let's walk

Let’s walk. Let’s cut down an alley I’ve never been down before. I want to show you a house that I’ve loved since I was a kid. And over there, where I used to skate, behind the bookstore when the security guards got off. The courtyard too, an eden in the middle of the city, where I shot my first photography assignment. Everything changed that year, when I was given my grandpa’s camera, the city was rewritten, reborn right before my eyes. So much has changed since I was here, so much has changed since yesterday. But the streets still hold my footprints and I see the faces of people I remember. My old neighbors, tending their front yard, raking their leaves and gently nodding with a smile. It’s good to be back, and I’m grateful to share it with you.

mornings

9/14/2024

I enjoy the date stamp I use in my journal because each time I sit down to write I can see the last time I formally visited with myself. Most of my entries start with an apology for not having stopped by lately. It’s been 10 weeks since my last entry, which was 2 days before Abby ended her life. Maybe she had already decided to move on, and maybe I knew it too. I wrote, “so many questions, some of an uncertain future and some of a mysterious past.” There was so much I wish I would have known on that day, but I work hard not to let hindsight take the drivers seat.

This morning I slept alone in the bed, Kira took the couch, and I woke up feeling rested for the first time in weeks. I sleepily wandered into the den and cuddled up with Kira on the couch. After she left for her early shift I laid back in bed and read Sy Safransky’s “Many Alarm Clocks,” a loving companion of a book that has been a teacher of how to juggle my thoughts. Work stress floated into my head. I let it pass me by. I fed Olive. I chugged Nettles, took vitamin D, brushed my teeth, made the bed, and opened all the blinds. It’s rainy today but I like to pretend that the sun and the plants are my good friends from different circles, and that every morning I get to introduce the two of them— “You’ll love each other!” and then they hang out all day without me because they hit it off so well.

I’d like to open this channel up again, finding my words, leaning into a way of expression, a releasing, a shaping or sculpting of my inner landscape. It’s a lot to carry on the inside. It’s also a lot to release. Maybe my mornings can be for this.

one day

Maybe one day our kids will look at these and ask about the porch we were sitting on. We’ll tell them about the duplex we rented, and turned into a home, with plants that seemed to mysteriously appear every other week (the Calendula and Monstera over our shoulders are swaying in agreement). Maybe they’ll ask, “Did you spend a lot of time sitting out there?” Honestly, less than we would have liked to, but so many nourishing meals were created on that grill that I hauled 5 blocks from your old place, pausing in the middle of Arctic to take a proud photograph. It’ll be funny to them to see us holding wine glasses, and we’ll tell them that sometimes it’s important to make-believe that you’re a grownup. Occasionally we would light an herbal cigarette that you made, in both times of celebration and struggle. We’ll have rolls and rolls of photos that we took in our home, because at some point we realized that every “ordinary” day was what became our life. About two weeks ago I heard someone say, “We’re living life as if it’s a rerun,” So I’ve decided to start counting my days linearly (today is day 16 of the rest of my life). I wonder what day it will be when our kids see these photos. Sometimes the memories were captured, and often they weren’t. I wonder if they’ll know what we mean when we explain that all of those moments are still with us, even the ones we don’t remember, and that they’re a part of them too.

inner dialogues 3

Life is so surprising yet so inevitable. Maybe I meant Death

I’ve been trying not to cover my face when I cry alone. Who am I hiding from?

The loss creates a vacuum, and at a certain moment there is a stillness, a peace. Maybe that’s their gift to me from beyond.

I used to think resilience was hardening to life but I think it’s knowing how to soften time and time again.

The second wave of grief is going back to normal life.

That’s what’s so hard about facts—facts are flat. They just are what they are, palatable to the mind but not the right consistency to move through the body.

My biggest hurdle in relationships is unconditionally loving myself.

Social media is a placebo for conversation.  It is a place of statement.

Why are horizon lines so enticing? Clean, angular perfection, it’s a rare thing to find in nature.

Pain is from the heart, suffering from the head.

Yesterday I lined the broken edges of a seashell with golden beads. I’m experimenting with drawing attention to brokenness.

Death of mystery - how much of our story will be forgotten? It feels like not much, but we forget the delicateness of the internet.

Instead of trying to pack a bunch of experiences into one, I’m trying to remember that it’s really just one experience.

Kira tells me, “Life is too damn short to hide yourself”

Gratitude is the people’s catalyst.

Can I by Próxima Parada

Can I smile when it’s a hundred degrees?
Live like Grandma, with grace and ease?
Go ahead through the doorway, I’m right behind you

Can I be a farmer in this neighborhood?
Can I stop calling things bad and good?
I wanna accept everything as it is

Can I see the sky with fresh eyes?

I have a mirror, it’s covered in dust
And the light bulb’s been long gone
Oh, but I’ll be damned, after so many years
All the glass is still intact and I’ve got a new cloth
‘Cause I traded being blindfolded for a little mindfulness

Can I see the sky with fresh eyes?

Can I plant a tree in Death Valley?
Can it grow to feed my family?
I’ve got a bucket, some water, and two feet

Can I speak my truth without being afraid?
And if not, speak it anyway?
I’ve got some things to say, I’ve been holding it all in

Listen on Spotify

Abby Rosenstein

 

6.30.24

Yesterday, I helped bury my cousin, Abby Helene Rosenstein, who ended her life on Friday, June 28, 2024. I sat with my family in a graveyard in the suburbs of Chicago, where I had been 3 times before, once to bury my grandma Carole in 2009, my great grandmother Doris in 2014, and again to visit the site a few years ago. 

I sat under the shade of a tent, behind my cousins and my Aunt and Uncle— Abby’s immediate family. I looked around, to my family, strangely grateful that we were all together again. Rabbi Steve began to speak of Abby, who he knew well, and recounted a story by Rabbi Harold Kushner:

“I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sand castle by the water’s edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle.

All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.”

In 2017, Abby moved in with my parents in Baltimore. Around that time, I lost my mom, Tyla, to suicide. I came home to Baltimore from Philly and decided that I was going to drive across the country to Alaska. I bought a van and for three months I built it out so I could live in it while on the road. Every day, Abby helped plan, cut wood, measure, carry, stain, paint, and keep me company. Born 73 days apart, Abby and I have always shared a special bond, and that summer 7 years ago deepened it even more. Abby could see my broken heart. She knew how to be there for me without saying a word. We were both struggling so much, both grasping for a sign that would pull us towards something. We were living in the uncertainty of what would happen next, both unsure of what a future could look like. 

Abby carried such a deep pain. A profound empathy and sensitivity to all the suffering in the world. Yesterday, I was reminded of her blog she kept while serving in the Peace Corps in Senegal. Abby wrote, “If you’ve ever been in love, you know the fight you’ll put up to keep your loved ones close. You hold them in a special light, where your normal rules of judgement don’t quite apply. You dismiss their flaws and forgive their mistakes with ease. You want to be wrapped in their arms, even if you’re crying in anger because of them. The fight you put up when you’re in love is unmatched. And when the going gets tough, you don’t just walk away.”

As my Uncle David spoke at the funeral, Abby’s niece, my 3-month old cousin Ella stared at me over her mom’s shoulder. How could joy cohabit such a painful space? Perhaps it has always been hiding in the seams of darkness. Abby was buried with a dozen roses, a packet of dirt from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, a sea shell that I brought her from Cape Cod and a rock that I found on a beach in Alaska, a token of a dream she helped me make true. She was also buried with a contract that she and her dad made in 1999, promising that they would be best friends forever, signed by both. Friends and family committed the only mitzvah you cannot do for yourself, to bury the one you love, and I felt her soul set free, guided by my great grandparents, grandparents, and Uncle Mark, who’s life was taken too early at the age of 18. Abby wasn’t alone, and neither were we. The tide had come up and the sand castle had returned to its parts.

You are such a gift

inner dialogues 2

How to be on the side of love and compassion, without judgment or rules.

Love and compassion is anti-political.

yes when u meant no is worst than no.

People deserve space to surprise you, each person is a well of mystery.

What does it mean to be silent  in a time of suffering and how do we create room for those who are carrying the pain quietly, why did we decide that noise is the only form of release?

Careful with that story!

Fire Island stale bread makes world-class croutons. world. class.

I’m very afraid I’m going to complete all my kid’s homework assignments.

No hierarchy when it comes to vehicles of intimacy.

Resentment is Suppression of expression.

The danger of this or that thinking is that by saying one thing, people can latch on to what you aren’t saying.

Is there ever only one sufferer in an act of violence?

Don’t worry, the mind isn’t the only thing holding memories.

Be the sponge not the vacuum.

liminal times

A strange liminal time in my life. I lost my one of my moms. I left work. I moved back to Baltimore. I bought a van and set my sets on an unknown place. I melted in the Summer heat of the east while I built out my home on wheels. Sometimes I’d take the day off and go for walks with my mom. Having a project to work on was important for me. Something physical to add some linearity to a time where I felt all over the place. A few days ago Kira said that grief needs to be worked through somatically and it resonated— I thought stirring my brain would bring me peace, but it was emptying my cup that helped the most. I needed tools in my hands, to push out my energy into something outside of me.