Still Sundays

March 4, 2012

I had a dream the sky was such a fantastic blue that they were holding a contest to come up with a new name for this shade of blue.

My  team was made of the people with whom I am closest and we were trying to run our ideas by one another via email, phone calls, and text messages. At some point we got so absorbed in the process that we neither cared about this new color nor making the deadline of the contest.

My sister, in coming up with a name for this new shade of blue, had designed the most unique blue cards. My friend, (am)Erica, had decided to create a man with a blue afro on her t-shirt line, the Twinards had decided to come up with a new theme song for KU basketball that went something along the lines, “Music sounds better with blue…” given the University’s colors are red and blue (they are the two biggest fans of KU basketball that I know). And Miles, the Wizard, had decided to paint a blue, silver, and purple woman with the most spellbinding expression. A few others followed a similar sequence in the dream.

I awoke this morning, one eye still asleep, and opened the other, barely, to see if I could make out the color of the sky behind the curtains in the bedroom window. For a moment I really saw a very unique blue sky.

But this is just not the case today in New York City. It is ash gray morning sky and I am trying to not take it personally. Again.

The sun remains a dependency despite my consistent practice of yoga that serves as an antidote for most auto-pilot, conditioned “needs” that are not really needs at all. Yesterday afternoon the sun came out of nowhere and it really took my breath away. The dirtiest building on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan looked polished and refurbished. The tinfoil trash in the murkiest puddles in the streets had now turned into glitter.

I decided it was okay to shed a tear of humility for being just so very human and sustained by light.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I received an email from “The Red Coat Mafia”. The “Red Coat Mafia” consists of me and three other women. We were all part of the same cohort in this selective specialized program which offers judges throughout New York City and State law clerks who have recently graduated. I can’t recall exactly now how many people were in my cohort, maybe 15 or 17. We were all assigned to different courts and judges. I believe either every two or four weeks the entire cohort had to meet in the downtown office by Bowling Green Park in Manhattan. The four of us owned red winter coats and it looked quite funny when we would walk in. We all also had very strong opinions about the system, the program, and law. These three women and I came from quite different families, cultures, ethnicities, etc. And yet. And yet we wrote “Red Coat Mafia” emails to one another every day from our different offices. These emails got us through the day of our assigned clerkship positions that were more glam than glory and the uncertainty about what we were going to do ‘next’ after that year was over. The emails ranged from being very short to long monologues. Some emails, we decided once, had some of our best ideas ever! We could write a book on….they could make the court system a reality show from our perspectives…the meaning of law was…the meaning of justice is…race and law…relationships…love is like the law because….and “pretty sure the tech guys are reading all of our emails”…

We are not connected on fakebook from what I know (given I don’t have an account). Two of them did create a twitter account back in 2009 (after I left the law world to pause and organize how I was going to fit everything around writing) to follow my updates and “mama thoughts” given I had created a private account on Twitter just to report my road trip from New York City to California. So_you_know: we are in Wyoming! So_you_know: mama says mountains make us humble! So_you_know: mama says everything, driving to doing dishes, can be a meditation! So_you_know: the best Best Western is in Utah! Twitter was simple and fun and I only had 15 of my closest friends on there. I shared thoughts, quotes, and photos. After the road trip I used my account every 3 to 4 months and they closed theirs.

We all still find value in keeping in touch and remain interested in each others’ lives despite how different the lives are even four years later. One just had a baby boy. The other is working as an attorney for a firm in California. And one just lost her mother.

The emails are sincere and a social media “like” or “dislike” doesn’t suffice when you find out someone’s mother passed away due to cancer. You have to pause and respond. The exchange is not for a performance for anyone else. The exchange is not so one can say “look! we just had an exchange!” or desirous of staying connected because at one point we were connected by a common profession and experience. That time is gone.

I haven’t seen them in a very long time and frankly I have no idea when I will. We all have friends we are in contact with more frequently and more intimately. But when we do exchange emails, however often, they still provide value. The exchange is not out of feeling some void within.

When we come together to offer from within, no matter how often and how differently, whatever that within chamber looks like, it is a nourishing exchange every time.

I don’t think people realize the benefits of being selective with our time. It is not to be exclusive by default but because meaningful exchanges recharge us for living life on our terms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So much chatter lately about death, dying, endings. The buzzwords are getting noisier: systems are falling apart; institutions are crumbling; paradigm shifts, social media marketing must revert back to this and that…

This is not a one day phenomenon but people forget yesterday quickly.

Every time we step away from the basic, universal, core truths and values, it is going to feel like a big, mind-blowing,  returning to those truths, again and again.

Truth is water. The atoms that make up H20 don’t change.

I leave this Sunday with only a verse from a favorite Goethe poem.

I have had to train my body through a very consistent yoga practice  to truly ‘get’ this and not merely understand it on an intellectual or even “spiritual” level.

There are no words for real understanding.

And so long as you haven’t experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.

~ Goethe

This video is a good representation of how I feel stillness when I am walking in New York City, how I feel during Marco Rojas’ yoga, how I feel on Sunday mornings, how I feel when I understand something I can’t put into words, how I feel real feels like…it is not some escape away from or into, it is…well, it is what IS.

And anyone can experience it.

Related posts:

Still Sundays Still Sundays Still Sundays