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

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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.

The Great Revealer

This morning I awoke to see a bead of sunlight dribbling in through the gap in the curtains of our bedroom. The light streamed across the bed, over my quilt-covered toes and up the wall. This is my first Spring in this home and each day I am shown a new light. Olive meowed that it was time for breakfast and she followed me into the laundry room, where an irregular trapezoid of sunshine coming from our garage window covered a section of the rug. We laid down together and cuddled in the warm blanket of light. After feeding the cat I poured my Oat Straw infusion and sat in the den. Across the street, our elderly neighbor was taking out her trash. This takes her about 5 minutes to inch down her walkway all the way to her trashcan. In the foreground, our front yard was still frosty, not yet touched by the warmth of day. I silently cheered on Anette, hoping she would make it to the trashcan before the garbage truck pulled down the street.

Living in such a high latitude means the sun dramatically changes position throughout the year. The shifts are substantial. Every day brings its unique illuminations.

This morning I thought about how there’s so much conversation around how we change as individuals. Obsession over the one variable we can control—ourselves. What about the sun, The Great Revealer, and how we change in a new light?

1000 days

In the Summer of 2021 I felt the urge to share more. I was turned off the by passiveness of Instagram. Before social media platforms, seeking out art would take effort. Whether the viewer had to travel to the museum or even simply to an artist’s website, there was some sort of exchange of effort. I don’t believe that a platform like Instagram, which requires almost nothing of the viewer, creates any sort of relationship. If an Artist puts all of themselves into their work, why shouldn’t the viewer also be required to give a piece of themselves to the art as well?

So I took to my own stage, a website that I had floated behind the scenes for a couple of years. In 2021, I got a roll of film back from a hike in the mountains with my friends Kailyn and Amanda. As I was organizing and archiving the negatives, I realized how many photographs I had taken over the last dozen years that I never deemed good enough to share publicly. But they were photos of my life, photos of the people I love, and stories that I wanted to tell.

I started a consistent practice of scheduling out daily posts— I had so much to share in the backlog, but I also realized how much new art I was making. rolls of film, video, collages, paintings, doodles, words and many other things that didn’t fit into any sort of category. Over the years friends had asked me what my creative practice was looking like and often I would say that I didn’t really have a consistent one. The daily journal practice showed me otherwise.

I made a deal with myself. I wouldn’t publicly share my journal page for 1 year. I was going to see this through before inviting others to the page. I would mention it to friends in passing, while others found their way here on their own, but I knew once it was shared with the world my relationship to it would change. I needed a space that was just for me, a space to stop imagining how people would receive my work. A place to let it out into the world.

Most people in my life don’t know this exists, some check in whenever I post about it, and to those who are here every few days (shoutout to my mom and Kira), thank you. Any time someone goes out of their way to navigate to my website, I am filled with gratitude. This art isn’t packaged in a small square and delivered to your timeline. This art wasn’t easy for me to make. Maybe it’s only fair that it’s not easy to find either.

Thank you for trusting me to show you the world through my eyes. Here’s to 1000 more.

inner dialogues

Context always matters.

Language links moments together.

Silence needs no translation.

Have an idea + make it reality = Alchemy

Collaborating in art is a great way to trick yourself out of self deprecation.

Not everyone should be like me.

“The ego will always choose the journey over the destination”

I need to stop getting up from the table before I finish chewing.

Thanks for helping me unpack my bags and hanging up the laundry, the wind will carry me now.

Beginner at many practices, or a master of exploration?

One title would be easier, but much less human. It’s all so subtle.

Clinging to the language, the closest thing we have, while the mystery slips on by behind the words.