4382 Circle Road

4382 Circle Road (Rue Cercle)

The number is the address of the home where I spent the first 18 years of my life. $43.82 is the amount it cost me to fill my minivan in New Hampshire on our trip up here, to my Mom's current home, yesterday. It was a perfect pump. See the video.

It was a short moment on our drive up to Montreal. But it touched off a lot of thinking. My Mom and Dad separated in 2002 and divorced some time later. It was only 6 weeks ago that they finally sold off the house they had moved to in 1999.

72 Dufferin Road (Chemin Dufferin) 

It's not the house I grew up in. I've never really 'lived' here. But it is the house that my wife and children have always seen as "Bubby's house." We have come to relax on February break and to take what we want before my Mom starts selling. 

It is the contents and memories that we are here to pick over and lay claim to. I can have the china, she's not planning on have two sets of dishes in her new apartment. The hide-a-bed sofa. A leopard print couch. An oddly striking and peculiarly racial lamp. Pee Wee Herman. 

But what's really on my mind is the question of where my home is. As we drove over the Champlain Bridge into Montreal I looked to my right, as I have hundreds of times, and laid eyes upon a beautiful city.

That experience, the look through green girders and over the St Laurence River into downtown Montreal, used to give me stomach butterflies of relief and excitement. I was coming home. 

So home. 

We left Providence and now live in Sharon. Our house is not a home we want in the long term. It's kinda shitty and I can't wait to move. It's corny but of course your home is where your family is, etc... But it's confusing because everybody has somewhere that they are from. But I feel less and less that I am from one place. Montreal - Efrat - Montreal - Bat Ayin - Jerusalem - Potomac - Providence - Sharon. 

I'm confused. 

Leopard Print Couch one of two

Some kind of stuffed fish over my mom's bed. Yes. Really.

Paint by number. All of them. There's eight more.

PeeWee Herman drawstring doll. Click on the link for video of crazy baby.

Dear all,

Alma here. Writing from the resident library of the Children's Hospital in RI. I'm working nights, and needless to say, I've been cranky all week. Considering that, I realized I how lucky I am to be in this room, and not in one of those rooms, either as a patient or a parent. It's nice to be able to keep things in perspective!

I *think* today is my day to write? :) Here's a cool video:

Upon asking someone for a cool YouTube video, he said, "look for Jean Claude van Dam." I have not seen it because I'm a room where people are talking about poopy dipers and upper respiratory infections and I don't think it's appropriate.

Hope that's good to hold you over!!

Love,

Alma

Feb 12

Hello all!

Coming up around the corner is Valentine's Day. It means something different, if anything at all, to everyone. For me, this holiday has always corresponded with Eve Ensler's proclaimed V Day. In honor of this statement of justice, solidarity, and commitment to ending violence against women (and violence comes in many forms, as we know!), I'm posting one of my favorite Vagina Monologues. I performed "My Angry Vagina" my senior year of college, and it has continued to inspire me.

Wishing everyone love, respect, positive changes, and pleasure :)

Love,
Aleeza

Valentine's Day Special

Feb 11

Megan here.  More "extra" posting.  Taken aback to find myself (and all of us) here.  This time 4 years ago, I was at a dance party in Providence, different than the one Avi had been at.  I sent him a text to see if he was going to head to the bar I was at afterwards.  And spent time shit talking how he didn't respond long after the accident had already happened.  4 years! So much time, so little time, vortex-ing in and out.  I've never figured out how to prepare for dates like today.  Commemorating the human, the loss of innocence, the heartbreak, all of it.

Re-posted from Yoav's profile:

Maya Angelou’s ‘When Great Trees Fall'

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

I'm LOVING these bonus posts!

So I had to add a cover to the mix :]

I could embed a video, I know, but the article that frames this is too good.

Love and Bonus-ness,
Ruthie

feb 9--extra sharing

Megan here. Not technically my day yet, but some pre-emptive gratitude.

My February lullaby: this song

And this: 2nd song

And this: 3rd song

This time last year I saw a coyote while hiking, says this blog.  I miss and love you all.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

hi everyone. ariel here. i'm glad to be posting, because i've recently undertaken my own personal february project (actually this one is probably a lifelong project), focused on mindfulness, empathy, and positive thinking. so it is great to draw inspiration from and situate my goals within this amazing community of people i love, people i miss and think of often, and people i don't even know but to whom i still feel connected. and without further ado, i offer:

(1) yesterday my friend nick shared this with me: it is a graduation speech that george saunders delivered at syracuse university in 2013. his advice: "err in the direction of kindness."

(2) photographs of works by andy goldsworthy. draw from them what you will. i think it is amazing that someone can look at a raw landscape and see the possibility of these shapes and patterns.

(3) my new anthem: 2 Chainz - feds watching. i like listening to this during my commute to my 9 a.m. National Security Law class, in which i am learning about how we have no more right to privacy because FREEDOM. i think 2 Chainz has some good advice regarding how to deal with this situation: "i'mbe fresh as hell if the feds watching."

xo rel.