WITHDRAWN

Weeks pass – hours minutes moments turn into months.

And here I am. Later. Late.

Another year. Another state.

I’ve been writing blogs: in my mind.

Turning over sentences to try to understand my reality. My mind posts come with BIG BOLD TITLES like:

       FULL OUT ON FAITH

      LOSING TRACK OF MY “IS”

      AS LONG AS WE AGREE ON THE ARCHETYPES

Complete with philosophical queries, insights, and confusions made manifest in language.

I write these mind blogs every day. Wrestle with words at night. Toss and turn with the themes of “my now” and >>>

 KABOOM!!!

I woke up today and realized that I haven’t typed in a damn thing. No new posts since October . . . silence from me . . . externally . . .

While internally I’ve been in such turmoil – I shut down.

Apparently.

And now . . . I’m awake. A-WAKED UP!

October killed. Burned.

I didn’t realize it at the time – or I did – and shoved it down.

Practiced “opening up.” Practiced: “A New Now.”

November continued to burn with fire – and newness. Racing around, shoving down – and I was not alone in this. My phone began to blow up with:

      WTF’S! What the hell is going on in the heavens?

And by Thanksgiving – many things had begun to change – for everyone.

“What the hell is going on?” opened up December – and by then, I, along with my friends, were so used to a fall of mind numbing, soul shocking experiences that we just put one foot in front of foot and marched into what was one of the hardest Christmas’s of my life.

(And yes – even Jewish girls can be hurt by a Yuletide gone wrong.)

And  . . . I don’t think anyone knew this . . . and I imagine others in my world also felt the pain of a hard holiday. But we were brave – and faced head on into January – which I suddenly don’t remember, which says a lot and might point to something for another blog, another day . . .

Into a muddy moody February  . . . and why oh why am I recounting the months like some children’s song by Carole King . . .???

Because this simple calendar counting of time shows me just how long  . . . I’ve been gone.

I was gone. I was.

 Maybe some of you, my friends, were gone too. Maybe too many WTF’s hit hard – and you left the room – clothed in confusion in need of compassion and too cocooned to come out and receive the love.

Well, it’s March now. Spring sprung forward.

We can put foot in front of foot and march forward into ALIVE – side-by-side – AWAKE!

And perhaps we can remind one another when we’ve burrowed for too long – isolated – gone.

I was  . . . withdrawn.

And I didn’t know it.

I’ m back. Awake. Encouraging all of you to come out and greet the love and compassion waiting for you.

(And will someone please throw a bucket of cold water over my head the next time I’ve gone on too – long – withdrawn?)

DIRTY WORDS

FAITH used to be a dirty word in my house.

It conjured up people in white hoods hating on Jews, hating on blacks, despising anyone considered ethnic . . .

FAITH ANGELS PRAY:  all about the same category.

People who spoke these words were people who used their sameness, their religion, their faith as an excuse to demonize and subjugate other humans.

These words tagged along with the G _ D of my Southern Grandparents. They had a lot of Faith in G _ D, as long as you didn’t say his name out loud.

I made that mistake while playing checkers with them on my first solo grandparental visit. Dr. Pepper and mixed nuts by my side on the card table, me dumfounded by this board game playing – we never played games in my house – I executed the major faux pas of saying:

“Oh god,“ when I made a bad move.

Granddaddy immediately pounced on me: “We don’t say that in our home.”

I had no idea what that he was referring to . . .

“We don’t take the lord’s name in vain . . . we don’t say his name out loud.”

I was mortified. Cheeks red. Humiliated. I was a shy soft-spoken kid who rarely uttered anything.

I wanted to run from their canyon home overlooking SeaWorld, knock over the wobbly card table, and go back to my kvetching pessimist atheist communist adjacent Jewish grandparents in Los Angeles.

Cold sweat was gathering under my pits and I couldn’t stop ruminating about Granddaddy’s frequent “GOSH DERN IT!: expletives – wondering what the difference was . . .

I had whispered  “oh god” and had gotten in trouble, but Granddaddy would express his distaste for liberals, freeloaders, for women, with a healthy GOSH DERN IT ALL! . . . Which seemed much more damaging to my 8-year-old ears.

In Ann Arbor, our home was famous for being a repository of language and enlightened instruction. With my mother at the helm, our living room, which was more of a library, became the classroom in which the entire neighborhood learned about profanity, cussing, and responsible use of language.

It was here, on the scratchy blue wool couch, that my third grade friends would sit while my mother explained the difference between saying “shit” and calling someone “a shit.”

To exclaim, “fuck!” in an appropriate manner was not profane, but it was not okay to call someone a “fucker”, or an “ass”, or “shithole bitch cunt.”

“It is how you use the word, not the word itself,” said my wise mother.

My friends’ eyes would grow wide as they were given permission to artfully use language in our home.

To this day, many of my friends credit their understanding of profanity and their comfortable relationship with shit and fuck, to my mother’s tutelage.

(For the record, neither my brother nor I ever called our parents by any derogatory or demeaning name.

I feel I missed adolescent rebellion entirely. Given permission to speak and drink responsibly, there was nothing to rebel against!

And, I remember when I was a teenager and went to friends’ homes and heard them scream “you fucker, you asshole . . .” at their siblings, even at their parents!!! . . . and I was mortified!!!)

Back in San Diego, I was not to be released from that game of checkers just yet – and ten minutes later – I did it again!  I said “oh g – -“  . . . eating the letter d.

Stern looks from Grandmommy and Granddaddy. Disappointment.

And I can say this left an indelible mark on my soul.

It was here that I got hardwired to be afraid of G _ D.

His name became associated with judgment, mistakes, censure — with being other, Jewish, wrong — like the atheists in that den of iniquity, Hollywood, their tainted blood running through me.

With that kind of G _ D on my mind, and the constant condemnation of my Jewishness by school friends bent on saving my soul:

“You are GOING to hell! You need to take the Lord Jesus Christ as Your Savior!”

“Hallelujah, Amen, on our knees let us pray for your salvation, ask the Angels, HAVE SOME FAITH . . . . . . . . . . . >>>>>>>>>>

“YOU ARE GOING TO HELL AMADAES >>>>>>>>>”

I got spooked by FAITH.

Creeped out by ANGELS.

Confused by varying versions of G _ D:

He’s all loving all-knowing he’s judging you are damned you are loved he doesn’t exist he’s everywhere  . . . whatever you do:

DON”T TAKE HIS NAME IN VAIN!

Whoever whatever he is . . .

And so, every time I heard someone say, “just have faith,” I would cringe.

“Pray and ask the angels,”  – I would feel the censure, see the stern faces and pursed lips of my Grandmommy and Granddaddy.

Then, George Michael came out with his hit  “You Gotta Have Faith.”

While doing my chores, washing the kitchen floor and vacuuming the crevices of that gosh derned blue couch, I would hum the melody, but pause when I got to the hook, “You Gotta Have Faith” . . .

The word still made me nervous.

And then, G _ D decided to play a practical joke on me.

I met a musician and theater director named Faith, and I was going to film her and her sister Jill for my next USC film project.

Somehow, I had to get over my problem with that word, with her name – or else I was going to be in trouble.

And boy was G _ D laughing now.

Faith was no KKK white hooded creep . . . she was a talented short dark-haired as Jewish as Jewish can be girl from Chicago – with an equally Jewish sister and an outspoken dynamic Jewish mother like my own.

How could this liberal Jewish Girl be named Faith?

Yes Faith Soloway, I credit meeting you with being the jump off point for my spiritual journey . . . a faith-based approach to understanding what the fuck’s going on . . . and there will be a post honoring you and this moment, but for now . . .

It’s been 20 years since I met Faith – and FAITH THE CONCEPT THE LIFESTYLE THE WORD . . . is my constant companion.

FAITH is always a place I need to return to when shit is fucked up, so that I can be returned to G _ D or whatever I happen to be calling my higher knowingness at the moment.

It seems my personal life lesson can be summed up as:

YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH.

Even my persona astrological card of destiny, based on my birthday, goes by the name of:

VICTORY THROUGH FAITH.

I pray, I see angels, I talk to my higher knowingness, I practice faith, and yes, I am still Jewish and still love to say FUCK! At the right moment – and

I’ve fully embraced:

It’s not the word itself: it’s how you use it that matters.