I spent this past weekend being human at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Healing. That is, I spent this past weekend letting go and not giving a fuck with Jennifer Pastiloff. Yoga instructor, author, and founder of the online magazine The Manifest-Station, Jennifer is known for her workshop, On Being Human, where women from all over come together to dance, to sing out loud, to write whatever comes to the page, and to share their deepest pains and enduring dreams. If someone were to ask me to choose a single word to describe Jennifer, that word would be lovable. But she’s more than one thing. She is energy, a safe zone, a kick-ass hugger and hand-holder, a super-fun dance partner, a really good listener, an empath. The list could fill my bookshelf.

A friend of mine, who has attended Jennifer’s On Being Human workshop year after year at Kripalu, had told me all about her. I  had also read Jennifer’s posts on The Manifest-Station, followed her on social media, and devoured her book, On Being Human, A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard. Much of what she had to share – her sense of shame and guilt, not feeling good enough, the need to be heard and told “I’ve got you” –  made me think she had written the book just for me. Which is why, after months of inventing one lame reason after the other for why I couldn’t go, I finally decided it was time to get off my scared ass and drive the three-and-a-half hours to Kripalu this past weekend. Why I was so afraid to take Jennifer’s On Being Human workshop I can’t explain. Wait, that’s a lie. The truth is this: The unknown scares the crap out of me sometimes. I had no idea what my experience would be like in Jennifer’s workshop. But we only know when we do, right? So I did. Yes, I thought I’d shit my pants on my way to Kripalu, wondering if I really had it in me to let go and be vulnerable in front of dozens of women I had never met.

I did not shit my pants, but I did sweat, a lot. If anything, the 95-degree heat made it easier to say, “Fuck you fear.” It took too much energy to think, I don’t belong here … I can’t dance … I can’t sing … I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. And the heat melted my body into a let-go puddle. So I had no choice but to dance like a dork, sing “Landslide” and “Don’t Stop Believin'” out of tune while doing Downward-Facing Dog, sing into an orange crayon-turned-microphone, play the air drums with a crayon, cry, and, as Jennifer says, “let snot fly.” It felt good, damn good.

At the end of the weekend, I left with a backpack full of what I call “Pastiloff Vitamins.” I take them everyday, with a large glass of “I am good enough, and don’t fucking forget that.”

I even have some samples of her vitamins for you:

“Ask. Don’t let ‘no’ stop you.”

“Daydream for five minutes every day.”

“Go ‘beauty hunting’. Make something beautiful.”

“Shoulds are assholes.”

“Everything has to be moment to moment, because that’s all we have.”

“Be a human thank you.”

“Say ‘yes’ to yourself.”

“Trust in the timing of your life.”

“Invite ease into your life.”

“Find joy for no reason.”

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In my recent Google search for stories about forgiveness, I came across  The Forgiveness Project. Founded in 2004 by journalist Marina Cantacuzino, The Forgiveness Project provides resources to help people explore and work through their own, unresolved grievances. The project collects testimonies from victims of all kinds of violence whose resilience acts as a powerful antidote to hate and brutality. The purpose of the project is an open-hearted one: to show  that “restorative narratives have the power to transform lives; not only supporting people to move on from harm or trauma, but also building a climate of tolerance, resilience, hope and empathy.”

My personal journey toward forgiveness started nearly 16 years ago, when I was struck down my an older driver at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. The driver, 86-year-old Russell Weller, confused the gas pedal with the brake of his Buick LeSabre and barreled through the market at upwards of 60 miles an hour. He killed 10 pedestrians and injured another 63 of us. My life came to a screeching halt the moment the Buick slammed into me, sending me airborne, my body hitting the pavement with a smack, jarring my brain, rupturing my spleen, and shattering my pelvis. At the scene of the accident, Weller was heard by witnesses to say, “If you saw me coming, why didn’t you get out of my way?” And he refused to offer a meaningful apology to any of the injured or loved ones of the deceased.

Given Weller’s lack of remorse, I didn’t know how to forgive him, if I could forgive him. Later, when I read about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I thought, come on, Melissa. If people who have been victims of some of the most horrific crimes (the Rwanda genocide, for instance) can forgive their perpetrators, then why can’t I forgive Weller? He didn’t intentionally kill or hurt people. It was an accident.

Then I learned about the Forgiveness Project, and, once again, felt like crap about myself for my wavering approach toward forgiving Weller. Is it even possible to absolutely forgive? Is it possible to forgive one day, then unforgive the next? Is “unforgive” a word? Why do we forgive anyway? Who benefits from forgiveness? My head sometimes goes bonkers with such questions, and I wish I knew the answers. But I don’t. What I do know is that I am still a student of inquiry into forgiveness. My forgiveness journey is far from over; I’m not sure there is such a thing as “over.”  I’m fine with that. As The Forgiveness Project demonstrates, there are “no set rules or time limits.”

Exciting news! My conversation with Lynn Lurie, about her latest novel Museum of Stones, is now live at Heather Feather Review. Check it out!

Museum of Stones reveals a possessive/obsessive world of a love that must be released. An exceptional child collects too many rocks, invents a garbage recycler that runs amok, does not “play well.” His mother takes their relationship to extremes, threatening her sanity and health, a wrenching yet often funny account.

Lynn Lurie is the author of three novels, Corner of the Dead (2008), winner of the Juniper Prize for Fiction, Quick Kills (2014) and Museum of Stones (early 2019). An attorney with an MA in international affairs and an MFA in writing, she is a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador and currently teaches creative writing and literature to incarcerated men. She has served as a translator and administrator on medical trips to South America providing surgery free of charge to children, and has mentored at Girls Write Now in New York City.

As a writer, the hardest part for me is getting the words on the page, meaning this: my brain manages to arrange precisely what it is I want to write, but once I sit my butt in the chair, and face the screen, my brain slams its door shut. If only I had the key to that door, quick access to the words so beautifully aligned in my head. But, alas, I do not have such a key. Instead, I keep at it, and sometimes find myself sitting in front of the computer for an hour before coming up with a sentence I’m half-willing to share with the world.

Herein lies the problem: I fret way too much over every single word I write. I worry too much about what others will think of me and my writing once they read my work. Sure, there are days when my fingers dance a smooth Rumba across the keyboard, but those days are few and far between. What do I do about this? While it would be nice if I did have a key for the times my brain locks me out, I might lose it. Then what? What I need to do is build my own door, open it up all the way, and invite into my writing home whatever comes my way. What I need to do is loosen up a little more, to be a little more brave, a little more willing to do a Rumba.

If I’ve learned from anyone what it takes to do the narrative dance with abandon, it’s my brother-in-law Chris. Though he’s not a writer, he does know how to let go and be himself. What I admire the most about him is his so-what? attitude. He doesn’t empty his mental gas tank worrying about what others might think of him when he shares what he needs to share in the moment. In other words, he is as authentic as authentic gets. As long as I’ve known him (15 years), he has spoken his emotional truth, and has blown me away with how easily and calmly he speaks about all things real and human without censorship or self-judgement.

Because Chris is a self-described non-writer, and usually prefers to engage in live discussions with people, rather than texting, emailing, or sending letters, I was shocked and delighted when he texted his siblings and other close family a brief synopsis of his experience during his recent road-trip from Vermont to Florida. (For context: Chris was his mother’s caregiver for nearly two years, the reason why he did not hike the Appalachian Trail. She lived at OLP for a year, and passed away on November 21, 2018)

Let me write this down and share it, as time has a way of at least dulling my memories. On my adventure to Florida, I stopped at Johnson City, Tennessee. The next morning, I left and started south on Interstate 26. It’s difficult to describe on paper the majestic vistas I witnessed. The sheer power of the mountains as I traveled through the Smokies, Cherokee National Park, and the Appalachia Trail. I could not help have thoughts of regretting my decision in 2016 to not hike the AT. All the things I could have seen and experienced danced through my head. Daydreaming was definitely prevalent, but reality set in and navigating Atlanta was on my mind. South of Atlanta my mind once again drifted, but this time it was filled with visions of Mom. I will only try to describe one of the many that popped into my mind that afternoon. I am sitting with Mom – the place could be in Florida or OLP (Our Lady of Providence Residential Care Facility). Mom is eating a cookie, or could be candy, or ice-cream, that part doesn’t matter. I am cooking Mom some fish and a veggie. I mention to Mom to save room for dinner as she takes another bite of her goody of the day. Mom looks at me and tells me that she’s not hungry. I say nothing as she looks at me, daring me to contradict her. When I say nothing, she goes back to what she was doing, but I can’t help seeing an impish little smile that tells me she has won again, and is still in control. That night, as I fell asleep, my only thought was that I have no regrets. Majestic Mom and the real memories outweigh the majestic mountains and the wannabe memories. This will the last time I write something like this.

During a recent family gathering, I asked Chris what he meant by the last sentence in his text. To be honest, I was afraid of what he might say. You see, Chris has stage 4 lung cancer, and anytime he mentions the word “last” my overthinking brain raises its worry flag.

When he gave me a long goggle-eyed stare, I wanted to curl up and crawl inside myself.

Then he said, “Because it took me all day to write it. It was mentally exhausting.”

He smiled (thank goodness), which gave me permission to smile too, and we both nodded in agreement at one another.

But here’s the pearl of wisdom Chris so kindly offered, and which I quickly hung on a sturdy hook in my brain: “I wanted to write something during my trip,” he said, “but my head wasn’t in the mental space. Yesterday it was, so that’s when I wrote it.”

Because I’m a writer, I think I should write every day, seven days a week. But there are days when my “mental space” is closed, maybe because it’s out of town for a long-weekend, or it’s come down with a bad cold and needs a day or two on the couch, or maybe it simply needs a timeout. I think I just might do that: take a timeout the next time I’m sitting at the computer, and my brain slams its door on me. Yes, I think I will do that. And not regret it.

Chris’s cancer diagnosis has smacked him in the face with his own mortality, and it doesn’t take much to physically and mentally wear him down these days, but I know he has plenty of pearls left. And I can’t wait to open up his next serving of oysters.

For some, the holidays can be hard, really hard. In the backdrop of all the holly-jolly, the eggnog and cookies, the faith-filled choral music, and Christmas carolers spreading good cheer through glittered neighborhoods, there are those of us who can’t help but feel a little sad as we think of loved ones we’ve lost over the past year. I lost my father in September, and my mother-in-law the day before Thanksgiving. So how do we manage our sadness, let ourselves be with the pain as it comes, often in unexpected ways and at unexpected moments? Things. There is meaning in things, not random any-old things, but things that keep us close and connected to those we wish were still here. For me, there is meaning in the necklace my father gave me for my birthday years ago, though that meaning didn’t become apparent to me until after he was gone. I remember feeling warmed by his gift at the time he gave it to me, warmed by how he had taken my grandmother’s pearl ring to a jeweler and had it made into a necklace for me. I don’t know why I didn’t wear it (maybe because it was so fragile), but I didn’t. I put it in my jewelry box and forgot all about it. Then, a few weeks ago, when I was going through old jewelry, I found the necklace coiled up in a knotted mess. Overwhelming emotion flooded through me as I carefully picked apart the knot then slipped on the necklace. At that moment, I missed my father more than I had in weeks. How strange it is that things like this mean so much more to us, (or is it just me that feels this way?) after a loved one is gone. Maybe it’s not as strange as we think. When we lose someone we love we do all we can, as in holding close to us certain meaningful things, to keep them alive, right? Unless it’s someone you’d prefer to forget, but I’ll save that topic for another day, maybe.

For my husband, he wears his mother’s hats she crocheted over the years. I wear them too. And we cuddle in her crocheted afghans. My husband also keeps left-over yarn she never had the chance to use, bakes Christmas cookies using her hand-me-down recipes, sings her favorite songs, and listens to recordings of her voice.

Sometimes things carry weight, emotional weight, but how lucky we are to have them at all, to know, for instance, that the necklace, the hats and afghans, the recipes, you name it, are present and enduring.

If you’re among the grieving this holiday season, I hope you too have that one (or two or three) meaningful things by your side to help you manage through the loss and pain and sadness.

And please remember …

I’m on your side.