My Obligatory New Year's Post

Good Morning Loves!
I think I was "supposed" to spend the entire week cleaning my house and cooking scrumptious meals and getting ready to enter the new year with all the things I want to manifest in my life - done. That's not happening. The house is a wreck, there are dishes to be washed and I think we had Panera for dinner last night. But what is in intact and markedly different is my children. They are happy. They are not fighting with each other and they have spent a significant amount of time with me and Ilya this week. Being pampered, cared for and paid attention to. That more than tops the list - that is the list. Have a wonderful year, dear hearts. Know that it starts with a wonderful day, hour, second.

What follows is something I read on twitter this morning. It is from Esthero (Oh, how I love her) and was written by a friend of hers called Jimi Dava. I know him - in my bones. This story is my story. And I realize all of our stories.

Respect
Nanda Mama aka Keisha


Dava in Hollywood: Episode XIII : “The Phoenix”
on this last night of 2009 we find our hero typing away on his laptop….
and this is what he writes….

a distance great i have traveled to deliver this message to you, to present you with this little gift of me.
take it for what its worth. its one size fits all.

its very difficult for me to ask for help, even harder for me to accept it.

i cant remember the precise where, or when i was taught this lesson, but to me, asking for help meant that I wasn’t good enough, that i was weak and lacking, it meant that alone i was not sufficient, to me it meant that i was in need.
and that to me, was, unacceptable.

asking for help always raised the volume of the voices inside of me that have tried to defeat me, and so to quiet the screaming i sentenced myself into the cage of silence, where no one, not even i
could hear me cry out for some help.

So i learned how to keep things in, how to hide and hold that which pained me most, i learned how to put on appearances for the sake of others and for the the light under which i chose to bathe.
fueled by the weakness i saw in my father, i became what i wanted him to always be. STRENGTH.

but, looking back now, i wonder how well it has served me. in some ways, in ways that will always remain upright and steadfast, it has kept me alive, and in other ways, i see today that it’s killing me.

I was conditioned at a very young age to be a “man” looking back now, i think i was conditioned to be “the man”
but what does it mean to be the man?

perhaps it means just to be, a man, to be able to suffer the consequence of your ignorance, to be able to stand up when you have been knocked down, and not feel the shame of the fall but rather the pride of the rise. perhaps its the understanding that we you and I are not perfect, and within the search for our innate and intimate perfection we must accept the fact that though we are godlike, god we are not. perhaps being a man, the man, any man, is to be able to look around you and trust that you are surrounded by the same. The same greatness that we seek within must be appreciated and allowed to thrive in others. And perhaps to be able to trust the fact that you too, like I, am capable of greatness is
the true mark of a man, THE MAN.

For inside of this misunderstood and poorly translated man, lives a soul that wants nothing but to love you, and wants nothing but your love. and that scares the living shit out of me to admit, because that would mean that i have to trust you, and perhaps even more frightening, that i have to trust myself. it means that i need you, and your help. and that again, is very hard for me accept.

I have been so afraid to reveal my weakness and my faults, my vulnerability and my pain, because i thought you wouldn’t like me anymore. i thought you would judge me, i thought you’d find out that i wasnt worth fighting for.
I tried to be what i thought you wanted, rather needed me to be. because i think all i ever wanted was your acceptance, even if i rejected my innermost self in the process.

Growing up i was always ashamed of where i came from, being different, being Georgian in a world brand new, being called a “communist” by the children of democracy, being a Jew in a secular world, being the son of drug addicted gangster, having fucked up teeth, being skinny…. for the ideas of our self perfection seemed to exist within me before i was ever taught the definition of the word.

Today, i realize that the greatness in me, you and us, lies in the fact that we have withstood and overcome many of the preconceived notions that we have carried for way too long, i realize that strength comes from facing your weakness and not blinking away. I realize that being different is the greatest attribute we are blessed with. and so today i celebrate the strange peculiar me that has come this far down a road more or less traveled and i say to you i am ready, ready to ask for your help, and i might just accept it his time around.

So today, on this last day of a year i wish i could forget, and yet this will be a year i will always remember, i shed the cloth of my insecurity and ignite the flame of my rebirth, and stand before to see who the fuck i am and perhaps may i reflect you too.

so i am asking you…..

I am asking you kindly dearly and sincerely to help me, help me live a better life.

I am asking for deeper connections, i am asking for the contact of our eyes, i am asking for the shedding of our collective fears to touch each other and to be touched back.

I am asking you to rise with me from the ashes of this fire.

I am asking you to wake up with me, i am asking you to walk shoulder to shoulder with me, i am asking you for your hand and i’m offering you mine.

I am asking you to dream, your dream, and to help me achieve mine.

I am asking you to let go of our regrets, to release our egos and to allow us to penetrate deeper into ourselves so ultimately we can know each other.

I am asking you to help me share my knowledge and ask you to teach me yours.

I am asking you to help me be more present, i am asking you to help me speak more truth.

I am asking you to rise and live your life the way you have always wanted to, i am asking you to be my heroes, i am asking you to lead me with your examples.

I am asking you to help me forgive myself, and i am asking you to allow yourselves and I the ability to ask for help.

I am asking you for your help to help me love you more.

I am asking you for inspiration.

I am asking you to teach me how to be a man…

thank you for letting me speak to you.

I see you. all of you.

2010….. here we come.

Happy New Year…

love dava.

photo: Christina Cohn

The First Pancake - For my MamaFriends

Okay, I don't usually discriminate in terms of who I write my posts to. They are for anyone who wants to read them. And that is also true of this one. But this one, on the last day of one of the worst years of my life (and after 2007-2008 that is saying ALOT!) is especially for my MamaFriends out there. A little uplift for the year that passed and the one to come.

After I gave birth to Max (the second baby) I developed a theory - that the first baby, while she may have more clothes and pictures of her, is the first pancake. You use up all your ridiculous, obsessive, please-wash-your-hands-before-holding my baby energy. Especially if you fancy yourself an Alpha-Female leaving the work world to stay home and be fulfilled by motherhood (insert tongue in cheek or spit coffee on monitor). I was so obsessed with "The Vivi" (yes, I called her that in utero!) that I sent a detailed two-page letter of instructions with her to my mother's house when she stayed away from us for one night when she was 5 weeks old. My mother is a seasoned mother of two and a nurse! I actually wrote down what to do if she coughed or woke up in the middle of the night. Meanwhile I forgot to take my breast pump with me to the hotel and spent the entire night in utter agony! My mother was appropriately kind and just smiled at me while I left her apartment. She then called one of her best friends to laugh about me. I get it. I deserved it.

When making pancakes, even if you heat the skillet until water droplets dance you will probably turn it prematurely or flip it too carefully causing the batter to splatter and stick to the side of the pan. It happens. Hyper-vigilance. That can often lead you to make some intense decisions regarding that precious first pancake. More often than not it makes its way to the garbage or you give it to your husband or dog to eat. They become responsible for absorbing the joy and gooey goodness of the first pancake. You, the pancake-maker, are often too traumatized by your perceived failure to enjoy what the pancake has to offer.

I made pancakes on this beautifully snowy last day of 2009. And the first pancake was perfection. Golden brown and fluffy. I was enchanted, lovingly bathed it in vegan butter and put it in the oven to warm. As time went on - I had to finish the pancake batter - the pancakes were not as pretty and some of them got a little burnt. Not enough to put in the garbage (I do have two boys) but enough to think - wow, I didn't pay ANY attention to them did I? And today is when the first pancake theory expanded.

I have jokingly said that we will open a 529 for our children's college fund or their therapy. It seemed almost inevitable that no matter what I did as a parent they would need help when they got older. But that is not necessarily true. Here I am at the end of 2009, a year supposedly filled with hope and Yes-we-canitis and I cannot wait for midnight to roll around here on the east coast. I no longer abdicate, to history, the raising of my children; especially my beautiful-first pancake. Just because I needed therapy (lots and lots of therapy) doesn't mean that my children will need it. And just because I rebelled against my parents and could not communicate with them or anyone for quite some time does not mean that that is the fate of my children. And just because my first born is a girl does not mean that we are "doomed" to the complicated mother/daughter drama. All of these scenarios become true if I take my eye off the pan. If I allow them to burn through my inattention. Oh, I am not going back to the hypervigilance of those first heady-new-baby days rather settling into the comfortable rhythm of an experienced Mama. Keeping at least one eye on the pancake at all times! Well, most of the time :)!

Happy New Year

We are blessed may we recognize the blessing

in peace

Keisha

photos:teri_tu

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Ever feel like just bailing? I mean getting up and walking out on your life? Leaving the job, the house or apartment, the responsibilities and hitting the open road? I have been mentally feeding my wanderlust lately. It has made me restless. That lets me know I am on the verge of something really big. Mary, one of the travelers in Eric Overmyer's play "On the Verge" ends the play by asking "what's next?" She decides that she doesn't know, so much adventure ahead of her but she knows she is "on the verge." There is something incredibly sublime and frustrating about feeling on the verge of something. You need patience to ride that wave and allow the new to be born. Patient is one thing I have never really been. And rather than live in that discomfort of not knowing - I would rather bail. That has to be easier right?

I think I am learning, however, that when I get these feelings the best thing to do is to get still and stand. Wherever I am. In the middle of whatever it is. Ugh! But my feet want to move. It's uncomfortable. It is unsteady, uncertain and definitely not safe. My skin is crawling and there are clearly ants living beneath my epidermis. I find myself talking, out loud, to myself just to have sound to allay the disquiet. But what of the dolphins as they ascend much like the Virgin Mary, off the earth? They tell the doomed earthlings in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "So long and thanks for all the fish." Why don't they warn them or try to save them instead of leaving them to their doom?

Because they have to save themselves. And that's how I feel lately. That I have to save myself. I am the only one who can. But from what? From the annoyance of not knowing what is next? Yes. So today I literally stretched my body into uncomfortable positions and starting breathing. And the ants stopped marching and the voices stopped nagging. That entire time that I was stretching and breathing inside my world was silent. Ahhhh. Is it really that simple? Yes it is. I am no longer lamenting it taking me 38 years to get certain lessons. There are people who have had 38 lifetimes and are still working on their lessons. 38 years I can take. So to the disquiet, the discomfort and the annoyance for today I say: So long and thanks for all the fish.

We are blessed may we recognize the blessing

in peace

photo:Kalandrakas

p.s. I thank Ilya for giving me that book to read one day. It is true almost everything can be accomplished with a towel. Don't forget it.

Longing.....

Doing the dishes is a place where I get a lot of ideas. I spend a fair amount of time doing dishes (but not nearly enough). My husband tells me that he hasn't read too many blogs like mine. There is spell checking here and complete sentences and thoughts. That's because it takes me a long time to write these posts. I think about them for a few days before I commit to writing and publishing. Mostly because I want to work through the entire thought before I put it down and also because I am sensitive to criticism. Today I want to write about obsession, transference and projection and presence/charisma.

I think at many times in my life I have been guilty of all of these things. Sometimes at the same time! And I am writing about this in hopes that somewhere out there is someone who does the same thing. Someone who feels the same way so I am not alone in what Freud perceives to be psychosis! (I know, f@#k Freud!)

Obesssion:: "a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling." Wow. I don't think my obsessions are unreasonable. I mean I could really marry Will Smith, right? But that is not one of my obsessions, any longer. It is often around an idea and sometimes a person. Once after a rather unfortunate and painful breakup in college my friend Anna remarked that I said that person's name more than I said the word "the." She was obviously tired of hearing me talk about that person and that situation. I immediately stopped. I didn't stop thinking about the situation or the person, and I didn't stop mulling over the "what ifs" in my head. But I did stop talking about it out loud. I am not sure when that obsession ended, it took awhile. But it did end. In the meantime I learned some really valuable lessons about being in a relationship and communicating with people. I learned a lot about how I processed and expressed intimacy. And in the end it felt as though the "obsession" was good for me, it helped me work through some internal issues. But at the same time it was my WORST semester in college. I blew off my responsibilities and rarely went to class, relying instead on my charisma to get me through the semester.

Obsession can also be a great avoidance measure. Right now I am coming to the end of a rather time-consuming and expensive obsession - the work of Anna Deavere Smith. I could probably say that the obsession extends to her as well. I have read everything I can about her. Watched several videos and seen her play "Let Me Down Easy" three times. In the process of this unearthing I have learned so much about me and how I make art and what moves me. I have found my inspiration again. But at the same time I have avoided finishing job applications and have used this obsession to block other rather important tasks, like grieving the illness of a friend. I tell myself that I AM grieving because this person shares my almost twenty-year love of Anna. Or is that an excuse?

Transference and Projection: They are pretty much the same thing. You take your feelings and transfer them to someone else or project them onto someone else. I have been thinking about all the people I transfer my feelings to. My children, my husband, past romances - especially those that ended badly, professors, teachers, friends, therapists (wow, that's a post in itself!). I am never quite sure that things I am experiencing, with regards to other people, are actually how I feel about them or if it's just my issue. One of my many Mamas told me that if I had a problem with someone I should check myself first. So I tend to do a thorough excavation of my feelings when I first meet someone. And I am usually pretty good at telling in the first seconds of meeting someone whether or not we will get along. And as I have gotten older I tend to trust that feeling more and move on if I feel that this relationship is not going to yield any healthy fruit. The people who have gotten entire documentaries projected onto their person are few - but they exist. And I appreciate their being there for me to play out the movie of my life. I don't necessarily think that that's a bad or negative thing. It's just a thing.

And the last greedy shark swimming around my undisciplined mind is Presence, something I call charisma. That thing that draws your eye to a person. That thing that makes you want to get to know them, get to love them. I don't think there is universal presence. Bill Clinton has so much presence but I know a few Republicans who would disagree. So I want to posit that presence, charisma is subjective. It is another thing that comes through our eye and excites and fascinates us. The people we think have presence are also the people we find attractive - are drawn to. And I am trying to unravel how that happens too. What is it in me that finds distinguished professor-types charismatic? Or that draws me to motorcycles and people with tattoos. Is it that that is what I want to be? Or is it that that person is what I want to have?

I know that most of this can be perceived as psycho-babble and some of you stopped reading at Will Smith, but I am really trying to make sense of these issues because I think they are going to unlock the central theme to this piece of theatre I am working on. I wrote about it earlier in my post on intimacy. How do we get close to someone? And why is it that we want to be close to a certain someone? Anna Deavere Smith writes in Letters to a Young Artist, that presence is feeling that that person (the object of your gaze) is right next to you because you long to have them there. Long to have them there. So I am trying to get to the root of the longing, the root of the craving. Ground zero of our passions. What do you think?

Photo:Freud's Couch - Wikipedia

Kiss Me

Alla That's All Right But,
Somebody come and carry me into a seven day kiss
Somebody come and carry me into a seven day kiss
Somebody come and carry me into a seven day kiss
I don't need no historical, no national, no family bliss
I need an absolutely one to one seven day kiss.
- Sweet Honey in the Rock

There is some kiss we want with out whole lives.
- Rumi

The two most intimate things a person can ever do, in my opinion, is to feed someone and to kiss someone. We as Americans don't take our food seriously. We don't think that feeding someone is a sacred act, but that which you have prepared is going into someone's body to nourish them and sustain them. What could be more personal than that? Kissing is something else all together.

We think of a kiss as two lips touching a part of another's body. But in Merriam-Webster's dictionary the secondary definition of "kiss" is "to touch gently or lightly" and "to come in gentle contact." Nothing about lips in that definition.

Three weeks before my college graduation my answering machine played the above verse of the Sweet Honey song, after asking for the seven day kiss, I said into the machine: "If that is you or you want to give me a job, leave a message." Did I really want someone to literally kiss me for seven day - no. I wanted someone or something to touch me gently for seven days, seven weeks, seven years. I wanted to be inspired.

I am working on a project about intimacy. And I am thinking a lot about food and kissing. And I am thinking about the attention we pay to each. None actually. How are we intimate with other people? How do we connect with them? How do we feed them and kiss them and how do they kiss and feed us? Intimacy, I am learning is very difficult to define and even harder to attain. It is magic. You know it when you see it. And you know when you are lacking it but are not always sure how to get it. I am still working on it. In the loud, busy, constantly moving world we live in how do we make human contact?

Let me know your thoughts. Kiss me.

We are blessed may we recognize the blessing.

in peace

keisha

photo by: Chris Spira

Camus

those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

I have been thinking about this quote, and so many other things for a few weeks now. I am reconnecting with the divinity inside of me that is wider than raising my children and the PTA. I love the image of you being a house with many rooms in which to keep things. Those of you who have seen my house know that there is usually a lot of clutter. And you need to sift through a bunch of junk to find the truly useful and meaningful. I have started doing that with our house. Our living room even has our couch, lovingly bathed in red corduroy IN it as opposed to propped up in a corner on the front porch! I have a place to sit on Sunday and read the New York Times with coffee and orange juice and yell at Meet the Press. And these are no small things. They have given my everyday reality enough roots so that I can open myself up to the other rooms and unearth what is hiding.

Enough metaphor. My artistic side has been hiding, hidden for quite some time. I had delusions of Mothering grandeur when I first started this parent gig. I was going to cloth diaper my children, read to them, bathe them in lavender oil and respond to their every need with love, calm and rapt attention. Okay, I will pause here while my mother-friends clean up the coffee with too many sugars that they just spit onto their computer monitor or keyboard. Done? Okay, resuming. My heart, my mind, my chakras (a wink at ADS) are opening up. And it is luscious and overwhelming. Remember my post about desiring to live in the liminal - to live and feel each moment in sacred space? Cannot do it. Not possible. There is laundry and pick ups and playdates. And there can be years (for me 10)of just getting through the day. ART - takes a backseat.

I used to find it incredibly pretentious when people referred to themselves as "artists." Really? Who the hell are you? And now I realize that it takes a great deal of courage to admit, out loud, that you want to make the world a more beautiful place. That you are essentially an idealist which in mainstream parlance equals naive. You paint a huge target on yourself to receive ridicule and to be taken advantage of. It's a brave and bold move. And I always hated when people did it because I was not feeling particularly "artistic" for a good deal of my life. Jealousy really at their opportunity. But that is not fair. And I remember that being an artist means infusing your life with beauty. Ah.

Back to Camus. I have recently remembered all the images, touches, and sounds in whose presence my heart first opened up. There are so many. And remembering them has been lovely and painful. And so worth it. Think about this today - when do you remember your heart first opening up? You may find that there have been so many times and I hope each one of them causes you to smile. I tend to feel things very deeply when I allow myself to feel them, so it has been an intense couple of weeks. We Leos never do anything small. And my 100 Angels have rallied around me to bring me into the next part of my life. Filled with conscious beauty, discipline and dare I say it - art? Join me there.

My Hierophant - Upright and Reversed

I have mourned the death of my father over and over again. In small ways and in big ways. It might have been easier on me if I had mourned him fully when he first died but that was highly inconvenient. I hold onto grief and let it out when I can no longer hold it in anymore. And it is always inconvenient. But not this time. I am in mourning right now and it hurts - bad. Someone I love very much is sick and it is not easy for them but it is even harder on me. I know talk about selfish. When I was sick I was really worried about other people. I wanted them to be comforted and cared for because I knew my cancer really hurt them and made them feel lost and out of control. I remember a good friend crying in my presence after I told her of my diagnosis. She got angry with herself and said that I shouldn't be comforting her. But yes, I should have been comforting her. Because she was probably sad about me but ultimately she was sad about her own mortality and looking at the fact that she would have to live if I died and she would have to go through a lot of pain when and if that happened. No one signs up for the kind of pain. And I have spent the better part of my life keeping real emotion, real feeling at bay. But I can't keep it back - not with this person.

My love of my hierophant is deep and abiding. I met him right after my own father died and he immediately became the father I always wished I had. I haven't seen him in years and I have missed that connection with him but getting back in touch has been difficult. It has required me to come to grips with his mortality. And it has required me to lose my father again. I realize that the older I get the more people will leave my life. And I am also too old to postpone these feelings.

I watched two minutes of Oprah the other day. Oprah was interviewing Kate Hudson. I stopped the DVR long enough to hear an actually interesting conversation. Oprah asked Kate what Joy meant to her. She said that the one thing she learned from her mother was to live every emotion - fully. That means the sad things too. To go into them and live there. I've said before that I am afraid of those emotions because I may not be able to come back from there. But the more often I make the trip the easier the return trip will be. Ideally. And I have to believe that - have faith in that. I don't have faith in much and I believe even less.

Yet, here I am. And here I will stay. It is up to me how the next evolution will be spent. And like a foot that has fallen asleep, it hurts coming back to life. I think even more when that thing is your soul.

in peace