Hmmmm

It’s New Years Eve day. The end of another year. A bad year in most people’s estimation. If I look back to where I was a year ago, I am personally in a much better place. Last New Years Eve I was on the brink of a break up that spawned this whole essay writing business to begin with. How cool is that? This New Year’s Eve, I many be on the brink of another break up…Yeah that sucks. I’ve sort of bookended 2009. In a way, I may be in the exact same place but I know I’m not. I am enriched. I am enriched by the relationship I’m in regardless of its outcome; I can’t say that for the previous one. That already is progress. I’m enriched by the writing I’ve been doing, by trying to live a truly authentic life, one that is true to who I am at the core. It’s just hard to be mindful of the fact that though I’ve been making small steps, those steps are progress. It’s even harder to be mindful of the progress when desperation and depression seem to be much easier things to cling to, as the progress is so small that it is virtually unperceivable to an outsider.

Earlier today while sitting here at the café that has become my office, Ben the person on the laptop next to mine said “what’s so great about new years, I’m one year closer to my demise.” Ah, a fellow writer I thought to myself. I was wrong. Ben is a recruiter. He also had other thoughts to offer about New Years Eve, “There’s too much pressure to be happy on new years.” And then I started thinking about happiness in general. I mean what is happiness? I tend to think I’m generally happy about something and then happiness turns into complacency and complacency into dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction then into restlessness and restlessness into anxiety. An “is this really my life” anxiety when only moments ago I seemed happy.

The years just keep going by. There’s no way to prevent that from happening or to slow down their perceived speed of passing that seems to grow with each year. So all I can do is make a resolution. I am going to be happy with this moment. And then this moment will lead to another moment in which I will plan to also be happy. I’ll just be in the moment so I can’t distract myself with thoughts of my past mistakes or the potential mistakes I may make in the future. That should be easy right? I resolve to be in the moment and to go to the gym more. After all, I did just join my boyfriend’s gym.

Hmmmm have I learned nothing this year?

Merry Kwansanukmasadan

11:24:43 am Dec 25th 2009. “I‘d like to know if it’s too early on the east coast for a scotch. Merry Christmas.” This was the text I wrote to my best friends. I knew they’d get a kick out of it. Somehow, on certain mornings a stiff drink doesn’t seem to be reason enough to raise an eyebrow, stage an intervention or ask what’s wrong. It’s just how it is and on this Christmas morning, that’s how it was.


You see, I’m at home “celebrating” with my family while my Jewish boyfriend is back in NYC not “celebrating “ anything. I did speak to him this morning though. “Look on my side of the bed behind the headboard…there’s a red bag ” “A red…oh I see it…Wow.” I had left behind a surprise present for him and his friend who was staying with him during this time. I didn’t want them to feel like holiday orphans. You see, it hasn’t felt like the holidays and that never feels good when you know it’s supposed to feel like the holidays. He was away for the beginning of Chanukah and doesn’t even have a menorah. And while 2 holidays may have come and gone in his one bedroom apartment without one candle being lit, a prayer said, holiday decorations being hung, eggnog drunk or mistletoe kissed under, there is a lot of love there.


But I worry. I worry that leaving a “holiday” present behind for your Jewish boyfriend to open on Christmas morning, as thoughtful as it is, might really be an act of defiance in the face of the man you love who has come to a decision: that he’d like you to convert to Judaism so you can live happily ever after.

I never expected happily ever after to come with such a condition. I wonder if that condition makes the thing it’s offering seem almost null and void once you accept the terms. Isn’t true love supposed to be unconditional? As a romantic I find these things too clinical, too calculated and too much of a proof that the other’s love may not be strong enough to overcome the differences of two people who really aren’t religious at all to begin with.

Love is the most important thing on this planet. What else are we really here for? Certainly not to look back on our lives and count how much money we’ve made. Success has not meant a thing to me without having someone to share it with. And the older I get, the less sustaining success seems to be as a consolation prize for being alone. Perhaps that’s why my drive for it has diminished as I’ve aged. Every failed relationship seems to echo louder how important having a good one in your life really is, how empowering it is to build a life with someone you connect with, share passions with and who you ultimately consider your best friend.

So why, if you’ve found this person would you be willing to let it go for a difference in religious affiliation especially when the affiliation is lacking in affirmation. I think the Jewish religion is one of the most beautiful with wonderful traditions and rituals. But aren’t all religions beautiful at the core? Aren’t they all seeking the same results? Aren’t they all equally destructive when practiced with enough fanaticism?

I would want to teach my children, should I ever be privileged enough to bear them, that religion is personal… love is universal. That God surely loves all of us. That being a good person with a kind heart with compassion and respect for others regardless of the color of their skin or what God they prey to is the highest form of religion there is.

Couldn’t we have a new religion? Christanukmas? Maybe even Kwansanukmas? I like the sound of that. Or better yet…Kwansanukmasadan. Yeah. Merry Kwansanukmasadan everyone. Let’s all raise our scotch to that. It’s 5pm somewhere in the world.

It Takes A Very Steady Hand

I usually get to my yoga class (what my teacher refers to as my practice) twice a week. I’ve been doing it for almost 2 years. That and this new cleanse I’ve been on have definitely had a centering effect. So why I haven’t been to the gym in months is a question with many answers, none of which substantiate the behavior or in this case the lack thereof.

Today, after a long hiatus I took a yoga class as a friend’s guest at the Equinox on 76^th and Amsterdam. By all accounts it is a beautiful gym, sleek design with wood floors and light fixtures, locker rooms with digital locks and Kiehl’s products.

It is surely worthy of some design awards and gives the impression that you are there to relax and have a drink rather than sweat your ass off. It is exactly the kind of place I would have loved years ago. The kind of gym I have been a member of in the past. However, after being downsized and then downsizing my life, I’ve been learning to live with less. And not only have I learned to live with less, I have come to enjoy having less and yoga has been a big part of that journey.

My gym, the dolphin on east 4^th street between First and Second Avenues is exactly the place I would have cringed at in earlier years. It’s a tiny bare bones muscle gym. Where Dolphin is the gym equivalent of 5 immigrants living in a studio apartment Equinox on 76th street is the gym equivalent to Graceland.

You’d think I’d have been happy to be in this South Fork Plantation after so much time of slumming it. But I missed my little gym where the form follows function theory of design is truly applied. Where nothing was designed that wasn’t necessary. And in many ways I believe that that’s what yoga is about. About simplicity, stripping away what’s on the outside to get to the inside and of course the hope of one day successfully doing a headstand.

While the yoga teacher, in between jokes of how hung-over Alice was, yammered on about finding our light, polishing it and then letting it shine even brighter than it had in the past, I missed my yoga teacher Sylvia. Sylvia does not encourage talking during the class, she speaks in a low voice and if we do end up laughing because she occasionally says right hand when she means left and people are futilely trying to perform physically impossible poses, she redirects our focus to where it should be, on being centered and quiet and within.

And then something happens. On the basement level of a dingy gym, without too much talking of light and polishing anything off, in a poorly ventilated room filled with old yoga mats, and occasional condensation dripping down from the ceiling, you have your own spiritual experience.

Sometimes I cry in yoga. I strain to hold a pose and as the physical seems impossible to endure, the tears well up in my eyes and roll down one cheek or the other. Though I’ve never noticed it happen to anyone else in any yoga class I’ve ever been in, my teacher says it’s quite common. “You’re working stuff out”. Shit. If I haven’t figured it out by now there’s little hope I ever will. I’m not sure what’s scarier, the fact that I cry in yoga with no emotional prompting or the fact that I don’t even know what I cry about when it happens. I barely cry in therapy, (I hear all you out there thinking, yeah, that’s why you need it).

Then at the end of yoga, something else happens. As I lay there in final relaxation pose, feet mat width distance apart, arms to the side palms facing up, I get the distinct feeling that I am the patient in that game operation. Anesthetized by my own fatigue, I lay there and wonder if there is a doctor with a very steady hand out there about to fix what I don’t even know is wrong with me.

As Seen on TV

So there I was in the beloved skin care aisle at Rite Aid on the corner of 5^th and 1^st Ave. Beloved, since there isn’t a Duane Reade within reasonable walking distance as an alternative when you live just across the street. This Rite Aid is sadly under stocked on many things including hair dye options. I know because I have wasted my fair share of hours pondering the alternatives to my natural hair color, weighing my options between cool and warm tones only to walk out empty handed. Who doesn’t love drugstore shopping? Walking into one alone is like taking an upper let alone the rush of walking out with new body wash, shampoo and lip-gloss. I however was there to take care of some serious business. Having just told my friend I would now qualify as a before photo for Proactiv and having thought about calling them a few times, I decided to look at my limited but immediately available, better than Proactiv, compare our ingredients to theirs, alternative courses of treatment to save my face from this hormonal uprising known as adult onset acne, as if the onset of adult hood wasn’t bad enough.

I’ve been one phone call away from Proactiv for a few months now. I thought of going to the dermatologist but friends with the same problem were told to get pregnant and breast feed and their hormones would go back to normal. Well, if fate wasn’t cruel enough leaving me to navigate New York City singledom in my 30s, nature was even crueler. You’d think there’d be an upside to having the last of your fertile eggs closing in on their sell by date; that pregnant women were the ones that are supposed to be traumatized by the hormonal coup d’etat I was experiencing. To make matters worse, I’d never had serious problems with my skin before. Actually, it was something people always complimented me on…How did I end up in this adolescent dilemma? Perhaps it’s fitting since I seem to be going through a second adolescence in my personal and professional life but please, one acne free adolescence was bad enough. I wonder if this is like reincarnation for the living? Did I not learn what I needed to from my pimple-less teenage years that I must hopefully now learn as a mildly and hopefully temporarily pizza faced adult so I can avoid the horrors of old age acne if such a thing even exists?

So there I am in aisle 3 resigned to the fact that there are probably many life lessons I still needed to learn, not picking at your face still among those. But that lack of learning has caused me to learn one thing…how to cover up blemishes. Apparently, I learned it so well that a woman in the airport bathroom during my thanksgiving travels actually stopped to say, “wow, that stuff really works.” “Thanks,” I answered. Not sure how to take the compliment, I just kept talking. “It’s Face of Stockholm under eye cover up, but it works everywhere.” Her older than mine, rosacea affected cheeks rounded in a smile of thanks and understanding. Is there no end to what we can and probably will endure as we get older?

What I wouldn’t give to have my under-eye be my only problem area. Of course even then I panicked. I temporarily substituted the low of realizing I was aging for the high of buying every eye product Rite Aid could keep on its poorly stocked shelves. And yes, in one low moment I ordered a product from the box known as the TV. I wish I could say it was in the wee hours of the morning, that I was so tired I knew not what I was doing but I can’t. No, I called Principle Secret one morning around 11am while I was getting ready to go to my yoga class. The “secret” ingredient of Argireline and a glowing endorsement from Jules Asner seemed like a winning combination and the only solution at the time. But back to the current problem staring me literally in the face.

I’d pretty much settled on the Neutrogena 3 Step Acne Solution System. It’s got some orange on the packaging but the tubes containing my redemption seemed to come in neutral tones worthy of any good decorator’s palate for living rooms and bathrooms that seek a sophisticated yet understated appeal. I was almost out of the aisle when the bright neon orange package of Severe To Clear caught my eye…how could it not even though it happened to be on the very bottom shelf? It has the same ingredients, the same claims but offered 4 products to the Neutrogena 3. Severe to Clear came with one cream for day and one for night. I was torn between the branded name Neutrogena had always been and the promise Severe To Clear’s catchy name assured it would deliver. I marveled at the neon packaging though. People with acne want to hide, want to draw less attention to themselves and walking through the store holding a toxic orange package was certainly counter to that objective. I decided I’d chance it. I positioned Severe To Clear behind the pack of toilette paper I was glad I didn’t forget to pick up. Once home, I immediately found a nice pouch to hold my new products so that when at my boyfriend’s he wouldn’t be tempted to check out my new purchase mistaking the bottles for radioactive colored playthings.

So far I’ve used the product 3 times. I wonder if thinking good thoughts here speeds up the process. Things like snowflakes, puppies and chocolate…wait, forget the chocolate. That may have gotten me into this whole mess in the first place. But I do think it’s working and that’s a good thing. I highly doubt my insurance will cover the cost of getting inseminated as a cure for acne so that I can start breastfeeding already.

Destination Unknown

I’ve never had a good sense of direction. Couple that with my preference for meandering to find my way rather than consulting a map for directions and you have my basic roadmap for life. I will however, occasionally, ask for directions and in my dream the other night, I asked Steve Jobs. Though I had no idea where I was actually headed, somehow I knew I had driven off course; that I hadn’t taken a certain road indicated by some directional iPhone app. Naturally, though I was lost, I had driven to an Apple compound of sorts that also happened to employ several high school friends. As I exited the ladies room, Steve Job exited the men’s room. “Excuse me, I’m really sorry to bother you sir. I’ve been using this app; I think I took a wrong turn and I’m not sure how far back I need to go.”

Steve hesitated for a moment but then produced a clipboard with a blank print out of the mapquest like app. He filled in the blanks writing down the directions for me to get me back on my way…destination still unknown.

I thanked him as he handed me the clipboard and let him get back to his very busy schedule.

Before departing, I thought I’d take some time with my old friends and ventured up to the second floor. I was greeted by familiar faces…a nice little reunion indeed...until a woman I had never seen, a woman I took to be Mrs. Jobs or Ex-Mrs. Jobs , enraged by my presence, yelled at me that I had to leave instantly and that I was not welcome there. My friend took my arm, “Let’s go, you should get out of here.” She walked me downstairs and as we said our goodbyes in the cool of the outside air, I realized I left the clip board up stairs. I was struck with panic. “I forgot my clipboard, I forgot my clipboard,” I kept yelling. Words, that out of context, would only resonate with Julie, social director for the Love Boat. “I forgot my clipboard,” I repeated as tears rolled down my face. I was still lost and had no idea where I was going. Then I woke up.

You’d think one directional dream in a week would be bad enough. Enough to alert you that your inner compass needed to be readjusted, realigned, re-northed, or whatever it is they do to directional instruments. I am lucky enough that my psyche knows me well enough that one major and very vivid clue into my subconscious sometimes isn’t enough. Sometimes I ignore the clues the universe chooses to give me, admittedly sometimes on purpose…

Even more vivid than Steve Jobs and his clipboard was a dream I had last night. I was on a subway platform that is flanked by 2 trains heading in opposite directions. (I say that only because some NYC subway platforms are flanked by trains going in one direction where one side is express and the other local, in which case taking the wrong one is a minor annoyance.) So there I am, on the platform, what I hope is a slightly younger version of me since I’m with my boyfriend, who happens to look like a 14 yr old, and his mother. They decide to quickly check on something, use the bathroom or get a drink from the water fountain at the other end of the platform. I’m not quite sure what they’re doing, but in their absence the train comes...It was imperative we not miss this train though I still can’t tell you why or where we were headed. I grab the backpack my boyfriend left behind and decide to jump on the train, thinking they’d jump on at their end knowing that someone as thoughtful as I am would have the presence of mind to realize they’d assume I’d pick up the bag and join them on the train. Now on the train, I watch as we pass a few stops, not at all wondering where my adolescent love and his mother have gone and I realize I’m going in the wrong direction. I mistook the train that came for the one we needed and asked the woman next to me what the next stop was. Before she answers, the subway car has turned into a greyhound bus and we’re on some small highway. Snow is falling and is beginning to accumulate. “Pittsburgh,” she replies. “What?” “Stop the bus,” I tell the driver. “You can’t get off, once we’ve departed you can’t get off until we make a stop,” he answers with no sympathy. “When’s the next stop?” I say containing as much of my panic as possible. “In about five to ten minutes.” “How am I going to get back to New York City from here?” I ask containing less of my panic than before. “You can get a cab.” “A cab, there are no cabs here, I don’t know the number for a cab out here,” I respond helplessly, tears rolling down my face.

I woke up like a shot, my heart racing and with the complete stress of someone in a broken down car on an isolated road and no way to call for help. Again, I didn’t know what my intended destination was supposed to be, but it certainly wasn’t Pittsburgh.