Autumn into winter...

...and I'm turning inward, where the light lives during this season.

For now that means retreating from this outer space for awhile.

Yes, even the duologues will be on hold as I adjust to the new Boston Band Crush gig.  Keep an eye out for my show crushes there and my (NEW!) lyrics crush column in the new year.

You can find me abusing Facebook day or night, of course, with plenty of This Blue Heaven and other news in a steady stream.  Maybe one of these days I'll even get a handle on this tweeting business.

Mom, don't worry, I'll call you.

Peace,
MacK

Homemaking hiatus...

Hello friends & family,

I have to say I haven't been able to really write in here as much

as I would like, to share just some of the multitudes of waves of thoughts.

I'm a surfer.  It's a fast-moving game.

Anyway.

Sunday I got a fortune cookie.  My fortune:  Welcome change.

Punks.

I'm moving this month and somehow also managed to schedule 

3 shows,  (the third is this Friday at Cafe 939 with Sarah Rabdau & SEA + Dramamine [in tribute to The Motion Sick] - all ages!  8pm start.)

3 out-of-town houseguest visits, and 

1 party
this month, too.  

So I'm gonna give myself a week off (maybe 2?) from the regular bloggingses.

Just to free up some mental space

and energy.

If you're sad about missing the duologues,

you should seek out someone to chat with yourself tomorrow.

Ask them what they care about.  It's fun and enriching.

Or just watch some Doctor Who.

In the meantime

I'll post pics maybe once in awhile

of this wonderful

and ridiculous process.

There is a library in those boxes.

There is a cat in this picture.

Only one person in the world could possibly understand
my love of this couch.
Thankfully, my beloveds are accepting & sweet enough to go
to all the trouble without really understanding.

P.S. If roommates throw a housewarming party, is it acceptable to register for gifts at thinkgeek.com?

Best Breakfast Sandwich Ever

So far, no writing this weekend.  Cooking, though.  Last night I made fish tacos.  Catfish:  success!

This morning, my breakfast sandwiches were inspired by one the GP ordered at the lovely Adrift restaurant in Anacortes, WA.

He declared it to be the best breakfast sandwich he'd ever eaten.  I had a bite...or two (because no Outlund could ever date someone for too long who didn't like people eating off of her/his plate...and, my dad added, who didn't return the favor).  I had to concur:  it was one tasty breakfast sandwich.

I took note of the ingredients, though I forgot what kind of cheese they used and just chose a decent melty one that seemed like it would balance out the tanginess of the pesto.  I also added the sprouts.  I'm on a sprout kick.  They're insanely good for you and easy to sneak into things like breakfast sandwiches or fish tacos.

I would have taken a picture of them for you, but I set off for my camera and then suddenly the sandwiches had vanished.  Just crumbs (except on GP's plate, which was eerily clean).  Weird.


Best Breakfast Sandwich Ever

Sourdough bread 
Butter
Pesto
Havarti cheese
Avocado
Alfalfa sprouts
Egg

Slice the avocado & cheese.  Heat 2 skillets on medium-ish for a couple of minutes.  Butter one side of each slice o bread.  Grill each slice of bread separately - add pesto spread, sprouts & avocado to one slice and cheese to the other.  Fry egg.  Cut egg in half and add on top of the cheese.  If you want your cheese extra melty, let it fry a little longer with the hot egg on top of it.  Put the sandwich together.  Presto.


Fresh ingredients = yummiest.  Adrift always uses good local stuff and so should you.  Also, this is very good with mango slices and maybe some black beans & rice (squirt of lime, pinch of cinnamon) on the side.

Easy.  Yum.

GP said mine were even better than Adrift's.  Smart man; a wise artist from Iowa once said that's the real reason we're here.

i am

i am reading :: quite a bit.

I don't know anyone else besides my father who buys books on vacation like I do.  Of course, I generally go on vacation to visit my father and together we have to patronize all the local bookstores on Whidbey Island and beyond.  Yes, HAVE to.  It's only ethical.

About Mt. Rainier, John Muir is quoted as saying, "Did not mean to climb it, but got excited and soon was on top."  It's like that.  I did not mean to buy 10 books on vacation...though I did pack an empty backpack in my suitcase, just in case.

Here's what I got:

My father once read aloud the first chapter of Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler to me.  We laughed through the whole thing....

In the shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have forced your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which are frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you...And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of the Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, the Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback, Books You Can Borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too. 

The INFP ...as rockstar?

According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I'm an INFP.  (Find out what type you are with this quick and painless version.)

That's Introverted, iNtuition, Feeling, Perceiving.

To give you a sketch, here are some bits of descriptions around the web that I especially identify with:

present a calm and serene face to the world, and can seem shy, even distant around others

Yes.  I'm not so much a fan of this one because distance is the exact opposite of what I believe in.

their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness or health to themselves, their loved ones, and their community

Exactly.

INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It's as though they live at the edge of a looking-glassworld where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities.  

Told you I talk to trees.

we must understand their idealism as almost boundless

which probably relates in some way to 

a constant desire to be on a meaningful path  

hence the near-constant anguish over the totally meaningless job and, um... possible overcompensation in the form of the TBH mission?

have a gift for interpreting stories, as well as for creating them, and thus often write in lyric, poetic fashion

I recently scoffed (internally, of course) at someone who told me not to use "flowery adjectives" and I foster a slow-burning hatred for the Boston University fiction program because they include the following note to applicants: "A hint: those who write in flowery prose or overly-subjectively–that is, about dreams, memories, thoughts, states of mind–or who dwell obsessively on sensitive children may find themselves at a disadvantage."  Look, clean language is great, fiction isn't memoir, and obsession is unhealthy, but still.  Be nice!  Mean writers are the worst kind of meanie; their job is to facilitate empathy between reader and character!  How can you do that if you can't actually experience empathy yourself?

flexible and laid-back, until one of their values is violated. In the face of their value system being threatened, INFPs can become aggressive defenders, fighting passionately for their cause

which, believe me, doesn't pair very well with

awkward and uncomfortable with expressing themselves verbally

because I can't ever seem to sputter out a reasonable defense for whatever I'm aggressively defending.  If not for 

a wonderful ability to define and express what they're feeling on paper

I'd probably be sunk.

They notice problems in a work group before anyone else.  It doesn't help to tell them that they are imagining things.

I think all of my bandmates can attest to the latter, at least.  Some more than others.  ::ahem::

daydreams about people to maintain a sense of closeness

Wait... you don't? 

  

and prone to dreaming about a rescuer

 

::dreamy sigh::

So.  Good jobs for INFPs include writer, artist, humanities professor, web designer, philosopher, archaeologist, psychologist, counselor, social worker.

Musician is listed in some places, along with songwriter, which makes sense.  (Yay lyrics!)  But I wonder how many successful rockstars are INFPs.  The only singer I could find listed among famous INFPs is Neil Diamond (I knew there was a reason I love him).  But Neil was never in a band-band, was he?  Band = group work with a lot of complex emotions involved...  Rock = not always, shall we say, the kindest of genres...  Fronting a band = the opposite of reserved...  

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, exactly, just that... no matter how much I love and believe in my band (and I do), no matter how much I love and believe in the Boston rock scene (and I do), my personality is such that there truly are nights I would just as soon stay home and read.  Some days I just long to do the chick with a guitar thing and write the most flowery folky lyrics about bittersweet love you can imagine to strange progressions of minor and seven chords with no one around to get their back up over it.

And some days, I just wanna live here.

P.S.  From here:


INFP: The Idealist
The INFP is a dreamy, imaginitive, idealist, capable of finding the good in anything or anyone, even something as foul as Newark, New Jersey. INFPs are sometimes dangerous to the well-being of society as a whole, as they are prone to adopting subversive and destructive ideologies like "The world should be fair," "People should treat one another well," and "You know, 'Friends' is a really, really stupid television show."


These irrational thought patterns may sometimes cause INFPs to run off and join the circus, the Resistance, or the Rebellion, where they tend to do well in any position requiring excellent hand-eye coordination or mastery of the Force.


COMPATIBILITY: INFPs and ISTJs generally exhibit a natural predator/prey relationship, which, though it might appear harsh and cruel from the outside, is all part of the natural cycle of life. In fact, were it not for the predation of the ISTJ, the population of INFPs would soon grow to unsustainable levels, overwhelming the ability of their ecological niche to support them.


Famous idealists include that girl in your sixth-grade homeroom who got the teacher fired for saying that girls aren't good at math; that guy in the cubicle next to yours who got the manager fired for saying that women don't make good employees; and Anais Nin.

What does this running cost our lives?

Today I found myself skimming the blog entry of a poet.

The problem with skimming poetry...

Well, the problem with skimming poetry is the problem of living as if everything matters so much that nothing matters.  Our precious time (no time no time no time!) matters so much that we spend it flipping through, glancing, checking in.  Life blurs.  We miss it.

I'm doing everything and missing it all.

Maybe you are, too.

The problem with skimming poetry is that you cannot hear the sound of the words in your head, cannot allow images to form, cannot linger long enough for the intricacies of meaning and association to connect and fall into place.

So for you, just one line.  If you like, let time stop, let your shoulders drop, and let yourself follow it wherever it takes you.  You have time.

The old steps live only in me:  my feet and thighs remember them, and my hands feel their splinters.

~ from A Time Past, by Denise Levertov

Another good way to linger is by listening to people play acoustic music in a room with twinkly lights.  I'm looking forward to being a part of that tonight at the Cafe at the Armory in Somerville.  Hope to see you there, and please join us at Highland Kitchen after!

When I am an old woman, I shall have accumulated an entire closet of purple sparkly stuff

I often (very terribly often) lament (whine) that I don't enough have time to do normal grown-up things.  Go to movies, cook dinner, match socks, refinish my desk.  These things stay on the "I wanna" post-it list stuck up on the side of my brain, flitting around in the wind of all the things I really frantically have to remember to do.

Y'know like:  Obtain illegal wheely fireworks for CD artwork and set them off late at night in my back yard.

Or like:  Put my hair in curlers in my office bathroom after work hours and apply make-up for both myself and the boys & then break into another MIT building for a photo shoot with Boston's most amazing talented photographer, Kelly Davidson.

Or:  Attend a (sweetly air conditioned) band listening party of TONIGHT's episode of Same Sky Radio (<--- podcasts there; also live on bunkradio.com 8-10pm) to hear our music alongside some of the country's best unsigned rock.

Or:  Invite everyone to our show with The Wandas on the Cape this Friday and down to the South Shore beach house that night and then on to the beach the next day - to set off more illegal wheely fireworks.

Or:  Make a Facebook event for the seasonal Women Rock Brunch my awesome gracious friends (who cook more than I do) have agreed to join me in launching next month.

Or:  Confirm that my best friend in Austin is indeed gonna be coming up to sing and play guitar on a bill with me at the Armory Cafe July 14th.

Or:  Invite everyone I know to dance in our Slow Dance Slow video on July 24th (ummm and confirm that date with our brilliant visionary director, Chris Gaines).

Or:  Write to the five stellar kickass bands who are playing with us for our CD release show at the Middle East Upstairs on August 7th to plan a collaboration cover for the end of the night.

Ahem.


So as I dragged my tired bones out of bed after a late-night post-shoot band family dinner of pizza with beer in frosted glasses, as I dug through my drawer of unmatched socks for two that kinda sorta go together, I had one of those too rare moments when I stopped moaning and groaning and thought about the fact that when I look back at this time in my life, it is going to be punctuated with spinny shiny colorful fun.  I will not be an old woman who wishes she'd lived life more fully.

So that's pretty rad.

(But also, if anyone has experience refinishing antiques, lemme know - I WILL get to the desk project.)

Graced

Yesterday was one of those days I just felt defeated.  I rushed around - er, virtually speaking - trying to do all my band work for the month within a couple of hours.  Y'know, shooting off emails about booking and line-ups and collaborations and promo.  Generating and discussing ideas for CD artwork and release show festivities.  Tweeting and posting events and getting very tripped up by Facebook... twice!  Around mid-afternoon, I waved the white flag at the daunting fleet of social networking sites, technology in general and, really, The Rules Of The World at large.  Then, stuck in my slump, I stayed several hours late at the office to try to make up for the lost time...but ultimately ended up watching some nerdy TV online.

When I finally dragged myself out of the building, it was nearly sunset.  While I'd been sitting behind a glaring screen in a windowless beige office all day, it had been raining outside in the world.  But now all was still.  Droplets jeweled the yellow lilies just outside the door and I slowed to admire them, internally grumbling, "Pretty... but they're just city flowers." Landscaped, you know...put there by the Institute to offset the rampant squareness of the architecture.  As I set out on my walk, though, the cement was painted with patches of sky all around and I began to really see the silence everywhere.  The puddles were unrippled, the trees were unfluttered as if every leaf were reverently saving every drop of rain offered it.  And against the luminous gray clouds shifting overhead, it was all so, so green.

So I walked and I looked and I wrapped my sweater a bit tighter around me and I suddenly felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude.  True gratitude, and it struck me how it felt different from when I consciously remind myself to list all the things I ought to be grateful for.  I just - was.  I just was graced.  By the world around me.  By the people I love.  By the incredible fortune of being able to make music that might, once in awhile, make people feel something true.  By the sweep of my imagination.  Even by the stability of my day job that allows me many luxuries, including the dream of a more fulfilling career.

And my mind then returned to rooting through the trove of ideas for novels and stories and poems and lyrics that I keep squirreling away for When I Have Time.  And that led me back to the dreaded technology I've come to depend on, specifically the laptop I have been fretting over buying for months now.  Since I have only had my work computer in the office and a VERY old and temperamental laptop (also from work), my computer time has effectively been limited to sitting at work in the aforementioned windowless beige office.  But no more!  I am breaking free the shackles and investing in my writing life!  I JUST today clicked on "Place Order" for a Macbook Pro!!!  I'll be able to write in coffee shops again!   I'll be able to write in the middle of the night!  Hell, maybe I'll even go back to the old days of drunken blogging!  Ha!  Cheers!  And in the meantime, I'm going to take a cue from the trees and carefully absorb this grace.  I  just am incredibly fortunate.

P.S. And here's wishing you a VERY HAPPY PRIDE!  Pride, which was actually invented so that lesbians could run into their exes.  But don't worry, I'll most likely be doing laundry, going to some awesome shows, and re-working my schedule to make time for all those worlds of words I am going to start writing.  By God.  But I hope you all go out bedecked in sparkling rainbows, marching and cheering and swilling and swooning with the best of 'em.  Oh, and don't miss MEandJOANCOLLINS & Mrs Danvers after the parade on Saturday!

Life purpose

So, I've turned another year older recently and in a moment of existential concern, shall we say, I googled "life purpose" and came upon and eventually tried this.  In short, I sat down and guessed at my life's purpose until tears rolled down my face.

If you are inclined to do such a thing yourself (are we friends and if not, can we be?) I offer this addendum to his instructions:  Twenty minutes, my left pinky toe.  Give yourself a good hour or more.  I feel I am pretty open to this kind of thing and more emotionally aware than average and that's about how long it took me.  Granted, I took more time with word choice than others might (or should).

Another tip that would have saved me some time (which may or may not be applicable for you) was that none of the guesses that described my effect on others was right.  It couldn't be about something that was beyond my agency, so I eventually figured out I had to focus on what I could do or offer - not on how that would be received or change anything.

Otherwise, my experience was similar to the description.  A few guesses got a swell of emotion or even a brief sting of tears - and those I starred and eventually incorporated into the final answer.  I thought I had it around guess #80, but then when that didn't make me cry, I ran right into that wall of exasperation, which I powered through simply by making silly guesses in new directions.  Then out of the blue, I struck on what became the opening bit of My Purpose In Life, added it to #80, and down came the tears.  My final guess was #92.

I can't believe I'm going to tell you this.  But, well, in case I don't live to live out this purpose, I want it recorded for posterity.  So here it is in all its wordy (but how could my life's purpose be anything but?) glory:

In the face of an unfathomable universe, in which we are all constantly beckoned by our loneliness and isolation, my purpose in this life is to honor and trust the true yearnings of my wildish* generous heart:  to love with unquestioning joy and celebration; to see and by seeing create majesty and meaning; to nurture the embers burning in all I meet; and - with all the juice of my being and talents - to create artful expressions (to include Great Writings!) that will be my truth in the world.


Easy, eh?  No prob.  Now all I have to do is make sure all of my goals for the rest of my life are aligned with my purpose.

Heh.

Expect more earnest blogging.  And possibly somehow even MORE lyrics about coming together to make light in a dark, dark world.  :)


*In case you didn't know, "wildish" is a term I like to use that (in my mind, anyway) means "of the wilderness" as opposed to the kind of wild that is maniacal or ferocious.

I am

reading ::  Farenheit 451

grieving ::  the sea and its inhabitants and the state of humanity that made this possible

loving :: the return of the sweetgum leaves

thinking :: somehow, in the midst of all my ongoing hand-wringing uncertainty about what I ought to be doing with my life, how I ought to be spending my precious time and energy, what would be fulfilling to me, how much I am toiling over things that are not -- somehow, I have managed to help create music that I believe in.  something beautiful.  if I died today, there would be much to regret.  Love damaged and lost.  time squandered.  dreams sabotaged.  I don't forget that.  ever.  yes, I have spent hours on FarmVille instead of putting my hands in the dirt.  yes, I work at a job that is about as nourishing (and challenging) as a pretzel.  yes, I read art and writing blogs instead of making art and writing stories.  but.  I co-wrote Slow Dance Slow.  and I perform and have now recorded it with honesty and with heart.  and soon it will be out in the world in a bigger way.  so I won't die with ALL my music still in me.  so... so there?

Time Lord anyone?

Looks like I haven't written a "real" entry here in awhile...  hm.  

See, it's just that all I really feel like doing is curling up and watching Dr. Who.  

Although if anyone knows of a spiritually rewarding career and/or artistic and peaceful (and really, really cheap) apartment available for me, please let me know.  

Or a TARDIS.  That'd be sweet, too.

If you could spy on my head

No more broken hearts, we're better off apart, let's give it a try... 

There are SO many people in the world.

Maybe I'll start drawing a mandala every day instead of trying to journal in words.

Hell yeah

Hmm

Tell me lies tell me sweet little lies...

Huh.  That's our version I'm hearing, not Fleetwood Mac's.  Sweet.

Oh my god the envelope is right there in your hand; stop treating me like I'm a moron.

Ha.  Told you.

I completely understand, though.

Oh no no-o you can't disguise... 

What if this song stays in my head for months?

What if it stays in my head forever?

List

oil pastels

striped apples

new leaves that are wings taking first flight

the world keeps shapeshifting beyond these beige walls and fluorescent lights

a tiny bird with a song like 100 pebbles dropping all at once into 100 magic ponds

thoughts that unfurl completely

phone calls from my sister

nightswimming, rem

a finished story

overhauled overalls

a perfect meeting of talent and need

her problem is she's problematic

a daring move

there is no right decision, only one that reflects priorities

a summer picnic

satisfaction

friends singing harmonies on dreams

friends spontaneously showing up in town

rocksitting

orange salamander

this is grace, this is bliss

My hours

I want to tell you about the torrent of ideas, issues and emotions that have stormed my horizon just today. (But I won't because you've got your own.)  I want to tell you because I'm thinking a lot about this thing someone said to me about adulthood - how it's a matter of realizing you only get twenty-four hours a day and some things you will do and some you will not and the things you choose to fit into a day define you.  

I want to be honest with you because I want to be honest with myself.  Of the things I believe deep down define me, very few are currently making it into my twenty-four hours.  And this is more and more troubling.

I'm a writer.  Did you know that?

I told you?

Well.  Technically a writer is one who writes and, well... this is pretty much it, kiddos.  I've got this and I've got a (lovingly & generously designed) database full of snippets and ideas.  It's meant to be a virtual library of my work, but right now it's pretty much just a sieve.  And while I'm grateful every idea doesn't wash down the drain, I am also starting to feel a bit panicky about the fact that I'm more of an idea-er than a writer.

Why'm I telling you this?  

So that it is told.

Tomorrow I go into the woods alone for approximately ninety-six hours of silence.  For wilderness.  For dirt and rain and wind.  For glorious, glorious silence.  Last June I went on a similar retreat for two days and didn't speak the whole time - well, I slipped to greet a dog.  I didn't want him to think I wasn't happy to see him, so the sounds just popped out of my mouth.  But I felt restored by those two days in a deep, fundamental way.  This year, I'm upping the dosage.  For someone who absorbs as much as I do and who is as busy as I seem to be all twenty-four hours of each of my days and who spends hours and hours each week with live rock music, silence is a balm.

I will be silent.

I will be alone.

I will be unwebbed.

I will be unplugged.

I think I will probably even bury all time-telling implements in the ground (with a treasure map for when I have to leave again) and live by the sun and the full moon.

I have no idea what conclusions I will come to, if any, while I am out there.  But I know I will hear my heartbeat in my ears.

The Body, Part Two

Dear Diary, I woke up at 6:30 this morning from a dream that ended in a hug.  It was a specific hug, one that I haven't felt in eight or nine years, but in my dream, it was exactly right, that hug.  Its shape and texture, its solidity and scent.  My body remembered precisely.  It was a shock of both relief and recall, which means that my mind has mercifully allowed those sensations to fade from my conscious memory over time.  Last night before bed I had been reading and was struck by a line about the soul whispering to the mind in dreams.  I say it was merciful of my mind to forget the sensation of the hug, but sparking that memory in my body was also a mercy - perhaps given by my soul?  How long will my body remember that hug?  Will it keep reminding me once in awhile?

Dear Diary, Saturday I spent hours and hours at the mall just trying to find a pair of jeans that fit me right.  I am tall and I have hips built to hold a cradle - but I am still stylish, by god.  I searched and searched and fought to keep from seeing myself the way all those ill-fitting jeans wanted me to:  not right!  As if the problem was that I didn't fit the jeans, and not the other way around.  As if it is form and not function that makes a body right.

Emerging: Thoughts of Persephone

Well friends, I have to apologize that my keynote Kentucky poet has been delayed!  Hence the crickets and stillness 'round here since that Friday.  Also, I got a crappish cold that took me away from all kinds of fun things.  So it goes.  We're limited, bodily creatures.  Anyway, the good news is that one day when you least expect it, a formidable Kentucky poet WILL be gracing this blog in beauty & provocation.

In the meantime, April is here!  my Starbucks drought is over (joy of joys, they've made me up a whole new kind of iced mocha!) and in celebration of spring, this week I would like to devote my little electronic corner of the webworld to the theme of emerging.

Today I'm thinking about Persephone emerging from the underworld.

Many times, in winter,

I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him,

how can I endure the earth?

And he would say,

in a short time you will be here again.

And in the time between

you will forget everything:

those fields of ice will be

the meadows of Elysium.

Excerpted from "Persephone the Wanderer" (the second one) from Louise Gluck's amazing book, Averno.

Warmth has returned to New England.  Ice has melted and green and petaled things are pushing up and outward. I am rubbing my eyes to see in the glare of new light.  I've had cleaning frenzies to banish the dust.  And I'm trying to make out who I am now after that cold journey inward.  I'm trying to see what this revived earth means.

This morning I passed the towering line of seven trees that I call The Sisters in the secrecy of my own head.  They finally have green things springing from their branches.  I smiled up to welcome them back (a man I passed looked at me strangely).  I was struck by their indifference in return (go ahead, you can laugh, too).  The trees had endured the winter, but not in the way that we do - with a sense of relief when spring finally, finally returns.  More like maybe they are simply, stoically willing to forgo attachments in exchange for renewal each year, in exchange for the ability to cheat death, perhaps indefinitely.

Gluck's poems insist that nature lies to us; the dead stay dead.  Maybe unlike trees, our lot in this short life is attachment - to lovers and mothers, as with Persephone.  Maybe that's why these seasons take such a toll on us, forcing us to grieve and revise and wisen.

I had a long elaborate dream this winter, in which a young woman who had been banished to the bottom of the sea was called to re-emerge.  She was dressed in blue and green and purple batiks, as were her attendants, who formed receiving lines on either side of her and took her hands to steady her climb up out of the sea.  She had been banished by a white-haired villain; in the end, she had to fight him.  She was joined by everyone who had ever been pulled under by some darkness or other, which turned out to be everyone in the (dream)world.

Yesterday I clambered over some warm rocks on the North Shore and sat and listened to the rhythm of the ocean.  So like breath.  Such an enormous sign of our tiny spot in the universe's ballroom, our spinny dance between sun and moon that curves our psyches and our stories to its tune.

Speaking of which, did you see the new Alice in Wonderland yet?  In this one, Alice climbs back up out of the rabbit hole, pulling herself out with dirty elbows.  She has defeated Fear, her hair is wild and her muchness is restored.  And then she (quite anachronistically) refuses a stinky marriage proposal and trots off to become a trailblazing, world-traveling businesswoman.

I wonder what year it'll be when the story changes and the maiden emerges to choose a life and a lover, both of which encourage and enrich her deepest self?

I raise my iced dark cherry mocha to that day.

First blossoms

did we lose faith under all that snow?

death:  the unseen.

spring:  the unveiling of shapes that were forming all along.

winter:  a factory of renewal.

are you looking for heaven?

are you letting your heart melt, too?

(will you be at Church of Boston tonight at 8pm to celebrate with us?)

March is on

Well, my mother was worried about me, so I'm back with the good news.

Spring has come!  It's light when I leave the office, birds (other than my neighbor's roosters) are singing me awake, allergies have kicked in, and new plans are in the works.

It seems the upshot of giving up your optimism is that you can clearly see the problem areas and begin to own them.  The upshot of giving up your forbearance is that urgency and yes-saying give you the motivation to do what must be done to make changes.  (What "this blue heaven" is all about, really - in spite of "optimistic" as a too-common descriptor of our music.)

Seasonal cycles, like so many other natural cycles, give us that:  growth, decline, death and renewal.  I'm beginning to trust that each is necessary, each has its own offering, and each will always make way for the next.  February's gift is to wipe clean your slate (even if it feels like you're being knocked off your feet).  March's gift is a clean slate to start drawing up new plans!

And so I am.

And you'll see the results, I have no doubt.

A time to love

Nearly to work, walking in the shade and wind between MIT buildings. My cheeks and knees numb, the numbness creeping up my legs, across my temples. Cheerful orange berries on the vine starting to go black. Thoughts about winter, its wisdom: a time to die. When? And when to persevere? Another winter lesson. I must learn. What light can be found inside? Ahead, two kids standing a foot or two apart, talking. Not touching. Nodding, turning - she away, he in my direction. His chin tucked into his scarf, his grin unmistakable. Even from a distance. Did not see the ice raised from the sidewalk like fresh scars. Did not feel the cold. Grinned and grinned, eyes fixed blindly on his path, teeth to the cold wind as I passed by.

Gratitude List for November

(I will do better at keeping up my blog... I will do better at keeping up my blog... I will do better at keeping up my blog...)

1. I LOVE New England in the fall. My iPhone is on the fritz and I lost my camera battery charger at Arlene's Grocery in NYC (I think?) so I have no pictures of my own to show you of the incredible colors I try to soak up every day on my walk to and from work, but I actually found myself getting teary-eyed over the combined color of some pink and orange chrysanthemums the other morning. Laugh if you will, but I'm so grateful that I'm still able to be so overwhelmed by simple, natural beauty. (And to find it in the city.)

2. I've said it before and I'll say it again.