Please check out our new collaborative website, Brenimara.com. This features collaborative work by Danielle Imara and I.

It has been a while since I posted on here. This is mainly because my writing has been focused on teaching materials such as syllabi, assignments, lesson plans, and presentations recently. You can check out my teaching site here.

I’ve also been posting some of my drawings, which I really enjoy doing. My long term plan is to create a graphic memoir and a children’s book. I’m taking the long route, until I find the shortcut. You can check out my drawings here.

In 2020, I plan to write another book, finish my graphic novel, work on my handstands and splits, listen more, learn more, be more grateful, and make better choices.

Two things I’m excited about this year are the classes I will be teaching:

Writing for the Humanities and Arts at City College

and

English Composition at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Currently, I’m working on a humorous grammar textbook, and another book of micro-fiction about relationships.

If you have any anecdotes or memes (or questions) about grammar (or relationships), please comment or message me here.

Wishing everyone a wonderful 2020.

This semester I am teaching Introduction to Literature at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Click here for the class website.

This semester, I am teaching Writing for the Humanities at CCNY. Click here for the class website.

If you have family members that live in other countries, you know it’s not easy to see them as much as you would like. I grew up in a village, and—even though I live in New York now—I still prefer to go only as far as I can walk. It takes some thought-restructuring to pretend that a seven-hour flight is the same as sitting in one’s living room (or sitting at work, since I would never sit still that long otherwise), even if the chair one is sitting in travels over 3,000 miles.

When I arrived at my mum’s house after an overnight flight, it was about three hours until the wedding she had been asking me about ever since the last time I visited. My mum loves the fairy tale of princes and princesses getting married, so when she heard that Princess Eugenie, ninth in line to the throne, was getting married in Windsor, near her home, she kept asking if we could go.

We reached the castle about half an hour before the princess was expected to enter for the service, about an hour after the golden-ticket holders had entered the castle grounds. Although there was a small crowd in front of the castle, the streets nearby were mostly empty. I asked an officer if there was a disabled viewing area, and she said no matter where we chose to go, we would get a good view.

We caught a glimpse of Fergie going in through the gates, and then after the service, we saw the carriage with Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbanks doing their brief tour. Before the carriage arrived, ambassadors moved everyone possible into the disabled section since there were only four people in it. “Lowkey” was how many people described it.

The flowers were glorious and autumnal. I wish my mother could have had her fairy tale. I wish she could have felt like a princess herself. But at least during my visit, she was able to get outside, breathe fresh air, see the sky, and see the flowers and the trees blowing in the breeze.

Violet Capers is no more.

And you can still get this one too.

Although I am a long time New York resident, I still have a lot of love for my home town, Windsor. As soon as I heard the date of the Royal Wedding, I booked a flight. My mum is a huge fan of the Royal Family, and she started anticipating the wedding from the moment the date was announced. 

As we walked around Windsor the day before the wedding, I couldn't help feeling uplifted by the happy fans waiting to catch a glimpse of the royal couple. 

Joseph Afrane from Battersea in London had already been in his spot two days on the day before the wedding.

"I love it," he said. "I love the Royal Family. They support charities. The support everyone. They're doing a good job. I have to support them."

Wendy Cox and Anne Hall came from Yorkshire to claim their spot the day before the wedding.

"We've done it since Charles married Diana. We have to support Harry," Wendy said. "This might be our last one."

This lady from New Orleans said she came for Harry.

"I came for William too. And the Jubilee. Harry's getting married! I've got to be here for Harry!"

Sharon McKewan picked a prime spot outside the castle to wait overnight. 

"It's exciting," she said. "It's the first time for a wedding like this in the Royal Family. Meghan is mixed race. This will unite people and bring everyone together." 

Two wedding parties came out of the Guild Hall outside the Windsor Castle. The crowd cheered them.

"Everyone is so happy and nice," my mum said. "It's lovely to be out in this atmosphere."

Two strangers gave free flags to my mum, and she tried a slice of lemon and elderflower cake, which the tea shop outside the castle said was just like the one that will be served at the wedding.

The Long Walk was lined with drawings, mostly by local children. Fans waited in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the happy couple, and some were lucky enough to meet Harry and William.

I don't know how much we will see of the wedding tomorrow, and I don't know what makes this wedding so different from any other wedding, nor why so many people feel connected to this couple they don't know. But I know that a lot of people are delighting in the wonderful distraction of all this pomp and splendour.

Codee Sato was in the same Unification Church Blessing as me: 30,000 couples at Seoul Olympic Stadium. I didn't know her or her husband, but we connected on Facebook, and I enjoyed her outspoken status updates. Codee now belongs to Sean Moon’s World Peace and Unification Sanctuary, a branch of the Unification Church to develop since Reverend Moon’s death in 2012. Hak Ja Han Moon, Reverend Moon's wife and Sean Moon's mother, leads the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, another branch.  I asked Codee if she would share a little with me about her faith.

Overview of the Blessing Ceremony that occurred on February 28th, 2018. To learn more about Pastor Hyung Jin Sean Moon's ministry visit: christkingdomgospel.org

What are the most positive aspects of the church ceremonies at the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary in Pennsylvania? What makes you feel drawn to this movement?

The gathering of saints and heroes or patriots of our time, honoring the words of God as responsible defenders of truth and of good people as sovereign families and community. The people there are the true agents of real change and true love for America.

Has Sean Moon inherited the role of Messiah from his father? If so, how was this determined?

Sean Moon inherited the mission of his Father the Messiah. He has the same full authority as the representative of God and the Messiah on Earth. It’s determined by the Principle, by the power of the word, which is the truth that God’s purpose or intention when he created Man was to dwell in man. That man is the lineage of God. God has chosen the Moon seed to engraft mankind to his lineage.

What is the significance of the “rods of iron?” Is this something that was prophesied in The Bible or the Divine Principle?

Yes it’s definitely in the Bible. You can search this yourself.

Does this signify an upcoming time of trial or war?

I believe that this is happening already. Europe has been experiencing a great change in history. The Muslim and Christian worlds are definitely at war at this time and age.

Do you own a gun? If so, can you tell me something about how you chose it and bought it?

Since I live in Europe, I only own a BB Gun. Deadly enough to shoot someone in the eyes who tries to attack me or my family. I’m a member of a shooting club and so I practice twice a week to be a better shooter.

What do your children think about the rods of iron? Do any of them know how to shoot?

The Club is a family membership, so the kids can learn to shoot anytime they want. We do our own self-defense training at home, mainly martial arts.

Did you go to the commitment ceremony? Did your children go?

I’m not sure about the commitment ceremony question here, but if you mean the event, yes I was there with my mom, my husband and my three children.

Were you married at a Unification Church Blessing Ceremony? If so, which one, and are you still together?

1992 and it depends on how you define “still together”. But we are a great team.

How does your partner feel about the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary and their practices? Are most of your friends supportive?

Again, we are a great team and most of my real good friends are open minded about my beliefs or about Unification Sanctuary. But there are also those who questions a lot and have their doubts.

The Unification Church under Reverend Sun Myung Moon had as one of its central tenets the sanctity of eternal marriage. How do you see this playing out in the lives of your children?

You’ll have to ask my children. My children are open to this challenge. But as a family, our first relationship is with God before with our spouses. So our faith in God will remain even if our spouses leaves. Also my family do not believe in divorce.

I heard my name from behind the black gauze curtain and walked out, staring down the audience, trying to persuade myself I knew what I was doing. Would I remember the next moves after the buttercup, the hip roll, and the low and slow?

I lay down on my stomach in my starting position. The music started: Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks.” I was doing it. The buttercup with four variations. But oh no. I was doing the wide leg prance eight bars too early.

The rest of the set dissolved into an improvised nightmare. The piece was supposed to be about Hurricane Katrina and embodied the word “Disaster” scrawled around my neck.

My body flailed as if drowning in invisible water while my mind floated overhead, aware of the brilliant aerialists that had preceded our piece, of my brilliant coach, Stella Fink, of my brilliant boyfriend sitting in the audience, and only barely remembering that I still hadn’t finished that graphic memoir I’d been talking about for years.

The blue of your eye flickers across an invisible sky.

Over there, you say. Run into it, and jump.

You are sleeping. You exhale, and a slight wheeze

breathes across your chest. Your face,

smooth as an ocean-turned rock, turns silent.

Your eyes flit across mine, vibrating, seeing me

as a ghost smiling in your dream of the future.

The Teal Swan Synchronization Workshop at Baruch Center for the Arts on March 5th opened with a musician playing Crystal Singing Bowls. He looked a bit like Jesus as he circled the bowls with his strikers.

The stage was flanked by red velvet curtains, ornate wood carvings and an inscription that read, "He that getteth wisdom loveth his own soul. He that keepeth understanding shall find good."

About four hundred people sat in the 626 seat tiered Masonic Hall. Most of them were in their twenties, with only a few older people, and even fewer people of color.

We'll be doing some exercises to dive deep into our shadows, the emcee said.

My daughter grinned at me, knowing that this was exactly what I didn't want to do.

Leave your expectations of what a spiritual healer is at the door, the emcee said.

I had tried to listen to Teal Swan's videos a couple of times, but on both occasions slipped out of the room feeling less happy than before as she listed all the many failings of mankind, parents, and me.

Teal Swan's method of healing focuses on accepting all emotions as a part of our reality, and in particular delving deep into our negative or shadow emotions with the intention of accepting them, or transforming their origin in our minds. Teal Swan has created a "Completion Process" to help people do this. She has a cult following of people who call themselves Teal Tribers, and she encouraged them to seek each other out for support.

Swan entered the room amidst cheering, a slender, water-like figure dressed in a sleeveless white silk pants suit, her expressive tattooed arms gesturing to lower the applause. She opened her workshop with a statement about how shame is the major obstacle to loving relationships. Then she demonstrated a "shame ping pong match" in which she and a man traded shaming statements until one of them left.

Leaving is the ultimate shaming statement, Teal said. It's saying you're not even worthy enough for me to stay in the room with you.

After the first group exercise in which we shared about shaming experiences in groups of three, Teal began the main part of the workshop, which was calling people up from the audience to ask questions. Each person would be given half an hour, after which time the emcee would sit in the chair beside them like a shadow, indicating it was time for them to leave.

Four rows back, bald, maybe something blue around your neck, Teal said, holding her hand towards the center of the room. The man walked up to the red chair beside Teal's padded green armchair.

I want to know about my gift to the world, he said.

How does an ant get to another continent? Teal asked. An ant doesn't have the concept of how it can reach another continent. But airplanes are a concept to us, so for humans, getting an ant to another continent is easy.

The next woman joined Teal on stage.

You had a parent who was humbling, Teal said. You learned that the only way to feel good is to feel bad about yourself. Feeling good makes me a bad person. Abuse is so painful, we become our own abusers so it's predictable. It's the ultimate white flag.

The woman looked as if she was searching for a way to compute this new understanding of herself.

I'd have a much bigger audience if I healed people, Teal said, which I'm perfectly capable of doing. I could heal everyone in this audience. But they'd only remain well for a number of days before the patterns recreated the illness. Energy works only in tandem with emotions.

The next person to sit with Teal was a woman who worked in a juvenile detention center. I noticed the security guard in a suit chewing gum on the side. I wondered what he was thinking about all this.

I never tell people their purpose, Teal said. But I'm going to break the mold with you. Your purpose is to open a center. It will be a franchise.

The audience applauded.

You will never be comfortable in your current situation, Teal said, but you will learn from it how the system functions.

The next person was called to the stage.

I don't know my purpose, she said.

What if your purpose is to be okay with what is, Teal said. This entire time space reality has been running on desire. The Universe wants to know about the possibilities outside of desire.

The girl looked close to tears.

What if I hate what is? she asked. What if I can't like it?

Why is that so difficult for you, Teal asked, to just be okay with what is. One day I went out to sit on a park bench in a place where there was a lot of suffering and a lot of homeless people. It was uncomfortable for me because I hate littering, and there was a lot of litter. I focused on a cigarette butt and tried to see something positive about it, and I realized it could provide a moment of relief to someone in pain. Then I tried to look beyond what I knew about the cigarette butt and see it as an object. There's a scene in American Beauty where the boy is just looking at a plastic bag blowing in the wind. I looked at the way the cigarette butt was rolling in the wind, and I saw it as something that had given its life unconditionally.

Thoughts are matched with thoughts. I really want to explain how thoughts work to you guys.

Question this thought: There's no purpose to life if nothing is changing, if it's not going anywhere. Can you prove this?

Buddha discovered beingness and said that doing was a distraction.

The girl looked devastated.

So this is not the ultimate purpose, right? she asked

If someone asks me what their purpose is, Teal said, the chance of them finding out is slim to none.

There is no wonderful moment without a crisis. What if someone had an accident and broke every bone in his body and spent six months in rehab, but out of that discovered his purpose of being a physical therapist. You're sitting there saying my life is a piece of shit. I'm saying you're literally on your path. Make a journal of loving what is.  The entire audience, in holding on to their desperation to fix it, is holding on to the problem.

The emcee came up and said, We all parade around up here like we're perfect but sometimes I feel like I'm a technicolor broken mosquito.

After the break the next person came to the chair. The security guard was now sitting with the emcee, looking fully involved.

Why is it so difficult to feel loved? the girl asked.

You weren't loved by the people who were supposed to love you the most, Teal said, so how can you trust anyone else to? You need to be doing trauma work.

I don't want to work 9-5, the girl said. I want to stay in bed all day.

Teal suggested various possibilities for work that might fit the girl's requirements but her expression indicated that she literally meant she wanted to stay in bed.

Third row, man with facial hair, Teal indicated for the next speaker.

The man said that his wife felt lonely and Teal asked his wife to join him on the stage.

I know it's my fault, the wife said. I'm trying to get used to being all right by myself.

I don't agree with that at all, Teal said. You will never feel all right without him, and the only time you will try to feel all right without him is when you feel hurt by his lack of presence.

Husbands, never stop pursuing your wives.

The audience applauded this.

No woman wants to ask a man for attention, Teal said, or stand between a man and what he wants. When a man wants a woman, he has this intense focus. He finds out everything about her and what she likes. The woman buys into that. That is what she agreed to when she agreed to marry you. But you're already onto the next thing, and now you're focusing on whatever creative pursuit you have. You don't have to be with her all the time. But put aside a time every day, even an hour, when you are fully focused on her.

The man took his wife's hand.

Men in the audience, Teal said, if you want to find the craziest, most off balance woman, just give her all your attention and take it away. If you want a woman who says you can do whatever you want, be truly intimate with her.

Intimacy. In to me see.

The closer you get to someone the more secure they are, and the more autonomy they can handle.

One of the final speakers was a masseur who wanted to be a father. But he wanted to do it the "messy" way, with a friend rather than with an unknown surrogate because he wanted his child to know its mother.

How many people here had a mother who was a nightmare, Teal asked the audience.

About three quarters of the audience raised their hands. I looked at my daughter beside me, and thankfully she wasn't among them.

You don't come to a workshop like this unless you have suffered trauma. How many are here to heal from the damage their mothers did?

Again about three quarters of the audience raised their hands. I started to feel very uncomfortable. 

The masseur had a pain in his hand, and he asked Teal to look at it. She held his hand, and I hoped that I might see evidence of her healing powers in action. She told him the problem was in his elbow and that an acupuncturist could easily resolve the issue. She also told him that he didn't like being a masseur, although he claimed that he loved it. Teal led the main through a guided exploration of this.

Tap into the part of you that doesn't like doing massage, she said. How do you feel?

Tired, he said.

Good, she said. You're tired of reaching out to people without anyone reaching back in return. Now think about how you feel when you're going to give a massage.

Relaxed, he said.

Really? From this side of yourself that doesn't like massage. How do you really feel?

Secure, he said.

It's a transaction, she said. Do you really feel comfortable?

When it was time to close the workshop, Teal said, "Be willing to go to those places that cause you pain because..."

I can't remember the reason.

It isn’t the blue ghost of your eye or your moon cut smile. It isn’t your body’s landscape of muscle and bone, or how your hand turns from top stretched silk to calloused craters below. It isn’t how you hold me while night’s breath condenses, and sweat drips on your sheet. It isn’t how you fill me with bliss filled nothingness.

It isn’t how you slice through air and time, land on a pedestal and spiral into space. It’s not how you mastered mind over matter in everything except mastering your own mind. It’s not the fingertip thrill of your warm architecture or how the vibration of your voice sends hip tremors to my heart.

It’s how you make me remember what free feels like.

It’s how. 

Free. 

Feels.

The floors are sky blue and the walls are butter cream yellow. When my mother moved from a bed with red curtains to a bed with blue curtains, it seemed to be a move from danger to safety.

But then the doctor called me out for a chat, and he took me to a private room.

“It will be very difficult for your mother to make it to Christmas,” he said. “I don’t like to make estimates about time, but she is very weak. I don’t expect her to see 2018.”

There was a window in the room and a robin hopped from a high branch of an elm tree to a closer branch. Or there might not have been a window at all. It might have been a wall with a whiteboard, and a chart with patient’s initials and codes for their various conditions.

“I explained the situation to your mother and she signed this DNR form.”

The doctor opened his white folder to the front page, to show the blue purple paper with black writing that said, “Do Not Resuscitate” at the top.

“Your mother is very weak,” the doctor said. “If her heart stops, it would be too traumatic to try to make it start again, and it would not have a good result, it wouldn’t work.”

The doctor’s ecru-colored trousers had knife creases, and the buttons on his shirt strained slightly around his middle.

“I just wanted to explain the situation to you so you are prepared,” he said.

As he stood up to leave, I felt that I needed to learn something deeper from this man who must have seen hundreds of people pass away.

“She said she’s scared about what comes next,” I said. “What can I tell her?”

 “With her condition, she won’t be in a lot of pain,” he said. “Most likely she will become very tired. Then she will lose interest in eating. Then she will just fall asleep and not wake up.”

But what about after that, I wanted to say. What about after she doesn’t wake up.

“You have to forget about tomorrow,” he said. “If she is here today, have a good day today.”

In her bed, my mother groaned with each breath, her body curled into a fetal skeleton. Other patients moaned and cried rhythmically around her.

I brought her a full English breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and tomatoes, and a hot cup of tea. She sat up and ate most of it. She smiled and laughed and asked why Princess Diana was on the front page of the Daily Mail today, and why it had been Marilyn yesterday.

“Why do they keep bringing people back from the past?” she asked.

“I suppose when people are special, we always want to know more about them,” I said. “And I suppose everyone has something special about them if you know them well enough.”

I like deadlines. Meeting them gives me a sense of accomplishment, and even more so if the magic of creation puts something surprising into the work. I don’t like booking flights though because so often there something arises that I’d rather do.

Last Friday was no exception. Because I had a week off work, I booked a flight to visit my ailing mother. On Wednesday, my daughter returned from a six-month trip to South America. It was difficult to leave and it made me think about how we use time to measure life, and how the things that are not scheduled are often the best.

My brother’s voice woke me from the peace of sleep. As soon as I felt the cold air on my face, the tingling behind my nose, the raw surface of my eyes and the dull ache in my head, I wished to return to the darkness of feeling nothing.

“Come and see Justine,” he said.

She hated it when he called her Justine, feeling that this demoted her from the rank of mother to that of a mere human.

“I’ll be there in a few moments,” I said.

From the silent response, I gathered that a few moments would be too long, so I gathered myself in a single moment and came downstairs.

 “I … can’t …” my mother said.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked. “Are you alright?”

“Breathe,” she said. “No.”

The emergency medical services on 111 went through their routine questions about whether she was conscious, whether she had suffered an injury, whether she was bleeding, and whether she could complete a sentence without gasping for breath.

The ambulance car got lost in our road, which is poorly lit at night and has no numbers, only names. The man who arrived suggested going to the hospital, getting some IV medication for the infection my mum seemed to have, and hopefully being home by the weekend.

Every bed in the Accident and Emergency Ward was full, and the waiting room was half full. A young couple sat by the window, the man’s bandaged foot in his girlfriend’s lap. When I returned an hour later to get a coffee, the girl’s feet were in the man’s lap and his bandaged foot was on a chair. An hour later, the girl was stretched out on three chairs, and the man was sitting beside her.

Between these hours, my mum had blood drawn, got attached to a monitor, and had an IV drip placed in her arm. She said no to pain relief but the nurse gave it to her anyway. As it seeped in, her breathing settled, and she fell into a peaceful sleep. After almost five hours in the chair, I sat on the floor and put my head on the pleather seat, which smelled tangy and un-breathable.

By morning, the doctor told me my mum was stable and there was less chance of getting an infection at home. The driver and I moved my mum from the wheelchair into the taxi with great difficulty.

“It’s a miracle,” she said. “I’m not in pain any more.”

 She watched the familiar pre-dawn landscape passing by, and I could see that it made her happy. It was a miracle, again. But in my mind, I saw that young couple waiting peacefully for hours in the waiting room, talking to each other in soft voices, at peace, and I knew that that was a miracle also.

"Nurse, nurse," my mother said. "Why is this ward called Stone Op?"

Her voice echoed in the ward, which I couldn't see because we were speaking on the phone.

"Snowdrop?" a voice echoed back. "I don't know."

"Maybe it's very pure," my mother said. "It's been a while since I heard from you. Where are you?"

"We spoke yesterday," I said. "I'm in New York."

"Oh, that is such a long way away," my mother exclaimed. "I thought you were at home."

But I was at home. As much as I love my mother, I am afraid of the empty spaces and ghosts in her house, which is also my home, but not one I can live in for very long. And I am afraid of her weak heart and labored breathing.

"The coffee here tastes like rubber tires," my mother said. "I like cups of tea, of course."

"I'll help you get some good cups of tea when I get there," I said.

"When will that be?"

"Not tomorrow morning but the next one," I said.

"That is such a very long time away," she said.

Over the past four years, I rushed home numerous times, every time my mother saying it may be the last time I would see her. But my mother's will to live kept her moving forward, believing she would make a full recovery. I wished that she was right so I could stay in one place for a while, knowing that she was okay.

When I got the emergency call, I didn't rush over. I believed that she would recover, as she always does. But because she wants to see me, and wants to get that really good cup of tea, I'll be on my way there tomorrow.

"Monday seems terribly far away," she said again.