In the beginning was the Word....

When I first started this blog I made a point of writing fairly often. As time went on my posts were more sporadic because I felt I needed to be "deep" and "inspiring" every time I sat down to write. As I have grown as a human and as a writer I realize that there is no need to put off writing until I am in the grasp of some huge idea. Every small idea opens doors and windows. I was also guilty of creating separate blogs to address different areas of my life: one for food, one for camp Mommy, and one for "deep thoughts," a la Jack Handy, just not as funny. Completely unnecessary. Everything I do, eat, wear and think are part of me. There is no need to separate all of it out into neat little categories. I can't do that in my brain, so what makes me think I can do it on paper - well, virtual paper at least. On Facebook I have started posting my gratitude journal. I usually do it for 30 days but this time I decided to do it for 35. From the first day I began posting my gratitudes until September 16th - Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year. I began remembering why I love the fall so much. New school year means new beginnings, fresh paper and pens and pencils. Books yet to be explored. Thoughts yet to be written. What comes with the fall is the Autumnal Equinox and the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). I love these holidays and indeed these traditions because they follow a lunar calendar. A lunar cycle is how my body naturally works. It is my life circadian rhythm, if you will. Since I am a traveler actively working to make sense of my earthly experience, I have studied many different traditions looking for a home. None of them fit me fully, but I am able to take bits and pieces from different traditions, belief systems and even religions, to make my own spiritual ontology. Recently, I listened to an interview of Krista Tippett interviewing Kate Baestrup, the author of "Here If You Need Me." Here is the synopsis of the book, because it does a much better job of expressing the truth of the book than I can: "Ten years ago, Kate Braestrup and her husband Drew were enjoying the life they shared together. They had four young children, and Drew, a Maine state trooper, would soon begin training to become a minister as well. Then early one morning Drew left for work and everything changed. On the very roads that he protected every day, an oncoming driver lost control, and Kate lost her husband. Stunned and grieving, Kate decided to continue her husband's dream and became a minister herself. And in that capacity she found a most unusual mission: serving as the minister on search and rescue missions in the Maine woods, giving comfort to people whose loved ones are missing, and to the wardens who sometimes have to deal with awful outcomes. Whether she is with the parents of a 6-year-old girl who had wandered into the woods, with wardens as they search for a snowmobile rider trapped under the ice, or assisting a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, understanding, and spiritual guidance when it's needed most. HERE IF YOU NEED ME is the story of Kate Braestrup's remarkable journey from grief to faith to happiness. It is dramatic, funny, deeply moving, and simply unforgettable, an uplifting account about finding God through helping others, and the tale of the small miracles that occur every day when life and love are restored." This book changed my entire perception of my "calling," (Thank you Kim Collins for hipping me to this book.) What do I mean by "calling?" When I was ready to apply for college I had a decision to make, and it was one I didn't share with other people. I was deciding between going to college or going to seminary. I felt very sure that my work on earth was to minister to people and help them soothe their souls. There was just one problem with this idea -I wasn't sure, any longer, if I could embrace any one religion. This is where Kate's book comes it. She writes that she is religious but not spiritual, giving the common phrase: I am not religious, I am spiritual, a quick turn on its head. I disagreed. I am spiritual and I am a pracitioner of many religions and none at all. So this is what made the decision to go to seminary, at the age of 19, very difficult for me. I still held onto the idea of a personal G-d but not a personal religion. So I had to walk that path and find out what I could, in fact, do to minister to people's souls. I became a Religious Studies major. I sang. I entered theatre and practiced creating sacred space. I studied Judaism and loved the prescribed behavior of the Orthodox. I entered Witchcraft and found solace in making my own reality and magic(k) through writing and casting my own spells, in taking control of my happiness and my "luck." I walked a short path into Ifa, the tradition of Yorubaland where I have been repeatedly told, when I was in a consultation with an Ifa priest, that my destiny was to be initiated into the religion (seriously I have been told this three times) and that choice still scares me because it would require that I settle in one place on one tradition. But during all of this my desire to minister never left me. I knew my job: to make people's lives filled with love and serenity. And to fulfill the prophecy of my loving astrologer: "To teach people the meaning of life," yea, I would have to figure out what that was first. And what does all of this have to do with words, new beginnings, Kate Baestrup, death and a spritual calling? Let me tell you: I recenty made the decision to attend seminary to become an interfaith minister and to receive ordination. I also made the decision to work as either a hospice or hospital chaplain. My desire to have people experience love and serenity in their life is as strong as my calling to help them achieve love and serenity in their active dying. I have never been afraid of death or the dead - and this was long before I had cancer. I have always found death strangely calming because it was the only thing I knew for sure. So these thoughts and my desire to live a holistic and not a fragemented life, led me to place everything about me into one blog and this is it. Three days ago I started a gratitude journal and I will share that here. I am in the middle of a rigorous job search and I will post that here. I am still working to live the healthiest life I can and I will post that here. I working at placing love and trust at the forefront of my daily practice, and I will post that here. And I am about to embark on a wonderful, joy-filled part of my life as a seminary student and I will most definitely post that here. So, walk with me. Find you own inspiration, love and serenity and let's have a conversation. There is so much to share in this life - in my life - and I want to know what is going on in your life. I want to hear your heartbeat. So bring your life, loves, triumphs and even your disappointments here or keep them to yourself if you wish just allow yourself to live every moment fully. That is my wish for all of you. To be in love with yourself and with your life. It is going to be quite a trip. In peace, Keisha

Time threw a prayer to me

I wanted to write about my last post. Most people might assume that once you achieve clarity and can surrender that you have done all of your work. You will live out the rest of your days in Buddha-like bliss. Not true - as a matter of fact as far away from the truth as humanly (and other worldly) possible. Once you get clarity and can see how the various webs of your life are interweaved then you can begin to address whatever the common denominator might be. But like a marriage you have to work at it - all the time. And I will use myself as an example, simply because there is no one else available. I learned something invaluable about myself lately. That despite my opening myself to intimacy I still had a rather pervasive habit. I loved people not readily available to me. They were either physically far away or emotionally distant. And I did this for a few reasons but the most pervasive one was that I was reliving my relationship with my father. He was neither emotionally nor physically available to me. And I didn't pick people who were like my father, I became my father. I was emotionally and physically unavailable to others. A great shield for my very tender heart. Picking people to love who would inevitably take up unncessary real estate in my world. And none of it was their fault. They didn't ask for me to have grandiose ideas about their presence. They didn't expect me to grow to know them only to say to myself - see they are not available to me. Or perhaps they wanted too much from me and rather than take the risk to love I hit the bricks. Now, this is a very convenient way to live but you cannot sustain this for your entire life. You will live a very long, sad and tiring life. Surrender takes work. You have to renew your dedication and relationship with it on a daily basis. Today, I choose to open my heart. Today, I choose to be reasonable about my expectations. Today, I promise not to project my feelings of loss and isolation onto another person. Today.... I wanted to be honest with you and to let you know that surrender is not a one time deal. Neither is enlightenment of any kind, otherwise the Buddha would have stopped meditating that very day under the bodhi tree. But he continued until his earthly death. Then there was nothing left for him to do or fix. So, yes, surrender can be eye-opening and freeing but it must be lovingly attended to each and every day. Your vigilance will never end. Make peace with that and know that it will keep you free and full of possibility.

Intimacy Part III - The Final Chapter

Oprah and I broke up about ten years ago. And like all my breakups (with the exception of Ilya) once it is over you are dead to me. But I have been spending a lot of time on Twitter lately, trying to convince myself that due to the character limit it is less of a time suck than Facebook! Denial. And Monday night something happened on Twitter. My feed was blowing up about Oprah's Lifeclass. She had Iyanla Vanzant on. I love Iyanla Vanzant having followed her work since the mid-nineties: seeing her speak live at every possible opportunity and finally meeting her in 2007. She was, to me, a conduit to Grace, probably the way Catholics feel about their priests and Jews feel about their rabbis. She taught me so many life lessons. So, per my twitter feed, I found OWN (Oprah's network) among the myriad of channels and set my DVR to record the second showing of Iyanla and Oprah.

Iyanla said a lot of things, most of which I could say with her after watching her two seasons on Oprah, her short-lived television talk show, and reading her work. Words of wisdom like: "When you see crazy coming,cross the street!" and my favorite:
"Tell the truth and shame the devil." Most of all she always told people she loved them and genuinely meant it. And she referred to people as "Beloved. "My name means
"Beloved,"in Swahili. She then said something revolutionary (at least in my head). She said that we need to stop telling our "Story." The story of our lives. What happened to us. How we have been wronged. Who did what, when. And I realized - had an epiphany: (I will not call it an a-ha moment as Oprah and I are still on the outs!)I constantly tell my story.

My story is made of so many components and moving parts. Things that I keep talking about over and over. Thinking that re-hashing them will bring me closure. That's from years of therapy. But those things usually don't heal. They keep me stuck in my story. I get it: when you are told to surerender! We constantly make excuses about how difficult it is to surrender. It's because we don't want to let go of our story. Who would we be without our pain and our past? Well, we might be free people. In that moment I surrendered. All the guilt and the pain and the illness and the wrong I had done and that had been done to me. I decided to tell a different story. One that has me experiencing love and success and freedom - in this very moment.

It also did something revolutionary: it opened me to the possibility of intimacy. Intimacy is redefined for me. It is releasing your guard to invite people in. It is also the courage to let things go. I have been doing a great deal of excising people from my life lately. People can be thieves of my goodness, my compassion, my joy. All because I allow them to stay, afraid of hurting their feelings. But it hurts my feelings and it hurts me to be around people who "peck at you till there is nothing left of you," (Maya Angelou). And it also remindes me of another brilliant thing that Maya Angelou said, which is, "when people show you who they are, believe them." I can only change myself. Intimacy becomes something I do for myself. I learn to know and care for myself and then I can see the light in others. And more importantly I can open myself to others, without fear. What is the worse thing that can happen? They don't want to be around me. Fair enough, time saved.

After many years I finally get the message on how to be closer to other people. It is simply to trust myself and my love of self that makes intimacy possible. Hearing another's heartbeat. Some hearts will beat in time with yours and others will not. And either way it is okay. Accepting it without judgement is the answer. Intimacy is not being able to share the deepest moments of your life with someone else. I have friends with whom I share and have shared the deepest parts of me, and our relationships are anything but intimate. And there are people I have just met with whom I connect and whose heartbeat is in time with my own.

I get it now. And it is so much better than before. And so much more fulfilling.

It's Not Always About Me

Have you had the experience where someone you know or care about is going through a crisis of some sort and it reminds you of a similar crisis of your own? It brings up past hurts and challenges. And you don't want to put your situation on the other person, but you need to deal with all the crap that is coming up your drainpipe.
That is why I am so glad I have a blog today. I have crap galore coming out of my drainpipe.

A friend is battling cancer. My immediate reaction is to give advice and to help with their process of getting through this horror. Mostly the way no one did for me. But I am realizing that much like being pregnant and having had the baby - no one can tell you what the other side of the bath of fire will be like. You have to walk the path yourself to get to the other side. I know this and I am doing my best to keep my freakin' mouth shut. It's hard. So much stuff has come up in me regarding my own battle with cancer. So much I never talked about. So much I ignored because I needed to get on with life. And so much I felt was old hat now that it has been almost four years since the surgery.

But I don't feel whole yet. I have daily, constant reminders of all that cancer took from me. And, don't get me wrong I am glad it didn't kill me (most days) but when I remember who I was before cancer there are some things I liked about myself that I will never have again and with which I am having a hard time being okay.

1. The first are my scars. I wore them as battle scars for years, to show what I had been through and how I had triumphed over that evil tumor that no chemotherapy could abate. I had looked death in the eye and it blinked first. But now I look at my scars as a story that I have to explain over and over again should I ever wear anything that isn't a turtleneck.

2. My voice. Someone said to me the other day - "Wow, Keisha you always have a cold." Well, no I don't always have a cold. My voice cannot get above a whisper by the end of the day. When on the playground I cannot call my children because they can't hear me. And G-d forbid they were in any danger, I would have to grab the nearest adult to yell at them and get them out of the way. My voice gives out from time to time. And I think about getting back in front of a class and teaching again and I am overcome with tears. My voice was one of the best things about me. Gone.

3. My epiglottis, I still have to take my time drinking or eating lest any of it end up in my lungs - which is really freaking painful!

4. The missing lung is doing its own thing and as I exercise more, she is getting stronger and stronger. And for this I am completely grateful.

5. Anemia. A new edition to the list of side effects. I am cold all the time no matter what I am wearing. All I want to do all day is sleep because I am so exhausted even after a good night's - or at least long night's sleep. And there is not much they can do about it because the medicines cause more trouble than they are worth.

Now that I have enumerated all the things that I hate about being post-cancer. I don't know how to be a good friend to someone going through it in real time. I can say things are going to get better. But they might not. Fight the good fight, when they are exhausted and just want all of this to be over. It will get better, but what if it doesnt? And do I really believe that? Sometimes just being alive after enduring cancer is not enough. Okay, greedy me, but it's not enough. And walking around saying I am just glad to be alive is a bunch of Pollyanna bullshit. I want my life back. I want my family together. I don't want to be getting a divorce (but I don't want to stay together either). I want my house back with the energy to finally fix it up. I want my kids to still be able to walk down the street to school and for my Zachary to have spent another year at Playhouse. I want, I want, I want. But I don't get to have. And I have to accept that. Accept the life that I have right now in this moment. When I don't really want to. I am sick of all that cancer took from me. And not grateful for anything she left behind. But sometimes its not always about me.

My body in rebellion

My body hates me. Which is a weird statement to make because what am I outside of my body. Well, I guess that part that recognizes that my body hates me. She doesn't like anything I feed her - the junk and the good. She doesn't like to sleep straight through the night. She can never be seated for longer than 3-5 minute stretches. She feels like worms or ants are marching beneath her skin. She is constantly hot and then cold and then hot again. And she cries at the drop of an emotionally well-placed hurt animal or emaciated child. She is in a word - completely irrational. And in another word - perimenopausal. That's right, folks. I am going through the pre-menopause stages. I am 40. Technically I should not be experiencing this for another ten years. And if we are working purely off my family history for another 5-8. My OB/GYN thinks I am going through all of this slightly early because of the chemotherapy and radiation I went through with the cancer. And because the type of couture cancer I had was hormone based. Ah. I am not one who laments what a thing is called when I in fact have that thing. I am more the type who gets happy that whatever it is that is happening with me has a name. If you can name it you can research it and you can deal with it. Or so I tell myself.

Presently there is not much I can do other than get educated on what is happening with my body. Pay attention to the signs my body is giving off and read as much as I possibly can so I am informed and can make healthy choices. I am not interested in hormone replacement especially since such treatments leave me vulnerable to a secondary cancer. But besides that I don't particularly want to take synthetic things to deal with an organic ocurrence. Just happy, at this point, to know that I am not getting crazier than I already was, that there is something real going on. The hot flashes are NOT a figment of my imagination.

And so here it is folks, the next evolution. So hang out here and at keisha-eats if you want to see how I handle this next part of my constantly changing existence. Food will definitely be my medicine now. I am having some interesting responses because I am also diagnosed with anemia based primarily on my recent diet choices. So it will be time to warm up the raw foods so I stay warm and to boost the iron (not in the form of supplements those give me constipation!).

I know there are those of you out there going through this same thing. Don't stand in the shadows. Don't hide the truth. Come on out with me and exclaim loudly, I am over 40 and my body is feeling it!!!

English, yea I can write it.

I was a good writer. Yesterday. Today I suck. And using "Yesterday" is a sentence fragment. Did you know that? Even if it completely communicates my thoughts, it is not allowed in scholarly writing. Shit. Oops. Of course you know that it is a sentence fragment. The rules I have been using for writing (or not using) were by choice. I thought I knew the rules so then I would know how to break them. But it I don't and the way I write is not good enough for scholarly writing.

I had this vision of revolutionizing the world of scholarly writing. I was going to write the way I spoke. Present complex ideas and theories in an uncomplicated language of the people. The proletariat. But that is not the case with scholarly writing. You will be laughed at by your peers and you will not be taken seriously in well-read circles. Your writing will not be appropriately obtuse (ding ding SAT word!). And who in their right mind from the non-academic community would want to read a paper comparing and contrasting Elizabeth Alexander's poem Absence to August Wilson's play Gem of the Ocean? You would need to be familiar with the poem and the play to get the paper. So, I am finally starting to get why academic, nay, scholarly work is written in such complicated language because non-academic people are not going to read it!

I had a great professor in high school (I refer to her as "Professor" because she had a PhD in Medieval literature from Princeton. She deserved that title even though I called her K.P., in class!), she taught Dante's Divine ComedyHandmaids Tale and The Bible. All in one semester. She made me love Dante. Her incredibly descriptive accounts of what happened in hell made it accesible to all of us with only a sophomore high school English under our belts; even those of us who had attended rigorous elementary and middle schools.(now that was a bad sentence!). I wanted to write the way she spoke. To inspire people to read the Divine Comedy. To be taken in by the stories of lying, sexual misconduct and patricide as well as killing any neighbors who came by your house! Wow! That book would be a best seller. And then I read her book on The Divine Comedy and I fell asleep while reading it. It was her dissertation from Princeton. Dry. I wanted to throw pitchers of water on it. Or better yet just put it in the tub and let water consume it.

How could it be that this vibrant and amazing teacher could write something so boring? It didn't make sense to me. Not until years later when I had to write my college thesis. One member of my committee had also been my English Professor. She taught Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare. I loved the way she taught and as a matter of fact she got her PhD from Princeton the same year K.P. did. They were friends. And my college professor was so incredibly vibrant in class. She described Chaucer with such passion that you wanted to perfect middle English! Then I made a huge mistake. I read her dissertation. Again, nod'sville. How was this possible?! She made me want to run away with Virgil! And to adore Dante. To this day The Divine Comedy is one of my favorite collections of books and The Inferno in the top three of my favorite books. However, this professor who had encouraged me to write the way I spoke told me that I missed summa cum laude on my thesis because I had "dropped the ball" on the use of language. It wasn't scholarly enough. The entire faculty was not going to stand up and then genuflect when I walked in at graduation (which is what they did with summa cum laude graduates. Okay not the genuflect part). And I wasn't going to get a nifty medal. Damn, Damn Damn! How did I know there was a difference in how I spoke and how I wrote?

Then I got it. There is a huge difference between scholarly writing, how one teaches, and how one writes for non-academic audiences. Scholarly writers don't really give a damn if the proletariat can understand their writing. It wasn't written for them. It was written for the academic community. And they expect, nay, demand that the writing be as complicated as possible so it shows how learned you are. I get it. And I also get that that last part wasn't fair to academics.

And now I have to learn how to write like an academic if I want my work to be taken seriously in certain circles. Ahh, am I up to learning those rules now, at my age. Well, it seems I have no choice if I am to be a scholar. There is a silver lining, however, learning to write academically does not mean I cannot also write for the masses. I can do both. Learning the rules of scholarly writing means I can break them in my blogs and other commercial venues. I can use it in my speech when I teach (oh, rhymn that is a no no!). And I can make things vibrant and inspiring for my students. Don't worry I will not bore you with my scholarly writings here. I will save that for another audience.

Be well,
K

What did you say?

This post is primarily for those of you who have children. And those of you who do not, go ahead and post a response if you have any thoughts. RANT WARNING! So those of you not in the mood for that kind of thing can just skip this post. I am sure I will be back soon with something else!

Girls. What is it about being a mother and raising a girl that is so difficult? The boys are challenging, yes they are. But they are challenging in a different way. They want to kill each other most days and work that out through jumping on each other and chasing each other around the house wielding toys as potential weapons! This I can handle. This I know how to deal with. But girls.

I have to be honest, I am not the best of mothers when it comes to dealing with my daughter. There is something about the mother/daughter relationship that is different, easy to figure out on the surface but once you dig deeper, so hard to manage and to contain your frustration. I remember having the same beef with my mother. She just didn't understand. She wasn't listening to me. She is mean and quite frankly not in touch with what I am going through. Yea, I was one of those girls. And so I try to remember what my frustrations were as a daughter and use that to interact with my daughter, and you know what: It's not working!

Some of this is probably because this type of interaction is being interpreted by someone young, emotional and confused. We all were. And part of it is that I see in her every little thing that annoys me about myself. A mirror of my shortcomings. And that is an uncomfortable place to be. It hits every nerve in my body and I see myself outside myself acting like a crazy person. Unable to get a hold of my emotions. But the thing that drives me the most crazy is the mouth.

Talking back, mumbling under your breath, telling me - outloud - that I am mean and the ever popular: "Just forget it!" Well I can't just forget it. I was just slandered. I was just told that I didn't say something when I KNOW I did. I was being called a liar. And oh, my potentially calm mother instincts turn into a crazy, screaming banshee. Yes, I do scream. I try not to but it's almost as if I am outside of my body looking down at this out of control person and I am yelling at HER to stop screaming but she is screaming so loudly she can't hear me. It is that disconcerting and upsetting to me.

And I can hear all of you now, "It's not about you, Keisha!" And I know this. I know this. And I cannot get a grip sometimes. Believe me I am better than I used to be. I am better than the post I wrote a year or so ago. But I am not better enough. I have done the deep breathing and the time out for myself. I have counted as high as 100 to regain my composure. And when I am tired and frustrated, I cannot manage to go that place of serenity. To my "Woooo Saaaa" place.

There is no need to placate me or tell me that it is part of being a mother because I get all that. And I really want to do some kind of socialogical study on why it is that mothers and daughters are like this. I mean really understand it. It feels like something we can overcome, that we can break the cycle. Much like when your ancestors were alcoholics and so you decide to not drink. There is an emotional and physical response that maybe we can analyze and end, right? Oh please tell me that there is. And some women have perfectly healthy relationships with their mothers. I have a much better one with my mom now than I ever did and part of that was having my own children and learning how difficult it is to raise little people.

And I love my daughter. I adore her and think she is the coolest kid ever. I think she is talented beyond measure, creative, her own person and compassionate. And I don't like her very much. And when the two of us are in the same room for too long it turns into a battle. Like this morning when I told her she could not wear leggings with a ton of holes in them to school. You would think I was Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest!" The crying and the wailing. The talking back - which is really what set me off. So that my constant phrase with her is: "What did you say?"

There is a perceived sense of defiance on her part, a disrespect and an echo of me at 10, 11, 12. It's got to be in the DNA and its got to be rooted out. So, this is my dilemna this morning. And sitting down and writing this post has helped me calm down and think of all of this differently. And in the moment that clarity is so hard to find. And this is the nature of raising girls, some say. But I would like to defy nature.

My latest mantra - On Children ~ Kahlil Gibran
(performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock)
Your children
Are not your children
They are the sons and the daughters of life's longing for itself
They come through you but they are not from you
And though they are with you they belong, not to you.

You can give them your love but not your thoughts
They have their own thoughts
You can house their bodies but not their souls
For their souls dwell in a place of tomorrow, which you cannot visit
Not even in your dreams
You can strive to be like them but you cannot make them just like you...

Be well.