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

Failure

A word I have never been able to embrace. Sometimes it's necessary to fail to grow, right?

I am getting a divorce. I think we all know about this. And like a magnet I am drawing more people in the middle or post-divorce into my cipher. I may be doing it unconsciously, but I don't believe in coincidence. I need these folks in my tribe. But one of the things I have heard repeatedly from those in the divorce category is the word "failure." Before that I hadn't thought of having failed at my marriage. Now, don't get me wrong I am not one of those people who took marriage lightly. I didn't get married to get divorced if it "didn't work out." I am not that frivolous. But what I was unprepared for was the work - the nature of the work - that goes into making a relationship live and work. But that is a conversation for my therapist.

Failure. I avoid this word at all costs. I often feel inadequate in my daily life. Constantly looking around me and comparing my strengths and faults to those doing the "same" job. Mothering, teaching, being a woman.....always comparing. Feeling stuck and incapable of improving. Wondering why I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. But a failure?! That's pretty harsh. So, what did I do - I went to the dictionary to get the full and true definition of this word:
Main Entry: fail·ure
Pronunciation: \ˈfāl-yər\
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of earlier failer, from Anglo-French, from Old French faillir to fail
Date: 1643
1 a : omission of occurrence or performance; specifically : a failing to perform a duty or expected action b (1) : a state of inability to perform a normal function — compare heart failure (2) : an abrupt cessation of normal functioning c : a fracturing or giving way under stress
2 a : lack of success b : a failing in business : bankruptcy
3 a : a falling short : deficiency b : deterioration, decay
4 : one that has failed

And I settled on the first definition - a failing to perform a duty or expected action. Expected action. The example is paying your rent. Well, yea I get that. Rent is a finite thing that can be measured and expected empirically. But marriage? What is it that is expected of me in my marriage? Everyone is different. And I began to see that I had to measure myself by my understanding of what I was or was not supposed to bring to my partnership. Yea, I failed at some of it. I am not the easiest person to get along with much less live with. And while I have a great many bad habits that have improved I think when you become unhappy with a person it's far easier to see the bad habits that didn't improve. And the final answer is whether or not I feel I lived up to my commitments or not. Some I did, some I didn't. So, yea I guess I did fail.

And I don't shirk the responsibility for that. And I have a chance to look at those things and make new decisions. And I am trying to incorporate that stigma attached to divorce and "failure." Those are not my stigmas. I failed to meet other people's expectations - and all I can do about that is apologize and vow to do better. But there is a lot of life left for me. And a lot of opportunities to make different choices with the information I have now. So, today, anyway, I embrace my failures in the hopes that they will make me a better person, woman, mother maybe even wife someday - but I doubt it :)!

Do me a favor, kay? Reflect on your failures today. Invite them in and thank them for all they taught you and all the ways they have made you the brilliantly beautiful and resilient person you are today. I am hugging you long distance and thanking you for being part of the very best reflections I have.

we are blessed may we recognize the blessing

in peace tribe,
Keisha

I can't get there from here.......

Tears for Fears. I loved them in high school. Even though they were mortal enemies with my other favorite group: Wham!. How to fit bubble-gum pop, with a gorgeously gay lead singer into the same musical world as the brooding, dark and existential duo from Tears for Fears? Well, my music tastes pretty much sums up my entire life and personality - diametrically opposed to each other with more facets than the most perfectly cut diamond. But there has been a song lyric in my head for the last few days that seems to sum up how I feel lately. Reality is finally settling in and making for one very unhappy woman.

"Between the searching and the need to work it out, I stopped believing everything would be alright. Broken, we are broken." Tears for Fears.

They do write a catchy and melancholy little ditty don't they? I am in that in-between place where I have to make changes in my life. But most of the changes I need to make are dependent upon other people and a bad economy and a questionable use of my many skills. I need a job that pays more than my fun teaching gig. I need to decide where to move my family - do we stay in our very expensive town or do we take our show to Broadway? Do I give away everything I own or keep it or try to sell it? And where is my personal assistant to do all of that thinking for me? And that's how I feel. I feel broken. I feel as though there are pieces of me scattered all over the place and I can see them but I can't pick them up much less fit them back together again. And I am standing right there - on the edge of that cliff wanting to jump off and say - you know what life is just one big bowl of suck. It doesn't get better - and there are no happy endings. It's just day after day of the same shit.....but you know me better than that - and I know me better than that.

So, even in the middle of this dark time I am able to see down the road. There is a little town a ways away, with sun and trees and rolling hills. But between me and it is a valley filled with rocks and spiders and dark clouds. I can see the lovely town, I know it's there and it's real. But I can't get there from here without going through the valley. And it sucks knowing that. It sucks knowing that you can't skip over the bad stuff.

I want to catch a plane or flag down a passing motorist on this road. I want a break. But nobody can do this work for me and it's no longer just me - so drowning my sorrows in booze and smokes isn't going to work either. Ahhh, my twenties! Children make you grow up in a way you don't always want to. And disaster makes you want to crawl back to a time when you were being taken care of and housed and fed - but you still snuck out on Saturday nights to do what you want. There's no sneaking out. There's no taking off. It's a 24 hour gig this mommy thing. And honestly, it sucks. But that's the part of growing up that they don't tell you about - the sacrifice and the pain and the swirling vortex of suck!

And I never want to be the person who writes wah-wah posts. But this is one of them. And I feel like I am due. It'll be okay. I can see the town. I know it's there. And I have no idea how long it is going to take me to get there. But I will get there. And I will have this post to remind me of how far I came to get there. But in the meantime, tribe, know that this thing I am in - sucks - a lot!

we are blessed - today I am missing the blessing - but it will be back soon....