Oh, the Indigo Girls!

I think perhaps my most profound Facebook status update EVER was this:
Anything worth saying has already been said by the Indigo Girls.
I stand by that statement.

A few years ago I had cancer. I don't have cancer anymore but I kept taking some of the medications that I began during that illness. And I realized a couple of weeks ago that it was time to move on. The one medication left with me from those days is Paxil, an anti-anxiety medication. I took a lot of meds during the hardest parts of the time, mostly pain and anti-nausea meds as well as some anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds and mood stabilizers - also known in my CA circle as: No-more-crazy-housewife-medication. But about a year after getting through cancer, and still physically recovering from the chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, my lovely husband and I decide to get a divorce. Now one might think, that is probably not the right time to go off of those anti-medications. And you would be right. My psychiatrist at the time was adamant that I stay on the meds to help ease the transition from being married to being separated. She was probably right. But one night in the middle of all of this I forgot to take the Paxil. And then I forgot again and then I forgot again and then all hell broke loose. I was nauseous, dizzy, in pain and crying uncontrollably. I hadn't been that crazy before I took the medicines. Ilya lovingly went to the internet and told me that I had "Paxil withdrawal", WTF? For real? Withdrawal symptoms from the medication that was supposed to make me feel less anxious. I was so sick that I vowed NEVER to forget to take Paxil again.

Well, that didn't last and I again forgot to take the Paxil since it was the only medication I was taking along with my "vitamins" it was easy to forget. And then the withdrawal. I felt chained, literally, to this medication. Like it was it or me. And it was winning by a long shot! Well, last month I went to refill the-ole Paxil prescription and the pharmacist told me it was $90. Ummm, excuse me? Yes, your husband's insurance has changed and the medication price has gone up as a result. Hmmm, let me see, feed my kids or take the Paxil? I got the Paxil because I was so terrified of the results of not taking it. Afraid of the medication that was supposed to make me feel better. I stopped taking the Paxil two weeks ago after reading up (on the internet, of course) about how long the side effects would last and even how long it would take me to gradually come off of it (3 months, by the way, which translates to $270). So, I just stopped taking it. Told my doctors and didn't let them talk me out of it. Yup, I am dizzy, nauseous, and constantly crying. And then this morning I woke up a little less dizzy, a little less sad and I remembered the Indigo Girls:

up on the watershed
standing at the fork in the road
you can stand there and agonize
till your agony's your heaviest load
you'll never fly as the crow flies
get used to a country mile
when you're learning to face
the path at your pace
every choice is worth your while

stepping on a crack
breaking up and looking back
til every tree limb overhead just seems to sit and wait
til every step you take becomes a twist of fate
~ Watershed

This has always been one of my favorite songs - and anyone who knew me at Lawrence freshman year knew every word to this song whether they liked it or not! But my (and I cannot pick one, it would be like picking a favorite child, which I can only do on certain days!) favorite lyric is this:

Every five years or so I look back on my life and have a good laugh

Remembering one of the next lines:
But ending up where I started again makes me wanna stand still.

Not this time.

And I realized another thing, so much has changed. So much of my life is not the same as I tried to sing this song the way I did when I was 20 and my voice cracked and gave out on me, reminding me that yea, I don't have that vocal chord anymore. But would I change the Keisha standing here in all of her bruised, saggy, cut, hurt, joyful, triumphant-glory for the Keisha of 20 years ago? No. Simply. This one is so incredibly beautiful.

When you're learning to face the path at your pace, every choice is worth your while.


Thanks Amy and Emily.

For Kare O' the Mountains

i love you
i love you
i love you

This is about the darkness that surrounds us and finding light in the midst of it. I can often find less than concrete things to hold onto when I am sad. Ideas. Concepts. The stuff of four years of liberal arts college. But in the midst of that four years of college-ing I met someone who altered my perception. Who altered my world view. If only she knew.

When I first met Karen I did not like her. Stop, I have already told her this truth. I was young, she was young and we were both hard-headed and convinced that our world view was the "truth." Learning later the true relativity of truth brought us together. Karen and I bumped heads in a Religious Studies class. A moment that escaped her but stuck in my craw for over 20 years, seriously. But Grace is brilliant in Its existence. That moment stuck with me. Why, there were a whole bunch of people I didn't get a long with in college whose names and faces I have long since forgotten. Not Karen. Somewhere in the future we were to meet again and Grace would soften my heart and open my eyes enough to embrace my love of this extraordinary woman.

Facebook - yes, of course. Karen and I somehow got reconnected and found verisimilitude. And along with her she brought a reconnection with other loves from my past and people I had managed to walk past for four years and never really "see." Thank you Grace.

This post is about the darkness. The winter is hard on all of us who live in the northern hemisphere, perhaps even those who live in the southern hemisphere but I don't know any of them personally! We get dark and somber and miss the sun and are not quite sure what to do to keep our spirits up and our outlook positive. Even our food gets heavier. Our bodies somehow crumple up underneath darkness' weight and we hide ourselves beneath coats, hoodies, blankets, bad moods and depression. It helps to keep a light in the window to welcome our true selves back home. Karen is my light this winter. I think of the 20+ years that I was without her wisdom, her smile, her warmth, her lessons, her courage, her. And I am hopeful that I can make it through the next three months. Look at the gift given to me after all that time.
Life brings us all that we need when we need it. And I hold onto this trope with Kare's face on the outside of it this winter.

She has amazed me with her courage. Going home again and finding herself and her love and then going forward and accomplishing the thing she thought at one point she could not. We are stronger than we know. So, here is an exercise for us this winter, loves. Find something you adore or someone who brings you joy, someone who's journey shows you strength and movement through the dark and put their face on your winter. Allow them to lift you up when you can't do it for yourself.

If I may be so bold and selfish I am going to allow Karen to hold me up this winter.
And as I started this post, i love you.

be well tribe.

in peace
keisha

Happiness Is.....

An elusive butterfly, according to Henry David Thoreau. Something that is worked at and not a gift of the gods, according to Bertrand Russell. And Anything and everything at all, that's loved by you, according to Charlie Brown.

They are all correct and incorrect at the same time, the joys of being human. I know someone that whenever I speak to them after the initial "How are you?" they say "FANTASTIC!" Really? Fantastic! All the time, whenever I speak with you? Is it me making you so happy or are you just one of those permanently happy people? Doing drugs? Delusional? You should not be Fantastic, things should and do suck, right?

Well, yes they do. Life has a way of sucking the joy right out of you sometimes, even more so when there wasn't that much there to being with. Most mental health care professionals posit that you have a finite happiness quotient. Happiness is hereditary. So if you come from chronically unhappy parents, guess what? You're liable to be miserable your entire life. That's when free will and self-help books kick in because of course, you can do something about this and not always with drugs, usually with sticking fucking post-its on your mirrors with pithy sayings like: "I am somebody!" "Happiness is a choice." "Today is the first day of the rest of my life." Yeah, how's that working for you?

I am an optimistic person, for the most part, especially when surrounded by pessimism, I tend to go to my happy place. But at the core of me, at the root and at my foundation, unhappy. When I stop and get still peace is not all its cracked up to be. I am one of those chronically dramatic people who seeks excitement, adventure and spectacle. Being a theatre artist it comes to me by training and being a Leo it comes to me by birth. But, know what? I am not happy in those highly dramatic moments either. So who is right? What does happiness consist of?

I think, ultimately that it is a series of moments, events and decisions that create happiness. And I am also going to choose to believe that we can live there every second of every day if we chose, not overlooking the sadness or the drama or the pain, rather invitiing all those things in for tea. Life can be so harsh a great deal of the time. And all we (and I am speaking royally here) have is well, yea, our reaction to it.

So Happiness is.....I'm going with Charlie Brown on this one.

in peace

Fall On Me

Tell the sky and tell the sky fall on me. ~ REM

I want the sky to fall on me. To smother me with stars and milky ways and galaxies. To cushion me with clouds and water me with rain. And blanket me with night until I wake and find out it was all a dream.

Life is good right now. It is hard at the same time. I enjoy being in the place where I can see that things are not perfect, not even close, but that my life is so much better than it was two years ago or even better than the homeless person who camps out on our corner with his dog. He sits there twice a week reading Nietzsche. As if he needed more backup for nihilism. A part of me wants to grab a cardboard box and sit down next to him and ask him about his life. What did he do when he was five and how did he get there. But I know myself. I am the girl who's mother would take her wallet every time we went to 125th Street because she knew I would give money to every crackhead and alcoholic who asked. It is in my nature. Now I try to look compassionately as I walk past but don't offer money and definitely don't sit down and strike up a conversation. My father would have. And would have walked away not feeling guilty for not having done more.

My son is my father incarnate. He has no fear and no walls. He finds people fascinating and they in return adore him up close and from afar. People literally stop on the streets to stare at him. He has that glow. I can take no credit for the light inside of him or the joy he brings other people, especially me and his father. I can just smile and be grateful that I have been chosen to usher this great soul through this part of his life. Hopefully staying out of his way long enough to keep the light intact. Smothering is a great hazard in the parenting biz.

And I am one of those people who looks for the highs in life. It had me misdiagnosed as bipolar for a moment there. I am not bipolar. I am an adventure seeker. An edge walker. A theatre artist. I was grateful for the doctor who saw that. That I work in waves. I attack a project and see it to its logical conclusion and then I hibernate for awhile. Leos do that. They seek the Sun and they seek their lair. They need the red hotness of the Sun, for they are the Sun. But they are also a fixed sign and they need stability and tradition and dare I say it, routine. It took me 39 years to realize that that is my routine. The burning energy and then the retreat. It works for me. I have been in a rather long state of hibernation. Taking some time to smooth my heart down. But now I feel the Sun calling me to dance in her rays. I want the sky to fall on me.

New projects are dancing in front of me. New energy is filling me up. New thoughts and ideas as well as new friends and adventures. My life today looks completely different than it did one year ago. And I realized that as I watched my son who was known as the Mayor of South Orange walk down Columbus Avenue and be called by his name by more than one shop owner. He is himself, wherever he is. He lets his light shine always. He can't help it. So, who am I to not join his parade.

Buy the sky and sell the sky and lift your arms up to the sky
And ask the sky and ask the sky
Fall on me.

My 100th Post!!!!

Wow! 100 posts. Why is that something to mark? Don't know, maybe its the symmetry of the number. I have so much to say and I think it is fitting that this post be a sort of re-cap of the last couple of years. Because the more things change the more they stay the same.

Ever have so much to get done that you cannot even prioritize them? If you have children or a family that depends on you then your priorities tend to follow their immediate needs. But one thing I have always said and written about hear ad nauseum is that if Mama, or whoever is the head of the tribe, is not happy then no one is happy. This time of the year is the end of the year for me. I work very much on a lunar calendar and I embrace the fall as the beginning of the new year. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Samhain (the Witch's New Year) all give me an opportunity to leave summer (my least favorite season) behind me and to begin again. This transformation often begins on my birthday - July 31st - which is also the eve of Lammas or the Midsummer in the Witch's world. I identify as so many different traditions and none at all.

Much the way March is a month of deep introspection and my own harrowing of hell, September is a time of beginnings. I am intricately linked to the beginning of the school year. I belong in an academic setting. It is where I feel most alive. Where life is idealized and anything can be tried. So this fall, having no class to teach or to take has filled me with a bit of melancholy. I satisfy that desire to learn and to know by embarking upon many different plans. One or two of them manage to last the entire year and some of them keep coming back year after year having not been fulfilled. Waiting thinking, "Maybe THIS is the year she will get to me." Those orphaned dreams tend to be the ones that directly correspond to my well-being and my personal and spiritual growth. Not this year. All those orphaned dreams are being brought into my home and given refuge. My kids are not first this time. My ex-husband is not first. Cancer is not first. My friends aren't even first. I am. That is my New Year's Resolution.

One other habit I have is to discuss my big plans for myself and publish them for all the world to see. And then when I don't accomplish them I feel like a fraud and a failure. I am a private person by nature but I have decided to keep these wishes and dreams to myself this time. They are my own sweet secrets and pleasures. Perhaps you will see the results of them should you pass me in the grocery store. Or perhaps you won't. It doesn't matter anymore. My joy is not based upon the approval of others any longer. It is based upon the approval of me. What brings me joy. What makes me delirious. What makes my toes curl. All those things done in the name of pleasure and personal growth will be mine. Let your imaginations run wild with that one - mine has.

As always I bid you peace, my tribe, I love you more than can ever be written or expressed. And know that the fact that I can do any of these things, whatever they are, is because you all have been the very best parts of holding me up all these years. Time to love me as much as you do.

in peace

I have missed you

Tribe! It has been two months since I last wrote to you. Thank you for the emails, the notes, the birthday wishes and the love you have sent my way. Moving has been an exercise in patience, grace and faith. It is not over yet. Turning 39 two weeks ago has been an exercise in acceptance and trust. It has been a true awakening these last two months. As most of you know we moved to the NYC! Me and the kids packed up the minivan (truth be told we are not completely out of the Jersey house yet)and took our show on the road. We moved into the heart of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Filled with everything I love - cupcake shops, farmer's markets and lots of places to express my latent Judaism :)! What you all may not know is that Ilya lives two flights up. Yes, you read that correctly. We moved into the same building. Why you may ask? I asked myself the exact same question. For the kids, of course. It is convenient to have him two flights up for children handover on the weekends. It is convenient to send one of them upstairs when I just can't take it anymore (truth be told, that doesn't happen very often, even though I often can't take it anymore!). But most of all it allows me the opportunity to separate safely and with good feelings intact. I do, resist the urge to call often the way I did when we were still married. I do make the decisions on my own, call the super, fix the problems. And I love it. When you are in a marriage for a while you can forget that you can take care of yourself and that you have in fact been doing it all along. Grateful for that reminder that I am in fact capable. We all need that reminder from time to time.
So where I in my life at the moment? Well, still unemployed. Still writing and working on the makings of a book with my sister-friend minkgirl, if only in my mind! Still planning to go back for my PhD. Working on job applications, my application to interfaith seminary this fall, and doing all of it with as much grace as I can muster. Which lately feels like a lot. Dearly looking forward to the fall when the kids are in school and my time during the day will be filled with work and yoga. This is not a particularly deep post. Those will come in time :)! Think of this more as a hello and a warm hug after time apart. I take you with me tribe. Always.

We are blessed may we recognize the blessing.

in peace,
keisha

My Mind on Repeat.....Intimacy

I recently sent a friend, we'll call them Jazz, an email with almost this exact title. Things resonate with me for a long time. My friend Karen asked how I approach my blog and I told her that I often end up writing about something that has been circling my head for awhile. I walk around with it for a bit, both consciously and unconsciously, turning it over until it bears fruit.

Jazz and I have an email relationship. We write each other and share ideas and thoughts and musings on life along with music recommendations. Those emails are often the better part of my week. And that interaction allowed me to realize - or perhaps re-member something about myself: I express myself best from a distance.

This blog and those emails have given me an extraordinary opportunity. To really go inside and meet myself. I am not often able to have the witty comeback in person and often feel that my real time connections lack depth because they are either brief hellos while picking up children or passings in the aisles of Trader Joe's. And I long for the "C"onversation. Big C. The talks about life and love and loss and all the other things those of us with too much education and a bit of money in the bank are fortunate enough to be able to think about. And I have often felt at odds with this privilege in my life. I am from a culture typically more focused on survival than on reflecting on the quality of that survival. So, being able to think, at length, about my existence has created a kind of cognitive dissonance inside me. Does it make me a better, more evolved person? Or does it make me a self-involved, self-indulged person?

What I do know is that my upbringing, and its focus on survival, has made me the kind of person who has a difficult time telling another person in real time, with any realness, that I love them and need them and find them to be simply extraordinary. I have learned to tell other people about the strengths of my loves - not telling them or showing them how much they mean to me. And my writings have allowed me to write what pains and fears lurk inside me in a way I may not be able to say to another person without that distance. Anna Deavere Smith was asked what she gets from doing interviews with people and then re-telling their story. And she said this:
"My microphone and my ear create the necessary distance to get close to someone."
I get that. So much. While I want to be close to people my fears and expectations stop me from doing that. When I want to tell someone: "I love you and want to hold you and listen to your heartbeat, thank you for being alive," there is a barrier that stops me because they might think I am "in love" with them or that worse yet, that I want to have a "Relationship" with them, when really I just want to hear their heartbeat. Intimacy. Still working on having that in my life in a way that is satisfying and meaningful.

This is what Jazz wrote in an email to me recently that sparked this post:
....In the modern world we have a lot of time and energy to worry about who does and doesn't love us. In a traditional subsistence culture you're pretty busy trying to stay alive, and in the remaining time you're either fornicating or fighting, often for the same reason. I find it interesting that in a lot of African American musics (blues, soul) the response to failed love is more about taking action--getting revenge, movin' on--than moping. I'm sure there are exceptions.

So there is where I stand, straddling the line between my culture and education - working to bring them together and to create a tribe in real time that embraces me and my desires. More stones on my path.

We are blessed may we recognize the blessing

in peace tribe