Empire State of Mind

Freedom to move is big for me, both on a small scale (out for a run, a bikeride, yoga practice) and on a larger scale. The Midwest has never really felt like home to me. It's ok, and it's home to a lot of really nice people, but it's not my home. In hindsight, marrying someone for whom it does feel like home and having a couple of kids wasn't the most brilliant exit strategy. It's ok though -- having kids has been number one on my list since I was old enough to have a list -- and there's no question that the choice to have kids inevitably means that some other personal priorities take a backseat.

And thus I find myself, today, choosing to live in Madison because my children are here, even though it lacks so many other quality-of-life factors I enjoy, not to mention some of the work that I'm pretty sure I'm on this earth to do. Maybe I'll travel and do some of it from here, or maybe it just isn't time for that work now. I don't know. I do know that the most important and immediate job before me is to raise my kids, so I'm going to stay where I need to be to do that.

I also know that the next time I get hitched, baby or no baby, I'm going to make sure that the importance of the freedom to move is something my partner shares. And for now, I'm going to live vicariously through my friend who has embraced her right to move over and over again, and just may do it again soon with her new husband.

This one's for you kids:

Now you're in New York!

These streets will make you feel brand new,

The lights will inspire you,

Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York

That Jay-Z's a cool cat, but I think I prefer Alicia unadulterated -- you?

Wheel in the Sky

Yesterday I woke up with a really heavy feeling, and realized why as my dreams started to come back to me. Both were pretty disturbing and I think they were somehow related. In the first, or should I say the first series, because it seemed to go on for hours, I would be walking along the beach and then come upon a beached whale. It happened over and over again. Fully awake, I googled "beach whale dream meaning" and found a highly amusing youtube video that offered little to no insight. I also saw some pictures that made me realize that the whales in question were sperm whales.

Cut to the next dream: I meet this mother who seems really overwhelmed and offer to take her baby for the night. I care for it lovingly, and then put it to sleep in a crib in the bedroom next to mine. When the dream me wakes up in the morning, I go into the bedroom to check on the baby, and nothing is in the room -- no crib, no baby. Just before the conscious me wakes up, I find the baby in another room, but by this time, having witnessed multiple whales in distress and nearly losing a stranger's baby, it's too late for me to start my day feeling any too rested.

What does it all mean? It's hard to say for sure, but I know part of it is the me of sleeping and waking wrestling with whether my dream of having another baby will ever see the light of day.

And when I heard this song today, I realized that those dreams also represent more generalized angst at this time of uncertainty in my life:

Oh, the wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'

Ooh, I don't know where I'll be tomorrow

Wheel in the sky keeps me yearnin'

Oh, I don't know, I don't know

With my yoga practice taking a backseat to the healing of bike crash injuries, I'm feeling that angst just a little more forcefully than is comfy. Thank goodness for Steve Perry in the 80s -- just seeing this video makes me smile. I only wish I'd seen it 6 months ago so I could've grown my hair out to dress like him for Halloween. Next year!

Nobody

This morning as my daughter was unloading her backpack into her locker, she and one of her classmates were chatting about which locker belonged to whom. "That's nobody's locker," they said, pointing to an empty one. This caused me to instantly break into song:

Well your nobody called today

She hung up when I asked her name

Well I wonder does she think she's being clever?

And while my seven-year-old and her friend couldn't appreciate this blast from the past, I know some of you will. It may be true that the days of being able to hang up without leaving a trace are behind us, in an era of caller id and *69 (and why, praytell, did they choose those two digits for the auto callback feature??), but thankfully we still have Sylvia to sing to us about them.

My personal favorite lyrics, complete with double entendre:

(But) I can love you like nobody can...

Even Better!

Cannonball

In the bathtub this morning, I was working on sections of my book. In my head. I find that it's a lot easier to think about it than to type it. I was thinking about describing the bird tattoo on my arm, and about its significance for me. When one of my friends first saw it, he said: "It's definitely leaving, isn't it?" I answered that it was flying. "Yeah," he said, "But there's flying away and flying back home, and it's definitely flying away." Slowly, I realized he was right -- and that while I had flown away (left my marriage), eventually I was going to need to fly back to the nest and rest.

As I was having this realization, I was also falling in love, which made the idea of resting in the nest infinitely more pleasant than it had been for the last handful of years. I started to fantasize that my man would get a tattoo of a nest on his arm, and that's where Annie (the name of my bird) would rest. Looking back on it now, I consider this a step in the right direction -- I was willing to surrender before I'd completely exhausted myself from flying, to be fed and kept safe.

This morning, however, I realized that the nest, whether or not it is ever manifested as a tattoo, belongs on my body; that I need to contain both the capacity to fly and the space to rest right here in my very self.

And then I heard Damien's voice, a voice I listened to over and over again after I left my husband -- the phase in which I had flown but refused to consider resting, the phase in which I lost a bunch of weight because I refused to be fed.

Looking at the lyrics now, from a considerably sunnier vantage point, I'm not sure exactly what to take from them:

Stones taught me to fly

Love taught me to lie

Life taught me to die

So it's not hard to fall

When you float like a cannonball

But I think maybe the point is that in order to really know something, we have to understand both that thing and its opposite...

Need You Now

I heard this song this morning on the radio, and its sound still annoyed me, as it always has, but I also just appreciated the naming of an experience I've had many times, an experience known colloquially as the drunk dial:

It's a quarter after one, I'm a little drunk and I need you now

Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control and I need you now

Right before I switched over to the radio, I'd been listening to one of the wisest men I know (of): Eckhart Tolle. (There's a whole bunch of Eckhart on youtube -- if interested, you might start with this video, which shows the Grand Canyon and other natural scenes rather than his mug, complete with a cat around his neck in videos like this one. It's true: he's not a looker, he is seriously lacking in style, and his voice annoys some, but take it from me, his teachings are really powerful.) Anyway, he was talking about our ability to stay with our awareness, and how alcohol can reduce our awareness. This is true. Beer goggles are a case in point. But I also knew that wasn't the full story.

Because I think the other way to think about what alcohol does is that it reduces our defenses -- and sometimes, that's exactly what is needed in order to get what we as humans really need: connection.

So, while it isn't always the case, I think perhaps sometimes when I'm, as these song lyrics put it:

Reaching for the phone 'cause I can't fight it anymore...

Not fighting it is exactly what I need to do in that moment. I agree with Eckhart that awareness is priceless, but I believe that it arises not just by getting in touch with ourselves, but by allowing ourselves to be touched by others.

You've Got a Friend

I've now had two full weeks of what I like to call non-employment. It's been a bit of a roller coaster -- sometimes I feel really grateful for the freedom, the space, the additional time to spend with my kids -- and at other times I feel really at sea, and start to wonder about my place in this world and fret about how I'm going to continue to pay my bills. I didn't know until I left just how significant the structure of having a place to go every day was as an anchor in my life. I love the metaphor of the anchor -- it's so easy to see how being "tied down" can be great when you want to stay in one place and equally how important it is to pull up the anchor when you want to move. And I really needed to move. Where this ship is headed, I don't rightly know, but I do know that one of the things keeping it afloat is the loving support of my friends.

Not surprisingly, I feel even more at sea when my kids aren't here, and this weekend was the first one since I left my job when my kids have been at their Dad's all weekend. I was initially a bit worried about how I was going to get through it, but I needn't have worried. Without doing any real planning, I ended up getting to cook dinner both Friday and Saturday nights for/with the assistance of dear friends. In both cases, the food was tasty, but I was nourished to an even greater extent by their company.

As you may know, Carole King wrote this song and James Taylor made it famous. This video shows them singing it together -- and you can just see that they have a really beautiful friendship. (I bet they never slept together, but that's the subject of an entirely different post.) My favorite moment in the video is at the very end, when they look at each other and repeat:

Ain't it good to know (x7)

Yeah, yeah, yeah

You've got a friend

It sure is...

Selfless, Cold and Composed

At bookclub last night, we had a really fascinating conversation about love, relationships, marriage, divorce... There are six of us in the group, five women and one man, and only one of us is on our first marriage. We talked about whether we'd outgrown the institution of marriage, as a society, at least the storybook version of it. We talked about why some people are still together and others not, and one of the themes was about yielding to your partner. Some amount of yielding is needed on both sides -- but too much can be a bad thing both for the yielding partner and the one to whom the other is yielding. What determines how much is too much, though? Isn't it more about what works for the two people in the relationship rather than some idealized version of what should be true?

One of the members mentioned this song by Ben Folds Five, which I think contains an interesting exploration of this issue:

I said what you wanted to hear

And what I wanted to say

So I'll take it back

Sometimes we do say what the other person wants to hear partly because it is what they want to hear and partially because it is as true for us as anything else we could say in that moment. I think that's maybe the hardest part of being in a relationship. When you know your own heart, it is much easier to communicate that to the other person. But who among us does, for the first marriage, at least, know our own heart to a great extent? Are the ones that stay married the ones who better knew themselves going in or the ones who were lucky enough to pick someone whose heart needed much the same, or a complement to, what theirs needed? Or some combination of both? And how about for the second or third time around?

I don't have the answers. I do know that although, as a general rule, the words selfless, cold and composed don't describe me, the more my thoughts, words and actions veer off in that direction, the shittier I feel. I think that's what this lyric is getting at:

It's easy to be easy and free

When it doesn't mean anything

And I think that's also what Janis is saying about freedom in Me and Bobby McGee.

These matters of the heart are all very interesting to yours truly. But I need to be careful not to let my brain try to tell my heart what to do...

Miss You Like Crazy

I've been fighting this one for the last few days. Maybe if I give in, and make it today's song, it'll get out of my head already. I just keep hearing "I miss you like crazy" over and over again.

I just looked up the lyrics, and a lot of it doesn't fit for me: there's just no getting over you, only your sweet love can save me, etc.

But this particular lyric is about as concise a description of where I am today as is possible:

I miss you baby, all the tender love you gave me...

Post-workout postscript: Time to make the switch to the gratitude attitude. In order to miss tender love, I had to experience it, and I'm damn glad I did. I'm going to try to focus on that -- particularly now that this song is not on repeat in my head.

Try a Little Tenderness

Yesterday I was riding my bike down the street when a woman opened her car door and knocked me right on my ass. She felt really awful about it -- and I told her that I could just have easily been on the other end of an accident like that -- it isn't as if I've never parked my car and opened the door without thoroughly checking to be sure that no bicyclists were about to sail past.

It was scary, though, and as is the case with all accidents, it made me more appreciative of just how easily I glide through life most of the time, blissfully unaware of all of the potential peril that could befall me and has befallen others. I was grateful that the worst of it, for me, is multiple trips to the chiropractor, a sore hip/butt, and a few stiff joints.

It also made me want to reach out for the comfort of loved ones. Which I did, and it helped. This tune came to me today too, and though for a moment I was in danger of heading straight into that familiar feeling of what's missing, I stopped myself, I felt the tenderness all around me, and I vowed to continue to be tender with myself.

Because while I wouldn't count myself out of this group of girls about which Otis sings:

You won't regret it, no no

Some girls they don't forget it

Love is their only happiness, yeah

But it's all so easy

All you gotta do is try, try a little tenderness, yeah

I also know that a lover is not the only source of love available to me. Not by a long shot.

Here's an awesome video of Otis performing this song live in 1967, which is, I believe, the year that a man who has the tenderness (for others) piece down took his first steps. A precursor to flight? I reckon that's exactly where all those baby steps are headed...

Cry Cry Cry

Last night before I went to sleep, I laid in bed listening to my ipod, and this is one of the songs that shuffle selected. And although the angry lyrics of Johnny's first hit (1955!) didn't match my own tears, the title was a pretty fair outline of my day yesterday:

Cry: The first tears of the day fell during my morning yoga class. In yoga, we are always working with action and resistance, stability and flexibility -- concepts that are as useful off the mat as on. The focus of this particular class was continued opening (we worked especially with the hips), pushing ourselves past our sticky points, letting down our defenses. At the same time, we talked about the strength and stability required to be so open. I'll say. As I laid in the final resting pose, I noticed that my hands, which were supposed to be fully relaxed, were still partially clenched. The tears flowed as I let them relax fully -- straight into the tears related to letting go of the aware-of-all-of-this-and-more-but-faraway man.

Cry: On the bike path on the way home from my evening fitness class, I just burst into tears again. The openness sure is here -- hope the strength kicks in again soon!

Cry: I went to see Waiting for Superman last night. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's about an issue near and dear to my heart: improving the quality of schools for poor kids by ensuring that they all have a great teacher. Throughout most of the movie, I mainly felt angry that we'd failed generation after generation of these children. But at the end, when you see that some of the kids get selected by lottery to go to charter schools that improve their chance of success in life while some are relegated to their failing neighborhood school, the tears started flowing again. I don't know exactly how yet, but I vow to do something about this pernicious problem.

Me and Bobby McGee

I can always count on Janis to help me through the big stuff. She has this way of cutting to the heart of an experience that showcases both its beauty and its pain -- this song is a fine example:

From the Kentucky coal mines to the California sun,

Hey, Bobby shared the secrets of my soul.

Through all kinds of weather, through everything we done,

Hey Bobby baby kept me from the cold.

One day up near Salinas, I let him slip away,

He's looking for that home and I hope he finds it,

But I'd trade all of my tomorrows for just one yesterday

To be holding Bobby's body next to mine.

I recently had the good fortune to share the secrets of my soul with a man who was really able to meet me where I am and celebrate with me all that I've worked so hard to cultivate in myself-- open-heartedness, passion, zest for life. Having experienced such a powerful connection, it is extremely difficult to let it go. And though I wouldn't trade all of my tomorrows for anything, the draw back to that safe, warm physical presence can be pretty strong. At least for the moment, though, I'm going to need to keep myself from the cold.

In our last conversation, as I tried to explain why I needed him to let me go, he said something that really touched my heart:

"You're free to go, kid. Don't let me hold you back."

Which I think is why this song popped into my head today, as I ponder where I stand on Janis's classic refrain:

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose...

Don't Want to Know if You Are Lonely

This song was the first of many gems I found in the sweet movie I watched last night: Adventureland. It brought me back to the time in my own life when I was the approximate age of the characters in the film -- late high school, early college.

There was something so appealing to me about this genre of music: it was fast, it was loud, it was easy to get lost in it. Many of my friends were in punk bands in high school, so on weekends, if we weren't roadtripping to see a show, we were in someone's garage or hunting shack enjoying a similar sound. (Yep, I said hunting shack. One of the joys of high school in a small town in Northern Wisconsin.)

This song was one of my faves at the time. Hearing it now, it sounds pretty angry, but maybe that's one of the reasons I found it so appealing at the time:

I'm curious to know exactly how you are

I keep my distance but that distance is too far

It reassures me just to know that you're okay

But I don't want you to go on needing me this way

I love Bob Mould -- so I highly recommend checking out the original by Husker Du. But Green Day's cover is pretty sweet too.

Ain't No Sunshine

Sundays are just tough for me lately. On some level, the evolved part of me understands that is just a story, and in part, my identification with that story is what is perpetuating it. But then there's the part of me that's pretty damn game -- the part that shows up every Sunday hoping to just be present to what is -- only to find that what is kinda sucks.

Some background: Sundays are switch days -- the day my kids go back to their Dad's house. I think this adds a layer of stress to our parent-child interactions, and the result isn't pretty. With my son, when I use my psycho-spiritual babble, we can usually get the bottom of a tough situation in minutes. With my daughter, not so much. And today I spent some extra time alone with my daughter, "special time," which was like a roller coaster -- some really high highs and some really low lows.

And now, after teaching yoga and then attending a yoga sutra book group meeting, I'm home again. And the house is quiet. Which is, of course, what I longed for at some points during the lows with my daughter. So why is it that this song is what's coming to mind right now?

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.

It's not warm when she's away.

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

and she's always gone too long

anytime she goes away.

...Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

and this house just ain't no home

anytime she goes away.

It's hard to beat Bill Withers (linked above), but I've always thought Lenny Kravitz was a serious hottie, so you might want to check out his version of this tune too. If blonde dudes are more your thang, Sting is sporting an unfortunate stache in this video, but he's quite a crooner nonetheless.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Oh Bono. I remember when you sang this beloved song to my friends and me when we roadtripped to Ames, IA in the early 1990s to see you and your amazing band:

I have climbed highest mountains

I have run through the fields

Only to be with you

Only to be with you

I have run

I have crawled

I have scaled these city walls

These city walls

Only to be with you

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

And for a few hours, maybe a few days, after having that experience -- the same one the Italians had more recently in the video linked above, I thought maybe I had found what I was looking for. But then that feeling eventually faded.

When this song came on the radio on the way home from dinner with my kids last night, I realized something kinda major: I came closer to finding what I was looking for by sitting silently on a cushion for three days with perfect strangers than I've ever come doing one of my other favorite things (snuggling with my kids, swimming in the ocean, enjoying the love of a good man, drinking a glass of really great wine or eating a really delicious meal with friends, reading a really great story, hearing beautiful music, etc.).

This, I reckon, gets to the heart of Buddhist teachings: that the sweetest joy is found not in doing, but in being. That's not to say that my being isn't enhanced by any of the above activities or the feelings they evoke, just that touching its core is a deeper state of bliss than they could ever provide...

Strong Enough

This one came to me during my functional fitness class today, which was a bit ironic, given that the hottest person in my class is decidedly female. It kinda matches my mood today, though, which is lacking in my characteristic optimism...

God, I feel like hell tonight

Tears of rage I cannot fight

I’d be the last to help you understand

Are you strong enough to be my man?

Nothing’s true and nothing’s right

So let me be alone tonight

Cause you can’t change the way I am

Are you strong enough to be my man?

I love this live recording with Sheryl playing the accordion.

You can also check out this one, where Sheryl is joined by Stevie Nicks. It begins with a little chat about their extreme careers and how difficult it is to find men who can handle them. Although it isn't my career that's extreme, I can relate to the sentiment for sure!

More Than This

Though it isn't exactly like Scarlett Johansson's with Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, I've been fortunate enough to have my own intergenerational relationship with a man I met over a decade ago at a research conference. Initially drawn to his humor and magnetism which stood out from the rest of the crowd, we fell into an easy rapport that was value-added for both of us at that first and subsequent conferences.

At some point we also started to communicate by email, and we've spoken on the phone on a few occasions as well. It hasn't always been easy to navigate this relationship -- by virtue of the intensity of our connection and the age difference that naturally brings out the father/daughter baggage we both carry -- and so, from time to time, we've let months or even years pass without actively communicating. One of us always reaches out to break the silence at some point, though, and for my part, I can say that as fraught as the friendship has been at times, he has been an invaluable teacher when it comes to learning about myself.

When I was struggling in my marriage and began to have an emotional affair with an old boyfriend, he tried to help me put that past love I was reaching out to in perspective, and pushed me to ask myself what it was that was really holding me back in my relationship with my husband -- was it him, or was it me? And indeed, there was a lot of work I needed to do on myself before I got to the point where I was capable of giving what I wanted to receive in my marriage.

Years later, when I had a spectacular job interview in a place to which my husband did not want to move, he urged me not to let him continue to hold me back. I'd done the work on myself, by that point, and he gave me permission to say enough is enough and walk away from the marriage if I still wasn't getting what I needed.

With my own father so absent from my emotional life and an emotional distance with my now ex-husband that grew steadily over the last half of our marriage, this friend was instrumental in my continued growth and development into the woman I am today. He saw who I was, knew what I was capable of, and pushed me to be a better version of myself.

More than this, I could not ask for:

I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like dream in the night
Who can say where we're going
No care in the world
Maybe I'm learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing

Teach Your Children

For the last handful of years, I've been working through some pretty painful, long suppressed issues from my childhood. The desire to continue to move through them both motivated me to sign up for the silent retreat and provided a great deal of anxiety about what I'd have to face on that cushion with none of my usual distractions around to call upon when the going got particularly tough. And indeed, at times, it has been really, really tough. For the first 24 hours or so, I used one of my favorite distractions: thinking about someone else's issues and how I might be able to help them heal. (I'm particularly adept at focusing this kind of energy on the men in my life - after all, I spent my childhood hopelessly devoted to trying to cure what ailed my father.)

With the compassionate guidance of the person leading the retreat, I watched myself not dealing with my own issues, and gradually, I began to settle into my own body, my own issues, my own healing. And what I found, when I did this, was not scary at all -- and not tough in the way that it had been in the past when my mind had the opportunity to keep me in unproductive loops of the past, my identification with it, and its ability to determine my future.

Quite the contrary: what I found was a deep well of strength, an unshakable peace, and a whole bunch of compassion for myself, for my parents, for my sister, and for all others who've entered into parenting roles without being whole themselves.

My Mom, who turns 66 today, was pregnant with me during this Crosby, Stills and Nash performance. As I continue my own healing journey, I'm going to keep returning to both the challenge and the reassurance I find in these masterful lyrics:

Teach your parents well

Their children’s hell

Will slowly go by

And feed them on your dreams

The one they pick's

The one you’ll know by.

Don’t you ever ask them why

If they told you, you would cry

So just look at them and sigh

And know they love you.

Helpless

Ok, so I failed to mention yesterday that between seated meditation sessions, we got to do 15-30 minute walking meditations. This was a great relief to my knees, back and shoulders -- not to mention my psyche. During that first and toughest day, I'd spotted a soda machine at breakfast. During a walking meditation, I wandered down toward the dining hall with a dollar in my pocket with the intention to purchase what felt like an illicit beverage -- they served only water, juice or milk at meals. (This was not the indicated use of the walking meditation time, mind you.) When I arrived, I found the machine unplugged, and this song drifting out of the kitchen:

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us

Helpless, helpless, helpless
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked
and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow.

Helpless I was -- but I nonetheless savored my encounter with this always delicious, but not usually illicit substance, both because it felt naughty and because the lyrics were so apropos of my situation:

And in my mind
I still need a place to go...

Or I would, as soon as this walking meditation period ended and I was back on that damn cushion.

Eye of the Tiger

Survivor I am, as my pal Yoda would say.

I'm back from my 3 day silent retreat, and I can honestly say it was a phenomenal experience, but like a lot of phenomenal experiences (childbirth & marriage come to mind) it also TOTALLY sucked at some points. I was so afraid of what it would be like not to be able to talk or make eye contact for 3 days, but as it turned out, the far greater challenge was one 45-minute seated meditation after the other -- all day long -- the last one ended at 9:30pm.

We did take breaks to eat and sleep, and while I always appreciate a good sleep, it was really the food that saved me during that first and most harrowing 24-hour period. As I sat there, silently eating my meal, I pondered whether I'd ever make it as a Buddhist if all I really cared about was getting through all those damn meditation sessions so I could eat again. The food tasted SO amazing after sitting in silence for all that time -- I couldn't rave about it to my fellow retreatants or to the chef, of course -- so I just savored every morsel. Until they made me sit again. That's the funny thing, though, they really didn't make me do anything -- they just relied on the fact that we all wanted the result of all that sitting badly enough to keep coming back to the meditation hall. (More on results in a later post -- I've got a backlog in me after all that quiet contemplative time!)

I think it was the first morning, during like the 4th 45-minute sit (the first one started at 6:45am -- you can get more in before noon that way), that I just about lost my mind. And then I heard, as if I wasn't sitting in silence on a cushion, but rather, running up Breese Terrace during Madison's annual Crazylegs run:

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight

Risin' up to the challenge of our rival

And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night

And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

And that got me through until the next time the bell rang, and it was finally time for lunch.

Jersey Girl

This morning my ipod reminded me of a truth about which I had forgotten: I'm in love with a Jersey girl. At least I felt like I was, when I heard the Boss singing this phenomenal tune:

So don't bother me man I ain't got no time
I'm on my way to see that girl of mine
'Cause nothing matters in this whole wide world
When you're in love with a Jersey girl...

This song was written by another of my favorite male rockers: Tom Waits. And I can't really decide between Bruce's version and Tom's original-- they're both so amazing.

My man Eddie Vedder took this song on too, and I know it's a shocker since he's so often number one in my heart, but in this crowd I have to give him the silver (since Bruce & Tom shared the gold) in the coolest rocker contest.

Sing Sha la la la la la la
Sha la la la la la la la la
Sha la la la la la la
Sha la la la I'm in love with a Jersey girl...

Cool Change

I am one lucky, loved woman, and for the last dozen years, I've been lucky enough to get a lot of that love from colleagues in my position as a University researcher. This is my last week on the job, and over the last couple of days, many of these wonderful people have joined in a happy hour celebration in the evening after work and fritters in the office suite in the morning to help mark this huge rite of passage.

Last night at the bar, we went around the table and took turns saying what we would do if we quit our jobs and could do anything we wanted. It was really inspiring to hear about people's passions and it helped shore me up to take my own plunge. In many respects, I am quitting my job and doing what I want: writing my memoir, teaching yoga, being a more involved mother, and continuing to work to find the best levers to push for change so that we don't continue to fail generations of poor black kids with our public school system.

It isn't easy to leave -- the security of a regular paycheck, 5 weeks of vacation, practically free health care -- not to mention the laughter, intellectual stimulation and support of my colleagues. But I'm not leaving Madison, so I'll still get to see them sometimes. And although it is not without some fear, I believe in the Universe's abundant ability to provide for people to do the work they are on this earth to do. I've been able to do some of it from the confines of the institution, and I'm grateful for that. But there's more I need to do outside it.

Sing it, Little River Band!

Time for a cool change
I know that it's time
for a cool change
Now that my life
is so pre-arranged
I know that it's time
for a cool change...

Love Will Come to You

I think one of the hardest things we are asked to do as human beings is let go and trust rather than holding on for dear life. I know from my own experience that when I can let go and trust, I always get what I need, but I still don't like that feeling of floating in a sea of uncertainty when there is a perfectly seaworthy vessel I could just ride -- if it weren't so important that I learn to swim. But it is important. And I don't just mean know how to keep myself from drowning in the water -- I've got that covered -- I mean REALLY swim: beautiful, efficient, strengthening, lengthening strokes that propel me nearly effortlessly through the water. And it isn't just important because one day, that vessel won't be there. Even when it is there, and I choose to ride on it, if I can do so knowing my own capability in the water, I'll be that much more content a passenger.

Yes kids, that's what they call an extended metaphor. You follow?

Maybe a little ditty from these two chicks can help. I used to listen to them all the time when I was younger, and I found particular comfort in the refrain of this song:

I say love will come to you
hoping just because I spoke the words that they're true
as if I offered up a crystal ball to look through
where there's now one there will be two

This song touches on another theme I've been grappling with, which is how to keep my heart open even when things start to feel precarious -- working with that edge, as I tell my yoga students about the postures -- is where we have the most capacity to grow, strengthen, open... And so, while I think the end of this song is really beautiful:

And I wish her insight to battle love's blindness
strength from the milk of human kindness
a safe place for all the pieces that scattered
learn to pretend there's more than love that matters

This time around, I'm going to drink from that milk of human kindness, trust that the pieces of my heart are right where they need to be, safe or not, and not pretend for one single moment that there's more than love that matters.

Superwoman

Had a great talk with my home girl today, someone with whom I shared a lot of conjecture about what love & marriage would be like long before either one of us embarked on that path. Not surprisingly, a lot of that conjecture consisted of music, and this was one of our favorites to sing together about what we wanted and needed in a relationship:

Oooh, baby, look into the corners of your mind
I'll always be there for you through good and bad times
But I can't be that superwoman that you want me to be
I'll give my everlasting love if you'll return love to me

I'm not your superwoman (Oh, no, oh, no)
I'm not the kind of girl that you can let down
And think that everything's okay
Boy, I am only human (I'm only human)
This girl needs more than occasional
Hugs as a token of love from you to me (Oh, no)

It's funny. In some respects I'm tempted to conclude that love and marriage are really more complicated than this song and/or our preconceived notions of love and marriage would have us believe. But in other respects, it really is just about this simple. I guess ultimately what becomes so complex is that the love we need changes and sometimes our spouses are able to roll with those changed needs and sometimes they aren't.

The Sound of You

I love Reina del Cid. She's like a real life version of the character that Ellen Page plays in Juno, especially in this song, where she's accompanied by a young man not unlike the one in the movie.

I have no idea why she hasn't hit the big time -- but with her fresh lyrics, authentic sound, and cute mug -- I bet she will before too long.

For now, let this one of hers about letting go of fear and surrendering to love fill your senses:

But despite my fear
I've got no way of stoppin'
The sound of you from breaking through
The static in my mind
And I just won't hear
Another word of caution

I know it's dangerous
To love like us
But I feel safe enough in the sound of you...

I Kissed a Girl

Ever since I was a little girl, I have often been unable to resist the temptation to say something that I know will get a rise out of someone.

This morning was a fine example. I went to the coffee shop closest to my place of employment (for one more week) to get my Cafe Americano, and as usual, I chatted with the friendly barista while I waited for my brew. The person in line before me had announced that his girlfriend was in town, and when it was my turn to chat about what my weekend had in store, I told him that I wasn't sure -- but my girlfriend was not in town. He smiled, and then I said "I don't really have that kind of girlfriend" and he said "Whatever Sarah, you just outed yourself, you can't take it back now."

I laughed -- I found the whole thing amusing, and when I went outside to bask in the autumn sunshine with my tasty beverage, it was this catchy tune I heard in my head.

Speaking of sexuality, while having my coffee, I read Savage Love, which almost always makes me laugh out loud. Today, however, I discovered something very cool that I wanted to pass along here. Turns out that Dan Savage, the sex columnist who writes Savage Love, and his partner, started a youtube site called It Gets Better for gay people to post videos of themselves as happy adults to give hope to young gay teens who are being harassed in their schools. As the column linked above explains, a number of these teens recently committed suicide because things felt so hopeless.

Not that it's particularly deep, but I do appreciate that this Katy Perry song may have taken some of the stigma out of having an attraction to someone of the same sex and acting on it. I hope so. No one deserves to be treated like those poor harassed teens...