I Am a Tree

Grace and the Bobcat

2011-10-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

I am very proud of my daughter Grace. Today was a great day for her, and also for me. I witnessed the profound effect of her taking action for a cause she feels strongly about. It’s true what they say about being a parent: It only gets better

Today we visited two bobcats at The Living Desert, which is a very special Zoo and botanical sanctuary in Palm Desert, California. Grace raised $300 last spring to “adopt” a bobcat and that entitled her to a “behind the scenes” visit with the animals.

We arrived early for our 2:30 pm appointment, both of us a little nervous and very excited. First we met Shirley, who runs the adoption program, in the administration building where she gave us each a bottle of cold water and showed us out to her golf cart. Grace sat up front with Shirley and I rode in the back. The ride alone was enough to satisfy Grace, who remarked later, “and I’ve never even been on a golf cart before!”

Shirley drove us through the park and since we were a few minutes early we took a detour to see the giraffes. It was a gorgeous day, only about 90 degrees, and the giraffes were majestic against a blue sky streaked with cirrus clouds.

When we reached the bobcat area, Shirley drove around the back of the exhibit. It looked like the back end of a grocery store or a restaurant. Scattered behind the buildings there were sea containers, dumpsters and vehicles parked here and there. There was another golf cart and two young women stepped out to greet us. We were introduced to Katie and Amanda. Katie was in charge of the bobcats and our visit. Amanda, we learned, was new to the zoo and tagging along.

“Now, the only thing I need to ask you is please don’t get too close to the cages because the cats can stick their paws under the edge if they really want to.” Katie smiled when she said this and then asked, “are you ready Grace?” as she opened a big steel door. Inside there were cages and in the cages were the bobcats. We were so close to them it took my breath away. These were the enclosures they use to feed them or do any procedures with them or trainings and they were not deep. So we were only a few feet away from them. They looked like big house cats with wide moon faces. Their eyes stared right at us, not used to seeing anyone back there but their keepers. The tufts of hair around their faces made them look like old men with white whiskers. They were incredibly cute and obviously strong and sturdy. Their fur looked soft and fluffy like you could bury your face in it. Their paws were large with long fur and they moved silently, the way cats do, around their cage. It struck me how soft and silent those big paws were.

Katie explained that she had come up with three “enrichment items” for the cats so that we could observe them in action. She sounded excited about her plan, explaining that one of the items was a ball that they had played with before, but that the other two were new. One was a toy- a circular track with a ball that went around inside it- and the other was a bucket of what she called “wolf dirt.” Wolf dirt was collected from the wolves’ enclosure and smelled of their urine.

“Almost all of the other cats love it, but we haven’t tried it on the bobcats yet.” She walked us into the area where the bobcats live. The cats were safely in their cages inside the building while we walked around their outdoor habitat. Katie and Amanda put out the toys and spread the wolf dirt around. Katie warned, “You never know what they’ll respond to, but I’m guessing they’ll like the wolf dirt.”

We exited the enclosure and went out to where we could watch them. The zoo was very quiet so there were only two people, a pair of women, standing there when we emerged from behind a gate. Their eyes got wide as they saw the two zoo keepers and figured something was about to happen. We all stood there waiting for the bobcats. It took a minute for Amanda to walk back and let them into their space, but then we heard a sound and there they were, bounding toward us with anticipation. They immediately found the wolf dirt and rolled around in it just the way a house cat might roll in catnip.

“That’s just what the other cats do with it,” Katie said. We all watched the two cats joyfully roll and lounge. They looked relaxed and happy. Eventually they noticed the new toy and pawed it once or twice, but then they discovered more wolf dirt on top of a little swinging platform they have and rubbed up against that. They hung out around the swing for a while. Grace stood as close as she could taking picture after picture, trying to get good shots of them and record the whole experience.

The five of us stood there watching the bobcats for about an hour. It was that entertaining. Katie talked about them, sharing her extensive knowledge of wild cats with us, and veering off into other animals and experiences as well. We learned all about the bobcats, the story of how they came to the zoo and about a lot of the other animals there as well. The Living Desert is home to many animals that cannot be reintroduced into the wild, but they also work hard to set free the ones that can.

Grace often talks about how she would love to work with animals when she grows up so I asked Katie and Amanda about their backgrounds and how they ended up there. All three of them (including Shirley, in fundraising) said they loved working at The Living Desert. I asked Katie if she had a veterinary degree, and she said no. That they have one vet at the zoo but most of the keepers have degrees in biology, not necessarily zoology, and some have other specialties. “We have people with degrees in nutrition, psychology, and many other things which is what helps us come up with solutions for the animals. People come here with experience from all over the world and all over the animal kingdom. All that varied experience really helps us make things work. I came from marine biology and then I worked with birds for several years.”

Amanda, having just gotten herself hired there piped in with strong words of advice for Grace. She said, “The degree is important, but you need to start volunteering early. Because its your experience that will get you a job, not a degree. It’s a very competitive field because so many people want to work with animals. You can start volunteering quite young. You might not get to work directly with animals until your older, but when the time comes, they’ll want someone who knows how the place works.”

“Are you getting all this Mom?” Grace asked, putting down the camera for a split second.

Finally it was time to say good-bye. The bobcats had lost interest in us and had gone back to hide in the bushes. Katie and Amanda had other work to do (thought they were very gracious and never made us feel like we were taking up their time). Shirley had a meeting to attend.

We said our goodbyes, thanking them again and they thanked Grace for raising the money to sponsor the cats. Grace and I decided we wanted to see the cheetahs before we left so Shirley gave us a ride to their area in the golf cart and then she went on. I managed to get a picture of her and Grace and the vehicle before she left.

We were lucky. Both the cheetahs were visible. They have a big long enclosure with lots of places to hide. One of them was quite close, but lying down. The other was farther away but sitting up. We watched one and then the other for a long while. We had nowhere to be. The cheetah that was sitting up walked around and we got to see her move her body which was thrilling. She looked strange and graceful in her walking, and very elegant as she paced up along the ridge.

On our way out of the zoo we saw another interesting cat called a “Sand Cat” that lives in the Sahara. It was very small, about half the weight of our cat at home, but with a broad face and long thick coat. As we stood there a hummingbird came very close and sat on a branch next to the cat’s cage.

We stopped in the gift shop on our way out and I told Grace she could get something. She picked out a tee shirt with a leopard on it, and a necklace with a cheetah, and for once I said she could have both.

We left feeling very satisfied and exhilarated. It was so exciting to see the bobcats up close, to learn about them from such a knowledgeable young keeper, and to ride in that golf cart. I was extremely proud of Grace and I think she was too.

Green Love

2011-09-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

I have never been very good with plants. You would think I’d be a better gardener with my intense appreciation for trees and birds and all the time I spend drawing and painting from nature, but I am not. It’s not that I don’t try. I have a garden that is usually limping along and a few (okay, just a couple) of houseplants that have either been with me for ten years or are brand new and still lively, or on their way out.

The few that I have managed to keep alive for a long time are sturdy as hell. They are succulents, which I seem to be good at. I love succulents and the desert climate they represent and which I happen to live in. But I also love the woods and am very fond of ferns. So I am always trying to grow a fern in my bathroom and it never works.

The last one I bought is still hanging there, with two leafless twigs sticking up out of the dirt. I am still watering it, more from a sense of guilt at this point than any real hope that somehow it’s going to fight its way back from the brink. When I bought it, it was luscious and bright, busting out of its pot like it had needed a transplant a year ago but the florist had not gotten around to it. So being an intuitive gardener, I bought a bigger pot for it and transplanted the vivacious fern as soon as I got home. Two weeks later it was wilting badly and the leaves were turning brown at a speedy rate, so I called the florist for help (and sort of to complain). They said transplanting it was a mistake, that the fern likes being crowded, but that it should be okay with some extra care.

Uh oh.

“Put it out at night in the cool air, soak it every two weeks for thirty minutes, and give it something strong like ‘Thrive’.”

“’Thrive?’”

“It’s plant food that will give it a real boost. You can get it at the hardware store and I’m sure the plant will do fine. It’ll come back.”

Thrive. I put it on my to do list that the next time I was at the hardware store I would look for it. And I did, but I guess Home Depot was not what she had in mind. Whenever I found myself at a hardware store I would idly peruse the gardening section for it, but I never went up to the counter and asked, nor did I look on the internet to try and find it. I guess it was what the fern really needed because despite my taking it out at to breath the cool night air and soaking it once in a while, it never did come back. It held on for about a year, maybe more. But now it is just the two leafless twigs.

I was looking at my to do list today where it still says, “Buy ‘Thrive’ at hardware store” when it struck me. The color green, and why I never made the trip to buy the ‘Thrive’ to save the plant that was dying in my bathroom. Because this is a place where I like to fall short: The care of my plants. It’s one of the areas in my life where I need some improvement. Another one is managing my money. The color green hit me as the through line to ‘Thrive.’

I bathed in the color green this summer, constantly surrounded by it in Vermont for a month. The trees, the fields and the garden there are vibrant all summer long. The heart chakra is green and green is the vibrational color of love. As I drove along country roads walled in by the woods chlorophyll-rich outer layer I tried to feel the connection to my heart. Hmmmm. Green is the color of love and plants and money and I could use some extra love in my garden and in my bank account. And yet I resist. I resist the garden just as I resist the budget and the bills and I resist buying a bottle of something called “Thrive.” Maybe I am still a little afraid of thriving myself.

I am at a place in my life where it is really time to shit or get off the pot. It is time to get to those places where I habitually neglect what needs to happen. It is time to pull some weeds. It is time to dig into the hardened soil in my backyard. It time to plant seeds and lovingly water them. And it is time to make some changes in my life. Time to sit down and make decisions about what our priorities really are and where we want to be in ten years. And I need to go to the damn hardware store and buy some “Thrive.” Maybe I’ll spray it on myself.

Poulter's Measure

2011-05-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

I am taking a poetry class right now and this pair was for our last assignment, a form called Poulter's Measure that is a meter made up of alternate Alexandrines of iambic hexameter, (12 syllables or 6 hard stresses) and Fourteeners consisting of iambic heptameter (14 syllables or 7 hard stresses). Because of the extreme length of the lines, each line of the poulter's measure couplet is usually divided into two near-even parts with a caesura.

The Girl’s Room: Day

The space is replete with color: rainbow curtains and a rug

Smallish beds sport doll collections, tea sets and a rubber bug

Shelves are stacked with plastic toys from Target hardly used

Exotic costumes in a wooden chest worn out and plainly abused

The princesses sit dead center surrounded by castles created

From beads and Lego’s attached with tape, their attentions unabated

Unnoticed I slip past the kingdom, garbage bag in hand

Teasing out broken hairclips, tangled necklaces no mortal can command

For if a disposal regimen is not religiously followed

It won’t be long before your highnesses in detritus will be swallowed

The Girl’s Room: Night

In the darkness keys tap quietly as attempts to sleep are made

A four year old who’s feverish ought to slide into slumber and fade

Alas her body is fidgety and a her mother’s patience is lost

The laptop lights the stillness of empty parental threats that cost

The child tosses the bed sheets and asks for milk in a glass

Mother fetches it while silently thinking “what a pain in the ass”

Frustration mounts in wishing that mother could go to bed

Misfortune sits its weighty bottom on her lap instead

I Am Lucky

2011-05-16T14:58:00.001-07:00

I leaned over to smell a purple flower this morning and started to cry. The odor that waltzed up my nostrils was sweet, strong and surprising. Wild flowers in my experience, are not usually that fragrant but there was something else bringing up those tears. It was realizing how often I bend to smell a wildflower and am disappointed. I was bracing myself for that familiar disappointment when I was knocked out instead. How often do I brace myself for disappointment unconsciously? Honest answer: A lot.

I was hiking down the hill when this happened. I was hiking down the hill that is at the top of the big street close to our house and which I drive past nearly every week day taking my kids to school. The hill (really it’s part of a mountain but I like calling it a hill) calls me. In the fall I was hiking it several times a week, using it as a training ground for a backpacking trip I took in October. Since then I have kept going up there regularly but when the weather got colder and the days shorter, my routine petered out. Since spring arrived I have wanted to go more than I have made it up. Running and biking have been giving me a better work out.

But I missed my hill, so today I made time for it. As soon as I walked through the gate I was startled by how alive it all was. I was taking big deep breaths, consuming the odors of pine and eucalyptus. The earth was still holding some damp from the rain yesterday and the grass was tall and yellow. The hills stretching up in front of me were greener than I had seen them in a long time. All that rain this winter really paid off.

It was chilly, much to chilly for mid-May but who knows what's normal anymore? I had on a fleece shirt and it was buttoned up. I walked up the steep incline at a brisk pace, my new habit of running giving dividends in spades. I took that hill like I never have before. I was huffing and puffing and feeling fast. A wrentit was singing its long trill. I felt like I was with the family who have known me since before I existed. My earth, mountain, stream, bird and brush family. I was soaking it up and working hard to make it to the halfway point in record time.

I stopped at the electric poles and took off the fleece which was making me sweat. I was panting. The air up there was even colder and felt great in my lungs and on my hot skin. I looked out over the view of Pasadena, Los Angeles and the ocean. A crow was circling overhead. I felt lucky. Lucky to be alive. I felt grateful for the incredible accident that is the earth.

I had taken the girls to JPL on Saturday and we learned all about the solar system which brought me back to the incredible fact that we are spinning through space on this ball that has the perfect balance of water, atmosphere and minerals to sustain an enormous abundance of life. And the fact that we are the perfect distance from the sun to make that all happen. Seeing pictures of the other planets up close made me think it’s pure accident we have all this. Just like the accident that was my own conception in my mother’s womb. An incredible collision. That is how the earth and I were born. Out of a collision that produced the magnificent sun and about eight other planets and countless moons that are either too close or too far from the sun to sustain life as we know it. I was looking at that perfect balance: the mountains, the sky, the sun and the ocean. I am so lucky to be alive right now. So lucky to be here at all.

I started down the hill with a tremendous feeling of gratitude buzzing in my chest. I had only seen one other hiker on my way up. The trail was surprisingly empty for such a gorgeous day. I heard a shuffling on the path ahead that lacked the steady footsteps of a human. When I turned the corner the side of a deer was just a foot in front of me. It was looking up to my right and glancing back at me when I saw there were two more just a few feet above me in the brush overlooking the path. As soon as I looked at them they bounded up the steep slope but I was blocking the other one who wanted to join them. I guess I could have backed up but by then the deer in front of me had bounded up ahead. I watched as it cautiously peaked around the next corner to see if other humans were approaching. They must normally avoid the trail. But maybe they cross it regularly and I just never caught that moment before.

It was exciting to be so close to them. It brought me to the many other close encounters I have had with deer. The one that I always think of first is the time I was at a retreat with David Elliott in 1999. I went into the woods feeling very sorry for myself and frustrated with my problems. I was sick of them and wanted someone else’s. I walked up to a big pine tree. It started to rain. I talked to the tree. I hugged the tree. I told the tree everything. I complained about myself. Then I turned to walk away and there was a deer staring at me. Very close. Very still. I stood still and stared back at her. We just stayed like that, staring at each other with the rain falling on us both and pit patting on the leaves all around us. Then slowly she started to walk away. She was moving so slowly I could see each muscle contracting. I stood still, in awe of her grace and beauty. Her message was clear as a church bell. Be gentle with yourself. You are too hard on yourself.

I thought about how far I have come since that day. I am a healer, a writer, an artist. I was the same person back then, with all the same talents, but just frightened to death of myself. Now I am married to a someone I love to death and together we are raising two hilarious and wonderful children. I think of all those collisions, all the accidents that had to happen at just the right moment to get me here today. I mean really. I am damn lucky.

I was feeling all that when I reached the purple flower and thoughtlessly bent over it ready for nothing to hit my nose. Instead I was rewarded with a beautiful smell. What is the opposite of disappointment? Surprise? Satisfaction? Gratitude? It is all of those and more. Because disappointment is the result of having an unmet expectation. It is something I have to set myself up for. It is something I do. And I can just as easily do gratitude and satisfaction instead. Then the reward is a surprise!

Flight 1080

2011-03-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

I could tell from the way she glanced at me and moved her things, that the woman in the window seat had hoped that the row, or at least the seat next to her would remain vacant. Anyone, except those odd people who need company at all times, might. But in her glance and her moving of her things was a reluctance so pregnant and complete that I almost felt sorry for asking. It wasn’t snobbery or selfishness that afflicted her, I decided. It was pain.

We were on our way to a funeral, my husband and I, and in that fact we felt assured in our purpose and the ethics of it that shielded us from any criticism or complaint we might otherwise be susceptible to.

I was careful not to notice her at all after we took up the two seats to her right, partially as a defense for the feeling I could not completely shake, that I had caused her some inconvenience or discomfort. But halfway into the one hour flight, when I put my book down for a moment, I noticed a stillness about her that was unnatural. She was no longer playing on her phone as she had been when I asked if the seats next to her were free. She had kept on tapping after the announcement to turn off all electronic devices long enough that I began to admonish and judge her in my mind as I was busy ignoring her, and reading. She had finally relinquished her iphone, placing it carefully into her small orange purse that was made of leather and gathered along the hasp but modest in size so that sitting open on her lap I could see all that there was inside. The Chanel compact she used to check her hair, the Gucci wallet, a pretty little notebook with a gold pen attached.

When I looked at her again as I paused my reading, she was sitting up straight with her sunglasses on, staring ahead at nothing. They were the kind celebrities hind behind, large and dark with rounded edges and a golden tinge to the frames. She was somewhere in the decade between thirty and forty. Her light hair curled gently around her jaw, fell into resting on her shoulders in attractive layers of wavy curls that were nothing short of perfection. She was wearing brown pants and a soft tan sweater that said she was all business, but had no need for the awkward restriction of a suit. She was poised, stylish and elegant. There wasn’t anything about her that called for improvement.

But it was her stillness that was most striking. Unlike every other passenger, she wasn’t fidgeting or eating or reading or writing. In her stillness there was the invisible movement that was all inside her head. She was thinking so hard she couldn’t do anything else. She was going over and over and over the same scene, replaying it in her head, letting the feelings seep out of her skin. Envy, regret, jealousy. Maybe she was planning her revenge. Or her comeback.

It occurred to me she might be asleep and I tried to steal a glance behind her glasses, after all I was only inches from her face. But it was dark enough in the cabin I couldn’t be sure about her eyes. They may have been closed but she was not asleep. Her body was not that relaxed. She was upright, and pulled together. In her sitting she was as organized as her purse.

At the end of the flight, a familiar sounding conversation started invading my ears from two or three rows behind. We were landing and I was not reading any longer, the turbulence of descent making it too hard to concentrate and keep my eyes on the same line. As I tried relaxing my body the man’s voice caught my attention.

In it I could hear everything there was to know. He was retired. He was lonely. He had no hair but he had once been fairly handsome though not entirely so and not anymore. He was more than friendly and charming, he was lecherous. But he was skilled at the game he was playing with the young woman seated next to him. He was asking her questions and pretending to understand her as a way of seducing conversation out of her. She was pretty, though not incredibly and was eager to make her way in the world, and in her line of business (was it marketing?) she had to be outgoing and charming and was always practicing her skills. She had no idea what he was doing. She saw him as an opportunity. You never know, someone once told her, who you might be sitting next to on a plane. He could be your next boss. She was not trying to impress him as much as she was impressing herself with how easily she answered his questions and how much smarter she sounded than she was used to. This was his gift and she was oblivious to it.

The plane hit the tarmac and I relaxed my outer layers to compensate for the reflexive fear. With my closed eyes I imagined the plane’s outer layers ripping off from the force of the wind as we screamed down the runway. The cabin swayed to the left and right, fishtailing a bit on the wet surface of the earth and then settling into its high speed brake from the flight. For those few moments it felt as if we might explode from the force. As we slowed down and rolled up to the gate at a speed that made me feel sane again, the conversation behind me resumed. He was wrapping it up and still trying to get something. After I took off my seat belt and stood up, I looked back at them. I was right and the contrast between their ages was much more startling in its visual truth. He was even older and she even younger than I thought. When they got up her face was starting to reveal some discomfort. It was in the edges of her smile. A forcing of the muscles. Perhaps she realized her mistake. That he was not just being friendly. He wanted something and had already taken it from her.

Spring Cleaning

2011-02-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

I was throwing out a pair of red sandals that I had worn a few times, but which always made me feel a little dowdy. A pair of black flats that I never wore, not even once, followed them into the large garbage bag that the Vietnam Vets will pick up next week. After that came a pair of white sandals that I liked so much I bought two pairs. They were pretty well worn but even those make me feel like someone I am not feeling like anymore. All three pairs have been in my closet for a ridiculous amount of time. I think I had the never-worn black flats three years, the white sandals five years and the red sandals eight years or more.

A lot of things ended up in the bag for the vets that had suffered long neglectful relationships with me, but none longer than a yellow silk scarf that I had only worn a few times.

A French girl named Catherine (pronounced Cat-trine) spent a summer with us as an exchange student when I was eight years old, and we all fell in love with her. She was beautiful and kind. She wore colorful silk scarves on her head. I was a covetous little girl and I coveted those scarves and she promised to send me my own when she got back home. I made her promise again and again, knowing, even at that age, that France is a long way away and that when she got there that she might very well forget her promise to the little American girl she had spent the summer with. Months and months later she might come across something that would remind her of the promise, but by then she would think the little girl had already forgotten and she might let it go, the way any nineteen year old girl lets things go.

But she didn’t and about six weeks after the end of the summer, a flat package arrived in Brooklyn from Catherine. Under the brown paper with my name carefully written out in her swirling French handwriting was a square, flat, thin cardboard envelope with a fancy design on the outside. It was cream colored with a long fine line running diagonally across the front of it, and a single French word in chocolate brown lettering underneath it. That must have been the name of the place where she purchased the scarf. I remember opening it and feeling surprised and disappointed. I was expecting to see a single square scarf just like the ones she wore on her head all the time, tied back around and under her long brown wavy hair that made her look like a milk maid or something. There was a square one that was pink, but it was not the same as the ones she wore. The pattern was much finer, less bold. And then there was another scarf that was not square. It was a long rectangle and it had a sort of artistic, painted, yellow and white design instead of the intricate pattern of small shapes, like the other one. I was intrigued by the yellow one but also disappointed in both because somehow they just weren’t close enough to the ones she wore and I wanted to look just like her. I folded both of the scarves back up and replaced them neatly inside the cardboard envelope and closed it. For a long time I never wore either or them. I didn’t try to be just like Catherine.

That envelope stayed at the bottom of my underwear drawer in Brooklyn, and ten years later when I went to college it came with me. As I packed it, now the age Catherine had been the summer she stayed with us, I still harbored the desire to wear the silk scarves on my head the same way she did. Maybe now I could be like her. But college life never seemed right for the silk scarves and when I moved back to Brooklyn four years later, into a tiny room in a shared apartment on Dean Street, the scarves were still lying quietly at the bottom of my underwear drawer. Sometimes, I would take them out and unfold them and think about how I might wear one of them. I would hold them up and fold them again, admiring their intense colors. Maybe I would even go so far as to try them on in the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror, folding the square one into a triangle, placing the long edge along the front of my hairline and pulling the two corners down along my face and then underneath my hair and tying them together. I would look at myself, trying to see if I was getting close to looking like Catherine did that summer, and I would pull the scarf down, dissatisfied, again.

I never lost hope for myself in those scarves and I know I tried on the yellow one once in a while too. And I never lost my affection for them either. My initial disappointment upon opening the cardboard package all those years before was long gone and replaced with a feeling that the scarves were totally unique and unattainable. My friends could not go out and buy scarves like these anywhere. They were from France and not just anywhere, they were from the little town where Catherine grew up. She said the town was famous for them. I knew they were special and I kept them folded up in their flat container, carefully hidden in my underwear drawer for many more years.

Today looking once again at the yellow scarf I noticed it was stained. The pink one had gone by the wayside at least a decade or two ago. The cardboard flat envelope I kept them in for so long was also missing. I remember its getting very worn finally, but I think I probably got rid of it and the pink scarf at the same time and kept the yellow one because I thought I might actually wear it. It had grown even more interesting with time.

I did wear it, finally, as a grown woman in her thirties. But not on my head. It was just long enough to tie around my neck and knot in what I felt was a European fashion that gave any outfit quite a lift. It was very bright light yellow, the color of the yolk from a store bought egg. There was white writing on the yellow, that looked like battique, which was unreadable. I wore it from time to time, to work, or to a party. Anytime I wanted to look smart and feel French. I may have worn it three or four times.

Tonight when I pulled it out of a drawer full of silk scarves and large wraps, none of which I ever wear, I dropped it in the pile of clothes for the Vietnam Vets without a lot of thought. I guess that is because I haven’t worn it for ten years and it had a stain on it and because I had long ago lost the desire to be just like Catherine.

Dreaming of the Albatross

2011-02-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

Today as I read Dr. Suess' "The Lorax" to Frances, I was reminded suddenly of my dream last night about the albatross. The giant bird flew through an opening of some kind, and when it flapped its enormous wings they became wild and unkempt like Dr. Seuss' birthday bird. In the dream I pointed it out to the girls exclaiming, "Look! An albatross!" knowing I was right without having seen one before. Then another one flew through the same opening, with a younger and smaller bird riding on its back.

I retold the dream to the girls and forgot about it until later, when I was working on my new book and suddenly thought of the metaphoric albatross. The one that hangs around necks. I had been writing about myself as a teenager, precisely the moment when I felt completely misunderstood by my father and step-mother. The albatross had me thinking how traces of that same feeling had traveled with me all these years and was still cropping up, unexpectedly. Specifically around the book I just published and am starting to promote. The one about grief. Maybe not coincidentally, it was my grief that felt unsupported all those years ago. It was the grief that I was taught (in silence) to ignore. And here I am, count them, 3o years later still in the business of acknowledging my own adolescent grief. It is amazing when I think about it, how resilient and tenacious the human emotional cycle can be.

When I was a little older, in my twenties, my step-mother told me the story of the albatross. How they mate for life. How they circumnavigate the globe in a year, landing back at the same nesting site annually. How they can fly a thousand miles in a day, searching the open sea for food. How they can live 50 -70 years. How they only lay one egg, both parents raise it together, and it takes a full year until that fledgling is able to fly and find its own food. I remember, as she told me the story, realizing how interested I was in story-telling, specifically in the the sounds and the rhythm of the words.

Today I looked up the origin of the metaphor, never having known it before, and the poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, written in 1797 by English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (all this from Wikipedia). It's a long tale about a seaman who kills an albatross, thought to be good luck, thus subjecting the ship to a curse. The crew make him wear the albatross around his neck as penance, but his real punishment is to wander the land retelling the story, of how all except he were lost at sea because of his thoughtless act. I like Wikipedia's definition of albatross metaphorically as "a psychological burden that feels like a curse."

That albatross of mine, the thirty year burden (that sometimes feels like a curse) that I have carried in various forms and which has plagued me in different ways until now, was flying in my dreams last night. Newly free from the old story, from passing it on to my young, and searching for someplace to land.

There is

2011-02-18T22:05:00.000-08:00

nothing more sublime than this old photo of Frances asleep

Three Days of Grief

2011-02-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

This week I did a lot of pretty interesting stuff. I took a three-full-day course on my favorite subject, which is grief. I also had an astrology reading and danced with a large snake. Really. I did all that in five days. But the grief training was the most exhilarating and life affirming of the three. Which is saying a lot, because it was a perfectly profound reading and I don't think there is anything quite like dancing with a snake.

During the grief training I kept wondering, what is it about grief that I find so fascinating? Why does it feel so good to talk about pain? I decided the answer was that everyone there was someone who knew a lot about the subject already. So there was a lot to learn from each other. And a lot to teach too. I was the only non-therapist or caregiver in the group. I was the only artist, so I got to talk a lot about my experience of making art and how grief informs my work and how my work expands those feelings of sadness or longing into something bigger than me. Something tangible that I can show or read or give to someone else to be experienced in an entirely new context that has nothing to do with me. And that in that process, the feelings, my feelings, are also freed.

But the main thing I came away with from listening and talking about grief is that the best medicine for grief is retelling the story of the loss. Who they were. How they died. What happened. The whole story.

I listened to the tantric dance teacher talk about snakes for a long time today. When she talked about their shedding I thought, grief can be a lot like shedding, after a while. For some, it may seem to disappear completely after a long time. But for most of us, grief is something that comes up, over and over again. It revisits periodically and when it does, it's an opportunity for shedding some of the feelings, again.

old shoes

2011-01-21T23:11:00.000-08:00

These shoes were purchased at Target and worn by both my daughters to this beautiful state of shabbiness. You could say they were loved to death. I don't think either girl thought they were any less beautiful when they grew out of them than the day they were purchased. They are pink with sparkles, and that made them both very happy.

Disney Day

2011-01-06T00:17:00.000-08:00

Sometimes Disneyland really is the most magical place on earth, and I don't say that ironically. I knew we were going to have fun. I was with my kids and my 21 year old niece Robin, who is visiting from New Zealand and who we haven't seen for 5 years. I don't know if it was the perfect weather or my niece, but I wasn't expecting such a fantastic day.

Disneyland used to bum me out. I would get caught up in all the waste, the commercialism, the obesity, etc. and just find the whole thing ugly and distasteful and corny. Of course I had to pretend to have fun, which only made it worse.

But in the last couple of years, I have gotten into the spirit of being there, mainly brought on by watching my daughter light up when she saw a princess or devoured a wad of cotton candy. And today I found myself able to just be there, to be carried by the girls excitement and to feed off the joy that almost every child I saw was showing on their fat little faces. Kids love Disneyland! They don't mind the racks of junky stuff that is being pushed on them, or the fatty food, or the sugary treats. They are fine with long lines and long walks from place to place. They know they are going to get on some thrilling rides, eat some delicious food and easily talk their parents into three souvenirs. They are set. And if they see some characters along the way, all the better. The whole day is about them having fun, and they know it. If I let myself be a care-free kid again, it's easy to have as much fun as they do.

What I realize after a few years of carting kids to places designed with them in mind like the zoo, the over-designed kid's "museum", the aquarium, and other theme parks, is that Disney has a way of making sure everyone is taken care of. The place is clean, well organized and designed, and the staff are not allowed to be rude or pushy. Even on a day like today, when it was absolutely jam packed with people, everything flowed pretty well. We never waited that long for a ride and we got on everything we wanted to. We found the good food (which exists if you know where to go) and managed to avoid over eating. Amazing!

I also had a great time taking pictures. I saw things I'd never noticed before. The way the pink and blue sky at sunset matched the castle. How many birds there were. How great the fake trees look next to the real ones. How photogenic Tarzan's tree house is. And all day, the winter sun made everything sparkle.

Finger in the Blender

2010-11-27T00:20:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-28T23:33:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-04T23:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-02T22:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-08T13:13:00.001-07:00

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

2010-09-03T15:38:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-20T14:40:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-06T00:07:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-25T22:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-18T22:09:00.001-07:00

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

2010-04-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-06T22:47:00.000-08:00

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.

Licefest

2010-02-16T21:46:00.000-08:00

Now that it is behind me, now that I am back to washing hair on a regular schedule, now that we can let the sheets stay on the bed for more than 24 hours, I think I can breathe. I think I can write about it.

I tried a few times before but I guess I was still too deep in the process of eradication to be able to tell the story of how lice invaded my life and somehow managed to teach me something. For me, in any hardship there has to be a lesson. Otherwise, what's the point? This lesson was not as clean as I wanted it to be, but then again, lice are not exactly clean.

What they do is force you to be fiercely clean. As a family we have never been cleaner. Normally I don't put much value on cleanliness. I'd rather save water than be squeaky clean and I don't believe in washing clothes after one wearing. But when the lice came, we had to change our habits. We had to wash our hair every day, and comb it with a magnifying glass nearby. We had to put our clothes directly in to the washing machine at the end of the day. We had to wash our sheets when we got out of bed in the morning. Towels had to be washed after each use. Our house became one big cleaning cycle. Everything, including our bodies, was in a tight and constant cycle of wash, dry and fold. Every inch of all of our heads were under constant scrutiny. Eradication was the goal and we were determined to reach it be any means necessary. If there were a more brutal solution we would not have hesitated to embrace it, but there really is only one solution: Constant cleansing.

Constant cleansing got old after a few days but there was no vacation. We had to keep going. After the first full week of it, as I was losing all sense of time and who I was anymore, Dave admitted that it was starting to get to him too. The kids were watching movie after movie, sometimes several a day as we spent hours on hair treatments and the endless combing combing combing. It was hard on them too. Especially Grace who had to spend twenty minutes every morning in the office for more scrutinizing before being admitted to school.

Constant cleansing. As I started to accept that we were being forced to change our habits I realized how hard that is. And it seems to be cropping up in every aspect of my life. I am having to change my posture to correct back problems. I have to change the way I deal with money because it's long overdue. I have to change the way I talk to my children because they are growing up. I have to change the way I engage in conversation because I am no longer willing to gossip. All of these aspects of my life (and the list goes on) are going through a lot of scrutiny and cleansing. I am finding that in order to really live my life the way I want to, I have to really change everything. Because as my teacher loves to say, "How you do anything is how you do everything," so if I'm going to change anything, I have to change everything. And that is what the lice had to teach me.

Lost Kitten

2010-01-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

It was Saturday and the whole family was going to the park for a picnic. As Dave was taking things out to the car, the girls were excitedly hovering around him as he exited the front door, and he barked for them to shut the door before the cat escaped. We have two kittens and one of them likes to run outside. Living in the hills above Los Angeles we have heard many stories of small animals disappearing, presumably hunted by the large coyote population. So we keep the cats inside, which goes against my nature. I like to let animals roam freely and I trust them to protect themselves and acquire their street smarts by having urban adventures. I had recently been letting Tabitha, the one that likes to escape, go out on her own and every time she got herself back in, or waited by the door to be let in. So I wasn’t too worried when I saw her making her dash for the door. I watched as she scooted out and ran to the little clump of plants out front, a favorite spot of hers. I told Dave I would get some food to lure her back in while he got the girls strapped into their seats.

When I got back outside with a dish of smelly wet cat food, I couldn’t find her in the bushes. I went all around, carefully looking between the plants, calling her name and tapping the dish. Where could she have gone? Anywhere was the answer. We looked around the periphery of the house, while the girls were getting upset inside the car and Dave and I were getting agitated with the frustration of her fast disappearance and the mounting fear of losing her. We left the food out and told the girls she would hopefully be there when we got back.

Moments after driving away from the house the girls had moved on to other concerns and my own was drifting away. We had a nice time at the park, eating salads and sandwiches on the grass and watching a local drill team practice their cheers. Grace rode her scooter around and around the playground while Dave napped and Frances and I watched the cheer leaders.

When we got home it took a minute before we remembered Tabitha was missing. We looked for her again around the edges of the property and I peeked into the neighbors’ yards. But no luck. She was nowhere. The rest of the day we left the front and back doors open and locked Twyla, the other kitten, in a back bedroom so that she would not try the same thing.

As it started to get dark we all began to worry some more. Each of us quietly blaming ourselves for not shutting the door fast enough and letting her escape. Dusk is when all good kittens need to be safe inside. I thought of Tabitha, almost full grown but still very much a kitten, out in the wilds by herself. I assumed she was probably a block or two away by now and maybe lost. I imagined she was frightened. I gave the girls a bath and Grace started making plans to get another kitten, something she has been angling for ever since we got these two six months ago. I explained that we needed to keep Tabitha’s space open for her to come back. “If we start talking about replacing her now, its like we are shutting the door on her.” Two hours later we reluctantly shut the front and back doors when we went to bed. Dave put more food out along with her bed which he put in a cardboard box with a big hole she could crawl through.

I went out to my studio to pray. I felt a horrible hole in my chest. I had not considered my attachment to Tabitha until that moment. I was the one who picked her out at the Humane Society. We had gone there to pick out two kittens, one for Grace’s birthday and another one to keep it company. I had a strong connection to this beautiful tabby when I looked into her eyes. I felt something. A surge of affection and warmth, and a kind of knowing. She reminded me of my cat Jane who had died two years earlier. Jane had an outsized lifespan, having been my companion for the twenty two years in between graduating from college and middle age. This kitten had the same spunk, the same kind of charisma that Jane had. I knew she would lead an interesting life. Grace picked a yellow Tabby and named her Twyla.

Grace named the one I picked out Tabitha, and she had become the difficult child. She grabbed food off the counter, she got into things she shouldn’t. She consumed rubber bands and knocked things over. It was like having a puppy in the house. Twyla on the other hand was sweet and demure, never getting into trouble and rarely biting our hands. Tabitha was feisty and had brought Frances to tears more than once by scratching her.

But I was not complaining about her as I prayed. I was making promises. I promised not to lose my temper when she attacked the broom while I swept. I promised not to scold her when she pawed the falling litter as I refilled her cat box, making it spill everywhere. I promised to play with her more and scratch her belly every chance I had. I was feeling how much I loved this kitten. Tears were streaming down my face as I spoke to her and pleaded with her to come back, telling her that we couldn’t live without her.

When I went to bed I felt an old familiar feeling in my heart. The sinking feeling that life as you know has been irrevocably changed. “I am worried about her,” my voice carrying all my sadness across the covers. Dave’s response was exactly how I felt: “It makes you realize how much a part of this family she really is.”

The next morning I opened the front door to see the empty box with her cat bed inside and the plate devoid of food. I let myself indulge in the fantasy that it was she who had eaten it. I was making breakfast for the girls when I heard the sound of a cat mewing. I knew this sound of a kitten in distress well and I knew it was her. I flashed to the time I had rescued Jane from a neighboring yard in Brooklyn so many years ago. I yelled to the girls, who were playing in the living room, “I hear Tabitha!” and ran outside to look for her, but she was no where. I could hear but not see her. I ran to the backyard and could hear her cries were close, but where was she? Finally I looked up and found her above me, in a tree! Oh she was beautiful and it was a magnificent sight to see her again. My heart sang, “Tabitha!” But she was in a bad situation. She was walking along a limb that was twenty feet over my head and too narrow for her to turn around on. She kept walking out further and further on the limb while she cried. The branch hung over our roof but it seemed too far for her to jump from my angle. I was thinking we would have to call the fire department when I told Grace, “Get Daddy!” Dave climbed up on the roof and stood at the edge, under the branch she was on. There was at least a foot between them, but he was able to pull the branch down and grab her out of the leaves. He held her inside his jacket as he climbed down the ladder.

She was a different cat now. She had spent a night out and she had survived. In my worried state I had allowed my mind to conjure images of her returning home with cuts and bruises and a piece of her ear missing, like Elsa in Born Free. But she was healthy, clean and beautiful as ever. And proud of herself, which she deserved to be. We were changed too. We have been showering her with love and affection ever since, now fully appreciating her in a way that we hadn’t been.

It has got me thinking about how deep love travels and how fast it takes root in the heart. I really had no idea how much I loved her until she went missing. The desperation I felt as I prayed for her safe return was more than I expected to feel for this newcomer, this kitten who we have had in our family for just a few months. The experience of a temporary loss was enough to wake me up to the fact that I love her fiercely, a fact that I had been sort of ignoring. I suppose, looking back, I was reluctant to love another cat as I had my old friend Jane. And it was a reminder of how strong love is. How quietly it can grow without making me notice it until I have to. And how astounding, to have so much love, and to feel it so completely.

Holiday Miracles

2010-01-12T21:44:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays I found myself enjoying a lot of sweets, a lot of meats, and a lot of, hmmm, how shall I categorize the rest…you know what I’m talking about. Breads, pastries, cheeses, dairy products, pasta. White food. That’s it. I generally eat pretty well, consuming a fair amount of fresh fruits and vegetables every day to offset my habit of eating pasta, bread, meat, and dairy products, including butter, butter, butter. I was having a good time, socializing, celebrating, working hard and enjoying all the many gifts of food bestowed on my family. As a rule I don’t eat candy, but Santa Claus put some delicious chocolate morsels in my stocking and I was on a roll so I just kept going. Then it was a road trip to the Bay Area, late at night mind you, so Dave and I needed to stay awake, and what better way than to continue the gluttony. Up at my in-laws house the menu was not in my jurisdiction so I gladly continued to eat whatever was placed before me. I had my share of fresh foods, but by then I was way more into pancakes and pizza than I was persimmons.

I have to admit I let my meditation practice slide a little while we were up there too and I guess that didn’t help matters. There was a price to be paid: I began to lose my focus. I started to have major doubts about my work as a healer and as an artist (writer, what have you). I started to feel down on myself, which immediately translated to down on everyone else. There I was, sitting in the passenger seat next to Dave as he drove us back to LA a day before the end of 2009 and feeling just plain negative. I had this old familiar feeling of being annoyed and I couldn’t wait to be somewhere else but in the car with Dave. Then this miracle happened. I recognized what I was doing. I saw that I was being lazy, sitting there in the passenger seat, criticizing him. And I saw how to stop. I just did. I looked at him and I opened up to all the love I have for him and he for me and I felt all the love that we created, now sleeping with mouths open in their car seats behind us and I watched the negative layer just get sloughed off like dead skin flicked out the window of our fast moving car. I was back in my new skin and I felt grateful that I know how to do that and sort of amazed at how easy it has become.

The next few days I still felt challenged however. No matter how I tried to get on track I kept finding myself wasting time, spinning my wheels, running in circles, not getting to the important work. I would sit down to do something that was a high priority and find myself paralyzed, just sitting there staring at the piles on my desk or the mess in my studio. Feeling defeated.

The other miracle that happened over the holidays was my sister. She gave me a book that is now my favorite about food. It is called “I Am Grateful” and it is written by the people who have some restaurants in SF and LA called “Café Gratitude.” When she gave it to me she explained that she loves this restaurant and that she always feels good after she eats there. This was a surprise to her because she is not a fan of vegetarian food and this is a vegan live food restaurant. Meaning nothing is cooked. I missed that part initially and thought she was handing me a vegan cookbook which I appreciated because I have been cooking more meals that are devoid of animal fat for my family. Before the holidays I was anyway. I didn’t really do more than glance at the book until after we got back to LA.

Right away I had to cook a meal for a family who just had a baby and something was telling me to make it out of my new cookbook. I looked through it and was thrown off by all the preparation involved. I didn’t realize it was not a “COOK” book when she handed it to me, but now as I read it I got the picture. I felt a little intimidated by the nut cheeses and the “rice” made of Daikon. But I kept looking at it and looking at it and finally I found two recipes that I felt I could do. One was like a stir-fry, but instead of cooking the vegetables you marinate them. And the other was a soup, that was really just carrot juice and avocado blended together with a lot of herbs and spices. The day I set aside to make the meal was a busy one and I found myself putting it off until late in the afternoon even though I knew all the prep work was going to take extra time. I was procrastinating which is funny because once I started I immediately felt joy and excitement coming through me that was intoxicating. There I was, up to my elbows in shredded vegetables, liquid concoctions, chopped garlic, minced ginger, and my Cuisinart, my blender and my juicer all covered in colorful muck, and I was having a ball. Dinner was an hour late (for us) but I had my meal all set to deliver to our friends in the morning when I finally sat down to eat. The soup was divine. Spicy, full of flavor and I could taste the prana as it traveled down my grateful throat. I was so excited I kept asking Dave what he thought and he kept answering cheerfully though he doesn’t like to be asked anything repeatedly. I guess the food was inspiring him to humor me. The stir fry was delicious, satisfying and full of a variety of flavors and textures. After the meal I asked Dave (again!) what he thought and he said, “Well, I’m not tired.” He often lays down for 15 or 30 minutes after we eat, but he said instead of the usual post-dinner malaise he felt ready for action. I did too!

It wasn’t until today, four days after that meal (and many more like it) that I made the connection between what I was eating and how I was feeling. I am not usually asleep in this area. I pride myself on knowing a lot about food and nutrition, but I was ignoring what I know and as a result I was eating and feeling crap. Ever since that meal, the first really involved raw meal I have prepared myself, I have been much more mindful about what I am eating. And I have wanted mostly straight up, minimally prepared foods. I am not going totally raw and I probably never will, but I have certainly learned that my body and soul are telling me I need to continue this effort to make entirely raw meals once a week and the rest of the week make it a lot raw. I feel it. And I feel great.

We Are Laughing

2010-01-04T00:51:00.000-08:00

We are laughing he and I
On the phone
As I put milk back in the refrigerator
And he tells me how they would accept our “scrappy” crayon drawings as birthday gifts, hang them with magnets on the ice box, and later when we weren’t around sneak them into the trash.

That’s what we do, I laughed
And lied
Thinking of the large file box we have filled with the drawings Grace and Frances have made.
I am selective, I admit, and I do throw things out, but only the things that hold no value to the kids or to us
Everything else is gold

But he is my father and he is old now and I wouldn’t dream of contradicting him
Not now
Not then
I never really have except for the days, so long ago now, when I brought home boyfriends I knew he would disapprove of and with whom that was the main attraction in the first place.
He has trouble walking now

He is calling to tell me he hasn’t been out for days because the sidewalks are slippery with ice
And to ask me what I want for my birthday.
My birthday? I am turning 46
I don’t want anything but a ticket home to see him
But I don’t ask for that
I don’t really want him to buy me plane tickets anymore
I used to, and I used to feel he owed me that much and would feel this tiny victory when he would
But not anymore.

I miss him. And the distance we have grown so used to still hurts
Enough to wish things were different in moments when I am faced with some glaring truth about life and how finite it is
Some moment in a hospital when the only person I really want by my side is him
And the ones when I imagine flying across the country because he needs me
But when the weather is good and life rolling along in its paces I know that it was not really a choice that led me here but some invisible force pulling me to my husband, my children, my career in art and whatever else I call it

Still, tears fall when I get off the phone with him
Our birthdays are coming up and he is 40 years less eight days older than I
so we hit milestones together. Usually the call goes something like:
So, are you ready to be thirty?
If you are ready to be seventy!
Or,
How does it feel to be turning forty-five?
Like I’m halfway to fifty.
Better than halfway to ninety!
But forty-five IS halfway to ninety! And we both laugh even harder

But this is not one of those and we don’t even mention our coming ages. We don’t talk about a lot of things anymore. The past is no longer excavated. I could still ask him about my mother and I even thought about it tonight. I thought about asking him if she had a temper when we were little because I have had to tame the one that my children sometimes ignite. I guess I am thinking he might tell me she had a terrible temper and then I can be relieved for two reasons. First because I don’t remember it so that might mean my kids won’t remember mine. And second because that would place it somewhere in my heritage and otherwise I have no idea where this pressed down anger that wants to explode in odd moments is coming from.
But I don’t ask.
I know the answer. He will say he doesn’t remember her losing her temper and I will be left to decide whether she really didn’t or whether he, like I, just blocked it out.

There was a line connecting so many things that happened today and I started to see it as I was heading into the bedroom to tell Dave about something flowering in Grace that I witnessed at the park this afternoon. I saw the line clearly connecting that story and the one that unfolded minutes ago as I put her to bed and she told me she missed my father and in the same breath that she loved a bright star in the sky. Between the painting of the Milky Way I stood in front of today that was so bold it was as if the guy had nothing stopping him from trying to paint what he felt in his heart, and the laughter I shared with my father over throwing drawings in the trash. The thread was about shifting perspectives and how I am seen by my parents, and by my children.

A week ago, for Christmas I received a round little keepsake box from my mother-in-law (who loves to keep things) and on it, it said: “To the world you are one person, but to one person you are the world.”

Down Time

2009-12-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

I am in my post-Christmas peace time, doing nothing all day. We are visiting family who take such complete care of us, I don't have to do anything. It is like taking Christmas afternoon when everyone sits around reading new books or instructions for figuring out new toys, periodically picking at the ham in the kitchen or popping sugar cookies, and extending it out for days. That has been the picture. Doing nothing but zoning out, hanging out and spacing out. I knit a scarf for no one in particular and read a National Geographic cover to cover. Other than that, I have eaten and slept.

Today we drove out to Point Reyes and looked at the mighty Pacific. The sky was gray but the hills were florescent green all the way out. There were stands of Coastal Cypress trees all tall, dark and handsome, and lots and lots of the little coastal deer lazing around as if they've never had any reason to run. Big hawks were hanging out on phone lines, fence posts and tree branches, outnumbering the buzzards. We drove to the end and Grace and I got out of the car and climbed up the little road to the light house. From there you can look down on unadulterated coastline that stretches for miles. It is a gorgeous flat sandy beach with nothing on it, and cliffs along the edge with nothing but rolling green above. There was huge surf making long white lines of foam that floated back out to sea and broke up to look like pods of whales might be making them from below. We didn't see whales but they were out there.

I didn't bring my camera or a sketch pad or notebook. I just soaked it up. There was nothing to do. The endless view of gray on gray with the lighthouse's lonely fog horn and the crashing of waves on rocks far below was enough.

How to find Holiday Spirit

2009-12-21T21:41:00.000-08:00

I heard people singing in the distance as I was checking my email tonight. After the kids are asleep it’s my time to catch up on everything and I was in my world of blogging and emailing as it slowly dawned on me that carolers were approaching. My first instinct was strange: I wanted to hide. Huh? When I opened the curtain I saw people in hats and sweaters holding candles in a loose grouping that was half standing, half wandering down the street, singing. I got up and got Dave and we stepped onto the front porch to watch as this large group of dark figures with candles asked if we had any requests. I couldn’t think of anything because anything was what I wanted to hear. I just wanted to hear them sing some more. It was such a gift and such a shift to be invited out of my head and into the night, the cool air, under the stars to stand among these strangers, my neighbors, and watch their slow meandering down the street as they spread wide swaths of musical cheer. What a difference to be out of my room where I sit on my computer supposedly communicating with the entire world by watching youtube videos of snowball fights in NY and reading blurbs of old acquaintances on facebook, and face to face with these beautiful people singing to us. I think the attention of all those voices, all those hearts on us and our house was what made my first impulse to run. I am not used to receiving that much sweet wholesome plain goodness from people. My people. Not old classmates in Connecticut, but my neighbors who hand my children candy on Halloween and sing to us tonight. The flesh and blood that sleeps and eats and breathes in the houses around my house. The people who surround me this day. This moment.

Here’s to my neighbors. Here’s to singing and the way it so easily opens my heart. Here’s to all that this season is meant to remind us about:
Love, peace, generosity, gratitude and joy.

water flow

2009-12-12T23:42:00.000-08:00

The sound of water dripping off the trees and the smell of wet mud takes me far from this huge city where I live. It lands me in these other places. Ranches. Lake cabins. Tent camping. Small towns I know as well as my hands. Pictures I've lived a thousand times. The way the air feels on my skin is enough to make my suburban backyard remind me of a jungle I visited only once but which stayed lodged in my chest somewhere as vivid as the places I grew up in. Why is the rain so potent now?

For two days it has rained. The southern California ground is so dehydrated it barely understands how to absorb all the water. It rolls away, down cement waterways filled with trash and trees. I live in a strange place that I love dearly and that changes faster than any place I've ever known. It pushes me to move away and pulls me back to stay. It has little patience for my nostalgia, but romanticizes its own short history. It is a city of contrast and contradiction and when it rains it practically turns upside down. The sky is so blue I don't recognize it and for a minute I think I live somewhere wild and free.

rainbow

2009-12-10T23:55:00.000-08:00

In her homework Grace writes:
Did you know rainbows are made of light and water? Did you know they only happen when it rains and the sun is shining? Well it's true!

It is raining now and it is dark.

And our roof is leaking.

And the dripping into bowls is fascinating to the cats.

Living here in So Cal rain becomes more like a rainbow. Rare and beautiful. We live without it mostly and some years we hardly get a drop. So when it comes and its more than a trickle or a light little mist, when it's real and heavy and fills up bowls on the floor and buckets outside, I say hallelujah.

I say thank you.

the m word

2009-12-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

Some little birds have been bugging me lately that I have something to say about money. (Who me?) I have never been very good with it, in my opinion, but according to my sister I have always had a healthy attitude toward it. When we were kids and we started getting an allowance, she opened a savings account and started depositing weekly. I saved my 50 cents all week to buy something for a dollar the second week. That is about as good as I have ever been at saving.

But with that tendency to spend I also had a certain trust that there would always be more coming. I have never been a reckless shopper and I don't enjoy excess, but I have no qualms spending it in order to live the life I want. Of course nowadays money is a lot tighter so I am being forced to carefully consider every choice I make and really ask myself, is this important to my life or is this just something I've grown accustomed to having?

To me there is a kind of magic in money. When I lived on a tight budget in the past, money felt like something I had to fight for. I had to work a job that didn't pay enough and the money stream felt more like a trickle out of a rusty pipe. Years later as I expanded into a wife and mother and the financial organizer for the household, I started to see that money would show up when and where we needed it to. There was synchronicity in the way it would appear just at the right time and in the right amount for what we needed. Those were the days of the bubble and it seemed like so many things were growing value, especially real estate where people were making a killing flipping houses in no time. Money felt easy and I started to feel like we were joining the ranks of those who didn't have to worry about it anymore.

I still think that the way it flows or doesn't has everything to do with how I am feeling about it. But I have also learned that having more money does not free you from worrying about it. As the entire world has frozen up around spending and many are struggling to survive, I too have been feeling fearful and worried. And wouldn't you know, money has gotten quite scarce. People aren't buying the way they were and we are feeling it. But I know that it is all just the magic of money showing me how to live, yet again. Responsibly above all. But also with faith that I will always be supported just as I have always been. And even if major changes are in store for us, we will not change the way we live or stop doing what is important to us.

I had to call my sister today. I was telling her how I've been feeling a little nervous about money and debt and the future. She was very reassuring. She said, "Worrying is not the answer. Just stay on top of it, and you'll be fine. You always have been!"

Losing My Shit

2009-11-29T00:10:00.000-08:00

Today I lost my cell phone. Actually I lost it two days ago but hadn't noticed because we were up north visiting family and they live in a beautiful spot and like most peaceful quiet places there is not even a glimmer of hope of service within several miles of their house. So I didn't notice that it was missing until we were driving home today and I traced my movements back to the last place I had used it and it was the bathroom of the Chevron we had visited the day before. I had called my sister to tell her we were running late for our rendez-vous because we had to stop for gas, and I have a vague memory of setting it down on a toilet paper holder so that I could wipe a juvenile bottom.

It's gone. Called the Chevron and they had not seen it so someone must have swiped it. It was a nice phone. Not something I really needed actually and I thought today about replacing it with just a simple cheap phone.

But it also got me thinking about all the losing of things I have been doing. Just a few months ago, again driving down from up north, I lost my wedding ring. And before that I lost my engagement ring, presumably when we were robbed and I lost my computer too. It is all very personal stuff. The computer and the cell phone holding all kinds of personal information (and images of my daughters) and the rings obviously holding a lot of personal symbolic meaning. All replaceable, but none easily or without a major investment of money and time.

I bought a new computer, a much nicer model than the predecessor, but the fingers seem not to need replacement rings. Not yet anyway. I love my husband and the wedding rings need to be rethought, perhaps updated to the more advanced married people we have become. I need a phone but not something fancy when all I use it for is calling and keeping appointments. Perhaps I should think of myself as a snake, shedding a crisp outer sheath that was cramping my style.

It's interesting. Now I have to tell everyone and ask them to email me their numbers since I never write down or memorize numbers anymore. We used to do that.

cruising

2009-11-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

As we drove north on the I-5 the other day I was watching people zoom by in their cars. Sometimes they would almost be floating next to me, each in their own private universe, unaware of my gaze and of our parallel speeds and trajectories. I saw people everywhere, buzzing along in their little worlds when we are all actually going somewhere together. Our seemingly separate movements and choices constantly affecting everyone around us, sometimes only inches from colliding.

I had been giving myself a hard time for a number of days, and as I watched the woman in the black car floating along next to our silver one, something told me it was time to give myself a break. Time to get into the habit of giving myself (and therefore the people I love...okay, my husband) a break too. I criticized him a few times that day. Granted we were locked in a car together for eight hours with our kids, but still, as I listened to the way I was correcting him or judging his actions I saw that when I just pause for a moment to love myself, then I can just love him too. I can immediately release any need for him to be other than who he is.

I was starting to see something as we barreled up the 5, about my ideas around failure. And success. There was this gnawing feeling that had been following me around that I was on the wrong path, that I had made some mistakes and bad choices, and that I should be trying to do something smarter than what I am doing right now. That being a healer is a joke. That I will never make a living that way. Never be able to support myself creatively. These thoughts had been following me around for the past couple of weeks. Weeks in which I kept noticing or running into friends who I consider “successful” female artists and I kept seeing myself as some kind of failure. Or at least of limited potential. But as the woman in the next car floated by she gave me something rich. A sense of peace I had been missing and I asked myself: What is really standing between you and believing you are a “success”?

It's so simple. All anyone who has enjoyed success has ever had to begin with was a simple uncompromising belief in what they were doing. I might have thought for a while that I'd been up against a lot in terms of my demons, but I really have no excuse anymore. I see my gifts and what to do with them more clearly than I ever have. And to cultivate that belief into something unwavering and constant I have only to make a subtle shift in my habitual thinking. I need only to catch myself every damn time and shift lanes to that trajectory of confidence. The one that finds me every morning. The one that is flying 80 miles an hour through the blighted San Joaquin Valley singing Beetles songs. The one with five lists on each desk of projects I am working on. I don’t need to drive down that dead end that I know so well. And when I find myself there, it is not that hard to notice I have gone the wrong way and turn around. Get up that ramp to the freeway again.

Feeling Full

2009-11-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

Today is turkey day and I am in a land of wild turkeys, spending a couple of days with my husband's family...well my family too! I love it up here. They live in a beautiful spot in a beautiful part of this beautiful state of California. My three year old and I took a walk this morning and I breathed in the moist air, so different from the air down where we live in Pasadena. Here it is moist and full of the smell of giant trees that surround the house. Very tall pines and lots of oaks and layers of fern beneath that and mosses of every color under that. We walked and stopped and looked under rocks and found grubs and other tiny creatures and then we walked some more and looked out over the grand vista from up on this beautiful hill and there we saw a hawk just landing on an electric pole and two deer standing along the side of the road eating grass. We had earlier communed with the bull that lives here and some lamas that also share the property so we had all these interactions with four legged creatures wild and domestic. To my daughter there is no difference. She is entrances by all life no matter the size of it. She was as happy feeding the bull as she was touching a slug. We didn't see turkeys today but they were on my mind because it is Thanksgiving and because I have seen them here many times before.

Turkeys represent gratitude and I was feeling very thankful as I carried her back to the house, even while my arms ached from her weight. She is too heavy for me to carry very long but she was tired and I was really enjoying it. I was thanking God for the moment and for being able to still carry her in my arms. It was just a beautiful day, the sun was warming my cheeks, her body was soft and wiggly, her face fully happy. We had seen so much on our little walk. We had dug under some velvety leaves to feel the moist earth and smell its rich fragrance. We had picked flowers. We had met a dog. And there we were again, stopping at the side to get some weeds for Ferdinand the bull and the way the tall grass was bending over the little stream and the emerald green moss was a perfect little art installation. This is one of my favorite places because it is so stunning and I am very grateful to be here this day. The greatest artist is making installations all around me and she is a lot of fun to watch.

Doctor's Visit

2009-11-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

I never did meditate today but I had a moment of truth, actually two, worth noting.

The first was while I was in a doctor’s office with Grace, listening to an ENT (ear, nose and throat specialist) talk about her physicality. I was looking at Grace and a question I had written the night before, in connection with a project I am working on, popped into my head: Do you feel you are changing your lineage? Grace has inherited many physical traits from my side of the family and we were in that office to discuss her tonsils, which are, to borrow from the doctor’s polite phrasing, “quite generous.”

The reason we were seeing this ENT was because her dentist, her pediatrician and a speech therapist had all recommended we have her tonsils looked at. All were concerned because of their size and because last spring I told them all that she snored, slept with her mouth open, had circles under her eyes and seemed a little low on energy. She also had a tooth that wouldn’t let go, even though the adult replacement had already come in. It was sticking out like a shark’s tooth, at a 90 degree angle.

But over the summer that tooth fell out. It finally let go all on its own and all the other issues seemed to be resolving themselves one by one. The snoring stopped, she stopped breathing through her mouth, the circles had dissipated and her energy was good. As the doctor spoke, assessing Grace as the picture of health, I looked at her wondering if she was simply growing out of things, or if any of those shifts might have something to do with me, and all my changes.

The summer was the beginning of a period of deep healing for me, and ever since I have enjoyed excellent health and so has the entire family. (Okay, I was sick for a couple of days in early fall, but it was nothing more than a cold.) As I have become more and more disciplined with my spiritual practice I have never felt better physically. My kids seem healthier too and are getting along with each other better. In fact we are all getting along beautifully. We laugh a lot more than we used to. I was thinking about how my own personal healing was healing the whole family, particularly Grace, who is a lot like me. And as I looked at her sitting there, beautiful and radiant, I was looking beyond her, seeing my sister who had to have her tonsils removed at age twelve and was always suffering from colds and hay fever. I thought about my mother, my grandmother, aunts and cousins, all long gone but many of whom were creative women who put family first and never got around to really expressing themselves. Grace comes from a long line of women who were artists and teachers, full of life but not belief in themselves, and many of whom died fairly young.

On the way home we stopped for gas. As it was pumping and Grace was sitting inside the car I felt full of love. I was thinking about the lineage and the idea or the image of changing it. I let my heart open and started to look at everything around me with love. The other people filling their tanks, the oil stained cement, even the smell became beautiful. The scene at the gas station is normally a place that I don’t think of anything except getting through it. But as I stood there, fully in the moment, loving everything around me, a pigeon walked right in front of me. It was completely white. A beautiful white dove, just like the bird that flew back to Noah with a piece of green in its beak. A symbol of peace, and love.

My Desk

2009-11-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

My desk my desk my desk

Oh how it plagues my mind

I wish it was a place to write, to think, to create but alas

It is piled high with bills, paid and unpaid and question-marked.

I take a ton of paper

Received daily in the mailbox

And knowing not how to wrangle it

Dispose of it there.

There there there on my desk

My poor creaky IKEA desk

How it sags in its imperfect joints under the weight

Of all that needs doing.

Does it scream and yell and beg for attention like those short people I live with?

No,

It sits quietly

Waiting for me to notice.

It watches how I do the dishes

Sweep sweep sweep the floors

Obsessively pulling shit from cat boxes

Yet ignore its dusty and disheveled surface.

It watches while I do most anything

writing, drawing, designing up a storm

Planning meals and cooking them into black clouds

Staring at anything but the to do lists, the filing and the God knows what is really in those high rising piles.

It marvels at all the ways I use up energy to swirl in a hurricane of activity

And waits…waits….waits...for me

To notice something is stuck

Nothing is actually moving.

That all that flurry of goings on

Is plugged up in the drain hole

Unable to flow out and down and through to where it needs to go

Because the bottom is clogged with the hairy mess on my desk.

Finally finally FINALLY it hits

That the desk can also be-- must be part of the creative tempest

Has to be loved into organized files and concrete action plans

In order for any rainbows to land.

making beds

2009-11-07T22:42:00.000-08:00

I have been preparing two beds for planting this week. I made a small one for flowers that is right up against the wall of my studio. It is just a long narrow rectangle of dirt that had accumulated gardening tools and an old hose and a fish tank we didn't have any place for. I kept looking at the spot and thinking it would be nice to have flowers growing there. So yesterday I moved the junk, including some bricks that I had neatly laid last year and started digging. The dirt was dry as sand and uniform in texture and color. I dug down a ways and then started adding amendments. Some food, some worm casings and a whole lot of compost. Then I added water in a slow steady stream to make it hospitable for the seeds. I let it sit for a day and when I went back to it I was pleased to see how good it looked. The dirt was dark and moist and had a lot of varied texture to it. I felt it with my hands and dug in to test how far the moisture went down. I made holes with my fingers and dropped in the beautiful Calendula seeds I had. They have a curled crescent shape and a little stair step down the outside edge that reminds me of ferns and other things prehistoric. I placed a couple in each little hole and then covered them up, putting them to bed, tucking them in just as I would my own children. Then I opened a seed packet of Snapdragons and broadcast those along the back of the bed. I whispered sweetly to them all before spraying them with a fine mist.

Today I took the girls out to the garden to plant vegetables. We lifted the fabric cover off the other bed that I have been working on. The soil was gorgeous. This bed is a raised rectangle that has a lot of intention built into it already. It has been resting for many months after I turned a vigorous cover crop under to compost last spring. I had covered it with Avocado leaves as mulch, and just recently removed them. Underneath was moist fragrant dirt. I dug my hands in and felt satisfaction wriggle through every cell of my body. The scent of earth, rich and moist rose up my nose and said, I am ready! I evened out the slight hills that had formed from wind and small animals over time and I added a little more dirt and compost.

Before digging holes for the seeds, I had the girls sprinkle a little plant food over the surface. We mixed it in and then we used our six hands to smooth out the surface again. It smelled so good and felt so nice that we all fell into a trance and could have probably kept on smoothing all afternoon. Then we had fun poking holes and dropping the seeds in, marveling at their different shapes and the tiny patterns that some of larger ones had. Cilantro seeds, it turns out, look like little beach balls with stripes.

Preparing beds for planting is in some ways more satisfying than planting the seeds. The planning, the working of the soil, and finally smoothing it out is as fun to me as setting up a drawing or thinking about a story. It is setting a stage. And describing it this way makes me picture a body lying down. Mine perhaps. Then working on it. Setting it up for optimal growth and an abundant harvest.

more rats

2009-10-26T21:14:00.001-07:00

This summer we had rats in our walls. They are gone but now we have them in the garden. And they've always been in the trees. Rat medicine. It must be good for me. Everything else is running so well. We are all well and happy. The house is full of life and activity. Work is great. The rats must be in line with all of that. Or maybe not. There is a nagging quality to this rat thing. Especially the close encounters. It's one thing to hear them scratching in the walls and quite another to have them jumping out of a bin a few inches from my face. I mean, really? Must I see them that close up to get the benefits of their medicine? It's a big pill to swallow, this rat pill. It's got me feeling as though I am missing something. Some detail is eluding me. Like that I am really bugged about something I am not admitting to. Denying some part that wants to be screamed about. But what? Rat medicine is definitely tricky. It's a dirty little secret hidden away. Maybe its the pile of bills on my desk, or the to do list that is getting a bit unmanageable or the long over due maintenance on the house. But I'm not sure. I think it might be something a bit deeper. A bit more entrenched. I am going to keep investigating this rat medicine stuff and see if I can't discover what it's all about.

Growing Dirt

2009-10-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

I thought I could write about composting a few months ago when I started this blog. But then my compost pile got soggy and smelly and I realized I had no idea what the hell I was doing making dirt. I was making a stinking pile of rotten food that would probably kill any plant I put it on.

I started over and even though I was tempted to take a class on composting (go ahead gardeners, laugh), I never did. I figured it out, damn it, and I can now boast that I know how to grow dirt! And it's not that hard. The trick is to follow my intuition (which is getting sharper all the time) and work with good old trial and error. I now have two composting bins working full time that are moist, smell like rich earth and are warm to the touch. I also have piles of leaves and other garden waste that I am accumulating to help make more dirt.

No this is not a HOW TO because composting is sort of like learning to drive. I can't explain it in words. I'd have to show you. One thing I can say is that dirt is built from the top down. Its all about layering and getting the proportions right. And whatever goes on top will find its way down into the dirt. At the bottom, you get some mighty nice black stuff to put in your garden.

Yes I am writing this to toot my own horn because I am so proud of myself for figuring it out, but also to say it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. You definitely have to trust yourself. I think that's the main ingredient after the kitchen scraps and the dry leaves. I also helps to have a lot of garden waste lying around that's already decomposing to throw in.

My compost piles are full of surprises. I love looking in and feeling the temp and the moisture and deciding what it needs. One day I decided the pile was dry and I started watering it. Next thing I knew a rat was flying up and out of the bin like an escapee making a break for it. Yes I was grossed out, but I just decided that bin would be for the rats to enjoy and left it at that. After all, they're just helping my compost along. But I don't think I will be putting the stuff from that bin on my vegetables...

Desert Morning

2009-10-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Roadrunner

Runs across my path

Long tail and legs

He is big

His call is funny sounding

And bubbles up a smile

Smile at the bird

Who tells me I am right

I am at the center

I have arrived

Guns me to run

To get it done

Up comes the wind

Circling my spot

And lifting my clothes

From dry skin

Opening the time

And bleeding love out

Desert sun

Releases a bluer sky

The mountains like paper cutouts

Crisp along the edge

At night the stars

Settle on their shoulders

This open space

That appears to have nothing

That only likes simple shapes

And plants with tiny leaves

Like a vacuum it sucks the words out

Spilling onto page after page

Like a bleached out can in the sand

With a lizard hiding inside

This land is full

of surprising stories

Of disintegration and running fast

Taking the heart up in a snap of heat

Potato Volcano

2009-10-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

Last night for dinner I served mashed potatoes. I was in a hurry and didn't make a volcano out of Grace's pile of mash, like I usually do. Oh no, actually I did. I made a hurried version, taking about two seconds to shape it with my fingers and a fork as Dave was carrying it
to the table. But there was no melted butter lava.

She didn't complain but when she saw there were leftovers she asked if she could have a volcano in her lunch the next day. I looked at the potatoes and thought about how well the mash volcano would hold up through its journey to school in Grace's backpack and decided it would be better if I gave them to her in a plastic container and let her make the volcano herself. She was very excited about it and we came up with a solution for the lava: Thinned ketchup. "It will be perfect!" she screeched carrying her plate to the sink. But what to put the volcano on was still an issue to be solved. A plate would need to be washed after lunch and she didn't like that idea. I suggested a square of aluminum foil which she could just fold up and put back in her lunch
bag. She liked it.

So at dinner tonight, I asked her how it went with the volcano at lunch and a cloud passed over her face. "I couldn't do it" she said glumly, slowly reliving the full weight of her lunchtime disappointment. "I started to make it and the teacher came over and told me not to play with my food."

Ah manners. Too bad we don't teach her those at home.

Ruby Red Beauties

2009-10-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

My tomatoes are the last man (men) standing in my garden now. They are (I swear) producing the most delicious cherry tomatoes I have ever eaten. There is some kind of magic between the love I give them as I water and pick them and tell them how gorgeous they are (because they are!), and the sweet taste they bestow on my tongue when I pop one in my mouth. What is better than that squirt of pure tomato juice fresh from the vine? I love the way the skin actually holds the faint scent of soil on it which finds its way up my nose as I pass one after the other into my waiting mouth. I just finished a whole bowl. These little ruby beauties have been deeply nourishing me for the last couple of weeks. I always make a meal out of them and say thank you. Sometimes I saute them in a pan with a little garlic and put them on toast. Other times its just slicing them and sprinkling them with olive oil, salt and lots of basil, the other plant that is flourishing still. But this time it was just a bowl of them, straight up, now empty, with only a pile of their curly green little jester hats left at the bottom.

Birthday

2009-09-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

Leaning over the sink, I was crying and making food for a celebration of the birth of my youngest daughter Frances, who is three today. The tears were just flowing freely on the wave of emotion that was pressing up and out from my chest and throat, instigated by a favorite song, while I cut through plump strawberries and Dave busily cooked up a storm all around me. The girls were in the next room enjoying the treat of a weekend movie, and I was overcome with joy just thinking about her birth and what a gift she is. Three years old and she is the funniest person I know. The moment that was coming back to me as I sliced fruit for the party that would start very shortly was the moment when I first held her, immediately after she left my body and entered the world. "Remember how beautiful she was?" I asked Dave, my face wet and smiling. "Yup" he answered, throwing sliced scallion onto a pizza he was designing. I fell into the vivid memory of her beginning. She was stunning. She was so full of being herself. The most amazing thing about watching children grow into themselves is the fact that they are who they are from the moment they are born. Life is just a process of growing into who we really are. Who we have always been. That's it.

Back to the Garden

2009-09-13T21:47:00.001-07:00

So I was driving along the freeway in Los Angeles where I live, and amidst all the concrete I was thinking about lack. The lack of green around me. Then I noticed all the trees along the sides of the road and some huge Eucalyptus that I have always loved, came into view. I was thinking about my garden and how excited I was to plant it and also afraid because I have always thought I lacked a "green thumb." But I took the plunge and planted a garden last spring and was thrilled to watch it grow and produce food. I planted it with a lot of intention of becoming an urban farmer who grows and trades produce with her neighbors. But instead I found myself looking at the many bean and squash plants that never really made it, like a failure. I wasn't looking at the corn that had grown or the tomatoes that were exploding around me, I was just looking at the things that were dying or dead. (My attraction to morbidity follows me everywhere.) I was worried that the corn wasn't getting enough sun because the plants weren't tall. I had aphids.

Finally it dawned on me that all was well in the garden. A friend had drummed it into my head that "your garden is a reflection of you," and I realized that if I was fine, so was my garden. The point is to be with it, wherever it is. To be with the ones that are dying and to recognize that as part of learning and part of life. The feeling of something lacking disappeared as I decided to be grateful for the plants that are flourishing. But most of all to see it for what it is, to appreciate what it has taught me and to make changes accordingly. Plant the corn on the other side next year, and give the pumpkins more room, for instance. But mostly just be with what is. As long as there is growth, nothing is lacking. This morning for breakfast I had a bowl of tomatoes with basil from the garden. MMmmmmm! Thank you garden!!

Spider rhyme

2009-09-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Now I have a pet spider

I guess she belongs to me

She was laying on cement

Under my favorite tree

At first I was afraid

And poked her with a stick

Then tried to pick her up

When her legs started to kick

I knew that she was gone

It must be a reflex

I took her in my studio

And laid her on my desk

I drew her with a pencil

Dark shadows made her fierce

Immortalized her body

On paper it was pierced

A week later when I touched her

Her legs moved again!

And again I reasoned reflexes

And put away my pen

But tonight I flipped her over

To draw her corpse once more

And this time it was clear

She had yet to cross death’s door

When right side up she is still

Appears to be dead as can be

But when she’s on her back

Her life is plain to see

Can a spider last this long?

Can she go for days and days

Without water to sustain her

Or flies caught in her maze?

Perhaps I’m a chosen witness

To her last days of life

As I have been to others

Into death I am midwife

She moves her legs in rhythm

In sleepy peaceful time

And I watch her in this place

And carry her with this rhyme

First Day

2009-09-08T22:09:00.000-07:00

First day of school for me and both girls. Leaving Grace in her new classroom in a new school was harder than I anticipated. Even spending the morning with Frances at her first day of preschool was a little heart-wrenching. I kept thinking about the trajectory of her educational life, just beginning. Had to have a good cry in the middle somewhere, God only knows what for. Shall I continue to hold onto the fear and nervousness I felt on my first day of school now? For God’s sake, I had my last day of school over sixteen years ago! Although Grace was great and expressed her nervousness openly, I recognized the look of anguish on her face as she said goodbye. I immediately went to that place with her, felt the feeling of what it’s like to say good bye to Mom in a strange new environment. But does it do her any good for me to go there with her? Doesn't it serve both of us a little better when I can separate the two? Somehow acknowledge her feelings, knowing from experience what it's like, but leave out the piece where I actually feel her pain? Because in that moment I know I'm not really being her mother. I am being her. And she doesn’t need that. She needs me.

Fires

2009-08-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

The wildfires that are burning in the San Gabriel Mountains just north of us, are the closest we've ever had. There is a level of uncertainty and heightened awareness among the residents here. There have not been any evacuations in Pasadena, but yesterday they were evacuating people in the city of La Canada, which is just west of us. When I got up, the smoke outside the house was visible. Usually, when there are big fires in LA somewhere, there is a reddish glow to the air, and sometimes you will see a thin layer of ash on your car. But this was as if someone was having a mammoth barbecue next door. Large flakes of ash were everywhere. When Dave and I left the house a little later, there were gigantic plumes of smoke rising up out of the mountains just a few miles away. It was dramatic, and beautiful and unsettling. The temp was over 100 and it was so dry, wet clothes were practically stiff by the time I got them on the line. Low winds made the fight a little easier I guess, but when we went to bed, the fires were only 5% contained.

Today when I got up, I breathed a sigh of relief because the air seemed much less smoky. I couldn’t smell it. But when I looked up the hill I realized the fires were even closer, having crawled east and over the ridge last night. I learned from friends in Altadena that evacuations were starting to happen just up the hill. We swam in a friend's pool this afternoon who lives up there, right next to where the wilderness starts. We watched in amazement as 707s flew close, dipped and dropped fire retardant over our heads. The mountains are so steep it is hard for them to do as much as they would like from the ground. Our friend and all her neighbors were in the process of packing belongings into their cars. It's close now, and when we got home, we could see the flames from our front yard. Even from afar, they are mesmerizing and we saw a lot of cars at the top of Lake Avenue with people who just wanted to see it. It is disconcerting, but we feel safe down here. We are at least two miles from the edge of civilization, so for us, even a voluntary evacuation order is highly unlikely. Lucky for us the wind was blowing the other way today, so we got the dramatic views without a lot of pollution.

It’s exciting to watch, but I'll be glad when it's over!

Eve

2009-08-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

It is the night before we leave

On yet another journey

Our bags have yet to be packed

Or the trash emptied

Oh at least I paid the bills

Friends came over today

And munched through the time

Allotted for preparations

And so I sit here now

Amidst piles of to do and ta da

But what it all boils down to

Is not how organized I am, but rather

If I am truly prepared for

Internal transportation of four bodies

In the car together six hours

So can we be free in our movement

Even have fun all the way

Exceed all the details that

eventually demoralize the senseless

Exchange of wide open windows

We are such a family

Us are really a group

Up goes all he gummy stuff

Ulcers stuck up in our wheels release

Unadulterated laughter

bandits

2009-08-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

I got home from Trader Joe's with the girls one day last week to find the house had been burgled. I was alone with them that day so I kept my cool. I explained to them both what had happened, told them everything was okay, and managed to squelch my emotions (rage and sadness) until later. We were't supposed to touch anything until the police got there so after a couple of hours of waiting around, our dear babysitter came in on her day off to take the girls swimming. After going through the whole upside down mess with the police officer and then the forensics specialist, I shut the door behind the very kind gentlemen and, with the girls still out, I ran to my healing space/studio for an emergency breathing and meditation session. Within a couple of minutes I was feeling all that suppressed emotion bubbling up fast. In no time I was screaming, crying and finally laughing. I had to admit that I have been a victim before. I have certainly played the part a few times. The innocent victim. And on some levels I was. On some levels it was a random act. But I believe strongly, now more than ever, that life gives you what you ask for and somehow I'd been asking for this. I realized how lucky I was. I immediately saw the incident as a lesson. I need to take more responsibility for my property, my life, my money, the list goes on... I felt overwhelmed with gratitude that I had my loved ones and everyone was safe. I felt the clarity of 'nothing else matters.' They could have taken everything and it would have been fine. Who needs all that crap? I was brought face to face with said crap later on as I put it all back. Almost everything had been dumped on the floor. And I still felt grateful. For the opportunity to go through it all. To see what we have: A lot of stuff we don't really need. But more than that we have each other and I cared little for the things I was putting back into place.

I went to bed that night feeling really proud. Proud to have turned a negative experience around almost immediately. Proud for not getting my children sucked into a drama they didn't need. Proud that I actually felt lucky on the same day that I was robbed. I didn't even feel robbed. I felt like they took something of little value (my computer) and gave me something invaluable. Faith.

The Garden

2009-08-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

I came back from Vermont to find my garden tall and flourishing. I couldn't believe it. We just got back from seven weeks away and I had planted seeds and seedlings right before we left with the hope, but no conviction, that everything would survive in my absence. I know that gardens need a lot of love and attention to do well and there I was, a novice gardener leaving my babies for most of the summer. I put in an automatic drip watering system, knowing I would be a fool to rely on subleters or neighbors to keep up with the watering. But I was not expecting much more than survival. What I saw when I rounded the corner of my studio to the garden behind it astounded me. Beds thick with tall green plants! The corn I planted from kernels was three feet tall and the tomatoes I put in a week before leaving had outgrown their wire supports and were spread out all over everything. The pumpkin plants were crawling over and out of the beds and through the fence, and there were other squashes and beans growing in and around them. In biodynamic farming they talk about creating mini-ecosystems by planting different compatible plants close together. I felt as though I was staring at that theory. Everything was growing on top of everything else and it all looked very happy. I tasted a few purple string beans and was not disappointed. They had more flavor than any bean I've ever tasted. And the little tomatoes packed a sweet juicy punch. Mother nature delivered, and I am thrilled and grateful that my garden did well in my absence. It gives me tremendous confidence in myself as a student of the earth.

The In Breath

2009-08-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

The in breath

And the out

Pulling in

And pushing away

Arriving

And leaving again

Getting here is running in to water

Cold shock of wet face hands and feet

Breath stuck up in the lungs

Then a releasing, the thrill of rejuvenation

and the peace of the open sky

Just floating

And then the slow swim back to shore

The family there on the dock, getting larger

Anticipating the onslaught of attention

Breaking through my watery skin

Arriving into this place we call Vermont

Is a long and slow process

Opening to its paces

Its people

And who we become here

In our bags we bring bathing suits

And boots with last years mud

We bring high expectations

And shift ourselves to the new patterns

The play of the weather

and the way the day unfolds around it

On and off go the rain jackets

Somewhere in the middle is a pause

The breath neither in nor out

It feels like we live here, have always and will always

Live in tune with the endless hymn

That the trees, the water and the wind sing together

The sky is full of rushing clouds

But we are standing still

On the empty road, the open field

The lake, still as glass

Leaving is just as gradual but plays more abrupt

We avoid the calendar and refuse counting days

Until they are so few that our blinders stop working

Just two full days left

And by then the sadness is undeniable

And parts of us are all ready gone

Already traveling across the wide country we call our own

Landing in the dry desert city

we call our home

But until then we savor every rain drop

Every whistling breeze

Wishing we could take one last walk

Through waist high grass

The dark pine forest inviting, dripping

And the last cries of the loon

The good bye that knows us

And misses us

Now I take all this home

Pack it carefully in my heart

To carry with me wherever I walk

And unpack neatly folded words

wild dream

2009-07-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is in reference to the eczema on my hands that has plagued me for more than a year and a half. (see "Tree Bark Hands") The dream was long and drawn out and had something to do with being at the center that my teacher works out of. I wasn't really there to see him but was only dropping things off. Then scorpions started coming out of my hands. They were emerging through my skin as tiny larvae or worms poking through my skin but as they passed through they grew into full size scorpions. It was painful and disgusting. I was squeamish and trying to knock them into a sink as they came out. I was being successful at knocking them off but it took everything I had to keep up with them. There were so many and they kept coming. Just as I was thinking, will this ever stop? it did. As it was happening I had this sense of it being very important and significant. I kept thinking, Scorpions coming out of my hands, this must mean something! It was so intense and I was sure it was the end of something. It felt like a final exodus of some inner demons. They weren't interested in attacking me as they came out and I didn't get stung. They seemed only to want to escape.
My hands have been healed ever since.

rainbow

2009-06-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Vermont greeted us with a rainbow. Look look look! I squealed in the small field that sits behind the pizza place that is the only gathering spot in town besides the church. I was talking to Grace, a lover of rainbows who draws them constantly but has seen very few. In fact I have seen very few to match this one. It was complete and perfect. Stripes of every color, bigger than the tiny town, arching over it and the landscape that surrounds it, the landscape that is all trees and grass, the colorful arch says, I AM BEAUTY! In a big rumbling voice. We are all stares. The sun is out and there is misty rain too and clearly it is the perfect combination for the ultimate rainbow. I wonder what people thought before they knew what it was, said Dave. I know what it is, said I. It is GOD! So obviously and clearly that is GOD! It makes you stop and wonder at the beauty of a perfect combination of events which is in fact what this world and all the life on it is! It is like a visual diagram of the perfect meeting of elements and energies that make life! All life! Flowers do the same. Trees do the same. We can find beauty everywhere and in everything and perhaps a good definition of beauty is the perfect meeting of things that create a stunning form. I find it is the spider crawling up the window. In the raindrop on the glass. On the pansies with their rich deep colors and sumptuous shapes. But a rainbow, that perfect, arching over a gorgeous afternoon with the golden light of sun peeking over clouds that are blue with misty gray, THAT is a masterpiece. And though we can find beauty everywhere, we need the masterpieces to knock us off our feet and remind us, hey! You are lucky to be here in this precious moment.

Packing for Vermont

2009-06-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Packing for a long trip is always a challenge. I want to bring everything! But as I go through the piles of clothes for me and my two young daughters, I keep pulling things out and asking, Do I really need this? Does she really need that? Slowly, I am getting it down to the bare essentials. The truth is, we don't really need much. We can be in the same clothes all summer. It's fine to let ourselves get so sick of what we are wearing that we stop really choosing what to put on in the morning and just grab anything that seems fairly clean. And I will be fine with one pad and a few pens. One jacket. In the end it teaches me that I need very little in this life. And the girls pick that up too.

corn up!

2009-06-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

My friend and teacher David Elliott gave me and thirty other people a handful of corn seeds that he cultivated on his land in New Mexico. He also gave each of us a dried leaf of tobacco that he had grown. It was an empowering gesture at the closing ceremony of a three day retreat he held over Memorial Day weekend at his place. At the time I felt excited about receiving this gift but also a little daunted by it. I am just learning to garden and wasn't sure I wanted to tackle corn. How would I use the tobacco? He assured us that this corn would grow easily just about anywhere. You can just hold the tobacco in your hand, he said.

He does everything with a lot of intention so we all knew that these kernels and leaves were holding plenty of love and promise. We talked about gardening a lot that weekend, and about seeds too. It is more than just a metaphor for life, it is life. Since I got back the garden has become a more meaningful place for me to spend my time and energy. I love being out there with my kids, watering, working my compost piles, carefully tending our babies and of course digging in the dirt. I see it as an extension of myself, just the way I see my art and my family as extensions of me. They are part of me, the fruit of my creativity and nurturing and attention but also apart from me with lives of their own. The more I can see it that way in my garden and in my studio and in my house, the more balanced I feel and everything flourishes. It is easy to fall into the traps of believing that my art or my writing is all my creation or that the kids have learned everything from us. But in the garden it is clear that the plants live independently of me. I am their keeper but not their creator. I put the seeds in the ground but the seeds came from somewhere else. And some will thrive and others will not. I have to keep moving them around, trying different things to see what works best under what circumstances. This is very similar to making art. I don't create ideas from scratch, they come from other ideas. And when I write the words (when I'm really cooking) just come through me. I am their keeper. Even the kids. I have to experiment to see what works with them too. I can't fool myself into thinking I am the one responsible for the tantrum or the smile. I am just a custodian of this beautiful soul that I have the awesome responsibility of raising.

I've been holding the tobacco in my hands and it is powerful. I can feel the force of this plant through my skin. I use it to set intentions or to center myself. And the corn is coming up now, beautifully. I planted 12 kernels and there are twelve strong little shoots poking up out of the dirt. I feel so lucky to have them in my garden.

triptych

2009-06-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

A crazy thing happened today while I was meditating. I hope I can describe it in words. I was in a very deep state. So deep I was almost dreaming. I was seeing an image in my mind of a woman outside. She was standing with her arms on the back of a chair that was facing away from her. She began to lean on the chair and it tipped and she lost her balance, almost falling but catching herself. It was a split second of imbalance that coincided exactly with a loud rumbling of thunder and me startling out of my state. The incredible thing was the simultaneity. The woman in my mind lost her balance exactly when the thunder rumbled and I was startled. One thing did not cause another. All three things happened in the one instant, but each event existed in its own layer of reality. I saw all three stacked like a layer cake. What it did was bring to my attention the three layers of reality that exist at any given moment: The physical body, the mind, and all that is outside of the self. The simultaneous triptych event was like a new picture of reality for me. It was a wake up, telling me to pay attention to what is happening in those three realms at any given moment. Cool.

Expanding

2009-06-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

I realize, right now, that I need to expand the way I think about this blog. For some reason, when I started it I felt it needed to be more thoughtful or well written than your average blog. I wanted it to be more than daily musings. But as I read more blogs I realize that is what a blog is and I like reading what other people are thinking about. It is mere musing and it can be amusing! So from now I give myself permission to write whatever comes to mind in this space and not to limit it to "tree related" because in truth, everything I do is related to everything I do. I still love the title "I am a tree" and I feel more and more that I am related to the trees. As my awareness of plants grows through my new found love of gardening, my relationship to all plants is blossoming. (Excuse the pun) When I walk my daughter to school in the morning, I can hear the flowering bushes at the entrance practically say good morning! And further up the path I pass under a magnificent Live Oak tree that would make a beautiful painting if I could find a canvas large enough. Every day it tells me the same thing as I walk under its enormous branches that tower at least twenty feet above me. I love you is what I say to the tree and it always answers me back.

My original intention with this blog was to post once a week. I wasn't keeping up with that because I was holding the bar too high for the writing. Now that I am letting myself off the hook, I hope to write every week at least!

Earth Air Fire Water

2009-05-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

I am in New Mexico, on a retreat whose theme is "Thriving or surviving?" I am in a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains, evergreens and cactus, rocks and lots of birds. Ravens are raising their young in a nest outside the front door of this palace. I meant place but it is a palace. Perched high up with views that allow me to see the clouds coming up on us. It is a sanctuary, set up to honor and work in harmony with the elements. Precious rainwater is collected and stored in underground tanks. An extensive gray water system and an outhouse for guests conserve more water. The buildings are designed to make the most of the sun's heat and light and various small solar-powered outdoor lights waste no energy. The earth is cultivated with love and food is grown abundantly in a large outdoor garden, a green house and a modest orchard. The air is crisp and clean and the wind blows all the seeds and stuff around so more stuff can grow and baby birds can learn to fly! It is no accident that everything in this place is thriving. It is thoughtfully designed to make the most of the land and what it has to offer. The plants are cultivated with love by very experienced hands and the buildings are kept up with diligence. I am going home today and my heart is bursting with anticipation and the intention to take care of my own garden, and the property that I have the honor of living on. I must admit I have let the garden go a little over the last month or so and it is now in survival mode. The main lesson of the retreat that I took home was "Your garden is a reflection of you!" and it is so true. When the garden is just surviving, chances are that is my mode too. But when it's thriving, look out!

Butterfly Birds Nest

2009-05-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

Mother Nature has been very generous with me this week. I don't know if she is egging me on to get back to my drawings instead of playing with words all day, but that is the feeling I get. As I was putting my kids to bed last night I reached up to draw the curtain closed and noticed a butterfly right up against the outside of the screen window. I realized it was dead, trapped in a spider's web. I ran outside to get it, afraid I might forget if I didn't do it right away. It is a pretty common butterfly called a Painted Lady that is mostly orange and brown and black. But the underside is incredible. It has a very loose pattern of regular teardrop shapes that are shiny silver surrounded by bright yellow and orange. The design is elegant and surprising. I never would have discovered the underside if not for the spiders web that was still clinging to the wings and made me inadvertently flip her over as I moved her inside. I am very excited to make a drawing of both sides of her wings.

Then yesterday as I was taking the girls home after some fun at a friend's pool, we were crossing over someone's front lawn on the way to the car and I almost tripped over a bird's nest. It was the first nest I've found, I think in my life. I have another nest that was found on a walk in the woods of Vermont with a friend, but my friend discovered it. This one seemed, like the butterfly, to have been placed in a way that I could not miss it or mistake it for anything other than a gift, meant especially for me. Thank you. Can't wait to start drawing.

Poem

2009-04-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

The birds are busy
singing in the dark
their insistent calling
leafing over
the lulling strum
of the freeway

How is it
that they live in trees
sleep on twigs
survive on worms
and sing so pretty?

Hike

2009-04-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

Went for a four hour hike with my friend Kimberly in Ojai. Never been to Ojai before. Nice little typical southern California town. We hiked up into a big canyon. It was green, you could say lush in its way. I was following my footsteps. Concentrating on balancing, breathing, moving with a steady rhythm. A tiny paper white Poppy with lavender edges and three faint blue dots in a triangle centered on each petal stood alone beside the well-worn path lined with Sage bushes and Manzanitas celebrating itself. Its delicate colors vibrated against the sandy ochre rocks beneath our trudging feet that were being ground into smaller and smaller pieces, pebbles and finally dust.

We stopped beside a small stream for a rest in the shade. I sat on the trunk of a tree that was growing almost horizontally before stretching straight up again, making a bench with a back rest that swayed a little with my weight. Sometimes nature is so accommodating. I noticed a spider above me that was very still. It was hanging in its web, dangling with the breeze. I looked closer to see that it was dead. I imagined a mother spider who had produced hundreds of babies before giving in to her dying.

On our way back down the mountain, the sun was stronger and beat us down our descent. Another dead bug. This time a large beetle with legs up in the air. What happened to him? Was he simply unable to right himself? Imagine being that close to accidental suicide all your life. It reminded me of a moment a couple of weeks earlier when I was sitting on the porch of my father’s house one evening, with my sister. We heard the loud buzzing of a beetle flying around, banging into the screens while we were talking. A pretty common occurrence there, we didn’t mention it or wonder what it was. Finally, as she was laying on the bench, deep into a story about her daughter, I watched the big black bug come flying toward the lamp standing just east of my sisters head. He made a big slow circle around the lamp and then crashed into the metal lampshade and fell to the ground. My sister wasn’t aware of the tragedy from her head. Before going to bed I checked on him, surprised he was still lying on the floor. He was dead. You keep finding dead bugs, said Kimberly, but I disagree. They keep finding me.

Spring Thing

2009-04-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

Spring is amazing this year here in Pasadena. We have had three weeks of nonstop gorgeous weather. I always think of spring in LA as frustratingly short as the cool, more dramatic winter weather gives way to a few warm days and then suddenly the relentless endless hot arrives and I wonder where did spring go? Not this year. I don't know if it's lasting longer or I am just appreciating it more but we've had cool breezy days with sunshine that dare me to wear sandals and warm evenings that make me excited to leave the house. Now that it stays light later we've been eating dinner outside, and since we eat early we get to watch the garden buzzing as it shifts from the late afternoon bright heat to a calm cool dusk. We munch on salad from the garden and watch the butterflies. The avocado tree is exploding. It is covered in little white blossoms and there are hundreds, maybe thousands of bees in its branches. I can't get over how busy it is in my backyard this year. I don't know if it's just a spring thing to feel like everything is new but I really don't think I noticed all the hubbub before.

The Japanese Maple that was hidden behind a dying lemon tree until we took down the old guy now stands like a centerpiece with these incredible delicate pink flowers that are like little treasures in its leaves. And the newly planted citrus are laden with their more obvious and fragrant blossoms. My little apple tree, also newly planted and who I pray for since this is not really the climate for apples, is trying hard to push out some buds. The insects are working overtime too. We see baby lady bugs all over and the bees and the flies and the mosquito catchers and spiders and all the worms in the garden so many worms all toiling away at their jobs, whatever they are. I don't pretend to know what they're doing and when the kids ask we say things like, "Oh they're eating and moving stuff around, just like we do." I just can't believe how lucky I am to live here, to have a big backyard where I can watch this all happen, to have three piles of compost and to grow my own lettuce.

tree bark hands

2009-03-21T21:25:00.000-07:00

I guess I am ready to tell the real story behind the title of this blog. I have eczema on my hands which makes them resemble scraggly branches. My skin literally looks more like bark than epidermis. It is rough and uneven with deep wrinkles, patchy areas of swelling and flaking with gashes sores and welts just to add to the rainbow. (The gashes are from the digging and scratching I do with my nails while I sleep because it feels like the itch is in my bones.) Another thing is that when I turn my hands over, the palms and the undersides of my fingers are smooth and clear and youthful as ever, which reminds me of the layer right under tree bark. That is where all the action is. Where the tree is actually growing and moving and doing all the good stuff it needs to reproduce, right there just under the dead outer layer.

I keep looking at my condition and observing what it is really doing to me. I notice that I can tolerate it most of the time which is pretty amazing considering how intense the itching, burning and stinging can be. When it gets too hard to bear I whip out my handy little tin of Shea butter that I carry in my pocket and slather some on. This provides a little temporary relief. I try to keep track of how many times a day I do that as a guage for how my skills at detachment are coming along. I am not sure that's the right word but managing pain is a skill I have always possessed not being a fan of pain killers or numbing of any kind. I have avoided pain medication in situations from dental work to back pain to childbirth. But it is one thing to deal with pain when you know it will be over in a matter of minutes or hours. And another when it is with you every second of every day and even worse at night. So this is teaching me to do more than just breath through it, it is forcing me to literally change my mind. For example, if I take inventory of what I am thinking about when the eczema screams for my attention, I always find some worry, these days mostly about money.

I am trying to heal the eczema myself not only by disciplining my mind, but also with the help of some amazing health practitioners that support self-healing. And even though my condition is as bad or worse than it was a year ago, I know I am making headway because I don't worry about it anymore, and that is a great achievement. It used to be a bigger stress on my life when I saw it as a problem I needed to solve as soon as possible. Now it is a stresser because it makes me work so damn hard! And after a year of this, I realize I cannot control it, it will be here kicking my ass for as long as I need my ass kicked, and it has taught me a lot already. The most important lesson is the constant daily reminder to Pay Attention to what my brain is doing. And second of all Patience, which is a great thing to have up your sleeve in any situation but especially with kids. Another is Faith. I trust that it will eventually go away. It may not disappear any time soon and I know it is not going away when I want it to (which was yesterday). But I am AS sure it will disappear as I am sure my toddler will learn to use the potty. It is inevitable. And I will be interested to see when it happens. Faith in myself is key and that is a great lesson.

Ladybugs

2009-03-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

There are all kinds of ladybugs on the newly planted baby lemon tree outside my window. Every time I sit here to write I notice one or two twirling around on its budding little branches. Ladybugs never fail to lighten me with their improbably bright color and mod design. It is warm and spring is upon us. It comes early here in sunny southern California and gives way to the harsh heat of summer early too. So I am going to enjoy every moment of it, the cool mornings and breezy afternoons. I am going to work as hard as the bugs and the birds are working, to be creative and sexy in everything I do.

Procrastinating

2009-03-10T19:29:00.001-07:00

I need to clean my desk but I'd rather watch my seedlings grow.

Palm Trees

2009-03-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

Under towering palm trees and smaller potted varieties scattered around this enormous complex of three pools and two hot tubs, dozens of empty reclining lawn chairs obscure a view of the ocean. My in-laws have brought us here to Newport Beach for a much needed vacation and I am so grateful for this time to be with family in such a do-nothing setting. We are having a great time, especially at the pools and the beach which is stunning. But I am curious about a place like this where natural beauty is sometimes subjugated by entertainment in the name of leisure. The design of this multileveled complex of bungalows and services need not detract from the irrevocable beauty of the coastline we are perched just above, but it almost seems as if it was forgotten. If I crane my neck I can see the immaculate blue of the sky dissolving into fog and clouds at the horizon. But the vast expanse of ocean and matching sky punctuated by diving pelicans is blocked by the wrought iron fence and the white lawn furniture that is as bright and distracting as a camera flash. Together they make a barrier between this civilized habitat of luxury and the beautiful California coastline below. Instead of clouds we see white umbrellas. Instead of the ocean waves we hear the constant tumbling of a fountain and piped in pop tunes.

As we were leaving the pool complex yesterday, the girls and I after an hour of frolicking in the water, we opened the gate to begin our descent down three long sets of stairs to our bungalow and there at the top of the landing stood a young couple. They were loitering on the small pad of concrete, no more than three feet square, wine in their glasses, enjoying the view. This was the only spot where you could see it fully. With nothing to sit on, they stood there, crowded by the gate behind them and the door swinging open by the likes of us.

Walk in the Vermont Woods

2009-02-17T21:04:00.000-08:00

[This is a piece I wrote last summer while on vacation in Vermont]

We started out on our adventure trudging up the hill behind Peter’s house. We were following a snow mobile trail where the grass was waist high and wet from all the rain. Behind Peter and in front of Jane I was mostly concentrating on my steps. We left the open trail and the grass and entered the darkness of the big trees. I was excited and though I’d walked through the tall grass before I was relieved to know where I was stepping again. We were all very chatty going up. Catching up on news at first then wandering into more philosophical territory as we reached the place they call The Cathedral, among trees that were the longest living on the property. Sugar Maples with many limbs lost looked more like old men than trees. They held the roof over this place of worship with the still substantial branches they had left and were aided by the many younger but taller White Pines around them. We continued up through the woods until we got to the top of the hill where the path we were on opened up like a doorway onto a great big meadow that covered the rest of the hilltop.

We followed a trail that I could not see but Peter seemed to know through more waist high grass. I was back to concentrating on my steps as the grass swiped my belly and obscured my feet. I like knowing where my feet are and not feeling like they’re in another dimension. I called to them with my brain; Are you as wet as I think you are? The meadow dipped down before going back up and in the lower area the ground was marshier, the grass thinned out enough to see that we were in fact walking in several inches of water. Soon enough we were heading up the other side where I could no longer feel the sloshing of water in my shoes or see my feet again. This quieted us all down. The trudging through tall grass which is a lot harder than it sounds and the discomfort of wet feet and legs killed the conversation that had already thinned out. We were just there. Walking. We reached the highest part of the meadow and stopped beside some huge beautiful leafy trees basking in all the free sun. From there we could see a few houses and barns and Peter began naming them and the people who lived in them.

On a far hill I noticed a stand of tall pines that were surrounded by open land. They looked funny there, like a fussy goatee that had been reduced to a neat square that was too small to really do anything. Peter said it was a stand of trees that had been planted a long time ago and never thinned out properly and now they were too tall and thin to survive. The sun could now sneak in the sides and you could see younger trees that were growing up in the center. From where we stood it just looked like a round bushy shadow inside the vertical bars of the pines.

Now we were headed back and I felt a bit of panic set in. The walk would be over soon. As we headed back we took an old road called the Hinman Road that dates back to the late 1700s. I was taken up with the aromas of history and a moss covered stone wall following along on our right. We came to an area that had been cleared of the larger trees and what was left was tall and naked. Bare trunks stretched up to 100 feet or more before sprouting branches and leaves. They looked beautiful and strange that way. I turned to look on the other side of the road and the same age and size trees were there, but accompanied and partly obscured by 3 to 5 feet of undergrowth. We kept walking and there was more evidence of recent clearing. Some equipment sitting around, fresh gashes in the trunks of standing trees where logging had left scars and plenty of pieces of trees that had been left for some reason.
I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures. Large felled trees and piles of wood. I was recording what happens and felt like a war photographer taking images of casualties. What it looks like when you cut down trees. The part we don’t want to see or talk about. We were solemn and quiet. If you are in the business of it you might laugh and say where do you think the paper you are writing on comes from? The chair you are sitting in? Sitting here on the lake now recounting the mornings adventure I look at the tall cedars all around me and think they are lucky, like me. Lucky to live free and prosper in an impoverished world.

Like a teenager first discovering photography I shot through two rolls in two minutes. Jane and Peter waited as I slowed our walk down to a crawl. We were silent by then and my shutter was polluting the peace but I couldn’t stop. I felt I was doing something and maybe I was. Maybe I will make something with the photos I shot. A big painting of the forest would be an achievement. But maybe I was just putting something between myself and the devastation so I wouldn’t have to hear what they were saying. By the time I ran out of film I was ready to listen. I walked reverently through what was left of a very old forest, much of which had been cleared centuries ago. I started to settle in, finally, and felt like maybe I would get to do what I came here to do when Peter ducked under a very low branch and I followed him out of the woods and into his backyard.

Avocado Climbing

2009-02-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I climbed up high into the canopy of the enormous Avocado tree that graces our back yard. I had never had the nerve to go that far before. Its not that I am afraid of heights, but ever since I had my first child, I have found I am less willing to risk life and limb than I was. The Avocado is an easy tree to climb. Its branches are so sturdy they don’t budge under the weight of an adult. They tend to grow up and then out, almost horizontally in places and making right angels in others, providing easy places to step and hold on. Recently we hung ropes in the branches which helped me get up as high as I did. It was already a very hospitable tree and my six year old daughter was able to get pretty far out onto one of its big lower limbs. But watching her one day I realized it would be possible for her to simply walk along the largest branches if she just had something to hang onto. I thought about building a spare wooden structure with bars perhaps into the branches, but it seemed awkward and ugly. Then I thought about just hanging some rope. So I asked our friend Michael Stewart who is a man of many talents if he would like to tackle such a project. Michael is a genius problem-solver and tree lover and he jumped at the chance to do something fun. We came up with fanciful plans of hammocks and nets that children could jump into along with a network of ropes to help them get up high. But soon after he started working on it we realized we didn’t want to put so much rope in that it would obscure the beautiful shape of the tree. Part of the joy that this magnificent Avocado offers is in the way your eyes travel up and down her great thick limbs that twist and turn at odd angles, sometimes growing into each other. So we kept it simple. A network of ropes overhead for adults to hold onto with additional ropes and rings hanging down for the kids. He also attached two small pieces of wood directly to the trunk to help kids get up on the first branches. The amazing thing is how it compliments the tree. The ropes look almost like vines and the rings add a little geometry. Together they invite children and adults alike to get up into the tree. The best part is climbing with my daughter. It feels so amazing to be up high in the tree with her. It makes me alive in a way that is different and its fun to share the excitement of that with her. We like to pretend we are birds.

Just a Minute

2009-02-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

I have added a new routine to my day. When it was suggested at the gardening workshop I attended (I am still resonating with the wealth of information from that day) that part of being attentive to the garden is just sitting there for a few minutes every day, I thought: No way will I be able to squeeze that in. I’m lucky if I get out there to water those poor babies twice a week! She suggested the early morning as the best time to just sit and pay attention to what is happening. Mornings? (I grumbled silently) You think I have five minutes in the morning?? Between getting the kids dressed and fed and lunch made and packed into the car I barely have time to take a bite out of the nutrition-free piece of toast I make for myself let alone spend a few contemplative minutes in the garden…

But there I am. Sitting quietly in my garden. Watching the clouds drift, the birds hop and yes, even watching the lettuce grow. I have managed it almost every day since the day she said those words and I adamantly cynically scoffed at them. Sometimes I run out just before dinner when its about to get dark, but more often then not I have stolen away in the morning. As if by magic, ever since I decided at least to give it a shot, the girls have been happy to get themselves dressed or my older one has decided to make her own lunch and for five minutes I run out to just sit in the garden. It is heavenly. It is great for me to take that time in the morning to remind myself that there IS time and that rushing is a complete waste of time. And these days especially, when I have no idea what is coming one day to the next, staying present is more than a spiritual goal, it is a necessity.

I am a Gardener!

2009-02-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

It is just incredible what you can learn in a few short hours. Today I took my six year old to an organic gardening workshop taught by a sustainability coach which was amazing and inspiring.

I have little experience gardening but I started composting a few months ago and recently filled three large beds in my back yard with fresh dirt. I am diving in and this workshop gave me tons of confidence. The main thing I learned, which is so simple, is that instead of thinking about growing food, we ought to approach the garden as growing soil. If we work with the soil, treating it not just well but with reverence, and helping it to be as rich as possible then we won’t have to struggle with growing food. With good soil, everything will thrive. There will still be pests and problems, but the plants will be able to handle them with a little support and lots of attention. It is like building an immune system into the soil.

We all had our ears perked up all afternoon, and even though she spent some time drawing pictures (of vegetables of course) my daughter was as interested as all the adults. We both dug our hands into the dirt and were energized. We turned a cover crop and planted lettuce and pulled weeds from some of the most beautiful soil I have ever encountered.

Armed with the simple concept of growing soil I no longer feel tentative about starting my first vegetable garden. I feel like I know what to do and that the earth itself will be helping to guide me through the process. I am very excited. I will plant seeds tomorrow!

What is I AM A TREE?

2009-01-30T20:39:00.000-08:00

I have been studying trees for more than a decade. For a long time I was photographing and drawing them, but now I am reading and writing stories about them too. I find trees fascinating. I am not particularly knowledgeable about the different species or characteristics of trees, but I have learned a few names and facts over the years. I have learned that we are more closely related (biologically) to trees than one might think. I used to prefer certain trees more than others, and when I began drawing them I even looked down my nose at palm trees. I didn't think they really qualified. They look more like telephone poles with silly wigs. But I have come around to appreciate palms (with their strange fibrous wood) and all trees, dead or alive. I appreciate not only their beauty but also the grace with which they support life on this planet. Trees are central to human existence. Just think about toilet paper for starters. People can get pretty excited about dogs, cats, horses, what have you, but I relate to trees. I love to look at them, climb them, lean up against them and talk to them. I have been known to stare and try to draw every leaf on their innumerable branches. My fascination with trees has given me a lot of satisfaction and peace as well as insights into myself.

This Blog is a way for me to share what I am learning.
I will be posting my stories and drawings soon! I welcome your comments!!