our brother's keeper

...when they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. when it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord.  Abel also brought a gift—the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock. the Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. this made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.

“why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “why do you look so dejected? you will be accepted if you do what is right. but if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. but you must subdue it and be its master.”

one day Cain suggested to his brother, “let’s go out into the fields.” and while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.

 ^afterward the Lord asked Cain, “where is your brother? where is Abel?”

“i don’t know,” Cain responded. “am I my brother’s keeper?”

but the Lord said, “what have you done? listen! your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!  

--Genesis 4:2-10

“for if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.” 
― thomas more

Utopia

"even if the whole world were to fall to pieces, the unity of the psyche would never be shattered. and the wider and more numerous the fissures on the surface, the more the unity is strengthened in the depths.

--carl jung

Civilization in Transition (1964)

in my professional life, i spend a lot of time with little people and their parents.  the vast majority of the people i see and interact with during the span of a working week are between 3 and 11 years old.  while i can't pretend to know or understand the depth of grief being felt by the Sandy Hook families, or the Lanza family, i know enough to be humbled by the relief that comes from knowing all my little faces are safe, today.

this is an altogether different kind of thing...i'm not even sure what kind of word to assign to Friday's event in Connecticut.  all i know is that it's awful, and ugly, and scary.  and no matter how far we follow whatever rabbit holes are left to us, i cannot imagine that anything we learn will make us feel any better.  i know that we must follow those trails, however slight or strange they may be, because even though it won't make us feel better, i hope like hell we can at least learn something.

and i also know this is not the first time i've had to figure out an artful, non-scary way to address a very adult and scary topic with small people, and find some kind of meaningful ways to comfort and reassure their parents.  and i am sick of this shit, people.  just sick of it.  we do not have to live like this.  we don't.  and most of us, on a day-in-day-out, where we live and move and have our being--we DON'T live like this.

but then there are random Fridays, and you imagine that all you have to do is buy your first Christmas tree, and pack the car, and wrap a present for your oldest nephew, and you'll just listen to NPR on the way to get the nail taken out of the back tire of your husband's vehicle, and you realize in a powerful way that we DO live like this...

the thing that happens after one of these events (and G-d, how awful is it that there's a pattern to follow...seriously?) started happening before anyone even really had an idea of what had really happened.  "news" and "facts" become sort of fluid and floaty, and the thing you know for most certain is that some awful and terrible is happening, but nothing beyond that can be confirmed.  and then some of the smoke starts to clear, and some solid actual information becomes known.  and then, some jerks with microphones start talking and prognosticating and pontificating, and everything that's really worth talking about is blotted out with station logos, commercial breaks, and retired specialists who can give you every scenario you need to have nightmares for days, without actually giving you any legitimate and accurate information.  and you know some douchebag is going to say it's because we don't allow G-d in schools, or because we don't have kindergarten teachers who pack heat...

***this is the part where i get up on my soap box, so if you're not up for that, go right back to facebook, and have a nice day.***

here's what i have to say to douchebags who blame this on "not allowing G-d in schools"--and i'm looking right at you, former Governor Mike Huckabee.  this statement is reductive to the point of being blasphemous, and people who espouse it should be deeply and profoundly ashamed to have such a small and faithless witness for G-d in the world.  shame on you.  G-d, or at least the G-d i know doesn't work that way.

i'd be so excited to get to have a cup of coffee with you, and tell you about how big my G-d is, how much my G-d loves, how sad my G-d is about this, and how i know that had G-d not been present in that school (and bidden or not, G-d IS present)...well, we are very lucky that G-d was there.  additionally, stop saying things that aren't true about the separation of church and state.  again, this is highly reductive, and not helpful, and NOT true.  what is true is that we're not all baptists, or methodists, or christians, or jews, or hindus, or jains, or buddhists, or zoroastrians, or neo-druids, or believers of any stripe.  but none of those identifiers mean that G-d loves us any less, or is any less present or active in our lives and world.  and while i am angry with you, more than anger, i feel great pity toward you.  i hope that you don't feel as alone and scared and unsure as you sound.  i'm totally seriously about that cup of coffee...

to the douchebags who say that teachers should pack heat, i have to say this:  Are you freaking kidding me?  Rick Perry and others--get your heads out of your asses.  that opinion is not limited to Rick Perry, not by a long shot.  i've seen it around my own little universe, and it makes me sick and sad.  this is NOT about guns.  JESUS.  i mean, yeah, we need to talk about guns.  but if you're dumb enough to believe that adding more guns to the equation is going to make things better, that's the biggest reason you're not fit to lead the country.  one more gun, or one more person with a concealed carry license isn't going to reduce gun violence, even in extreme cases. it's just one more gun on the streets.  

you wanna know the real reason we want to hurt each other?  it's as old as our oldest stories...we are jealous, we are broken, we hurt.  and in our jealousy, our brokenness, our hurt, we grab the heavy or hard thing closest to us, and whale away, until we see red, until the noise stops, until the magazine runs out or the cops come, and then...well, by then it's all over but the crying.  and that is far too late.  all the guns, violent games and movies, objectification of relationships, bigotry, hate, all of it...all of it boils down to our hurt and brokenness coming out in blazing and startling technicolor. it's been millenia since we first heard the story of cain and abel...why can't we do better?  why are we still fumbling around in the dark, looking for ways to hide the blood, clean up the mess, cover up the lies and the wounds, instead of making things right?

there will be people who will claim that nothing meaningful can be done, who will "yeah, but" in the face of every articulated solution, who will demand that things must change, but will not be willing to be the ones to do the changing.  and it will be hard to love them.  but we have to.  we have to love them, and keep in contact and conversation with them, even when we want to run away or call them dumbs.  they feel the same way, right back at us.  but we are all in this together.  we have to remember that.  we have to keep and hold and love each other.  we are our brother's keeper, and they are ours, too.

mil besos,
rmj

...for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory...

the dolly zoom is an unsettling in-camera effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception. it is part of many cinematic techniques used in filmmaking and television production.

the effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view or FOV) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera angle is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice-versa. thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject.

as the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, and the emotional impact of this effect is greater than the description above can suggest. the visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed.

--wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

time  1. a. a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future. b. an interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration: a long time since the last war; passed the time reading. c. a number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval: ran the course in a time just under four minutes. d. a similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes: checked her watch and recorded the time, 6:17 AM. e. a system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned:solar time.

--american heritage dictionary

"... thanksgiving is more than eating, chuck. you heard what linus was saying out there. those early Pilgrims were thankful for what had happened to them, and we should be thankful, too. 
we should just be thankful for being together. 
i think that's what they mean by 'thanksgiving,' charlie brown."

--charles schultz
a charlie brown thanksgiving

so, i'm standing there in this little chapel  and looking at this incredible creature G-d said i should marry and spend my life with, and i all i could think was, "ohmygoodnessthisisreallyhappeningNOWNOWNOW".  time seemed to compress and elongate, all at the same time.  an intense and sharp focus fired it's way into my brain, and seemed to brighten the colors in the room, and as i made myself take deep breaths and willed my knees not to shake, that familiar and awe-inspiring tunnel vision and magnetic hum of Mystery seemed to gin up inside and around me, and i was able to kind of pull myself together.  i knew there were words i needed to say, knew there were words i was supposed to hear and to respond to appropriately.  all i wanted to do was not let go of his hands or stop looking at his face. 

we were talking about what it would feel like to finally be married, last week.  we wondered what, if anything, might be different.  he said he was going to stop holding in his farts.  i figured i'd probably actually cry over stupid commercials in front of him, instead of crying in the bathroom, or pretending like i was feeling my allergies.  G-d...were we wrong.  I mean, he really did stop holding in his farts, and I openly wept at a couple of really cheesy things.  but there is something...well, kind of big... to be said for the ontological change, for the profound grace imparted in that sacramental moment we shared between ourselves, with our families, and G-d, on last thursday.  

i didn't think it was possible to love him more, to feel more married to him, to have everything good and lovely about him seem so much...much-ier.  but...my G-d...it's the difference between the giant hole your nephew dug in the backyard and the Grand Canyon: one leaves you reaching for the bottle of scotch, and the other leaves you with the deep knowledge that you should definitely be drinking more champagne.  

loving him, from the very minute i realized that i did, has both shaken and steadied me, all the way to to very deepest core of myself.   he has maintained all along that we have our own time zone, and...as with so many other things...(and i'm sure this is not the last time this will happen)...

i have to say that my husband is absolutely right.  

mil besos,

rmj

rearview

each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. 

--anias nin

he who does not see the whole world in his friends, does not deserve 

that the world should hear of him.

--goethe

the new is older than the old;

and newest friend is oldest friend in this:

that, waiting him, we longest grieved to miss

one thing we sought. 

--helen hunt jackson

the older i get, the more i realize how rare it is for people to maintain close friendships with people they've known since they were little.  i have close friendships with like...seven people i grew up with.  those roots go deep.  we're not just twice-a-year friends.  we talk regularly.  we know what nights not to call, who's got the day off, which way the wind is blowing in their corner of the world.  we have a weird short hand, and know ridiculous stories that happened WAY before college, WAY before hormones, WAY before crow's feet, or spouses, or when some of us still had two parents.  

this weekend, i got to watch one of my oldest and best friends be married to her beloved, by another of our oldest and best friends, with other old friends in attendance.  it was a day we had imagined as little girls, with barbies and kens and big poofy dresses, raiding her mom's old barbie collection for the perfect accessory, or at my grandmother's house, in the playroom, trying on old dresses and making veils out of old half-slips.  like so many things we imagine as little people, the reality far outstripped everything we were even kind of able to imagine about what weddings would REALLY look like.  but it is unaccountably sweet to think of those two little girls playing dolls, and dreaming about being brides.  we hear the voices of those little girls we were in our discussions about becoming wives, and i am constantly reminded of what a luxury that is.  i am profoundly grateful.  

my best best friend in the whole wide world was on the officiating end of the wedding.  he was married to the bride when we were in kindergarten, so the whole thing had a really nice bit of symmetry to it.  i was also so proud and excited to introduce my beloved and my bestest friend to each other, to be able to say to each of them, "this is one of the coolest people you'll ever meet, and i want you to be friends", to have them start to know each other.  they are two of the most important people in my life, two of my favorite men of all time, and it was fun to watch them navigate their first meeting.  they played well together.  listening to them, and talking with them, i was reminded of the things i love best about each of them, and was so awash with gooey girly feelings and the best possible sense of nostalgia, and wonderment about what's coming next.  

this man that i'm marrying is incredible.  just when i think i have a handle on how much i love him, on what i think must certainly be the deepest depth of my feeling and understanding of what it means to love and be loved by him, i have to run to the bathroom and cry a little bit, because i realize this really is just the beginning, and we are on such an adventure...one for the ages.  i know that in a very real sense, one day, years from now, i will look back at my thirty-four year old self with the same fondness and slight head-shake at her innocent musings( about married life and being a wife and wearing that amazing wedding dress and starting a whole new chapter with this glorious creature G-d made just for me) in much the way i have looked at my little-girl self in the rearview mirror  of my mind, all weekend. 

it's an amazing thing to learn than you are happier than you ever, ever, ever imagined you could be, over things and people and circumstances you never could have imagined, much less have had the sense to hope or pray for.  

to see your wildest dreams, your most far-fetched musings come into bloom in blazing technicolor, banishes thoughts of sleep or work or tomorrow, and demands you to be fully present, to wipe your eyes, and square your shoulders, and stare straight at the camera and smile, because this is now, and we can do anything. 

mil besos,

rmg

learning curve

the godly union of souls in mutual forebearance with each other's infirmities, 

and mutual stimulating each other's graces--this surely is a fragment of true happiness 

that has survived the Fall.  --charles bridges

marge: homer, is this the way you pictured married life?

homer: yup, pretty much. except we drove around in a van solving mysteries. --the simpsons

with this ring I thee wed, with my body i thee worship, and with all my worldly goods i thee endow.

--the book of common prayer, 1928

what woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, 

in the inmost cupboards of her heart?

--william makepeace thackary

so, i'm buying a wedding dress this weekend.  and ordering his ring.  and picking out a cake.  every time i think about that, i have to suppress this ridiculous giggle and squirmy feeling that starts in my toes and runs all the way up to the roots of my hair. i have these intense moments of emotion, where i tear up for no reason, or smile or laugh, or can't sleep. 

honestly, until about two, two-and-a-half years ago, i was convinced i would never, ever get married.  mostly i was sure of that because i was sure there was something really wrong with me, something missing, or not good enough, or bright and shiny and pretty or smart enough to be a good partner.  i had people i really loved and cared about and spent a ton of time would go on for hours about how being married conveys a sense of maturity and adulthood one cannot obtain outside of the marriage relationship.  and i simultaneously agreed and rejected that idea, because i was convinced that i was never actually going to fall in love or get married, and was going to be stuck in some kind of infant-adult hybrid life.  forever.

at some point, and i could almost tell you the date, i stopped worrying about who was going to ever fall in love with me, and decided i deserved to fall in love with myself, as much as i was able.  and once i started down that trail, it didn't so much matter to me if anyone ever wanted to love or marry me, as long as i was loving myself and my life in the best ways i knew how.  i laid down on the floor of my bedroom, and surrendered myself...to Jesus, to the Universe, and to my deepest self.  and i tried to be kind and good, and treat myself the way i treated the people i loved in my life.  i stopped yelling at that face in the mirror, and crying over her in the shower.  i stopped thinking mean things about myself, stopped putting myself in no-win situations (as much as i was able), and really, really tried to know myself in new ways, all the way down to my toes and back up, again.  i tried to see myself as a real person, just like everyone else, with all the same chances and challenges as everyone else i know.  and once i did that, i could have really cared less if i got married, ever.  because my completeness wasn't attached to anything outside myself.  and that was a pretty amazing day.  

and then, on this funny little sunday in may, i realized i was hopelessly, irrevocably, and magically in love with this incredible man.  he walked off my porch, and toward the parking lot, and i walked back inside my apartment, and like some strange and silent earthquake/tsunami/catergory 5 hurricane/wildfire/hailstorm/you-name-it, this altogether familiar and wonderful voice whispered in my heart of hearts "so...this is how this happens.  this is how it was always supposed to happen.  it took every single step both of you took to get here. be here, now. and don't be afraid.  none of this is accidental."  

and so all these thoughts/hopes/plans/wishes i had concocted as a little girl, staring out my window, looking at the pecan trees in our front yard, and imagining what it would be like to be bride found their way back into my head.  and like so much i've learned in my adulthood, the actual doing of the thing is much different than the philosphy of the thing being done.  i can read a book about changing a tire and understand how to perform that task intellectually.  however, and as much as i hate to admit this..., until i'm shredding the knees of my jeans on the pavement, swearing at lug nuts and ragging up my cuticles, and sweating like Secretariat on the homestretch, actually changing the tire, i really don't know anything practical,real or factual about changing the tire.  it's kind of been the same with planning a wedding.  it's been exactly the same thing about pondering and exploring and becoming a wife, someone's partner, someone's next-of-kin, someone's (G-d...So.Cheesy, but true) last call of the day.  and it's not always the way i thought it would feel, or smell, or taste, or look, or sound.  it's better.  because i'm not thinking about it, not imagining it, not dreaming it, not putting together my best guess based on stories i've heard or read or made up. 

 this is real life, every.single.second.  

and it's his, and mine, and ours.  

and i never thought i'd be all gushy and girly over stuff, that i'd be one of those girls who gets all sappy and teary, that i would ever ever ever in a million years be this gaga over a guy.  but i am.     i always thought i'd want some big fluffy white wedding dress, until i realized that was pretty much the last thing i wanted to wear when i marry this man.  i thought i'd want a wedding with everyone i'd ever liked to spend time with in attendance, and gardens of flowers, and a string quartet, and lots of candles, and the london boy's chior, but what i want most is just to see his face at the end of the aisle, and i sort of surprised myself by genuinely not caring about any of the extraneous crap.  but i was still rock solid on the idea of having a cake, because...i mean, come on...there is no dessert better than wedding cake.  and i wasn't surprised at all that i wanted to use my parents' wedding rings to make the ring i will give to him.  i was surprised that i cried when my mother gave them to me, and that i cried when i wore them to church the next day, and sang a hymn that was played at my parents' wedding.  that was mystical and magical and miraculous.  and was another still and familiar voice, whispering in my ear, saying, " this is how this happens.  this is happening.  this is now."  

so, this weekend, i'm buying a wedding dress.  we're ordering a cake.  we're ordering his ring.  and i know it'll be different than i think it will be.  and that'll be exactly what it's supposed to be, because it won't be my imagination, it'll be reality.

and when i hear that still voice, (and it's always a still voice, ringing inside me like a tibetan prayer bowl) inside my deepest self, and i am shaken and steadied by what it tells me, what it reminds me, what is says is real and true and now, i know that now is worth everything. 

and it always was. 

mil besos,

rmg

right foot, left foot...

"...one must command from each what each can perform, the king went on. "authority is based first of all upon reason. if you command your subjects to jump into the ocean, there will be a revolution. i am entitled to command obedience because my orders are reasonable."

" ...then my sunset?" insisted the little prince, who never let go of a question once he had asked it.

"you shall have your sunset. i shall command it. but i shall wait, according to my science of government, until conditions are favorable."  

--the little prince

"whenever you do what is holy, be of good cheer, knowing that God Himself takes part with rightful courage."

--menander

"listen. are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?"

--mary oliver

i've maintained for most of my thirties that being brave is not about being without fear.  it's about feeling the fear down to my toes, and continuing to move.  it's about being relentless in not laying down, or at least not staying down.  we can't help but fall sometimes, even when all the lights are on, and the floor is level, and there are no obstacles in sight.  sometimes, we just fall.  it's easy to try and deconstruct why we've fallen, but sometimes getting up is the scariest part of the falling, because we don't know if we might have hurt ourselves in a way that won't show up until we get off the floor, or if we've split our pants, or torn our skirts.  

sometimes, we fall and make a mess, and have to figure out how to get off the floor without making an even bigger mess.  it's hard to know how to pick ourselves up, sometimes.  we know that staying down isn't a reasonable choice  we know that getting up is going to be hard.  we know we will probably be sore, tomorrow, and that the bruises will take time to fade.  we know those things.  we know them, but we have a hard time getting right with them, with radically accepting the true fact that sometimes, the mess ends up in your lap, in your face, on the floor, right beside you.  

i do a crappy job of giving myself permission to struggle--i think that's true of most people i know, though.  i know myself well enough to know i can go right from giving myself permission to do/feel/think a certain way into manipulating myself into laying down on the floor and wallowing in delicious misery.  and MY G-D, what a way to waste time...and i hate wasting time.  but i know that there are days when i have to look at myself in the mirror and tell that girl that it's ok to struggle for balance.  it's ok to not have the next right answer.  it's ok to be frustrated by circumstances over which i have no control. it's totally ok.  

what's not ok is for me to beat myself up about struggling, because OH MY GOSH, major life changes have been happening for the last...i dunno...11 months, and while all of them are incredible and wonderful and life-changing, and i wouldn't change a single thing about any of them...a lady has a very full brain and full heart, and life simply does not stop so that i can digest and process all of it, and catch up.  none of us ever get to stop the game clock.  there are no commercial time-outs.  the test is now, and it's all cumulative.  get right with it.  i also can't lie about not struggling.  integration and transition are hard life-processes to learn, no matter how old i am.  and it's ok that i don't know all of it, right this minute.  the things i don't know about life in general far out-weigh the things i do know.  i'm reasonably sure that will be true no matter how long i live, or how many different life situations i have.  

i had lunch with a good friend, today.  my friend is struggling.  we talked a lot, and cried a little, and i did my best not to fix.  but that conversation reminds me that all of us are learning how to do something new, right this minute.  we know that the people around us give us more mercy and grace than we can possibly know about, but we both have a hard time giving that to ourselves, both have a hard time being grace-filled and merciful to ourselves.  

i'm convinced that learning to be friends with myself, with falling in love with the substance of myself, the good parts and the bad parts, are a life-long process, and since i really started that endeavor three or so years ago, my life has taken many turns that i would not have been able to weather, had i not started that process.  i know i have to continue to be committed to knowing and loving myself, not just for the good of my marriage, my family, or my vocation, but for my own good--that wild and precious and unique creation of G-d, that will never ever come again in this form, that Jesus lived to love.  

and when i remember that, when we all remember that about ourselves, something like courage and strength bubble up, and i can smile at the face staring back at me from the mirror, and tell her, in all honesty, "honey, it's all just fine.  all of it.  now, go do your best, and believe that the rest will be just as it should be.  because it will, and it is."  

mil besos,

rmg

sh*t you missed...

have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?

 have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

 have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

  stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;

 you shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left;)

 you shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books;

you shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me:

 you shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. 

--walt whitman

we shall not cease from exploration

and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time.

through the unknown, remembered gate

when the last of earth left to discover

is that which was the beginning;

at the source of the longest river

the voice of the hidden waterfall

and the children in the apple-tree

not known, because not looked for

but heard, half heard, in the stillness

between the two waves of the sea.

--t s eliot

the minute i heard my first love story, 

i started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

lovers don't finally meet somewhere,

they're in each other all along.  

--rumi

so, two weeks ago, the manfriend and i are sitting on the couch in the apartment in happy valley, watching wimbledon and trying to avoid confronting the fact that he is about to leave, and we aren't going to see each other for TWO WHOLE WEEKS (GAH).  i'm wearing my favorite green t-shirt and black knit skirt, pink pearl earrings, and my silver bracelet that i always wear.  he's wearing his favorite gray t-shirt with the rocket ship on it and  black cargo shorts.  jinx is crawling all over the place and being super vocal.  it's about nine fifteen, and it's that really nice time in the morning, when the light is kind of soft and just starting to get really bright.  

homefry looks right at me, and says (and i'm paraphrasing, because there was A LOT that he said and i said that you don't need to know about, but this is the important part), "hey, i want you to think about something with me.  let's think about getting married. i want to do this with you in front of G-d and the people we love. let's do this."  

and then my head exploded all over the couch cushions.  

but really i just sort of nodded and said something totally inane and classic Peg like, "i totally want to think about that, too.  we can definitely do this."  that's right...the girl who never shuts up, who knows more metaphors that should be legally allowed, who even talks in her sleep couldn't come up with anything better to say that a sentence that included both the words "totally" and "definitely"...i think i probably said "seriously" a couple of times, too.  this dude really, really, really loves me, you guys.  and i can't say enough about all the ways and whys i love him.  

i didn't cry until he actually left, and then OMG, sh*t=lost.  laughing, crying, pacing and skipping, and Jinx giving the big "what the douce" eyes, and finally just retreating under my bed for the duration of the fit. 

and that was the best day, ever.  until last week. 

...and this is the part where i tell you that on friday the 13th (... we had our first date on a friday the 13th...), we decided that we were done thinking about getting married, and that we're getting married on thanksgiving day, in front of G-d and our families.  

this is real.  this is happening.  and i am so excited, i haven't stopped smiling.  and i can still hardly breathe.  

there is nothing better than how this feels, not in this life.  it  feels like praying, like singing, feels like doing all my favorite things all at once, feels like hosanna and alleluia, and saying thank you to G-d with every single breath.  i feel like Moses must have, when he looked at the burning bush, and saw the flames, felt the heat--the bush was not consumed, and Something Amazing was happening... i am awestruck and at attention, and i don't want to miss a single second. it's holy ground, this.  and i have no intention of ever putting on shoes (metaphorically speaking, of course...) ever, ever again, even when i have to go to the grocery store.  

oh, internets...thanks for being here.  we can't wait to see you and show each other off.  thanks for your love, and your prayers...we love you, too. 

and killer, i love you. 

we're definitely, totally getting married.  seriously.  

mil besos,

rmg 

this one is about baseball, after a fashion...

we should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.  

--c.g. jung

some part of our being knows this is where we came from. we long to return. and we can. because the cosmos is also within us. we're made of star-stuff. we are a way for the cosmos to know itself. 

 --carl sagan

you do not have to be good. you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. 

---mary oliver

if what you want to do doesn't make you shake in your boots, your dream is not big enough. 

--brother ishmael tetteh

my fairy godmother/boss says that if you find yourself in tears or belly laughing or having vivid dreams or being so emotionally moved you actually vomit, you'd better pay attention, because it's quite likely G-d trying to tell you something pretty damn important. 

i may not know much, but i know that much is true.  

i can tell you for true and  for certain that i've spent a huge portion of the last...i dunno...thirteen weeks laughing until i cried, crying because i'm happy, and dreaming these crazy colorful  dreams and talking in my sleep like a four-year old.  G-d's not so much trying to tell me something so much as i feel like G-d is giving us a standing ovation and keeps filling up our glasses, and i'm pretty sure the toasts will last well into the wee morning hours.  and i don't care how much sleep i lose, because to be alive and awake at this very second, which ever one it is, is worth everything.  and it's worth ripping out a hem, tearing up a perfectly good pair of shoes, making deodorant work overtime, getting slightly more buzzed than is entirely appropriate in public, irritating the dj into just handing you his ipod because you've requested an ENTIRE ALBUM, and not just one song...you get the idea. this is worth it.  every. single. second.  

here's why i don't even mind the missed sleep (...and you guys know how much i just LOVE sleep...it's like my third favorite thing to do in the whole world.) and why people with good sense never mind missing sleep over good things:  good things are like no-hitters or winning streaks in baseball--they don't come around that often.  there's some flavor of luck that lingers when you taste the incredible, but those same sensible people will tell you that luck and timing taste an awful lot alike, but timing is ever so much sweeter, because we have less to do with timing than we can imagine. timing, on our part, is knowing just when to jump, and when to stand still.  remember when you were little, and you tried to jump on the merry-go-round while it was spinning super fast?  sometimes, you got it just right, and everyone thought you were awesome for like two whole minutes.  sometimes your timing was off (and whether by a little or a lot, it was still OFF) and you ended up half under the merry-go-round, with your shorts and  shoes in a muddy mess, and your mom running over to yank you out from underneath the metal death wheel, and asking you in her mostly-scared but slightly exasperated and very relieved voice just what in the sam hill you thought you were doing and telling you it's going to take a miracle to get these shorts clean...timing...it hasn't changed that much from that merry-go-round bit. 

to be engaged in time, to actively participate in the timing of the universe...you gotta pay REAL close attention to what's going on, and you've got to be ready to get in the game and play your nuts off EVERY SINGLE SECOND, even if you suspect you'll be riding the pine pony all night.  because...we're on a streak.  this is one of those crazy games where the team you love best is going to break every single record you can think of that could be shattered in a single game.  the pitcher is pitching a no hitter...the catcher just batted for the cycle TWICE, and then there was a grandslam on a freaking bunt, right before we all got up and sang "take me out to the ballgame", backed by the entire jam session line-up from the "last waltz" AND elvis.  it's so epic and so ridiculously beyond what you ever expected that ballgame to be, you'll probably have to go to the locker room and sob hysterically into a towel for a couple of minutes during the seventh inning stretch before and after you throw up all your popcorn and big pickle, because you know it's real (those pinch marks on the underside of your arm prove YOU ARE AWAKE), and it's just so intense, you don't even have any words left.  and what you want most in the world is to just keep playing well, to not think about the streak or the no hitter.  because you can't think about that too hard.  if you do, you stop playing well, and start trying to play perfect.  and that's when bad things happen.  so you gotta hold this like and egg, rook.  and never take your eyes off the ball.  ever. and have you ever, ever, ever had more fun in your whole life?  see...told you. 

i honestly believe that there's an incredible trinity made up of grace, mercy, and timing that is running this show.    and unlike things we make ourselves--talismans or mantras or rituals; grace, mercy, and timing never run out, never lose their magic.  they are always running head of us, sweeping up behind us, hanging up fresh curtains and changing our linens out, holding us in these incredibly gentle and unseen hands, so that even on days when we stumble, days that are hard, days when we are not our best and brightest selves, there are soft words and tender feelings to make it not so bad, not so very bad, at all.  

we talk about baseball and miracles--water into wine, the respendent universe inside a little butter-thief's mouth, loaves and fishes, and sunrises.  we know this.  we think about this.  we have a whole pile of things we think about with each other, together and apart.  and that's worth losing sleep over...this streak, this no-hitter, this miracle season for the books, and knowing we win.  

we win.  no curses, no rain delays, and even when the winter comes and kills the grass and ivy, we'll take our business inside, and work on fundamentals until spring rolls around, again.  and all things shall be well. 

mil besos,

rmg

babylonian time zones

time (tīm)

 

n.

1.

a. a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

b. an interval separating two points on this continuum; a duration:a long time since the last war; passed the time reading.

c. a number, as of years, days, or minutes, representing such an interval:ran the course in a time just under four minutes.

d. a similar number representing a specific point on this continuum, reckoned in hours and minutes:checked her watch and recorded the time, 6:17 AM.

e. a system by which such intervals are measured or such numbers are reckoned:solar time.

--american heritage dictionary

i believe in intuition and inspiration. … at times i feel certain i am right while not knowing the reason. when the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, i was not in the least surprised. in fact i would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. imagination is more important than knowledge. for knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. it is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research. ---albert einstein

“one’s personal legend is what you have always wanted to accomplish. everyone, when they are young, knows what their personal legend is. at that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. they are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. but, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their personal legend…

whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, 

it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. it’s your mission on earth.  

--paulo coehlo, the alchemist

mostly, time passes in a flash and a blur.  sometimes, i can catch snips of what's happening at the edges,  if i look out the corner of my eye, but things are usually so fast and furious, i keep my head pointed straight ahead and capitulate to the tunnel vision that comes to take over, and help me not feel like i'm about to throw up everything i've eaten in the last seventeen years.  it's hard for me to remember that time is a convention we've invented, in our wisdom and our blindness, to help us not feel so...small.  

sometimes, when i watch my favorite movie, and see that fresco of lions painted 30k years ago (a full 20k years before our voices had developed enough to speak words you and i would hear as intelligible), i almost can't breathe.  we leave such small and stunning things behind us, to mark our time.  some of what we leave behind will never be found or uncovered.  other pieces, moments, poems, paintings, remnants of bone, hand prints, etc...they end up staining the walls of where ever we live and move and have our being, and the people who come after us will come to know that while time has passed, it is somehow mysteriously still in motion, with everything still happening, still rushing and flowing and shaping us with it's unseen and ferociously tender hands.  i can look at those pictures on that cave wall and believe in a forever that i was never able to see, before.  

i remember the first time i left the central time zone.  we were on a family trip, to new mexico.  i was six, and my brother was two.  ...white sundress with tie straps and red piping and smocked down the front, and little white sandals, and sitting as still as i possibly could while the man with the box full of colors drew a picture of me for my momma to hang on the wall... eating the hottest enchilada of my entire life, and my poppy smiling the whole time, while my eyes watered and i giggled the whole way through dinner... kachina dolls and getting lost in a giant truck stop at carl's corner.  there was something mystical about the idea that this trip to an enchanted land (tip of the hat to you, new mexico...) was a WHOLE hour different from the life i lived in my little yellow house in btex.  i was very insistent that EVERYONE adjust their watches, when i read the road sign that proclaimed "NOW ENTERING MOUNTAIN TIME".  i was fascinated by the idea that just by moving yourself around on the face of the planet, you had to change your clock to keep up with where you were.  at least, that's how i believed time worked, when i was six.  frankly, i still kind of believe it works that way.  

in babylon, it's easy to believe that some time passes more quickly than others.  it's so easy to believe-- i make up shit that isn't true, just to pass the time.  i tell myself that mondays are forever long, and that the week between christmas and new year is the fastest week of the year.  i agonize over time away from things i need to do, accomplish, finish, start, sew up, love, grow, weed, burn, bandage, rock, and carry.  i forget, in my haste to cross things off my list that every minute is 60 seconds long, every day is 24 hours in length.  i get the same time, every day.  

those hours seem to be flying by when i am  actively engaged, even if it's active engagement with something i'm not crazy about...sometimes, that same exact amount of time drags when i have to do maddening tasks  or have tedious conversations or fold laundry or be sick or spend time with people i don't like in places i'd rather not be.  but, i don't always get a vote on where/how/with whom i spend my time.  i do get a vote on how i choose to view it, on whether or not i allow it to spin by me in a blur, or take it by the reins and slow it the eff down.  the real trick is to keep this at the front of my mind: "make every minute count".  as long as i remember that, remember that the shot clock and the game clock are one in the same, i do fine.  and that clock isn't one that lives on the wall, or one that's regulated by some cesium core in a basement in brussels.  that clock belongs to G-d, and has numbers on it that i can't read.  i have no idea how much time has been counted by that clock, nor how much is left in the tank.  truth be told, i could care less.  all i can do is hold the time i have gently, and make every single second count.  and sometimes, annoying as it is, i have to say that out loud to myself, and sometimes to other people.  i can't lose track of that.  can't. won't. must not.  but i have to hold it like an egg...one of those faberge jobs that goes for like $10k at an auction.  

the tighter i held on to my idea of time, timing, and what it all meant, the smaller my idea of G-d and love was.  letting go of that clock, my clock, the shot clock i was convinced i would never beat, never best, never fully comprehend was harder than anything i've ever had to do, ever.  harder than burying people i loved, because time is tied up in that bit, too.  i stopped wearing a watch when i was twenty-five, as part of a lenten discipline, but also because i knew i was looking at my watch way more than i was looking at the faces around me, more than i was looking out the window of my office, more than i was looking at anything else, to tell the truth.  i didn't like that.  i didn't pick up another one until i had to wear one at camp.  i was so glad to take it off at the end of the summer, to see that inch of untanned wrist glow in the dark, to be unshackled from that band of time that made me hurry and rush from one thing to the other, when what i really wanted  to do was be still and sit and process. 

being in babylon is all about time, the illusion and the reality of the concept of time.  it is totally analogous to "doing time" in a strange and somehow familiar/slightly unknowable jail.  it's hard to make my peace with that.  we are captives here. 

the upshot is that every now and then, we can find these spaces and these people within which and with whom time becomes very fluid and thin, and we can just peek over the walls and into that place of promise. sometimes, we even get visits to that place.  we get to sneak over the wall or under the wire, and hike back into that green and lovely morning-place where it's all new and flush and vivid and there are no clocks or alarms or hourglasses or punch cards or anything, not even a stuffed crocodile with a clock in his mouth to remind us that we've won this part of the war.  there's just the sun and the trees and the clouds and the birds and crickets and centipedes and a flock of turkeys and something new to see around every corner.  we don't get to stay there for long, because even though it feels like time stops in this place, it really doesn't... but we can find the way back, any time we like, if we're willing to close our eyes and believe in the space we make between ourselves, when we are honest and good and kind and true.  it's very much the Kingdom of G-d between us, it's the intersection of the-already and the-not-yet.  and it is breathtaking.  

it's not magic.  but it is a miracle.  

he says we have our own time zone. 

mil besos,

rmg