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New Year, Jew Year

September 30, 2019 in City Matters, Essays, Spirit Matters

Time Is A River Without Banks–Marc Chagall

Today is Rosh Hoshanah, which any New Yorker worth their Kosher salt knows is the Jewish new year.

Gd knows my Italian-American Muppet critics were all over it this morning. Shana tova, kid! they crowed as I slid into the coffee shop for my Americano.

This, after I ushered in the the first morning of 5780 from East River Park, the best sunrise spot in the whole city. Though it was cloudy, Lady Sun was trying her damndest to arrive in a blaze of glory. The results were muted but lovely, as were all the New Yorkers running, walking, biking, tai-chi-ing by the water’s edge. A special glint everywhere.

The glint of rebirth.

In my head there are so many different new years. The new year of every cosmology, and the new year of every individual, which is how I view birthdays. Mine falls on January 19, which I consider magnificent not only because it is Dolly Parton and Cindy Sherman’s birthday but because it grants me a clutch of get-away-free days after the Christian Calendar new year, otherwise known as the phony birthday of Jesus. Continue Reading →

Dreams of a Metaphysical Detective

September 16, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters

As I write this my head hurts, my stomach hurts, my heart hurts. This is because my period is due to arrive this morning like the fusillade of bricks that is menstruation when you are 48 years old.

Rest assured that as rough as PMS can be when you’re 18–and I remember it as a wicked pissah–it’s a billion times worse 30 years later, as if your menstruating self refuses to go out without a bang. This is something women don’t really talk about because there’s so much shame around menopause and getting older in general.

Anyway, the pain is so bad that I can’t work on my book today. But rarely does PMS fabricate anything wholecloth and so the truth is I’ve been feeling stuck for such a long time that part of me thinks I should scrap the entire book endeavor and find a line of work that, you know, actually pays. The problem: What exactly would that be for a woman rounding the corner to 50 who’s only word-played for a living? Not to mention that, even in dark stretches like this one, I remain convinced there’s a reason besides solipsism to share my story.

Also the universe keeps trying to redirect my hazy, lazy self.

Continue Reading →

I’m Not Easy, I’m Green

September 5, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Essays, Etiquette Matters, Feminist Matters, Spirit Matters, TV Matters, Weather Matters

Magic hour in green.

I cannot pretend returning to NYC after my upstate tenure has been easy. Not because of the weather, which, for the most part, has been ridiculously lovely–the sort of halcyon temperatures we New Yorkers associate with mid-September. With September 11, not to put too fine a point on it.

Certainly the existential dread connected to the events of that day is not helping. Like so many long-time New Yorkers, my personal relationship to September 11 only deepens the horror of how it irrevocably changed this city and country forever. Every year, just as the weather gets gloriously crisp and clear, sadness creeps in before I remember why.

But I think this dread is about something more.
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It took a good four days of being in the country for me to lose the bad bruja vibes that had been short-circuiting my car and relationships all summer. (Both Daisy and Grace registered the bad vibes, the former landing in the vet hospital.) Only on the fifth day did Columbia County’s big, big green smooth me out.

Green, not coincidentally, being the color of my grandmother’s heart.

I’ve been thinking about Alice May a lot lately. My mother’s mother, her birthday was last month. She crowns my book–the whole last section is about her, about how the regret she expressed in her last days catapulted me into my true life.

Green was Alice’s absolute favorite color. She said that it was the color of life and love. Only when I began taking my work as an intuitive seriously did I learn that green was considered the color of the fourth chakra–the heart chakra.

As was so often the case, my grandmother’s leonine instincts were spot-on. It was she who, in the 1950s, determined that her sons were not dumb but dyslexic, a disorder that was far less recognized than it is today. It was she who understood that I had to get the hell out of dodge if I were to live the life I was meant to live. The life she’d once wanted for herself.

So I left home upon high school graduation, and with the exception of a few months after my first year of college, never spent another night under my parent’s roof. Never felt like I was anyone’s child again.

But then again, I’ve never felt safe. Never have, possibly never will. Continue Reading →

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