Finger in the Blender

A finger, an absent mind, and a long history met on the sharp blade of a blender. If you know what an immersion blender is you might think me a little less stupid. And, as I said, I can’t blame my mind as it wasn’t involved in the incident. It was the pure non-thinking mind, the kind I try to reach in meditation, that managed to take over in what seemed at the time to be a very inopportune moment. It was a mind devoid of thought that had me stick my finger in to the small area around the blade to push out the black beans that had gathered there, just having finished pureeing a huge pot of soup. Blood was gushing from my finger as I dropped the blender having pressed the on button inadvertently while my digit was still cleaning out the beans. I could see the nail was sliced in half and there was a gash below the edge of the cuticle, but with all the blood I couldn’t tell if my finger was still intact.

It’s funny what happens in my brain when my body is in trouble. I appeared calm on the outside. Beyond a spastic yelp when it first happened, I was silent as I made my way to the sink, turned it on and ran water over my torn up fingertip. Wild thoughts were running fast through my mind: “Oh God, I have chopped off the end of my finger! I’m going to have emergency surgery!” But as I stared at the mass of bleeding flesh under the faucet, I realized it was just a deep cut. The question of whether it would warrant stitches remained, but that determination could wait. I was leaning on the edge of the sink with all my weight on my forearms, which felt like they were glued to the sleek black countertop. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I eventually stopped rinsing and pinched my finger back together with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand. I held it hard to stop the bleeding. Good thinking.

“Does it hurt?” Grace wanted to know. She was standing beside me having witnessed the event, and her question brought my focus to her and my nerve endings, both for the first time. The shock was making my brain operate like an internet connection that is weak and slow. My awareness finally landed on the fact that she was frightened. Her eyes were full of tears and she was gripping my other arm hard with both hands. I was barely keeping it together so I had no resources to calm her down, other than staying so myself. The cogs turned back to the tip of my left index finger. Quickly and evenly as an ocean wave, the pain rolled in. I realized yes, it was hurting more every second. “No it doesn’t really hurt,” came out in response.

It’s completely automatic for mothers to lie in order to reassure a child and it made perfect sense to me, in that moment, to do so. I added calmly, slowly, “Grace, can you please get Yoly?” She ran at lightening speed to the next room where Yoly, our babysitter, was reading to Frances, yelling: “Mom cut herself and it’s bleeding really bad! Come quick!” Yoly appeared at my side with her composure in tact and I asked her to get me some gauze to wrap around the cut. While I waited I started to feel dizzy. I realized my legs were getting too weak to support the rest of me and I started for the couch, unsure if I would reach it before collapsing.

By the time I got to it, I felt a thick fuzz coming over my whole sensory system. The room was closing in, I heard only the sound of my heart, I felt nausea and tingling and a wave of heat that made my hair wet around the edge of my scalp. I closed my eyes to relieve the dizziness and with hindsight I know I felt the way one feels just before a faint, but in that moment all I felt was sheer panic: “I am not going to make it! This is really, really bad! How could this happen?” Yet hovering above and overriding the chaotic thoughts was a sense of deep peace. It was a wordless feeling of serenity that had me sit there, still and with eyes closed, knowing I would be all right. That there was nothing to do but wait.

It was beginning to dawn on me that I had been here before. About fifteen years ago while watching a particularly gruesome scene in an episode of X-Files where evil aliens were cutting in to someone’s body to harvest organs, I started feeling the same waves of dizziness and black out. I had rushed out of my house and into the backyard to get fresh air. It took about thirty minutes before I felt normal again.

That was my first and worst panic attack, but it was not the last. For about a year I had them, all brought on by images of skin opening up. It didn’t have to be mine, it could be any picture of a cut. Eventually, and with a little help from a therapist, I worked it back to an incident when I was ten. My mother had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I watched her get upset when her incision opened up a week after her mastectomy. I have recently been writing about this event and not ten minutes before cutting my finger, I was reading my mother’s own account of the very same incident, which did not include my memory of watching her. In her version, I wasn’t there.

Back on the couch, I am beginning to recover and Grace is sitting next to me getting hysterical. Since the moment I dropped the blender, she has been expressing my panic perfectly so that I don’t have to. Frances is there too but she has taken on the role of nursemaid. She is holding out a Band-aid. She has taken off the wrapping and the little white tabs and is ready to put it on the finger which I have still not looked at since the bleeding stopped. I am starting to feel better. The layers are gluing back together. But I don’t want to take any chances looking at it, so I ask Yoly to examine it. My nail had apparently protected my flesh from being cut at the top part of the finger and then the blade had come around again making only a single gash which was pretty deep but short in length. No stitches, we decided. I was lucky.

It was a perfect little storm of emotional and physical pain, designed to pull me forward, or back, or both. The way everything lined up to remind me that that moment when I was ten years old is still with me. Some pretty strong strings are still tied back to that scene. My mother sitting on the edge of her bed looking at her wound, the stitches recently removed and now opening up. Her fear. Her panic. I felt them, but I absorbed the feelings as hers, not mine. Just like Grace expressed the panic I was working hard to contain. I wonder what Grace will remember. I only remember feeling numb.

When I was thirty five, I had a lump removed from my left breast, the same side my mother's breast was removed from. Immediately after my minor surgery, I collapsed outside the OR, suddenly feeling the enormous toll of watching her sit there, terrified of what was happening. In a hospital waiting room in Westwood California, twenty five years later, I finally felt it.

Now here, with a band-aid (thank you Frances) on my finger and the recognition that this was no “accident”, I will paraphrase something I recently heard Patti Smith say in a radio interview: That time does not heal all wounds. You just get to know them better. And eventually, they become your friends.

How to Build a Fire

I know how to build a fire
First you gather your wood
You need logs that are split and dried
And you need kindling
And some balled up newspaper or leaves

Kindling is small pieces of fuel that burn easily
It can be small sticks and twigs
Broken up pieces of lumber
Pine cones or bark
Even cardboard or cloth if you’re desperate

Then you make a structure
A teepee is nice
But depending on what you’ve got
You might make a lean-to
Or even a log cabin

You go from small to big
Putting paper or leaves at the center
Adding the smallest pieces on top of that
Ending with the larger pieces
Making sure there is plenty of space for air

I hold off
From adding a log
Until I get a good little fire going
And start to see some embers that will last
Otherwise the log might put it out

You need plenty of matches
And when you start to light it
Catch the paper at the center on fire
Use your lungs to blow the flames
And keep lighting, if it dies down

You need patience
You keep blowing
You take care of it the way you would a tiny green sprout
Watching the embers
Blowing them into flames

Once you’ve got flames
(That are not just burning paper)
It is time to add a log
Start small and make sure
Not to smother the fire

You always lean your logs
So they are somewhat vertical
So the air can move underneath
Flames rise up
So you put the fuel on top

Then you sit back and watch
Making sure the flames don’t die
And when they do go down some
(This is my favorite part)
You poke the coals or move the logs or add more fuel

The flames will start back up
Building a fire is like a lot of things
It requires attention
A lot of love
And a little patience

Tarantula Speed

Two days ago, as the sun was edging toward the horizon and I was hiking along a beautiful trail in Joshua Tree National Monument, I met a tarantula on the path. Like a good hiker, I pretty much always keep my eyes on the ground ahead of me so I saw this wild creature well before coming too close. He/she was black, hairy of course, and about seven inches in length. I have never seen one out and about before, just in the glass cases at the zoo or the nature center in Eaton Canyon near our house. In captivity they sit pretty still, looking depressed. This one was walking down the path just the same as me, except a lot slower. I never knew tarantulas moved so slowly. His/her movement was constant, deliberate and sloth-like. Watching him was a little like waiting for honey to drop out of a squeeze bottle. Some part of me wanted it to go faster.

My tendency, or habit I guess, is to rush along. And that's what I was doing when I saw him. I was hustling to get back to the car before dark, even though I had plenty of time. It seems like I am always hustling to get to the the next thing or place, when I don't really need to. I used to always be late, so that made me rush, but now that I am usually on time, I still rush to make sure I am there on time. Pretty ridiculous, I know. My daughter Grace gets mad at me when I rush her out the door saying, "we'll be late!" and then we get there ten minutes early.

This afternoon I was rushing through my bedroom with several items in my hands, the way I often do, in a mode of "doing" and "picking up." Frances was in there playing with the cat and she started heading towards me. I was moving so fast (for no reason at all mind you) that I tripped on the edge of the rug and fell, taking Frances down with me. It was such a surprise to lose my balance and fall, not just to my knees, but all the way down, that I let out a strange sort of half yell/scream. Frances was just as surprised as I was and we just sat there stunned for a moment. Luckily we were both okay and thought it was funny. I had twisted my ankle a little and Frances had banged her knee so we just sat on the floor, not moving at all. I thought of the tarantula, and that nice, slow, sure-footed pace. What a good teacher for me.

Rawnt

On the way to go out to dinner Frances, from the backseat asks, “Mommie? What’s a rawnt?”
“Rawnt?”
“Yeah. Rawnt”
"Do you mean 'Rant?'"
"No. Rawnt."
“I don’t know sweetie. What IS a rawnt?”
“I don’t know” she says quietly.

“Well where did you hear it? Did someone say it to you today?”
Silence. Grace tries to help. “Do you mean ‘want’ Frances?” she asks.
“No,” Frances laughs.
It starts to get silly. I ask, “Is it like, ‘Mom, I really rawnt to go to California Pizza Kitchen?’”
“Nooooo!” she says giggling. Grace is laughing too. “Frances: Is it like , “I really rawnt a lollipop?”
“Nooo!!!” Frances says laughing harder. We are all laughing and making more rawnt jokes until we run out of steam and the car is quiet again.

“Mama?”
“Yes”
“What do we do at a restaurant?”
“We eat and relax and talk.”
“Do we rest?”
“Yes...”
“So when do we rawnt?”

Crazy Cloud

As I drove east across Pasadena yesterday morning, having dropped my daughter Grace at school, I noticed this strange cloud. The sky was an intense blue with a lot of bright white cirrus clouds stretched across it. But ahead of me was this dark cloud, low near the horizon, that looked like someone had taken a handful of gray charcoal and smudged it, diagonally across the low sky. I kept looking at it, as I drove, wondering if everyone around me was noticing it too.

An hour later I was hiking up my usual path and the same cloud was still sitting in the east, but now it was dumping rain. There was no sign of rain anywhere else in the sky, but this funny cloud was definitely letting loose. The light all around was that almost eerie golden light that can happen before a storm and there were deep rumblings in the distance. Smog was making a rainbow along the skyline. I stopped a pair of women on the path just to say, "Isn't this amazing? I've never seen anything like this before in LA!" (They agreed and kept walking.) It is so unusual to see a maverick cloud like that, especially in SoCal, especially this time of year. I continued up the hill.

When I reached the top an hour later, the cloud seemed much closer, the light was still incredible and the rumblings were louder. Didn't think much of it. I thought I might feel a few drops of rain but the rain didn't seem to be heading my way. A bit later as I headed back down the trail I felt a few drops and thought, with an already disappointed feeling, "Oh well, it will probably not amount to more than this light rain."

Well, as if to prove me wrong, that crazy cloud started dumping big drops on my head and just as I was about halfway down, it said Hello! I was approaching these three mega electric tower things and as I was about a hundred yards away, lightening struck the wires between them with a crack of thunder so loud it sent my body up into the air a few inches. I started laughing at my jumping bean self and let the air under my feet propel me into a sprint. I didn't want to be under those towers if it struck again. (I know, I know, lightning doesn't strike twice...)

I kept up the pace for the rest of the way down, the big drops drenching me to the skin, listening to the thunder travel farther away fast, laughing out loud as I enjoyed the rare and exquisite sensation of running in a real downpour.

Birthday Wishes

Tomorrow is the last day that Frances will be three. We had a small celebration yesterday with friends and will do something on her actual birthday, the day after tomorrow. I have always celebrated my kid's birthdays as milestones for them and of course for me as well. But this one is hitting me sideways and I am feeling a touch of sadness as I watch my little baby turn into a decidedly big girl.

It all happened so gradually. Just the way the crease in her thigh slowly disappeared, like a swell on the ocean, fading to nothing until all signs of it are lost. I can still see the spot where her fleshy leg dents in ever so slightly, but maybe even that is just my imagination at this point. (No one else can see it when I point it out.) I find myself relishing the way she says certain words the wrong way like breftik for breakfast and intreding for interesting. Any day now those will disappear as well.

So as I continue this week of celebrating her birth and the fact that she will be turning a big four years old, and as I am filled with satisfaction with the job she is doing of teaching us how to raise her, I am also allowing a little grief, a little sadness to be present as well. It is necessary to let go of all the sweetness that they outgrow and welcome the new sweetness that they grow into. I have so much to look forward to, which I know from engaging with her older sister on new levels all the time. But, there is a but...and part of it is just the baby fat that I will miss. Part of it is the funny words. Part of it is the incomprehensible but stunning writing that she does. And part of it is just childhood itself. A passage that has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Reentry

I am lying in the bathtub, soaking my muscles in hot, salty water, knowing something has changed but unable to say exactly what. What happens when I spend three days in the forest, precisely? What was happening when I laid in a field thirty years ago, staring at my feet? Even at sixteen, I knew in that moment that I was changing and I took a picture of my feet to mark the place in time when I recognized it. I still remember it when I look at that snapshot, now a middle aged woman. I still see in that color photograph that there was a part of me that wanted to be recognized, wanted to be acknowledged, wanted to be seen and heard and felt. It was the part of me that was completely and utterly happy to be lying in a field under a perfect blue sky. The part of me that wished I could stay there all day and night instead of having to be back at the barn to do chores in time to get cleaned up for a big dinner. I wanted to stay in my horse-smelling jeans and cowboy boots forever. I wanted to sleep in them, outside, in the grass, with the horses who were grazing next to me.

Instead I am part of the civilized world. Born and raised in the city, I still call myself a city-girl and though I have always fantasized about escaping it, I also wonder how I would fare. I lie in a bathtub after an arduous hike up a steep hill, relaxing tired muscles in a large white bathtub, in a big house. Tonight I will sleep in my comfortable king size bed with my husband. We will remark about how nice it is to be home and joke about cutting a hole in the ceiling so we can see the stars like we did last night and the night before.

I left some part of me back there in that magnificent landscape. The one we took in with big gulps of breath as we hiked down a switchback trail that hugged the face of a mountain, descending a thousand feet in a mile stretch. Pristine wilderness, mountains covered by trees and divided by a river stretching out for days. The kind of wilderness you have to drive a long way down a desolate road to get to the edge of. And then hike in for many miles down steep trails and across rivers and open meadows and through burned out woods to get to the camp. The kind you fall in love with every step of the way because it is so damn beautiful, so clean, so magnificent in it’s untouchedness.

But what happened there? Did I bring some of it back with me? Of course I did. I have the feathers that were presented in a great pile for me to pick a few from. I have the square shaped piece of granite. I have the small chunk of wood that termites carved their tiny hieroglyphs into. I have the images, carefully recorded on data machines and in paper notebooks, of the snake in the river, the black dragonfly being eaten by the yellow spider, the coyote that crossed our path, the bear that huffed behind a bush, the trees turned to charcoal by forest fire, the hawk and the eagle, the butterflies and the birds. I brought all of that out with me, carried like the garbage we made and picked up on the trail, packed it out like a good hiker. But there is something, still, that I don’t quite get my hands around. If the wilderness is where I find myself again, why does it feel like I left something of me behind?

Me + Owl = Truth

An owl was hooting in the distance when I started out on my hike this morning. The owl carried me up the hill, my body weighed down with thirty extra pounds, the hoots lifting my spirit up the path. Owl = Mother and I have been thinking a lot about her the past day or two. She is pushing through all the distractions, all the projects and telling me, it is time to write this story. Just an hour a day is all I need and it will be written. Get out of the way now, it’s time. And the owl kept calling me up that hill, each step a proclamation of my physical strength, my determination, my discipline. All expressions of my love for myself and all that I am connected to, but it starts with me in my center, my heart, my core. Love.

In Training

I have never trained for anything in my life. I mean, physically trained. But for the past week and for five more days I am considering myself in 'training' for a big hike into the wilderness. In five days I will be carrying thirty pounds on my back for twelve miles through rough terrain. Rough by my city-girl standards anyway. A lot of the trail is steep and when it's flat it's on soft sandy ground, which is even harder. Or at least that's what it was like when I did this same hike nine years ago. It's surprising how well I remember it but it left a deep impression because it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I had to stop about every half mile or so (okay maybe more!) and rest which drove my partner (then a new boyfriend, now my husband of eight years)a little crazy. He has done this hike many times in his life and he can do it in about half the time it took us, but he was patient and sweet last time. We'll see how he handles my slowness now that he knows me better. I remember singing a lot to keep from freaking out about how much pain I was in. Everything ached and I struggled to keep my mind off it. Maybe now that I meditate daily, I will have an easier time with that. I will let you know.

Nine years ago, even though it was super hard, it was also one of the best things I have ever done. We didn't see a soul for the entire four days. We were out there all by ourselves and we had some amazing experiences. But I told myself, next time I have to prepare myself. I have to train. So that's what I'm doing, hiking at dawn most days, two or four miles up a steep trail near my house. I have new hiking boots and I can't wait to do it again.

Leaving the Comfort Zone

Today my early morning hike was darker than usual. I had been woken up by the sound of rain in the night and as I got out of my car it was still drizzling, the low cloud cover keeping visibility very low. I was wishing I had a flashlight as I stepped onto the trail and glad there was a woman behind me with one on her forehead, and a dog. But I didn’t wait for her and a few steps up the path a pair of large wings came flapping out of the darkness, crossing my path in a disorganized lift off, causing me to gasp and jump. It was a case of mutual fright and I had to laugh at myself a little for being nervous about hiking in the dark. What was I afraid of? An owl? Well, okay, I guess there are bears and mountain lions around and I could possibly run into one and frighten it into attacking me, but what were the chances? That dog behind me would scare them off. Next time, a flashlight.

It was lovely climbing up the path even though I couldn’t see and was hugging the hillside a bit, not wanting to accidentally step off the cliff side. The light behind me was just a flash, here and there, the way distant lightening can be before a storm. They were taking their time and I wasn’t, so it was more of a comfort than anything else, knowing she was behind me with her light and her dog.

The mist was thick and the morning was still just an idea with barely any signs of life coming to. The crickets were still going and the birds were still waiting for something, so it was dark and misty and quiet. I kept waiting for it to suddenly get light but it wasn’t like that. Today started off real slow.

I couldn’t go too far because I wanted to get back before the kids woke up, especially Grace, since it was her second day of school. Amazing how quickly she got comfortable in her new class with a new teacher and all new classmates. She asked me not to hike on her first day and I didn’t but she didn’t seem concerned about today, so I guess it’s more for me that I want to get back early.

I turned around just shy of the halfway point, which is about a mile. It’s a pretty steep trail, switching back and forth up the hill so it’s a good workout for me no matter how far I go. I heard the rooster, the lone rooster who resides somewhere down at the bottom and who I hear every morning, usually around the same time as the birds. But today he was the first one calling and it was a good two or three minutes before anyone else joined in. It was brighter now and I could see well, but the light was still taking it’s time, just easing in to the sky and onto the sand colored path. The fog was still so thick there was no view at all. Just two days ago there was a marine layer that covered all of the city but it didn’t reach up this far so as soon as I got above it, it was like ‘my city was gone.’ I was on a cliff overlooking an ocean of fog, the sunlight raking over the cloud cover the way it does from up in a plane. But today the bushes and trees were just gray silhouettes, peeking out of the mist like a delicate sketch or a faded old photo. It was beautiful. The mist was also extracting the life from the plants and soaking the air with it so every turn brought new aromas of cedar, sage and desert musk up into my nose. Like the plants whose branches would leave a trail of water on my pants as I brushed by them, I was covered in mist too.

A few birds started to show themselves as I got lower on the trail, but it was still too dark and misty to see any color in them which made telling what they were a little hard. So I concentrated on listening instead and found I could pick out one call among the cacophony. It was an acorn woodpecker, the same kind I saw yesterday when I picked Grace up from her first day at school. It was in a tree in the parking lot and it saw it make the call I was hearing now. I am learning.

Hello Sun

Since we got back to LA a few days ago I have continued a new habit that I discovered while we were on our very long vacation in Vermont. That is, the practice of waking up before dawn and going for a walk or a hike or a bike ride to watch the sun rise.

In Vermont there was a spot where I could walk to see the sun actually rise over the distant mountains. But often I would go out on the lake instead, take a canoe to the middle and just watch the sky change colors.

I mentioned this to my neighbor, who often greets the day from his surfboard and his response was, “that’s a real game changer.” No kidding. After just a couple of weeks of getting outside before dawn, my whole life feels different. It’s not just the exercise, or taking some time alone first thing in the morning, though both are part of it. It is literally greeting the day as it starts that seems the most profound to me. It fills me with gratitude, just for being alive.

Now that I am back in Pasadena, I have started hiking up the mountain near my house to watch the sky fill up with light. I take pleasure in being the first car to park outside the gate and start up the trail while it is still pretty dark. I don’t bring a flashlight because I know it will be light enough in few minutes. At first there are no birds singing and the loudest sound is my feet hitting the dirt. But just as the light begins to filter through and the bushes along the path are starting to be articulated, the first bird song will start. And for a few minutes it is only one but soon there are too many to count and I start to see dark shapes fluttering here and there.

As I get through the lower trees and start to gain some altitude, the cityscape is still dotted with street lights. But by the time I am half way up the hill, the street lights are out and the sun’s low golden light is starting to crawl across the valley. I keep looking back over my shoulder to measure it’s progress and enjoy the changing colors. If I am going to the top, sunlight will have filled the valley by the time I get there. From up there I can see in all directions, but more mountains keep me from seeing the sun yet. The colors are still lingering, pink and baby blue, and a thick layer of smog is still settled over downtown. Ah pollution.

Another hour later and I am home, a three hour hike behind me, ready to start anything, be anything, do anything. I feel great!

Bird Nuisance Nonsense

I do not understand how killing thousands of wild Canada geese is going to serve human beings in the long run. To me, a mass killing of any wild animal is like a mass killing of trees or human beings. It's upsetting. Obviously, it upsets the balance of nature. Nature is all about give and take and change and balance. As human beings overtake the planet with growing populations and consumption of resources, I don’t see how we can think we are helping matters by killing off large numbers of birds because we feel their populations needs to be trimmed down to a particular number. I am against stripping the rainforest as much as I am against trying to lower populations of wild animals because they are getting in our way. How have such practices served us in the past? Has the US Dept of Agriculture managed the population of any wild animal that it can claim was successful? Can they show us exactly how the goose ‘management’ is working and how it benefits anybody? What’s to keep them from coming back?

The main justification for the killing is that they are posing a threat to air safety. Do I want to fly safely? Of course I do, but I don’t expect the government to eradicate birds for my safety any more than I expect them to clear out deer because I might run into one on the road. How have we impacted the safety of the animals we are meant to share our precious resources with? Severely. So how do we justify calling the geese dangerous to us? We are much more dangerous to them. I guess many people feel that being at the top of the food chain entitles us, but I disagree. Like all animals we will fight for our own survival, and to me it seems obvious that our survival depends on learning how to share and cohabitate. One against one I would certainly kill an animal for food or self defense . But only if I had to. Why should I kill if I thought there was a mutually fair path we could take together and support each other’s survival?

Another issue is that people complain that the birds are messy. Really? Really? How does any human being have the gall to call a wild animal messy? We would do well to emulate their lifestyle. Wild animals live within their means or die. Birds build nests out of found materials. Many species are adapting to the destruction of their natural environment, and many are not. When human beings are willing to make houses out of all the garbage we make on a daily basis, or to live completely on scavenged meals, then maybe we can earn the right to criticize other animals. But until then, it is ludicrous for us to blame wild animals who happen to be thriving in our midst for threatening our safety, or the cleanliness of our environment.

Bird Log August 8

An unidentified small brown bird was jumping from branch to branch inside the Cedar trees in front of us as Jane and I sat on the back deck talking about Mom

At the Bread and Puppet performance a hawk circled over the field as a young puppeteer was reading the part that says "Ignorance is good. People destroy all that they know. Invest in the millennium, plant sequoias; let your crops be the forest; the leaves rotting into the earth your harvest”

Four Canadian geese flew overhead as we watched the pageant being performed in the field, right as Peter Schuman’s granddaughter Olive was reading a Mayan poem

The loon is calling as we lie in bed, waiting to go to sleep

Bird Log 8/4

Today the girls and I tried to build a bird’s nest. We took down the one built by robins that was under the north eave of the cabin and tried to copy the design. It wasn’t easy, in fact we failed to make it even a tenth as strong or comfortable as our model. We had profound admiration for birds as green designer/builders. But even if ours could not be moved without falling to pieces, the girls put soft leaves, moss and bright purple flowers in the center and it was beautiful.

A Perfect Day

In the early hours of the day I was woken up by the wind, whistling loud through the trees outside my window, blowing chills across my body.

A little later Frances came in the room, and I pretended to be asleep which usually doesn’t work but today it was enough to send her over to Dave’s side and he took her downstairs.

I woke up an hour later at 8 am to the sounds of Grace and Frances playing raucously downstairs. I decided to sneak in a meditation before going down to join them.

Dave got ready to go for a bike ride and the girls and I read a story in their bed. I made them a second round of oatmeal with maple syrup and took a shower while the girls played outside.

When I got out of the shower Dave was back and getting ready to take Frances with him to Newport to do the laundry. It was turning into a windy day so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for a hike with Grace. The wind was making it too cold to swim, but would keep us cool walking up the hill. It took a little convincing but she agreed. “Not too long, Mama,” said Grace, knowing how I love a long hike.

“No, no.” I said. “Just a short one. Just up the road to the place we went last year, remember?”

“OK,” she said.

We hiked along the lake road and then turned up onto Cemetery Loop, for a bit and then took the Borland Road up through the woods. It was dark and the road was lined with ferns, just like the one hanging in our bathroom back home.

“Let’s pick bouquets!” Grace said, getting excited.

We continued up the dark path through the woods, picking wildflowers. We visited an old apple tree she remembered from the summer before and found more flowers in the tall grass around it. Close to the top of the hill Grace suggested turning back. “I’m tired of walking,” she said.

I convinced her to go a little further on to a meadow and she agreed. When we got up to the meadow she started running up the hill. “It’s just like Heidi!” she yelled through the wind back to me, referring to the book which we’d read a month ago. The whole meadow was covered in long grass and we hiked up to a little ridge. It was so windy on top we were yelling to be heard even though we were right next to each other. We sat down and then we laid down, the wind rushing fast over our bodies. We closed our eyes. “I feel like I’m flying!” Grace yelled.

“Me too!” We sat up and she put her head on my lap. The sun was going in and out behind clouds that were moving fast. We watched their shadows change the color of the grass, their dark shapes running across the meadow as fast as animals. “Isn’t this awesome?”

“Yeah! It’s so beautiful mom!”

We decided to continue on the road, with the idea that it would circle back around, instead of turning back the way we came.

“Is this way longer?”

“Shouldn’t be,” I said, knowing I was probably wrong. I had never tried to loop around but I knew it could be done. I just didn’t know exactly where we would end up.

We walked past a farm and then another one and I kept thinking, just around the next bend we will see the lake and this road will drop back down to the main road. It had to. But it didn’t. Soon we were up on another big hill and I couldn’t see the lake anywhere. Grace was so wrapped up in her flower collection she seemed not to notice that we were lost or that we had already walked much farther then I had promised. A truck rolled past. It was a pickup with a young farmer who didn’t smile. It occurred to me that I could ask the next truck that came by where this road led and maybe get a ride. We kept walking. I reasoned there must be a bigger road not too far.

When we came to the main road, we were almost two miles from the cabin and we had already hiked more than that. At least I knew where we were. Grace didn’t complain at all. She just kept picking flowers and showing them to me. We had a little faux competition going. My bouquet was all long stems and hers was all short. Hers looked a lot closer to a real bouquet, something a bride might carry, and mine was more of a tangle. Lots of leaves and green and broken stems. She was completely focused on trying to get mine to turn into something as pretty as hers.

When we walked in the door we couldn’t believe it had been 2 1/2 hours.

I made Grace some lunch and ate some leftovers and pretty soon Dave and Frances were back. Dave had picked up dinner makings but I still needed to get our fresh milk over in Craftsbury. Frances had just fallen asleep in the car so Grace and I hopped in and took her to the milk farm. We got our milk and stopped at the farm stand for vegetables. The drive home as all dirt back roads, so I let them each take a turn sitting on my lap and holding the steering wheel.

By the time we got home Dave had dinner ready. I made a quick trip to Phil’s store to pick up some beer and send an email. When I got back dinner was on the table and I was sitting down with my family, all of us stuffing hard shell tacos into our mouths. I swigged a cold beer just as Dave was finishing his plate, and he went into the kitchen. I could hear him putting dishes into the sink. “Hands off my dishes!” I yelled. Since Dave cooked it was my job to do them, and because he rarely cooks, I was looking forward to an evening of warm suds, thinking and being alone.

“Just trying to help,” was his lame excuse.

“You can help by getting the girls to bed.”

As soon as I finished the dishes I went out onto the dock. The sky was clear blue becoming almost cobalt where it meets the hills opposite the lake. The wind was still chopping up the water’s surface, so the best way to find the peace I was looking for was to lay down on my back. I stared up at the overhanging cedar branches and felt the dock underneath me being knocked about by the waves. The sound of them was filling my ears and I felt like I was swimming. I thought about what a great hike Grace and I had accomplished earlier. How nice it was to be cooked for. How happy I am to be here.

Little Friends

Frances collects little white stones that sit waiting for her in the grass behind the restaurant while I sit at a table inside checking email, watching her through the glass. She carefully puts them in the pockets of her blue rain jacket. Every time I check on her through the window I see her dancing around the area where all the stones are, singing and talking to herself and then picking up more. When we get home and out of the car she asks me to zip up her pockets which are both jammed full. “Hold on,” I say as I put the keys and cups and trash in my hands on top of the car so I can help her. When I turn around she is already halfway to the cabin. She is running her fastest and I watch the little white stones drop to the ground behind her with every step. Something is pulling her to the house and she has already forgotten them. Later, when we are walking back to the car, I point out the white stones laying in the grass where she dropped them. She looks at me like she has no idea what I am talking about, and says she has never seen them before. Perhaps to her they never were stones. Maybe they were treasure, or little friends.

Cows

Today we looked at cows. Grace and Frances and I stood at the side of the road, in the rain, and talked about the cows whose milk we had just purchased from a small farm. Frances was the one who didn’t want to drive away without seeing them. They weren’t where they were last year, but we found them down the road. There were three cows, three calves, and two heifers. “Heifers are like teenagers,” I said.
“What’s a teenager?” Frances asked.
“Someone who is no longer a child but not yet grown up.” We tried to guess who was whose mother and if one of them was pregnant. As we stood there talking about them, the cows moved closer. Big brown eyes and a wide wet nose covered in flies, came real close. Frances wanted to touch her and this one, the biggest of them all, a beautiful brown lady with horns, let Frances’ tiny finger touch her wide nostril. “We’re all girls!” Frances said with glee.

Back to Vermont

This year, Vermont greeted us with silent lightening on the lake. When we pulled up to the cabin after 7 hours drive from New York, we immediately went down to the lake which was just starting to fall into the evening routine. The sun was still hovering low over the hills and its rays were doing a sparkly dance on the tiny waves that the breeze was making. The light was warm on the round cheeks of my daughters faces as we headed out in the paddle boat to see if we could find the loon.

When we left Brooklyn this morning I had a mysterious feeling of ambivalence. This is our fourth summer coming to the same spot and yet I found myself wondering why we were going. It was like I was one of the many people back home in LA who look confused when I tell them what our summer plans are. They could understand Cape Cod or Hawaii or Puerto Rico. But why Vermont?

After we finally broke out of the traffic vortex which happened much later into Connecticut than I expected and were on the road through New England I started to get more excited. The woods, the lake, the friends, the fun, the hikes, the canoes all started to come back in my mind. And when we passed the sign that said “Welcome to Vermont!” where we shared our stretch of road with only one other car for miles, and after we had visited the cooperative health food store where beautiful earthy young blonds with dreadlocks help you find things, the excitement started to build, This was Vermont.

After our first evening boat ride and pizza dinner and Ben and Jerry’s for dessert I gave the girls a bath. I left them alone for a minute and went outside because I thought I heard the loon calling. It was pitch black but it was definitely the loon so I walked down to the dock. The wind was gone. There was no movement except for the sound of the loon echoing across the lake punctuated by frogs clearing their throats and flashes of light in the corner. I couldn’t see any forks of electricity. And there was no sound, no thunder. No leaves rustling. Just the sound of the loon and the frogs, some distant voices laughing, very low rumblings that were so faint I wasn’t sure they existed outside of my imagination and the flashing of light, on and off.

Looking Back

I had a shift in perspective today as I rode a rented bike around Governor’s Island. I grew up staring at this little island that sits between Staten Island, Brooklyn and Manhattan from my parents apartment in Brooklyn Heights. I know I asked about it a million times, never understanding the answers I was given about why it was off limits to the general public. I guess for a long time it was inhabited by the coast guard and their families and has been open to the public on various limited occasions over the years. For the past two summers it has been open to the public every weekend. You can take a ferry there from Brooklyn or Manhattan and ride rented bikes around it. There are no cars, but nice paved roads make it easy to ride.

So there I was, riding around the island behind my niece and daughter. As we rode past the side of the island that faces Brooklyn I looked up to see the building I grew up in. I had never seen it from here. I had a flash of myself, as a kid looking out the window, wondering what that place was. Now I know.

Up on the Roof

Tonight I was hanging out on the roof of my father's apartment building, the building I grew up in, with my daughter and my niece who are both seven. We were taking in the view of the east river and the Manhattan skyline; a view that is beyond familiar yet never ceases to startle me. The skyline with all of its million lights on, the activity of the boats and the aircraft, and just being high up above the harbor where two big rivers meet is a view I can stare at endlessly and not get tired. We stared for a while. There was a warm but very strong west wind blowing that made us open our arms and laugh and we felt like we were standing at the front of a big ship. We sat down and looked up at the crescent moon and tried to decide which were stars and which planes. We watched a police helicopter circle very low to the water. We talked about the world and the universe, the sun and the moon, and how you never know if you are on top or on the bottom of earth. We laughed so hard at this and other cosmic questions that it reminded me of being stoned with high school friends up on the same roof thirty (yes thirty) years ago. But hanging out with two seven year old girls was much more fun.

Taking Responsibility

It does not mean guilt. That much I know. It is not apologizing for things. It is not about feeling bad or taking up space with remorse. Taking responsibility means taking whatever happens or happened and turning it into knowledge and experience that I can use. Things happen. Terrible things. Good things. Ordinary things. It is all a picture for me to put together, like puzzle pieces, adding up to make a whole. Yes I am evolving, we all are, even if it doesn’t always look that way. Frustration with where I am has everything to do with a lack of patience, with myself and with others.

Let’s take the gulf and the oil that is gushing up from a hole in the earth that we made, creating a huge black cloud of destruction. At first there was a lot of blaming going on, which is always my first response as a human being, isn’t it? Lets blame BP. Lets blame Obama. Lets blame our neighbor with the big SUV. But unless I am living on an island somewhere eating coconuts, I have to take responsibility as a consumer of oil. Living in LA, I consume a large amount of gasoline just to live. I have to get to the store and so do the trucks that deliver the food there etc. There is no way around being responsible and no point in measuring how much. I am responsible. I cannot blame anyone for the oil spill. My consumption of oil makes me a contributor.

Let me say, thinking this way has changed my thinking about the spill. It is making me do things. It is making me try to reduce my use of the car and that is good. Really good. It is changing my thinking, and that is the important part. I have to change the way I think about everything, not just the car and the oil, but the water I use, the money I spend and on down to every little detail of my life. Taking responsibility, to me, really means being conscious of every choice I make and trying to do the best I can. This includes having patience.

As I think about responsibility, the other piece of it is taking responsibility for my talent. The things I am good at and love to do are my greatest gift to the world. It is my responsibility to get them out there.

Vermont

Every summer for the past four, my children, husband and I have spent many weeks in Vermont. I have been preparing for this trip for a few weeks and we leave in two days. I cannot wait! Every year our time there seems to just get better. Maybe it's because our connections to the people and the place grow stronger and yield more rewards, which are great and plentiful.

I think the thing I am looking forward to most is seeing the loons again and hearing their calls echo across the lake. I am looking forward to sleeping with the windows open with our heads next to the screen so we can smell the exhales of the cedars. I am looking forward to a lot of Ben and Jerry's. I am looking forward to buying Frances a new pair of crocs at my favorite everything store, the Pick and Shovel. I am looking forward to seeing old friends and watching Bread and Puppet perform in an open field. I am looking forward to walking in the pine forest, where it is always dark. I am really looking forward to the rain. Most of all I am looking forward to having adventures and seeing what this summer has in store for us. Yes.

Birds I Noticed Today in San Francisco

Five pigeons huddling on the sidewalk
Seagulls, starlings, pigeons and crows eating chips and french fries
A red-winged blackbird among a crew of starlings and a couple of Brewer’s blackbirds
Four turkey vultures soaring high above
A mature western gull perching nearby
A juvenile western gull playing on the breeze
A cormorant floating and diving in the bay
Four Canadian geese coming ashore
A red-tail hawk frozen mid-air

Turkey Feather

I have been packing all day for two trips, one short to SF and one long to VT. I stared at all my feathers for a while and decided the one I couldn't live without was the turkey feather. It symbolizes gratitude for me and I am so grateful for the people who keep coming to me for healing. They are healing me!

Frances makes a friend

Today at a fourth of July party, Frances held a roly-poly (aka a pill bug) in her hand for a long time. She lounged in the pool, grazed the food table, changed out of her bathing suit and climbed all over my friend’s lap, all with the little bug in her grasp. Every once in a while I’d ask her: “Frances, Do you still have the roly-poly?” and she would open her fist and show us. I forgot about him in the bustle of packing up the towels and potluck dish as we were leaving, but in the car she said, “Mom! I am telling the roly-poly that it’s going to be a long time in the car!”

Fresh

A crow flew overhead as I rounded the corner on my bike, zipped past the XL SUV that was stopped there, looked in at the inhabitants who looked at me like I was crazy and thought to myself, "You don't know what you're missing!"

Something Amazing

A few weeks ago Grace was in my studio, asking if she could have one of my feathers. I said yes and she picked up the parrot feather which is slightly green. I told her she would have to choose a different one. "That's the only parrot feather I have and it was a gift from your father." She was immediately fixated on it and none of the other feathers would do. She was disappointed with her second choice of an iridescent turkey feather. I told her that if she really wanted a parrot feather all she had to do was ask. “Ask who?” she wanted to know. “The parrots, or the sky, or the sun or the moon! “ I said. “Whoever you want to ask!” So she did. I think she asked them all.

The other day we had a conversation I had been dreading. It was after we read a story in which an older brother tells his younger sibling that their parents are the real Santa Claus. I saw Grace’s face drop and I asked her if she wanted to talk about Santa Claus. “I just want to know the truth” she said and I could see she was holding back a lot of feelings. I took a deep breath and said something like this:

Yes it's true that we put the presents under the tree and fill the stockings up. But the great thing about Santa Claus has nothing to with whether he is real or not. He represents a child’s ability to believe in things like a fat man who squeezes down your chimney and lives forever and manages to travel around the world in one night behind flying deer delivering presents to every single child. Or a rabbit who does the same sort of thing. Or a fairy who knows every time you lose a tooth. It’s all about magic, and in a lot of ways, kids are closer to magic than adults are. But magic does exist. I experience it all the time. It’s more subtle than a bunch of presents under a tree. It’s like trusting a feeling you have that things happen just at the right time because someone’s looking out for you.

She accepted my explanation and added that it was fun to watch her little sister believe anything Grace told her and we laughed. She admitted she felt disappointed but said she was also relieved to know the truth, because her suspicions about it had been bugging her for a while.

Yesterday she found two pretty gray feathers on our front lawn. She was delighted when I told her they belonged to a mourning dove. “I love mourning doves!” she squealed. And then she said, “I am glad they gave me a feather. I really wanted a parrot feather but I am happy with my mourning dove feathers anyway.”

Today we went to an outdoor concert in the park and she came running up to me with a huge smile on her face and a beautiful green feather in her fingers. Much more colorful than mine, it has several different shades of green in it. “You were right Mama! All I had to do was ask!”

Tonight when I put her to bed she said, “I am so glad I found that feather and that you weren’t lying to me.” “About what?” “About magic. It really does exist.”

The day that was today

I can’t say that it started out well, but it was one of those ordinary days that turned out to be perfect. I was woken up by my younger daughter, Frances, at the usual 6:30 am, crawling into my side of the bed without any intention of letting me doze off again. “I’m hungry” was her usual insistent plea and most mornings I am happy to get up but having gone to sleep less than five hours earlier I was in no mood to budge. I lay there, hoping she would go way or that my stirring husband would have pity on me. A moment later I was pouring milk over a bowl of cereal, trying to keep my eyes semi-closed as I plotted to lie down on the couch and get back to an unconscious state while she ate her cereal. I have had this plan before but it has never panned out like it did this time. Over the next two hours I was only half awake to the goings on in the house while I (miracle #2) lay there virtually undisturbed. I heard things as if I were dreaming them and paid no attention: Frances dropping something that made a loud crash; the cats wreaking havoc knocking things over; Grace getting up and eating breakfast after kissing me good morning. The next thing I knew Dave was asking if I’d like to go back to bed and I was gratefully slipping into the bedroom without my disappearance being noticed. Miracle #3.

I know this doesn’t sound like a bad start and it wasn’t, but when Mom sleeps in until 10:30, the day has a way of getting off on the wrong foot. Frances came in to get me up again and this time she was out of patience. “I have been playing alone for hours!” she lamented and I couldn’t argue with her. The regular routine was off and that would mean probable tantrums from her, I thought to myself, as she whined about wanting to watch a movie, throwing herself on the floor and making a big show of her grief over the word No. I tried to cajole her while holding firm to No and getting my underwear on. After some negative thinking about how I’d screwed up the whole day by sleeping late, I realized all was not lost, since there we were heading out the door with a picnic basket.

We drove the mile and a half to Eaton Canyon where there is still a little water to play in. The short hike from the car was hot and both girls were almost starting to complain until they saw the stream and started skipping to the glistening pools ahead. The water felt cool in rubber shoes and we walked carefully downstream, our feet upsetting multitudes of tadpoles with every step. I held Frances’ hand as she negotiated slippery stones but after a few minutes she was confident on her own. We sat down on warm dry rocks in a little shade and ate sandwiches.

Eventually we worked our way back up to where we the stream was trickling along in a wide open area without any plants poking in. There were other kids playing too and parents sitting idly by as if we were all at the playground. We watched our kids fascination with catching tadpoles grow and their clothes get increasingly soggy and had trouble caring about what else might have been planned for the afternoon. I let go of my ambitions of running an errand or cleaning up the mess we’d left at home as I sat there with the sun beating down on my skin and the cool water on my feet keeping me in just the right balance between hot and cold, dry and wet. There was a family of acorn woodpeckers in the oaks around us so I was happily waiting to get good looks at them with my binoculars. Eventually I did and even sketched the birds a few times in my notebook.

We stayed in that spot for what turned out to be hours but felt more like minutes. Grace got really good at catching the tadpoles and would hold them in her hands for a moment or two before letting them go back in the water. She was also busy making sure all the other kids set theirs free. Frances gave up holding her dress out of the water and then took it off and before I knew it she was sitting in the little pool half naked.

The smell of hot sage and eucalyptus was blowing by on a nice breeze that was just cool enough to keep us there. We made friends, had meaningful conversations, learned a few things about tadpoles and how to catch them, learned how to pan for gold and saw with our own eyes tiny flakes of it in the stream. Apparently people used to pan for gold during the great depression to make ends meet. For us, it was a nice metaphor for the day.

Cremation

The birds were talking to me today but not showing much of themselves. I was woken by the sound of a love mourning dove (sic) around 5:45 am. As the girls and I went out into the backyard to play in the afternoon, a mockingbird flew out from behind and landed on the wire in front of us. Then as we worked in the garden, a scrub jay landed very close, on the cement wall not three feet from where we stood. He flew over us and onto the fence at the back of the garden and Grace asked him for a feather. Later I heard a bird I didn’t recognize as the girls and I took a walk down the block. It was a short call, very uniform, and very high. Another bird was also calling at the same time and I guessed it was a woodpecker.

Later on, after dinner I went out to water the garden and heard the tell tale squawks of parrots, but they were behind trees and I could not see them. I finally made out five birds flying in the distance, but by then they were so far away I could only identify them as parrots from their quick flapping. As I left the garden at dusk, I was pushed to light a fire and burn the wing of the chicken that I had thought was a hawk’s which was now just a pile of feathers that I was still hanging onto. I had been thinking of burning them for a while but felt I needed a plan. In that moment it seemed simple. Make a little fire with dead leaves on the cement outside my studio and throw the feathers into the fire. As I began to set it up, two scrub jays were calling, again out of view, very urgently back and forth in the large oak just opposite my studio. I spoke to the birds: “Here I light a fire and offer myself to the birds. I ask permission to cremate the wings and feathers that have been presented to me. I offer myself with gratitude for my gifts as a midwife into death for many small creatures. I acknowledge that these deaths may have been painful and in this cremation I set that pain free, that it may be turned into positive energy for a new purpose.” As I lit the fire and as it took off and momentarily became a large flame I gave thanks to the fire and acknowledged it’s powerful ability to transform physical matter into smoke, ash and ember.

The fire kept wanting to go out so I paid a lot of attention to it and gave thanks to the wind for helping give more energy to the fire and I put a lot of energy into keeping it going long enough for all the feathers to burn. I felt good about my comfort with fire, to know how it burns and how to keep it going, but I also had to work at it because fire can be hard to control. There is no way of knowing what will happen. But I trust that everything will. Eventually, the fire will burn out.

And it did and I carefully gathered up the ashes and bits of bone that were left on the cement and carried them to my beloved compost pile. I spoke a few words as I placed the ashes on the pile, asking mother earth to take them back as I folded them into the dark dirt. Then I took the hose and washed off the remaining ash from the cement which now had a little yellowish mark where the fire had been. I thanked the water for it’s cleansing of the spot that was now a sacred spot for me.

Absent Minded

I fed the raven, I think. Could have been some other water starved creature that found my orange, rolled it with it’s foot or beak, pecked at it or clawed at it until it opened and delivered its watery cache. But I believe it was a raven, so sure were the blows that tore it in half. So complete was the excavation of the contents. I could see it, wings tucked neatly, concentrating all the force of its powerful neck muscles and large beak on opening and then pulling out the orange that stood out like a beacon amid the sage and tan colored everything.

In the desert there is nothing and everything. In the desert all is calm and all is wild. In the desert there are sounds and silence. In the desert I am alone and with company. It feeds me huge mounds of words, like plates topped with spaghetti falling off in long stringy sentences and meaty truths. It provides, through meager offerings of sand and gravel and thorny brush, big surprises in the form of bright red flowers atop spiny-armed cacti or the soft brushy leaves of the ageless trees and the tiny nest searched for in its branches. In the desert, expectations are naught and the attack of the unexpected is common. It sets you up to sit back and then grabs you with its blue skies painted with pink or white or yellow jet trails. One looks for the uncommon bird and find the common bird is looking, offering something you never knew you wanted.

Colliding with a Wing

When I found the hawk’s wing, it looked like it had been washed down the stream we were following. It was not a full wing, but the feathers were large and all brown so I reasoned it had belonged to a red-shouldered hawk. It was gorgeous but grubby. Sand was worked into the feathers which were stuck together and matted in places. I didn’t care. I immediately felt it was a gift, like the other bird treasures I have stowed in my studio. It was partly because I had almost stepped on it that I felt it was mine. An awesome token of affection from the sky.

Still, I felt a little hesitant picking it up in front of my hiking buddy. It was far from perfect, but passing it up was impossible. I cradled it under my left arm, ever-conscious of how fragile it was as we continued down the stream. At one point we lost the trail and found ourselves at the top of a twenty foot waterfall. We had to turn around and decided to scramble up some rocks to scout the trail we’d lost. As I clung to a rock with one arm I did contemplate ditching the wing, but I was already very attached to it. While I tried to think of a solution my friend reached out and I carefully handed it to her so she could wrap it up in the shirt she had tied around her waist.

At home I dropped it in a plastic bag promising to wash it later, only slightly concerned about the flesh that was still clinging to the bones. A friend suggested drying it out, so I laid it on an old tee shirt and buried it in salt. It stayed that way for days, looking more beautiful than ever, covered in white crystals with just the tips of its long brown feathers sticking out. I saw six hawks yesterday, one after the other, circling over the road as I drove home from the desert. I wonder what that means? I said to my friend in the car, but it wasn’t until I got home that I realized it was time to wash the wing.

Maybe I left it in the water too long, or maybe it was just not meant to be, but my precious wing fell to pieces in the bath. As I pulled it out bit by bit, I realized what had happened. The water had dissolved what little glue the dried flesh was providing and the wing had become just a mass of feathers and a naked bone. Oh well, I thought to myself. It’s a nice mass and will give me lots to draw from. As I fished them out of the water, I gently rubbed off the brown remnants and the dirt and admired all the different shapes and subtle patterns each feather displayed. All were the same deep reddish brown but some had faint stripes that looked like brown shadows and some had a bold streak of black going lengthwise.

Then something strange happened. I felt a kind of a zing in my left finger that shot up my arm when I touched one of the feathers and I immediately dropped it as if I’d gotten a shock. It gave me a creepy feeling so I quickly said out loud: If you are a positive energy I am happy to receive you, but if you are negative you are not welcome here. Please respect my wishes and I will respect yours. I could still feel a tingling in my left fingers which is where I have felt some tingling for other reasons for a while now. It was as if it hooked into the communication system between my body and my soul and I welcomed it with only a slight wariness. When I asked what it was I immediately felt the trauma and the pain of this bird’s attack. So I said gently, as I might to a child, “It’s alright. All over now.” As I continued to work with the wing, trying to save as many feathers as I could, I continued to get these little jolts or stings and each time I would repeat, “It’s okay. All done.” But it was a strange feeling. Not to be talking to a wing. But because I realized how sad I was feeling, watching it all fall apart.

Shout Out to Mom

As a human my mother was a teacher
As pure spirit she teaches through my child
As a human my mother liked to worry
As a spirit she knows no fear
As a human my mother could be stern
As spirit she is always very calm
As a human my mother never quite believed in herself
As a spirit she is only potential
As a human my mother cooked with reticence
As pure spirit she cooks a lot of love
As a human my mother showed me pure love
She gave it freely, softly and sometimes magically
As spirit she is all magic all the time
As a human my mother taught me not to pick up feathers because they are dirty
As spirit she sends me feathers every day
Even the crusty, broken, rotting wing of a hawk
As a human my mother took care of me
As a spirit she whispers, take care of yourself

Ocean Kiss

I was pulled to the beach like a magnet to metal
My escape from dinner preparations, unplanned but smooth
I slipped down the stairs of the gargantuan rented beach house
Where a large family gathering was in its last day
My sister had just come into the kitchen from a run on the beach
And her sweat reminded me how badly I needed to get out there myself
One last time

I pulled on my boots by the pool and watched the sky for birds
I jogged down the steps and trekked across rough ground cover
The sounds of kids screaming and adults laughing faded behind me
And against the crunching of thick stems under my shoes
I climbed up over a railing
And stepped onto the boardwalk that smelled of wet wood

The sky burned orange and the clouds puffed up yellow mountains with golden edges
The sun lowered itself into a fireball over my right shoulder
And the waves drew me to them in thick lines of white
Folding over in slow curls
They were crashing and sending me messages that I never knew existed
They were pulling me out to them like a lover who wanted me to drown in their beauty

I stood on the sand
It was late and the beach that had been broad as a football field this afternoon
Was swallowed by the tide that left only a narrow edge to stand in
I considered running or walking down a ways but the waves made me stand still
I listened

The beach was like an open book with different pictures next to each other
The right page was a burnt umber mist that looked like orange rain over the ocean
Making edgeless the distinctions of land and sea
On the left the colors vibrated from the other end
The sky was still blue
But the dark blue of dusk with uncommon clarity that carefully outlined
A runner in the distance
Shimmering silver on the water

The waves were breaking in long rows marching in with big swells coming up behind
A sandbar was making them break out there
Perfect curling tubes of blue gray with white furled edges
I was talking to them
Saying goodbye
I said I love you

I started to feel all the abuse the ocean takes and a wave of sadness rose up
It passed through my body and disappeared into the orange mist that was overtaking the whole scene
This is the moment that counts, I thought
Rain was coming

Then a big wave broke
And I knew it was headed for me
It was already pushing me with its significance
And I thought I ought to step back a bit or get ready to
But I stood there

And the wave sent a long finger of foam up to me
That reached only my toes
Glancing down the beach I saw that it was the only part that came up that far
And I melted with the humility that comes from being kissed
By the ocean

A Recipe for Self Love

A cup of attention

A cup of gratitude

A cup of patience

A cup of affection

A cup of humor

A cup of humility

A cup of awareness

A cup of compassion

A cup of strength

A cup of perseverance

A cup of tenacity

A cup of discipline

A cup of reverence

A gallon of love

Start by pouring the cup of attention over your thoughts and beliefs. For instance, notice what you are thinking when cleaning the cat box. Is it: Why am I the only one who ever cleans the cat box? Or, Why do these damn cats have to make such a mess? Or, I should have gotten one of those self-cleaning boxes but I can’t afford it.

If you notice negative thoughts like these coming up during routine activities and chores, take a cup (or two if required) of gratitude and mix it with a cup of love and pour it over yourself until you find you are saying something like this: How I love to scoop the cat box. It feels so good to keep it nice and clean so my little lovelies have a comfortable place to relieve themselves.

Next, look at how you talk to your family, or others that you are close enough to that you don’t bother being polite all the time. Are you short tempered? Do you snap at your children or bark orders at your spouse? Get out your patience and mix it in a small bowl with affection and humor. Now you have a nice sauce for getting along. Next time you find you are losing your grip and nasty sounding words are just waiting behind your lips, take a deep breath, grab the sauce you just made and drink it up. Now do or say something funny and watch how cute they look when they smile and let any annoyance or irritation you had slip away. Take another cup of love and spill it all over the floor in front of them and while your wiping it up, think of all the qualities you love about them.

After this step, preheat your heart. Get it slightly warmer than normal. Keep it nice and warm as we look in the mirror at how you see yourself. Do you feel 100% satisfied with your work or whatever you are doing with your life? Do you criticize your efforts on a daily basis as sub-par or never good enough? Could it be that these attitudes are covering up an alternative view under the surface that you are the greatest thing to ever walk the earth? Is there a tiny piece of you that thinks you really should be a billionaire by now or that your picture ought to be on the cover of time magazine instead of Michelle Obama’s? This is where humility comes in. You need to be careful with this ingredient as it can be a little tricky to work with. Sprinkle it over yourself each morning. Just a light sprinkling and then more throughout the day each time you find you are underselling yourself or thinking you are much more talented than the person next to you who just got a big grant for their work researching carpenter bees. Sprinkle it and say, I am no better or worse than anyone else. I am just perfect and complete in myself.

Next look at your body. What gives you trouble? Do you have a stiff neck? Poor eyesight? Back trouble? Warts? Constipation? Get out your compassion and stir it up with an equal part of love and apply it liberally to each area that bothers you. The trick here is to love any parts of yourself that you have long cursed, neglected or worked hard to “fix.” This step is not about fixing you, it is about accepting you as you are, bumps and all. Then as you are applying the love and compassion mixture, ask your body part what it needs or wants. Listen carefully. Then pour on more love and compassion.

Now that you’re about halfway through this recipe, it’s going to get a little harder. The parts of yourself that are determined to keep you down and only dipping your big toe in the bath of self-love are going to start fighting for their survival. It is time to get out your strength, perseverance and tenacity. You will need all three. Keep them separate but close together, applying the correct ingredient in the right moment. Are those nasty words trying to get out of your mouth and attack the ones you love again? Pull out some strength and add it to the mixture of patience affection and humor described above. Having trouble at work believing in your abilities to do the best job possible? Get out perseverance and apply it to any mistakes or missteps or even blunders you have made and remember you must take risks and be willing to fail to get anywhere in this life. Are the warts still bothering you? Wondering if they will ever go away? Are you giving in to voices that tell you there is something wrong with you? A fatal flaw perhaps? Tenacity is your secret ingredient. Use it to combat these voices, remember that they are your teachers and keep at least a quart of love on hand to pour over the trouble spots in weak moments.

You are almost home. The key to keeping all this love flowing in all areas of life is discipline. Use your discipline whenever you slip or even after you’ve fallen back into the old habits of negative thinking for long periods. You can always get back on that horse. All it takes is a little discipline. Take at least a cup of it every morning when you wake up.

The icing on this cake is reverence. To revere yourself and all of life is to be truly and fully in love with yourself and your life and the moment you are in. Use it liberally and enjoy the results.

Congratulations! You are now in love with yourself. Lucky you!

Windy Today

Today I saw a bird circling high above Lake Av as I drove down it with the kids in the car after a day of school. It caught my eye because it was performing some unusual acrobatics on the wind. It was hovering like it was suspended on strings, not circling, not flapping, just hovering. Then it swooped dramatically sideways so that if there was ink on its wing and the air was paper it would have drawn a broad and shallow U. Back to hovering, now on the right side of Lake, still high above the street lights and low buildings, and then another sideways swoop. It was so high it was hard to see what it was at first, but by the time I slowed for someone in the cross walk I could see it was a crow or a raven. It was black and looked big so it was probably a raven since I read somewhere that they tend to be daredevils and usually fly solo.

The wind was also unusual. There was no sign of it down at street level but up at the tops of the trees it was almost wild. The long hair on the lady crossing the street wasn't moving but the branches up above her were being blown in great gusts. Strange, I thought. Like two different worlds right next to each other.

I like to pay attention to the birds. They seem always to show up in interesting moments and to occupy a different world. They live in trees. They can fly. They eat worms and small animals and pick up trash. They are urban dwellers like me. Like the lady in the crosswalk. But they manage without all the things we think are necessary. Houses. Electricity. Cars. There are so many of them, you would think the trees would be overcrowded with nests, but its rare to find one. Even rare to find their cast off feathers, or corpses. A friend in New York pointed out recently that you never see small pigeons. They must somehow keep their young protected and hidden until they are full grown. But where?

Birds are very adaptable. Especially the city birds we know so well. The pigeons [my daughter likes it when I refer to them by their 'real' name: Rock Dove], the house finches, starlings and crows. We humans are pretty adaptable too. But we take up a lot more space.

Leaving

Sadness flows upwards. From the base of my torso it moves in waves, up through my chest, neck and shoulders, pushing saline out my eye sockets and tingles down my arms.

Is it the text message from my sister who I already miss and don't ever feel I had enough time with? Or

Is it the gruffness with which my husband and I address one another when tense from moving weighty bags and children through an airport on five hours sleep and getting us parked into our tight little seats.

I believe it is the former set off by the latter since now the sadness is expanding like a mushroom cloud, its energy extending down my legs as well as arms all the way into my fingers and toes accompanied by images flipping like cue cards through my mind: My father gripping the back of a chair; my step-mother's smile; my sister holding Frances on her lap; Jane cooking pancakes in the morning.

I feel it in my chest, cool and lively like the first breath of winter air biting at my nostrils, early on a school day. Each day I stepped out onto that same sidewalk this week I felt my history held in the cement under my feet, in the trees singing at the tops of their lungs, their branches in full chorus blooms. It was even in the air, warm with spring and hanging on the faint scent of the East River.

weeds

It is clearly spring here and there is a lot to do in the yard which makes me excited but also puts me under some pressure. The clock is ticking and I have to get my seedlings started and in the ground soon! There is soil to prepare and plants to remove and gosh I really need to get serious about building a better system for my enormous compost adventure. I wish I had already drawn a picture for this post of the tiny buds and the delicate pink flower like leaves busting out of them on the Japanese maple, but time is in short supply. I am working hard on publishing the first book, writing a second, setting up a website and or course raising the two enchantresses I have, not to mention all the housewifey things I do every day.

BUT the garden has been calling me and I did manage to get the girls out into the dirt over the weekend. We started by pulling some weeds. There was something gargantuan growing near the compost pile that I had let get big and as I pulled hard at the root, the girls were cheering me on and poking at it with their little pink shovels. I managed to pull the thing up with one hand. They told me I was really strong and danced beside me all the way to the green bin where we deposited the monster. But if that one was going to go, there was another to face. Something had grown up among my Calendula flowers that for some reason I actually thought (or convinced myself) might be some Snapdragons that I had planted which had never come up. Clearly it was a weed now that it was almost my height and flowerless. (Duh!) But this sucker was harder to pull. It hung on for dear life and I had to dig around it to try and loosen its powerful grip. Its roots were wedged in under my studio where I meditate every day and I started thinking about the weeds that have been growing in my consciousness and how there are these terrible voices that try to sabotage me all the time and I used that image to fight the good fight and I pulled and pulled and grunted and screamed and the girls were telling me, "Give up mommy!" because they could tell I was almost in tears but then it gave a little and that got me going, pulling with every last drop of strength, my fingers burning from the tiny prickly hairs along the main stem of this beast. I felt it give a little more. Then, before I was ready it released all its tiny tendrils from the earth at once and with that jolt I lost my balance, falling back on my butt with the beast in my hands over my head raining dirt on my face while the girls screamed with excitement and fear. "Are you okay Mommy??" Yes I was fine, better than fine! I pulled that &#(^#(%*& out and I was feeling pretty good. Next!

I was determined that we would plant a few seeds during the equinox and reluctant to go to the nursery for supplies because I knew I'd spend more than I wanted to there, so at 4pm I was scraping together whatever I had on hand, which turned out to be a few packets of vegetable seeds and flower seeds left over from winter planting, some corn kernels I collected from last summer's minute harvest and some potting soil that was suspiciously damp and slightly foul smelling. It had been sitting out in the rain and I guess the dirt got wet and the wet was trapped in the plastic bag for a while and maybe the soil had gotten moldy or something. I don't know. But it was all we had so we used it, the girls gently tucking tiny seeds under thin blankets of it and I thought: if nothing comes up it doesn't matter. It's the act of planting the seeds that is important. It is symbolic, and my children especially respond to the symbolic gesture more than the outcome. So imagine my surprise when watering them this morning I saw that the tiny green beginnings of new life are springing forth. I guess the soil was okay after all. Either that or they will be sickly and die and we will learn some lessons that way.

This Hotel is Like my Brain: Step Outside and it's Beautiful

The carpet in the hallway is a dark forest green with mustard yellows squiggly designs that run along the edges like the lights in an aircraft guiding you to the exit. But the yellow lines don’t get you out, they lock you in, unless you know how to escape. The hallways all look the same and there is always something humming, some white noise to keep you blind from the sounds outside. The birds chirping, the rain falling, the wind rustling the leaves of perfect palm trees that were grown somewhere else and transplanted here.

The sun is shining outside. Minutes ago I realized the potential of a rainbow. The sound of rain coupled with sunlight on the carpet next to my foot. I found my shoes in a hurry and rushed out of the room, patting my back pocket for my key card as I sped out the ungainly door to my room. I have two long hallways and a staircase, all windowless with the dark green carpet, to get through before I am outside. But once there, I am met with magnificence. No rainbow, but the sky is full of bright, puffy, yellow tinged clouds highlighting the snow covered mountains in the distance. I just have to ignore the forest green construction fence across the street where they are building yet another sand colored cement building. Can you still call it the desert when no part of it is deserted? I almost go back upstairs, satisfied that I can escape the confines of my mind/hotel room anytime I want. But I decide I need to find something untouched. Just a patch of real desert earth, before I can go back in.

The sidewalk is manicured but done in a way that makes some sense. The small trees and shrubs are all natives, nicely spaced and planted with little clusters of succulents and cacti arranged around rocks every so often. The cement path I am following is not a straight line like the road beside it, but instead follows an S curve so that you can’t really see how far it goes. At first I think it will end at the next driveway but after passing that I realize it is not part of any golf course or condo complex. It actually belongs to the municipality. Nice.

I want to see some birds and just then I hear a little buzz and look up to see a hummingbird perched on a branch a few feet away. I am standing next to a golf course and the salmon stucco wall around it is low enough that I can peer over into the rough edges where they have let nature take its course to the extent that a lot of birds and other animals are finding it habitable. There are a slew of little brown birds with black stripes on their heads running in and out of a thorny bush. The golf course is so big I can't see how big it is. Lots of pretty rolling green. Some movement under a bush gets me to stay a bit longer and soon a large desert hare is staring at me.

I need to feel this connection with nature to get back to what I need to write. Some writing is like pulling teeth out of old gums. Other writing is like skating on a frozen pond. Smooth and gliding, like the birds. It’s the connection to the larger world that I am craving and that the hotel seems to block. Like dark thoughts that come up and question the validity of what I am doing, I have to escape to this. Trees and birds save me every time.

I keep walking and following the pretty curving sidewalk, trying to ignore the sound of traffic flowing by me at high speed. The desert people are all insulated in their cars and I am out here, unnoticed. I stop to admire the delicate leaves on a tree. I love its low branches with the very tiny leaves hanging in neat rows off long stems. The light moves right through them so their pale olive color glows. It has gorgeous seed pods that are long and thin with little babies nestled inside like a pea pod, but flatter. This one is brown and elegant.

I walk by a low wall that is containing a small patch of empty dirt. It is maybe 10 by 10 feet. I wonder what it is for. Maybe there are no plans for it. Maybe it didn’t fit into the plans. Maybe it exists in some no man’s land between two plans, but looking around that doesn’t make sense. I am still alongside the golf course and the little wall that surrounds this bit of nothing is the same color and thickness as the taller wall that surrounds the golf course. No idea.

I am tired of the constant flow of traffic. It's keeping my mind from relaxing and the birds from getting close. There is a sign for something called “Freedom Park” and I wonder how far that is. This city is different from the dusty wasted towns a little bit further east where civilization falls off just a few yards from the side of the road, and the storefronts look like plywood cutouts, and the empty lots behind them are littered with abandoned projects that the wind and the sun have destroyed. This is Palm Desert and it's like a mini Palm Springs. It’s all done with a lot of cement and stucco so all the buildings look new. I pass another entrance to yet another complex of condos on the left. This one has a water feature made to look like a mini waterfall flowing over a rock staircase. It is lined with blooming flowers that would never exist here on their own: Bright pink Impatiens and Snapdragons that drink water like marathon runners. All the lush greenery they use as edging makes it look fresh and alive but in a cynical sort of way. I am still hoping to find that bit of earth where I might see what was here before they built and planted all this stuff.

I come to a corner. I can taste the disappointment of finding that Freedom Park is a garden of cement and commemorative sculptures or something, so I turn right. And there it is. Could it really be an empty lot? Just being away from the constant traffic is a big relief and I start to see where I am. On my right is the golf course. To my left is the back side of a shopping complex. Where the stores end there is just a bit of cement with two dumpsters on it and then just open space. It has the remnants of a fence made of thin wood slats and wire around it, but most of that is lying on the ground like an old tee shirt, half buried in the sand. I wonder if it belongs to some holdout who refused years of lucrative offers. I am so excited. The street I am on appears to go no where so there's no traffic on it besides a large truck, the kind that is basically a big rack for carrying cars, idling. I try and ignore it but the engine is so loud it's spoiling my pathetic attempt to escape civilization.

I cross over to the empty lot and walk around. It looks exactly the way it's supposed to. The earth is sandy, and the bushes are low dusted greenish mounds that look like they could survive anywhere. There are giant ant holes with droves of large ants climbing in and out of them, performing incredible feats. Some are working together. One is dragging a small stick that for him is the size of a large tree trunk. He drags it a while, working tirelessly to get it up and over a small pebble and finally abandons the project. There is some trash but most of it is the same color as the sand.

There are a few trees with the lovely leaves I like and I gather some twigs. A few bushes are covered with tiny bright pink flowers and I pick a handful. There is another tree that has little tiny yellow flowers in the shape of puff balls that fall down along its leafy twigs. There are little thorns protecting it but I choose a branch that is small and struggling and bravely tear it from the tree, saying thank you as I pull.

I turn around to see the truck is finally leaving but I don’t care. I got what I came for. Even if it was a little disappointing. Even if I had harbored hopes of making it to the edge of all the development, I could see now what a foolish hope that was, unless I was willing to sacrifice the entire afternoon. I had found the patch I imagined. Just this little piece of untouched earth gave me what I needed.