Everything New is New Again

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I write so little about or in Spring, it sometimes seems. Perhaps, because I am so often so busy with the business of Spring--the growing and changing and thinking and flowering and walking up to the park for italian ice and going on excursions in the sunshine because it's just so damn nice out and why waste the day-ness of it all that I sometimes miss the part where thinking about it is involved.

Thinking, and giving thanks, once more, for where I am now, and from where I have come. And for what is creeping up on the horizon, waiting to surprise me with yet more newness. I keep being asked 'how are you?' as I find myself reconnecting with people I haven't seen in too long. Dear friends, and old acquaintances whose return to my orbit is in itself a gift. And how am I?

I am itchy with excitement, with ideas and projects and so many things to do and so many opportunities I can almost not handle it. Let's talk about that abundance thing for a minute, shall we? La Abundancia, as one of those dear friends new returned to my orbit says. Let's reflect while Mercury finally slips out of retrograde today, and carry that forward.

I'm moving to California this summer, to go and get my MFA, in a program that accepts two people a year. I may even have found housing. I have incredible friends who I will miss like fire and who I know will miss me, and the assured blessing of couches to sleep on when my feet (and airplanes) bring me inevitably back to this incredible city I have suddenly discovered myself calling Home. I have Brooklyn, and on a sunny day filled with people I love? That is more than enough. I have new Tarot cards, and my old Tarot cards, and the gift of words and a fire at Beltane. I have constant discoveries of amazing things to do -- and then doing them. Projects bubbling in the back of my mind in so many media. Poetry trickling back into me in tangible, holdable ways. The work of my heart and the work of my hands.

I have above all things incredible, wonderful people whom I have found, and who have found me, and whom I am helping find one another. I am astonished, clean floored by the unmitigated beauty of the people I know. Just the chance, sometimes, to sit back and watch folk-I-know become folk-who-know-each-other is enough to sit me speechless with a smile. Real hearers and hearteners of the work stuff, it's heady.

I am working, as you see, on writing about it. Returning to writing. On being grateful for it. On knowing that, though I am leaving, I am leaving nothing behind me -- just pulling the strings Westward for a while. Dragged with halting footsteps toward the light, as I wrote recently.

(A story: I had this relationship with Poetry once. And we dated with feverish, mad intensity that came from what seemed like the nowhere-magic-place, and then I wrote it all down--pinned and wriggling on the wall as my old buddy Eliot would say--and Poetry and I were splitsville. She left me on the side of the road in Massachusetts with no idea what my major was going to be Now She'd Gone. We didn't talk, and it hurt like a stubbed toe to think on her, off gallivanting with other folks. And then I met this new kid, called Costumes, and oh, we've been going steady for a while. And he's super cute, and dresses up in so many neat ideas. But you know what? It's good to have a friend back in the picture, especially one you haven't seen for a while. So Poetry and I are talking again; and while it's not as mystical or passionate, I think our connection's a bit more solid, more real this time. And for that, I'm also thankful)

Everything that's stressful, everything that's worrisome, everything that I may bitch about, darlings? It's totally tangential. I am some delirious kind of happy, and giving myself the chance, finally, to breathe, and stretch, and love, and revel in the dizzy new chances I am given in the now. And I'm trying to be patient, and not rush the ones to come.

Some thoughts on it from my new poetry crush, Rebecca Elson:

Evolution

We are survivors of immeasurable events,

Flung upon some reach of land,

Small, wet miracles without instructions,

Only the imperative of change.

Shabbat Shalom, and Blessed Be

Friday, August 22, 2008

I've been thinking about gifts a lot tonight. Human ones, like a neighbor with a stepladder, or a long phone call with a good friend, meeting wonderful new people or overcoming one's own inertia. Ones from the world, like a perfect smooth rock in the middle of the road, or a small handful of shells, or an acorn from your favorite tree. A book you need before you know you need it. A poem that fits the time and mood just right. Small things, unexpected things, important things.

Today, I got a lot done for a change. I wrote applications for jobs, I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner (a rare occurrence), I wrote emails, I made phone calls, I wrote short letters on Facebook -- I went for a walk, and the weather was lovely.

Gifts.

I left the house, and walked a little ways, then back up towards another street. A couple of young Orthodox girls were passing by which is hardly remarkable, I live in Crown Heights. The Chabad-Lubavitch Headquarters is somewhere down my street. I walk on a little, and the girls run over.

"Excuse me, are you Jewish?" says the first. The second is quiet through the whole interchange.

"Ah...well, kind of --I suppose..." I stammer, for all the reasons described last post.

"But is your mother Jewish?" First Girl asks. It's not pushy, just friendly finding-out.

"Oh, definitely," I say. On that subject, I'm perfectly clear.

She beams. Ah-ha! "So of course you're Jewish!" And she hands me a small metal box, then goes on. "7.26 tonight, light these. It's a time for a Jewish woman to be in a place of peace, tell God and the Universe what you need to."

I say thank you, they continue down the street, and suddenly it's a beautiful day, with the sun shining down, and I have a ridiculous smile on. I keep walking, and a part of my mind is going along the cynical 'wonder how many white girls in the neighborhood they've asked that today' path, but a much louder part is going "Shabbos candles. They just gave me Shabbos candles."
And it's big, and important. And I recognize a gift as a sign when it's pointed at me in Big Flashing Neon Lights by the Universe.

Because here's the thing: I've never lit Shabbat candles for myself. Physically lit them, said the prayer, for me, alone. With my family, with college friends, with other people's familes, yes. But never for me.

And then these Chabad girls give me candles. In a little metal box with matches, and a charm with the logo of the FridayLight campaign, and a little booklet that says "Find Your Inner Peace." The second they handed it to me, I knew that tonight, for the first time, I was going to light my own candles.

For me.

I set things up, two candles on my desk in the tin, and it's not enough. It's just two votive candles, like the kind we keep in the living room for ambiance. Nothing separate, nothing special. It won't do. So I break out my 'altar box' which has been sitting under my desk, waiting for me to find a shelf and a space. I rummage through, seeing what's been hiding there. I pull out the box of stones and shells and acorns and other accoutrements and altar bits, and a scarf for a cloth, and try again. A Shabbat altar, simple, bright.

The candles in the center, and the elements around them. A twisted twig, found on a sunrise walk, an acorn given by my favorite tree, a myrtle twig, a chestnut from a deep-felt day in Pere Lachaise cemetary for Earth. Shells collected on my cousin's beach in Israel, for Water. Fire is always harder, but a silver sun charm, a stone from a walk, an agate from a friend. (We're going with the theory that all rock was lava once, and lava is Fire of Earth. Like I said, fire is a hard one for me.) Feathers for air, naturally. And an array of stones across the top -- wishes, intent for the coming week. Amethyst and quartz on either side - to keep peace amid the chaos. Blue Tiger's Eye - keeping energy up, and goals and conviction strong. Lodestone - to attract good fortune and (hey, practicality here) employment. Also grounding. Malachite - to clear blockages that prevent transformation, to get things rolling. Better.



And then I lit candles. I said the prayer, I said what I needed to, and the scent of the wicks catching, the flame rising, the wax melting, was just as it was when I was little. The heat rising to meet my hands, bringing the light towards me. Just what I needed. Something settling into place as just the right thing, at the right time, in the right place. I took some time, then made dinner, and relaxed, watching my Shabbos candles glow.

A gift.

Shabbat shalom. Blessed be.

And to the young ladies I met today: Thank you.