children are creditors. grandchildren are profits.

i am munching lox while i overhear two ladies catching up. it's all about their grandchildren. they are animated. their eyes sparkle. without a doubt they are thoroughly enjoying being bubbe, bubbeleh. it's a total delight to behold. something comes to me. i think to myself, should i share this with them since jews don't really believe in reincarnation the way chinese do. a couple of mouthfuls of lox later i can't help myself and i says, listen, children are creditors from previous lifetimes to collect their debt. the lady who is doing the talking pauses in mid-sentence and turns her bright eyes toward me. i keep going and say, with a light tap on her shoulder, grandchildren are profits. she bursts into a ring of laughter, beams and says, in her bell-and-chime voice, grandchildren are profits, i like that. guess what happens next? more splendid experiences affirming that grandchildren are indeed delicious profits.

egypt. goat leg soup. bagels

on one hand it seems like i went through one tornado after another in just moments. on another hand it feels like i'v been in a long and tumultuous dream. in the reality of time and space it's been three weeks. i received a call, flew across the country, spent a week in a trauma ward, sat in the back of an air ambulance which took me back to california, then two weeks back and forth between oakland and vallejo. finally i take a glance around me. a heartbreaking tragedy in arizona. a youth revolt in tunisia toppled the regime. now egypt is going through fire and brimstones on a scale not seen in decades. what am i doing in the meantime? cooking goat leg soup for hwubby. he's lying upstairs in a hospital bed. a wheelchair is in the hallway which is piled with medical supplies, walker, cane, chux and so on. a few bags of bagels on the kitchen counter. why are there so many bagels? because every time someone asks hwubby, what can i bring you? nine times out of ten he says, lox and bagel. and ten times out of ten visitors bring a few extra bagels. so now i have to figure out how to use them. this morning in meditation it comes to me. toast it really good and jam it. so i do. i put it under the broiler. it's so browned that it's actually black and i have to scrape and scrape. but, i have to say, it tastes really good with a nice marmalade spread.

i haven't even mentioned that i am back to meditating in my meditation closet. i've been meditating in a garden level apartment in chelsea, facing a magical snow scene; in a deluxe room with a beautiful puja in vallejo. they are all fantastic. yet it's so nice to be home.

learn by doing

in my own way i am freaking out. i ask my editor, am i being too ambitious for the first novel? she says, are you overreaching? i'd say yes if it's a lesser writer, but you are a very, very good writer. the challenge is, you don't know how to build a book. the first couple of drafts, you can just write and write creatively. and you write beautifully and poetically. but in the third, fourth drafts you have to be strategic.

i begin to see that i have to retrain the mind. i can write eating lox and bagels for forty pages but then i lose the story. i say, yeah, now it's about craftsmanship. she says, but then i don't want you to lose the poetry. aaaah. i have to learn how to do both things at the same time, to be strategic and poetic. how? i know only one way. learn by doing. the guru says, meditation shows you how to meditate. it's the same principle in writing a book, or anything in life for that matter. stay in the present. listen. keep at it.

can i hold both in awareness?

my editor says, suk wah, you write so beautifully, i've never seen anyone writing about food as beautiful as you do, the metaphors, the way you write about it, are just...i can't write better than you do. sometimes a writer says to me, i write this way because it's my 'voice.' i would say, you don't have a 'voice.' anyway, my editor goes on to say, you write best when you just write, paragraph after paragraph, but you can't write forty pages of 'eating lox and bagels.' i really can't bring myself to say, one of the reasons i end up having forty pages of 'eating lox and bagels' is this. marquez writes eighty pages about a couple moving around each other in the night. well, all i can say is it is not working out for me. not yet. marquez is marquez. suk wah is suk wah. i have to deal with suk wah's reality as it is. don't compare, suk wah.

so, what's the point i am trying to get at? let me see. o yes. this morning, in meditation, it comes to me that i get lost, in a good way, when i just write and write. but then i lose the narrative, pacing, rhythm. i am very good at writing scenes, dialogues. i love it. i get so much joy doing it. but i want to get the book done in a proper way. so i have to be able to hold the scene and the story together in my awareness while dialogues and details are flowing out from the inner self. my editor says, can your mind work that way? right now, i don't know. not yet.