i find myself recalling this image on this very grey beijing day. not a flame (or a glimmer of sunlight) in sight. it is one of those days when the pollution is so think you could stick a spoon in it and i imagine it would stay suspended in the sky. ick. in this unwarm environment, i am feeling warmth in life. although the line comes from a poem about death. (landor's "on his seventy-fifth birthday": nature i loved, and next to nature, art; i warmed both hands before the fire of life, it sinks, and i am ready to depart.)
that's all any of us can ever do, really. warm our hands by the fire of life and marvel at it. getting burned is unavoidable. but better than being cold.
i am glad to be in this space again, despite my promised six months of silence. even at the time, i admitted the six months was arbitrary. a friend visiting in january and listening to all of my elaborate constructs sagely observed that you can't place a timeline on your emotional life. i told him i love plans. and i needed an infrastructure of some sort at that point. i needed momentum, marking points, something. i acknowledge now, though, that my need was misplaced. really i just needed (and need) to marvel at the fire of it all. warm my hands.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
and then, death
after writing in the wee hours of this morning, i received some deeply tragic news. it swiftly made all my worries about beginning to blog again seem entirely insubstantial. i had fretted about becoming one of those women who blathers on about her broken heart, or been concerned about opening this medium of communication and really only speaking for or to little trouble. i had been giving serious consideration to only using this space for 'professional' ponderings - focusing on the law and human rights and abandoning my musings on butterfly wings, trust, and other such gossamer things. and then, death.
in january, a wonderful legal expert came over to participate in one of our programs. he was truly a remarkable and brilliant individual - one of the world's leading experts on natural resource damage assessment (his technical background is in environmental toxicology and ecology), he was also an accomplished jazz pianist, a loving father, a traveler, a linguist, a cook. we connected in a way that i rarely do with our legal experts. in addition to delivering brilliant lectures for two environmental programs, we spoke of murakami and his fascination with subways, of art and the many ways to make a life. early in planning this program he had asked if his son, an art student who was interested in asian art, might accompany him on his trip to beijing and if we could help him find appropriate activities. i of course agreed and said i would do what i could to make sure his son had an enjoyable visit.
his son was named hart. he was bright, unfailingly polite, kind, and gracious. he had a great time exploring the beijing art world by day and met up with us in the evenings. i was impressed with his sense of adventure (he somehow managed to navigate his way to the art museum on a local bus), his warmth, this commitment to truly see things (sketching outside the confucious temple for hours in the bitter cold), and his perspective (his photographs and descriptions of his time at the 798 art district demonstrated he saw much more there than i did). on the last night of our program i had hart and his father and some of my colleagues over to my flat for a celebratory glass of champagne before dinner. i'd never invited a visiting legal expert over before, but it just felt natural with them. hart sent me a sweet thank you note not so long ago, saying that his visit was an incredible experience and that he was working on a whole series of drawings and paintings from his china adventure.
i learned this morning that he died unexpectedly the day he sent me that email. i almost couldn't believe the news as i read it. it was from a colleague of hart's father's - we had been working on developing a follow on project together and he was explaining that he had not been responsive because he had been dealing with a personal tragedy. my heart breaks for him and his family. and for hart. who still had so much to give. here is a brief piece on his death: http://www.dailycamera.com/obits/ci_14422312#axzz0gP0VaPiE
i am now trying to write a note to his father expressing the condolences of our office. but how do you find the hard, round words necessary to say anything meaningful in these circumstances? it is also always strange when the very real - death, love, blood - bursts the immaculate bubble of professional or academic life, where we are meant to function and interact as brains alone. but we never are. i actually recently had lunch with an impressive former law school professor of mine who i initially developed a connection with by my father's helping him locate hospice care for his father as he was dying. something so real, raw, and intimate we never spoke of it in person or in the law school hallways - only over email at night. this professor has gone on to do great things - win supreme court cases and such. but at lunch he still asked about my ba. it's these human connections that always matter more. and death always reminds us of how fleeting it all is. how it can all be undone in a second. and so we must love, while these moments are still called today. life’s short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. o, be swift to love! make haste to be kind. - henri-frederic amiel
i will make a donation in hart's memory. maybe live a little more daringly. try to discern the beauty everywhere a little more distinctly. discard my insubstantial worries - about this blog or otherwise. and love, love, love.
in january, a wonderful legal expert came over to participate in one of our programs. he was truly a remarkable and brilliant individual - one of the world's leading experts on natural resource damage assessment (his technical background is in environmental toxicology and ecology), he was also an accomplished jazz pianist, a loving father, a traveler, a linguist, a cook. we connected in a way that i rarely do with our legal experts. in addition to delivering brilliant lectures for two environmental programs, we spoke of murakami and his fascination with subways, of art and the many ways to make a life. early in planning this program he had asked if his son, an art student who was interested in asian art, might accompany him on his trip to beijing and if we could help him find appropriate activities. i of course agreed and said i would do what i could to make sure his son had an enjoyable visit.
his son was named hart. he was bright, unfailingly polite, kind, and gracious. he had a great time exploring the beijing art world by day and met up with us in the evenings. i was impressed with his sense of adventure (he somehow managed to navigate his way to the art museum on a local bus), his warmth, this commitment to truly see things (sketching outside the confucious temple for hours in the bitter cold), and his perspective (his photographs and descriptions of his time at the 798 art district demonstrated he saw much more there than i did). on the last night of our program i had hart and his father and some of my colleagues over to my flat for a celebratory glass of champagne before dinner. i'd never invited a visiting legal expert over before, but it just felt natural with them. hart sent me a sweet thank you note not so long ago, saying that his visit was an incredible experience and that he was working on a whole series of drawings and paintings from his china adventure.
i learned this morning that he died unexpectedly the day he sent me that email. i almost couldn't believe the news as i read it. it was from a colleague of hart's father's - we had been working on developing a follow on project together and he was explaining that he had not been responsive because he had been dealing with a personal tragedy. my heart breaks for him and his family. and for hart. who still had so much to give. here is a brief piece on his death: http://www.dailycamera.com/obits/ci_14422312#axzz0gP0VaPiE
i am now trying to write a note to his father expressing the condolences of our office. but how do you find the hard, round words necessary to say anything meaningful in these circumstances? it is also always strange when the very real - death, love, blood - bursts the immaculate bubble of professional or academic life, where we are meant to function and interact as brains alone. but we never are. i actually recently had lunch with an impressive former law school professor of mine who i initially developed a connection with by my father's helping him locate hospice care for his father as he was dying. something so real, raw, and intimate we never spoke of it in person or in the law school hallways - only over email at night. this professor has gone on to do great things - win supreme court cases and such. but at lunch he still asked about my ba. it's these human connections that always matter more. and death always reminds us of how fleeting it all is. how it can all be undone in a second. and so we must love, while these moments are still called today. life’s short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. o, be swift to love! make haste to be kind. - henri-frederic amiel
i will make a donation in hart's memory. maybe live a little more daringly. try to discern the beauty everywhere a little more distinctly. discard my insubstantial worries - about this blog or otherwise. and love, love, love.
in dreams begin responsibilities
i recently read that line - in dreams begin responsibilities - in a murakami book. he attributes it to yeats. nothing makes me happier than reading murakami making sense of yeats. so i immediately wrote it down in my little black book for collecting the words and ways of the world that inspire me. i loved that line not only for the authors, but also for how much thinking it provoked. (this may just once again confirm my capacity for over-thinking, mind, but nonetheless.) my final assessment, unsurprisingly, is that we must dream boldly and find ways to live up to our dreams - that we have an obligation to our most uncensored, subconscious, true and sacred selves to pay attention and to do so.
i was dreaming earlier tonight, but am now sleepless at 4:00 am. thankfully i am no longer awake with heartache, merely jetlag. but if in dreams begin responsibilities, in jetlagged early morning hours begins a return to blogging. i am just back from a glorious three weeks in the land of the free and the home of the brave. while there, i did yoga again for the first time this year. i went to a class in nyc frequented by a few friends. the class was ansura - a style of yoga that i had not done before. it was an intense experience. the teacher's approach was very much focused on alignment and she spoke of relating to one's body in ways i had never imagined. instructing us, for example, to hug our muscles up our legs from our feet to our hips, open space behind our collarbones, and all manner of other gorgeously vivid anatomical ideas i cannot even recall now. she was obsessed with the tailbone and even had us find ours at some point as we were standing on our mats. her purpose was to open us up - to create space in the vessels that we are so that our grace and confidence could have sufficient space. i struggled with some of her instructions. i did not know how to actualize her command to make our blood less alkaline. or fully grasp her discussion of the challenges of being too acidic. (my internal dialogue was full of curious questions about that - ooh, i hate being too acidic, yes. good point. but when exactly am i too acidic? am i too acidic now? what causes it? and how can i make my blood less alkaline? deeper breathing? more focus? hmmm....) overall, it was a positive experience and it felt very good to be moving back towards yoga. and even if i haven't done it since, i have sincere intentions to resume my practice now that i am back in beijing. hopefully even find a teacher.
lying awake in my bed this not-quite-yet-morning, i reasoned that if i have returned to yoga, i can return to blogging. in fact, i have been having impulses to write since that saturday morning class. so here i am. one of the most interesting aspects of the ansura class was the way the teacher gravitated towards me. she has quite a following and the class was absolutely packed (people line up 30 minutes before class even after pre-registering). how much we all crave transformation! or is that it exactly? inspiration? calm? some glimpse into our own connection with the divine? a tight bum? maybe all of the above. she spoke during class about the relationship between precision and spaciousness - with more precision, we can create more space. an idea not unlike my sometimes love affair with discipline as freedom. of course, there are times when it is necessary and glorious to be imprecise. but i appreciated the more precision, more space mantra that morning and left feeling secure in my need to be more precise in my thoughts, words, deeds and enjoying the lightness that could bring. i am not sure why this teacher was drawn to me. after class, my friends were astonished, saying that we had a real spiritual connection. one commented almost jealously that she's been coming to her for years and never received any adjustments. i laughed it off saying she was only drawn to me because she could tell how needy and hurting i was, so it wasn't exactly a compliment. whether that's the case, i don't know.
i do know that early in the class, she came over to me while i was in downward-facing dog, used her hands to open my shoulders, placed her forehead in the centre of my back, nudging me a few times, and whispered "oh love, let it go." i almost burst into tears. instead i tried to allow myself to open further, to breath deeper, to process. (i have a document on my laptop called 'processing' these days. i have been writing there to avoid writing here. but i think i did more processing in that moment of letting my shoulders melt and twirl away from each other than i did in all my pages of cliched pondering.) she came back to adjust me one or two more times during the class. as the class was drawing to a close, she became concerned about a draft from the large studio windows that she felt was blowing on my mat. so as i was settling into shavasana, she constructed a small fort around me at my head using foam blocks and meditation blankets. she was protecting me from the draft, but it somehow felt to me as though it was about so much more than the wind. my friend on the mat next to mine turned and smiled, saying "you have a fort!" i smiled back, repeating, "i have a fort!" what i didn't say was, "i am fortified." i will get through this. i knew that before i set foot in the yoga studio. somewhere in that precise, deep, sacred space within. the wall of blankets this teacher created only confirmed it. but it was a safe, glorious feeling nonetheless.
when i was little, i used to call my little sister, the cat, and myself "glorious kings". i'm not sure where i got the term or why it comes to me now. but i felt like a glorious king in that moment in the fort. it was a sweet, precise calm after a few whirlwinded storms of emotions - unfathomable deep love for a small child, joy at reuniting with old friends, sadness to see a kindred spirit in terrible pain, overwhelming confusion and hurt after a difficult conversation with a love, gratitude for a full life and an open heart - and there was so much space there i could have swum in it forever.
instead, the class ended. we stretched, shrugged on our coats, and contemplated where to go for brunch. i almost went up to the teacher to thank her for her guidance, but i wasn't sure what to say. and i was worried i would cry. so i thanked her with my heart. when i tried to pay the $2 for my borrowed yoga mat, i was told to take my $2 and give it to someone who needed it to buy a cup of coffee. so i did.
and now i am back in beijing. trying to remain more precise, more spacious. paying attention to my dreams, noting their attendant responsibilities. and dreaming boldly.
i was dreaming earlier tonight, but am now sleepless at 4:00 am. thankfully i am no longer awake with heartache, merely jetlag. but if in dreams begin responsibilities, in jetlagged early morning hours begins a return to blogging. i am just back from a glorious three weeks in the land of the free and the home of the brave. while there, i did yoga again for the first time this year. i went to a class in nyc frequented by a few friends. the class was ansura - a style of yoga that i had not done before. it was an intense experience. the teacher's approach was very much focused on alignment and she spoke of relating to one's body in ways i had never imagined. instructing us, for example, to hug our muscles up our legs from our feet to our hips, open space behind our collarbones, and all manner of other gorgeously vivid anatomical ideas i cannot even recall now. she was obsessed with the tailbone and even had us find ours at some point as we were standing on our mats. her purpose was to open us up - to create space in the vessels that we are so that our grace and confidence could have sufficient space. i struggled with some of her instructions. i did not know how to actualize her command to make our blood less alkaline. or fully grasp her discussion of the challenges of being too acidic. (my internal dialogue was full of curious questions about that - ooh, i hate being too acidic, yes. good point. but when exactly am i too acidic? am i too acidic now? what causes it? and how can i make my blood less alkaline? deeper breathing? more focus? hmmm....) overall, it was a positive experience and it felt very good to be moving back towards yoga. and even if i haven't done it since, i have sincere intentions to resume my practice now that i am back in beijing. hopefully even find a teacher.
lying awake in my bed this not-quite-yet-morning, i reasoned that if i have returned to yoga, i can return to blogging. in fact, i have been having impulses to write since that saturday morning class. so here i am. one of the most interesting aspects of the ansura class was the way the teacher gravitated towards me. she has quite a following and the class was absolutely packed (people line up 30 minutes before class even after pre-registering). how much we all crave transformation! or is that it exactly? inspiration? calm? some glimpse into our own connection with the divine? a tight bum? maybe all of the above. she spoke during class about the relationship between precision and spaciousness - with more precision, we can create more space. an idea not unlike my sometimes love affair with discipline as freedom. of course, there are times when it is necessary and glorious to be imprecise. but i appreciated the more precision, more space mantra that morning and left feeling secure in my need to be more precise in my thoughts, words, deeds and enjoying the lightness that could bring. i am not sure why this teacher was drawn to me. after class, my friends were astonished, saying that we had a real spiritual connection. one commented almost jealously that she's been coming to her for years and never received any adjustments. i laughed it off saying she was only drawn to me because she could tell how needy and hurting i was, so it wasn't exactly a compliment. whether that's the case, i don't know.
i do know that early in the class, she came over to me while i was in downward-facing dog, used her hands to open my shoulders, placed her forehead in the centre of my back, nudging me a few times, and whispered "oh love, let it go." i almost burst into tears. instead i tried to allow myself to open further, to breath deeper, to process. (i have a document on my laptop called 'processing' these days. i have been writing there to avoid writing here. but i think i did more processing in that moment of letting my shoulders melt and twirl away from each other than i did in all my pages of cliched pondering.) she came back to adjust me one or two more times during the class. as the class was drawing to a close, she became concerned about a draft from the large studio windows that she felt was blowing on my mat. so as i was settling into shavasana, she constructed a small fort around me at my head using foam blocks and meditation blankets. she was protecting me from the draft, but it somehow felt to me as though it was about so much more than the wind. my friend on the mat next to mine turned and smiled, saying "you have a fort!" i smiled back, repeating, "i have a fort!" what i didn't say was, "i am fortified." i will get through this. i knew that before i set foot in the yoga studio. somewhere in that precise, deep, sacred space within. the wall of blankets this teacher created only confirmed it. but it was a safe, glorious feeling nonetheless.
when i was little, i used to call my little sister, the cat, and myself "glorious kings". i'm not sure where i got the term or why it comes to me now. but i felt like a glorious king in that moment in the fort. it was a sweet, precise calm after a few whirlwinded storms of emotions - unfathomable deep love for a small child, joy at reuniting with old friends, sadness to see a kindred spirit in terrible pain, overwhelming confusion and hurt after a difficult conversation with a love, gratitude for a full life and an open heart - and there was so much space there i could have swum in it forever.
instead, the class ended. we stretched, shrugged on our coats, and contemplated where to go for brunch. i almost went up to the teacher to thank her for her guidance, but i wasn't sure what to say. and i was worried i would cry. so i thanked her with my heart. when i tried to pay the $2 for my borrowed yoga mat, i was told to take my $2 and give it to someone who needed it to buy a cup of coffee. so i did.
and now i am back in beijing. trying to remain more precise, more spacious. paying attention to my dreams, noting their attendant responsibilities. and dreaming boldly.
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