Time

This time last year doesn’t seem so long ago.

We were deep in the winter of mid-February, and I was wearing everything possible: my jacket and scarf, my ear wraps and gloves, my leg warmers and tall winter boots. I had arrived with my suitcase in tow at my daughter’s work show to help her manage some overflow. We worked all day and into the early evening, and then we made our way to meet her other half and my son for dinner.

The cold chased us to the subway and then through the streets of her neighborhood and over to the restaurant. The plan was for her man to arrive at the restaurant earlier that evening and put his name down. Then he’d go home to wait until it was time to come back again. My daughter said he promised to meet us there.  

“He’s always there,” I would tell her on more than one occasion. I liked this about him. When he said he’d be somewhere, he was always there.

We burst through the doors of the restaurant, eager to warm up. It was a full house! People were packed into the space, and a row of patrons lined the bar, huddled with their backs to the door. Servers made their way among the people and between the tables, zigzagging through the conversations that rose as high as the steam from the ramen bowls they were serving.

I didn’t know which way to look first, but my daughter did. As soon as we stepped in, she kept going, straight to the young man with the beard and the beanie at the bar. His back was to us, and I watched him turn around to greet her. Of course he was there, as promised!

My son arrived shortly after, and we all squeezed into a corner table. The three of them came to quick agreement on the menu, and we ordered several plates. I now look back on this dinner as one of the best that we had together. On that cold night, it was warm in every way; we were at ease and easily shared everything.

But since that night, time has gotten away from us. It went missing just a few days later when we lost my daughter’s young man. And now it’s hard to believe that he left a year ago today, when that dinner feels like it was only yesterday.

He was someone to everyone who knew him. He was a soulmate to my daughter; a son to his parents; a brother to my son; an uncle to his brand new niece; a brother to his older sister and her husband; a nephew, a cousin, a colleague; a friend to a host of others, and so much to so many more.

We can’t turn back time, but none of us knows where it went. Four seasons have come and gone, and we’ve braced ourselves against each one in the impossible effort to make time stop. For there’s been the feeling that if time passed, then he would be left in the past, and we’ve not been ready for that.

It’s taken a lot to get through the days and the weeks and the months that have followed. All at once there was so much to do, while at the same time there was never enough that could be done. Our loss has made everything new, and nothing is the way we are used to.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago when my daughter put on her favorite red top to meet him for their first date. Nor does it seem like that long ago when she introduced me to him over dinner with carrot cake for dessert. And when they decided to move in together, it seemed like just the right time. And then in no time he was insisting on my staying with them when I visited there, and he easily made himself at home in my home when they visited here.

It’s just that we never knew how short their time would be. My daughter had no idea that he would miss their third-year anniversary.

“Where did he go?” she begs to know. She’s moved into a new home and fears that he might have disappeared, and that makes her afraid for him. “He’s right here!” She points to his face, smiling from the photographs that she’s put around her place.

He’s on the refrigerator with his arms around her brothers and grinning with their friends. He’s on the windowsill, dressed to the nines and pressing his cheek against hers. He’s on the shelf, tying his shoe after a day of skiing. He’s on the nightstand, snuggling close to her in a photo that he wanted kept at her bedside, in case he was away.

We’re doing our best to grasp what happened. Over the past year we’ve read books and attended classes and met with various spiritual advisers in our efforts to understand. But it’s hard. And now I think it just might be something that we may never understand. I think there are just some things that we don’t get to know, no matter how badly we want to, and this might just be one of them.

Maybe all that we’re supposed to know is our part in it, what he meant to us and the impact of his life and loss on us. In the words of one of his closest friends, “We cannot make sense of it, [we can] only fold the experience into our lives and who we are and obviously help all of us who are suffering to be stronger and live fuller each day.”

My daughter picks up yet another photo and gives his face a kiss and tells me how handsome he is. They’re in bed and he’s sleeping, but she’s looking straight at the camera with such peaceful eyes, as if she knows she’s won the biggest prize.

We talk a lot about where it is that he might be. It’s a short conversation, but we have it often, because it’s been a lot to process, and it takes time. She wants for him to be okay. She wants for herself to be okay.

“He is somewhere,” I tell her. “He is not nowhere.”

This is part of what we’ve learned from all the books and classes and discussions. We’ve learned that we’re all made up of energy, and energy is something that never disappears. And we really want to believe this. We want so badly to have it be part of what we get to know.  

Moreover, we’ve learned that our being here is about more than just the fact that once our parents met. If we’re to believe, then our energy is something that exists long before we are born, and it flows back and forth through many lifetimes, according to a larger plan that we don’t get to understand.

We arrive in this life and put our names down, and after a time we make our leave, and then we wait until it’s time to come back again.

It takes a lot of faith to believe, but we are working hard on it as we grieve. In doing so, we’ve had to expand our minds, along with our concept of time. And there are days when it works and days when it doesn’t, but on the days when it does, it seems to expand the rest of us, too. Somehow it opens us up.

And when that happens, we can embrace the many signs that he seems to send and really believe that they’re from the energy of him. On those days we take refuge in the thought that he is okay, and that how we tell time might not be the only way. 

It's how we have faith that he is indeed somewhere, and that he is still, as before, always there. 

 Anne is the author of  Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself​ and is published on Huffington Post and Elephant Journal. Connect with Anne on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.​​

Goodness

 Baby Jordyn

“In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep from the mountains of faith to a river so deep.” ~ River of Dreams, Billy Joel

I’ve had so much energy these days that I don’t know what to do with myself.

And so I’m doing what I know to do when I don’t know what to do. I’m practicing lots of yoga.

Each night I’m on my mat, trying to expend the energy that I’ve captured in my body. It’s not that I’m not happy to have it; it’s just that it needs someplace to go. Who knows how it got there, but I think it happens while I’m sleeping. I seem to wake up with it, sometimes even in the middle of the night!

“I’m here because I need to melt,” I tell the instructor. It’s as good an explanation as any, and I ready myself to practice in 100 degree heat.

I change into my yoga clothes and open the door to the practice room. Rolling out my mat, I look down at my outfit. My top doesn’t really match my bottom, but I don’t care because the fabrics feel good, and I know that makes for a good practice. It also makes for a good memory. I think back to when my son dressed himself for nursery school. He arrived for class one day with stripes going this and that way.

His teacher was gracious. “I see someone dressed himself today!” she had said while nodding her head.

I still don’t know how all this energy found its way inside of me, but I do know that it didn’t happen overnight. In fact, I think it’s been building for a while. The instructor puts us in Down Dog, and I am glad for this pose, because it sends my energy in three different directions. We have to press down into our feet and also press down into our hands, and then we have to hike up our hips. 

There was a time when I had no energy at all. Back then it was everything I could do in order to do everything I needed to do. It was a time when I lost my spirit, when I couldn’t imagine ever finding it again. This doesn’t make for a good memory, but I still think it’s good to remember. It makes me even more grateful for where I am now and for the abundance of energy that’s been gifted to me.

The instructor takes us through a bunch of Sun A’s and Sun B’s, and I move through them seamlessly. And later I take him up on his offer for deeper expressions, because my energy still needs more places to go. And so I stand on my hands and on my forearms, too, and I also balance in Side Crow.

I say that my energy’s been gifted to me, because it truly feels as if it’s been bestowed. These days I’m especially aware of all the blessings surrounding me, and there seem to be so many! And since I’m someone who processes things visually, what I picture is a river of goodness flowing down through me.

I don’t know how this came to be. It’s not as if it’s been smooth sailing. This year, personally, there’s been such great loss, and our days are still sprinkled with tears. And on a global scale for a long time now, and especially more recently, the world seems sprinkled with fears.    

At work, our CEO spoke about the gift of energy and asked us to put ours to good use. The office had just sat down to its early Thanksgiving meal, and he stood up to remind us about how fortunate we are. He spoke about the power of goodness in times that aren’t. 

“People can still do good,” he said, “even in a world where bad things happen.”

The instructor asks us to stand on our knees in the middle of our mats. It’s time for Camel, the first pose of the back bending series. I place my hands at my heart and lean back until I’m so far back that I reach up and land them behind me. I rise into a back bend and stay for a count of five.

I used to hate the heart opening poses, but tonight I can’t seem to get enough of them. We move through another Camel, and then through a few Locusts and Bow poses, back bending on our abdomens. After, we jump through our hands for some back bends on our backs, rising up into a few Bridges and several Wheels, too. This is the peak of the practice, and for me it’s always the hardest part.

The heart opening poses take so much work! But it occurs to me that maybe they're the reason so much energy has found its way inside of me. Maybe after so long my heart is finally more open! Maybe that’s why I’m so energized.

This is why I consider energy as a gift bestowed, because suddenly I can see so much of what’s around me. I see blessings and love and even peace. And, who knows, maybe all of that was always there, even when my energy wasn’t.

If that’s the case, then it’s surely cause for faith, which is sometimes an even harder exercise than a heart opener. But while I would never be one to profess to know the key to an open heart, I would think that faith has got to have something do with it.

How else is it possible to have hope in the face of loss or even joy in the face of pain? Somehow I’ve had both, which I figure is evidence that our energy is capable of flowing in all directions, whether or not we are suffering. At the very least, it explains how goodness is still possible when bad things happen.  

It’s time to go upside down, and I stand on my head in the middle of my mat. I like this part of the practice. I find it relaxing to stand on my head, and I like how it feels to pull up through my core and lift my feet toward the heavens. This upward pull is called celestial energy.  

Just this past year, a little girl was born in the wake of our loss. She was named for the young man whom we are mourning. She is called Jordyn, and at her naming her parents spoke of the River Jordan, a river that flows with goodness, just like the one that I picture when I sense a gift has been bestowed.

With open hearts, they explained that they gave this child her name so that the goodness of this young man would flow down through her. And I think their plan is working, for she shares the same engaging energy, and we can’t help but love her. She is the hope that arrived in the face of loss; she is the joy in the face of pain.

And when we hold her we can feel her celestial energy, and this brings a certain peace.

The practice is over, and I lie back on my mat for Savasana, or final resting pose. The heat has done its job. It’s taken an hour and a half, but I am finally melted. For the moment, my energy has settled, and the instructor allows us to stay like that for a while before closing the practice with three Oms.

The room begins to empty out, but I want to go upside down again. I wait until almost everyone has left, and then I press into my hands and lift one leg and then the other. My hips stack over my shoulders, I pull in my core, and I hoist myself to the ceiling.

I catch the balance on the first try, and so I plant myself there in a meeting with the sky. My hands are rooted into the mat, and I straighten my arms and stretch my body higher, and then still higher. 

And I’m able to stay like this at length, because the energy is making its way back into me. It flows down through my body like a river of goodness, and I float for as long as I can. 

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself and is published on Huffington Post and Elephant Journal. Connect with Anne on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.

  

Protect Your Heart

Baby if you hold me, then all of this will go away.” ~ Budapest, George Ezra

I looked at my social media the other day and scrolled through more slogans than I could count. My feeds were overflowing with advice on everything from how to be happy to how to find love to how to be loved.

I even walked through Brooklyn on my visit last week and stepped on some sidewalk art that told me to protect my heart.

It seems in every direction, people are looking for the right direction.

Some of us are lucky enough to give up the search. I think Jeff was one of these lucky ones. I think by the time he met Alexandra, this young man had already grown into himself, and I think in her he found what he was searching for.

After their first date, Alexandra called me with her report. It was to the point, and it was short.

"Mom, he is just so alive,” she said.

And she proceeded to fall in love with the life force that was Jeff, and I continued to receive from Alexandra her reports. I heard how happy and energetic he always was. I heard how handsome he was. I heard how he cared for her.

And I heard how he loved her. This report came by text.

“We were running on the West Side Highway,” she said. “And he said, ‘I’m happy I have you’. And I said, ‘I’m happy I have you, too.’ And then he said, ‘I love you.’ And I said, ‘I love you, too!’”

And in revealing his heart to her like this, Jeff made it okay for Alexandra to reveal her own heart, too. It was a first for Alexandra to let anyone that close. This young man that was Jeff earned a tremendous amount of trust from Alexandra, and he did it by being consistent, dependable and honest. But, really, I don’t think he could have been anything else, because I think this was actually his true nature. He made it safe for Alexandra to let herself be known and to see that she was still loved, and this was his most precious gift to her.

Jeff’s devotion and enormous love fostered in my daughter a peace and contentment for which only a mother could pray. I can’t really explain what I saw in my daughter during her years with him except to say that he enabled her to grow into herself, too. The brightness in Jeff illuminated Alexandra, and I watched her become her best self by his side.

Most people think that Alexandra and Jeff met on a dating App, but she and her brother and I know different. I’ve often asked her whether this young man whom she found so alive was aware that she ordered him at the time she was five. There’s no question that G-d sent this man with the curly hair and big heart, a man she would call Jeff Paul Bart.

Alexandra and Jeff not only found each other, but they also found Brooklyn. And there they set up a home. For whatever reason, their apartment building always reminded me of the television show, I Dream of Jeannie. I think it was the building’s decor, but now I think it was so much more. To me, their apartment was a genie’s bottle, cozy and with lots of magic inside, a home the two of them created with pride.

And together they lived on hope and faith and trust, with plans for a future that weren’t supposed to combust.

And now my heart breaks at my daughter’s new report. “He was so happy, Mom," she said. “He’d be so upset if he knew what happened. He wouldn’t like this at all. He had so much he wanted to do. He wanted a family. He wanted children. He wanted me. We were not supposed to grow old separately.”

I am very grateful that Jeff was so expressive. He was able to tell Alexandra how he felt about her. In fact, he was able to tell us all how he felt about us. He professed his love openly. There are no words left unsaid because he was able to say them all, and so those of us around him were able to say them, too. This was the generous gift that was Jeff.

And I’m also very grateful that Jeff was so demonstrative. He was able to show Alexandra how he felt about her. In fact, he was able to show us all how he felt about us. He was uninhibited in his affection, and that made it easy for us to give that back to him. This was the other generous gift that was Jeff.

And how can I discuss Jeff without mentioning how much he meant to my son, Benjamin? I watched them form a quick and easy bond that wasn’t supposed to end. And now in losing Jeff, my son has lost his brother.

I stayed at Alexandra and Jeff’s happy home just this past weekend. Before leaving, he made us breakfast and then served himself. I watched as he carefully spread avocado on his rice cake. Then he added just cut pieces of lox on top and then sprinkled some of the chives he’d just chopped. And as I watched him add the eggs, I couldn’t help but think how incredible it was that Alexandra had found this young man, a man who only wanted to be there with her and build their life in the same careful way he was building his breakfast.

Then I looked at him again and saw he had a slogan on his shirt, and maybe the words explained my joy. There across his chest was the sentence, “Everyone loves a Jewish boy”.

After breakfast it was time for Alexandra and me to leave. Jeff would leave later in the day. I watched him wrap his arms around her, and I watched her step into his safe embrace. They kissed. She held him. He patted the back of her head and said, “Goodbye, Sweetie.”

It was a few days later when I returned because he did not. I was back in Brooklyn and walking with my son. And I pointed out the sidewalk art, the one with the slogan that read, “Protect Your Heart”.

But we just kept on walking and passed it by, because it only made me wonder why. For how in the world could any of us ever have protected our hearts when it came to loving Jeff? How could we have loved him in any other way but in the big way that he loved us all, and in the even bigger way that he loved Alexandra.

There is just no slogan that can protect our hearts from being broken.

There is only hope for the pain to cease. I know that Jeff would wish us peace.

In memory of Jeffrey Paul Bart, contributions may be made to Jewish Social Services Agency or The Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Flying

Anne flies with instructor Jonathan Ewing (pants by www.vivashaktiyoga.com)

Fly by night, away from here. Change my life again. ~ Fly By Night, Rush

When I was little, my father used to fly me around on his feet.

He’d lay on his back and put his feet on my stomach and lift me into the air like Superman.

Other times, he’d lay on the floor and put up his knees. I’d climb on top and perch there, placing my feet in his hands, driving an imaginary car while I pressed into his palms with my right foot on the gas and my left one on the brakes.

Of course when my children were little I’d do this with them, too, only we’d drive on top of the bed to accommodate the wild turns. In addition to their imaginary stops for donuts, they’d steer recklessly from atop my knees, flying overboard in all directions for wild and crazy landings softened by the mattress.

And now, after all these years, I am flying again! There is something called Acro yoga, and it’s just the flying game all over again for grownups.

The first time I flew was a little over a year ago. It was a Thursday evening, and I arrived early to yoga. There was a young man in the class who was big on Acro yoga, and he was early, too.

He walked into the practice room and without saying anything pointed at me. Your turn!

And he lay on his back and put his feet on my stomach and lifted me into the air like Superman.

It was scarier than I had imagined! I had seen others do this before the start of class, and I thought it’d be a breeze. But I felt so high up! The floor was a long way down!

He guided me from my stomach to a seat atop his feet. I wrapped my legs around each of his, one at a time, and then I let go of his hands.  And I felt as if I could touch the ceiling if I reached up high, but I sat carefully in the air and instead put my hands in prayer. And he rested his hands by his sides and let me stay up there.  

I don’t remember how I returned to my stomach, back to the tops of his feet and parallel to the ground again, but I do remember him telling me to tilt forward, so that my legs lifted to the ceiling and my torso dropped down.

And then he told me to keep diving, and I had to fully trust as I made my way through the air, upside down to vertical. Maybe he placed his hands on my shoulders to finally brace me once I inverted. I don’t remember.

What I do remember is that as I dove forward, balanced only on his feet, I felt a pull in my heart which surprised me.

I’d never felt that before! Flying on my father’s feet came close, but I was too young then to know how special it was to invest any trust. Maybe the pull was just my heart remembering, and that’s why I was able to dip it down so freely. Maybe that’s how my feet lifted up so easily. 

Inverted, I had no choice but to keep fully trusting, and I wound up hovering there, eye to eye with this young man. And then, without missing a beat, I jokingly put my hands on either side of his face.

I love you! I exclaimed, laughing, upside down. And after this I’m going to tell you all my secrets!

Ten minutes of flying, and I was making jokes about love and trust and disclosures! And this surprised me, too, because these three things aren’t really such laughing matters. Truly, my efforts to balance them have been a little haphazard at best.

And that’s created for me a fear of flying, so to speak. It can be a long way down if I dive too fast.
 

It’s more than a year later, and now this same young man is an instructor. And it was another Thursday night at yoga, only this time he was our substitute instructor.

We did our Sun A’s and Sun B’s and moved into early Crows and other balances. Midway through, we were instructed in Supta Virasana, or reclining Hero pose. I sat with my legs bent at the knees, my calves folded against the outsides of my quads. My feet reached around and rested on their shoelace sides, and I lay back on the floor.

Are you okay like this? he asked. I nodded to indicate that all was well, and so he pushed his hands into my quads and lifted himself into Crow pose, taking flight above me.

And, as I did more than a year ago, I jokingly put my hands on either side of his face but this time pinched his cheeks so that he was the one who laughed.

After class I requested another flight. I figured I might be braver by now, that it might not feel so high, that the floor might not seem such a long way down.

So he lay on his back and put his feet on my stomach and lifted me into the air like Superman.
 

And again I moved into a seated position on his feet, and this time around it wasn’t so scary up there. In fact, I lifted my arms from my perch and waved at my friends below.

And then I moved into an Acro Shoulder Stand, inverting while holding his ankles before he caught my shoulders. I almost went overboard, but a fellow yogi stepped up to spot me. And from there I splayed my legs and bent them at the knees, so that I hung from his feet, upside down by my hips.

And then he told me to tuck into a little ball and reach through his legs to grab my own feet. And before I knew it I was spinning above his head as if I were a basketball atop a player’s hands.

Finally, I did my best to lift into a star, inverting into the sky. And I never realized that another yogi had stepped up to spot me, so that when I became a falling star I landed safely on my feet while still shining.

I’m not so sure when the next time will come for me to fly, but I do hope it’s soon. I need to balance and dive and soar, in order to practice all that love and trust and more.

Besides, now that I like it in the air, I’m not so scared to be up there. And that makes me so much lighter, which can only mean that I’ll fly higher.