My Starling

A pretend story

played out on my screen

about a man and a woman

in recovery from grief.

In it, they needed different

methods to face themselves

before they could truly

face each other.  

But when they did,

they did.

I watched from my perch

while a notice pinged,

a sign from the cosmos

that when you're near me,

my mere presence makes you

dig deep into who you are.

Alive and energized and 

never bored when we're together,

that's what is written

by powers bigger than you

or me alone.

But here's the trick:

you can't be

in control.

Nor can I of you.

I thought how odd

to see this message pop

out of hiding while a starling

dive-bombs a famous actress

on my television. A knowing-

character says that starling pairs

partner forever but a quick

google search reveals infidelity

is likely -- though nothing's matched

as strongly as that first chosen mate.

But I like the romance offered

by the movie, the simple twining

of healing hearts, and I root

for love to win in the end --

2023

Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar

Guided Hypnosis #72

 Where were you last night?

Folded in the cosmos' cobwebs, you moved in a daze through the din.  Everything popped with purple and gold, a party, you think, on your behalf.  Somewhere nearby, you hear laughter and loud cheers, as if happiness had a color.  You, you stood still in one spot and let it all melt over you like the buttery sun.

It's then that a friend you've only just begun to know appears beside you and puts a kind hand on your arm while she tells you, you deserve this.  You blink at her, your mouth matching her smile though it's not clear what you've done until she goes on.  "Your career, the way you think, it's an example for others," she says, stringing more words together even in this brevity than you've ever heard her string together before.

All you can feel is the aroma of kindness.  This place, it cradles you, it lulls you while you sway.

Before you can turn your brain on to think, your grandmother, gone from your earthly plain for over a decade now, bursts into the room and this is when you realize all of it is a dream.  Your grandmother doesn't appear in this realm often but whenever she does, she comes with news and support.  She comes to let you know you are exactly where you are meant to be.  She comes to love you more than life.

This time, she comes baring gifts: floating from a strand in one hand is a silver heart-shaped helium balloon that says something like "Congratulations" in bright red letters, busy stripes making up the backdrop.  In the other hand, she has a pale green envelope with her sophisticated cursive spelling your name across the front.  "Read it later," she tells you. "Now it's time to celebrate."

Whatever else was there turned to stardust and burst.

Awake, all you remember is your friend and your grandmother and the happiness they brought forth within you.  You can't ever recall feeling so loved.  Dancing your way into your day, you play those brief clips over and over so you can remember them well before you have a chance to write them down.  You giddily chirp these glad tidings into a message you send to a friend as you clump this good omen in with the rest.

Your life, anymore, has become a sea of synchronicities that confirm you are one with your golden path.

As if to prove it, another such moment happens at once and you ping your friend's inbox once more.  It just happened again! you say, remembering what it was like to be the child certain she heard sleigh bells on a Christmas Eve long ago.

This life piles magic, you think as your echoed reply to that dastardly question that pings while you wake -- where were you last night?  

As if it mattered.  As if it could be measured.  As if memory served.

You were where you always are: exactly where you're meant to be.

2023

Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar

You Are Welcome Here

I.

My building's front door

bangs open and shut

and I ask out loud, Is it you,

are you here, is it you?

II.

Twice since I've lived here

friends with no connections

to each other spotted the same

spirit lingering in my hallway.

I smile, though, poetically

unafraid to be curious

without asking anyone to leave.

III.

Before I moved in, someone

who knows me well smirked

when she learned of the cemetery

across the street from this place.

Don't bring anyone home with you,

OK? she said.  I smirked back.

Can't make any promises,

I shrugged.

IV.

Years before that, I sat with one

of my dearest at our favorite

breakfast spot and she said,

with immense certainty 

while scrolling through her feed

that there were no witches

nearby.  Not on Instagram,

I said, my gaze floating up

to the warm, blue sky.

V.

I'm not a witch, but my mother

used to dress as one every Halloween,

cloaked in black with a pointy hat

while she silently handed out candy

to terrify the children.  Anymore,

I wear every color under 

the sun and I throw my arms open

to anyone who's also here, like me,

to bask in the lightness of love --

2023

Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar

Forward to The Breakup Year

I met Tom in September 2005 at a bar called The Burren in Somerville, Massachusetts.  I was twenty-six years old, he was twenty-four.  Later, you'll read the story about how we met.  You'll read a lot about our story.  There aren't enough pages to tell you the entire thing -- what you will mostly read about is how our relationship ended in November 2014.  But you'll get a good snapshot. 

I didn't set out to write a book about my relationship with Tom.  I didn't set out to write a book at all.  The essays, poems, and pieces of fiction in this book are part of a yearly blog project I began six years ago in response to my first "Tom divorce."  Ours was a complicated relationship, as you'll learn, but when we'd had our first significant falling out in October 2010, I needed something to redirect me, so I gave myself a challenge -- a New Year's Resolution -- to write every day, which I did, starting January 1, 2011.  By the end of the year, some unexpected things happened.  First, Tom and I made up, and also, people were reading what I was writing.  They were asking, "What's next?"  So I did another blog in 2012, this one all fiction, and another in 2013, this one were friends gave me "three things" I used those to write something, another in 2014, a choose-your-own adventure novel, and then in 2015, my goal was to use music to inspire my writing every day.  My relationship with Tom ended about a month and a half before the start of that blog, which created something of the perfect storm.  As you read, you'll learn the importance of music to me and the importance of music to Tom, a very diverse and talented musician.  You'll learn about the importance of music and creativity in our relationship.  And you'll also learn what I learned the hard way every single day -- music can be emotionally gruelling.  The result:  my Singalong 2015 blog turned into a public journal of sorts, a place where I worked out a lot of the stuff churning through my brain.  By the end of the year, I'd written a book about Tom, and I still don't know exactly how I feel about that.

Recently, I was reading a blog post I'd written back in August 2014 about how social media was completely changing the definition of "norms" in social interactions and in it, I wrote about chronic over-sharers, stating:

"I know for a personal fact it's possible to be going through hell and keep it offline.  Airing your sad or dirty laundry to the masses probably isn't going to heal you the way you want.  At least I know it wouldn't heal me.  

I was chatting with my friend Elliott the other day about how I was writing this post and how when I was fairly young, my mother had warned me, pretty sternly, to be very very careful about what I chose to put in writing because you cannot take that back.  What you put in writing is forever.  You can say things in the heat of any moment and while those things can certainly have a lasting effect, the memory of how that shit went down will change over time until it completely fades or has distorted enough that its reliability isn't so grand anymore.  But the things you write down can be read over and over and over again.  And things you write on the internet?  There's no eraser big enough to destroy that evidence.  Think about that before you post.  This is your legacy."

When I stumbled across this passage I'd written, I stopped and thought about how I still agreed with these ideas while also recognizing I had gone against that grain and gotten very personal in the 2015 blog.  My intention wasn't to "air dirty laundry" -- it was to make sense of the information, both rational and not, swirling in my brain.  It was helpful and healing and progressive and forward-moving.  And not just for me -- first one friend then another then another came to me, messaged me, commented right there on Facebook about how what I was writing was helping them get through difficult breakups, divorces, and other similar situations.  As the blog went along, I felt easier and freer about being completely honest -- naming names and bringing specificity into the picture.  You'll notice I don't start that way on January 1st.  It takes several months before I stop dancing around the issue and dive right in.  That's the authenticity of respect I have for those who are involved in this story, even Tom.  Especially Tom.  When 2015 began, I was truly hurting.  I was making big life decisions.  I was digging deep and looking for understanding and growth and the power to keep evolving.  In all sad honesty, I had no reason to believe he was doing similar work at all -- in fact, everything I heard from our many mutual friends and acquaintances was that he was continuing on the same destructive path -- and that also broke my heart.  

I say all this now as a way to prepare you for what you're about to read -- how it was written and why.  It will feel disjointed at times and it will change tone quickly.  It will repeat some information and also likely leave out things you wish you knew.  It's the modern day equivalent of reading my journal as I processed the end of the most important relationship of my life to date.  But the reason I wanted to pull the relevant blog entries and put them into book form is because they were helpful to me and helpful to others so maybe they could be helpful to you.  The universality of breakups is at the core here and even though the details of your story will be different than mine, my hope is that what I was thinking on January 1st versus what I was thinking on December 31st will show the possibility of growth and healing and change.  

I got through this "Breakup Year" with the help of countless friends and loved ones, a daily yoga practice, a daily writing practice, and listening to the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes.  

So let's get into it.

Sample from A Somerville Love Story

 JANUARY

Everything was quiet except for Callie's mind which bantered a mile a minute as she lay in bed.  It was early, barely six a.m., and she knew her husband Jeff wouldn't even move for at least another three hours but what she wanted to do was ask him the questions that were firing in her brain:  What can we do, how can we help, there must be a way.  It took everything in her not to shake him awake but she knew what he'd say -- "Callie, this isn't your problem" -- and even though he'd say it nicely and mean it with no ill intention, she was frustrated with him even in this imaginative state.

"Poor men," she mumbled, studying her husband's sleeping profile.  "They get in trouble even without doing a thing."

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and pulled her Boston University hooded sweatshirt off the floor and over her head.  Standing up, she shuffled out of the bedroom and into her home office across the hall where she sat down cross-legged on a swivel chair and fired up her desktop computer.  The wallpaper backdrop on the screen was a photo of her with her cousin Rachel at a family wedding the previous fall.  Callie loved the image of the two of them, laughing and so full of warmth it packed a tactile punch every time she saw it.  Everyone in the family called them "the twins," not only because they were both pretty girl-next-door brunettes with slender frames and crooked noses but because they had the same literal birthday:  May 23, 1979.  Callie was born at 12:31 a.m. and Rachel came along shortly after at 2:14 a.m. -- or New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, they liked to joke.  Their mothers were sisters who couldn't be more opposite in temperament or appearance, so the fact that their offspring could come across more like sisters than they did was the butt of many a family joke.  Here are the twins with their first bikes.  Here are the twins on their first day of school.  Here are the twins with their Varsity soccer letters.  Here are the twins at prom.  Every milestone a memory they shared together, even moving from suburban Ohio to Boston for college, though attending different schools, and so on and so forth until Callie met Jeff and the big divide was forged.

"Thought I heard you up," a groggy voice said from the doorway.

Callie smiled at her twin slouching in the door frame.  "Did I wake you?"

Rachel shook her head.  "I'm not sure I ever fell asleep."

Down the hall in the main vein of their Somerville apartment was the remains of a drunken New Year's Eve party.  Callie had slipped off to bed around two a.m. while Jeff and Rachel had stayed up hosting their lingering guests.

"Anyone still over?" Callie asked, already knowing the answer.

"Just Andrew," Rachel said nonchalantly.

Callie looked back at her computer screen and sighed.  "Right," she said.

Rachel barely even reacted to Callie's obvious wish to talk about...to avoid talking about...to talk about...to lecture her about Andrew, instead nodded towards the computer.  "Are you getting ready to do some writing?" she asked.

Callie blinked and turned her gaze back at the glowing screen.  "Research," she said lightly.  "But it can wait."

Rachel walked in the room and flopped on the blue striped couch that was once in their first post-college apartment.  They'd bought it together, this nearly-new-at-the-time piece of furniture, as a joint birthday gift and had vowed to keep it with them until it wasn't still recognizable as a couch.  They'd felt so grown up and proud that it wasn't a futon or free-from-Craig's List but a piece of real furniture, a sign that they were making it on their own in the big city. And even though that was nearly a decade ago, they still insisted on keeping this couch in the family, even if it meant shoving it in Callie's office where no one but Rachel would ever see it.  Now, Rachel propped her head up with one hand while she played with the frayed edges of fabric on the cushion with the other.

"Urgent six a.m. on New Year's Day research?" she asked nonchalantly.

Callie spun her chair sideways and sighed again.  "Well, urgent might be a strong word."

Rachel chuckled.  "Everything with you is urgent," she teased.

Callie spun all the way around to face her twin and folded her arms across her chest.  She thought of the questions running through her head while she laid in bed with Jeff and it brought an acute ache to her chest when she thought of them with Rachel in her sights.  "I just..." she began.

Rachel tensed for a brief moment, seemingly reading the words her cousin had not yet spoken, and then relaxed before the next exhale.  "You just threw one helluva New Year's Eve party," she said, changing the subject.  

"We did," Callie said.  "You, me, and Jeff."

"We're quite a team," Rachel agreed.

"Thanks for seeing it through -- I just had to go to bed," Callie said, yawning to punctuate the sentence.

"You didn't miss anything," Rachel said, her eyes rolling up in her head as she searched her memory for an anecdote.  "Just a lot of drunk people disappearing one at a time."

"Except for Andrew," Callie said cautiously.

"Except for Andrew," Rachel agreed.

Callie gripped onto the edge of her chair to keep from spewing all of the thoughts in her head at this moment -- about her cousin, about Andrew, about what him still being in their house meant to her, about how the research she wanted to conduct was inspired by this exact scenario and how she'd made the first New Year's Resolution of her entire adult life just because of it -- but a simple glance at Rachel was evidence enough that this was not the moment.  

Plus, she needed to get Jeff on board first.  

"Did you make any resolutions this year?" Callie asked, releasing the grip on the chair.

"Actually, yes," Rachel said.

"Well, out with it," Callie said.

Rachel sat up.  "I want to do a headstand without any assistance," she said with a great deal of authority.

Callie laughed and sank back in her chair.  "You've got a free membership at the studio -- I hope this means you'll be using it," she chuckled.

Rachel nodded once.  "This year, I really will," she said.

"I'm teaching at 11 a.m.," Callie said with a wink.  "Get your yoga pants on."

Rachel's grin was sleepy.  "I'd better go to bed and rest up first," she said, standing up and then leaning over to give her cousin a hug.

Callie squeezed back tightly and then let her go.  "OK, sounds like a plan," she said, watching Rachel drift out of the room.  She waited until she heard her cousin shut the door on her bedroom before nimbly getting to her feet and sprinting down the hall where she found Andrew sleeping, mostly clothed and face down with muffled snores, on their sectional.  The worry line on her forehead eased up for a moment, relieved that at least he wasn't tucked in bed behind closed doors.  Spinning on her heels, she turned back towards her office and sat back down in front of the computer.  

"Screw Jeff," she muttered, certain he wouldn't be awake for hours and by then she might already be at Equal Standing teaching the first of her three yoga classes for the day.  Slowly, she typed o-k-c-u-p-i-d-.-c-o-m into the browser and her eyes grew big as the site appeared.  "Hell yes I want to create a new account," she continued to mutter, her mind already splintering between what screen name to choose and what profile picture would represent Rachel the best.

Read more in Parts One and Two of A Somerville Love Story...

U is for Unbelievable

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make...

Thanks for a great 2016 season, Cleveland Indians.

Last night was one of the most insane, jaw-dropping, intense, raw, beautiful, unbelievable baseball games I have ever witnessed.  There was nobody at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario in Downtown Cleveland that didn't know that the Indians had to keep the Cubs off the scoreboard in the early innings, a job that fell almost squarely on the shoulders of Corey Kluber, who'd been nothing short of the undeniable ace he's known as -- rock solid in his first two World Series starts.  If Kluber could pull off the greatest magic trick a major league pitcher was capable of wowing a fanbase, then the Indians would likely cruise into the elusive fourth win, making them this year's champion.  If only.

Corey Kluber, however, proved to be human after all and the strain of his third start on the high pressure World Series stage on second round of three days rest -- unheard of in modern baseball -- got the better of him and his fourth pitch of the night was rocketed to the centerfield bleachers by Dexter Fowler for a solo home run.  In an ordinary game, that would have tempered the life in the ballpark, but not the case last night as an overwhelming presence of Cubs fans had descended on Progressive Field.  If I were to believe the Fox Broadcast, there were barely any Indians fans there at all.  As I listened to Tom Hamilton call the game on WTAM1100, I could distinctly hear "LET'S GO CUBS!" being chanted in the stands.  It broke my heart a little.  Could we not even get full value of our homefield advantage on this already tenuous night?  There's something wrong about the tickets being so expensive that only the richest fans could be in the ballpark -- but, well, that's an issue for another day.

For the purposes of last night's game, the crowd reactions to umpire calls were muddled and mixed, half-strength for both teams doing their best to off the underdog label once and for all.

But as I watched Corey Kluber struggle -- and then later the unshakeable Andrew Miller get shook -- I felt this overwhelming blend of emotions that was a little bit of awe, a little bit of oof, and a whole lot of love.  These guys were literally trying to fight a state-of-the-art uber-combat unit with a rock and stick.  To call the Cubs an "underdog" in the same sentence as you call the Indians the same is a gross misuse of that term.  To say you're shocked and wowed by the tenacity of that scrappy-dappy team from Chicago's North Side is the equivalent of you gloating that Target had a better Black Friday than the Mom & Pop Shop across the street.  Yeah, no kidding.  It would be pretty absurd if the roles were reversed.

Yet that's almost what Cleveland did:  upset the professional sports world by being the team nobody picked for greatness winning it all.

But, you know what?  I realize the Cubs claimed that ultimate prize...  But, to me, this feels like the biggest Indians victory of all time.  With the score a whopping 5-1 in the fifth inning, I literally sat on my couch with tears streaming down my face.  I watched this team I loved so dearly desperately trying to bail water out of their sinking ship and I thought to myself, "I can't be in public tomorrow.  I'll take the day off.  I'll hide out."  But then something happened:  luck swung our way in the bottom of the 6th when two Indians runs scored off starter-turned-reliever Jon Lester's wild pitch.  5-3.  The joy was temporary as Cubs catcher Dave Ross hits a solo homer in his last game before retirement, knocking that score to 6-3.  What we needed was a miracle.

And guess what happened next.

Bottom of the eight inning, Brandon Guyer hits a double that brings home Jose Ramirez.  6-4.  And then the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life came right after:  center field Rajai Davis, who'd been fantastic defensively all postseason but struggled mightily with the bat in his hands, pulled off the old Pedro Cerrano Hollywood unthinkable drama of smashing a two-run homerun off the unbeatable Cubs closer, Aroldis Chapman.  

TIE SCORE. 6-6.

I was dying.  I was dead.  What I was actually doing was jumping up and down and screaming to wake the dead.  Sorry, roommates.  The last time I screamed that loudly during a baseball game was the epic come-from-behind tying run in that 2001 instant-classic game against the Mariners I wrote about a few days ago.  But this was Game 7 of the World Series.  Once The Ball That Davis Hit went out, something joyful snapped on inside of me.  Suddenly I knew, no matter the outcome of this night, I was going to want to talk to every single person I encountered in the foreseeable future about this game.  About the importance of never giving up, no matter the odds stacked against you.  

And after the conclusion of the scoreless ninth inning (almost not the case on what looked for half a second like a Jason Kipnis solo homerun that hooked foul) -- that's when the rains came.

Now after midnight, the water slashing down from the heavens was visible on my muted television while Hammy lamented in an uffish voice about this stall in momentum and I watched with newfound disbelief as the tarp was rolled out over the field.  At this point, my sister-in-law Jen and I were deep into texting, her husband/my older brother Casey long ago asleep along with her three young sons, and so I was her pipeline for keeping up with the action.  Later, my baseball soulbrother (that's a thing, right?) Shane chimed in and the messages were flying about the action.  My heart pounded out of my chest.  Would they have to suspend the game?  Could they finish it tonight?  Fifteen minutes later, the tarp was rolled back up and the 10th inning was a lightening strike of Cubs players taking advantage of pitcher Bryan Shaw's return to the mound after the unexpected break.  They put two more runs on the board before starter-turned-reliever Trevor Bauer came on and cleanly ended the inning.

Bottom of the 10th, the Indians had another steep mountain to climb -- we're always climbing, always! -- when Rajai Davis put the ball in play to score Brandon Guyer from second, getting us within one run of the unthinkable upset.  But we simply ran out of gas as Michael Martinez grounded out softly to third and the Cubs erased 108 years of anguish for their high-paying fans as they mobbed the mound.

The Indians did not win it.  The Indians did not win it.  Oh my god, the Indians did not win it.

At least not according to the scoreboard.

But these are the facts as I see them:

Fact #1:  With the injuries of key Indians players plaguing the team before they even got to the ALDS, no one -- no one -- picked Cleveland to make it past the Red Sox, let alone make it all the way to the World Series.  And even once they got there, still, there was no love.  I muted the television broadcasts and listened to the radio one instead, but I was dismayed how little they showed Indians fans in the crowd, even when the team was playing at home.  That's just rude, national media, seriously...

Fact #2:  The Indians are a small market team with small market funds which means they have to use wily and cunning to get anywhere and where that got them was Game 7 of the World Series.  They have to play as a team, united, one unanimous voice.  They have to be willing to play small ball -- they have to be willing to chip away, not depend on the longball, to get on base and move the runners any way possible.

Fact #3:  Terry Francona pulled off more miracles in this uncharted waters of no big names and a plague of injuries by being strategic, clever, and brazen and got away with more gambles than a team like Cleveland has ever experienced before.  In Tito We Trusted.  Forever.

Fact #4:  Asking three starting pitchers to work on three days rest on the biggest stage of their careers was incredibly daunting and incredibly risky but our guys said, "OK," zero hesitation, and did their best, along with the support of one of the most reliable bullpens I've ever witnessed.

Fact #5:  THEY HAD FUN.  THEY DID NOT QUIT.  GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE.  They hustled.  They were invested.  They were scrappy.  They fought and fought and fought.

And that's really the most important part of this story.

Whoddathunkit that an Indians loss in Game 7 of the World Series would feel so oddly uplifting?

Before the game last night, I was talking to my friend Becky, telling her about how I was starting to wonder if it truly was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all...  By the end of last night's game I was convinced, for the first time in my long, surly, wary life that in the end, love was actually worth it.

from Homefield Advantage: One Cleveland Indians Fan's 2016 Postseason Scrapbook

They Call Me Wolfstar (poem)

I am the bringer of freedom,

Watch out.

There is a need for my kind

of utopia, a need for the upright,

upstanding force of my force,

my taskless, tactless, tenacious

teeth chattering churning of appeasement

on Earth, amen, praise be.

I lock and load in the lotus

position, deep meditation

massaging my cerebral influx

of nocturnal disasters.

I am a lightning storm.

Dance deep.

In time, I will end wars

with the promise of more wars

and I will instruct peace

by breaking into pieces.

Nothing distracts me from my course.

Turn now.

You will watch me climb

from the dream gutter

and dig Shakespearean roots

out of Sexton gardens.

Nothing lets you choose

like my lack of choice.

One way to lead is by love,

another by example.

So I will come with my torch

to reign.  

Aim your propaganda at my head

if I aim to be your propaganda.

I am off.

Turn on my light.

How do you want to use me

this time?

Never mind that.

Never mind me at all.