This Mama’s Dharma

My mother died 13 years ago this night.
In truth, we do not know if it was April 11 or April 12 that she died.
She died in the night, alone, suddenly.
No one knows when, exactly.
I was away at college, and got a call the next morning. 
So, I observe two days of mourning and celebrating.
My grandmother called [...]

Someone to tell me what to do.
There is not much narrative
Left in me right now. 
I’m tired.
This morning I get an email from the ex
Agreeing that we have gone nowhere with our nasty emails.
Our fights have always been legendary.
I really want to have Sami in my life
As much as I want to be in his,
He wrote.
I spoke [...]

Last night, at visit #4, my ex dropped a very large bomb.
Before that, he dropped a smaller bomb. 
He asked me to take down a picture of Sami on his photo website where there is a Star of David painted on his cheek. 
I explained to him gently that Sami himself asked for that Star of David on [...]

First of all, I must announce that I am offically full of shit. 
Despite recent meanderings  that hinted to the contrary, I am not going to stop trying to meet someone (never mind if wisdom indicates that it would probably be a good thing for me to intentionally be on my own for a while).  In fact, [...]

Ah, I have such wonderful friends.
I called my dear friend G in tears last night because the person who was supposed to email me with the information on Ricky’s funeral got my email address wrong and I missed it.  G was going to call, but she assumed I had gotten the email but couldn’t go. [...]

I found out today that my dear friend Fredrica “Ricky” Gonzales passed away yesterday after surgery for a malignant pancreatic tumor.  While I mourn losing a friend, I am sure that she is now my champion from another place.  That woman had too much spirit to just pass away quietly.  I know she is making [...]

I am currently reading a book entitled Dark Night of the Soul by Thomas Moore, and I am very much appreciating the way he puts despair into a cultural and mythological context.  So unlike the bland psychological approaches that dominate our culture today.  Even I, as a professional critic of the mental health industry and [...]

On Friday I had an acupuncture treatment that had me weeping.  I was shocked by the force of my tears.  Here I was, seated, with needles down my spine, my head resting on the treatment table, and the tears hit me at 80 miles an hour.  They came out in a burst and cleared as quickly as they [...]

I am hungry.
I have never felt this empty, this hollowed out, this vulnerable — not that I can remember.  Perhaps I have always felt protected by the love of a man, or the interest of a man.  The attention in some way, shape, or form.  Even if everything else was going wrong in my life, [...]

I remember this feeling.
I like to refer to it as Grinding Loneliness.
And in my better days, I like to refer to it as Much - Needed Solitude.
Right now I am in a Grinding Loneliness verging on a Much-Needed Solitude kind of mood.
But I’m restless.  I considered signing up for JDate again.  Tell me: Noooooooooooooo, don’t [...]