Freewriting My Way Towards 5786
Let the spiritual preparation begin
The 2-week Katavti group began yesterday. In Hebrew, katavti means “I have written.” As with all of my groups, I am a participant-facilitator, writing alongside my fellow travelers. The group’s beginning corresponds with the beginning of the month of Elul, which is the last month of the Hebrew calendar and the one during which we begin the process of turning inward, searching ourselves for where we missed the mark in the past year, and preparing ourselves for the renewal and repair the High Holidays bring, both individually and collectively. I thought I’d share some of my writing here as we go; below are my first two freewrites.
Your joy is my joy. I see you over there, your light spilling out shamelessly, pouring off of you like fog pours off the mountains in the early morning, dew on delicate spiderwebs. All those years you wondered if you deserved happiness, part of you now yet no longer pressing down on you like some cosmic weight you felt you couldn't shake. Now you are no longer apologizing for the way your body moves through space, the substance of you, the smile and the flesh, the art and the mess, the love and the risk of flinging yourself into a place where fear no longer rules you.
I see you over there, knowing that what I see is not the whole, and also that you no longer have to hide what you used to deem inferior. That devil on your shoulder has the cutest little pitchfork. She is the size of a miniature figurine, her tiny red tutu glints in the sun. The angel? Well. She twirls and lies on her back on your collarbone, content to hitch a ride, spinning her spells, all wink and twinkle twinkle.
Oh my friend, you never had to prove yourself to anyone but yourself. Remember this: Shining doesn't mean you stop being human. It means you are all the more yourself, all the more beauteously welcoming of the whole blessed range of being. Collect every color and wear the ones that make you into glimmer on water and breeze on bare skin, paint on brick and flutter awake and sleep well, sweet dreams.
I see you over there. And I'm so damn glad you're here.
I am happiest these days when I'm filling the bird feeders in the backyard. Sweeping the sunporch. Sitting in a chair, feeling a soft breeze after a scorching summer. Hearing from my kids, listening to their ideas, plans, hopes, fears, ups, downs, predicaments, and discoveries. Laughing with my parents. Snuggling with my spouse.
I am happiest these days when I'm walking, working up a sweat, music in my ears, Hebrew I can understand bits and pieces of, a good bass line, a whole mood, as the young people say.
If Elul is when we return, what am I returning to? If Elul is when we return, who am I returning to – what self, what essence, what pure being? Is there such a thing as pure being? I think so, yes. It is that experience of effortlessness, which is to say presence. A place without self-consciousness or striving.
When I am watering the plants, I am this being. When I take out the trash and the recycling bin with the yellow lid to the curb on a Sunday evening, looking up and down the street and seeing the other trash bins and recycling bins with yellow lids, thinking about the lifetime of moments that delivered me to this moment, I am oddly content.
We watched a godawful show one night last week when my son came over for dinner. It was called Owning Manhattan. In the intro, the lead guy states that living an ordinary life is the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person. I wanted to reach through the screen, or holler at it, or just roll my eyes, knowing I take these things too seriously.
The worst possible thing? Oh mister. One of the most blessed things that can happen to a person, that a person can cultivate, is an ordinary life. One with bird feeders and municipal services, kids who become adults who still want to talk to you, a glass for drinkable water, an overflowing jade, older than me, a chance to return, again, to set things right where I can, to forgive myself where I can't.