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The Church of Mark Morris & Noels Past

December 20, 2015 in Cat Lady Matters, Church Matters, City Matters, Essays, Past Matters, Theater Matters

Yesterday morning I woke to a clean house. This may not be a big deal to some, but because I live and work and often cook at home, and because I was not raised to be Martha Stewart (or even Erma Bombeck), things can get fairly psychotic by Friday of every week. I used to loll around the apartment the whole weekend, too oppressed by the mess to address it. Only on Sunday night would I finally lumber to my feet and grab a sponge–and then just because I couldn’t face a new week with the detritus of the last one still holding me hostage.

There was nothing especially restful about the cycle.

Something shifted in me this year. I suppose I should say, “I shifted something in me” because overall I underwent an enormous growth spurt, and it is my observation that adults only experience growth when they pursue it rather than passively await it.

The upshot is that, no matter how tired I am on Fridays now, I straighten up my house before I go to bed. It’s the least I can do for Future Lisa, who deserves to exist unfettered by the squalor of Lisa Past. So now I clean the way you’d fold a beloved child’s clothing: with concentrated fondness and a profound patience. If I want an iteration of me to thrive in the soft, sweet order for which I clamored as a little girl, I’ve resolved that I must carve out that space. Continue Reading →

The Church of Extroverted Introverts

December 13, 2015 in Age Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Film Matters

Yesterday was unseasonably warm—so warm that I felt compelled to stay outside the whole time the sun was out, as if I were a squirrel stuffing acorns in her cheeks (though with climate change, who knows how long this weather will last?). It was my first day off since Thanksgiving weekend, so I sat out with my coffee shop Muppet critics, bopped down to the farmers market, read my book on a bench with one eyebrow cocked at the early-afternoon brunchers. Around 3 pm I rolled over to Gowanus to toast a pal’s birthday at a backyard bar, and was happy to spend time with a new friend of whom I’ve very fond—at least until the sun dropped, at which point I hit my wall regarding people time and had to scurry home. I fell asleep on the subway—if I’d been wearing a red hat everyone would have assumed I was yet another Santa Con casualty—and put on my nightgown two minutes after I walked through my front door. Right before I passed out, I realized it was only 7pm.

That’s how I am right now. My back injury of last spring made it clear that I had to stop being such an island and, ever the obedient student, I took note. It also taught me that I had to keep moving—literally and figuratively—so ever since I regained my mobility I’ve been a she-rooster with her head cut off, a blur of grownup-lady bluster, a to-do list that takes no prisoners. I walk at least six miles a day, often right into the heart of what scares me, and it’s not just my waistline that thanks me. Continue Reading →

She Puts the Lotion in the Basket

December 8, 2015 in Cat Lady Matters, City Matters

On weeks like this one I shudder to consider the National Geographic-style narration that could accompany the activities of this 21st Century Brooklyn Female Writer.

The subject rises before the sun, drinks a brown hot liquid filtered from beans she crushes in a small machine. She enters a separate area of her hut where she bends over what appears to be a flat silver box. There she remains for hours, emitting an odd clacking noise with her fingers, stopping only to drink more hot liquids and to eat nearly raw cow. A smaller animal flanks her, and the two communicate through seemingly random patterns of blinking and head-butting. Otherwise the subject does not look up until the sun sets. Then she eats foliage she forages locally, congregates with members of her herd around a large, flickering screen, and drinks a potion of fermented rye berries. Upon returning to her hut, she follows the smaller animal into a blue and gold nest, where she remains still until recommencing the routine before the next dawn.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy