Yes

Yes to honesty and transparency.
Yes to fun.
Yes to life and all the possibilities.
Yes to friends and love.
Yes to dancing.
Yes to being in the woods and breathing in nature.
Yes to pleasure. 

Yes to taking risks.
Yes to living in the moment.
Yes to giving and receiving.
Yes to me.
Yes to you.
Yes to meditation and listening to the small, quiet voice.

Yesterday before I went into the meeting with our divorce attorneys a friend of mine suggested that I just simply ask God to show me a sign that he/she/whatever was going to be there with me. I sat on the bench and asked the question and immediately heard these words very clearly: "Oh, Robin, yes I am here with you! I am so totally here with you." 


Dick Gregory said this line and I've always loved it, "God and fear do not belong in the same sentence."

Yes. 

Breathing

I would really love to have something really funny come out of me now, because God knows we all could use a good laugh.  One benefit of having George Bush as our President was that you had to laugh now and then or you would lose your mind.  President Obama is not that funny, is he?  And he's definitely trying to accomplish something, but what's up with those Democrats?

They are definitely not funny. 

I love that Jon Stewart can make us laugh even when we've lost most of our money in the stock market and we can't come up with any kind of health plan and I wish he could sit in on my divorce meeting that's coming up.  That would definitely lighten the mood, wouldn't it?  I would never divorce Jon Stewart, he's too cute.  And though I know he has thirty or so writers, he is pretty quick on his feet when it comes to humor.

And in my next relationship, humor will again be at the top of the list.  So now let's all take a deep breath, try to find something funny to at least smile about, and don't forget to exhale.  

Divorce primer

This week and next week my husband and I sit down together with our lawyers.  I haven't seen or spoken to him in two months.  A lot has happened in two months.

I think I mentioned that I have been receiving a daily "divorce support" email that is a bit too religious for me...but every once in awhile I read something that resonates.  I've been feeling like I need time for myself before I do any serious dating, and this is what I read over the weekend:  

 "If you come out of a relationship and then immediately jump into another one, your heart does not get a chance to fully heal; therefore, you are walking along wounded emotionally. You are vulnerable, then, to starting this new relationship without a whole heart, and you're going to try to suck your need for acceptance and significance out of this person all the more. You're not really in the relationship for the other person. You're in it for yourself."


I know of one couple who met a few months after he and his wife split up and they couldn't be happier.  I know that in his case, his marriage was such a disaster, his wife was (is) a non-functioning alcoholic, so although he was physically there, he had left long ago.  He was ready to fall in love and he got lucky.  And so did my friend. They have four kids between them, plenty of problems, but they adore each other. 


I don't know what my future will be, but I know that right now I am in a good place and I am grateful.  After many months of coping with so much loss and more tears than I have cried in my entire life, I feel stronger than I have in a long time.  That doesn't mean I don't feel waves of sadness and fear.  It just means that I have to "keep praying and moving my feet."  

  

"Opening Ourselves to Love"

Last night I went to Leonard Cohen's final concert in the NYC area, at Madison Square Garden.  I went with a man I'd never met before, who drove in from New Hampshire, who originally invited my friend Karen because his wife couldn't go, and because Karen is out of town, she suggested that I go instead. Got that?  The tickets were given to him as a gift, he adores Leonard Cohen, and he wanted to go to the concert with someone who would appreciate seeing him.


Wow, did I appreciate it seeing him.  It may have been the best concert I've been to in my life.  Leonard Cohen is seventy-five, he performed for over three hours, the musicians he shares the stage with are all unbelievably talented, and he couldn't be more generous in giving them each time in the spotlight.  And his music...and his lyrics...he sold out Madison Square Garden - over 20,000 people who seemed to know every song.  I wish I could see him again.  He spent five years in a Zen Monastery.  He is a genius. 


Then this morning, I was reading "The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie and I thought it was worth putting it on the blog today, in honor of the generous gifts I received last night and also during this entire challenging year:

 "Opening Ourselves to Love


Open ourselves to the love that is available to us.

We do not have to limit our sources of love, God and the Universe have an unlimited supply of what we need, including love.

When we are open to receiving love, we will begin to receive it.  It may come from the most surprising places, including from within ourselves.

We will be open to and aware of the love that is and has been there for us all along.  We will feel and appreciate the love from friends.  We will notice and enjoy the love that comes to us from family.  

We will be ready to receive love in our special love relationships too.  We do not have to accept love from unsafe people - people who will exploit us or with whom we don't want to have relationships.  

But there is plenty of good love available - love that heals our heart, meets our needs, and makes our spirits sing.

We have denied ourselves too long.  We have been martyrs too long.  We have given so much and allowed ourselves to receive too little.  We have paid our dues.  It is time to continue the chain of giving and receiving by allowing ourselves to receive.

Today, I will open myself to the love that is coming to me from the Universe.  I will accept it and enjoy it when it comes."

"The Boys Are Back"

Yesterday, at a Writers' Guild screening I saw Michael Moore's film "Capitalism: A Love Story" which I thought was really important and worth seeing.  Today I saw "The Boys Are Back" with Clive Owen, which I thought was wonderful too.

This is one of the great privileges of being a member of a guild, that we get to see films before they are released. I found this one very moving and as a parent, I remembered many of the struggles I felt raising my daughter.  The story takes place in Australia (the scenery is extraordinarily beautiful) and the plot is Clive Owen's character loses his beloved wife and has to raise his young son alone.  He has another son from an earlier marriage who comes from England to stay with them.  It's beautifully acted and directed.  Both young actors are fantastic, and Clive Owen is better than I've ever seen him. 


I went with two friends, Karen and Barbara, and we all loved it, although it was quite emotionally difficult.  I'm glad I saw it.  I'm glad films like this are still being made.   

We are mad as hell

I have been waiting for thirty years for someone to talk about Ronald Reagan and how his administration was the beginning of the end for this country's middle class.  I know that there have been others who have made documentaries and written books, but Michael Moore's film "Capitalism: A Love Story" documents the years of Wall Street and corporate control over this country and our economy, over why we find that 1% of the population controls something like 95% of the wealth and all the rest of us are being completely screwed.  I think that this victim mentality, which I have to admit I buy into frequently in my own personal life, makes us feel powerless  and we are not powerless!  We live in a democracy and it's up to each of us to write letters, march and yell about bailouts and health care and foreclosures and quietly putting up with the lies and misinformation.  



Why Obama put Geitner and Summers in charge of the Treasury Department is an abomination.  Why he hasn't gotten rid of them yet is unconscionable.  Honestly, I got a C in economics, but even I know that we as a country have got to stand up and insist that we will not allow corporations to be more important than citizens and there are basic human rights for health care, the right to work, the right to have a home, a list of rights that we deserve to have.  Franklin Roosevelt laid them out out in a speech near the end of his life, which Michael Moore was able to dig up and put in the film.  

I know that whoever reads this blog is liberal and I am preaching to the choir, but it's so important to talk about this with everyone you know - to open up this conversation and to let it be known that we don't want Goldman Sachs' former executives running our government anymore.  We elected Obama because we want change - and no matter how rich or how poor we are, we do each have a vote.  I will not vote for Bloomberg - I know he will win, but I want to send a message that we are mad as hell.  Go see Capitalism: A Love Story and rent Paddy Cheyefsy's masterpiece "Network" if you haven't seen it in a long time.  


As Michael Moore said in his film "Sicko" so many of us feel that we have no say in our government, but we managed to elect Obama and yet there is so much more we can do and we must do.  


I'm all for breathing and spirituality and all that - but we are at a crucial time in this country's history and if we don't do something, we will all literally be screwed.  


Spend the ten or twelve dollars and see this film.  Please.





 

The heart

This morning my friend David sent me a Pema Chodron quote that is so beautiful I had to include it:

"When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless.  You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space."