Birthdays

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." -MLK Jr.
Anything worth anything has gotta hurt a little bit. Friday night, I went to a really great class where we did a bunch of hip-openers. If you've not had the experience of this, it sounds so cheesy and new age-y, but well, you store a lot o' junk up in there. And I decided that I may have been feeling a little too sensitive for the outside world. So I graciously refused the gentleman callers and delighted in the thought of eating a special birthday brownie (my sisters started the tradition of bringing them up for me last year), cleaning my room and maybe watching a movie. As soon as I was feeling...relaxed, my dear sweet landlady went into labor.
It was a planned home birth. But not a planned coincidence of me being high as a kite and someone BIRTHING A CHILD in my bathtub. It was pretty hilarious timing. And I may have had a slightly religious experience. I like to think hilarity and religious experiences are pretty inseparable. Like you and your best friend from high school.
Having just been to yoga, I was actually a second away from taking a shower when the excited papa-to-be ran down the stairs and started to run the bath. So I went downstairs to use the 1st floor shower. And there it was. Shampoo. Not strange content for a shower, I realize. But strange considering it was that brand.
Dana told me to get this shampoo (she, being a curly headed deva herself, knew I'd always coveted her position as such). I could not remember what she'd said. All this time. And here. Nearly 4 years later. Warp years. Slow years. Year years. Here she was. I saw her lips saying Devacurl. Heard her voice. Saw her nod her head authoritatively.
If you're new to my life or blog. This was my sister from another mother. My childhood playmate, my closest friend in high school. And the greatest loss of my life. Her sudden death in a car accident in 2006 was a reckoning with something greater than myself because I'd spent a lot of unplanned time with her during the last month of her life. Just by chance. One month in KY between LA and NYC.
I feel so small sometimes. But probably smaller since then. I picture splitting a log, a big lumberjack God with a beard and a red and black flannel shirt, suspenders and a huge sharp ax. A friend and I once chatted about how strange it is that humans haven't just evolved to truly accept death. The one thing we will all have to experience, and it's still so...laborious.
I guess it was just a lot. Being high and having this reminder while a new life is coming into the world 15 feet above my very DevaCurl-soaked scalp. But a lot in a really beautiful, alive way. M'lady was in labor through the night and ended up going to the hospital the next day to give birth to a beautiful baby boy (the grandmother told me the beautiful part...due to bias, I will have to confirm this with a series of rocks, tickles and cuddles of my own when they bring him home).
It was intense. The loud, pained, deeply personal moans and groans of labor made a fitting soundtrack to my dramatic religious experience* and stoned inner monologue steadily repeating a Gone with the Wind quote too inappropriate for an MLK Day post.
"All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem." -guess who
I like this quote of his a lot because it encompasses the beauty of the complexity of this unbelievable human being. My yoga instructor spoke of him tonight, saying it might be the most important national holidays we celebrate, but that we shouldn't look up to him. I was resistant to this idea at first. But now I'm beginning to see what he meant. This beauty of complexity is inherent in us all. Nobody thinks they can make a difference, but what if everybody lived as though they could? (On that note, if you haven't yet, there are tons of options on how, but I encourage you to give: http://www.clintonfoundation.org/haitiearthquake/)
Sometimes it's really hard to keep your eyes straight ahead. And much harder than trying not to look up, is looking down.
Parts of the south still celebrate the confederate war general, Robert E. Lee. They decided to pick his birthday to do it. It just so happens to sometimes fall on MLK day. Poor taste, maybe? We've come such a long way. Can't be held back and hung up by the pinheads delighting in ignorance and hatred. And yet, it makes me happy this was said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PEaWUduCM.
The diversity of NYC is what will hold me here longer than anything. My bike ride was a little smaller-scale than I'd planned. Just around Prospect Park with my favorite Danish roommate (the Greenways will be better spring/summer events anyway). We stopped at the lake and had a fitting diversity celebration bird show. Seagulls, mallard ducks, swans and geese all gathered at the shore where people steadily tossed them little treats of bread and popcorn. The world was brown and gold and smelled like some change's a-coming. But like the man said, progress is precarious, and I predict a long winter yet before the change of seasons in my fellow man.
"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." -da man
This is where I veer off the narrative and start with interrogatives. Are you an artist? Do you like festivals? Do you want to go to Kentucky? Do you want to contribute? Perform? Give me ideas? Let's get together for the 2nd annual Motherlodge festival! See inside for details.
*said religious experience, alas, prevented me from cleaning the still dreadfully messy room this blog has since prevented the cleaning of ce soir. Keep your judgments to a minimum, please.