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Still They Fall

September 10, 2021 in Age Matters, City Matters, Country Matters

Tom and Suria, Irish twins

My whole life changed with 9/11. Partly because the worst elements of the US ran with it as carte-blanche for all kinds of evil. Partly because my beloved city was never the same. Partly because the sister of the man I loved had just started a job at WTC and her brutal death ended everything I thought I knew.

I still think about the last day I saw her. She had just turned 30 and found her first gray hair. With her usual wit she’d taped it on our bathroom mirror with a note penned in her gorgeous calligraphy: NOW I AM OLD.

The day I turned 50 I thought about that sign, about how she was so young when she died that she thought 30 was old, and I cried about her yet again. Because the world was better with her in it. She was optimistic and cocky and engaged and blisteringly sharp. The exact energy we lost as a city and a people when the towers fell.

I’m writing all this today because I can’t do social media on 9/11 itself. The grandstanding feels hypocritical and painful and deeply hollow. 9/11 was when America realized its soil wasn’t safe from the destruction it sowed around the world.* And no one likes to talk about that.
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*Some already knew through bitter experience.

Be Careful What You Wish For

September 10, 2021 in Country Matters, Essays, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters

In all my readings this week, I have been asked: How can I manifest positive change? It’s a beautifully September question, and it reminds me that sometimes the importance of shadow work is overlooked in manifestation practices.

To will something into being, we don’t have to tackle our shadows—our toxicity and trauma. Through affirmations, visualization, and white knuckles, we can summon nearly anything–marriages, money, even fame. But without self-reckoning, we project our shadows into whatever we manifest, ensuring we’ll encounter more problematic versions of them down the road.

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This Bittersweet New Light

September 6, 2021 in Astro Matters, City Matters, Essays, Reviews, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters, TV Matters

I was just about to head upstairs to post about tonight’s new moon/year when I heard of Michael K. Williams’ death. Now I am writing this on my stoop–in the same neighborhood where he lived and died– with huge tears running down my face.

I saw the brilliant actor, activist, dancer, and choreographer around a lot–sometimes at film events, sometimes just drinking coffee in the park–and he was always unwaveringly gracious and kind. That such a radiant light only got 54 years is beyond painful. As Roy Wood Jr tweeted today: “All I want is for black entertainers to be able to grow old.”

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