Still Sundays

January 9th.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

When did ‘death is part of life’ come to mean life is invaluable? Life’s a dare and most just want to hug the truth. Emotions are as important as they are temporary.

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I woke up beyond early this Sunday morning to winds growling at a New York City too frozen to stir. I fixed breakfast, had tea, and decided to read in the silent hours where even the infamous City sirens had decided to take a nap. While reading and resisting the urge to fall back into a quick slumber I concluded I didn’t have it in me to write. This is not to say there wasn’t anything to write. Words are blood, always there, I just didn’t want to draw any. Not this morning. And with that drop of thought, I tumbled back into a dreamless sleep.

I awoke two hours later to sparkling sunlight washing the buildings. Moving in stillness I made a second cup of tea and stared out the windows like I do. I am grateful to have an apartment in New York City where natural light floods throughout and I have lots of windows. I gazed as sunlight valiantly tried to sever the iced bubble of my block. I respect the Sun even when it doesn’t bronze me warm like I want.  Sun doesn’t give up to do what it is supposed to do even when the world thinks it is not good enough.

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Six people were killed and 12 others wounded, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, when a gunman opened fire in front of a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona yesterday.  Jared Loughner the 22 year old shooter “just lost it.”  How many of us have lost it—-many times—yet have not taken arms? So this is what we are going to do: label people unstable so no one has to take responsibility for much? Or should we all have weapons on us to protect ourselves from such “unstables”?

What made me sad besides the obvious loss of lives and turmoil those families must be enduring is that we will forget this in less than a week.

When did ‘death is part of life’ come to mean life is invaluable?

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When I used to teach and even now when dealing with adults in a setting that requires ‘teaching’ I share the following as my ‘agenda’ so there is no confusion about what I intend to do:

“I regard it as the foremost task of education to ensure survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self-denial and above all compassion.” ~ Kurt Hahn

Most parents and teachers are barely curious, have defeated spirits, embraced complacency over dreams, and self-denial is borne out of rejecting what is and not as a conduit for introspection, and compassion doesn’t translate to forgiveness. That’s who we have in the classrooms even in the “top” schools and even the most “creative, artistic” parents are consumed with the “cream of the crop.”

Where is your Jack-Kerouac-love, parent, when your child says college is bullshit?

Some day we will have to sit with the realization that indeed we are just passing the buck for someone else to do what we are supposed to.

Some day someone will say: you can feel however passionately but if you don’t have the courage to live out those passions what have you passed on to your children?

Some day is now and I just said it.

It is indeed one thing to be in love with love and quite another to live love. Life’s a dare and most just want to hug the truth.

My parents dared the world to live out their principles and passions, for that we are all grateful despite all that we struggle with.

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Marco Rojas says during the most excruciating yoga postures: “Observe your emotions. Your emotions are important but they are temporary.”

And then yesterday he added, “Love is not just an emotion.” That is also when I collapsed out of this pose.

Today I go back to find out what that means, integrally, not just intellectually.

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I couldn’t wash this comforter I have in the washing machine and dryer inside my own apartment because it was too big. So I took it to toss it in the neighborhood laundromat’s big washer and dryer. I forgot this is how I too once used to do laundry. The hustle for the next available dryer.  I was running late for dinner with a friend but I told the impatient woman she could go right ahead of me, another would open up soon enough. She dismissed me as crazy for not trying harder and without as much as a thank you went about her laundry, tossing it angrily in the dryer as if drying the laundry would dry all that was soaking with pain in her life. I remember when everything was a fight. I choose a different war now: love. Life’s still as challenging but I hurt less.

While waiting at that laundromat I overheard this ten year old (I asked him his age) say to his older sister: “Of course it takes God a long time to answer prayers, look how many of us are here? Our fault we keep having more of us.”

Not sure who is more busy: One listening or someone praying.

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It’s Sunday and it’s sunny and it’s a very good friend’s birthday. I spontaneously called our mutual friends to meet up for brunch to celebrate the birthday because Sundays are made for naps and brunches, especially when the world is up in arms.

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