Happy...ish

To be entirely honest, I like snow about as much as an indoor cat would...Even bundled up with a woolly hat and gloves which always make me feel muffled and restricted, I am just cold.... I can't get used to the winters here. My blood was born in South-Africa where it snowed just once every 10 years, and the Jacaranda trees and bouganvillia's bloomed under a strong, fierce sun. There is a winter there, but you can almost always find a patch of sun in the middle of the day to sit in.

That being said, I do love the white surreal flakes of snow as they descend softly and gently like falling in love, especially in the dark when the street lamps turn the flakes gold, and the falling seems gorgeous and infinite.

A densely falling snow seems like a 'tabula rasa' to me, a blank slate of possibilities... as colors, tones and edges are softened and disappear into the whitening.

This is where I am in my life too, wondering where I want my footprints to go once all the snow has fallen, knowing they will grow, melt and widen along the edges, as each of my choices ripple and cement themselves as my 'path'.

All I know is living with courage takes ever more courage every single day. It has never been about the act of jumping off a mountain and flying into the rushing breezes, but a thousand little decisions. A thousand little braveries. Especially since I choose foremost, a life lived mindfully, with each choice shaped with love and wisdom.

Even if I know what I ultimately want, the getting there gracefully, is part of the serene reason. Like my staid, dry math teacher telling me she needs to know not just the answer but the quality of the formula for getting there. The answer alone is not nearly enough.

Today's snow is scant, a promise of future storms. I walk with Dovi in the thin dusting and he says "I am happy...ish". I laughed at this Calvin and Hobbes-esque sentiment.

"Why ish?"

"Because its cold." It is cold... freezing... We walk past a coffee shop. Outside stands a girl, looking tense. She had that faintly hysterical, red rimmed look of someone standing stalwart in the frigid weather, trying to finish their cigarette before their nerve gave in. Other commuters rushed past us, their necks sunk deeply into their collars, hatted and gloved in a myriad of colors.

The walk to school is not long, but Dovi is looking like the 'ish' of 'happy...ish' is broadening...

"What color are my cheeks?" he asks.

"Pink!" I said.

He looked disgusted, but as we turned the corner and approached the schoolyard, he saw the clean whiteness of it. "Look!" he said, delight in his voice.

I did...

Back to school

So, going back to schools seems like the commendable thing to do, but so far it has been like a game of "I dare you to..."

I was all signed up and ready to go, and then I get a mysterious letter in the mail telling me I have a math test in just three days.

I had not truly looked at serious math since high top sneakers were last in fashion, and math was not fashionable then either.

It was on Algebra, Trig, Geometry and Arithmetic. I looked over some of it and it looked just as obtuse as ever. The word Polynomial sound like a high fiber cereal my kids would never touch, and probably nor would I, and I just did not like the sound of a math test

I go down to the school on a rainy, overcast day and up the many strong, cement stairs. It was actually so tremendously exciting walking into a school building with all the other students.

I have never been to College. I have done online courses, but very Orthodox religious girls do not go to secular College until they are married- if at all- as they would be too 'tempted by secular ideals and peer pressure.'

So there I was in my first school with a mixed gender population and I realized that this will be momentous for me on so many levels.

The test was all on the computer, multiple choice answers, and I did decently, except that I was rewarded with the dubious pleasure of placement in an algebra course.

Then I look at the final checklist and see that I need to get a shot before I can be admitted to school.

I have never liked shots. They are nasty sharp things thought up by some Doctor with way too much time on his hands. I was 'that child' running out of the Doctors office and two blocks away when the needle came out glistening with whatever foul concoction was in it, at the time.

So I dutifully pick up the shot from the pharmacy. Of course my insurance didn't cover such 'electives, so my miserable shot was $159.99 plus my $30 dollar office copay to have said shot, shot into my arm. There the box sat, throbbing in the fridge all night, like Edgar Allen Poe's 'Telltale heart'. The next morning I came in, my wonderful Doctor gave me the shot, said my arm would be stiff for a bit and left the room. It was fine, seriously... the point is... nasty sharp thing!

Yes, I am terribly excited for school, and as far as I am concerned bring it on... but what the heck will they think of next?

Water

Dovi said "now I know what a sink feels like" as the rain poured on him. "I hate rain" he said.

"You should never hate rain. I come from a country where we had droughts and the poor cows and sheep got so thin, their bones stuck out so they looked like skeletons covered by ragged blankets. The ground was dry and hard and cracked, and the grass turned brown and died. As the drought went on, we were told via TV advertisements and newspapers, to only flush the toilet when we really had to. We had to limit the water we used for bathing, and nobody ever let the water run when they brushed their teeth."

He wrinkled his nose at the alarming picture I had set before him, though not flushing the toilet was not unheard of for him.

I wasn't quite done. "We are made from water, 61.8 percent to be exact."

"what does that mean?" he asked. "Our bodies are 2/3 water-pretty much. We need water to live, and we get water from rain. Every single life form, must have water to survive."

He sighed deeply. He was soaked, his hair lank on his forehead. "I like rain."

"We'll be home soon" I said.

Writing...

I always wonder what drives anyone to dip the barbed pen into the inkwell of their blood, rich in platelets and plasma, only to find it on paper with the entirely inadequate instrument of the tidy ballpoint pen and notebook paper, blank and familiar as well washed, pinstriped bedsheets.

What is it that drives me to pick up a pen when what pours forth is like watching myself bleed copiously in legible letters.

Worse, what is it that blocks me from expression, when I am so crammed with words, I feel painfully swollen, cystic and distended within the sheerest of membranes.

Why write or create art? Is it to relieve the pain of the 'seeing'? Do those with 'eyes' feel compelled to create expressive works of any genre, do so because they can or because they must?

Is art created by 'little tyrants" whose opinions need to prevail in some form, even long after they are gone... The last word of desperate souls, everlasting. Are we just children tugging on the skirts of society, waiting to be 'heard'?

Is it a way to live in parallel reality forever, in ones own observant world, unwilling to engage in life much at all?

I long to finish my book, which is plodding along in its way. I wonder what it is like for those who isolate themselves from the world and created great works of genius in isolated shacks of wood? What are their last breaths like? Do they clasp their paintings or dry pages of their books, the unpublished sheaf's of paper littering the bedside, and nobody is there save panicked, distant readers and collectors out there somewhere.

Is being alone and working on some great epic work, a sacrificial lamb to progress or is it a waste of a life, which in itself is the grandest work of art. Is the work an effort towards immortality? The kiss of a vampire in blood, leaving you alive and yet dead. You dedicate life to the work and yet do not live because of the work? Is that a price to pay for immortality or some miserable egotist dream of being 'known' forever?
I have come to realize, there is nothing noble or beautiful in suffering. Do we create art to give meaning to our suffering and yet make it worse?

I write because I see. This world can be fraught with shards of pain so keen, the blood is spilt before the pain and understanding. The world can be so bright, my eyes see spots of light from flashes of fire, before any form of comprehension occurs.

How do we cope with seeing? Some drink,some drug, some in the age of the internet just numb themselves with card games like solitaire where you play against yourself or a carefully skilled competitor. Even worse, are the inane 'internet' conversations with carefully crafted persona's. Mindless, meaningful in a box', communication with persons which satisfy as long as we talk, but as soon as we walk away, they and us both know it has no bearing on our real lives or even the person we really are.
Occasionally it can become a real life experience, if you meet the people behind the screen names and they are everything they say they are, and yet they are always more..because nobody can completely describe themselves without being there in the flesh and blood. Even if we think we know them, we do not know their scent, their truest selves...their grumpiness or pimply days, their total humanness. Words can be so significant, but worthless too.

Regardless in our pursuit for these anonymous souls, we often fail to see whats really around us. It sucks the seeing, the living right out of us...this numbing as if blindfolded...
To write you have to feel....
True art is taking the living, breathing chaos of life, the children, friends, lovers and necessary 'daily bread jobs', and transmuting it into a voice for all. It is the cat who lies over your notebook as you try to write...that makes it living, breathing work.
Those who hide from the world yield nothing but blank pages unless there is a live book fully formed and making a noise in ones head-garnered from so much living the quiet is to process it all.
I think the way to write is a compulsion. To write immediately in the middle of mess and noise of Grand Central Station, being busy in real pursuits and then finding corners to write in, this might mean a bench in the sun.
I find the quality of writing is the furtive scribbling in line at the grocery store, on the train or on the steps in the sun during lunch hour, places where we must rejoin life in an instant.
Books form themselves when we aren't paying attention. It is in the seeing, the experiencing, the humility of letting the writing come when it is ready and to live meanwhile. Deep, meaningful living is essential, it is our greatest work of art.

Late summer afternoon

The part of Brooklyn where I live, is a vibrant hybrid of the old and the new, like a brilliantly eccentric thrift shop connoisseur who manages to put her look together with impeccable aplomb.

There are trees here that were planted when roads were just dust and horses rested their weight against their sides. Now their massive trunks and huge gnarled arms stand like Atlas with heavy ponderous boughs of leaves. They lean over curling iron railings and towards ancient Steeples and dwarve homes built over a century ago.

The trees and weathered walls seem nourished with years of human experience. As mortals merely passing through, they leave a sense of distant history in whispers.
There is the sense of "we were here before you and we will be here when you are gone."

On the other hand, the new construction, always seems to have such abundant, glossy windows and sharp, angular edges. They rise up steep and proud of their smart trimmings.

Saplings, fresh out of the nursery, still with tags attached, are then planted in their carefully designated squares of dirt, amongst the concrete sidewalk, close to the street. An ambitious nod to a future with a bit of green in it.

A few days ago, an errant tornado wandered into Brooklyn from over the ocean. it hit us, like a toddler blundering in and wreaking havoc on his brothers' masterpiece of blocks.

We were in our apartment when the sky darkened suddenly to the churning charcoal tweed of a funeral suit.

The opaque torrents of rain poured down, as if angry washerwomen were spilling their collective dirty buckets of water into the street, with a jerk. The sky lit up so profoundly, it was as if for that second, we were completely revealed in the glare of the Gods.

Then the odd wind began and the sky became an insane, inspired artist finger painting with the rain, swirling the spray of rain and mixing in treetops and debris in his spiraling oddness.

When it was over, leaves littered the ground. Fall had arrived, like a premature fetus, torn from the womb leaving only the ashes of broken promises.
The trees, stood sentient and silent as martyrs with their their grievous injuries. Their boughs torn off like merciless amputations without anesthetic. Many had been uprooted and lay dead, their massive deep root-webs sticky with earth. Dovi called those "Tree funerals."

Even days later, as we walk to school, over the crushed pliantly green leaves, we stop often, looking at the trees, aware of heavy broken branches trapped in thick layers of leaves above our heads.

Dovi tells me he hates the D word. He means 'dying'. Ever since Ollie died he has asked me questions about death like "How come we have to pay for funerals?"
Today it was "Would ghosts be scary like in Scooby Doo?" I said, "I don't think so. If those that loved us so much, were to come back they would want to love us and protect us and definitely do no harm to us. "

He changed the subject, going over to a tree, cut into pieces and marveling at its perfect roundness, the concentric circles of it.
As we looked, the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone on the newly exposed heart of the tree, turning it the warm color of oats and rye. As the light split and spread, it seemed to daub freehand silver brushstrokes on to stone and foliage, putting comforting arms around the shoulders of buildings. It seemed to drape a shawl of light over the silver tipped vines climbing up the bruised brick, to the sky.

Its the late afternoon of summer, and even as the morning light is bright and blinding and gorgeous, it is already subtly weaker then usual, like a child coming down with a cold.

After depositing Dovi at school I walk back alone, conscious of the smell of frying onions, coming out of an open window overhead, next to a black painted fire escape.

The garbage truck is out, busily picking up recycled bottles and tins in their transparent cauls, a mantle of meal leavings and drinks drunk. The magazines and newspapers are stacked up as neatly as possible. Everybody knows once a newspaper has been opened and read it will never be the same again, but we try to refold it anyway and fit it neatly on to a pile. it is the trying that matters, you see.

I always look for books left out on the stoop on recycling day. A book is no mere recycle, it is a lovely passing of an Olympic torch...a bit of magic... an escape...

I see a massive dog pulling her Mother along. She looks at me with warm brown eyes for all of three seconds, then continues busily nosing things in the ditch. "She is beautiful". I say. "She is driving me crazy today" Her owner says, big hair quivering with dramatic outrage. "Is she taking you for a walk?"

"definitely today" she says. Stopping resignedly and waving at me, as her dog suddenly starts galloping along.

We walked past the obligatory red signs hanging off gates "Please, no fliers, ads, menus."
This is Brooklyn, and we don't like to waste paper.

We are dreamers, we are ingenious and authentic, here in our city that is also a village. It is a place where some of us have made it (whatever that means), some still need to, and some do not care either way, as long as their lives are full of meaning.

I feed the stray cat at the corner school. She waits behind the gate until I am gone, before venturing out.
Then I go home.

The way things are heard.

My cat cries at the door, wailing a meow to be let out into the hallway to go and see if the new kitten was doing something fascinating, touching his stuff, eating from his two bowls of food or drinking from his two bowls of water or worse yet playing with his kids.

Sound can be deceptive as it reverberates inside the ear and is processed by a brain chock-a block- full of memories and thoughts.
For a millisecond, the longing meow sounded to me like the atavistic cry of my grandmother, at one of her most difficult moments.
After her stroke, the visiting nurse would try and stretch out Nana's hand which had clawed inwards, tilted towards her chest in permanent foetal position. She cradled it there protectively.

Nana's eyes were so blue as she looked up at the nurse, her mouth slack at one side, words no longer obeying her mind or mouth.
She wailed that sound of pain or perhaps it was a breathless sigh of anguish, as she realized what had become of her, what had become of her right hand... That she was now expected to exist this way..from now on...
The hand that had stirred pots of food for her family, held her children as they crossed the streets in wartime London, the hand that had changed bandages and dispensed medications when she was a nurse, was no longer working right.

She had more recently used the hands I loved so well, to take me on red buses to town, where we went shopping. She hugged me and gave me little sips of coffee from her delicate china cups. She had made us butter cupcakes with icing and the best fudge I had ever tasted.
She also used those hands to play bridge with her dear 'feline obsessed' friends Molly and Teddy. they used tiny pencils and pads and looked tensely at their cards. She would tap out angry letters to errant politicians on her typwriter and tersely send them. She sewed me dresses on her little sewing machine, and read her newspapers on her bed in the morning.
Now her right hand had all but died away, this integral part of her.
she didn't try for long, the nurse and subtly shook her head. From behind her, I shook my head too.
In this space and time, the image faded as i shook my head to clear it and opened the door into the hallway. The cat looked at me with his falcon eyes and sat down in the doorway casually, then satisfied the kitten was curled up into a tiny pepper colored ball in the bathroom, walked back into the room and lay down.

Spark in the Dark...

Every day, I put on a soft, cotton tee shirt smelling of Tide and the dark wood of my drawers. I put on my blue jeans that are always shredded a little bit at the bottom, because I am not very tall and they are somehow just a little bit too big.

Every day, I fill the pockets with my necessities, the credit card, a little crumpled cash, the drivers license with its horrible, outdated religious picture and 'two houses ago' address, my chap-stick, and my brand new apartment keys

-I so appreciate putting those keys into my pocket each day-thank you God for house keys.

Then I fruitlessly try to flatten my pockets for a more streamlined look. It is the act of trying that matters. However the law of physics always applies and my pockets always bulge a bit.

The fact is, I probably need to start carrying a more dignified bag around at some point.

I find socks that sort of match, then lace up my scuffed red Converse sneakers.

I clip my phone to my jeans and sometimes my iPod too, as music makes routine errands into a tolerable symphony, lived out in my streets and supermarkets.

After further ablutions involving taming a tangled mass of hair into passable coils with effort and potions, and creating a look of being actually awake with artfully applied mascara, I am then ready, at least hypothetically, to face the day.

I open the front door and get the children to where they need to go. As I go, I look at the buildings-many in Brooklyn built in a different era, their walls telling stories of generations past, standing shoulder to shoulder with sterile new construction. I look at the people, the very young, the very old, the in between, each with a head full of thoughts. I look at the trees, the saplings sprightly growing while other mighty ancient trunks, tower over me , and I look at the endless seascape of the summer sky stretching across the planet.

and..it is with awe that I feel it, although it is always there... The sensation of being a mere spark in the dark...and I am full of trepidation.

I am so achingly aware of the infinite magnitude of being... the sheer vastness of the universe. All these possibilities, all these chances to grow. The vines of destiny intertwined with the potent power of my choices and the direction of my footsteps, makes my heart heavy inside my chest.

All the freedom to exist so completely in a life which from the minute I am born, steadily starts to dissolve and fade away like salt crystals in the ocean of humanity, that the sheer responsibility of living with meaning, with wisdom, love and understanding hurts like a mortal wound.

A substantial portion of what my future will be, is in my own simple, square-shaped hands. Everything I choose to do, affects my children and those around me who are my breath and bones. The ones I love without measure.

How can I be ever cognizant of what is the path of the wise when sometimes my guiding stars seem obscured by clouds and the child-moon seems swathed in sooty shadows of the heavens?

Yet, standing still, is decision alone, and it is not an option if I truly am to exist.

I walk on the path of my life, my sneakers comfortable at least. As I walk, the path appears under my feet. I do not know if it is the right way, because there is no 'right' way I can see, just 'my way'. Into the dream forest of fate and heart, the gentling green and gold a canopy above my head. I lose sight of the sun in the darkest thickets, then suddenly am aware of it's warmth and light again. Sometimes it is dark and damp and I stumble clumsily. Sometimes blessings fall like rain, and things happen easily.. The way is always exquisite like a dance of sun on leaves, the gravity of raw-scrubbed stones and the soul of water and I am always aware of my own breath as I walk along.

How can I muster the courage to live like a child with eyes forever brimming with wonder? How can I know what I must do for those I love? How can I know what I need to do?

I know it is not with stuff. I know all possessions collected along the way, will simply be luggage left at the doorway at the end of this journey. I think it must be to cultivate and sustain the ones I love, shelter and cherish in this lifetime.

I believe I need to learn, to explore, to exist and to know, but ultimately, it is all, only to know how to love better, to love God better and to even love myself better.

I think for me to set off on yet unknown adventures, it must be with deep courage pulled from the deepest recesses of my soul.

When I look at the few spirits who have become my companions for this journey for a time, the ones I have been lucky enough to know, the family, the friends and those whom I have come to love, truly, wholly, honestly, I suddenly see with sharp resounding clarity what I need to be.

These luminaries, these fellow sparks in the dark...it is them that are my muses to live completely...

After all, love inspires art, love inspires music, love inspires the keening of the spirit...and the balm of the soul... and love inspires the courage to go on... starting with going back to school...

ultimately though, they inspire me to live ignited...

ollie

Oh Ollie,

I keep on waiting for the featherlight whisper of your unsure tail brushing my leg, like a paintbrush forming inky curlicues on rice paper.

Ollie you were certainly our Oggie (rhymes with podgy), short and somewhat rectangle in a fluffy sort of way.

I do believe in your heart of hearts, you considered yourself feral. You were only deigning to hang out with us for the good food and cuddles. You absolutely loved your food, you were a champion hider, but apparated out of nowhere when I opened up those cans.

I saw you first on Craigslist, and was struck by how relaxed and well... flat... you looked, stretched out on the wicker chair in your photo. After cautiously entering Bed Sty, I was pleasantly surprised at how lovely the neigborhood was, with ancient brick houses and gorgeous winding wood staircases leading to bright apartments. It was October 8th 2009.

The decision to come and meet you, was made in desperation. So many changes to our lives had left us feeling rudderless. For me, married at 19 and a Mother from age 20, I could never get used to my children being away for weekends for visitation. Walking into the house and having nobody there waiting for me, felt utterly desolate.

Then I saw you. You were unsure, measuring me with your green eyed, black 'Sharpie' eyelined glance. "He loves his box." The foster Mother commented. "whats his name?"

"Oh, I didn't want to get too attached." she said and looked away.

Things got tense for a minute when you saw the carrier. You had only ever been in one to go to the vet for shots and to be fixed." I would imagine every cat would agree that 'fixed' is a misnomer of the highest proportion.

"He is never like that" she said, hoping I would still want to take your hissing, pissed off, glaring self home.

It didnt matter, you were short and tiny and fluffy and had such gumption and this insolent green eyed gaze. You were definitely a kindred free spirit.

You were seven months old and underweight. We were all in love with you. You were grumpy and gassy if the food was too rich, and moody as a woman on the rag . You would alternatively be cuddly or sink lower and lower like a limbo master if we tried to pet you and you weren't in the mood.

when we took you to the vet for shots, you turned spiky and ferocious like a feline version of the incredible hulk. It took two vet techs to hold you down, just to take your temperature. They had no clue you were capable of such shenanigans and had to call for backup.

but Ollie, you made our place into a home. You were someone to come home to for all of us, the kids who had so much change, and me in my loneliness. You were a little fuzzy, cranky doll of a cat.

In retrospect, your weak heart was always evident, especially as time went on. Your breathlessness when playing or running, your inability to climb into Adina's bed to nap. You disdain for any exercise after awhile.

Ollie, you definitely had excellent taste in people. You didn't like just anybody. You especially loved Kellie, emerging out of hiding to meet her at the door, to be cuddled.

So it was fitting that we were both there, the night I turned my office chair around and saw you there, your stomach dented in, your nostrils flaring with the effort to breathe.

You had hidden deep under the bed, but when I reached out to you, you didn't fight. We put you in the carrier to go to the Vet, Zeke seemed to know this was farewell. He first jumped on top of the carrier, then kissed you through the door.

We took you to the excellent emergency clinic, it was just after midnight. They whisked you away and put you in an oxygen tent. They gave us a room way too soon without you. It was strange to wait without a pet, with all those 'thank you' postcards on the wall.

When the Vet came in, she said your condition was very grave. You had fluid around your lungs, due to congenital heart faliure and you were literally drowning.

The possiblities were, a terminal illness, Congenital Heart Failure or an infection that was treated by an invasive week in Vet care, with a chest tube. I said to test the fluid, just so we should know if we could treat it, but when the vet came back in, she said it looks like heart failure. If she tried to remove fluid, it would come right back.

Ollie, you were suffering. You would never be the same again... This was your existence.

She said if it were her cat, she would put him to sleep. She could drain the fluid and give you a few days or put you to sleep...and we would lose you.

she left and I called mom...

"What do we do?"

"Are you prolonging life or prolonging death?" she asked.

"If you take him home are you doing it for Ollie or for yourself?"

The answers were obvious.

You were suffering so much. We talked, we cried. We made our decision. You were brought in, cradled in a fleece blue blanket like a baby. We cuddled you and cried. You were sedated but still your independent, cantankerous self tried to stagger off the table, even while still struggling to breathe. We fluffed your fur we scratched under your chin... When she put you to sleep, you finally relaxed. You finally looked like the Ollie we knew, and you were gone...

Zeke knew... when we arrived back with the empty carrier, he did not run over to inspect it, he just sat there sad and flat. Twice since, he has let out this sad keening meow... He is so lonely without you too.

It is difficult to understand all of this. Why should it be, after so much change and loss that we should lose you, a creature that was little more then a child? A fluffy soul that gave us so much joy and comfort.

You can believe that in the nine months we knew you, we were blessed. You were sent with your weak little heart to bolster our courage with your bright spirit. and when you felt we would be okay, you were gone. We all feel we still need you, we always will.

............

Fathers day

I knew you for less then ten years,
slept through roughly a third of that time, as all humans do, more in that mewling, mindless first year of bare-cognizance.
Unknowing how briefly our mortal trails would cross, before yours melted away in pieces, like dirt skittering across the kitchen floor, when the windows are thrown wide to let in fresh air from the universe-at large.
I remember warm blue eyes and hands washed too often, between patients.
I knew you for moments...
Time might have been wasted, because I did not know otherwise ... Our bucket had a hole in it, and our collective experience was trickling out, lost forever in the dust of time.

My memories, are blended, with images caught from yellowing photographs that smell of drawers, from many houses.
I recall in a flash, the Doctor shirt you used to wear, and the beret you favored. But it could be a faded imprint garnered from that photo of you out in the garden, under the gnarled, ancient tree.

I have clarity too, I know I knew you, a little bit, all things considered.

I know I loved you.

I know I miss you always.

Those who loved you so well, and knew you far better then I, keep telling me how much like you I am.

Perhaps you have a hand on the shoulder of my spirit.

I love that.

Movement...

 You know it is going to happen. Just about halfway through the popsicle, the damn thing starts to soften up.

You might try to eat it faster, but the suns' warmth is a worthy adversary. Steadily, it slides, first slowly off the stick, then quite suddenly the stick is empty in your hand and the popsicle-remains are on the sidewalk in a brightly colored puddle. The sweet tendrils melting and spreading like a clumsy spider web spun of liquid sugar, creeping in all directions until the heat declares it 'enough!' and leaves an evaporating stickiness on the ground like a scented shadow.   

We are ever riding a current of movement. Our reality, changes consistency or changes direction altogether like the winds hovering limitlessly over the planet. There is a sense of things shifting underneath and then sudden acceleration like a gust of air with a new feel to it...

This move came on me like that...like a far off storm drawing ever closer and suddenly right upon me... Not that moving is a novelty to me.

I have moved home quite a few times in my life. Our first home was in an apartment built on the site of my Grandparents farm in South-Africa. It was a deep-yellow brick building, square and stolid. Squatting next to an identical twin of a building.

Then we moved to the Honey street house. A gorgeous fairytale house, made half of stone, half of brick, with its fruit trees and climbing vines in the garden and my grandparents next door. I loved that house, and it's garden was a paradise for me. I climbed the trees and sometimes climbed on the actual roof of the house, ate the sun-warmed peaches plucked right off the branches above me, and watched the insects as they industriously went about their work. My friends and I played Pirates and Cops and Robbers and I read thousands of books while sitting in the warm sun that shone on that particular garden.

After My Father died, we moved to a sunny, peach colored apartment closer to the synagogue and school.

When I left home, and South-Africa at sixteen, I first lived in the religious school's dormitory in Brooklyn, New York. It was a hodgepodge of ancient furniture, heavy mirrors and mismatched couches. It had roaches and cracked linoleum but it was such an adventure.

Second years, were allowed to live in Basement apartments. So my next home was in a basement with three other roommates. There was no window in our room, so it was quite possible to sleep all day. Not that I ever did that, but with the door closed it was dark as pitch.

After a stint as a dorm counselor and teacher in Connecticut, I found myself back in New York. I met and married in Brooklyn. We lived in a starter apartment, then had a baby within short order, and outgrew it.

So we moved to a red brick house in Orthodox Crown Heights. The chain-smoking, old man who sold us the house lived downstairs with his wife. When we eventually moved to Long Island, I breathed in the fresh air of the garden and looked at the trees and remembered South-Africa.

When my marriage ended, and I left long Island, the community, and all vestiges of Orthodoxy, it was with the sense of doors being slammed shut and locked behind me. The community simply could not accept that I was still the same person I had always been. They were terrified of me...of it.

The next move, involved me as a pioneer single Mom, moving with three slightly shell-shocked children to Park Slope. Alone, for the very first time since I was sixteen, more alone then ever if you consider how the religious community cares for their own, right up until you piss them off.

It was okay... the unbearable sweetness of being true and honest to what I had always been, gave me strength even in my frailty... My legs were shaky to begin with..but with each step, I became firmer, stronger, less afraid.

I deliberately chose Park Slope due to the diversity, and for its trees.

The apartment though, was almost impossible to mortgage due to Condo Conversion rules and my lack of much credit under my name. It got more tangled and stressful and the real Estate broker called and told me we would be homeless, pretty much weekly. Eventually I decided I had tried hard enough, and this was not to be our settling place.

Even worse, there was no real space for Dovi to play and it made him sad. "Mommy, I liked our old house." he blurted out in Key Foods. "I know you did." I said resting my hand on his shoulder for a minute before he walked away.

So I found an apartment... with a bit more space to play. Cross your fingers but it seems like the mortgage will work out with this one. The area is more up and coming then 'there already', but it has more room for us to continue to grow and heal and become ourselves.

So again, my bookshelves started gaping like gap-toothed six-year-olds with bulging pockets of quarters from successful transactions with the tooth fairy. Now, they are growing desolate, wooden stark rectangles without the pulsing hearts of my books in them at all. The boxes are piling up, all labeled "books" in permanent marker.

and I can be so stressed and overwhelmed these days, I feel like a snarled up slinky, a metal one, mind you...the kind that once tangled you just look at and think.. where to start? I tend to panic. How to pack in just weeks.

I can most compare this feeling of being a child and getting your hands unbearably dirty or sticky. This feeling of being trapped and uncomfortable and needing it to be fixed.

It can be scary as hell.

When all else fails, I have cookies and muffins sitting seductively on the counter... telling me stress is eased by fat and sugar. Not good enough, for this I need cheesecake and foreign chocolate.

The cats are totally mystified by my antics, and are totally taking advantage of the chaos. Today, when I brought out the Furminator to brush my fat, furry brisket of a cat, I had to dodge boxes and piles of stuff to get to Ollie.

Ollie did not even bother running, he glanced over at me hampered by obstacles and just jogged lazily to the bed and hid under it halfheartedly.

Zeke, the adventurer woke me up on top of the bookcase, about nine feet off the ground gnawing on things stored up top there. The rapidly piling up boxes had made ideal stairs and he clearly plans to take full advantage of it.

Of course there are other ways to cope..

My good friends have been here for me to cry to, or laugh helplessly with, at the sheer, ridiculous amount of work to be done.

As my friend says, moving is a lot like labor... the payoff is momentous... you are working towards something wonderful, more space for living...for being alive....

 

Wet bark

Swathes of rain pouring down, woke me in the night, and I lay there and listened to Brooklyn being soaked and rinsed, and thought about possibilities...

Life seems to be run on the fluid and viscous parallels of an infinite series of possibilities, but to reach them, one has to let go of limitations grasped with frightened desperate fingers, and take that leap of faith into the vast realm of 'anything'.

I thought about God, and how in my life, he has been a comforting presence. Not the religious punitive God with all the rules and regulations of Orthodoxy, but the warm God, with massive safe hands which somehow cradle us when we are in pain. The God who shows himself in the winds ruffling fingers through the leaves and the patterned glints of sunlight spilling in the cups of the lake waves.

When the children are asleep and the house is so quiet, sometimes the air seems to grow and change shape and scent with the silence. It as at these moments that I feel so alone.

I am not sure why I feel like a child lost in a dark forest sometimes. I think it is just all the newness, all these firsts, all these responsibilities and pressures of doing things entirely on my own. I have come so far, and take pride in the fact that I indomitably keep trying. but, it takes such tremendous courage to be a pioneer in ones own life.

These moments tend to creep up on me when I least expect it. I feel a hollow in my middle, like an unexpected cigarette burn to the spirit, and tears tickle the bones of my face with their trajectory until I wipe them away with the sleeve of my sweater. I cry without truly knowing what exactly I am crying about. Afterwards, I always get back up and dust myself off and prepare to face whatever comes with renewed resolve.

I know I am where I need to be in this lifetime. I know my children and I have all grown, and thrived and advanced steadily on this new adventure path.

Most of all, I know, I can finally look at my reflection in the mirror or in the darkness of a subway window and actually see myself. For the first time in my life, I recognize who I am.

Before now, I never really could get a feel for what I truly looked like. I used to take photographs to try and see who I was. Now I know.

What gives me strength to endure, is love. The gentle love-support of my family and friends, the incongruous moments of kindness from strangers -ever surprised at how much they care for humanity- to the Mama Bear kind of fluffy love I immerse my children in...

and... the love of a girl who when I drew a stick figure of a smiling girl in the condensation on the glass with my fingertip, without saying a word, drew another stick figure girl holding her hand.. holding my hand...an inedible tenderness which touched my heart.

That night as I lay awake, I thought about having the desperate courage to give freely of oneself to the ones we love...and the ones we hope to share life's grand adventure with, for the rest of our cognizant moments. I thought about the meaning of sincerity, hope and love and how they are all truly are just facets of the idea of love. I thought about trust, and how much courage I need to love and be loved fully. Yes, I thought of love and being eachothers... for the one who can hold our hand in spirit, and it is almost the feel of Gods hands cradling us.

This year has brimmed with sweet and wondrous moments...and yes, the compassionate, grumpy fluffiness and violent gregariousness of our two new resident felines respectively, has filled our apartment with laughter and joy.

We mortals, we live for love and friendship and companionship.. the small pleasures in life... both as a people and as a species.

I had been struck shortly before with the image of life as an exercise of writing in the dark, where we know what mark we want to make but can't see how we are doing... can't see exactly the path and if we stumble, do not always know how to fix it.. until it is light again...

When I got outside, the world, was colored by the tone of rain, with wet branches reaching out deep into the sidewalk walk way, ready to smack unwary passerby's with a face full of cold water. I was so very tired, that might not have been a bad idea.

The moisture was sinking deep into the interconnected twining roots of the trees, invisible, and yet foliage has already been marked by possibilities, the steady thudding boil of energy, infusing like a heart pumping blood to the furthest reaches of the tree's leaves.

Growth, as subtle as the darkening of water on red brick, was present already and only had to fully emerge.

I noticed the wet bark sloughing off like lips dry and chapped from hours of kissing. Spring was feral and fertile. I smelt the dark earth scent of wet dirt and rain and the smell of things slipping out of fingertips wet with rain or sometimes tears.

the sense of everything being part of a greater whole... of beginnings and endings... of opportunities found..and lost... Underneath though, there was this thick unquenchable pulsing energy, ready for the possibilities.

Spring...

Spring is a bit like a middle aged woman getting ready for a big fancy occasion...

First she takes a long, month long shower which takes forever to drain, turns everyone in the entire house into a frizzy disaster, and somehow causes the bread not to rise properly.

Then she applies a good long mud mask to her entire body...The kind of mud which can suck your slippers off if you step out on to the lawn.
Now I realize, her trees have gotten all bumpy and misshapen as buds get larger and larger on their arms and fingers, and threaten to burst, but really...that is a considerable amount of mud.

Then another month of showers seem to be required... to rinse off all the mud...

Then the high winds as she blow dries her hair to perfection... The kind of wind which hides behind buildings, then just as you turn the corner howls mightily raising all the little hairs on ones neck.

She is so busy getting ready, things are strewn on the floor abandoned, the last vestiges of leaves dried and stuck somewhere all winter long. Also discarded in piles, are broken brittle branches, which are so last year...

Underneath all of this, she is moody yet, and can't make up her mind if she is feeling warm and maternal or icy and distant. Better yet, she often is both simultaneously.

By the time she is robed in a gown of leaves and flowers, she is a masterpiece, gorgeous and sweet scented, a vision so beautiful, no one could ever imagine the intense preparation to get such perfection...

Getting round tuit...

Behind my old elementary principals desk, was a hairy camel-colored bulletin board, with a hodgepodge of papers pinned on to it. I had the rare opportunity of reading every thing pinned up there frequently enough to know some of it off by heart. Then again, I used to be in the principals office an awful lot. Those papers never changed in all the years I was in elementary school, except perhaps to yellow, fade and curl up at the edges, growing brittle and dry as their content.
As The good Principal-Rabbi, began his current diatribe, his hands holding the edge of his desk for reinforcement, I tried to look attentively at his face, in the hope that I would be allowed to return to class without a full-blown lecture.
Alas, he rather liked the undulations of his vocal cords. He cleared his throat. I think he must have had sinus issues. I always looked concernedly at him when he did that, aware that the familiar steely-resolved look had entered his ginger-ale eyes.
It was actually quite a suitable expression for his impervious face. A look wholly complimented by his wire-rimmed spectacles, I used to think to myself.
As I watched him work himself into a real lather of righteous rebuking, his face reddened importantly, clashing with his rapidly used-to-be red, side parted hair. No doubt he was just getting started. I sighed inwardly.
As his voice rose and fell, I watched his lips move, entirely surrounded by a luxuriant mustache and beard, like pink slugs wriggling on a sheepskin rug. I stifled a giggle, deciding by then it was safer to let my eyes slide sideways, on to something less inflammatory.

There it was... a printed out piece of paper, cut carefully into a circle for authenticity.

By the time I had read this a few times, he was usually finished and I would hasten to say "yes Rabbi..." and would open the door and trot off to class as quickly as possible before he thought of anything else to say.

The thing is, I really like reading his 'round tuit'. It was the best thing in his office. The idea of all of us, neatly finishing up all those things that somehow always got put off for various reasons, was so satisfying.

and yet, today as I contemplate that I may finally finish up my book soon, the idea of actually typing... 'the end' and sending it off somewhere into the wide world, is a formidable one.

Some finishes are so easy. You know when you pull everything out of the closet, go through it, discarding all that has to be gotten rid of and then you put the last useful thing back inside. Seeing everything neatly folded and sorted, feels like the world has a discernible sense of order. For a brief moment in time, there is that sense of satisfaction, of symmetry of a job well finished.

I think perhaps it is the authenticity of the thing, which delays me so. Subjective creative or artistic type jobs are written or painted in lifeblood and guts.
The source of the work, wells from deep inside ones sense of self, so to finish it and hold it up to the light, give it up for examination to others, can be paralyzing enough to want to just...stop...not finish it yet... wait..the details, it is not perfect.. is it? How could it be?
Lets keep going and see... almost done..almost... well..maybe a bit more...

There is a very definite terror of completion. I mean, it kind of feels like throwing the firstborn into a vastness of the great, wilderness world, all on its own. How will it stands up to scrutiny? The more untested the waters, the more formidable finishing the job and getting it ready to emerge... truly is...

whats absurd is the need for closure at the same time, before moving on. I need to somehow reach a sense of something smoothly finished and polished...so all these open-ended jagged edges, with so much to say, kind of trip me up, stub my toes or bang my elbows and knees, leaving me feeling bruised, crowded and banged up and without that sense of..job well done...or job done at all.

I suppose I had better get a-round tuit. The good Rabbi, would be delighted that I actually took something constructive from his lectures. Then again, probably not.

New year...

"May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays.”

The last day of 2009, it snowed sparingly. Not the cozy slow-settling deep snowstorms of New Yorks iron-cold winters, which sink on the city like a cool white washcloth on sweat soaked skin, but more a stray morning snowflake coughing-fit from a gruff, grizzled, silver-haired winter sky.

It shimmered in the sun and began to fade slowly away, even before I could get the kids coats on to play outside... By the time we reached the sidewalk, bundled up in coats, hats and gloves, they had to search a bit to find the patches of snow that has not yet melted under the suns' passive gaze. There were round frost skirts in the shade of the oak trees, and mini snow drifts caught on iron fence rails like frosting thrown on by a careless knife. Low leaves on bushes wore their remaining snow politely, like napkins folded in their little green laps, which were blithely swept off by little boy wearing what appeared to be red boxing gloves.

Parked cars were fair game too once it was established that snow on cars is probably public property.

We walked to the library slowly, sliding in slush every once in awhile, and stepping over frosty puddles clutching books almost due, but when we got there, it had closed early for New Years. It didn't really matter much. The air was warmed by the snowfall and we had nowhere pressing to be for that exact moment of time, we walked slowly back home in the dying light.

An industrious man had set up a folding table of New years plastic blowers and trumpets, blinking sunglasses and lurid glitter coated hats. The penetrating honking of his trumpet as he demonstrated his wares, had Dovi making a beeline directly for the table, before I swiftly caught the back of his jacket and hissed at him "Please no".

"Wow," said Adina, raising one eyebrow "He really shouldn't blow those things if he wants people to buy them. He is showing people how horribly annoying they really are." She had a good point right there. I concurred, Dovi didn't but the bright lights of the grocery store distracted him.

I pulled out my yellow post-it-note, and we got our groceries,. I needed fresh vegetables for spring rolls and sweet potatoes to be chopped into fries. Also, cake and buttercream frosting for celebrating New Years, kid style. Dark had come so quickly. The way home was an adventure for Dovi the explorer, lagging behind every couple of steps while he navigated another interesting pile of snow or found a puddle in the escarpment. The most fascinating discoveries was different colored snow. After being sternly warned off yellow snow, he found orange snow and blue snow. I do not even want to know what that was composed of, which is what I told him when he asked.

Supper turned out well. Kellie arrived and we all sat down to watch Pixars new set of short films. Dovi and Adina put a blanket on the floor and even Ollie curled up fluffily, and joined us as we avidly watched progressively more sophisticated short animated films, amazing, both in sheer craftsmanship, technological artistry and sharp wit.

The kids went to bed after the movie, will bellies full of cake and stories.

Kellie and I stayed up and watched a TV show we had been following on DVD together. It was excellent as usual... and so we slipped into the new year in companionable serenity. The blinking of the DVD player at 11.59 reminded me that this year, this entirely life changing year was almost over. it was as year entirely lacking in subtleties, full of raw pain and loss and yet growth, courage and love. It was a year of difficult endings and new truthful beginnings... I looked at her, 2009 had brought me...so much.

A kiss... at midnight.. I don't think I had ever done that before.. and fireworks went off somewhere and Ollie shot under the bed, only poking an anxious nose out around 12.30pm...

I had started the new year with a kiss...imagine that...