Spring: Jewish Style

Passover (among other things) is a time to...

• gather your tribe
  
• eat symbols and discuss metaphors
  
• honor the past by remembering it
  
• search by candlelight for what has fermented, collect it with a feather, and burn it all down to ash
• make room at the table for pleasant surprises
  
• undertake a ritual journey from slavery to liberation and exodus
• drink wine
  
• tell stories of pyramids, plagues, babies found among reeds, Egyptian princes, river-crossings, mountaintop revelations, and animal sacrifice
  
• ask questions
• welcome and embrace the light that increasingly floods each day
  
• celebrate the importance of children, ancestors and taking action
• read backwards
• pool blessings and pray

I ♥ Miranda July

Yup. Totally starstruck.

I mean how does she do it? Be an original like that?

Years ago, Hovey introduced me to a short story collection of hers that I thought was wonderfully written-- full of humor and pathos.

Then [insert a lot of time passing in which Miranda July never came up], this past week I had a revelation...

I can now start running around 6:30 pm and the light and the temperature are just lovely (that was the revelation). Biking home from one of these jaunts the other night, I was invited by some friends to join their impromptu front porch gathering. Over lasagna and wine, Emily recommended the movie Me and You and Everyone We Know.

As I trust her taste, I lost no time. Watching it on Netflix from under a mountain of down quilts and comforters when I got home, I thought it was a beautiful oddbird of a movie. Curious as to why it also seemed vaguely familiar, I googled it and found out that Miranda July not only directed, but starred in the film.

Really?!

Continuing my investigation, I discovered that she typically looks fragile and dresses herself beautifully in online photos. She grew up in the East Bay. She's married to the director of The Beginners. All that and she seems to be a fairly courageous artist.

In a word? Crushworthy.

Looking Around

Recently, I feel like I've been drifting away from myself and my surroundings-- swinging towards introversion or introspection in a way that has me loosing touch with what delights me. I am excited to move in the other direction and engage with the world around me in ways that bring me back to my full strength. There's so much beauty to be experienced, yet it's been awhile since I consciously paid attention to cultivating that connection. It's high time I seek out marvels.


I've been reading The Bone People, a Maori tale of isolation and love, on Binkley's recommendation. With a nudge from Rathke, it's got my mind wandering in these directions-- tailing after the tang of salt water, the quickfade vibrancy of a caught fish, the raw center of a bivalve's brittle shell, the promise that things come into focus with time.

Birdsong

Wrens heralded our arrival in canyon country, their cascading songs carrying across the waters of the Colorado. Back in Wyoming, meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves and robins fill the early morning light outside the bedroom window with sound.



Their voices are a welcome harbinger of spring!

Grand Canyon Redux

The last time I was in the belly of the beast, I felt like this raft getting cartwheeled in the Ledge Hole:

This time around, it felt like I had this watery torrent outside Redwall Cavern running through me, flushing that past trauma out of my system:

The process left me staggering to my feet on the flip side, feeling like this inside:

I am grateful to have had the chance and capacity to reboot my relationship with this wonderful place. Everyone involved deserves a medal of honor for standing by me as I ran the gauntlet.

Kinfolk

Spiritual dopplegängers. Kindred souls. Like-minded individuals.

You know the type?


Well, I might have found mine. She's just way higher achieving than me.

Does that make Jessica Orecek my wannabe sister from another mister instead?

Laughter Is Just GOOD

Oh, JT. Fake hair does nothing for you. But I'm still in. Even when you're upstaged by two broads. Still a fan. You're genius by proximity.