Delish and Easy Peasy

Food. Always necessary and always a wee bit of an issue with me in some way. Much MUCH better than used to be but still… And living alone I find that I often don’t plan meals and then end up eating pretty much the white and the brown food groups—bread and chocolate—the ones that aren’t very good friends with my intestines. But today, JOY! Green!

I like broccoli but always found the little bitty tips annoying. Like they get stuck in my tonsils or something. But today: Problem sol-véd!

Enter Broccoli puree. Which could just as easily be called Sparkly Forest Satin. Or Green Velvet!

Here’s what I did:

I steamed my fresh broccoli in a bit of water with salt.

I let it cool a bit (don’t throw away the water) and into the blender.

Added a pat of butter and a handful of fresh cilantro and salt. (And yes, that’s twice with the salt. I grew up in Chile. Cilantro and salt make everything better. But you could add another fresh herb, I’m sure. Basil might be fantastic. Or parsley).

Pureed, using water from cooking to adjust consistency.

Can I tell you it is the creamiest most delicious and beautiful thing I’ve eaten in days?

I’m posting this in case others, like me, need jolts of good food inspiration.
Mmmmmmmm….

xo
heidi

P.S. Would ADORE your ideas for simple, delicious and good-for-you. Especially with the vegetables.

P.P.S. My broccoli puree was inspired by my sister’s story of serving her kids mashed cauliflower with Parmesan, made in much the same way as my broccoli, only she didn’t add fresh herbs.

Aardvark Essentials has been cleared for lift off: 3-2-1...

Whoa. The aardvark and I have been crazy busy. Craaaaazy!

Truth be told, we had to make ourselves, or rather me, a potion just to deal with the crazy. And the busy. Excuse me for a sec while I lather it on again. (And yeah, it’s called “Losing It,” because it’s keeping me from losing my shit right about now.)

Crazy busy how?

Well, there’s the new webhome that’s getting designed as we speak. Wheeeee!

And 2? There’s an adorable logo getting tweaked.

And 3? There’s a mad amount of ordering of base materials and packaging stuffs for our potions and cremes.

And 4? There was a lovely open house where lovely people came right here to my place in lovely Somerville, Mass. There was much excitement for things to come! As well as a whole bunch of, when can we get the goods?!

And more? Yes, a good bit of unsexy worrying because while all of this is awfully exciting it also happens to be bigger than anything Heidi ever imagined when she started making massage cremes and body butters to use privately in her massage therapy practice. (And yes, Heidi quite enjoys talking of herself in the third person at times. If you’re self-employed at home, you might understand. And if you work with others and want them to leave you be, you might try it sometime.)

So yes, I feel rather like a 3-year-old wearing her momma’s red lipstick and high heels. There’s lipstick on my teeth and cheeks and I’m making a hell of a lot of noise clopping around… But wheeeeeee: Life! It’s been waiting for me. And now I’m here. Hello!

Thank goodness for The Aardvark. This was us last night:

Uh, Heidi?

Yeah?

Whattcha waitin’ for?

What am I waiting for? Are you serious? In case you missed it, I am trying to get our new webhome built. Not to mention the logo-picture of you.

The one with my tail around the pestle of the mortar?

Yup, that very one…. I’m also—

Um, Heidi? Uh… how to say… I’m getting a wee restless over here. See, where I’m from we’re not so much into the thinky talky pondery stuff… my people are more the jump-in-already kind—

Your people? Yeah fine, but this ain’t an ant nest we’re talking here. This is a new business venture.

Venture-shmenture. Uh-huh, yeahhhh…

[Hardly a minute later…]

Heidi? What about those emails asking when your potions will be available already, what about those?

I know. But what will people think if things aren’t all polished and perfect?

They might think things aren’t all polished and perfect. That’s all. They love your cremes and potions. Besides, how’s that worked for you, this waiting for things to be perfect before you—

OK OK.

I’m just sayin’, your people have been hoarding samples and now they’ve run out… Are you really gonna make them wait for perfectly polished when what they want is potions? Besides, we have lovely labels, even if the logo isn’t totally final. (People change their logos all the time!) And we have those lovely cobalt blue PET-1, environmentally conscious, non-leachy plastic jars for the shipped orders, and a good number of amber brown glass jars for local, pick-up orders. And 5 freaking potions for mixed up emotions. You gonna make people wait when you can help them now?

Fastforward 2 nights—

Ladies and gentlemen… people of the world… Aardvark and I are pleased as punch to announce the birth of our New Thing. OK OK we’ve been talking about it for awhile but still, available for the first time ever to you, courtesy of the magical interwebs and virtual shopping carts and it being the 21st freaking century and all:

CLICK HERE…

(Do a little drum roll while you go there— hehe)

Me and an aardvark, getting down to business. (Heidi is biggifying!)

Once upon a time about a year ago, my then 8-year-old niece, Caroline, in the thick of a fascination with all things creepy crawly, says: “Aunt Heidi? Why don’t you mix some of this clay with some mushed up slugs and use it as a creme for your massages?”

I was, of course, all ewwwww and then, “Uh, Caroline? Thing is, I don’t think my clients want to leave their sessions smelling of slug. And, I want them to come back, you know.” To which she, ever with ideas, says: “well then you could add some ginger ale. And cinnamon for good smell.”

Then it came to pass this summer just past that my handmade Shea Butter massage creme-making connection moved clear across the country (Emily Taylor, go see her for massage if you’re in the San Fran Bay—she’s great!) and took her little creme-making biz, along with my all-time favorite name “Bye Bye Bitchy Butter,” with her.

Two words: Oh boo.

So yeah. I cried and cried but simply could not bear the thought of returning to the lotions of yore, with their long, tiny-point font, list of tongue-twisting ingredients. And parabens. No thank you.

Eventually, as always happens with tears, they came to an end and I dried my eyes. And then I rolled up my sleeves, got myself a gallon of Shea Butter (fantastic, pure & simple stuff), and remembering Caroline’s suggestion and my early days in Baba Yaga’s Kitchen, I went to play making body butters of my own. (Sans slug—sorry, Caroline).

Oh the fun! I played with all kinds of organic, wild-crafted or farm select essential oils, combining them for therapeutic/medicinal effect and delicious, subtle scent.

I played with grapefruit and other citrus essences for their qualities of joy and uplift.

I played with mint & eucalyptus for their qualities of bringing ease and helping to move through or around stuckage and suckage.

I found a scrumptious Cocoa Absolute and made a chocolate dream creme with my nieces in mind.

I played with ginger and came up with a creme that, honest to goodness, smells like Chai, sweet and spicy. But not too much. (I think my sister might say it reminds her of her adored Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks).

Right now I’m playing with essences to help good and otherwise sane people in the midst of can-someone-puhleeze-calm-me-the-heck-down freakouts. Especially good for hormonal fluctuations of the cyclical variety.

The scents tend to be subtle, because I am so not a perfume girl. (Excuse me while I sneeze at the mere suggestion of perfume.)

And names. Wheeee! I’m playing with ideas: Broken Heart Balm, 3 AM Worry Creme, Pain in the Neck Creme, and MellowDrama, and ChaChaChai, and Maybe, and SassyPants…

So yes, the joy! Awesome cremes, plant essences, and getting to play with droppers and mortars and pestles and jars and bottles. Oh my.

So that’s the story of how I started making my own massage and body butters to use at Heidi’s Table.

And then one day I was doing promotional work for my business at the lovely & local Cambridge Naturals. (If you live in this area and are ever in need of uplift and healthy goodness, go in there. Seriously! Every single person that works there pretty much knows everything there is to ever know about anything related to health and wellness. Plus, they’ll make you feel like a million bucks.) There I was between chair massage clients, when one of their lovely staff says to me, “Heidi, don’t you have something we could sell?” And I’m all like, “uh… why… matter o’ fact, yes!”

So that’s the story of how I started biggifying what had previously been just for me and my bodywork clients.

Um, Heidi, what about the aardvark?

Right… So then one night, when the honeymoon period of my idea had pretty much worn thin, in the throes of some heavy duty discouragement, an aardvark visited my dreams…

We were in Africa. Me, all preoccupied, and he, right there pretty much trailing me. I tried to give him the slip, to no avail. So I got more direct: “excuse me very much Aardvark Animal You, but I have quite the lot to deal with over here without you nipping at my heels thank you very much.”

Preoccupation, oh my. On my mind were things, or rather, Things: like stuff from the past of the kind you pay someone to hear and help you with every week, and the stuff of running a business in an economy that people keep referring to in unflattering terms, and stuff about relationships and mending hearts, and trying to write and make room for creativity…

I could tell you that this aardvark was sensitive to cues and respectful of personal space, but that would be, as my Grandpa used to say, a fib. Because, oh no! This was one ballsy and persistent little bastard. (And no, my Grandpa would never have said that, being a preacher and all).

Do you know what the aardvark went and did then? It jumped up and bit my hand (Owwwwww!) all, “don’t you be ignoring me, missy!”

To which I’m all, “Excuse me very much but this is my dream.”

And he’s all, “Oh yeah? Who died and made you the queen of dreamland?”

And I’m like, “Wha—? Excuse me? It’s my mind, you know.”

And he’s all, “Um, it’s my Africa.”

And I’m like, “That doesn’t even make sense. This discussion is over.”

But it wasn’t, because in the morning, perplexed, I did back-breaking research and learned that aardvarks are native to Africa, which happens to also be where Shea Butter comes from. And they have a terrific sense of smell and a super tough skin. Reeeally tough. Like, put your tongue in a red ant nest to feed (yum!) and have a million ants bite your tongue and you’d be like, wha—? red ants? whatever. So yeah, aardvarks, like Baba Yaga, like Johnny Depp (more on that here), like Mark Twain, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, are badass and don’t let what people think stop them from doing, saying, or creating what is true for them. It’s a quality I admire: that kind of self-assured and poised confidence.

I’ve come to quite appreciate my ballsy aardvark, so much so that the name of this new creation has become:

Aardvark Essentials: Lotions and potions for mixed up emotions.

So, come celebrate with me! Here on the blog, or, if you’re in the Boston area, drop me a line and come by for a massage session or just simply to sample the cremes.

Eager guinea pigs around the country have already been sampling the goods. Several of them report hoarding what’s left of their stash until more is available. The massage therapist of my samplers reports being “officially addicted.”

Aardvark Essentials is about caring for ourselves, including the part of us that would rather not bother. It’s about noticing what seems to’ve become my question of the year: what’s essential here? It’s about simplifying. It’s about making room for joy. It’s about helping people understand and begin to enjoy what amounts to an arranged marriage between our bodies and our minds.

Whoa. And, yay! So worth it.

Stay tuned! [oooh oooh oooh update! We’ve done it: we’ve launched this baby. Here here!] (I will keep you updated right here on my blog. Click here to sign up to get an email when there is a new entry. You can also follow me on twitter. I’m @CuriousHeidiHi)

P.S. Ok, quick! Without looking back up, how do you spell the name of this animal I’ve been talking about? (I want to know how people would try spelling it in searches. Thanks for your help. And your yays.

Give and take

Yesterday’s wind, it took things with it,
The leaves, for one.
Another month, for two.
For three, some threadbare fantasies.
But it left a near-full moon
and rolled out a red carpet
to where I do not know.

(1 Nov. 2009)

Wanted: A life.

Too much info not enough ear.
Too much bony not enough rear.

Too much quiet not enough shout.
Not enough action too much doubt.

Too much air and not enough ground.
Too much square not enough round.

Too much look and not enough find.
Not enough body too much mind.

Too much chair and not enough run.
Too much ‘puter not enough fun.

Too much keyboard not enough page.
Too much screen not enough stage.

Too much restless not enough fill.
Too much careful not enough kill.

Too much edge and not enough dive.
Too much dead and not enough ‘live.

Too much water not enough wine.
Too much popcorn not enough dine.

Too much in and not enough out.
Too much teapot not enough spout.

Too much worry not enough play.
Too much bed and not enough hay.

Too much navy not enough red.
Too much ancient not enough dead.

Too much gravy not enough blood.
Too much cleanly not enough crud.

Too much cover not enough bare.
Too much careful not enough dare.

Too much waiting not enough move.
Not enough silly too much brood.

Too much mild not enough spice.
Not enough badass far too much nice.

T.S. Eliot helps this Mexican jumping bean get to essential.

The paring knife of life keeps peeling. In restlessness, in exasperation, on the edge of the precipice when it all feels too much, I keep coming to:

What is essential here?

It is a question both clean and powerful. It moves around the immovable, leaving bullshit in its wake.

Sitting in that question is sitting in kindness. Which isn’t necessarily the same as nice.

In the midst of turmoil “what is essential here?” is a beacon, a steadfast light in an otherwise thick mist. It motions me toward a resting place much like airport workers in orange reflecting-tape vests on the tarmac waving a plane toward its spot to park.

I am drawn to things that speak the language of essence. In a time of endless slogans and causes, and preachy propaganda (no matter the side) telling me what’s wrong with me and how its answer will be my sure salvation, I crave expression that is pared of excess, justification, and excuse.

I crave communication that doesn’t hem and haw or beat around the bush—my bush or any bush.

Essential often looks like symbols and metaphors that tell a story without blah blah blah. Literature that cuts to the chase, without, for even an instant, sacrificing beauty or truth. In fact, one might say truth is essence’s brush, beauty its palette of paints.

Excellent poetry is exactly that. Which brings me to T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.”

It is the lightest and skinniest book of essential beauty that has ever not weighed down my shoulder. It is sheer inspiration, brilliantly simple and multi-layered at once. There is not an extraneous word to be found.

Even when it circles back around its theme, it is shining a light on itself or on our world in a new place, or in a slightly different hue. And I am changed.

I can open that little book anywhere and be blown to the moon. What Eliot describes invariably speaks to where I am in this ever repetitive but never quite identical journey. He speaks of time. He speaks of seasons. He speaks of beginnings and ends, of birth and of death. Of hope, of faith, of fear, and of love. In short, life.

Lately, my difficulty has been in waiting, in staying at the still point. Change is afoot (is it ever not?) and the water is murky murky murky. I can’t will the dust to settle and it is hard to wait. What I thought was supposed to happen by now has not—or has it?—and what I thought should not have happened, has—or has it?

Waiting. One of the hardest things to do. Especially for a Mexican jumping bean girl.

T.S. Eliot’s words come to me right there like warm oil in strong, kind hands, on an achy, tired body. Here is a passage from Four Quartets (East Coker):

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

Away

To have and to hold are, to be sure, quite different from
to hope and to dream, which are, also to be sure, away —
maybe somewhere with you but away nonetheless,
which is where I sense you, on your own.

I would not bind you to me (if even I could),
nor force anything ahead nor outside its time
and yet this little pigeon longs for you and for home
in one and the same breath.

Some blessing.
Some curse.
Who can say?

Who am I to take where you are away from you?
It’s not wrong, it’s just not here.

In the beginning was away,
and away was with God
and away was God —

I long for a place to come home to,
a mat to stamp and plant dream-worn feet upon
a “This is where I belong.”

A hook for my coat.
A body to roll over into.
“Pinch me, I am here,” I might say,

or astounded: “It’s you, really you!”
to which you might reply all bleary-eyed, all flesh and blood:
“Yes, now sleep, my little homing pigeon.”

Dear Mr. Rumi, thank you & could you help me with a guest. Love, Heidi

Dear Mr. Rumi,

I wish I could come by to thank you in person but this being 2009 and you having lived back in the 1200s it’s a wee bit complicated. But still: thank you! Your poetry has helped me live life with more kindness and understanding and humor toward myself and my brother and sister humans. And that, Mr. Rumi, is huge.

I think you’d be surprised and not surprised by the state of our world today. We still fight. And we still delight. We still make love and we still make war. Do we ever. What has changed is our capacity to manifest these things on a much larger scale, and that, necessarily, makes the stakes for both joy and suffering seem higher. Though maybe that—stakes being higher—is an illusion since Life does tend to inexorably move forward, come what may, in spite of our human shenanigans.

I want you to know that your poetry, beloved for centuries in your native lands (today called Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan…), has crossed all the oceans. Yes, your Persian words have been translated into many languages and just a couple years ago, matter of fact, you were named the most popular poet in America! This, probably in large part due to the work of a lovely man, a poet in his own right, Coleman Barks, who has and continues to translate thousands of your poems into English. And this in spite of our country having waged war upon not one but two of your people’s countries. (Much sadness about that).

I should know better than to name any one poem a favorite as I tend to have many favorites of many things and many poets but still: your poem The Guest House has been a favorite of mine for going on ten years, which I hope counts for something coming from such a fickle, multi-favoriting girl.

When I first heart The Guest House it felt like warm oil in kind hands on a sore and tired body. Your words, they smelled like rain on cracking, parched ground. The sentiment of your poem felt like an open-armed invitation for me to come home to myself.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

You mean I don’t need to make that mean thought go away? (As if I could!)

You mean there’s nothing wrong with me if depression has come to pay a visit?

You mean this thing of having difficult inner states is a human thing, not a Heidi-thing?

You mean I can be kind even to the most difficult of guests?

You mean this incredibly difficult guest that keeps visiting me in spite of my best efforts to remodel and transform my guesthouse might be clearing me out for something new?

What a notion! What a relief!

Mr. Rumi, my note today is prompted by an immediate, personal matter pertaining to my guest house, and one guest in particular:

Anxiety. Not a new guest. At all. In fact, for many years Anxiety had pretty much taken up residence inside me. Oh those were some scary times. I did not, then, know Anxiety was simply a guest passing through. I thought it WAS me. It was in charge! I was living at its mercy, cowering in a closet or running away.

Thankfully, much has changed, in large part on account of gentle remodeling of my house more along the lines of your Guest House, wherein I’ve cultivated Kindness as the Presence that runs the place.

But still, of all the guests that visit the house of me, Anxiety is my most difficult. And here it is, AGAAAAAAIN! It’s enough to make me want to put up a “No Vacancy” sign.

(Whispering: I don’t like it. See this here bald spot on my head? Oh yeah. Anxiety made me pull those hairs out. M-hm, I don’t like it one bit.)

This guest brings with it a feeling at once far away and removed (as if a lamb’s coat of wool had been felted between my ears) and hyper sensitivity (as if I suddenly grew a million more motion detecting hairs on my arms). When Anxiety visits, it feels like a thick blanket of unease settles on the house of me: Heart rate, revved. Patience, threadbare. Tears, about to spill. Thoughts, multiplying like incestuous fruit flies. Mind, crowded. Future, doomed. Present— hunh? Wha—? Presence?

So I’ve been pulling out all the stops to take care of it and all the other guests in the house of me these days. I’ve written. I’ve been doing my best to be an impartial host to all. I’ve fed everyone well. They’ve been to the park. They’ve run. They’ve gotten fresh air. They’ve sat on the porch with lemonade. We’ve heard children laughing, running through sprinklers. I’ve written in my thought-book. I’ve worked. I’ve shown up. They’ve watched a couple episodes of my heroine-of-the-day, Buffy, on hulu. They’ve connected with friends. I’ve scheduled a massage for me …

By all accounts Anxiety should have checked out during the night, right?

But no. This morning, there it was coming down the steps to breakfast in those god-awful hole-y slippers it has. (Could it at least get with the times and update its wardrobe a bit? Or go barefoot for a change? Lighten up? It is, after all, the height of summertime.)

Mr. Rumi, as you can see, I’ve been doing my darndest to entertain this guest with magnanimity and kindness, but I’m having a hard time. Do you have any thoughts for me? Can you point me to another poem of yours?

I’d be most grateful.

Yours truly,

Heidi

Time Capsule Thursday #8: Walden Pond, Johnny Depp & Badass edition.

A weekly Time Capsule, of sorts, in which I pause and notice. And write down what I love. And notice all the reasons I don’t want to die before my time. And get curious. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition (with a hat tip to Havi).

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What made you happy?

Walden Pond: Cool water and me in sun and in shade with trees and bees and dragonflies. Here’s one. Do you see it?

What did you notice?*

Johnny. Johnny Depp! That’s right: be-still-my-heart-pirate-scissorhand-Johnny made an appearance— not once but twice!—in my dreams last night. He recognized me in a crowd and I turned around to see if he was talking to someone else, but it was me. And he told me I’m going to do well because I already know a lot about him.

Come again, Johnny? I know a lot about you? All I know is that you’re a fantastically creative badass hottie who takes roles that inspire you without giving a shit what people say or think of you. Or if you do care, we’d never know. You do it anyway.

What did you admire?*

Not to be redundant: Badassery. Of every ilk. My radar has become finely tuned to it. If you are a badass, I’m probably crushing on you right now. And taking notes. I know, I know, that is so not badass. What can I say. I don’t care ;) (What’s that? Badasses don’t wink? Hrmph! I don’t give a rats ass).

Moving on.

What did you appreciate?

Light and night. Sun and shadow. In-between spaces. In-between places. The in-between time. Or to borrow one of Neruda’s favorite words: crepúsculo.

What did you [over]hear?*

“Dad! I need my shadow!” (Young boy when the dad’s shadow fell across his own as they walked)

Here’s a picture of my shadow at Danehy Park, one of my favorite city places. It’s built on an old dump! This is the marsh, where you’ll find all manner of birds. City parks, ahhhhh.

What stole your breath?

The light. Especially at crepúsculo, at dusk. The other evening I went nuts with my camera. Here’s one of my favorites, though I sure did have a hard time choosing!

What would you like to see again?*

The dragonflies hovering over the water while I swim at Walden.

What else did you notice?

When I take new ways I see new things. Like this, on a street I’d never walked down! Someone’s youth, RIP. (I’m quite sure there’s not an actual body under there.)

What surprised you?

An aardvark. Also in my dream! Aardvarks, which are more closely related to elephants than hogs or anteaters (the latter more typically assumed) have a fantastic sense of smell and a super tough skin. So tough, in fact, that termites and ants can bite their tongue when they go burrowing for food into their nests and the aardvark is like, la-de-da-ho-hum… whatevs…

I’d love to be more “whatever” about what people are saying or thinking about me. Yeah, I need me some of that.

What inspired you?

“We claim to be missing resources. But the defining factor is never resources, it’s resourcefulness.” -Anthony Robbins

What did the quote mean for you?
Go for it, Heidi. Operation Aardvark. Smell it, girl. Toughen up. Keep at it. Figure it out. You’re doing better than you imagine. You know more than you think. Don’t stop now.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. I’d love it if you did! And, until next time, keep noticing…

Missing: My own business. Have you seen it?

Dear—

Can I just say: frustration! It woke me up today. In the wee hours this was me: toss turn toss turn… cold arm hot arm cold arm hot… too much fan too much blanket… skunk… skunk? skunk! yes, being blown in by my trusty fan, at that point turned on high. Oh my. The smell. The having to breathe through my mouth when I hate breathing through my mouth on account of— oh, never mind.

So yeah. I woke up with thoughts all over the place.

Warning: Disparate and disconnected ensues. Segue? Never heard o’ one.

When I was growing up we used to refer (in Spanish) to crazy-talk as “disparate.” When you add an accent to the first a, the word becomes “dispárate,” which is the command form of “to shoot.” So if ever you find yourself in need of telling someone to shoot themselves? Yeah: Dispárate, which yes, I almost felt like doing (not so much for real but like in a comic strip) while tossing and turning in this morning’s wee hours with the smell of skunk being piped into my bedroom.

One of the things I learned in Mark Silver’s Heart of Money (link in P.S.) course was to ask for/find a next action step in an area I am bringing kind attention to. We did it every week in his class in relation to money, and this morning, in all my frustration about a certain area of life-stuckness, I muttered to myself, to life, to what/whoever hears heartfelt, insomnia-induced prayers:

What’s an action step I could take in relation to ____ ?

Don’t do a drum roll here. OK? If you are looking for choirs or angels, voices from beyond, do not get your hopes up because what came back was beyond mundane:

“Clean your apartment.”

“Wha—-?”

No, that’s not what I said. I might have, a year ago, but these days I have somehow managed to begin trusting in the little nudges and inner voices, maybe even moreso when they seem ridiculously simple.

So I breathed a sign of relief and muttered “OK” and rolled over hoping to sleep, only to have Marilyn Monroe pop into my mind. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Disparate. Dispárate! Just shoot me, really.)

Marilyn. Beautiful, talented, troubled Marilyn. I wonder if she ever thought: what the hell is my strength? What the hell is my talent? How can I give voice to all that’s inside? What is my part in life? What do I have to give?

I wonder if she ever doubted her acting. I wonder if she said to herself: I’m only halfway decent at acting because I’m a queen of melodrama in real life. I wonder if she discounted her ability, chalking it up to coping strategies she developed so early in her childhood that she didn’t even know what she was like before the coping-stuff showed up…

Yeah, pro’bly she did. (R.I.P. dear Marilyn). And yeah, I’ve been thinking on that lately. I have such dreams of writing writing writing. And I am writing. But also I am discounting the writing I do, the only writing I seem able to do, by saying things like: “no one is interested,” and “it’s too personal.” As if being personal makes writing not as good as, say, someone who can write amazing stories and movies, which is what I dream of doing.

Waaaaah. Like I said, Frustration.

So my pattern has been looking like discounting my writing by saying that I’m only any good at it because it developed out of unhealthy needs. To cope with loneliness. To hang onto a thread of connection, writing letters home as if my little 11-year-old life depended on it.

Which gets me wondering about back then in relation to now…

I’d always had others to focus on. Others to mother. Others to take care of. Others to worry about. And now here I was at boarding school, alone. With me. What now!

I’d only ever been good at pleasing people and being good and taking care of others. (I so didn’t know this then).

Now, at school, my younger-by-10-months-brother, someone who’d never needed my caretaking nor appreciated my “goodness,” (smart boy!) was in another world called the boy’s hall where, apparently, he was having his head pushed into toilet bowls by the big guys. And, even there, he took care of himself, thank you very much, even in the worst of it, without his big, good sister.

When I turn to look at her, by which I mean me, at 11, what is there? Who is there? A girl far from home who spoke English with a Spanish accent and whose clothes looked funny. A girl who started getting up early every day to write letters home. A girl trying to stay a part of things, feeling so apart of things, and as adolescence fell, falling more and more apart inside herself.

When I turn to look at her, by which I mean me, now, what is there? A girl-woman without anyone but herself to take care of. A woman with no business other than her own. Which is probably oh-so-good but can feel oh-so-scary.

Ahhhh: 11: 41: Life comes full circle. No business but my own.

So, what IS my business? WHAT is my business? For years I’ve been seeing through the ever-skimpier facade that is caretaking and minding other people’s business, but now here I am, truly with only me. And, hello! Do you mind? What the hell IS my business?

Who am I, after those who would define me are no longer here? Who am I, falling asleep and waking up in my own company? What do I love when no one else’s preferences are considered?

What is essential to me? That is the question. The beautiful, hair-pulling question.

If you catch a glimpse of my business, would you kindly tell me?

Love,

Heidi

P.S. I want to tell you about 2 things that are somehow related to the above. These are affiliate links, which means that if you go to these sites and end up signing up for a course or buying material, I will get referral monies. Wheeeeee!

1. Mark Silver’s Heart of Business — mentioned above. I recently took Mark’s Heart of Money course, which he is now offering in an e-book, and it shifted many things inside of me in a very good way. July was my best self-employed month ever.

2. When we need help with cleaning and clearing out clutter (even, and maybe especially, the kind we can’t see!), I highly recommend the ever down-to-earth, ever brilliant, and ever hilarious Lisa Baldwin, @zenatplay on twitter. Lisa is offering a decluttering e-course that is starting in September. (Psssssst! There is an early-bird sign up going on right now!)

————
Heidi E. Fischbach ~ mmmm… massage!
Discover what it’s like to feel at home in your own skin
Do you twitter? I’m @CuriousHeidiHi
Call me for a massage 617.297.2266
Visit my blog (you’re here! this is it!)

What moves you? What turns you on? Shepard Fairey, at the ICA.

What moves you? I mean, what really moves you?

What takes your breath away and renders you incapable of averting your eyes?

What fascinates you? What grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let you go until you look, really look?

What wakes you up in the middle of the night? What makes the sweat pool in your palms?

What moves you? What makes you want to get up and shout? What makes you melt down and weep?

Whom do you crush on? What do you admire? Whose picture would you plaster on your wall?

What turns you on? What makes every last hair on your arms rise to attention? What makes your brain light up like ten thousand fireflies? What inside or outside you is so intense it could spark a flame in a monsoon?

What takes your breath away? What threatens to dismember you if you don’t give it a pen already? Or a brush? Or a pound of clay? Or a voice? Or a mallet? Or a wrecking ball?

What turns you on?

That. Do that! For the love of life, do it already.

That. See it. Play it. Make love to it. Pay attention to it. Get curious about it. Read it like a 4-year-old asking for that bedtime story night after night. See it again and again until it saturates every pore in your skin. Hear it until you catch its essential thread. Feel it until the need you hadn’t even known was there cries “Uncle” and begs for mercy.

Last night I went to see the Shepard Fairey exhibit at the ICA in Boston. It was my third time in as many months. The first time I went I had no idea. I went because my friend had tickets. I said, “Shepherds? Fairies? Wha—?”

Shepard Fairey began as a street artist in Boston in the 80’s when he began making posters of Andre the Giant. Something inside him needed expression and, apparently, he listened and gave it a voice. Or rather, a can of spray paint.

I vaguely remember noticing Andre graffiti plastered or spray painted on the random box, or in the corner of a billboard, and every so often, large on the wall of some abandoned building. Eventually I saw the ObeyGiant posters in enough places that I wondered what they were all about. But I never really stopped to find out. I was too immersed in my own inner saga, my turmoil, my drama, my bad dreams, my own world of trying at once to fit in and be special.

Which is sort of his point. Or at least the point where I go with Fairey’s “ObeyGiant”, which is to remind us of how “powerful visuals and emotionally potent phrases can be used to manipulate and indoctrinate.” In other words: Believe this. Not that. Try this. Buy that. This is cool. That’s not. We are good. They are bad. And so on…

When I walked into the Shepard Fairey exhibit for the first time, I was greeted with the Obey images that had been peppering the odd places in my city. Oh that, I thought… hmmmm, weird.

And then I entered the next exhibit room to find larger-than-life murals that fairly took my breath away.

Standing back, I saw a Palestinian woman peering through a curtain, a boy too young to shave with machine gun on shoulder, an Arab woman’s fiery eyes on a face otherwise veiled. Up close I could make out newspaper headlines, ads, propaganda campaign slogans, the subtle juxtaposition of visuals we can’t help but constantly take in unless we live in a cave (and maybe even there), the information we are spoon-fed at every meal and at every snack and at every drive through, all of which add up to what to me feels some kind of endless noise.

It comes at me from everywhere. Clutter. Filler. Agendas. Causes.

Not even in the privacy of my own home, with no TV, does it stop. I shut my laptop, and there it is, still, yet so not still, but frantic. Chattering. Blathering.

It’d be easy to blame. I often do. My blame lands, probably fully justified in many people’s minds, on a million and one targets, many so beautifully portrayed in Shepard Fairey’s art.

But blame deflects. Blame very quickly turns into the very same noise and clutter and filler and agenda and endless causes that made me point the finger in the first place.

When I stop and recognize the part I play in what I would blame, I’m left with an inner noise so loud it makes me feel an awful lot like this. I’m tempted, and often do, add distraction to the noise so as to numb it. It does, for a nanosecond. But not very well. When I stop and when I notice I am often, these days, brought to weeping. And then always I am left with a powerful longing for essential.

Essential. Ahhhh, fresh air.

Essential. Ahhhh. Direct. Upfront. No excuses. No apologies. No convincing. No preaching. No converting. No finger wagging. No pointing. No hemming and hawing. No hiding. No pretense.

Essential says: Here I am. This is it. This is what I’ve got. No more, no less. Hello.

It sounds a whole lot like truth. Truth with room for black and for white and for every color in between.

Essential. So heartbreakingly honest. No need to cover up.

The weeping stops. Everything has grown oddly still. And into this you-could-hear-a-pin-drop quiet comes the sound of hooves. Far away at first but quickly gaining. Pounding in my chest like a herd of wild horses galloping down a beach.

Life. It wants out! And it’s coming.

(Shepard Fairey: Supply & Demand will be at the ICA in Boston through August 16. Hurry!)

Time Capsule Thursday #7: summer sounds and moon-love.

A weekly Time Capsule, of sorts, in which I pause and notice. And write down what I love. And notice all the reasons I don’t want to die before my time. And get curious. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition (with a hat tip to Havi).

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What did you notice?*
The sincerity of a sigh.

What did you hear?*
Little sounds my clients make as they begin to relax

What did you appreciate?
My faithful window fan whirring and whispering of summer and life

What did you admire?*
The patience of corn stalks growing in the fields

What astonished you?*
The unpretentious beauty of our moon.
(What is it about August moons!)

What would you like to see again?*
My love not holding back.

What was most tender?*
One young client’s aching back.

What did you hear it say?
“No need to try so hard, sweetheart. You’re doing just fine.”

What surprised you?
Writing in the midst of desolation, and having Kindness write back.

What broke your heart?
Noticing that my clinging was killing what I most love.

What made you cry?
Telling my friend to not wait for me.

What did you think was happening?*
The hell if I know! I give up. “Uncle!”

What made you happy?
An unexpected exchange on facebook prompted by, what else: the moon.

What inspired you?
Oh yeah. You know it. Our moon.

What else did you luvluvluv?
Mint, fresh mint. I made fresh cool mint tea with it.

OK. One more. What else did you love?
My clients: so different one from the other. So brave, all. So human and beautiful.

Um, I need one more. Just one, I promise!
Nick Drake’s Pink Moon (used in this VW Cabriolet ad that I also love).
Remembering how fragile and strong our lives are and that sometimes our scars are our strongest most beautiful parts.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. Until next time, noticing…

Be with it. That's all. That's everything.

The story details are private, and oddly, beside the point. (Good to notice!)

But the feelings? The thoughts? The help? Maybe there’s a kernel of something for you in this too.

The sadness seems endless. It’s a kind of desolation. A sense of being beyond-help. I don’t know where to go next with any of this, which touches on regrets, fears, longing, shame, all the stupid things I’ve ever done, all the craziness and drama, every nightmare and cold-sweat-daymare that ever pounded in my chest…

I’ve come a long way but something like this has me saying: “for what?” Or, “have you really?”

So yeah. Big. And hard.

In all this I’m writing to B, someone I know can hear it all without freaking out. And I’m still writing the email when something starts writing back to me.

No, it’s not B. And no, it’s not some entity or being out there because, well, I just don’t roll that way. Not that there aren’t angels and groovy beings and all that—who knows!—but I’ll leave that to others, and to stories and movies. But still, something started writing back. And here’s what it said:

Just be with it.

To which I said:

But but but

And so it went…

Just be with it, sweetheart.

But it’s been so long—as in my whole life—unhealed, not understood, not able to move forward or away. And stuck. And I’ve tried so hard. I’m scared.

Just be with it all, sweetheart. Don’t do anything other than be with it. That’s the only thing to do right now.

But I can’t.

Be with the part that can’t be with it too.

But I can’t.

Be with that too. That’s all you have to do, love. That’s all. Be with it all. Hold the space to allow it all to be, fully, in all its desolation. Fully, in all its confusion. Fully, in all its shame. Fully, in all its longing. Fully, in all its hope. Fully, in all its crushed hope. Fully, in all of its all of it. No part left out, no part left behind. You are big enough, I promise.

But the parts of me, they can’t stand one another and they push and pull and they hide from one another and they can’t stand being in the same room with each other and it’s all happening inside of me.

Be the house that has room for them all. And keep noticing. Keep noticing you.

But what about me, who will take care of me?

Oh sweet love, you will.

But I can’t.

Be with the one who doesn’t think she can take care of you, too. She needs you.

But what about me?

You are the one, sweetheart. You are the one.

I can’t bear it.

You are the one saying you can’t bear it and you are the one bearing it. You are the one praying and you are the one listening.

But I need someone else.

I am here, love. I am here. I am here for you. C’mere sweetheart. There there, shhhh, it’s OK. There there. It’s OK. I am here.

But you are me! No fair tricking me like that.

It’s only a trick if you say so. And still, I am here. Right here.

.
.
.

Oh and one more thing? Go for a walk.

Life: It awaits!

To get to know your heart, sometimes you have to sit in the dark. No night light. No flash light. No moon light. No stars. Alone, except for the ghosts flitting around you. And the wolf over by the window. And the snake in the corner. It’s so dark you can’t even read the clock.

No time and no light: Just you and what you think, spinning in your head. You and what you keep trying not to feel, pounding on your chest. You and your tears, clogging up your throat. You and your fears, tightening your butt. You, all rumbly in the belly. So heavy, all.

It can’t get darker or scarier, and you cry: Help! It’s your best and only prayer. So simple, so feeble, so without pretense or hope or expectation. It’s the best you can do and it breaks your heart.

Thank goodness for that.

And your heart, it keeps breaking.

And breaking.

And then you notice her. How long had she been there right under you?

She is tender and strong at once. And she’s holding you.

Not once does she tell you you’re too much, too heavy. She soaks up tears. She holds your breaking heart. She plants the heaviness of all the messes you’ve gotten into and tried to weasel out of in her fertile dark richness. You cry and cry and she doesn’t mind.

You open your eyes and now you can see in the dark. Oh my goodness: the wolf was a lamp. The snake was a bathrobe belt. The night air is like satin on your skin and you let it caress your tired arms. It tousles your hair and kisses your sweaty brow.

You let the darkness have you: the earth under you, the cool night air around you.

It’s not true, after all, that you were an orphan.

There’s an urgent swelling inside you now: Life. It awaits!

Time Capsule Thursday #6: dimples, joy, disabilities and possibilities.

A weekly Time Capsule, of sorts, in which I pause and notice. And write down what I love. And notice all the reasons I don’t want to die before my time. And get curious. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition (with a hat tip to Havi).

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What moved you?
A team of players of all ages, shapes, colors and sizes at Danehy Park. I didn’t notice they were challenged in any way till I noticed the white-haired man’s prosthetic leg. Right next to him was a boy of about 6. And a girl of about 10. And a boy of 16. And and… They were playing baseball with a tennis ball and racket with such joy and passion it choked me up.

What was most tender?*
The dimples and the smile of my friend P. I love him more than ever AND I’m willing to see him love and be loved by another. I look forward to it, in fact. May he find an awesome, loving, adorable, kind-hearted, smart, affectionate, geeky, creative and rockin’ babe! (she says, sometimes crying and sometimes smiling).

What was most wonderful?*
Realizing how happy I am that the overdose 15 years ago didn’t work. Each passing day brings more joy.

What did you think was happening?*
I was clearing out more wreckage from the past.

What inspired you?
This TEDtalk on music and passion by Boston philharmonic conductor Ben Zander (via @debOwen on her blog 8 Hours and a Lunch)

What scared you?
The thought of ending up alone. Forever. (I know, silly. But hey.) The thought of him ending up all alone. Not sure which is scarier: me alone or him alone. Wah!

What woke you up in the middle of the night?
My dream of policepeople chasing a bear up and down a street to tire him out.

What did you think was happening?*
I’m trying to set boundaries. Sometimes it feels like one hand is gripping while the other is opening. And sometimes they’re both open. And sometimes I’m not even thinking about it ;)

What would you like to do again?
Run under the cloud sprinkler at the park.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. I would luvluvluv that!

Time Capsule Thursday #5: herbs, Vermont, sun & a reading sabbatical. (Mostly).

Time Capsule Thursdays, in which I pause and notice. And write down what I love. And notice all the reasons I don’t want to die before my time. And get curious. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition (with a hat tip to Havi).

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What made you happy?
Ooooh oooh ooooh, road trip! My favorite! My dear bear-friend loaned me his car and I got to hit the road and listen to CD’s, including…

What inspired you?
… an old scratchy recording of T.S. Eliot reading “The Four Quartets.” Oh my. The man did not win a Nobel Prize in Literature for nothing. Wow. Blew me away once again. And will, every time I read or hear it. So yeah, I love T.S. Eliot, although I don’t crush on him like Leonard Cohen. Or Johnny Depp. But seriously, the man is genius. And, yes, I’d offer him my bed and relegate my ass to the living room floor for the night if he ever needed a place to stay. No questions asked.

Um, Heidi?

Yeah?

Isn’t he, like, passed on? As in dead?

Oh, picky, picky! It’s the sentiment, people, the sentiment. OK, where was I?

What astonished you?*
Last Friday the people of New England woke up and were all: What IS that bright orb in our sky?

So yes, after weeks and weeks of rain I am happy to say that New England had 3 days of sun. Verily! Last weekend was simply glorious and the sky was blue.

What else did you luvluvluv?
Vermont. My friends. Their baby. And oh my goodness, their herb garden. (A bunny in her natural habitat: An herb garden.)

Joy equals cilantro, dill and scallions. Parsley, sage and thyme. Garlic-scapes, oregano and chives. All mine, to play in and with for a weekend. In the sun. I know, I just had to say the sun part again. Sun sun sun—

I made saucy pesto-y concoctions in one of my favorite toys in all the world: the mortar and pestle. Left: dill + parsley + garlic scapes. Right: Cilantro, garlic scapes, scallions and toasted pine nuts. Bottom: Oregano, sage and garlic scapes. All had olive oil, lemon juice, salt and LOVE. Oh the love. (Sun. I seem to be developing a kind of Sun-Tourettes)

What did you notice?*
How addicted I am to reading! And what a time-suck much of it can be. (Sun) Often utterly compulsive.

I’m taking a 12-week class with Creativity (among other things) Coach Deb Owen and our challenge this week—which came as a complete, and, I must say, inconceivably difficult surprise which made me consider crucifying myself—was to not read. That’s right, my friend: A reading sabbatical.

When I heard Deb say those words my heart stopped and I was like you must be freaking kidding me, right? But she wasn’t. I had to practically mouth-to-mouth myself—which is a wee bit complicated to do—to keep the air flowing again… And then I grumbled and pouted and eventually sucked it up and I’ve been off twitter and facebook and pretty much off-line for two days now.

(OK, except for a few cheats including this hilarious piece I stumbled upon while looking up submission info. for “The Sun.” I admit I was halfway through reading it, before I remembered my no-reading-for-a-week challenge but I was laughing so hard not even the thought of public shame in class next week could stop me.)

But seriously, I’m realizing how much time I spend goofing off on twitter and reading endless things. Even if they are awesome. Not reading has resulted in an uncluttered desk, two bags of clothes hauled off to Goodwill, fresh mint cold tea to sip as we speak, and last but so-should-be-first: two prose poem/essays sent off to The Sun today with a kiss and a wish times 10. So yeah, thank you, @DebOwen. But then, you aren’t reading this anyway. Or are you!

What required the most self-control?
Not gobbling up my little friend Isabelli’s fingers and toes. Here’s a sampling. Eat your heart out!

What did you hear?*
The sounds of crickets and bullfrogs in the night. No cars. Not a one, for two nights. Ahhhhhhh.

What choked you up?
I was inching along Rt. 91 on my way to VT, one of a thousand or so cars stuck in traffic, and just when I came upon the cause of the bottle neck (a merge into one lane due to construction), there, on the side of the road, a man sat on the hood of his car with his guitar, singing his heart out to the cars passing by. I don’t know his story, but I like my version: he wanted nothing more than to sing. (And, yes, sit in the SUN).

_That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. (One request: kindly withhold from offering advice, unless it involves how to make the sun come back more often. Thank you.) Oh and, one last thing: I’d adore you to post a link to this entry on twitter for me (@curiousHeidiHi). * blows kisses*)_

Time Capsule Thursday #4: where there's a way there's a way. Oh and a bunny.

Time Capsule Thursdays, in which I pause and notice. And write down what I love. And choose life. And get curious. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition (with a hat tip to Havi).

Italicized* questions are from Mary Oliver’s poem

What did you notice?*
This tree. How it keeps growing through the pavement. First I thought, where there’s a will there’s a way.

But maybe it’s more like where there’s a way there’s a way. That seems a whole lot kinder. And much less likely to cause a hernia on account of overexertion. Because, willing growth? Pushing and pulling for something to change? Exhausting. But allowing it to follow its way, maybe even through and around seemingly impenetrable concrete? Joy!

What made you happy?
Today! Four clients! Two new, two old. And how much I love what I do. I love touching people, listening to people, noticing people. I love meeting them and their bodies exactly as they are. And inviting space for what wants to come, what wants to change. It’s fantastically wonderful for me.

Whom did you appreciate?
My friends at Havi’s Kitchen Table. I was remembering how they helped me quit a massage gig that was making me cry every week last winter. And look at me now: 4 clients on my own in a day. Thanks my KT peeps!

What astonished you?*
This bunny at Danehy Park. I was coming ‘round a bend and there he was! (Or maybe she!) We had a stare down for several minutes, until someone else came ‘round the bend and sent the bunny scampering off into the tall grass.

What amazed you?
That there is still rain to be had. Seriously, we must be coming on 40 days and 40 nights.

And also? Squirrels. Especially the highwire chases they do on the telephone lines outside my window.

What did you hear?*
Thunder. Oh my gosh, I do love storms. Big-ass storms make me feel nothing short of glee. Is that weird? Good.

What surprised you?
I looked up and caught a reflection of myself musing by the window at the bookstore and it made me smile. At me. And I had to take a picture. For you. (I love all the layers reflected in the glass. Oh and that’s Porter Square Books, my awesome little indie bookstore in, yes, Porter Square, Cambridge, MA)

What was most tender?*
My dearest heart.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. (One request: kindly withhold from offering advice. Thank you.)

In which the open letter gets personal. And not.

My dearest heart,

For some kind of forever I’ve been waiting, waiting for you to come, and I can wait no longer. I must write you now, for surely my chest will explode if I wait one second more.

For some kind of forever I’ve been thinking you had to be a certain someone. As in, else. And not just any old else, but a very special someone else.

(Let me just say that there have been ones. Special ones. Especially one. And maybe there will be more—a girl can hope!—but I can wait no longer because honest to freaking lord my heart is fairly bursting with all the things I would tell you, if you were here.)

And then today, out of the blue gray (on account of living in Boston during the wettest Spring/Summer since 19-freaking-03!) I was like: it’s you! Yes, you and you and you. So now I don’t have to wait for you any longer. Because, um, here you are!

Oh my. Where to start…

There’s something on my heart. It’s got to do with home. With finding home. With making home. With not feeling at—

Home.

How can a word be so beautiful and heartbreaking at once. How! Can you tell me that, dearest heart?

Because for some kind of forever I’ve been homesick. Heimweh. Echando de menos. Whatever the language, no matter: it was some kind of heart-breaking thought of home. At 11 I remember sitting in Social Studies, my insides getting squeezed like some kind of sopping wet cloth… my throat so thick I could hardly swallow.

For a long time I blamed homesick on the hows and wheres of growing up, having been away from home early and for long times. I also blamed it on being a cultural mutt, somehow an outsider, sort of maybe kind of from wherever I was but not really, always looking or sounding—even if just a teensy weensy bit—foreign. I concluded that homesick was about being different and being away and missing people I loved.

But maybe it was you I was missing, dearest heart. You. And maybe it was me that was away, my mind always imagining what I’d be doing if I was there, if I was OK, and about just how OK I would be:

If only I were there picking raspberries with them in the backyard…
If only I were there enjoying the mid-summer lake with them…
If only she were here to tuck me in…
If only I didn’t have these chub cheeks…
If only they took me in…
If only they understood me…
If only I had a special love…

If only was mighty lonely. And lonely makes it hard to see anyone else. Like you, for example.

So, it’s about time, wouldn’t you say? Time to write to you, my dearest heart. Yes you, reading this, if you want. And, would you mind if I bring If only? She could use some lovin up.

Well, love, that’s all for now. I just wanted to say hi. I’m right here, if you want me. But then, you knew that.

Yours and mine,

Heidi

Time Capsule #3: gray days, yellow birds.

Time Capsule Thursdays, in which I pause and notice. And write down what might otherwise go forgotten. And am inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude” (in What Do We Know). And do my own little tradition inspired by Havi Brooks’ Friday Chicken.

What was most tender?

What did you notice?
Manna: I have just enough. No more, no less.

What astonished you?
Three yellow birds at Danehy Park. (Anyone know their name?) They had a bit of black in them too. It’s been so humid, gray and rainy going on two weeks, those 3 birds were a flash of joy.

What made you happy?
This email:

Dear Heidi, Billy Collins is happy to give you permission for limited use of “Marginalia” as you request it below. Many thanks, Sara

—>First podcast, ever, here I come!

What made you come alive?
The poem that pounded down my door. I gave it a pen and let it have its life.

What frightened you?
I was invited to imagine my future: where will I be, who will be around me, what will I be doing 10, 20, 30 years from now and at the time of my death. All I could see was blank. And I didn’t like how my mind interpreted that.

What did you think was happening?
The neural pathways I’ve been traipsing are being torn up. I feel lost.

That’s this week’s slice of life, my friends. Feel free to join in with noticings—big or small, happy or sad, old or new—of your own. (One request: kindly withhold from offering advice. Thank you.)

A poem came pounding on my door...

A poem came pounding on my door today and I had to let it in. I asked it for a point and it yelled at me, something about no time for talk.

It told me that my chest will explode if I don’t give it a pen already. And that my heart will shrivel up and die if I don’t let it cry and break, no questions asked, as much as it needs to again and again about how the world is too much and not at all at once, since here I am, still alive and exploding even while the world keeps coming and coming and coming at me, saucy earth woman that it is, in me, through me, to me, all the freaking time.

It’s about how you are me (that’s right, you) and he is me and so is she and she and she. And Dick—that’s right—Cheney is also me, mistress of evasion and hiding that I am. And cheeky Jon Stewart too. And Barack Hussein Obama. Momma that’s right, it said, you heard it here.

And George W. Bush too before you go thinking I’m taking sides for how could I when I am all of them and all of you and it’s all right here inside Iran, which I am, and have been every day I’ve ever held myself back and stifled and silenced and shut things up when I didn’t agree with me, trying all the while to make it look for the world like my shit’s together when really there are burning tires and exploding cars right inside my chest and I na-na-na put my fingers in my ears and numb myself to almost- but never quite fully -death—

For here I am, still, my smile as forever plastic as the bags I self-righteously don’t give myself anymore except for when I do for the trash I justify in my kitchen, because, after all, some stuff just won’t break down no matter how you slice it and dice it and cook it up.

And while I’m at it let me claim pollution of super-sized blah blah blahs of in-consequence except for their numbing effect on a heart fairly bursting if I wait to say how it really is for even one second more.

And before I forget, the poem said, I must tell you that you are also the stupid people in the stupid line this morning, biding their time to pay some stupid fine they can’t afford to pay. And the little boy on his big boy bike trying desperately to make it go with training wheels too low to the ground on account of the hovering mother also called you, not wanting him, by which of course she means herself, to fall.

So that’s me with the attention span of a fruit fly and the world inside.

Where was I anyway? Oh yes, channeling Eliot, something about in the end is my beginning and all that as it seems that through no merit of my own and by what I can only call mercy I find that the trees are also me—

As is the endless spring rain that just yesterday became summer.

So this is how it happens when you can’t get out of your own way: change comes knocking on your door, politely ringing your bell and waiting ever so patiently for you to answer, tick tock tick tock, and then one day, when and exactly why we’ll never know, in some merciful kick of kindness, it breaks down the door of you, the very door you kept meaning to answer, because that’s right: change hasn’t got all day.