New Home!

Clearly the place needs some sprucing up, but I've moved in and started unpacking. More soon.

Changes

I received yesterday a lovely and generous response from Judy Blume, who did feel the name of this blog should be changed so as not to confuse her readers. I agree, and I feel ready to put this experiment further into the world with a new name. I will be shutting down for awhile while I migrate to the new blog. There will be a virtual shingle in this space to easily make the jump.

Cheers!

Jen

More Medicine

I can't entirely wrap my head around what happened to The Kid last week. I'm glad he's alive and safe and everyone who loves him feels the same. I'll get into more soon.

In the meantime, more medicine, per The Buddha and TGD:

Medicine:

A handy little primer on the chakra centers of the body and what they mean to your health.

Music:

A song about walking away from the things that are killing you:



Books:

From Leaves of Grass:

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from;
The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,
This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds.

Sesame Street:

Dr. Horrible has NOTHING on this --

Neil Patrick Harris as The Shoe Fairy

Later,

Jen

Let Him Win

For the first time in my life, it does not seem naive to want goodness in our leader, our politics and our nation.



Have a good long weekend.

Answers From My Buddha

I am normally very reticent to blog anything about my son, who I'll call The Buddha (his dad calls him that sometimes, it's not a reference to Five Corners). I'm pretty reticent for him to have any kind of virtual life, because, at the age of three, he has no control over it. However, he spoke the truth yesterday, so I'm writing it here.

My friend The Goddess Devi has been having some troubles of late. Most goddesses, and literary heroes for that matter, have to go on an involved series of adventures or a quest in order to become the king of their own lives. They have to fight their way out of their father's head, or figure a way in and out of Hades. They have to suck all the blood out of the demon Raktabija. In The Goddess Devi's case, they have to go live with their parents while they await, have, and recuperate from surgery, and life goes into a numbing stasis that breeds uncertainty, doubt, and an increasing suspicion that doom lives in Toronto.

So The Buddha and I were playing with his toy trains yesterday afternoon, and since he has a talent for knowing what's bothering people and animals, I said to him "Buddha's name here, is there anything I can do to help The Goddess Devi that I haven't thought of?" And without looking up from the wooden tracks he said "Um, give her medicine, and music, and books, and Sesame Street. That's all anyone ever needs."

TGD, an email package is on the way. Buddha, thank you for being the Universe, and for being you.

Enlighten Up!

I so want to see this.

Are You There, Margaret?

I'm taking the day off from blogging to write Judy Blume and ask her permission to continue with this title. If she says no, I'll change it. Maybe I can pitch her Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret -- The Musical while I'm at it.

EDIT: This is something I actually said to a friend in a theater company, off the cuff, just kidding, and for about ten minutes she really considered it. Who doesn't want as much Judy Blume as possible?

Have a great weekend!

Universe, Thanks For The New Talent. Yick.

My mom is empathic, but it's in a way that I've always been able to accept, because she's my mom. Like when I was in Woodstock on vacation a few years ago and got a sudden toothache, and called her two days later and mentioned I'd had a tooth pulled and her response was "The second tooth from the back on the lower left?" Yes, Mom. .

My mom has been doing stuff like that my whole life, and because it's my mom and we're very connected anyway, and also because it's a little annoying in that way only your mom can be because she seems to know EVERYTHING, it never struck me as all that strange.

Except now. Athena is ill and I went to see her a few days ago. It was a bit like that scene in "Be Kind, Rewind," where every time Jack Black walks by the television the static goes in waves because he's magnetized. I went near her, I felt sick, she felt better. I walked away, I felt better, she felt worse. I'm assuming she got her appetite back yesterday afternoon, because I was ravenously hungry for no good reason.

If nothing else, it's an eye-opener about how 'one' we all really are. And Mom, I'll never make fun of you again. This kind of sucks, in the coolest possible way. Love you, Mom.

Peace,

Jen

Post 100

"When a question is posed ceremoniously, the universe responds."

--Chinese Proverb. Came across it noodling around online today.

Here we are at the 100th post, and I've been blogging here for just over a year. Since I promised to not only pose questions to the Universe, but also post the results, here are a few.

The blog was a good idea.

He's gone, but he's been right here the whole time, and I know it now.

Sometimes poetry actually helps.

Jenny just moved to Italy.

And I am now singing and doing yoga and jewelry-making, all the things I wanted to do and couldn't figure out how to do them. I've managed to drop the veil of the 'how' and just 'do,' and that took alot of help.

What has thrilled me most is other people asking to post here. It is a growing group belief, or at least hope, that throwing a bottle with a message in it can change something. You can call that speaking your piece, or speaking your peace, or the law of attraction, or prayer, or whatever else you want. What has thrilled me is what people want -- health, peace, purpose, understanding, an end to conflict, for themselves and for others. To put it in the ground.

I've moved into the thinking of our generation's only brilliant popular philosopher to date, Yoda, who said it best. Do, or do not. There is no try.

I've learned only one thing, really, and that's that all of the questions I could ever ask here have already been answered. It's a matter of who said it in the way I can hear it. I'm working on improving my hearing, so the method matters less.

Be well, thank you for reading,

Jen

Guest Post From Mr. E

Here goes:

"A friend of mine just moved home. At least back to his home town. He got a job supposedly in his field, but finds himself dong all the grunt work and none of the things he went to school or trained for many years to do. He's pretty miserable about it because what was supposed to be a creative position has turned into a job plugging numbers and doing exactly what his boss wants with no input from his part.

On the social front, he's tried to connect with his old friends since moving back, but they've moved on with their lives over the year and a half he was out of town. They've gotten married, had kids, moved away, or have settled into a conservative lifestyle that has no room for him. He's working a lot and has no time to meet girls, so he languishes coming home late from work tired and playing video games to fill the time before he crashes out on his couch.

He's tried looking for a less demanding job, and he's tried to reach out to his old friends which are his only connection to the town( His parents moved out years ago) but he's sinking into a distinct depression and frustration.

He wants to throw everything away, move again, start over, but I keep telling him that if he can't make the changes in himself where he is, he won't make the changes whereever he moves. He may be in the same situation with even less connection.

I want him to get his job situation fixed, and figure out his social situation. I want his old friends to be more open and recognize that he's back. 'd like him to be able to find the friends he needs and to be able to build a happy life He's one of my best friends, and on the phone sometimes he sounds like he's losing it with depression. If I lived closer, I would help, but I'm not able to.I'm asking the universe to help him out. "

Go, Universe, Go!

God 2.0 and TMI

I just took my first look at #21 in awhile, where I reference not being to listen to the Garbage song #1 Crush without thinking of my friend Owen. As I was reading it, I was listening to the little radio station on Fred Flare, where I'd been looking for an alarm clock. As I'm reading #21, #1 Crush came on the radio. It's 1 of maybe 60 songs on the whole thing. So, thank you God 2.0, or thank you coincidence. Either one works.

I'm getting down with my kumbaya roots (raised by wolves dressed like hippies, that's the short version) and asking for world peace today, which is a little like asking for the fabric of the whole world to be ripped to shreds and rewoven with a tighter and softer hand to it, maybe out of the undyed wool of very cheerful sheep. But I want war to end, I want everyone to go to bed with a full belly, I want torture and rape as a war weapon to stop, I want people to stop getting killed over land or God or ideas. It's what I want, and it's not well thought out or remotely logical, but I'm pretty okay with the fact that I'm basically hurtling emotions with curly hair. I have to be okay with that; I have to wake up with me every day, and I'm done changing.

I'm always asking for the little things, hoping they'll add up to the big things. Now here's a big thing. I hope it helps all the little things.

Love --

Guest Post: Response to Universe, I Need A Raise

From my beloved R. I'd say she needs her own blog, but then I wouldn't get these awesome guest posts:

In reading your post, my dear friend, I was reminded of a different online conversation I had recently with a different friend, and my answer to youtoday is adapted from one I wrote to him, but I think it is still apropos ofyour mood.

I recently came across this quote from Rilke:"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in avery foreign tongue. . .And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

I give you this quote today- on this day, when the dark ceiling of thesleepless night just behind you still looms large- because I have the sense from your post that you are at a place in your life where you, perhaps, feel that you should have answers, or at least more answers than you haveactually thus far found. That you have reached this place ofhands-thrown-in-the-air because, despite all the decisions you have made inorder to have those answers, you are now somewhat disappointed that thereare still things you don't know.

So I wanted to tell you that I have noticed, among my peers who have children in particular, that most people seem to feel that there is some mechanism by which they should have crossed over into a zone of having onlyanswers. Perhaps this is because, once you have a child, you feel some certain responsibility to actually have them. I don't know. Or even if you don't have children, there seems to be some line, some place-shift in the environment that should have happened, around 32, where we stopped being kids, and realized we became, for better or for worse, the adults we alwaysknew were waiting for us.

And yet, for my part- even at 36 and well past that imaginary demarcation line- I can't quite silence my inner teenager and ask "Why *should*?" and"Who says?" Perhaps because I recently learned in the hardest way possible that not all answers are right, but it seems to me now that in some ways,the questions have really never been so good. I was never so sure as when I was 18, but I have never had more wonder about the workings of the world, and sometimes my own heart, as I do now. If you embrace it like that, you may just find that it isn't so much about the answers you don't have, but rather about the questions the foundation of prior answers has allowed youto beget.

I say all this now because I found this quote in the midst of one of my darkest periods, and when I did I realized not only that the darkness was simply a form of a question, but that I had found my epitaph. Live the questions. In fact, my own personal belief is that questions, dark or light, are our tie to life. And that only in the moments before death, will all the answers be revealed to us. Only then will we be free to let go, and fall from the earth, because our souls are satisfied that we *know*-whatever it is that our lives where shaped to find out.

So as you move through whatever struggle you are facing today, and whatever compromises you may be making- with your kitchen, your job, and what have you- I just wanted you to know that you are already living an extraordinary life. You have already found many answers, you will seek many more, and- as you have on occasion already- you will have glimpses of transcendence. Today is one day, and if you are giving up your hopes and dreams, remember that it is likely only in order to make way for the new ones that await you. Don't let the answers you think you have block the questions that will help you get there.

Universe, We're All Beautiful. Show Us.

Well, I have a wonderful neighbor named Sharon who survived cancer and over a year of painful treatments. One of the things that got her through it was subscribing to every fashion magazine in exsistence and letting her eyes wander over the lipsticks and hairstyles and other things of no consequence, just to look at something pretty, just to be somewhere else. She is in remission but still has all these subscriptions, and when she's done looking at the magazines, she leaves them on my doorstep.

Now, I'm a speed reader, plus your average issue of Lucky is more or less a photo montage with about 500 words in the entire magazine, all of which are at a sixth grade reading level or below. It takes me twenty minutes to finish one, but those twenty minutes are candy-colored mindless bliss compared to the rest of my life, and it's an old unbreakable habit for someone who started reading Seventeen at age 11.

This month's In Style, which Sharon dropped off last night, is mostly about finding your personal style. One of the articles had interviews with various fashion designers on the subject. Remember, fashion designers meet all kinds of women, but they meet many women in the upper echelons of the 'rich-beautiful-thin' bracket.

So I was especially stunned to read this quote from one of the designers: "I don't know one woman who likes her body. Not a single one."

Ladies. Universe. I know there are bigger problems. But we're in the society we're in, and it happens to be one where our bodies block the exits and don't let us walk out the door into the world for some dancing in the streets. So think about this. Not one woman likes her body the way it is. Isn't that horrendous? All those people whose bodies you've wished you had -- not happy either. It's a giant trap.

Ladies. Universe. I know this is not that simple, and even less simple for anyone whose body and mind are particularly locked in a struggle with eachother, whether that is an eating disorder, fear of being attractive, an absolute belief you are ugly, or just your average battle with your weight.

Let's operate from the assumption that you are beautiful right now, as you are, as you showed up, as you have become. You are beautiful. You are beautiful. I know you are. And I am too. What happens next?

Universe, your turn.

Wow

God wrote back (see comment 3)! At least, one of the faces of God. Still waiting on you, Morrissey.

Universe, I Need A Raise

Please know, dear blogosphere, that I've had a really strong cup of coffee.

I told my husband this morning that last night I gave up. I was up with our son for about an hour in the middle of the night helping him settle down after a nightmare. Drew (The Husband) thought when I said "I gave up" that I had somehow lost my parenting marbles at 3 in the morning and plunged Will (The Son)'s head into a hot fudge sundae and then built a ball pit in our bathroom.

"It's OK that you gave up. It was late and whatever you needed to do to get him to sleep, I support you."

"Oh, no," I said, "That was fine. I meant I gave up on all my hopes and dreams last night."

Short pause as he pours coffee, then "Ah. Way to go, Job."

And I did by the way actually lie in bed last night (after having helped my son rank the twenty-five different angles at which his feet could possibly be tucked under his blanket) and say, out loud, "Universe, I give up. I give up. I give up."

I'm not sad or depressed or despondent. I think life is pretty awesome. The people in my life are exceptional. Drew and I are happy. My son floats around on a tiny little motor-powered cloud and emits sunshine and I have to keep my mouth shut about how fabulous he is 90 percent of the time I'm thinking it so I don't sound nuts and so the women (or men, whatever works) in his life in the future have half a chance.

However, there's a lot of half-fixed stuff in my life that I thought I was going to complete through sheer willpower, or chutzpah, or by singing a song from Mary Poppins (and I do the most awesome Julie Andrews accent, which is all the better when it comes out of a Jewish-Puerto Rican person like myself). My apartment is half-nice, but then you open the door to our bedroom and the zombies fall out. Our kitchen cabinets are about to FALL OFF THE WALL (it's kooky) and we don't have the money to fix them. We're halfway out of an enormous debt. My current job is cool, but I'm still really broke, and it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I don't blog enough and I haven't finshed a big project for my dad's business that I promised him I would do. I got all the plants in on our deck but the deck itself looks like the opening credits of "Sanford and Son". My husband is sick right now, and just lost a big client, and I feel like we're blankly staring into the future, blinking occassionally, not really knowing how to pull it off.

I'm out of optimism. I need it all to come together already. I've spent ten years saying it will, and some of it plain hasn't and just might not. I need a clean, completed house, I need a rollicking career. I need, it seems like, a hundred thousand dollars to politely climb up my yoga pants leg and into my pocket. And Universe, you know me, I'll pay this jazz back tenfold, but really, I give up.

Help, please. You know where to find me. Still love you, Universe.

Jen

Guest Post: Faith With No Fear, Please

A guest post from the lovely and talented JP! With an addendum, no less! Because I should have posted this like a month ago and lost the original email! Yay!:

"I have been thinking hard about what I would ask for from the universe. I have been surprised because the answer does not automatically come.

"In giving it so much thought I have made an alarming discovery. I am smart. I have a wonderful husband, a delightful dog, remarkably talented and supportive friends, I am close to finishing my master's degree (something I have wanted for a long time), The people in my inner circle are, for the most part, happy, healthy and free, and yet, I am often at a loss for faith.

"I realized that I don't know what to ask the universe for because I don't feel like I deserve to ask for anything. Isn't that just the worst thing you have ever heard? I am so lucky in my life and yet I am so scared of the future. I want so much and yet I worry that I haven't earned the right to ask for any of it. Somewhere along the way I learned that life is supposed to be difficult and challenging and that blood, sweat and tears is the only way to get results. I have spent a lot of my adult life not trying because if you never try you can't really fail.

"So here it is.

"I want to ask the Universe for faith in my own future.

"I don't want to be scared of what comes next because I don't want to find myself too scared to pursue my dreams fully. I want children. I want to make a living doing what I love. I don't want to make compromises that give me excuses for settling for less. I don't want to look back in ten years and have regrets about what I did with my time. And most importantly, I don't want to waste any more time worrying that I might not achieve all of the things I just listed.

"So there you go, my friend with the ear of the universe...... faith with no fear please."

And the addendum:

While reading your return to the blogoverse, I dug up my "ask the universe" piece to re-send you. I have attached it below..... BUT interestingly.... in the world of sort-of-success-stories, I think it would be prudent to also include that the following things have happened to me since I came to California three weeks ago (now the proud holder of a masters degree)..... I received a letter from the chair of the Brooklyn College Theatre Department telling me that I have been recommended by the department to be an Adjunct Lecturer in Theatre for the fall semester... AND it looks like I will be teaching two or three workshop classes in period acting styles for a summer theatre program for teens run out of Queensborough Community College when I get back to NYC in July. Way to go Universe!

---
Exclamation point mine. I love you, JP.

Peace,

Jen

Universe, Meet the Dharma Punx

If it so moves you, go here and pick one.

--Jen

Interverse, Keep Listening

I have a very large and swirling essay taking shape that may take awhile to work out so my posts are going to be short right now.

There was a horrible story over the weekend here in Brooklyn that made the national press. A three year old boy was apparently so horribly abused by his guardians that they killed him. It also seems that people in the neighborhood were aware of the abuse and did not report it. My son is three. My first thought was, I would have taken in this child.

My husband and I have spoken in vague terms over the years about becoming foster parents somewhere down the line. We've now agreed to find out what that would entail and if we could make it work. If we can't, we will then find out what form our desire to personally affect children's lives in a positive and nourishing way would take.

Here's what I want, Interverse.

I want to have a direct effect, through direct action, on changing the horror out there in the world. One tiny piece. Whatever I can handle. Give me the thing I can change, whether it is an action I can take or a person I can love. I'll know it when I see it.

And if you can work it, I'd like to see the horrible stories in the news affect others this way too. I'm tired of hearing people sigh and gasp over things that are horrible; I'm tired of reading blog rants that make the ranter feel like an activist when all they've actually done is relieve themselves of their rage.

Action. Action. Action.

Be well,

Jen

Do You Really Want To Live Forever. . .

It's simmering outside here and my son is home sick from school. So I'm linking today to this nice bit of synchroncity and thoughtfulness from Peter Shankman's blog:

An Open Letter To The Two Kids On The M11 Bus This Morning

I especially like that the piece contains shout-outs to both karma and Marlon Wayans, not to mention an Alphaville reference. This is much of what I wish I'd known at 18, had I been willing or able to hear it. Go find an 18 year old and show this to them, even if they roll their eyes at you, and ask who the hell Alphaville is.

--Jen

Hey Universe, et al

I walked out of this dark, warm friendly place about two and a half months ago into the glaring sun and tried to figure out exactly what I wanted when I came back here. I didn't. But I missed writing, and thank you to the people who wrote me to say the writing was missed.

Blogs are puzzling. You either chronicle your every waking moment, or comment snidely on someone else's every waking moment. Or you write about a broad obsession (food) or a narrow one (your adventures in becoming an expert in making, I don't know, vegan sausage, that then becomes a crazy trend in your tiny town and suddenly there's a 200 person waitlist to get into the monthly tempeh-casing-stuffing meet-up being held on your back porch). The word "I" makes many appearances. You only have to have opinions, or be a smarty-pants about something in an effort to be read by all the lesser smarty-pantses.

I started this blog with one intent: to trick myself into doing something (writing) that I feel guilty about not doing enough by setting a constraint (make a wish every day! piece of cake!). As tends to happen when you are me (just wait til you are me, you'll be glad I gave you these instructions), the simple trick unfolded into an endless moibus strip. Because now I don't just want to write every day to appease my sense of guilt*. I want to write my way out of a corner and into the everything. I want to write my way into understanding what we want as individuals, as members of the American family and as a planet. I want to be one window into understanding the meaning of life and what our purpose can be -- and I know there are already many windows out there, but it looks to me like many more are needed.

My hope, Universe, is to become one more window into you. And to write the word "I" alot less. And for this to eventually be what I do all day long.

I know this is vague, but like everybody else, I'm struggling to find the words to describe the mystery. In the meantime, send a postcard. A care package would be nice too. If you sent me a query for the universe and don't see it here, resend it. My computer died and is being revived in Memphis, TN. Hopefully it will get to visit Graceland when it's feeling better. If you want something and think God 2.0 might hear you if you yawp it out in cyberspace, send that here too.

With love for everyone, everything,

Jen

-----

*And I could cop out here and say it's Jewish guilt, which for me would be more like culutral quarter-Jewish guilt, but really it's not. It's the guilt of a native New Yorker, the guilt of not having as much ambition as everyone else who came here to get themselves on every square of the Monopoly board. As a result you berate yourself about not having the ambition, or you fake the ambition, or you move to the suburbs. EOM.

Universe, Please Bitchslap The Stupid

An extra request from The Husband. In general, having stupidity met with a neverending backhand sounds like a good idea, but I love the specificity (although I cannot pronounce 'specificity') of asking the Mighty Nothingness to collar four idiots who perpetrated an idiotic crime, and one that is plain embarassing to fellow humans.

Boston, we still love ya. I'm WELL aware that NYC has its share of people who do dumb things (see: former Governor Spitzer, for one). And sure, was it smart to wear the Yankee cap into the bar? No. But was it about a thousand times stupider to beat someone to a pulp because he likes a sports team you don't like, according to his hat? Yes, a thousand times stupider. And assault-ier, and crime-ier, and hopefully jail-time-ier.

EDIT: And one more thing. On the long list of How To Fight Fair, kicking someone in the head while he lies on the ground is at the absolute bottom. Cowards.

From The Husband:

When you have a moment, would you please ask the Universe to identify to the Boston PD the four idiots in the article below? Not because they are Boston fans, but because this sort of thing needs to stop and maybe an arrest and actual time served might do SOMETHING to deter others. Crap like fanatics and mob mentality actually makes me nauseous.

Today's Sports Idiocy, courtesy of Pregame.com .

Red Sox Fans Send Yankee Fan to Hospital
by RJ_Bell on 03/09/2008 9:03 AM

(from the web) Cambridge - The official start to the 2008 baseball season is about a month away, but the age-old rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox is already getting ugly.
A group of men some with Irish accents beat up a 23-year-old Cambridge man and sent him to the hospital after they spotted him sporting a Yankees baseball cap.

Witnesses told police the group of apparent diehard Red Sox fans beat up the victims after an argument inside a Central Square bar. The group then ran away on Mass. Ave. towards Harvard Square.

The Yankees fan was transported to the hospital March 2 at 1:41 a.m. for medical treatment for head injuries, including swelling over his entire face and several facial cuts, according to police reports.

The victims sobbing girlfriend told police the couple went to the Cantab Lounge at 738 Mass. Ave. midnight Saturday. The couple was inside the bar for a while when a large group of people came up to them and started arguing with the victim because he was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, according to police reports.

The couple left the bar without further confrontation, but the group allegedly followed them outside on the street as they walked home, according to reports.

Then the mob of Red Sox fans allegedly threw the victim to the ground and repeatedly kicked him. The girlfriend and a couple of women who were with the suspects unsuccessfully tried to pull the Red Sox fans off the victim, according to police reports.

The victim told police he could not clearly remember what happened and only recalled getting into an argument about his baseball cap, leaving the bar and lying on the ground while the men kicked him in the head.

The attackers are described as four white men. One of the men was last seen wearing a blue and white striped shirt.

The Yawp Gets Returned

A beautiful gift came into my email inbox this morning. It is a gift to PB from a fellow traveler, a gift to you, and certainly a gift to me because I'm still fighting a bad cold and can't get my whoses and whatsis together enought to write anything intelligent, plus the cold medicine makes me feel like I'm typing with my elbows. It is a rumination from my beloved RR, and reminded me that in additional to all the other logical magic she brings to me on a regular basis, she's a knockout of a writer.

The open call still stands, folks, and it has resulted in at least one other guest post that I'm hoping will be ready to go up by tomorrow. Be well.

-----

From MBRR:

Having been in PB's shoes, or at least similar places of flux, at various times in my life, I can understand what she is going through. Closing your eyes and taking a giant leap of faith to change your life always has repercussions, but unfortunately they aren't always the one's we think they will be when our feet first leave the ground. When those repercussions turn out to be not what you planned, it can make you want to shake your fist at the universe. Come on, universe! You want to say, I did the hard part already! I made the decision. I landed here. Now it is your turn to bring serendipity to my side. Consciousness and mindfulness, rather than acquiescence to the status quo brought me this far, now I should be rewarded for my bravery. Shouldn't I?

I have been contemplating this question in particular for the last several days because I too recently made a decision to take my life in a certain direction, one that I felt was right in my gut. Yet I have been faced with the harsh reality that the universe has more or less taken my decision and thrown it back in my face. For 3 days I have been railing inside- my thoughts black and spiteful and unproductive. Ef you, universe- and Ef your mother, too! I have been eaten by the unfairness of it all. Everyone, and I mean everyone I know agreed that the decision to do a PhD was the right one for me. People who have known me a long time said they always thought that I would, and wondered why it took me so long to figure it out. People at my job said absolutely. It is the right path for you. Academics told me I was a virtual shoe-in, what with my experience, grades, and knowledge. I was a rare candidate, indeed. Universities would probably throw money at me and beg me to come study. And so I was sure. My gut told me it was the right way to go. And I had external validation and support for my decision. What other signs could there have been, or could I have read? And yet, here I am. 3 out of 4 applications rejected. One more pending and not a shoe-in or a sure thing by any means.

And so while I wait for magic #4, I have been forced to deal with the question that I really never thought would come up. What will I do if I don't get in? Some people have suggested that I wait and re-apply next year. This seems to be how the game of graduate school gets played these days. And re-applying may be a test from the universe about how loud my gut was really speaking to me. If it is the right path, the universe seems to be saying, you can wait. And yet, I can't. Maybe others can, but I cannot. I went through a huge amount of personal upheaval to arrive at this decision, and I am just about worn out. Doing the PhD was to be the new path, the one I chose after almost 2 years of hard soul searching and heart wrenching decisions of all kinds. It was to be the answer I tore the rest of my life apart looking to find. Now I just don't have the stamina to wait another year, and go through another round of applications, to have it come out wrong all over again. I just don't think I have it in me.

Nevertheless, once I decided that the PhD was the path I wanted, I came to see it as not just the answer to what I would do, but the answer in some way to who I am. For the last year, since I decided that it is what I would do, I have held the decision and the idea of it close to my chest, and defended it as a part of my identity- the true identity I had been growing into for all these years. My chance to become the woman I always knew I could be. And in the waiting, I have gone into some dark places. Each rejection a personal affront, and my life hanging before me like a butterfly inside a cocoon, doomed to be forever unrealized.

Today though, I realized something for the first time. Whether I do or whether I don't get accepted, a PhD is not who I am. I am not the sum total of the knowledge I possess, the opportunities I have been given, the rejections I have received. I am also not how I look on paper; I am not the deficiencies on my resume, nor the antithesis to those who have gotten what I wanted. I am not the praise I have been given, nor the shock of others who were also convinced I would get in. I am greater than all these things, and all these moments. And I am enough. As I am, with all the knowledge, and experience, and education I already have. I am enough. Somewhere in the universe there is a place for me to pursue and create the life of the butterfly I am capable of becoming. Even if it doesn't turn out to be where and as I, and my gut, thought it should be. All I can do is trust that the universe knows better than I what my fate should be.

So what is it that has tossed around for me about PB's post? I guess it was that I wanted to say to her, let go a little. Desperation won't help, but money is the same color no matter where it comes from. Take a job waiting tables if you have to. Sign up with every temp agency you can find. In desperate times, any job can be the job, until the right one comes. In the meantime, remember that the money that feeds you, isn't who you are. And just to show that I know all this is easier said than done, I once worked folding shirts and greeting customers at The Gap, even though I had a master's degree and 5 years professional experience in my back pocket. I needed money badly, and I couldn't face receiving unemployment. After a month, I left the shirts to start the job that, 7 years later, is my career.

Finally, for both PB and myself, the mantra I have been trying to hold onto in a very uncertain time is a quote from Rilke. "...And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case."For PB and myself, I sincerely hope we both get what we want, but even if we don't, none of us is only our wishes or desires, realized or not. We exist outside of wanting. And we are enough.

Universe, Please Make Me a Cup of Tea

I'm taking the day off, fighting off a cold after much excitement the weekend of my son's third birthday. Be well. I'll try to post tomorrow.

A Yawp For PB

In response for my open call to get on the bullhorn, my friend PB asked me to give the Universe a yawp for her.

PB is an awesome chick, a cool girl in the grrrrrl sense, a deep thinker, a friend to broken animals and a Dharma Punk. She has been a good friend to me and my husband, and particularly to my three year old son, who she calls The Dude.

PB followed Love and Her Heart down the Right Coast to from New York to Florida early this year but, so far, Money hasn't gotten on board for the ride.

As she put it to me: "Please ask the universe to help me find work, so I can help others and myself .. . Everything has been so wonderful in my world for the last few months that maybe its not fair for me to ask for more, but I need a job. It's starting to mess with my self worth and confidence."

And let me note that it's absolutely fair to ask for more. It's fair to be whole and well and working and living. When one person gets to the top, they can help the other people making the climb. (PB, I hope that imagery appeals to your Macchu Pichu climbing self and doesn't register too high on the schmalz-ometer).

So, Universe, please give PB what she wants and what will benefit so many other people -- a job. A job as a yoga instructor would be ideal, but any job that she will be served by and will allow her to serve others would be fine. She'll know it when she sees it, but as you know, circumstances are getting more dire as the days go on. Please untie her from the train tracks and get her new life moving forward, especially she has taken such a big and brave leap to get said new life in the first place.

Guest Post: What We Put In The Ground

Today’s post is excerpted from a recent email I received from my friend E, a fantastic writer and a fantastic person. It was inspired in part by a recent entry here. While I am like a puppy faced with a truckload of bones when it comes to praise (more please, no, really, more), I am posting this with her permission mainly because I find it so touching and beautifully written. Identifying and other details have been removed. Thank you, E.

---------

Yesterday while stretching after a particularly strenuous run I realized that my neck, which had not been troubling me during the run, was totally aching. It came when I tried to lower my head to the ground, bending forwards, to place my hands there and ease open the muscles in the backs of my legs.

The fact is that earlier this year, I learned that the bones in my neck were not stacking up in the way that they should. Like some kind of nearly-toppling tower, they were too unsteady to do their job. To help, my neck muscles were in a state of spasm, trying to keep things upright. Good intentions, bad results. So when the pain started while I was bending over, I at least knew what it was: my neck muscles, trying, as usual, to keep my head on.

When I first got the diagnosis, I called my husband. “I can’t hold my head up,” I said. “You couldn’t invent a better condition for me at this moment.” His mother died a year ago while we sat beside her in the house that she raised him in, the house that we now live in. We lost her at the end of a period during which we watched and heard lung cancer make its way up to her neck. For the entirety of her illness and the period that followed, when I watched my husband’s heart break, I did not feel I could hold my head up at all.

Yesterday, when I tried to lower myself towards the floor of this room, in this apartment where a woman I loved very much raised two children that I love very much, one of whom I married, I realized that my neck was working too hard, working against me as I tried to place my hands on the ground.

I thought of the entry you had done about this, about why we place our hands on the ground and what it means. I thought that it is terribly important how we get to the ground. I was bending over but my neck was craning out, like a not very intelligent ostrich. I could not let it hang.

I stood up again, and did the kind of thing that I have a body memory of from being in first grade, kindergarten, having kind teachers and a rubbery little self. I rolled my spine one vertebrae at a time down and when my head wanted to turtle its way out I thought no, just let it go.

When I got to place my hands on the ground, all of me was there. My head had come along for the ride, too. I was alone in the house that we’d been fighting to bring back to life after this impossible year, and had my hands on the ground giving something back. It was quite beautiful and it was a moment that you helped to create with your writing, which was with me as I leaned over and let go.

The Email I Sent This Morning

to everyone I know. This signifies my official coming out as a God-is-Love-la-la-la-hippie to some people in my life -- I'm sure they suspected anyhow. What's written below applies to you all, too. I'm getting on the bullhorn and asking for requests.

----

Hey Folks,

As you may know, I started a blog back in August 2007, called Are You There God, It's Me, Blogging (http://areyoutheregoditsmeblogging.blogspot.com/). And yes, I do have plans to get in touch with Judy Blume. You can get a good idea of what it's about from the opening entry: http://areyoutheregoditsmeblogging.blogspot.com/2007/08/question-1-universe-please-help-me.html .

The basic idea is that every day (that's in Jen time, so it's more like every so often) I ask the Universe for something, and blog the results. It's been a really interesting tool for getting me to write every day, and to consider those pesky little questions like The Meaning of Life.

I'm writing you now because frankly, I need material, and I'm also very interested in having this blog go beyond me and whether I need need the line at the bank to be short on a given day. I'd like you, or your friends, or your friends of friends, and eventually total strangers, to write in their requests for me to query the Universe on their behalf. I will repost this email as today's entry, and requests can be made to the comments section.

I don't believe I have any kind of super powers. I do have some hippie leanings toward the power of collective thought and prayer. At minimum, it will be interesting to see what happens, which is what this blog has been about from the beginning.

Thanks for your help!

Love,

Jen

Today is Some Day

I woke up with the clear thought in my head that "Today is the day." For what, I don't know. Possibly for my state's governor to step down admidst a sex ring scandal.

I have to say this doesn't surprise me all that much. I'm a Democrat but couldn't bring myself to vote for him. He has a holier-than-thou, Elliot Ness, I'm the good guy and you are the bad guys approach. I've always thought that's just the personality type of the Attorney General, the position formerly held by Spitzer and Guliani, who had the same outlook before becoming America's Mayor. People so hot to damn others, people that mighty, tend to fall.

If you've been waiting for a day to change, to do better, to accept the truth, to go get a donut, go do it today. Today is the day.

What We Want

I'm exhausted and yet I can seemingly keep going. That's all the miracle I need for today.

I've been thinking about what I've been asking for here, and what others have been asking for. This blog was born out of strange twins of grief and hope, a plain human need to will the buds open when everything is bone cold and withered.

Looking at this blog so far as the most informal of surveys, I'd say we need to know the sick can get well, the odds can be overcome, the dead still love us even if we can never again slip our hand into theirs, unthinkingly, as we take their presence for granted. We need to know we can survive our personal horrors, and that the world can survive all the horrors that people visit on eachother. We need to know that what seems impossible, on any given day, can happen, from our own effort and from powers beyond us, because we are deserving and somehow loved. We need to know that when we ask for help, the universe is listening and the universe will grant it.

With all our electric light, we're still this little group of people in the darkness praying that the sun will come up over the hill again, that we'll get through the winter, that the crops will come in.

I don't know what it means that we live in a relatively physically stable society with our souls still fighting for survival this way. I also don't know, at this moment, if this is all just me.

Call and Response

I haven't posted for a few days because I felt like I'd run out of hope in my personal life, and it's difficult to write here when I'm not in a whoo, lookee, swirling stars of love, kind of frame of mind.



Then J from ArtConstellation, the aforementioned 'J' in the J&S story, wrote to let me know that two hours after I posted their story, S received a call for a job interview, his first since graduating from grad school (I think). Shortly after, he got the job, which means they can get an apartment together, an important step toward her going back to Italy. I am beyond thrilled for them and wish them nothing but happiness. I am also thankful to J for letting me know, because my amputated hope got some much needed surgery and is now going through physical therapy and rehab.



I don't begin to believe I have superpowers. I am beginning to believe, as Steve told me recently, that literally anything is possible. And I wholeheartedly believe a whole group of us having hope, wanting good, wanting love to prevail, begins to push things in that direction. So thanks to all of you reading.



J asked me to ask the universe for a miracle for Lora -- you can read her story here. Universe, please help Lora to survive and become well. Her story has already affected many people and she is a positive, loving person.



As long as I'm at it, Universe, we've had a whole bunch of conversations about my friend Ruby, who is also fighting cancer like a saber tooth tiger, so let's just say thank you for helping her stay alive and survive this long, and keep up the good work.



Last, my friend Athena called me last week and asked that I pray for a family in her town who had been in a terrible car accident. I am remiss in not putting this here for her sooner, and saddened to hear that some of the family did not survive. Athena, I love you, and I ask the Universe to protect, heal, and take care of the Howdens.



One of the highlights of my week last week was listening to Athena's two-year-old daughter play harmonica over the phone and then hold it up to phone for me to play it, an ocean away. This week I reconnected with an old friend, took care of my health, resolved some family issues, ran back and forth across a football field with my son. When I look at those moments, it seems there is little more I could ever need. And looking over this post, I see that all we really need is to still be breathing and anything after that continues to be possible.

Because at the end of the day I am a big hippie who really does believe in the power of love

For brave, brilliant and strong J, who I've come to know through the brave, brilliant and strong Jessieh. (Neither of them would probably describe themselves that way, so I'll do it for them, in honor of the people out there describing me that way when I feel like I cannot pick up my foot to take one more step.)

Universe, this one is for J and S, two people I really don't know at all, but who seem to be fighting a giant raging ocean just to hold eachother's hands. You know, Universe, how hard J is fighting in general. When two people can love and support eachother, every thing beneath their feet that lay fallow can bloom. It can be so much easier to take the first steps of loving yourself when you see the love another has for you.

So Universe, dude, come on. They have nothing left to prove. Let's pick up the world like it was just a paper map sitting on my dining room table, and touch the East Coast of the United States to Rome in a kiss. Let those two points stay connected, forever. Let them find a way for J to stay in Italy for good, and let the good times finally finally finally start to roll.

Don't Mess With Mr. Strut

While I am back -- and better than ever -- and have lots to write about after my impromptu vacation from this blog and thinking about anything of any worth, well, I'm not going to today. And that's because I'm too delighted by this AP story that came out this morning and the fact that one of the Universe's main priorities is Mick Jagger. I also like that the Hell's Angels are open to signs from the heavens, or at least from the ocean.

From the AP:

BBC: Hell's Angels Sought to Kill Jagger
('LONDON (AP) -- Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger escaped an assassination plot hatched in 1969 by the Hells Angels, a new British Broadcasting Corp. documentary has claimed. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 3, 2008
Filed at 7:36 a.m. ET

LONDON (AP) -- Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger escaped an assassination plot hatched in 1969 by the Hells Angels, a new British Broadcasting Corp. documentary has claimed.
A program to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Monday says the rock star was the target of the plot following a purported dispute with the motorcycle gang over concert security.

Jagger had vowed not to use Hells Angel members as bouncers following the death in December 1969 of an 18-year-old fan at a notorious free performance at Altamont Speedway in Northern California.

In return, gang members hatched a plan to kill Jagger at his holiday home in Long Island, New York, the BBC claimed.

''The Hells Angels were so angered by Jagger's treatment of them that they decided to kill him,'' Tom Mangold, the presenter of the program, was quoted as telling Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

He said the plan was disclosed during an interview with Mark Young, a former FBI officer, for the BBC's ''The FBI at 100'' documentary.

Mangold said the men tried to reach Jagger by sea. ''The boat was hit by a storm and all of the men were thrown overboard,'' he was quoted as saying. They all survived but made no other attempt on his life, Mangold said.

It was not clear whether Jagger was ever informed of the alleged plot against him.
LD Communications, Jagger's publicists in Britain, did not immediately return calls requesting comment.

The Hells Angels have always denied any connection with the Altamont Speedway killing.

Universe, Help Dig Us Out of This Mess

I have lots of Deep Thoughts, little time, a doctor's appointment and a mess of snow to get through to get there (5 seemingly unexpected inches in Brooklyn today, enough to make the subways groan and my old Dalmatian whinny).

Between the sudden snowfall, Clinton's perposterous plagarism comments about Barack Obama and allegations of impropriety against McCain, I spent my entire morning shower cringing and wincing as each news report came on my little waterproof radio.

So, Universe, while we Americans too often act as if we have God on IM, I am making my plea this morning our presidential candidates to cut the crap, tell the truth, and most importantly for the truly best person to win. Probably impossible, but I frequently want the impossible, and sometimes I even get it.

To: Universe, Bees, Rats, et al, By Request

For two friends, by request, the first two lines are taken from the request.

Ask the universe, ask the trees,
and the bees, and the rats in the subway.
Help and hope, seem far away now, faith
as well. A time when all of this made sense
or good copy -- the calendar is resolutely stuck
at today, this day, the pages won't tritely fall away.

And so I ask -- let these two lives be elevated,
like an elevated train, a thing on swooping girders
with sky and tract houses, trees and factory signs
for factories long gone, all around it, a thing that
has come to seem like it only belongs in
a dark tunnel, waiting for the platform,

and the platform after that and that and that.
Let these two lives have beautiful views, somewhere
they want to go, someplace
they want to come home, someone
who welcomes them back, spilling over
with quiet to hear of the days' adventures.

###

Universe, please let the resolution come. They've suffered long enough. What I want here is not important, other than that I want them both to be fulfilled, and whole, and out of pain, whether that is together or apart.

Hey Universe

Anything you can do to get me and my beloved RR here and make the journey a good one will be duly appreciated.

I was thinking about why I want to go. I am a survivor of violence. Many women I love are survivors of violence. Rape is being perpetrated as a war tactic around the world, which is as sickening to me as anyone blowing themselves up, it just doesn't get the same press.

But the real and selfish reason I support all womens' rights to a world without violence is my son. A world where everybody counts, and everyone has basic human rights is a world I want him to live in, and a viewpoint I want him to have. And I know how much more wonderful his life will be if he regards women as equal, and not lesser. I want to be the mom who models that for him, through action, and through deed.

Guest Post -- Please Do Your Bit

Reposted with permission from my friend YF's journal (names removed). Please pray, plea, ask, and holler as desired:


As some of you know, I'm not too close with much of my family. The one exception is my sister and her three girls. If I know anything about unconditional love, I've learned it from her.


Their lives have been joyful but full of hardship. My sister's husband took off when the oldest girl was 12. Among other things, he took every penny in every account and left them with huge debt. My sister learned, the hard way, to be self sufficient while raising three girls on her own. She has done an amazing job. The girls are smart, loyal, responsible, and fun.


The youngest is applying for college now. With her grades and activities she'll be able to take her pick of schools. She's even on the short list for Harvard.


The middle girl is an athlete with brains. She's studying bioengineering at Case Western Reserve . . . on scholarship.


The oldest has a year left at Kent State, her college largely paid for by scholarships too. She stayed near home so she could keep working every weekend. She has worked constantly since she was 12, first babysitting, and then taking any and every afterschool and weekend job she could find. You'd think all the work, having to forgo all the things regular teenagers get to do, would have made her angry teenage nightmare, but I have never met a young woman with more grace and generosity.


Next year my sister will have three kids in college. That, combined with her recent breast cancer diagnosis, means it's going to be tighter than ever for the next couple of years, so the girls are working on more scholarship applications. The oldest made the the finals for another scholarship and needs votes to win.


Sadly the voting is over, so I can't ask all of you to stuff the ballot box on her behalf, but I think I'll consider this a plea to the universe that she wins. This family needs a break.

All I Need to Hear, All I Need to Say

Happy Presidents Day.

An Answer

I had a conversation with a dreamwalker two weeks ago. In the course of our conversation, he reminded me of something that I've come across before in several different religious traditions and healing practices. That is simply, after conducting a ritual, such as a healing ritual, you are to place your hands on the ground (or floor) and send whatever negative energy you have picked up back into Mother Earth, asking her to clean it and make it positive energy again. This has a practical aspect for the healer, to keep from absorbing the illness or other negative energy they are seeking to remove. It is also a wonderful general concept, that the bad can be turned back into good, renewed and reborn into something positive in our lives.

So often my question is "What do I do?". I think the first answer is always this.

More is happening in my life, so rapidly, than I seem to be able to write, and yet all is wonderfully calm. I hope you are all well.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Make Me A Better Communicator, Please and Thank You

This may sounds N-V-T-S nuts from a blogger who works in communications. But when I think of all the things I want most, I really just want to talk to my friends more, and that's the thing I push to the bottom of the to-do list most of the time.

At any rate, I'm listening to ska and avoiding a big writing project, and I'll try to get deeper and wider and brighter and lighter tomorrow. I'll also try to can it with the Cure quotes. Happy Valentine's Day.

Universe, make everything a Cure song.

On my way to the local diner to pick up my morning tea, I had Sarah Silverman's "The Porn Song" stuck in my head. I'm not including the link here, because I have a modicum of respect for the people who raised me, and they read this blog. I can't explain my feelings on Silverman -- she lives in a realm that metaphors fear to enter.

When I went into the diner, the Cure's "Pictures of You" was playing and it blissfully swept The Silverman out with little happy guitar brooms of melancholy.

So, Universe, can you make everything like the good song that gets the stuck song out of your head. Can we just push the crap out by something as simple as changing the channel, or walking into the place where the right one is already on?

When Iris Sleeps Over

What a book she'll write.

I've always been one to ask for answers like some people skip ahead to the last page of a novel when they've barely started. I want the answers almost before the questions are asked -- this has made me so many shades of fun in most of my relationships. So it makes sense that I'm a tarot reader.

My deck depicts Greek myths (a longtime fascination of mine) and in a way can show the reader where they are in the 'story' of their own life. Over here is Temperance, which has always been my root card, and, while it is not my complete story anymore, it will always be at the root of who I am.

In this deck, Temperance has the traditional meaning of seeking or striving for emotional balance. It depicts stasis and fear of change or intensity as much as it does peace and harmony. The actual character here is Iris, a sort of girl Hermes. She's Hera's messenger and the only female messenger that I know of in Greek myth; she's the woman who delivers the word.

I have this exact picture tatooed on my back, without the wings, and got it about twelve years ago in the middle of a blizzard at Huggy Bear's old Brooklyn studio. Afterwards my friend Steve and I had cookies and orange juice with the Bear himself as he showed us his scrapbook. He was a super nice man, who legally changed his name to Huggy Bear because he was, well, a huggy bear. The whole experience was a little like donating blood at a hospital run by the Hell's Angels.

After having this wingless messenger in my heart and on my back all these years, I'm ready to get the wings. In ink, and in metaphor. But the other thing is, after spending so much energy searching for answers, partially to avoid the pain of actually living a life to get to those answers, I see that I already have them, and if I look deep enough, I already know. To my deep surprise, I don't need the cards anymore. And I don't need to pour that little cup of water back and forth for all eternity, trying to get the balance just right. I can stand in the rushing river now. I can let it go.

When It's Surmountable

I'm very lucky in that I have a job I like. However I want to do something completely different -- and no, it's not the fish-slapping dance. I found out this year that I want to design jewelry. I am slowly building the skills to be able to do that -- learning to render, learning to silversmith, designing and so on. I am also trying to suspend my disbelief that this is an insane idea. I have two great things in my favor: a husband who is completely supportive, and friends and family who draw monsters and make fertility sculptures out of broken furniture FOR A LIVING so boy am I in the best possible company for this kind of career transition.

The third thing I now have, courtesy of my lovely Tante, is the passenger records of my maternal great-great grandparents and seven of their nine children, ranging in age from 18 to an infant (the last two, including my great-grandmother, were born here) when they came through Ellis Island from Russia in 1898.

In addition to the sheer loveliness of having all of their original names on record (some of them were Americanized to the point of being unrecognizable), I have a reminder that will carry me through the next year and half -- that my great-great grandmother was the exact age I will be this year, 37, when she came here with basically nothing, survived the trip and started over in a new world, with seven children depending on her.

I would wish for her strength but I know I already have it, so I can only say bless you my wonderful ancestors. Everything I could ever want in this new world is entirely possible.

Salutations to the Guru. Over and Out.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation and guru to the Beatles, among others, died yesterday on February 5th. While I'm sure someone else has figured this out, I have not yet noticed any mentions in the news that he died the day after Across The Universe Day, when NASA beamed the famed Beatles song into space via satellite antenna in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the song's release. The song's chorus includes the mantra "Jai guru deva om" which, according to my beloved and overused Wikipedia "is a sentence fragment whose words could have many meanings, but roughly translate to "salutations to the guru", then the mystic syllable om". While Maharishi was a controversial figure for many reasons, he did believe that TM, a form of meditation using mantras, could help heal the world and bring peace.

So. . . salutations to the guru and the mystical 'om' were beamed quite literally across the universe, to unknown effect, and then he died.

Salutations to the guru. Om.

When It's Very Simple

When you have a stomach flu, it's hard to ask for anything other than the removal of said stomach flu. So there you have it.

When There Seem To Be No Answers

Universe, I humbly beg you today to please bring a peaceful and quick resolution to the violence in Kenya. It is a beautiful country with beautiful people. It is falling prey to political rivalry and ethnic hatred. In another sense, it is falling victim to blame and anger over difficult circumstances.

My dad found his soul there when he travelled through Africa in the late 70s. He worked as an assitant engineer on a research steamship. Sometimes when he docked in various places and could take leave, the ship's captain would warn him that this or that little town was a good place to go if you wanted to die. I hate to think that Kenya is now a good place to go if you want to die. I hate to think that my dad and I will not make it there together in his lifetime.

It is very frustrating to think there is nothing I can do. I wonder sometimes if this is part of the real reason environmentalism is becoming the biggest issue of our time -- the individual can actually or seemingly affect change through every day choices. It's much easier to focus on what kind of lightbulb I use than how to keep people from killing eachother.

When The Answers Do and Don't Come

I had an appointment today to talk to a specialist who works with people with intuitive abilities. (RR -- pick yourself up off the mental floor. You knew it was heading in this direction. We do not have to speak of this day again). When it was time to make the call, my phone stopped working, flashed on and off for an hour and a half and didn't power up until the appointment had been rescheduled by email.

So I guess the answer is, no answer for you, at least not yet.

When The Answers Do Come

I've been thinking today about the impossibility, often, of changing or healing the past. We do things or things are done to us that are such a rupture to our psyches that they can seemingly never be healed.

I told my friend heretofore known as the Goddess Devi (she is the daughter of a Hindu priest) about a friendship that went terribly bad. The friend and I had a screaming fight on the phone one night when he said he was certain we'd known each other in a past life. I asked what he thought had happened. He said "You killed me and I killed you. Probably with knives."

When this friendship drifted away, I felt awful I'd never been able to have closure on it. Never really been able to say I'm sorry I hurt you and I'd like to hear that you're sorry you hurt me. Instead there was gaping, endless me -- the reality is I could have, and wanted to, hear I'm sorry a thousand times and it never would have been enough. Then there was the friend, who more or less avoided all eye contact with me for the next ten years, including when he was in my house.

So I told the Goddess Devi all of this and how I felt like a failure, like I'd have to go through another lifetime or ten, or at least this one, having failed this friendship, not having ever made it whole or functional or healed enough to walk away and feel like I could throw my hands up over my head like my son so often does, yell "I did it!" and never look back. The Goddess looked at me with incredulity and a small lilt of a smile. "Of course you succeeded! Look at it this way -- you didn't kill eachother! That's enough progress for one lifetime!"

I got an answer today to a question posed in my last post from someone I never thought I'd hear from again. Someone who hurt me badly enough that I didn't want the ending to be good for him, or for me. All I can say right now, other than the ever-popular "BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR" (I asked for an answer from anyone, and boy did I get an answer from Anyone), is that I can forgive myself for not having super-human powers of healing for myself or any of the other broken animals. It's not my job to become perfect in the face of awful, or to work for anyone else to do the same.

I ask that the Universe remove my guilt. I ask that the Universe remove my shame. I ask that anyone -- and Anyone -- who was harmed, abandoned or in any way had their psyche ruptured by the person or people who loved them most -- I ask that we are all held one way or another in the palm of love, and that all of our guilt and shame be removed.

I ask that we pass that love and all the gifts we receive forward into the future. I ask that we are liberated from feeling hatred and anger about people in our pasts, the dead and thoughtless and stupid and young and uncaring, the things that can never be rectified. I ask for forgiveness from anyone I harmed. I forgive everyone who harmed me. Everyone. And Anyone.

When The Answers Don't Come

There are two problems in my life right now that I am so frustrated with I feel like I'm going insane. I've been to insane. Liked the hours, didn't care for the people. I'd rather not go back if I don't have to.

The first is that my son is having great difficulty sleeping through the night. I truly don't know what the reason is. It's probably a combination of factors as suggested by his doctor, teachers, and strangers whose childcare books sit on our bookshelves, their book jacket photos grinning at me as if the bastards actually get some sleep.

Possible reasons include: It's never been easy for him to get his bearings back after we stay overnight somewhere else; post nasal drip; nightmares (not certain of this, just a guess); very cold room; noisy heaters that attempt to heat very cold room; lack of limits-setting on our part (one more book, one more milk, one more dear friends into the breach); and who knows what else, although I'm sure I'll know very soon because everybody has an opinion, usually unwanted and often seemingly crack-addled.

The second problem is simply a difficult relationship that I would like to see improve. Enough said there.

In both cases I've been asking. And asking and asking and meditating and asking actual people and asking for guided dreams and praying and hoping and asking. And the solutions have not come. What do you do? Keep asking? Change the question? Accept defeat? Squint at the horizon so hard to try to see the tiny changes that have come that you give yourself floaters on your retenas for the rest of time?

Anyone?

Universe, Help Us Help Eachother

Two things.

One.

In the last post I mentioned being the change you want to see in the world. A friend of mine is on the verge of falling in love, and the lucky gentleman is coming to visit her. Her apartment is in an interesting state of flux. She has new sheets, but they're still in the box. Framed paintings, but they're sitting on the floor. I felt with great certainty that her home should be beautiful and finished, now. It was hard to tell her that, because I felt like it was none of my business. I offered to paint, then to put together a party where all her friends got together and finished her apartment in one day. She said it was the nicest thing ever. I said, no, it's not. It's friendship. And she said, no, it's love. So of course I'll do it. People have done these things for me, and of course I'll do these things for them. It will be wonderful. It will be unusual. It will be joyful. It will be people painting a house and putting up shelves so our friend can open the door, perhaps, to the love of her life, and be ready. And who knows what will come next as a result. It is worth mentioning that this is the same friend who has given me free office space, and put me in touch with the company that gave me my new and fabulous job. So of course I'll do it, and so happily.

Two.

I get very frustrated by Hollywood and the media (and sometimes by blogs) because it can feel like I have no control over whose personality I have to deal with every day, even though I don't know these people. If Britney Spears had keys to my apartment, I'd have my locks changed and call the cops. I'd also call her mother and delicately suggest rehab and a psych consult, because to my relatively uniformed eye, she looks like a drug addict self-medicating for any number of psychological conditions.

So now Heath Ledger is dead. Talented, young, and apparently a drug addict. That really sucks. What sucks more, and sucks every time I hear about a young and talented person injecting themselves into the hereafter, is that they died before they got the help they needed. And what sucks when I hear about musicians in their 50s who did drugs for 30 years suddenly dying of cancer or heart failure or what have you, nobody actually says, hmmm, maybe the drugs wore out your body and your ability to fight off disease.

I have great sympathy for anyone with a drug or alcohol problem, whether they are able to help themselves or not. I have deep problems with the media for publicizing the 'wacky' or 'car-wreck' behavior of people who are clearly addicts and need help. And I have deep problems with partiers and sychophants who create and maintain a sick environment, who don't do everything they can to help a known addict.

May you all be surrounded by friends who want the best for you and will do what they can to make your life the best. May you all be those kind of friends. May you help me, and may I help you.