Across country

I am gearing up again to travel across the US. Slowly. A kind of pilgrimage. First to my sister's for some weeks, then to my cousin Pam's, then on to St. Louis to visit friends and family before making my way to upstate New York for a month long study with Sakya Trizin, one of my Tibetan teachers.

I keep thinking that I should grow up and get a job, a home of my own. But this desire for sitting with the enlightened ones is like a bulldog latched on to my leg. It won't let go. I keep thinking I should look for my one true love but my passion lives with those moments when I know in my bones, that I am connected to something deeper, something more powerful than what I have found in the arms of a lover, in the moments of laugher or tenderness that can surprise.

I leave Thursday for Durango. It's twenty or so hours driving out of Sacramento. It's a lot of space to experience, the lands of Nevada. The last time I did this was after my father died, coming back to California, determined to find my home and work that would sustain me. There will be a lot of remembering.

I miss my dad. Before he died, when I drove places in the US, I would call him up and tell him where I was. I could hear his smile. He would tell me when he had been in this place I was driving through and we would laugh together at the richness of life that had allowed us to see so much, experience so much, share so much. He would shake his head at my latest adventure, I know it. He would say he didn't understand what I was wanting but I wonder. A month or so before he died, I asked him what he thought happened when a person died. He told me that he hadn't given it much thought and now that he was nearing that time, it didn't seem fair to do anything about it now. Fair to whom? I wonder. I didn't have the courage to ask him. I wish I had. My sister Ann is brave like that.

I still talk to my dad. I still hear his laughter, his love in his voice when I called. I can still see his face light up when I would come home to visit. It is a sustaining vision. I don't have that with my mother, no memories of her appear but her love was so busy, always pushing me to be more, do more, meet her spoken or unspoken needs. Dad just loved.

I often hesitate to write in this potentially public place. The outward journey is so linked to the inner one. Do you want to hear this? Is it boring? Ah well, I can only hope that it touches you in some way.

Bangkok

Last night I arrived in Bangkok. The hotel is elegant with fountains, marble, lights, men in uniforms standing about to take luggage, answer questions. An event was starting in one of the large, chandeliered rooms and the lobby was full of formally clad Thai's, women in long evening gowns, men in suits walking by. I felt large and grubby in my white blouse with the coffee stain and baggy black travel pants. However, this discomforting thought only circled around but did not make a nest in my head. I was pulled back into the moment. Such luxury. I was startled by the opulence, the fine detail of the clothes, of the women's make-up and polished hair coiled on their heads, of the waterfall that was visible through the glass wall of the lobby, of the silence of carpeted floors, of the cool, air-conditioned atmosphere that rendered the hot humid air a memory.

After finding my room, I changed into my swimming suit. I was determined to go swimming. My shoulder is getting better and I was hopeful that I would be able to do a full crawl stroke without pain. I found the hexagon shaped pool. As soon as I walked into the night and heard the water fall; I felt it--the joy. It surprised me. I hadn't felt such joy in such a while. My emotions have been caught in a predictable range that didn't include this visceral delight in just being, the sheer pleasure of being alive, in this place, in this moment. The night was still hot and humid, the pool was deserted except for the young man who provided a release form for me to sign and towels to drape over the chaise. He offered me a drink of my choice. I quickly signed the form and waved him off. I was for the water. It was cool with no obvious scent of chlorine. My shoulder will still not tolerate a full stroke but I can almost move it though the complete range of motion. Like the joy, I can feel movement in the direction of wholeness. For 15 minutes or so, I swam back and forth doing the breast stroke, heart beat pounding by the end of it as I swam without reprieve. And then I started playing, diving under the water, floating on my back before arching back and under, circling around to return to air, over and over, porpoise dives, then back dives recalling the joy of movement. I finally slowed, swam over the the stairs and walked out of the pool.

For some time I just lay on the chaise looking at the night sky, the lit towers of other high rise buildings around, letting the night air play on my skin. Where I had not toweled off, the water drops remained with no hint of evaporation. The breeze was almost cool on my skin.

As I got up to go, the young man came walking over. I thanked him for the gift of the swim as if it was his pool, his hotel, his night of warm moist air.

"You looked so happy," he said.

I laughed, "Oh," I said, "I am."

I put my hands together mirroring his hands and we bowed to each other.

Meeting with Bairoling Rimpoche

Yesterday we met with Bairoling Rimpoche. He is old; he is fragile. Julie says that when he is out of retreat, he has a Parkinsonian tremor and when he is in retreat; it is gone. He needs two people to help him walk. Two young men, one on either side carry him into the room while his legs move in harmony but clearly are not bearing any weight. He is gently settled into his chair. Then he looks around and smiles. He smiles with such love that my heart catches.

I have seen this look before. I have seen it in some of those I have tended who are dying. When the body is making its demands known, its intention to stop heard, something changes. The mind hears a call from another world; you can feel it. There is a kind of detachment filled with peace, filled with love. Rimpoche radiates both. And my heart is filled with it. It is a love that is not based on good works or behavior. It is a love based on being. All are welcome. It is the look of joy free from wanting something from me, just the pleasure of seeing me and everyone else in the room. There is no shortage here, no sense of limits. Yes he will tire, his hands tremble as he touches each of our heads as we come up, one at a time, to be blessed. But the the love, the love is clearly not bound in his aged body. His love is everywhere, enfolding, comforting, rejoicing. Afterwards, after we have quietly filed out and I am walking from that place, my heart seizes. How can I leave him? How can I live without such love, such acceptance? And grief roils up. I am back in hospice watching the family collapse around their beloved, grief pouring out and me vibrating with it.

I tell Julie of the love I felt and the grief that followed. "Ah," she says, "the love you felt will not die with his body." Then she paused and looked at me. "Although that kind of consciousness it is a kind of death, you don't have to die to have it." I ponder this. I hold it close. He is not the source of the love but a beacon glowing the way. This love, she tells us over and over again, is here already available to all. He is a door, marking the way, a light illuminating the path. He tells me, this tiny old, trembling man that it is possible for me to grow into this love and hold a place within it.

Thank you for being there, thank you for listening. I hold you all close in the skein of light, the fibers of love that connect us.

October 10, 2010 Back in Nepal

Yesterday we drove from Bairoling Monastery where I am staying to Amitaba Monastery, an hour away. The ride was across town over really bad roads and I was in the way back of the SUV. It was much bouncing and looking out side ways as the city of Kathmandu passed by. Images still linger of the markets, tarps spread out on the dirt with food, clothes and shoes displayed while dogs, a vagrant cow, chickens and people wandered through. These tarps lay five feet away from the busses and cars, motorcycles and bicycles that sent dust and fumes everywhere. And the people, poor, dirty, carrying loads on their backs or their heads, children playing or being led by a mother on the edge of the road watching out for the motorcycles and bicycles that like to sneak around the cars and busses stuck in traffic. The women are always beautiful though, their saris glowing in the brilliant jeweled tones and their luxurious, black hair thick in braids or tied in a ponytail or knotted on the back of their neck. The last part of the drive was fifteen minutes of up requiring a stop to engage the 4 wheel drive before we arrived at the top, breeze fresh with the scent of the terraced fields and pines that lined the way.

The monastery is pristine, freshly painting in the wealth of colors that Tibetans love. There was the archway that houses the five Buddhas sitting guard and then three more giant Buddhas, the last two gold colored shining in the sun that sit in the bottom, middle and top of the stairway that runs up the rest of the way to the top of the mountain. Amitaba Monastery is for nuns, one of two in the country. And you can feel them; their quiet grace as they move about, smiling softly when spoken to.

After feeling quietly nauseous from the ride, the breeze was welcome and I stood for some time outside the gompa (temple) and watched the hawks, looked at the valley below with Kathmandu spread out below, seeming another world away. And yet behind me, beside me were mountains still green with terraced land and trees on the top, a bright, verdant green. The clouds were wild with possibility, some whipped cream white, others dark and threatening. I knew that behind them were the Himalayas, like another realm of silent gods.

The next morning, at 3AM when I again woke, I thought of those images and realized that my life feels a bit like the landscape I had spent the day in. There is the part of my life that is Kathmandu, loud and messy, untamable in its desires and determination to wrest from it what I want, or what I think I want. But if I look at it in the wrong way, it makes me sick and I get caught in the suffering, my own and others. And there is another part, the part like the monastery that has fresh air that sweeps out my fatigue, my vague sense of illness. From this place I can see where I have been and can feel a moment of reprieve. And from this place I get a sense of the Himalayas beyond, softly moving, almost a whisper, of where I might go.

More thoughts on Nepal

Last year I wrote the blog but somehow these thoughts feel so personal that I am not so comfortable doing that. Maybe I will put this writing on the blog later but that seems not so important; sharing my ideas with you seems much more relevant. Your responses mean so much to me; I want to thank you for writing back.

So I am still struggling with sleep and my solution is to read. Before I left the US, I loaded my kindle up with the usual variety of fluff; romance novels, mystery novels and then a few, more demanding and thought provoking books of fiction and history. I like romance novels. I like knowing that love will out in the most unrealistic way, i.e., happily ever after. I also find it interesting to read about relationships now that I am not in a romantic one nor am I listening to others talk about theirs (except for my friends, of course). For the last few days I have been reading mystery/detective novels. This morning in my meditation I had this insight. The reason I am liking the detective novels is that our hero or heroine, who is extremely intelligent, intuitive and physically adept, overcomes evil. As I travel and learn the history or hear the current abuses of power where I am, I am deeply impressed by how evil we are, albeit intertwined with goodness.

Einstein said that the problem can't be solved on the level of the problem. I am comforted by this. I am doing something that may help in a way that is different than dealing with the problem at the level of the problem, not that I don't value that as well. Maybe this is arrogant. Maybe it is just plain wishful. But it gives meaning to the struggles I feel when I can't sleep, when I am overwhelmed with the question of what am I doing?, when I feel cut off from the usual comforts of this world, loved ones, physical ease.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for loving me, being my friend, my confident. I am blessed. I feel the tendrils of connection even here, on the other side of the world.

October 5th 2010

I arrived yesterday. All through the 25 hours of flight I was complaining and promising myself that I would not do this again, It's too difficult. I'm too old. But after I arrived, I found myself just smiling at all of it; the noise, the heat, the smells, the bouncing around ruts in the road, honking at the other cars. Ah yes, I'm back. It is glorious.

People here have god/gods woven into their lives. I passed the shrines to this goddess or that god as I drove through the streets. Today I spent two hours at the artist's home who paints tangkas as he spoke with us about this or that god or goddess, showing us the painting, looking up the mantras, talking of gods, talking of prayer, talking of lives changed and moving within this world of finding connection to the holy. But the holy is not some quiet, distant kindness but gods of passion with their consorts twined to them, multiple heads, arms legs thrashing about holding skulls, knives dancing on demons. Passion. It is full of passion.

It is so poor here. What we take for granted, paved streets, cleanliness, intelligent medical care are all distant dreams here. And yet the vibrancy of it all, the pure thrumming humming throb of life is so loud that I am humbled.

It is a gift, this travel. It pulls me into it; I shed skin after skin of assumption about what is true, real, necessary. And I feel that connection, that pull of being near, surrounded even, by great souls that prod me into being more than I thought ever possible.

It is a gift.

Kuttolsheim, France

I am in France doing a three plus week teaching. I am a bit at a loss for words these days. I am living with a French woman, her five children and a fellow student from Hungary. Eve, the French woman also goes to the teaching.

It is about suffering for me; how to mitigate it both for myself and others. Such a simple idea; making it better and yet how challenging.

Every day we go and sit, listen to the teachings and receive initiations on special occasions as only the Tibetan Buddhists can. At night or when I meditate, sadness at the heartache of those I love floats up like flotsam and I hope; oh how I hope, that there is some way to relieve it.

I don't know if you read this just as I don't know why meditating seems to make it better but whether you do or not, I am grateful for your presence in my life; it is a gift.

"I am loved as much as I am able to receive it" Thoreau

But my mind was on the baking.

June 22, 2010

Kitchens, the heart of the house, no kitchen, no mama. No one home. Where’s home? Blue mixing bowl, yellow batter, pancakes. Mornings were good. The smell of coffee, toast, laughter, subdued, not night time laughter. The everlasting optimism of morning. Anything is possible. You never know what a day will bring. Morning energy, rested but still softly sleepy, face fresh washed. Morning forgiveness, fresh start. Ah how many pancakes? Ask for what you want and get it. Where’s the butter? Do we have real maple syrup? Yes, yes, the answer is yes. People who are there in the morning love you. No fake social shit. Morning, light clear and revealing. What shall we do today? We need to go to the grocery store, feeding all these people food melts away like butter in the summer sun. Where’s the list? That’s the last carton of milk. We need more eggs.

“Morning, Papa, do you want some OJ?” Smiles of appreciation, eyes not lost in remembering, drowned in disappointment or fatigue. My nephews arrive with sleepy faces needing hugs. They seek out willing arms, thumb in mouth, contemplating the hubbub of getting breakfast for so many in the grandparent’s kitchen with no usual routine and familiar places to sit as we all circle around the kitchen, helping ourselves to more food, talking, sitting where ever we can. Then there is the slow building silence as people move out to run errands, work on projects, retreat to the living room to read, settle back into their own private reveries and close down the doors of interaction.

I am loved as much as I am able to receive it.

Those moments, those people are gone. Yet they remain frozen like an old movie that I can play when I choose. Nana and Granda are gone, My sister Ann’s husband, George, is gone. Thumb sucking Paul is now a six foot four inch 42 year old, his younger brother is six foot two with two small daughters. The farm is a park, the house, a visitor center. Time waits for no man. I stand in time as if it were a fast stream roaring past, legs planted deeply in rocks, leaning into the current, legs cold with the water, shoulders hot with the sun, breeze licking cool, balance swaying. The water sparkles in light moving, dancing on its surface. The light is beguiling, pulling me in, inviting me to dance, let the water roar past, let the film run lovingly in the background, let the breeze dry my tears, feel the power of the stream, the shifting boulders under my feet as the waist deep water holds me.

One summer, I haven’t told you about this, twenty years ago right after my husband left, I went on a five day horseback ride with Ann and George and another friend in Yellowstone. One night, summer sky still glowing, we walked to the stream coming from the thermal hot springs and went skinny dipping. I lay in the shallow stream, move upstream for more heat, downstream for less, feet anchored by rocks, arms floating and the sky, that big northern night sky above, changing from glow to almost dark and then the moon came up as we lay there. Walking home, the horses had turned to silhouettes, the night air cooled our water heated skin and we laughed into the quiet, heads back, wet hair down my back, body loose from the riding all day and the heat soaked night swim.

I am loved as much as I am able to receive it.

I haven’t told you that with my hearing aide I can hear things dogs can hear, or at least manmade sounds that only dogs are supposed to hear. It makes me wonder how many other things I’m not hearing, not seeing, not sensing. My spectrum is so small, so expected.

I want to stretch what I can receive. I want to carry with me, in my car, in the dentist’s chair, that river running through me with my feet anchored in stones and the light dancing, dancing on the water, in the leaves, into my heart. I want that heat that comes from deep in the earth to infuse my body so I too can dance in the light dancing in me.

A World Begins and Ends at Kitchen Tables

June 22, 2010

A cup of tea, blue mug, the string hanging over the side with the small pennant attached. Unnecessary stirring due to a certain reluctance. Maybe now would be a good time to truly stay in the moment. Does it count if my motivation is to avoid the future? It counts. Staying in the moment is so hard to do, any motivation is fine. Thoughts swirl. Why is the brain so meticulous, picking up every random thought the way dust bunnies collect in my house? I can always tell when I’ve played too much solitaire, relationships transmute into cards. King to my ace, a series of 3456 that moves to sit on the 7, all spades. And then the trash novel I’ve been reading, “his intense dark eyes followed her,” and then why does the GPS treat intersecting highways, mere exits in reality, as an opportunity to repeat, in that loud, mechanical voice, “In .4 miles stay left, then continue 12.5 miles on highway 680.” The brain seems to have little discrimination; any data, like dust, will do. And I aid and abet this willfulness less I be forced to notice that I have no goal, no obvious purpose, no consistent connection. I too, float about like dust, staying with Brigid, Jan, Cindy, Jenifer. Which day of the week it is determines whether I am in Oakland, Napa, Fairfield or Sacramento.

What am I doing? I am between trips, as I sip the tea, tea, the one constant—I drink it everywhere. I suppose even more than the tea, I am the one constant. Me, pushing me, forcing change, forcing discomfort, pulling at old ways and assumptions that say this is how life should be, this is what is deemed successful. Where have I wandered? Home, such as it is, for four weeks then back on a plane, back to Paris and then a tiny town in northeast France to sit for three weeks with a Tibetan rimpoche, to receive a teaching, stumble about with my high school French, live in a gymnasium—only 15 euros a night. Why? Ah, the tea. I hold the blue mug with both hands, fingers wrapped around soaking in the warmth. The solidity of the mug that can hold hot water over and over again comforts me. Sipping the hot tea I remind myself to be here, feel my butt on the chair, feel the heat in my hands. And off goes my brain. Einstein said that if anyone could focus on one thing for 45 seconds at a time, he could master his universe. Makes sense to me. My head feels foggy; I’m still driving in my car, listening to music, tired from night after night of minimal sleep. Ah, the litany of complaints is much more satisfying than considering what I’m doing with my life, especially when I’m a bit cloudy on that issue. Waking up can take lifetimes, my teacher tells me. No rush, as long as I am on the path. But why do something if there’s no hope of succeeding, at least in this life time? Point. That kind of delayed gratification is definitely un-American. So, what else would I do? Well, I could, to quote Jenifer, do something fun and trivial and make lots of money. Right. OK, well I could go back to work, help others. But inevitably that road leads back to here, that sense of utter depletion of having given too much, of facing yet again the fragility of being human and the inevitability of my own death. I sip the tea again. There is no solution to this argument. Nothing, nothing appeals.

When I am face to face with the rimpoche or other enlightened beings, something happens, my brain tingles, my heart feels stretched the way looking at the ocean causes my eyes to relax, zoom out and feel the size of this planet. It is as if, when these awakened souls see me, when they really look into my soul, I can, for that brief moment, see myself, see the possibility of myself, of how big my heart can be how much my soul can hold and at the same time, still be held by something bigger, something knowing.

I sip my tea. Einstein says 45 seconds is enough to change your life. I sigh. 45 seconds. It is an eternity.

Leaving Vienna

Today I say good-bye to Vienna and take the train to Munich, then on to the retreat location, two hours north west of Munich. I took a long time at breakfast this morning, as I woke early in restless anticipation. From the fifth floor of this hotel where the dining room is located, I can see the hills surrounding Vienna. There are old buildings here. It is amazing how old. Of course you know that; maybe you will snicker. Maybe you should. This town started 2000 years ago. The Romans were here. I think in Europe, the Romans were a bit like George Washington on the east coast, they slept everywhere. Only they did more than sleep. They built, they ran things, they printed their ways so deeply that ensuing powers followed in the paths they created. Of course you know this as well. Even I knew this. Yet it is different to feel it. To sit and look around and imagine all that has come because this outpost was created, then built upon, then rebuilt, then again built. My friend, Edith spoke of the Russians ransacking Vienna after the war and I look up the narrow streets and imagine what it would be like to be waiting in my home, my prized possessions hidden away, hoping against hope that my home would be spared, my family safe. I look up the narrow streets and wonder what it would be like to be a Russian, years lost in the misery of war, near starvation, bitter cold, family left long behind in stark poverty, to come down these streets and see rock solid, four story homes, one after another, beautiful homes, beautiful furnishings, plumbing that didn't exist back home, luxuries unimagined to rampage and revel in this unexpected wealth free for the taking, the fruits of war.

I read the history of Vienna, of the Kings and Princes who were good managers, under whom the city thrived, music and creative geniuses found a place to convene, create. At one time, 6% of the population was a musician. Even now, as I travel the train, I see people with music cases, guitars, cellos, bases, violins carried about. I go to the music hall and find myself chatting with a young Canadian who is studying opera in Milano up visiting for the weekend. He is a tenor, hopes to work ultimately in Vancover and travel back and forth between there and Europe to sing. I go to the music museum and after three hours of meandering through time with Mozart, Beethoven, Hayden and others, conducting an orchestra, I sit in the atrium only to discover an elderly gentleman playing the grand piano there. He tells a fellow listener that he plays pieces he has composed himself and wonders how his music seems to others. The notes, they fall over me, surround me and I float in their spaces, in their beauty.

On the road again

I'm in Vienna, Austria. I can't quite believe it. In fact, in the airport in San Francisco last evening, talking to my brother, I told him I was going to Venice and then was confused by why he suggested I not take the gondolas as they were overpriced. Ah yes, spaciness is the first thing I pack. I find myself looking a bit like the dithering old lady, small wallet around her neck with important papers so I won't get lost or lose my passport or money or flight info. But there is such freedom in leaving home the should's. On the plane I get to be comfortable. I get to talk to whomever I wish or be silent. I get to read, sleep, watch a movie or meditate. Then I arrive and I get to see amazing sights. I get to learn stuff. The Hapsburg's ran Austria for 600 years. Sheesh. Oh this isn't very coherent which might be linked to the fact that I just arrived at my hotel after taking the red eye from SF to Munich and then another short flight to Vienna. But I just had to tell you, whoever is reading, the joy of this adventure, of getting on a plane and going somewhere I've never been, seeing things I've only read about and then having the luxury to settle in, settle down, rest down into myself in the excellent company of my teacher and fellow students and discover what will be revealed next.

I just had to say hello, the traveler part of me.

Fresh Bread

Fresh Bread—27 April 2010

Fresh bread just out of the oven, it was one of my mother’s later discoveries. She bought the dough already shaped and frozen into pre-risen loaves, let them thaw, rise and then bake them. It was white bread with no redeeming nutritional value and yet, hot out of the oven, its scent exploding through the house like an ancient siren, it didn’t matter. Late afternoon the smell of it pulls me into the kitchen like a gravitational force. The kitchen in my parents’ home is a huge square with dark brown cabinets on two sides of the room. The refrigerator on the north side of the room is next to the hallway that leads to the garage. The sink is in the corner and on the east side of the room; the cabinets are split by a narrow window that looks out onto Mother’s garden. The south side of the room consists of Mother’s desk, flanked on either side with more cabinets for her files and a window over the desk that looks down the hill to the lake. The door to the screened in porch is on that wall. On the west wall, the wall that has the swinging door to the rest of the house is a stone fireplace and a bar with lighted shelves above where glasses shine. Two chairs sit in front of the fireplace. In the center of the room is an island with the stove in the center surrounded by Italian tile, white background, green vines and orange flowers with matching green tile trim on the edges. The two ovens are below the stove. There is a sofa on the backside of the island facing Mother’s desk. This is the room my parents lived in. In the winter, there is a constant fire in the fireplace with frequent trips through the garage to the woodpile stacked high. Mother is usually at her desk though sometimes she sits on the floor, legs spread, playing solitaire. Dad sits either on the sofa or a chair or sometimes at the small card table next to the island with the mail spread out before him.

The smell of fresh bread circles. Mother, who used to be so strict about eating in between meals puts the bread on cooling racks and then watches the vultures circle, as she says. She makes a brief complaint, “if you cut it before it’s cooled, it’ll smoosh down.” I agree heartily, get the sharpest bread knife and proceed to carefully slice two pieces, with minor smooshing. Then I add the butter to melt easily on the still warm bread and last, either local honey or homemade strawberry jam. It is a tough choice.

Dad waits until I’ve cut the first slice and then says, “I’ll have some of that too, Miggs,” as if he’s just noticed what is going on, wasn’t in support of cutting too warm bread but since it has already happened. . . It was a delicious moment, that quiet camaraderie. Mother superiorly saying she wouldn’t have any because she didn’t want to get fat and Dad and I smiling, and saying nothing, eating and nodding, licking our sticky fingers, she being the only fat person in the room. Then, of course, we needed something to drink, some juice for me, a soda for Dad. And he would smile again that sweet smile when I set his glass in front of him before he returned to his reading. Mother would resume her current project, working at her desk or planning her spring garden or looking through the 101 catalogues that came daily, it seemed. She bought everything she could from a catalogue so she wouldn’t have to make a trip to town. And I would settle into the unclaimed chair, pick up a magazine I hadn’t yet read or just watch the fire, poke it a bit, fetch some more wood and smell that smell as I came back in from the cold outside, that sweet fresh bread smell mixed with the slight scent of smoke. It was my home. I could not imagine that it would ever change.

I'm 10 today

April 6, 2010

Chocolate croissant, flaky, a touch of cinnamon it sticks to my fingers and I have to lick them clean. I lick my fingers clean and then wipe them on my jeans, then wipe my lips with my forearm. I’m 10 today. And Mother finally let me have a birthday party. I’ve been to lots of birthday parties. The kids in my fancy pants private school are big on ‘em. Mom tends to forget about them until the last minute so she keeps a handy dandy supply of tiny flashlights that can be wrapped at the last minute before we dash into the car, the last to arrive. I’ve been to birthday parties at fancy restaurants, the family owned it. I’ve been to birthday parties where there were clowns, rented ponies, swimming in the pool. Usually the whole class is invited so there are fifteen of us which means lots of presents. There’s a perfect cake with fancy writing. There’s always a picture drawn in a different colored icing. If it’s a boy’s birthday, it’s a puppy or a soccer ball, if it’s a girl’s, flowers or dolls with lots of pink. I love getting a big piece, an outside piece so it has lots of icing cause the cake is usually tasteless. But the icing is so sweet it makes my teeth hurt and the fancy, stiff paper napkins that match the plates don’t do a good job of getting it off my fingers. I never wiped it on my good dress, though.

But Mother wouldn’t let me have a birthday party. For one, my birthday was in June, after school was out and school friends were not always about, I suppose. June is a real busy time at our house. The vegetable garden needs all kinds of attention, so does the flower gardens. Haying is about to start or has started already if the rain has let up. New calves have to be tagged, a kind of ear piercing and the cattle need to be moved a lot so they don’t over graze the pastures as the grasses start to come in. There’s way too much to do to have a party. My older brother and sisters had parties when they were little but their birthdays are in fall and winter and besides, when they were little, the farm was much smaller. But ten, turning ten is a big deal. Two digits. The beginnings of teenagerhood. Growing up in a big way, not a baby. So Mother decided a small party would do. She invited the two neighbor boys, Randy Zabaron and Jimmy Tenneson, the only two kids my age within three miles and the son of family friend, Douggie Kohn. My grandmother came and took our picture. There was the one of me sitting on Ann’s bed with my presents all around. I had on my Davy Crockett hat and my Davy Crocket T-shirt. I’m holding the picnic basket with the lid up so you can see the small plastic settings, the two cups and saucers and forks and spoons and knives. And there was the yellow 45 record of the Davy Crockett theme song, “Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.” There was some other stuff but I don’t remember what it was. I remember the smile though, and the way my shoulders were, strong and wide. I was so alive then.

Why tell you this, about that frozen moment in time? I sit here, an old woman now, at least in the eyes of that ten year old girl. Another birthday looms, a big birthday, 60. Clean digits; I like that. Born in 1950, 60 years old. I am not hoping for a Davy Crockett hat this time. So what am I hoping for? A knee that will continue to work without surgery. For my daughter to break free of her suffering, for my son to find the next, life giving step in his journey. Me, for me, I also want the next step, the next life giving step in my journey. It is the walk I take, this search, this journey. Maybe, just maybe, I do have something in common with Davy Crockett.

On the top of my bucket list

13 April 2010

Funny, how old messages linger; things I didn’t have and still want. I have this old fantasy of a best friend/lover. So old, it makes me a little sad to think of that lonely teen who dreamed of someone to explore life with, someone who also saw the world as a great adventure to be discovered. But as I grew into adulthood, something shifted—I don’t know how—but I became convinced that I couldn’t explore the world without a partner, that life was too dangerous for me to navigate it alone. And yet, here I am, traveling the world by myself. Now granted, doing all this exploring solo is hard but truth be told, I’m not alone. You see I have these amazing friends. I sit with a group of them now, my writing friends. Such wealth lives in this room, this shared joy and commitment to clear the space to write. And the writing; I can’t tell you how wonderful it is. We all slip into the past, the old memories and the movie starts, flickering first with an image, a child frozen in a leap, braids flying, mouth open with laughter, next the same child running down the walk to join the family, movements jerky as the film bucks and stops until suddenly the film is forgotten as that world fills the frame.

I am that child, playing with the new toy boat my mother’s best friend’s son Brian brought with him, one for him, one for me. He wakes me up early and we sneak out into the morning rain, boots and plastic raincoats and crouch by the biggest mud-puddle in our gravel driveway. We push the tiny boats back and forth and discover just how much speed they can manage before they tip over. We design towns, ports at sea on the shores and Brian tells stories of wars and strife. I listen in awe to these stories. My world is so sheltered; the wars I know are silent, internal and have no words nor a realized counterpart in the outer world. Brian has moved often and visited many worlds and is full of surprise. It is easy listening, adding bits to his parts, letting the story emerge and grow between us like a giant bubble in the air before it is released to float away. We are sitting in the mud now, oblivious to the rain when we hear my mother’s voice calling us to breakfast. She is quietly surprised, as I am a devoted sleeper, never waking early but she recognizes my hunger for friends and says nothing. That ease, that creation of story that Brian and I had, I marked.

Growing up, there were two or three lengthy visits when Brian would spend a month on the farm or I would spend two weeks with his family in New York. As we grew up, we changed and each time we got together it took longer to slip into that place where he would tell me what he was thinking and I would tell him what I thought. He was less trusting and angrier. When he did finally let me in, I was surprised to find how full of rage he was. I didn’t know how to move with that. But, as he pointed out, I was younger and still naïve, I would learn.

The last time I saw him was in college. We met in Denver and went skiing together at Winter Park. He was a much better skier than I was and I felt left behind. He was reading about Buddhism and studying with a teacher. He ate a pure diet the details of which I have long forgotten but his hair had turned bright blond again, no longer darkened brown and his eyes were so blue, his skin so pink and clear. Again I felt slow and left behind. He was adamant that he didn’t want to be a TBM, a tired business man, like his father had been. He was, he felt, on the path to something wonderful .

I never saw him again. Later I learned from my mother that he had become quite paranoid. He wouldn’t visit his family for fear that they would lock him up. He was homeless, afraid to stay anywhere too long, again for fear that he would get caught. Once he allowed his parents to meet him at a coffee shop but shortly into the visit, he became angry and left. Sometimes, he would call home and talk.

I don’t know where he stays now, what city, or even if he’s still alive, my friend Brian, who I used to create worlds with.

Light on Water

13 April 2010

I have to tell you about what happened. It was Tuesday and I had driven to Berkeley to my old writing group. We had met at Alison’s house, up in the hills, a view of the bay with the city peaking through the redwoods, the house, old and funky, beat wood floors, a huge fireplace. It was cool enough to light the wood waiting and we wrote in friendship and warmth as the mystery of the unconscious spilled out. But it was after this, after the hugs good-bye, the date with Ellen for lunch the next day finalized, that I drove to Tilden Park. My friend Mary and I used to walk there, in 1991, when I would drive down from Sacramento to go to school three days a week at the same PhD program Mary was soon to finish. I slept on her sofa. We would walk and talk for hours in Tilden Park. But since those times, I’ve only found my way back once. I thought that I would just slip over there for a long walk, before heading to my friend Brigid’s house.

But I couldn’t find my way. I knew when I drove past the “Welcome to Contra Costa County” sign that I had gone too far and turned around on the winding road and headed back. I decided to settle for the lake as there was a sign pointing clearly to the right. At least I would get there and I had just been writing about a lake, albeit the one on my parents’ farm. There was a path that went around the lake. “Rough Path” the sign said and they were right. Up rocks, over roots from the giant eucalyptus trees that were as big as my arm, under low hanging boughs from the pine trees. I climbed and descended, avoided the mud, jumped over the streams, carefully navigated the rocks. On the opposite side of the lake there was a boulder, long and flat that jutted out into the water and I found myself drawn to it. Though the air was cool, the rock warmed me and I sat watching the water.

At first, I noticed the usual, some ducks swimming off to the left, the water brown with the silt from the spring runoff, the sound of men working across the lake by the parking lot where I’d started walking. Then I got caught in looking at the water. The ripples in the water gave the water a dense look, as if I was looking at the skin of a giant, mud coated hippopotamus who was twitching his skin. I laughed at my imagination. Then the light changed and there were diamonds of light moving across the water swirling with the waves the wind made, sometimes moving across the lake, sometimes moving right towards me. The diamonds grew large, so large that I could see blue light mixed into the white, as if they were in fact stones of light with depth and shadow of their own. They danced all over, sometimes to my left, sometimes directly in front of me. Sometimes there were hundreds, sometimes four or five and then disappearing only to suddenly shine out in a different place as the wind shifted and the light changed. I sat watching, searching for answering light within me, looking to see if these flames of light would trigger an answering fire. My body remained silent, only my mind relaxed, opened, let these flickers of light move in and out of my field of awareness at will until the light changed again and the lake was brown with the wrinkled skin of an old hippo and there was no light anywhere. It was suddenly cold, the rock no longer warm. I had been sitting too long and needed to walk to warm myself. But something had shifted. Even though my body was tired, hungry, cold, I felt as if I’d been given a secret glimpse into what is possible. I felt privileged. And so I walked carefully over roots and rocks, through the mud, back to my car. I spoke to the ducks before they swam off. I thanked the lake.

They say where two or three are together, that’s church. They say God can touch us at any moment. They say it is simply a dream this life, a dream that hides the truth. I don’t know about any of that. All I know is there was this light on the water that was so beautiful that I knew for that moment that I was seeing something holy. And that if I am allowed to see such beauty, I must be beloved.

Dreamer

The prompt for this writing was a quote by Mark Doty

"The dreamer beneath black leaves and a spatter of summer stars."

April 5, 2010

Lying on the earth, summer night, frogs croaking, the grand-daddy frogs harrumphing, crickets, cicadas surrounding me with sound, holding me like a hammock as I lay with my sister and friends watching the night sky. The black leaves are but a frame, no weight at all. There are no thick ponderous oak branches moving slowly in the wind, just a kaleidoscopic shifting of black shape as we look at stars. We are wiggly squiggly bodies flung on top of sleeping bags, moving around rocks, poking a friend, "Look at that! Did you see that shooting star? Oh there's the north star. There's Orion's belt, do you see it?"

"Where, where?" Oh the joy of it, discovering this magical universe that lives behind the light waiting for everyone to darken down so their millions of light yeras away light can find our hungry eyes and help us dream. Those nights of laughter, wonder, warmth swirl in my mind like the stars themselves, waiting for the lights to go down so they can again be revealed and dance. It catches me. I thought I knew what I would write about. I had a straight, clear idea which now fades out into the swirl of starlight. That glowing presence is all I need to start my body relaxing, shoulders fall, mind tingles. This Petri dish of life that I rested in held so many visions of possibility but not just visions. It held the rich bubble of joy that rested in my belly and just below and surrounding my heart. That sense of my roots shooting deep into loamy earth as my hair blew wild with the wind hiding stars in its tangles, that love and connection, that is what I knew then. There was no doubt that I was earth's baby and sky's child. I knew it in my dreams when I would fly--but not too high--for I loved the weight of the earth as well as the freedom the wind brought me. Now I would smear myself with mud, paint myself earth brown before I fly off for a moonlit gambit.

I must be mad but I don't care anymore. This freedom, this joy to taste and touch all parts of existence is so exquiste, so utterly satisfying, I could no more turn away from it than a mother from her child. Ahh, but I knew, I knew that I could wiggle into the night soil and visit the stars and then, just before I finally closed my eyes, so tired from a day of running and working and being good and staying out of trouble if I could figure out trouble before I splashed into it, the blackened leaves would move and dance around the sky until I couldn't tell if the leaves were moving or it was the earth that was dancing, carrying me in its night song to sway oh so elegantly along to the songs the frogs played bass to and the crickets alto but it was the stars who sang soprano so high, so impossibly high that I couldn't quite hear them but I knew they were singing and my ears tingled with the beauty of it until finally, even my ears closed, drooping heavily and I slept.

Back in the states

10 March 2010

How many rooms have I schlepped my suitcase into, unzipped it, rifled through looking for my PJ's? Don't buy black. It's a terrible color. I own so much black: PJ's, turtle necks, sweat pants, socks, underwear, corduroy pants, jeans, sweater,. They morph into one wrinkled, bulky unit and I end up throwing them into different piles every night just trying to find my PJ's or a clean pair of undies or socks. My kingdom for a dresser.

Let me explain. I am a hobo. I carry my suitcase, which has one outfit for most occasions, my black bag for toiletries, the current book I'm reading, my writing notebook, vitamins and hairdryer. I also have a portable file for very important papers, a place to organize the latest bills, store the stamps, unused envelopes, scotch tape, paper clips. Actually I need to buy paper clips. The file usually stays in my car. And I have my backpack that contains my computer, camera and more writing papers, the ones I want in hard copy. With these items I travel between Sacramento, Fairfield, Napa and Oakland depending on where I need or want to be. It seemed simple, this idea--odd maybe--but simple. In July of last year, I quit my job of three years at hospice, gave up my four bedroom house, put my things in storage and went. I flew to Jordan and visited my son who works in Saudi. I flew to Nepal and then to India and then to Nepal again where I went on retreat. From there I flew to Australia, another retreat and finally, after two and a half months gone, I came home. Only I didn't want to come home. I didn't want to sink back down into the routine, the sadness, the quiet life of work, care taking of others, playing with my grandchildren. Odd, isn't it? It seems odd to me too, for I am so tired, at this moment, of being homeless, so exhausted with trying to be the good guest. Yet today, as I looked on Craig's list for a rental, I realized that I wasn't ready to stop and settle down. I won't do it. I can't. I can't go back to that life; that life of quiet desperation. I want something else now. I want joy. I want connection. I want community. I want to feel in the wildest and most basic way that I am growing inside, becoming younger, as it were. I want to continue to shed old structures, old certainties, old beliefs about me, about the world, about what is important.

I was one of those people who never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was 22, my boyfriend asked me what I wanted from life, what my life's ambition was. I answered, "To know a lot." But it wasn't facts I was wanting. It was life itself. And for a long time, working in the mental health world, I learned a lot. I learned by watching and listening and cataloguing the results of other peoples' choices. Then I went to work in hospice. At first, I was delighted to be working with regular folks. Twenty-five years in mental health and it's easy to think every one's crazy, and if not crazy, certainly unhappy. But in hospice I met people who'd been in a loving relationship for sixty years. I met people who'd lived lives of meaning, or simply quietly fulfilling or just lived without drama. And it was joyful for me. But the message of hospice, over and over, is simple. We are all going to die. No exceptions. I might live thirty more years or show up tomorrow with a terminal diagnosis. No certainty about timing, but no doubt about outcome. Every day I sat with someone dying. Every day I looked at my life and wondered if tomorrow I learned I had six months or less to live, what would I regret? And I did regret. I was afraid I hadn't really lived, risked, explored, pushed to see what I could do, who I could be, what I could know. So I packed up my things and I left. And now, now I can't quite stop wandering, not yet, as painful as it is at times. Tonight I will drive the forty miles to Fairfield to yet another house, schlep my bags in quietly so as not to disturb my friend and sleep. Tomorrow I will pack up, drive sixty more miles to Sacramento to another friend's home. And so it goes. I don't know when this will stop. I don't know how much longer I can continue like this. But I do know that I promised myself, when I was young and lonely on the farm, that when I got big, I would live my life the way I wanted to live it, that I would have adventures, that I would touch the truth of this life. I promised myself, that skinny, braided girl, that I would have a life of love and learning that was full of the unexpected, a life that pressed me to grow in ways I couldn't dream of. I promised. I can't wait any longer; I don't know how much time I have.

Land of Oz

Oz has a familiar air to it; as if I am at home. And yet there are such differences. Some of the birds here make truly alarming sounds, like a small child being tortured. It is spring; the jackaranda trees have gone mad with purple, painting it everywhere and dripping it onto the streets. The story I heard was that the jackaranda are native to South America and were brought over. Later, an OB nurse fell in love with them and gave a baby tree to each of her new mothers. They are planted everywhere.

I walk for hours a day, downtown, to the Rocks, where the first settlers lived, to the opera house, to the botanical park. I have been on a short ferry ride cool ocean breeze licking my face and plan to take the longer, two hour ride around the harbor when I get back from this retreat.

But the thing that keeps sneaking up on me is joy. It jumps me as I am walking, trying to figure out which way the cars will be coming from, trying to figure out exactly where I might be going as I meander about. It is such a strong impulse, this joy, like a sudden buggle blow billowing out into the quiet, filling my mind. For so long I felt I had messed up my life in some serious ways, choices made that if only. . . Things might have been so different for my children, for me. Guilt and worry and what if's. This joy rips that to shreds. It shouts of the wonder of this moment, of the strength that evolved through all that I have experienced. It whispers of aspects of my self that would never have bloomed had I lived the life my mother painted; safely married to a devoted, wealthy husband who would tenderly care for me and our children. And I find myself laughing outloud, shaking my head and letting my imaginary long hair blow free (let's hear it for another bad, inch long hair all over my head haircut). I am well and truly alive. Fearful sometimes, lost sometimes but such adventure just here, just around the corner. It is a gift; the pearl from years of struggle. I live. I laugh. I learn. And I love it all.

Back to the western world

My last morning in Kathmandu, I walked the fifteen minutes to the stoupa. I walked past the new mother bathing her two to three month old baby on her cement front stoop as she let him have some sun. We exchanged the same smile we'd been exchanging every time I pass by and see them, the smile of awe and joy. I passed the men sitting on their front stoops sewing, the men and boys playing the same game of flipping a chip with their fingers across a board, past the men hammering copper, brass and silver pieces, past the cows, the goats, the dogs, over the mounds of dirt that surround the men digging up the street (with shovels and picks) and putting it back together again. They are preparing to pave it. I walk all the while dodging bicyclers, motorcycles and the occasional truck as the street is blocked off due to the working men. The barriers are large bamboo poles tied with nylon rope and a few cloth flags under which scoot pedestrians, bicyclers, cows and dogs. I walk avoiding the mud, the cow pies, garbage that lines the streets, the dog poop, the beggars (there are two to three regulars on this walk). It is my last day so I give the old woman with the blind husband(?) she leads around 100 rupees. I tell her, even though I know she won't know the words, that today is my last day. Usually I give her 20 rupees when I see her, ($.25) which delights her so today, she knows something is different and we look into each others eyes wordlessly for a long time before I hold my hands together in prayer and tell her goodbye and Nameste. My eyes fill with tears. I give the emaciated man with one foot who sits in a tortuous position on the ground 100 rupees as well. Usually I ignore him. My old woman and her blind husband are my charity and the rest, well it was too overwhelming. But today, I am out early as is he, and for some reason, maybe because it is my last day, we look into each others eyes and I have to offer some part of me in response to the part of him that is open for the whole world to see. As I give him the bills, he too looks deep into my eyes and we hold that look for some time before I say Nameste and he says the same back to me. Quietly, softly, and then I walk on.

I left the monastery at 2PM, flew to Delhi, flew out of Delhi at 11PM to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, two hours later, flew the last 8 hours to Sydney, arriving 8PM the next day. And it is another world. The streets are paved. Traffic flows in an orderly fashion, albeit on the wrong side of the street--I mean on the left side of the street. There is no honking. There are traffic lights. There is a speed limit. The traffic is light, moves easily. And this morning, I took a long, hot shower. I love it. I love consistent electricity. I love a computer that works quickly and reliably. I love air that is clean and doesn't hurt my throat and lungs.

And yet, my heart will hold Nepal.

Leaving Nepal

Today I fly. It's hard to believe. This place has come to feel like home. The rhythm of each day predictable, comfortable, familiar. Yet I am poignantly aware that my loved ones are elsewhere and I am moving, albeit in the opposite direction, towards them. I am also aware that I am not ready to come home. There is something about being free of roles, expectations, responsibilities that is delicious; an experience I haven't had since I was in my 20's. That sense of possibility, of freedom to be myself, whatever that looks like today, is filling. I want to take that with me, even when I pick up the harness of work, even when I slip into "granny" status again. I've noticed that when I don't use a part of myself, after a while I lose familiarity with that part and feel that it is no longer accessible. If I am not in a sexual relationship, I must not be sexy. If I am not free of responsibility, I must not be carefree. If I am not doing something new and untried, I must not be adventurous. But all those parts exist regardless of my activities. And I don't want to lose them again.

When I was working in Napa, it was so easy just to fill up on the activities of the day. Work, maintenence of the home, of my body, some brief time for personal relationships, sapped my energy and left me with a sense of exhaustion and being trapped. And yet I loved my work, my relationships. So how do I pull those other newly rediscovered parts out as I pick up those routines? Ah yes, more to discover.

I am lucky. I walk through the streets of Nepal knowing that this afternoon I will be on a plane to Australia. I look at the people here, caught in poverty. There is little opportunity for the luxury of going away and exploring what means the most for them. They are grateful for hot water, should they have that, a full belly, healthy bodies. It is a gift, this affluence, health and education that lets me explore, travel both internal and external. I am lucky.