Llamar a los Angeles

It's been two days since we returned from Spain. Such an ordinary, simple statement for a breathtaking, joy filled perfection of a vacation. I find myself smiling absent mindedly as images of our days in Madrid, Seville, Cordoba, Granada and Segovia come to mind. And best yet, (for us) is that New England put spring on hold for two weeks and my garden is in full bloom; lilacs, columbine, iris and peony in flower or full fat bud…

This vacation was ten years in the making. Cancelled once and nearly cancelled again as tragedy struck our family six weeks before the trip. However, the lesson in the tragedy seemed to be 'live while you are alive' and so we did. We boarded the plane to Madrid under the arc of a full rainbow. I swear that rainbow followed us through every step of the trip. I've vowed to write a paragraph or two about the trip until I've captured the images and moments that still make me teary when I think about them. The trip was such perfection that I found myself feeling as though an angel (or angels) were watching over us. Yes, we were in Spain. Yes, I was raised Catholic… but I have not held to those beliefs in some time.

In Segovia I discovered a pendant called 'Llamadores de Angeles.' They are round balls with small bells in them, perhaps of Celtic origin. (So they can co-exist nicely with the Sila Na Gigs discovered on our trip to Ireland ten years ago). The legend has it that if you ring the bell, you will call the angel you need at that moment. (If you are ever in Segovia, Kukul on Marques del Arco had a lovely selection.) I love the sound and the concept. A friend of mine who believes in angels much more than I do once said that an angel is any creature who comes to your aid when you need it most. So, here's to the angels of our trip to Spain; to the pilots and air attendants, to the hotel staff who helped with my Spanish and filled in with English when they could, to the lovely and surely restaurant staff; to the man who made the most divine deserts in honor of my birthday, to the honest taxi driver who reminded us not to leave our camera, the shop attendant who held my wallet when I left it behind, to Paco the Barber of Seville, and to Incense and Peppermint (otherwise known as my better half) for joining and enjoying the adventure. More to come….

Happy Birthday Morning Star

 

Everywhere I look, spring

Moisture beads into diamond droplets on

Lady's Mantle fuzzy leaves

Irrepressible robin chirps on chimney

Cherry tree recalls beloved loss and

The promise that each spring day brings

As I write a dear friend is probably coming out of surgery. She has made a choice for life, for movement, for light. She is a Morning Star in my life; hopeful, funny, curious and very alive. Today she has chosen to take a step toward more life, or, perhaps a life more full of light. I am proud of her and inspired, too. It is spring and though April has dealt us hard losses over the years, it still brings joy. So, while she undergoes her own transformation, I choose to move, write, sing and send my own light her way. Spring is here and with it, this part of the earth finds the courage and inspiration to blossom. Not because the winter wasn't hard, but because it WAS hard and life is still worth living. A tree may fall, illness may come but in the meantime, we can choose to move, to risk, to shine. Happy birthday friend. Happy spring.

A Week of Epiphyseal Dysplasia

"Practically and technically, whatever we are experiencing as "how we are" arises as the complex outcome of how we are moving, how we are breathing, and what sounds we are making. Or, as is more common for us who are practiced in repression and suppression, how we reduce breath, how we reduce movement, how we refuse sound." From Julie Henderson's essay Tulku in being bodies (Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment)

When I began this blog, I knew I would be a sporadic blogger. I knew because I have four decades of doing things I love in a sporadic way. I knew because my goal for posting was to shine light on the aspects of my life which I have actively tried to ignore. I was right of course, and I find myself coming here only when life moves me to move, change, let go.

Today I am thinking about how to let go of my body and to reclaim it at the same time. A few days ago, I finally made an appointment with a rheumatologist to find out how I could manage my body better. I'll have to wait until October to see him, but, really, I've been doing this on my own for a long time now so waiting until October was fine. I was over my most recent flair up caused by putting together a perfectly lovely patio gathering last weekend. I spent Friday night and Saturday harvesting herbs and chopping vegetables for an eclectic menu: Jerk Pork, Jicama Corn Salad, Savory Samosas with Cilantro Chutney, dusty Ciabattas with roasted eggplant spread. We played favorite music, Cessaria Evora, Muddy Waters, Erykah Badu… There was laughter, strangers making connections, plans for another gathering soon, to include more friends, make more connections.

Then came Sunday. I limped through a bit of clean up and spent the rest of the day in bed. Rose for a bit of dinner and more clean up then, sleep again. Monday I moved slowly through the day, a bit ore mobile but still aching and stiff. Tuesday, my body closer to the usual aches which can easily be ignored, my mood crashed. I called the rheumatologist, not sure exactly what I was looking for but sure that I should be taking better care of myself. Mood improved, I felt empowered and reengaged in the more important pieces of my life. Thursday the questionnaire from the rheumatologist came. The question asking me to rate my pain on an unnumbered Likert scale from "no pain" to "pain as bad as it could be" knocked me into a state I try to avoid at all costs. I raged. I didn't know why but I raged. Like the time my old therapist asked me to 'contract' to take ibuprophen regularly, I raged… Why?

Here is why I come to the page. It is not the pain that is bothering me. Or, not that I had until now been willing to look at. My pain did not start (or become much worse since it's usually lurking somewhere) on Sunday. It started Friday evening an hour after I started standing to cook. Standing is always worse than walking which can wear me out quite well also. I have become a junior expert at moving through pain when there is something to move toward. I say junior expert because I know that so many others experience much more challenging physical dilemmas. But ignoring my own body and its challenges makes it impossible for me to have compassion for my own or other's bodies. I started to push myself through pain before I even realized it would be a lifelong companion. At six I would bottom boost my way up the stairs to visit my upstairs neighbors to play with Chatty Cathy Dolls and dunk Oreos in milk. When finally there is nothing important to engage in, the pain comes through. One is literally, 'good for nothing.' That is not just a verbal abuse, it becomes a truth.

So, rating my pain is like a self betrayal. I can live with the pain, it's not a problem, it can't be…. How ridiculously complex and self absorbed. And how simply basic. Pain is a fact of being in this body which I need to manage better. I need to do a little yoga more often. I need to host small gatherings, welcome my garden angel friends and dig with them as best I can. (Three angels visited earlier this summer and helped me create a blight free zone for tomatoes. It was a glorious day and I was proud that I was able to chip in with the digging. Of course, I spent the next two days barely able to walk at all). And I need to sit or sleep for two days afterward. I don't know what else. Breath, sing, move, be still. Ignoring my body requires going dead in so many ways, making sporadic contact with myself and those precious to me.

I love to engage in the physicality of this world. Kneading bread, making music, tending the garden all require a physical involvement and immersion with the world. The lines between me and all the rest of creation become softer, more pliable. I feel whole, connected and worthwhile without the need for naming it. When the realities of this body finally catch up to me, it feels like a slap in the face. 'This club isn't for you' I think I hear some voice say. But it isn't true. Pain, decay, death are also natural parts of the cycle. I'm lucky. I'm not dying, at least not yet. I just need more rest. How can I allow that to be part of the whole that I embrace?

Red Buick and the Smell of Green

I've been thinking about those growing up moments that glue the fragments of life together. When I think about childhood or young adulthood there are two paths that I take. One is general 'those were good time or bad times.' The picture is grey and full of ideas that I tell myself. Then there is the other memory path of colors, sounds, tastes and smells. Sensory memories capture moments that can't be contained by judgments or ideas. Today I'm thinking about the color red and the smell of green.

Sundays were my dad's day to cook. Unlike my mother, he loved to cook. When he was drafted to serve in the Korean War, his family advised him to say he could cook. It was a family strategy that produced several quite competent cooks in dad's family. And they all survived the wars. So, dad learned to cook in Korea and continued cooking when he came home. While weeknight meals were meat loaf, canned green beans and stony silence, Sunday meals were a celebration. Sunday mornings were for sleeping in then rising to prepare for the feast. In exchange for washing the dishes, my brother and I were allowed to witness my father's magic. Thin yellow cake batter and raspberry jam were miraculously transformed into beautiful jelly rolls. Potatoes were peeled at a lightening fast pace and a roast studded with garlic and carefully set in the middle of the oven. Preparations completed, we would cram into the front seat of dad's red Buick for a trip to the bakery for fresh bread.

Dad would steer the boat of a Buick up South Main Street, wait until we passed Holy Family Church where 11:00 Mass would just be letting out and turn up the radio's Sunday morning Polka show. He'd bang on the dashboard to the Beer Barrel Polka and we'd wait for the DJ to announce the noon hour with the swooshing sound of opening a beer can and an announcement that the BARS ARE NOW OPEN. The we'd all sing along to She's Too Fat for Me and cruise up and down the hills of Fairmount to the bakery where piles of fresh baked bread awaited us. And THAT is where I smelled that smell. I was old enough to know better but somewhere in or around that bakery was the smell green. Not the smell OF something green, just the smell green. It was not the smell of yeast which I am now thoroughly familiar with. Not the smell of cut grass though it had a similar sharp freshness about it. It was just the smell green. Somewhere in my synapses, there was still a smell that was also a color though in the tarred parking lot, linoleum floored, white walled bakery in a concrete neighborhood, there wasn't a lot of green to be seen.

Whatever that smell was, I loved it. It was Sunday and Beer Barrel Polka, a ride in dad's car and jelly rolls. Although my parents were not known for their patience, somehow the 'smell of green' was something they could let slide with a smile and a mild correction. Maybe that's why it sticks with me. It delighted them a little. I delighted them a little in those moments. And I remember it. And Sundays will always be more special for it.

One With God

The difference between dust and mud;

a little moisture.

Sweaty feet just in from the garden

leave perfect prints on the laundry room floor;

brown shadows of chubby toes,

ball and heel, the sharp

scent of tomato vine

implied.

Bold yellow zucchini blossoms open

Invitations to any stranger passing by.

Flat green beans filled the basket.

I walked here today and was revived.
 

As I made an attempt at morning pages this morning, I remembered Julia Cameron's thought that coming to the page is a way to come into the presence of god. God. I'm not even sure if I want to capitalize the first letter in that word. My mind immediately began to run the labyrinth of who/what/could god be… In my life this question has been no small matter. Raised Catholic, now UU, there are a few folk near and dear to my heart who are sure that I have gone to the dark side. My concept of god has transformed from a very personal relationship with a few male figures (with a divine mother willing to intervene from time to time) to much more abstract ideas about a loving energy…. something closer to physics than religion.

It's not that I don't long for a relationship with some sort of personal and personality driven deity. Who wouldn't love to have God on their side? But I think that is the problem. The idea of a personal, 'me and you against the world' god implies that god rejects large portions of creation for little old, especially special me is frightening. And in my mind, it doesn't make sense. If god is somehow the driving force behind creation, how could he/she/it reject any of it? It makes no sense and this is essentially why I rejected more theistic approaches to religion. I believe that there is an order to all of creation that cannot be divided into pieces of right and wrong; us and them; man and nature. Our small human squabbles are simply that. Squabbles. As the Buddhists would say, 'monkey mind.'

So what does all of this have to do with my little garden poem? Several years ago I noticed that when I was involved in the process of baking bread, everything else faded away. In those moments of measuring, kneading and shaping, I was fully engaged in the experience. My mind settled. No internal debates, no complaints, adjustments for physical pain made as necessary without commentary. I began to name that experience 'one with god.' And there are more of these experiences. Belly laughs with friends, spontaneous hugs, pulling weeds in the garden, noticing the perfect symmetry of dirty footprints on the laundry room floor. Call it mindfulness, call it flow, call it more secure attachment. I call it one with god. Or simply one. Or simply god. God. In those moments there is no separation from all that is. I let my guard down, I release control. But that is too cognitive. It is usually just something that happens without intent or plan. I think thought in words would probably interfere with the process though using words to mark the moments helps me remember that they happen. The words help me to maintain faith and remember the value of the sensory experiences that speak to me. It is very individual and yet universal. Most of all it is about being fully embodied. No aversion, no clinging…. Just bare feet in a budding garden.

The Door is Always Open

Spring overall. But inside us

there's another unity.

Behind each eye here,

one glowing weather.

Every forest branch moves differently

In the breeze, but as they sway

they connect at the roots.

Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
 

A gentle steady rain this morning and a small wren stopped by to sit on my stoop for a visit. So small I'm sure I would have missed him on other mornings. But today is a day off from saving the world and I have the psychic energy to notice a thing or two. The roses drooping in the weather, lady's mantle beaded with drops of rain, glistening like diamonds even on a cloudy day. Best of all, the voice of an old friend over the radio waves. I picked up the phone and while Crooked Still sang about Wading Deep Waters, she and I caught up, compared schedules and talked about a mutual friend who is emerging from the depths of grief.

I recently got around to reading Coleman Bark's introduction to his volume the Soul of Rumi and learned that Rumi became a prolific poet and dancer in response to his grief over the death of his friend and teacher, Sham. (It couldn't have helped that Rumi's son may have participated in the murder.) So, that longing for the friend was both a search for that indefinable energy of the All and a longing for those specific earthly experiences. The sound of one particular voice, a favorite song, the overly loud laughter with friends comparing versions of old stories of youth… Maybe I am in better company than I realized.

So sometimes it is grief that keeps my eyes averted, prevents me from seeing the wren stopping by for a visit. More often it is that internal grief; belief that I have to work harder to be worthy of the friend that keeps me wrapped up in a schedule that leaves no time for the deeper human contact. And yet, as it is with life and friendship, the door is often still open. A simple 'yoo hoo, anyone home' enough for a reconnection. So glad the long lost friends often aren't really lost after all.

I am wading deep waters trying to get home…

 

Who will you be when the crisis arrives?

 

"It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."

The headline on the local news this morning said that Hartford will be cutting hundreds of teaching positions next year. These are hard times. Cuts are everywhere but is anyone asking about the ultimate cost? When the financial crisis started to become obvious, I had a naïve hope that the crisis would force us to set our priorities straight. I imagined communities pulling together, all of us making changes which would ultimately improve the environment and our health. I imagined us working together to provide wholesome home grown food for all, and yes, educate and care for our children.

Now, I am not always leading the parade in celebration of our public schools. We in the middle class often have the resources to consider alternative educational settings which may nurture and encourage our children more thoroughly. But many children do not have that luxury. Hartford, the capital of one the nation's wealthiest states ranked sixth in child poverty in the nation in 2006. That's 41.3% of Hartford's children living under the poverty level (statistic taken from Connecticut Voices for Children). Not sure about how schools impact those children? Consider this.

A few years ago I was working in a treatment facility for pregnant, addicted women. One 21 year old had been raised in Puerto Rico then moved to Hartford. A product of poverty, neglect and horrific abuse, she was about to give birth to her seventh child. One evening as we sat on the porch talking about her future, she told me she'd like to 'go to where the dinosaurs are.' She had never learned that dinosaurs were creatures of a long past era. Now, that knowledge wouldn't have changed the trajectory of her life but if she had been able to get to school, maybe someone would have noticed her need. Maybe she would have been more aware of her options. Maybe she would have learned about birth control. In the public school system, someone did notice her children and got them, and their mother some help. Maybe this woman's children will have a better life. I think it's worth the investment. I think I'll write a letter…. And bake a cake. That's who I want to be in this crisis. Who will you be?