One of those days after you pushed me away for the last time and before you knew that time was the last, I watched a recording of Peter Rollins’s online seminar titled “Giving the Unwanted Gift of Nothing“. The gift being love.
Continue reading “Unmaking”Tag boys
Monday Evening Company
Hi, what are you up to? I text Tom on a Monday. Working late, he responds, as he does sometimes.
Another friend who occasionally claims to enjoy my company said he’d be in town Monday evening. Hi, wanna meet for a drink after my assisting gig? I text him. Sorry, no, he replies, I’ll be too far still.
And so I stop by a store, have a snack alone, go home alone, go to bed alone. Except I am not. Continue reading “Monday Evening Company”
No
“No.” I say firmly toward a brick wall in front of me. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Not good enough. No.” Next to me Tiffany asserts: “No way. No. No!” To the same wall. Continue reading “No”
Doctor Faust’s Error
Nina encouraged her birthday party guests to prepare something for the delight and entertainment of other guests. I chose to read a tale from the “Fairy Tales and Stories” collection by Max Frei for the Birthday Salon. To be precise, I impromptu translated it from Russian. Despite my getting occasionally stuck looking for the right word, the tale delighted.
Part I of the “Fairy Tales and Stories” book could have been titled, if one were to translate it, “Weird Mythologies”. It’s unlikely to be translated though, because many of the tales there build on the children’s literature and culture we grew up with in back in 1970ties, 1980ies back in the urban Soviet Union, and the initial familiarity is a substantial component of the wonder and thrill of the weird mythologies. Fortunately, the particular tale I read built on broader cultural context, so I brought it to the salon and I’ll translate it here for the delight and entertainment of those my readers who don’t read Russian, more thoughtfully than at Nina’s birthday salon. (If you do read Russian, head over here for the original and the rest of it.)
Through many a storyteller, in great detail, in many voices (so as to find a version for every listener, according to their size and intelligence), the history tells us the tale of Doctor Faust, as she remains stubbornly silent about his contemporary, neighbor, and the closest friend named Peter.
To Hold Space
Our yoga psychology teacher gave us homework: to write personal code of conduct for close relationships with students. There is of course the Yoga Alliance Code of Conduct, and, at the basic level, the boundaries are clear. But it quickly becomes non-trivial. What if teaching is a huge part of your life, and the main place where you meet like-minded people? What if you do run into someone special, whatever that may mean. What if, you know, you are human sometimes? How close is too close anyway? And why? No, not because it’s written somewhere, but for real – why? Continue reading “To Hold Space”
Love letters understated 