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[ninarota]

[ninarota]

Beautiful and real and so much more gracious than anyone could expect. I know there is pain there and so please accept a big hug from me both now and when I next see you.

Last Goodbye

Anyone who knows this story knows that when a long update is posted the news is rarely good.  I am anything if not consistent.  So for those of you kind souls who have championed us, and through our story, championed your own, I ask you, for the last time… hold on to yourselves.

After 11 years, Cori and I have decided that we are better, and stronger as friends.    There is no blame.  No fault.  We did incredible things as a couple.  We will do incredible things on our own.  We will continue to cheer each other on from the sidelines.

Cori and I were babies when we met, broken and struggling in a very hard world.  We recognized each other’s bruises and scars immediately, and even more immediately, began to lick each other’s wounds.  It truly was “Us” against the world and that is how I will always remember those first years.  We met.  Set roots.  Took hold of each other.  This is what allowed us to weather the storms that followed, of which you’re all too familiar. 

During the storm of “Cori and Kacy”, her air was my air and vice versa.  Her story and mine were the same, and had that been the only gale our story may have remained.   But it was not. 

She lost someone in her foundation.  I lost someone in my foundation.  In order to stay standing, we had to find our own footing.  Once we did, we noticed that we could weather storms on our own.  She found her own laughs and joy in wonderful new friends and a new career.  I rediscovered my old self, and started to unpeel my layers to reveal the athlete beneath.

When you’re standing on the outside of something looking in, you have new perspective.  She used to say my face was a vacation.  Then one day I noticed that I wasn’t that anymore.  I was a reminder of the worst days, through sheer virtue of being there to witness them, but nonetheless, a reminder.  People grow.  Some together. Us, apart. 

Yet I digress, as there is no more simple reason for this update other than to say this:   We don’t owe anyone an explanation, but it felt irresponsible to pretend as if Cori and I weren’t used as pins to some of your hopes as proof that love does exist and that it’s real.

Despite this news, I can tell you whole-heartedly, that if love didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be writing this.  If we hadn’t loved each other for 11 years, we wouldn’t have been able to let each other go when we knew it was causing the other pain.

When you promise to love someone forever, it doesn’t mean you get to keep her.  It means you know they are free and in the world and that knowledge fills you with joy.  Rings are symbols of her existence – a circle of life.  You wear it because you have chosen to be a witness to that life.  That’s all. 

It’s not a cuff.  It’s not ownership. It’s proof.    

I think you all loved and championed us because, no matter what we faced, we faced it together with grace.  We are anything if not consistent.  We have separated as quickly as we joined.  Life is easy to untangle when your foundation is intact.  We’ve done so gracefully, respectfully, as you should do for those you love.

I hope you continue to follow both of us separately, to see what life looks like when you’re brave enough to say the words “I want more” out loud.  If I’ve learned two things in my time on earth it’s this:  life is short and hurting those you love because you’re afraid of being alone is the greatest sin you can commit. 

It’s been an honor to represent one half of this “Us”.  It was a great story.  11 years is a long time and my god did we live a lifetime of life in those years.  We’re ready for a new song.

For our final bow, I‘d like to leave you with what I feel is the very best ending.  I find it defines love.  Real love.  Not the kind in movies or on TV.  It’s the kind that you see in the world if you’re brave enough to feel. 

On Instagram, you will see the lasting image of “Cori and Kacy”.  After 11 years of pictures, we both chose this one to represent our last goodbye.  One where two girls look to the future, eyes fixed forward, and smiling.  This is how you end something.

Thank you for your love and support.  We wouldn’t be here without it.

Sincerely,

Kacy.  Cori. 

[ninarota]

this imaginal is a child playing.

I use channeling to help my writing. to write. i ask questions to get deeper into subjects. instead, let me enter the imaginal space. a child playing. does a child ask questions to go deeper into a subject. yes, maybe, at least some of the time. but not by design, by play. a star is a magical being in the sky, not an ancient object which has been interpreted as the same shape by countless cultures throughout history. a child in play would not care about that. a talking alligator walking out of a swamp for instance, or a dancing cat. much more of fascination. and these are not parlor tricks. what does it mean to travel a light year? would i need shoes since gravity is optional. the alligator is wearing hobnail boots so i was wondering. the dancing cat, what would that look like now? do children ask these kinds of questions or do they watch the show unfold.  

[ninarota]

A Drop in the Ocean, Working with Refugees on Lesvos Island

A talk by Nina Rota Video and images by Ameeta Nanji and Nina Rota Edited by Kate Johnson

A presentation about working with refugees on Lesvos Island during the month of January 2016. A discussion with images and video showing the overwhelming number of refugees, the organization of the different refugee groups on the island, the act of welcoming refugees to Europe, how global warming contributes to the refugee crisis, and how you can help. For more information, please contact Nina Rota.

Thank you so much to Ameeta Nanji, Kate Johnson and Michael Masucci at EZTV, and Alison Terry-Evans who runs the organization Dirty Girls of Lesvos Island. Please consider donating to this amazing organization. 

[ninarota]

A Drop in the Ocean: Raising the Bodies on Lesvos Island

My braided essay about working with refugees in Greece and the death of my oldest and dearest friend appears on entropymag.org. Entropy is a large, wonderful writers community which includes the publisher Civil Coping Mechanisms, check it out. 

[ninarota]

my name is rajon

it has always been so and will always be so. i was never born and will never die. there is no such thing as a beginning, there is no such thing as an ending. and my name will remain as it is forever.

there are different sized infinities. to an ant, the yard is an infinity. to a child, the house is an infinity. to a serpent the amazon is an infinity. therefore, i may be wrong. there may be a beginning and, possibly, an end, but it is so far beyond my perception that it may as well not exist. and so i will sleep as blisslessly as possible into the unknown until the monster floats to the surface and bites me again and i am faced with annihilation. usually, though, all it takes is a gift. i turn round, smile, and give the big baby a gift, and we are all good until the next time.

[ninarota]

Please join Maya Washington, Mady Schutzman, Olga Garcìa Echeverrìa, and Meg Whiteford reading at the Women’s Center for Creative Work on Feb. 9th at 7:30pm. All welcome. #wccwcostruggle 

[ninarota]

Roar Shack Reading Series on Sunday, February 12th, 4pm, at 826LA in fabulous Echo Park! Join us as we welcome Jamie Asaye Fitzgerald, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Nina Savelle-Rocklin, @ninarota   and Debbie Graber.

[ninarota]

Please join Maya Washington, Mady Schutzman, Olga Garcìa Echeverrìa, and Meg Whiteford reading at the Women’s Center for Creative Work on Feb. 9th at 7:30pm. All welcome. #wccwcostruggle 

[ninarota]

“there is tea now in the unbroken pot”—Nathanaël, Sisyphus Outdone

 there is intimacy now in the unbroken heart

[ninarota]

I swore to the Holy Silver Virgin of the Blessed Isle that I'd never read a Harry Potter book. I did this on May first, in the aura of a new Moon, with a very rare whispering (actually just kind of hissing, but still) comet in the sky.

So yeah, I just finished reading a long complicated detective novel set in modern-day England."Not bad," I said. "A little wordy, could have used some editing. The Silkworm. Robert Galbraith, hmm? Who is this guy."

No. NO. NOOOO!

If they find my fingers grown to rowan, birds in hair, innards a mass of shiny black beetles, snakes agape clamped wriggling on my eyeballs...

Well, you'll know what happened.

—William vanRiper 11/18/14

[ninarota]

[ninarota]

Hi Billy,

I got a birthday present and I'm thrilled! I was a bit confused to begin with because the package came all undone and broken up and there was a bubble wrap envelope within (didn't check whether it was some of that new bubble wrap which does not snap, wtf is up with that?) and a letter from the post office apologizing but the package came undone and they did the best they could.

I dug down into a corner of the bubble wrap envelope and finally found, deep in the corner, this sweet little cylinder that smelled of cedar. I was a bit concerned that those turbaned guys had come for their lapis eye and imagined a brave postal worker fighting them off with their mace sprayer or maybe their package slicer. Then I had to find out what game knucklebones is - luckily Konstantine was visiting, today is his birthday - and now I know though I’d never heard of the human version.

And I did wonder about the beeswax, but I assume that was applied to the silk and I am so touched that you risked such a physical toll in trying to produce the silk though you might have asked me first and I could have saved you some effort in that regard, though honestly, I had no idea mulberry leaves had anything to do with it.

Meanwhile it's bedtime and thank you so much. If I remember correctly I choose a direction for yes and no and let the pendulum do its thing, its own version of channeling, right?

Sleep tight, big love to you, Nina

[ninarota]

why do you work so hard anyway?

One might ask whether you find your joy in working hard. If so, it wouldn't matter what you worked at. One might also ask if along the way you took on from someone to which you were beholden that, say, work is its own reward, the harder you work the more you benefit, that laboring is the lot of the likes of us. -- William vanRiper

[ninarota]

can one request a mystical experience?

ball bearings. he used to hold ball bearings in his hand then doze off until he let go of the bearings and they clattered to the floor waking him up. does that mean he remained in a diffuse state of mind? does that mean he reached the twilight between the focused tunnel vision mind and the broad diffuse open mind - the one where problems are solved in our absence? and if it is the latter, how did he stay there? what is the trick for staying there because that is what i really need. and is that what happens when you don’t look at the screen when writing. no, that is the editor, only the inner editor. the one who scribbles lines through entire sections of my manuscript. and how well does it know me if it takes out those parts most important to me. how much is that, i mean, maybe it is correct. maybe i am mistaken, again, and it sees what i want to write. that what it has left is what is under the the pond i built when i didn’t know. is it because i am blind or is it because i am showing more than i imagine. i hope it is the last of these two.

[ninarota]

consciousness, no punctuation, a wild horse who, for some reason, raises one foreleg higher than the other but looks absolutely beautiful in her movement gliding across the plains of the clues. but here is where i get off track, here is where i begin to try. surrealists can be fascists right? and by the way, drop the need to come to an ending. i guarantee surrealists could give a shit about endings, about tying everything up. and here i am off on a thought again and i can see how thoughts interfere with writing. slowing down helps so much. i speed up whenever i’m in the throes of a thought and that derails my journey. trump’s hair. it’s on fire at times and other times it’s a sand castle waiting to be washed away but that will not happen. you cannot catch something which is not a solid body, you can only trace its decay.

[ninarota]

How not to write a book, or do anything else for that matter

What I was suggesting was that this came about when you shifted the focus of your intent from your overall vision to the steps you decided were necessary to bring it into tangible existence. Your vision was recast as the end result of a series of steps, each of which became the sole focus of your intent during their execution. Since your joy was in the vision and not the steps, joy went out the window. That never works, and proof of its not working came when the steps you chose outside your alignment turned out problematic.

Our informal, most reliable, day-to-day and moment-to-moment guidance comes through feelings (once noticed and respected, feeling states are messages to you from the greater you), which is why I've been talking about it lately. There's tuning in (formal meditation-like connection with spiritual factors) and tuning in (paying attention to your own greater being via how you feel).

 -- William vanRiper