spiritual

“As day turned to night, and our collective sense of history had changed: there would now be a before 9/11 and an after 9/11.”
~ The 9/11 Museum

After forty eight hours and three thousand miles, I still can’t shake off the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

I had to hold back the ugly cry for over two hours. My lip was swollen from biting it to keep from blubbering.

It started with the fountains.
They inhabit the exact foot print of each tower, and are stirring and haunting and beautifully done. I first got choked up as I read that the names engraved in the granite around each fountain are not in the usual alphabetical order, but in groups requested by the families.

All the firefighters are listed with their station buddies, same with office co-workers.
“Put my husband’s name with all the people at Cantor Fitzgerald.” I can’t even imagine saying.

As you ride the escalator down seven stories under the World Trade Center site, it hits you – this is so much more than a museum. It is a sanctuary.

Although you’re allowed to take pictures with your phone, after I took the one above, I stopped. It felt sacrilegious. It’s not that kind of place.

There is energy locked there. 
An overwhelming amount of sadness, fear and shock.
Residual shock feels like fear on steroids. Imagine fearing for your life, yet not knowing what is happening. 
It was palpable – for both of us. Places and things absorb those heavy emotions. We pick them up. Oh goodie.

Short side story: we were riding motorcycles in Spain, in the Basque Country, on our way to Bilbao. Oh happy day, right? No so fast.
“What is this place? It feels awful here.” I was tugging at my husband’s jacket, yelling into his helmet, as we slowed down to ride through a town center.
I had been hit by a wall of sadness, a tidal wave of despair…and shock.
“I know” he said and pointed to the sign as we left town and that horrible energy behind.
GERNIKA.
I got chills. My chills got chills. 

Back to the Museum.

When we got to Foundation Hall, with the original retaining “slurry” wall and it’s cavernous appearance, we both stood there for a long time. It felt like church.

It has in its center, the “Last Column” a 36-foot high steel column covered in mementos, memorial inscriptions, and missing posters placed there by rescue workers and others at the site.

Tears ran down my face. The lump in my throat felt like a soccer ball. The ugly cry was lurking.

My mind couldn’t even begin to grasp the severity of the damage to these immense steel structures. You think you’ve seen every TV special and book, every image and report, yet, unless you are there, standing in that spot, it is incomprehensible.

There are sections of steel ten feet wide, curled up like a piece of saltwater taffy.
They have a section suspended in mid air – from the plane impact zone.

It is sobering. I stood there again – staring – lost in thought – for a long time.

Same with the last remaining “survivors staircase” used by hundreds of people who ran for their lives. You could feel their fear.

In front of a huge chunk of one of the elevator motors, a remnant bigger than a car, (it is estimated that more than two hundred people died inside elevators that day. Ugh, I could have done without knowing THAT) a Docent told a great survivor’s story and the fact that these were the first elevators in their day, that could carry you from the lobby to the 100th floor in under a minute.

Inside the Historical Exhibition (which was fascinating) you are bombarded on all sides by that day, Tuesday, September 11th; from its ordinary start, all the way through the subsequent events, in a series of timeline galleries.
This is where my bottom lip got a workout.

There’s a section where they have a series of phone messages left by a husband to his wife, telling her the other tower has been hit and “don’t worry.” In the third or forth message (I was too emotional to remember) he’s loosing his cool. You can hear the public address system and chaos in the background as he cuts it short “I gotta go.”
He didn’t make it out.

In the section of the timeline where the towers have both collapsed, you hear all the alarms, the shrill whistles, that emergency personnel wear. These alarms go off if a firefighter is motionless for over 30 seconds. It’s a sound no fireman wants to hear, and there were hundreds of them.

“Where’s the damn Kleenex” someone next to me said out loud, looking for the tissue stands they have strategically placed throughout; I handed HIM one of mine – avoiding eye contact. 

Inside this exhibit are things that will not only blow your mind, they will blow your heart – WIDE OPEN. Don’t go if you can’t stand feeling emotion, it’s unavoidable.

I gasped out loud, my hand flying up to cover my mouth a few times. People turned around, but then just gave me a knowing look. For over two hours we did that – for each other.

As the anthropologist I am at heart, I was mesmerized by the endless displays of everyday “stuff” they’ve recovered.
Wallets, dry cleaning tickets, eye glasses, flight attendant wings, stuffed toys, drivers licenses, pictures, keys, gym passes, paperwork, tons of paperwork… and shoes. So many shoes.
Shoes get to you. Someone picked out those shoes that morning, put them on and somehow, in the course of that horrible day, became separated from them.

Some looked perfect – others had a story to tell.

At around the 2 hour mark, I ran into Raphael.
We’d become separated and he’d been doing the galleries in reverse order. “I’m done, I can’t take much more” he whispered. “Then don’t go in those rooms, it’s INTENSE” I cautioned, pointing behind me.

“This whole thing’s intense.” He was walking forward, staring straight ahead, shaking his head. There in front of us was a truck that looked like Godzilla had stepped on it, fighting for his attention.

That was the thing, just when you’d swear you couldn’t take one more minute, you’d turn a corner and see something completely unbelievable.
We knew how the story ended, yet, we couldn’t tear ourselves away. Well done 9/11 Museum.

About a half hour later he texted “out in the front where it starts.” He’d had enough.

I picked up my pace, and we both took the escalator up, up, up, to the sunny surface in silence. It was three thirty in the afternoon. 

I wish I’d cried. I wish I’d let the ugly cry take hold, squishing my eyes, distorting my face, having its loud and sloppy way with me. I’d feel better by now.

Instead: Plan B
“I need a drink.” 
“Me too.”
We caught a cab, grabbed a late lunch and a bottle of wine. Then we walked the HighLine.

Saturday afternoon drunken exhaustion trumped feeling emotion, and I DON’T recommend it.

I should have cried. I know better.

Xox

I prefer my food gluten-free and my life drama-free.

This goes for family as well, and THAT can be a tall order, just like getting gluten-free anything outside of urban areas.

“Wanna go to New York for the weekend in October? My cousin is having her first US art exhibition. She and her sister are going to be there for the opening, with their adult kids,” husband asked this spring.

I share the love that he has for these women; AND I will go to New York for the opening of an envelope.

“Uh, letmethinkaboutthatYES,yesIwould!” I said all in one looooong exclamation.

It was so dear and also enlightening to sit back and watch and listen as they got caught up. It’s been over ten years since we’ve seen them.

Let’s be clear, my understanding of French, especially spoken fast and with enthusiasm, is similar to my grasp of Mandarin – nonexistent.
But I understand giggles and guffaws and misty eyes and hugs.

Hours of stories and memories shared.
Seems the old guard are almost all gone, everyone is allowed to exhale. This old French family is passing into very capable, progressive, and dare I say less dysfunctional hands.

Every family has their “stuff” and his family is no different; except their drama and family neurosis has style.
A certain je ne sais quoi. It wears better clothes, and is dripping in that sardonic French wit.

It’s the Coco Chanel of families.

A mistake a lot of us make is that we look at other people’s families who seem to have it all together; very beautiful and glamorous lives, all the trappings of success and we think: I wish they were MY family. I’d be SO together if he/she were MY parent.
I call bullshit.

It’s all the same in every language, in every country. It’s Universal. Family shit runs deep.

You think your family’s cornered the market on crazy? Think again.
The eccentric, wild-eyed, cousin who never wears shoes, the snarky, judgmental, bitchy family member – they’re the same worldwide. The only difference is they may wear a sari, a Metallica t-shirt, or couture, and have a funny accent.

Seems it’s just a part of the human condition.

Walking around this weekend, it was all becoming clear.
New York is such a culturally diverse city; there were families, parents and children of various ages and ethnicities everywhere we visited. I was a witness to global love and global dysfunction; as they do go hand in hand.
And you know what?

You can’t make it to adulthood unscathed.

Family bestows on us its greatest traits (his family has an inordinate amount of successful, gifted artists) and its darkest, stickiest, secrets.
It damages us all to varying degrees.

Whether it’s through therapy, hypnosis, running away, or just the grace of God, it is my belief that we end up with the people with whom we share compatible damage. Funny is a bonus.

That’s all it is.
I did a very exhaustive, comprehensive weekend study – it really is THAT simple.

Love you my compatible people,
Xox

Is it pride, experience, reason or heart? Who do you listen to most often? Is it serving you? Hmmmmmmm, too may hard questions for a Saturday? (Wink)

Food for thought.
Big Love,
Xox

This is a recent Facebook post by Dr. Lissa Rankin (whom I Love).

xoxJ

Take it away Lissa:

About a year ago, when I was posting something about a life challenge I was experiencing, Kelly Flanagan sent me an email quoting Susan Thomas Underwood.

It was exactly the guidance I needed, and I have a hunch that YOU need this today:

“I used to think that any door could be opened.
Some stood freely open, some could be opened easily; some were harder to penetrate. Sometimes you had to knock, sometimes bang, sometimes charge; but always, a door could be opened. Goals in my life were accomplished this way. No matter what I wanted; I accomplished it because I was willing to pound and pound against its door.
But I no longer live this philosophy, because I walk the path Creator prepares for me. Maybe I am not supposed to pass through a particular door. I have quit deciding which doors I wish to pass through. I have learned to let Creator open them for me.

You see, I am a rancher and I raise cattle. I know that my cattle and I do not speak the same language, and I cannot tell them where I want them to go. The way I show them is by opening gates. If I don’t want them to go into this or that pasture; I shut the gate. If I want them in a certain place, I open a gate. If there is not gate, I get between them and the place I do not want them to be with my horse or my truck, I provide obstacles. I guide them in this way.
Because the language of this world and the spirit world is different; communication is obscure.
I have learned that Creator guides me in the way that I guide my cattle.
Now, I look for open doors, for they are open for a reason. Doors are shut for a reason.
I am not saying the path is easy; there is much work walking the path Creator places before us. However, our precious energy does not have to be spent pounding against doors. Our energy can be saved for the path beyond the door. I’m saying to look for the open doors; for they mark your special path, your purpose, your dreams.”

I’m on my way to New York today and I’ve downloaded this book so I can read it on the plane and report back all my take-aways. Until then, here’s an interview with the author, Tara Mohr, by the darling Kate Northrup.

“Playing it big is being more loyal to your dreams than you fears.“

Big love,
xox

“When are you going to start a family?”
The ink wasn’t even dry on the marriage license, I still had rice in my hair, for cryin’ out loud. Really?

How the hell did I know? I was barely twenty, my husband twenty-three. WE were the babies in the room.

It’s the rare individual who is introspective enough to ask him or herself at a young age: What kind of life do I see for myself? Will I have children?

Some people just KNOW. The rest of us, we just go with the proverbial flow.
We date, fall in love, have the wedding, the picket fence and….screech! (sound of a needle being dragged across a record) hey, not so fast.

Your early twenties are times of impetuous, risk taking behavior – not the picket fence and most definitely not parenthood – at least not for me.
I could back it up with SCIENCE:
There have been recent studies and in fact, research from the National Institutes of Health has shown, the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with inhibition of risky behavior, and decision-making, doesn’t get fully developed until age 25.
Being a late bloomer, I think my prefrontal cortex finally matured at around thirty-five, sadly, it still wasn’t screaming “make a baby!”

What was wrong with me? All my friends were doing it. Even my little sister.
Hello?! Where was my maternal gene?
At the time it felt like it had been replaced by the much more irresponsible (red hair dye, wine drinking, spend every dime on shoes, travel around Europe) gene.

It wasn’t a calling for me. I know a calling. I move heaven and earth when something calls me. Motherhood? Meh, not so much. It’s not that I don’t love kids, I do. Just never enough to make my own.

There was also the fact that the stars just never aligned.
It didn’t occur to me to start a family when I was married, it always felt like a decision for another day; and when it finally did cross my mind I was epically, tragically, single. Not a man in sight, let alone “father material.” By the time I married my second husband, as fate would have it, my eggs were all dried up.

Sooooo, I gave single motherhood some serious thought, only to be discouraged by a very wise, older woman friend, a “crone” who asked me, “the maiden”, why I wanted to have a child?
I stammered on for a good five minutes, never coming up with anything better than
“Everyone’s doing it.”

“It’s the MOST important job, being a mama. Come talk to me when you have a better reason.” This maiden could never come up with one.

“To make the decision to have a child – is momentous.
It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body”
~Elizabeth Stone

By my mid thirties, when I answered “no” to the kid inquiry, a sad, concerned look would wash over women’s faces; until I assured them that I was biologically able – it was a conscious choice of mine not to.

UNLEASH THE KRAKEN! 

Many women got angry, really angry; especially at baby showers. You know the ones where you bring your babies? THOSE were the worst.
There was even some name calling.

Selfish.
I’ve been called that many times in my life.
It’s code for: why aren’t you doing what I’m doing?
It’s been hurled my way in anger, hitting me like a dagger in the back.
It’s happened so many times, I have a callouses there – these days the dagger just bounces off.

Is it selfish not to have children? Probably. Can selfish be a good thing? Yes, yes it can.

Call it what you want. I just knew I wasn’t wired for that level of self-sacrifice, and my unborn children are better off because of that.

Up until then, my life had seemed like a series of accidents, not premeditated in any way.
But soon I recognized that I had made a choice, that I had decided “my supreme and risky fate” and that I didn’t need to hide in a cave; then, and only then, did the name calling stop.
Isn’t that always the way?

Now I’m over fifty, and the question is: How many grandchildren?

What I know for sure is this: I’m so incredibly grateful to be born at a time in history when we’re not put in stockades in the town square, with villagers throwing eggs at our childless faces.
We decided it wasn’t for us…and that’s okay.
Luckily, times have changed, women are so much more accepting and supportive of different life choices. These days I feel anything but ostracized, some woman actually applaud my decision.

Childless women.
As Liz Gilbert and O talked about on Sunday, we get to be the spectacular aunties.
Mamas need the aunties.
We play a very important supporting role, we get to teach selfishness – which is thankfully something most mamas know NOTHING about.

Tell me about you. I’d love to hear YOUR story. When did you decide not to have children?

much love,
xox

When people say “I’m looking for my soulmate” I cringe and light a candle.

Love your friend, not your soulmate,
Xox
.

The hubby just returned a couple of weeks ago from an arduous off road motorcycle journey through the back country of British Columbia. It was brutal. He returned with a banged up bike, a couple of cracked ribs – and some great stories.

As he sat in a much needed bath, soaking in Epsom salt, he regaled me with tales of breathtaking scenery, ferry adventures, muddy, rutted roads, his epic falls (this is the guy who doesn’t fall) and all the laughs shared around the campfire at the end of each day with wine and great grub. I know most of this tribe, they are smart and funny and major badasses.
Unfortunately, no one was able to avoid dropping their big, heavy, overloaded bike.

But here’s the first rule of off road adventure riding: you just don’t talk about falling, about going down. And you NEVER name names.

Zip it.

A couple of motorcycle journalists went along, to chronicle the ride for their various publications.

When the first article came out, as I read it, I couldn’t text my husband fast enough:
How much does it cost to have someone killed? This guy has broken the first rule!

I was joking, of course (sort of) but there it was, in print, the jerk mentioned the rough terrain, and my husband BY NAME, saying he had fallen twice.

“Of course he did” hubster replied over dinner that night.
“We got into it a couple of times. He’s a young, insecure know-it-all, and after awhile, when I heard him throwing inaccurate stories around about people I know, places I’ve been and courses I’ve taken, well, I corrected his facts and he didn’t like it. Hence,(he says hence in conversations – I swear) he felt the need to try to embarrass me. No biggie, we all know what went down. The fact is EVERYONE fell – parts of it were reduced to a mud pit.”
He was laughing and cringing; holding his left side.

Another journalist’s article came out last week and it was well written and more importantly, humorous and accurate.

Then, a couple of days ago, the first guy published a second piece. 

It has now become his Hero’s Journey, with his bike the heaviest, (it wasn’t) his struggle the hardest, due to riding on street tires (they weren’t) and his proud claim that he was the only one who had the skills and wherewithal not to fall (WTF?)

Dude, it was already a really good story, you didn’t have to lie about it.

All the guys from the trip are emailing each other privately to vent, they’re too gentlemanly to publicly humiliate him by leaving comments on his website.

We all know why he did it. Insecurity, inferiority, blah, blah, blah…I don’t care.

Why do people lie? Especially when you have twelve other people out there that know the truth?
Now he’s just writing fiction. It’s the tale of “The Boy That Cried Hey, Have You Heard How Awesome I Am?”

Somebody really smart (I can’t remember who) said that most non-fiction is really fiction, because it come from the writer’s perspective. Hmmm…

I can’t stand lying.
When I write I do not lie. I may embellish (I didn’t really kick my Christmas tree until it begged for mercy, I stopped when it asked me politely the first time). But I write humor. Although, when I write about real people and real situations, I’m SO careful to depict them truthfully.

My stories aren’t written as vanity pieces, to make me sound good; on the contrary, most are cautionary tales of all my fuck-ups.

As I sat and stewed about this guy, I remembered some words of wisdom from my therapist, back in the day. She was a very beautiful and wise woman. Imagine Yoda and Oprah in the body of Candice Bergen.

1) “Janet, the biggest mistake you make in life, is thinking everyone feels and thinks JUST – LIKE – YOU. I can assure you, THEY DO NOT.”
That little nugget has saved me a lifetime of misery. My internal rules, dialogues, morals, and views on life are mine and mine alone. If I want others to know them, I have to communicate them.

Which brings me to:
2) “Janet, you’ve gotta cut people some slack, they’re not mind readers.”
This one needs no explanation.
Although, the guys do have a kind of Jedi mind meld about their rules of the road. They are un-discussed, yet understood – apparently with the exception of a certain Pinocchio.

3) I truly believe – with all my heart – that liar’s pants – should actually CATCH ON FIRE. 

There. I vented. I feel so much better.

Have you heard or caught someone in an epic lie? Something that made them sound awesome, while trashing everyone else? Share please.

Big, group hug,
Xox

This is a good one for today. Have a soulful, serene, Sunday!
Xox

I love these as a litmus test.
We should be able to stand behind one of those one-way mirrors that they have in police stations and episodes of Law and Order, and put that “special someone who we’re thinking of committing to, through these circumstances.

They don’t have to pass all three – how about two out of three? I’m not a total ass.

I’ve seen men walk with a CLOSED umbrella over their heads. Like its emasculating to try to stay dry. “Real men get wet.” Sorry guys, that’s a fail.
Kinda like not turning on the windshield wipers until you can barely see – so as not to scratch the glass. (One guy’s excuse, as we narrowly missed hitting a pedestrian) Fail.

I once traveled overseas with a guy who had purchased brand new expensive Hartmann luggage.
The whole matching set. They were so new and beautiful they screamed STEAL ME.
Alas, the garment bag didn’t show up for 24 hours.
He didn’t need ANYTHING in that bag that day; it was 2am when we landed. He had his toiletries and two other suitcases of stuff, yet he pitched a fit that came close to starting an International incident, in a room that had one naked little lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and a clerk who I’m positive spoke not one word of English. He just kept nodding, handing us coffee, and paperwork to fill out. Mountains and mountains of paperwork.

Well played airport luggage guy. I didn’t sleep for two days from all the strong coffee, but I found out who I was dealing with the minute I landed on foreign soil.
Fail.

Now, I can snark away at the previous failures because it is I who fail the tangled Christmas light test. EVERY FRICKIN’ YEAR.

I will swear under oath, on my mother’s life, that I put them away neatly wrapped into a tight circle with the ends plugged into each other, yet, when I take them down from the attic every year, they look as if they have been stolen by honey badgers to make a nest, or used to light the Eiffel Tower or to start a yarn ball; and then thrown back in the box as the biggest, tangled mess that ever existed.
Lights are missing; some are broken.
How is that even possible? They obviously live a life from January to December; that I know nothing about.

AND they NEVER light the second year. What’s up with that?

The box guarantees: will light up even if lights are missing.
It’s a mortal sin to lie at Christmas – Christmas Light Company. Don’t BS a Catholic.

Impossibly tangled with only half the strand lit up. I can feel my blood pressure spike.

Now it’s a thing. They do it to mock me.

But I’ve created my own solution:
I have two imaginary twin sons that help me decorate for Christmas, since my husband is related to the Grinch and stays as far way as possible on tree trimming day.
Timmy and Tommy.
They are gay and they are fabulous. They wear Christmas sweater vests and make Martha Stewart look like a hack.
We make cider and put on the carols and then I make them take the lights out of the box. I see them trying to hide the tangled mess from me, behind their backs. I’ve kicked my Christmas tree until it begged for mercy – out of frustration.
Two hours to untangle the fucking lights and then they don’t light? Do you blame me?

So the past few years I’ve just gotten drunk on egg nog or spiked cider, sung my Karen Carpenter carols and let my imaginary boys do it all for me.

So now you know. I have a wicked temper, a vivid imagination and I need to get a life.

Hey, I said two out of three, remember?
Maybe my husband isn’t the Grinch. Maybe he’s just smart.

What are your two out of three?

xox