february 20, 2016

i feel connected and disconnected, in it and so not in it. but it’s also just happening.

the body is so delicate and beautifully complex. we are so much more the same than we are different. it's amazing how often people are healthy and thriving. so much has to go right for that to happen – that’s what i am learning.

it's the middle of the night and i hear this man coughing, not even just coughing, retching. who is here? he's my across-the-street neighbor, and i wonder who he has, who is looking out for him and his cough.

-----

on my very stoop - these two things:

 

the hearts, i had seen before 

but then in the 15th, i saw the writing. "Whoever was born, earned it/gained from it." 

what i understood was "who ever was born is freaking blessed." and then... the thought comes to me, “well what does that mean anyways?”

i realized recently while searching a document that einat is in the word "caffeinated."

-----

This February:

There has been dance that brought me to tears

engagements

moves out and moves in

reconnecting with the most February-est of loves. 

holding the complexity that is this place

knitting journaling podcasts

meditation

cultivating self-love

mostly studying and learning and wow

on the 14^th - letting it all in

the flowers my mom received on valentine's day, nine days before she took her last breath, how they dried and became a preserved thing, something she had touched and smelled

i miss the proximity. 

---

i wrote this poem in spring 2009 in Rick Benjamin’s class, before my mom died:

-----

wednesday night was the beginning of the yahrtzeit, Adar 9, this year Adar I 9. six years, which is more than five. i welcomed the day in with the sunset (i love that that is a sentence that makes sense with lunar calendars). i wrote in my journal – filling the very last page of the journal i started in August 2014, when i first arrived in Tel Aviv for this adventure

this sunset happened so quickly. is it always so fast? i could have missed the moment when the sun disappears just below the horizon, but, it's okay - we still see it shining

with deep love and gratitude for this space, which holds me and heals me...

blessings, always, 

einat

p.s. a poem below...

----

a poem, i read in bed recently in a quiet, lonely moment... if you would like to hear it read aloud, you can do that here.

Morning by Frank O’Hara

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go