nowhere else but here

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy,
even if it is only
picking grapes
or sorting
the laundry.”

~ E. B. White

What brings me joy these days is, well, everything.
I have this raw experience, of not wanting to be anywhere else.
I’m not used to being here, finding myself most often more comfortable with the known routine of hiding or running away, shutting down or checking out.
Yet here I am, baffled, amazed, getting my knees stained with dirt and grass as I am unable to stop bending down and staring with rapt awe and letting my fingers tangle with the roots and soil. I am here. Right here.
I don’t want to be anywhere else.

When beaming, laughing, content, quiet, sleepy, wide awake.
When stretching, cleaning, going to the post office, sorting the laundry, picking the grapes, baking the banana bread, painting my nails pale pink.
Even when raging, when hurting, when feeling like my heart is worn outside my body and bleeding over everything.
Even when grumpy, irritable, tired, worn down, the crazy lady who yells at her kid, the silly mom who can’t stop laughing with him every time he hiccups.
Not perfect, not perfectly happy, not constant and predictable, not known or easily translatable, not packaged or able to be held.

I don’t want to be anywhere else.
It is a new meaning to joy.

A small list of joy, slices of the everything:

1. I rearranged our bedroom. This is not a particularly easy task, as it is a small room, meaning there are not countless options for where to put the bed, the dresser, the nightstands, and have it all fit. When we originally moved into this room, after Sarah moved out and we reshuffled things, I believed we had found the only possible way for it all to fit. Well, I was wrong. After measuring and scooching and swearing and sweating, all while Leo jumped up and down on my bed saying, “weeee, this is fun.” My bedroom got re-ordered and changed shapes. And I love it. I love sleeping in a new place, facing west now instead of south. I love that my side of the bed is not up next to the wall anymore and so everything feels spacious and opened up. My dreams have changes since the rearranging. Which is why I did it in the first place. I’d been having nightmares and when I woke in the night I felt rather claustrophobic, knew I needed air on all sides, no walls pressing close to the mattress, staring me down. And now I have that. The bad dreams left. And I just like laying here even in the middle of the day, listening to the whir of the ceiling fan, staring out at the window.
2. The Shiatsu I’ve been getting. I thought it might help with the detox/withdraw, that it could nurture me and help facilitate the leaving of this substance from my body. And it has. And it has done more. There is a magic in her hands and there is a surrender in just giving over my body for her to move, stretch, knead into with pressure. After the session she tells me what will happen in the days that follow. “Lot of heavy things will come up for you now,” she says in her Swedish accent. Or, “I can feel you need to cry and lots of tears are coming out and this is good, this cleanses you.” And she is right of course. I’m still feeling less verbal. Though I sense this is slowly changing, for now words are still a struggle. And tears become my communication, the love offering I have, the prayer I know to utter. It feels really welcome, this being more in my body, my tears the beginning of my body talking for me.
3. We planted flowers last Sunday out on our porch. They are so lovely and though the temperatures have been a bit on the brisk side, meaning I’m simply enjoying them from the window most of the time, this weekend it is supposed to reach 80 degrees and I will be out on my porch soaking up sun and fresh flowers. I’ve been watering them diligently, which is interesting. Last year, well honestly pretty much every year, I get the flowers, plant the flowers, love having the flowers, and then do not water the flowers. I intend to. I think it is something that needs to be done, that I want to do. And then I fail to do it. So they struggle, go limp and the green stems turn yellow. Todd will come to their rescue with buckets of water now and again and they perk back up again. And so far this year of our container flower gardens, I’m feeling this desire to be out there every day, watering them. It is my joy. It is my outer manifestation of my inner world. That I am not just planting, but also watering; not just creating but also tending.
4. I changed my voice mail. It’s a small thing in some ways. Just a voice mail message, saying whom you’ve reached and that I will call you back. But it’s also a big step for me. It is no longer the name of my birth business, no longer about being a professional and having this be my “work number”. It’s just my voice. My name. My self. My phone number. Me. There is still some loss in leaving this behind, moving into other projects and school and work. And there is still so much winding about in me, growing like ivy over the brick on the building. But for now, I’m in the in-between. This is a little wavering feeling, and it is also a sense of clarity. It feels right. I’m letting myself listen to my intuition, my own inner knowing, the voice of that wise woman who is amazingly always available even though I don’t always check in. And I’m allowing myself to respond, to trust, to surrender, to believe. And so, here we go, leaving something behind, only the unknown awaiting me. Thank-you for calling. You’ve reached. . . . me.
5. Food. I’ve been cooking more, making “real” meals. I wanted to help myself as much as possible with this transition time and eating good food felt like a big part of that, to not binge or starve, the very all or nothing space I can so quickly occupy. So I’m cooking, in the kitchen, making meals that involve more than two ingredients and don’t come from a box. And the very act of the cooking is feeding me. There are moments when I feel I’m losing my shit: when Todd is home later than I thought and Leo is now running around the kitchen yelling at me to “please, please, please let him use real orange juice and milk” in his own little kitchen for the cooking he’s doing, and I realize I added twice as much of something as I meant to, and I could gladly throw the bowls across the room and watch them shatter on the walls. So, no, I am not domestic goddess whipping up divine concoctions in the kitchens with no effort and nothing but a smile. Still, even in the messiness, the spilled orange juice, the running out of sausage, the not knowing if I will scream or start laughing, being around food, working with food, cooking food, its been good for me. And I’m making some incredibly yummy dinners that feed our bodies and our energy. A little tang and rice vinegar to clear through the cloudiness in the head and open the throat to speak. A little cool and crisp cucumber salad to mellow and chill and turn down the internal temperature that is raging with fire. A little chocolate to warm us, enliven us, send my hips swaying and my face opening and sink me into earth energy. A little garlic mashed potatoes to soothe frayed nerves and bring comfort and nesting and warmth. It is becoming one of the ways I love those in my life, love myself, love what it means to be present to my life in the day to day. And all of it is feeding me.
6. My potholder from Georgia Grace came in the mail, which I bought on the auction we had for Jeni. I love the bright colors, the yellow and green. I love the girl who made them. I love having this little piece of her with me, brightening up my kitchen, reminding me of connections that exist even before we have a face or name. Some part of me knew her before I knew her. I believe this.
   
7. This brings me to the auction itself, which I’ve been wanting to share about.

Thanks to so many of you, in the donations of auction items and paypal donations we received, in the bidding and buying at the auction itself, in the donations that were sent directly to Jeni, $3,800 was raised to give to Jeni for her care and for her son Jack.

I believe Jeni will be posting about it soon on her her blog, sharing with everyone her own experience of these efforts made.

But I wanted to take the time to thank-you as well, to let everyone who played a part to know what, together, we were able to raise, to care for a woman who has in so many ways given us back our own lives as she wakes us up, reminds of what we love and what matters to us, and gives of her own experience and heart with such freedom it makes me stand in utter awe.

To all of you, THANK-YOU.

It was a rich and meaningful experience for me to be a part of this, to be able to offer my own love and care in a tangible way that, and to do so with a sense that I am part of a community of others.

To Jeni, I love you my dear. I feel like you are a sister to me in so many ways, that some part of us knew the other long before we met and when we finally connected it felt not so much like becoming acquainted with something new but more like coming home.

There is a song in the Muppet's movie that has lyrics that sums up how I feel.

Come and go with me,
It's more fun to share.
We'll both be completely,
At home in mid-air.
We're flyin', not walking
On featherless wings.
We can hold onto love
Like invisible strings.

There's not a word yet,
For old friends who've just met ...
Part Heaven
Part Space
Or have I found my place ...

That’s how I feel about you sweet friend.

So, this, then, is my life right now. These days that in some ways are just ordinary days of sorting laundry and picking grapes, each known as joy. These days of feeling things deeply and surrendering and knowing even when hurting, I really don’t want to be anywhere else.
Even though so much is unfamiliar, unknown, I feel deeply at home within myself.
I feel a sense of belonging, inside my own self.
I feel like these things, these joys, these words even now, they come to me and then leave and I could not hold them if I tried. They were never meant to be held. Just seen, known, felt, experienced, loved, welcomed, and in the house of my belonging, the doors swing wide open, the windows never close. All comes and goes. Like seasons. Like cycles of hunger and cooking and feeding and full. Like the morning glory flowers that only ever blooms once. And still, this is what it does. It blooms.

wild saftey

Tears come quickly these days, as if glaciers have thawed and now all that was once solid is loose liquid water, spilling out everywhere, slipping through cracks and eyelids.

I feel weightless, groundless, like I stepped off a cliff and didn’t fly or fall, just realized I didn’t need the rocks underneath me as I had always assumed. To have nothing predictable, known or secure surrounding me, to have so many things cracked open, it is not a picnic. Neither is it scary. That is the surprise, the sanctuary, the thing that makes me feel safe. Even when I’m feeling afraid, experiencing anxiety, it is not scary to be feeling this. This has not always been the case for me. Until now, this has never been the case for me. The mythology of fear runs through my stories, my memories, the veins winding blood through my very body. And right now, though nothing feels stable and in moments I feel afraid by this, it is not scary. I’m breathing it in, crying all the way.

I have a companion.
Leo is at a place of trying to make sense of things in this world, what is safe and what is dangerous and what those words even mean. I have no idea how much he really understands, but I watch him begin to explore some of life’s harsher realities, and curl up in what comfort can be found and take risks even in the face of the unpredictable and even dangerous. And it makes me cry, makes my chest throb, makes the cracks running through me open so wide I could swallow the world whole.

***

His leg had been hurting for a few days, really badly, enough to make him limp.
It was rest time and I was sitting on the couch while he curled up next to me, blankets wrapped around him and his entourage of stuffed animals.
“Let me love that little leg of yours,” I said, wishing just touching it would make him better.
“Mommy, it’s like I’m a baby bird in my nest and you are the mommy bird and when it hurts you come and put your wing over me,” he said. “You’re like the bird wing.”

He’s been asking lately about our home and what is safe, if other people could come in or not, why we lock the doors.
“I feel safe,” he’ll say at random moments, while coloring or in bed or when having books read to him. He stops what he is doing and as if checking in with himself and, noticing a sensation, he gives himself over to it.
And then he pushes he shoulders up and scrunches his nose and smiles, as if embodying safety itself.

Last week, lying in bed, after the endless drinks of water and trips to the bathroom, but before falling asleep, he says this:
“I’m never going to die.”
A hush. Two beats of time.
Then,
“I’m not going to die for a very long time.”

I can’t even write this now without crying, without my heart aching.
What does his really know of death? I honestly don’t know what his four year old mind can grasp, understand, make sense of.
His innocence is still so tender, so uninhibited, so sweet.
I’m not sure what other response there is except to let the tears come.
For who he is, for this cusp he stands at, becoming aware of darkness in life, that danger is real, that death does happen as does new life and yet in all of this feeling so fully his own sense of safety and boundless space, in some ways still very present to the wisdom from which he came.

I did not know this, this innocence, of trusting that home is good, is safe. And it was not safe. The intruder was not “out there” but within our walls.
Something in me is broken open all over again to witness Leo having what I so craved.
Something in me is healed.

***

I feel a little raw, exposed, vulnerable.
I feel like this is not making things more fragile but, in its own way, radiating a new kind of strength. The security of having no security. The freedom of losing knowns and so having nothing to lose.
A wild safety.
Not calm, composed, tranquil, void or absent of intensity or grief or rage or fear.
It is this sense, this feeling, this gut knowing that I can’t shake, that I am, in all of this, loved beyond my imagination, that I am even in my thrashing being held by this universe, by god herself. And even writing this is putting me in the “unknown”, me who shies from using the “god” word, unwilling to label or limit with such terminology. But it is the word I have right now.
God is holding me, this much I know.
I am holding me, this much I feel.
And in some way I cannot fully understand, these are one and the same thing.

I keep thinking of those images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, the sacred heart pictures like the one above, where their hearts are literally worn outside their bodies for everyone to see. I keep looking at these pictures, transfixed with their beauty. This is how I feel. That my heart is not just exposed but outside my skin, as if the layers of protection, the skin, have been opened and all comes in and all flows out. And that this is not weakness or fragility but power, a power so fierce in its love and compassion, it bleeds.

So, yes Leo, though people can and sometimes do break into homes and hurt those who live there, though people hurt those within their very homes, though danger is real, you are safe, and for the first time in my life it feels, mommy is safe too. Safe even in danger.
Curl up, feel that bliss spread warm over your body. Here is my mama bird wing coming to shelter you when you need it, always. And in the shadow of another wing, in the fire that burns from my heart exposed, I let go and surrender to the love that is another name for god, for mama birds, for the water that holds me.

First Lesson Philip Booth

Lie back daughter, let your head be tipped back in the cup of my hand. Gently, and I will hold you. Spread your arms wide, lie out on the stream and look high at the gulls. A dead- man's float is face down. You will dive and swim soon enough where this tidewater ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe me, when you tire on the long thrash to your island, lie up, and survive. As you float now, where I held you and let go, remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you: lie gently and wide to the light-year stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

jena: surrendering, becoming, a circle of love

Jena Strong is a wife, mama to two girls, writer, life coach, dreamer and poet, realist and magic maker, wise woman and radiant light.
And she my friend.

She has offered me safe space and permission to be all the contradictions I am, connection and laughter, honesty and mirror, inspiration and grounding.

Did I find her or did she find me? Does it matter?
Because all I know is that she is kindred, soul sister, one of my gifts in this lifetime.

So you can better believe I was excited to hear her responses to my questions when she agreed to let me interview her in my phenomenal woman project.
And I’m happy to share her words here.

Enjoy.

What do you love about being a woman?

When I was fourteen, I wrote a poem called “Glad 2 B Female.” All I remember now is the last stanza:

And I hold my head high
when I walk down the big street,
‘cause I’m glad to be female.

I laugh now at the words, themselves (especially since the “big street” was North Pleasant Street in Amherst, MA). But what strikes me is that even then, being a woman, or a young woman, was central to my identity. Being female carried a sense of self, of power, of beauty, of strength, of importance. At the time, there was some growing defiance, too.

Being a woman means feeling connected to women throughout time and space – with my own mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and back beyond that; as well as with being a mother to daughters who may one day become mothers themselves. There’s huge solace in that for me. I grew up with sisters and aunts, went to an all-girls’ summer camp, and knew from about the time I wrote that poem that I wanted to attend a women’s college (which I did).

You work as a life coach, with your own private coaching practice, Strong Coaching. Can you share a little more about what this is, how it differs from psychotherapy or career counseling, and what you love about this work?

I love that my clients genuinely want to get to know themselves better and are willing to risk discomfort in the name of living more fully. It is such a privilege to hear someone’s story and then see them realize that they have permission to choose to keep that story or not. We have so much more room to define ourselves than we sometimes realize.

Coaching allows people to rise above the details of their daily lives, which are so often all-consuming. The point of this is to look over the whole landscape.

I see coaching as very much a combination of introspection and action. Some therapists work this way, too. The main difference is that in coaching, the primary focus is less on resolving the past and more on taking ownership of the present and the future. I witness my clients as they practice becoming more available to their experience, more conscious of their choices, beliefs, and perspectives.

We also roll up our sleeves and address the aspects of your existence – from work to physical surroundings to schedules to habits – that may indeed by out of synch with your values or vision for your life. I’ve written about this from time to time on the blog, how we all have it in us to thrive, to feel like we are in the right place at the right time. But it can be difficult to perceive this as a possibility without creating a space for that to occur.

Most of all, I love the mystery of coaching. We start out with some forms, a few exercises, but mostly there is a great deal of improvisation that always seems to lead in exactly the right direction. It forces me to be very present and to trust my own instincts. And the process of building a business has challenged me in huge ways to articulate, and not compromise, my own commitments.

You also have two daughters, Aviva and Pearl. What surprised you about becoming a mother?

This question makes me wonder when I began becoming a mother. Was it during pregnancy, or childbirth, or when I saw my girls for the first time, or in all the days since they were born? And the answer is yes. All of this. What surprises me most, every single day, is that being a mother brings into full relief the practical necessity of surrendering: Surrender a sense of control, surrendering ego, surrender knowing. And most days at some point or another I fail miserably at this. But I keep learning.

Becoming a mother is like becoming a person – it’s not something you do all at once. It’s perpetual. The mother I became when Aviva was born in 2002 was in some ways quite different than the mother I became in the months after Pearl came in 2006. More than anything in my life, motherhood is like this narrow bridge I walk everyday that spans heaven and earth, the sacred and the mundane. It’s like you’re staring into the face of God and washing the shitty diapers all at once. It puts me simultaneously in touch with my ultimate purpose on the planet and the fact that that purpose is embodied by washing my daughters’ bodies or reading to them or helping them learn how to manage their own emotions.

The winter when Aviva, who’s five now, was about fifteen-months old, I remember the sensation of being a bird with a massive wingspan, hitting my wings against the windows of our sweet little house. I felt confined and confused. But it was this that really forced me, in a process that was painful but so important, to move towards who I was and what I wanted. My time with Pearl post-partum had a completely different quality, as if a pipeline from the Universe was directly attached to the top of my head.

In what ways does having daughters affect your sense of yourself as a woman. Are there any things in particular you hope to teach them, about what it means to be a woman?

I want them to love themselves! I want them to love their bodies, their minds, their friends, their ideas, the seasons, the stranger.

I feel fiercely protective in the sense that the media gives us so many distorted images of women. I have slowly disappeared many of the Disney princess stories and movies from around the house. I feel a thrill when I see them riding their bikes or making up their own stories or being inventive. I cringe to think they could ever NOT love themselves, their bodies. And yet I guess I know that some of this is inevitable and that giving them the tools to respond to what’s out there is probably time better spent than trying to shield them from the world around us.

I think the majority of women in our culture, myself included, experience some degree of self-loathing, which is incredible to me. The most I can do to teach them to love themselves is to whisper in their ears day and night that they are just right, and to model self-respect and kindness and strength and creativity in my own doings.

I want to teach them the importance of belonging and contributing to a community. We lucked into an amazing neighborhood with open backyards and tons of kids and parents who watch over each other’s kids. It has been a real gift.

The other thing I realize I want them to learn is how to express themselves, how to share what they’re feeling, how to put words to their experience. And to know that it is always safe to share.

You have written some about your choice to step away from pursuing a full time career for a time to be at home more with your girls. How did you come to such a choice?

The choice was never a one-time thing. In the last six years, four and a half of which I was pregnant or nursing, my work life has gone through so many iterations and schedules. I did long to spend time with each of them early on; going back to work after Pearl was born was agonizing, especially since I didn’t love my job. I would go nurse her at lunchtime and long to take her home with me.

These moments definitely shaped certain decisions I made. But I didn’t exactly “choose” motherhood “over” a career, nor do I believe that women who have careers are making motherhood secondary. The way our system is set up is excruciating when it comes to this binary, this either/or, the supposed choice women make. It is so much more complex to me than that. Countries that recognize that taking care of small children IS work are light-years ahead of ours.

I spent many years – I’d say all of my twenties at least – believing that I had to define and pursue a “career” that would reflect my talents and “potential.” I longed to create a life that fit my own rhythms. Nursing my babies fit my rhythms. So does writing. So does coaching. But it took time to extricate myself from an ambitious academic/professional model that I assumed I should want.

These days, I’m feeling more settled. In a way, my main goal is to not accomplish anything – just to be in my life and to trust that it is unfolding in just the right ways. I still have a lot of excitement and energy when it comes to work – but I finally accept and really love that my work will most likely never again occur between the hours of nine and five. And that being a mama is at the heart of things.

You write on your blog and have spoken of possibly writing a book. What does writing mean to you?

Writing means coming home to myself; using words and language to reflect my experience shapes my experience. When I was in kindergarten, I decided I wanted to be a poet. This is actually the only thing I ever remember really knowing I wanted to be. Everything else has come and gone. And in the end, I realize I just want to be myself.
Writing saves my life. Over so many years, it has given me refuge, it has given me hope, it has given me expression and a way to connect with myself and the world.

As long as I can remember, the minute I finish a poem or any piece of writing, the first thing I want to do is share it. I crave this instantaneous witnessing; it’s like the poem is a tree falling and I need someone else to stand there in the forest with me watching it go down. This must be why blogging has turned out to be a great medium for me – there’s that immediacy.

The downside is that when it comes to writing something longer or more sustained, more coherent – all the things I imagine a book would be – I sometimes doubt I have the discipline to keep large portions of writing to myself. And I’ve never been much for revising my own work. But I do have visions of books to be written, and eventually I intend to figure out how to shape my writing around some organizing principle. I’m just not sure yet what that will be exactly, so I’ve decided to stop worrying so much about it for now – and to just keep writing.

When did you feel you had found your voice as a writer, and a woman?

I have found my voice so many different times, and lost it, too. I’ve always been writing. In high school, I self-published a few little chapbooks of poetry and made copies for all my friends and family. I also made one for my first love, when I was eighteen. I wonder if he still has a copy. I loved the process of cutting and pasting and compiling these little books; it is one of the things I think I have lost somewhat to computers.

At Barnard, where I went to college, I didn’t officially study any “creative” writing. I was a Russian Studies major, and that meant weaving together many disciplines. I discovered that all writing is creative writing. I loved crafting papers and essays and reflections and analyses of books and ideas and experiences, loved synthesizing information and making things sound good. I spent a summer in a rural orphanage in Russia and filled three journals that became a travel diary that I self-published and shared with the Barnard community. I spent a series of weekends with my maternal grandmother, trying to get her story, and together we wrote her autobiography. This was an incredibly meaningful experience. My senior thesis was a study of Russian-Jewish identity, and it very much became a piece about my own identity. This may have been the beginning of finding my own voice and moving away from the academic writing.

In 1996, I studied with a poet named Deborah Digges and spent a good nine months or so writing poems like mad and smoking a lot and living in a little studio apartment in Mexico. Then came several years of not writing much at all, and missing it terribly. In 2007, I took a fifteen-week class with a group called Women Writing For (a) Change, and it really jumpstarted me. I think over the past year or so, I have once again found my writing voice. And it turns out to be indistinguishable from my voice as a woman, as a mother, as a wife, as myself.

Are there times you feel the need to silence that voice and if so, how do you summons the courage to speak your truth?

This is a hard question. If there’s anywhere I silence myself, it’s when I’m feeling insecure or depressed. It’s so much more fun, there’s so much more ease, sharing moments that are lucid or poignant or clearly inspiring, and I think I judge and censor myself a great deal when I’m not there, when I’m nowhere, when I’m struggling and doubting myself.

As a teenager, I was bulimic. This had so much to do with silencing myself, swallowing my truth, not taking up too much room. I was the student who always had her hand up in the classroom, who was quick and bright. Somewhere along the way, I got self-conscious about that and learned how to stifle my exuberance. At the same time, I’m naturally introverted. So, I continue to learn that balancing act – between sharing, speaking up, being open, and at the same time honoring and getting comfortable with the quiet that is very much a part of me.

You have also shared some on your blog about your Jewish heritage, your quest to embrace and understand your roots and come to terms with your varied spiritual influences. Can you tell us a little about this process for you?

As a young child, I was exposed to things like Tarot cards. I always felt that sense of being part of something big, bigger than myself or any one of us. I grew up in an academic, artistic, intellectual, and pretty much secular environment. We celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving and danced barefoot and went to summer camp and took piano lessons. My parents are both Jewish, but my mother’s parents converted to Christian Science, setting in motion a legacy of secrecy that I have spent most of my adult life exploring and recovering.

In high school when I took a class on the Holocaust, I began to realize in a conscious way that I was Jewish. I felt a deep connection to this, but had no idea really what it meant in practice. This led to years of finding my way “in” – educating myself and defining my Jewishness. I felt alienated much of the time, but also profoundly drawn to the community, the tradition, the heritage, the connection to Jews across the centuries and throughout the world. Then I went and fell in love with a non-Jewish man, who would tell you now that he is on his own kind of Jewish journey. It has been interesting.

In college, I was exposed for the first time to mindfulness practice. I took some theater classes and read Thich Nhat Hanh and felt a strong sense of at-home-ness there. I learned the term “Bu-Jew” but have never really identified myself that way. I guess now I think of myself as Jewish with strong Buddhist leanings, but one of the most instructive comments I ever got on my blog was when Karen Miller said something about forgetting the “ist” and the “ish” and making mine real. That feels right to me.

Are there any traditions or practices, Jewish or from another faith practice or homegrown, that you experience with your daughters, together as a family?

Lighting candles and covering our eyes and clanging silverware as we sing songs to welcome Shabbat on Friday nights. Holding hands before we eat – making a Circle of Love – and thanking all the sources and each other. Sharing High Points & Low Points from our days. Making challah french toast on Saturday mornings. We also observe Jewish holidays at home and have begun creating our own traditions within those, like making a “Tzedakah Box” one night of Hanukkah – each of us chooses some books, clothes and toys to put in a box that we decorate and bring down to a local homeless shelter. Our Judaism is itself pretty homegrown, since neither Greg nor I had a Jewish childhood per se.

You have mentioned the desire to consider becoming a Rabbi. Whether in this form or through other means, what calls you to a life of service?

At one point – that lasted for about ten years – the calling to be a rabbi had an incredibly strong hold on me. It wouldn’t go away! I must have received a dozen application packets to a number of different rabbinical programs. I explored Reconstructionist, Renewal, Reform, and transdenominational programs. But it was always this big thing over “there,” and I couldn’t see how to integrate that path with the one I was committing to here in Vermont.

I have almost been to Israel several times – and each time something has fallen through at the last minute. I’ve dreamt about being in Israel and knowing exactly where I was, and knowing I was home. Somehow the “calling” to become a rabbi came to represent the highest expression of my love for Judaism and of being a spiritual teacher or guide or presence in some way.

I think it also became a replacement for really creating my own Jewish life; somehow, in order to be “really” Jewish, I thought I had to take it to the top. That habit of thinking applied to many things for me – maybe it’s a form of perfectionism. Letting go of the need to go “big” with it freed me up to start deepening my actual experience of being Jewish – which is actually much harder and also more real than the fantasy.

Honestly, I think part of it too is that I love being a student, so I imagine I probably would love rabbinical school itself. I say I’m done with it, but really, who knows? Right now, I’m enjoying knowing I can be of service in other ways, without having to have a title like “rabbi.”

Tell us a little about your own mother. What did she teach you about what it means to be a woman?

Looking back, she taught me the most by what she did. That alone is pretty instructive.

My mom’s a dancer and a dance educator. She went back to work full-time when I was about three, so I grew up with two full-time working parents, both teachers. She worked all day at a job she loved – creating a dance program at an inner-city magnet school in Buffalo in the late seventies – AND had dinner on the table at 5:30 every night for our family of five. I never remember her not being there. She made matzo ball soup (and I didn’t know we were Jewish!?) when I was sick. She picked the nits out of my thick, curly hair when I got lice. She was loving and maternal – and I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t weaving the pursuit of her own work, her career, around family life.

If anything, I am so struck now by how very similar a path I’m following. If I had to say what she taught me most about being a woman, it’s that there are a lot of pieces. And that you do what needs doing. And love your kids. And go to your dance group Tuesday nights (or, in my case, writing group). We spent a summer in Arizona when I was little because my mom was dancing there with Barbara Metler. She completed a Master’s degree over the course of several summers while we were at camp. I consider her path and look at what she’s up to now, and realize it’s no wonder I’m so committed to doing things my own way and to not settling for a false sense of choices.

What women inspire you?

My sisters. My girlfriends. Survivors and storytellers.

Women who love themselves, who have nothing to prove and no need to compare or compete with each other. Women who work and juggle and balance, who offer friendship and guidance and ask for help when they need it. Women who fight and women who forgive. Women who don’t settle.

You inspire me.

What do you hope to know for yourself and teach your daughters about what it is to live comfortably in your own skin?

That sometimes it’s NOT comfortable. Sometimes it’s downright uncomfortable, and that we don’t have to judge ourselves or evaluate ourselves at every turn. If there’s one thing I’m working on, it’s not being so damn hard on myself. It’s trusting that I’m really just right. This is what I want to convey to my daughters – and we teach what we have to learn, so we’re right in it together.

What makes you feel most alive?

Skinnydipping! Coffee! Running in the early mornings. Swimming off the rocks and doing yoga in a dripping-wet swimsuit. Walking briskly in the city. My kids’ kisses and my husband’s hands. Being in my body. Connecting with you.

bone woman: underwater world

"The Little Mermaid"
by Edmund Dulac

Where have I been?

I’m not entirely sure. No, that’s not right. I know where I’ve been; I’m just not entirely sure how to describe it.

I know what I have been doing. I’ve been quite busy with the doing of life, as tends to happen this time of year when the earth wakes up and I come awake in the morning to warm weather which makes me it easier to get out of bed and start the day.
I’ve been in the Pacific Northwest with mountains that hold my secret longings and lattes that are so yummy I could swoon. I’ve been in the presence of a dear friend, sitting with her and hearing the beginnings of her birth story emerge, laughing and playing and baking chocolate cake with her daughters, taking in the beauty that is her, layer after layer.
I’ve been tagging boxes of items for a yard sale this weekend, happy to purge my home of things no longer needed and clear space, enjoying the work involved in sorting and making piles, knowing the fun I’ll have with my friend as we sit in her yard and watch our things looked over by strangers and taken home.
I’ve been stretching my body and cooking more, putting together puzzles with Leoliscious and arranging the furniture in the new doll house I bought for him, of which he adores. I’ve been seeing my man here and there, as we pass through our home, leaving and returning on different schedules, awaiting two weeks from now when things will slow just a bit and we can again share the same bed on a regular basis. I’ve been reading poetry and dying my hair the darkest of brown and washing the bed sheets and making numerous trips to the post office.

This is what I’m doing, what is filling my days. But where I’ve been is a different state all together.

I feel I’ve taken up residence in the underwater world, deep in the ocean’s blanket of waves.

I feel I am swimming underwater, hearing muffled sounds, my body weightless in salty liquid. I feel I am here with the fishes and mermaids and seaweed, the coral and sharks and clams and sunken treasure. I feel like I have lost any sense of which way is up and down and all I know is that the sea will hold me.

There is a time lapse (likely the result of going off Paxil). It takes a few beats of time for information to compute in my brain, for words to make sense, for my body to catch up with what my mind. It takes a few beats for things to come out, for my words to form from thoughts, for expression to find its way through me. In moments I feel I need an interpreter.

It is not the darkness of the Underworld, where I have been before, the descent underneath the earth to Hades, the feeling of being swallowed by the ground. I do not feel darkness or depression, barrenness or sadness, heaviness or the inertia of being stuck in the mud. But neither do I feel I walk the earth, feel the ground firm beneath my feet, feel the sun on my face. No, I am underwater these days. It is quiet here, and I am protected as if in amniotic fluid. I see deep blue and bright turquoise and the brightest of tropical colors as fish swim by.

I am writing little, here or anywhere. And it feels like a welcome reprieve. Though I am still reading so many of you, I have not commented as much, mostly because though I hear and hold tenderly your words, my own words in response allude me. Still, I am grateful for the sense of connection it brings me, to hear voices of others and know we are all in this together.

Sometimes the water around me is calm and I slither about, making friends with the sea life. Sometimes it is choppy and cold and I am tossed about in its current. I am in a quiet space, a weightless space, unknowing and rather unconcerned with the unknowing. Because here, underwater, I can hear the Bone Woman singing her song.

And then, as is the case tonight, I swim to the surface of the sea. I lift my head out of the water to breathe air once again. My body still submerged, I look around. I can see the land in the distance, the half moon in the night sky, the world going on with all its activity, so much energy.

Before swimming back down again to my water womb, I take this moment to delight in the dark night. The stars are many. Outside my window I hear, even at this late hour, cars driving by and a siren in the distance, my city which is always awake. My little boy is sleeping soundly, limbs tangled up in blanket. Soon I too will sleep, again in my own bed. My wine tastes like grapefruit and violets. My heart is pumping blood and love.

Sherry: no regret

I "met" Sherry through our blogs. At that time Sherry had a blog devoted to sharing her experiences with breast cancer. She encourage me to use my voice to write of my experiences with illness AND wellness, heartache AND celebration, the whole of life. Her passion and sensitivity made me feel at home with her. Simply put, I love Sherry. I am happy to share here some of her stories, her wisdom, her radiating beauty.

Sherry is a self taught artist who creates mixed media and altered art collage and cards ~ traveling on the journey of life. She writes, reads, talks, laughs..."I love life and living it every day with a positively optimistic philosophy. Letting the beauty of art and life inspire."

What do you love about being a woman?

Mostly I love being a person, regardless of gender. I love just being “me”, an individual. Having said that, since we are discussing women in particular, I love my ability to multi-task, my ability to be and do more than one thing at a time. I love being able to mother, nurture, counsel, advise, listen, make a meal, pick up something dropped on the ground and to be able to think about all of it as a whole rather than one thing at a time. Yes, I know there are men who can do this, but it seems that women have more connection to this part of themselves.

I also love my empathy and sensitivity, my ability to discuss issues that are relevant and to be open to hearing others.

You describe yourself as a self-taught artist. How did you begin teaching yourself?

I started to teach myself to be an artist from a very early age, even before starting school. I think most children do this. My mother would make play-doh for me and I would spend hours rolling it and shaping it. From there it was paper dolls to cut out and then I’d move on to old catalogues and cut out the images I wanted to create “scenes” using furniture, decorations and people for the family. Very early collage! I always had crayons, colouring books, sketch pads, pencils, charcoals and I loved art in school. I had a talent for art but didn’t pursue it in school, yet my natural ability for colour, design, texture has always been present in the clothes I would choose, the furnishings for my home, colours for décor. Over the last few years I began to reach back and start clipping from magazines, I was drawn to beautiful papers, picked up some books, started reading artists’ blogs and sat down to begin. I’m still evolving, still finding a style that I can call my own. For now I just let the creative muse tell me where we’re going.

What is your creative process? Do you have an idea before you begin a mixed media collage or does it evolve in the process?

I quite often use challenges and prompts from various websites. The person who maintains the site will choose a “theme” and whatever you create is based on that theme. I might have an idea of my own before I start a project but 9 times out of 10 it goes in it’s own direction. I find that if I pre-determine how I visualize a piece turning out it just won’t because I stem the creative flow. As I said before, the muse usually takes itself where it’s going to go and once I begin to choose colours, place pieces I see where I’m headed. For example, I did a collage about “ribbons” for a challenge prompt. I used the “pink ribbon of hope” and created my piece around that. I used a body form in the piece that had no arms and a “3” over the breast. I had 5 forms to choose from, all with different patterns yet I chose that one and never veered from it, never changed my mind. What speaks to me about this is that I created this piece, three years after my diagnosis. So you see, it’s the silent voice the one I’m not even aware is speaking to me that quite often directs me.

You say on your profile that you are about “Letting the beauty of art and life inspire.” What things in this life do you find most beautiful?

If I say “everything” that will raise an eyebrow…but I truly believe there is beauty in everything. It’s all in how you choose to see and what you are looking for. The most beautiful are people, especially children, the sky, clouds, colours, water, smiles, eyes, flowers, shadows and reflections and the list goes on. In something (or someone) that does not immediately evoke thoughts of beauty, it requires looking beyond, looking deeper to see and find something that is redeeming, something that is in fact beautiful.

You were diagnosed with breast cancer and for a time you wrote a blog Abreast in the World. What did writing about your experience with cancer mean to you?

Bella, if I’d written this blog while I was being diagnosed or treated, I don’t think it would have been the same blog that it was post-treatment. During treatment I think I was too “self” focused and living within my own daily world. To do this post-treatment as I was re-entering everyday life, the world as it continued to be while I was “standing still”, was therapeutic in some ways. It allowed me to start living life as this “new” person who viewed the world so much differently than pre-cancer. I was able to use my voice, my experience, the things that I learned in order to talk about the fact that life does go on while we are being treated for cancer, or for any other life threatening illness or disease. How important it is that we continue to live, to be present in the here and now, the day to day as much as we possibly can. Cancer and other illnesses take away so much and it’s what we do with what we are left that matters so very much. I stopped writing on that blog when I realized that I had moved myself into my new life and was comfortable within it. I no longer wanted to look back, I needed to look forward and start talking about life as it is and is going to be as opposed to what it was.

What did you learn about yourself, your own strength and capacity, in living with cancer?

I learned more than I ever thought it was possible to know about myself. Having cancer allowed me to see my soul, not just know it was there…I was able to look inside and see it. And realize that even without cancer I could always have done that. I just hadn’t known I could, or that I wanted to. I learned that being a “giver” and a “doer” is wonderful but that it’s just as important to allow others to be givers and doers and to let other people be a blessing in my life. I asked for things when I needed them without feeling a burden, I learned to give thanks graciously, as graciously as I learned to say thank you without feeling guilt. That only the day we are in “matters”. I knew I wanted to leave life with no regrets and that meant saying what I felt to the people I needed to say it to – and I still do this. I don’t hesitate to say “that’s some of the best work you’ve ever done” or “aren’t you proud of yourself for achieving this” and “I love you” and “you are one of the most special people in my life”. If I say something harsh or react instead of act, I remember to apologize and mean it. I don’t worry about yesterday and I don’t fret about tomorrow. That’s not to say that I don’t plan or think ahead or disregard things that need to be dealt with. I’m talking about simply living life to the best I can each day. I look for the joy in each day and I look for ways I can be a blessing. Even if it’s just holding the door open for someone else. All those “little” things are actually quite large. And strength? I discovered that I have always been a strong person but because I’m a woman I had kept that hidden for so many reasons. And I know now that it’s quite all right to let it be known just who I am and what I can do. No apologies.

What did it teach you about life, how you choose to live life?

I answered this in the previous question to some degree. Cancer has taught me that bad things happen but they aren’t necessarily the end of the world. It has taught me that we always have choice, most especially about how we see ourselves, our place in the world, and what kind of a world this is. I’m a glass half-full person and I would rather choose to see the positive, be optimistic and keep my hope and spirit alive. With hope and spirit we have nothing.

You are a mother to two sons. Have there been any surprises about being a mother?

Surprises? No. I knew I wanted to be a mother from the time I was a child and knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother if that was possible and it was. There were sacrifices for that, all of them financial, but it’s been worth it. And strangely, I always knew I would be the mother of sons.

What do you enjoy most about being their mom?

Watching them grow over the years. Watching them develop, their personalities come into play, how they make decisions, how they interact, how they have grown and changed with one another. My children have faced a lot of crisis in their young lives. My mother passed away when they were 9 and 5, my father-in-law and then my sister when they were 11 and 7 and then my breast cancer diagnosis when they were 17 and 13. At 20 and 16 they have faced and dealt with more adult issues than some adults twice their ages. And I’ve seen them mature and know how they handle adversity and sadness. How they cope with fear. And I know that I played a large part in helping them with that, that how I behaved, reacted and coped was a role model for them to copy. And now that they are these ages, I enjoy knowing them as the young men they are going to be and look forward to having adult relationships with both.

Can you tell us a little about your own mother?

My mother was a product of the depression born in 1929. She was a wonderful woman, but she had a lot of her own issues and fears. None of which she talked about but knowing what I know now as an adult I understand her so much more. As mothers our children do look to us as role models and we learn about life and ourselves at our mothers’ knees. I was not the child who my mother thought I was and she tried to “mold” me to be who she wanted me to be…and I allowed that. For love I suppose or fear that she wouldn’t love me if I was “myself”. I spent years being someone else and the shoes didn’t fit. It wasn’t until my mother passed away that I finally let go of those chains and allowed myself to be “me”. It didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t an easy journey. Cancer was the final knock on the head to me that I wasn’t being as true to myself as I needed to be. What my mother did teach me though was adversity and that when bad things happen we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get on with it. She truly was one of those women who made lemonade with all the lemons that came her way.

What did she teach you about what it means to be a woman?

Everything that went against what I truly believed instinctively! My mother was in an emotionally and quite probably physically abusive relationship with my father. And she allowed it – for all kinds of reasons, primarily because she did not have a good self-image and low self-esteem. She taught me that men are bad. That sex is bad. It’s sad when women feel that by saying nothing or not addressing issues, or staying in unhealthy relationships “for the children” is the right thing to do. Children learn mixed messages and incorrect messages more than anything and question their own self-worth. I grew up torn and mixed up about what being a woman was really all about. My mother taught me to “play it safe” and not risk. I no longer adhere to that. I taught myself that being a woman is a good thing, standing up for yourself, for what you want and need is necessary. And if I had daughters I’d be teaching them the same thing that I taught myself. Having sons I believe I have taught them what women are, how women are to be treated and hope that I have set an example of the kind of women they will find for themselves.

What women do you admire and find inspiring?

Those who have risked, taken bold steps. Those who don’t worry about what others will think of them and do what they must and want to do to be true to themselves. Women who are prepared to take a stand, even if it makes them unpopular because they know in the end the only person they need to answer to at the end of the day is themselves and their maker. Women who love themselves.

What makes you feel most alive?

Sunshine, a smile from someone, even if it’s a stranger passing me on the street. A long walk or being by any body of water to just think and reflect. Laughter, that laughter that comes from deep within and it’s especially good when shared with someone else. Figuring out a problem, or tackling something I’m not sure I’ll be able to do, and being able to say “I got it!” or creating a piece of art/writing something and just knowing right down to my toes that it’s “good”. A compliment from anyone about anything. A hug from someone I love. Waking up each morning and being able to say “this is it, this is my day”.

bone woman: my place in the family of things

"Wild Geese"
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

***

I don’t know if I’ve ever been good.

I know I’ve tried at times.

I know I’ve gone after good as if it is a prize, an achievement, a contest, a battle ground.

I’ve hurt people in the name of being good. I’ve hurt myself, refusing to listen and hear the voice inside me that tells me I’m tired, that I need a time out, that I’m broken and bleeding, losing a great many of my bones along the way.

I may have even done some good in my efforts at being good. It’s hard to tell when the mirror is so clouded with self-importance and the guilt of not being good, or good enough.

I am lonely, lost, seeking.

I am weary of going it alone, fending for myself, protecting my self from intrusion at the cost of bolting the doors to intimacy.

I want to belong, to connect, to fit.

And I get connection confused with conformity, belonging coming to mean that everyone must be the same, want the same things, live the same way. It is easy to feel lost here.

And then Mary Oliver’s words come to me: like holy scriptures, like invitation, like kind hearted laughter at my effort and striving.

I read "Wild Geese" many times this past week, several times a day. I don’t even have to read it anymore because I could recite it. (I'm in good company.)

“Welcome home,” it says. Welcome home to yourself.

And tell me, what is it the soft animal of your body loves?

I love the ocean, the beach, and how the salt in the air sticks to my skin and enters my nostrils. I love the sound of the waves, forever coming and going, the sound of seagulls flying in the distance, the sound of my prayers offered to the infinite mystery of her tides. I love the feel of sand in-between my toes and sun on my flesh and walking on the shore at night, counting stars.

I love my city with its energy and the vibrations of so many people living different lives, all seeking in some ways the same thing. How everything seems to wake up this time of year and the people come outside. I love the Midwestern thunderstorms and the tall buildings that reach towards the sky. I love the Korean restaurant I sometimes take Leo too, driving down Devon and seeing all the saris in the window fronts, the kids playing baseball in the park, the raucous festivities that will take over the streets today, Cinco de Mayo.

I love circles and spirals, labyrinths and curves. The conch shell, the round of my hips, the winding road, the dilated pupils of birth and sex, the snake slithering like an s through tall grass.

I love my home. The play of masculine and feminine: rich brown leather with supple red velvet, my office with its manly solid wood desk and pictures of Inanna and Persephone and Kali and Hecate on the walls. I love my kitchen table and how I talk there with friends over coffee, how it always has fresh fruit in a bowl, how I have spent hours of life sitting there watching Leo play in the sink or cook his funny concoctions. I love my ordered closets and my inviting bed and the luxury of plush towels and blooming flowers and candles that smell like grass and amber and tobacco.

I love elegance in the ordinary, magic, earthy sensuality. I love a little glamor, a little vixen, a little va-va voom. I love bare feet and back alleys and mermaids and soft skin.

I love jeans that fit well and boots, high heels and silver cuffs, tousled hair and smoky eyes. I love dresses the drape and cotton underwear and black lace. I love leather and leg warmers and sweatpants and cashmere. I love the play of hard and soft. I love comfort.

I love the heart center and gladiolas and words and dance. I love fire, lilacs, love letters and oracles. I love burned ashes and spaciousness and soft bathrobes and roots. I love sea glass and smooth stones, trees and laughter. I love questions and intuition, being an empath and being a warrior. I love stretching and journaling in bed, slow cooked food and ritual. I love water and fluidity, playfulness and self sovereignty. I love the sacred and profane all mixed up together. I love vulnerability, the heart exposed, the body as temple.

I love the map of my body, the stories it tells. I love the constantly shifting energy within me, manifesting energy as needed. I love intention, permission, grace. I love common sense, voodoo magic, owls and spiders and wild horses and butterflies. I love the way Leo looks when he’s sleeping, such surrender and trust. The way he asks questions and is always coming with “the plan”, and how he is who he is without apology.

I love summer nights and porches, peaches and lush green that covers the ground. I love seasons and cycles. I love nakedness and tattoos and my morning rituals. I love driving on the open road, dive bars and smoky jazz clubs, white wine and dark coffee. I love being held by my man and the feeling of strength in his chest and arms. I love our history, our romance, our struggle, lazy nights at home and conversations when the whole world seems to open up before us. I love solitude and family. I love feeding others and being fed. I love connection and intimacy, my friends and tribe of women. I love letting down my walls and letting others come inside. I love honesty and celebration and ceremony and spitting watermelon seeds. I love passion and compassion, storytelling and sight.

My place in the family of things.

It is right here. Right in front of me.

The world is big enough, spacious enough to hold the contradictions within my own being and the wide expanse of all that a heart and animal body can love. It is open and free and embracing enough for everyone, everything, to belong.

My place in things is my place.

It is here, for me, an invitation to come home.

To be fully myself, letting myself love what I love, this is when the striving and seeking comes to rest. I’m already here, already arrived, already where I belong.

I cam coming home to myself: listening, honoring, delighting, letting go.

I am living at home with myself: tending and caring, getting comfortable, growing roots, feeling my feelings, awake to the aliveness of my flesh.

I am greeting the guests that arrive at my home: each one a messenger, teacher, a reflection.

And I am here, inviting you in.

Welcome.

Liana: large heart

The final questions in my interview with Liana:

What has your own journey been that has brought you to a place of desiring to “risk your heart and soul in the liberation of love and life?”

In truth, I am always amazed at people’s tolerance of pain actually. I feel that I have a pretty big pain tolerance, but everything in life has been done to alleviate pain and suffering for myself. How selfish is that?

So, it has just gotten to be more painful not to risk my heart.
I feel more alive in the risking of my heart. It feels more REAL.

And sometimes I still want to and do hide under the covers.

You say on your website that “Our feminine hearts desire to live as nothing less than an artful whole body offering of love. . .” How do we move from a closed state of self-protection, fearful of being hurt, to this artful love?

Come to My Dangerous Beauty and find out.

What has connection with other women meant to you in your own life?

I have never been a woman who has had a plethora of women friends, but I have a handful of woman friends that are so dear to my heart that I can hardly breathe. They know me, love me, champion me, stand beside me and kick my arse when it needs to be kicked. I have women friends who will cry for me when I cant cry for myself.

Can you tell us a little about your own mother? What did she teach you about what it means to be a woman?

I have had a difficult relationship with my mother for most for my life and still do. I saw my mother for the first time three weeks ago after 4 years. We’ve been on speaking terms for the last two years with a phone call once every 3 weeks.

My mother was adopted and her adopted mother died when she was 4, so there is a big story in her life of abandonment, abuse and betrayal.

My mother defiantly and purposefully got pregnant with me when she was eighteen, just a girl trying to get out of a hellish situation, and I was a convenient means to an end. But once she had me, she didn’t really want me nor know what to do with me. But I got her out of a tough place with a very sexually abusive father and it got my father out from under an alcoholic father’s regime.

I feel that my mother in many ways taught all the things that women shouldn’t be.

·* I learnt a lot about the betrayal women do to each other.

* I learnt a lot about competition my mother played my younger sister and I off against each other until we were in our 30’s and my sister had her first child.

· I received very mixed messages about sexuality from my mother. When I was 13-14 and she was 31-32 she began walking around the house naked and discovering her own sexuality but punishing mine (my mum has moon in scorpio) – she burnt the very first outfit