37days

What would love do?

Sometimes we get the message we need. Reading zena musings this morning, I found Carla's link to this: What would love do? It was written for me. And, perhaps, for you?

[perhaps a knitted heart is the perfect image for this message, considering the ways in which knitting can ravel, or not. Image from here]

J is for jijnasu

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan

In 2008, I want to be a jijnasu, a seeker of wisdom, an inquirer.

When I was preparing to talk with Billy Collins the other day (doesn’t that sound casual?), Mr Brilliant was holding the paper bag while I hyperventilated, metaphorically speaking, helping me think about what questions I wanted to ask the dear poet of my dreams.

“Ask him what his favorite word is,” he said, excitedly. Mr Brilliant is a great cataloguer of such information.

I blinked at him.

Tess ran by. “Tess!” he shouted as she sped by. “What’s your favorite word?”

“WHY!” she yelled without stopping, making a tiny circular path from living room to family room to dining room and back. Just as Mr Brilliant started to answer her, she shouted again: “WHY IS MY FAVORITE WORD!”

He beamed.

“What a fantastic favorite word,” he murmured, contentedly. “You should tell Billy Collins that ‘why’ is your four-year-old’s favorite word.”

I blinked at him.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll do that right after I pass out when he answers the phone.”

Becoming Larger Than Our Skin Allows

And no, that title isn't a reference to overeating.

In the U.S., today is Thanksgiving Day (and my friend Karrie Manson's birthday, so a shout out to her for being so powerful that the nation stops when she ages). This year, I'm not spending Thanksgiving at a long table full of vegan alternatives to turkey, but hunched over a computer screen like a madwoman, panicked at my book deadline next week and snarking at my family when they breathe too loudly. What was I thinking?, I'll be thinking, in one of those beautiful infinite regresses of thinking, the fear that emerges from finality, essays congealed into book form.

Soon, I'm sure I'll give in to the overwhelming urge to eat cranberry sauce from a can, as detailed last year this time on 37days,and will pop the Tofurky into the oven. But not before being thankful, and deeply so, for all of you who come here and read my few words and email and comment and hold me up when I'm falling. My deepest thanks.

My glorious friend Sid Jordan sent a Thanksgiving message this morning that I'd like to share with you this fine day. Let us lift each other up.

Becoming Larger Than Our Skin Allows

We seek metaphors
To describe our friendships
But alas, even these fall short of our true emotions
So we joke, tell stories, and hold each other
Accepting the inner weaving of our connections
As part of the evolving tapestry of our lives

What is amazing to me
Is how little it takes to impact another human being
In profound and deep ways
Simply by being present
By witnessing each others stories
By honoring each others thoughts and feelings

It is physically possible to lift each other up
And hold each other under a starlit sky
Enough to feel the power of the universe enfold us
Wrapping us up with simultaneous feelings of love and immensity
Yes, we are only a speck in the whole of things
Yet, our love mingled with the love of others
Is more immense than we can ever intellectually know

Our ability to tap into the collective energy of the world
Allows us to transcend our language
Each of us becoming larger than our skin allows
Each of us finding power
From the source of our humility and awe
But mostly from each other
As our hands work to lift each other higher

-Doc Klein

Release a dove for Meta

Dear Friends,

Meta's story touched many people. Her too-young death and the extraordinary leave-taking given to her by her family and friends brought lessons and insights to me, to many.

On February 25th at 5pm EST, her family and friends will gather in the mountains to release a dove in memory of Meta and in celebration of her 21st birthday, which will be the next day.

I'll be too far from home to join them, but have committed to Meta's mother, Mary Anne, that I will light a candle at that same time, to send energy to them all - and to the world - in Meta's memory. Please join me if you can in memorializing Meta and holding her family in peace and in love at 5pm EST on Sunday, February 25th. Mark your calendar, join me.

If you'd like to send a birthday greeting to Meta, leave a comment; I'll gather them all and send them to her family.

With gratitude for the ampersand

"I am a part of all that I have met." - Tennyson

The end of a year brings closure of many kinds. Some involve owning what didn’t get done that year; others involve thankfulness, still others center on the celebration of things accomplished, friendships deepened, things and people let go of, even.

As this second year of 37days ends, I spent today reading again the comments left on this site in 2006, as well as the hundreds of emails I’ve received from 37days readers these past twelve months, each telling a story, holding me up, helping me understand things I hadn’t seen before. And for that, my gratitude, my thanks.

Remember the green book

“Far away is only far away if you don't go there.” -O. Povo

When my friend Gay tells a story, it comes out like a hot knife through rich butter—all soft, fluid, full, with a drawl that makes you want to move to Mississippi and listen to a big bearded man in a scratchy green sweater read Faulkner out loud to you in a hot room where dust motes float heavy in the air when the faded velvet curtains dare to part ever so slightly against the hot white day.

That’s just to say that the woman can tell a story.

And here’s a childhood remembering of hers that left an image I won’t soon forget.

Break stride

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." -Anais Nin

Coming home from Chicago two weeks ago, I was struck irretrievably ill in the cab on the way to the airport, that kind of I’ve- eaten- an- alien- food- poisoning- I’m- unable- to- stop- shaking nauseous kind of ill, the sort where you focus all your attention on staying upright, in which not vomiting becomes the only measure of success you can muster. An immediate, swift, and unstoppable sick that--like a train in a tunnel--just keeps barreling toward the light of day.

Put your own mask on first

“I cannot live without my life!” –  Emily Brontë

I fly a lot. And even so, it’s a lot less than I used to fly.

Me and my Delta -Ultra -Flying -Too -Much -Not -Living -The -Life -on -the -Ground Super Platinum Card, that sad testament to life way too far above terra firma, see a lot of action in any given year. I pray to the gods of upgrades on a weekly basis, hunkered down over delta.com in vain hopes that the almost-full-adult-sized seat in the front with my name on it will become available. It’s as close to compulsive gambling as I’ve ever come, except for that sweet moment one evening in 1995 with my Kiwi friend Richard at a casino in Melbourne, but I was younger then.

Consider yourself part of the solution

“In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.” – Flora Edwards

Do something. Extend yourself.

This is no way to say goodbye to someone who has been your cornerstone, your love, your driving force, your partner, your rock.

Xavier Bowie was 57 and had lung cancer. Finding no one to take them out of New Orleans, he and his wife hoped the storm would spare them. “I’ve got electric and stuff right now,” she told herself. “I can keep going. I’ve got oxygen. I can keep going.” But the oxygen ran out.

Hand one another along

 

“Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you read last week’s 37days, you’ll know that my older daughter is at summer camp for almost 6 weeks. And if last summer is any indication, I’ll bet you a year’s worth of Gerber daisies delivered in tall cylindrical vases on the first day of every month that I’ll receive 2 letters of approximately 12 words each from her while she’s there. Not that I’m counting, of course, because that would be to quantify that which is unquantifiable, make tangible the intangible, hold her hostage to word count as if syllables equaled love, blah, blah, blah. I’ll just pretend she’s an accomplished (though as of yet undiscovered) Haiku artist, packing a whole expansive universe of meaning and devotion and unlimited love into 17 significant syllables.