Hi my friends,
Another February is nearly complete! Wow. This one really flew by for me, for a few reasons. First, Micah and I took a legit VACATION to the Bahamas for the first week of the month, which was deeply relaxing and rejuvenating. I kept being overwhelmed with wonder and gratitude that "vacation" is even a thing, and feeling super indebted to and inspired by labor activists of past generations for fighting for this to be part of my rights as a worker. Thanks, guys! Wow, I needed that.
It has also flown by because I am pregnant with twins, and I find that I am experiencing and marking time and in some new ways as the pregnancy progresses, including thinking more in weeks and days than in months at the moment. I'm happy to report that so far everyone is healthy and well. :) During this February month I started to really feel fetal movement, and now these kicks and flips and dance parties happening internally are punctuating my days (and totally distracting me during some of my therapy sessions with my clients!). So, for me, this month has felt very ALIVE this year.
And now to some internet things to share just for fun:
I saw "Green Book" last night, and actually really enjoyed it. But/and, after seeing the movie I watched this funny parody of that genre of movie and, while some moments are a bit slow and maybe it's a bit long, numerous lines in it made me laugh out loud and I recommend it. The very end gave me the biggest laugh so it is worth sticking with it.
Other than that, last thought is that I'm really enjoying paying attention to how the days are already getting noticeably longer even though it's still totally February and still winter. Each time I see the sun still out after 5 pm it gives me this little thrill of excitement about spring coming. The feeling makes me think of this song from Nava Tehila that I love and want to share.
Love to all of you wherever you are,
Nomi
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Sunday, February 24, 2019
[february 24, 2019 - femsex throwback]
Dear ones,
I spent some time looking through old emails this week... Sometimes they let me hear my mom's voice in my ear and I remember that she is always on my shoulder.
In fall 2009, I participated in FemSex - The Female Sexuality Workshop - that many of you know and participated in as well. One specifically meaningful assignment for me was... to make "a map of home." I just found my map, and I wanted to share it here for you. I don't think I've shared it with anyone other than my mom herself. The quality is... lacking, but I think you'll get the idea.
Leah (Lola) is my mom's mom. Amalia is my dad's mom. Naomi is my mom. And then there's me. Aya, you might recognize the bamboo rafts from Thailand... The poem is below. Interestingly, I am ever more grateful for the monthly ceremony of bleeding, even though I am currently in some different kind of ceremony... all feels related to motherhood and my ancestors who brought me to this moment.
Love and gentleness,
einat
I spent some time looking through old emails this week... Sometimes they let me hear my mom's voice in my ear and I remember that she is always on my shoulder.
In fall 2009, I participated in FemSex - The Female Sexuality Workshop - that many of you know and participated in as well. One specifically meaningful assignment for me was... to make "a map of home." I just found my map, and I wanted to share it here for you. I don't think I've shared it with anyone other than my mom herself. The quality is... lacking, but I think you'll get the idea.
Leah (Lola) is my mom's mom. Amalia is my dad's mom. Naomi is my mom. And then there's me. Aya, you might recognize the bamboo rafts from Thailand... The poem is below. Interestingly, I am ever more grateful for the monthly ceremony of bleeding, even though I am currently in some different kind of ceremony... all feels related to motherhood and my ancestors who brought me to this moment.
Love and gentleness,
einat
poem in praise of menstruation
lucille clifton
if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there
is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is
a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in
the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Some Confections
Hi my dears, I am squeaking it in during the ending hours of my allotted day, February 23rd.
Earlier this month, I spent a little bit of time looking through my entries from February Projects past. Has anyone else done that? Re-encountered a previous self inhabiting a different life that is no longer?
I recommend it; there was perspective there. And some delight. And a little bit of heartache. But in a primarily good way.
Look at us! Having done this for enough time that we have inhabited a few different incarnations of our existences since we began. How beautiful. How marvelous.
Lately, I have been less about words, more about image and about intuition. I'm going to share some pantings my one of my favorite artists, Wayne Thiebaud. I even like saying his name. There is something delightful about it, a delight that I also find in his art, especially in the pieces he's most famous for, which depict desserts. These reproductions don't do justice to the spirit that comes off the canvases when you are in their presence (duh), but at least you can get the gist, then maybe go visit a few of them at the MoMA or the SF MoMA or the Getty or the East Wing of the National Gallery or somewhere like that.
His paintings have this thrilling electricity to them, emanating (I think) from the slight shocks of bright color that appear slyly in every piece, unmissable but never taking center stage.
So here they are. If ever you're feeling in need of a little zing, Google "Wayne Thiebaud dessert."
My love to you all.
Earlier this month, I spent a little bit of time looking through my entries from February Projects past. Has anyone else done that? Re-encountered a previous self inhabiting a different life that is no longer?
I recommend it; there was perspective there. And some delight. And a little bit of heartache. But in a primarily good way.
Look at us! Having done this for enough time that we have inhabited a few different incarnations of our existences since we began. How beautiful. How marvelous.
Lately, I have been less about words, more about image and about intuition. I'm going to share some pantings my one of my favorite artists, Wayne Thiebaud. I even like saying his name. There is something delightful about it, a delight that I also find in his art, especially in the pieces he's most famous for, which depict desserts. These reproductions don't do justice to the spirit that comes off the canvases when you are in their presence (duh), but at least you can get the gist, then maybe go visit a few of them at the MoMA or the SF MoMA or the Getty or the East Wing of the National Gallery or somewhere like that.
His paintings have this thrilling electricity to them, emanating (I think) from the slight shocks of bright color that appear slyly in every piece, unmissable but never taking center stage.
So here they are. If ever you're feeling in need of a little zing, Google "Wayne Thiebaud dessert."
My love to you all.
Friday, February 22, 2019
February 22
On my way to the blog today I bumped into this little guy, who asked me to come up with a SINGLE reason he shouldn't be featured. I couldn't.
Lately I have been doing freelance editing professionally, and I was introduced to this quote in a client's manuscript. It's about therapy, which is something I really like.
We honor our parents by not accepting as the final equation the most troubling characteristics of our relationship. I decided between my father and me that the sum of our troubles would not be the summation of our lives together. In analysis you work to turn the ghosts that haunt you into ancestors who accompany you. That takes hard work and a lot of love, but it’s the way we lessen the burdens our children have to carry. Insisting on our own experience, our own final calculus of love, trouble, hard times and, if we’re lucky, a little transcendence. This is how we claim our own lives as sons and daughters, independent souls on our piece of ground. It’s not always an option. There are irretrievable lives and unredeemable sins, but the chance to rise above is one I wish for yours and mine.
The quote reminds me of a value/belief that's really deeply held by my family on my mom's side, which is, "Good things come from New Jersey."
Secondly, my sister-in-law again said something this week that the hedgehog told me to put here. She was talking about baby Ruthie's sleep, and said basically, "With Leo, I read all these different books explaining why you have to co-sleep forever or sleep train in just this or that way and thought that the answer was in the books and I might screw Leo up if I did the wrong thing. Now, I'm pretty sure that Ruthie will be fine whether we co-sleep for three years or let her cry it out at 3 months, and I think what would actually screw her up more than necessary is if her parents pick an approach that makes us more anxious or disturbed than necessary." Far be it from me to enter the sleep-training debates, but the kernel of her thought process really resonated with me: that the answer might not be hidden in that one book she didn't read yet, but rather floating somewhere in her, waiting to be found.
I love hearing everyone's voices. Xo,
Anna
 |
| hedgehog |
We honor our parents by not accepting as the final equation the most troubling characteristics of our relationship. I decided between my father and me that the sum of our troubles would not be the summation of our lives together. In analysis you work to turn the ghosts that haunt you into ancestors who accompany you. That takes hard work and a lot of love, but it’s the way we lessen the burdens our children have to carry. Insisting on our own experience, our own final calculus of love, trouble, hard times and, if we’re lucky, a little transcendence. This is how we claim our own lives as sons and daughters, independent souls on our piece of ground. It’s not always an option. There are irretrievable lives and unredeemable sins, but the chance to rise above is one I wish for yours and mine.
I work to be an ancestor. I hope my summation will be written by my sons and daughter, with our family’s help, and by their sons and daughters with their guidance…. But this kind of story has no end. It is simply told in your own blood until it is passed along to be told in the blood of those you love, who inherit it. As it’s told, it is altered, as all stories are in the telling, by time, will, perception, faith, love, work, by hope, deceit, imagination, fear, history and the thousand other variable powers that play upon our personal narratives. It continues to be told because along with the seed of its own immolation, the story carries with it the rebirthing seed of renewal, a different destiny for those who hear it than the painful one my father and I struggled through. Slowly, a new story emerges from the old, of differently realized lives, building upon the rough experience of those who’ve come before and stepping over the battle-worn carcasses of the past. On a good day this is how we live. This is love.
—from “Long Time Comin’,” the final chapter of Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
The quote reminds me of a value/belief that's really deeply held by my family on my mom's side, which is, "Good things come from New Jersey."
Secondly, my sister-in-law again said something this week that the hedgehog told me to put here. She was talking about baby Ruthie's sleep, and said basically, "With Leo, I read all these different books explaining why you have to co-sleep forever or sleep train in just this or that way and thought that the answer was in the books and I might screw Leo up if I did the wrong thing. Now, I'm pretty sure that Ruthie will be fine whether we co-sleep for three years or let her cry it out at 3 months, and I think what would actually screw her up more than necessary is if her parents pick an approach that makes us more anxious or disturbed than necessary." Far be it from me to enter the sleep-training debates, but the kernel of her thought process really resonated with me: that the answer might not be hidden in that one book she didn't read yet, but rather floating somewhere in her, waiting to be found.
I love hearing everyone's voices. Xo,
Anna
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Feb 18 (but on the 21)
Well isn't that just nice?
That's a joke for Tricia, really, but if you imagine hearing a 92-year-old lady you met once at synagogue saying it to herself quietly before she hangs up the phone when you call to offer her a ride, you can be in on it, too.
Anyways, I'm a few days late, but probably because February was just waiting for me to this find this comic and send it to you.
https://www.davyendler.com/On-God
It's really good.
Thanks for sharing and for being here to share with.
That's a joke for Tricia, really, but if you imagine hearing a 92-year-old lady you met once at synagogue saying it to herself quietly before she hangs up the phone when you call to offer her a ride, you can be in on it, too.
Anyways, I'm a few days late, but probably because February was just waiting for me to this find this comic and send it to you.
https://www.davyendler.com/On-God
It's really good.
Thanks for sharing and for being here to share with.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Rackover Update & Some Writing I'm On...
For complicated resaons, I have to take down my post.
I'm really sorry.
I actually thought the blog was 'secret-ish' so that only the participants could see it.
In retrospect, I realize we never set it up like that.
\love
m
I'm really sorry.
I actually thought the blog was 'secret-ish' so that only the participants could see it.
In retrospect, I realize we never set it up like that.
\love
m
Feb 18th (belated post)
How wonderful it is to return to this virtual community gathering year after year! I am so grateful for each of you, for your openness, for your entries that make me *feel* in so many ways, for this shared space, and for our reliable Ruthie who manages to reignite this every year.
I offer you an assortment of things:
1) This article about closing doors -- something that I really struggled with recently as I agonized over a career-related decision. Honestly can't say the article solved my problem or made the decision much easier, but I still liked it or at least thought it was interesting.
2) This piece that made me giggle entitled, "If You Ever Hurt My Daughter, I Swear to G-d I’ll Let Her Navigate Her Own Emotional Growth"
3) These beautiful passages on grief and loss by Mary Oliver, because I couldn't help but add to the Mary Oliver collection that we're assembling on this blog.
Love and hugs to you all,
Tali
I offer you an assortment of things:
1) This article about closing doors -- something that I really struggled with recently as I agonized over a career-related decision. Honestly can't say the article solved my problem or made the decision much easier, but I still liked it or at least thought it was interesting.
2) This piece that made me giggle entitled, "If You Ever Hurt My Daughter, I Swear to G-d I’ll Let Her Navigate Her Own Emotional Growth"
3) These beautiful passages on grief and loss by Mary Oliver, because I couldn't help but add to the Mary Oliver collection that we're assembling on this blog.
Love and hugs to you all,
Tali
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