[feb 9, 2017] imagine to yourselves, nayyirah, changing hues of february-ness

my loves,

i am writing from a community work/study space called FLO that one Jonah Fisher started. the walls are yellow and bright. just what i needed on this foggy morning. i’m going to share some of my words, interspersed with the words of Nayyirah Waheed, a poet Jenny Wyron turned me on to (hah, my mom always used that phrase and I always used to laugh). her poems feel like they meet me right where i am right now. 

first off... this song... in Hebrew by Shlomo Artzi. the title translates to "imagine to yourselves" and i'm including this English translation of the lyrics so you can get the "feel" of the song. i think the video does a good job of that too. 

i’ve never felt this way writing feb blog

so speechless, so daunted by what is going on in the world and in my heart

but knowing the words will come if i just keep on writing

one letter

one more word

one foot in front of the other

one moment and then the next

changing all the time

february has felt… different thus far. it continues to surprise me and wow me how little i know about how this month will be or how i will feel. mystery unfolding…

as many of you know, David (Dudi) and i were married in October. amidst the joy of engagement and planning and dreaming for a wedding, my mom was there, but she also wasn't there. i always learn about my loss through others' losses. dudi's father was there, but he also wasn't there. 

some asked me why i walked down the aisle alone. Aya and Tricia reminded me that i most certainly was not alone. nor was i alone as i dipped in the mikvah.

i told Dudi this poem summed up much of how i felt about our union: 

falling in love feels like everything i've lost coming back to me (even though, it never comes back), 

and also, wild and peaceful like the moon.

within the mystery, there has been love and grounding and growth. all of that beauty lives alongside the boundless pool of missing my mom.

many moments in the past year have felt february-like… my missing of people i love has become all-the-moments - life feels so full. february bleeds into all of the other vast, happy and awe-inspiring moments. the loss is almost integral to my very being. it changes february for me a bit, maybe in a good way. it makes february feel almost more like a container-safe-space-holding community-structure for all of…

...the aching

the eternal grief

the grief that goes to my very core,

the root of the root … of a tree called life. thank you, ee cummings, as always.

bringing me closer to

the root of the root of myself… thank you rumi, as always.

i might want to say more, and yet, this is what there is today, in this moment. and so, it must be enough.

i love you.

thank you for this space, year after year.  

einat