For months the news has been grim; a bad economy and not getting better fast enough or strong enough, people losing their jobs and their homes while the bankers and stock brokers are back to their old tricks and once again reaping their fortunes, international affairs stalled, legislation put on hold, two wars, a terrorist threat that never seems to abate – and these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone is disappointed in the President. He isn’t strong enough or he’s too much the Chicago politician. He is too cerebral and doesn’t like the glad-handing of politics. Maybe Hillary Clinton would have been better reaching out to blue collar voters given the President’s elitist behavior. He’s too elitist or he’s not presidential enough. He’s done too much. He hasn’t done enough. He’s wasted time trying to work with the other side, he disdains the other side and never reaches out to them. He doesn’t thank his donors. He doesn’t wine and dine his backers.  He doesn’t enjoy playing the DC game.

He doesn’t , he isn’t, he can’t, he won’t….

It wasn’t but two years ago when the whole world was alight with new possibilities and promise. We were all moved and inspired that in this USA we elected a black man with a Muslim name to be the president of our country – something no one believed would ever happen in our lifetime. And now, just two years later our young and intelligent and handsome and sexy president looks and acts beleaguered beyond his years, beyond the two years it has taken to get to this night. This night when the tide has clearly turned and we are looking at a new political landscape.

Are the problems facing our country so vast and untenable that no one could succeed? Are the interests of the other party so deeply rooted in a determination that the best course of action is to block any success before it has a chance of even beginning? Is the resistance to the President a deep-seated racism or are we just so divided a country that any kind of compromise is impossible? Has the foundation of our government, our financial institutions, our cities and states, even our great religions gotten so rotten to the core that nothing good can come of anything? Are we doomed to be a bickering, hateful people bent on screaming down anyone in our path that doesn’t agree with us?

Tonight I find myself lying awake in my bed unable to fall asleep for the frustration of living in a time when even someone as talented and intelligent as our President is brought down so low and rendered so unable to accomplish what is desperately needed. I find myself doubting the President has what it takes to rise up out of this malaise and get back on track, get back in the game.

I ask myself, “Were we all fooled into believing we could create a better world? Did we all just drink the kool-aid of hope and are now waking up with the terrible hangover of a foul truth?”  Should we have been more cautious, calculating, bet on the sure thing rather than this outsider?

I think of Lincoln and wonder what it must have been like for him when he was the President of a similarly divided country, when the country actually went to war with itself as he presided over the people. Surely there must have been dark and desperate days and nights for Lincoln in just the same way I am sure our President must suffer in the privacy of his family and small circle of friends. But these are different times with different problems – a speeded up culture where everyone is in a hurry getting nowhere, accomplishing nothing of substance, and dead set determined to beat down anyone or anything in its way.

Tonight I will lie in my bed and I will pray for help. I think at this moment that the best thing I can do for myself and for my country is to quietly pray for help and hope that we can find our way out of this dense and dark place, that our President can find a way to lead us all to a better and stronger tomorrow, and that we all can find within ourselves a kinder and gentler and more open place and bring that better self to the public square and once again work together towards a better life.

Sergio has been waiting for a bus to take him to school or a day program or a therapist appointment since he was just months old. It suddenly dawned on me one day that Sergio would be waiting for a bus every day for the rest of his life and I had better find him a comfortable place to sit while he does all that waiting. Sergio was twenty years old by the time I came to this realization. Before my awakening occurred, he had been sitting on the stoop of our house each morning waiting for his bus to arrive. It didn’t matter what season it was or what the weather, he would sit and wait for his bus on the stoop and always he would wait without complaint.

It’s a proper bench, the one we bought, quite attractive really. It’s made of wrought iron in an Italianate motif, and best of all it folds up in a really clever way for easy transport. There’s room enough for two people to sit comfortably on it but Sergio doesn’t like it when I join him, so I leave him alone. Some days the bus comes late and Sergio will be waiting on his bench for a really long time. These inconveniences don’t bother Sergio in the slightest. He sits and waits with a calmness and contentedness that I can only marvel at.

People who ride buses do a lot of waiting. One sees people waiting at bus stops all the time. They oftentimes sit and read while they wait and in recent years I’ve seen a lot of people talking on their cell phones or texting their friends. Sergio doesn’t do any of these things. He doesn’t read or write and he doesn’t have a cell phone. Sergio sits on his bench and hums to himself while he waits. There is a small school bus that drives by the house each morning and every time it passes, the driver toots his horn and gives Sergio a big wave. I guess the driver has come to look forward to seeing Sergio sitting on his bench and this small act of kindness has become something of a sweet ritual for the both of them. When the bus goes by and honks, Sergio stops his humming and waves back.

Since Sergio doesn’t like me to sit with him on his bench, I have developed my own daily ritual inside the house. I take my computer and my coffee to the dining room table and read the news, all the while keeping my eye on things until the bus arrives. This way I can make sure that Serge gets off without a hitch. Once the bus pulls up, I go to the front door and wish him a wonderful day!

But before any bus waiting or well wishing even begins, there is the business of Sergio’s lunch to consider.

Sergio loves lunch. Each afternoon when he comes home from his program, I ask him how his day went and he always tells me about his lunch. Because Sergio loves lunch so much, the packing of it has become something of a holy ritual for me and I take great pains to create a tasty, nourishing and beautiful meal for him. Sergio’s lunch always consists of a sandwich made of whole grain bread, vegetables, cheese/turkey/ham, a piece of fruit, yogurt, sometimes a small bag of chips, (and on a good day, pasta salad!). As I help Sergio button his jacket and tie the muffler around his neck he always asks, “What did you make me for lunch, Mama?” As I detail every ingredient of his sandwich and describe the particular fruit and chips or pasta salad I have packed into his lunch bucket, Sergio hums with delight. I love seeing Sergio’s face light up and I love hearing his beautiful hum.

I once read an editorial in the New York Times written by a man I admire. He wrote of the mind-numbing task he must endure each day packing the school lunches for his children. I have often thought that I should write to him and share my experience of packing Sergio’s lunch. I would explain to him how with just a slight shift in his attitude he too could transform this mundane task of making school lunches into a small spiritual experience. I doubt my letter would do much good – he is in the business of writing essays about important world events and leaders and packing school lunches with enthusiasm might be too great a leap for him – maybe not – who knows.

I must admit – I have not always been so smart about these things. As I’ve already confessed, Sergio was twenty years old! before I figured out that getting him a comfortable bench to sit on was crucial. Sometimes I wonder – what on earth had I been thinking about all those years, what could possibly have been so urgent that I didn’t realize what was truly important? How many lunches have I packed with no enthusiasm? How many mornings did I drag myself around getting Sergio off to his program without recognizing the gift these morning rituals are?

There is no use in crying over lost time or my misguided past. What’s important is that I did finally wake up and get with the morning program. I did come to learn that these small yet undeniably life-altering routines have given my life depth and joy and meaning. And it never ceases to amaze, how this young man who doesn’t read or write and will never pen an editorial in the New York Times, let alone text message a friend, has taught me the most important lessons of my life.

This lovely young man who sits all by himself on his wrought iron bench, with a peace and equanimity I will never achieve in a thousand lifetimes, humming softly to himself as he waits for his bus.

me and the dog are out early heading for the woods it’s in the 90’s with a breeze and the river is as still as glass

the stilling power of birdsong coaxes me into meditation and as if by magic all sorts of sounds emerge - river lapping the shoreline dry leaves rustling the soft rattle of the tall grasses my breath’s hum all sorts of sounds and as this stilling takes up inside of me – stronger deeper still – i return again and again to that place of no place and of all places a few moments in this stillness is all i need

the river is crystal clear and i tear my clothes off and run into the water much to the dog’s surprise the slightest trace of last winter’s chill is still in the water and when I submerge the exhilarating cold rush of river water jolts my body and my lungs gasp in ecstasy i am alive and swimming in the hudson river 

a hawk flies low and i can see his underbelly and his intensity

be like the hawk - know where you are and where you are going remember where you have been

lying on the rocky shore shivering in the sunlight I sense we are being watched by a silent pair of eyes i dress quickly and we set up the rocky hill from the river and there he is silently taking us in - young buck

the dog gave him a chase  but he was gone in an instant

after this sighting of yet another one of God’s perfect creations me and the dog head home smelling of river water trembling with life force and filled to the brim with a peace and joy beyond anything i think is possible on this first day of summer

On hearing this Yasoda would say, “All right, I will take all the jewels from Krisna so that He cannot see the butter hidden in the darkness.”

Then the gopis would say, “No, no, don’t do this.  What good will it do to take away the jewels? We do not know what kind of boys these are, but even without ornaments They spread some kind of effulgence so that even in the dark They can see everything.”

Krisna Art

When Noah was a little boy he loved butter.  So often that I stopped counting, I would find the butter that had been left on the breakfast table with teeth marks on it from him having stolen a big bite off the end of the stick. When I would ask him if he had bitten the butter, he would look at me with his big brown eyes and say nothing but his face would be glistening and that would be all l needed for my answer. As I would scoop him up in my arms, the lovely fragrance of sweet butter would permeate everything and it was all I could do to not take a big bite out of him. Any grievance I had was instantly forgiven and forgotten. For years this went on – I would find sticks of butter with big bites taken out of them with only his teeth marks embedded into the yellow goodness as evidence of his misdeed. Until he became a teenager Noah smelled of sweet butter. He has always been my “butter boy.”

I had no plans to have a third child. After Miles grew out of his crib and high chair and his infant clothes I gave everything away that had anything to do with little babies. Content to be a mother of two boys, I started a management consulting business. I worked a couple of days a week, going into the city to visit with the various clients and in the evenings I would go to the ashram for dinner and attend an evening program. I took on a volunteer position with the ashram being a lead chanter for the evening programs and settled into a comfortable routine; working a couple of days a week, volunteering at the ashram and taking care of my family. This went on for two years until I discovered I was pregnant again. The discovery wasn’t unpleasant so much as surprising – I truly had no intention of having any more children.

One evening as I listened to Gurumayi give one of her talks, she mentioned that there was a group of souls around Nityananda, the great Indian saint of the twentieth century. This group that had gathered around Nityananda were children and they were being sent into the world at this time to further Nityananda’s work for bringing the light of the Self to the planet. When I heard Gurumayi talk of these children that were arriving, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and the fetus in my womb began to kick vigorously. I was sure, right then and there, that whoever was inside of me was one of Nityananda’s children. From that moment on, my pregnancy took on a special significance and my attention to the surprising turn my life had taken became supremely focused.

Throughout the pregnancy I intensified my chanting practice, made plans to have a home birth, and created rituals supporting the process of the pregnancy with my moon sisters. In the final month of the pregnancy my sisters and I had a full-blown celebration of myself as the Divine Mother carrying the Divine Child.  A day before the birth I took a walk by the Hudson River and it just so happened that my walk coincided with the hatching of millions of Monarch butterflies. I was literally walking in a river of fluttering newborn butterflies. I took this phenomenon as an auspicious sign of the oncoming birth of this baby.

Everything about the birth was idyllic. My water broke around eleven in the morning, the midwife arrived not long after that, and the baby – to my astonishment a boy – was born in less than twenty minutes as I sat on the toilet which caught all of the waste and blood so there wasn’t even much cleaning up to do after it was all over.

Back in bed with only the mantra Om Namah Shivaya playing quietly in the background the whole family basked in the miracle of Noah. For six weeks this child did not see an electric light, hear anything but the sound of the mantra and the comings and goings of his family. No visitors were invited into the home, no one but the immediate family even touched Noah – the world that he had lived in for nine months had become much bigger after his birth and I insisted that his transition be slow and protected. After having given birth two times before, I knew that there wasn’t any hurry about getting back into the fast paced world that I had withdrawn from. I knew that the world with all of its vast and fascinating diversions would be waiting just as I had left it when I came back to it in the future.

One night as Noah slept in the cradle underneath the effulgent light of the full moon, I was called to get out of bed to look at him. When I arrived I discovered a little angel lying in the cradle – white feathery wings and all. I was dumbstruck. I Immediately woke Juan to come and look at Noah’s wings. It has become something of a running joke in our family ever since that evening I discovered Noah’s angel wings. I am sure Juan figured my sighting was caused more by postpartum hormonal fluctuations than any real angel wings, but I know what I saw and nothing can convince me otherwise.

Not long after the angel wing sighting, the butter started to disappear.

I have often contemplated the tale of  Lord Krisna and his brother Balarama and their mischief in stealing the butter from the pots hanging in the kitchen. I have a book with the story about their shenanigans and a painting of the two boys, covered in golden butter, as their mother Yasoda has just caught them.  The look on Yasoda’s face is so full of love and affection and the two boys are utterly content in the knowledge of her love. They know, without a doubt, that in spite of their naughtiness Yasoda will always love them no matter what.

Yet the story teaches of even more than that of the love of a mother for her children.  It tells of the mysterious light, even in the darkness, that emanates from these beloved children. It tells of the other mothers, impatient with the thievery of their precious butter yet not wanting to inflict any punishment on the boys for fear that the magnificant light will be taken away. Even as they complain to Yasoda, they beg her, “No, no, don’t do this.  What good will it do to take away the jewels? We do not know what kind of boys these are, but even without ornaments They spread some kind of effulgence so that even in the dark They can see everything.” The story tells of Lord Krisna emitting a light and grace that could not be explained yet also could not be denied.

Butter, that yummy food that makes everything taste so much better when it is added. Butter, that golden fat that comes from the rich milk of the sacred cow. Butter only becomes butter after the long and careful churning of the milk. Butter, the rich and golden butter that Lord Krisna would go to any length to steal was the delicacy that Noah loved so much as a little boy. And, just like Lord Krisna and his brother Balarama, nothing could keep Noah from biting off the end of a stick of unguarded butter.

Was it Noah’s perfect birth? Was it that he is one of Nityananda’s messengers? Was it all the chanting I did when I was pregnant? Was it just Noah’s hankering for good old-fashioned butter? Who’s to say? Yet to this day, there is nothing Noah loves more than a potato slathered in golden sweet butter or a simple piece of bread and butter and there is nothing that warms my heart more than watching him enjoy it so.

Hare Krisna!

…Miles working for Teach for America…Noah going to Wayne State…

being back in Detroit…being a part of the rural/urban farm movement…Sergio hanging with Kay’s pals every weekend…helping our beloved dying city….

is there something to my imaginings

Now, at twelve years old, he has been selected to play the part of Tevya in the middle school play. There is a boy named Aaron who is in eighth grade giving him trouble.  Aaron wanted to be Tevya and thinks that being in the eighth grade should have guaranteed him the part, but unfortunately it went to Miles, a seventh grader who also happens to be a head taller than Aaron. When I heard the news that he was to play Tevya, I cried. I was happy for him – the honor of it – but mostly I was scared for him – the Aarons of the world, I know, will give him grief.

It’s very difficult to be a mother, or a mother such as myself at any rate. When he was a little boy, I remember going to an enormous park in New Jersey with some of my neighbors and their children. This park had all kinds of rides and things to climb on and it went on and on and on, as far as the eye could see. None of us had ever seen such an enormous and fabulous playground. The minute we arrived all the kids flew off in a thousand directions.  My friends seemed so relaxed as they hunkered down on the park bench chatting carelessly as their kids were … who knows where? I was a jumble of nerves.  I couldn’t keep track of the boys and keep up the breezy conversation on the bench.  I was becoming increasingly agitated as I tried in vain to join in on the conversation while simultaneously scanning the enormity of the playground for a sighting of the boys.  Finally, abandoning any need to seem cool and calm in front of my peers, I sprang off the bench and began running in search of the kids. I needed to know where they were. I needed to know they were safe.

Every day I imagine going to school and finding that boy named Aaron and giving him a piece of my mind.  I want to tell him to leave my boy alone.  I want to tell him he shouldn’t be bothering seventh graders.  One morning I asked him if he wanted me to talk to Aaron.  “Absolutely not!” was his instantaneous and irrefutable answer.

I find myself watching him out the window as he walks down the street to catch the school bus in the morning.  I watch until I can’t see him anymore.  I wish he would stand at the closer bus stop so I could keep my eyes on him until the bus comes, but he refuses.  He say’s he can get a better seat if he stands at the faraway bus stop.

It’s awful for me sometimes, that I can’t go into his life and make it easier for him. I know I could. I could learn all Tevya’s lines. I could sing the songs. I could even take care of Aaron. I am certain I could save him from all the hard stuff.  I know he has to learn his own life lessons, as we all had to learn our’s. I do worry at times though, because I don’t think I learned my own lessons all that well.

Maybe he’ll learn his better than I did. Maybe he’ll learn them for me.  Maybe that’s what it’s all about.

When I first learned about how to take care of the murti of Ganesh in my home, I was instructed to feed and wash him twice a month on specific days designated by the Hindu calendar. I was also informed that each year in September there are ten days that Ganesh is to be honored with sacred chants and garlanded and fed each and every single day. I was told that if I began the worship of Ganesh, I would have to do this for the rest of my life. Without fail.

Having been raised in Michigan in an Irish Catholic home, I was more than ripe for this kind of mandated ritual, along with the compulsatory quality of it and the threat of punishment if I failed in my duties. These very specific instructions I accepted without question and began my care and worship of Ganesh with the proper and familiar amount of tension and compliance.

Of course I have tried my best to live up to these rules. I string chrysanthemum garlands to drape around his neck weekly and make, for me, extraordinary efforts at cleanliness. None of my efforts seem to matter however, because I always feel like I am failing. Sometimes Ganesh becomes so dusty that the shiny black stone he is made of turns dingy and dull. In spite of this grime, Ganesh stands on the hall altar, day in and day out, without the proper upkeep that a good devotee should give.

And on it goes – the dust, the dinginess, the grime, the failure, the guilt, the dust, the dinginess, the grime, the failure, and the guilt…. When will it all end?  When will I stop feeling badly about everything I care about?

This morning I dismantled Ganesh’s altar to give him a proper cleaning. He stands on the kitchen counter, alongside his ax and crystal necklace and rosary beads awaiting his wash. The table is covered in dust and old bittersweet berries that have been lying there since before Thanksgiving. I haven’t wiped it clean. The look of all that debris gives me the feeling of … what?  Time and attention and prayers brought forth from my heart and scattered over the table, perhaps?  It will be washed clean, but not quite yet.

When I do begin Ganesh’s bath, I use warm water and shower his head over and over and over again in the way I watched the murti of Nityananda at the ashram being washed.  Water, water, water, endless amounts of water were poured gently over Nityananda’s golden head that lovely day last summer. I do the exact same thing for Ganesh. Using the sandalwood soap Juan was given for Christmas I clean his six arms, each holding something different; an ax, a book, a sweet, a mudra, a conch shell, a disc – all these different items representing specific blessings from Ganesh. I then move on to his legs – short and stubby with chubby little feet, then his crowned head, and finally his generous belly. More water is poured over his head until he is rinsed clear, until the black onyx of his body shines like the midnight sky in August.

After the bath is complete, I lift Ganesh – he is very heavy – onto a clean towel and gently dry his body. Next comes the patchouli oil. I rub the oil all over his beautiful clean body – he likes this a lot. I proceed to clean his ax and crystal necklace and only then is he ready to go back onto the altar, which by this time is washed and oiled as well. I drape the chrysanthemum garland around his neck, taking care not to damage any of the flowers with his six strong arms. It takes a bit of time to arrange the pictures of the Gurus and all the other sacred objects. The final touch is a delectable piece of fruit that I set on a plate at his feet (he is vegetarian after all).

After everything is complete, Ganesh and his altar are perfect. He smells of fragrant oil, the flowers are spectacular, he is very pleased and so am I. As I wave the incense and the candle before him my prayers are filled with love and happiness as I gaze upon his pristine glory. I forget all about what those people told me – all of their rules and regulations that have weighed so heavily upon my heart have disappeared as if in a cloud of smoke. I don’t even feel guilty about the dust and grime or my endless shortcomings. Everything is very quiet and tender and full of joy.

Om Gung Ganapatai Namaha.

I was the first to arrive at the restaurant, having driven in from the suburbs with plenty of time to spare. I had been looking forward to this dinner for weeks, it being the first time I had been out on the town with my girlfriends since Sergio’s illness. I was the only member of the group to be driving in from the suburbs. The others had apartments they lived in during the work-week or they lived full time in the city.

As I walked through the candle-lit entranceway of The Buddha Bar, I was greeted by a long line of identical, life-sized, standing stone Buddhas, each holding out his right hand with incense burning in the middle of their upturned palms. It was a disconcerting moment for me there in the dark hallway alone with all of these smoking Buddhas and the sacred Buddhist theme for a trendy downtown New York City restaurant instantly seemed wrong to me. There were sacred artifacts (clearly authentic) used as decorations everywhere, the ancient scriptural Buddhist chants had been set to a never-ending disco-beat loop and the CD’s were on sale at the bar. There was the wait staff zipping around in orange outfits with rough-hewn burlap aprons that suggested a monk’s simple robes. Only these outfits were sexy and tight fitting, exposing cleavage and hips – the sorts of body parts meant to remain hidden from a monk’s perspective. The whole place made me nervous. I figured at the time that maybe I had been living in the suburbs far too long to be able to appreciate this fusion of the sacred and secular, not to mention my 30 years of yoga and meditation practice which found the whole scene profane in the extreme.

I had been looking forward to seeing my girlfriends for weeks. Our son Sergio had been ill with a degenerating optic nerve disease and glaucoma for the past two years and after many long hours of sitting in hospital I was looking forward to a night out with old friends.  I had met these women several years prior when we were all young and beautiful aspiring actresses looking for our big breaks on Broadway. The weekly support group meetings we held back in the day had long since been abandoned but we still would meet up for one another’s birthday, year after year. These parties were all I had left of the old days when I lived on the lower east side of New York City waiting for my life in show business to take off. These outings were, surprisingly after all these years, enough to satisfy my longing for the glamorous New York City life that I had left behind when Juan and I started having our children and moved out to the suburbs.

As I sat uncomfortably at the bar gazing at the enormous two-storied Lord Buddha sitting in lotus posture in the middle of the dimly lit dining room, I wondered what he was thinking about all of this. I seriously contemplated walking through the center of the dining room and dropping to my knees to bow to his lotus feet, as I most certainly would do if I were in a temple. I wondered what the proper way to comport myself should be, given the sacredness of the objects surrounding me. I was struggling mightily with my inner dilemma when M arrived.

Her blouse was a crisp white on white, cut short at the waist. She had on trim black slacks and stylish kitten-heeled backless shoes. Her entrance was breezy and bright, it being her birthday and all. She had just jumped out of a taxicab having raced over from work at the advertising agency on Madison Avenue. Her first words to me were, “I’m so glad you haven’t lost the weight, it makes me feel so much better.” I was stunned by her comment just as G and S arrived. There were hugs and kisses all around and her remark was lost in the excitement. There was much ‘ooing’ and ‘aahing’ about the fabulousness of the restaurant and as we were escorted to our table by one of the orange-clad waiters, I couldn’t help but notice his tight butt as he walked us through the center of the dining room to our seats.

M took the guest of honor’s seat with her back to Lord Buddha and we ordered the first of several rounds of martinis in celebration of her 57th birthday. As the menus were distributed it was decided we should order family style, given we were in an Asian inspired restaurant, and since G had just returned from a meditation retreat on some South Pacific island and was not eating meat, it was decided that we would select only vegetarian dishes.

More martinis were ordered and as often happens with vodka and gin, the conversation became pretty loud pretty quick. My recent haircut was acknowledged and compliments were being lavished upon me when the birthday girl said, in a much too loud voice, “thank goodness you did something with yourself, you have looked like shit for a long time.” I wasn’t at all prepared for this second remark by M about my appearance and it felt like she had just punched me in the stomach. My face instantly started to burn and my eyes welled up with hot tears. She kept going on for what felt to me like an eternity about how hideous my long grey hair had been and how I looked so much better now that I had given it a proper cutting, “what on earth were you thinking with that long scraggly grey hair?” she insisted.

The entire red-eyed-demon-filled room with the giant Buddha sitting in the middle of everything and the orange clad waiters and the sweet cloying smell of burning incense and the unfamiliar Asian vegetables on my plate all became a liquid swirl and I thought I was going to throw up. It was everything I could do to excuse myself and run to the bathroom.

It took all the skills I possessed to locate the bathroom, given the darkness in the restaurant, but I eventually found my way and locked myself into a stall and sat down on the toilet and cried my eyes out. Certainly the alcohol had helped open the flood-gates of this raw emotion as well as the fact of having been blindsided in the middle of a restaurant, in the middle of a birthday party for an old friend, factored into my inability to get control of myself.  What felt to me like a public humiliation was painful beyond belief and for a couple of minutes I didn’t know how to take care of myself, how to settle myself down, how to decide what to do next. I was a total mess.

Eventually I got myself sorted out and as I opened the lavatory door there stood M – wild eyed and waiting for me.  She continued hammering home her point about my hair and my new found glamour and was insisting I tell her why I was so upset by what she considered a compliment. I noticed several strangers watching us and I became overwhelmed once again by embarrassment. I simply could not have this conversation with her in the bathroom with all these people looking on and implored her to stop. This seemed to infuriate M even more and she let me have it with a blistering tirade about how everyone in our group was uncomfortable with me and had been for a very long time. I told her I was too upset to talk and I insisted she stop. With that, she stormed out of the bathroom.

I made my way back to the table where G and S sat dumbstruck. Nobody made any mention of what had just transpired and I asked to pay my portion of the check and said I was going home. The party was over – the empty martini glasses and uneaten vegetables on the plates were the only vestiges left of what had at one point been a festive occasion. As I was signing my credit card slip under the watchful and somewhat embarrassed gaze of G and S and our orange costumed waiter, M suddenly appeared out of nowhere and tossed my birthday present in my face yelling, “Take your fucking birthday present, I don’t want it,” and just as suddenly as she had arrived, she disappeared.

That was the last time I have ever seen or talked to M.

What was it about what M had said to me that was so wounding?  I have asked myself this question a million times.  Of course no one likes to hear that people think you look terrible and be told about it in such a public way. Perhaps it was my vanity and grief at having once-upon-a-time been an apple-cheeked young woman with big dreams of stardom and forced to confront the reality, brought home to me so brutally by a friend, of being a middle-aged housewife and mother with long scraggly grey hair – perhaps it was just too much truth to digest in one sitting.  Still, the pain catches as I write this, all these years later.

Was it Sergio’s illness that Juan and me had been struggling with alone and for such a long time that made me so sensitive? Was it that not one of those women at that party had so much as given me a telephone call in the past two years to support us during a frightening time as our son was going blind in one eye? Was it that M’s and my friendship had simply taken a hard hit by her harsh and careless and alcohol fueled comments? Was it the improbable blending of the sacred and the secular of The Buddha Bar that contributed to such a bizarre experience? Was I just too much of a suburban housewife and mom now and didn’t fit in with these fast-paced and edgy women anymore? Was it all the years of meditating and chanting that I couldn’t get beyond my condemnation at the misuse of Lord Buddha in such an irreverent manner? Was it all of this? Was it none of this?

After all this time I still have no answers to any of these questions, yet I do know something broke that night and it hasn’t been mended.  There have been a couple emails back and forth between M and myself but the chord of our long friendship doesn’t hold anymore. From time to time I hear about what she is up to and the news often makes me sad. There are no more birthday parties, no more support group meetings, no more emails. All that remains is silence and emptiness and an overwhelming sense of incompletion.

I tell myself that people come and go in one’s life all of the time, it’s to be expected. It happens regularly in this ever-spinning world of ours – people coming and going. In spite of what I tell myself, it still doesn’t make me feel any better.

of tahini and pickled vegetables dried fruit and flat bread.

Dina is an excellent vegetarian cook.

A scientist’s wife, a mother of scientists, a grandmother to angels.

Dina is the mother of all mothers.

A gardener, a city girl, a country bumpkin

she is at home in the Rocky Mountains and New York City equally.

Dina is of sturdy frame – a walker.

She is a seeker and a lone wanderer.

Dina the dancer, the healer, the sexy goddess.

Dina knows the desert – she has made love in the desert.

Mystic. Buddhist. Yogi. Jew.

Dina is the life of the party – she is the all-attractive one.

Dina the world citizen and artist.

She is the daughter who was not a son who knows the history of her people.

Dina the kind hearted, the brave, the wise,

the leader, the innovator, the student, the teacher.

Dina has much to say and do before she is finished.

Dina the birthday girl.

Dina my friend.

Happy birthday Dina.