Freeways

Los Angeles is a very crowded city filled with many cars on what seems like one long freeway that stretches from one end of the world to the other. Occasionally, I need to look up at the green sign above, which kindly informs me of my whereabouts when my mind has wandered elsewhere. The 10 leads me home no matter how far away I have traveled while the 110 leads through downtown which is a beautiful drive at night, but can be a frustrating parking lot through which to navigate between 3 PM - 7 PM. The 5 leads to recovery in Glendale, serenity in Griffith Park, and to the 134, which is the road I take to visit my parents buried in their final resting place. The 405 begins a journey of a different kind, as a drive through its windy canyons leads me to the 101, which takes me back through childhood memories that for years I did my best to erase. The 2 is a peaceful ride, gradually elevating until it reaches the 210, which is a scenic drive through the northern foothills and a reminder that Los Angeles is more than just a crowded city filled with dreamers willing to sacrifice their souls for a few seconds in the glaring spotlight.

The freeways here in Los Angeles all lead to destinations found within myriads and tapestries that weave circles of time through lives seemingly disconnected by a chilling randomness that befuddles the rational mind in search of explanations to traffic patterns. Sometimes the going is easy and clear, and the freeways seem like a magical carpet ride guided by a gentle and benevolent wind. Yet, my foot always remains but a heartbeat above the brake, for in the time it takes my heart to skip a beat, the magical carpet is capable of being sucked down into an abyss of frustration and insanity cunningly disguised as a traffic jam. During these moments, my life feels like it has come to a sudden and inexplicable halt, as my foot is forced against its will to continuously press down on the brake. In an effort to ease my suffering, I will sometimes be courageous and attempt to make eye contact with the surrounding drivers, but usually find that my stares are met back with blank and unresponsive expressions. I am convinced that the traffic would be much easier to tolerate if we the drivers were to simply exit our vehicles and enjoy a leisurely stroll down the freeway with one another in route to our destinations. Perhaps the going would be much slower, but I am convinced we would arrive at our destinations happier people.

I have moved to Los Angeles twice in my life, once was in the summer of 1985 right before my 12th birthday and the second time was in June 2010, right before my 37th birthday. The first time I moved here was upon the completion of an eight day trip from Orlando with my father, brother, and dog, Winston. We drove the scenic route from Florida, avoiding the boring stretches of the 10 through the South along the way. But we met up with the 10 somewhere in Arizona and rode into California in the dawning hours of an early summer day. The sunrise in the desert that morning is sketched into my memory as one of the most beautiful spectacles I have ever witnessed. The second time I moved here was last summer, and this time I traveled the road alone. There was no beautiful early morning sunrise, as I drove into California through the middle of the night, hours before the sun was scheduled to awaken. This time I came in from New Mexico on the 40, meeting up with the 15 in Barstow, then taking the 60 into Los Angeles, where eventually the peak of the rush hour snarl would add an additional two hours to an already lengthy and tiring trip. I did, however enjoy watching the sun settle into its place high in the morning sky through my rearview mirror as I plodded along at single digit speeds, which eventually led me to the 10. Finally, I was home again.

I was disappointed that there was no magestic sunrise that greeted my arrival upon my second coming to California. I was disheartened in fact, that my welcome back party stalled on a crowded freeway for two hours longer than I expected. But I will gladly trade the heavenly sunrise for the true love and happiness I hope to find in California this time around.

The Fourth Night of Chanukah

It is now a few minutes after midnight and I felt like writing down a few thoughts and ideas before I retire for the evening. Tonight is the fourth night of Chanukah and after I lit the candles, I sat there for a moment and watched the newly lit candles begin to burn. There is something very special about watching a newly lit candle burn. A flame has the power to destroy if left to burn at its own devices, but a flame that is controlled and guided by a steady wick has the power to heal and to transform. Chanukah is a time of the year in which we increase in holiness with the burning of an additional candle for eight consecutive nights. On a personal level, each candle represents not only another step in holiness, but another level of healing and transformation that I am achieving.

The four candles represent for me the four differnet countries in which I lived so far during my 37 years in this incarnation of me. Each place that I have lived has been both magical and painful in its own unique and special way. I wish there was a way to experience life's magic without also experiencing its pain, but this was not the contract I signed before my soul descended into my current body. Yes, I do believe that we know the path ahead of us while we are being nurtured and are developing in the womb, but we forget the directions on exactly how to navigate this road the moment before we enter into this world. Chanukah is a time to remember at least for a little while the direction we each need to take in our own way to find our way back home, and the candles that burn from the menorah are the lights we use to guide us along the way. Each night the way is illuminated a little bit more to make the going more about seeing than about guessing which way to take.

This way home for me has always been connected to love and finding the right woman to share the way with. Each country in which I have lived has brought its own tales of what this journey of finding my way home through love has been like. I have recently discovered that the map I have been using all of these years has unfortunately been leading me even further away from the spiritual home I so long to find again. This is the part of the journey in which I am really praying for God to allow my own menorah burning in my heart to provide enough light to guide me on my way safely for the rest of my life so that love can flow smoothly and not get caught in a traffic jam that will delay the commute home even longer.

My Chanukah began a few days early this year when my Higher Power allowed me to see how my relationships from the past have greatly affected my attempts at finding true and everlasting love in the present so that my future could shine with the eternal light of the menorah's glow. It was a very powerful and a very sad moment when I saw how my mother's misdirected attempts at guidance and love have created in me a nagging need to be safely held in a woman's arms. I had no way of understanding as a small child that my mother had her own issues to work through and that she fell into a depression filled with rage and resentment when she was unable to make peace with the pain that created a huge vaccum in her scarred heart. I fell victim to her abusive tirades and felt the need to protect myself in anyway that I could.

The Chanukah candles burning brightly in the adjacent room have shown me that for true love to ever come knocking on my door, I must learn to first truly love myself. I have internalized years of emotional abuse and neglect but the day has arrived for me to begin a new chapter in my search for love and that search begins with me first learning to nurture and love myself. I no longer want to hurt the ones that I love because my emotional pain is burning stronger inside my soul than my personal menorah. My prayer for today is that the soft light burning this Chanukah extinguishes the hurt that I have done onto myself and onto others through making my life a living amends of learning how to truly love again.

The Second Night of Chanukah

Tonight is the second night of Chanukah and I just completed my lighting of the Menorah. I never even dreamed that I would be back in Los Angeles, yet here I am lighting a menorah for the first time since I vowed never to return to this city. Yet against all odds, I am back in the place where I was raised from the time I was 12 years old until I left to Israel when I was 20. I have to say that when I went to Israel, I thought all of life's issues would magically disappear and I would be able to begin again a new life there free from the worries and concerns I so desperately wanted to leave behind, and for a time in Israel, I was able to leave the worries and concerns caused by a very stressful home life behind. Then two years into my time in Israel, I was reminded just how closely the problems from home remained even though I was almost half way across the world. By June of 1997, I said goodbye to both of my parents and I also said goodbye to the light that we burn on Chanukah that represents eternal hope even in the darkness of our deepest struggles.

I fought the good fight for another five years, but Israel is an impossible place to live without the light of the menorah burning constantly in your heart. I left my Judaism behind in Israel because I assumed that once the light from the menorah stopped burning in my heart, it was never meant to burn again. I thought that the light was taken from me because somehow I was undeserving and that I had failed in my mission to bring light into this world. These were very difficult and very sad years for me because so many times I looked deep into my soul for the Chanukah light to guide me through the darkness and all I found were tears where once the fire strongly burned.

Chanukah is a holiday that expresses the idea of God doing for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. It is the time of year that we remember that we were very close to giving up what is most precious and most important to us: our Torah and the belief that God can lead us in any battle that we choose to fight. But sometimes, the forces of darkness appear so strong and so oppressive that we are tempted to give in to simply experience a moment when our souls are no longer that battle ground in which the forces of light and darkness choose to stage their war. I know from personal experience that there are times I want to be left alone from the daily grind of this struggle and to simply be allowed to live hibernating in some dark hole far away from it all. I also know that I have the power to choose not to live like this and instead let the light of Chanukah guide my way towards hope and eternal love.

This year, Chanukah is very special to me because I have the opportunity to heal past wounds that have been allowed for too long to take my light away. It is time to forgive the wrong doings of those who wronged me so that I may no longer wrong the ones I love in retaliation for misdeeds that occurred in the past. I have realized that forgiveness is not about forgetting or condoning the actions of other people, rather it is the light that burns in the menorah of my heart.

The Falling Tree

The air above tastes so wonderful to breathe
As opposed to the death that has been alive
And for so long has sustained me underwater
As afraid I have been to surface and enjoy the warmth
Of a summer's day or the chill of a winter's frost
For the elements above the surface are unpredictable

An innocent child once walked through the forest
Merrily laughing away while admiring a tree in the distance
When suddenly there was a loud bang and then a piercing cry
And no longer was this child merrily walking through the forest
For his innocence had been driven far beneath the ground
By a tree falling in the distance, dislodged from its roots

The sunlight disappeared that day and no longer was the boy
Able to merrily laugh his life away in the thick forest
For he never knew when a tree he so admired
Would unpredictably and for seemingly no reason
Violently crash to the ground as it lost its sway
From a place far beyond from where the boy could see

The air above tastes so wonderful to breathe as
The little boy that has been buried below
No longer enjoys the death that has been the life
Which has sustained his soul from within drowning waters
That have eerily flowed underneath the head of
What appeared to the little boy as a giant falling from the sky
As I learn today to enjoy the majesty of another tree

The Stretching Rainbow

A season in the sun dances before my eyes
As if a rainbow cunningly glows from
Within the approaching shadows of clouds
That formed from a dark and lonely place
And have moved within the outer edge
Of my flickering candle that pulsates
A radiant breath of fresh air that repels
The impending coming of the ominous clouds

Just for today I can enjoy the magical colors
Of the bright and radiant rainbow that echoes
A blossoming flower rising above the thawing ground
As I breathe an everlasting gratitude for a love
That is destined to outlast even the darkest of clouds
That hovers above my head threatening to retract the rainbow
That so effortlessly emanates a beautiful reflection
Of both Heaven's revealed and hidden loves

So the season continues to dance and the
Candle continues to sway in the wind
Moving to the rhythms of time that
Are giving birth this very moment
To a soft and vibrant flower so humbly blossoming
That not even a dark and ominous cloud
Pointlessly hovering over my head can
Rain a single drop of despair upon the gratitude
Pouring from my heart and reflecting a defiant glow
As a rainbow stretches from high above stretching
From one dark and ominlous cloud to the next

The Melting Heart

To love is to hold a heart in your hands
And embrace its raw stillness with a gentle touch
That fills eternity with a beating breath
That pulsates a burning flame that kindles
From deep within a timeless candle

Her love is like a tiny drop of wax
That disolves away and loses its form
Within the timeless burning of the eternal flame
That has darkened my vision as blindly I watch
The last of my lover's heart melt away

That ceaseless tapping is the sound of an eternal flame
Prematurely knocking on the gates of Heaven's door
As skyward her flame has soared far beyond the limits
Of our timeless love we shared in one single moment
As the raw stillness suddenly leaps from my embrace

I had a dream that was more like a vision
In which I was floating as if in a dream
Yet I was blind as if I had lost my vision
And had only my trust to guide me
As clouds surrounded me with a glow
That stretched out like a hand to lead
As I struggled once again to find the love
That only a moment ago was in my grasp
Yet was stolen away by clouds that insisted
On love that remained forever floating in a dream

The blue sky above reflects a gentle light
That also glows in the distance as waves below
Crash against my elevated feet that remain suspended
Like a dream floating away in a deep sleep
As the lover returns and takes my hand and
holds it to her breast so that my fingers
Can touch the heartbeats of her love
So that I never forget that clouds that glow
are like a dream that forever floats
beyond the shadows of true love below

And clouds that forever float in distant dreams
Are like wistful waves crashing against the shore
Reflecting glimmers of the sun from the sky above
As the moment for love instead races back to sea
And the dreams are left to float without ever finding home