found wanting

i went too late for a full workout tonight, the hubby got stuck in traffic. but i did get my delicate digits taken again. and i lost the equivalent of a small bag of sugar, a small cat, a small dog, 5 boxes of butter.

i lost five pounds! and i'm glad they're gone.

my body fat index went down by 2% which is a wonder and a miracle. that horrifying number is less horrifying now. and it wasn't even really that hard. i just had to go workout even when i didn't feel like it. i had to get my butt off the couch (i don't own a couch anymore, but you get the idea), and just workout.

so, the trend will likely continue and with all the girating and undulating i'll be doing, things should firm up nicely. it's a good feeling. a start anyway.

eagle watching tomorrow, then work the next two days. we've had snow days this past week and i'm glad, i needed a rest. but it's time to get moving again.

i learned shoveling snow is hard work. as i tried to do my driveway today, i found i couldn't do it alone. thank God for men. when it comes to me being a feminist, i have to say, i'm glad for men. for their strength and ability to grit their teeth and get a driveway shoveled.

peace!

look sexy

it's not everyday i hear that. last night, on my way to my first belly dancing class, i got woefully lost. so lost, i didn't even know where i was or how to get home. but decided to breathe, and drive. always a good solution. i found my way. i was late, but made it.

they were doing hip drops and i knew how to do that, so i wasn't too slow in picking up where they were at.

the instructor is awesome. tweaking out her body in all manner of ways. and as we go throughout the class, she's telling us,

women with bellies are the best belly dancers because one they get control of those abdominal muscles, it's amazing.

very encouraging. i smile.

she's splaying out her rib cage and running her hands down her hair.

you must look sexy for class.

we will show our bellies, apparently. so i rush home and stand in front of the mirror to see what horrors my fellow students will be exposed to. and yikes, is all i can say. yikes, folks. and i've been working out for a month.

do you know how long it has been since anyone has told me to look sexy for anything? a long time. a very long time.

so i'm picking out some belly dancing apparel and trying to figure out what exactly i want. what colors i will choose and which things will flatter my particular body type. not things i think about in those ways.

wear swimsuit tops ladies!

the instructor calls out as we're walking out of the gym.

i've got some serious reckoning to do with my body. looks like indigo will be my colors. and silver coinage about my bod, mostly on my hips. i'll have a black chiffon and satin skirt and an alternate black satin shirt.

ah yes, look sexy for class. i shall try.

the art of leaving

it seems i've made departure an art. it's come naturally, honestly enough. for the better part of my life, i moved every two years (yes, since i was a small child this has been the norm). uprooting and transplanting has come to me in all manner of ways. sometimes peacefully, sometimes i loaded up the car and drove off unseen, other times there was a bit of planning. a few goodbyes.

the thing about it is, there is so much to see. so many great adventures out there to be had. i take the leaving as a good thing (after i rebound from losing all my friends and comforts, which takes a good six months), new territory to explore.

being transplanted has changed my life so profoundly so many times, i can hardly believe it when i meet a person who was born and will die in the same house. boggles my mind. i had once thought it an enviable position, but now, i'm not so sure.

there's a line in horse whisperer where the matriarch of the family says,

some people carry roots on the inside.

yeah, that's what i hope. that i'm a bulb who can be taken and transplanted myriad times. always springing up, lush and green wherever i happen to be planted. forced. enjoyed.

it's a heavy word on my heart right now, because leaving comes to me so easily. it seems like the right thing so many times. do i opt for it too easily? or do i just trust my road to lead me beyond the comfortable surroundings? i'm not really sure. i just know these roads stretch on to the horizon and i've not hit a dead end yet.

when i think i really know something, have some certainties. we move. all my wisdom leveled by some cardboard and packing tape. and a few thousand miles (as was the last case). the bare walls, unknown neighbors, foreign streets all conspire to teach me about starting fresh. stepping out and trusting strangers.

i thought i knew something before i moved here, and now i find, i knew nothing. the people i once thought the bomb, were a different kind of bomb in my life. or i bombed out, something like that. and now i'm moving in utterly different circles and the ages, races, orientations of these folks are shaking longheld (yet often unknown) beliefs about what and how things should be. moving will do that to you.

it takes awhile for me to settle in. to get to know a place. the other night driving lovely 83 years young helen to an inter parish council meeting (IPC), we passed the church and she said,

where are you going?

down here,

i said. having no clue where i was headed, i went over a bridge and turned on a one way street which lined some stream. it was pitch black, the tall pines jutting skyward, and the waters glistening in the moonlight.

how lost can we get,

i asked.

i don't know.

she said.

just enjoy the ride, this is my life in new york. i'm always getting lost.

and we laughed and laughed. i wound my way back across the stream and to the church. laughing all the way. it was a lovely ride. a whole new approach to getting lost. i'm losing my fear of these wooded areas. they don't seem so mysterious to me now.

though helen gave me directions back to the PIP (palisades interstate parkway) that had me so befuddled and confused, i swear i could never find that way again without her. but we laughed some more and made our way back home.

two church members i knew have died since i've been here. it is an aged congregation. but the people are so lovely. i wouldn't want to be anywhere else. and kneeling around the altar, i look across at the dear souls there and thank God for them. that i've had the chance to meet them. even the ones who are control freaks. or who reek of nicotine. or who don't know how to exchange the peace without creeping me out.

i'll be leaving here in the near future. and while i will be sad to go, i will be looking forward to the next adventure. who will i meet? where will i go? so many things yet unseen. so many possibilities. endless possibilities.

the student is ready

so i've been wanting take a bellydancing class for years! ever since i went to a lll conference and took a class there. finally, after trying many times, i've got one lined up which begins next week. i've got the skirts, the jingly bells, the hips, all i need is the master, the student is ready.

i've always wanted to do tai chi as well, so i signed up for that tambien.

my schedule is jam packed now, and i don't care for that, but if it is an option of doing nothing for myself and having free time, or doing stuff i enjoy or have wanted to do for aeons, i'm going to be busy a while and love it.

the thing about bellydancing is, you need someone to show you the moves and the regular practice will build my confidence. because i know a few things, but only isolated steps. having some sort of structure will be really helpful.

sometimes, i have poems in me that want to come together. one just peeked its head into my words just now, but i sent it back into exile.

it's a gorgeous image and i don't want to cheapen it by butchering it. but sometimes talking about what i'm going to write helps. i guess it all depends on who i am speaking to. my closest friends are generally the best for these unformed beauties to have a little light shined on them. then, after articulating a bit of what i'm thinking they come together relatively quickly. that is probably the most conscious processing i do. the rest of the time, it is all the fruit of darkness. the stuff of the unconscious.

yeah, i'm reading jung again. the undiscovered self. it's quite a book. sometimes i really don't agree with what he's saying, i had a lot of differing opinions in what i read of jung and st. john of the cross, but there again, i'm stalled out because i'm trying to find someone who knows sjotc before i plunge past my questions. i got so angry at the book, i had to stop.

i don't want to impugn sjotc at all, so i've not spoken of it, but i've asked priests,

do you know sjotc?

no, they say.

damn.

so i wait. the kind of waiting that is essential to becoming, i guess. i just don't like waiting. it is hard work. it is exhausting. it is mindnumbing.

i've gone weeks now where my mind has been grinding though scenarios of what is to come, i can't stop it. or couldn't. and rightly so, i guess. when there's stuff coming up, one has to contemplate it. and it isn't worry. i'm not worried, i'm just considering options, thinking things through. planning as best i can.

but i need to get apart from my daily life and focus on other things. the classes and work help to that end. i also had a new friend turn me on to a type of massage, let's call it. a woman's gift to a woman.

i've slept better the past two nights than in the past month. and i am grateful. masters are appearing from the woodwork, and i guess that means the student is ready.

torchbearer

when i serve as an acolyte, i want it to be this composed solemn occasion. a time when i'm ready for what i'm being asked to do. a time when i am prepared, spiritually, mentally, physically.

but it is still my life, which tends to be more laurel and hardy than thomas merton. i woke up early sunday. a good start. but i was so exhausted, i went back to sleep. my daughter kept trying to wake me, which is a perilous task, but someone has to be brave.

so finally, ten miutes before i'm due at church, i drag my exhuasted self out of bed. i wasn't sure why i couldn't wake up, i just couldn't. so i get ready quick as lighting and walk to the church as fast as i can. realizing, when i'm in the parking lot that i had forgotten my glasses. i never forget my glasses. so i tried to press on without them.

i am looking at people but not really comfortable with this blurred vision, and too tired to spend time that way, i go down to the basement dressing room, and decide, i have to go home. i need those glasses or i'll be utterly unfocused the entire time.

so i pop my head in the sachistry, and the priest is talking to the LEM, jane, who will teach me, her beloved husband red, the WWII vet is the one that just passed away. i tell them,

i forgot my glasses.

and i ran home.

we have to light candles soon, so hurry.

jane calls out.

i'm now running through the parking lot, and to my house (which fortunately is very close), but there is the added skill element of snow (winter finally arrived and it's freezing! but i love it. we haven't had a killer snow yet, but a few inches have piled up here and there, enough to make things look pretty).

up two flights of stairs, into my house, my glasses no where to be found, i search and find them, down two flights of stairs, back down another flight of stairs to the basement. i'm pretty frantic by the time i'm getting dressed. i forgot to ask what color rope we wear around our waist, i am not sure how to read the church calendar yet (it was as the lady downstairs dressing had said,

the color of the number on the calendar for that day is the color you wear).

so i am clamboring back up the stairs in my acolyte robe, my cording untied, and trip. i nearly wipe out, but catch myself on the first stair, only thing hurt is my pride and i could use some dashing there.

so helen, lovely 83 years young helen, ties me up. and i get the candlelighty thing. i forget the proper name. by the time i've finished my clamboring, there is only one small tier of candles left to be lit.

when church is about to start, we get the torches. and carry these large pillar candles in the procession, which is very nice. behind the cross, before the choir. we process in. bow at the altar (a habit i'm now grateful i've acquired). we put our torches away in the small nook to the left of the altar, and sit opposite the choir by the priest. from there, i can see the whole church. the backside of the altar, and a lovely stained glass window which in never see, the windows are all tiffany and very fine. but this one, instead of having a pictoral inset, is just shaded glass, greys, blues, pinks. i love the simple diamond cuts, and shading.

at the reading of the gospel, i stood with jane behind the priest. when he was done, and raised the golden book up and kissed it, he turned in his golden vestments and handed me the gold bible. i carry it out of the sanctuary and into the sachistry.

at the offeratory, jane hands me a plate and she takes one. we walk to the head of the aisle, and hand them to the ushers. when they are done, they wait for me to pick up the large golden bowl the plates nest in. i walk to the head of the aisle and wait for the ushers. they place the plates in, and i kneel beside the altar waiting for the hymn to end.

from there i have a view of the rosette tiffany window with the bvm in it. seated on her lap is the son of God. i had always longed to focus on that window. and i got to kneel and look at it for about three minutes or so.

the way her blue robes fold in her lap. the Christ child in red seems to pop from her lap. the yellow halo on her head, the ornate one on his. the blues and reds seem come alive, and the light color of the halos seem ablaze with holiness. there is notching and symbols everywhere in our church. these windows are the same. i could look at them for years and never fully see them entirely. partly because the glasswork is so intricate, but also, because the symbology is unknown to me. though i think i know a great deal of the Church, i don't know a great deal of the church. which is a good place to be.

i've never worshipped in such an aesthetically pleasing environment before. warehouses were the ideal i'd grown accustomed to. scant furnishing, folded chairs. minimalist to be sure. but even more, not lovely. the loveliness of the churches i enjoy come from the people, the true church. rather than the building. so i have never really contemplated the building before. but perched up behind the priest, i can see the vaulted ceilings, how the dark wood beams are carved so delicately and intersect. how the candles flicker in the air. the stations of the cross punctuate the tiffany windows which run the length of the building. it is truly a lovely church.

the thing that most surprises me about my current church is to find such an open atmosphere in a traditional setting. i edited a book which spoke of the traditional churches being steeped in this formalism which would lend itself to postmodern thought. i didn't really believe it, but now i find it to be true. the liturgy is so forgiving. so gracious. so pertinent. it is hard not to bless the soul when one partakes of it.

i have not grown up in these traditional churches. rather, in what i thought to be more open nontraditional, congregational types of churches. but now i find them more fundamentalist than i am able to be at this point. which is surprising to me.

next time, i'm an acolyte. i want to be better prepared. awake and ready for my service.

i've a full day of housecleaning to do, and i must get to it.
may the peace of God reign in your life today.

pindropsilence

i was talking to a poet i just met, and i was describing my read,

you know how the room gets so quiet you can hear a pindrop and all eyes are locked on you?

what's it like,

she asked,

to read a poem?

it's powerful. like this great surge of energy is coursing through me. sometimes i cry because it is such an emotional experience. not the bawling tears of an overwraught woman, but the stream of tears from just so much power that some has to be let out. it didn't start out this way, that i could read for twenty minutes and be strong. i started years ago, one poem, one open mic once every couple months.

(it was a long drive, i was a flake, but i was also just gaining confidence).

how often do you go now?

to an open, at least once a month, i host once a month, and take in other things as i can.

tonight i have an open to attend. it will be packed to the gills with seasoned new jersey poets. they are a tough crowd. it is quite an accomplishment to hear

you're a powerful reader,

from these jaded newjerseyites.

much different than hearing it from your mom, shall we say.

but i find, that when i read, things get silent and still. the best way to describe it is the perfect moment of jean-luc pacard's sweetie in star trek nemesis i think it was. these are perfect moments.

the man at the grocery store, put his arm on my back (i ran over his foot with my cart last week, we always stop and talk to him, and i wondered what that bump was, and he said,

it's okay.

i said,

i'm so sorry, i wondered what that bump was!

this week, he smiled and said,

you're so kind.

thank you,

i said. and it is just because we stop and say hello to him when we walk in.)

yesterday, my girl even said,

mom, why are you in such a good mood today?

because i'm doing what i was created to do.

what does that feel like?

do you know how it feels when you're in art class?

yes.

that is how it feels.

i can't describe it. it didn't happen over night. but one poem led to another, led to another. that is how i ended up here. that is why i got so pissed off about missing the last intensive. it silenced me in ways i could not accept.

if you have a clue what your gifting is, even if you don't (listen to your heart, ask yourself, what do i WANT to do?), then do that thing. maybe not exclusively. let's be real. julia cameron suggests making ten teeny tiny changes. things you can do right now, today. my first list included, get a tan. all i had to do was go outside scantily clad. that was easy to accomplish but it made such a difference in my head. no one told me to stay indoors and get bleached out. i told myself i was too busy to go outside. so i bought a bikini top, slipped in to some shorts, and spent hours outside (i'm not much for eeking slowly into things).

that tan is gone, but the point is not. what ten teeny tiny things can you do, can i do today, to make me feel. to give me hope. to just satisfy some desire. going for a walk was another thing on my list. very doable (plus we were broke then, so i had to do all free stuff).

anyway, i'm not saying quit your day job and start making macrame, i'm saying, ask yourself, what do i want to do and what can i do right this second to move in that direction? don't let money be an issue. there is always something that can be done. the hard part is asking the question and taking time to listen for the answer.

and she didn't even get lost...

so i went to nyc tonight, alone, and made it to the venue, with my chai tea latte in hand (i didn't know if starbucks was being boycotted because their coffee beans had too much caffine or what, not that the activists are the problem, i'm saying, i'm clueless if they were being boycotted it would be classic suz to stroll into a joint with a starbucks Tshirt, venti in hand, and a orange cranberry scone).

so i sat outside of bluestockings on the blue bench chained to the building. with a bike rack across from me, lesbian literature beside me and had my chai latte. i called my sister, because that is what i do, draw her in to my life wherever i happen to be. she encouraged me and i saw the poet who was hosting go by on the bus.

she came by about a half hour later, when i was back on the bench outside yakking with my sister. i reintroduced myself (she had only ever heard me read one poem at an open mic, so she didn't know me from adam basically), and asked if she wanted company wherever she was going. she was going to eat, so i'm glad i joined in.

i had a real slice of nyc pie. and the locals know the best joints. mine had fresh mozarrella and spinach. my favorite, bianca verde. the host, italian that she is kept trying to get me to pronounce it right. berde. but i kept anglicizing it, verde. (even though i'm latin and know better). we sat and talked for a bit while we at our slice and i went for her plate which was sitting on the table,

i'm a mom, it's what i do.

i'm a feminist, give me my damn plate.

she said.

i laughed.

i'm pusing it now.

we walked back to the venue which was sporadically filled at six p.m. but standing room only by the time i read, at 8:30. there were probably twenty people in chairs at the center, the window seats were full, the bookstore register area had salespeople lined up listening. it was a great venue. a great time.

heard lots of cussing and it makes me understand why i'm desensitized to it now. i can't help that i don't mind it. heard lots of descriptions of coitus, and ensuing variations. i guess, that is the topic that most interests people. my set had a couple of those poems in it, but i'm decidedly st8. a manfan all the way.

i had the crowd with me, which was pretty stunning since the other poet i read with was a multimedia spoken word artist who was quite good. she had music accompanying her set and sang a few ditties (long ditties, which were interesting). again, much about coitus.

i had all this transitional garbage to say between my poems, and i dumped it all and hit them straight on with what i brought. i was the closing poet. i jumped right in, read with my usual confidence, and was well received. a couple people left, but it is to be expected. i've been to reads for well known poets with only a handfull of people. this was a crowded joint, granted the joint was small, but it was a great first time out.

who knows where i'll read next.

my girl wanted a souvenier. and i thought some of the items a bit too, um, mature, shall we say. and i could just see her walking in to her presby church with an "i'm a feminist" shirt on. i would have loved it, but it would have been too difficult to explain. so i got her a feminist book on women's history. a girls' guide to life. i figure, i'm not going to raise a clueless girl. we're going to get into some of the difficult topics facing women, and she's a sponge. time to start teaching some women's history to her.

as i said, i'm no feminist, i'm no activist. but i'm willing to listen, to learn, to grow. that is all i hope to do. to remain open to the people and experiences that come my way. to trust the people who need to cross my path to cross my path. and to believe that there is a reason for everything, even the madness going on in my life right now.

my set dealt mostly with domestic violence, sexual abuse, marriage issues and emerging as a woman. becoming whole.

i hope to use that set as the backbone of a poetry book i'm putting together for a new women's voices in poetry contest, for unpublished gals like myself. it would sure be nice if i won and got published that way. it comes with a bit of cash, which i could use.

that's all. i came home to find it had snowed lightly, a dusting, while i was away. so my ride home was glistening. it looked on the outside, like i feel on the inside. regardless of if people will ever come to hear me again, i did it. i read in nyc. and i didn't even get lost on the way there. you'd think i'd lived there.

now if i can just bring myself to cross against the signals (i don't, but everyone else does, even in jersey, it's insane). then i'd look less like a visitor. waiting at the curb for the little white guy in his walking pose to guide me across the street safely.

nyc is a great place at night. i shall have to go back again sometime.

p.s.
for all those who sent me word, or encouragement (one friend text messaged me before i went on. others were sending me good vibrations. many praying me through), thanks! it was a dream. truly. and i'm grateful for your part in it, i needed help through this and getting myself ready for it. so many people listened to me read, talk endlessly about my damn set. i'm glad it's over, for their sake, but i'm also glad for what's ahead. just around the bend, i hear it coming...