the flow

i know there are a lot of ways to feel it, to be with it. i experience it differently depending on the day, the hour, the week. something about my movement through life, i am finding it is not linear, absolutely not linear.

i do not know if time travel is possible, but i have spent so much time in my memories, my dreams, my present, that i often lean more toward yes, it is possible, than no.

what is time anyway.

i don't mean clock time. i'm not necessarily talking about the movement of the sun, the ticking off of days according to some calendar. think about it for a moment. the now. it is expansive and retractive, depending on the moment itself.

remember that song, the one playing the first time you kissed her, or the band that you went to see on your first date. how is it, that when you hear or encounter those things, a wash of memory, of emotion, of something akin to time comes into the now. into the present moment.

what is that, exactly.

remember how her hair stuck straight up when she woke up that first morning you slept together. how she looked when you were curled up beside her watching her sleep. the line of her eyes intersecting the pillow, the way it smooshed her face up and she was so relaxed, at peace. and you tiptoed away to start the coffee and fry some potatoes. when you lay that extra blanket over her, she nuzzled into it, as you returned to your preparations for morning. now, when you reach for that pan, slice up those potatoes, set the coffee to brew, it all comes back in a flash, an instant so brief, yet so ripe with memory it feels timeless, that the flash of it, like lightning, is all you need to remind you.

i have these moments when it is all so then, yet entirely now. these are the moments that convince me of the fluidity of time. we cannot travel down a road and not be changed. we cannot step into the same river twice, yet we are forever stepping into that river for the first time.

does this make sense. are you following.

i have always had these glimpses of tomorrow. flashes of the future, and when some come to pass, i have understood it to be

dejavu.

though i have heard prophetic types describe that instance as

confirmation

a certainty that you are on track. where you should be. mind you, the flashes are ever in flux, times and people, decisions change. there is no set path. there is always freedom to change direction, and for that i am grateful. for we cannot know, we can never know what the moment will bring. we can only trust that all that needs to happen does. the moment is complete in and of itself. there is nothing to add to it, and nothing to take away.

do you look through the same eyes in every situation then.

true, you are still the same person, the same spirit, the same being. but are you truly the same, unaltered person each moment of your life. i do not think so. some would call it decay, that the body is degenerating.

but i like to think of it as a ripening process. we are blossoming. we are finding ourselves. we are becoming who we are more with each moment, each acceptance, each lesson learned. the actual physical body, or the eyes, may indeed be the same in the technical sense, i am not looking out of your eye sockets. but the eyes themselves, not the function of them, but the essence of them, the spirit, that is, is evolving. that's a loaded word. that is why i like the concept of blossoming.

perhaps it is possible to be in perpetual bloom. i would like to think it is. and every morning, the flower opens her petals again. so, with those fresh eyes, those freshly peeled eyes, you get a chance to glimpse your day. your moment, anew.

that, to me, coupled with the intersection of memory and foresight, is what comprises what i will call time travel. we are fluid. we are being. we are energy.

static is the exception, not the rule.

may it be so

tonight i was in some ungodly pose when sophie came over and said,

you are so strong and flexible, more than even three weeks ago.

mind you, my feet, not just a foot, or an area of the foot, but my entire two feet cramped up after a moon salutation tonight. i got cramps in my thighs and rib cage (didn't know rib cages could cramp, but mine did tonight), and i'm not sure what else was going on. needless to say, i was not at my most powerful. but i have been taking gentle yoga from sophie. two separate sessions of it. and while it is not physically taxing, it is helping me to slow down and connect with my breath. i have been wanting that, been needing that. and not always do i get it. but i'm moving at such a fast pace most of my regular life that when i get into yoga and i'm jumping and trying to keep up, it doesn't help me attain the proper form.

i think my form is okay, that is, it doesn't suck entirely, but now that i've been in gentle yoga, i've slowed down enough to settle into a pose. to feel it in my bones. i think i was just feeling it in my muscles before. and maybe that's what i needed. it must have been, because we get what we need.

but now. there is a quiet and calm that settles over me like a cloud when i enter the yoga room and sit on my mat. i am often one of the first ones in the room, so i lay out my mat and spread myself out. my mind still races, but at least i remember to breathe now.

i told sophie this about a year and a half ago.

breathing is hard!

i just couldn't get it. but now, i think, i've not got it completely, but i am closer to it than ever before.

i'm tired. i'm stretched out. i'm ready to rest.

thank you,

i said to sophie.

no, thank you,

she replied.

aftermath

i keep trying to keep the jersey shore and new york fresh in my mind, because it is so easy to get caught up in pettiness. i realize, i don't have half the problems most people in jersey have right now. i'm trying to keep that in perspective.

it's curious, the way we are so dependent on technology. that we can't really survive without it, it seems. and not just technology, but artificial environments. i guess that is the genius of the human brain, that we can inhabit uninhabitable places by piping water into deserts and having big air conditioners. also by owning big heaters and using tons of fuel to keep warm in really cold climates.

the dependence on infrastructure has me thinking. what would i do if we really had an emergency and i had to survive au naturale. how would i even begin to know how to build a fire and hunt my own food. let alone find something to wear or some place to call home. there has to be some balance, i think. there has to be some familiarity with nature and an ability to adapt to rustic living if and when there ever is a real emergency (in my area, let me qualify that statement right now). i understand many, MANY people are now forced into this real emergency situation, and i wonder how to even being to help. where to start.

some part of me just wanted to not contribute to the chaos that was beginning to unfold around me. people who had gas, waiting in eight hour gas lines, makes no sense. if everyone just holed up and rationed (a concept unfamiliar to americans) their gas, their food, their essentials, then perhaps those who really needed to be out and about and using the gas would have it. emergency workers, etc.

i understand we live in a day and age when we have a no work, no pay system. we all seem to suffer when these kinds of events take place and there isn't much that can change that, nor do i think it likely to change any time soon.

but we americans are also inclined toward excess, and while i am all for preparing for disaster, i don't think hoarding is the answer. whether that applies to gas, food, water, what have you. the scarcity mentality strikes me as odd because we are a rich (even the least wealthy in this country far surpass the impoverished of other countries) people. we just don't see it.

my preparedness, while it could be thought of as the lazy way, was to know we were going to eat and cook what i already had in my freezer and pantry. i have plenty in there. during the week we were home, i got creative and cooked up some things i'd been meaning to make. i knew we would be all right, even if our power went out, because we had so much in the pantry. if we didn't have an actual meal, that wouldn't kill us. it would inconvenience us. it would be different than we are used to, for sure. but it won't be the end of us.

i didn't acutally shop for groceries until the friday after sandy came to town. and didn't shop again until the next week because i'd run out of eggs and milk. i'm not entirely sure this is the best approach since people shop like armageddon is upon us even when they are not directly in the path of a storm.

what i wish, what i hope, is that from this sandy disaster, which is still very much affecting my loved ones, who continue almost two weeks now without power, i wish that the christmas spirit, the giving spirit, the brother's keeper spirit would start to kick in and that the hoarding would stop.

if we just shared a little, everyone would have enough. please check on your neighbors and friends. they may need you, even if they say no.

differently

i have always subscribed to the theory that those who love me, love my child. they are not in my life if they do not accept my child alongside me. this has always been the case. the tacit agreement being others are in my life to contribute a different color, fabric, or weft to my particular woof.

the hard part about this is, seeing patterns. patterns i, as the adult, had never believed possible. when my grams raised us, we obeyed. blindly in many cases, but with respect regardless. i understood this way of being. it was, and probably is, why i have such difficulty with authority and being an authority figure. it's a complicated bag for me baby.

on the one hand, i am not my grandmother. that is understood with much sadness, but much gratitude as well. i have had opportunity, education, experience far different than hers. i love and honor her way of being in the world and think she made castles out of crapcakes most of her life. hers was not an easy lot by any stretch.

the ease of someone's lot does not determine much, in my mind. we all have our own particular brand of burden. mine, may be far easier for you to carry, while yours may suit me just fine. which is why they are assigned to each her own. and by looking in on you and you looking in on me, we can

share the load,

as they say.

what perplexes me most, is perhaps the vast array of shit that can go wrong. i know about it. i understand it. i lived my teenage years in such a haze of confusion, i rejoice daily that my girl does not carry that particular burden. she has her own. which she handles, as you can imagine, differently.

so when i come to what i see as a crossroads. and i stand there, looking up one road and down another. baffled, i may be, but this i know. i have done my best. it has not been perfect, never could be. i have not been my grams, because i am not my grams. and curiously enough, i keep finding papertowels stuffed here and there, places i don't normally have papertowels. i am very utilitarian, and if something has a function, i use if for that amen. so the papertowel as tissue option is really not, for me. tissues are tissues. but today, when i drew a stowed papertowel from my coat pocket, i couldn't remember what had brought it there and said,

hi gramsy.

since i couldn't think of anything better. it had to be what it was. i don't tend to hang on to papertowels much past their designated service: wiping a counter, corralling mandarin rinds. yet, there it was. now as i lay here, contemplating everything parenting, gramsy, of course is the one that comes to mind. i want my child to turn out like she turned us out (though i know a lot of that is we turned out ourselves, but it's a nice thought). perhaps it's just wishful thinking. perhaps combined with some delusion. but these are the moments, in times past, when i would pick up the phone and call my gramsy. maybe, just maybe, she stashed the papertowel, so i would know she is still with me.

we are safe

i keep reciting this to myself, a mantra of sorts. while we have no power, no water, no heat, and no phone service,

we are safe.

this is all that matters.

so when the complexities of relationship and life begin to rear their heads, i try to focus on that one simple phrase, and breathe.

we are safe.

i meant to be very productive. i always mean to be productive, but i had a plan for this time indoors. i was going to organize my life and make things happen. i did that, to some degree, but then, i just got tired of doing it. and i stopped. maybe that was my mistake. my forward momentum halted, i languished. i drove around town a bit, finding some roads blocked. some clogged. and all of this, while out of touch with my loved ones.

i reached a few of them, on the west coast, but found the conversations did not serve to assuage my ever rising angst. so here i sit, trying to shake it off. trying to remember,

we are safe.

and breathe.

i don't want to be this woefully connected to and by technology that i cannot make it through a day or two without it. i like to think better of my mental health than that. i am the one who opted to dumb down my smartphone, aren't i. so as i drove the town like a junky looking for a dealer, i realized, i didn't sever the connection only the outward appearance of connection. that isn't, and hasn't ever been, good enough.

i'm not entirely sure how to go from here. where to go from here. what to make of this place. only this i know,

we are safe.

that must be enough.

same time this year

it seems we keep having this hurricane thing happening around halloween. meanwhile, my daughter is busily sewing the costume she may not be able to wear. such is life.

so much happens in a year, but there are still the same lines, the same concerns as last year. though i am hoping, with experience, we are better prepared. i don't have tv so i have no idea what the news is saying as i'm finding my web feeds unreliable at best, maybe i'm just looking in the wrong places, or not looking hard enough.

truth be told, last year i made sun tea and checked out movies. this year, i just made sun tea, didn't have time to get to the library for the movies. so i plan to pass the indoor time rearranging my summer/winter wardrobe.

today i worked at the deli and people were buying forty dollars worth of cupcakes to "weather the storm" and it just made me think how american we are. it is true, this is going to be a tough storm, but what can we really do. where can we go. just have to buckle down and ride it out. our water is already off, has been off since early this afternoon. who knows what will happen next, i'm hoping for the best.

i've been trying to force myself to stay awake as long as possible, but i'm really tired now, having worked all day and coming home and doing a (in hindsight) very wise, rush cleaning job. i couldn't have sandy visit without scrubbing my toilet, i mean, really!

truly though, i hope my loved ones, are safe. and that we fare this storm well. all of us. even those i don't know. i trust, in a pinch, we can band together. i trust it will be well.

november reading in east harlem

i'm participating in a reading in el barrio (east harlem), ny on 11/3 from 3-5pm, the reading will be held at la casa azul bookstore. should be a good time :D