Saturday night just as me, Two Cute Face, and Gentle Ben were wrapping up a night of cosmic chanting, my phone started buzzing across the kitchen counter. "This is it, Guys!" I said, running for the phone, swiping it to answer just in time. "Here he is!"
It was a little after midnight, our time. We gathered around the phone and listened hard, squinting to hear. Between the static, our Hind-Jew Hero, Krishna Das, surged through in waves, pulsing among ripples of Bhakti-fest folk chanting, cheering, blissing, all the way from Joshua Tree, California. Though we could hardly make out the chant, Ma had kept her promise. Shortly after KD took the stage, she dialed me up and held the mouth of her phone wide open to catch the Bhav and send it my way.
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| Love is your best friend sending you a text of your Hind-Jew hero chilling out that says "Krishna Das watching kirtan" |
What a difference a year makes. Last July I wrote an article for the Edge about attending my first Bhakti-Fest and how great it was, despite my tete-a-tete with Krishna Das. I also wrote about how hard it would ever be to describe something like Bhakti-Fest to Ma, someone I feared was swept under by the LA tides of irony and image, lost at shallow sea. I also wrote of hope, hope that someday Ma might give Bhakti a try. I wrote how if it "worked" for me, it could work for anyone. So I began to nudge her in that direction, sometimes a bit too firmly, including forcing her to attend a Bhagavan Das kirtan with me while I was visiting her last summer. Three and a half straight hours of prana packed into a smallish LA yoga studio may have been my idea of nirvana, but Ma looked like her chakras were backing up big time. Sadly, I thought I'd lost her.
"It seems like you and your Ma are on the healing path," my best friend said, after Ma had handed her the phone Saturday night. It was going on 1 am our time, yet it was so hard to hang up; I hadn't talked to either of them for a long time. Ma and the best friend go way back, since junior high. We've taken many a trip together over the years so them going to a music festival together was perfectly natural. The best friend also knows the relationship with Ma has not been easy. She's been along for the ride for 30 years.
"Yeah," I said, "we'll see...." KD rose up through the static. "Are you enjoying Krishna Das?"
"He's sweet," she said.
"See? Told you!" What a difference a year makes. "Glad you're with Ma," I said. "I am definitely letting the love for her flow. Grief, bliss, all of it... most days anyway."
"Tell me about it," she said. The best friend knows. She too, has a Jewish mother.
I told her a little bit about how when Ma left town a few months ago after visiting for 2 weeks, I allowed myself to cry when she drove off for the airport with her hundreds of bags. I told her it had been "for as long as I could remember" since I'd allowed myself to express that sadness. To bear my tears not just to the world on a busy corner, but to Ma. To Jude. To myself. Holding Jude in my arms, we watched her swerve down Xerxes until she was out of sight. There was no use denying it any longer. "It's sad when someone you love leaves, isn't it, Jude?"
"Yeah," Jude said small-ly, "it sure is." We walked back up the Beach in silence.
Suddenly it occurred to me it didn't matter how it looked or what it meant or who reciprocated. It was my love and my love to do with as I pleased. It was my right to feel the entire spectrum of love, regardless of outcome. It's alright to cry...
After several years of very little contact with Ma, a memoir, a marriage, a child, another graduate degree, a lot of yoga, etc, I began to realize, to admit, to allow— despite the past—my love. Though I didn't want to admit it or believe it for many years, I love Ma. I'd only been hurting myself by fighting it.
"It's a long slow process," I told the best friend, "just like chanting. Just like writing and lingering."
The best friend listened with love. I could hear it in her "mmmmhmmmmm..."
It goes a long way, love. Over time, I've started to see it more and more. Love is Ma holding the phone wide open for me to hear Krishna Das live. Love is the best friend listening to me talk about Ma. Love is Too Cute Face texting me a reminder this morning to take some me time, to be gentle with myself. Love is Gentle Ben picking up an onion on the way over because I forgot to buy one for the Ratatouille. And love is crying unexpectedly because you hear a Judy Collins song and suddenly miss your dad. Love is the water waiting for me in my glass. And love is my body intuitively knowing how to drink it and how to let go the tears that I'm finally ready to run free and release back into the thirsting earth.
What else is LOVE?
WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Good) News
Dear Men, Thank you for the awesome first night! I was blown away. I loved writing with you and look forward to our next write. Interested? Still have space for one more! For info about the monthly group, go here: MENS Writing Group
Also, I am happy to introduce WRITE LOVE NOW, my first online class. Want more love in your life? For your life? For your writing? For yourself? For your (Jewish) mother? Grow the love, linger in the love week-by week and see how "if you write it, it will come!" Call or e me for more information: rox@writingwithrox.com 612-703-4321
Intuitive Writing 12 week class series
WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Happy) Announcements
I need an intern! Free classes/retreats/etc, great experience!
rox@writingwithrox.com
Want to write but not ready to come to a class? Online Class coming soon! Inquire within! rox@writingwithrox.com
We still have openings in our Madeline Island Retreat. If you haven't yet had a vacation or it's been a really long time, join us for a 5-day blissful writing and meditation/mindfulness retreat!
UPCOMING
Intuitive Writing 12 week class series
begins THURSDAY September 26, 2013
@The Loft Literary Center Register soon! Fills fast!
New! Fourth Annual Fall Women's Writing Retreat
On the lake in Spicer, MN!
Friday October 25-27, 2013
begins THURSDAY September 26, 2013
@The Loft Literary Center Register soon! Fills fast!
Friday October 25-27, 2013
Noon Friday-1 pm Sunday Call for details!
WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY Woo-Woo Writing Wisdom...
Show us. Show us what love looks like. Let us be there with you, in love. There's no need to rush. Take your time. Writing allows us to see your world, to take us on a journey with you, to be there with you, to love and be loved with you. Show us the love!...............♥
I was moved by your recounting of your goodbyes with "ma" and what that meant in your relationship with her, very poignant.... Also very encouraging to all of us
ReplyDeleteas we struggle with our own relationships, trying to keep our hearts open.
Warmly, Noah, aka: Too Cute Face
Aww, Grareee, thanks so much for posting!
ReplyDeleteVery moved to hear it was moving for you. Sometimes I feel like I come across as too hard on Ma, but hopefully the writing about her after all these years shows how much love is really there. I think this is why she is such a "lovable" character among my students/writing family/etc.
I like how you put that about "keeping our hearts open." I guess that's what it comes down to, isn't it? You, of course, paraphrased the entire point!
Keeping the heart "open" no matter what comes our way in relationships, instead of having to shut down, etc, in response to/meeting someone else shutting down, acting out, etc. Thanks honey. I hope you will write some of your mom stories sometime. "WHAT ARE YOU some kind of JERK or somethin,?!!!!" xoxo
I've never done this before but you asked me to post this on your blog so (gulp!) here goes...
ReplyDeleteSeptember 11, 2013 at The Beach
I arrived at The Beach today wanting to write about love. Love, inspired by Rox’s weekly writing prompt about relationship with her mother. But I’m also willing to think about what she suggested this morning: “a day in my life…” and whatever it is that I “don’t give a shit about”.
Somehow what came to mind was a conversation with my daughter just last night. She’s just started – just started – a new job. She said to me, “I said something I shouldn’t have”.
“Oh?”
“Well…” and she told me the phrase, the expression she’d used. Not overly or even overtly awful but she caught herself being aware of how it might sound. How it might be offensive or in poor taste. At the very least not well-considered. Apparently, she commented on herself immediately and felt that it was OK with the other person …but it led to an interesting conversation for us about being sensitive, appropriate, etc. I suggested that what was more important than her phraseology was her awareness and sensitivity to others.
So maybe all that is an example of the super ‘carefulness’ of which Rox spoke as a somewhat midwestern phenomenon. Or maybe it’s a wonderful sensitivity to others, an empathy, compassion.
Or maybe in the vein of “not giving a shit”, her reaction to herself – OK – or MY reaction might be:
Get over it!
There was nothing offensive in the intention behind the phrase. Can’t you (whoever the listener might be) hear the person, the character of the person?
Can we listen beyond words? To intention? Show a little grace? A little love? Some forgiveness for our less than perfect selves. To make room for relationships – relationships that heal, that can heal, that are healing.
Because love is healing.
Goodness, you, thank you so much for posting this! I am just now seeing this believe it or not. I know I told you the technology was simple—and it is—the posting part anyway!—but somehow I missed this beautiful post!
DeleteOOooooooooh, how I love hearing this again. It is so smooth and deliciously meandering to all my favorite places and of course, back to love. I just LOVE how when you set out to write about, say, love, and then end up writing about mother-dauther conversations, figuring "oh well, I've somehow gotten off topic, but that's where I am!" that it ends up being about, what else, love. What else? What else is there after all?
Love is indeed listening beyond the words... hearing the song in the delivery, the prayers in the advice we give and take... hearing the love. Thanks so much. xoxoxoxo