This is what Vinny said at the end of class the other day: "I love what you've done with the place, freedom looks good on you." He was talking about how other people – their countenance, embodiment, affect, that thing (which Norma Wong calls the Human Quotient) – can be possibility models for us, can offer inspiration and permission just by being themselves in the world. I've seen it happen. This phrasing felt so welcoming and affectionate, it made me so glad, reminded me of how our spirits spill out of us, how well being can be contagious.
Vinny is one of the teachers of what I am calling Death Class for short, which is actually called A Year to Live. I signed up for Death Class because the teacher of Awe Class, Shira Erlichman, spoke highly of it. Awe class was actually called The Seven Gates to Awe - Writing Luminous Curiosity, and one of these gates was/is mortality, which is why the class came up.
One of the poems we read together in that class is I Cannot Say I Did Not by Sharon Olds, which is "about" whether or not we ask to be born (impossible to say, really), and her thought that love is what we ask (to be born) with.
I find the double negative to be very accommodating. In the case of this poem it lends the necessary gravitas or bitterness to what would otherwise feel ludicrously trite or prohibitively saccharine.
My relationship to incarnation is a bit vexed (understatement of a generation). These kinds of propositions (i.e. we did not not ask to be born) really impact my quality of life. I think I take so many classes because I am a kind of proposition hound... Somehow, making it through what can be a complete and utter shit show is a little more bearable and even amusing if I pretend (believe? lol) that I asked for this. The same goes for thinking of my body (my life?) as a place, that I didn't not choose and more importantly one that I can alter: decorate and renovate as appropriate, as desired. A place I've done things with, some of which are loved and loveable. Your place too.
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