5-11

Today would have been by Mom's 87th birthday. Each year (39 and counting) since we last spoke, I wonder what it would have been like if she had been around for even a it longer. What it would have been to have that "go-to" person in my life, how many "things" - relationships, situations, character, choices - would have been so different. It's not a mind game I play often, and it IS something that's very real. It's a reminder (to me at least) to stay centered within, to continue to unpeel the layers so that I can be the best go-to person for me and, as a result, those whom I love, those who flow in and through me...to let in the love, and let it flow outward...

Happy Birthday, Mom...

PROPORTIONS...

When Caren Ellis Fried eulogized her father more than a week ago, she talked about how Mike Ellis taught her something along the lines of, "God gave you two ears and one mouth, so use them in that proportion." I knew I had heard some version of this before, that Mike wasn't the first one to verbalize this concept (it seems as though the Greek philosopher, Epictetus, may have been the first to go on the record with this notion, allegedly saying, "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."), and it doesn't matter. Mike was my messenger this time...as always, when the student's ready, the teacher shows up. I may have heard something a million times before, a concept that (I think) I get, and then one day...WOWZA! "It" suddenly goes from being a miniphany to a full-out epiphany. It's as if I/we are getting it for the first time, simply because the essence of the info, beyond the words, finds a new place inside...because the "all steps lead to now" truth suddenly has guided us to a new place (of wisdom, understanding, belief, knowledge) where the "Oh, I heard that before" words are felt and experienced in a completely new light. As someone who certainly likes to talk AND listen, I am still learning about how to find the right watermark - for me - in those talking/listening proportions. To listen better and better, more and more...another part of, and mirror for, this continuing lesson to allow more, "try" less. Two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion...two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion...two ears and one...

LOVE AND MIKE ELLIS...

A week ago I was sitting at the funeral of Mike Ellis, the father of my dear friend, Caren Ellis. Mike died at the age of 83, while doing his morning exercise ritual, he went out on his own terms, and lived live with passion like few whom I have ever met or known. Maybe like no other. I could write a dozen pieces inspired by what I learned from, and about Mike, I hunch that this is only the first. The story of Mike Ellis - who he iswas - and what, and whom, he put forth in the world, immediately found a special place in all of me - brain, heart, soul - as soon as I met him a little over a year ago. I first shook Mike Ellis' hand when Caren brought him to Romemu one Shabbat evening, but it wasn't until I sat right across from him, and his amazing wife, Honey, at the Ellis family Seder at the home of Caren's brother, Mark, last year. An incredible experience for me, the only person at the table who was not a direct descendant of Mike Ellis, or married to his kids. Three generations of the extended Ellis family, none of whom would be if Mike hadn't the balls, the faith, the courage and the wisdom as a boy to jump from the window of a train speeding at 70MPH to Auschwitz. That's just one of the stories, and the lessons to share, that I Got From Mike.

That one will be for another day. Because today, I am writing about Love. The love that fills me up more than ever before. The love that I've had to learn through my life what it could even mean. The kind of love that Mike Ellis understood. And emanated and inspired in others. You see, as I sat across from Mike in that Spring of 2000, an only child suddenly embraced for even more than that one night as a "member" of that family, I felt the love. I got it. I understood it. All of it. I wanted to make a movie about that family. A sort of how-to kind of movie, simply letting the people, their stories, their experiences show and tell everything and anything that any and all of us need to know. That love creates love. Begets love. Passes it on and hands it down and shows others the way. I was so moved by what I experienced that night - from Mike and Honey, and their Machatunim (the parents' of their kid's spouse), straight through the lineage to ALL of their incredible grandkids. I told Caren I wanted to make a movie about her family, called, simply, The Love Family. Because that's who they are. From wherever and whomever it started, somehow people spread the word. Held on to the notion and put it into form. Out of peoples' darkness came the light. I saw that night a 3-D manifestation of love in a way that I never had before, certainly not within my own family, or those whom I came to know. No judgment on anyone else, this Ellis thing was something special. I'm just sayin'. It wasn't that 3 generations were together, it was HOW they were together. Connected, Supportive. Interested. Engaged. Kibbitzing and loving. Pissers, not a wallflower among them. I saw what happens when you grow up with that kind of unconditional love (regardless of whatever mishigas there may be in any family) and SEE it, and are TAUGHT IT BY EXAMPLE. Experientially. Not by mere words or just concepts. The essence of what I keep aspiring for in my creative work - to "show, not tell." It hit me why so many of us fall into unfulfilled relationships that end up not really being love, despite what we may have hoped for, and WANTED to see. Wanted to have. Because for many of us, as I can tell, grew up not EXPERIENCING a kind of healthy vision of love, one that would be held up for ourselves as a high-bar that we would know it when we saw it. Felt it. Were ONLY willing to have some form of THAT. And we would find potential partners who understood from the inside-out, naturally, what that kind of unconditionality, what that type of family connection, means - first-hand. Or, for those of us who are willing to do the work to UNlearn and UNweave the firsthand lessons notions that kept prompting people like me to look for something from the outside, or in the wrong "places". How can we "look for" something that we don't KNOW what it is? Beyond the word, and what we might read about it...there's a kid's book called "Are You My Mother?", written by P.D. Eastman and published by Random House in 1960. Here's part of the Wikipedia synopsis: "Are You My Mother?" is the story about a hatching bird. His mother, thinking her egg will stay in her nest where she left it, leaves her egg alone and flies off to find food. The baby chick hatches. He does not understand where his mother is so he goes to look for her. In his search, he asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They each say, "No." I won't giveaway the ending, you'll have to go out and get it. I wanted to do a sort-of heartfelt spoof, for adults, something that might be called "Are You My [Partner/SoulMate/Honey, etc.]?" I think it would be a hit. For us to be able to create love, it has to start within. For us to "teach" love to others, it has to start with ourselves. We can't teach what we don't know. What, when it comes to matters of the heart and soul, can only really be experienced, not "taught" with words. So, I started on my path a good dozen years ago to unlearn and rise up, and fall down, and keep rising. To peel back those layers and, as in my fave parable about Michelangelo and his creation of the David, chip away to expose the David that was inside that hunk of marble. I am so grateful to have learned so much from Mike Ellis, who helped me learn to keep the bar high. I am so grateful to be right here.

A QUIETER MIND (WHETHER BEAUTIFUL, OR NOT)...

I grew up being anxious, at least starting at a certain age, for a great part of my life. A low level kind of thing, most of the time, just enough to be vibrating, certainly pervasively. A low hum, on the inside. Never requiring, or crying out for me to get, meds. Just enough, though, to be a conscious part of my reality. As I got older I often wondered, given how busy and "productive" (not necessarily equating with "successful" or fulfilled) I was, how much more productive AND successful AND fulfilled I might/could/would be if I could quiet the mind a bit. Reduce the noise. More. Get out of my way. Better. I've worked diligently on that these last few years, committedly embracing ways to quiet the revving inside, bathe in the pauses, embrace and celebrate the unknown, deepen my trust and faith. This process has allowed me to need less, and thus receive more. I am feeling the wonder of harvesting - the results of the plantings and waterings, and especially the weedings and the waitings and the (apparent) disappointments. All of it. I've never felt more comfy in my skin. Or quieter (Hey, everything's relative!) in my mind. And more open and vibrant in my heart. Or clear about my purpose. And gifts. And, all I can say is, I'm thrilled to be here.

"YOU'RE ALL OVER THE PLACE"

So many times in my life, in my professional life, I have heard this phrase directed at me. Along with "just focus." I am pretty tired of it. Because I always feel the need to have to defend myself, to show that I can focus as well as anyone, on ONE thing, on ONE project, if and when I need to...when it's called for. And when my brain and spirit have the opportunity to travel, to run free, to explore, to be drawn to a variety of sparks and inspirations, I like to allow them to do that. For me, that's where the creative and personal magic emanate from. The openness to see opportunities, and passions, almost anywhere. I certainly understand that it takes focus to manifest anything, to take it from an idea to a 3-dimensional reality. I am all about that, too. Yet I have come to realize that when people "suggest" that I am "all over the place", it is about there stuff...the limitations that can often arise from being, possibly, TOO focused, or playing in a sandbox in their lives that may be more limiting than they would like. It's so easy to happen. Work, life, family, any or all the above provide their own realities and boundaries. Yet it's up to us, for ourselves, to bring in as many of the 64 colors (or is it 128) from the Crayola Box as we want. To me, that's where the rich texture of life comes in, the fabric of my existence. Asking me why I don't "just" work on one thing is like asking a farmer with vibrant fields of many vegetables why he doesn't grow "just" lettuce...or someone with an exquisite garden, billowing with 20 different annuals and perennials why "just" roses are not enough. Our lives become the products of what we plant, and water, seed and nourish. I appreciate productivity and the outgrowth of manifesting results. And I long for even more in my life. I will, however, never lose my deep appreciation for all the gifts that come my way from living a life of passion and diversity on many levels. It keeps my brain, my body and my soul humming...all the time. I am blessed.

"I WAS OLDER THEN..."

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

-Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages"

I was at a meeting the other day with someone whom I had just met, and a photo of the kids and me slipped out of my book. Taken on a Jersey Shore beach, the three of us enmeshed together, it's one of my favorite family pictures and it became the first holiday card I ever created. As Anna picked it up from the ground, she looked at it - seeing for the first time both my kids and me from another (recent) time in my life. "Wow, your children look beautiful. How long ago was this?" I told her it was 11 or 2 years ago. "You look so much younger now. Your wrinkles, your worry lines, seem to have disappeared." I closed my eyes and breathed her words in.

You see, I often feel exactly like that. Younger. Not Benjamin Button younger, but sort of something like that. Certainly wiser. And less smart. A very special man in my life, coming out of the heartbreak of losing a son in a car accident many years ago, said to me, "Be wise, not smart." It was the first time I had really given conscious thought to the difference between the two. I immediately embraced this notion, realizing how much being smart is a function, I feel, of the brain. Often of the ego. Having kids often is a great reminder of that. "I knew that first," one might say to the other. Or in school, relating how another student had come to the same (correct) answer, although much more quickly, "She must be smarter." As if that was really true, or if any of this actually matters. I actually like feeling less "smart" than I used to feel the need to be. Because at the same time, I cherish being wiser, for me it is reflective of, and more connected to, my heart and my soul, the parts of me that I have chosen to become closer to, to emBODY more, the pieces of myself that take me to a deeper place between me and me, and then to me and others. The more authentic self. To "feel" more than simply to "know."

Anna's comment had no agenda, her words reflected her visceral and spontaneous experience. She was seeing what I feel, and know to be true. That by releasing myself from toxicity in whatever form they may (have) take(n) - in relationships, emotional and professional paradigms, personal belief systems - even gradually, in steps, I have created for myself what feels like a real anti-aging formula. Not the external kinds I see hocked in every form of media. The inside-out kind. The bi-product of what happens when who we are and what we do feel integrated. When we are living passionately, authentically, emanating from within the essence of who we are. The manifestation of what happens when we say "yes" to ourselves first, and not compromise on our personal and emotional non-negotiables. When we continue to pick ourselves up even when we fall down, even if it's every day, because we are willing to be as good a friend to ourselves, and offer the best part of our wisdom to ourselves, as we would do our most loved ones. There's a breeze that blows through me now that never existed before, at least in this way, or as often as it seems to. And I am grateful for the opportunity to keep getting younger.

"127 HOURS"

Every winter I dread the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's, and yet I recently had the miniphany (miNIphany, a "mini epiphany", my favorite of my made-up words) that Winter is when I am at my most creatively charged. And productive. Within the belly of the quietness and inwardliness has lied, for the last few years at least, opportunities for a kind of "pensive directedness." Finding me quieter and more focused. Clearer and more integrated. Creative and wise. It really just hit me a few years ago that this had become my cold weather truth truth. That while I had come to dread the impending season when the darkness arrives earlier and stays longer, I simultaneously found myself also looking forward to whatever magic seems to happen when I am more Yogi Bear than Yogi Berra. When I am indoors, and within, more. How the senses, all of them, are engaged differently in autumnfallwinter. The mind, the body, the spirit. The smells and aromas, the feelings and the touches, the hearing and the listening, the seeing and the watching, the tasting and the savoring, the cooking and the eating. The seeing and the believing. I knew that we were transitioning into this time of year when I bought a serious set of cooking knives in early October at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Went in for one knife, came back with a set. The salesman didn't even need to encourage me, it was the easiest sale he ever made. On the surface, the purchase was simply wanting better tools to work with, better "brushes" to learn to paint with, in the kitchen. A step up. Yet it really was more than that...a preparation for more kitchening, more creating, cooking, feeding, comforting, nurturing. Brainstorming and soulstorming. All from the inside out.

This season's other constant for me, particularly around Christmahanukwanzakah, is going to the movies as often as possible...one of the reasons to get out when the weather might keep me inside. Finally the arrival of the season when, at least for several weeks in a row, there's never a lack in the movie theaters in NYC for something potentially wonderful to see. Indies and studio films, foreigns and even some Americans, the full gamut. Not just the shit that too often makes many of us wonder if there's anything to go see, the answer often being "no." So I have been on this year's movie-going juggernaut these last few weeks. Most of the films definitely fall in the good-to-great zone, one major disappointment (Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" should be, in my opinion, retitled as "Nowhere"), and two extraordinary films that absolutely blew my mind, "The King's Speech" and "127 Hours." Each one for different reasons, both deep sensory experiences on multiple levels. Not just two of the best films I have seen recently, two of the best I can remember for a LONG time. I have to talk about 127 Hours though...not simply because I saw it yesterday and it's fresh in my mind, but because the film absolutely rocked my being like no film possibly ever has. It hit me deeply, on a very spiritual basis. For several years, my work/creative mantra has been "entertain and elevate", and no film has embodied my version of what I mean more than Danny Boyle's masterpiece (he is also the director of "Slumdog Millionaire," which also transformed the way I looked at the world). On each and every level, 127 Hours is a spiritual experience. Beyond simply its riveting and inexplicable story about one man's enormous spirit, each and every aspect of the film (whether the cinematography, music, editing, acting, design) was apparently championed by a filmmaker in their own right, one who knew how to tell a story, whether with pictures, sound, pacing, visuals...and, the creative alchemy served to mesh with Danny Boyle's directing, and his clear spiritual and creative awareness, to create the most inspirational, and life-affirming masterpiece that I can imagine. What better way to touch many (if one indeed aspires, or has the intention, to touch many) with so much of the good stuff, with the much needed reminder that there is wonder of all aspects of life, than through a "mainstream" film. With a brilliant actor, James Franco, who has consistently been doing powerful work in his films, a man so beautiful on the inside and out. One who, it is very obvious, is deeply in touch with his spiritual side. 127 Hours embodies mastery and vision and passion with a story whose messages grabbed me in the gut, with undying truth - that there is beauty and love everywhere, that there are opportunities for gratitude (almost) all the time, that we are all deeply connected, and we all need help and support...and, that the possibility of having someone love you, in the highest and must fulfilling and affirming way that you could most imagine, is a dream worth aspiring to, and worthy of being kept in your heart. To not lower the bar. On ourselves.