This Happened:

I'm in the woods of New Hampshire with my family.  I'm preparing for a three-month stint in Southeast Asia, I'm preparing for my 30th birthday, I'm preparing for the last trip before I really settle down and (ahem) grow up.

My brother, who will also be embarking on a great adventure in the next week (he's traveling to North Carolina with a teardrop-shaped trailer that fits only his comfy bed and a few electronic devices), yells to me, "Frones!" (nickname), "Frones!  In ten minutes come out to the trailer.  I have a surprise for you." 

I wait ten minutes and walk outside.  The moon is large and the air smells like wet leaves.  He waves to me from his trailer.  "C'mon in," he says with a warmth that already sounds Southern.

I squeeze into his cubby hole - it's a full size bed with a tempurpedic mattress and a sea of fluffy blankets.  It's like being in a secret playroom fort.  We're sitting next to one another, just like old times, propped up by the pillows behind us.  Maps of national parks and family photos decorate the walls.  There are small, white cabinets that open to eye level.  Our legs stretch out underneath them.

"Joey, it's awesome in here!"

"Thanks," he says.  Then he opens one of the cabinet doors.  There, sitting in the little square space, is an itty-bitty television, perhaps the tiniest I've ever seen.  He flicks a switch.

I hear a song that transports me to a time of innocence and simple joy.  A pure feeling arises, unsullied by the worries of adulthood.  The baby tv screen comes to life and there he is...

It's Mario.  He is jumping, in all his glory, to reach a mushroom.  Not just any Mario, it's SuperMario of SuperMarioWorld.  And Yoshi appears, hatching from a green speckled shell,  and he makes that sneezy sound and I'm almost crying it's so exciting. 

Joey hands me the controller.  We enter into the magical and viscous world - where fish will kill you, flashing stars offer moments of invincibility, and our loyal steed is a ravenous dinosaur that sprouts wings upon consumption of blue turtle shells.

For the better part of the evening we play, nestled in the bedroom trailer, beneath the soft moonlight, among hoots of nearby owls.

Good Food is a Gestalt

It isn't what we eat, but how we eat that makes it part of us. 

A woman lives in a warm cottage at the foothills of the Swiss Alps.  She stands on a stool over a pot of boiling water.  On tiptoe, she carefully places pierogi into the water.  Each one was wrapped with care earlier that afternoon.  Each one stuffed lovingly with garden potatoes, wild mushrooms and the cheese she made fresh from the cow's milk.  It is her neighbor's cow and the milk was offered in exchange for her famous tomatoes.  She whispers to the boiling water - a soft song she doesn't know she is singing.  The dumplings, clearly a staple in her diet given the form she has taken over the years, bubble on her alpine stove.  Meanwhile, she continues her preparations musically, placing bread on the table, stirring the butter and parsley, pulling pressed kraut from its dark corner.  It is late summer - too early for apples, so she takes the remaining apple butter from last autumn and puts it into a bowl.  The dumplings are ready.  On tiptoe again, reaching with her ladle into the pot, she pulls them steaming from the water and places them with the same care into a large bowl.  From here she lets them sizzle momentarily in the herbed butter.  On to the plate they go, bouncing one by one, a dance that, after decades of similar ritual, still gives her childish pleasure.  She makes the sound they ought to make with their rubbery skin and pudgy insides.  When she is satisfied with their arrangement, she goes to the basement and pulls out her grandfather's wine.  It's a sweet and tart wine - her favorite, made from the juice of summer mulberries.  She wraps the bottle in a piece of cream-colored lace she crotcheted ages ago, the delicate beginning of a tiny dress.  As luck would have it, she bore only sons, so now it serves as decoration for special occasions.  She eyes her table, once a heavy tree in the nearby forest, then pauses, realizing the absence of onions.  How could she forget the very thing that made her back ache so with their harvest, that made her kitchen smell so delicious?  They are perfectly caramelized, waiting on the stove for their vessel.  She sets them in their place and calls to her guests.

We are ripened through the seasonal experience of growing and cooking and enjoying.  The loving exploration of feelings we register as uncomfortable, infuses life with gratitude and youth.  When we embrace a curious and affectionate relationship with our bodies, the question that plagues our young and privileged culture - what to eat - goes from being a distressing mystery to a playful opportunity. 

Good food cannot be quantified by measured units.  Good food is a gestalt.

The Stories We Wish Were True

Listen.

There are consequences to the unconscious repetition of stories.  Regurgitated narratives harden into what we think is true.  This is the disease of seriousness.  It reproduces history we have already learned from.  Dreams and artistic manifestation require the integrity that is built on a foundation of innovation and trust.  How do we grow these?  We tell new stories.  We resurrect mythology.

Remember that joy and sacrifice are paramount to heroism.  Healing from a history of narcissism, war, trauma, and consumerism can be playful.  Maybe it has to be. 

Bringing wonder to conflict helps sustainably restructure harmful patterns.  Imagination transforms problems into gorgeous complexities.

Listen. 

There are fairy tales wound through the magnificence of our anatomy.  Listen to them.   Celebrate the sensual experience with presence and curiosity.  Eat good food.  Smell the air.  Say thank you to everything.  This builds strength, encourages the intrinsic ability to heal.  This is how we grow ourselves, how we unlock our superhero abilities. 

In doing so, the world around us transforms into the world we dream.  The stories we wish were true become our reality.

Listen.

Healing and learning are the same thing.  Play is medicine.  Storytelling is curriculum.

I don't mind pain I can taste.

It took a jump from a pull up bar to swell my knee.  It took a naked, post howl scramble down an Icelandic church hill to break my toe.  Took drunken Christmas meal mandolin preparation to slice my finger, a lollypop craving to put me in front of the car, an accidental surrender to bruise my heart, rehearsal on an aerial pirate ship to crunch my fourth metatarsal…

The sun is generous on my back.  The breeze is soft.  Dogs barking, the toot of a car locking, the elastic sweep sweep of springtime birds. A chain jingles. 

I smell the lavender and coconut oil I rubbed on my body.  I smell the taste in my mouth.  Bread and eggs with spinach.  A friend made it for me. 

The whispers of the outside world do not trouble me.  Not these.  It's the invisible ones I fear.  The thoughts I cannot taste or smell.

My shoes are beautiful resting on this leopard print picnic sheet.  A list forms in my mind and upsets my belly.  Children yell and run in circles.  This body is tired.  I've been beating it my entire life.  Pain is so reliable.  I don't mind pain I can taste.

It's the escape from it.  The shadow spells that conjure tension and invoke imaginary cages.  This is the sensation I run away from.  The sensation of running away.  The antisensation. The terrifying suggestion of future pain.

I need to buy toilet paper.  I need to water my plants.  To grab laundry from the car, get an MA, buy eggs, find a lover, get pregnant, climb a tree, stretch, wash my hair, make money.  The children are in a line.  Their heads are down and they hold hands.  Each has a partner.  One is wearing a red skirt. 

The ice-cream truck drives by.  In spring there are lots of ice-cream trucks.  They tink tank on my tequila brain, but I don't mind the inspired irritation.  I can hear it.  I'm happy it's real.

Anti-aging

It started with that thing Dan said to me.  He speaks at high volume with his face too close to mine, mostly talking (very quickly) about the famous people he met back in the day.

"Don't get older," he says often, "It sucks.  Hold onto the good years while you can."

When Dan makes a joke I usually feel uncomfortable.  Not because it's lewd or inappropriate.  Because they are not funny and he always stares at me for a long time afterward, waiting with a creepy grin that seems to get closer to me the longer it takes for me to rally a smile.  He smells like Listerine. 

Two days ago Dan asked me if anyone hit on me recently.  His awkward gesture of conversation was not out of character.

"Well, not really, but a man in the park said I was beautiful."

"Looks like you've still got it," said Dan.

The comment landed with a thunk.  Still got it? 

He waited, grinning, getting closer. 

Have I reached a point in life now where I could soon lose it?  Woah.  I'm already 29 years old.

The Listerine smell became stronger.  I made the face kids make when asked to smile for a camera - more like a fear grimace - teeth bared, eyes squinty.

I'm afraid of getting older.

***

Later, while waiting in line at the Whole Foods Market, I watched a young boy drive his left thumb in front of his face, turning it into a space ship with accompanying sound effects.  It became obvious that he had been separated from his guardian.  There were no grown-ups checking on him.  He stood in front of the check-out, beneath the friendly robot directing patrons to their respective registers, looking out at the ordered cluster.

I walked over and asked him if he was with someone. 

"Yes, I am here with my dad."

"Where is he?"

"He is in there."  He pointed with his thumb, gesturing at the mess of people.

I shrank myself to his size and saw only legs and purses. 
"What's his name?"

"Um, his name is Murray.  And my mom's name is Cheryl."

At this point the crowd was beginning to spoil.  It is upsetting to have a woman and a little boy blocking the path to the registers with slow talk like this.  "Let's go find him," I suggested.  "Do you want to hold my hand?"

I felt his tiny palm against my own and we walked to customer service.

I asked him how old he was.  He said five. 

"Five," I echoed, bright-eyed and over zealous.  "Wow."

"Yes!  And I'm also three!" he jumped when he said it. 

When I heard this it threw me into days of contemplation.

I'm twenty-nine.  And I'm fifteen.  And I'm five.   And I'm also three.

***

I was walking around Washington Square Park just after sunset.  A large tree caught my attention.  There was a woman standing at the base of it feeding squirrels.  She pulled peanuts out of a bag and the arboreal rodents snatched them from her hands.  There were so many it looked like ants swarming a piece of candy.  I asked her if I could feed them too. 

"No, it's very dangerous unless you know what you're doing." 

"Okay," I said, but I was visibly disappointed.  I didn't want her to feel bad for saying no, so I continued conversation.  "It's an amazing tree."

"Yes.  It's the oldest tree in Manhattan," she said.  "A historic tree."  Or maybe she said, "An historic tree."

I thought about trees.  Trees acquire rings.  But they don't lose them.  A six-hundred year old tree has six hundred rings.  And it also has three.

***

I was at the senior citizens center for the puppet class.  Adriana, who hugs me with the wisdom of great ships, whose wrinkles whisper fairytales, whose grandmother voice could warm the stiffness out of one of Dan's jokes, was showing me her creation.

"Me llamo Juan," she announced moving the puppet's hand and speaking in a demure baritone.  "Tengo 75 años."  

"Como yo," Adriana responded, in her own voice.

"Si, tengo 75 años como tú," said puppet Juan.  I have 75 years...

***

I've still got it.  You're right Dan.  I always will.  Maybe I don't have to hold on to anything.   Even when I'm 75 I will have them - the rings of 3 and 16 and 29…  But I'm still a little afraid. 

I Devised Snake Puppets (among other things)

This is the last entry of a month long blogathon.

I am tired. 

I ate pork belly and kale and brussels sprouts.  The wine was sour.

I gave a massage.  A damn good one.

I slept in.  I devised snake puppets.  I thought about always thinking about myself.  I became embarrassed, but only by the part of myself that judges the part that gets embarrassed. 

I took a shower.  I used the body scrub I made from salt and grapeseed oil and the smell of grapefruits.

I had three orgasms while doing aerial conditioning, leg lifting with crossed eyes and shaking knees.  Nobody around me knew I was coming.

I rode my bike down the sidewalk thinking, "You will die, you will die, and you will die, I will die," and so on. 

I sang to my breakfast.

I complimented the waitress on her lovely back.  She hugged me.  She smelled like mushrooms and marijuana.  I liked that.

I would guess at this:

The longing we have to be heard is actually a longing to listen.  The devices we use to mediate life, the cloud forums, platforms in which we perform ourselves are oversimplified reflections.  Words (like these) are removed from the medicine of connection.  We cannot prove experience because we are experience.  All we can do is lean back into the flavor or our being and taste ourselves.