thanks, jennifer, for the heads up on this incredibly awesome animated film of the ramayana by the divine nina paley. it’s gorgeous and wildly brilliant and hilarious and heartbreaking and fun. (here’s a times article about the film and here’s how to donate, which is what you will want to do once you watch it, especially because she protected it with a creative commons license.)
and if you feel like you don’t have the 82 minutes to spare, at least check out the trailer, which calls the ramayana “the greatest break-up story ever told.”
i realize i’m just catching up with the rest of the world on this, but this has moved me beyond explanation. i think it just confirms, reminds me of, validates, the truth i know and yearn for most deeply. sopping with good tears. watch the whole thing.
“we are the life force power of the universe with manual dexterity.” indeed.
3) my new glasses, which sort of make me feel like i work in a science lab
4) that i worked up the chutzpah to stop spinning and just ask the question i needed to ask even though i felt stupid and vulnerable and like i shouldn’t be feeling what i’m feeling.
5) that i got a great, satisfying, real answer
6) sprouted wheat papparadelle
7) when people trust me with their secrets
8) when i can trust someone with my secrets (which hasn’t happened much lately, but it’s a really lovely, light, lifing (ooh, i meant lifting, but lifing is so much better) feeling).
9) getting out this weekend and sitting by a stream on the matte flat river rocks. and feeling the life in them. stones, alive. they really are.
10) you, again, all of you, for reading. i namaste.
11) feeling like i need to say something edgy here because the rest are so soft. which is interesting because i feel not soft at all today. i feel like swirls of broken glass. so what am i grateful for? still, the feeling of river rocks and sunshine and dressing warm enough for 55 degrees so it feels warmer not colder because i decided to wear a skirt or something. you know?
on a king-sized bed, wifi, gigantic jacuzzi tub, stream outside, tea, warm socks, chocolate. yum. does it count as a retreat if i’m blogging? or if my brain is hammering away at me with the same old broken-record thoughts and obsessions? well, i think even so, yes. it’s lovely here in ye olde ‘stock. i ran into someone i haven’t seen since 1995 when we lived in bunkbeds next to each other at kripalu. that was neat. (hi, a!)
i am grateful for…
1) how the phrase “obama administration” just never gets old
2) spontaneous yoga class at bliss up here
3) that my birthday is soon. i know, but i think this will be a good year, even if i’m older. because i’m sooo much wiser? or hope to be. or something.
4) the incredible writing class i just started taking. oh kids, it is da bomby bomb bomb. i’m very excited and scared in a good way.
5) the crazy series of cool coincidences i’ve been having
6) the newish shrink
7) bead board–in places that are not my home
8) genmaicha
9) the unbelievably fantastic japanese place s. took me to the other night. can you say sweet potato ice cream with mango, mint, and strawberry? and fantastic gyoza? and silky sake? yumm.
i am grateful for…
1) purging my house of extra stuff
2) spending a lot less time on facebook
3) the sunshine today
4) that the other blog is doing well
5) organic chocolate milk
6) spending 7 hours on work-work this weekend
7) that i signed up for an 8-week essays-to-memoir class today that starts tomorrow
8) fierce yoga with s. and c. last night @ the fierce club
9) that the story is going to fact-check bedtime out-of-my-hands time
10) lush shea butter bath bombs
11) that i’m getting upstate this weekend
12) organizing
13) running into j. just before he left town and him telling me about how the sedona method uses “letting go” and “welcoming” synonymously
14) getting allergy tested today–so interesting; the ragweed one blew up to the size of a quarter
15) cauliflower
16) natasha, r.i.p.
17) getting to see and catch up with the lovely r. (and my first visit to tabla!)
18) talking to another olde maui friend on the phone. lovely to connect and hear about that island i so miss and love
19) that all this pain in my heart must mean i’m alive (right? or is it joy that determines that?). i’m ok, just like, enough, already, universe. you know?
re-reading tom robbins is getting me through the cold and gray with some juice intact. here are some of the quotes from “still life with woodpecker”–which you probably need to read or re-read too–that i’m most grateful for.
“Hawaii made the mouth of her soul water.”
“Next, she thought, ‘When two people meet and fall in love, there’s a sudden rush of magic. Magic is just naturally present then. We tend to feed on that gratuitous magic without striving to make any more. One day we wake up and find that the magic is gone. We hustle to get it back, but by then it’s usually too late, we’ve used it up. What we have to do is work like hell at making additional magic right from the start. It’s hard work, especially when it seems superfluous and redundant, but if we can remember to do it, we greatly improve our chances of making love stay.’ She was unsure if that idea was profound or trite. She was only sure that it mattered.”
“…the ring of truth being the finest sound there is, although there are noises some women make in bed that are definitely in contention.”
“the word that allows yes, the word that makes no possible.
the word that puts the free in freedom and takes the obligation out of love.
the word that throws a window open after the final door is closed.
the word upon which all adventure, all exhilaration, all meaning, all honor depends.
the word that fires evolution’s motor of mud.
the word that the cocoon whispers to the caterpillar.
the word that molecules recite before bonding.
the word that separates that which is dead from that which is living.
the word no mirror can turn around.
in the beginning was the word and the word was
CHOICE”
“If a heart won’t listen to a vagina, what will it listen to?”
“What had disturbed Leigh-Cheri most about Bernard’s note was its evidence of how little he understood her. Like women in general, like Aries women in particular, like redheaded Aries women in greater particular, she loathed to be misunderstood.”
“How can one person be more real than any other? Well, some people do hide and others seek. Maybe those who are in hiding–escaping encounters, avoiding surprises, protecting their property, ignoring their fantasies, restricting their feelings, sitting out the Pan pipe hootchy-kootch of experience–maybe those people, people who won’t talk to rednecks, or if they’re rednecks who won’t talk to intellectuals, who’re afraid to get their shoes muddy or their noses wet, afraid to eat what they crave, afraid to drink Mexican water, afraid to be a long shot to win, afraid to hitchhike, jaywalk, honky-tonk, cogitate, osculate, levitate, rock it, bop it, sock it, or bark at the moon, maybe such people are inauthentic, and maybe the jackleg humanist who says differently is due to have his tongue fried on the hot slaps of Liar’s Hell. Some folks hide, and some folks seek, and seeking when it’s mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren’t afraid to look and won’t turn tail should they find it–and if they never do, they have a good time anyway, because nothing, neither the terrible truth nor the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of earth’s sweet gas.”
i mean, can’t i just be cooked already? fully sane, fully compassionate, fully awake, aware, and alive? and in a great, conscious relationship with a beautiful, alive, smart, open, tender, funny, real mate? and fully career actualized? and contributing to the world? and loaded with cash? and living in a beautiful, comfy, eco, happy home? and ensconced in nature? and completely ease-ful and healthy and balanced in body and mind? can i, can i? now? are we there yet? are we there?
k. yeah. thought so.
i am grateful for….
1) red baraat festival, the indian wedding marching band at barbes. and j for getting me there.
2) closet-purging
3) jj and kk and little a and the amazing homemade goat-cheese pizza heaven
4) haagen dazs five
5) krishna das and the way the music just soothes me right back inside
6) the botanical gardens
7) water
8) being loved too, however distantly and oddly
9) hafiz
10) new shoes
11) not taking in the news media for the moment. sorry. i know. i just can’t right now. soon.
sorry, folks. i’ve been way distracted by the new blog and things going on at work and in my crazy life that feels really star-wars-trash-compactor scene right now. so it’s high time for some gratitudinal action, yo.
i am grateful for:
1) gizmo, my step-sister’s little puppy with a cone around its head
2) having a nice chat with lw on facebook just now about men and love and stuff
3) emu oil!
4) that two colleagues actually swept me away and helped me out because apparently it was obvious i was drowning. totally touched.
5) being brave enough to end a complicated (non-romantic) relationship. or at least change the terms dramatically. i think i’m getting better at trying to get my needs met in more direct, less emotional ways.
6) my pink silk nighty. silk is so soft, it makes me feel so comforted.
7) going to prana power yoga with j after work today even tho i had gone to kula in the morning. sooo sweaty and stress-wringing
8) new cute shoes–zappos i heart you
9) l.l. cool j’s “backseat of my jeep.” it’s so bad and so good and makes me want to dance all night lawg, baybee
10) that i’m getting my haircut tomorrow/today
11) coffee
12) i know i keep saying this, but my amazing friends who all keep me on track, some with heavier lifting than others, all with so much love.
13) my new foam roller. you need one too: performbetter.com
14) the glorious turquoise ocean i swam in last weekend. florida.
15) working out with rocco the trainer–he of the foam roller
16) that the new blog is doing well and giving me an outlet of sorts
17) venus, even though she is retrograding like a motha right now…
