Life is a game, and it seems more and more game pieces have been popping up. There are the painted buntings. A shattered framed Van Gogh poster in the trunk of my car--with 4 others left propped against a building near the river.
Then there are the old papers I’ve perused this morning: Decomposing bones in a car trunk, buzzing with flies. The picture of the oldest snake fossil, found in Argentina. That snake had a pelvis and tiny legs--a land creature. The UC-Irvine course on the science of Superheroes’ super powers. Kyle MacDonald who has gradually swapped a tiny red paper clip up to a year’s free rent in a duplex in Arizona. He is aiming to own a house.
There was the duffle bag soaked with pet urine. The sports section from a Korean newspaper. (Though perhaps that is a piece in someone else’s game.) The boss’s noseprint high on a glass panel. The friend’s search for The Saddest Song.
I don’t know if the game pieces energize me, or I am just in a better space to appreciate their knocking on the door. I don’t even know what the game IS, but I’m ready to play.
30 April 2006
29 April 2006
Chuck-wills-widow has just quieted. Dusk departs for dark. A silver sliver moon.
The neighborhood had its mockingbirds and house sparrows, zooming behind brown butterlies hatched after last night’s rain. The white-winged doves in full chorus. A kettle of kites wending west.
But in the small woods. among the juniper and the laurel, a companionable pair of painted buntings, both male. (Easy to tell the difference--the males the famous rainbow of color, the females pale green.) Brothers? Friends? Not competitors. I’ve never before discovered one in the wild away from feeders. Now, not one, but two. And then, the descending cuckkukukuku of the yellow-billed cuckoo.
Spring wilderness nested in suburbia.
The neighborhood had its mockingbirds and house sparrows, zooming behind brown butterlies hatched after last night’s rain. The white-winged doves in full chorus. A kettle of kites wending west.
But in the small woods. among the juniper and the laurel, a companionable pair of painted buntings, both male. (Easy to tell the difference--the males the famous rainbow of color, the females pale green.) Brothers? Friends? Not competitors. I’ve never before discovered one in the wild away from feeders. Now, not one, but two. And then, the descending cuckkukukuku of the yellow-billed cuckoo.
Spring wilderness nested in suburbia.
28 April 2006
From Camille Parmesan, biologist, quoted 04-23-06 in the Austin American-Statesman:
People don't realize that humans evolved right smack dab in the middle of nature--that we're really not adapted to urban life. We have these millions of years of evolution that have trained our psyche to need green grass and trees and interactions. We need nature, psychologically. When you go out into nature, the first thing that happens is it slows you down...The level of people on Prevacid and Prozac in urban areas is a testament, I think, to the fact that we're fooling ourselves into thinking we can live in a high-stress, high-paced environment and be OK. We can't.
People don't realize that humans evolved right smack dab in the middle of nature--that we're really not adapted to urban life. We have these millions of years of evolution that have trained our psyche to need green grass and trees and interactions. We need nature, psychologically. When you go out into nature, the first thing that happens is it slows you down...The level of people on Prevacid and Prozac in urban areas is a testament, I think, to the fact that we're fooling ourselves into thinking we can live in a high-stress, high-paced environment and be OK. We can't.
27 April 2006
As I was leaving work, they all called out at once, “Bye, Mom!” The boys on the team--all still at their computers pulling overtime. One added, “Be careful on the road, Mom.”
I was touched.
They knew I was heading out for a bit of a drive for the high school band banquet for the younger son. (At the same creekside place, lush with trees, where the athletic banquet for the older son.was held some three years ago.)
From which I just got back. It was lovely. Mild, sweet air, twinkling white lights, slow-turning fans, wood floors. Dusk. A lot of heartfelt moments and genuine affection among the parents, directors, and band members. Kids took to the dance floor after the awards and banquet were done. I was out in the dark about to take off and caught a glimpse through the lighted window of my son and his friend experimenting with dance, he is his dark collared shirt and she in a backless spring dress and in their tentative movement, it was like seeing something from the 40s, something old and familiar and new again.
I was touched.
They knew I was heading out for a bit of a drive for the high school band banquet for the younger son. (At the same creekside place, lush with trees, where the athletic banquet for the older son.was held some three years ago.)
From which I just got back. It was lovely. Mild, sweet air, twinkling white lights, slow-turning fans, wood floors. Dusk. A lot of heartfelt moments and genuine affection among the parents, directors, and band members. Kids took to the dance floor after the awards and banquet were done. I was out in the dark about to take off and caught a glimpse through the lighted window of my son and his friend experimenting with dance, he is his dark collared shirt and she in a backless spring dress and in their tentative movement, it was like seeing something from the 40s, something old and familiar and new again.
25 April 2006
Big yellows. I first saw them along the road many years ago. Large delicate petals of pale luminous yellow, gently flutter in the least breeze.
Every time I see them, they bring a spark of happiness.
I have since learned they are Mexican poppies.
One year, the big machines came, digging a trench for a new waterline, then paving the area that had been home to the big yellows. There they were, buried forever.
I was wrong. Upheavel somehow cast seeds farther afield. There are more along this busy road than ever before.
Today I saw the Mexican poppies twice. The yellow of soft sunshine. And I felt happiness.
Every time I see them, they bring a spark of happiness.
I have since learned they are Mexican poppies.
One year, the big machines came, digging a trench for a new waterline, then paving the area that had been home to the big yellows. There they were, buried forever.
I was wrong. Upheavel somehow cast seeds farther afield. There are more along this busy road than ever before.
Today I saw the Mexican poppies twice. The yellow of soft sunshine. And I felt happiness.
23 April 2006
The grackles, the white-winged doves, and the house sparrows are building nests. At Building J, both the sparrows and the doves have selected the hollowed tops of concrete columns beneath the overhangs for good location, location, location. I also see sparrows squeezing between drain pipes and porch walls of houses. And you’ll always find house sparrow nests in the curves of the letters of signs on businesses. I took a photo of a nest draped in the E of SUPERCUTS.
These birds are opportunists, have adapted remarkably, sub-leasing structures humans build for their own homes and work. Adapting, surviving and reproducing, they are successful along with the people who live among them.
Some have adapted too well. In the 100-degree-plus temperatures of summer, you’ll see grackles in the parking lots of grocery stores looking for tidbits of human food. Some grackles limp with grotesque feet, deformed by the searing heat of the asphalt.
We too adapt for survival, for reproduction, to ensure the well being of our young. But we don’t want to be grackles, do we? Dodging vehicles and grocery carts? I sit in the traffic and look at the lines of us nose to cheek in our smoking vehicles and know that no, this is not necessary to survive.
And what if you are a bird who can’t digest Mac Fries, who builds lovely nests of bark from very old junipers, or other uncommon materials? What if the lighted signs, the lightposts, the garbage bins don’t look like opportunity, but like disaster?
You fly outward in search of your home.
You don’t want to be a parking-lot grackle with burned feet, living off Cheetos.
These birds are opportunists, have adapted remarkably, sub-leasing structures humans build for their own homes and work. Adapting, surviving and reproducing, they are successful along with the people who live among them.
Some have adapted too well. In the 100-degree-plus temperatures of summer, you’ll see grackles in the parking lots of grocery stores looking for tidbits of human food. Some grackles limp with grotesque feet, deformed by the searing heat of the asphalt.
We too adapt for survival, for reproduction, to ensure the well being of our young. But we don’t want to be grackles, do we? Dodging vehicles and grocery carts? I sit in the traffic and look at the lines of us nose to cheek in our smoking vehicles and know that no, this is not necessary to survive.
And what if you are a bird who can’t digest Mac Fries, who builds lovely nests of bark from very old junipers, or other uncommon materials? What if the lighted signs, the lightposts, the garbage bins don’t look like opportunity, but like disaster?
You fly outward in search of your home.
You don’t want to be a parking-lot grackle with burned feet, living off Cheetos.
22 April 2006
For a traveling sister writer, I read four fine poems at the International Poetry Festival today. The other poets had gift and talent, wit and sharp vision. The last poet in our panel, currently a professor at Evergreen in Washington State, was from China. Her feet were slender in trim dark boots, her fingers long and articulate. She wore an embroidered brocade blouse with Mandarin collar, slacks and a jacket. She spoke of the light from the gold and green stained glass above the podium, how it had formed a halo above each of the poets who preceded her. She read in a Chinese dialect a section from her long work, and the moderator read the English translation, then she’d read another section, back and forth. Her work spoke of birds, the vowels of their poetry, of pianos and rivers.
She stood to one side, with angular stance, cornered shoulders. As the English version was read, she’d bend her head with concentration or feeling, her face draped by loose dark hair.
As we emptied the room, she collected her bag and papers from her seat in front of me, and I said I enjoyed her reading, that I liked the line that tears are of the same composition as the ocean. She said that is a scientific fact. Then, she looked at me and said: We are all fish.
She stood to one side, with angular stance, cornered shoulders. As the English version was read, she’d bend her head with concentration or feeling, her face draped by loose dark hair.
As we emptied the room, she collected her bag and papers from her seat in front of me, and I said I enjoyed her reading, that I liked the line that tears are of the same composition as the ocean. She said that is a scientific fact. Then, she looked at me and said: We are all fish.
To Building J
[to be yelled at twice before the storm even hits to be denied insurance to find yourself in the dark afternoon torrent receiving hail to be cornered by a desperate poet and awakened in the dark by thunder and phone bells]
it comes back
to the space
the empty half of
the building
parallels
of light
cast on
leagues of empty carpet
rectangles of window
gold-hued light here
blue there
landscape trees
tossing ten shades of spring green
harboring
clouds like ships
and great shining black birds
we gaze from
a prefab cathedral
a strangely sacred place
space being money you know
so here is wealth
clean lines clean
to take in air
and let it go
stillness pervades
this rectangle
pressed on all sides by
busyness
productiveness
meet the
contract
dead
lines
there we sit
on rectangle mats
in stillness within
the rectangle
of metric streets
trucks following cars following trucks
the birds’ voices wind instruments
against the worried strings
percussive fenderbenders of
background traffic
inside
a worker
takes lunch
shoulders raised to her ears
spine curved toward a monitor
among two hundred monitors
within the urgent rectangle
the real life only
21 paces away
within the
window-lined
window-lit
unfurnished
unlikely
space
where a quarter hour
can be a rich infinity
where god has always loved i have always been you have always been we have always been me you us them
[to be yelled at twice before the storm even hits to be denied insurance to find yourself in the dark afternoon torrent receiving hail to be cornered by a desperate poet and awakened in the dark by thunder and phone bells]
it comes back
to the space
the empty half of
the building
parallels
of light
cast on
leagues of empty carpet
rectangles of window
gold-hued light here
blue there
landscape trees
tossing ten shades of spring green
harboring
clouds like ships
and great shining black birds
we gaze from
a prefab cathedral
a strangely sacred place
space being money you know
so here is wealth
clean lines clean
to take in air
and let it go
stillness pervades
this rectangle
pressed on all sides by
busyness
productiveness
meet the
contract
dead
lines
there we sit
on rectangle mats
in stillness within
the rectangle
of metric streets
trucks following cars following trucks
the birds’ voices wind instruments
against the worried strings
percussive fenderbenders of
background traffic
inside
a worker
takes lunch
shoulders raised to her ears
spine curved toward a monitor
among two hundred monitors
within the urgent rectangle
the real life only
21 paces away
within the
window-lined
window-lit
unfurnished
unlikely
space
where a quarter hour
can be a rich infinity
where god has always loved i have always been you have always been we have always been me you us them
21 April 2006
The workday started with being scolded by a supervisor who formerly was very gentle. Scolded for speaking. Not for what I was saying, but for speaking at all. Then, the team member who drew me most because he was like a disinterested garrulous uncle tore into a tantrum. It was about numbers, slope on a graph, and his face showed a fury clearly unrelated to me or to slope--but he aimed that fury toward me. I was rattled for some time with no place to hide.
Then I was cornered in the night by a traveling New York poet. An interaction I haven’t figured out but he was intent on me and talked as though this might be his last chance to express his theories, fears, griefs and desires.
I had better luck with women, the supervisor who shared about her youth in Thailand, the German poet who has lived in Austin these past 20 years. I read a sister-poet’s fine work in her absence at the poetry festival. Four poems.
And the silent 15 minutes with my yoga partner.
Hail dented the car and made explosive noises as I drove home. Lightning exploded like bombs in the middle of the night. (Have you noticed the different ways lightning can sound? No rumbling last night. Explosion after explosion.) The phone rang twice at 5:30 AM during my last half hour of too little rest.
A lot of disturbances, but despite the body going into alert mode, I see now never was I in danger.
It was during the quarter hour of yoga and meditation I felt grounded and whole. It is where I went readily, happily. Contact with stillness that is there even as lightning strikes.
Then I was cornered in the night by a traveling New York poet. An interaction I haven’t figured out but he was intent on me and talked as though this might be his last chance to express his theories, fears, griefs and desires.
I had better luck with women, the supervisor who shared about her youth in Thailand, the German poet who has lived in Austin these past 20 years. I read a sister-poet’s fine work in her absence at the poetry festival. Four poems.
And the silent 15 minutes with my yoga partner.
Hail dented the car and made explosive noises as I drove home. Lightning exploded like bombs in the middle of the night. (Have you noticed the different ways lightning can sound? No rumbling last night. Explosion after explosion.) The phone rang twice at 5:30 AM during my last half hour of too little rest.
A lot of disturbances, but despite the body going into alert mode, I see now never was I in danger.
It was during the quarter hour of yoga and meditation I felt grounded and whole. It is where I went readily, happily. Contact with stillness that is there even as lightning strikes.
19 April 2006
I am wearing a button-down dark brown blouse and plaid slacks. After work I took off the silver circle pin and watch. My life is, and always has been, pretty contained. Adventures eked from within the prefab structures of school, work or family vacations. So many many years the reliable responsible student and worker, the reliable responsible wife and mom. But we don’t really know what goes on in anyone’s head nor heart, do we.
I think of myself as wild, but am coming to see the wild part of my life has been inside my head which nobody sees, and through my largely unpublished writing which few people read. I sweat about most of the entries I post here. I am embarrassed that I write about me.
Some rebellion against old strait-laced habits is going on here. A thirst for spiritual wildness. It’s roiling in me sub-surface. Who knows what may bust out? It’s nigh time isn’t it.
I think of myself as wild, but am coming to see the wild part of my life has been inside my head which nobody sees, and through my largely unpublished writing which few people read. I sweat about most of the entries I post here. I am embarrassed that I write about me.
Some rebellion against old strait-laced habits is going on here. A thirst for spiritual wildness. It’s roiling in me sub-surface. Who knows what may bust out? It’s nigh time isn’t it.
18 April 2006
giant monarchs
clinging to the bark of oak trees
wings opening and closing
kestrel, streaked in reds and blues,
pressed against a glass door
7 lionesses in the sand of a beach
each in her own territory
one lion for each year
Carp pushing against my hand
gold breaking the current
of the Pedernales River
porpoises lit green by phosphorescence
surfacing in the waves of the Mississippi gulf
cougar walking at my knee
painted buntings, mice and rats
hummingbird in my hand
tortoise at my feet
a doe with an arrow in her back
silver in the sun
wave after wave of pelicans
spiraling above
as traffic rocked my car on the side of the road
black bear standing on his hands for joy
in the shallows of a stream
some of these are dreams
some of these waking reality
some dreams came to life,
some events returned to dreams
it matters little which is which
all are memory now.
clinging to the bark of oak trees
wings opening and closing
kestrel, streaked in reds and blues,
pressed against a glass door
7 lionesses in the sand of a beach
each in her own territory
one lion for each year
Carp pushing against my hand
gold breaking the current
of the Pedernales River
porpoises lit green by phosphorescence
surfacing in the waves of the Mississippi gulf
cougar walking at my knee
painted buntings, mice and rats
hummingbird in my hand
tortoise at my feet
a doe with an arrow in her back
silver in the sun
wave after wave of pelicans
spiraling above
as traffic rocked my car on the side of the road
black bear standing on his hands for joy
in the shallows of a stream
some of these are dreams
some of these waking reality
some dreams came to life,
some events returned to dreams
it matters little which is which
all are memory now.
17 April 2006
For many years at Easter, the bunny brought a basket of books. Everyone whined about it--no marshmallow between the covers--but I enjoyed doing it until one year, I hadn’t the time and thought--no one wants the books anyway. That Easter Sunday I heard the shocked voices--where are the books?
So Saturday I went to Bookstop. It’s challenging--what would bring them pleasure? It took a while. For me, a friend had some time ago recommended The Celestine Prophecy. I didn’t know the author, but as I was looking in the fiction section for the other books, there it was--sitting on the edge of a shelf by itself out of place. I glanced at it--big awe-filled reviews but it didn’t seem very meaty. Had that cheesy bestseller look to it. Grabbed it anyway--one book I didn’t have to hunt for.
Yesterday after our family meal I picked it up out of the wicker basket and maybe read half a chapter. I put it down.
An Oh-this-is-too-weird! experience. Like being on an uncharted unplanned solo adventure, then finding mid-trip the map, itinerary and informative journals just waiting in the bookstore.
Brings to mind events that happened to the guy who wrote Portnoy’s Complaint--can’t think of his name right now--he has a confounding story about a piece of paper in a deli on a cold wet night--and then there’s Coleman Barks who translated Rumi--and his journey that lead to that work.
I don’t know where I’m heading with this--five yawns per minute in progress--good night for now--
So Saturday I went to Bookstop. It’s challenging--what would bring them pleasure? It took a while. For me, a friend had some time ago recommended The Celestine Prophecy. I didn’t know the author, but as I was looking in the fiction section for the other books, there it was--sitting on the edge of a shelf by itself out of place. I glanced at it--big awe-filled reviews but it didn’t seem very meaty. Had that cheesy bestseller look to it. Grabbed it anyway--one book I didn’t have to hunt for.
Yesterday after our family meal I picked it up out of the wicker basket and maybe read half a chapter. I put it down.
An Oh-this-is-too-weird! experience. Like being on an uncharted unplanned solo adventure, then finding mid-trip the map, itinerary and informative journals just waiting in the bookstore.
Brings to mind events that happened to the guy who wrote Portnoy’s Complaint--can’t think of his name right now--he has a confounding story about a piece of paper in a deli on a cold wet night--and then there’s Coleman Barks who translated Rumi--and his journey that lead to that work.
I don’t know where I’m heading with this--five yawns per minute in progress--good night for now--
16 April 2006
I woke up feeling nothing, nothing at all. Zombie. I thought about Easter. I thought about church. I got up, turned on the computer, looked up redemption and resurrection online. The first dictionary had the inadequate definitions below, then a reference to the Christian meaning. The second, Miriam-Webster online, had the Christian meanings only.
redemption, repurchase, buyback
the act of purchasing back something previously sold
resurrection
revival from inactivity and disuse; "it produced a resurrection of hope"
I thought about these things, trying to translate from abstraction to some concrete application in my life. And there is relevance. But no feeling, no sense of connection. And I wondered if there is truly resurrection—if there are only transitory flickers of light in life that deceive us into a false optimism.
I looked to the balcony—the sunlight growing in the east behind the trees. I made a cup of coffee, sunlight creeping into the kitchen, lighting my orange sweater on a chair, the pink hoodie I was wearing over my PJs.
I saw the windows are dirty.
Then, I saw an image on the sliding glass door. An upraised wing, each feather etched in the pollen dust coating the windows. I looked more closely: the imprint of a bird, the body and wing, briefly illuminated by the sun’s rising.
I took pictures of the wing imprint.
My mind marveled. Still, no feeling, nothing in my heart.
I made a cup of coffee, pulled a section of newspaper from a canvas bag with old papers. It was the Wall Street Journal from April 8-9. I saw a photo framed in orange of what looked like the Dalai Lama. Beyond his head, a pigeon in flight, wings outspread.
A Tibetan monk with a child on his knee in a courtyard in Ulan Bator. A story of the impossible transformed into possible—a heart repair this child received as a baby. Reading the story of all the people connecting in amazing ways to create one miracle broke through the wall around my heart.
Then I saw the binky dangling on a string attached to the boy’s red jacket. There was a binky attached to the pajamas of a baby in my life over twenty years ago. Another plane flight across the world, another miracle.
All the people play little parts, connecting, creating light. Resurrection over and over and over again. Not just resurrection for the children, but resurrection for all involved. Resurrection for you and me.
redemption, repurchase, buyback
the act of purchasing back something previously sold
resurrection
revival from inactivity and disuse; "it produced a resurrection of hope"
I thought about these things, trying to translate from abstraction to some concrete application in my life. And there is relevance. But no feeling, no sense of connection. And I wondered if there is truly resurrection—if there are only transitory flickers of light in life that deceive us into a false optimism.
I looked to the balcony—the sunlight growing in the east behind the trees. I made a cup of coffee, sunlight creeping into the kitchen, lighting my orange sweater on a chair, the pink hoodie I was wearing over my PJs.
I saw the windows are dirty.
Then, I saw an image on the sliding glass door. An upraised wing, each feather etched in the pollen dust coating the windows. I looked more closely: the imprint of a bird, the body and wing, briefly illuminated by the sun’s rising.
I took pictures of the wing imprint.
My mind marveled. Still, no feeling, nothing in my heart.
I made a cup of coffee, pulled a section of newspaper from a canvas bag with old papers. It was the Wall Street Journal from April 8-9. I saw a photo framed in orange of what looked like the Dalai Lama. Beyond his head, a pigeon in flight, wings outspread.
A Tibetan monk with a child on his knee in a courtyard in Ulan Bator. A story of the impossible transformed into possible—a heart repair this child received as a baby. Reading the story of all the people connecting in amazing ways to create one miracle broke through the wall around my heart.
Then I saw the binky dangling on a string attached to the boy’s red jacket. There was a binky attached to the pajamas of a baby in my life over twenty years ago. Another plane flight across the world, another miracle.
All the people play little parts, connecting, creating light. Resurrection over and over and over again. Not just resurrection for the children, but resurrection for all involved. Resurrection for you and me.
15 April 2006
I got angry yesterday.
That is so rare. I wanted to throw tables. It flared so fast, with no thought, just flame, directed toward no one. Two little words. A mistake two words long lit up a great big shambles. Opened my eyes, took me by surprise. I felt rage.
There is no one person to blame. But when we fail our children--we parents, we community, we Washington, we teachers--
I took a brief walk. I shed tears. I got back to work. Took advantage of an opportunity that appeared out of nowhere to say-'Hey!' It might have eventual impact.
So. I don’t know how to fix the big problem I stumbled into. But I do know not to shrug. I do know to rattle the cogs in my small section of the machine. And I know if enough of us take care of our little bit, if we take our responsibility to our children seriously, if we pay attention, are mindful of our children, it will come right.
All children are our children.
Sometimes things that are broken get attention. That’s the only good I can see here.
That is so rare. I wanted to throw tables. It flared so fast, with no thought, just flame, directed toward no one. Two little words. A mistake two words long lit up a great big shambles. Opened my eyes, took me by surprise. I felt rage.
There is no one person to blame. But when we fail our children--we parents, we community, we Washington, we teachers--
I took a brief walk. I shed tears. I got back to work. Took advantage of an opportunity that appeared out of nowhere to say-'Hey!' It might have eventual impact.
So. I don’t know how to fix the big problem I stumbled into. But I do know not to shrug. I do know to rattle the cogs in my small section of the machine. And I know if enough of us take care of our little bit, if we take our responsibility to our children seriously, if we pay attention, are mindful of our children, it will come right.
All children are our children.
Sometimes things that are broken get attention. That’s the only good I can see here.
14 April 2006
13 April 2006
You, Bedouin of Libya who saved our lives, though you will dwell forever in my memory yet I shall never be able to recapture your features. You are Humanity and your face comes into my mind simply as man incarnate. You, our beloved fellowman, did not know who we might be, and yet you recognized us without fail. And I, in my turn, shall recognize you in the faces of all mankind. You came towards me in an aureole of charity and magnanimity bearing the gift of water. All my friends and all my enemies marched toward me in your person. It did not seem to me that you were rescuing me: rather did it seem that you were forgiving me. And I felt I had no enemy left in all the world.
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Wind, Sand and Stars
When another recognizes you, that recognition draws the dimension of Being more fully into this world through the both of you. That is the love that redeems the world…it equally applies, of course, to all relationships.
Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Wind, Sand and Stars
When another recognizes you, that recognition draws the dimension of Being more fully into this world through the both of you. That is the love that redeems the world…it equally applies, of course, to all relationships.
Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth
They are among the oldest of the hundred or so in the room, and they are the bad boys--noisy and cantankerous and throwing tantrums, splitting hairs, and talking about ammunition and barbecue. Then they’re talking with concern about religious prejudice and coming in wearing cologne and purple shirts and giving me all sorts of crap and compliments and then my one worker/sister brings in a Land’s End Catalog--a pin-up-girl magazine for the boys she says.
I grow attached so easily. It’s a magic team. Landed at the same time at the same table at the same seasonal job. An unforced love among us.
At lunch today, a coworker from another team and I practiced our yoga and I saw the pattern of windows, the trees blowing against a cloudy spring sky, this woman next to me who I don’t know except by this one connection, our breathing.
This is who I am, where I am, what I see, what I am doing. It’s not an in-between time. It’s not recovering, it’s not waiting for a move, a new job, love or money or travel.
I know. I’ve said it before but I say it again because I don’t hold onto it very long and have to remind myself--today, what I am doing now, sitting on a sofa typing. This is IT. And it is plenty.
I grow attached so easily. It’s a magic team. Landed at the same time at the same table at the same seasonal job. An unforced love among us.
At lunch today, a coworker from another team and I practiced our yoga and I saw the pattern of windows, the trees blowing against a cloudy spring sky, this woman next to me who I don’t know except by this one connection, our breathing.
This is who I am, where I am, what I see, what I am doing. It’s not an in-between time. It’s not recovering, it’s not waiting for a move, a new job, love or money or travel.
I know. I’ve said it before but I say it again because I don’t hold onto it very long and have to remind myself--today, what I am doing now, sitting on a sofa typing. This is IT. And it is plenty.
11 April 2006
I’m finally coming to be aware of what I have been building a fortress around. The source of my forgetfulness, the missed obligations that I have been so responsible about across the years. I did it in 2003--and here it comes again, the great joy hurt.
A child is graduating. A child, this time the last, is moving out of state to go to college.
And the oldest, who had moved back, is venturing out again. A double blow.
For me, being a mother has been the least complicated of loves. And this is just another natural stage. It’s the whole point of bearing young. I’ve watched enough birds, squirrels, deer to know this.
But it is truly a seismic shift for a human mother. Physical separation after so many years of natural intimacy.
Children brave enough to venture forth. Parents loving enough to gradually let go.
Pardon me, though, if I am a little confused in the process.
A child is graduating. A child, this time the last, is moving out of state to go to college.
And the oldest, who had moved back, is venturing out again. A double blow.
For me, being a mother has been the least complicated of loves. And this is just another natural stage. It’s the whole point of bearing young. I’ve watched enough birds, squirrels, deer to know this.
But it is truly a seismic shift for a human mother. Physical separation after so many years of natural intimacy.
Children brave enough to venture forth. Parents loving enough to gradually let go.
Pardon me, though, if I am a little confused in the process.
First the phone call about taxes. Then, my son wanted me to watch a program about trying to win a million dollars. Deal or No Deal. Yhen I got an email advising ‘follow the $$$$$$$$$$.’ And a phone call just now inviting me to take part in a survey about financial advice. Since that seems to be what’s on my agenda, I asked my timely caller/expert, Jared, if I’d learn anything by participating in his survey. He laughed, said I would. But after 3 questions, he was done and I said but wait, what did I learn? He laughed again, said if I’d answered the last question differently...
He quickly figured out what I knew from the getgo. I am not consumer material for whatever he was marketing.
People hint I am naive. I admit I have been confused. But I’m beginning to think that’s because I’ve been trying to look outside rather than inside myself regarding money.
Maybe following the money is not for me.
Maybe my own instincts are quite sound. I have never followed the money, and that seems to have worked so far.
So I hereby advise myself: Listen to your heart. Do what’s right. Share what you’ve got. Follow light.
And Jared's welcome to that advice if he’d like. It's all I know.
He quickly figured out what I knew from the getgo. I am not consumer material for whatever he was marketing.
People hint I am naive. I admit I have been confused. But I’m beginning to think that’s because I’ve been trying to look outside rather than inside myself regarding money.
Maybe following the money is not for me.
Maybe my own instincts are quite sound. I have never followed the money, and that seems to have worked so far.
So I hereby advise myself: Listen to your heart. Do what’s right. Share what you’ve got. Follow light.
And Jared's welcome to that advice if he’d like. It's all I know.
09 April 2006
My high school is a spiritual place. It is bordered by very old oaks and pines. It’s in a tiny town called Grand Coteau in central Louisiana. The school is at the end of a road and is surrounded by pastureland with a half dozen cows. My schoolmates were very good people, and when I run into them or receive email, I am reminded of that. What good hearts they have. The school has a chapel that is dark and peaceful. It has its own cemetery. When I went there, the school was like a town in itself. Very ancient sisters lived upstairs--cloistered--. Some of them did chores or some teaching. There were locals who cooked, kept the building running, the banisters polished and smelling fragrant, the lawns trim, the camelias pruned. We wore uniforms: plaid skirts and white blouses. There was smoking, dirty jokes, petty thefts. We had film study: On the Waterfront, A Gentleman’s Agreement, Johnny Belinda. We curtsied to nuns and statues. We sang a lot. Often in harmony, often in French. Prayed a lot. Grace was sung in rounds: pour se repas et tous nos joies nous vous louons Seigneur.
I was very lucky. I went there from 6th through 12th grades. Seven years I belonged there. It was my home.
As a young adult, I worked nearly ten years at a state hospital with the same initials as my high school, ASH. The hospital has a campus of buildings on grounds lined by pecans and oaks. It has a chapel. Its own cemetery. Like at my high school, there is one main building that was built before the Civil War. There are people who live there and people who work there. There’s smoking, dirty jokes, petty thefts. Rock and roll bands. There are very very good people--who probably don’t look or talk like how many define ‘good’. Violent emotion and behavior is not uncommon. It is a hospital for those with mental illness, those who are suffering. It too is a spiritual place. Love permeates the place. It was my home.
I feel so unattached now, and so cautious about joining groups. But that doesn’t mean I am unable to belong again, to find home.
I was very lucky. I went there from 6th through 12th grades. Seven years I belonged there. It was my home.
As a young adult, I worked nearly ten years at a state hospital with the same initials as my high school, ASH. The hospital has a campus of buildings on grounds lined by pecans and oaks. It has a chapel. Its own cemetery. Like at my high school, there is one main building that was built before the Civil War. There are people who live there and people who work there. There’s smoking, dirty jokes, petty thefts. Rock and roll bands. There are very very good people--who probably don’t look or talk like how many define ‘good’. Violent emotion and behavior is not uncommon. It is a hospital for those with mental illness, those who are suffering. It too is a spiritual place. Love permeates the place. It was my home.
I feel so unattached now, and so cautious about joining groups. But that doesn’t mean I am unable to belong again, to find home.
08 April 2006
Saint Exupery clearly wants to, but can’t quite get a grip on the subject of slavery.
Last night, looking for my travel journal in my backpack, instead I found Wind, Sand and Stars. The book fell open to a place I’ve bookmarked before.
Saint Exupery describes his encounters on the Sahara. He discusses men who have been tricked, kidnapped and sold into slavery. Saint Exupery, a truthful writer, is at sea here. He veers from casual condescension to fascination and empathy. He observes such men are not unhappy. Then he describes a man who is clearly unhappy. He observes discarded servants, granted freedom late in years, who lie on the sand and wither away. The beauty and peace of the end of their lives. Or is it the loss of a rich valuable life, death from stark unappreciation.
Saint Exupery was a pilot, and he and a group of friends back home and other pilots pool their resources to purchase the freedom of one man called Bark. All slaves were called Bark. This man had a former life as Mohammed. He had had a wife and children and a home in Marrakech.
The man owns nothing now, has a threadbare cape. The pilots give him a significant sum of money to help ease the transition from slavery to freedom.
The man is overwhelmed. He has dreamed of freedom so long, and when it arrives just as unpredictably as he lost it, he is stunned. “He was free, but too infinitely free; not striding upon the earth but floating above it.”
He does the things a man might do on a day off with money in his pocket, but that does not ground him. Then, a sickly child draws his attention.
He goes to the shops in the market and spends every coin he has been given on toys and gold-threaded slippers which he hands out to a thousand children.
Saint Exupery offers no real guidance here, or none that I can understand, writing abstractly about angels seeking weight on earth. And though he writes of the man telling prositutes “I am Mohammed ben Lhaoussin,” Saint Exupery continues to refer to him as “Bark” throughout.
Slavery. Money. Dignity. I too am lost.
It is Mohammed’s story. What is the worth of a human being? What is the meaning of money that a handful of metal disks can take away or gain the freedom of even one man? What is the value of a sum of hard-earned francs collected for you to establish you in the real world? It is worth a thousand pair of gold-threaded slippers, gone in an hour.
Last night, looking for my travel journal in my backpack, instead I found Wind, Sand and Stars. The book fell open to a place I’ve bookmarked before.
Saint Exupery describes his encounters on the Sahara. He discusses men who have been tricked, kidnapped and sold into slavery. Saint Exupery, a truthful writer, is at sea here. He veers from casual condescension to fascination and empathy. He observes such men are not unhappy. Then he describes a man who is clearly unhappy. He observes discarded servants, granted freedom late in years, who lie on the sand and wither away. The beauty and peace of the end of their lives. Or is it the loss of a rich valuable life, death from stark unappreciation.
Saint Exupery was a pilot, and he and a group of friends back home and other pilots pool their resources to purchase the freedom of one man called Bark. All slaves were called Bark. This man had a former life as Mohammed. He had had a wife and children and a home in Marrakech.
The man owns nothing now, has a threadbare cape. The pilots give him a significant sum of money to help ease the transition from slavery to freedom.
The man is overwhelmed. He has dreamed of freedom so long, and when it arrives just as unpredictably as he lost it, he is stunned. “He was free, but too infinitely free; not striding upon the earth but floating above it.”
He does the things a man might do on a day off with money in his pocket, but that does not ground him. Then, a sickly child draws his attention.
He goes to the shops in the market and spends every coin he has been given on toys and gold-threaded slippers which he hands out to a thousand children.
Saint Exupery offers no real guidance here, or none that I can understand, writing abstractly about angels seeking weight on earth. And though he writes of the man telling prositutes “I am Mohammed ben Lhaoussin,” Saint Exupery continues to refer to him as “Bark” throughout.
Slavery. Money. Dignity. I too am lost.
It is Mohammed’s story. What is the worth of a human being? What is the meaning of money that a handful of metal disks can take away or gain the freedom of even one man? What is the value of a sum of hard-earned francs collected for you to establish you in the real world? It is worth a thousand pair of gold-threaded slippers, gone in an hour.
07 April 2006
06 April 2006
Maybe it’s the mystery of the monarch’s flight that draws you.
It makes no difference which door you enter:
the firewheel
the dung beetle
the hummingbird
the bullfrog
the fawn
Orion
an oak tree
a creek
Mt. Rainier...
You find one friend outdoors
and before long
you see the network of relationship
the interwoven connections
the tapestry.
You see you are a part of the pattern.
It makes no difference which door you enter:
the firewheel
the dung beetle
the hummingbird
the bullfrog
the fawn
Orion
an oak tree
a creek
Mt. Rainier...
You find one friend outdoors
and before long
you see the network of relationship
the interwoven connections
the tapestry.
You see you are a part of the pattern.
05 April 2006
white winged dove
lifts from the ground
a pale green-leaf garland floating from the beak
thick-coiled bright grey barbed wire
blocking the entrance to the woods
saplings felled to further block the path
slender red trumpets
against green green leaves
wildflowers in the woods
a shrub of tight tufted coral blooms
papery in appearance
thick and rubbery to touch
tiny snowdrifts
of gold powder:
oak pollen
the somnulent smell
of flowers
and grasses
red-bellied woodpecker atop a utility pole
arguing with a starling about
who owns the nesting hole
my supervisor wore green
it matched her eyes
the slow trundling
of an emergency vehicle
siren blaring
bright white light
of a Presbyterian church sign
shaped like a cemetary stone
branches tossing in the breeze
memories
from this day.
lifts from the ground
a pale green-leaf garland floating from the beak
thick-coiled bright grey barbed wire
blocking the entrance to the woods
saplings felled to further block the path
slender red trumpets
against green green leaves
wildflowers in the woods
a shrub of tight tufted coral blooms
papery in appearance
thick and rubbery to touch
tiny snowdrifts
of gold powder:
oak pollen
the somnulent smell
of flowers
and grasses
red-bellied woodpecker atop a utility pole
arguing with a starling about
who owns the nesting hole
my supervisor wore green
it matched her eyes
the slow trundling
of an emergency vehicle
siren blaring
bright white light
of a Presbyterian church sign
shaped like a cemetary stone
branches tossing in the breeze
memories
from this day.
04 April 2006
The healthiest thing I did some three and a half years ago was to pick up yoga again after a quarter century hiatus.
When I started this new job some weeks back, the speaker asked that each of us introduce ourselves. It was a large group.
I did something new. Instead of hiding behind a rushed, bare minimum statement, I actually shared something important to me. In addition to what universities have you attended and what kinds of work have you done, I said that I write and do yoga.
I said it just to be frank, but it paid off in unexpected ways. Two women approached me about creating lunch hour sessions. This has created a connection with my new coworkers. Other people have used the yoga as ice breakers for starting conversation.
And doing 15 minutes of sun salutations, cat and cow and meditation before lunch this past week has released tension and fear like air out of a balloon. I didn’t think I was interested in a semi-public experience around people who are not participating. I am grateful to the other women for taking the initiative, getting permission to use the space, and just doing it.
And I’m glad I spoke up that first day. To find people who are like you, you have to let them know you are there.
When I started this new job some weeks back, the speaker asked that each of us introduce ourselves. It was a large group.
I did something new. Instead of hiding behind a rushed, bare minimum statement, I actually shared something important to me. In addition to what universities have you attended and what kinds of work have you done, I said that I write and do yoga.
I said it just to be frank, but it paid off in unexpected ways. Two women approached me about creating lunch hour sessions. This has created a connection with my new coworkers. Other people have used the yoga as ice breakers for starting conversation.
And doing 15 minutes of sun salutations, cat and cow and meditation before lunch this past week has released tension and fear like air out of a balloon. I didn’t think I was interested in a semi-public experience around people who are not participating. I am grateful to the other women for taking the initiative, getting permission to use the space, and just doing it.
And I’m glad I spoke up that first day. To find people who are like you, you have to let them know you are there.
03 April 2006
On the Common Snail from BBC’s website:
Behaviour
Because of their moist skin, common snails are most active in damp weather and at night. When conditions become too dry, the snail will retreat into its shell and seal the entrance with a parchment-like barrier known as an epiphragm. Snails can often be found in this state under rocks in gardens or on a wall in a sheltered corner. When sealed away like this the snail goes into a state of suspended animation and can survive for several months without water.
Common snails feed by scraping a ribbon-like tongue covered in horny teeth called a radula, over their food. This allows them to scrape algae and lichen from the surface of rocks and walls. You can sometimes see the trails they leave behind as they eat their way through the algae on a damp wall.
Reproduction
Common snails, like all land snails, are hermaphrodites. This means that they possess both male and female reproductive organs. Despite this they still need to find another snail to mate with. When two snails meet during the breeding season (late spring or early summer), mating is initiated by one snail piercing the skin of the other snail with a calcified 'love dart'. The exact purpose of the 'love dart' is not fully understood but it seems to stimulate the other snail into exchanging small packets of sperm. After mating is complete the snails will produce eggs internally, which are fertilised by the sperm that has been exchanged.
Up to about a month after mating the snail lays about a hundred small white eggs in a nest underground in damp soil. If the conditions remain suitable for the eggs, snails will begin to hatch after about 14 days. Newly hatched snails have a small fragile shell and it takes two years for them to reach maturity.
Behaviour
Because of their moist skin, common snails are most active in damp weather and at night. When conditions become too dry, the snail will retreat into its shell and seal the entrance with a parchment-like barrier known as an epiphragm. Snails can often be found in this state under rocks in gardens or on a wall in a sheltered corner. When sealed away like this the snail goes into a state of suspended animation and can survive for several months without water.
Common snails feed by scraping a ribbon-like tongue covered in horny teeth called a radula, over their food. This allows them to scrape algae and lichen from the surface of rocks and walls. You can sometimes see the trails they leave behind as they eat their way through the algae on a damp wall.
Reproduction
Common snails, like all land snails, are hermaphrodites. This means that they possess both male and female reproductive organs. Despite this they still need to find another snail to mate with. When two snails meet during the breeding season (late spring or early summer), mating is initiated by one snail piercing the skin of the other snail with a calcified 'love dart'. The exact purpose of the 'love dart' is not fully understood but it seems to stimulate the other snail into exchanging small packets of sperm. After mating is complete the snails will produce eggs internally, which are fertilised by the sperm that has been exchanged.
Up to about a month after mating the snail lays about a hundred small white eggs in a nest underground in damp soil. If the conditions remain suitable for the eggs, snails will begin to hatch after about 14 days. Newly hatched snails have a small fragile shell and it takes two years for them to reach maturity.
02 April 2006
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