Our place in the scheme of things

I had a big burphday party last week. It was a gala event with wonderful food, beloved people, and glorious weather. My mom came-- with Williamsburg Orange Cake-- and amazing people from near and far showered me with affection, books, and music. It was a delightful way to mark 33. The next Monday I thought I was on my way to spend 4 days in Phili with Mom. We were going to bake and apple pie, visit the traveling Frida exhibit, and faff about enjoying the spring weather. On Tuesday early I got the call from my Dad that Paw-Paw had passed away and I was flung headlong into an epic journey down the eastern seaboard to a tour of Louisiana.
The ritual of saying goodbye is important, and Paw-Paw's was heartfelt, partially Hebrew ( a language I am not sure he even knew or revered in life), and short. I was standing with J and A-- T was not in attendence-- looking around at a crowd of people who used to be the grown-ups in the family and I realized that J, A, and I are also the grown-ups in the family now. Like the inevidable motion of the most rhythmic order we moved up in the generational design that day. There were no children a generation younger than us there represented-- in fact none of my generational cohort have divided that way yet. And this was a realization I found notable as well.
Of course, upon return home, T and I had another one of those uncomftorable conversations about spawning. She is much more salmon-like than I, and seems to be quite drawn to the idea of returning to the proverbial grounds to make babbies. I, on the other hand, don't seem to have the slightest inclination whatsoever to do such a thing. Call me crazy-- but the idea of pregnancy and labor is as abhorent to me as becoming a stock-broker. And then there are diapers, toddler rages, outrageous child-care costs... i have real trouble seeing the positive here. This is a source of much constrenation between T and I-- and a conflict that I believe one day may become a grave problem. But for now we simply bump into it occasionally-- and as her biological clock ticks louder and louder each year I simply hope for flexibility of mind and open-heartedness to descend upon both of us.

OMG, shoes

I awoke dreeaming about shoes. I was in this mall-like place with people I don't enjoy much in waking life and we were looking at this place where you put your feet in trash bags and they trace you all up and then create for you a pair of individual shoes. I was hesitant (since I want and need a new pair of hooves in waking life and apparently in dream life, too) but also strangely obsessed with the whole process. I woke up just as dream-friend was putting his feet in the bags and the shoe-maker was emerging from the back to help us.

What could this possibly mean? Shoes could be representative of stability? of status? of standing on my own two feet? of that stupid youtube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA) that I am oddly in love with. Humph.

As my big burphday partay looms I am thinkiing more and more about this notion of identity. How that identity changes over time! Certainly when I was younger I was more focused on WHO I AM and what that looks like, how I manifest that, and what that means. These days I am less intereseted; I care more about kindness, and being honest about what I want and how I feel. These days I am less interested in being some "consistent" person-- especially if that comes at the expense of changing my mind and being wrong. Life is here to be lived, no? Life is here to be present for, not to for forcing and shoving and imposing our will around. More and more the activities that feel important to me live with the people who are important to me-- more so than art, or ideas, or beauty. This particular me has been around the sun almost 33 years. 33 fucking years-- Goddess help us! But that is a long time to be here. Of course, it is nothing on most time scales (the geological one, the galactical one...) And I don't feel "old" really. I feel more and more humble if anything. Maybe that is what being around teen-agers all day does to ya-- they are really, for the most part, the opposite of humble. And having been first hand witness all day most days, except summer, to the mess that attitude whips up I am more and more interested in manifesting humility.

In fact, one of the short quotes up in my classroom is a line from an Ani song: humility has buoyancy. And in my experience so far, truer words were never sung!

It isn't every day that you get to moderate a mosh pit at ye olde day job, eh?!
And conversely, it isn't every day that you see a kid running down the sidewalk away from her parent who looks around panicked at the edge of the driveway (I did see the kid look back, once, but then she turned the corner).
And finally it isn't eveybody's reality to be so blessed and so moody all at once: what is wrong with me?!
T and I are on our way to the keys tomorrow at 0:dark thirty for the nuptials of dear friends (who have found a steadfast love) and still my moods are like a capricious ocean this week! Perhaps I am becoming more and more like the teen-agers I spend so much time around, perhaps I am further down on the inner evolutionary trajectory than I had hoped. And perhaps, just perhaps, all this poetry and yoga and kale-eating isn't getting me anywhere but where I already am anyway. And where is that, might you ask? Well, this morning it is right here on the computer, instead of exercising or reading or cleaning the bathroom.
Sigh, I feel like an old Robbie Robertson song this morning: Somewhere Down the Crazy River. Not so much the lyrics or the melody but the atmosphere of it, the nostalgia of it, and the a little bit cheesy nature of it...