12.22.2011 -- One Year Later

iTunes is on shuffle and Rathbone's "Long Road" came on just as I titled this post.  Thanks Rathbone (and Phil, for making me the mix with that song on it) ...ain't it the truth.  A year ago today I went under the knife in an attempt to fix my voice; it's most definitely been a long road from then till now, although I'm not entirely sure a milestone has been reached, other than that of 1 year.

I wish I could say that the surgery was the key to unlocking my voice. I think it was definitely one key, and the talented doctor himself was another key, and Isha is also a key... But lately I get the impression that my voice is behind a door with a ton of locks, latches, chains and deadbolts; like an inner-city apartment door, or the door to the home of a paranoid schizophrenic or someone with extreme OCD...you get the idea. So, I guess now it's just a matter of collecting all the keys.

So what has this year since surgery seen? It's hard to write about this tonight, and to internalize the anniversary. This month has been pretty bad, vocally, and tonight is far from an exception--I feel like someone punched me in the throat. I'm not sure if I should chalk it all up to a bout of food poisoning that had me in fits at the beginning of December; all the muscle contractions involved in vomiting, not to mention the acid, can't be good at all for the cords. I haven't had this much trouble talking since the summer. In fact, November was incredible and the months leading up to it felt like a steady ascent to the heights of vocal rebirth. Those closest to me will nod in agreement at reading that it's been a long while since I ended a phone call early due to vocal fatigue or have even complained about my voice! As far as I was concerned it was all over, but now this... I'm trying to not think too much about it. It's only a voice after all.

Well, maybe...but for such a small thing, this old voice of mine has certainly changed my life in some drastic and incredible ways. Since my genius of a doctor (who I am now blessed enough to call my genius of a friend!) operated on me--one year ago today--these two tiny cords have been powerful catalysts for some major moves.  Let's see how this year has gone:

• Dec.22.10 - Surgery
• Jan.22.11 - I escape a soul-crushing, negative relationship 
• Feb.3.11 - I take Inner Engineering with Sadhguru in Los Angeles. I infuse my life with a level of spirituality that I have never before known.
• Feb.10.11 - Charged with the greatness of the program, I quit my job with Lush. Deciding that 6 weeks of medical leave isn't enough and not wanting to rush myself back into a life I am suddenly unsure of, I turn down a promotion and massive pay raise.
• Feb.10.11 - Later that same day I call and cancel a lease for my dream apartment in Old City--180 degrees of windows, 20 ft ceilings, 4 blocks from my dear friend Lauren, cobblestone streets--resigned to the fact that I won't be calling Philadelphia home for a while. I have an inexplicable feeling that my voice problems are much deeper that I previously imagined. I sense my life is about to get unrecognizable to me.
• Feb.16.11 - I board a flight to India with a plan to be back by March 10. 
• March.5.11 - My first 2 weeks in India are full of events that make me cry hysterically, laugh hysterically and experience a whole host of other emotions I have very little prior experience with. I decide to change my flight because I don't want to leave without letting myself feel these things more deeply. I want to be at the ashram as long as possible. I somehow know that this man I have started to call my guru is going to take care of me. This realization changes my life. 
• May.19-22.11 - After 3 months of devotion, surrender, upheaval, beauty, grace, and a whole lot of confusion, I fly to Tennessee to be with my guru again for Bhava Spandana Program. My life changes in ways I cannot, to this day, manage to express. 
• Summer.2011- I spend the summer traveling and reconnecting with my friends across the country as well as reconnecting with my life at home after a massive derailing of all I was living before I left on this journey. Highlights as follow:
• June: I spend a week with Liza in New York where I am introduced to her amazing arsenal of friends--including her partner Geoff and bestie Adam--all of whom unknowingly change my mindset and ease my transition into my new expression of life. I get swallowed up into a soothingly familiar and yet excitingly unfamiliar friendship with a dear friend that I never stopped loving! She reminds me not to take anything too seriously. Life is an adventure. Life is for us. I am superhuman.  
• July: I am reunited with Becca in a way that truly honors our friendship...a Phish festival in Watkins Glen, NY over her birthday weekend! Watching the fireworks explode overhead as Trey busted out First Tube to end the weekend, feeling the bass boom in my chest, watching Becca's face and knowing that we were in the same space...Being with the phamily, dancing and feeling that sense of community, devotion, and total involvement with something--I made the connection. It was the first time that my experiences in India found a parallel at home. I felt settled. I knew I could move forward from here...

And moving forward is what I've been doing ever since. Every day is something of a blessing, if for no other reason than that I recognize them as such. More than anything else, my voice troubles have forced me to open up my life, tear all the walls down and free up as much as is in my power to free. I reclaimed my journey in this world. 

So, one year later...am I better?  I am stronger, more disciplined, more loving and compassionate. I am kinder to myself, more merciful, more understanding, more patient. I am more aware of my place in the this world and my effect on others. I am humble, devoted, grateful. I found some slivers of grace. I consciously create beauty around me.  Even if my voice doesn't always come out clear, even when some days it's hard to breathe, even if it hurts sometimes... I am much better.  So much better.

Special Thanks To:   

- My beloved Sadhguru, for being with me;

- Venu, in addition to skillfully injecting my vocal cords with...something medical, for also tenderly but forcefully injecting my life with grace and love, and for being a well-polished mirror;

- Rebecca, for being the wisest woman I know, and for using that wisdom to selflessly and compassionately guide me through the rockiest 18 months of my life...and for loving me every step of the way;

- my family, for supporting all these changes and lovingly trying to understand them as well, my parents for letting me back in, my siblings for also being my best friends, and especially my grandfather, for constantly surprising me with his open-mindedness and clarity;

- Liza, for your energy, fire and lack of bullshit;

- Two Horses, for your turquoise and for reappearing at just the right moment; and

- Tyler, for releasing the key to the rustiest and most difficult lock, and letting me go.

Limitless

Spiritually speaking, there is a concept of boundlessness that reminds us that there is no distinction between what we call ourselves and what we view as separate from us; this includes other people, animals...even inanimate things like sand, grass, earth.  Most of the time, it's really hard for me to remember that this is true.  Forgetting, on a small scale, usually manifests in me being judgmental, losing my patience, or having unproductive thoughts. On a larger scale, though, forgetting leads to feelings of isolation and sadness. You feel alone and weird...out of touch, disconnected to the world around you.

But when this limitlessness comes over you, this connection to your life, it's like being plugged in. This whole life force charges through you like currents of electricity and tries to find any way to surge out of you. Most of the time this happens for me in this odd (to others, watching me) half-smile/half-giggle face and erratic, giddy movements and bubbling, nonsensical speech. At its core, it's this very distinct sensation where you feel like your world is completely open and anything can happen at any moment and the best part this twinkle in your brain that tells you that it probably will.

Let's make a list, shall we?

Things that give me the intense, visceral sensation that everything is possible and absolutely nothing is out of reach:

1. Being productive at the coffee shop, especially when that includes crossing things off TO DO lists or turning out pages of brilliant, hilarious writing.
2. Finishing a New York Times crossword puzzle.
3. Spin classes.
4. Stopping to take in the beauty of any aspect of nature. Giving the world a chance to stun you with its inexplicable awesomeness. 
5. Being with Becca in any capacity. The fact that I have this beautiful person in my life is sometimes just too much to handle. She teaches me about real relationships and I am a better person for knowing her. xx
6. Laughing and laughing and laughing until I hurt.
7. Doing my Shambhavi Maha Mudra kriya every day. There's a feeling during the last 5 minutes where I'm sitting silently and I feel like my body disintegrates and I'm just a bunch of dust motes in a ray of sunlight (in a vaguely Elyssa-like shape).
8. Being reminded that my siblings are my best friends, and they always will be.
9. Dancing when no one's watching me. (Lately, especially to this song down here:)

10. Seeing Phish... locking into Trey's energy when he loses himself in the music and thinking I might just melt into the ground, feeling Mike's bass thump in my chest and my stomach, letting Page's effortless twinklings lift my whole being to another level, and watching Fishman sweat it out and keep some of the most complicated rhythms I've ever heard... Looking around at the phamily all around me and just massaging the perma-grin cramps out of my cheek muscles and knowing that I am part of something musically, socially and emotionally epic...

look at those faces!!! ahhhh!!

11. Getting invited to the Symphony by an intensely handsome man.
12. Trying on new dresses for said Symphony date...or new clothes for any date, really, because being on that brink of potential connection with someone is really unparalleled.
13. The Beatles. Especially Sgt. Pepper, and even more specifically: "Within You, Without You" ...oh George, I wish I knew you.. 

We were talking-about the space between us all
And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth-then it's far too late-when they pass away.
We were talking-about the love we all could share-when we find it
To try our best to hold it there-with our love
With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew.
Try to realise it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows within you and without you.
We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul-
They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?
When you've seen beyond yourself-then you may find, peace of mind,
Is waiting there-
And the time will come when you see
we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you

14. Running along roads you drive on daily and seeing things that you'd never see from your car. (Such as:)

15. Reading Kerouac, especially anything taking place in the Village... I imagine I can recreate that life for myself in a modern way...of course with friends on the level of William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, et al.
16. Being in Manhattan.  (I am blessed to have the most generous and amazing sister in the universe who puts me up in a blissful apartment... and when I stare out those picture windows at the sun rising over that magical skyline, and then when I watch it set over the river later in the night and paint the sky a million shades of sunset, it gives me a sensation of fearlessness and invincibility that is untouchable.)

sunset over the Hudson

17. Playing guitar with little kids.
18. Speaking languages other than English. 
19. Calling an old friend and catching up like no time has passed. Knowing that you have the kind of connection with someone that time can't erode is pretty incredible.
20. Realizing that you have a LOT in common with someone who you've known for years and years but never took the time to get to know.
21. Crying for no reason. Maybe this seems weird to put on here...but it makes me feel boundless because to me it means that I am being touched by things that I'm not aware of, which means that my heart is open. <3
22. Traveling fearlessly and spontaneously. Getting lost in unfamiliar cities and not caring.
23. Thinking about learning the harmonica. No, I haven't actually started playing yet, but just the idea of soulfully blowing into a harp brings me to a level of unrestrained joy. Perhaps its the feeling that I'm that much closer to my beloved Bobby Dylan that contributes to this...
24. Keeping my mouth shut and listening, even when I have the burning desire to speak... and learning from the resulting experience.
25. Practicing yoga. (The other day my instructor told me that I had a "beautiful practice" and that it was a "pleasure to watch" me... I don't think any compliment has ever come close to touching how that one made me feel.)
26. Giving thanks for each and every aspect of my life. Pleasant, unpleasant, desired and undesired alike...I give thanks for it all, because everything is an opportunity to grow more and more boundless and grow closer to the divine...

I am smiling hugely right now. Happy Thanksgiving to my family--those related by blood, those across the ocean, and those I've never met... We are all one, and we are all limitless.

Camping in my own home

Oh, hello again. It's been a while. This lapse is on account of the fact that I was forced to live without power for 11 days recently. The experience was...well... it was an experience!

It all started one crazy morning in late October. I had been up since 5AM and was waiting in line with other like-minded, devoted (read: crazy) people for tickets to Phish's four-night New Years run at Madison Square Garden. After a complete shut out (damn you Ticketmaster) for NYE, which is really all we cared about, and "scoring" 6 tickets for every other night, I left the mall feeling haggard from lack of sleep and tons of ticket related anxiety. All I could think about was how good it was going to feel to make a bag of popcorn and watch Netflix. Mother nature had other plans for me.

It was snowing when I walked outside--this wet, blustery, sideways snow that never means good things to come. I got home within 20 minutes and within 20 minutes of that our power was out. I was mildly inconvenienced; this would obviously throw a wrench into the works of my plans to be a vegetable in the body-eating recliner in the basement. I kept waiting for it to come back on. It didn't.

(Here are some pictures of the FIRST HOUR of this storm.. the first hour...)

look how sideways this snow is! ah!

After two hours or so, I ended up going outside and fighting the accumulation on the driveway as best I could so that mom could actually pull the car in when she arrived home. I started at one end and by the time I got to the other end the side I started with was covered again. Futile.

That night ended up being sort of fun. Jarod was home with his girlfriend and we had this fab evening sitting by a roaring fire J made and vacillating between talking, not talking, listening to music, sitting in silence... It was peaceful and great. (Check it out):

yep, those are marshmallows.. duh, we had an open flame..

The next morning was fun, too. Mom cooked a feast on the grill and we all ate together. The following night was also pretty adventuresome. After that first 24 hours, though...things just got rough.

morning s'mores..obviously.

had to brew coffee on the grill.. at least it brought me back to my roots

The first 3 nights were cold. I mean freezing. I was sleeping in every item on the clothing food chain, all the way up to my head, and still waking up 4-5 times in the middle of the night having to jump around because I was so cold. I think on the 4th morning I actually woke up with little frozen tears in my eyes from having sobbed from sheer misery through the night. Haha...no... but really... it was COLD! Then mom pulled some magical miracle and did some heat override thing (??) and suddenly we had heat. That basically ensured that I could sustain this power outage for what ended up being only 3 more days. Then I melted down again. (This brought me to day 6... Little did I know I was only at the half-way point here.)

Trust me, as I'm writing this, I fully acknowledge the spoiled bratty-ness of it all, the first-worldliness of the whole disaster. But honestly, what do I have in my own experience to compare it to? I will say I AM grateful for a few things relating to this ridiculous nor'easter:   

(1) although the damage caused by dozens of trees and gigantic limbs that fell was considerable, nothing actually fell on or through our roof (just our poor shed)...

(2) my dad was at Avon Health Center (with fully functional generators!!) recuperating in the care of capable individuals and didn't have to be home for this nightmare... also, selfishly (yes, it's my blog, I can admit here I acted in my own interests!), I got to charge all my devices when I would visit (fab perk of visiting but obviously not the reason for my visits.... ok... maybe the reason that my visits were so long)  
(3) my grandfather finally conceded and came over to spend the night with us, which turned into this fantastic evening of delicious (grill-cooked) food *check out those pics down there!* and like 5 games of Rummikub (I love my grandpa, he might be the greatest grandfather in history... I challenge anyone to debate this with me)

you better believe I cooked muscles on the grill.. i also seared some killer scallops... i don't play!

 
(4) we saved a lot of money on lights and cable
(5) I went 11 days without getting sucked into any garbage television marathons like the Real Housewives of [any US city] or anything on TLC ...someone keeps DVRing these shows... hmm...  
(6) I had occasion to use my headlamp for the second time in one calendar year, which is more than I anticipated when I initially bought it
(7) I made a couple of really awesome new friends because I was so under-stimulated and bored with myself after day 9 that I forced myself to branch out and was rewarded accordingly! (hooray for Julia and Curt)
(8) I think I lost a pound or two because I was frankly too damn lazy to come up with creative things to do with the random food we had left after the first 3 days, not to mention I grew weary of grilling...


Being uncomfortable is interesting. Comfort is this weird, beastly thing that tricks us into doing things that aren't always good for us just because those things sometimes make us happy, or elicit some response that we recognize or, I dunno, feed this hungry troll in our brain that lives on hugs, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Starbucks, and positive reinforcement. Obviously I could manage to live a normal life despite the absence of hugs, over-priced soy lattes and compliments (Ben & Jerry's I'm not so sure about...), but these things make me feel comfortable. Sort of how flipping a switch when you walk into windowless bathroom and knowing that a light will go on to save you from accidentally peeing in the tub is comforting, I depend on these things to get me through my days without friction. But friction is so crucial to growth, really.  Well, scientifically speaking, who knows if friction=growth... I really doubt that equation exists anywhere in science. Physics never thrilled me...

You know what I mean though. How are we ever going to break boundaries and cross thresholds if we just chill comfortably, cuddling with someone who unconditionally adores us as we down pint after pint of Cherry Garcia?? We won't! Anyway, I learned a lot about myself during this little New England disaster (and I mean in addition to learning that I kill on the grill and that I prefer reading like a spelunker than with an actual reading lamp).

Ultimately, the power returned in a manner that was sufficiently equal in extreme coolness to the level of hellish uncoolness of the prior 11 days.  In response to a pleading, desperate text about my boredom, the latter of my aforementioned new friends (who I can't name again because I have a nagging feeling he will demand royalties due to the insanely popular nature of this blog) said: "It will come back on soon, trust me... I am a wizard." I was outside grilling my dinner at the time. Two seconds later, all the ambient deck lighting goes on. I died a little. Some people see stars, I saw exclamation points. My wizard friend is better than your wizard friend. Win!

So I'll just leave you with talk of wizards, these vague statements about discomfort leading to growth that I won't elaborate on because I'm tired and getting lazy, and also with this much-more-fascinating-than-my-writing, hypnotic video of my evening entertainment for most of this black-out experience... Thanks for reading! xx

fall and family: a fresh look

It's hard to write when you censor yourself...which is what I'm doing now. Sitting here, staring at flashes of orange from those pumpkins up there and watching the cursor blink at me, demanding "write. write. write." with each appearance, I think of all the reasons I shouldn't write the many things on my mind this week. So, I'll share some pictures and what ever's left after that... let's see...

I've been doing a lot of walking lately. It could be that I have so much on my mind...but it's become a meditation of sorts. While I was in the city I walked for practically every hour of daylight and even into the night. Back in the valley, although the necessity is gone, the novelty of walking through these little neighborhoods makes me feel peaceful and takes the monotony out of living in the isolation of suburbia. It gets a bit lonely. I miss the paradoxical simultaneous anonymity and familiarity of faces on city streets. 

But the transition from summer to fall--that sense of change that happens (in New England) so suddenly--always makes my insides swell with possibility.  Maybe it's the sense I get from looking at the leaves change that things around me are maturing, shifting into something that seems aged and full of a rich season of growth.  As I watch them let go and drift off their branches, I think the leaves are telling a tale of surrender. Autumn never strikes me as a season of wilting or dying, but as the embodiment of this perfect surrender to the flow of life, symbolizing this peaceful release to the next phase. Changes are happening within me and without.  I'm trying to be with autumn this year, physically...metaphysically...

Being with my family isn't always easy for me. There's something about being in close quarters with people who know you so thoroughly; interactions have a tendency to get skewed with assumptions and things we take for granted about one another, sometimes it's tough to really see people clearly through what we think we know. I am both the culprit and the victim of this phenomenon. Every day I challenge myself to look at the members of my family with clean eyes, as if we are just getting to know each other. Because, really, what do I know about them? In fact our interactions are all new! They are at new chapters in their lives and I've never been so surrounded by them, so immersed in their lives...at least not as a hyper-aware adult--I've been away from home for the past decade.



 

It's making me a better person to attempt this and I want to do it with everyone in my life. Every conversation should be new, every interaction a surprise. After all, people have a right to change with each passing day. One of my favorite Emerson moments from Self Reliance...(and one that I constantly quoted in high school to explain away my fickleness): "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think no in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you say today.--'Ah so you shall be sure to be misunderstood!'--Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? ...To be great is to be misunderstood."  The beauty of approaching familiar people with fresh eyes is that the misunderstanding would never occur, because the projection of assumed behavior would be absent.

The most tangible results from this experiment have been seen in conversations with my father. It's been nice to get to know him as a man, as a person, outside of "dad"...there's more to him than just being my father, after all. I suppose if I can keep this up the possibilities are limitless for my relationships.  

I strive to give people close to me the space to be whatever and whomever they feel like being from one day to the next. We can shed our thoughts, convictions, patterns of behavior, habits...we can let them fall like the leaves in October, new buds will always form.  Ever the same tree... but how absurd to think that a 60 year old sycamore should have the leaves it started out with? Quite.

Unison Falling Into Harmony

In addition to the weather being simply unreal (I’m sitting on my deck wearing a scant amount of clothing as I’m writing this and my weather widget says 81 degrees which honestly sounds like an underestimate considering the amount I’m sweating), this day has been special above and beyond the normal. 

Do you ever get the sense that some days are the blissful convergence of many days, weeks, even months prior, where these past moments have laid the foundation stones—many times taking the form of confusing events, lessons learned, experiences that you couldn’t quite make sense of at the time—for this one moment where everything suddenly becomes clear?  Maybe it’s not an “ah-ha” moment that allows you to fully process the whats and the whys of your experience, a moment where you feel like the heavens are shining beaming rays of light down upon your perfectly clear head… But at its core it is a series of moments (in my case a whole day!) that are aligned in such a way as to honor the past and give meaning to the journey that brought this day to you.

It’s like suddenly all these things that happened over the past however long suddenly take their rightful place on this timeline of events that make up your life; events that you couldn’t plan for, journeys you didn’t set out on, or paths you didn’t intend to follow…they become more lucid in the light of these perfect days, these divine moments.

Today this spiritual alignment took many forms. I won’t give you a complete retelling of the experiences that led me here, partly because I haven’t fully processed meaning, weight, or implications, and partly because I want to own it first, bring that energy in and internalize the feelings. I want to bathe in this as it washes over me! But here is the highlight reel of the precipitates:

The day started with a peaceful, loving, supportive yoga practice at a new studio that I found. Mingled with this chance to deepen my practice and share in positive energy with others was a reconnection with an old friend. I felt that sharing a yoga practice with her and creating this positive energy together was a charming way to honor our past friendship and to pave the way for new experiences. I arrived home to a peaceful house and sat for my Shambavi on the deck. My practice was focused but mindless; it was what I strive for every day with my practices. I was transported to India, to a sadhana hall at the ashram, and I felt my guru all around me—a presence I haven’t felt for a very long time…too long.

Sadhguru

He brought me thoughts of acceptance (a theme carried over from Stephanie, this morning’s yoga instructor) and this is something that challenges me in my daily life: giving myself permission to fully accept everything that I am, the things that are happening to me, my physical pain, my weaknesses, the thoughts that don’t seem to ever stop, the doubts and fears.  (As a side note: I do believe that acceptance holds the key to my physical recovery…but I’ve yet to figure out just how to harness this into something tangible that I can propel into a full convalescence.) 

As I sat in the space that I created for myself, in the stillness of my practice, I was flooded with ...Patrick. Not necessarily thoughts of Patrick, but the experience of him.  The beautiful part about this is that my experience of Patrick is limited to a few mere hours. Granted these hours were highly charged and guided by our master, but even while at the mercy of a powerful, unparalleled magnetism pulling me toward someone who was a total stranger to me (at least on the physical plane), I don’t think I ever fully absorbed the magnitude of our connection and how Sadhguru, or the universe, or … elevated us to a place that I imagine few people ever experience.

It’s hard for me to keep writing this now as I find my eyes welling up and my throat getting tight with a lump of undefined emotions that are trying to find expression. Right now it’s happiness, overwhelming happiness…relief, peace, a sense of rightness, of timeliness, of alignment. I called Patrick and he answered, and I was blessed with a small fraction of an hour graced by his voice and his smile that I can always hear through the receiver…a joy I haven’t experienced in far too long.  But today, being special, neither the reasons for the distance nor the fear of judgment for those reasons mattered.  All that mattered was this connection, this love, and for the first time in a very long time I felt compelled to wear the necklace that I had long ago thrown off for disbelief of its inscription: omnia vincit amor.  Maybe love really does conquer all.

Lunch with my brother followed which made me feel peaceful and settled. It was my first meal of the day, and he had offered to cook it for me. So I contributed some killer sautéed spinach and we called it even as we sat on the deck and ate in near silence, just appreciating each other’s presence…we don’t get these moments too often these days.  A Frisbee toss followed and illuminated the chemistry between Jarod and I that comes from being such similar people at heart. Unencumbered by the loads of mental crap that I usually pile on myself daily, I was able to connect with him on this awesome level where our oneness is not at all hard to see. It’s tough not to smile at that. :)

Jarod left for school and before I had time to process the solitude, my phone rang.  It was my friend and mentor, Venu, who has lovingly and patiently guided me through this foreign spiritual journey over the past 10 months. It was a brief conversation, but perfectly timed, as seems to be our practice. I reconnected to the path I’m on and I felt that sense of relief wash over me again, this time underlined by thoughts that I’m being looked out for…that someone has me in their sights.

Sadhguru blessing me - Los Angeles, February 2011

When I think about all the times I had to watch the sun set and—comfortingly—rise again (and some days it was the setting that was the more comforting of the two), all the waves of inexplicable emotion that came to me—sometimes charging and pounding like the thundering hooves of galloping horses, other times trickling in almost imperceptibly, like a slowly leaking faucet—a part of me wishes this day would have come sooner.  But really, it couldn’t have come a moment sooner than it did. These things only happen to you when you’re ready. These past few months I've been making space...cleaning house.

It wasn’t that today’s perfect practice, or this new yoga studio, or a phone call to end an estrangement, or some indirectly guiding words from a close friend, or sharing a meal with my brother and tossing a Frisbee carelessly around the sunny lawn on a Sunday afternoon—though all perfectly pleasing things!—were themselves the cause for this experience today. The point, the important distinction, is that each thing that happened today happened in such a way as to illuminate their importance as pieces in this puzzle (my life) that I’ve been working on over the past 6-9 months.  Suddenly, I was able to make out an ocean in what was once a jumbled pile of blue-hued puzzle pieces, I saw a picture…I zoomed out, so to speak, and the scene made sense.

Imagine you are watching the Director’s Cut version of the DVD of your life…you get commentary, maybe some subtitles, maybe even some helpful montages of past scenes spliced together in such a way that you now see something you didn’t the first time around—details you missed become clear and everything takes on a new meaning in the light of this replay. That was today for me. 

 

It’s only going to get better, too. Tonight I have my final session with a woman named Patti, who is helping me open the doors I need to open in order to heal myself. (She does Reconnective Healing.) This week, working with Patti, has been the first time on this painful road that I actually took responsibility for my suffering and stopped feeling victimized. This is not to say that I blame myself for what’s happened to me, but simply to acknowledge that I believe I am the only one who can save me. I imagine this new outlook on my physical issues will be a lot more emotionally challenging for me than blaming someone or something else…but then again, as Sadhguru says, accepting responsibility doesn’t bind you, it only frees you more.

So here’s to being free. Here’s to healing, here’s to acceptance, to hunger. Here’s to love, to connecting to the life we’re living, to diminishing our “selves” and rising up to our fullest potential.  And here’s to doing it with perfect fearlessness—the fearlessness that comes with knowing that everything we experience is a part of something much bigger. Today proved that. 

(thanks to all who shared it with me! xx -e)

It's always sunny...

I suppose Philadelphia will always feel like home to me. Every time I pull back into the city--by plane, train or automobile--I feel my chest swell up and I know it's because all that Philly blood is rushing to my heart. I've been out of the city for 10 months now (almost to the day) and the passing of every one of those (300 or so) days has felt like a slow drizzle of confusion.  Following this tangential course the universe has given me isn't always easy, especially when I can't see more than a few steps in front of me, but I know I need to stay on it as long as it takes and trust that it's taking me exactly where I need to be--just have to keep walking forward.  This was the first trip back where I began to make peace with that fact and started to let go of my longing to be living the life I left behind.

On the walk home Monday the sun FINALLY came out for the first time all weekend!

My favorite Philly family (my favorite family anywhere, actually) was kind enough to put me up again, in exchange for nothing more than a batch of Hermit cookies (which were gone in a day) and 24-hours of nanny duty, both of which were my pleasure. I spoiled the daylight out of Talulah (don't read this Ed!) and the Lolo brought me to this joint in Northern Liberties where I had my first burger in almost a year. Yes, burger. As in meat burger.

Honestly, I don't feel bad having left them behind...but I'm glad I reminded myself about what I'm not missing. (Although if you're a meat lover you would definitely love this place...they even have a Krispy Kreme burger!) Next time I go, I'll stick with the homemade basil bean burger, and I'll have to try the jalapeno-and-bacon-wrapped tater tots... (yes! they are real!! ...also, is it weird that bacon is less horrifying for me to consume that any other kind of meat, even chicken? Perhaps because it so loosely resembles meat, more of a fat strip, really, than anything else...) Anyway, I'll stick with yummy vegan treats when I go out from now on.

Vegan chicken cheesesteak from Govinda's on Broad and South (Philadelphia)

Thanks to Lolo and Couzin Ed for being awesome. Thanks to lil T for all the excitement (and hugs). And thanks to Advil for making a PM version. Goodnight!

New England nostalgia

I'm going to let the photos mostly speak for themselves in this post. I gave myself an out of town weekend to visit sissy in Beantown. It's the end of her 7th week in dental school and she took her first exam on Friday (and aced it, might I proudly add!!), so we decided a catch-up weekend was in order. 

There's something so charming about the northeast in the late summer/early fall. The leaves on the maple trees (those early birds) are already starting to turn and fall, giving the still mostly green expanses of trees along the highways a few vibrant hints that autumn is coming. As New Englanders we always cling to these tiny moments of perfectly balanced autumn days (temperature: a dry, clear 65-70 degrees and sunny; landscape: a firey blaze of warm colors; air smelling like crispy earth, burning wood, and somehow like pumpkins...) because we know that a single frosty night or a particularly heavy, unseasonal rainfall can destroy that balance and eliminate autumn from existence entirely, shooting us straight from balmy summer to lifeless, icy winter before we even have time to dig our sweaters out of the cedar chests in our attics.  

With all the nostalgia that this transition from summer to autumn tends to bring, we naturally decided to honor it with a trip to the Big E (Eastern States Exposition). This fair is something that we would do yearly as a family when we were growing up and have the fondest memories of. As adults, our lives having taken us a bit farther away from the Springfield area, yearly trips turned into more like once every 3-4 years... Needless to say, this visit was long overdue.

Each state in New England is represented with it's own separate house, each filled with stands and kiosks that feature the famous things about each state...mostly food items! (Connecticut is seriously the biggest disappointment that ever was...boasting stands with Legos, Timex watches, and insurance carriers... Seriously, Connecticut?! sigh...) So, in keeping with our natures, Jus and I decided to make our trip to the Big E a food tour of the state houses.  We strategically planned out our eating so that we would be sure to have room for everything and not have to miss out on a single thing!  In order, this was our journey:

Maine: baked potato with fresh churned butter, sour cream, and Massachusetts: vegan chili

Maine: lobster roll woman really selling it! 

Maine: lobster roll (HOLY MOLY) and Vermont: fresh pressed apple cider 

Henry's Kettle Korn from the "Craft Common" (where they feature the late 1700s farm houses)

We sampled from 8-10 of the kettle corn stands before deciding that Henry's was the best!

The perfect balance of crunchy, salty and sweet! Mmmm, piping hot kettle corn!

Maine: wild blueberry crisp

no caption needed for this...mmm

In between the kettle corn and the wild blueberry crisp we saw some people with these glistening skewers of something incredible... On closer examination (and after "interviewing" some people who were munching on them) we discovered they were smoked, wild salmon fillets on a stick. It may have tied the lobster rolls for the best food of the night. It was moist, chewy, smokey, peppery, just delightful on so many levels. So fresh. Great impulse purchase--definitely wasn't on our "food plan" for the day, but a fabulous surprise find! 


We also bought a couple of loaves of the MOST delicious (oat, dill, onion, seedy, sweet, savory, etc etc etc) bread from the Massachusetts house, and some jars of lemony Maple Pumpkin butter from Sidehill Farms in the Vermont house. We passed up the gorgeous, butter ears of corn that New Hampshire offers, figuring we would be OD'ed on corn at that point, and also (perhaps it's the dental school influence?) passed up the famous maple sugar candy from Vermont. I skipped the famous Big E bakery that has the most fabulous, gigantic cream puffs and eclairs...but not on purpose, only because I forgot that I wanted it until it was too late!  


New Englanders everywhere were in their element at the fair this weekend--drinking pumpkin spiced and miscellaneous other fall-inspired beers from local breweries, watching woodcarving demonstrations, staring in awe at the giant, half-ton pumpkins--and we couldn't have been happier to end the day than we were as we came around one of the farm buildings, side-stepped some steaming piles of horse poop (live, county fair-esque music floating through the air at us from off the nearby stage) and looked up to see one of the most brilliant sunsets this northeast sky has seen in a long while.