a bunch of stuff.

1) samba and brasil day and dancing

2) that i’m going to omega tomorrow to dance and chant and swim (tho i’m not sure it’s possible to be grateful for something that hasn’t happened yet. is it?)

3) shared mastery

4) knowing that i’m not the only one who finds ground zero to be energetically bereft and devastated, still

5) basically everything that’s happened in the last 30 hours or so

6) that i have a couple of extra days off

7) “smoke and mirrors” by RJD2

8) restaurant tables with paper and crayons

9) yoga teachers who aren’t afraid to touch your sweaty back

10) women who can really, really dance

i’m a little late to the party on this one. but if you haven’t seen it, it’s def jam poetry meets rousing political rallying cry. made me kind of teary.

hey again,

just wanted to share a recent love-project from work. an interview with writer mark matousek who wrote “sex, death, enlightenment,” a very cool memoir that rocked me in my 20s. he has a new book called “when you’re falling dive” about transforming crisis into growth. Here’s our edited chat on Beliefnet:

The Alchemy of Crisis

what i’m grateful for on a quiet solo eve in brooklyn on labor day weekend.

1) Getting a seat on the subway tonight
2) Meditating in my room for a full half hour
3) The people who are somewhat convincing me that Sarah Palin doesn’t spell disaster for the Obama campaign
4) Avocado
5) That I was able to talk myself down from a hormone-inspired inner turbulence (though not before almost crying in frustration in front of my boss and surely upsetting him and then me and then him because that’s how those things seem to go)
6) That I’m able to say “I forgive you” to me for that and almost sort of mean it (”I’m sorry” to him is hopefully next)
7) That dudes are checking me out
8) The incredible Labor Day weekend in NYC quietude
9) That the fruit flies seem to have simmered down–they were really replicating for a while there
10) This fortune cookie quote on my wall: “Your blessing is being safe and sound for your whole lifetime”

things i’m grateful for tonight. obama fever in the air.

1) obamarama
2) this historic day
3) the palpable hope
4) black lava sea salt from kalustyans
5) sunshine
6) watching gore talk with 200 applauding liberals in a chinatown bar
7) fresh figs
8) malia and sasha
9) friiiiday
10) the love vibe from the woman who made my iced coffee this morning. it was her first day on the job. love those surprising warm moments.

today i am grateful for these! mexican sour gherkins that look like baby watermelons and taste like sweet-tart cukes. More on Morse’s batch at the Union Square Market.

thing i’m grateful for today:

1) having dinner on kb’s sweet porch

2) that i got up for yoga this morning

3) working on a project that means something to me today

4) that i finally called an agent to make a time for a book chat (my self-sabotage seems to be most manifesty in my procrastination)

5) that i can go to sleep in a minute

6) you, reading

7) that i got to laugh a little at work today while collaborating on the homepage

8) baby ferrets

9) these amazing fat-free (but not weird) fudge pops

10) stars

still delightfully august. also, annoyingly monday. so, let’s see….

1) that it’s still august
2) that i overslept by two hours and 20 minutes and the earth still stayed in rotation (and i got much-needed sleep)
3) lunch and chatting with j.
4) my confused, alive solar plexus
5) magenta
6) goats and their milk
7) pema, pema, pema
8) poetry
9) the pinhole opening in my heart
10) light
11) leonard cohen’s this:
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.”

re-loving this poem:

To Have Without Holding

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can’t do it, you say it’s killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

-Marge Piercy

on an eve in aug. after a rich-like-triple-chocolate-cake weekend.

1) the cashews, apples, and brownie
2) the lake and the woods
3) hanging out with k. at her stoop sale today
4) the angels
5) that i really had a summer and that it’s not quite over yet
6) yoga
7) r.b.
8) breathing
9) water
10) tree-lined brooklyn