"Hallelujah"

© Michael Kushner

The great arti-vist Lauren Molina asked me to be a part of this incredible evening celebrating Equal Rights (with an all female band!) at 54 Below months ago. It’s always an honor to contribute my voice to the chorus crying out for peace, equity and freedom.

The world is in crisis, and I think about it privately far more than I discuss in internet spaces— partially because these spaces can be didactic and unforgiving of nuance, but equally because … there is sometimes simply nothing to BE said. 

I don’t exclusively adhere to the belief that silence ALWAYS equals violence. Sometimes silence is golden— because in that silence we can deeply listen and hear one another, our inner voices, and sometimes even the Divine.  

*

I’ve been so deeply "in the wilderness" recovering from surgery #4, that I'd put it entirely out of my mind that I'd (joyfully!) agreed to participate in the Equal Rights concert at 54 Below. Something that’s usually medium-fun (and can be medium-stressful).

I got there and …. Absolutely out of nowhere, I felt like something whispered to me

          “You must sing Leonard Cohen’s 'Hallelujah.'”

I’ve never sung it before. I didn’t really know the words. But a force was saying “do this.”

One of music’s greatest poets— the peerless prophet Leonard Cohen penned this in [my birth year] 1983, and “Hallelujah” has been lullaby, prayer and battle cry ever since, in countless voices. And although I joined this genius group of women to uplift my voice for the entire world, for me personally, this was a “cold a broken Hallelujah.” 

I’m emerging from another health miracle, experienced within a season of solitude— I am “a baffled King;” I am “beauty and moonlight” —all all all. I crawled to 54 below, not knowing what would emerge “from my lips” and what’s left of my guts… and surrounded by friends and strangers I was just: transported. It was like Gd (one I don’t always adhere to or believe in, the way we’re conventionally “supposed” to?) but — That Divine Force was with me. For sometimes songs are prayers indeed — and I felt a force move within me that whispered:

“Hey kid. You made it. Now sing. Now LIVE.”
 

Hallelujah.

“This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah. That regardless of what the impossibility of the situation is, there is a moment when you open your mouth and you throw open your arms and you embrace the thing and you just say, ‘Hallelujah!... The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say, ‘Look, I don’t understand a thing at all—
Hallelujah!’ That’s the only moment that we live here fully as human beings.”

- Leonard Cohen

Phoenix Rising

Thank you to the brilliant, visionary, cheeky, and utterly fabulous Dustin Dale Barlow for having fun with me dressed in my favo(u)rite celebratory colo(u)r in the heart of New York’s Chinatown. 

He’s the real deal.
 
For an hour I felt like the very best of myself.

Rising like a phoenix from an artistically abundant, but privately quite challenging (but ultimately victorious) summer of health ups and downs. 

Oh friends. I realize I'm being a little cagey and secretive about my health right now. There is a huge energetic difference between things that are "secrets" and things that are "private." Secrets contain deception, shame, fears of being disconnected with. Private points to things that are personal, not embarrassing or shameful but belong to a select, intimate few. 

 

I have never wanted my experience with ulcerative colitis to be secretive and drenched in any kind of shame. But I often sit on new while I collect information-- and this particular era of my life there have been a lot of waiting, wondering, holding patterns and "no new developments."

 

So I just... got on with things. As I always do. 

 

I really wanted my surgical journey in 2021 to mean the end of me discussing illness ever again publicly OR privately— but c'est la vie. Life happens. 

We persevere. 

 

All to say: this 60 mins of artistry and playfulness and celebration was more than a treat or a “play date”— it was a victory. 

 

These glorious photos were was last Saturday

I was in surgery Wednesday. 

And I’m still rising — stronger than ever— on this Monday. 

On the other side of the latest chapter.

Onward.
Upward.
Ever-rising.
Inextinguishable.

Catherine: The Great

The great MamaSilbs left yesterday— after extending her trip slightly (because I wasn't 100%)

 

I want to take a moment to publicly thank Catherine Silber not only for, ya know, giving me life, and a lifetime of care, but for enduring so gracefully beside me. Truly: I have no personal experience that could ever instill within me the ability to fully empathize; to begin to imagine what she’s felt every day for the last few weeks (and frankly, years.)

 

Sure, she’s smoking-hot and has the horse power of 10 men, but she is also a widowed woman bearing witness to her only child going through all of this. 

She has done so with breath-taking valiance, capability and never-ending one liners.

 

 

We’ve shed a totally appropriate amount of tears over this (and many things) together, but the last two care-taking episodes (in NYC and previously in Chicago) both in the physical absence of Alec— have truly been world-class. 

 

Brava Cath. The only kid in American that loves their parent more vociferously is Gus Walz.

Standing ovation.  

Four encores. 

 

Now: where is the watermelon?

Things I like about Alec: a List

Alec is currently in Edinburgh for all of August, for the third year in a row. It’s been quite the year of time apart— we will really only been together in bursts of 3-14 days from March til September. It’s been tough, but a challenge we are more than capable of rising to— after all, our love was born of, and fostered within, long-distance. Plus, it is an incredible indicator of our mutual professional/artistic abundance this year. Yay abundance.

All that said? I freaking miss him. And wanted a chance to list a few things I love about him— large and small. I love Alec. And you know I love me a list. 

So. Without further ado

Alec:

- has a deep, deep love for theatre and will discuss it at length with anyone, any time, any place

 

- is always up for a walk on our "favorite streets," always (I mean always)

- is always up for a laugh, always (I mean always)

- has a deep, deep love for board games and will discuss them at length with anyone, any time, any place (even strangers… in line at the grocery store)

- has the actual kindest eyes that sparkle like diamonds when he smiles therefore reducing me to a drippy pool of goo

- wakes me every morning with a kiss on the forehead and the question “will you be mine today?”

- he tells me I'm pretty, even when it is abundantly obvious that "pretty" is not what is happening, lol

- quite charmingly, does not really care about “sportsball” but cares a great deal about fantasy football (and extra charmingly, he once asked me what the “symbol” on my Tigers baseball t-shirt was to my extraordinary delight. Don’t worry, Detroiters: I set him straight)

- makes an out-of-this world traditional stir fry (it is apparently very important to use day-old rice)

- makes an equally out-of-this-world egg of any variety

- is, was, and continues to be very supportive about my Jewishness in all its iterations and colors and shapes and never gets judgey or squeamish about the word “G-d” and is always up to try new things and learn new things with chutzpah

- loves board games more than any person I have ever, ever known. So much so that he texts his best friend henry out of absolutely nowhere to explain in detail a special move he made in a board game he played by himself, and though the boxes of games have taken over our entire 800 square foot home, it is worth it to see his glee.

- sends me pictures of Tati even when we are all in the same room

- is the biggest, most passionate, most genuinely enthusiastic cheerleader to everyone he loves without a scrap of comparison or envy or anything other than astonishing genuine enthusiasm and celebration. 

 

- really hates to be wet (and will avoid activities with the excuse ".........sounds wet")

- puts so much love into the dinners he makes us, I swear I can taste the actual love like it is an additional spice

- is a bonafide master at playlist compilation assemblage AND naming (I'm telling you his skill level in this arena is wholly unmatched)

- is just so good— and I mean so, so staggeringly good— at being a Cat Dad

- is very very brave about his big big feelings

- truly appreciates when we go to a musical and I explain in staggering Wikipedia-like detail the entire history of the musical 5 minutes before it begins.

- takes longer than anyone I have ever known to hang something on a wall. A mirror, a frame. A hanging plant— my Gd. I bet he breaks records for  h o w  f r e a k i n g  l o n g  it takes him to hang a thing. Bless him. But it’s always straight as hell.

- knows that my favorite flowers are ranunculus and when he cannot buy me an actual ranunculus, sends me photos of them “just because”

- will pull over (in a nanosecond) to do something fun

- teaches me every single day (without being a jerk about it) about how to expand my thinking, empathy and capacity to connect with humanity, and also encourages people to be their very highest selves.

- is not afraid of taking giant, big, scary leaps into the unknown

- has *that* gene where he is incredibly good with little kids (and it isn’t put on, or dumbed down— just a genuine joy spent playing) 

- kisses like whoa

- will drop whatever he is doing when you tell him you are feeling down and do whatever it takes to ease the moment (sometimes that includes telling a story, sometimes a distraction, and sometimes just holding you in silence)