“Where are you headed today?”
A cute TSA employee strikes up a conversation with me as I wait for the conveyor to push my laptop through the scanner.
“Chicago.”
“Is Chicago home?”
No, he’s not cute, he’s out-of-place-for-airport-security dashing; this guy… this guy can frisk me, no problem.
“No, New York is home, but my family is in Chicago.”
“How long will you be there for?”
I raise my eyebrows, “A month.”
“A month! Now that’s some visit!”
“Well, my mom is sick and I want to go help her out.”
He’s flirty. Maybe slightly unprofessional, but I’m not filing a complaint anytime soon.
“Did she talk you into that?”
“No,” I raise my eyes to deliver the line straight on, “I’m just a really good daughter.”
We laugh. His smile is dazzling. How nice. On four hours of sleep, hungover, with no caffeine or food in my system, I am surprisingly chipper. Perhaps I am still drunk. The rest of the journey to the airplane is like this. Everyone seems more polite than usual. People are extraordinarily courteous. I see strangers talking, making connections, expressing gratitude. Holiday music piping through the terminal, perhaps they are all drunk on the season, now unabashedly in full swing post Thanksgiving weekend.
I am leaving one family to go to another. My soul is juiced up after an unexpectedly super fantastic six days in LA. I yoga’d it up, I sashayed for hours beachside, drank far too much alcohol and even more green juice trying to counterbalance it. I had a birthday, a reading, Thanksgiving with friends and family Hollywood Hills dinners. I bowled a strikingly (pardon the pun) awesome 167 at the Lucky Strike lanes. For my birthday I received the new Jonathan Franzen book and a deliciously sweet truffle of a weekend romance.
Several of my closest friends have moved here—it started five years ago with my bestie Broadway veteran Adam…simply the most charming, charismatic person I have ever known. Period. The West Coast has propelled him to the brink of interior design reality show stardom and he leads me around like a trophy fag hag, which I am more than proud to be.
The wave continues with David and Logan who for a solid seven years (along with our relocated Vermonter Tesha) were so close, they were not my crew. They were, they are, my tribe. At one point we coined ourselves ‘lodamate.’ T-shirts were made. I’m not kidding.
So with the mass exodus West, what’s a girl to do but head for a visit?
My amazon goddess oneness sistah Katie was trying LA on for size, there were yogis peppered everywhere and friends I adore from high school are here I didn’t even get a chance to see, the schedule was so packed.
Being with friends like this is being with family. These are the people who with ridiculous generosity offer, “Here take the keys to this apartment, we’ll stay together and you can stay there for free.” They respond to pick up requests without a moment’s hesitation: “of course.” They will brew you a pot of coffee when they have a house full of guests arriving to entertain and your lazy, tired ass should have made it to Starbucks on the way there. They have your back. This kind of love, the connection, the support, is what life is all about. I think of the yogis I met in India, who would fall in love and abandon their own continents to be with each other—I mean, that is an incredibly deep knowing. When you find this, you hold fast to it. You vacation together, you move to be near each other, it IS family.
As the jet-stream glides me eastward away from them, so grateful for the week I have had, my thoughts transition to this month with my “real” family. There is the old Ram Dass adage thrown around: “if you think you are so enlightened, go spend a week with your parents.” A month in my mother’s home will be the longest I have spent there in seventeen years. I’m not planning to lubricate the situation by running out for a case of holiday season Belvedere (our family is essentially sponsored by the vodka) but am instead placing my mother, sister and I on a one week cleanse and juice fast to start, which is going to stir up every irritability that ever existed in any of us. This will quite literally be, my most in-depth spiritual retreat.
Because the thing about family is, the comfort and the warmth and the ease that all the familiarity brings can also rear its ugly head as the place we feel most comfortable to be our nastiest selves. Often times our parents or siblings can bring things up in us, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that are the biggest thorns in our lattisumus dorsi. Something comes from one of their mouths that could be processed quite palatably from a stranger, but because our mother says it, there is all of this “stuff” attached to it.: expectation, charges of emotional hurt from the past. Discomfort when we don’t see eye to eye or they nag us for something we want to do or a way we want to be.
I joke with the TSA guy, and I joke here, but I’m pretty dead on serious when I label this a spiritual retreat. I fully expect to learn more about myself in a suburban Chicago household than I would spending a month in India with my teachers.
It’s leaning into the fire. Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön has a whole book titled “The Wisdom of No Escape” that speaks to this theory and practice. I will purposely be reaching for the irritations so that I can see how I react to them, notice this, and then in that inherent way that bringing attention to something and actually experiencing it rather than avoiding it dissipates it, this will be a month long meditative process.
Of course I go with excitement and love. I am fueled by the comfort and generosity I have with my tribe, to extend it to my family. Intending to learn and grow from any holiday stress that arises lets us all off the hook a little bit, doesn’t it? The world is a little jollier this month, decorated a little sparklier, as selfishness always seems to be ratcheted down a notch… And if everyone entered the season heart open, with a sprinkling of self-inquiry on mind, wouldn’t that make for a more enlightened December? Tonight the ladies of my family will feast, this weekend we will famine. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunities in love with those nearest to me in this life.
6:30am the next morning (4:30am LA time) my sister’s alarm in the next room agonizingly rousts me out of a dream, twice, from my best sleep in a week. "Why the f**k is a spaceship is landing in my room?!" I shuffle to her room intercepting the silence before the 3rd snooze. Desperately tired and annoyed beyond reason that she can sleep through the sci-fi, space-age, musically whirling futuristic noise that is her cell phone alarm clock, I am exhausted and murderous. I hate that she can sleep through anything; I hate that I cannot. I hate that she has to go to work this morning… "Doesn’t she realize that as my younger sister she should be sensitive and subservient to my every comfort and desire??," my thoughts mutter to themselves… opportunities for love... deep breath... stand-by… and… go.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
When God closes a door... He sends Morandi takeout
After an unnecessarily trafficked trek on the Merritt stalled our road trip enthusiasm, we appear late Friday evening and the festivities are already underway. The Longtrail keg is tapped, swirling in bellies amidst blueberry and maple syrup marinated pulled pork: just one of the highlights of a BBQ table squished with organic, free range, farm-fresh, local delicacies lovingly prepared by the transported, in-house New York foodie chef. The hot tub is warming up. The firepit is blazing. The bride and groom glow even in the dark, with a comfort and ease that match the surroundings of the Vermont retreat house they have rented for their nuptials.
Perhaps it’s because they are already into Longtrail draft #2 or #3, but I am pulled into animated and fierce embrace after embrace upon arrival. Shouts of joy and faces bright with expectation and happiness greet me as I am told they were waiting for us. It’s not me. They just wanted the community to be complete. The love is more palpable here than any I’ve felt. You could thrust your palm into the unusually temperate New England late September air and grab a fistful as though it were a firefly. You could pocket the love—it’s tangible; it’s there for the taking. There’s an unspoken agreement: please do so; we have enough to share.
I am to be officiating the ceremony the following day and I am honored, humbled beyond words to be included in something that is at the same time spectacularly real and cheerily glamorous: the union of two people, so outrageously beautiful inside and out. A couple who figured it out, and live life and cherish and respect each other in a way that is, as I will tell them later, a shining example for the world. What the world needs now, indeed. They are my inspiration.
The following afternoon, the day of the main event, I’m walking out the door for a quick, jaunty hike to a nearby waterfall with friends when an uneasy sickness comes over me. Suddenly I am woozy and tired, and so trust the feeling in my body and send them on, to instead rest for a few minutes in my lopsided bed within the house. Soon I realize it is not sickness, it’s almost a performance anxiety. I will be leading all through the ceremony, but also have an extemporaneous “homily” to put forth; a task that I have never attempted and a skill that is nowhere near a forte.
When we up our levels of consciousness, these are not easy transitions. Whether it be through cleaner eating, weekend workshops, meditations, deeksha—all of this stuff that we do?... the best analogy I have heard is that it’s like plugging a 220 volt appliance into a 110 volt plug. Our body needs to adjust to the higher frequency; to expand and encompass a more super-charged vibration. I realized, I’m not sick; I need to go make room in myself to hold all this love.
And I did that. With no official ceremony other than drawing from traditions that had left imprints in my experience, I saged the ceremony area and the house. I chanted mantras. I meditated, not for myself, but for all of us—to hold the space—to grow it larger to allow the highest level of love to reside. Ok, so apparently this is the kind of stuff I do now. Whether or not that did anything, I have no practical way of knowing. I guessed and threw some love in that direction. Did I feel better? Yes. Was everyone extraordinarily moved by the emotional ceremony the couple had so exquisitely designed? Yes. I made space, not only for them, but for myself, clearly and definitively outlining: this is what I want, these are my people, this is who I want to be, this is all there is, we all deserve nothing less, and we open ourselves to more.
And then a funny thing happened. Several hours later, something abruptly, unexpectedly removed itself from my life; an aspect of my world which I had devoted months of love and energy to—a turn that I thought could expand into a new path for this junket known as mags (I wasn’t sure, but the hopeful potential was there—the groundwork was laid, the creativity flowing, it was easily flourishing, it was joyful, it was sexy, it was fun…,) and then, without my having a say in it, in the middle of nowhere country, at 11pm on the night of this wedding, I find out it has exited. The prospect is no longer there. Gone, and I have no discussion or say in it and I do not understand it.
Really? NOW? At two of my best friends’ wedding? For reals? On the afternoon where people came to me with tears in their eyes telling me how moved they were by my words? Where I am more grounded and full of love and shiny than perhaps I have ever been (equated to both a goddess and Elaine Stritch, which, yes, seems totally incongruous and random, but still Elaine Stritch is awesome) this road abruptly evaporates before my eyes? It couldn’t have vanished, like, 12 hours later when I was driving back hungover on 91, playing with my blackberry in the backseat? Couldn’t have happened on the following rainy Monday, when I am too cozy to go into my office and am instead working laptop/undies/chaise lazily from home? Nope: had to happen THEN.
And so, by 11pm (six hours into drinking champagne/sauvignon blanc/pinot noir, post dinner, post cake-cutting, post dancing,) I find out and I am crying, well, no… sobbing, convulsing, mourning, on the back fire escape outside my room, desperately struggling to stay present to the moment while still sequestering myself from any of the festivities; trying to contain what has happened to only my own processing and not a disasterous soap-opera-esque wedding drama. A handful of the closest girlfriends I have ever had in my life all happen to be here; they whisper to each other, they come quietly find me, offering support, love, comfort.
And in the midst of a ceaseless sea of snot, I know the truth: the world took it away from me because it didn’t match what I was looking for. Today was a picture, an announcement, a declaration, for my friends, for myself, for all of us to choose the kind of people we want to be, the kind of lives we want to live and most importantly, HOW we want to live them, and this aspect did not match, was not ready to match, or did not want to match, and so it was taken away from me. It happened oh too too dramatically so that I could see how clear the message was.
I went to bed early to keep it close to my chest. The next morning, those nearest to me of course found out. They were warm; we kept the discovery at a hushed distance so as not to mar the perfection of the love cultivated by the weekend.
I was disappointed, angry, hurt, devastated, abandoned. The emotions rose and fell, mashing each other like the clustering of the foliage on the surrounding mountains, overlapping yet still somehow distinct. Witnessing them, I was already feeling the distance of the loss, choosing instead to stick to the vision that I deserve.
A 4am gluttenous fridge pasta raid somewhat assuaged the swollen-eyed, hungover car ride home. Musings over what lessons I need to learn and why I hadn’t yet learned them, why and how I had brought this to myself and what my responsibility was in all of it, my head already wrapping on to how life could be brighter once I got past this, faded to the background as the miles passed. Instead I tuned in to more imminent desires. Self-exploration: pause, food fantasies: begin. I craved pasta; bolognese which I don’t normally eat any longer, but f*&% it all, I'm not a saint and tonight I would allow myself comfort... later this week I’d inevitably stick myself on a juice cleanse.
I'm eyeing the bottle of pinot noir the bride gave me in the backseat (damn-- not a screw top) when an old flame and dear friend texts me. It’s not necessary to recount my loss and add energy to that “story,” so I simply tell him the wedding was “perfect” “so fun, full of love”… I use exclamation points and smiley face emoticons. I tell him I cannot wait to get back to my termpurpedic and order take out.
Half an hour after I get home to my village studio, the buzzer rings and there is a deliveryman from one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants. I did not order this, the old flame sent it as a surprise. In the bag is $50 worth of food—bolognese (he was not told I was craving this in particular,) a large salad and a rich, dark chocolate cake with hazelnuts nuzzling a spot of cream so fresh, an angel probably whipped it together with her wings.
My body tired, spent, in pain, almost cries in joy to the deliveryman. I try to reach the sweetie by phone to thank him, but he avoids my call and instead texts me things that are unusually lovable and comforting—phrases that seem out of place particularly since he doesn’t know of my mourning. He doesn't even know I need it.
And it is a delicious sign: this is what it’s supposed to look like. This is the universe supporting you. This is connection. This is you being seen, appreciated. I eat the bolognese and wash it down with the bride bottle of pinot. The next morning, one of the most brilliant directors in town with whom I have never worked, emails me: "Hello amazing women: I am sending this to a few wonderful actresses I know and admire."
When you uncompromisingly hold what you want in your heart, life will give it to you. When you let go, more comes in. It may not be pretty in the moment, but when we honor the truth of ourselves, unexpected surprises will picnic our path to ease us down the road. Thank you.
Perhaps it’s because they are already into Longtrail draft #2 or #3, but I am pulled into animated and fierce embrace after embrace upon arrival. Shouts of joy and faces bright with expectation and happiness greet me as I am told they were waiting for us. It’s not me. They just wanted the community to be complete. The love is more palpable here than any I’ve felt. You could thrust your palm into the unusually temperate New England late September air and grab a fistful as though it were a firefly. You could pocket the love—it’s tangible; it’s there for the taking. There’s an unspoken agreement: please do so; we have enough to share.
I am to be officiating the ceremony the following day and I am honored, humbled beyond words to be included in something that is at the same time spectacularly real and cheerily glamorous: the union of two people, so outrageously beautiful inside and out. A couple who figured it out, and live life and cherish and respect each other in a way that is, as I will tell them later, a shining example for the world. What the world needs now, indeed. They are my inspiration.
The following afternoon, the day of the main event, I’m walking out the door for a quick, jaunty hike to a nearby waterfall with friends when an uneasy sickness comes over me. Suddenly I am woozy and tired, and so trust the feeling in my body and send them on, to instead rest for a few minutes in my lopsided bed within the house. Soon I realize it is not sickness, it’s almost a performance anxiety. I will be leading all through the ceremony, but also have an extemporaneous “homily” to put forth; a task that I have never attempted and a skill that is nowhere near a forte.
When we up our levels of consciousness, these are not easy transitions. Whether it be through cleaner eating, weekend workshops, meditations, deeksha—all of this stuff that we do?... the best analogy I have heard is that it’s like plugging a 220 volt appliance into a 110 volt plug. Our body needs to adjust to the higher frequency; to expand and encompass a more super-charged vibration. I realized, I’m not sick; I need to go make room in myself to hold all this love.
And I did that. With no official ceremony other than drawing from traditions that had left imprints in my experience, I saged the ceremony area and the house. I chanted mantras. I meditated, not for myself, but for all of us—to hold the space—to grow it larger to allow the highest level of love to reside. Ok, so apparently this is the kind of stuff I do now. Whether or not that did anything, I have no practical way of knowing. I guessed and threw some love in that direction. Did I feel better? Yes. Was everyone extraordinarily moved by the emotional ceremony the couple had so exquisitely designed? Yes. I made space, not only for them, but for myself, clearly and definitively outlining: this is what I want, these are my people, this is who I want to be, this is all there is, we all deserve nothing less, and we open ourselves to more.
And then a funny thing happened. Several hours later, something abruptly, unexpectedly removed itself from my life; an aspect of my world which I had devoted months of love and energy to—a turn that I thought could expand into a new path for this junket known as mags (I wasn’t sure, but the hopeful potential was there—the groundwork was laid, the creativity flowing, it was easily flourishing, it was joyful, it was sexy, it was fun…,) and then, without my having a say in it, in the middle of nowhere country, at 11pm on the night of this wedding, I find out it has exited. The prospect is no longer there. Gone, and I have no discussion or say in it and I do not understand it.
Really? NOW? At two of my best friends’ wedding? For reals? On the afternoon where people came to me with tears in their eyes telling me how moved they were by my words? Where I am more grounded and full of love and shiny than perhaps I have ever been (equated to both a goddess and Elaine Stritch, which, yes, seems totally incongruous and random, but still Elaine Stritch is awesome) this road abruptly evaporates before my eyes? It couldn’t have vanished, like, 12 hours later when I was driving back hungover on 91, playing with my blackberry in the backseat? Couldn’t have happened on the following rainy Monday, when I am too cozy to go into my office and am instead working laptop/undies/chaise lazily from home? Nope: had to happen THEN.
And so, by 11pm (six hours into drinking champagne/sauvignon blanc/pinot noir, post dinner, post cake-cutting, post dancing,) I find out and I am crying, well, no… sobbing, convulsing, mourning, on the back fire escape outside my room, desperately struggling to stay present to the moment while still sequestering myself from any of the festivities; trying to contain what has happened to only my own processing and not a disasterous soap-opera-esque wedding drama. A handful of the closest girlfriends I have ever had in my life all happen to be here; they whisper to each other, they come quietly find me, offering support, love, comfort.
And in the midst of a ceaseless sea of snot, I know the truth: the world took it away from me because it didn’t match what I was looking for. Today was a picture, an announcement, a declaration, for my friends, for myself, for all of us to choose the kind of people we want to be, the kind of lives we want to live and most importantly, HOW we want to live them, and this aspect did not match, was not ready to match, or did not want to match, and so it was taken away from me. It happened oh too too dramatically so that I could see how clear the message was.
I went to bed early to keep it close to my chest. The next morning, those nearest to me of course found out. They were warm; we kept the discovery at a hushed distance so as not to mar the perfection of the love cultivated by the weekend.
I was disappointed, angry, hurt, devastated, abandoned. The emotions rose and fell, mashing each other like the clustering of the foliage on the surrounding mountains, overlapping yet still somehow distinct. Witnessing them, I was already feeling the distance of the loss, choosing instead to stick to the vision that I deserve.
A 4am gluttenous fridge pasta raid somewhat assuaged the swollen-eyed, hungover car ride home. Musings over what lessons I need to learn and why I hadn’t yet learned them, why and how I had brought this to myself and what my responsibility was in all of it, my head already wrapping on to how life could be brighter once I got past this, faded to the background as the miles passed. Instead I tuned in to more imminent desires. Self-exploration: pause, food fantasies: begin. I craved pasta; bolognese which I don’t normally eat any longer, but f*&% it all, I'm not a saint and tonight I would allow myself comfort... later this week I’d inevitably stick myself on a juice cleanse.
I'm eyeing the bottle of pinot noir the bride gave me in the backseat (damn-- not a screw top) when an old flame and dear friend texts me. It’s not necessary to recount my loss and add energy to that “story,” so I simply tell him the wedding was “perfect” “so fun, full of love”… I use exclamation points and smiley face emoticons. I tell him I cannot wait to get back to my termpurpedic and order take out.
Half an hour after I get home to my village studio, the buzzer rings and there is a deliveryman from one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants. I did not order this, the old flame sent it as a surprise. In the bag is $50 worth of food—bolognese (he was not told I was craving this in particular,) a large salad and a rich, dark chocolate cake with hazelnuts nuzzling a spot of cream so fresh, an angel probably whipped it together with her wings.
My body tired, spent, in pain, almost cries in joy to the deliveryman. I try to reach the sweetie by phone to thank him, but he avoids my call and instead texts me things that are unusually lovable and comforting—phrases that seem out of place particularly since he doesn’t know of my mourning. He doesn't even know I need it.
And it is a delicious sign: this is what it’s supposed to look like. This is the universe supporting you. This is connection. This is you being seen, appreciated. I eat the bolognese and wash it down with the bride bottle of pinot. The next morning, one of the most brilliant directors in town with whom I have never worked, emails me: "Hello amazing women: I am sending this to a few wonderful actresses I know and admire."
When you uncompromisingly hold what you want in your heart, life will give it to you. When you let go, more comes in. It may not be pretty in the moment, but when we honor the truth of ourselves, unexpected surprises will picnic our path to ease us down the road. Thank you.
Monday, April 5, 2010
love
"Any time not spent on love is wasted." - Torquato Tasso
One of my favorite Easter traditions used to be Swieconka. This is where Polish people gather on Holy Saturday, the day before the day, bringing culinary abundance to be blessed by a priest so that when the vodka and kielbasa starts flowing immediately after morning mass on Sunday, it’s as though the divine has already assuaged any guilt related to the drunken gluttony that will inevitably follow. (I don’t know why only Polish people ever did this—perchance in anticipation of how much Belvedere we’d go through—preventative penance, perhaps.) As I thought of my own impromptu Easter picnic, I wondered if I could incorporate this familial tradition into festivities with friends.
I brought to mind the traditional basket: kielbasa, eggs, a lamb made of butter and one of sugar, ham, cheese, bacon… and I realized that all of these foods, although not entirely nixed from my current diet, are certainly consciously kept at bay on a more than regular basis. Calling my mother, I detailed my predicament. She recounted to me the list from above and I replied,
“Well, I’ve been eating mostly vegan lately, mom, so, you know, none of those things really work so well for me right now.”
She paused thoughtfully, then in a cheery, childlike burst of inspiration chimed in “I know! Lamb! Lamb is also really good to use.”
Pause. (My mind notes silently to itself that my go-to place is not the one of my past, snarky, retaliative sarcasm—awesome, this is growth.) Pause. “…Yeah, um, mom… that’s still not really the best if I’m aiming for VEGAN.”
Today I received this quotation from a random Kabballah newletter:
“Unconditional love is accepting someone as they are, without judgment. And it doesn't just happen. It is a mountain you must constantly climb, looking to the peak even when you've been knocked down to your knees. This is unconditional love.”
My mother and I used to be oil and water. More specifically, I might have fancied myself to be unrefined extra virgin organic expeller cold pressed olive oil and she could not fathom any issue I might have with tap water. Other than sharing an ability to hold a relentless focus toward an object of desire, and my spitting image visage of her 30 years ago (thank you mom,) I’m hard pressed to find many things we have in common. It’s no secret that to get from a rebellious, tantrum throwing, reluctantly suburban sequestered, 15 year old to a place of truly holding my mother in a light where I properly cherish and respect her, took Andes of work.
When we teach ourselves to love, does it stretch the reservoir of our capacity to receive love in greater amounts? I would argue, yes.
Today is Easter and I’m assuming we’re all familiar with the Jesus crucifixion account. After days of torture, the pinnacle of the gory event culminated in his last magnanimous breaths of “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” Now, this wasn’t an evolution of love. This was not a breakthrough climax due to years of cognitive therapy. I would venture to say Jesus was not carrying the cross, whispering silent affirmations regarding himself or those around him. The idea is that Jesus was born to this world encompassing such a pure embodiment of love that he was instantly recognized as sent from elsewhere. He was so tapped into the light, everyone collectively thought, “Dude, it’s obvi this guy is NOT human.” If one chooses to believe that Jesus healed the sick from any number of maladies ranging from blindness to leprosy, the magic is not that HE was able to produce a miracle, it’s that he was able to see the perfection in someone so completely when others couldn’t, that he/she would be connected to that love and thereby be spontaneously healed.
"A Course in Miracles" is a useful text for those interested in metaphysical teachings via a Jesus slant. Using Christic terminology, it speaks to how there are only two forces in this world: fear and love. It postulates that love is the innate state and our natural inheritance, and our work is only about removing the blocks from that love. Jesus had it in spades, but we, as mere mortals, can get there. Every religious or spiritual following basically holds the same truth, but it is said quite succinctly in ACIM.
I think we have been collectively under the veil of the idea that love is something that we are graced with or not. Particularly in contemporary America, where disposable and flashy are coveted material adjectives, the idea that one must tend to love, as though a garden, and root through its weeds, seems unromantic. Unglamorous. Not hot enough for primetime. The commercialization of love via shows such as “The Bachelor” coats relationship in a polyurethane gleam of what something is “supposed” to look like. Props include single long-stemmed red roses, evening gowns, faux waterfalls and emotional waterworks; really it’s just an updated Miss America pageant and instead of a tiara, the winner gets a diamond ring.
“The Bachelor” happens to be one of my mother’s favorite shows, so when visiting her, I have, out of love for her, sat and watched it. And then, like the malleable sheep that I am, have been subsequently sucked into the drama. No mater how set-dressed, Disney-fied or over-produced the show can be, these people do open their hearts and genuine emotion seems to surface. However, even if authentic love could bloom in these plastic surroundings, it’s usually only weeks later the public evaporation is so splashed across the tabloids, I find myself inadvertently learning these people’s names that I know nothing about.
What I have found in my personal experience is that love has nothing to do with anyone around me and everything to do with myself. As I’ve evolved (let’s hope) and that development continues to unroll, the simplest way to put it is, when I am less concerned with myself there is more love for others. What I find intriguing is we are not born with fixed levels of selflessness. Our capacity to love can be nurtured and its muscle developed.
We’ve all experienced the glow of the beginning of a relationship where we’ll bend over backwards for our partner, happily wanting to take care of him/her, perhaps even self-sacrificing to tend to his/her needs. And many times, that fades. The gestures, the romance, the willingness to compromise easily. When I look around at the people whom I feel have the best relationships, I notice that this willingness is still present. And it doesn’t only have to do with romantic relationships—one would never try to grow a business, and then sit back one day and say “Cool, that’s launched, now I’m done. What are you going to do for ME, baby?” No, there are hurdles and milestones and things get easier or smoother, or settle in to more of a pattern, but it is still a daily effort.
"But love, I've come to understand, is more than three words mumbled before bed time. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day." -Nicholas Sparks
The act of DECIDING to love changes us to be more open to love. If I were at my mother’s for Easter, she might say, “Margaret can you drive to the grocery?..., I forgot herring in oil. You’ll need to go to the special Polish deli a half hour away.”
Based on where I am in my life, as well as any particular day, the reactions range. “Absolutely, I’ll go right now!” throwing some house music on the BMW cd player and jamming it out into town, would be a "good" day.
Ten years ago, there would have been whining, screaming, a “Why do I have to do it—What about my sister—I have to do everything!” attitude, stomping, sulking and a bitter ride into the city.
Clearly one of these routes is more pleasant than the other.
There are certainly moments where still Mom could catch me in a crabby mood, and although I might go, it would be begrudgingly. Hardly Jesus material, but I like to think of this as a deposit into the love bank. When we do something that we know to be the right or kind or selfless thing to do, against the will of our pouty ego, it’s a choice recognizing there might be a higher love present, outside of the confines of what our own perceptions might intimate. Kabbalah speaks to this as resistance, and with rising above our reactive behaviors, it says we transform ourselves to allow more light into our lives. Even simpler bumper sticker wisdom: What Would Jesus Do?
This can be practiced in reaction to disgruntled deliverymen, picking our battles in relation to ESPN hours logged on a shared TV, or not throwing tantrums at your mother because of elevated holiday stress levels. (ACIM also says, would you rather be happy, or would you rather be right? I used to want to be right. Happy is more fun these days.) Love IS a mountain we must constantly climb, in the small, daily decisions of what kind of person we choose to be. The beauty is, it gets easier with each step, and the view from the top?... well, it’s pretty f’ing spectacular.
One of my favorite Easter traditions used to be Swieconka. This is where Polish people gather on Holy Saturday, the day before the day, bringing culinary abundance to be blessed by a priest so that when the vodka and kielbasa starts flowing immediately after morning mass on Sunday, it’s as though the divine has already assuaged any guilt related to the drunken gluttony that will inevitably follow. (I don’t know why only Polish people ever did this—perchance in anticipation of how much Belvedere we’d go through—preventative penance, perhaps.) As I thought of my own impromptu Easter picnic, I wondered if I could incorporate this familial tradition into festivities with friends.
I brought to mind the traditional basket: kielbasa, eggs, a lamb made of butter and one of sugar, ham, cheese, bacon… and I realized that all of these foods, although not entirely nixed from my current diet, are certainly consciously kept at bay on a more than regular basis. Calling my mother, I detailed my predicament. She recounted to me the list from above and I replied,
“Well, I’ve been eating mostly vegan lately, mom, so, you know, none of those things really work so well for me right now.”
She paused thoughtfully, then in a cheery, childlike burst of inspiration chimed in “I know! Lamb! Lamb is also really good to use.”
Pause. (My mind notes silently to itself that my go-to place is not the one of my past, snarky, retaliative sarcasm—awesome, this is growth.) Pause. “…Yeah, um, mom… that’s still not really the best if I’m aiming for VEGAN.”
Today I received this quotation from a random Kabballah newletter:
“Unconditional love is accepting someone as they are, without judgment. And it doesn't just happen. It is a mountain you must constantly climb, looking to the peak even when you've been knocked down to your knees. This is unconditional love.”
My mother and I used to be oil and water. More specifically, I might have fancied myself to be unrefined extra virgin organic expeller cold pressed olive oil and she could not fathom any issue I might have with tap water. Other than sharing an ability to hold a relentless focus toward an object of desire, and my spitting image visage of her 30 years ago (thank you mom,) I’m hard pressed to find many things we have in common. It’s no secret that to get from a rebellious, tantrum throwing, reluctantly suburban sequestered, 15 year old to a place of truly holding my mother in a light where I properly cherish and respect her, took Andes of work.
When we teach ourselves to love, does it stretch the reservoir of our capacity to receive love in greater amounts? I would argue, yes.
Today is Easter and I’m assuming we’re all familiar with the Jesus crucifixion account. After days of torture, the pinnacle of the gory event culminated in his last magnanimous breaths of “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” Now, this wasn’t an evolution of love. This was not a breakthrough climax due to years of cognitive therapy. I would venture to say Jesus was not carrying the cross, whispering silent affirmations regarding himself or those around him. The idea is that Jesus was born to this world encompassing such a pure embodiment of love that he was instantly recognized as sent from elsewhere. He was so tapped into the light, everyone collectively thought, “Dude, it’s obvi this guy is NOT human.” If one chooses to believe that Jesus healed the sick from any number of maladies ranging from blindness to leprosy, the magic is not that HE was able to produce a miracle, it’s that he was able to see the perfection in someone so completely when others couldn’t, that he/she would be connected to that love and thereby be spontaneously healed.
"A Course in Miracles" is a useful text for those interested in metaphysical teachings via a Jesus slant. Using Christic terminology, it speaks to how there are only two forces in this world: fear and love. It postulates that love is the innate state and our natural inheritance, and our work is only about removing the blocks from that love. Jesus had it in spades, but we, as mere mortals, can get there. Every religious or spiritual following basically holds the same truth, but it is said quite succinctly in ACIM.
I think we have been collectively under the veil of the idea that love is something that we are graced with or not. Particularly in contemporary America, where disposable and flashy are coveted material adjectives, the idea that one must tend to love, as though a garden, and root through its weeds, seems unromantic. Unglamorous. Not hot enough for primetime. The commercialization of love via shows such as “The Bachelor” coats relationship in a polyurethane gleam of what something is “supposed” to look like. Props include single long-stemmed red roses, evening gowns, faux waterfalls and emotional waterworks; really it’s just an updated Miss America pageant and instead of a tiara, the winner gets a diamond ring.
“The Bachelor” happens to be one of my mother’s favorite shows, so when visiting her, I have, out of love for her, sat and watched it. And then, like the malleable sheep that I am, have been subsequently sucked into the drama. No mater how set-dressed, Disney-fied or over-produced the show can be, these people do open their hearts and genuine emotion seems to surface. However, even if authentic love could bloom in these plastic surroundings, it’s usually only weeks later the public evaporation is so splashed across the tabloids, I find myself inadvertently learning these people’s names that I know nothing about.
What I have found in my personal experience is that love has nothing to do with anyone around me and everything to do with myself. As I’ve evolved (let’s hope) and that development continues to unroll, the simplest way to put it is, when I am less concerned with myself there is more love for others. What I find intriguing is we are not born with fixed levels of selflessness. Our capacity to love can be nurtured and its muscle developed.
We’ve all experienced the glow of the beginning of a relationship where we’ll bend over backwards for our partner, happily wanting to take care of him/her, perhaps even self-sacrificing to tend to his/her needs. And many times, that fades. The gestures, the romance, the willingness to compromise easily. When I look around at the people whom I feel have the best relationships, I notice that this willingness is still present. And it doesn’t only have to do with romantic relationships—one would never try to grow a business, and then sit back one day and say “Cool, that’s launched, now I’m done. What are you going to do for ME, baby?” No, there are hurdles and milestones and things get easier or smoother, or settle in to more of a pattern, but it is still a daily effort.
"But love, I've come to understand, is more than three words mumbled before bed time. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day." -Nicholas Sparks
The act of DECIDING to love changes us to be more open to love. If I were at my mother’s for Easter, she might say, “Margaret can you drive to the grocery?..., I forgot herring in oil. You’ll need to go to the special Polish deli a half hour away.”
Based on where I am in my life, as well as any particular day, the reactions range. “Absolutely, I’ll go right now!” throwing some house music on the BMW cd player and jamming it out into town, would be a "good" day.
Ten years ago, there would have been whining, screaming, a “Why do I have to do it—What about my sister—I have to do everything!” attitude, stomping, sulking and a bitter ride into the city.
Clearly one of these routes is more pleasant than the other.
There are certainly moments where still Mom could catch me in a crabby mood, and although I might go, it would be begrudgingly. Hardly Jesus material, but I like to think of this as a deposit into the love bank. When we do something that we know to be the right or kind or selfless thing to do, against the will of our pouty ego, it’s a choice recognizing there might be a higher love present, outside of the confines of what our own perceptions might intimate. Kabbalah speaks to this as resistance, and with rising above our reactive behaviors, it says we transform ourselves to allow more light into our lives. Even simpler bumper sticker wisdom: What Would Jesus Do?
This can be practiced in reaction to disgruntled deliverymen, picking our battles in relation to ESPN hours logged on a shared TV, or not throwing tantrums at your mother because of elevated holiday stress levels. (ACIM also says, would you rather be happy, or would you rather be right? I used to want to be right. Happy is more fun these days.) Love IS a mountain we must constantly climb, in the small, daily decisions of what kind of person we choose to be. The beauty is, it gets easier with each step, and the view from the top?... well, it’s pretty f’ing spectacular.
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