Writing with Rox WEEKLY—On the Radio

Yesterday, say late afternoon, Jude and I dangled our legs over the cement slab of  Lake Harriet to go see the Loons. It took some convincing. "They're the ones that go 'Ooooooooooooo?Ooooooo' like that little black and white speckled bird stuffed animal you have goes when you squeeze it," I attempted when he wanted to know what the big deal was. Of course I knew Loons was a long shot, that it was likely those fake Loons you see around this time of year, but up at the playground I overheard some more-mom-looking-and-sounding-mom-than-I tell her kids "Let's go see the Loons," so I acquiesced to the fantasy. 

Hope, maybe, and possibility create tension not only on the page, but off it as well. While I had every doubt, I held out hope a long time, even when the Loons looked a little suspicious with their clownish white beaks. Of course that made me feel horribly guilty, extremely un-Buddhist, clearly so overly attached to Loons that I could hardly recognize the individuality of this not-quite-Loonish flock. Still, even as we patiently scoped the bird clown invasion, as the setting in of that "this isn't quite right" feeling thickened, I didn't want to abandon the possibility. 

"Mama, why aren't they makin' the 'Oooo?Oooo' sound?" Jude wanted to know. 

"Give it a minute, honey," I said, "it needs to get darker." I looked around for the know-it-all-mom, but she wasn't around to back me up. "Loons like to call out at dusk."

"What's duksk?" Jude looked around as though dusk would be rounding the corner or emerging from the deep sea, for that matter, along with the Loons.

"Nothing honey. It's just poetry for getting dark." Like I said, I'm not the most momish mom at times. On good weather days, I'm selfish about enjoying the moment without having to break it down.

Still, all too soon, the moment changed when appeared a mid-aged fellow and his Golden Retriever, who kept nosing his tennis ball back into the water. At one point the other mom materialized and her toddler joyously kicked the ball back into the lake after the owner had retrieved it for the third time. Josie howled on the ledge. What was I thinking believing her about Loons, what with a toddler who does that? Still, Jude was amused and I got to go back to feeling the sun on my skin, waiting for that sacred Loon song. 

"Those aren't Loons are they?" I asked Josie's dad as we finally stood to go back. And that's when he broke the news about the Coots. I didn't ask him what sort of sing they make. It didn't matter at all by then.

"Huh. See Jude? Coots. Sort of sounds like Loons, though, right?"

"Sure, Mama. Let's go." It didn't much matter to him either.

Back in the car Jude suggested I put on a song really loud. "I'm tired of all that ram ram hare aaaaaah hare harry aaaaaaaah..." he trailed off, perfectly tired. "Turn on the radio," he ordered. "And turn it up. Loud."

"Good God, the radio? Really?" 

Like mother like son. But really? The radio? What a concept. 

So I took a leap of faith. And where there's lack of Loonsong, there is cheesy 70s music; waiting for me was that perfect sentimental summer song that goes "something something...love isn't always on time! Woe oe ooooe..." which I blasted and belted along with the 3 others just like it to follow. Oh, I was flooded with memories and feeling and drives with Ma listening to radio in LA traffic way too loud, each song better than the last.

When I looked in the rearview, I expected to see Jude conked out, but he was singing right along with me, making up his own perfect words, which never would have happened if the Loons had come down to sing.

Write with me? 

Favorite Radio Songs?

Loon Stories? Er, Coot Stories?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Ah Sugar, Sugar...

The other day Jude and I were hanging out making paper mache masks with our awesome artist friend and her boy, who is a couple years younger than Jude. In the way of most kids, he and Jude entered in and out of their running imaginary worlds and at one point the worlds collided; full of giggles, her boy announced "I'm smooooking..." and began pantomiming with wide gestures, waving paper strip cigarette to his lips. 

"Now Avi," my friend declared, containing her alarm more then any Jewish mother I am or know, "what do we know is worse for us than any other thing in the world? What's the absolute worst thing we can put into our bodies?"

The boy dramatically paused, posing in deep thought of finger to chin as modeled by our thoughtful elders. "Hmmmm? Hmmm... Ring Pops!"

I couldn't contain my glee. "Yes! Right! That is absolutely true! Don't ever get hooked on Ring Pops or dark chocolate M+M's or Bottle Caps or any other beautiful irresistible sugary thing, kids." I could've gone on. I could've said "at least when you quit smoking you get to have sugar!"

"Okay," his mother said, reigning us in, "yes...Ring Pops are not great for you, but no... what else? That's right. Smoking..."

"Of course," I agreed, "smoking. Don't smoke kids." I mumbled something out the side of my mouth about how it's still debatable.

Cigarettes extinguished and back to the task at hand,  my friend asked, "So why is it you're giving up sugar again?"

"Well, it's only for a month, first of all..." I said, because, first thing's first, after all. "And, well... I just want to see if I can do it." 

"Mama eats candy all day!" Jude chimed in, with which I couldn't argue.


As a kid, my dad literally had to drag me out of the candy aisle, while I anchored myself, lanky blonde ball and chain to the metallic grocery cart at Gelson's. He may have given in once or twice, consenting to say, Gatorade Gum or Good N Plenty, his downfall,  neither of which really counted. As a doctor, he balked at any compromise when it came to sugar, identifying it repeatedly as "chazari," Yiddish for junk, trash, rotten, in the same category as messhuga or mishegas, which he often trioed together in the same sentence.

I don't know how much psychoanalytics has to do with my lifetime tithing to sugar, but I do know that dad was right in that there is nothing good to come of sugar, except maybe vodka, which he was indifferent to. Everyone knows the truth about sugar; I get it, I know it and for the most part I maintain a functional relationship with it. And yet... every once in while I have to give it up for a while. 

I know it's time when I start dreaming about sugar. And lo, Monday night, the first day into a thirty-day white sugar fast, I dreamed of sugar. It appeared as a crystal, red ruby gem, which I kept knowingly both in my mouth and in my hand, the way you can in dreams; I was being chased in a labyrinth, not unlike the one from the childhood board game Shoots and Ladders. All along I knew said treasure was a red cherry Jolly Rancher, those tiny oblong hard candies that always melted a bit inside the cellophane that we got as kids on the penny shelf at 7-11, which I hadn't thought about in years. No way anyone was going to get their hands on my treasure, no matter the danger. Some dreams are embarrassingly clear. 

In Donald Miller's recent memoir A Million Miles in a Thousand Years,  he talks about an inciting incident, both on and off the page, as a moment in time in which you walk through a doorway of no return. Though I realize I am making myself way more literary than necessary in this regard, the week before Easter, one of my amazing Friday Writers declared she would be giving up sugar for one month, beginning April 6, waiting until after Easter so she could have jelly beans. We understand each other, this fella sugar fiend and I, commiserating often on the lifelong love affair we've both shared with the crystalline vampiress, right down to the methodology we similarly apply to eating Whoopers, so at first her proclamation felt like a betrayal; what do you mean you're giving up dark chocolate M+M's? You're just going to knowingly let me continue poisoning myself while you go cold turkey on me? 

I had no choice other to invite myself in. "Can I do it with you?" I practically begged. Kindly, she agreed, proceeding to outline the rules. "No artificial sweeteners, but sugar already appearing in things I already eat is fine," her intention, like mine, to stay away from processed crack-like sugar—in my case, nightly dishings of vanilla SoyDelicious with a chaser of dark M+Ms, hers something in the jelly bean family. 

By then, I was long past the point of no return. I had to do it. I didn't know why. I still don't know why. But I'm doing it and it's fucking way harder than quitting smoking, especially with Ma in town suggesting we go back to Perkins to get a sugar free mixed berry pie. (Her intentions are good; she swears it has no sugar in it one way or another).

Since Monday, my student and I have been supporting each other via daily texts and emails (see? another reason why writing heals!), ranging from the mundane to the bizarre (mine, not hers).  Man, I need her. I've also been calling TCF multiple times per day, as well as when we're together with, "can I have sugar now?" 

For the life of me I cannot understand why he does not have the same cravings as I do and I'm grateful for his patience. "Where exactly do you crave it, honey? Where in your body? In your mouth?" I get squirmy and fitful trying to explain an addiction he does not have. In turn, he encourages me to do something sweet for myself. "Do some gentle yoga, breathing...lay on the floor and remind your body to relax, honey." 

It's hard to take in what seem like platitudes those first few days. Sure, I love yoga, but really, you can't compare a forward fold to a bowl of vanilla with chocolate chips... not this late at night anyway. But I'm beginning to see the value of the nothingness left when the anticipation and ritual of ice cream and chocolate is no longer there. That same nothing is beginning to illuminate the sweetness that is there all the time: my son's smile, the lick of moonlight on my comforter, the feel of tired on my eyelids, TCF's kindness and compassion... not that I ever took these things for granted, but perhaps recognizing them for the genuine sweetnesses as they are—offerings from the heart rather than the pastel manufactured ones masked in the toxic illusion of love—is the real reason I jumped at the chance for this sort of nonsense.

Then again, it's still early. Perhaps this is still the denial phase. What I do know is that writing, as always, continues to be my sacred go to, whenever I need to battle another craving and remind myself all these melodramatics are going to ease up over time. If you'd like to follow my occasional rantings, I've made myself a nice little sugar shack at My Chazari, but it a'int a piece of cake. 


WRITE WITH ME?
What is your sugar story?
What have you had to give up?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Out of Character

It was strange. 

I'd like to think it has something to do with the antibiotics, the oddly warm weather we're having, the surreality of spring break. Whatever the reason, I must have looked like something washed up out of the Sahara this morning to the kind BP station manager, who greeted me with a welcome wagon, while I recoiled behind my wide infinity scarf, shielding myself from both sun and smile.

"How you doing?" he announced, heading directly toward me.

What does he want? my body wondered, long before any thought-forms appeared. I looked around the deserted station. Is he talking to me? 

What led me to be pumping gas at a surreally vacant BP at ten this morning on Excelsior Blvd was a missed eye doc's appointment, which if you can believe, I showed up too early for. Unable to swing the extra hour and a half of Jude care, I  picked up some Sudafed for my sinus infection, grabbed a Caribou, an apple fritter, and headed home, feeling displaced. 

Earlier while pulling out of the clinic garage, a Somali woman was trying to anchor her SUV in a compact spot beside me as I inched out. I felt the familiar heat, the seed of a tirade, the useless righteousness that begs the same questions in times like this, "Why don't other people follow the rules? Why do I get punished when I do follow the rules? Why oh why did I get a small car? And who the fuck needs such a gargantuan car?  I'm like a minnow out here!" She squeezed further in, obstructing my vision of oncoming cars, who honked at me when I attempted to back out. And finally I just stopped. I gave up. I surrendered to the uselessness and helplessness of the moment. I could've very well put my head in my hands. What am I supposed to do now? I'm sure the poor woman recognized the fury in my eyes when I finally made eye contact with her;  instead of proceeding in the ineffectual passive aggressive way, I raised my eyes for the challenge. I felt myself bristle and buck, awaiting the crossbars on her face. In defense, I raised my eyebrows with petulant inquiry. 

But the woman was not angry at all. In fact, what I dared to see, when I dared to look, was a smile so sweet and opening, I felt something like a flower petal dropping inside my heart. Quickly, I smiled back, the humble sort, as she waved me out of my spot, directing me with the ok sign against any oncoming happy honkers.

Of course all of this took place in under a minute, but her smile stretched timelessly. I berated myself for being so caught up in my drama, my sinus infection, my hard day, for not having more faith in people. For not being kind first. I hate it when people beat me to kindness. It's like a daily showdown: who's going to smile first, me or you? I won't if you don't, but if I do it first I really don't care if you do or don't because I don't have an ego. What? It's not conscious and I don't like it, but it happens, especially during certain times of the month. 

And on certain days of the month or whatever reason why, a random unexpected kindness only goes so far, and by the time I get to the BP Station, I'm back into my contorted form, feeling like an alien pulling into a ghost town. 

Still, I did return the greeting to the manager who was coming right at me. "I'm good," I lied, "how are you?"

Without breaking stride, he seized the nearest squeegee and slapped it smoothly across my grimy window. "As the station manager, I like to greet my customers with a little kindness..." was the gist of what he said, as he continued to iron out my windshield.

I fumbled something in response, my animal body anticipating a sales pitch, or something to posture against. Thankfully, my domesticated side knows better. "Wow. Thanks so much," I said, "that's really sweet of you."

I felt compelled to make small talk after that. "Great amazing sunny..." I attempted, but trailed off when he smiled and headed back inside. He had no use for my throw away afterthoughts. 

There's no point to this story, nothing to share about writing or memoir; there certainly isn't a "happy" ending (it's actually rather anticlimactic: I came home, ate pastries with Jude and Too Cute Face, and did the neti pot). 

Of course it all got me thinking. Whenever I act out of character—belying all sense of self I recognize and rely on—I tend to call  myself out as a phony. Even though I realize it's this type of narrow thinking that gets me in trouble and keeps me stuck, not to mention exhausted, I fall for my thoughts way too often, believing I am exactly the person that I think I am, which gives me very little wiggle room to be an animal... and animal I am.

Of course this is getting wayward, but what I really want to say is that my instinctual withdrawal from kindness scared me a little bit. Sure, I'll regroup and get off the antibiotics, but I have to wonder  because, after all, I'm not the only one who's afraid every so often when kindness comes bulldozing through with a squeegee. 

WRITE WITH ME?

WHEN WERE YOU LAST OUT OF CHARACTER? 

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Earnesty

It seems like it's a word. It feels like it must be a word. Earnesty? Like, honest earnest? Not earnestly; it's not a verb. It's definitely a noun. Whatever it is, I don't get too earnest here for fear of sounding too preachy, but I think calling it earnesty is okay.

Wow, it feels like forever since we've talked. How you been? Me, comme si, comme sa.... battling a sinus infection, ears full of cotton candy, a short trip to San Diego for huge cousin's reunion and Bar Mitzvah... and... here comes the earnesty... I just had a delicious writing retreat with the Friday Writers. I cannot be reminded enough how crucial it is to retreat. Once again, I was reminded of the everyday sacred, where stories, like life, conceive, sprout, and blossom when we give them our full attention, faith, love, and enough time... a lesson for which I need regular practice. 

What did we do? We wrote. We shared. We laughed. We cried. We insighted. We aha'd! We asked. We answered. We gave. We received. We loved. We released the dark. We let in the light.   We did it again. And again. And again. Over and over. And that's it. Writing together. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to be, but here, now, writing and sharing. That's it.

We sat at a long wooden table, much like the one here at the Beach,  in a VRBO out in Prior Lake, a "cottage," on the lake. In between writing we luxuriated. We spread out in the living room on our yoga matts, on the couch, continuing the stories off the page. Some of us took walks.  We made a fire. We cooked and ate. We had a Crayola ice cream cake for dessert. 

What did we write? We started with a letter from our Sunday selves to our arriving Friday selves, thanking our Friday selves for a great retreat because... "thank you, Rox, for giving yourself time to rest, neti pot, and be present for the gifts shared this weekend...so glad you talked the girls into a yoga class and singing camp songs with you..."

After that we wrote our "dance stories," which led to one of the greatest moments of the retreat. You never know what's going to happen with any given prompt; everyone will go in different directions. One goes to the freedom found in pole dancing, another to the challenges and pride of being a "dance mom," whereas I return to the old Lindy Hop stories. The magic happens when, as listeners, as we receive these unique stories, we begin to truly root for, cheer on the protagonist, love her, feel for her in each story. I suppose this magic is called human nature, but it comes as a surprise every time I find myself attaching to the reader's outcome, the happy ending, no matter how short the piece. By the end of the retreat I told each of the gals why I love them and how much I wish I could spend time in their stories. I realized that this must be an indicator of great writing, feeling like you want to step inside someone's moments, be in their life. After that, prompts were no longer needed. We had the infinite; everything, every word, gesture, breath, presented itself as a prompt. 

One of the dance stories led one of the ladies to write an exquisite piece on the father/daughter dance at her wedding. That one hit me like a gong. It vibrated, layers deep, and if she doesn't publish it, I'm going to have to do it for her. You might think, okay, so... what about it? Well... write yours... you'll see.

Not only was it a great story about something millions of women and men experience (some more than once :)), but within the story she also paused to show us why each dance has it's own story. And then it got me thinking how many millions of "everyday" things we all do that we never stop and talk about, let alone write about, ordinary things that can be quite loaded, for better or worse, both or neither in inexplicable ways.

Taking lint out of the drier, the father-daughter dance, realizing you are locked out, running into someone at the market, waiting rooms, power outage, the waitress coming back to tell you what you ordered just ran out, a delayed flight, a motel room, a missing headlight coming at you, being on hold, waiting in line at Target, forgetting to turn on your lights, a stranger smiling at you, getting your blood pressure taken, walking in to a class late, being early... endless, endless....goodbyes and hellos. 

And where in the world can I go with gratitude? Endless prompts there. But for now, thanks again ladies. Thanks again all of you. Namaste that.

WRITE WITH US? 

What happens/what's it like when you do the same things I do?  

What are the same everyday things?

Father/daughter dance?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Night Fever

It seems like every ten years or so I am hit by a sudden need to watch Saturday Night Fever. Perhaps it's because my son Jude just turned eight, the exact same age I was when Ma took me to Westwood Village to a ten pm show with her boyfriend Jay. 

In all fairness, I begged. I pleaded and moaned. I got down on my scabby roller-skater girl knees and shouted. I didn't get that is was inappropriate. It didn't matter that it would give me nightmares.  This was a matter of disco. It was 1978 and disco was everything. It was disco or die as far as I was concerned. If only I could convince Ma to take me, I'd score major points with peer pressure. The older kids would accept me into their roller clubs, friends would revere me, and surfer Jered would take me out on a date to 7-11, ogling over my maturity.  As it was, everyone was already jealous that I had such a cool mom. 

"But I already got you those fucking satin pants, Roxanne. And look? You ruined them already."

Sure enough there were holes in my Starburst Orange satin disco pants within a week of purchase. She didn't believe me when I told her the holes were caused by my brother Ben farting on them so many times, with such putrid blasts, that several holes were burned into them. "I don't see how else it happened, Ma."

"No way, Roxanne, " Ma huffed, leaving a trail of smoke all over my disco moves. "And I don't see how your roller skating teacher could assign a movie for homework. We're not going. Now turn that down!"

"Well... it's more like she suggested it. Come on, Ma. Even you think John Travolta is cute. You said yourself you wanted to go see it!"

I don't know how or why Ma finally caved; perhaps my incessant begging eroded her common sense. Though I suppose it may have had something to do with Jay, who like many of Ma's boyfriends, considered me a pain in the ass, worthy of consequences, given he worked in corrections. Or possibly, likely, because both of them weren't too far away from youth themselves, remembering what it was like to crave the wild night like a child, the same way I did. 

Perhaps it is that same rush of adrenalin that calls me now—older  than each of them at the time, at least by ten years—back to that movie time and time again. That calls me to exclaim "let's go dancing!" to whomever I happen to be watching with. Less often I disclose my intense craving for a smoke, not so much because it caresses some unfulfilled hole inside (it used to!), but because it looks so damn cool. That's the danger in movies for me. I know better, but my young body, my wishful, longing, Hollywood body, is still vulnerable to the tricks of the trade, which for memories such as this, had its place in the sun. Or the hot seventies night, as it were.

And that night was a dream. I vividly remember walking up Westwood Boulevard, heading toward the theatre just south of Wilshire on that late summer night. I bounced between Ma and Jay, decked in their best everyday disco clothes, me with the patched up satin pants, matching yellow shirt with orange satin star in the middle, disco's stamp on modern clothing. There was talk of dance moves and the coolest movie there was ever was. There was an unspoken ecstasy in the strut each of us walked up the city sidewalk that night, a smug understanding that we were the coolest people on earth, Ma and Jay looking fancy and fine with their Marlboro Reds dangling off their lips. 

The memory is encased in disco, sirens and night lights spiraling around me as we hustled in with the crowds just in time. We shared a huge tub of popcorn smothered in butter, large drinks, feet propped on the seats ahead of us. "Oh cool..." I said, as the opening credits unfolded over JT strutting those disco streets I craved so deeply in my young body, the momentum of cool. 

"Cool!" Ma echoed, and at that, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be. I belonged. And one thing I knew for sure, enhanced by the Bee Gees beat pounding with rhythm and momentum, the soundtrack to this forever night: I am special. For that night, I was part of the scene, among the adults with the world (and dance floor) at their feet. 

And that feeling lasted until disco had it's huge backlash a few years later. Things went downhill between me and Ma. Jay left. The eighties came. We learned to dance real lame. Poor John Travolta was exiled from the new wave. Friends and I TP'd houses all over the neighborhood, writing "disco sucks" in egg yolk and shaving cream all over LA's manicured lawns.

As I watched SNF again this past weekend, it occurred to me about that backlash. Why did everyone suddenly detest disco? I remember it being violent, the hatred, as though disco was some writhing disease in bell bottoms. And in the height of peer pressure, I went along with the hatred, agreeing to reject a deep part of myself in the face of Culture Club, aloofness, and androgyny. Running scared from myself in a feral city that broadcasted its utter hatred toward disco, I was reborn a depressed, motionless adolescent, never questioning the death of a pulsing era. Too young to understand at the time,  I can't help but wonder now where all that hatred came from. Why a seemingly good thing was shot down from the starry heavens, no longer cool, all dressed up in satin with nowhere to go. 


WRITE WITH ME?
Where were you the day (year? era?) the disco died? What are your disco days memories? Saturday Night Fever stories? 

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—I want you to show me...

If you're anywhere near my age you likely remember belting it out in the car, or cranking it up in your bedroom when no one was home, perhaps lying in bed, paralyzed by love's woozy grip, picturing yourself on a tropical island ("Blue Lagoon"?) in a saucy embrace... "I want to know what love is... I want you to show me... I want to feel what love is... I know you can show me..."

I had no way of knowing at the time—the time being 1984—as I rewound this "lame" song that no one my age admitted liking, over and over again, shortly after my boyfriend took me to the Rolling Stones concert and then broke my heart the next day. No way of knowing that thirty years later I would be singing that same song, only a spiritual "cover" version, with a room full of Bhakti yogis, eyes rolling back in their heads, arms stretched toward the heavens, just outside of Madison Wisconsin. Had you told me that at the time, in fact, I likely would have said you were mistaking my life for a David Lynch movie. Not so fast, young, tortured teenage, heartsick, Rox. Not so fast. You've got a lot to learn about love, yet.

Indeed life is a constant lesson in love, is it not? But that's what love looks like when you are 13 in Los Angeles in 1984.  And then it morphs and moves around and gets old and stays loyal here and disloyal there. And then we learn it isn't what we thought it is. And then we realize it's nothing at all like we hoped it was because it's much better, and bigger and all encompassing and includes everyone... And we learn about the Dalai Lama. And Thich Nhat Hanh and lovingkindness... and eventually we realize love's a verb not a noun or it's a state of mind or it's like that great book or movie or love song...well, all that and more. And then we are back where we started from: head over heals in love, lovestruck, lovesick, heartbroken, hopeful...until we are chanting "I wanna know what love is" with a bunch of Hind-Jews, many of them wearing turbans. 

All true, but what does all that look like? And what does that have to do with Foreigner? Well. Back to basics. Back to showing "what does that look like?" Why do I ask? Because love is the courier, the fuel of our stories, the ones we live, the ones we write. Not only are there people we love, but there are also things and places and mommies and daddies and summer camps and music...god, do we ever love music. And don't even get us started on our children. And pets... 

We can love these things in our lives and it shows. When we write, it's not enough to just say it (I mean it is, but you know what I'm saying); for us to love what, how, and who you love right along with you on the page, we've got to see what that looks like.

Here's what love looks like for me: Well...admittedly, chanting  alongside a bunch of yogis just outside of Madison Wisconsin on a beautiful summer day. Laughing blissfully, picturing myself doing this on a (very) regular basis, the image of Valley Girl me chanting words in Sanskrit, cowside, for turning out so far from the person I thought I ever would be.  

Love is writing around the table here at The Beach and reading something and when I look up everyone is looking at me that certain way, a few of them crying

Love is a student naming the Beach, the Beach. 

Love is Jude surrounding himself in his stuffed animals and putting his head on my shoulder when I read The Hobbit to him in his bed. It's also Jude unexpectedly taking my hand when we walk to the bus stop. 

Love is breathing into my heart. Love is breathing back-to-back with someone, feeling the rise and fall together. 

Love is falling into fits of hysterical laughter with Jude because the sound of soy milk pouring over the Cheerios at 6 am cracks us up.

Love is singing "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" with Debmama and Two Cute Face.

Love is my brother eulogizing my dad by remembering the story about a piece of property he had in the mountains, deciding whether or not he should sell it, wanting to keep it "so others had a place to go."

Love is Ma embellishing a Hallmark card with exclamation points and drawings on Jude's 8th birthday card.

Love is knowing someone so well you can predict their micromovements and mannerisms, before they even know they're coming.  

Love is yoga.

Gosh, I could go on because love is writing. Writing endlessly about what love looks like is love. Love is feeling the loops and dots and lines and curves that form words reflected in the shapes and breath of my body.

Okay, one more: 

Love is laughing at corny jokes like "Nine runs into a friend at the coop who doesn't recognize her because she looks like Six. So she says to the friend at the coop,  It's me! Nine! From yoga class!"

WRITE WITH ME? WHAT DOES LOVE LOOK LIKE FOR YOU, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW? "LOVE IS..."

PLEASE WRITE WITH ME AND SHARE. BUT EVEN IF YOU DON'T, I STILL LOVE YOU AND WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY, SWEET, HEART-CENTERED VALENTINE'S DAY. XOXO

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Oooooh, that's what it's all about...

For all the times I tell my students—the same way Stephen King told me in On Writing, the same way Thomas Lewis reminds me in A General Theory of Love—that most stories, above all else, are about relationships, I tend to forget this. I want to make stories about everything else: yoga, depression, Los Angeles, eating disorders, drumming, cigarettes, music, love, etc, etc... I want to make them bigger, flashier, up the stakes by giving them more places to go and more proof of their significance.

"If only I could describe that first time I shaped my body into Camel Pose in a way that really conveys that I went to another plane of reality...like a desert plane, where everything was blinding yellow, wide open and infinite..." I find myself musing on some mornings, clearly when I'm off on another plane of reality, thinking about the memoir I'll come back to someday. Yes, there is a memoir in progress. Yes, it's about LA and television and yoga and... well, a lot of things.

This morning I was talking to Dada, with whom we share the raising of one human experiment, currently in the form of an almost 8-year-old Jude. What we talk about when we talk about Jude is varied and celebratory, often addressing the logistics of raising him (as best we can) with consistent values and discipline from two separate houses. We do pretty well except for the occasional snag on screen time. Neither of us is too political or hysterical when it comes to the Matrix; it has more to do with preference: Dada loves making movies and doing stuff with technology. I am bored by it and prefer face-to-face over virtual. 

Still, occasional flare ups where I start to wonder "is he playing too many violent video games or watching too many scary movies?" result in Dada insisting there is "nothing to worry about," reminding me it's interactive, they play together, there is plenty of supervision, etc. And yet, you can take the girl out of LA, but you can't...

"But, Dada," I tell him, "remember what my memoir is about? It's about television ruining my life!" This gives us a both a laugh, me because I am citing my own unpublished memoir as evidence. Not that I don't make a good point: years of unsupervised TV and movie and music video watching while growing up in Los Angeles resulted in years of suffering, distorted thinking because I assumed TV was real, that I should tithe to the Hollywood gods to the point that I married a gay man because he—"we"— looked good. Ergo, I should've been happy, right?

"Your memoir isn't about television, it's about your mother, for Christ Sake," Dada says, reminding me how my mother insisted we watch the holocaust movies year after year and how they scared me to death. How I couldn't sleep at night when Ma was out on the town because I was afraid they were going to come get us, turn us into soap. 

Contrast that to the hours of "happily ever after" TV that came my way daily via The Brady Bunch, Heart to Heart, Facts of Life, Different Strokes, Fantasy Island, Punky Brewster... and I was one confused kid. 

When I went to Ma with these Hollywood spawn fears, she was not much help. "Could it still happen, Ma?" I said, following her around the kitchen while she crashed around in the junk drawer. After all, Ma knew best and most about all things. "Could it, Ma?"

"Who the fuck knows," she said, "it's possible. There are a lot of people out there who still hate Jews."

"But—"

"Now go outside and tell your fucking brother to get in here. Dinner's ready and I'm going to be late." She crushed Top Ramen noodles into the near boiling water, hurrying it along with a wooden spoon. 

"K! Can we eat in the living room?" Happy Days would be on soon.

"No. You'll make a fucking mess. Okay. Just don't make a fucking mess." 

Happy Days and Top Ramen, a little Sara Lee banana cake for dessert and things were looking up. Today, while it's still light, let there be dancing at Mel's; tonight I'll deal with the nazis!

How could I have forgotten? Without Ma, the journey we take together throughout the pages of my memoir, there is really no story. We are the momentum and the tension behind the entire thing. How will it "end" between us? What will I have to do for my own "happily ever after"?

Leave it to Dada to remind me of this. I picture he and Jude at the Red House, sword fighting or boxing on the Wei, before dissolving into a pile of boy laughter in the hammock. I picture Jude asking his dad if zombies are real, if they can do "stay up late night" again and have cereal for dinner. I picture Dada telling him about the zombies he has seen at work, that even though there are plenty of them, there is nothing to be afraid of, nothing to fear.

WRITE WITH ME? WHO AND WHAT IS YOUR MEMOIR ABOUT? 

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—The moment you knew

Recently a student told me that her favorite writer, Haruki Murakami, described the moment he knew he was destined to be a writer. My student described it far better than I could (or anyone else/anything I have found written about it), but the short answer is baseball. Not just baseball, mind you, but the lingering, sensory, amniotic, depth of it. Says Murakami,

"...The crack of the bat meeting ball on the sweet spot echoed through the stadium. Hilton easily rounded first base and pulled up to second. And it was at that exact moment that a thought struck me: You know what? I could try writing a novel. I can still remember the wide-open sky, the feel of the new grass, the satisfying crack of the bat. Something flew down from the sky at that instant, and whatever it was, I accepted it."

So, what is it about baseball anyway? I mean... is it everyone's muse?  What is it about this game that makes it the literary darling of ball sports? That's the first thing.

But the main thing, what I find so striking (no pun intended, really), is thinking about the exact moment when we knew we were writers. Not just the reasons why we write (which are great too, obviously), but the wordless collision of all perfection, the muse, the "I have to write this down" moment.

I agree. It's hard to pinpoint. It's elusive.

I knew it when I wrote my first short story in first grade about the color purple and could not stop writing. I also knew it when I wrote a letter from my 24 year-old self in the basement at my first counseling job in Seattle to my future self, living under sunny skies, far from here, reminding myself things would get better, to hang in there. 

I knew it every time I wrote a love letter. 

I knew it when Jude spoke his first word: "Bus!" I knew it the first time I heard that huge crystal singing bowl that Deb played that night at Lake Harriet among a small gathering of drummers, where suddenly I was among a hundred whales breathing me back into my body. 

I knew it six years later when Jude came running toward me—walk, trot, skip, ruuuuuuuuun!— across the green summer fields at Camp St Croix after five days at sleep-away camp. I knew it when I knew I could never ever put into words how long that sprint toward each other lasted and how very right that moment felt when he jumped up into in my arms.

Regretfully, I knew it with each heartbreak and I knew it when I was well aware I was doing the absolutely wrong thing at the wrong time and proceeded anyway. I knew it when I saw a young man carrying a clipboard run across six lanes of traffic before he was struck by a car, knocked onto the sidewalk and died in front of me on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles a week before my first wedding. I knew it when I felt nothing at the height of celebration, when I felt everything when it was over, and when I felt the earth against my spine while laying in corpse pose at yoga.

I know it even when I have nothing to do with anything. When there is no I, no me, and amazingness is happening anyway.

I knew it and I know it each and every time I surrender. To music. To love. To the moment. To being wrong. Or right. When I laugh so hard I pee my pants and when I let someone else drive so I can enjoy the ride.

Oh, I could go on. I could mine deeper into this wordless world where I am endlessly moved by the earth's poetry, layer upon layer, where each of these moments reveals a brief window, an opening, a portal into everything at once, a oneness, a sense that I have absolutely been here before countless times and will be here again. Perhaps it takes me back to the womb, the wordless womb.

So why? Why do I have to write it down? Why not just leave the wordless alone? I do... most of the time. But each time I attempt to translate the wordless collision, I am giving back to the writers and musicians and all whoeverybodys who have understood me, translated for me. Because of their gifts, the sharing of their stories, I can celebrate, embrace, and worship this one life, navigate and belong here, at times tolerate, occasionally just get by in, and once in a blue moon want out of this life, well knowing it will all pass and that I am exactly where I am meant to be. 

And that's a moment to write down.


WRITE WITH ME?
AT WHICH MOMENT DID YOU KNOW YOU HAD TO WRITE IT DOWN?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—It's just writing

READERS! THIS WEEK I AM PLAGIARIZING MYSELF FROM A BLOG POST I DID RECENTLY FOR THE LOFT TO PROMOTE MY UPCOMING HEALING MEMOIR CLASS! READ ON FOR MY "PROFESSIONAL" TAKE ON WRITING YOUR TRUTH! ENJOY! 

If I could get a nickel for every time a student brought up the topic of, “but what if someone reads this and doesn’t agree? Will they sue me? Will I lose my home? What if it’s too self-indulgent? Will everyone be mad at me?” I’d be rich—well, less of a starving artist anyway.

The truth is, for now it’s just writing. What others think is something to consider—later. But for now, it’s just writing.

It might sound simple, but many struggle to “just write” a single word, let alone a paragraph on the page when considering writing true stories, or heck, writing an email for that matter. It’s not that we don’t have ideas and passions—we’ve all got enough material to fill volumes. It’s that our busy, thinking, judging, worrying minds get to the page quicker than our hearts, running over our truth with panic: “What if no one wants to hear about this? What if someone gets hurt? What if I’m making this up? What if I am not sounding writerly enough? What if? What if? What if?”

Sadly, this fear shuts down the creative flow, drowning out your natural voice to the point where you have no idea what and why you wanted to write in the first place.

You’re not hurting anyone or asking for a lawsuit simply by writing your truth. This is a hard thing to trust for many students; they hesitate to get started because they feel the very act of writing is going to get them in big trouble. There seems to be a collective guilt about writing (let alone publishing) memoir these days, a sense that, by nature, writing creative nonfiction is incriminating.

What if I don’t say it right? What if I hurt someone? What if I spell it wrong?

Still, these questions come up all the time and public opinion is a valid concern. To soften the struggle a bit, I always come back to the same two questions when teaching Healing Memoir (or just about anything, really): What is your intention? What are you afraid of?

Intention is simple: “I am writing this memoir because…” Along those lines, “What are you hoping to share and teach your readers by writing your memoir? What is the one thing, the one gift you hope readers walk away with after reading your memoir?”

Chances are you began writing just to get something out of your body, to heal something, let something go. Later, if and when you think about publishing, chances are, your intention is clean and loving. None of us really wants to hurt anyone or make problems for relatives or get back at anyone who didn’t love us enough. Likely, you want to benefit others, help others heal something that you have lived through. Perhaps your intention is to make someone laugh or embrace yoga or overcome trauma.

On the other hand, your intention could be to bust someone or get back at them. You might be writing for revenge. Whatever your intention, there’s no good or bad, right or wrong. You’re just writing. You can decide later how you want to sound when you publish: loving or angry. You can bust someone lovingly and it will end up okay. However, a loving intention typically, like in the movies, wins readers over. No one wants to root for you if you are still pissed off at your first husband and it’s still ruining your life. We’re more apt to root for you if you heal through the grief and then make your life better. If your intention is loving, even the most questionable characters will end up beloved by readers. And especially you.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t be mindful of how others might receive your published memoir/personal essay/article/etc. When I write about friends and family on my blog or in articles, I have to ask myself how they will feel being revealed doing or saying something—however silly or mundane—in the middle of a story. Most of the time, it is celebratory and makes them feel good. My intention is always loving.

Fear is a bit more challenging. Asking, “What am I so afraid of? What is the worst thing that can happen?” are good questions to linger with.

For these purposes there’s a writing exercise I like to do. Imagine your book is done and published and shining in bookstore windows and cyber windows across the galaxy. Imagine the person you most fear reading it picks it up, reads it cover to cover. Then they sit down and write you a letter. Write that letter in their voice… “Dear Rox...I never threw you and Lisa out of the f***ing car at the Santa Monica Pier and told you f***ers to walk home!"

Chances are it’s not as bad as you think. Even if it is, what are you going to do about that? Is it their anger? Is it still yours to carry? Does it really matter if your truth does not match theirs? Typically, these issues can be sorted out and certainly worked through on the page so your story honors your intention.

But on a deeper level—deeper than the fear of what others might think or say or do and judge—often times the deeper fear is facing one’s own truth. In all its “ugliness.” The truth even you don’t want to think about, that you may have forgotten or pushed to the depths. The irony is that this deep fear is a great gift—it is the life force, the prana, the juju, of your memoir, not to mention the weight you’ve been aching to lift from your life. Once you allow for that truth to come to the surface, you can make peace with it. And if you can make peace with that deep fear on and off the page, you will have a very lively memoir where everyone (friends, family, and readers) is rooting for you to unveil the truth you’ve been holding on to for way too long and get on with the business of living a whole life. Making darkness into healing light. It’s your typical hero’s journey. Everyone’s journey.

But first, it’s just writing.

WRITE WITH ME? 

WHAT IS YOUR WRITING INTENTION?

WHAT WOULD YOUR LETTER TO YOU SAY?

WHAT TRUTHS MIGHT YOU BE AVOIDING ON AND OFF THE PAGE?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Year End Celebrations

When I first moved here in 2001, I had a handful of bylines to my name, but no idea where I was heading as a writer. I could have never predicted where I am today and if I saw it coming I would have been really confused. At the time, I was hoping to write a bestselling memoir or collection of essays (what we now call Creative Nonfiction and/or Personal Essay) based on my "dysfunctional" (I actually touted "dysfunctional" as though it would be a selling point) upbringing in Los Angeles. All of this, before yoga. 

Of course I can't attribute everything to yoga. First of all, there's the University of Minnesota for accepting me into the MFA program in the first place. Somehow they saw past the "dysfunction" and admitted me into their program in 2001. To this day (and still), I am ever grateful to the Minnesota literary (and illiterary) communities and folks who welcomed me so openly (if not somewhat Minnesotanly) into the books and pages of their lives. 

Today one of my students asked me why I don't do much freelancing anymore. Ooooooh, long story, I may have said. The short answer? Oooooh, I used to be a freelancing whore. Well now, let's not go...

True, once upon a time while I went through the MFA program at the U,  in addition to writing columns for the Minnesota Daily, I was very fortunate to connect with some local publications and eventually began writing for most of them, namely writing monthly columns for Minneapolis St Paul Magazine, with the occasional interview or feature. To those publications I am also very grateful! They put up with me. And I mean that. 

But I was a freelance addict, meaning I took and went after every gig I could get my young big-headed opinion over. Long before I was a legal resident, I learned there are advantages to not being a native Minnesotan when it comes to going after things one wants. For the first and last time, Minnesota Nice worked in my favor. (I suffered aplenty at its cause, you can trust me on that!)

Still, I was cocky, I was young, I was a hoarder, I was afraid of not being important or loved, etc... I look back on some of the things they printed and I go... Oooooh, shit. Really? Really? But then I remember me back then and try to have compassion. 

Try. I said I try.

Although I've veered from freelancing, one of the greatest things about it was I got to share my values, beliefs, and quirky passions with mainstream culture. Despite my cluelessness and want for fame and fortune, I wrote from a place of love. My monthly Top Tens column featured ten, "best" anythings based on any given topic of my choosing: Best places to make out while riding your bike, best pick up games, "inappropriate" public art, unsung heroes, cover bands, candy in bulk, folks who defy Minnesota Nice...  

I'm trying. I'm trying.

I don't miss the deadlines and line checks, the word count, the irony, and all the stuff that goes with regular freelance work, but occasionally I get nostalgic for sharing the things out there I think are really cool. Granted I don't get "out there" nearly as much as I used to, nor am I as savvy to the old hipster ways (thankfully, gratefully), but I don't know if that would change anything anyway. In any case, here are the things and people that make my life wonderful and I cannot live without: (And you have likely heard me talk about all of these things regularly, but now I am going on being cocky again and overtooting my welcome, so just bare with me)... 

First of all, you, students, readers, friends, like-hearted and minded kindred soul mates who come and make The Beach such a sacred place. Thank you. Thank you so much. Happy New Year. What a blessing that my life happens to be happening and weaving at the same exact moment as yours, that we found each other. It's a miracle and I am grateful. Terry Tempest Williams has an awesome line in her piece "Why I Write" about how writing is like "whispering into the ear of someone you love..." As I write this, my wish is for all my writing family, each of you, to hear these words whispered into your ear, as yours and yours alone...  You'll try? 
The "strangers" out there I will come to know and share and write with and love when the time is right
Studio Inside Out is brilliant! Oh to live in the colors! Meet your brilliant on the canvas! Guided by pure love...
BareBones Halloween Show is something you hear me talk about all the time
MayDay Parade ditto
Amy Pate—My one and only yoga teacher, a true light...at One Yoga Studio.
Wild Moon Bhaktas and Kirtan Path if you ever want to chant and be happy.
Yogananda Center
Common Ground
Dharma Field
One Yoga
Invisible Bee Yoga
All places and beings teaching and being peace
Milissa Link
Lovingkindness 
The Sun Magazine
The New Yorker
Viva Mexico who get me there every year
ARC on Penn for having clothes every Sunday for $1 and thereby keeping me and my son warm and overdressed year round.
Latest find on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLERRYp8Oao
Favorite Parrot Totally random, but god, I love her. You have to watch the whole thing.
Jessica O who is one of my bff's, the original mother earth who teaches me how and why to love the planet and it's children and who is taking her 7 year old son to meet his dad for the first time in Japan this spring
Hot Chocolate at Caribou after x-country skiing at Hyland Park... that there is a two-for-one
Best Drum Circle
The man who taught me to drum and so much more
Omulu Capoeira is where Jude occasionally gets his kicks. One of these days, I'll join him!
Curran's so odd it's not even a dive, but I am in earnest ever grateful to them for providing weekly dinners of pancakes and chocolate chip cookies to my son and his dad
Cary Tenis I still cannot say enough things about this amazing writer, human, and being of peace.
That's not the end. Just where I am having to stop for now. 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

WRITE WITH ME? WHAT CAN YOU ADD TO THIS LIST? PEOPLE? PLACES? EDIBLES? SPIRITUALS? ALL IN ONE?

AND IF YOU'D RATHER:
 "NEW YEAR'S EVE"... ANYTHING ON THAT. ANYTHING.