laurabsings

What a week it has been. My MacBook crashed and needed a new battery. I lost my phone. I found out I have arthritis in my hips. There is a horrid smell coming out of my apartment building A/C so I receive a toxic welcome each time I walk into the building and hallway to my home. Lots of driving, too, which doesn't help the hip sitch, finishing off the week with a journey down to Kohl's to make a return only to learn their computer systems were down.  A long list, counting one by one all the things that went wrong.  Thank You for joining me on this episode of "Poor Me." Oh! And then the money counting; realizing I had spent more than I made and coming face to face with how what I bring to the world is valuable, yet somehow not valuable enough to support a regular 'ol life. What I do counts. Who I am counts.  With each annoyance, frustration, sadness, negative storm cloud, I also had moments when I looked at the beauty around me, slowed down, took a gratitude invent...

I made a big change.  I followed a call.  I was drawn to Colorado, and to the sun, and to things not quite in my view yet.  Two months ago I moved about 30 miles from Denver, to a cabin, in the mountains. It's remote here, but I still need to connect with the internet powers, and to share my music during these extended pandemic times, and to ease into mountain living with a sprinkling of modernity. I found a broadband company who can service my area and last week they installed all the moving internet parts. Yay! No. slow ... slow ... "can't connect"...over and over, "can't connect"...  or WON'T, internet, be honest, is it can't or won't??  (I *may* have accidentally been talking to the modem, and the laptop, the broadband company.) I persisted, and as I prepared for this morning's Zoom service, I plugged my ethernet cable right into the modem and I was connected.  Wahooooo ! A half hour later, it couldn't connect again, despite being...

No, not pizza, although ... YUM. Two slices of bread.  I made a sandwich today. Not a one slice hoping-the-sandwich-stuff-doesn't fall-on-the-plate version, but a two slices kind, one that secures all the good middle stuff.  The one-slice sammy is something super familiar to me, and to be honest has not always been the healthiest choice, emotionally-speaking. It has been a design to keep me "on track", carb-controlling, monitoring all that enters this body. My go-to on managing change, stress, fear ... Old stuff that shows up now and again. More on that in a bit. The two slices for lunch today secured the sandwich stuff and surprisingly also made ME feel secure, held, cozy and present.  Oh bread, you are a great teacher. See, I've spent the better part of my tweendom 'til now counting, monitoring, restricting: How much did I eat? How many calories was that? Do I look OK?  Are they judging me?  Am I judging me? Somewhere along my path I stopped enjoying food, for...

When I arrived in Oregon eight years ago, it was an adjustment. We are from New York. End of post. Kidding. I noticed, and wasn't afraid to ask: "Where are all the black people?". Now asking a question like this came from an honest and innocent place inside me. And it also might be offensive to some. I understand the implications yet I'm still sharing this story because what followed was pretty impactful for me. New York is a port where peoples from all nations arrived to make a better life. They brought with them sadness for families left behind, excitement for new beginnings, and culture, food and language. Like folks who traveled to this West side of the country to explore new frontiers, there are new beginnings. Different experiences of it, but still important to note a similar story of leaving the nest for something better. New York is very different than Oregon because of the diversity of the influx of different cultures who arrived, and as a res...

I just had an ah-ha, whilest scrubbing my teeths. I am emersed in Jewish and mystical study, and the study of spiritual and religious practices of the world,  more now than ever as I write my Sabbath Queen show. There is so much to know, so much to learn, and for this lifelong student, I'm in hog heaven. As a child, I always loved to learn. Moreso about people, and from people and situations, and less from a textbook. Looking back now, I think I thought the constant need for information wasn't the right way for a person to be. Maybe a teacher at school once told me to stop asking questions in class one day. Or maybe my line of questioning in different situations was provocative. Or maybe people didn't like always being under a microscope having to talk about themselves. Or ... I dunno. Here is my ah-ha: Judaism is a path where you may still not have learned everything even as you take your last breath. Prayers, Hebrew, stories, holidays and festivals, practices, commen...

I'm in a constant state of retrieval. Retrieving lost parts of myself for recrafting purposes. Retrieving lost parts of myself that I gave away to others. Retrieving life moments for reliving purposes. Digging inside to remember who I am. Retrieving the light, a golden retriever.

For several months I was jamming through life, unaware, just barely present. Disconnected really. On this one day, I rested for a minute in front of my dresser. I was tired, sad, feeling pretty hopeless. I looked down onto the dresser's surface and saw what now appeared to me to be healing presences of all types - necklaces, charms, candles - all together in close proximity, some bracelet chains draped over mala beads, a hamsa resting next to an amber charm. I saw, well, I remembered in that moment that most of these trinkets and treasures had been given to me by this life's family members, each one with a special meaning, given with love and generosity. The light switched on, I smiled in great gratitude and then breathed a really deep breath, opened up my chest, and lowered my neck and opened to receive the peace I knew was mine. When I opened to receive, my heart space, inside and out, was warm. It was so good - I was at perfect peace. I don't think I had been ...

For several months now, I've known that something big is happening. Haven't been able to put my finger on exactly what it is, if it's career related, family related. It just feels big, and it's happening. It's also happening for so many of my friends. I keep asking around, "Do you feel like something big is happening?" And they answer "Yessssss!" How could something big be happening to so many of us simultaneously, in April/May of 2016? I think there was some planetary stuff, or maybe the election is making us all rethink everything. But really - I mean, it's not like the same exact big thing could be happening to all of us. How could that be? We're all holding onto the same string that's attached to a big balloon and floating together above the US? Whew, it's all kind of amazing, and kind of freaking me out. Aaaaand ... Too much thinking. Usually I expend energy trying to figure out what exactly the unknown is (in this ...

Yesterday I was sifting through a bag of little red potatoes, picking out the ones that weren't soft. For some reason I just thought the soft ones weren't good any more. I honestly don't know where I learned that. In any case, I sifted, and at the end of my bad potato-be-gone escapade, I had about a dozen "good" ones and a big pile of "bads" that I threw in the trash. I stared at the trash, the little soft ones forming a potato layer of insulation for the garbage below it. And I had a blast of thought - about my grandfather, and him and his family being so poor and only having potatoes to eat. And then it popped into my head, a potato famine that impacted the Irish so horribly. I wondered if, like me, they all thought the soft potatoes weren't good to eat? I think their parameters and circumstances were completely and utterly different. I also can't assume that they didn't have their own experience of privilege (like mine of trash...

I generally don't pay much attention to what others do. No, that's not what I mean. I don't pay attention to what others do in that way of attention turned into comparing what they do to what I do. My attention tends to be paid in being inspired by their work, or standing in support of their endeavors, whether it's listening, or offering to execute a task or two on their behalf. But paying attention and then lessening my confidence is something that's long in my past. Well, no. I'm lying. Sorry. That part of me that I just claimed to be long in my past I recently discovered has actually been laying long and low in the sleepy part of me, right here in the present. It woke me up last week and started making comparisons. I was dumbfounded! I thought for sure I was enlightened by now. I believe it's very good to pay attention to others, in the way of being inspired to aspire. That's totally legit. But being inspired to aspire doesn't ...

I wish all the snacks that keep making their way into my mouth would translate into a lyric. I'm so hungry all the time and I never get full, and that's what's going on right now with my songs - I'm only able to say things musically, but without words. I'm hungry for music, and when it's time for lyrics, I'm full. And my lyric output used to be so awesome, and fast. Now, I wish I could fast, but all I do is snack. I'd like to enter my snacks into some kind of Conversion machine: one jelly bean = one lyrical line about a past relationship one piece of buttered toast = a spiritual growth lyric for a bridge one handful of tortilla chips = a chorus that expresses the heart of the masses So through this machine, I eat but I also get words. I like that. I like it a lot. Or maybe, a simpler solution: I could just listen to my stomach. Clearly it's getting all the attention nowadays. It might have a wise word or two.

I can't stop myself from giving. It's a thing. Well, it's been a thing. It's gone a little too far, though. I've had some really good months of nothing planned, just me getting re-nested after many years of extensive travel. Cleaning, purging, relaxing. Reading, writing. Cooking, baking. And there's some wine, I'm not gonna lie. All part of creating a space to receive, to receive myself. The "going a little too far in the gift department" is what's prompted this quiet settling. Like so many of us, I've been doing-doing-doing for a long long time. Just doing what I've been doing, without much thought at all as to whether or not the doing is actually doing something for me. I'm often told what a difference I make for folks with my music and singing, and how it's clear that I'm doing exactly what I was put here to do. I know this is true, but it's not all of me and I know now that I've let it be all of me. ...

The noises are sometimes unbearable: bathroom fan from the downstairs neighbor a text coming into my phone the garbage truck in the morning Other noises are sometimes unbearable, too. These actually come from inside my own head: commentary on my body size chatter about my to-do list conversations about what I've done right or wrong It must be a good thing, for me to discover noises from within. Do I need to be medicated? But I can't be the only one. There are those of us who are HSP's ("Highly Sensitive Person") and I know I'm one of them. Yet, the aggravation has been heightened for me as of late. The other night I couldn't even walk into the living room until my husband turned off the newscaster who was yelling his news story. I have meditative music on repeat, all day, with the hopes that it'll calm me the heck down, and bring me to some place of peace, and of gratitude. Sighh ... Gratitude is something hard to find when you're...

I imagine it's not uncommon to envision living in different places. When I travel, it's become pretty common for me. I picture living in the city or town I'm visiting. I have my routine - checking rentals on Craigslist, seeing how many yoga studios there are, and of course, Are there Jews? A girl needs her tribe. I'm comfortable also blaming my friends for enabling me in the whole routine. In their defense they just want me to live where they live because they love me, & I get it. But it's tapping me out, this search for the ultimate home. "No place is perfect". Wise words from my wise mom. You can make a list of the pro's and con's of every last city in the USA and no one place will have everything you desire. And for me, the "everything I desire" can change and morph. I'm flexible and accommodating. I confuse myself even further. So I wonder what exactly it is I'm desiring - a city, a town, a farm, left or right coast....

It was a long time coming. A few years I think. Frustrated, uncomfortable, angry. Mostly frustrated. I know now that being frustrated for more than a few hours is long enough in my book. I see now that all the activity was really living within the realm of inactivity. I couldn't watch anymore, stand by, listen to what others had to say about everything. I just didn't care. And it's not that I don't value opinions, but I cared too much and lost my own voice. I become a watcher, I became inactive. I gained weight in all the wrong places. Temptation called. Shouldn't I be checking in, 'just to see'? Hmm ... Boredom ruled my hand. But I just couldn't participate any more. And I think I deactivated like five times until it was done. "Liberal Moaning" and "Religious Hypocrites", just a couple of ways to describe some. Lots of forwarding, and commenting, and arguing, and emotionally-fueled conversations. Looking at other people...

So lest you think I'm such the prolific writer that I'd churn out a dozen posts in one day ... All of the "Aug 24" posts below were actually written semi-sporadically over the last few years, posted in a few different blogs that are no longer active. Today, in an effort to create order and sanity (if possible), I copied and pasted them all into the new  laurabsings  blog. Everything is now in one cozy blog place. Virgos, I hear you, I see you.

So last night, my friends were talking about Disney World. Noooooo!!!!! ABSOLUTELY  NOT. It's my worst nightmare, literally. I am quite clear that I would never ever ever go again. It's just too overwhelming for me, too many people, too much hustle 'n bustle. Too expensive. Too smelly. Actually, the thought of it makes me itch. Ironically, just the other night we were watching Nurse Jackie, the episode where she describes rehab as Disney Land (or World, I forget). Oh, s**t, sorry for the leak. Um .... reverse spoiler alert! I know that Disney was a way of Jackie hiding the fact that she went to rehab, but two Disney's in one week. It's a sign! (Uggh, I feel sick. Disney queasy, like, ate a corn dog, drank Hawaiian Punch and went on the roller coaster, queasy). OK - what if I stayed open, open to Disney? I mean, I've managed (mostly very well) so far being in an overwhelming, bustling, people-filled world. If I can handle Disney, I can handle anythi...

At the Library recently there was a little girl in front of me in line checking out some videos with her dad. "This is my second time seeing White Fang!" she exclaimed. "Wow!" I said. "I bet you'll learning something new each time you see it!". She smiled and said, "You're like my dad; he said the same thing". Dad and I looked at each and exchanged smiles. "Kind of like life, huh?" I said. "Learning something new every day, An adventure!" I saw the back of her long blond locks as they turned to leave, and with that sweet little voice of promise, she exclaimed back to me, "Have a great adventure today!" There was nothing like it.

It's true. I cannot tell a lie. If you're looking to plan a surprise party, I'm not your gal, believe me. If you want my opinion about something, just ask. If you want to know who finished the Mint Chip, it was me. I cannot tell a lie. Well, I actually can, and that gets me into a lot of trouble. You see, it's been challenging for me in my life to own up to my misgivings, to take responsibility for my actions. I'm about 3 1/2 when it comes to this stuff. I'm realizing just how much I fear the consequences. Really, what could happen, someone might get mad? I'd get fired? I could get sent to my room? So I lie to myself, I make up stories about the story. Change it around a bit (who will know anyhow?). I pretend things are different. Twist and turn the idea of it all. Anything so I won't get into trouble, see others get mad, be the cause and reason for the world's demise (yes, it’s all MY fault). The truth as I know it is that when I'm not o...

I'm at my friend Karen's house, typing on her office computer. I love this room! So much light coming through the big window, a great vibey space. I just looked to my left out the window and outside there are the biggest widest leaves I've ever seen on this palm-tree type Cali plant. I mean, these leaves are HUGE. I honestly feel like I could get up on one of those leaves and slide on down like a Fairy in a Disney film into a delicious, pool of water. Splish splash, I am having a blast! And wouldn't you know it that just yesterday by the pool, I saw this very same plant, just from another angle, and from much further away. It looked just as magestic, and proud and green. Nothing Fairy-ish came to mind but I did marvel at its beauty. I am amazed by life: It never ever stops offering us opportunities to see from a different persepctive, to experience, and feel, and love, from all directions. Even in the familiar, there never ceases to be a way-in that's new. I...