My First Honest-to-Goodness-Sans-Mother Pie

This evening, I baked my first real pie.

I was so proud that I took a picture.

P

Pumpkin.  Mmm.  With whipped cream.

Simple, store-bought, truly only twenty minutes of my time, but still.

I’d baked my first real pie.

I’d baked pies before, but typically with my mother in the kitchen, during our one-of-many Christmas cookfests.  It was always comforting having my mother around. You see, I had a teensy fear of hot ovens.  And collapsing cakes.  And raw-no-matter-what-you-do brownies.  All typical fears, I’m sure.

But tonight, I’d decided to work against my fear of all these things, gosh-dern-it, to go out to the store and purchase my evaporated milk and eggs and what-not, and to bake my first honest-to-goodness sans mother pie.

My roommate was lovely to lend me spices and some crust.  I bought all the other needed magic.  I trembled, I must admit, as I mixed and measured and whipped and waited for the oven heat to commence.  And, opening the door, inching the pie into the fiery furnace, I trembled again, held my breath.  I might have whimpered.

Then – I was excited.  While it baked, I wandered in and out of the kitchen like a child before Christmas.  When the timer finally sounded, and I sat the pie on the counter, I couldn’t contain my glee.

I kept staring and staring.  And smelling and smelling.  I had made a pie.  A pie!  A glorious confection that would bring my roommate and I joy, for weeks to come.  Or – days.

But I realized, too, the deeper reason for my glee: I had tried something that ordinarily scared me.  I’d tried it.  And to top it all off, I’d done the thing well.

It was exhilarating.

This is my last official week of being 31, and I’ve decided that, during my 32nd year, I’m going to try a lot more things that scare me. Random things that I’m new at, or need improvement at.   (Is that even a proper phrase – “need improvement at”?)

To kick this off, on the night of my birthday, I’m going to go ice skating.  Honest to god ice skating.  I enjoy ice skating, but I’m not very good at it.  I usually avoid it, so it always feels new.

New.  Needs Improvement.  Ice skating under a Manhattan skyline with friends.

Exhilarating.

I’m gonna go have some more pie.

The Dollar That Went ‘Round the World

When I was 15, I set a goal.  By age 50, I would have visited every state in the U.S.  By age 75, I would have visited 30 countries.

You could say that I’m doing pretty well.  I’m 31, and I’ve already visited 38 U.S. states, several of them more than once.  Though I’m on the fence about Idaho.  I’ve technically “visited” it, but only by driving through its southeast corner, a jaunt that took a total of about an hour.  So I might re-visit Idaho again.  At least to see if their potatoes are really the best.

But the countries?  I haven’t been able to start on that list yet.  It’s something I’ve been silently kicking myself for, considering that I’ve lived in NYC for nearly a decade.  How much cheaper and easier are international jaunts when you live in the layover point for most journeys?  So cheap!  So easy!  (sigh) Not quite. Cheap-er, easi-er. But international travel still takes money, time, a plan. Things I haven’t quite been able to scrounge together yet.  Mostly because I’ve been in denial of my itching for international travel, and thusly haven’t really allowed myself to acquire money, time, or a plan.  I know that I could wait ’til age 45, visit a country a year, and still reach my goal.  But I’m itching to start sooner than that.

Itching?  Hungering, more like it.  Particularly for the last few years.

I’ve satisfied this hunger in small ways.  I watch foreign films.  I dabble in languages.  I look at picture books of foreign landscapes and breathe in the images.  I research overseas work projects and tour packages and backpacking blogs and airline prices – just “for the future”, I say.  And when I really get the itching to wander, I turn off my phone, grab my bag, and “disappear” for a few hours, an evening, a day, and wander through NYC.  I always find an adventure, something new to discover.  And then I return home, feeling “traveled” enough for the day.

But sometimes the small satisfactions aren’t enough.  I want to get up and get out so badly that I feel set to burst.  My mind speeds and jumps to every possible subject.  I pace.  I fill up to the brim with nervous scattered energy, and it spins and spins and spins until it churns into thick grumpy butter.  I get weepy and sad and frustrated.  And no amount of “Amelie”-watching will help.

Last night was one of those nights.

I went for a walk, wandering about my neighborhood.  I’d watched a foreign film – several.  I’d rented an RSC Shakespeare Master Class [and again started dreaming of the day when I'd visit The Globe.  What did it smell like?  Did the stage boards creak?]  I’d also amused myself with an experiment: I remember phone numbers much faster in Spanish.  But these distractions had worn off.  They weren’t working.  I was getting weepy, and sad, and frustrated – fast.  I opted for a rather pitiful choice: fast food.  I trudged into a Burger King and ordered a veggie burger and a large luscious pile of greasy onion rings.   I knew this would be a temporary damper, a comfort food “fix” for my weepiness, but I figured, “hell, I’m PMSing, I deserve it.”

And that was when I encountered George.

I was handed, amongst my change, a crisp dollar bill that looked like this:

I blinked.  Stared.  Blinked again.  Then I grinned from ear to ear.  My dollar bill had traveled!  Traveled!

Immediately my imagination kicked in.  How many places in the world had it been to?  How many lives had it crossed through?  If this George could talk, how many glorious stories would he tell? The dollar bill suddenly held a powerful and curious energy in my hand.  Obviously, all money carries this energy, this history.  But the fact that someone had thought up the idea of tracking this energy, this history – this person was my new hero.

As George instructed, I visited the website written below his lapel, entered in the serial number and year of my dollar bill, and found the following:

“This bill has travelled 118 Miles in 1 Yr, 21 Days, 2 Hrs, 21 Mins at an average of 0.31 Miles per day.   It is now 108 Miles from its starting location.”

118 miles. I was holding a dollar bill that had traveled 118 miles!  They even had a map to show all the places it had traveled to!

I was sad, though.  George hadn’t been traveling for very long, nor had he left U.S. soil.  Much like me.  But…I was also gleeful that his journey had just begun, and I was the first New Yorker George had come into contact with.  I represented both George’s jumping off point and mine – to see the world!  What an incredible thing!

I’ve decided to take this as a sign from the Universe that it knows I long to travel, and that travel – exciting, transcendent, world-wide travel – is definitely on my horizon.  In the meantime?  I will send my intention, trust, and dollar bill – George – out into the world while I wait and plan.  I have several friends with international addresses.  I’m going to mail George to one of them, and have them trade it for their own currency,  I’m hoping that, once George finds his way into the hands of someone returning to the U.S., they’ll get inspired like I did, and send him to another country; and then another traveler will, and another and another.  Perhaps I’ll add an inspiring request on the bill itself, or the tracking website.  Not that I want to impinge too much on the original handwriting, the original experiment.  I must give credit where credit is due.

Whatever happens, I’m going to sit back with glee and see where George goes.

Then…I’ll see where I go.

Heart Time

This past Monday, I awoke with a start at 3 a.m.  I’d had a terrifying nightmare.  The fact that I’d had a nightmare made no sense to me; I hadn’t been watching or reading anything frightening before bed, nor had I eaten anything out of the ordinary, that I could recall.  And actually, I’d gone to bed in a really great mood.  How on earth, I thought, had my psyche suddenly manifested a nightmare?

I walked around Monday like a stunned deer.  I felt unearthed, disoriented–altered–by my dream. And the more I re-visited its images and feelings, the more I realized that the nightmare had felt bigger than me.  The nightmare had felt as though I was a woman being sold into sex-trafficking, that I was all women being sold into sex-trafficking.  And I carried all of them with me into the day Monday, against my will.

That was when I logged onto Google news and found out: Monday was National Anti-Trafficking Awareness Day.

My nightmare no longer surprised me.

I’ve heard many women refer to 3 a.m. as “heart time”.  That if you have a vivid dream and/or wake up at that time, it’s your heart speaking its deepest prayers. Waking me at 3 a.m., my heart already knew what the day was about.  Putting me in solidarity–through image, sound, and emotion–with the millions still captured in sex trafficking, my dreams had already started praying for me, before the day had even begun.

I’d never really experienced “heart time” before.  I wondered if I’d experience it again.

Monday night came, and there were no nightmares, thankfully.  I didn’t wake at 3 a.m.

But Tuesday morning, I couldn’t quite shake a feeling: a dull dread, a hopelessness, a fatigue, a loss.

That was when I logged onto Google news and found out.

Haiti…

Why my heart didn’t wake me up again I don’t know.  I wish it had.  I wish I could have gone through a nightmare for each and every one.  I wish I could have prayed it away through my dreams.  I wish I could have reversed time.  Raised the dead.  Helped re-build every morsel of  their precious lives.  But I couldn’t. “Heart time”, I discovered, had terrible terrible limits.

These past two days, it’s felt as if the whole world is grieving.  You can feel it in the air; the grief wraps around you in the still in-between-the-rush moments, and you immediately feel guilty for your privilege of rushing, your privilege of forgetting for awhile.  Everyone’s trying their best to make sense of it, to help, to pray, to spread the word, to give.  So many “donate to this, donate to that” and wishing you could donate to everything.  So many phone numbers and death toll numbers, simultaneously.  What else can we do?  What else?

I can blog.  I can pray.  I can donate money, supplies, time.  I can contact friends who have loved ones in Haiti, and try–but probably fail–to give them comfort.  I can scream.  I can cry.  I can hate Pat Robertson and everything he stands for.  But what else?  What else?

Tonight, I knew “what else”.  I knew–and know–that when I’m in the throes of a “what else?”, if I’m to be of good to anyone in righting a wrong,  I need to first re-ground my soul. To do that, I turn to the wisdom of a very special spiritual teacher.  Tonight, I gathered some crayons and colored a mandala while I re-visited my teacher’s story.  I put “Happy-Go-Lucky” into the DVD player.

“Happy-Go-Lucky” is my second favorite movie of all time (“Stranger Than Fiction” being the first).  ”Happy-Go-Lucky” is not only a great film, but it’s also–I believe–alchemical.  It changes the person watching it, and they, in turn, change everyone around them, and on and on and on.  Its agency?  Joy.  Pure, un-adulterated, healing joy.  ”Happy-Go-Lucky” is about a clinically cheerful woman named Poppy.  No matter what happens to her–and in the film a lot happens to her–she faces it all with a grin and a giggle and a joyful spirit.

It’s very easy, at the start of the film, to dismiss Poppy as an “ignorance is bliss” flake, a woman who is cheerful only because she’s unaware of the world: she’s rendered herself ”comfortably numb”.  But as the film progresses, one discovers that Poppy is anything but.  Not only is she aware of the world, she’s more aware than most.  Her heartbreak and her anger at the injustices of the world run just as deep in her as her joy.  In fact, her anger and her joy are inseparable; they are the double-edged sword of love that she uses for good.  She works for good, every day, with her kindness, her generosity, and her advocacy towards and for those around her; and a resolve to always, always, spread joy.  And without giving away the plot of the film…her joy works its alchemy.  On a lot of people.  On me.

Poppy, to me, is a Christ figure, a laughing Buddha, the playful Vishnu, the wise Sophia, the healing Mary.  Re-watching Poppy’s story is obviously entertaining, but more than that–it grows my soul.  The film is a giggling meditation.

No surprise to me, as I watched the film, my mandala began to take on the quirky color palatte of Poppy’s wardrobe.  My soul released, rejuvenated, rested, re-charged for action.  By the film’s end, the mandala winked at me, and I grinned, blissfully happy; still connected to my rage, my grief, the prayers of my “heart time”, with a clear-headed determination to do the next best thing I could do to help.  And a clear determination to always, always, give joy.  And send love.

I turned off the film, smiled through my sadness, and prayed, and hoped that–in as much as Poppy had helped me find my joy again–that the joy could ripple outward in love beams, straight out of my heart and through my bedroom window, out onto the street and every street, up into the air and across every ocean, and wrap itself around those mourning in slave-captivity, those mourning in Haiti, healing every broken place of despair, giving all the freedom and comfort I desperately wish I could give.

[images courtesy of Google]

Iced Cold Peanut Butter Sludge

Happy 2010! 

…So much for my weekly Advent reflections.

You see, I was already behind on the correct week of Advent when I’d started them, reflecting on Week 1 while we were actually moving into Week 3.  I allowed this to make me feel pressured to catch up.  I procrastinated, couldn’t think of what to write-even though I tried a few times- and quickly got distracted, felt guilty that I hadn’t blogged “properly”-meaning once a week-so I gave up on it all together.  I then got thoroughly wrapped up in the despair I felt at being unemployed and broke, and proceeded to write nearly a novel to all of my friends telling them about that despair.  I received words of encouragement and prayers, gifts and advice, job leads.  I felt moved, and blessed, and loved.  I then traveled to Missouri and had a blissful Christmas with my family (including one ginormous moment of queeer acceptance), returned to NYC, moved into a new amazing apartment, had a sudden pick-up of job opportunities-one of which a seeming “dream job”…

But I still hadn’t written.  Nothing.  None of my reflections that I’d meant to write: on my couch odyssey, the generosity of my friends, the millions of tiny things that I received, discovered, and tried that helped me grow leaps and bounds; what I’d learned and what I was learning; where I’d been, where I was, and where I was heading.  So much electric change and stuff of miracles had passed through my December, and I hadn’t written about any of it.  

I ”hadn’t written about any of it” for awhile. 

I’ve been stuck in a curious place for about six months now, life-wise, and thusly word-wise.  Or maybe it’s word-wise and thusly life-wise.   Perhaps it’s both.  It’s probably both, for one always affects the other.  The only way I can describe it is this: Since about June of 2009, as I’ve moved through the world, particularly moved through decisions, I’ve felt as though I’m trudging through a vat of iced cold peanut butter, blindfolded. 

I can’t see anything or hear anything, but I can feel everything.  It sticks to me so acutely that I can’t move; I can only stand and shiver in the iced cold sludge and let all stick.  And God help me if I want to write about any of it.  I can’t move my arms, can’t find a pen or paper or computer in the sludge, nor could I see or hear anything I’d attempt to write or say.  At the end of the day, all I can do is take in the cold sludge, surrender to all that’s sticking to me, and keep trying to trudge through it, though I have a feeling I’m not getting very far when I do. 

Have you ever experienced this?

I’ve had a few breaks from the iced cold peanut butter sludge here and there.  I was able to tweak my screenplay for about a week, but I think having a deadline helped.   I’ve written a few scant journal entries, and-as we know-the beginnings of a well-intentioned weekly reflection blog.  And emails to friends and loved ones.  But the rest of the time, it’s as if I’m feeling everything so deeply that I can’t write about it.  Unless I write from the sludge.  But, considering my aforementioned description of such sludge-how do you write from it?

Perhaps it’s a new normal phase of the writing life that I’m not used to.  These past three years, written art has literally burst out of me: a novel, a feature screenplay, a short screenplay, a short story, poetry, etc.  Now all of these projects are in the editing/send ‘em out/shop ‘em around phase; I haven’t really been working on anything new.  It’s been difficult to do so.  The editing/send ‘em out/shop ‘em around projects are still being edited/sent out/shopped around.  I have about six irritated, chomping-at-the-furniture 21 year olds still living in my house, desperate to move out and go out and live in the world as the wonderful adults they are.  But first, first….they have to find a college that accepts them.  And they haven’t yet.  I, the parent, had expected them to be gone by age 18, had expected us to move into the next phase of our parent-child relationship, with them thriving and me with room for the next soul to nurture and cultivate.  But it hasn’t happened yet.  I don’t know how to take care of a 21 year old still living in my house. I try my best, try to tend to their frustration and held-back-ness, try not to take it personally when the outer world doesn’t love my brilliant baby, and-lest we forget-try to figure out why the hell I’m now trudging through this iced cold peanut butter sludge.

So many things-so many things-in my life are wonderful right now.  So much has transpired since June: new relationships, incredible discoveries, cherished memories, gifts, opportunities, transitions.  And each time I’ve wanted to sit down and write about them, I’m gripped by the iced cold peanut butter sludge.  Almost like a pain, a physical pain, when I sit down to write anything.  A pain that makes me want to scream.

What does this all mean?

Did I also mention that I’m allergic to peanut butter?  I am.  I absolutely love the stuff, but eating it makes me dizzier than hell. 

Dizzily trudging through iced cold peanut butter sludge, blind-folded.  Yep, that’s me all right.  Happy, blessed, but dizzy and sticky and can’t write worth a lick.

…Even though I guess I just did.

[image courtesy of Google]

Advent Reflections: Week 1

I begin this Advent season…homeless.

I shouldn’t say that.  There are so many who are homeless because they have no other option.  It is truly a privilege, a huge privilege, to say that I am currently homeless by choice.  It’s scary, being without a technical home.  But I surely don’t feel that I have the right to complain about it.  To speak truthfully, though…I am homeless at the moment. 

I became homeless by choice because I desired to move out of a disease.  I never knew that a building could itself be a disease, but I definitely discovered one on the Upper East Side (where else?). I heard through the grapevine, through the decades of tales and gossip, that everyone who moved there went a little bit mad.  The theory was that the building was built on an old Native American burial ground, and that old spirits owned the place, and haunted everyone’s minds.  After only a few weeks, I could believe it.

If you don’t know what diseased place I’m referring to, don’t worry.  I’ll tell you someday.  I haven’t blogged about it because I’m still processing it all.  Also, I’m debating which parts to share and which parts to keep secret and turn into a stellar sitcom pilot; and-no offense-I don’t want you to steal my material.

That all being said…back to my original point…I’m currently homeless by choice.  I packed in a hurry, moved nearly all my belongings into storage, then took a taxi across town to cozy up on an air mattress at my pal Hannah’s.  This coming week I’ll be at Holly’s.  Then Elise’s.  Then to Missouri for Christmas.  A beloved professor of mine, hearing of my upcoming couch odyssey, observed that I would be changing “homes” per each week of Advent.  I realized she was right.  I then wondered-because I tend to wonder about such things-if there was perhaps some bigger plan in my being homeless at the moment, but I couldn’t quite land upon what it would be. 

The first three candles of Advent, in many churches, are pink, and they represent repentance and prayer.  I’ve had plenty of repentance weighing on me this first week of Advent.  Well, “weighing on me”…means that it’s not really repentance, but rather misplaced shame.  Shame is not useful in the slightest, but I’ve been carrying it around something awful.  Feeling ashamed of getting myself into such living situations, feeling like a failure since I’m struggling so to find work.  And extreme failure about coming back to the place I’ve graduated from, a place that-of course-welcomes me with open arms, but…living on your old dorm floor because you have no place to go, sitting with the reality that, despite your talent and education (two Master’s Degrees now, one of them Ivy League), you are still just overqualified enough and just underqualified enough, talented in all the un-hirable things yet undertalented in all the hirable things, specific in all the vague vocations and vague in all the specific vocations to forever fall through the cracks of the world, and everyone around you-according to your perception-seems fulfilled and focused and happy and hired, and are all laughing at you behind your back, shaking their heads and knowing-just knowing-that you would be  the alum to come to nothing, the joke….you get the idea.  It is the worst kind of self-loathing.  And it weighs on you.  You’re only comforted by the realization that…pretty much everyone feels that way right now.  At least, I think so.  

Prayer?  The prayers of the Advent candle?  Oh yes, I’ve known prayer this week, too.  It breathes on my lips and my sweat and my trembling, every minute of every day.  And I feel my prayers answer back to me, gently, rubbing my shoulders ever so slightly as I rush through the cold wind and pound the pavement in a panic.  Then I hear Christmas music, I look at wreaths hanging on doors-and my heart breaks.  All of my decorations are in storage.  My beloved decorations, that have travelled with me for years, that have reminded me of all the people I love, of the season I love, all of them are stuffed away in an-albeit gentle-clump in a plastic bin.  Locked.  I realize that I haven’t had the privilege of decorating with glee, as I normally do, of picking out my Christmas cards, of deciding what I’m going to buy for whom, of sitting and drinking hot cocoa and listening to Christmas music.  Or of receiving cards-my mail is in limbo.  I haven’t had the time to mosey through the holiday season and to savor it.  And on top of it all, I’ve had the sniffles.  ”Where is my Christmas?”, I think indignantly.  I feel the weight of fake repentance, the terror of desperate prayer, and rage.  I think: “Really.  What is the point of an Advent journey such as this?” 

I’ve always thought one of my strengths is living simply, living in the moment.  I don’t have a ton of stuff, and often, once a year, I go through my room and give away stuff I haven’t used.  I don’t tend to like to settle anywhere; I very carefully patter around the outskirts of something, turning its features over and over in my mind and heart, and then-only then-do I commit, at a slow organic pace; I hate making fast decisions.  But this week, I’ve realized that…I’m alot more attached to stuff and settling than I’d thought.

I’ve been living out of five bags and a suitcase.  It’s disorienting to live this way; it slows you down, makes you feel disjointed, split apart.  Pretty soon, you resent the bags and suitcase and just want to get rid of them all together.  But then you remember, you don’t want to do that: they carry so much precious “stuff”.  Then, after a few days, it occurs to you that you’ve only used about a fourth of that precious “stuff”.  At that moment, you cringe, and realize that you are truly-though you’d hate to admit it, coming from a staunch and honest middle class Midwestern family-a privileged American.  The fact that I can complain about not having all of my stuff? And that it’s confined to five bags and a suitcase?  Good god.  Pathetically American.  But it’s true: I’ve felt panic being away from my “stuff” this week.  Even though it’s in the same city, under lock and key, perfectly safe and accessible-24 hours a day!  My very identity has felt disjointed, having my stuff scattered in so many places.     

And settling?  I’m an introvert; it may surprise some to know.  Having a private space is crucial to my well-being.  Especially having a private space to write.  Not having a private, consistent space-full of my stuff-has made me feel like a confused sky.  When does the sun go up and the moon hide?  When does the moon glow and the sun go to sleep?  Public face and private face have merged, and neither have gotten their rest, or bearings.  I care about being authentic so much-probably too much-so this realization grieves me the most.  I still have a public and private face, a persona out in the world, and then a persona that I relax into at night, as I shut my door, put on my pajamas, and sink into a settled space full of my stuff.  And when I don’t get to let that full private persona out…I feel grumpy, and disoriented.  And I long to settle.

Could this be a good thing, this letting go of my stuff, this merging of public and private face, this lack of a place to settle? 

Mmm.  Perhaps, yes?    

Without my stuff and without a place to settle, I will both find and remember the stuff of life in my heart, and feel it even more acutely from the hearts of others.  I’ll find my home in the Spirit of Christmas itself.  I’ll settle on that, inside.  And my faces merging and communicating can surely be a good thing; I’ll become even more whole.  I’ll grow. 

I’ve been remembering all the times I moved as a child, against my will, and how much I’d hated the abrupt sting of ending before I was ready, and starting before I was ready.  The neverending feeling of “will I have to lose all of this again?”  I think all of that, despite my believing otherwise, has made me very attached to stuff, to settling in a place.  To surviving, grabbing the quickest cheapest option, then hunching down and making that space my own, for as long as it can be.  That’s how I’ve moved about New York.  And I’ve realized: that’s not a very good way to move about.

So what have I learned this first week of Advent?  All of the above.  I’ve also learned to let myself receive.  I’m truly terrible at it.  But here I am, with amazing friends, opening  their hearths and hearts to me, free of charge.  Supporting me, encouraging me, building me up when I feel I’ve failed.  And have I mentioned that I have a steadfast, amazing girlfriend? 

What have I decided to do this first week of Advent?  Allow myself to receive.  And to, gently, un-attach myself from my stuff, from needing to settle, from being afraid of everything going away.  Such old familiar pain, resulting in such old familiar patterns these past eight years.  I have a hunch that if I let these things go…my right home-and a job-will reveal themselves to me.  And maybe that’s the meaning of this year’s Christmas, the meaning of this year’s prayer and preparation.  Receive and let go at the same time.  Just as Mary had to do.  And there will be a birth, a life-changing birth, a “God With Us” birth. 

Candle lit.  Match blown out.  The remaining three candles lay in wait for next week’s discovery.

Blessings to all and Amen.

[image courtesy of Google]

The Wisdom of Trees

After work today, I went to Central Park to hang out with the trees.  As I sat there staring up at their green mystery, I started thinking:

• Trees appear stationary, but they’re really growing all the time.  Every so often, you’ll be privileged enough to notice a leaf fall, or see a flower mid-bloom, but most of the time, you don’t notice anything happening.  Until one day-suddenly-you realize the tree is different.  People are the same.  Our growth may not be apparent on the outside, but then one day-suddenly-we realize we’re different: we’re stronger and taller and older, we’ve branched out, blossomed, let go of the old leaves and made way for the new.  If we ever feel like we’re not getting anywhere, we can look at the trees and be comforted.  We are.
• No matter how high trees grow, no matter how many branches or leaves or flowers or birds’ nests or squirrel families they attain, they never detach from their trunk: their beginning.  People are the same.  No matter how far we branch out in life, no matter how and when we blossom, no matter what relationships or circumstances or experiences we attain, we should never forget our trunk: our beginning.  Even if we think it chipped, old, diseased, a bit slimey, or a bit crooked, it makes us who we are, sustains us, and allows us to grow up and out into the blossoming beauties that we are.
• Trees can’t become trees without first and consistently taking nourishment from their roots, their life source.  We can’t see the roots.  Neither can the trees.  But the roots are there, alive, giving the trees their essence and foundation.  Without taking in life from their roots, trees can’t give life to themselves, or to the world around them.  People are the same.  We must take in life in order to give life to others, we must receive all the present gives us to be ready for the future, and-especially-we must stay connected to our roots, our life source, even if it seems buried or invisible to us or to others.  It’s there, our never-ending ocean, giving and loving under us and through us, always.

Thank you for your wisdom, trees.

Taste the Rainbow

The night before this year’s NYC Pride March, my friend Naveen spotted a rainbow.  My friend Cooper spotted the same rainbow.  We decided that the mutual spotting was a good omen:

 

This year marked the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots, my fifth year out, and my first year to march in the parade.  My first year out, in 2004, I’d shyly walked up to the crowds on either side of the street, and ached to join in, but instead had scrunched back and sat on some steps.  At that time, I was relieved and peaceful about being out, but hadn’t yet reached a place of celebration about it.  Plus I felt a wee inept.  I knew nothing of my community; our traditions, our history.  I had inadvertently come out on the first day of Pride Month, and though I owed this up to some lovely spiritual instinct, I still felt embarrassed when I cocked my head and asked those around me, “What’s Pride Month?”

At the next year’s parade, I inched a bit closer.  I served water to the marchers, with my church.  For the first time, I stepped out into the street; smiled, woot-ed, danced.  Then I dashed right back to the table for my next batch of chilled plastic cups.  I did this for the next two years, though in the latter of the two, I realized I was moving further and further away from the table.  Nearly three blocks up.  I couldn’t wait for the marchers to get to me.  I kept wanting to go to them.  I wanted to march.  But I was still scared.  This past year, I was transitioning churches anyway, so I opted out of the water serving.  This left me with the option.  Marching?  Huh, huh?…I chickened out again.  For by now, though I knew a lot about my community and had grown comfortable with being open about myself, I still struggled to be proud of myself, to celebrate myself.  Though I desperately wanted to.  I’d had so many hurtful experiences of homophobia with friends, family.  It was still difficult to muster up the courage to march into the stride of my queer self and smile and shout: ”yes, I am!”  But I wanted to march.  And this year: I decided it was time.      

 If you’ve never been to the NYC Pride Parade, you should.  Everyone should, regardless of your orientation.  It’s like standing next to an electric waterfall of joy; it just keeps rolling down, down, down 5th Avenue and whirls you up in its dance.  Miles and miles of unihibited joy, wit, camp, colorful clothes and spangles and head-dresses, service groups and churches, and–my personal favorite–the two elderly men that I look for every year; they march arm in arm with gentle grins and hold their traditional sign, always increasing by a digit.  This year, it read: ”Together for 52 Years”.  

Truly, it’s impossible to feel badly about yourself when you stand in the presence of the NYC Pride Parade.  And, for anyone who’s grown up in a tradition or culture where you’ve been shamed into feeling badly about yourself, the Pride Parade can seem slightly terrifying.  Because you’re not used to feeling that good.  I wasn’t.  I was used to being ashamed, carrying my shame around like some kind of justified “you’re sinning, SINNING!” sentence.  My background introduced this shame to me, but I was the one that kept it going. I’d let shame have free reign in my head and heart, privately.  I’d even purposely hung around homophobic people; I still felt as if I deserved that kind of environment.  And the shame continued, no matter how “out” I was.  Because I never ever talked about it.  I was hard on myself.  “Once you’ve come out, you should be fine”, I’d say to myself.  “Homophobia shouldn’t bother you, you should be able to be out and proud like all the other queer folks; they’ll be so disappointed that you still struggle with this sort of shame.” This thinking is, of course, nonsense.  Queer folks get it.  Of course, they get it.  They know: shame takes awhile to clean out its cubicle, especially if it’s served as your CEO.  And it’ll stick around, picking its toenails, if you let it.  It’s particularly easy for shame to stick around if you keep quiet about its presence. 

By the way: did I mention that the Pride Parade is loud?  

It is–very.  Granted, I don’t believe any celebration should cause ear drums to explode, but again–it’s impossible to feel badly about yourself with six straight miles of unabashed stereo sound.  Shame doesn’t like that at all.  Quiet is shame’s fuel.  If it can work its way into your head and convince you that you’re all alone and need to shrink back and keep quiet: it’s got you.  Now, no, I don’t mean that we should scream twenty-four hours a day, or throw caution out the window when our well-being is concerned; queer folks still need to be safe, and coming out is a process that often requires delicate boundaries, specifically with our families.  But you never should keep quiet when it comes to yourself.  Or to those that love you and are there to support you.  And it’s true: the minute you speak out and share that you’re struggling with shame–face it inside yourself and share it with those outside yourself–that’s exactly the moment when shame begins to loosen its grip.  You find yourself tapping your feet.  Smiling a bit more.  And finally, full out walking in pride.

This year, I did just that.  I gathered a group of my closest girlfriends and shared with them just how badly I was still dealing with shame about being queer, and how desperately I wanted to march in the Pride Parade.  I asked them to come, and to cheer for me.  They flooded me with love, and then floored me with an offer.  They asked, instead of cheering for me…could they walk with me?   I was red.  Holly was orange/yellow.  Naveen was blue, Cooper was green, and Heather was purple.  We formed a walking laughing rainbow, a five-strong beam of celebration.  I suddenly had five arms, five legs, five spines, five hearts.  I had roots; and I grew and grew and blossomed into the sky.  We marched.  We cheered.  We held signs.  We guzzled water and tea and Gatorade and  sweated in places we never ordinarily sweat–but it felt great.  Holly recieve our vote as Most Awesome Woo-er of All Time.  Naveen bought bottles of Fred especially for the occassion.  All of us danced and danced.   And once we reached Greenwich village, it was electric.  Hundreds packed into the tiny streets, years of history spinning the air–the place where it all began–and Michael Jackson tunes blaring.  People singing, en mass, holding up their hands.  Cooper handed me a rainbow flag, and I began to wave it every which-a-way, dancing like I’d never danced.  I could feel the energy of my community–how many decades?–pulsing up through my feet.  And as I passed Stonewall Inn, my heart leaped outside of my chest.  And I realized…I’d just started my walk into freedom.  I had fully embraced the rainbow after Noah, and understood what it meant for me.  I had been part of a rainbow, been held by a rainbow, and gleamed all the more brightly for it.

 I’ve decided that I’m going to march every year.  Even when I’m ninety and have a cane.  I’ll cover it in spangles and buy reflectors for my dentures.  Hell, I might even wear pasties.  I have learned from my community, over the past five years, that there is truly a healing power in camp.  Camp. Joy.  Celebration.  Nothing can stop it.  You just fly. 

No matter how far the journey for our equal rights; no matter how hurtful the homophobia in our churches, our societies, and our loved ones; no matter how much we may still struggle with homophobia on the inside of ourselves–there is still peace rolling down like a river, down 5th Avenue, with camp and loud and woo-ing to boot.  Millions caught up in the river.  And it grows every year.  Jesus would dig this.  I dig this. 

 Happy Pride, ya’ll.  This dyke is flying.

By the way: I also had a lovely, lovely romantic evening after the Pride March. 

…But that’s another story. 

Whirling Dervish

Whirling Dervish (wurl-ing dur-vish) n.  A mystical dancer who stands between the material and cosmic worlds. His dance is part of a sacred ceremony in which the dervish rotates in a precise rhythm. He represents the earth revolving on its axis while orbiting the sun. The purpose of the ritual whirling is for the dervish to empty himself of all distracting thoughts, placing him in trance; released from his body he conquers dizziness.  [from http://www.gregangelo.com/define.htm]

On Saturday evening, I met my first whirling dervish. In Brooklyn. I am still dizzy from the experience. And I never want to stop being dizzy. BAM was having a ten-day festival of “Muslim Voices: Arts and Ideas”, and this weekend my friend Naveen and I eagerly attended their concert of Sufi musicians, two groups: one from Morocco, one from France.

The Morrocan group wore bright red and gold tunics and oddly wonderful pointed yellow shoes. Everyone had a drum, and everyone played a different rhythmn. Sometimes, I’d go down the line with my eyes and try and match the rhythmns with the tapping of my hands. Beats within beats within beats. And sometimes beats I couldn’t even imagine went with other beats. But they did. I could hear jazz, I could hear gospel, I could hear so many styles and languages of music melding into and coming out of theirs.

They danced, carrying their bodies in willowy wonderful free jumping poses, and landing with pressed feet firm into the floor. One of them was quite elderly, a tiny man who could hardly move anymore. With great care, the others carried him along and he danced as best he could; but most of the time he sat and clapped his hands. But his face never ceased to glow; he was dancing on the inside, there was no question. He was my favorite.

Their song and drum and dance were prayerful and humble; we were invited spectators. But from time to time, they’d look at the audience with kind eyes and blow kisses at us. Bow, as if honoring us. And then their drums would beat in a frenzy, getting faster and faster and faster, until you couldn’t help but want to leap from your seat with a breathless yell. And people did.

During the last number, dozens of audience members-young and old-rushed the stage. Some banging their heads. Others jumping. Everyone smiling, laughing. My friend Naveen chuckled when I remarked it reminded me of the end of “Hair”, for it did. The air changed. It was moving, pulsing, heavy and ecstatic. I was breathless, so happy that I was almost afraid.

And that was only the first group.

The second group, from France, was all together different. Long white tunics. Much younger. Not everyone had a drum, but they had a calligraphy painter. I would watch his exquisite brush strokes against black canvas. Slowly, patiently, he’d paint more and more, drawing the canvas up-up-up on a rig, until the piece became six to seven feet high. Gentle guitar began, and the musicians sang. At first a low hum, then more joined in, and more. It sounded like a voiced salve. Weaving in and out of unison, call and response Arabic prayers, unbelievable tenors, singing whatever melody came out of their soul, rising up and into the rafters, all left me so stunned that I couldn’t even cry.

And then. Suddenly. One of them, who was dressed a bit different than the others, walked to the center of the stage. Bowed at the musicians. Bowed at us. Removed his outer tunic. Began to walk, in a large circle. Then a smaller circle. Picked up his large tunic skirt, dropped it, it fanned out three feet from his body…

And he was spinning like a top. Like a top.

So precise, so relaxed: a spinning beam of energy. His arms would change position fluidly, like water dancing upward, and his eyes would remain closed and peaceful. He kept spinning, and spinning, and spinning. For five, ten, as much as twelve minutes. I couldn’t stop gaping, couldn’t stop grinning, couldn’t stop thinking: “I’m staring at an icon in motion.”

And just as quickly as he began spinning…he stopped. Grounded his feet with a yell. Bowed. And was fine. Not dizzy at all. Just fine. As if he’d surrendered to a breeze and now the air was calm again. And he did it twice more! Ten to twelve minutes a piece!

I could have watched him all night.

The climax of the singing involved breath. The improv of the tenors, and the rest of them breathing. Breathing in, breathing out. Life, joy, the Divine. The dervish, now seated, led them with his hands; rocking back and forth, back and forth, exhaling air into a deep voiced pulse. I didn’t think to pay attention at the time, but it would have been neat to see if we were all breathing together. Because I’m sure we all were.

Once again, they bowed to us. Smiled with such kind eyes. And we cheered. The concert was a little over two hours. I felt as if I’d been there for twenty minutes.

And do you know the best part?

When you listen to Sufi music, you can’t help but be alive. In your deepest self. You mind can’t wander, you can’t worry, or be in a bad mood, or resort to any of the very easy forms of existence life sometimes thrusts upon us. It’s also impossible to be bitter, or hate anyone around you. When the audience rushed the stage, I saw people of all ages, races, backgrounds, beliefs embrace each other. Such release. Such interdependence. It was as if all possible boundaries had been melted by sound, and breath, and painting, and whirling. We had all been spun out of our typical orbits, and back into the orbits we should always own: love.

I highly recommend: if you can ever see a whirling dervish, ever spend an evening with a group of Sufi musicians, do. Please do.

You’ll change.

You’ll be made dizzy. In the best possible way.

My First Sermon: “Please Play”

Today, I preached my first sermon. Well, not really my first. Drama and music and poetry are sermons, and I’ve done these many times over. But today was my first stand-at-the-podium-and-share-prose kind of sermon. And it was my last official chapel at Union. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Such beautiful hearts, sharing such beautiful things.

A very special day.

I’ve been asked to share the sermon, so here it is.

Arts Caucus and COPS folks…I love you all.

“Please Play”

“Every child is an artist. The problem is remaining one once [we] grow up.” Pablo Picasso said that.

This past fall, a group of Union students, staff, and myself met for a workshop centered around The Artist’s Way. The Artist’s Way is a twelve-week devotional, designed to help adults reconnect to and deepen their creativity. Julia Cameron, its author, contends that all of us creative, because we’ve been made by a Creator. And as we connect to this creativity, we connect to our Creator in a most—if not the most—vital of ways.

In our workshop, about half-way through, we realized that almost all of us were members of the Arts Caucus or COPS or both. That the creativity born in us as children and the creativity of our own children were a constant source of life for us. And in going through the book…as we re-connected to our creativity, we reconnected to who we were as children. As we approached daily life with this creativity, we approached daily life as our children were. And through it all, we found a connection to our Creator—however we named that Creator—in a rich, deep, and profound way.

Psychologists and creativity experts have, for decades, been examining the necessity of play for human evolution and health, both for children and adults. I would contend also…that play is the deepest form of prayer, the first form of prayer, the first form of prayer wired into us from birth, that we come out of the womb naturally doing. Play is how we develop, but it’s also how we grow into ourselves. And this growth shouldn’t stop once we reach a certain age.

But so often it does. We are told by our superiors—the minute we begin growing—that we must be in control, say and do the “proper” thing, and be afraid, be very afraid, of mistakes.

How can you be a child—how can you be an artist—with such conditions? Children never concern themselves with being in control. And with creativity, you surrender, you don’t control. Children never concern themselves with what is “proper”. With creativity, you surrender what is “proper” to find what is true. And children are especially never afraid of being wrong. Creativity welcomes mistakes. A mistake is a discovery. A new option. Something to giggle about. For children and artists, nothing is sacred, and thusly everything is. Especially…when it comes to God.

So often, when I talk about these things, I’m challenged with a question, here at Union. I’m asked: “Kari…what exactly is an artist?” This question, to be honest…really annoys me. More than anything, it makes me sad. For, if a person can only refer to the identity of artist as a “what”…they stopped playing a long time ago. Is it important to discuss art, and the role of artist? To talk about both critically, theologically? To define them? Absolutely. I have reveled in so many delicious conversations with so many of you. But we have to be careful with our talking. For there’s the temptation, as adults, to use talk as a way to be in control. As a way to be “proper”. As a way to avoid mistakes. To talk about the identity of artist so much that we talk it out of ourselves. Until the identity of artist becomes estranged from us, becomes a concept, a “what” that lives in our head. Instead of a “who”, a living, breathing, identity that we claim and live out. Children don’t critically discuss why they paint. They just paint. God didn’t critically discuss why we have a spleen. We just have a spleen.

We’ve heard two Scripture passages today. The first [1 John 1:1-3]…I’m not one to take the Bible literally, but I couldn’t quite help it in this case…“…we should be called ‘children of God’. And that is what we are.” It doesn’t say “children and adults”. It just says “children”. In looking at this verse, several of us remembered how Christ often pointed to children as models of faith, especially when their play was annoying the adult disciples. In several places throughout the gospels, Jesus would protest: “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” This made me think. Perhaps there is no such thing as “adult”. Perhaps, in fact, we are actually—all of us—older children. And that is how we should approach life, and receive the kingdom: everything our Creator has to give us.

The passage also says that as children “we will see God as God really is.” And in the second passage [Luke 24: 36b-40]…the adult disciples are having a bit of trouble seeing God as God is. Jesus stands in front of them, resurrected in a new form, freely offering an incredible gift. But the disciples are trying to be in control. They’re trying to do what is proper. They’re terrified of making a mistake. In short, they don’t get it. They do what adults do best when the unexpected occurs: they freak out. Jesus has to calm them down and say “it’s me.” And finally they’re able to celebrate. And receive him. I can’t help but think, if Christ had appeared to twelve five year olds: the scene would have been very different.

How often does Jesus stand in front of us in a new form, and we just can’t see it? Those expressions artists wish to bring into worship services, and congregations get nervous that they’re not “proper”? Those services that, heaven forbid, have adults and children together, and congregations are worried that they’ll get out of control? How would our spiritual communities look if we weren’t so worried about making mistakes?

How would our lives look?

This is my last reflection at Union. And before I leave, I would like to issue a challenge to everyone here, including myself.

Please…revisit your first form of prayer.

Please play.

Play every day. Play as children do: as if your life depended on it.

Because…your life does depend on it.

Thirty

I have now been thirty for a little more than a month, officially. I haven’t journaled or blogged at all, which is unlike me. Or at least unlike my most recent decade. For the past month, whenever I’d pick up a pen or whenever I’d brush my fingers across a keyboard, the air would seem to thicken and freeze with sacredness, and I’d gasp and think to myself: “no, no, not yet! I want to savour this a little while longer; this being thirty, this being part of a new decade.” And at the end of it all, I wondered if it was just pretense, an attempt to make myself seem larger or more important than I was. But nevertheless, I enjoyed it. Sponging the first month of thirty. My biggest delights being: the gestures and love of my friends and family.

Things do feel different, slightly. I feel older. A bit wiser. A bit more strengthened in the spine. Quite a bit more ballsy. Ready to do things afraid (though don’t get me wrong: I still operate on over eighty-three separate planes of anxiety). And quite an unexpected thing has transpired, on a consistent basis: I’m crying. Not that I’d been a complete stoic my entire life. I cried often enough, but still held back more than I’d let go. Until I couldn’t. Even onstage tears wouldn’t always come when I’d will them (though willing them is the crux of the problem). Still, I was much freer with my emotions onstage than anywhere else. But now, at thirty, it seems just about everything is making me cry. A sunset. A piece of music. Commercials. Conversations. Thinking of people. Watching people. It’s a deep, wonderous, “I’m alive” cry, and I have to say: I rather enjoy it. I no longer feel inconvenienced when snot spontaneously runs down my nose.

Though I’ve had to buy a great deal more Kleenex.

And that’s not all: I feel sexy. I can’t truly explain it, but for some reason, on the morning of my thirtieth birthday, I woke up feeling sexy. Drop-dead-gorgeous sexy. Sexy with a capital “sex”. And, though I take no shame in admitting and expressing my childlike quirkiness (and will ’til the day I die), I’ve decided to own my sexy. To walk and talk my sexy. I will express my sexy and enjoy my sexy as often as is humanly possible. I’ve learned that sexy is not a “haves” and “have nots” quality. It’s given at birth. It’s there. So there. You just have to own your sexy.

Though it helps that I’d recently learned women reach their sexual peak at thirty.

Hmph. I’ll reach mine several times over, thank you.

I also no longer care about being liked. Don’t get me wrong: I still hate not being liked. Hate. It. But my thirty-through-forty decade cannot waste time caring about it. It’s very easy in this life-oh so easy-to be sycophantic, to fold into what others would like you to be and do. You’ll lead an easy enough life. But if you ever hope to express a single original thought or especially effect change on this planet: you must be willing to be disliked. Call me an old fogie or one of the bitchy “ladies who lunch” before her time is due, but now that I’m thirty: I’m ready to take the necessary hits. I’d rather effect good than be popular.

I’ve also discovered that failing is wonderful. Just recently, I failed at something; I was mortified and embarrassed and horrified as humans often are. But then after wailing and wallowing in self-pity, I looked around and realized: the world hadn’t ended. My friends and family still loved me. I always had more chances. And-most importantly-I’d survived the failure. Regardless of how other folks might have judged my specific failure, I asked myself, “why is this failure such a big deal? Everyone’s done it. Everyone’s human. Why are we pressured to pretend as though we’re an exception to the human rule?” Perhaps it’s an American thing: failure is worse than death. We hold superhuman expectations of our celebrities, our politicians, our clergy. Along those veins, being an budding artist and a weathered PK definitely hasn’t helped. But regardless of the pressures, having the expectation that I’ll never fail is grossly unrealistic to myself. Also: unfair. I’ve decided to be very un-American and welcome failure as a friend, as yet another nudge toward “try it again and really savour the victory” or better yet “ditch this; try this now that you’re paying attention”. I’ve realized that, if I embrace my imperfections and express them openly-and God forbid have a sense of humor about them-I’ll live a much more abundant and accomplished life. One that includes many deliciously delightful failures.

Not that I’ve never been honest about myself, just…guarded. Still. About certain things. All of us are, to a certain extent, I think. I wonder what would happen if we all let loose and talked about our closeted skeletons. Every single one. Never hid anything ever again. I think the whole world would breathe one huge sigh of relief.

In the next six months, I move into a great period of transition and new experiences (lots and lots of projects are moving into new phases). I’m very excited, very proud, though still operate under my eighty-three separate planes of anxiety. I have a tendency to wallow, to worry in my chair, to sink into depression, to weep, to gobble chocolate and guzzle caffeine. To wonder if, perhaps, I really am an untalented guttersnipe after all. Then I remember that I’m thirty. Sexy. No longer care about being liked or being embarrassed or failing. And then: I realize I’m moving again. Doing. Grinning. Crying at the drop of a hat again, and chuckling to myself.

At thirty, I am cracked open; hopelessly propelled forward while terrified, and I couldn’t be more grateful. And to what can I owe this? To who? Or Who? If I were to be truly honest, I would have to say: I don’t know.

Isn’t not knowing wonderful?

After all my searching and all my study, I have come to the conclusion that none of us can possibly know the ultimate answer. To anything. And that makes life all the more miraculous and worthy to be thankful for. Besides, I don’t think that knowing is the purpose of life anyway. The purpose of life is to listen. To give. To admit you don’t know and be surprised together. To ride the wave of uncertainty and make friends with all the panic and pain and delight it ensues. Because guess what? Feeling all those things: means you’re alive.

Alive. Flying. Surprised. Thirty.

I’m liking this.

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