brand new day love artist dot org

encounters at the end of the world

 

Today is my Wendelin's 60th birthday. He is my ex-husband, the father of my 3 daughters. We split in the traditional way (is divorce a tradition?) 17 years ago.  This past Christmas, we all spent a week together in his house.  It was cold outside & the wood stove is in the living room, so we mostly all sat there, eating, watching movies, opening presents, loving, kvetching.   I usually got up first, but Wen got up soon after & there we were together, taking care of business: tending the fire, making coffee, feeding the dog. I don't really know how he felt about waking up to me sitting by the stove every morning.  It was hard to tell.

I love this video.  I think it is supposed to be tragic but I find it really heartwarming.

Wen just got a facebook page, just in time for his birthday. I posted this to his page.  I hope he gets it. 

I remember when we were still together & only had one kid & how we both went to see this channel who laid his hand on my solar plexus & told me I was stabbed there by a deer antler in a past life by Wendelin after he had exposed me as a witch & then I got a horrible rash, right there where he put his hand on me.  It turns out I had died out there in the tundra, in that lifetime, after being stabbed & left in the cold. It was a reindeer antler.  The channel also told us that we had known each other for a long long time, longer than that life, & that at one point we were scientists in Lemuria & that, together, we had invented the color blue.

divine counsel

(photo by amalia papachristopoulos)

On New Year's Eve, I watched Shannon open a ceremony by using her fingers to open windows into the four directions.  It was the way a child might pretend to open windows, pinching their fingers & pulling them apart from each other, very subtle, almost abstract, but I knew exactly what she was doing.  A few days before someone had mentioned this practice to me: each & every day, at some point, open a window, open a door, be conscious, be intentful about this, do this.

 

thea

 

(photo by manya rubin slater)

 

When I first started visiting Thea's mom Amalia, Thea was not impressed.  Amalia & I were having a separated at birth~twin flame~sister bonding~mediterranean gypsy mama~love affair that I'm sure was completely annoying & boring & overwhelming at the same time.  I mean, when you are 8 years old & you usually have your mother to yourself (as annoying & boring & overwhelming as that may be), who needs the hormonal atmosphere intensified like 300 percent, never mind the volume. And I was also a tickler, que horrible, really, the absolute worst.  The fact is that I am not really a tickler at all, but the utter disdain & magnificent composure of this young diva had me flustered.  I mean I really didn't know what I could possibly do to get her to feign even the slightest interest.  It was like a crazy crush.

Last week, Amalia & I offered a Love Ceremony at their loft in Red Hook & I put Thea right next to me, or between me & Nola actually, the best seat in the house.  Thea & I had been doing a lot better anyway, cause I taught her a few jokes (below).  But the night of the ceremony, without any prep or preliminary counsel, Thea watched my back.  I mean seriously watched my back.  She helped Nola take care of the charcoal & copal & keeping the space clear & she helped me find my rhythm more than once.  She saw EVERYTHING.  It was like she had a little leash on me & it was the good kind of leash.

*********

Joke:

Two muffins are sitting in the oven.  One muffin says to the other "It's getting hot in here." The other muffin says "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH, A TALKING MUFFIN"

(this joke was originally told by Nola)

 

12 hours

 

On the eve of the summer solstice & THAT particular batch of eclipses, my car was hit on the street in Brooklyn, while I was sleeping.  It had been a blissful early summer evening, walking the streets of Carroll Gardens with Amalia & Thea, in flip-flops & a bustle-y skirt, listening to sirens & kids yelling to each other in the night, sitting in an italian grandma's backyard (not mine) & nestling myself in the generations of women like a pocket weave of slippery moonlight & a gin rummy spread . . anyway, in the middle of that balmy night, Amalia & I heard a huge crash & we looked out to see if anyone was in trouble out there.  We saw nothing.  The next morning, I found my car with a secret scar, a blow to the back tire, passenger side, so hard it broke the axel & torqued the frame beyond repair.  That car had carried me through 2 big dogs & 3 kids & many over-sand trips to the dune shack(s) in the Provincelands, besides sleeping me & a couple of lovers (at separate times) on several ridiculous & ambitious adventures . .

It's now a half turn of the year later and I have managed to work out a chain of love barters in exchange for transportation.  I keep waiting for the magic to expire & yeah, I do love to call my own shots & be immediately gratified when, for example, a midnight impulse to drive to the ocean comes upon me or, in more practical cases, I need to deliver some love product: healing, living foods, me, me, me and pay the rent, but these transaction between myself, the traveler & my various drivers has been tender & beautiful.  I can't remember a time when I have been so (regularly) social & available.

Yesterday Tom & I drove into NYC.  I needed to deliver to some Inner Garden clients, he needed to finesse some gorgeous lighting fixtures for the store & some clients.   We drove around for 12 hours & we laughed & smoked (?!) & finally stopped for dinner, starving & slightly deranged as if we had been camping for weeks without sustenance or showers, in Carroll Gardens (practically the scene of the crime) at Sam's Restaurant (238 Court Street), totally old school Italian pizza & pasta & red neon & red & white plastic tablecloths . .

I told him about my great grandma & her bedroom full of candles, her yearly birthday parties at various locations, where we all danced the alley cat in line formation while waiting for the antipasto. 

He talked about driving to his father's door in Queens, accompanied by his young son ~ after not seeing his dad for years & then all of them going to the Cloisters for the afternoon.

We are both so sensitive.

The waiter acted like we had been together for a while, which we had.

 

(photo by tom luciano)

 

no doubt new year

 

Yesterday on the New Year's Eve Fung Wah bus to NYC, I started sobbing to Nola about my doubt about my path, letting go of all parental concepts of appropriate emotional information.  I'm very good at that anyway, being semi-inappropriate. She responded with a story about when she went to the Youth Theological Initiative at Emory University in Georgia when she was in 11th grade.  It was a story about a kid, who she referred to as Southern & a little crazy, who told her, when she was struggling, to think about Jesus in his last moments on the crucifix, when he doubted his choices and actually had a moment where he thought ~ maybe I could have done this differently. God why hast thou forsaken me.  Then she reminded me that the apostles were hanging around after he died, thinking, we thought he was God's son & now they put him in the cave.  Dead.

Of course, a couple of days later, this all looked absolutely different.

 

 

 

feeling bad about yourself is an ego trip & a waste of time

~ bett williams "the wrestling party"