Sarah Elovich

Like a flashlight

2/14/2018

Whether I'm able to see the gifts they left behind or not, they're still in my life. Most of them helped me become more discerning. Okay, judgemental is really the word. But some of them opened my heart. I'll tell you one thing I got from looking at that string of men I don't deal with anymore: I confuse love for pity. Yeah. When they're really pathetic, when they don't have their shit together, somehow I feel better about myself, and this feeling good about myself approximates love somehow. Like a flashlight approximates a sunrise.

The Almanac of my Heart

1/17/2018

I have all of these new stories that want to come through. They are pounding at the door, demanding to come in.

But my house is full of old stories, old stories that I am rounding up and wrapping up and getting ready to give away. I just need to finish them.

So as I'm getting ready to let in these new stories, I am making time to finish and let go of the old ones. I’m done with them. They brought me far over the last four years but that isn’t a reason for me to build an alter and kneel in front of them for the rest of my life. I can thank them. I can grieve the end of our relationship.

I know how to grieve. And I can let go. I can let go of the things I’m done with, because they’re done with me, and I can welcome in the empty space without filling it immediately.

Empty space. It’s a gift.

Like the time I looked out the window of the bedroom where I used to sleep with someone I loved deeply. I looked out that window and I saw junk. Weeds. Broken bottles. Newspapers. And I said, ‘Let’s clear out that space today.’ And he said ‘Okay.’ So we filled trash bags and hauled away the junk. Then I said, ‘Let’s rip up these weeds.’ And he said ‘Okay.’ And we got our hands dirty. He made coffee while I kept pulling. I made lunch while he kept pulling. And then we went to the garden store and bought seeds. Seeds for beans and peppers and squash and zucchini and marigolds. Lots and lots of marigolds. We planted seeds in the afternoon and watered them in the golden hour sunlight. And I was happy.

And the garden grew although the relationship ended. And I’m glad. I’m glad for all of it.

Because I know how to clear the soil of old roots that aren’t growing what I want in my garden anymore. Because I know how good the earth smells when I get my hands in it. Because I know that the past has enriched me to grow something beautiful, something new and wonderful. Because I know change is possible. And I know grief is part of growing. And letting go is part of letting in.

And so I get to finish these old stories, which I will always cherish, and clear space for something else. Something that is true now. Something big that my heart just found, just recently, and showed to me, something precious and full of potential, like a tiny nest of hummingbird eggs. My heart showed me its capacity for new stories, and I get to care for them and keep them safe and clear space for what will grow. Because that’s what I know how to do.

And there are seasons for growing and seasons for weeding and seasons for planting, and there are some special days in the almanac of my heart where we get to do all of these things at once.

One day I finally knew

11/16/2017

One day I finally knew how to let go of you.

I sat on my bed, holding an amethyst crystal in each hand, the two pieces that I bought at the same time, intending to send one to you to retrieve you to me...
I sat on my bed holding one in each hand, the two pieces that look like teardrops, with the small pointy ends all clear and the bulky round parts all deep purple...
I sat holding you in one hand and myself in the other, or the part of my heart I’d given to you and the part of my heart that needed resuscitating...
I sat there holding these two pieces and I thought, “They ought to fit together.”

I sat there holding the part of you that I thought I loved and the part of me that thought she knew what love was, and I thought, “If these two pieces can fit together, then I’ve solved it. I’ll know I don’t have to let go because they fit together.” And I tried fitting them together - first this way, then rotated that. I thought the two teardrop shaped gemstones might combine to form a whole heart in my hands. But no matter which way I turned them, there was no way to fit these two, me and you. And that’s when I finally knew.

I had to put down the puzzle to let go of you. I had to put it down - and not just the puzzle pieces, but the puzzle in my head, too, the one where one square is always missing, always. The puzzle in my mind is always shifting because of the missing pieces, and so my mind is always looking for that perfect piece to fill the space. I had to put down my mind puzzle in order to let go of you.

My hands opened and the two pieces of amethyst dropped onto the bed at my sides. I closed my eyes and allowed myself time to remember each moment - so many moments. I said, “I release you to your highest good,” and I felt that heat behind my eyes, that wet alchemy of coming to my senses: sharp, a stinging. And at the same time, something warm in my chest, a kick, a burst, a flapping of wings. A recovery of a broken piece - it was never missing. I just needed to put you down in order to pick up all these little pieces of me.

One day I finally knew how to let go of you. And one day I’ll know what to do with all of these little pieces of me. Or maybe I won’t. And that feels right. Because what happened actually happened, all of it. Letting go of you doesn’t mean it never happened. It just means I’m making more space for now.

One day I finally knew all of the words to that song you sang to me under the stars and I sang it without longing for you by my side. Without wondering where you were all those years. Without wishing for a different life. One day I finally knew that you had been giving me what you had to give, which was just what I needed at the time. In that moment, under the stars, we did fit together like two tear drops suspended in midair, as the night grew cold around us but neither of us noticed. In that moment it was real and alive but in every moment after that, where I retreated in my memory back to that moment, I was chipping away at that puzzle piece inside me, smashing it to dust, dust which cannot be made alive again by my breath or my will or my longing.

Foraging for Wild Stories

10/18/2017

"If your story wanted to chat in line at the grocery store, or if it woke you up at 4 AM demanding to talk, would you know how to listen?"

In these four sessions, you will learn an entirely new way to write.

Foraged wild stories are largely autobiographical. They can be whimsical, ridiculous, and hilarious. They can be heartbroken, griefstricken, and raw. These stories are alive inside of the writer, waiting to be discovered, entrusted, and released to the world.

In this workshop we will work collaboratively to understand the nature of our wild stories. We will practice a variety of writing and meditation techniques to coax the wild story to reveal itself. Under the mentorship of an experienced story forager, you will explore the wilds of your inner landscape. You will learn to listen for clues from your wild story, and get lots of support as you hone your senses and come to know the story that wants to be free.

Foraging for Wild Stories: Autumn Workshop
East Bay Healing Collective
1840 Alcatraz Ave
Berkeley, CA 94703

Session dates and times:
Fridays - 10/27, 11/3, 11/10, 11/17
6:30 - 8:30 PM

Tickets HERE

My Shoe Fetish

9/21/2017

I’m looking for something in a women’s nine. Something heavy. With a heel, definitely. Something significant. I’ll know it when I see it. No, heavier, like a candlestick. Or a wrench. You know, they’re just coming back into style right now. Something blunt. Steel toed. I gotta be able to protect myself. Something that says, “Don’t fuck with me”.

We’ve been dating for two months, give or take. Okay, take. Because he’s been giving, and giving, and giving, and he keeps giving, and he gives some more. And if he were here right now I’d point out that I lifted that last line from Steve Martin’s ‘Let’s Get Small’ album, and then we’d listen to it together, and he’d smile and treat me as if I’m a normal human being, he’d say something nice and we’d probably listen to some other album, maybe one of the records he bought me on our first date two months ago and I’d feel like a normal happy person.

It’s okay to feel happy, did you know this? People who call themselves Nazis are marching in Berkeley and it’s also okay to occasionally feel happy. I just thought I’d let you know, because I wasn’t sure if everyone was aware.

I’m not used to being happy in a relationship. I know how to be guarded and suspicious and wary, and I know how to be defensive and on the alert and nervous, and I know how to be withdrawn and resentful and regretful, and I know how to look for escape routes and set up safe houses and scatter supplies ahead on the trail. But I’m not really that experienced when it comes to enjoying and doing the thing I’ve always wanted to do which is to see and be seen and grow and connect and love.

So that’s why I’m looking for this shoe, this very particular shoe. He mentioned that he was also looking for a shoe, or I guess waiting for one to drop, but that it wasn’t dropping, he couldn’t find it, and that’s when I realized that I was looking for a shoe, too. I’m really good at finding things, though, so I kept looking for it until I found it. The other morning. At his place.

We were having morning time, you know, waking and cuddling and laughing, and then he said a thing.

And I laughed.

But I decided that the thing he said was the shoe, the blunt object, the thing that always happens, the thing I’m always on the lookout for, the meanness, the attack, the judgement.

I decided that I had found the shoe, and I dropped it and when I dropped it, it landed on my toe and I said “ouch” and I knew enough at that time to know that it wasn’t his fault - I knew that I had made that shoe materialize and I had dropped it on my own toe and I knew it was all my stuff.

But you know how when you stub your toe, or knock your head into a metal thing under the sink, that’s all you can feel? You know how pain works, right? It changes the brain so that the brain and the pain work together to cook up a story that makes sense, that explains the pain, because that’s how pain works, it demands a ‘why’, it demands an explanation, it demands someone or something to take the blame and so we have people who call themselves Nazis marching in Berkeley and we have some angry guy in Trader Joe’s chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and I have this splitting headache all of a sudden and my brain goes, “Yeah, here’s that shoe you wanted, size nine. Let me just lace that up for you, walk around, see how it fits. Perfect, isn’t it? Just what you were looking for. Just like all the shoes you’ve had in the past, isn’t it?”

I don’t know a lot about nice guys. I’m not used to being loved by them. I’m used to Colonel Mustard with the shoehorn in the abattoir.

And so I made up something, something to explain the pain. I think I made up the pain, too. I’m very creative. Vivid imagination.

And now I’m the one making amends. And the only way I can do it is to stop looking for shoes.

Listening or Remembering to Listen

9/5/2017

People sometimes ask me how God speaks to me. I use the word 'people' loosely, of course; I'm talking about palm trees and piles of laundry and late night raccoons that sit back on their haunches and nibble something in their nimble hands, cocking their heads and staring straight at me. And I don't really have an answer because it's changing all the time, but I do like to point out synchronicities and the fact that we need the stuck times in order to get to the breakthrough times. "Time, in general," I remind the pile of laundry, which agrees, limply. "And space," the palm tree, in a constant stretch, understands. But usually, most people don't ask me anything at all, and that's somewhat of a relief, because most of the time I'm caught up in either listening or remembering to listen.

PokéMom

8/4/2017

Today, my mother and I took a wander through Elizabeth Park. Twelve weeks ago she quit smoking, and we were celebrating. Well, I was celebrating. Mom was just wandering through the park, looking at the varieties of roses and grasses and wildflowers and not-so-wildflowers. Under the pergola, where friends of mine got married some fifteen years ago, a little group of plain clothed people were gathered.

“Wedding rehearsal,” I declared, not knowing or hearing or really paying much attention. I’ve never been fond of weddings.

“I don’t know,” Mom said, peering at them, squinting a little. The sky was bright with overcast clouds, if you can imagine that. Bright white. Great light for a wedding. “They’re all looking at their phones.”

I glanced at them as we rounded the corner outside the pergola, then put my attention back on the catmint and the alliums and the phlox. Everyone nowadays is always looking at their phones, whether they’re at a wedding rehearsal or not, I thought to myself. How lucky I am to be walking through a garden with my alive mother, I thought next.

Twelve weeks ago, Mom called 911 because she couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t been feeling well and the more she tried to nap and get her rest back, the more tired and rundown she was feeling. Ever since Dad died four years ago, Mom’s been living alone in her ranch-style house in West Hartford. And ever since her cat ran away a month ago, she’s been utterly alone.

“Remember when Brendan and Andrea got married here?”

“Mmm hmm,” Mom affirmed, stopping short in front of a lady sitting alone on a bench.

Here she goes, I smiled to myself.

“There’s a chipmunk right underneath you,” Mom called to the lady. The lady didn’t respond.

Now here is something my mother is really good at. Talking to strangers.

She will talk to just about anyone about just about anything, just about anytime. Grocery store, cafe, in line at the bank. She’s not one to launch into something uncomfortable and inappropriate, that’s not at all my mom’s style. She’s just happy to point out something that’s happening in the environment, like the amount of snow that has fallen, or the type of car someone is driving, or the fact that there’s a chipmunk sniffing your ankle.

“Ma’am? There’s a chipmunk right underneath you and he’s sniffing your ankle!”

The lady smiled from behind her sunglasses.

“Yes, and if I sit very still, he’ll jump into my lap and take food right from my hand.” Her lunch was all around her, or the remains of it anyway, in five or six different tiny containers. She looked like she was in no rush to get back to her job or her family or her at-home wedding planning business. That’s what I decided as I looked at her. She’s waiting for this current wedding party to be done with their rehearsal because in a half hour her clients are arriving and she wants to be able to walk them through who is holding which bouquet and where they will stand and how they will have to arrange for more lighting for the photographers because the light in the early afternoon isn’t that good under the pergola and the last thing she needs is another bridezilla refusing to pay for her photographs because she insisted on getting married under a damn pergola.

I turned around and saw that the group of folks under the pergola weren’t being shepherded by anyone in particular and they were still, as my mother had immediately noted, all looking at their phones.

“Oh!” my mother laughed delightedly, as the chipmunk scampered back and forth between the lady’s feet, sniffing the ground, then cocking its head and dashing for cover in the bushes, and then dashing back out to sniff the lady’s big toe. “And here I was telling you something that I thought you didn’t know, and you already know full well about this little chipmunk and his game!” She chuckled.

I inhaled deeply at the sound of my mother’s laugh. Thirteen weeks ago, she was too tired to go for a walk through Elizabeth Park. Thirteen weeks ago, she was severely hypoxic; her lungs were so full of carbon dioxide that her body and brain were so starved for oxygen that she could barely get to the bank or the grocery store or to her mother’s assisted living community without feeling utterly exhausted and in need of a long rest. And for years up until thirteen weeks ago, every time my mother laughed or as much as inhaled sharply, she would cough so hard and so long that I would get scared that she would never catch her breath again.

Thirteen weeks ago my mother was packing her mother’s things to move her from one assisted living community to another, one down the street from her sister’s place up in Needham Mass, which would be an immense relief to my mother, but the packing and the arranging and the urgency of doing all of this under a time-bound deadline was stressful and beyond my mother’s physical capabilities. And I had not a clue any of this was happening because my mother is not the type of person who asks for help, at least not from me. And so when I got the call from my uncle that my mother was in the Emergency Room, I bought a ticket to come to Connecticut and be with my mother, whatever the outcome.

“Yes, I know his little game,” the lady said.

My mother giggled softly as the chipmunk flashed its black and white tail, scampering and scavenging and playing its little game. Chipmunks were the saddest of the dead presents that Mom’s cat used to deliver. Buttons was a hunter, the most brutal of all the cats Mom ever had. While she was in the hospital and I was alone in the house, refilling his food dish and emptying his litter box, Buttons just hid and sulked at first. He had never liked me much, and to be honest, the feeling was pretty mutual. He wasn’t cuddly or sweet with me, and he randomly sank his claws into my flesh. He would follow my mother into the kitchen anytime she passed through that room, crying loudly as if he were starving, as if he were wasting away, as if he weren’t a husky fourteen pound beast.

When my mom returned home, after a month of hospital and rehab, Buttons didn’t quite know what to think. She called for him, holding onto the porch railing and aiming her voice out and over the back yard. Then a rustling from beneath the hostas along the edge of the house. Buttons slunk slowly towards the sound of her voice, his tail low, creeping and then stopping and staring, first at me and then at Mom.

“It’s me, Buttons,” she coaxed. He fixed his wild yellow eyes upon her, and then looked at me. His stare said, “It doesn’t sound like the creature who feeds me. This one doesn’t sound raspy and phlegmy enough. I don’t believe it. Not my creature.” And he crept back into the hostas to continue what must have surely felt like a dream. The next day, once his creature’s smells and sounds and habits were assuredly confirmed by his secret feline checklist of existence, an express delivery of decapitated birds, mice, shrews, and baby bunnies resumed. The most unfortunate gift from Buttons was the dead chipmunk, Mom’s favorite garden visitor. How mysterious that he up and left just as her health has returned, I thought. Perhaps he felt his job of protecting and sustaining her was complete.

“You eat here often?” my mother asked the lady on the bench, and they chatted just a while longer. I spied a bench in the shade further down the hedge.

“Maybe we could sit down there and maybe the chipmunk will come and sniff at our ankles,” I suggested. We decided to give that a try.

From the bench in the shade, where we hoped to encounter an alive chipmunk with its head firmly attached to its body, Mom surveyed the group under the pergola again. “No, they’re doing something, I’m sure of it,” she declared. “All of them looking on their phones. Maybe its a geocache kind of thing.”

See, it’s things like this that keep me on my toes. How does my mother know about geocaching? As I wondered this to myself, two men from the group broke off and headed in our direction. “Looks like you’ll have your chance to find out what they’ve been up to, Mom.”

“Now, what… what is it that you are all doing under there?” she asked, smiling in that way she does, when she strikes up conversations with total strangers in that way that she does and has always done, unselfconsciously.

“It’s Pokemon Go,” said one man, smiling at us from his bench.

I nodded. I’d heard of this game. “It’s like a treasure hunt game, but for collecting imaginary cartoon creatures,” I explained to Mom.

“Oh that’s neat! So how does it work?” she asked.

“It’s an app and it tells you when and where they’re going to pop up. So you can kind of plan ahead to find them and go on raids with people.”

The other guy looked up from his phone. “It’s fun because no one ever talks to each other anymore, you know? It’s like, this way you get to meet people and actually have a social experience, because that never happens anymore.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that never happens anymore. Except…” and I waved at them from our bench.

“No one looks each other in the eye or says hello anymore. It’s like, I wish it could go back to being like how it was when I grew up, when people would say hello to each other.” I looked at this guy. Was he aware that he was stating the opposite of reality in that moment?

“It’s funny,” I offered, “because like, here we are actually doing that, you know? I guess I try to not think of it as ‘everyone’ or ‘no one’, because that’s pretty black and white, and that’s not always what’s going on, you know what I mean?” This was my clumsy attempt to say to him, what you have decided upon is simply not the case. Here were are, a few people who don’t know each other who have just jumped into a conversation, the topic of which is that people who don’t know each other don’t jump into conversations. And isn’t that funny. And can we all laugh about that?

“You know, I’ve been playing Pokemon since I was in eighth grade, and now it’s like this fun social thing that I get to play, and meet people, and I get it, you want to come over here and judge me and be all pretentious, but you know what? I lost thirty pounds because of this game.” The guy who had been looking at his phone was leaning forward now, practically spitting with force and resentment.

“So you can just relax, you can just calm down over there,” he continued, and dove straight back into his phone.

“I can? I can relax now? Ok, thanks!” I looked at Mom and shrugged. “I’m just happy to be here with my mother, we’re celebrating twelve weeks of no cigarettes for her, and I’m just really happy about that.”

“That’s why I put out my cigarette, to come sit over here,” the angry guy said. It struck me as odd, that this guy was so firmly fixed in his individual experience that every offering made in this exchange was instantly and completely about him. It felt like speaking to someone on the other side of a wall.

The smiling man laughed one of those knowing laughs and looked at his angry friend and back at us. “I got into Pokemon Go because of my kid, but she doesn’t play it anymore, and now I’m into it.”

“There goes one right now, right behind you, do you see him? It’s a chipmunk!” Mom called out. The smiling man turned to look. The angry man seemed to take pleasure in ignoring her. She was playing her own actual, real life version of Pokemon Go, based on nature and mammals and plants and things that actually exist. Would pointing any of that out to these guys be interesting to them? Would they take it as an insult? As a judgement? Would the angry guy think that I was being pretentious by pointing out that we were sitting in the nation’s oldest municipal rose garden, a gift given by over a century of philanthropic nature lovers, whose only wish was that people would sit in it and simply enjoy it for its own, beautiful sake?

“Oh well, that’s just what I like to do, and I like to make a game of it,” Mom smiled, ignoring all of the previous disturbing comments. This angry guy was simply no match for her. Mom’s ability to pave over bitter accusations and unstable emotional outbursts is absolutely unrivaled. The only person less flappable than my mother was her father, who could sit and quietly enjoy watching an entire golf tournament while my grandmother ranted and raged throughout the house. “I like to say hello to people I don’t know.”

“Yeah, she’ll talk to anyone,” I laughed. The vibrations of the angry guy’s words were still hanging in the humid air. Ever since working the Tenth Step, I can’t sit with that kind of vibration for very long.

“I’m very sorry you feel that way, that you feel judged about playing your game, that’s not what I intended,” I offered to the angry guy. He didn’t look up from his phone.

“Yeah, well, that’s all that I wanted to hear,” the guy said loudly, to his phone.

“Nowadays, it’s like no one knows the difference between right and wrong anymore,” the smiling friend continued, smiling and looking at us.

“Well, and the government right now is the perfect example of that,” my mother agreed, kicking the conversation into an arena that felt like going from the frying pan straight into the fire.

“I’m a total independent, I’m not affiliated with any party whatsoever,” the smiling guy proclaimed proudly. My stomach turned. “And it’s like, everyone is moving so fast nowadays, here in Connecticut even, it’s like, everyone’s moving as fast as a New York minute.

“Not this one, not her,” Mom laughed and patted my hand. “She’s in California!” The smiling guy’s smile dimmed.

“Now what is that grass over there, it looks like it is practically cascading, do you see that?” Mom pointed behind the men.

“Mmm,” I agreed. It was practically cascading. Light green long blades, lush and waving, not having any use for things like blame or ego. Ah, to be as cascading as that, to be as letting go as that, to be as flexible as that. Yes, yes, yes.

“I think we’re going to have to go and investigate what that stuff is,” she exclaimed. “Shall we?”

“Absolutely,” I agreed. And as we passed the men, I said, “Congratulations on losing all that weight.” The smiling friend said, “I lost a bunch too!”

“Ah,” laughed my mother, “Well, that is just terrific.”

Solo Sundays 7.8.17 promo

7/7/2017

A sponge and a knife

6/11/2017

I’m at the place now where all I have to do is meditate on the feeling of my eyes,
My wrung dry eyes,
Stinging, starving… no, thirsting,
Small and dense and red in their sockets,
Zinging me from the retina back into the optic nerve,
Crunchy dry, dry like a sponge scraping along the edge of a knife,

All I have to do is meditate on the feeling of my eyes,
Not even the story of how they got like this,
Not even the old story of how many years I’ve cried because of you,
Not even the old sad story of how much it hurt, hurts still,
I don’t even have to replay a single word of any of that,
Because all I have to do is just tune in to that feeling in my eyes,
Which just won’t stop leaking today
Because I can’t stop feeling that red raw feeling in my eyes today,

And I’m sorry, by the way, I’m sorry about all that,
But I don’t want to talk to you about it,
Because I don’t want to talk about it,
Because I don’t want to talk to you,
Because I don’t want to listen to you,
Because you never listen to me anyway,
But I’m still sorry about all of that,

And I’m still crying,
But not about that,
Not about anything,
I’m crying the cry of after having gone over all of it in my mind,
And still not being able to find my way out of this maze,
I’m crying the cry you cry AFTER you’re cried out,
That cry of, my God it just hurts here,
It just hurts still,

And I do want to feel my eyes, because they’re my eyes, guys,
But I don’t want to feel them at all at the same time,
And I push them away like I pushed you away,
Over and over and over again,
But what happens when I push my eyes away is they’re just still here,
And they just still hurt,
And I’m still in this maze, with this sponge and this knife,
And I’ll just sit here and meditate on my eyes,
And let this cry wet them again, from the inside out,
And maybe this cry will be the one that will finally let me see.

She's back

5/20/2017

She's back.

I would cry if I could stop laughing. She's back. I got my mother back.

I heard her on the phone today. I could hear the sparkle in her eyes. Yes, the last 15 years of caring for dying loved ones wore her out. Yes, anyone would be tired and depressed under those circumstances. But her BRAIN has been STARVING for OXYGEN this whole time. Four days of medicated oxygen, and lots of help from pulmonary specialists, and she can carry on a conversation without stopping to cough. I heard my mother laugh today for the first time in... I'm really thinking hard now, how long has it been? Maybe five years? I heard her laugh without convulsing and gasping for breath. And SHE was the one who made herself crack up.

She's back. I am crying and laughing. There is nothing I have ever done, not since I was eight and did the math that cigarettes were going to kill my parents, there is nothing I have ever been able to do or say to make her quit. Nothing. I cannot make someone change. I cannot make her quit. All I can do is enjoy these conversations, enjoy her laughter, and love her every minute that I can, now that she's back.

My Dream

5/18/2017

My dream is that one day you'll look back and say, "Why yes, I did have a friend once who was like that, she had a whirling dervish quality about her, always turning, turning into something else. She was a big laugher, but she was also deeply mournful, and she was so sensitive to the tides and the comings and goings of hummingbirds. She noticed things, like rainbows caught in the highest icy clouds. She told me a story once, I can't quite remember what it was about, but it reminded me that I am connected to something important, something outside myself. We used to meditate together, and afterwards we would talk about how every breath felt like love."

The open-hearted ramblings of a sane woman

4/13/2017

My heart is exploding with joy and love and lightness. I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve been working on this for a while now.

I know I won’t be experiencing this ‘forever’ (whatever that means) so in this mountaintop en*heart*enment moment, I’ll just capture the essence of this which is:

All of the friends I have had, from kindergarten all the way through now, you’ve grown my heart and filled it with playfulness like the way puppies play and roughhouse on green lawns, with forgiveness because no one is wrong, with lessons of loyalty and trust and just a general sense that it’s good to just be--

All of the teachers I have had, who went the extra mile to SHOW me what the hell you were doing instead of TELLING me what the hell you were doing, you’ve put so much faith in me, filling my heart with the ability to trust and believe in someone other than myself and somehow showing me that I had everything I needed inside myself all along--

All of the lovers I have had, and some of you I never even kissed, we had that moment, those moments, those years, I know it, my heart knows it, and all those delicious memories in my heart, even the pain of the lover stuff ending, all of it swirling and sweaty and confused and confident and connected and misfiring and promised and betrayed--

All of my blood family folks, you’ve given me so much so selflessly, you set up my heart to know how to feel all of these feelings that are worth living for, how am I ever supposed to do for you what you’ve done for me and this thumping thrumming heart which you crafted and molded and held so tenderly in your own heart--

All of the writers and painters and musicians and artists who filled my senses with richness channeled from places I needed to experience through your magic, who gave their lives to their craft, sacrificed themselves so that I might enjoy a gorgeous cathedral, a transcendent choir piece, an arresting clash of colors, an imaginary world filled with characters I love love love--

And so many more, the ones I never talked to on the bus, the ones I never looked at in yoga class, the ones who were in the room next door, the ones who drove me home in a taxi safely, the ones who made my burrito, the ones who built the roof over my head, how do I explain it, it’s all of them, all of you--

It’s all of it and it’s all of it good and the living stuff, the heart knowing stuff is made up of how much I feel you in my heart, how much I love love love--

I’m starting to lose it already. It’s a cracked-open bigger feeling-feel, the part of me here, sitting alone, knowing I’m never alone, was never alone, will never not for one second spend any time of this life being alone, alone is a lie, it’s a trick, it’s a joke, alone doesn’t exist, not to the heart anyway, the heart is too full of all of this, all of you--

Some people take drugs to get to this place and stay here. I had to go through a flood. A flood of my own fear. A flood that carried me up and washed away everything I no longer needed. A flood that reoriented me under stars that point the way, always point the way towards my heart. My heart wide open to you. To this.

The flood that nearly killed me taught me how to love.

Neighborhood Dialogue

3/30/2017

Me, to the convenience store clerk: Do you sell chocolate covered pretzels?

Clerk, confused, coming out from behind the counter: Pencils, ma'am?

Me, tired but amused: No... uh, chocolate covered pretzels?

Clerk, concerned, very gently: Chocolate covered pencils, ma'am? I think, maybe not, ma'am?

Me, beaten: No, of course not. You're right.

Famous

3/23/2017

Let’s sit around and talk
Let’s sit down with two friends at brunch
and talk about the most famous people we know:

Well I have a friend who got in Oprah.
Ew!
No, not IN oprah. In her magazine. O.
Oh!
Oh. Well I met that comedian you love so much
Louie?
No
Maron?
No
Fairbanks?
No
Goodwin?
No! The one who wears plaid and is ironic and wears glasses? Remember? You love him!
Oh! Wow! Ok! Well, I was staying on this organic farm in Hawaii and the woman who owned the place used to be Meryl Streep’s personal chef! She made me breadfruit.
What?
Breadfruit! It’s a fruit but it’s like a potato. She boiled it in coconut milk. Delicious.
Doesn’t count.
What?
Doesn’t count. Meryl Streep might be the most famous person SHE’s met, but YOU didn’t meet anyone famous.
But -
It’s not about degrees. It’s just about fame.
Ok. Well. I used to sleep with someone who’s pretty famous now.
Who?
Who?
I’m not going to tell that story.

The Wall

2/19/2017

I already built a wall. I started building it when I was five years old. That was the first time I felt stuff I didn’t want to feel: anger, shame, rage, betrayal, confusion. It was a particular blend of aliveness that felt so big - maybe it was more than what my five year old body was built for. Maybe that’s why it hurt. It hurt and so I did what we do when we hurt. I built a wall.

My body built it. Starting right here, in my gut, at the site of the pain, and continuing along here around the side of my body, to the back, cutting off my left side. The wall cut my torso off from my left leg. And another wall that came up here, up the front of my rib cage, towards my heart.

The wall helped me not feel the pain. It also cut me off from me. From my body. Not entirely, but in parts. Maybe that’s why my low left side of my back was weak and got injured in that yoga class. Maybe that’s why my spine grew into the shape of a question mark. Maybe that’s why my right brain stopped singing and I became reliant on my left brain for language and my right writing hand and my logic making. Maybe.

My wall cut me off from me. It cordoned me off from the paining and the experimenting and the messiness. The wall put me into judging and rationalizing, which became my next survival methods, my next lines of defense.

So.

There is a fire.

A fire pit.

And a circle of women sitting around this fire. They sing and laugh and pray and talk and grieve and listen to each other. The fire comes from the center of the earth. The fire is life, or an element of life. It is a transforming element. It’s where we make gold. This fire makes magic.

The women gather around the fire not to make magic but to show others how to transform using their own magic. They are eternally patient and empathetic. There is no story they have not already heard, not already lived. They have given birth to the world’s stories around this fire. This is where the first flood story was told for the first time.

This is where music was born.

This is where murder was invented. And laughter.

These women and this fire - they watch and they listen and they transform.

I take my wall here, to the circle. I stand before them, with my five year old holding my left hand. We cry. We tell them our shame. That we felt rage, confusion, betrayal. They shame of feeling so alive and confused and mixed into these feelings. The shame of having built a wall because of these feelings. We weep. The women watch and listen and nod. They begin to hum. They begin to sway.

We show them our scars, the wounds from digging into our own bodies and piling up the dead scar tissue in mounds that made a wall, a wall that rerouted the flow in our bodies and brains. We stand before the concentric circles of women, weeping with us, for us. They show us their scars - they all have scars. All of them have scars.

We step closer to the fire. My little girl lets go of my hand and I feel the heat of the fire burn up an entire layer of grief and shame. Like tissue paper in a fireplace, the layer bursts and shrinks and transmutes into black ash and is carried up and out of the circle, floating into the forest where it will float and land on wet moss and bring nutrients to the outermost ring of women, the ancient elders.

I’m standing in front of the fire and I turn to give the flames my wall. My sliced up scar tissue wall. They heat of the exchange between the fire and my body rips something away in my brain and leaves space for something true to rush it, like a balm, a salve applied by the rings of medicine women who know where the sap runs and how to find pure water.

The truth rushes in and it’s such a simple knowing: “It’s good to feel your body. Your body was made for feelings. Thank you for your wall. You don’t need it anymore. Your wall helped you not feel the scary too-alive feelings that were too big for your five year old self. Now you have permission. Full permission to feel the aliveness and the pleasure in your body. Come visit us again soon. We are always here.”

Savoring a Moment with Grandma

1/16/2017

I’m sitting on the floor at Grandma’s knee. I’m leaving tomorrow.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, Grandma,” I say, and lean towards her.

“You’re leaving? Tomorrow?” Her soft, gentle face first opens in surprise, then opens further in recognizing her granddaughter’s face. Then, her grey eyebrows slowly push up into her brow in a question that blossoms up from inside her blue eyes.

Her blue eyes are so blue, so watery, and in this moment, so clear. They are red around the edges, where her skin is dry, and some of her eyelashes stick together with dried up eyedrop stuff. Her eyes don’t leave mine as I rise up on my knees, bringing my face closer to hers, and my hands reach for hers, warm in her lap. Metal clips hold back her wiry grey hair, almost girlishly winging out over her ears. She smiles as my face fills her frame but then her gentle frown returns, slowly recognizing that I am saying goodbye to her.

“I don’t want you to go,” she says impishly, her blue eyes still tracking mine. Maybe my brow is as knit together as hers, and she is mirroring me. Maybe I’m mirroring her. Maybe my grandmother has always been my mirror, a woman I’ve wanted to be; strong, outspoken, smart, sharp tongued, good humored, socially smooth without being a phony. Maybe I’ve always wanted to be a mirror for my grandmother and achieve what she couldn’t; put my writing before having a family, travel the world, put art and music before home and garden.

“Don’t go,” she jokes, the smile slowly seeping from her eyes, raising the little hills and valleys in her face where her cheekbones live under delicate soft skin. She chuckles to herself, to me, through our secret mirror.

“Oh, I have to, Grandma. My flight leaves tomorrow. But I’ll be back.”

“When?” She’s 97 and often takes her time, more and more of it as she has less and less of it to spend, but in asking this question she wastes no time. Now it’s my turn to chuckle.

“Maybe for Mother’s Day. But definitely for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” she says, blue watery eyes crinkling as she sinks back in satisfaction. But still she holds her eyes to mine.

“I love you, Grandma. It’s been so nice having all this time to visit with you.” The carpet of her assisted living apartment room floor is pushing into my kneecaps and my lower back is trembling from leaning in so close to my Grandmother’s beautiful face. I would stay like this forever if I could, attached to the woman who gave life to the woman who gave life to me, looking into her watery eyes and feeling like a little girl again, a little girl at her grandmother’s knee.

“I love you, Sarah,” she enunciates slowly, seriously. “I want you to be happy. Just be happy.”

I squeeze her little hand, the collection of little bones wrapped up in her soft dry skin, knuckles and joints moving to close around mine. My back is on fire as I lean closer to kiss her cheek. I linger there as she slowly turns to kiss mine.

Write Now: Writing to Get Present

1/4/2017

For 2017, I am leading a writing circle series for folks who are interested in writing, meditating, and getting present.

Meditation is an integral part of my writing process. It helps me push aside all the clutter in my mind and gives me a nice, big, clear work space for my creativity. Over time, I have found that meditation helps me stay in the 'flow' of my daily life, as well as in my writing.

Writing itself can also be a form of meditation, and that's the idea behind Write Now. Each month, we will use a different theme to get present in our meditation, and then explore that theme to deepen our presence through writing. Here's what 2017 will look like with Write Now:

January 14:      Savoring
February 11:   Letting Go
March 11: Balance
April 8 & 22: Flow
May 20: Awe
June 17: Transformation
July 8: Expansion
August 12: Acceptance
September 9:   Honesty
October 14: Wisdom
November 11: Gratitude
December 9: Integration

I'm hosting the circle at Berkeley's East Bay Healing Collective, in the cozy Coming Home Room. Write Now meets on the second Saturday of each month from 2-3pm (except for May and June when we meet on the third Saturdays!)

You can find Early Bird $10 tickets by searching for "Write Now" on Eventbrite. We're also a Meetup through the East Bay Healing Collective.

The January circle is all about Savoring.

It’s all too easy to look back in time and replay the struggles and pain. What might be possible if we chose to relive the delicious moments? “Savoring” is the practice of being mindfully engaged and aware of our feelings during positive events. Research suggests that practicing savoring increases happiness, mental and physical health, and improves relationships. Savoring an experience is also a provocative writing prompt, and will be the meditation and writing focus for this month’s circle.

Early Bird Price: $10 (+ service fee)
At the door: $15

Register here: https://write_now_savoring.eventbrite.com

Savoring 2016

12/31/2016

The warmth of the electric buzz
gentle flow moving into my eyes from behind a smiling face of a
smiling sturdy man
the man standing before me

The warm light energy flowing down my body
down my spine into my legs
energizing and waking my bones within
the surge of blood up and down my system

bringing an inhale
a delightful jump of a smile to my own lips
the yellow warm light behind him
creating a halo

Hello!

And a blush - a rush - a warmth up in my cheeks!

It’s an opening
the energy I’m feeling
I’m open
I want to rush in
I want to jump in and also I want to jump away
it’s so much.
My skin is sensitive electric around him
his welcoming so bright - the blood in my cheeks so hot

I can feel every part of me alive
in this breath
caught in between my lungs and my heart - I’m alive and I’m here now

I wasn’t here before but I got myself here and he’s here now
and he tells me to come in and I want to and I will
but for this moment I’m still
still me, still just outside, still just wanting to

Jump in jumpy and jumping and the chance

My hands open, eyes open, feet planted, smiling, okay!
Okay, I’ll come in and that means stepping towards him
closer to him, moving towards the light
towards the opening he’s created in his home for me

He only opened a door but does he know what it means for me to be let in like this?
I’m going to step inside hour house now, good sir
and it’s warm in here
I can see how I could see so much light and warmth
spilling out from within
your house is warm and light but it’s not the house
it’s you, you make it warm and light and now I’m light
I’m floating through your warm light space
it’s nice
my feet are moving me but I don’t see them
my head held high
I’m comfortable here
like swimming in warm waters
or a bath
could I have been reborn
just then when you let me in?

Workshop: Writing On Grief

10/24/2016

For Chris, by request

9/29/2016

"How do I know who or what my Higher Power is?"

Well... I don't know my Higher Power with my brain or my intellectual, rational mind. My knowing is something other than my thinking, rat-wheel mind. How I know my Higher Power has come through feelings - the wonder at looking at a sky full of stars, the joy of laughing with friends and fellows, the grief of deeply acknowledging a loss, the peace that washes over me when I meditate.

I know my Higher Power by discovering what it is not - it is not my mother or a lover or money or the fantasy of a "perfect life". My Higher Power is not my "best thinking", which often has a feeling of urgency, of needing things my way, of holding on or manipulating. My Higher Power is not separate from what is, and so getting present and sitting with what is helps me connect with my Higher Power.

My Higher Power is allowing, trusting, and loving. My Higher Power has a plan beyond what I can see or even imagine. Nowadays, I think of my Higher Power as a path in the woods. Although I cannot see where it is going or what is around the next curve, I do my part and keep putting one foot in front of the next, noticing what is around me and staying present so that I can enjoy what I can along the journey, and learn as I go how to keep going.

Thank you, Amy Schumer

9/5/2016

First of all, great interview with Charlie Rose. I love the title of your book and I look forward to reading it - or maybe I’ll listen to you read it on Audible on my way back to Reno next weekend.

I love that you’re vocal about supporting Hillary. I just got back from a day of registering voters in Nevada - did you know that Nevada has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation? I wasn’t just there to get the word out for Hillary and register voters, though. The Democrats need to hang on to that Senate seat and elect Catherine Cortez Masto. When they do, it’ll be another historic moment because she’ll be the first Latina Senator. Yeah, that’s right. We still haven’t elected a Latin American woman to the Senate. Almost as infuriating and depressing as Reno. Anyway, it’s 7 hours to Reno round-trip from Oakland, CA, so that’ll be a great time to listen to your first book. I say first because I have a feeling there will be more. I hope so.

Second of all, the rest of my family doesn’t see it but I think you look just like my cousin. Ever since I first saw you on Last Comic Standing, I felt familiar towards you because you don’t just say stuff my friends and I say - you look like family. When I watch you, it feels like I’m watching a relative goof around in the living room after dinner and before pie. I relate.

But, I can’t relate to what it’s like to be scrutinized by the public by drawing attention to sexism like a badass, and at the same time having a friend who said stupid shit about rape. So thank you for just staying focused on the actual issue. I wonder if rape could actually be one of the most important things to talk about.

I wonder what men are thinking now that there is so much more dialog about rape and assault. I wonder if any of them are reflecting on their own behavior. Or if most of them are in some kind of denial. Or how many of them don’t remember anything because they were blackout drunk, too.

I wonder, if everyone could talk about rape and share how they’ve been affected and traumatized without being questioned or criticized, would we handle it differently in our courts and in our culture? Would we stop pretending that it doesn’t happen? That it isn’t serious? That it isn’t a violation? That it isn’t a crime?

For the most part, straight men came up with the laws and systems that define rape and punish (or fail to punish) its perpetrators. And I think that’s a big reason why we’re not seeing rapists serve time. But I wonder if and how women are playing an active role in supporting these systems, by staying quiet, by shaming rape victims, or by opting to simply not get involved.

And I wonder, do strong, opinionated, vocal women scare straight men because they don’t appear to be easily rapable? Are women like us threatening what men perceive to be their right to have sex wherever and however they want?

I wonder if that fear could be what's underneath the hate directed at Hillary. Maybe on some unconscious level, straight men are afraid of women who dissent and disagree because they’re afraid of being told ‘no’. Maybe the idea of being sexually rejected feels life-threatening to them. Do Hillary haters just have mommy issues?

I talked about rape in two of my shows. Well, rape-adjacent. I tried to not make the material feel like a bomb going off in the middle of my stories, and neither of my lines about the actual rapes got a laugh. Then again, I’m not a comedian. But also that wasn’t the point of my stories. I needed to tell my truth, and those particular details about my truth aren’t particularly funny. But that brings me back to thanking you.

Thank you for sharing the hilarious and honest material that is your life, Amy. It is absolutely crucial that I laugh about the stuff that hurts. Otherwise it drags me down and tries to kill me. When I listen to you, I know I’m not alone. There’s someone who feels almost like a sister out there, sharing and making me laugh.

I don’t have skin thick enough to withstand the bizarrely harsh backlash that comes when a woman talks about rape in the public eye. A 99-seat theater feels plenty big enough for my rape-adjacent truth. So thank you for bring your story to a bigger audience who needs to hear it.

On "Shoulds" and Grieving (Part 2)

7/21/2016

Usually I cry when I touch down in Ireland. This time, I cried as the plane pulled me up and away from it.

France. Turkey. Brexit. America. It’s madness everywhere. So many lives to grieve. This vacation was more like a grievecation. And Ireland is the place where I grieve.

I grieve my father, dead three years. I grieve the land he meant to retire on, the land that my mother sold. At least we got twenty years out of it. “That’s a good chunk of time,” my mother would say.

Now my mother doesn’t say much. Maybe it’s still too soon. But maybe there’s hope - she told the story of the day Dad died to our oldest living friend we have left in Ireland. She told it her way, in the waning light of a farmhouse kitchen with a cup of tea in her hand and a picture of the Virgin Mary hanging behind her.

She told the story out loud - to our friend who understands death - it’s part of life, you see, and when you’re a farmer, when you live with the land, you see cows die when they’re only twelve and you go across the country for a wake mid-week at 10 o’clock at night because that’s just what you do.

She told the story out loud and I think it helped, it was a step anyway. To say it, to say the words, “He died”, to talk about the moment and to remember the feeling of helping her husband take that last boat ride out into the bay with the dolphins.

I grieve my father deeply and invisibly, with a windy day on a rocky beach where the dolphins run, and with a rainy morning filled with crow-birds. I grieve my father and understand that it takes years and years to grieve that loss. And his was a beautiful death, it wasn’t a bombing or a sniper attack or a bus-driven bloodbath - his death was sad but expected. And there is comfort in that.

There is comfort also in remembering the sweetness I experienced this year. This particular twirl on the dance floor was like nothing I’d ever had before. I’m better for it, my heart is better for it, I’m grateful for it. It couldn’t last, and I’ll be ok, of course I will - but still I grieve this ending. To not only sets me up for years of numb and anger and disconnected confusion. No, I’ll take the grief now and let my heart to all its aching, and I’ll let this one float out onto the bay as well, to play with dolphins in the sparkling sunset.

But all the rest of this loss - the worldwide mourning is so much. What can I do, what can I feel about that? All I know are the lessons from the losses that hit me in the gut - a father, a house, a love. All I know is to tell the story, out loud, and to listen to other stories of loss. All I know is to take a good look at the sky by night and the sea by day and to put my heart in a little boat and to go looking for dolphins.

On "Shoulds" and Grieving (Part 1)

7/15/2016

I’m on vacation in Ireland. So I should be happy.

But so far I’ve felt quite sour. Perhaps it’s because I’m grieving a relationship, the first one I’ve had in over three years. I suppose it makes sense that I’m sad.

Plus, it’s raining.

Perhaps I’m sour because Ireland reminds me of my dead father, and every green hedge, every pub door, every donkey and every blind curve hiding three dozen black-faced sheep in the road just isn’t as beautiful without my Dad here.

Even though we were rarely on the same page, we were always in agreement about the wet smell of wet rains on wet fields and wet horse shit on wet roads. We had very few same pages, Dad and I, but County Clare was one of those rare shared pages.

Plus, it won’t stop raining.

Perhaps I’m sour about the xenophobic hatred behind this shortsighted Brexit vote. Perhaps it’s because Northern Ireland is now more likely to join up with Scotland than to agree to a united Ireland. Perhaps it’s because I wonder if some of the mossiest, rockiest, wildest parts of the Ireland I love are being bought out and smoothed over by the EU. Perhaps I need to catch up with everyone else and grieve the Ireland of my childhood.

Perhaps I miss the house, the place my parents were going to retire in, a place surrounded by fresh fields, where the lowing of a cow will wake you up most days, rain or shine. I do miss that cow. I miss that country wake-up call.

I don’t come to Ireland to get away, you see. I come to Ireland to be home.

And where else but home is the perfect place to say,

“I miss you, Dad. You should be here. You should be alive.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, my sweet. I hope I gave your heart as much as you gave mine.”

“You’re scaring me, Mom. The cigarettes and your wheezing all day long. I can’t lose you, too.”

“You fucking imbicilic American public! Wake up and look at what the idiots of the UK did to themselves! Don’t be ruled by fear! Don’t hold yourself apart with walls and racism, that only makes you weaker and more easily controlled - don’t you see?”

What’s saving me is the rain. I can’t get away from it. Like much more eloquent Irish writers before me, I’m both challenged and sustained by this life giving incessant wetness. And the rain washes away my shoulds. Fuck the shoulds. Should be happy. Should be having a different experience. No, I should grieve the men I’ve lost and the mother losing her breath and the Ireland of my childhood.

I am here and it is raining.

Brace, Brace, Brace

7/11/2016

I look out the airplane window to my right at the green crazy quilt that is County Clare, Ireland. Counting the two hour delay we had before getting off the ground in Newark the previous night, as well as the first jump that flew me from my San Francisco starting point, I am already contained inside of an airplane for approximately a million hours. I am ready to immerse myself in the wet and the green and the butter and the peat smoke and the homeland spirit land that even after 35 years of repeated visits always manages to show me something magical and new about what it means to be alive.

I look out that airplane window and feel the feelings one has when one is used to careening impossibly through space at five hundred miles an hour, alongside other humans sitting passively, dropping casually in velocity and altitude, scientifically and majestically soaring inside sheets of aluminum alloy: feelings of weariness mixed with relief, equal parts anticipation and thirst, impatience swirled up with nostalgia.

But then my inner ear tells me that we are leveling out, hang on, nope, we are headed upwards back in the clouds.

Now the PA system comes on.

Now the pilot is telling us that he wants us to remain calm.

I look out the window for my green crazy quilt but all I see is white.

"We are not getting the readings we want to see from the landing gear. We are circling again as we talk to mechanics on the ground about our situation. We believe that most of the landing gear has properly deployed. However, we're getting a repeated mechanical error in the cockpit. We are preparing for an emergency landing.

"All of us in the cockpit and your entire crew has been thoroughly trained in emergency landings. Please listen closely to the instructions we are about to give you."

I have been sitting with a family of five for the past seven hours. The dad reaches forward between the seats to hold the mom's hand. He places his other hand on mine. The kids, all under age ten, go silent, searching their parents' faces for clues.

"Cross your arms and hold the seat in front of you. Lean forward placing your head on your arms or on the seat between your arms. This is the "brace position". When instructed, assume the brace position to prepare for the emergency landing. Remain in this position until your crew directs you to an emergency exit. Locate the exit closest to you now."

Crew members are assisting passengers with the correct positioning to brace themselves in case we crash. The mom in front of me is crying. Her son next to her is crying. The daughter in between me and her dad tries to curl into his lap. He is gently explaining to her how to hold her frail body in the brace position, so that she can be safe. I look out the window. We have descended back out of the white. The crazy quilt is the greenest green I have ever seen.

"Folks, this is your pilot again. We are making our approach. Look at the people sitting next to you. Look at them now. In an event like this, we are all going to do our best to help each other."

The green is so green. My life, this life I've lived - how have I lived it? Have I done enough? In this moment I realize that the 'things' don't matter at all; the 'getting stuff done' and the 'doing' and the 'work' and the 'jobs' and the 'money' and the 'business'. In this moment that stuff is so clearly not how I measure how well I've lived my life.

In this moment, as I'm bracing myself for something out of my control - utterly not at all in any way anything that I can foresee or change or choose or control at all - in this moment the question I'm asking myself is:

Did I love enough?

Did I love the people in my life enough - did I open my heart and make sure that the people I love deeply got my love - did I give freely of my love - did I forgive - did I do the absolute best loving that I was capable of, while I had time to do that loving?

Can I love them all right now in this moment while I have no ability to promise any of them that I'll be able to keep on loving them after this moment is gone?

And can I find a way to hold onto this new, basic understanding of this selfless way of loving, this striving for loving better, which I now hereby make my True North - can I find a way to hold onto this loving True North knowledge in case I am given the opportunity to walk off this plane in one piece?

"BRACE! BRACE! BRACE!"

---

I posted this blog post, so you know that I lived. We lived. We didn't crash. The landing gear deployed correctly; the dang indicator lighting in the cockpit didn't work. The landing was actually one of the smoothest I've ever experienced, we just coasted for several minutes instead of quickly coming to a stop. Once we did stop, everyone applauded. Many people embraced. Eyes were wiped.

And I walked off the plane with my New True North into the greenest, wettest, most alive and delicious crazy quilt.

You do the math

6/24/2016

Three and a half years ago I started unraveling the knots I was born into forty years ago, woven by five thousand year old rope. And it took three slips and twelve steps to get one shot at this moment, where I finally have what I need to heal an eight year old wound.

It's not one thing. It's never one thing. Or it's all just one thing, like a stone thrown into the deep end, sending ripples out. The concentric rings never held me; I'm always watching for where the ripples bump into walls and railings, where overlapping interference happens. That's where I've been living. In the interference.

But it's been years since I threw any stones. So many placid days in a row that I had to zoom way out to see the edges. Without the familiar chaos, an image started to appear. The whole thing is a reflection. This whole thing is one huge, gorgeous, sparkling, cosmic reflection.

An eight year old wound. The time when I chose surface mirth over overlapping. Or an eight year old wound. The time when I packed a Radio Flyer with sandwiches and a teddy bear but got no further than the stop sign at the end of the block. It's both. Reflecting back and forth into each other, signals flashing between hemispheres so fast that no one was conscious of it happening. Except, now I am.

Three slips. Twelve steps. Forty knots. Three musketeers two times over in separate dimensions and two one-eyed Jacks facing the other direction. And all of it adds up to letting go.

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