sunday grace: a child full of wonder and love

one of the many gifts i received being mia's mom was the ability and permission to be openly and kindly curious.

as a child, mia would walk right up to a stranger and start asking them questions about random stuff that interested her.  sometimes this would be embarrassing, but one encounter changed this.  one day when she was five-ish, we got on the bus and i was chatting briefly with the driver as mia made her way to a seat.  when i caught up with her, she was deep in conversation with a sikh man about his bright orange "hat".  i sat mortified as he was kindly and patiently telling her why he wore a turban.  i apologized for her impoliteness.  he smiled warmly at me and said, "there is no reason to be sorry for a child full of wonder and love."

(then she asked him if she could try it on, but i'll leave that part of the story out.)

in that same spirit of wonder and love, a few friends and i visited our local mosque on friday to meet our muslim neighbors and learn about their faith.  my heart is broken at the increasing hate talk and very real threats pointed broadly at the faith and specifically toward muslim people.  but just expressing my solidarity felt a bit hollow because i really didn't know that much about the faith and culture.  i am always telling my students that being truly interested in people and staying open to hearing their experiences will build empathy and genuine relationships, so i really felt i needed to walk my talk.

we were welcomed to the small meeting place to observe noon prayers and service.  afterwards we had the opportunity to talk more casually with the members over pizza and then had a more formal orientation to the origins of the faith and its customs.  i was captivated at the manner in which they expressed their devotion in calm ritual.  there were beautiful moments i wished for my camera, like when a dad was showing his preschool-aged son the sequence of the prayer and the boy followed the movement in such a sweet and clumsy manner, checking in with tentative eye contact to make sure he was doing it right.

i learned so much in such a short period of time.  i do have more questions for future conversations, but here are some things i came away with:

• just like every other spiritual gathering i have ever attended, there were yawning distracted children, passionate elders with lots of stories they wanted to share, and someone who forgot to silence their cell.
• in other words, humans.
• it is a deep and focused faith (especially in contrast to the casual and inconsistent mishmash of religious and spiritual practices that i engage in).
• all moms (muslim, christian, buddhist, whatever) worry about their children, but some moms experience true fear on a regular basis for their children's safety.  i heard that fear.  i met those children.  this is not okay.
• there is a recognition and reverence for mary, the mother of jesus (jesus and moses and other biblical figures as well).
• we have a vast misunderstanding of jihad in the broader american culture.  my new friend defined it as a struggle, a challenge in life (very similar to buddhist samsara), adding, "sometimes broccoli is my jihad".  
• i have an affinity for the shapes and lines of the mosques and wearing a headscarf.
• i was warmly hugged by a woman and the energy of the connection spoke the words, "i am with you."  from both sides.  human connection, sister connection, friendship...amazing everyday magic.

i returned home with a sense of peace and a full heart.  

and remain committed, in these days when we are celebrating the birth of a child full of wonder and love, to more fully embody these gifts of baby jesus, of mia, of the sweet boys and girls at the mosque, of children everywhere.

have a beautiful season of wonder and love.

it's time

next week i'm joining sas petherick's let it go project.  because it's time.  you know?

i forget

sometimes i forget how magical a spring morning can be.

sometimes i forget to not get caught in the dehumanization trap.  and that it is the same divisive process at the core of hatred and killing (re:  dzhokhar tsarnaev).

sometimes i forget that love does not always come instinctively or easily.

sometimes i forget that inside of me there is this incredible power to center, balance, expand, release, forgive.  breathe.

sometimes i forget that grace and equilibrium are those things i'm working toward.  it's so easy to be triggered and allow myself to be agitated.

thank you home, husband, friends, dogs, mother earth for helping me remember.

a great love story

can only be made richer when it is read aloud to you by your greatest love.

thank you love.

for reading to me.

for believing in our story.

and a thousand other lovely things.

sunday grace

this sunday morning there is snow and sunshine and coffee and sleeping dogs and a husband who went to a 7am yoga class (endless love and admiration) and this book:  the family of woman.  it's vintage, from the late seventies, photographs and words of and by women (a sister to "the family of man").  i crack it open when i need inspiration, clearing, grace, wisdom.

i had a beautiful week.  i set bare feet in (very cold) sand and let the (very very cold) atlantic wash away the final dust of last year.  i shared amazing chana masala and many stories with my dear friend/poet/artist donna wynn and we both noticed the way we can go a year and a half without seeing each other and then just pick up right where we left off.  i love that.

feeling living the love.

hope and the pain of opening my eyes

“hope is not about proving anything. it’s about choosing to believe this one thing: that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”

-anne lamott

oh friends, i've had an interesting week.  lately i've grown tired of living in a culture where i have to swallow my words and silence my opinion in order to keep the peace.  but something happened last week that made me, required me, to open my eyes, open my mouth, and take a stand. 

in my twenties, i planned to go into human rights law.  i was very active in politics and working to make life better for those whose rights were denied them.  after some years wallowing in too much information, injustice, hatred and deceit, and not a lot of change, i made the decision for my own health and well-being to scale back on the activism. 

in the interest of peace i chose to look away from the injustice and back down from the fight, to close my eyes and hum a lovely tune to block out the noise of hate.

but then just like that, i was back in. 

in the interest of peace.  and hope.  and love.

virginia is for lovers

not haters.  not fearmongers.  not frightened zealots. 

LOVErs. 

“love is the big booming beat which covers up the noise of hate.”
-margaret cho

hey there friend

have a piece.

this weekend

consider expressing your love in a letter.

• writing a letter to my adolescent self was cathartic.

• betty lived in my childhood neighborhood and always let the neighborhood kids swim in her pool.  as an adult, i had a sudden memory of her pool and felt regret that i never thanked her (i saw myself shamelessly splashing about in the water and then eating her homemade ice cream and then running with her three-legged dog in her yard without regard to her).  i tracked down her full name and address and sent her a letter thanking her for her kindness.  she wrote back (i lived across the country at the time) with the most heart-felt expression of love and wrote in her shaky handwriting that i was the first who thanked her for generosity.  she said that seeing happy children was thanks enough, but it was wonderful to be officially recognized.  is there someone from your story with whom you could share your gratitude?

• you know how good it feels when you get a little unexpected sticky note of sweetness?  it's easy to do it for someone you care about.  or leave anonymous notes in public for a stranger to discover like kindness girl does.

have a beautiful summer weekend friends!

standing in pride

i can't imagine a life in which i was told who i can and cannot love.  the freedom to love genuinely and openly is simply taken for granted.  for most of us there are inherent risks that come with love and we all have to rally our inner warriors...courage and vulnerability and faith...in order to jump on for the exquisite wild ride.  if we're lucky, we do not know the added pressure of outside judgement, hatred, scorn and misunderstanding.

no person who graces this earth should have to love in secret because of who they love.  the more love that surrounds all of us makes this life glisten with hope and connection and promise.

love bravely.
love beautifully.

today i am grateful for

all the times i got it backwards, colored outside its lines and generally fucked it up.

because of that, i can love more honestly, openly and fully with my whole wild heart.

“love is the ultimate outlaw. it just won't adhere to any rules. the most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. that would mean that security is out of the question. the words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. my love for you has no strings attached. i love you for free.”

-tom robbins

what I learned about love

a little list of gems culled from a month of pondering and blogging about love:

• love comes in many forms, no one greater than the rest (family, friendships, romantic partnerships, parenting, work, art, animals, home, beauty, etc.)
• love has done its work if we live in and can leave these forms a soul changed for the better
• love arrives when we least expect it
• love opens and fills the defended
• love requires bravery and vulnerability at the same time
• love stories inspire me to live in love
• love is ultimately about acceptance and forgiveness
• love is alive and well and can warm a heart even through comments typed on a blog
• I love you and you and you and you. oh, and you too.
• I love the month of march ♥

the unexpected gift from anne frank

I don't write often of my husband or my daughter here in this space. they are both very private people and the idea of their lives posted on the internet brings each of them some trepidation. (interestingly, they both flourish in real life with face-to-face connections.) sometimes I want to write about them and I'll do a draft with a fictional person standing in. it never comes out right. so I am left with the bits of love and memory here and there that feel safe to share. since this month is all about love, I couldn't let it go without a mention of the two humans that have loved and taught me the most.

I met ken when I was just past age thirty. I had been married before and was a single working mother. I was really focused on work and not on anything that resembled a life. I decided a year or so before that I didn't have time for dating or a relationship. in hindsight I know that my heart had been torn apart and then "healed" with a scab so hard there was no room for love.

mia asked me one day if she could audition for a play. since she'd expressed little interest in theatre before, I thought it was one of her whims (um, yeah the whole whimmy thing: like mother, like daughter). coincidentally, the agency I worked for was coproducing the diary of anne frank. since I had in my mind that it would be a laidback, amateur production, we decided to audition together. you know, mother-daughter fun!

when we arrived, we were both surprised to find real actors lining up to read lines for a real director. mia totally chickened out, but I was all "what the hell...", totally knowing I didn't have a shot at a role. weirdly, I was cast in the support role of miep.

I remember seeing him at the audition. he kind of stands out in a crowd because he resembles a handsome bill clinton with a little more nordic thrown in. our eyes briefly met across the table and he made me nervous because of the crystal blue eye contact. I had to turn away quickly and felt a blush rise in my cheeks (I'm thinking, seriously, you're blushing?!). but even if I was in the market for dating material, I knew he was a few years older than me and so not my type. still, there was something about that eye contact.

so I showed up at first read-through still thinking they made a mistake. I hadn't been on stage since high school and even then didn't take it very seriously. ken had been cast as mr. frank. ken worked in theatre and was a very gifted actor. I felt like an idiot and that my lack of theatre skill demanded too much on-stage help from him (he would gently walk me through a pivotal scene when the director had become frustrated at my lack of progress). we became friends at rehearsals in the only way a gregarious girl and a serious man can become friends...clumsily. but it felt so natural to talk and laugh with him, he with the weird "I can see your soul" eye contact.

as we got closer to opening night, I became very frightened that this was real. a real play with a soldout audience in a huge theatre. what the eff was I thinking?!

the play was beautifully produced. the stage was the attic. the opening began in complete darkness with images of real holocaust victims appearing and fading to the haunting music of dead can dance. the first scene was between miep and mr. frank, returning to the attic after the war.

the thing I remember most about the play is waiting in the wings with ken the moments before we stepped on the stage while the slides and music played. I remember being scared beyond scared and feeling like I couldn't breathe and had to fight the impulse to run away. his hand found mine in the darkness and I instantly knew that I was safe and that I could do anything. I couldn't see a damn thing but I turned to face him and felt those eyes peering at me, knowing and loving the soul they saw.

dear blog

so I realize that I am the one who made this commitment, but seriously I didn't realize how spending every single day together would begin to annoy me a wee bit. it's not that I want to break up or anything like that. it's just that I come here and there you are, all blue and bright and happy. and I'm like, "jeez, I have nothing."

our relationship is a bit like a marriage. we work well together and stick it out through good times and bad. but this whole blogging-everyday-for-a-month thing is beginning to feel like we went on a month-long vacation together and are staying in a really small hotel room with just a narrow walkway around the bed and are getting sick of hearing each other breathe.

sometimes I toy with the idea of flirting with younger, hipper blogs and wonder what it would be like.

this morning I have to remind myself that I am with you for a reason. that I chose you and you chose me. that we compliment each other. that sometimes I don't agree with you and I love that that challenges me to think and feel in different ways. that you ask that I create and celebrate what I bring.

so here I am. you're on my nerves. but I'm here. because I love you.

odd love song

when it comes to love songs, I tend toward the quirky and wordy. all that celine dion drama is a bit too heavy for me (even though I have enjoyed a grandiose voicy ballad here and there). since I started this love month, I've known I would post about love songs, so I've thought a lot about them, which ones resonate and why.

the narrowed-down list includes songs that aren't love songs per se, but songs that put me in the memory: the kiss, the dance, the drive down the coast, the fight, the heartbreak. yet I kept coming back to one song that wasn't a part of my own story but about remembering and longing and celebrating and moving on. I love this song for its poetry and its music and its connection to the freedom of youth. I love the video for its imagery...being solitary in your loneliness even while surrounded by friends...and the familiarity of the southern california house party. I love it because I've actually "drove out to the desert to lie down beneath a bowl of stars" and danced in the palace (now the avalon) with a boy I was wildly in love with. and, like most counting crows songs, it just seems so very intimate, flowing from a very personal experience.

okay, research time: what's your favorite love song? post a link if you'd like, I'm in the mood for some music.

p.s. did you see giada at the party (about 3/4 way in)?

holding on to weekend love

what? it's monday already? I hope you had a beautiful weekend. mine was quiet (yay!) and quite lovely in a noneventful way. even though I am very rested, my mind and heart full of love and inspiration from visiting your blogs and hours of reading, I am always surprised at the weight in the air come monday morning. the pressure increases and thoughts of dealing seep in. dealing. I'm beginning to realize that that my own energy is the source of the heaviness and not some atmospheric disturbance.

every monday I vow to carry some lightness from the weekend with me through the week. inevitably, it's dissipated by 10am, replaced by decisions, chaos, uncontrolled emotions of others. nevertheless, I am committed to keep trying. here are the bits of light and love coming to work with me today:

• nuzzling nose to nose with an albino pit bull terrier with a head bigger than mine; his giant gentleness warmed my heart.
• sweet pixie posted this video on facebook, please take a look, you won't regret it.
• reading in the sunshine. not the warmest of sunshine, but sunshine nonetheless. I haven't been able to do this in months.
• thought a lot about balance. after writing yesterday's post, I was amazed that I associated the word stillness with balance. balance is one of the least passive states we can achieve.
• I've been having wild dreams every night for a few weeks. curiously, in each one, I briefly visit a location from my childhood (some of which I had forgotten).
• have decided that ultraviolet is going to be my new color for spring. talk about balance: the fire of red mixed with the calm of blue. yes, that's what I'm going for. I started with these.
• kheer and darjeeling tea. I do believe that this combo results in the ultimate comfort.

what will you be taking with you to work this week?

learning to love balance

I so admire people who seem to float through life with relative ease: calm without being numb, assertive without being loud, kind while still being truthful. people who are balanced amaze me. since I am one who tends toward the extremes, being (or shall I say appearing?) balanced demands a significant amount of energy from me, so I know that "ease" is not always part of the deal.

in yoga, I can achieve balance. while others in the class wobble and fall, I can maintain stillness in the pose. so I was thinking about the principles applied in yoga and if they would also apply to life and emotional balance:

• know and see in your mind's eye the pose you are going to execute►be clear in intention
• solidly root and ground your body►operate from a position of truth and love
• move into the pose step by step►be deliberate with words and language
• once in the pose, locate and focus on one thing with your eyes►maintain presence in the exchange; listen
• feel for and engage areas of counterbalance►consider alternatives; remain open
• be strong►be fearless
• be steady►accept disagreement
• be the pose (eagle, dolphin, firefly, halfmoon)►be genuine and beautiful
• hold the pose►take the time to achieve equilibrium
• breathe►breathe

I was right, balance is hard work. but I know I must work at it until I get it right. practice, practice, practice; just like in yoga.

a little flickr love

from my recent favorites. I love it when there is an unintentional thread once the images are grouped. clearly, I've been loving me some red lately.

{photographer credits here.}

(not) loving

• the sound of way too many questions, distortions, duplicitous comments
• the pressured sound of my own voice in reply
• the chatter inside my head
• last week I wondered aloud if five years from now I would look back and the signs that I should move on to different work would seem so very obvious...since then the universe has smacked me in the face with so very obvious signs
• and now I'm trying to ignore them

one of the things I love about winter is its silence. but that very silence makes noisy times all the more frenetic for me.

loving:

the very thing I love about our land of blog is that communication is accomplished through words and images and is very very quiet. I always feel I can come here and not have to be prepared to be pulled apart by problems and requests and ugliness. when I was a little girl, the library is where I went to experience the same level of safety and happiness. I'm grateful we've created a space such as this.

best kiss

I've been thinking a lot about kissing lately. it was a recent topic on oprah and the sexpert advised that it's not really a kiss unless it lasts at least 15 or so seconds. so we held our own little scientific experiment here in our busy house and we concur: a peck just doesn't cut it. when you take the time to stop what you are doing and focus on the kiss, magical things happen. that's all I'll say about that.

think about your best kiss ever. was it your first? did your knees do that quivery buckly thing? (I love that!). was it unexpected? movie like?

and if you are in want of some kissing inspiration, the l.a. times is celebrating fifty great movie kisses (click on the photo and it shows you the actual scene). which one is your favorite? I'm torn between twilight (I know, I know...), sixteen candles and last tango in paris (but I think I like that more for the clothes).