tree bark hands

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

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

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

Palm Trees

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

[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

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

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.