gas meter -- nothing. Look overhead to confirm that the electricity does not come in from below ground, nope -- wires right above our heads.

Speculation runs rampant: match? cigarette butt? kids these days? it's kinda far for someone to toss something out the window and land up here, on the slope up...

I tell them I do smoke, but I always throw my butts in the trash. The tease me that I am trying to light my house on fire, and say they have never seen anything like this before. They suggest that I get a hose and spray down the whole front area just to be sure, which I immediately do.

Did I stub out my half-smoked cigarette in the mulch? I don't know. Honestly, I don't remember. It's possible. I have done that before. But never in my life have I seen a patch of ground just smoking like that.

Burning bush? On fire but not consuming? WTF?

All I know is, I have three cigarettes left in this pack. I will smoke them before I get home, and then I will not buy any more.

God is telling me it's time to quit smoking.

A new day

2010-04-26T08:47:00.001-04:00

It's morning! My kids come home today. I woke to Malik yowling, jumped out of bed, and found him stuck in the garage! Poor kitty.

Today, I think I can do anything. Slowly, for sure, but one foot in front of the other. Freedom is within and without. We can make ourselves free.

Alisa is helping me make a life plan, meaning creating a map of the elements I want in my life and then scheduling my week around making sure that the important elements get covered in each week. Hallelujah! Having friends that are willing to help me in my journey have made ALL the difference.

I feel renewed today. Still swamped by stuff, I have way too much stuff, but the possibility that I can be a mother and make sure my kids are fed and happy and loved and cared for is within reach. Finding ways to feed my soul while still taking care of a house and myself, a family and a job, somehow seems more possible.

Go figure.

I will go to Torah study now, bring my life map to Alisa and create a schedule. Then I will see my kids, hang out, clean up, and make lunches for tomorrow. I will save money. I will stop coveting other people's lives and live my own.

It is all here. I am inspired by Bonnie's success with Bootcamp, Len's willingness to help me buy a lawnmower, and my student's willingness to tell their truths.

But now, it's time for a shower.

so many thoughts, so little time (#6?/30)

2010-04-24T20:55:00.000-04:00

when you step back in the ring, twelve years after your last first date, you realize you are twelve years older, twelve years wiser, but you no longer know the lingo, the status quo, the way of things, so you can either revert to where you were twelve years ago, or stop.

take a breath, look around, and realize that you can do anything.

no, you don't have to hide what you think. no, you don't have to ignore warning signs. no, you don't have to find a man who wants to have kids. no, you don't have to do anything except, well, continue to get to know yourself. and how you relate to new people as they audition for an undefined role.

maybe you turn them away on the spot (see post about guy who kissed me then said, "c'mon, is that all i'm gonna get?!!). maybe you check it out a little, maybe you change your mind, maybe you decide to stay home.

the point is: i will still have to clean my gutters, mow my lawn, feed my kids, change the litterbox, learn to work, write more often, find time to meditate and exercise, love my life, live with love at the center, and free myself from the baggage and pain of ten years married to a man who didn't appreciate the gift of me, the joy of me, the heart that is kind and good in me.

last night, new guy said, "you're one of the smiliest people i've ever met." how funny to me, after hearing so much criticism about how endlessly, insufferably negative i was during my marriage.

i am smiley. and when i am unhappy, i am insufferably negative. so, now i know -- don't ignore what the life is telling you. and keep going. there's bound to be someone out there looking for me. when i find him, i'll probably smile. a lot!

the problem as i see it

2010-04-20T00:18:00.000-04:00

kissing in parking lots
will never be the same
i don't care what anyone
says, it isn't the how
it's the who and how

and even though
the same streetlights
illuminate at just the same
wattage, with just a few more
days or weeks or months
gone by, it just isn't the

what, it's the who
it's the way the lips
follow the air until
contact is made, the way
pressure and friction
cannot be taught like
physics and chemical
calibration, it's the illusion
that my next kiss
and the one after it
and the one even further
down the road
might someday
replace the memory
of the kiss that left all
memory in its wake
the ones that suspended
time until the wattage
and the hours, days, minutes,
months, weeks, were all
now and now and now

and now i sit
in parking lots
kissing strangers
telling myself
how very little good
it does me to remember
and yet i cannot
forget the ghosts whisper
of your lips
that knew just where
the air was going to be
and how best
to fill the space.

4/30 (yes, i'm behind)

2010-04-07T22:20:00.000-04:00

when i'm not angry with you
i remember
how very different we are
how we fell in love
on a frozen january night

then made love on the floor
of a hawaii apartment
just moments from the beach

when i am not so angry with you
i remember
how the gaps between us
were always so difficult to bridge
but we found reading aloud
often did the trick
and when it didn't
we walked

when i am not scared
i remember
you used to have good intentions
used to act as though you were not
my superior, just different

when i am not scared
i remember
all i saw in you that i admired
before i realized
that my admiration
was seen as tacit consent
to become better
the way you were better
the way you wanted me to be better

when i am not so angry and scared
i remember
that i am not the only one
with lies
and deceit
in my back pocket
and you cannot take my children

when i am not angry
i know that you never understood
that a simple change of tone
didn't convince me
that you were right

i remember
that you never saw
that i am different
from those who work for you
that a simple "yes sir"
was never part of my vocabulary

but i have not told you that
flat out to your face

when i am not scared
i wonder what it will feel like
to not be suspicious
to not worry that every mistake
will become fodder
for a lawsuit

and when i am not scared
i believe
that someday you will remember
that you chose me
to be the vehicle
to bring forth our children
and i am good

and someday
you will turn to me
and remember
that we were in love
that we weren't right
in so many ways
but we both lost
and gained

that we both shed tears
and dreams in the dark of night
that still runs through the fabric
of our current
conversations

and someday
may we remember
even in moments of fury
and disconnect
that each of us
carry our rage and fears
tightly pressed to our chests

and may we hold even closer
the memory
that we used to call the other
beloved.

what is the meaning of this (30/3)

2010-04-05T15:58:00.001-04:00

spring in suburbia
is delightful dragonfly children and
poets who speak their souls
and call for subaru advice

an ex-husband who fixed my toilet
a small kindness for his
outbursts of badness
for which he is not sorry

a woman pulls a lawn mower cord
too long for her body
and fails
to get it started

longing is an unwanted cousin
a lingering guest
a dandelion gone to seed

a child plants pansies in the front yard
a room full of students write their hearts
for the first time and bloom
when they are heard

the challenge is to find freedom
in the unfamiliar, an unmarked treasure map
of the soul that has not spoken
for a long while

the sun rises again
grants us a gleaning of warmth
that will turn to rain

but today
we pretend
it will last forever.

Kissing Is Not Over Rated

2010-04-02T23:43:00.000-04:00

I'm trolling the personal ads, and it's funny
and a little sad
so many men "happily"
(read securely) married
looking for love
love, love, love
and then i see
kissing is not
over rated

two words
over rated

and why is it
that i married a man
who didn't like to kiss
(read, kiss me)
then fell for a man
who loved to kiss me
(read, question answered)
but was happily married

and i don't think for a second
that i will find love on craigslist
(all the jews are on jdate)
and i am not really looking
because then i would look
on jdate

but kissing
is never
over
rated
only undervalued

and i am going
to sleep.

1/30 (30 poems in 30 days, take 1)

2010-04-01T23:45:00.000-04:00

the new unnecessaries

vanilla lattes, library fines, lights left on, books, ice cream, stickers, massage, amazon.com, dinners out, pesto, house cleaners, lawn care, painting the house, travel, babysitting, yoga, a piano, fabric, netflix, cable, matching furniture, a new bathroom, therapy, group therapy, acupuncture, gym membership, yoga retreat, kripalu, haircuts, pedicure, automatic yeses, grocery line bargains to keep the peace, summer vacation at the ocean, competition, love life, sense of security, retirement savings, freedom to buy, sense of duty to a dead principle, longing for release, someone to lean on, someone to share with, company.

letter to myself

2010-03-30T18:04:00.000-04:00

...i'm sorry i forgot. i got derailed, distracted, blown off course by the fantasy that i wanted, instead of the reality i set out to create. i'm sorry. i'm back.

i forgot that this was always about freedom -- mind, body, soul, the elements within aligning with what has always been, what is, and what will be. i lost track of myself for a little bit, but now i remember.

the desert wind is hard and fast against my skin. i've had so many days without water i dream of rain, the ocean, the rushing river that carves its way through time. every footstep is the stinging of sand, the silence of night when it descends, the cold that always follows heat.

i forgot myself.

and now that i remember, i stand, another moving rock willing to be carved down to essence, a sculpture waiting to be revealed by the hand that made me, that made time, that stops time with every revelation.

there are other travelers on this road, but we are a lonely bunch, each one of us carries the burdens of our former selves on our backs, the soles of our shoes on our shoulders, the heart carries what we need to survive. we have moments of joy, but each one of us trudges from time to time.

luckily, there is song.

when the fires of night burn low, this woman with vision weaves a web of song. she remembered when we left, made sure we did not leave without this gift, this taste of joy, even in our leavetaking.

by night, when spirits are low and all of us ache with the dashed hopes and easy answers we thought were waiting for us on the other side of that river, she sings us into a bound group of souls who left bondage for other, not knowing what it would be, not knowing the weight of the losses and the tests that stood before us. if we had known, we might not have left. better that we didn't know. even on the bitterest of nights, on this we agree. better to not know.

and yet, each day dawns and we journey. we journey and forget and remember all at the same time, one foot in front of the other, regrets and hopes a memory from another life. this is different. this is freedom. we are all learning, step by step.

i'm sorry. i forgot myself in the heat, the weight of this journey. but here i am. i am here.

I always thought/I never thought...

2010-03-20T00:33:00.001-04:00

i always thought the whole thing about 'if you love someone set them free, if they really love you they'll come back' was a load of crap. no one ever comes back. you can never go back. or, i can never free myself of wondering, of hoping, so how freely have i really let go? am i really capable of love?

problem. spinny brain loop.

do i really know how to love? the selfless thing is so hard to master when i am so full of desire, of yearning. i can love selflessly sometimes. not all the time. i haven't hit that stage of evolution or elevation yet.

i always thought that when i reached a certain level, i could claim something as mine. not so. here i am, knowing that nothing is for me, that desire is a cawing crow, a restless leg, a chattering monkey, a dog chomping on a short lead, and i have not found mastery, the way to commune with god that brings me to love that is truly selfless, that is for those who have come before and those who will come after and not for me, this me, right now.

i never thought i would feel your absence as an emptiness in the pit of my stomach, an elevator dropping quickly beneath my feet when i thought i could handle the ten floor ride. i always thought i was an elevator cowboy, strong and steady on my feet. i never thought the pit in my stomach would undo me to the point of taking the stairs.

i never thought i would marry the wrong man, bear his children, watch my babies grow, only to discover the emptiness i felt with their father was still there. i never thought i would still feel like that child who could do nothing right, who could not please her parents, at 38 standing in the parking lot at mel's commonwealth cafe on the corner of route 30 and school street while my ex-husband continued his seven year litany of judgment against me, this time postulating that the children are asking for more time with me because i am not spending enough time with them when i have them, instead of thinking that they want to be with me more because i am their MOTHER and they aren't used to spending so much time with their father. no. that wouldn't be the reason. too easy.

i never thought i would marry someone to whom i have to defend myself, still, for not being a good mother. for being a mother who works, who spends time with her kids but not every waking moment, for being a woman who wants a life that includes them as well as other people, a job, a babysitter, a way to exercise, a yearning for wholeness that is bigger than the four walls of her house.

foolishly, when i divorced him, i thought the berating would end. i never thought i would have to hear that critical voice (the one he spoke and i internalized) rip through me at 3am, still, keeping me from sleep.

i never thought that letting a real love go to do the right thing, to stay with his wife, to be with his kids, to honor his commitments, would be so hard. deep down, i guess i always thought that bird that flew away would come back. i never thought i would be left behind, tending to a nest that would remain empty.

i never thought that learning would be so hard -- not the intellectual knowing, but the changing and the living piece. the assimilating of all the losses and disappointments into something worth living for. that, i didn't realize, would be so lonely.

i never thought i would be one of those people who resisted doing the hard things to improve her life. i've done many hard things, i've improved, but true devotion, true dedication, that eludes me. it takes a lifetime and a village, and i am not yet 40 and i live in a tent on the outskirts of town.

i don't have a village. i've had half a lifetime.

i never thought i would only have two children. when i divorced, i still held the dream of having one more beautiful golden light emerge from my body to shine its way into the world, a blessing for me and a truer love, a more real love, one who knew my soul and held it aloft as beautiful and sacred.

i never thought zoe and eli would only have each other, when their young lives were so bittersweet with joy and sorrow.

i always thought i could see the sacred future, that i could catch glimpses of future selves leading me to them. these days, the mirrors aren't talking. all my reflections are lonely. they whisper, "it is what it is..." in the dark of night. they call to me from dreams and thresholds that were not crossed. they speak to me in native tongues that are now unfamiliar and almost unrecognizable. i bleed for them, for the ghosts of what could have been.

today the crescent moon begins to wax, drawing my blood forth to the earth. no baby, only pain. the days have been bright and alive, the nights are darker. i'm still smoking, still on the defensive with the father of my children who never cherished me, never saw my brilliance, wanted to extinguish the remaining lights i had left by the time he was done with me.

i always thought i would be lonely.
i never thought i would be lonely forever.

it is what it is. the moon is waxing. i bleed for you. i am alone. i am learning. i promise, you are free. lovingly, tenderly, heartbreakingly, eternally free.

A.K.A.

2010-03-18T22:43:00.000-04:00

Today’s tarot reading

a.k.a The Journey

Hanged Man. Also the fool. Strung up by his foot, no way to get down. Wolves lay below, sky and trees above. Swinging is nice, for the moment. Sorta. Not too much a fan of the rope though, come to think of it, foot getting a little sore, a lot sore, one leg definitely longer than the other now. No way out but down. Wolves could eat me alive. Hanging could kill me.

Temperance. Patience. Water into water. The cup runneth over. Love is everywhere. Presence and patience return us to the source. Trust. It is there. I am there. Love into love.

The Chariot. Strength. Number 7. Mastery. The way forward, the crossroads. All roads lead here. This is the stumbling block, the turning point, the means by which you make your way in the world. Once this chariot is driven, the world is at your feet. This is what you were born to do, what all of us were born to do. Do this and you can do anything.

The Pope. Aka, the Hierophant. Rules. Shoulds. All that is supposed to be as it is written, not as it is lived. Where everyone does what they should, even when it isn’t what they should. Order for the sake of order. Keeping things going, even when this no longer (if ever) serves a higher purpose. Functionality. Loss of joy. Fear of loss. Power and control through rules and regulation.

Queen of Wands. She who breaks it all apart. She who holds the staff of life in her hands. She who wields great power lovingly. She who brings life and change. A woman of great strength and creativity. One who builds.

Fate. Three of Wands. The past. The phases of life: Maid, Mother, Crone. Inescapable. Reckoning. Knowing your place in the cycle of life. Taking up the mantle of what has been given. Standing. It already exists. Everything already exists. Step into it.

Hardship. Five of Pentacles. Future. Despair. Difficulties. Feeling trapped. Wanting more than what is. Sacrifice. Knowing that once there was bounty and now there is lack. Giving up material goods. Facing financial devastation. Seeing light in cracked windows. Remembering in times of need that good always follows bad.

Wheel of Fortune. Ten. What goes up, must come down. Spinning on the great wheel of life. Hitting it big and losing it all. No way to know. We’ve already gambled, because here we are.

King of Cups. That which has been done before you and to you and must be changed but is so looming and ingrained you can’t even see it. Separating the water from the sea in which you swim. Discovering the deep emotional landscape of your masculine teachers. Aka: who’s your daddy?

Princess of Pentacles. Witchy Woman. See how high she flies. Embody this. Fight back. Dream anew. Cast your spells. Protect yourself. Know where to draw the line. Allow yourself some room to grow while keeping the circle around you intact. Have faith that the finances will come around – they will. Keep yourself insulated but not shut out. Stay focused. Much will come of this learning.

Childhood. Six of cups. The end and the beginning. It all comes back to this. You do not have to be good. You do not have to be good. You do not have to be good. You are good. You are good. You are loved. You are worthy.

Day 1

2010-03-15T13:42:00.000-04:00

I have been wrestling with smoking for a few months now. I started smoking again on August 8, 2009, after 11.5 years of quitting. I had just gone through the divorce, moved into my new house, and discovered that the woman who lived there before me was a smoker. My room was newly painted and carpeted -- and still smelled like cigarettes.

Not that that is the reason.
The real reason was because I wanted to. Cigarettes fill something for me, whether it is the nicotine, or the oral habit, or the break from the world, whatever it is, I love it. Except that it stinks and it'll kill you.

And I have two kids, so I have to stop. And I love myself, so I have to stop.

So, today, I smoked the last cigarette in my pack, put on the patch, and here I am. Yes, I want one, but I won't have it.

New mantra: More breath=more light.
"Shine this way, take a break from the pain." (Iyeoka)

why i should drink more

2010-03-14T00:18:00.000-05:00

...or at least more often:

1. because it's fun
2. because it get me out of the house
3. because it's better than sitting home pining away and avoiding filing all of my paperwork
4. because a whole world exists outside of my small bubble
5. because there is food there
6. because i can get going on so many number of topics, and humans listen better than my cat...
7. because i inevitably laugh, which i never do alone...
8. because i am far too beautiful to sit home and never do anything...
9. because the world needs samantha to be slightly buzzed a little more often...
10. who ever heard of a poet who didn't drink? i mean, come on!

on becoming myself in front of witnesses

2010-03-03T00:53:00.000-05:00

it is a very self-conscious thing, to be a woman becoming herself in front of her children. i think about them, what they see, what they hear, what i miss, what i offer, and the fact that no matter what i do, this is their lot in life. they are stuck with me, my strengths, my gifts, my imperfections, my hopes and dreams.

i'll be 39 in may. i will almost surely have no other children. the longing i feel for a love that is complete is something they will know. not in a conscious way, but under the surface, the backdrop to everything they remember.

z will be seven on thursday. there is no time going forward that will not be part of her memories, her fabric of being. all that she is now is happening now. e is five and brilliant, my little light bulb of a boy. tonight i told him about meditation. i said, "imagine that you are a lightbulb. when you sit and be still, focus on your breathing, you are plugged into the great big power source of the universe. that's meditating." he promptly hopped onto my legs, hung there and said, "i think i'm plugged in now."

smart kid. cheeky.

i cannot tell you how grateful and how scared i am all at the same time. i cannot protect them from the things that already are. they will never be part of a family that didn't get divorced. they will never have what they had before. they have only the unknown future and the mother and father who love them so much but in such different ways, such dramatically opposed modes of expression.

they will know love in their lives, always. but i couldn't give them a mom who stayed married to their father, couldn't give them a model for delaying gratification until their lives were fully formed. it's not bad, it just is.

i want to tell them i'm hopeful. that someday they will have a mother who is who she is meant to be in the world and that they will shine all the brighter for it. i want this to be true. i want to tell them that i will devote myself to trying to figure out what their personal power source is and helping them plug themselves in. i want to tell them i am sorry for the mistakes i have made and the ones i will surely make along the journey. i want them to know that they bring me happiness, but they are not the vehicles for my only happiness in this world. i want them to know joy, from the inside out, the way i never did, the way i am only hoping to learn, the way i am stumbling around in the dark knowing i am a lightbulb and they have to watch me find a way to plug in.

i want them to know how sacred they are, that i would do it all again, exactly the same way, to ensure that they were here with me. that i regret nothing, only that i don't have all the answers readily available, that i am learning and becoming just as they are.

z can read now. she reads over my shoulder, she leaves me notes on the white board in the kitchen. she loves me. last night i came home early so our sitter could play with e while z read to me. i want her to know the joy of speaking words out loud, of finding her voice. i want her to feel safe and free, i want her to be the best z that she is. i don't know how to show her this -- i am learning on the job. i want to tell her i am sorry that i don't know more, but i hope she trusts me and i will do all i can to honor that trust.

e can figure out the best way to do things. any thing. he unpacked all the loot from bj's last week, and i was surprised to find a perfectly placed package of dental floss waiting for me when i went to brush my teeth that night. today i asked him, "do you remember when you unpacked all that stuff? it was so kind of you to think of me, to put a new package of dental floss in my bathroom. thank you." he shrugged. "i just put one in each bathroom, mom." no big deal. but it was a kindness to me. i wouldn't have thought of it. and maybe he didn't think about it from my perspective, maybe he just thought one should go in each bathroom, but it felt like kindness to me. he's five and thorough. he's so much like his dad it's almost scary, and then a bit of me pops through and all he is is so exactly like himself that i remember he is like e, not his dad, not me. he came out that way. able and thoughtful, kind and scary smart. he wanted to stand when he was three months old, he walked at 10 1/2 months. he was keeping up with z from the very beginning and now she does everything in her power to keep that 22 months she has on him as large as possible. he'll be taller than she is in a year or two. he'll dwarf her by the time he's twelve. but right now, he is five and she is almost seven and i'll be thirty nine (and yes, that's almost 40) and we are completely imperfectly figuring this shit out.

i hope it all works.

i tell you, i truly hope i don't fuck it up and have them coming to me when they are twenty-five saying everything that has gone wrong in their lives is due solely to my failings.

that cannot become true. that would kill me. that is my biggest fear. that and the possibility that the shadow of loneliness that threatens to swallow me might have me for dinner.

this is why i don't date. i am too needy. i want too much. i want the whole big beautiful soul. and i want to offer mine willingly and joyfully. all the rest is just potato chips. when i was nine i ate too many ruffles at a family party, threw up and never ate ruffles again.

i hate potato chips. i am too much a light bulb to sit around in the dark eating potato chips. the shadows are dark and scary, but maybe someday, some other light bulb will find his way over, sit down beside me, and we'll plug in and light the sky all the way to brooklyn. we'll gather the potato chip crumbs into a little pile at our feet, scatter them over gourmet casseroles, rub them into the carpet with the soles of our shoes and know, the big soul grid was always waiting for us. potato chips are a necessary evil. one day, z and e may come to me and say, "all you did, all you tried to do, i get it." and maybe not. but that is their lot in life. they are stuck with me.

lucky for me, at seven and five, they love me like a burning oil lamp, a candle in the night sky, the sun, the moon and many swiftly tilting planets. right now, i get to be luminous for them.

and right now, i'll take it.

Poet Rabbi

2010-02-22T18:10:00.000-05:00

I am holding the weight of my hopes and failures in the palms of my hands, and they are both heavy; curved, golden statues of loss and redemption held aloft by the sheer will and strength that god gave me, fingers wrapped around smooth molded metal, tracing and retracing the curves of my past – I did not believe it would be so hard to set them down in the dirt and keep walking.

Sometimes I feel the statues are following me. I look back and imagine I can see them, glinting in the hot sun, then I realize my hands are clenched, nails digging into flesh, and I look down, unfurl the fingers of light that perform my deeds and manipulations in this world, and there they are: truth and not truth, weakness and greatness, disappointment and triumph gleaming heavy against my skin.

Today, these palms itch for stone. For words that do not wander, for unwavering trust. I check to make sure my hands are open, ten fingers reaching for the sun as I ground my body down, open-hearted, into mountain pose, El-Shaddai of the ancients standing alongside all that is, was, and will be. I practice breathing.

Open handed, I reach for what I desire, then remember the weight of what I can allow myself to carry. I pick up nothing.

Sometimes, when I sleep, these hands creep away from me, grasp for things that have no names. Then I wake, feeling empty.

Today, I name everything and let it live where it lives – in shadow, in light, in laughter, in the sound of a small child calling my name in the night for comfort, in the way I alter my voice, try to notice the frustration I exhibit when my buttons get pushed and I automatically move back into grasping for gold.

Together, with open hands, help me remember.

Put down your statues. Reach for stone and light and truth. It’s not far now, we’ll walk together, the gold of the sun glinting our backs, stone truths ground down to sand at our feet. We are carved mountains moving light through this world, false gods falling away, gilding our future with our past longings.

Like this, we can go anywhere.

We can uplift everything.

Take my hand, let’s face it.

Let’s walk.

It's almost funny...

2010-02-20T10:05:00.000-05:00

Almost. If you think about it. Here's a quote from a laundry service in Somerville: (www.lifewithoutlaundry.com)

Finding a love-mate who is willing to clean your laundry for you is like finding an entire wedding cake in a haystack—it's not likely to happen. We recommend promptly ambush-marrying any partner who is willing to launder the following clothing items:

Short-sleeved shirt covered in an entire lasagna
Pants made out of asbestos
Photo-print shirt seemingly depicting you marrying your ex-girlfriend, Sherra
Promotional Kid 'n Play underwear that you only wore "once, as a goof"
Cutthroat Island crew-member jacket

Which brings me back to the humor part. Think about it. Bert and Ernie, Oscar and Felix, all the mismatched couples where one is messy and the other is a neat-freak. They make tv shows out of this stuff. They don't make marriages out of this...

What were we thinking? That we would change the other? That one of us would fall in? Probably that love would conquer all, but it doesn't. Especially when there isn't respect for the very essence of the person, not the level of neatness. Not when there is an unspoken expectation that cleaner=better, that if you really loved me you'd be more like me, that love=never having to ask where my perfectly folded socks are.

Now don't get me wrong, a lot of women struggle with this in reverse: they are the neatnik married to the slob. But when the slob is left at home with the children (babies, really) and all the responsibility for house, home, kids, food, laundry, order, routine, and discipline, plus creativity, cruise directorship, and appropriate activity planning -- is it really reasonable or even possible to expect a transformation of the proportions of the remaking of Eliza Doolittle?

And there's the rub. I was Eliza Doolittle and he was Henry Higgins, set on remaking me into the woman who could perform in his world. And I failed miserably. Now, in the play, Eliza had a crappola life before, but what of her essence did she give up? Did she ever take dear Professor Higgins out for a night on the town, teach him to speak as she did, show him the seedy underworld of her former life, unearth the hidden treasures his cultured life never allowed him to see?

No.

That would be quite audacious, don't you think? To imagine she had something to offer that was of equal value?

And here I am, still bitter, nursing the remnants of my former accent, knowing I gained and I lost, but most of all, I lost myself. I learned to speak better, to dance a little, and ultimately, Professor Higgins didn't want me, he wanted a project. He never knew me at all.

And I am bitter. I am undone. I am disappointed and while I can cut the good professor a little slack due to his maleness and all, I can't believe I fell for it.

He never knew me at all.

The Poet-Rabbi

2010-02-20T09:49:00.000-05:00

First off, I will be doing my thing today as poet-rabbi in Daniel Sheff's shabbat service at the Open Meadow Zen Center in Lexington. 11am. Open to everyone. (Be prepared to take your shoes off and feel uplifted!)

Afterwards, there will be lunch and then a series of workshops; I will lead a writing workshop at 2:15. Drumming and havdalah at 5:30. I encourage everyone and anyone to come and check it out!! Arts and crafts for the kids...

S

HI!!!

2010-02-17T11:14:00.002-05:00

yep, that's it for now.
hi.

two little letters
one big word

hi!

I wake this morning

2010-02-12T08:16:00.000-05:00

thinking of all the ways we seek comfort in this world.

when you don't have a solid center, you seek others to help. not a bad thing, natural, understandable, but there comes a time when the other becomes the quest, the thing you need most to fill the hole aching and burning inside, and then, there comes a time when you realize the sadness and emptiness is your own to carry. you must go inward and find a way to fill it yourself.

this is where others can help, but they can't do it for you.

so this morning i am sitting in the hole, knowing i can shine, i can find my own center, but it's hard work. i often wonder if i am up to the challenge. but here i am, there isn't really another choice.

so i am sitting here, contemplating the climb, knowing that god will help, that others are in the same boat, some an easier boat, some a hole that is less dark, less deep, some more so. this is life.

i want to live.

what i need: to write. to find a flashlight. to build a fire and stay warm. to remember all the love i have given and received. to sit with my mistakes and my moments of grace and keep going.

so i will go now, and shower, and go to z's school for writer's workshop, then to therapy. i will come home and do some of the work that i have before me, light some candles for shabbat, make this life sacred in any way i can.

there is light, even in the hole. but it is no longer my foolish hope that someone else will come along and offer a ladder, unfurl their knotted rope and encourage me to climb. i must write my way out of the darkness. i must find strength and compassion, but above all else, i must take action. this is the only way.

Do I Dare To Eat A Peach

2010-02-08T10:47:00.000-05:00

A friend posted a line from "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" this morning. Seems premonitory...

My weekend was fraught with revelations.

As you may know, I have stepped into this amazing role as poet-rabbi in Daniel Sheff's biweekly shabbat service at the Open Meadows Zen Center. This week, Daniel took us somewhere/somewhen else entirely. All of us. Revealing the ten commandments. We all stood at Sinai.

Then it was my turn.

I talked with Daniel last night, and we joked that he was the one who got us airborne and flew the course; I got to land the plane. Re-entry, return, my job.

So this week it was Thunder Road that drove us back from Moses and the mountain. After a moment of hesitation, I stepped into it, and... to be completely honest with you, I don't know what happened. It wasn't me speaking and singing, it was all of the universe through me and we got back down the mountain, understanding what we understood, and leaving a lot of ourselves behind, meeting what was to come at the bottom.

That night, afterwards, I made a series of mistakes.

I ignored the voice that said, "Sam, stay home."

I had planned to go see a few dear friends play at a bar in CT. Yes, it was a two hour drive, but I wanted to be there with them. I told one of them I was coming. I made plans to meet another friend for breakfast the following morning. And even though I wanted to hole up and just be at home, I also wanted to push to connect.

I pushed too hard.

I connected with the friends in the bar, and I wanted to share my experience of all that had come before, earlier in the day. Not an appropriate setting for that sort of thing. No go. I was exhausted, my friends had other things to focus on and I (unfortunately) tried to push it into what I wanted it to be. Mistake #1 (or 2 or 3).

Then I went to my parents' house, slept, got up and went to see my sister. Bright Spot! My niece is adorable, my brother-in-law is an amazing cook, and I helped my sister get ready for their superbowl party.

This was a good thing.

My other friend wasn't able to meet for breakfast. This was a large factor in my planning of the journey. Mistake #2.

Driving home, I spoke with my rabbi. He said, "Now, if only I can get you to stop going to CT..."

Lesson #47. That is not where I need to be. Enough already, leave it behind.

So I ground down into today's bottom of the mountain. Listen to the selves that speak of what has come before and what will be. Remember that I have been the friend who flakes, the friend who oversteps boundaries, the friend who makes the wrong decision, the friend who doesn't need someone else to show up just because they said they would.

Today, I am reckoning again. With boundaries and privacy, the limits others would prefer I keep and the understanding that I am bad at this. I have given too much information to those who do not need it. I am doing it now. I am still not transformed.

And yet, on Saturday, I was. So I am hopeful.

Today, I'll remember that peach. Maybe I'll buy some at Whole Foods. Maybe I'll wait until spring hits and they are really in season. Come to think of it, that is the right thing to do.

Lesson #71: listen.

meditations

2010-02-03T07:12:00.000-05:00

we choose our intention at the beginning of class, hands at heart center, breath steady, eyes closed. "to not be depressed."

and we are moving, slowly into table, threaded needle, downward dog, and i am breathing, cells taking in more oxygen, life rushing to the fore.

i will not be depressed.

this doesn't mean that i will radically remove all the supports that i have in place. meds, friends, therapy, torah study, community. this means that if i have any choice, if i can intend my life to take a certain path and breathe it into being, i take the path of breathing myself not depressed. i deserve it. i have the right to feel alive. i will live.

i am moving again. this helps more than you know.

if you know, move more. focus your awareness: awareness training, notice everything, stay present, live.

the students i am teaching are finding their voices. perhaps not solely focused on fiction, but they are writing. i don't want to fuck it up and i know that i could but today i choose to believe that i won't, that this is something i do well and i will learn how to do it better but i am not going to be a teaching disaster.

my love left me. my marriage ended. my life is solo and i am alone. all of these things are true. i breathe myself into downward dog, move through warrior 1, then kneeling warrior. i am a warrior. within my own mind, doing battle to keep the darkness from becoming permanent. newsweek's lead headline today: antidepressants don't work.

when you're on them, you want them to work. and when i first went on them they changed everything. now i both love and hate them. when you take a drug that makes you feel so much better than you did before, how can you not love that? but when it makes it so you can't really have an orgasm, or at least not one worth having, and you are so grateful to be able to at least want to have sex, want the touch of another, want to live, you take the pills.

and here i am, taking them, no sex in sight, no lover, breathing myself into being.

yes, this is too much information. yes, this is what i think about during yoga and then try to let it go. yes, this is how it is.

when you have had a true love and he doesn't stay, you wonder how true it was. you think of the rushing river pushing past your first kiss, the relentless wear of water over time, and you know. truth is truth. but rocks are worn down, eroded into nothing. we are not that different. the river has its own pressure, its own pace. i breathe myself into being. i remember the push of that river against my rubber-coated foot. it was strong, relentless, i couldn't have held it back if i tried.

now i'm not trying. i'm feeling everything. i find myself in tears at least seven times a day, but they pass. they burst forth and i let them. crying when you have something to cry about doesn't mean you will be depressed forever. or maybe i'll be depressed forever, who knows. some days are better than others. antidepressants don't work. so i breathe, and write, do yoga, move my body, set my intention for the day, and i hope.

i hope to breathe myself not depressed. i hope to breathe myself alive and not alone. i breathe, and i move, and i love.

sometimes

2010-01-31T13:47:00.000-05:00

...the world tells you to believe that things happened in a certain way. and logic dictates that you look at them that way and when you do, it all lines up according to that way of thinking, and yet... that isn't it.

so you struggle with the one way of thinking and place it in opposition to another way of thinking, that doesn't really capture the logical way but resonates with the entirety of the experience, rather than the listing of fact and action, but then you are in opposition with yourself and the experience.

so what do you do?

i try to stay open to knowing that both exist. but i also try to trust my experience, even when it isn't backed up completely by facts, logic, and all the well-intentioned people who love me and encourage me to look at it the other way.

our lenses are 360 degrees, not just the small circle of ground glass in front of our faces. we see things out of the corners of our eyes, just beyond the edge of vision. we feel things we cannot name, things we have no words for, things we cannot list in a spreadsheet with a neat total at the bottom.

so the real choice is what do we believe?

can we gather a community around us that understands that we see what we see, even if we don't all see the same thing. can we be loved by those who do not understand us? can we be loved for who we are and what we see even if it is different?

i hope so.
i have to believe so.
i'm still waiting to see it live.

Why it is never over

2010-01-25T23:37:00.000-05:00

When souls have found each other after searching for a lifetime, it just isn’t. That river, the current than runs through is solid, palpable, an inevitable homeward-bound compass, the one that says with every rush of its breath, you, you, you are for me, and that’s just how it is. It is how it is. Turn away, run, it’s still there. No escape, no returns. You cannot walk away from the mouth of this river, it will find you as you walk, it will run its course right alongside you, even when you think you can’t see it, you will hear its whisper in the night, even in the desert. When all is cold and gray, there is that sound in the back of your ears, it’s the heartbeat of your soul as one foot follows the next into the unknown.

I will walk beside you as long as it takes, you, you, you. Pretend you don’t hear it, go ahead. Your kids will learn in time, that their father walks in the presence of others they cannot see. They will hear their own whispers, their own shadowed sources thrilling their pulses when they are calm and still. I am for you, you, you, and the names of whispered things, the dreams you carried until now and forever after hold my name in secret places. The knowing of this, the turning away from fear and stepping into that river is the most exhilarating rush you will find, my love. It is the fate that lies before us both, the river that carried us to now and now and now. The other whens don’t matter much. You’ll see.

right around the corner

2010-01-23T00:03:00.002-05:00

how can the simplest, stupidest things be such a chore for me, when the other stuff is so fucking easy? it makes no sense. i cannot, for the life of me, get organized to the point where i have any semblance of routine, but i can write poems at the drop of a hat. it’s not that i don’t know how to manage the day to day stuff, it’s that i just don’t do it.

like, if i made coffee and lunches the night before, instead of in the morning, it would be much better. if i was able to motivate to put away the laundry and the dishes each day, instead of letting it pile up to the extreme, i wouldn’t always feel so panicked. like, if i could just fucking file the six months worth of papers i have accumulated in the time i have lived in my new house, i could hang out in my room, i could find the social security card with my new/old name on it so i could get paid at my new job, i could remember to call the lawn/snow guy and tell him he quoted me $30 for snow plowing, but then charged me $35 when he showed up, and one day he plowed my driveway twice (and no, that’s not a euphemism for something else) which was nice of him, sorta, but i can’t have a $70 plowing day! i can’t afford it. and yes, he knows my ex is a doctor, but i am no longer living on that kind of bankroll, so please, can you just put me at the end of the list on the snowplowing route?

and even though i am a writer, i spend all of my time not writing. except for this. which will take me 20 minutes and i’ll be pleased and continue to call myself a writer, but if i truly am going to harness my gifts and devote myself to serving god in this world, shouldn’t i be working harder and not wasting two mind-numbing hours watching say yes to the dress and remembering the misery of planning for my own wedding that didn’t even turn out to be a marriage that allowed me to live and write and love? and why is it that even my lists have lists and i write the lists and then i think that writing the list is akin to accomplishing anything. and i realize that i am going to get fired from my freelance job because i don’t have regular working hours and i can’t focus and my primary focus was not making sure that every word written about plants was perfect, and i realize that being a self-motivated person is not my forte, unless i am really in love with whatever i am doing, and i am feeling rather al green-ish tonight, like every night, realizing i spent all of my life alone, and the lamenting of this is not going to make it go away and i can’t even be angry anymore because it isn’t anyone’s fault, it just is, and i am not going to get myself any closer to being ready to not be alone by listing all my faults and the reasons why no one should live with me, but the thing is, i have been doing this all my life, is it really going to change? and what would it be like to have another soul in my home, to share my time and my space with? and what would it be like to have the hope for something really, truly, dramatically different? and what would it be like to know that i am not alone any more in this world, and would that allow me the ability to bypass the fear, to accept the mantle of this voice, this gift of opening doors for others, and would i finally shed the mistaken notion that loading the dishes or not means i am worthy of love, worthy of happiness, worthy of this gift of writing and opening, so just do that and don’t worry so much about the dishes and the filing.

and what will my children remember of their mom who is a writer but doesn’t write, and doesn’t stay home all the time and doesn’t cook and clean and do dishes and laundry, and if i’m not doing any of those things, then what the fuck am i doing? and still, i want it all. i want god and love and companionship and success and love in my bed and a life that feels like home. i can’t help it.

if you could tell me that it’s right around the corner, it’s right there, he’s coming, would i work harder? would the harder things become easier? would that be the right kind of working? i mean, i could have saved my marriage by doing more housework, but it somehow seemed like a bad tradeoff. how much will my children suffer for having laundry sitting around a bit? how much will they be plagued by the things i couldn’t teach them because i don’t do it myself?

and this working thing. i haven’t worked in ten years. not really. and here i am thinking i can just jump right back in to something i never mastered. i didn’t master it. true confessions: i suck at working. i am great at thinking, and people have been calling from across the country to ask my advice about things (sounds weird, but it’s true this week) and all i can think is: i can help you -- but i am kinda fucking up on my own shit. which isn’t to say you shouldn’t listen to me, because i know what i’m talking about sometimes, but how on earth do you shed ten years of focusing on one thing, when really it was all about something else, and then i would just say, if your soul isn’t on fire when you look in his eyes, if he doesn’t see all the way to the tips of your fingers with one touch, you probably shouldn’t marry him, okay? just don’t. you need to wait longer.

and this is what i am learning again and again: i need to wait longer, have more patience. i hope, i believe, i am becoming. and then, it will be there. it’s right around the corner.

free write with my students... no one ever told me

2010-01-22T00:09:00.000-05:00

No one ever told me I was beautiful. Smart, sure. Unusual, definitely. But beautiful? Not in the cards.

When I met him he couldn't stop looking at me. For three years he looked at me. He had a hard time looking away. He kept having to look away. The first time he kissed me, his eyes told me I was beautiful, and I knew it was true.

No one ever told me that a mother could be mean and still love you. That she could call you little bitch and potato face, slam doors and swear at you and still really, truly love you.

No one ever told me that it was going to be okay. That I would outgrow her, find spiritual parents, a land and a home to live in that wasn't ravaged by her moods, the minefields beneath the surface of the desolate place called childhood where so many others felt safe and free.

No one ever told me that childhood could fade into the past and not have to be brought forth again and again. That the birthplace of all poems can be somewhere you are trying to leave forever.

No one ever told me how valuable it would be to be smart and unusual. I was relentlessly after beauty, the empty path that seemed to be the ticket out of home and into something else.

But with that first kiss, his eyes taught me that home, like beauty, is within. You carry it wherever you go. Like an openmouthed cave, a house with all the lights on, a tiny trap door below your left ventricle that he opened, took up residence, and made me beautiful.

The BBC... in Framingham

2010-01-17T17:50:00.000-05:00

When I went to journalism school, this wasn't really what I had in mind.

Last night I went out with a friend, her boyfriend, and two of his friends to the British Beer Company (BBC) for a little fun.

Turned out it was fun!

There was a rockin' cover band called The Emergency Broadcast System (yeah, cheezy name but they were really good, and I am not easy on this front!) and I actually danced much of the night. Ok, maybe the two Jack on the rocks helped a little (or a lot) but I didn't drink the third one, so I'm alive to tell the tale.

It was strange to be out in suburbia. I am now divorced, and I am not a go to bars kind of gal -- at least not without good music. I didn't know the other guys we were with, so it took a little while to get things rolling on the conversation front. The music helped, the alcohol helped, and my sparkling social skills helped (ha!). Turns out once we all got a table and had a little food, things went much easier.

Do you get the sense that new social situations are not always easy for me? It's true. I don't feel like your run-of-the-mill person (whatever that is...), and bars don't exactly provide a forum for my wackiness to be heard and understood as charming. What do I have to bring to the table in this kind of setting? I don't like to drink, usually get myself in trouble when I drink too much, fret way too much about the implications of every word I utter, and then go home and write about it. But good friends always have a way of smoothing things, and my friend S really helped pave the way.

After a bunch of dancing, a set break and the second drink, these guys were giving me shit about being a poet (wow, that's cool, so you just write? are you a poet and don't know it?) and challenged me to write a poem based on the headline that appeared over our heads: JFK Closed Due to Potential Threat Getting Through Security... (or something like that).

Here it is:
so, the question is -- what was he doing?
sneaking onto the plane?
looking to blow it up?
meeting a friend who traveled alone
thousands of miles just to see his face?
taking leave of somewhere
he really needed to put behind him?
looking to prove a point to national security?

or was he just like you and me --
looking to get away from himself in any way possible
hoping to flee his last regret, wishing that something,
someone, would give him a pass and let him
leave it all behind, if only
he could make it through that gate?

Reaction: Whoa, man, that's deep! This girl is deep.

And it's true. So what is a deep girl doing writing poems in a bar in Framingham, knowing at least one guy will try to kiss her before the night is out (check), knowing her heart and soul are not here but are trying to return to her body, knowing she really should try to have a little fun in whatever form possible, knowing alcohol leads to poor decision making, and still she cannot live just mooning about her house and focusing on the mundane details that haunt her like trailing ghosts of what normal people should do...

The to-do list disappeared for the few hours I was there. My back still hurt, but I danced anyway. I didn't fall off my shoes. I didn't kiss the guy back (not my type). I didn't make any bad decisions, and I had a little fun.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the BBC is where its at, at least for one night out on the suburban bar scene.

decisions

2010-01-15T00:04:00.000-05:00

(or 17 ways to leave your lover)

1. decide
2. wait
3. don't think about it
4. think about it obsessively
5. act irrationally
6. deal with fallout in the immediate realm
7. deal with fallout in the longer-term realm
8. sit with sadness, sorrow, loss and failure
9. pick yourself back up again
10. question your decision
11. remember every decision you ever made was made out of fear or false bravado
12. sit with that
13. learn something
14. forget it
15. do it again
16. remember what you know
17. learn for real and move to the next realm

which is to say, i've been realizing that many of my major life decisions were made on the fly. where to go to college? well, the land of frozen snow and ice seems okay, they want me, my parents will be happy, i'll learn to deal with the winter. i could become a cold weather person...

not.

who to marry? you know he really loves me and he's very funny and even his stupid jokes make me laugh (right now) and so he's anal and it turns out he wants me to be june cleaver, he'll change, he'll come to value me for who i am...

not.

well, i really want a new car. smaller. stick shift. so what if the old car doesn't need replacing. so what if the new car has no room for the kids' friends... it has heated seats! i got a good price! it's blue! now my back hurts all the time from driving stick again, i spent money i shouldn't have, and i got rid of the option to reclaim my car without losing $8000.

who is so great at making big decisions?

not me.

so what do i do?

common theme: not enough time spent exploring the options. getting fixated on one outcome. not enough patience to walk away and sit with myself to make sure this is really going to fit me -- not the me i wish i could be if i were unflawed and therefore, not human. but the me i actually am. i need to learn decision making impulse control. right now i have PIC (poor impulse control) and meaning well goes a long way in this world, but not ALL the way.

i want to go all the way (turn out the lights sweet darlin...) and not regret it. i want to do the things that are hard and right, not easy and wrong. i want to be better than i am. i want to learn how to hear my own voice and my own doubts and sit with them until they reach consensus. i want soo much for myself.

and then i want more!

I'm Reminding Myself

2010-01-12T14:02:00.000-05:00

of the things that i want and the things i cannot have. of the ways of being in the world that i want to emulate, of the people who make me feel blessed and beloved.

more. more!

i want more than what i have right now -- not in terms of stuff, in terms of connection, of voice, of presence, of love.

on that note, i'm reminding myself not to call out, not to reach for what isn't mine, reminding myself that the universe will provide me with what i most need -- and the way it is delivered is not up to me.

it's not up to me. i want, but it's not up to me.

so i give in to the relentless restlessness of pursuing patience.

is that so oxymoronic? or maybe just moronic.

but time is eternal, and all we are and will be is now. so i wait. i will know when it's time. i will know when to act.

Its all Cochituate State Park now...

2010-01-11T18:40:00.002-05:00

Places I will not go again

The fucking parking lot at the Cochituate state park on route 30. He left me twice in that parking lot, the first time to go home and tell his wife about us, with a plan to rebuild. The second time to go home and not tell his wife about us so he could salvage what was there after he didn’t do the work of rebuilding. And so he left, and I thought, “How stupid, we should have gone to the town beach, it’s so much prettier there…” but now I am glad we didn’t because I still think of that one day on the lifeguard tower when we sat in each others’ company, basking in the sun and the glow of each other’s light, then listening to Iyeoka sing about demons and angels and talking to god and taking a break from the pain, and if I had to relive another break up there every time I bring my kids to the beach this summer, it would have ruined it for me. And I don’t have any reason to go to the cochituate state park, but twice – everything with him happens twice. Now the twice has passed. I’m still getting it, slowly, that he’s not going to call, not going to write, not going to just show up. He’s not coming back.

Places I see him

Starbucks. Here and in Newton. The Marriott, which I pass on my way to study group at my ex-inlaws’ temple. Is that ironic or just life? Donelan’s, where I now get many of my groceries. The golden arches. Route 95N. Burlington. Honey Pot Hill. Like yesterday when I poured apple cider at Jackie’s photo show out of a bottle with the HPH label on it and how can I not remember, when I think of the lightness of loving him, the real sense I had that I was beloved, a gift, a voice in the darkness spreading grace. And now, the finality of loss coming in waves, the weight of it settling into my January bones, bowing my back, striking an icy balance between slipping and skating, but I am finding that I am more alone than I have ever been. Or I am just as alone as I have always been. I am stoic in darkness. When I crack and bleed tears, they are freezing, and unhelpful, small droplets of cold rain, summer sun gone to seed, there is no loving him in a way that doesn’t hurt now. It’s all Cochituate state park, not the town beach. It’s all why, even when I know why, and it’s all but and no and no and no, but it’s the yes that stings the most, the long cold winter yes that sings you are alone, you are alone on high whine soprano.

Change

2010-01-05T21:27:00.000-05:00

I keep coming back to this simple fact: change is hard. It's painful. The leaving behind what you have known, loved, wanted, and facing an uncertain future head on, even with its exciting possibilities... well, it's daunting. And when you struggle with the same things over and over, there is a lingering question: how much can I really change? How much of this is in me, because I know I am not going to be able to surgically dig around in there and remove only the bad, in fact, how do I continue to love and accept the parts of myself that I consider "bad" while maintaining the energy and devotion of the good?

This is winter. Sitting with the heaviness of snow. The emptiness of what will not flower, what has died in the ground. Snow is all around me now, inside and out, and it's cold. Glittery in the sun, thank god, but cold and unforgiving in the wind and dark.

May the light follow, the snow melt, and forgiveness make it's way into life.

Change is hard. Especially in winter. And yet, it will be winter again, and again, with all the beauty of spring, summer and fall mixed in. And so we change. So we go on.

today's lesson from chabad.org: the mindful heart

2009-12-31T11:41:00.002-05:00

The mind and the heart slowly build a relationship, just as a pet and its master.

At first, the mind holds the heart on a leash. The heart screams, "I must have this! I must go there!"

And the mind says, "No, we talked this over already and we both agreed you don't need to."

And the heart screams, "But now I feel I need to! I can't do otherwise!"

And the mind says, "That's because you are a heart. Hearts feel that way. But I am a mind and I know we won't die if you don't."

Eventually, the heart learns the paths and become a mindful heart.

On Community

2009-12-22T17:02:00.002-05:00

--to bruce, who inspired this line of thought--

On Community

i have always been a collector. now, i think of it as a collector of souls, people who have traveled with me and born witness to my journey. i didn’t feel at home within my family, so i always felt i had to seek outside of my family to find people who knew me, valued me and loved me. i never felt part of the jewish community either, until i met rabbi menachem creditor, who helped me to see that the umbrella of jewishness fits everyone who chooses to stand beneath it and sing their song.

it is a gift, though it has been lonely. i never ran in a pack. my sister always had a group of friends that she did everything with. i never had that. my sister had friends, i didn’t. i didn’t play as a kid, i read. i spent a lot of years angry and resentful at my parents for not providing more of a social world for me, feeling that their push for me to be independent was really a result of their feeling burdened by me and my loneliness. both of these things are true, but now as a parent, i can see that they did what they knew and what they knew didn’t quite encompass what i needed. they didn’t quite have the ability to figure out what i needed, and they were burdened by me and their own burdens.

community is something that many americans long for without realizing it is what we or our parents or grandparents sought to shed. the affluence many of us strive for or have attained make it very difficult to create and sustain loving community based on shared values, dreams, and compassion. it is closeness, intimacy, and relentless openness. many of us fear this and crave it at the same time.

we live in our houses with all of our conveniences, all our appliances, all of our help, and what we really want, or what i always really wanted, was company. someone to hang out with while i fold the laundry, cook dinner, get the lunches ready for tomorrow, sort through the mail. i thought that when i got married, i would have that companionship. turned out all i got was the big house and the car that was paid for and the pool and the handy husband who spent all of his 12 hours of free time per week either complaining that the laundry wasn’t done or up on the roof or in the garage fixing something. now granted, many people would love to have their husband fix the roof himself, but i would have preferred someone else fix the roof so we could go to the movies, or take a walk, or do anything but shop, cook, clean or whine. or watch reality tv.

do i have community?

i have been on a journey toward god in a way that makes me so delighted, and so reluctant to admit those words out loud. i have been god-averse for much of my life. cop-out, bullshit, not realistic, illusion, synthetic drug for the soul... truth is, i am now at thirty-eight, able to own my belief in god. but my god is a mosaic, a collection of goodness spattered with darkness. a belief that the kindness and wells of compassion most of us find are gifts, and the knowing that we each, in turn, can and must be that for ourselves and others as we travel. i know it is true, i have felt it, have been held in the heart of compassion and set free into the world to journey. does that mean i had a blinding flash of light? no. does it mean i am on a mission to make everyone see god? no. but yes. sort of. in their own way. if it means seeing the light that shines within us, yes. if it means seeing that doing the kind thing in any given situation really costs us nothing and brings a richness of spirit to the forefront, yes. if it means give everything you have for love and the defense of the people and values you believe in, yes. if it means countering the darkness of doubt and the fear that we are meaningless by leaping into an uncertain future... yes. i believe all of those things.

i don’t believe that science will prove it. i don’t believe that each and every one of us won’t do bad things to others. i don’t believe that god controls what key i strike next on my computer. but i do believe that every soul, acting in kindness and compassion, is part of a collective whole that affects everything. i believe that we can ask for what we want and receive it if we are willing to be tested and bear the responsibility that entails. i believe that we are all vastly more foolish and more capable than we often dream possible. i believe that love can change everything. and that life is a journey, with a band of travelers, both familial and non-familial that we gather and recognize, select and get stuck with. and i believe that we are all in the garden, right now, if we just lay aside the fears and doubts that keep us from seeing the beauty and fruition of all that has come before and all that is to come.

i have been gathering community for a while now. leaving my husband allowed me to actually enter into community, rather than isolate from it. i couldn’t bring him with me. i tried, i failed. he didn’t want to come. he would tell it differently, but i wanted something different for my children than what we became, than who we were together. already, i am vastly more myself than i have ever been. i am still lonely. i do not often get enough time in community to feed my soul, but when i do, it soars, it shines, it glows.

sedona was a journey into sacred community, and my father came with me. he got to see me, his daughter, separate from my mother and sister, as a person in relationship with the world, with god, with others, and it was good. he saw me, perhaps for the first time, and i, him. it was a gift. chamonix will be next, my friend jackie will be on that trip and my soul rejoices. i know i am in community when i feel loved and supported, even in my sadness, even in my fear. when i emerge stronger and more ready to face what lies ahead, i know i have found my band of journeymen. these days i find that through judaism. and writing. and yoga. and facebook! and i am grateful for every one i pick up along the way who chooses to journey with me. it is a gift, a treasured gift.

lesson from bamboo

2009-12-19T09:41:00.000-05:00

the third stalk
is intention
curled around the two

only with the wrap of intention
to keep them close
can they know that the other
is near, can they see and hear and feel
what lies beneath the ground,
the running water
the deep earth that nourishes

spread your toes like roots
let the water wash between them
there are pebbles and sand that will erode
but there is newness, freshness here
by the river of soul

I intend to stand and love
to wade in this water
until the day I die…

One Should Not

2009-12-11T12:30:00.000-05:00

read old love poems
from a lost lover
right before christmas

or new years, or the
first night of hanukkah or
anytime, if she still loves him.

one should not
regret, because all of this
is sacred

so she doesn't
but missing
is different than regret

the shape of it
is more angled
not smooth and fluid

like one would want it
to be, like she imagines
it will someday be

one should not read
her own words again
in remembrance, either

for the well is never
dry, is never empty
it is a well

when one casts stones
down into it, hears
them splash and thud

at the dank bottom
it only raises
the water level

but how does one
go about organizing
her files in her finder

window without finding
the remains of the bloodied
bludgeoned burst bubble?

one cannot live
without water
or bloodbaths

one cannot write
when all the windows
are closed.

Leaks in the Foundation

2009-12-09T16:54:00.000-05:00

My basement is leaking.

A puddle just around the furnace. Not deep, more like seepage, edges spreading with no source in sight. I find the flashlight. (Luckily this took far less time than finding the formerly missing screwdriver.) I cannot find the leak anywhere. Nothing wet on the ceiling, nothing wet on the walls.

I do not have forced hot water heat.

So I go to the other side of the basement, the finished side. Where two heavy dressers are lined up against the facing wall and one of them holds a mammoth tv from 1980.

I lift the tv and move it to the other side of the room, slide the dressers out of the way, and get down on my hands and knees to check the wall/floor seam.

The carpet is not wet to the touch, but the minute I am down on my knees, my sweatpants are soaked through. No water coming in through the fireplace, no wet walls, no visible ceiling water...

Shit.

The carpet is brand new, my dryer died this week and I don't have a job.

I don't know how I would handle a job and kids and a leaky basement. I don't know how to handle a leaky basement, seepage, drying out brand new carpet, managing a new household and a new life on completely different financial ground, without a husband. Is this why people stay married? Someone else to share the load? Someone else to call the plumber or the roof guy or the furnace people? That and the knowledge that at the end of the day there is someone else home, someone who knows you, someone who cares whether or not those things get done?

I was unhappy. We always had a leaky marriage, cracks in the foundation, seepage from unknown places. He was a diligent fixer. Clear problem equals clear solution. Seepage, distance, slow sinking, despair didn't quite fit into that category. We were not fixable.

He calls while I am cleaning up. He tells me to check the ceiling and the walls, look around with a flashlight, see where the water is coming from.

I still can't tell. And I don't want to make any more phone calls. And I don't want to spend more money (though I will, I'm sure) and I don't want to run out and find another fixer. I'll figure it out. But seepage, and slow leaks, and despair take time to repair. The slow drainage of sunny weather and lighter days, the luminescence of love, the healing of this world.

I'm looking for healing. I have a need for healing. I don't think I can call a plumber for that.

Some things

2009-12-05T16:36:00.000-05:00

some things are so hard to capture in words
like why we love someone
(my soul delights in your soul)
or why we fuck up
(I was hiding my soul from myself)
or why bad things happen
(souls get buried under bedrock)

but sometimes the simplicity
is wordless without a why

you are beautiful
this day is a gift
I love you so

and the search becomes only about
learning to be one
with the simplest statements,
joining the silence of the universe,
delighting in the presence of one soul
shining hope to another,
receiving delight, knowing
this is but one moment
in an endless stream
of collective joy.

sing me that song

2009-12-05T16:30:00.000-05:00

...you know, the one you held back in your throat when we made love, the one you started to sing when no one but me was watching. i hear your whisper, the voice searching for sound, my ears will always hear you, no matter where or when you are, so sing. it matters that you sing. lift your voice in song and know that i am healing, the song is healing, you will be healed. let the song of the dark night hear you. let the song of the stars bursting forth from my smile be a wave of light that washes over you. let the tears be the rain that nourishes the seeds of your soul that i love so much. sing, my love. sing.

Dreams

2009-11-28T22:23:00.000-05:00

Woke this morning with a difficult dream. On vacation, parents there, Chris and his wife there, kids with me, could not figure out where I was. Everyone was giving me maps, telling me to take the kids to the fireworks in Boston, but I couldn't find my way. Couldn't even figure out which room I was in inside the hotel/motel, even though everyone else knew. My parents were very frustrated with me that I didn't know, that I couldn't figure it out, and they didn't want to help. I didn't want to leave with the kids because I didn't know how to get back. Every time I left a room, I would be unable to start again, because I still didn't know where I was. This went on and on, while everyone else was planning their fun vacation. This was not fun for me and my kids were along for the ride but I had to shield them from my un-knowing.

Now (in real time) I am back home again. Grateful for all that I have, unsure of how to procede. I miss my sacred community. I have much to do, many details to take care of in the coming week or two, and still I don't quite know how to procede. Or maybe it's just that I fear the overarching unknowing of where my life is going. Quilting, writing, laughing, have all fallen by the wayside. What if I have many talents and no drive? What if I can't actually work hard within a system to achieve a goal and all my hopes and potentialities will become casualties of my inability to make a plan and stick to it? What if I make the wrong plan (again)?

When I got married, I didn't have a plan. I thought things would work out. Here I am now, unmarried, still without a plan, still facing my fears and frailties. Is it possible that the drive I need to achieve big things is something I do not possess? The answer is both yes and no. Do I need to achieve? Do I know how to achieve? Do I even believe achievement is the answer or the goal? The problem is I don't but I don't want to flounder in mediocrity my whole life. And I don't want to pick something just for the hope of achieving something when I don't yet really know what to do.

What I do know: sometimes I feel I am called for something big in this world. Maybe not big money or big success in the material/credentialed world. But to reach people in a big way, that I think I have in me. I am an opener of doors. But what that means in real life, in real time, I have no idea.

So I'm sitting with the darker side of unanswered questions, knowing the path lies ahead and I have no maps that I can read, but all around me others have maps, know where they are and are planning their fun vacations. I am not on vacation. I still don't know where I am going.

Maybe tonight's dream will shed some more light. Maybe not. But for now, I'll make some lists, try to quilt a little, and then go to sleep. I can't solve all of this tonight. I just hope I don't waste years struggling to find my way.

what a weekend...

2009-11-23T08:59:00.000-05:00

From the highest heights to the lowest lows.

First, Saturday dawned beautifully. I met my parents and dear friends at Daniel Scheff's new alternative Shabbat service at the zen center in Lexington. Daniel led the most inspired, alive service I have ever attended. Love was in the room and glowing in everyone's face and hearts.

From there, the group of us (five fellow Sedona travelers plus my parents and two close home-based friends) reconvened at my house to eat lasagna, hang mezuzahs in my new home, and share in the delight of the day. I was wowed, my kids were with me, and I felt the love of community and family.

Then I returned my children to their dad, had some lazy time at home and my best friend came over to reminisce about the day. Overall, it doesn't get any better than that!

On to yesterday. They do say that darkness follows light. Sometimes, after a peak day, one of great sadness follows. So it was for me. In the car with Alan (beloved wise rabbi) after a study session on the Cape, he gracefully cut through my own BS on the demise of my marriage. So much for all those years in therapy -- what I really needed was the honest heart of a wise man to say, "Sam, come on."

What I came away with: I bought into a life and an obligation that I ultimately could not fulfill. My sadness comes from the realization that my ex-husband actually fulfilled his end of the deal; but I could not fulfill my part. I didn't know this when I married him, but it became clearer and clearer that I was not cut from the traditional marriage cloth. There were rules in play that ultimately I was not able to follow. And the pain comes from knowing that I broke his heart and let him down. I will cut myself some slack -- I didn't know ten years ago that I wouldn't be able to do it. I have come to know myself more over the time in the marriage and since, so it was not an intentional failure. But it is a failure nonetheless.

And now I am left with the deeper understanding that I struggle with rules, struggle with the traditional, and struggle to know myself well enough to know what obligations I can and cannot live up to.

As I move forward in my life, I do fear a repeat performance of this un-knowing. The idea that I might commit again to something (or someone) and not be able to fulfill my part of the deal shadows me. Hopefully as I grow, I will choose wisely with a full heart, connected to that within which is wise and knowing, and have enough awareness to resist commitments that seem good but ultimately will not be something I am capable of.

So, it's heavy. And hopeful. But heavy nonetheless.

Peace and light,
S

ambien haze (warning!)

2009-11-21T23:43:00.000-05:00

the other little things

like on a day like today,a day filled with light and joy, why is it so hard to point out that our daughter is sick? and she might miss her mom? why is that so hard?

and did i mention that i want my cds back? several times, you say? yes, that is true. i want them back. the ones he will never listen to. the ones i came into the marriage with, the ones he doesn't even know we have. those ones. all the ani dfranco, neil young, toad the wet sprocket and rush, all the hole and scrawl, indigo girls and marillion that he doesn't even recognize, let alone know or want to sing along..

and did i mention that at this point, if there is anything i want, he is unable or unwilling to offer it up as mine, because i left him but what about the dreams i shelved for ten years in order to fuel his? the community building, the hebrew classes the dreams of becoming a writer, or a rabbi, or myself, are they worth the hit i took to get it over and done with? and the dreams of intimacy and connectedness -- where do i go buy replacementss for those disappointments?

i don't. i minimize interaction, deflect hatred, and spend $300 on iTunes to replenish my cd collection. i save face in front of the children, not by standing up for myself but by defusing another power imbalance in the way he requires: walk away with nothing like he wants me to so he doesn't demean me further in front of the kids.

silly to think that when a marriage ends due to utter lack of respect that it will appear magically afterwards.

oh, silly me.
(but i really want my cds back!!)

In the heart of compassion

2009-11-20T22:25:00.000-05:00

It is a special weekend, one that I am not part of but still feel linked to.

I hope so much that you are happy. I think of you every day, reflect on what I gained from our time together, the ways that I have been able to travel and grow, learn and sing, with the heart of compassion and your joyfilled eyes always with me.

I have cried tears, remembering what has been lost, but knowing also what has been opened to be found. There is so much that we cannot know about the future as it unfolds around us.

Today, I am okay with that. I know you, I love you, I still hold you in the palm of my hand and let you sail away with the wind, a dandelion seed blown from the breath of truest love.

I am okay with that too, and as I move to embrace the next phase, the round smooth edges of the sacred journey hold me close as I venture into the dark, but there is a light up ahead. It's not that far off, and I know you would want me to shine.

May you have a weekend and a life filled with love, connection and joyful celebration. May you hold your own heart dearly, tenderly, joyfully, and listen. Listen to the night, listen to the stars, listen to the universe or god speaking to you in the way that is familiar. And when you must, remember to sing, remember how beautiful you are, remember that all that is good is good. It stands. Contradictions and pain fall away. You loved me very much. This I know.

I thank you. I love you. Someday we will be old and tell each other stories in dreams of how we lived and how we learned what we must know. Until then, I hold you in the heart of compassion, as I hold myself. You are near and dear, though very far away. Life is funny that way. And so it is.

Sleep well, rest easy, hold onto all that is good, and live your love.

Peace and blessings.
S

Happy Seventeenth!

2009-11-17T08:27:00.000-05:00

I wake this morning feeling lucky. Sure, I have things I would like to change -- loneliness, smoking, feelings of the unknown, but life is good.

For a long time I have wondered if I would have another child someday. Me, with my feelings of overwhelmed at the responsibility of children, with my questions about where my life will lead me. But today, looking at pictures of my kids when they were babies, my niece who is six months old, I think I would. If life presents me with that opportunity, and a partner, I think I would. I couldn't deny that gift.

Not that it's relevant today. But who cares? Dreaming is what keeps us alive. I also think I will write today. I will study with alan, I will love my life, and I will dream in words, continue to process and try to make some sense of the beauty that surrounds us through words. This is part of my gift.

Who am I to deny that piece of the universe, that piece of God flowing through me?

Today, I will do it joyfully.

so many reasons

2009-11-16T15:45:00.000-05:00

to be grateful. new friends. old friends. love. sunshine. happiness. children. hope. yoga. studying. laughter. the potential to shed old skins. ani. alan. shining souls all around.

after a week in sedona, i miss the silence, the big open sky with a full moon and the milky way spread out above like a sea of possibilities.

i stand on the cusp of something unknown. alan told me once, not too long ago, that i left my husband but i haven't yet changed my life. now, i step off the cliff and fall into the unknown. i have no idea where my life is leading, but i feel supported and hopeful, awed and stunned by the love that has been showered upon me.

thank you, all who have known and loved me. i hold your hearts most dear, and send it all back to you. we are this living, laughing, loving, evolving being unified in the promises of what we can give and receive.

keep yourselves open. let love in at every turn. do not be afraid to give it all away, you will have enough. trust me. trust me.

the journey

2009-11-12T16:58:00.000-05:00

i don’t want to write about done me wrong
any more. enough of that.
i have lived that for thirty eight years
and if i am going to get free,
truly free, it’s now
and now and now.

i stand in the heart of compassion.
i am on a sacred journey.
love is the answer,
and all that stuff.

last week i lost a treasured friend
at 100 years old
my cat still lives and thrives at 18
i am entering this desert
the promised land is
just beyond this hill over there

can i be an oasis to you
and you for me
on our mutual journeys?

that is the question we forget to ask
those are the words we forget to use

it is not one journey
but will you return
will you travel here
again and again to replenish?

may i be a well of sacred space in time for you
may you be a source of laughter
a wellspring of peace
may we each continue to travel and return
travel and return

when i meet you
how will i know?

my 100 year old friend would smile
you’ll know she would say
and if you don’t
you’ve still got your own path to take --

no matter
now go.