Until soon, dear ones

A poem from Einat (duh):

February 29   Jane Hirshfield

An extra day— Like the painting’s fifth cow, who looks out directly, straight toward you, from inside her black and white spots. An extra day— Accidental, surely: the made calendar stumbling over the real as a drunk trips over a threshold too low to see. An extra day— With a second cup of black coffee. A friendly but businesslike phone call. A mailed-back package. Some extra work, but not too much— just one day’s worth, exactly. An extra day— Not unlike the space between a door and its frame when one room is lit and another is not, and one changes into the other as a woman exchanges a scarf. An extra day— Extraordinarily like any other. And still there is some generosity to it, like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.

What if I just decided that one of the other months should have 32 days sometimes? Wouldn't that be weird? It's February 28th today and I am in the Detroit airport and soon I will be in the air and I was just in the air and when I stop being in and out of the air, for the time being at least, it will be the end of the night on Monday and it will be the end of February 29th and it will be the end of this February. And tomorrow, the 29th, kind of isn't going to happen for me at all. And, kind of, it will be an epically long two-day-day that I spend in my own little capsule traveling through space and time. And that's still totally, totally weird for me.

A warning, or a heads up, that there's some, uh, February in this post. Skip a few paragraphs if you're more in need of lightness.

The last week has been far too February for my liking. Someone in my life, someone to whom I am deeply connected in many ways, died. I say "someone" because I've been struggling to define exactly who he is. Was. He was the father of my dear, dear friend Lizzy (note: not this Aya-Lizzie) and he was a close father-like friend to my sister, and he was the once-husband of one of my second mothers, and also he often called me by accident when trying to use voice commands to tell his flip phone to call his daughter. Micah very accurately called him my "other sister's father" and so far that's felt like the most accurate...name.

We knew this was coming - heavily, he had the same brain cancer my dad had, almost thirty years ago now. And it's still just as hopeless and just as shitty. A year ago, last February, he was diagnosed. And then his fucking French bulldog, Mitzi (short for Mitzvah - I KNOW), fucking died. As Lizzy aptly put it, "when it rains, it rains diarrhea" because fuck "pouring."

So I came home. Because I didn't know what else to do and I didn't know what to do and it felt kind of right and also nothing was right and what did I know. But also, I may live a gajillion miles away but I refuse to not be a part of my community anymore. Time and space and distance and money will. not. isolate. me. Or, that's how I felt last Thursday when I booked a ticket, canceled it, had Einat talk to someone in India while she was in Israel gchatting me while I was in Kenya to make sure the flight was canceled...and then rebooked a new ticket and put my body on a plane.

But then I was here. And you were all here, posting and existing and remembering and holding me from all of the places a gajillion miles and minutes away.

Fuck. Fucking everything. There's so much. And I was so grateful to be home and so connected with the idea Tricia shared that grief is love and I know it so much, and also, fuuuuuuuuuck. Fucking everything. You know?

But because I flew home this particular week, I got to be part of the little surprise dinner my sister had been planning for my mom's birthday. And my "aunts" who are really my mom's best friends were there, and I got them to play Celebrity but they gave up when we started the charades round. And they all talked about the crystal wine glass sets they got for their weddings and and how the red wine glasses are big enough for red wine now, but the red wine glasses are just too small. I joked that they would make good shot glasses.

And I got to see people I love and I got to stock up on gluten free things like brownie mix (I know, it's going to be terrible) and the service at Starbucks is so. fast. And between paragraphs of this post I completed my journey and unpacked and took a shower and now in Nairobi it's technically March but for most of you it's still February 29th and here is our last post of this year's February. And we did it, and we made it through again, just like we do every year, and on every one of the difficult days that hide themselves throughout our years. And sometimes they are conveniently (?) clustered in February, and sometimes they pop up in effing June. We did it and we keep doing it and I can only really keep doing it because of all of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for sharing and being and for making this project real again.

Ok, the promised lightness:

Because sometimes things are painfully cute and the struggle is too real.

Because these guys did that sweet Gotye cover all on one guitar and now this. Also, the middle guy looks like he's wearing a nightgown.

And because honestly, I can always use a little Disney.

See you next year, my loves.
Ruthie

[february 28, 2016] Life : Snails

On Snails.

In recent times… I’ve been thinking a lot about snails. In Israel, there are snails in February. Just after the rain, they emerge. You can follow their paths. Slow and steady.

I feel connected to snails, and to snail sisters, who were the first people who “turned me on” to snails (I’m smiling because my mom used to use that phrase, and well.. you know). It’s not something I’ve interrogated very much or explored at all. And I don’t think there’s any astrological data pointing to my connection. It just… is a real, felt, deep connection. Until now… Thank you, February blog, for these moments of opportunity.  I see the snail in many of you, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. I love our snail community.

Some things I’ve learned:

•       Snail signs are “deep thinkers and extremely devoted to those they love”
•       Snails have strong intuition, and “some Snails may find they even have a sixth sense or psychic ability.” Snails feel deeply.
•       “Members of this sign will need to learn how to let others help them if they are going to grow both emotionally and spiritually.”
•       “Members of this sign are all about family. Whether or not that family is blood related or just close friends, once you are considered family by a Snail, you will always be.”
•      “Patience. Water energy. Rain energy. Celebrating the Winter. Spirals. Protection. Letting go of deadlines. Letting life pass you by. Sensuality. Celebrating texture and minutiae
•       Some (Australian) snails eat (European) snails! (Maybe because they’re so cute that we could just eat them, you know? Or not…)
•       “Snail is often overlooked as a valuable guide (our loss, really), but has many important lessons to teach. Snail teaches us to cultivate patience in both our expectations of ourselves, others and life in general. There is a lot of emphasis on doing things fast these days, no wonder poor snail has been left behind as a powerful guide and teacher.”
•       “Snail energy is a champion of patience. It patiently waits for the rains to fall, sealing itself up safely in the meantime. It knows that its own journeying will take time, and snail energy is okay with that.”
•       “Take time to appreciate texture and minutiae. Literally start focusing on the smaller things. It might be learning to appreciate the smaller fauna and flora around the place, learning how to immerse yourself in touching different textures and learning how they feel.”
•       “Along with celebrating texture, snail teaches one how to appreciate sensuality. Snail is a tactile creature, its single 'foot' fully embraces every surface that it touches with the added benefit of mucous, making sure that it is as connected as possible to what it is attached to. It is worth reconnecting with touch and sensuality. See how touch can be pleasurable, how even sensations that you might associate with being unclean (like running your hands through dirt) can actually be a positive experience if you begin to change your perspectives about it.”
•       “Actively bring water energy into your life at this time. Consider having more baths or showers or, alternatively, take the time to stand outside in the rain. Water, when utilised in conjunction with snail energy, is a deeply nourishing and enriching force. It enlivens the spirit and heightens the body's ability to function…. Snail finds joy and growth in rain and Winter.”
•       AND THEN THIS: “In continuance with above, snail suggests that we celebrate the Winter, no matter what it represents for us. Whether we use Winter as a time to recharge, whether it is a time when our bodies slow down and we need to be gentle andpatient with ourselves, or whether we - like snail - are recharged during the colder, wetter months. Take the time to write down what Winter means to you, and see if you can find ways to make it more meaningful and enriching as a season.” 
•       “Learning how to listen to snail's messages is a skill that comes with learning how to listen to yourself and your body.”
•       According to the Aztec, the snail and its spiral represent the moon and the moon phases(!!!)

On Colons.

The thing about colons is how they help us pause.

I guess maybe the snails and the colons belong in different posts. But this is life…

Feb 17^th: I paused. I looked at pictures from another time. I rejoiced in them, and the palpable joy and love I can feel from them.

Feb 22^nd: I was at a joyous wedding. I danced my heart out. I felt my mom with me. And I missed her so much because… I also didn’t feel her.

Feb 23^rd:

the thing is that

the person really is gone

even when they (and i) say that they aren’t

it’s hard to wrap our minds around

f o r e v e r

because

you left.

Feb 28^th: I found this poem on https://readalittlepoetry.wordpress.com/, and exhaled. 

Atlantis — A Lost Sonnet
Eavan Boland

How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder
that a whole city—arches, pillars, colonnades,
not to mention vehicles and animals—had all
one fine day gone under?

I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then.
Surely a great city must have been missed?
I miss our old city—

white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting
under fanlights and low skies to go home in it. Maybe
what really happened is

this: the old fable-makers searched hard for a word
to convey that what is gone is gone forever and
never found it. And so, in the best traditions of

where we come from, they gave their sorrow a name
and drowned it.

As always, so blessed by each of you, by this space to share, by your love, and your hearts, by the slow and steady ways you move through the world. You are family.

You are enough, you are beautiful, you are whole.

Always yours,

einat

Friday, February 26th

An assorted bunch of scraps from this month's abundance and scarcity. Thanks for reading and sharing so much art this month- what a blessing. Shabbat shalom.

***

The weather is a boring subject, but it's better to be bored, 75, and sunny. Earlier this week, the Texas mountain laurels in front of our house started blooming. Earlier this month, we hung some color on the wall of our studio, too. Both continue on.

My ear still pressed

to the pillow, I can't

get up, get comfortable, or determine.

What the day is, where

the pain in my right temple

wants to go or is

merely yesterday's pain.

Back to say hello,

good morning.

Listen.

Stay in bed a while

linger longer

don't forget me.

This morning, I had to get back in bed fighting off tears. Pain does weird things to time. My phone said 8:15am. It felt like hour 217 of a single headache, and who am I to argue?

Remembering that “Treating myself like a precious object will make strong” and wondering if the strength will come after my appointment with acupuncture or maybe Pilates or staying in tonight or hypnosis or or or what's the point?

“Sometimes I flap my arms like a hummingbird

just to remind myself

I'll never fly”

-Andrew (colon) Bird

I've been working on a single project for most of February. It often feels like I'm digging through concrete with a toothpick. I'm leaning towards dropping it, and that's equal parts terrifying, frustrating, and freeing.

There's a citrine on my desk. It's supposed to give me energy. There's an amethyst by my bed. It's supposed to calm headaches.

A few weeks ago, I walked in the sun to a poetry workshop a few blocks from our house and learned about Aram Saroyan. Here's one I like:

Last night I drove on dark Texas highways for an hour. My soccer game had been canceled so I had to come home.

Maybe I'll start a new simple project. Or maybe I'll enact one of the grand plans or career-shifts I envision in bed at night. “Anxiety is the freedom of possibility.” Or something like that.

Two weeks ago I took a long bath with Epsom salt. Joanna Newsom echoed off the tile, and my back felt great.

Tricia is picking up sandwiches for our lunch today. I texted to ask for chips as my side, and she replied, “Duh. Already done. Plus a cookie.”

In February, I got to exhibit a collection of games I made at a local show / party. It's held monthly, and I've been going for years.

In February, I've gone to my therapist twice, a medical hypnotist twice, pilates 4 times, a dermatologist once, and massage three times.

In February, the same collection of games got accepted to a conference. I'm thrilled and excited and trying not to take it personally.

Lately, I lunch outside

My butt warmed by the sun

on a green metal chair

An Invitation

because the hawks fly higher here in California

but the grass is never greener (and that's a guarentee)

Switching the verb

You guys, fuck. For the first time in 5 years, I missed my post.

I’m sorry.

Ever since shortly after my first post earlier this month, I’ve been thinking about what to write for my second. I noticed how much I’d been relishing this year’s posts that were not just shared links, but little windows into people’s lives, beloved’s lives, some halfway around the world, some in Canada, some about loss and the fullness of love, about transition, about the experiences that, in their aches and their arcs, make us remember that we are ALIVE. Much, as it happens, like February.

I like your posts. They make me remember what it is to feel sparked. To waiver and jolt and wriggle my butt and my whole puppy body with joy. Thank you for that. Thank you for giving us tastes of the specific flavor of each of your blessedly unique lives.

So, I guess now…me.

My life at the moment, in a few Sumi ink strokes:

Monastic

Laptop

Pajamas

Downton Abbey

Cattime

Words

This is my thesis year. I am writing towards the end of a self-imposed exile/adventure/crucible played out over the past almost 3 years on the western edge of the American Midwest.

Exile. Initiation. Return.

It’s an old cycle. Unlike the groovy vision quests presided over by hawks and played out under the boughs of long-grown live oaks on plots of land up near Sebastopol (experiences my Bay Area-based friends seemed to be flying off to in droves), my time in the Midwest felt light years away from, and, decidedly unsexy.

I wanted the live oaks and the raptors! I wanted bursts of insight to explode in the solitude like blood stars behind my closed eyes!  I wanted to feel the woo woo splendor of a transcendent sunrise wash over my body after weathering a crazy nightlong storm!

My life in Columbus, Ohio is a far cry from all this. And recently I threw a little bit of an extended interior temper tantrum, a fit that crescendoed as I fished my credit card out of my wallet with bare hands in 9 degree weather to denude my windshield of its overnight ice crust. I internally groused as I scraped, thinking of all the metaphysically exalted, West Coast anchored, land-based vision quests I was not on.

Ice misted the back into my face. My nose started to drip uncontrollable snot. My scraping hand turned a raw meat pink from the cold. What in the actual fuck. And then, I laughed out loud because I finally realized.

This whole extended 3-year experience alone with my words in the Midwest? Guess what; it is a vision quest. Because it doesn’t look like the vision quests I’ve heard about and held in my mind, I just didn’t recognize it til now. Surprise! And also, like, duh.

In the past 3 years, there have been so many times I’ve felt hot griddled by the weight of the verb phrase “have to”—

I have to get through two more years. I have to put up with colleagues who make me feel like I have nothing special to offer. I have to plead with the Chair of the English Department and the head of the MFA program NOT to expel me (more on that story one-on-one if you care to hear more sometime).

But I recently realized something else. Actually, I don’t have to do one fucking thing. Every one of these items is something that I GET to do.

A few days ago, I popped up on the blog to say that we GET to experience February’s crucible for 11 more days (btw, we only GET FOUR MORE days!)

Thanks to an insight offered by my extraordinary therapist, I’ve been thinking often and deeply about the profound difference it makes to think of an experience as something we GET to do rather than something we HAVE to do.

It’s such a simple semantic shift. But, I’ve fixated on it. Switching the verbs is just so thoroughly and miraculously empowering. The psychological shift it creates is huge, even in my outlook on situations that feel constricting and even unhealthy. Watch—

In February, we GET to revisit profound love in the guise of mourning.

In the Mid-western winter, I GET to experience the weather in a very REAL way, a way that is a metric fuckton more real than the way I experience weather in the temperate world of the Bay.

I GET (got) to call all the shots in a romantic involvement with a man who wasn’t able to be proactive himself and be the true and equal partner I want, and, as a result, I GET (got) to muster my strength when he wouldn't/couldn't to call it quits. 

And, for these 3 years, I GET to go it alone. I GET to integrate, deep into my soul bones, that I have the capacity to nurture myself. I GET to be my own sanctuary.

Oh, and also,

we are all our own sanctuaries.

Let me say that again:

We are all

our own

sanctuaries.

Each of us is wonderfully resourced to give ourselves absolutely everything that we each respectively need. There is no such thing as need. Aside from the need for air, food, water, and shelter, we don’t need anything. The rest of it is just what we want, what we choose for ourselves. To wit: we don’t need the Feb Project; we want it. And so, we choose to co-create it together. 

Every choice we make for ourselves, even when those choices lead us to trouble or pain or narrow places, are exactly the right ones. Through our choices, the good and the bad,

We GET to grow.

Love, 

Allie

This wreath was made by an extremely cool artist named Grace D. Chin. I saw
her work this past September hanging in a coffeeshop in Lawrence, KS as
I made my Solo Woman Journey by car back across the country from CA to OH.
See more of Grace's powerful and excellent work on Etsy and Instagram.
She does custom orders.
https://www.etsy.com/people/gracedchin
https://www.instagram.com/gracedchin/