Me

IF you knew me,
If you
Really,
Really 
Knew
Me,

You 
Would know
That
Girl Scout 
Camp
Archbald
Probably
Saved 
My life.

Summer
After summer,
I was given
Full permission
To be
My
Idiosyncratic
Self.

I flourished.

I shined.

If you knew me,
If you 
Really,
Really
Knew me,

You would know
That I had
Monogamous
And 
Committed
Crushes 
On counselors.

Of course, I did!

Miss Uns,
My counselor
When
I was ten,
Was blond
And
More-than-Magnificent
In
My
Eyes.

She
Went to
Penn State,
Which 
Was
Just
Another
Word 
For
Mount 
Olympus.

She was 
All-beauty,
All-competency,
All-possibility.

After our cookout
One hot
Summer
Day,
She gathered us
Around the 
Fading campfire,
Half-raw hotdog
Grumbling in my
Belly.

How we listened,
How I listened
To her
Every syllable.

And she said:
(This is a direct quote, 62 years later still alive in my body)

Ladies
(they always called us ladies)
Ladies,
Leave
The campsite
Better than you 
Found it.

Every cell
In my 
Ten-year-old
Body
Knew,
Absolutely
Knew
The 
TRUTH
She 
Spoke.

I just had
No idea
What it meant,
What it might 
Look like.

But I
Felt
Its
Depth
In
Me.

I cleaned off the rocks,
I 
Dusted away the leaves.

I used my little girl sneaker
To smooth out
The earth.

I organized our woodpile
In uneven attempts at order.

What a lifetime
Of
Earnestness
For that
Little girl,
For 
This
Aging 
Woman.

The day ended,
The summer faded
Into another
School year
Into
Another 
And another.

Leave the campsite
Better
Than
You
Found
It.

And I have
Spent
My life
Doing,
Making,
Attempting
To impact
The campsite
Of the moment.

I joined the
Peace Corps.

I worked
In an
Inner City
High school
Forever.

I even
Joined
An ashram,
To my Jewish
Parents
Sheer
And
Unabashed
Horror.

(What about my teaching pension, my appalled father asked?  A good question for today!)

I committed.
I was,
I am
Committed

To be
Part 
Of the solution.

Only now
A thousand years
After that
Little girl
Tummy rumbling
From a hotdog
That fell
Into the fire,
Uncooked,
But 
Nevertheless
Yummy,
Only now
I realize
It is enough
Already
With 
All
The doing.

ENOUGH WITH ALL THE DOING.

It is time for being.

Our dharma
Lives in us.

We are it.

Our purpose 
Unfolds,
Increment
By increment,

Moment 
By moment.

I struggled
To find
My dharma!
To do it—
RIGHT!
To be—
Of service.

Today
Perhaps
I 
Can just
Live.

Right
Here,
Right 
Now,
With whom
I really am.

Perhaps that
Is
Enough.

~~~

My dear friend Kavi Stephen Cope and I came to the Kripalu ashram in the same month, same year.  We think.  But we can’t really remember.  We were always in the same study groups and were just simply always bonded.  A thousand years later, he stands as a ray of love and connection in my life.  

With respect for his brain-iac brilliance and his wonderful yogic heart, here is a ten-minute video of his.  Check out his clarity regarding dharma, living into our authentic purpose.  Spoiler alert—he does not mention Miss Uns once!