A dinner of blessings

Attention is love, what we must give

children, mothers, fathers, pets,

our friends, the news, the woes of others.

What we want to change we curse and then

pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can

with eyes and hands and tongue. If you

can't bless it, get ready to make it new.

- Marge Piercy, from What Are Big Girls Made of?
an excerpt from "The art of blessing the day"

 

At the end of the day, I sit, next to my friend, the day's hostess, and breathe.  A candle burning next to Lakshmi, the muskiness of incense tinges my nostrils.  I feel blessed.  I neither praise nor criticize. My skin and muscles retain the warmth from the bubbly hot water of the Jacuzzi where I floated, naked, under the starts, floating in the warmth of the water, like a baby securely vulnerable in the womb.  The dryness of the air leaves nothing in the way of the stars tickling my skin, bestowing the power of the universe.  I feel lithe and warm, despite the big meal of Thanksgiving.  The laughter, the intoxication of all we ingest and of the company.  A collection of strangers who have broken through each other's strangeness.   As we go around the table to count our blessings, each has a moment to bask in the attention of the rest.  We thank healed relationships.  We thank intentions manifested.  We thank the pains and sorrows that inspired and taught us how to use our tools to create what we have today.

            I remember last Thanksgiving spent with another group of seemingly mismatched folks, thankful that once again I escaped being alone, blessed with people who care enough to include me in their family.  I look back on the days in between, seeming to bring me back full circle, but at a different plane on that point.  Through a year of love and loss of love and potential for love, of death or impending death; through a year that has changed the supporting cast of my life, thankful even for those who made short appearances, who were need to move along my plot and to teach me new pieces of wisdom; through the steadfast friendship of the original cast who, though having occasional hiatuses, always are there when it is most important; through finding and surpassing my own limits; through headstands and lesson plans and writing projects, I exhale all I have cursed (or that has cursed me) and inhale all the blessings into which they have been transformed. 

 

Motorcycle Diary #2

The unseasonably warm evening air, perfect for my new romance with
LA. There are moments, nearly scraping by a bus, then everything is
suddenly falls into place. My body moves as one with the
motorcycle. I no longer resist, but let my body lead, feeling the
pull of gravity on my weightlessness. Without effort I move forward
and emerge from the clouds of doubt into clarity. It is not escape,
but sticking on the journey. With faith, I maneuver between the SUVs
and Mini Coopers, agile and outside the lines, creating your own path
-- solid, secure, visible to me alone. I am suddenly aware of the
smile on my face, a smile that radiates to my toes and all around me
as I climb off the motorcycle and remove my helmet. Even my walk
has new purpose, new grace as I emerge on the other side.

Motorcycle Diary #1: LA laughs back at me

Oh, Los Angeles. It is like one of those relationships you can't
quite leave.

For months, it will ignore you, leave you longing and unsatisfied.
You plead and coax, and it just gives you a shrug, curls up into
itself, closed and exclusive.

Then, you move on. You are ready to make the break. You start to
see yourself without this city -- the sunny days, the scent of pine
and dirt in Griffith Park, the vistas of Mulholland Dr. -- surely
somewhere else has all that and more. You start the planning (even
if just planning the planning . . .) and then, suddenly, Los Angeles
is back and wants to play. Parties, dancing, Sunday lunches, friends
who value your company, the perfect graduate program for you --
suddenly you find yourself just enjoying all her beauty with the wind
blowing in your hair as you take it all in from a speeding
motorcycle. Not even traffic can stop you now. Something new,
something refreshing, something to possibly stick around for, just
for a bit longer. Flying through the park, leaning into curve
around which you cannot see, you almost don't care if it is the wrong
decision because in this moment you remembered how to laugh and smile.

Running and Mayans

With seven weeks to finish up the semester and a feeling of
floundering, with this Saturday's breathing and stretching workshop
for a conference I know nothing about, with my NaNoWriMo 'novel' a
jumble of words disguising a plot, conflict, and compelling
characters, and with my feeling of stagnation in my life, I escaped
to my local park to run. Running seems to call me when my life is
on the brink of transformation or when I am trying to instigate
change. As if the act of running will get me where i am going or
think I need to be faster, though I still do not' know where that
is. Or, at times, it is Gump-like running, running from the
suffocation of feelings -- anger, pain, confusion -- when I can't
sit and meditate . . . only running seems to work. The pushing, the
speed (not that I am a fast runner by any means, really my running is
like fast walking), the sense of moving somewhere else . .. running
is my transitional tool.

I also rediscovered the catharsis of dancing to throbbing,
earsplitting music in a warehouse full of strangers. A nice
warehouse, with Mayan themed pillars and walls, perhaps an allusion
to mythic Mayan rituals of dance and trance? Moreover, at my age,
there to hang with Nandizzle, I don't give a damn at my age what
anyone thinks of my dancing. The men were mostly unappealing, the
kind who watch life from the sidelines and ogle the ones who are
taking life and celebrating (that is, girls dancing, guys lingering
on the fringes). The only flirting I was interested in was with
Nandizzle, mostly to keep the natives at bay:

Creepy guy: Wanna dance
Me: No
CG: Are you sure
Me: Yeah, I'm with her ( I really just meant that I wanted to just
hang with my friend, but along with the fellow fringe, his mind was
in the gutter)
CG: Oh (Gives me creepy look)

About five minutes later, CG asks Nandizzle to dance. Thankfully,
she gave him the same answer. Think he was testing me? Seriously,
move on, dude, and don't hit on my girl!
By the end of the evening, all the music rooms sounded alike in each
of the genred rooms. That was when we left. My only complaint was
the lack of an 80's room.

Top off the weekend with Nandizzle's party from Thursday evening,
which always brings plenty of opportunities for both intelligent
conversation sprinkled with flirtations enhanced by a delicious
recreation of my sangria recipe, I wonder if I could tolerate LA for
two more years while I get my masters degree.

And next . . .

It is time to leave my puddle. (See blog "Why I have nothing to
write" from October 8th). Or puddles, as they may be. Almost a
month and I am just trying to get up the courage to do this and stick
to it. The question is, where to go, what to do.

Things I want in a place to live: Hope of meeting someone fabulous
to share my life with, decent pay for teachers, a university where I
may get my Masters in Rhetoric and Composition, interesting cultural
stuff, hiking, and access to things I need for healthy living, at
least one person I know.

Places I am thinking of living: LA until I finish my Masters (but
unlikely to meet my life-partner here and so why do I want to hang
out for two more years); Eugene, Oregon; New York City; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania

The final option, I guess, is to take on a new identity and leave the
country. Why the new identity -- well, maybe I could choose one who
makes better decisions and makes decisions more easily.

Now, some reader participation: Pros/Cons for any of these cities or
goals?

My obstacles: this depression and my fear that I am just running
away again.

The Writing Project -- October

Moore Hall, UCLA, October 21st, 2006

 

There was a smell of the writing project in the air this morning.  What did the writing project smell like?  Like coffee and toxic markers and brainstorming.   And if you wondered what the writing project sounded like, it sounded like the excitement of the Romans in the coliseum and voices questioning and pens scratching upon multicolored journals and silence so loud you could hear the workings of the organs.  And going further, what did the writing project look like?  The writing project looked like 5 x 4 and scattered piles of mysteries and biographies and poems and expository essays and letters and love stories and horror stories, beloved leaves strewn across the campus.  This is how the writing project smelled and looked and sounded, and this morning you could almost touch the writing project.