Posted on by d

oh the times…

Suffice it to say I feel so far removed from new york these days. I have never had the chance (or desire, really) to see what sprung up out of the giant hole where the world trade center once stood. I never went back there.

Here is what i do remember: it was an ordinary day, a sunny day at the beginning of fall, and i was getting ready to ride my bike into manhattan and go to work. Instead, i left my bike flat in the hallway and ran to the roof, moments before a collective, citywide scream as the second plane plowed into a building, knowing i was standing on my rooftop watching thousands of people die, then watching the towers fall and knowing something wasn’t right – the way they fell was far too similar to the way the Purina plant in Brooklyn fell during its planned implosion just a few months prior.

The flag-waving frenzy that ensued, the free air conditioners, vacuums and air purifiers FEMA provided while telling us that air was “safe to breath”, the “missing” posters of suburban husbands in their white button-downs and ties, the exhaustion and sadness on the faces of first responders and rescue teams – it was a lot. It was intense. It was hard for me to express what I was feeling. What i saw looked like something out of a Hollywood movie. It was hard to believe it was real. When does anyone ever witness a plane flying into the side of a huge skyscraper and exploding? It has taken me years to sort this out.

New Yorkers slowed down for a minute tho, and suddenly everyone was kind. For a minute, we were a people united in a horrible, shared experience and that New Yorker way of dealing with shit: we took to the streets, expressed ourselves, and got stuff done.

9/11/01 was the death of thousands, and the birth of my full, acknowledged disillusion in so much. It was the day “we the people” took on a whole new meaning, a day a new faith was born in me, a deeper compassion, and a righteous indignation and rage that has been growing and refining itself since then as i learn how to be a true, peaceful warrior and how to use these potent expressions of power in an effective way.

There are people in this world who suffer these terrors and tragedies daily. Like so many of the New Yorkers that died on this day 15 years ago, they are everyday people with wisdom, lives, loves, and families, at the mercy of governments and war machines (aka “terrorists”). They are, daily, watching their worlds crumble around them and feeling the kind of horror, pain, sorrow and loss we got that one massive glimpse of so many years ago.

Never forget. Power to the people. More compassion. More love.

Posted on by d

the mud

i’m navigating the ups and downs these days, mirroring the weather. 80 degrees and sunny today. Gray, rainy and cold the next. Ready to sprout and bloom and just hoping there isn’t one last freeze.

some days i can hang it all out on the clothesline and others… i just keep it on a rack inside. i’m only motivated to put it away because it takes up so much space.

i’m not an easy climate to be in right now. there’s some serious turbulence in the air. strong winds foment change.

i see how my process affects the whole. i am putting this time here consciously. i am giving in to a little more selfishness while the opportunity affords itself, while there is full excuse. i need to explore myself this deeply one more time, to savor some last moments with some bits of myself that will need to go find another way to be here soon. it’s taking time and i don’t want to rush it. i need to feel the expansiveness of it and get to know my fear so i can face it eye to eye. i realize that it moves as it should, that it will move as we allow it to, that it is what it is. i contribute to this with my process. i create the space for magic to happen. i offer my belief, i have faith that it will.

please forgive me. i am learning patience and acceptance and truth. this could take a while.

 

 

 

Posted on by d

I’ve got my back to the moonlight.

For the moment, anyway. The window ledge is extra wide and lined with plants. i’ve got pillows propped up against it, but later when i go to bed, i’ll lie flat, and fall asleep with the moon in my face. the bed is on the floor since my daughter sleeps in it with me and I have, for many years, been pretty much a floor dweller anyway.

I like most things low.

Of course, saying this I am remembering those last moments of pregnancy where my daughter had gotten a lot more low, and those were aching days. I loved being pregnant until then, until I became cumbersome and so did she and I was ready for the next step of miracle to begin.

My due date came and went. Days and days went by. Finally, she came.

Now she sleeps next to me each night. I love sleeping with her, mostly. And then there are times when I miss my own life of defining who got to sleep in my bed, when, and how…

But like any love relationship, this here and now of having her there is something sweet that I can count on right now.

This now is fleeting as many things in childhood are, except those things we fight, and then relax into saving…

So I accept that no one else will be joining me here for the moment. It is worth that small sacrifice for this, though, for the regularity of this sweetness and comfort, for the gifts of the present.

I know, too, that my choices from here on out, and that the others who may eventually sleep in my bed, will be and are affected by her presence, regardless, in a way those choices and people never were before – thank god, it means I have more respect for myself, more responsibility to care for myself, to do only those things (and people) that serve my highest good. This is actually a very good thing.

This does not mean, however, that I feel any guilt whatsoever about going out last night, enjoying some social lubrication, dancing to great live music and exchanging pleasantries with a really good-looking someone else who “didn’t have the kids tonight”. It’s nice to be understood in that respect.

I am pretty sure I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself except in all the very best ways, and I drank a lot of water the last hour I was there, went to bed sober, got up on time, did a quick excuse for yoga and resumed the everyday tasks of feeding and wiping and dressing and Duplo-assembling and hugging and kissing and redirecting impending blowouts and I thought to myself, there are some times when the high road is appropriate. And sometimes, such a rare and unpredictable sometimes, tequila is what gets me high.

Shaking an uninhibited ass on a dance floor does the same thing as often as I can (which at this rate is about four times a year). And all this makes me a better parent. Swear it.

Just an hour of silliness and flirting reminds me of how I became a parent in the first place – there is a me that has opened, fully, that has flowered and then bloomed, ecstatically.

Eventually, I believe my daughter will look back upon me and see my faults, see the things I have fought to learn that the following generation is always so lucky to have handed to them. I hope, too, tho, that my daughter can look back at me and believe that I loved as wisely as I foolishly allowed myself to, that I laughed a lot and danced when spirit (or good bass) moved me, and that I had a good understanding of my medicines.