thanks to l. for this.

The Happy Virus

I caught the happy virus last night

When I was out singing beneath the stars.

It is remarkably contagious -

So kiss me.

-Hafiz

hola. it’s not gratitudey, but, well, i wrote about a hard, bummer night i had recently and how i got out of it with sun salutes. on the new blog: http://blog.beliefnet.com/freshliving/2009/02/it-was-a-stressful-weekend.html

xo

i’m grateful that/for:

1) mamma mia–so much greek glistening water abba meryl fun!
2) feeling a sminch more on top of things
3) that i seem to have opened up a cool inner conduit
4) that i’m going to j.’s dancey birthday party tomorrow night. and little a’s 1-year birthday cruise on sunday
5) that the teacher was all handsy with me in yoga this morning. i think spending half the class thinking “adjust me, adjust me, adjust me” might be a small sign i need to be touched more.
6) meeting bob thurman and karen armstrong last night. she was being swept off to be filmed but he had a sec and was so very present. and then i got to see them talk for an hour about the monastic life and the common thread of compassion that runs through all religions. really interesting and inspiring and reminded me that i could, in fact be a monk of some kind. just dedicate my life to god. except the whole no-touching part, that would be hard.
7) having a new blog to play on
8) public transportation
9) bags. they really free up hands.
10) that my emu-based lip balm is coming in the mail. (if you are chapped it will heal you. amazing.)
11) feeling like a little bit of a hot mama. even tho i’m turning ooold in like 6 weeks.
12) having a bit of a crush and not knowing what/if
13) daisies in february
14) having a job
15) that someone created music
16) my rice cooker–rice, salmon, swiss chard–one pot to clean!
17) having facebook to monitor the moods of my colleagues
18) the notion that thurman and armstrong were talking about last night–about sweeping away your ego to serve the other. and wondering how the hell you do that.
19) big bird
20) belly dancers

hi all. i would like to introduce to you the new blog i get paid to write on beliefnet: fresh living. it’s about living a more holistic, healing, and vibrant life. i’m co-writing it with the delightful and insightful holly lebowitz rossi. would love for you to read, link, become addicted, and help us create a community of like-minded soul-seekers, body-healers, and happiness-reachers.

i am grateful for:

1) a wonderful weekend in the eastern berkshires x-country skiing with great people, good food, and solar power
2) hanging with a. in tha b.k.
3) listening to more music
4) doing a whole, sweaty 90-minute yoga practice in my bedroom monday
5) making some progress on my collaborative journal with j.
6) the nitrous trip in the dental chair and accompanying spiritual hallucinations/revelations
7) gigantic hooded sweatshirts
8) the organic clementine from j.
9) my second osteopath appointment–even tho they appear to make me cry later in the day. which makes sense–lung stuff=grief, allegedly
10) my hip-hop guardian angel
11) this amazing elizabeth gilbert TED clip, which i will ask you to watch on my new work blog, which would love your traffic and feedback and commenting love.
12) the post getting some well-deserved hatin’

i’m grateful….
1) that j. made me go to yoga tonight
2) a good hair day
3) getting nice touch from an osteopath
4) the ipod oracle shuffle game (ask a question, hit shuffle, get your answer)
5) to m. for suggesting rebecca solnit’s “getting lost” which i really like so far
6) that i did not throw a waterbottle at my shrink’s head last night even tho i dearly wanted to (change my thoughts? really? thanks!)
7) shifting slightly from really sad and pissed off and tired, from being sick, from being assaulted by my berating thoughts. it was a crappy day but, well, yoga.
8) my yogurt/berries/uncle sam’s cereal/raisins/cinnamon combo treat
9) integral market
10) the way balmier weather is so relaxing on your skin. almost like touch.
11) “the games people play.” a really good, old-school book about transactional analysis, or the overt and covert dynamics at play between people.

oh rob breszny, i psychically twirl you on the divine funky dance floor of my soul. “we can make sandwiches….”

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I invite you to get all the mind-blowing sex you can this Valentine season, Aries. The entire cosmos will be on your side if you generate erotic wonders that rearrange your thought processes. For best results, cultivate the attitude described by the philosopher Voltaire in a letter to his partner Marie Louise Denis: “Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed.”

The same day I had my second-to-last chemotherapy treatment I got word that I was cancer-free. The PET scan showed nada. That was four years ago tomorrow. So that makes February 10 my fourth cancer-free-aversary. Here’s the post I blogged that day:

That’s a whole gratitude list right there. But why stop there? Here are some cancer-related things I am grateful for. Things that surface when I think about that time and the healing thread since–along with the nausea and the lump in my throat that feels like tears and a whoop and a puke all at once.

ANYWAY. Blar.

10 Things I’m Grateful for, Cancer Edition ™
1) That my hair grew back exactly as it was
2) That my lady-time returned and the hot flashes ceased and I seem to have resumed my egg-dropping
3) My beautiful chemo buddies and C. for orchestrating them all
4) Avantika the amazing chemo- and wise words-dispenser nurse
5) My big beautiful bear of a Dr. Z.
6) T.
7) That people’s suffering scares me a little less now
8) That something is different in me, though I don’t know exactly what it is or how to describe it. A knowing? A “cracks are where the light gets in” sort of thing?
9) That all of these words feel totally inadequate. It’s like a secret I can’t share because I can’t say it or write it. Occasionally it will pass through eye contact, a knowing with someone who also knows. This is a good thing. Especially for someone comfortable talking about her ovulation patterns on the internet (see #2).
10) My parents
11) Mary and God and my guides and angels, who, in my stiller moments, I realize turbo-boosted me. And are still at my service, in a way. And that I can say that now even though I’m a little afraid it will make you write me off or like me less.
12) The healthy veins in my hands
13) How it reminded me of the amazing love I have in my life, a net of support that continues to blow me away
14) Having three months “off,” even if I was vomiting and questioning my mortality and losing my hair and having hot flashes and taking 9,000 prescriptions, most of them no fun at all
15) Discovering that I’m a person who, in the midst of all that kind of crap still cracks bad jokes.
16) Getting to meet M., the coolest survivor ever
17) Watching from a distance the amazing Matthew Zachary build I’m Too Young for This
18) Being part of a community of survivors I don’t really know and haven’t really tapped into yet. But I like knowing they’re there.
19) Being able to pass along getting-through-chemo-happier tips
20) Oh. And: Health. Feeling good enough to complain. Feeling good enough to lose perspective. Maybe that’s it right there. The thing I’m most grateful to cancer for is… it’s not that normal suffering doesn’t seem that bad. Or that I’m grateful for every moment. But it’s like when I got a yellow rain slicker in fifth grade and felt like every other kid. See? Inadequate. But thanks for hanging in there. Still smoodging all this stuff out. Love.

i haven’t laughed this hard in a while…

i’m still sick. and kind of sad from being sick and alone all week and feeling all alone in the world. and poooooooor me! i’m literally sitting in the dark, feeling all weepy and weird and thinking about men and desire and safety and family and closeness and having a place in the family of things.

ooooook. morbid mcmopiness.

i am GRATEFUL for:
1) a guy named bernard i met while waiting for my lunch to-go from gen, this great japanese place near me. i asked what was in his leather bow-shaped bag–like a yoga mat bag or a bow-and-arrow bag or a gun bag. i asked, what’s in the bag? well, i asked, may i ask what’s in the bag? but i mumbled because i am curious but shy and had to repeat myself a couple of times until i said, what’s in the bag. dude is big–wide and tall–dreadlocks, mid-fifties. and turns out it’s a japanese flute made of bamboo. he plays court music and folk music with it. and he even pulled it out to show me. it was lovely burnished bamboo. we talked for a while about obama’s spy-proof blackberry which i didn’t know about and i explained to him about j. crew (michelle, sasha, and malia have been wearing them). and since the service was ghastly (a newbie waitress out of central casting for bad, befuddled, sweet waitresses) there was a while. he’s a welder by trade. iron workers 261, i believe. anyway, it was nice to talk to someone. god, i sound like a 500-year-old lady. it’s the winter and the sick. i hope.
2) that i seem to be mending. but so slowly. it really is odd. and a little bit scary. the whole immune system thing. i need to have a really good one, because, well, you know. and it seems kind of weakened and that scares me.
3) roller boogie successory of the day
4) the song i got from them called “sandwiches” by detroit grand pubahs. sample lyrics (ok, the only lyrics): “i know you wanna do it. you know i wanna do it too. out here on the dance floor, we can make sandwiches. you can be the bun and i can be the burger girl… so make your thighs like butter, easy to spread.”
5) realizing that in the song “genius of love” there’s a lyric that sounds like “obama, obama, obama”
6) the movie hair. i watched it last night. man, has it held up. go twyla. and treat. really fun. and brave. it was the first r-rated movie i saw. in the theater when i was five. i remember being shocked by berger peeing off the bandshell. the ending is llllaaaame (and apparently different from the play). but other than that, yum.
7) that j. picked up my chinese herbs for me! thanks, j.
8) that i have so many talented, smart, cool-ass friends.
9) water
10) a new idea i’ve got for a blog. stay tooooned!