The Biggest Muscle

My heart is big enough to encompass the joy and sorrow both. Disappointment, suffering, mentally created anguish over imagined events, wrongful assumptions and getting all worked up when there's just no cause. I'm learning to breathe into the many waves of life's emotions, to accept each new bout with grace or disaster as my equal friend and my hard wrought lessons. Not one to be amiss for long, I tend to create what I want while life keeps handing me what I need.

Recently a friend said, "God doesn't always give you the person, place, the thing you want. but always, instead, you get what you need." Starting to sound like an old Stones song. I guess psychedelics can bring on the same realizations as winging through life with open eyes and an ever larger, more accepting heart. The shortcut, drug induced, or sped up by the rock and roll lifestyle, is hardly preferable to the full on non-stop adventure in the heart, mind, and soul that is this woman's life. But I really liked what I thought she meant, religious overtones aside (she's a bit of a zealot, truth be told). Still, I wouldn't trade this funny life of mine for the moon. My heart, the biggest muscle I can fathom, grows huger every day as I keep, as Adrianne Rich said, "diving into the wreck" only to discover that I've been (and persist in being, sometimes still) the biggest obstacle to my own peace. So as I learn, at a snail's pace, to expand my big, boundless muscle, I notice joys piling up beside the sorrows, making my life a series of mountains, valleys, rivers and lakes. All full of potential for beauty and all capable of guiding me deeper into the riches of simple, unequivocal joy. Mining for spirit, churning up the crud and the diamonds together, I flex my heart muscle to include everything and everyone. Even those who don't understand, who disappoint, who can't give what I hope for, who serve to help me lose my way-- giving me the gift of those dark times, where I can encounter the truest parts of myself. I keep on going, not giving up, just encompassing it all in the myriad chapters that are writing the book called "Stacy". And sure, there are little chapters with captions that say things like, "Childhood: Light and Dark," "Iowa: Helpless (Neil Young)" OlyWA," "China," "New York: The Jason Years" " Tim # 1, 2 and 3," "Diego--Light of My Life," "Philadelphia," "Chicago Redux: You Never Thought it Could Happen to You Twice" and now, "Dreaming of the Next Great Adventure While I Hang Out in Purgatory". My life has been incredibly tied to my own experience. Whose isn't? It's just that I am starting to realize, these things are supremely personal and at once universal--your book is titled with your moniker and your chapters are all about you, but aren't we sharing the same human experience? Don't our hearts beat much like everyone else's? Can you find a home with a mustard seed who has never lost someone they love? http://hubpages.com/hub/buddhistblog

Expanding out this way, my life becomes more akin to those ripples in the ocean that enfold every creature and every motion of the universe we share. Of course, I want things to be a certain way, to turn out like such and such, to be what I want when I want it or--what? I'll have a meltdown, like Diego this morning? Possibly. I'll never be free from desire. Still, I am learning to accept the teachers, the places, the unfolding of all life's mysteries as a magic; as lovely as the emergence of a butterfly whose tiny flapping wings are somehow a part of something as huge as a typhoon. Like that fluttering wingspan, I am hitting these keys, making my waves, flapping my little wings. Better yet, I'm stretching that sore, tired, yet never giving up muscle as big as it can go to take the whole of my life inside of it-- along with yours, and everyone else's--to bless us all with peace.

Peace is possible, my friends. We are making it, slow as the slug that leaves a slippery trail. Stretch that muscle that ain't let you down yet. I love each and every one of you, whether you believe me or not. But most of all, I am learning that I need to love this big, rubber band that keeps thrumming along, snapping a beat inside my watery chest. It's a lovely sound, that heartsong. And it's mine, yours, and all of ours who are lucky enough to draw breath on this lovely, live host of ours that graces us with each everlasting moment.

The Accidental Garden of Delight

This post is an offering, an explanation, a rambling. A really backwards sort of birthday gift to a certain three year old child that has two crazy parents, a funny family and has had a wild little life so far. And now, a bit of an apology and a reworking of an original inquiry into the matter of my dearest little doppelganger. I recently was compelled by someone to explain, just how, I came to the place where I decided that Diego was the best possible accident that could have ever happened to me. So, prompted to review the past few years, the whole sodden thing, by a very special person who in no way will be roasted in this post...I want to once again reiterate the query that was posed to me one recent, lovely evening, over a shared dinner and a cozy night in my favorite place in PA. A wonderfully handsome, absolutely adorable person whom I would like to shower with all the flowers and poetry that he can withstand wanted to know something about me, wondered what, if anything, I was thinking when I made the choice that has changed my life irrevocably, beyond my naive comprehension.

Let's face it: this child was in no way planned. Nor was he born to two people who loved one another, had a history, or even were dating seriously. Everyone who knows me well knows exactly what our relationship was--a rebound gone wrong scenario with my ex-boyfriend's roommate. Here I was hooking up with a person who likes to scale walls and who (still) finds it exasperating that I am oblivious to hip hop culture. Someone with several aliases and at least nine tattoos. A guy who claims he hates recycling. For a hippie chick who loves mountains, farming, and whose common denominator with this dude was something combustible of the color green, this was not a match made in the stars. From the outset, things were stacked against us. I hung in there despite some pretty obvious signs that this was a leaky ass rowboat. And most people would wonder why I made the choices I did. To have a baby, in this situation, takes some kind of chutzpah (if that's what they're calling it these days although Tim would probably have some start rapping some Juvenile song about his baby mama drama). Raising a child on my own is not something I ever pictured and I didn't really want that. However, I am the type of person who throws herself into things wholeheartedly, and when life hands me a challenge I negotiate it--foolhardily and indefatigably. Of course, I also knew I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to incubate a baby inside of me and feel my body stretch and change, give birth, and raise a little bean. Selfish? Perhaps. Genetically programmed into most red-blooded women? Absolutely.

Folks, here it is: Would I do it again, knowing what I know about the fatality of my relationship with Tim? Or the hardships of being a single parent? The dramas and pitfalls of my life the past few months, moving back home to my parents house, to a place I have been running away from ever since I first breathed the dewy Iowa air and tasted my first bit of freedom post high school? If I could have seen into the future, seen my dreams collapse, prevented the heartbreak of trying to make my relationship with Tim work out despite some serious red flags and some very expensive therapy, if I could have walked away and made a decision that hundreds of women make every day not to have a baby, would I? If I could magically make Diego exist without having to be his mom, would I settle for that? In other words, would I do this all over again? I know this all sounds so very hardcore and serious. My life is now woven with Diego threads shot through. My garden has been planted with the flowers of his laughter, the rays of his smiles are my sun. His beauty is more alive and growing than the most tenacious of weeds, his eyes more buzzing with burning curiosity than the most industrious of bees. Whatever else life has to dish out for me, I have the supreme pleasure and challenge of being this child's mama. Honestly. And I don't really know the right answer...except yes.

Now, catch me in a moment, like today, when I asked said child to take his mud-caked shoes off before he traipsed up the white carpeted steps after my mom's house was shining, cleaning woman paid and sent home, and I might shout, "hell no!" See me in a fury, irate over fighting a two year old down for a nap for a week straight before I finally admit defeat, and I might grumble, "maybe not". Watch the first few months of my son's life, struggling to quell his incessant cries, his insatiable thirst for milk, and his demands on my time, body and spirit. I might have whispered, "god, no." Witness my struggle to make some sort of workable arrangement with his father, have to move back in with my parents after a wild career as an unstoppable gypsy, buckle down and get "a square job" as it's been called, and I might have sighed, "naw." I probably would've laughed at you if you said I would give up my apartment in Brooklyn, my job as a printer, my nomadic ways, my dreams of becoming a writer, an artist, a freakin live off the land hippie, whatever. I would have cried, simply rolled on the floor and asked you to stop bogarting the joint.


Now... see me riding my yellow bike with my son straddling his up-front bike seat, singing into the wind about wild animals, his little body swaying with his rhythm. A ridiculous, blissful grin stretched across my lips as tight and happy as a drum head. Gaze upon my little boy clambering onto my back for a ride, hugging his little body into the curve of my spine, resting his sweet head against my shoulder blades in a picture of trust and love. My whole body sings with the pleasure of this feeling, even summoned up as a memory. Recall the hours, days, months, okay-- years, that I nursed my child, held him in my arms, felt his little soft doe skin as pure as the day he first appeared in this world, even in my weariness at 3 am when I woke with him. Feel my pride bursting as I hear about one of his escapades at school, the teacher recounting his clever humor as he bolted from the room with a spoon held high, proclaiming "And the dish ran away with the spoon!" Imagine my heart lifting with gladness when he chirps, "Thank you!" to the checkout clerk, without prompting. My gut-deep laughter when he rushes to my morning yoga mat and does snake pose beneath my down-dog, even though he clocks me in the face with that hard little noggin. My awe when he looks at me, out of nowhere, and tells me exactly what I was just thinking-- though I was totally silent.

This little wonder is a part of me, and I cannot fathom my life now without seeing his face in my mind's eye. Yeah, it ain't easy. sometimes I miss the days that were simply mine, stretching out endlessly before me as open and blank as a new canvas. No one to fix a meal for, to bathe, to entertain. Sure, I sometimes long for the times when I'd just grab a book and sit quietly for hours on my porch. Or party all night without having to hire a babysitter, which I never do anyway. Or have a decent phone conversation without someone hurtling himself like a missile designed to blow up the phone. I miss the freedom of moving whenever and wherever the wind might blow me.

Who ever imagines that they'll be doing the bulk of parenting alone, with limited support and even less money. Sure, I wanted things to be different. I held onto slim hopes that I might cobble a funny little family together out of some dire circumstances. I bailed out a leaky boat for three years, the eternal optimist, bounding back from disappointment and heartbreak. Not in the line of getting depressed, my ebullient nature churns up rainbows from floods, flowers from muck, and dances along the precipice of fear and illusion with a silly song, a goofy grin, and a nervous giggle. So what if it looks kind of like crap for a while. Everyone knows that compost is gardener's gold. Maybe it's just steaming into the perfect soil to grow the best garden of my life--our lives.

The limitless possibilities have indeed narrowed, due in a large part to the fact that I've got someone else to worry about. Who knows-- could it be good luck or bad luck. In many ways my son has saved me. I'm a better person for his sake, and with his clear cat eyes upon me, I am conscious of my voice, my actions, and my intentions. Maybe it's best not to try and figure it out. It's true-- it's not always what I thought it would be. Nor what I pictured that I wanted. Before, it was easily cookies for dinner. Now, it's twenty questions 'til I get a clue about what might be acceptable for dinner. Yet, I bet if I asked Diego if he wanted cookies for dinner, he'd light up and shout, "Yes!"

After all, he is my son.

Apples and Honey

This time of year, the autumn that announces the ever-changing nature of our lovely world, we Jews eat apples and honey to celebrate the sweetness of life, and to count our blessings from the year before while we look eagerly, with sticky chins and dripping fingers, to the one ahead.
Lasting as long as one could hope to hold them, the freshest memories have already become the past. Oh, how they taste so crisp, so freshly fallen from the branch.

Now, throwing the cores out the window on the ride home, digging into bags of apples and pears, looking for another taste of you, I cried. Cleansing tears of renewal, not crocodile tears or signs of weakness in character. Real hope is born in the admission and acceptance of raw emotion. Real strength comes from refusal to compromise or sweep aside what's meant to be felt. Trust me, a raging river in melting spring bursts forth with more power than the trickle that is left by autumn, just as a full range of emotions felt at once can resolve more than just one small portion of sorrow.

No matter that I should be sleeping, like my baby is. Don't even ask how long my back has been crunched into my lunchbox car, shuttling our bony bodies back and forth from one home base to the other. For some unbelievable, blessed reason (lord have mercy?!) I am awake, my fingers jabbing the keys like my Nana Mollie stabbing the air in her final delirium, thinking she was playing the penultimate game of mah-jong.

Whirlwind weekend come and gone. Much anticipated, a heady reunion has already slipped away, replete with blissful celebrations, contemplative run-on moments and days of run-on sentences. Laughing out loud, big belly laughs. Holding hands. Singing. Harvesting. Eating apples. Strolling the market in animated wonder after sitting in utter stillness. Drinking cider and beer and glasses of wine. Witnessing the exchanging of vows and donning party clothes to celebrate in mountain air. Unknowns, flecks of autumn's jewels, sparkled in our eyes. Electric moments charged between us as we did the things that folks do. Driving, riding, sighing with longing and the fullest satisfaction, both. Counting stars and waving at the moon. Smiling at plain old you. Just you and me, happily we be. As now has no place else to go.

The New Year has arrived. I've made another journey around the wheel. Though we're looking toward the fallow season, the frozen ground hardly closes itself. Under the blanket of white, silence falling from the sky, forces are gathered and work will get done. For now, the fall is rustling through the finest golden flames, the reddest torches and fans, the leaves and the tawny grasses all wait for a sign. Hushed in the undulating mountains, trees like paintbrushes stiffly rising forth in a proclaimation of the constant certainty of change, leaves rustled and blew along the side of the road the whole way back across America. As I drove, miles reeled behind me, littering promises that have yet to be uttered by the wind.

Would you care to share the mystery that unfolds within each new promise of our moments, connected to the last one, connecting us all the way from beginningless time? You wanted a shout out and here it is. Every pore of my being is saturated with the imprint of recent moments; I cherish each even as they drift quickly into the past tense. I tasted them, full on, as they arose from our boundless joy. Then, I let them go, like falling tears. Washing away the bittersweet remnants of the fading year, purifying my soul. Honey, you gave me bags of apples. Along with kindness, joy, and light. Open hearts can do no more. I responded, my own heart full, with one last leap at you, arms thrown wide to close around you. Held you, tight. Then I slammed shut the door of the car and drove away, heart pounding in my ears and the salty works streaming down.

But...don't worry. By the time this funny lass hit KOP she was already rocking the harmonica and singing at top volume. Moments come, then go. Memories linger long after the actions fade. Sadness (happiness too) ebbs and flows, unblocked, like falling mountain water. No manipulation can create the serpentine pathways that will carve their own course with time.

Perhaps, together once more, we'll eat apples and honey with sticky, beaming faces. Eyes locked in wonder at the sweetness I'm certain we can continue to find. Electricity crackling between us, jaws working at the sweetness, goofy grins that consume a whole face. My vision looks like this: mountains surround us, bubbling water and our own laughter serve as a useful language. Our bodies and souls hum one blissful, continuous song of union and love. We dip apples in honey and let the goo run down all the way to our elbows, licking it off in glee. Happy New Year, dear reader. Welcome to my inner universe. Join me for another unknown stretch of mystery. Hope you stick around for the apple blossoms to burst forth as the wheel continues to spin around. This is the stuff my dreams are made of.