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Zoo York Is Not Enough

May 21, 2017 in Age Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Quoth the Raving, Snapshot, Spirit Matters

I had such a lovely break from the city–sunrises by the sea, swanning on tree-laced hammocks, cartwheeling in big fields–and such a bumpy reentry. On the drive back a glass-encased candle–an uncrossing candle, no less–exploded in my car, my phone abruptly went dead and still is not fixed as I type this, and so many serious accidents took place on the highways that the normally 3.5-hour trip took 7 hours. It’s not just that my nerves were shot; it’s that I could feel everyone else’s were shot, too. Finally somewhere in Connecticut I broke down in tears–the messy kind, not the pretty kind– and had to pull to the side of the road. Aloud I said: “Okay, higher spirit. You’ve secured my attention. What do you want me to know?” In response I could not just hear but see the Rilke quote: You must change your life. And here I’d thought I already had, though I guess thus far said change has been inflicted rather than invited.

I know some of what I need to do but if the rest were obvious or easy, I’d have done it long ago. This is, after all, the human experience: We learn by expanding our horizons, by stepping out of our comfort zones, in this case literally. Living so isolated from nature drains me to a degree I only acknowledge on the rare occasions I’m by the ocean or beneath a tree by myself. Yet the craving for unadulterated fields, for the noisiness of birds and wind and crickets, pulses beneath all the decoration of my New York life no matter how I try to drown it out. It grows even stronger in the shadow of dystopia. As I zoomed back to the city I no longer love monogamously I still could the heartsong I breathed in that big air; how to return to All That now looms as my biggest question though others should take precedence. Being middle-aged, it turns out, teaches us to heed older rhythms and wiser notes than what our tiny brains can measure.

Grace is glad I’m back, anyway. My friend takes my absence so seriously that I could hear her weeping as I climbed the stairs to my apartment. Witches and their familiars should never be parted.

Dream Overkill

May 16, 2017 in Ruby Intuition, Sabboytical, Spirit Matters

I know, I know. Sharing dreams is the ultimate self-indulgence, and yet I continue to do so. I download so much information while I’m sleeping, not only about my life but about my clients and friends, Congress, the cosmos, and kairos. Try keeping a notebook by your bed for writing down your dreams upon waking. You’ll be amazed by what come through, and we need all the wisdom our guides, ancestors, best selves have to offer right now. Also, when transcribed, dreams offer such shifty little prose poems. Here’s last night download–the somnambulist’s equivalent of a literal fork in a literal road.

I’m in a national park-airport rounding the corner from Upstate New York to Japan, a connection that in this dreamworld is easily fused. As I head toward the Tokyo gate, I see Mr. Everybody walking toward me–burly, big-armed, big-bearded. So many Bs. He’s as handsome as ever but something is unfamiliar, less defined about his appearance. I can’t place what. Then he sees me and even in this incredibly random run-in suppresses his surprise. I squeeze his shoulder and slip my arm through his. “Come on,” I say. “You have to admit THIS is kismet.” I actually use the word “kismet,” which I regret even within the dream. In return he uses the same jive turkey line he tossed at me last month: “I experience multiple synchronicities with people, Lisa.” He shrugs off my arm and goes on his merry way. Watching his back disappear into the crowd, I say aloud, “Let this man go.” As I wake, I realize what has changed about his physicality. He isn’t wearing glasses.

Stick a metafork in me. I’m done.

Pics: Shara Hughes (left); René Magritte (left).

The Mothers Day Grinch

May 13, 2017 in Country Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Spirit Matters

For me, Mothers Day is the plain worst. In the past it made me weepy; now it makes me grim. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. I also know that vocalizing this dissent is controversial at best, toxic at worst. (I’ve got stories.) That said, I’m going to vocalize it once again, and not just in solidarity with all those who don’t have kids or lost their mother or don’t exactly have a hearts-and-flowers relationship with her. I’m calling out Mother’s Day because shattering myths is one of the few upsides of our new dystopia.

I’ll start with this: I am electively child-free. I mentor, I big-sister, I god-parent, but I never wanted to be a mother, and I say this as a person who has been pregnant twice. (What happened in either instance is a story I’ve yet to tell in print.) I like some kids, even love a few, but ended up feeling I’d spent too much of my youth babysitting adults and other people’s offspring to sign on for dirty diapers and asshole adolescences as a grown woman. As well, I don’t much care for the emphasis of nuclear families over other, more elective types of human relationships; the fact that Freud is still a common reference is evidence enough of their inherent dysfunction. And the relationships between mothers and daughters? Oy vey. Continue Reading →

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