that's right..

you did it.

just one hour at a time.
another recouperative night's seep.
another chance at a good day.
just one day at a time.

Fighting

The mornings are the hardest for me. I awake from sleep (finally a full night's rest) and my mind starts, racing, fighting. My first few hours at work are tormented as I move in and out of so many thoughts and judgements and fears. Now it's medications and doctors and therapies and lists, and reading and calming and breathing when all I really want is to be still. The medications make me so tired and numb but without them I can't balance or stay afloat. Everything hits at once and I can't make sense of anything. I want to be isolated and then am afraid to be alone. It's the worst of existence right now though things actually seem to be getting better. Just trying to get through this hour, just this goddamn hour.

See That's What I'm Talking About

I woke up this morning knowing that I wanted to check this site. I'm having this strange paralytic anxiety lately and you know what's crazy???? It's based in joy. I know that sounds crazy but for the first time in long time, I have so so many cool things going on in my world and I want to devote all of my time to each of those things. One of the coolest things I have going on in my life are these two women, Myriam and Linda. My friends. And as life moves at this break neck pace, we three don't see one another enough.
Becoming roommates for a year of our lives was hands down, one of the best decisions I've made for myself ever. Most people don't really think twice about roommates as the arrangement is a common practice amongst college kids and its no big deal. But for us it kinda was. Myriam had to move from the east coast, I had to get over some crazy fear about living with friends and Linda had to agree to live with us (which was crazy on her part!). And we sure as hell were no longer college kids. The point of this long winded introduction is this: When we lived together, I had the luxury of living with two of the finest people I've had the opportunity to meet. And I definitely appreciated the languid unfolding of each day but not like I appreciate it now. I look back on the year and its a strange feeling. I can describe like this: The seemingly insignificant time we spent together was the most significant and meaningful time I would ever spend. Like mornings. Not always pleasant, mornings were important time spent. In preparing for the day, knowing where and what (for the most part) your friends were up to. The possibility of seeing them around dinner time. Sunday morning with nothing much planned but sitting on the porch and then a natural festival of mimosas unfolding or any number of events that unfold just because you are there and present. These are enchanted moments usually encountered by people who have plenty of time on their hands. As we grow up, that changes. No time. This might seem sort of pessimistic but it seems to me: Less Time, Less Possibility for enchantment.

It's been four and half years since I've lived with my friends. Linda married Dave and moved to the east coast. Myriam stayed and became a celebrity in Long Beach, and I began a quiet but significant career in teaching. And so many other incredible things with my friends unfold daily but because I don't wake in same house with them any longer, I miss out on most of it.

BUT, this morning when I read Linda's post about her grandmother, I immediately set the computer aside.
I had to get to work and told myself I would find time later to respond here. Immediately, I began to get anxious. Mati woke up and my anxiety turned to unadulterated crankiness. Because it was important for me to participate in this and important for me to spend the TIME. So we worked out a little schedule for our morning where I could get this in and the other stuff too. So I asked Mati if he could read Linda's post to me Out Loud, and he did....and that's when the good stuff got processed. He read it and I cried. I cried for Linda's loss. But I also cried because it was gorgeous, the knowing that my friend asked her gramma to come visit in the dreams....that Rose got to dance on the day that she died. I met Rose once and she was damn fiesty. And I got to dance with her and that was a blessing. She made a killer pasta sauce too. That was it. I met Rose once. And she is like no other. And I bet she'll dance in Linda's dreams.

And if I had set the computer aside after the first read and went to work on my lecture of the appendicular skeleton, I would have missed out on a good cry and I wouldn't have spent the time I obviously needed to here with my dear amazing friends. Myriam and Linda.


See That's What I'm Talking About!! This is what I'm talking about. Stay connected.

the Magic of Spirit

Rose LoPiccolo : 6/24/1908 - 2/18/2008

grandma died last week. she would've been 100 yr old june 24, 2008. i just returned from several days in brooklyn, ny for her wake and funeral. everyone said grandma looked beautiful. i guess she did, as far as one can expect a dead person's body to look. but she just didn't look like herself to me. of course, you say, one does not, can not truly look like themselves once dead. but i think that some people do and just look like they're sleeping. people seemed genuine in saying she looked beautiful. not just that they were saying it to be kind. i don't know. i think that once the spirit leaves the body that it borrowed to be here in this life, that body can't possibly look like it once did, because the spirit gives it so much more than just life. it's kind of like that saying "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"... once the spirit is released from within it's physical form, the person that you once knew is no longer there. there is magic within spirit. and when i think of it that way, i don't get as sad because i believe that her spirit lives on in another form, another place. i honor her body. but looking at it doesn't make me think i'm looking at her. if that makes sense at all??

just the very morning that my grandma died, her nurse told me that she (the nurse) started singing to grandma one of the songs grandma used to always sing and that grandma immediately started to shake her shoulders back and forth dancing. i kept looking at her shoulders picturing her delight that morning when she was dancing, doing what must have become a reflexive reaction by now to hearing music she knew and loved. i want to see her spirit dance again. i asked her to visit me in my dreams, because i happen to dream a lot so why not ask right? i'm hoping that she will. my grandpa does and i love every visit. one thing about my grandma is that she was like no other. so i expect that won't change just because she's moved on.

it brings me joy to think about meeting her again some how and in some way yet unknown. and those of you who know me know that i love the unknown. there is so much potential and hope in it. it doesn't take away all of the pain of missing her company, but it helps. i know a shift has taken place in me because i can more easily move to this place of peace and away from the sadness. and that is comforting, too.

We're In Bicoastal Blogging Business

In our modern friendships, it is not uncommon for very good friends to live too far apart and in an attempt to share a little more than bi yearly visits, we'll attempt to share a little more of the creative and mundane our lives - the good stuff that a 3 day visit or monthly phone just won't cover. So here goes. Using technology to keep the good stuff goin'.