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Metaphork in the Road

April 24, 2022 in Age Matters, Cat Lady Matters, Church Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Spirit Matters

On Tuesday I was receiving back treatment from my craniosacral healer A., a lovely Italian (not Italian-American) woman who boasts a decidedly un-American unflappability. I was still fresh off The Breakup and on Day 2 of a period that really had wings, as my punny British beau used to call days of extra-heavy flow. (Sanitary napkin joke for those not in the know.)

“Are you feeling crampy?” she asked, and I shook my head. “But then I’m not feeling much of anything,”

She raised her eyebrow. “My sense is there’s quite a significant uterine release happening.”

“Why not?” I said grandly. It was true I was having my heaviest period in years, but that dovetailed with my theory that, post-age 45, periods are more triggered by strong emotions than hormones. This was a decades-long relationship I was releasing even if, after more than a week of crying and storming, I’d slipped into a comfortable numbness.

A second later, I heard before I felt an enormous whoosh—an electric current running through my body as if I’d been shocked. It shot from the top of my head (the crown chakra, the entrance point of heavenly consciousness) to my pelvis floor before it spread to my hips.

“Wow,” I started to say when A. interrupted me. “I’m sorry, Lisa, but I think I’m going to faint.” A second later she crumpled to her knees Continue Reading →

Thanksgiving Falls on Every Day of My Calendar

November 21, 2021 in Age Matters, Church Matters, City Matters, Country Matters, Feminist Matters, Ruby Intuition

I got up early, watched the sunrise with coffee and permakitten, drove over to Queens in Minerva, my trusty blue hatchback, and took a long hike through Forest Park, listening to the birds and squirrels and wind and leaves, meditating by the pond as the whippoorwills and a potbellied homo sapien practiced their scales. On the way home I stopped off at Trader Joe’s to fetch things I’ll want to eat on the Thursday formerly known to me as Thanksgiving, and joked with cashiers whom I’ve come to know and adore. It was a simple morning, but so meaningful and joyful because it was entirely on my terms.

Only very very recently could a woman could live by herself, drive a car she bought herself with money kept in a bank account with only her name on it. Even more miraculous: I finance my existence with work I feel called to do that once upon a time would’ve got me burned at the stake.

Given our country’s history of genocide and colonization–and given my complicated personal relationship to the Thanksgiving holiday–I’ve come to treat the last Thursday of November as a quiet and solitary day of reflection. I go for a long city walk, I say hi to the river, I slow-roast local vegetables, I pay my respects to this land that has seen so much harm since Europeans’ arrival. And then I watch really raggedy, emotionally complicated films like Lumet’s The Morning After, in which Jane Fonda plays a drunken former actress framed for murder on Thanksgiving Weekend.

It’s been a year since I injured my back so badly I was immobilized; two years since I was so broke I was afraid I would lose my home. Now, through the support of friends, healers, and my own adjustments, I can stand on my two feet again. I’m profoundly grateful I can freely move through this world’s extraordinary-ordinariness on my own terms. There is always so much beauty and love to be honored

Every day of the week, I’m so grateful to be grateful.

Share Your Love With Me (Aretha, Forever)

August 8, 2021 in Age Matters, Church Matters, Music Matters, Past Matters, Reviews

Did you know that Aretha’s version of “Share Your Love With Me”–first recorded by Bobby Band, but no one covered a track like the Queen–has made me cry ever since I was a kid? The loneliness and longing of the lyrics are perfectly matched by Aretha’s musicalit; she always produced her albums when the studios boys didn’t credit her. Just listen to the first chords of her piano; that Atlantic Records horn section; her glorious, churchified sisters thrilling and trilling; and then Lady A swooping us all up–generously, joyfully–in her big beautiful voice, making all of the human condition OK. Yes, even our pain. Especially our pain.

This song. I can’t tell you how many times my heart has been so broken that I’ve barely been able to feed myself, let alone feel myself, but could still listen to this song. Over and over, numbly at first, then with big tears streaming, until I was shored enough to face the world with spine and lipstick straight. This song is my church, and Aretha is forever my minister.

I’d say I miss her and of course that’s true. But it’s also true that she lives on in every one of my scratchy vinyls. The ones I’ve been listening to since I was that kid in dirty braids who saved up to buy them at Skippy White’s in Cambridge’s Central Square. I’m so grateful Aretha Franklin helped raise me even if she didn’t know she was doing it. Raising people up is what she did and she always will. She shares her love with all of us.

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