X

"All the art of living lies in a fine line mingling between letting go and holding on."

---Havelock Ellis

I had an unexpected day today...a Snow Day for Coop in NYC...didn't change my early morning wakeup, it simply created a most fluid mellowdy to the day. A quiet hang with Coop in the morning, a wonderful gift, this Saturday (feeling) on Friday...even more so, the surprise gift...and then he went off to sled with friends in Central Park, leaving me alone...so love that time. How important it is, so many of us don't seem to carve out enough of that. Or maybe they don't need it, I have no idea. What do I know, I am the kid who talked to bathroom vanity mirrors for so many years, ouloud. Hey, everyone needs someone to talk to...who better than Geminiacal me (don't answer that)?

I had to go and pick up Coop's snow boots from his Mom...not someone whom I generally love to see, under any circumstances...and, I had zippity (bad) energy on it...just made it happen. It's interesting that I had seen her already two times this week, at Coop's bball games. Tuesday, I came in a bit late, she was sitting with her Dad...I came over at halftime, gave them both warm greetings, I talked to him about what was going on with me creatively...I have to say, during the marriage, he was always way more encouraging to me about pursuing my dream than she was...he could so relate, the fabulous cartoonist who became the biggest exterminator in NY over the years, the big macher in his field during his career...the excellent provider...and, still, I sense, a bit of the "what if-fer", the artist who now makes his creative peace in other outlets...yesterday, when X came to the game after me, she made no effort to even make eye contact with me...didn't matter, the contrast was notable, the social consciousness way different. So today, when I met up with her on the snowy SW corner of Varick/Houston, we walked two blocks together. X had recently not landed a gig creative job at an agency, not sure why...I looked in her eyes, and said, "Sorry about the job. Clearly not meant to be. There must be something better, next, for you." Those words just rolled off my lips. No brain thought. The compassion came out. No anger. No subtext. No hiding out. X is someone I have tried to create some threads with, teeny even, that would be fine...and, it's always one-sided. Just me doing that. Whenever there's a reasonably open or warm opening paragraph from her in an email, all I have to do is scan down to see what she wants or needs. Effective and accurate market research. 100% of the time. So, I never know whether the two sets of rules are a neon lesson for me to keep going, keep showing up as I would, keep opening up. Or, an opportunity to look at one-sidedness, as some other kind of lesson. To play by her rules? Or as a reflection of some part of me. That must be doing that, otherwise I wouldn't attract that behavior. I don't know. Unless I do. It has to start with me. I can't look to anyone else to make that shift. Because whether or not someone even CAN, doesn't matter. You want it, make it happen. So, I (try to) do what I do, to be who I aspire to be. When I am able. I keep seeing this relationship as a lesson of the ultimate power. God knows it's challenged me in more ways than I can imagine. Truly, I have come to realize that if I can stay as open and NONATTACHED as I can be, wherever that is, whatever that means, in that moment, as each one unfolds, I have a shot to keep going further.

So, it was under that spirit today, that quietness inside, that I rondayvood with X. And as we walked those two blocks until she descended the subway stairs, it FELT different. Maybe in a way that it hasn't for 11 or so dynamically challenged and challenging years. I offered to turn her onto another agency I know in her specialty, and I wished her luck, and walked away. With a shake of my head. This time not because it was a physical reflection of the words in my head or those coming out of my mouth. Because it was a surprise. Like the day in general. Snow Day as a healing day? To see and feel OK with the engagement. And instead of being angry about all the bullshit I have felt over time, all the JP-determined unfairnesses and injustices or broken whatevers, none of it mattered. I laughed and shook because the artist I had met twentysomething years ago had indeed turned into the ad agency talent she clearly had the gifts for, yet ran away from. And, that lawyer she had always wanted me to be, had transformed into the life artist that I had buried inside, the person I dreamed of and finally can acknowledge to be the person I always felt I deserved to be...the person, the dreamer, who scared her, who couldn't (as somehow the "lawyer" might) provide the kind of fencing, picket or otherwise, that she seemed to crave. X seemed more content, less angry at the man who had "fucked up her life", settled into her own skin. In a way that I had never experienced. And, I was happy for her. Almost happy as I was for me. To see and celebrate those unexpected gifts of the soul.

WALKING THE TALK...

"Everything happens for a reason...

GRRRRRR...

xgzyjqucxcr....

ewwcxc...

GRRRR"

- Jonathan Pillot, February 25, 2010, 6:15AM

There are those moments, small as they may be, when we are tested...to see if we REALLY believe what we are saying. I do believe that everything does happen for a reason. And, as a spiritual guide of mine reminded me of a few years ago, it's not just a pick-and-choose kind of belief. Aligning with that when we like the results. The facts. I woke up this morning at 4:30, no alarm, just fully awake. Inspired to write. It flowed and flowed, the words, the thoughts, the feelings. For more than an hour. I was having trouble saving it, something was glitchy on this site. It kept SAYING it was saving. As I was finishing up the piece, the computer just shut down, on its own. When I rebooted, and went back to the blog, nothing was there, except the first paragraph I had started last night. I just looked at the screen, kind of blown away...felt like lost moments...maybe just lost words...lost? I don't know. Definitely not sure where/what the lesson is right here...a practical one? Like, next time write in Word, then cut and paste here? Or, simply more ephemeral. Ego reminders? Attachment smackers? Who knows...I'll get it back...or something else...xbvertxuyrrtxvxGRRRRR....

And then, 30 seconds after hitting "Send", I got this in an email from dear Marion (thank you!):

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each gues honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

---Jelaluddin Rumi

translation by Coleman Barks

"SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESS CHILD"

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, So far away."

-"Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, Harry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949)

When I restarted this blog a few weeks ago, I wanted to try and write every day...as an outlet for writing, as an exercise for my revised book proposal. And, I was all over it, every M-F day, loving it. And then I began this piece on my Mother one morning about a week ago. I wrote until I had to leave the house, and then for the next at least 7 days, it just sat there. Unfinished. And I started to notice that each day the Pink Elephant kept getting pinker. The rationale more confused. Why wasn't I justg finishing it? I couldn't figure out why. What was catching-in my throat, what was getting in my way, inside me...I'm still not sure, maybe it's what/who I was writing about, or maybe it was the door through which I was entering this musing that, once I paused, felt somewhat unnerving. You see, I'm not much into "what-if" stories at this point i n my life. Maybe at another time, it would have been somewhat satisfying. The story. Any story. Now, I really don't care as much. About my own story. Must be why one of my newest favorite phrases is "It is what it is." Plain and simple. VERY short story. Helps me to focus on what is, not on what isn't. Definitely cuts down on the drama. Less frustration. Less disappointment. And, I have been craving less drama (and frustration and disappointment), and I knew that it had to start with me. So, maybe I just got entangled inside with this "what-if," the deeper sadness, and I just didn't want to go there...because it's so vast...the notion of how one's life would be unrecognizable if someone elemental to one's life, a parent in this case, had not had the life that they did...because it really doesn't matter...since I began this piece, something shifted inside, even slightly, and I just wasn't compelled to follow that thread...at least for these days...I knew I had to finish though, some moment would just find me "here", inspired, once I hit the metaphorical "send," to simply move on...the following is what I had written...I'm just leaving it alone...for now...

My Mom died when I was 18. What really struck me again recently was that, to a great degree, I kind of lost her, big parts of her, when she first got breast cancer ten years before when she was 38. In those days, long before Betty Ford and other pioneers who shined lights in dark corners and brought the disease out of the closet, and provided women with an ability to be open, a sense of community, Marilyn Pillot kind of checked out in certain ways. As a Mom, a wife, a woman. She felt very much alone. Probably not just with her illness, with this horrible disease and the facing of her own mortality, but surely in her life, in her marriage. 38. Like a kid...relatively speaking. Two radical mastectomies by 39. Then 48 rolled around. Incredible to me how young that can seem, or be. The age that has nothing to do with the number. Particularly when you really never had the chance to get into second or third gear. I remember the day when I became older than she ever was...48 years, six months, 11 days. It didn't "make sense," me still feeling like a babe in the woods...she now the young one, frozen in time.

These days, what constantly comes up for me, as the son of this mother, isn't the sadness per se, or the fact that she hasn't been in my life for way longer than she was (physically), it's this unreconcileable, unanswerable notion of what my life would have been like if she hadn't been sick, if she hadn't died. What would life have been like if I "had a Mom," that constant presence, in a more ongoing way. While I always think of the life altering sliding door moments that often can be the smallest, most seemingly inconsequential choices or decisions made in real time, without forethought (walk on one side of the street versus the other, and your life can be changed), the bigger what-if's are there too. The ones that you had no choice in effecting. This is not a pityparty exercise, or an oh poor me sensibility. Losing my Mom as I did, dealing with what was before me at an early age, finding my way through and surviving as I did, certainly contributed as much to who I became, as a male, as a male who appreciates and respects and loves women, as anything else that is in my life stew. People have had it way worse than I have...and, that's not what I am focusing in on here. It is simply that occasionally gnawing what-if. What would it had been like having a go-to person, at the seemingly inconsequential moments, as much as for the biggies. "Hi, Mom, what did you think?" Or, maybe, "Mom, did you like her?" Those kinds of things. I know it's a ridiculous game, it has no end, no resolution. Given that life is a chain series of events, each one and the collective of all that have come before having an effect on the next choices, what comes next. If Mom isn't sick, if she lives a full life, then everything would have been different, where I went to college, whom I met, whom I married. My kids would not be my kids. I get all that, the circular game that has no end. And, it's simply human nature to wonder. Particularly because as I look around and listen to my friends discuss their relationships with parents both alive and dead, the conversations, whether they be the most loving, or still challenged, the underlying theme is the same. One's love of a parent.

ALLOWING...

"The Warrior of Light needs time to himself. And he uses that time for rest, contemplation, and contact with the Soul of the World. Even in the middle of a battle, he manages to meditate. Occasionally, the Warrior sits down, relaxes, and lets everything that is happening around him continue to happen. He looks at the world as a spectator, he does not try to add to it or take away from it, he merely surrenders unresistingly to the movement of life. Little by little, everything that seemed complicated begins to become simple. And the Warrior is glad."

- Paulo Coelho, Warrior Of The Light

I've been meditating on and off since my mid 20's. Mostly off. Started out going to a Transcendental Meditation (TM) class with some friends, got my mantra, and started TRYING to meditate. Always somehow felt like an effort, I could rarely "transcend", get myself to a place where my mind felt still, where I would come out of the sitting and feel refreshed, still. No matter how many times I would hear that it was OK to have thoughts come up, I could so rarely ever be in that place where the chatter while I was meditating was any less than it was at any other point in the day. I'd start reading more and more books, some even called "Quiet Your Mind," or some such thing, and it seemed to create more THINKING, more TRYING. More internal clutter. Reminded me of something that used to challenge me when I was married to X. She was, pretty much, a slob. A pack rat, nothing really ever got put away, so that all that clutter around, just would plug into the clutter in my own head. I would suggest ( I am sure each time with less patience than before) new ways of her dealing with it, my ideas generally being met with digging-in, and the purchase of a new book on dealing with clutter. One day I looked up, and there were 10 unread, certainly under-utilized books about clutter, cluttering around our house. Not sure I actually laughed at the time. But the lesson, the mirror, is clear. Other's teachings, or suggestions, are helpful to get started...ultimately, one doesn't need all that stuff, all that external info, the real answers are within us...if we stay open to feeling and seeing what works.

A few months ago, I started taking a Tuesday 5:30PM meditation class with Cyndi Lee at Om Yoga (http://www.omyoga.com/). A half hour of group meditation, which really amounts to about 20-25 minutes of actual meditation, because Cyndi starts this class with a personal story that always resonates for me in a profound way. Takes the pressure off, allows me to simply to connect with whatever is up at the moment. Cyndi's amazing gifts, as a teacher, is her humanness, her unholier than thou approach, to yoga, meditation, spirituality. And, her style of meditation, and her approach - to life, not just meditation - has helped me enormously. I have learned to "accept" my mind, how it works, how it is firing all the time, unless it's not...instead of having eyes firmly closed, TRYING to get to someplace else, this form of meditation, has eyes mostly closed, partially open....focusing on a space let's say 10 feet in front...looking, as Cyndi says, from "the back of your eyes"...it has been transformative. I could rarely sit for even 10 minutes, eyes closed, fighting with whatever came up...now, 25 minutes flies by, often twice a day, mind wandering constantly, I just come back to the breath...it is a way that allows me to have meditation be part of my life, not separate from it. A real life experience, not something to fully step into or away from. Like when I meditate in motion when running, somehow I have found a way(s) to be quieter than when I am efforting to make that happen. As someone who has so often carried those metaphorical boulders uphill or swam against the current, it feels so much better to find what actually works, for me, and simply flow downhill, more so than ever.

INNOCENCE....

Sometimes I will read something and it speaks to me in ways that cause me to feel that the author is talking to me...or reaching into my head, or heart, and knowing what is there at that very moment...the following is one of those times. It's snowy here, I'm feeling very mellow, and why not share a sensibility and personal truth and belief that someone else has already captured, far better than I ever could. The concept of being willing, a willingness, is something that I think about often. What was I/he/she/they willing to do? Under any corcumstance. It's one of those "objective" words, the answer to the question is just a fact, not a judgment (unless we choose to take that judgment on). Really simple. Was I willing to do something or not. Any unwillingness to do something, at any moment, really doesn't mean anything other than I was not willing to do it. Then. Maybe would have later. Or not. It has no greater significance, without any story around it. My degree of willingness doesn't make me good or bad, what I did right or wrong (necessarily). It's a "just is." So, in a world where opinions and judgments, flowing in and out, are a less than a dime a dozen, "willing" for me is a comforting Switzerland. Even though this exceprt from Ganjali's book seems to be more about "innocence", the two words, and concepts, are clearly intertwined.

Thanks to Leslie Asch for turning me on to these words....

-JP

"True innocence is the capacity to directly experience what is here right now, without any demands that it look, act, or feel differently.

Innocence is openness, the willingness to see and to trust, even if what appears seems absolutely untrustworthy. True innocence is naivete, nor is it delusion. However, it involves vulnerability. The willingness to be hurt. This willingness to be vulnerable is what the term "spiritual warrior" really means. Vulnerability takes more courage than being cynical, strong, or powerful. It takes courage to be open, innocent and willing to be hurt.

Because of the nature of extremely close relationships, especially between parents, children, lovers, and partners, hurt is often experienced. So what? Hurt may feel like the end of the world, but it's not. Hurt hurts. The degree to which you are willing to be hurt, not wanting to be hurt but willing to be hurt, is the degree to which you are willing to love, be loved and be taught by love. Love can be your teacher, though it never teaches withdrawal from experiencing hurt. Other people are not the source of your hurt; the source of hurt is the fact that you love. Trust the love. If the love is to hurt you, then let it hurt you fully. Let it annihilate you. Let your heart break open so that an even deeper love can be revealed.

Most everything we do is to avoid vulnerability. We dress up in grown-up clothes, and play at doing grown-up work, in an attempt to escape the defenseless innocence associated with childhood. But innocence is not limited to children. It is possible for you as an adult to be consciously vulnerable and innocent. You can consciously hurt. You can consciously suffer. When you suffer consciously, suffering is revealed not to be what you thought. In conscious suffering, you are no longer fighting the suffering. You are consciously present in it. Then suffering itself reveals the Buddha, Christ's heart, God revealing Itself to you on the mountain. If suffering is met as it appears, then suffering is discovered not to be suffering. But the intention is not to meet suffering to get rid of it. The innocent intention is to meet suffering as it is, even if it means feeling hurt.

Most people are more afraid of having their feelings hurt than they are of having their bodies hurt. But the willingness to be hurt is crucial. Without the willingness to be hurt, there is no willingness to be hurt, there is no willingness to love, no willingness to die, no willingness to live, no willingness to be.

It is easy to see from your own life experience that no matter how much you try and run away from hurt, you still experience it. To stop the running, to turn and experience what is chasing you, open and unprotected, you have to be willing to be free. Are you willing to be free?

You can examine your life and see for yourself what you are running from, what you are trying to escape. It may be very subtle. But just in the seeing of it, there is the possibility of a deeper opening."

The Diamond In Your Pocket, by Ganjali

SIMPLICITY...

"...the more hurriedly and desperately we search for happiness and meaning the faster we stir up a whirlwind of spiritual thought energy which will only lead to discontent, want and ignorance. It we become softer and slow our rush, the fear of desperation will fall away and we can then hear the tender voice of pure thought energy wishing only to guide us. Make things simple in your life. Let your life become simple in its actions, communicate simply and let your love be simple, for then it will be profound. Cultivate your integrity and inner balance and you will find your centre of pure thought energy. It will flow into your life, bringing you all that you need. In your own time you will come to see the simple truth, that the world is a perpetual wonder, created instant by instant by thought energies and that the universe is expressed in all our thoughts, in the spaces between moments and in the sparks of time."

- Christopher Hansard, The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking

By the way, "The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking" is the real shit. It's The Secret, yet instead of new age jargon, it's grounded in thousands of years of Tibetan thought and spiritual practice. At times it may be a tad dense, yet Hansard makes the exercises, and the basis for them, very accessible. And, the whole time, I couldn't help realize that this is an actual genesis of the Laws of Attraction...not the market for pop culture and quick fixes...the kind that I know I have been grasping at for for far too long. The grabbing. The looking at success from the outside, wanting that, craving it, and not at all for the reasons that would really fill me up. And, a big fat fucking "duh"...because it is, at the heart of it, clearly to me the reason that I hadn't/haven't yet achieved the level of "success" that I aspired to (even the notion of success that that was inside-out, that felt right from the core)...that I was looking for it externally and what I had been "doing" was not in alignment with who I am...and that disconnect, short-circuited me all the time. That congruence may not be a requirement for many, I have no idea...maybe others can tough it out, and block it out...it really doesn't matter, this is true for me, and I finally get it...or maybe it's the notion that I might be thought of as being "selfish" ("Who the hell are you to love what you do"? or, my personal favorite "Why you?"), I am not sure. In the end, to me, it doesn't matter. I found that every time I went against my gut, or felt that certain pang of (deep) dissonance inside, and ignored it, something definitely went awry...yeah, I may have gotten stuff "done" or looked like I had succeeded ("wow, you Executive Produced a studio movie", or "how great that a film you produced turned into a TV series"), far too many of my projects were, as dear, wise, amazing, honest friend, MarionLoGuidice (http://www.marionsmusic.com/) said to me a few years ago, with clarity and, thankfully, no irony, "stillborn"...she nailed it, with one word that can, and did, literally, send shudders through my soul...the fact that it reflected the truth, made it even more chilling. And when I finally felt - deeply in that way that one's head shakes about yourself, upon the moment of realization - and not see, that "it" all started with my personal disconnect from me, from my core, from my principles, every time the gut said nay, and the head countered with yay. For the first time in my life I am experiencing what it is like, in 4-D, to feel the interweaving and friendship - actually more like a love affair - between the who and the what. The being and the doing. The understanding that whether you know who Ram Dass or Eckhart Tolle is, it doesn't matter. Once one gets that the words "be here now", or understands what really is "the power of now", are way more than simply catchy popculture phrases or book titles, and an ignition key to the kingdom, a shift within is really possible. So I am learning, and loving it. That doesn't mean I am "good" at it or fully comfortable in a new emotional wardrobe. It IS that I have worked hard to get to a place where I have the OPPORTUNITY to take it on, and simply look at every day, and every moment, as the only place to be. It really is only happening here. Really. Just right here. It seems to be a fact, not an opinion. And, I am going with it. I'm liking these clothes, I am not returning them.

And, I digress. That simplicity directive, made sense to me, maybe for the first time in my life. Drama? I don't want it any more...and, I know that's an expectation, or at least a hope, that is impossible to have met. You know what I mean...I surely want less, of what is outside of me, for sure. And instead of seeing those situations, or energies that didn't feel right as being outside of myself, it's a big "yuck" when I saw that it started with me...within me. And, that outside condition is, I have been taught, a reflection of what's going on with me. So, simplicity is a place to start, so that I can see what a new lens on that might be about. It no longer has to equate with "boring". It hit me the other day that I've never been that happy when the answer to the question of "what do you do?" was simple. When it could be answered in two words. Or One. Lawyer. Entertainment attorney. Producer. Production Manager. I always seemed to be more fulfilled when the "story" had lots of tentacles. When I couldn't be placed in one box. When it was along the lines of "sometimes I am this, and sometimes I do that, and I used to do this and that, and..." It hit me then. Immediately and shake headedly. For the first time in my "professional" (as opposed to, I guess, when I was an "amateur" ) life, I have arrived at a place where the story is at its most simple. The short story. And, I am pretty joyful about it. It clicked my awareness into a new place, that next rock crossing the river, when I started saying "no" more, and "yes" less. No more (at least willingly!) to that rub, to that disconnect. Yes to honoring who I really am, and even more so, who I aspire to be. And what I do, emanating from that grounded core, come from a place of newfound respect for myself, in this moment. Not at some time in the future. I consciously chose to give to me, the best of what I have formerly given to others. Professionally and personally. Doesn't mean that others aren't getting the good stuff any more. I just get to have first dibs. And by doing so, it seems to flow out pretty freely. I like that I can now answer "Writer". And, I like, "I have an idea incubation company." That sounds right. Because it's true. And simple.

"SLIDING DOORS"..."PAY IT FORWARD"

"Dear Jonathan: ...I was going through my files the other day and ran across your name and some paperwork from the [ ] Movie and it got me thinking that my behavior was not okay towards you and I am sorry about the way I acted towards the end of production and after. I worked my ass off to prove myself and let others (who I discovered the hard way are opportunistic in their manipulating and selective in their memory) skew my view of you. This is probably a bit late and I don't want anything from you - I just wanted to say that I am sorry. The bottom line is that I should have come to you instead of listening to others' bullshit. I should have been more loyal to you. I hope there are no more hard feelings anymore between us. I'm sure that you haven't given me a second thought but I wanted to get this off my chest...Take care, "Malia" (Image from http://www.payitforwardinstitute.co.nz/)

This note came to me as an email in the middle of the night, about 2 weeks ago. "Malia" is someone with whom I had not spoken in probably 5 years. I had gotten her a gig, her first "real" job in the entertainment business, on a project that I was producing. She begged me to get on the film. I fought for her, I advocated for a position for her when no one yet believed in her and her extraordinary work ethic that was so apparent to me, she clearly was the kind of person would blow down doors to make stuff happen, to what it takes to get the job done. An absolute female warrior, at least one in waiting or training. What "happened," the specifics of it, are not that important. Suffice it to say that, as often can happen, things went awry. Eager beavers often can get seduced, ans lose their way, by so many things - ambition, promises, narcissists, who knows what else - even those with the best intentions, we all have our own poison. Our own Achilles heels. And they can appear, or shift, so suddenly. Malia, as she noted, went astray, surely from her own values, having less to do with the specifics of how that played out with me. And I allowed that riptide, the undertow that it left, not with Malia per se, but the kind of toxic and endemic behavior that can spread within a group, particularly when precipitated from those that are in charge, to pull me away from my center. A center that was still not clear or formed. And it sat there, acidic, on some level, somewhat, but not fully, dissipated.

So it's not just that this was my emotional backdrop against which I got Malia's email...it's that I was also consciously letting go, and resolving for myself, the lessons of this whole kit and kaboodle, these years later. Malia was quite incorrect that I hadn't given her a "second thought." Maybe the second millionth thought. A metaphor for many things, including the story of the story of the story. Which I no longer wanted to carry around (at least for much longer!!). Malia's willingness to come clean - to own her shit, to not just think it and feel it but to address it directly with the person whom she felt she had wronged - was, and is, the best of what we, as humans, can do...to err, and ask for "forgiveness", and even better, for me, to forgive. Happily. To allow the lessons to come full circle. Because the best part of all of this for me is what happened next, what quickly ensued. A reminder that every day, magic can happen.

Within seconds of getting Malia's email, I forwarded it to Gia, a mutual friend from the Film, who had been VERY upset that Malia had participated in some significant under-the-bus-throwing. I hadn't spoken to her in months. I could have simply responded to Malia (which I did, and we have broken bread and healed eye-to-eye), but I wanted Gia to know, first-hand, about Malia, about her essence, where she had traveled to, and how she had come back. Within moments after getting the email, Gia got back to me, and was so moved my what had unfolded, the payoff from one person's willingness to look inside. She kept talking about the lessons, what she said were my principles that were "validated," how it felt so right. And then she started to cry. Gia had unbeknownst to me, left NYC 3 months ago, partially running away from here, looking to create a new life in LA. And that city I know so well, that used to (but no longer) depress me the moment I got off the plane, every time for years, at LAX within a matter of seconds, was eating her alive. Dragging her to her knees, as only LA can do to someone with no job, no posse, no community, no godfathermother, and in the end, no money. The nice weather doesn't seem to matter, when you're sitting in your apartment, alone in the Valley, with no one returning your job-seeking calls. She was days away from driving to Chicago, to move back in with her mother, ready to cry uncle. "Send me your CV and recommendations, I will put it out there. Let's see what happens."

I am known as a linker, a connector, a hookerupper...it is who I am, I love doing it, more so than ever. Maybe it's because more of us need help, need support, and it's become increasingly clear to more than just a few that it's a gift AND a necessity for us to elevate and nurture each other. I'm not sure why, and it doesn't matter. I sent a glowing email about Gia to 12 people, communicating my love for her, my utmost respect for her work. The open spirit of my intentions definitely was fueling my actions. Within (I kid you not) 2 minutes, an email came back from one of the 12 (no one else responded then, or since)...interested in Gia, at least for part time work...I shook my head. She was the one "quasi-celebrity" in the group, a huge author and global thought leader. The one who I had added last to my reach out, a "what the hell" action on my part, because I had assumed she wouldn't be in the employment market. Well, within two days, Gia had the 20 hours a week, and three days after starting, she was hired fulltime, at a salary that exceeded what she had been seeking. And, when she called me, my tears came immediately. Not just because I had, in one moment, transformed the life of a friend, a person about whom I care deeply. It was the interrelationship of lives, the connective tissue between apparently "random" actions that are NOT disconnected, that are NOT random. It was that familiar realization that "just" one action taken, or not, makes a huge difference. The Sliding Door piece. Malia could have emailed me, and I could have simply made my peace with her. Directly. Just the two of us. And if I don't choose to (pay it) forward it to Gia, and reconnect with her, she doesn't get the chance to re-honor Malia...and, she's probably falling further down the hole in LA...and now the wonderful author has a crack assistant, who will fill what had been the gaps in her work life, allowing her to be even more productive and effective, and transform more lives. And, yes, Gia gets to wake up every day with the HUGEST gratitude, not to me, but to the whatever universal flow showed up bigtime. And, I smile, from my toes, pleased as punch that it's working.

CRUMBS

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous. Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciounsly give other poeple permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Williamson, from "A Return to Love; Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles" (sometimes wrongly attributed to Nelson Mandela and his Inaugural Speech)

I am really not a dessert person. I would choose another order of mashed potatoes over a piece of cake (almost) every/any day of the week. Lunch or dinner.

On those rare occasions when Mr. Mashed is asked what IS my favorite dessert, there is, and always has been, only one answer. Blueberry crumb pie. A la mode or no la Mode, it doesn't matter (the best that I ever had outside of the one my kids and X made me many years ago, is from Moody's Diner in Waldoboro, Maine - www.moodysdiner.com. Incredible.). So, even though I love blueberries, what REALLY draws me to that pie, my occasional craving for it is fueled by the fruit and jelly's dance with the crumbs. It's that topping. The topper. What's on top. What gets infused with the fruit when you take that bite. Really yummy. Those crumbs.

And there I was, this morning, realizing that it's usually, if not always, about perspective. They is is rarely about the "what," it's the how (how we hold something, how we look at it, how we feel about something when we are doing/being something, etc.) that really matters. The context together with the content. Sometimes all it takes is a small shifting of the lens, zoom in a little, pull back slightly. An adjustment. And there it was right before me, an early AM opportunity to shift perspective. Crumbs. The word was in my head. For some reason I was thinking about Blueberry Crumb Pie, and right there, crumbs are, and feel welcoming, rich, something that kind of makes my throat have that purring feeling. And yet for so many years, the word "crumbs" attached itself, like that smelly blanket in the hands of a kid who won't let go, to my "story" about me (not who I am), how I came to look at parts of myself, what I seemed to be willing to accept, what I was willing to not let go of. How I was too willing at key points in my life to "accept the crumbs," not go for the main course. Even though I knew that the real light was in the letting go, I still was holding on. To that old REALLY smelly blanket that I knew, and came to attach to as truth, as emotional, spiritual DNA. And, it's not. It is fiction, and only "fact" when we make it that way. When we convince ourselves that the stories and tapes are truth, and we ignore our intuition and what we know. What we know and feel as truth. The brain and the ego aren't interested in that. The stories, and drama, seem more interesting. And at our core, we know that's the ultimate fiction and nonsense and crimes we commit against ourselves. How we can allow ourselves to accept less than we deserve, if we're not being our best friends.

I am embracing my new POV on crumbs. It was part of an extraordinary continuum of energy this week that started with Rabbi David's deeply moving look into last week's Torah portion, the story of Exodus. The Red Sea has parted, God is looking at Moses and saying, something like, "Hey, Moses, why are you screaming at me? Go talk to the Israelites. They/you know what to do." My brain laughed and my soul cried. Together. Because David and God and everyone else who has been on my side, who has my back, and SEES me, was speaking, in that one moment, through those words and powerful energy, to me. "Take the leap," David says. And I have. Another huge step this week, some fellow members of a tribe I have no idea what it is, willing to shine lights in MY dark corners, and share what they see. All of it. They showed a willingness to scream it to me, what they say, what they felt, what they GOT. That deeply loud and powerful reminder to not just acknowledge my power, but to step INTO IT, into my truth (what I know and have seen, and what I have shosen to ignore). To celebrate it in any and all ways that I need to. In order to feel fulfilled, inside and out. To embrace the power and not just accept crumbs anymore. Those crumbs. And, while it's still like a relatively new pair of favorite shoes that we first put on, it's not YET the smoothest of fits. it's an ongoing process to wear them until they BECOME natural parts of ourselves. It just has to start with the lens. The perspective. Because I can tell you, I love THOSE crumbs. And, I intend to eat alot of them.

OPENNESS...

"I want to know if you can live with failure,

yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair,

weary and bruised to the bone,

and do what needs to be done to feed the children."

- Excerpts from "The Invitation," by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I never really had, or learned or wanted to develop, a certain kind of filter that most guys have been brought up to see as being part of what it takes to "act like a man." That, "hey, everything's fabulous" that gets verbally communicated outwardly, while the circumstances of one's life may not be truly reflecting such story. A few years ago I ran into a then friend (let's call him Arthur) and business colleague, and when I asked him how he was doing, he said, "Great, great." When he asked me, I simply told him that I was really struggling, at that time some personal/family issues really bringing me almost to my knees." To which Arthur said, "yeah, me too." YEAH ME, TOO???!!! What happened to "great, great"? Yet there wasn't much to wonder about. So many people are afraid to ante up first, to be honest, to be open, as if that vulnerability feels like they are truly at risk. I often say, no one ever died from ego death. Yet what happened with Arthur transcended just him. It reflected how so many of us (feel that they) need that protective mask, because it's part of the dance we often do with each other. One that keeps the "others" in a conversation, in a friendship, feeling like just that. Disconnected. And, as Arthur, now empowered, having gotten "permission" from me to be truthful, continued to talk about his personal challenges, it struck me that even though we may avoid, or be almost afraid of the realness, we do ned it, and crave it when it's not there. Because having our egos be the basis for our connections or friendships, takes us so far away from what we can make happen, with each other.

I am noticing, very clearly, that more and more people these days are being open that they are struggling, whether that be emotionally, professionally, financially, spiritually. Whether it's about our kids, our health, Haiti, the Supreme Court, the War in Iraq, the economy, the environment, our personal crises or our global challenges. People. In all walks of life. Lawyers, businesspeople, photographers, writers, mothers, fathers, farmers, Presidents. And, even though the circumstances are so challenging, in a multitude of ways, there is also something profoundly powerful about this level of honesty that appears to be sitting right there, and which is getting shared. It is, among other things, an opportunity for building compassion, for seeing connections not differences, for fomenting our sense of what IS really important. For putting away, or at least even momentarily dropping, our masks. For being more real, with ourselves, before we can even do that with each other. You see, I am one of those people who actually misses the way "we" were here in New York City in the days and weeks after the horror of 9/11. Those moments in time when people were right (t)here, in their spirits, caught in an unexpected eye-to-eye with who they are and what they believe in. What moves them. What is essential to them. Like those people who grab their photo albums when leaving their burning home, not other "stuff". The irreplaceables. The non-negotiables. In September and October of 2001, walking with my kids through the streets of New York, we could all look into people's eyes, the eye contact so real and open, the eyes most truly serving as windows to the soul. People not hiding out or holding back. Those who obviously needed a hug, at that moment, from a "stranger," received one. We were, and are, all in this together. If we'd only keep remembering. Because as months turned into years, as we distanced ourselves in time from the visceral feelings we had, not just from the events, I could feel the openness melting, shrinking, evaporating. The "I know now what's important" seemed to transform, or go back, too often, to "I need a new [ ]", or "I just made alot of money in the market" or "I just have to get into the real estate market, even if I'm overpaying" or or or...so when those intervening years heated up not only the real estate market, or the stock market, it also reignited, and/or redirected, people's desires, or greed or focus or values, and we seemed to be back where we were, at least to me. Too much grasping, too much looking outside of ourselves. For the answer, for the balm, the salve. We had had all the reminders anyone could ever need, as we often do. So when the crash came more than a year ago, there was something that felt even worse, about where we had been, how much we had ignored, how deeply the collective we, around the world, had missed the opportunity. I remember sitting with Ariel Rosen Ingber on the morning of Obama's Inauguration, on the Upper Westside, waiting to watch it on a huge screen with a thousand other dreamers and rebels and lefties and hopers, and Ariel and I realizing that we were both members of a certain tribe...those who actually think that the crash, in the big picture, was a good thing, could be exactly what the world needed. Not because of the individual devastation, and horrors that have befallen people, each of us, people we know, people we care about. But because of another chance to rise up, and be more real, with substance, and clarity, and more selectivity, and patience, and faith. To use who we are, more than what we have, to make a difference. To cut to the chase, to connect from our guts. To be inclusive, not exclusive. To understand that we are all one degree from each other, what affects you, affects me. Maybe in ways that are not apparent on the surface, yet invariably, if we are looking, the lessons do become revealed. I always wondered why so many people, particularly men, so often engaged in various levels of puffing, posturing, layering...salesmanship. Because, in my experience, it is when we drop it, drop them, when we pull back our respective layers of "clothing" to allow us to connect with each other more openly and honestly and nakedly, and we acknowledge and celebrate that, regardless of the circumstances, we are all in this together, we create such foundations for supporting each other, loving each other, seeing that even in a time of "less" we are truly blessed and have so much for which to be grateful, we can come from a place of abundance (win-win) not a paradigm of scarcity (win-lose). Out of the darkness does come the light, we often just don't see it when we are in the midst. Let's just keep reminding and supporting each other in seeing the best of who we are, every day, and helping to set each other free to manifest our dreams. Be open. Stay open. Please.