When there's a gun on the mantle contradicting the fireplace
in full view from the prone position
and the jailer is at your back
you make do
all the while plotting your escape
file to steel
file to steel
file to steel
file to steel
When you find yourself back in the cell
after a brief false freedom
(with no revolution knocking down the door
no furious mob with sticks and flames
not even a spare lone flare)
there is leery food on the table
and when the tyrant looks across and through you
sitting erect on his throne
you will lock yourself away willingly
just to suspend that stare
A lifetime can be spent unraveling a moment
A cage becomes comfort
safety in the closing walls
freedom malleable and dull
We can force to forget
until Time aids in the deletion of memory
But in the Night
the pillow cradles our dreams
steel crumbles like dust
whisked away in the slightest breeze
and there we fly
light and free
Showing posts with label nettie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nettie. Show all posts
Darkness: 10.28.2013
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Photo by James Maher |
The crisp Autumn light illuminates the golden letting go--each fluttering in a spectacular demise. The breeze pushes the end of the year over the edge. A life complete.
Last June, when leaves were plump with green, I went to Sandglass Theater to see "Triangle," a puppet-theater show about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. A grim page in US labor and immigrant history, women were forced to make the decision to jump nine stories down or be consumed alive by flame. Many jumped. A spectacular demise of another sort.
Across the country in California, camping in Yosemite, it was a few days before I returned to Time defined as 'pre' and 'post' 9-11. I have never seen the footage of the Twin Towers falling or people fluttering in the morning light. Ties and skirts flapping up as gravity descends. A life incomplete.
I have seen the iconic Vietnam photo of naked, napalmed, nine-year-old Kim Phuc screaming, "Nong qua, nong qua!" (Too hot, too hot!). Growing old before the photographer's lens, she is robbed of her childhood.
If you decide to wholeheartedly love, you are guaranteed wholehearted heartbreak.
When it becomes too much, I go to Salmon Creek beach and take solace in the sea, seals, shells. I nestle in the sand. The ocean's rhythmic and constant voice comforting, like a mother stroking the hair of her child and whispering the magic and beauty of all things. She says, "listen to the salty breathing of the water, it is your own heart beating."
And what of our waters that cloak seventy percent of the earth's surface (and seventy percent of our own bodies)?
Out of sight, out of mind. Yet, on one of the most remote islands on earth, the albatross' plastic filled stomach hangs about our necks as the sun and salty air hold hands with the grieving passage of Time to reveal the debris of civilization. I withhold my love for convenience when I reach for a plastic bag to transport my broccoli the 7 minute ride home. Do I notice the weight around my own stiffened neck?
I'm reading an interview of my clown Maestro. The question is, "What gives you hope?" He replies, "I would say that to be hopeless is blasphemous and self-indulgent....hopelessness is lack of faith. And lack of faith is highly destructive."
An Elder, with thick, expressive hands that shake involuntarily with the electricity of life, his laughter a booming vibration, once told me that in his culture there is no such thing as an extinct species. The spirit of the animal will withdraw and disappear, but it is not gone. It is waiting to re-emerge again when conditions are hospitable. When we are not terrified of really loving the world. It was comforting to hear and entertain that possibility. That despite the destruction humans are capable of, we are not that important or powerful--there is something bigger at play.
I met another man. We met through sentences. He was a scientist surrounded by cutting edge data. He told me we have gone past the point of no return. Our actions have set into motion irrevocable consequences. We are in the midst of our own spectacular demise. "Most people are asleep," he told me. They will not accept the horror of the Dark Mountain. For him this knowledge catapulted big life changes--leaving his job and dedicating his life to art. The urgency prompted him to love and live more deeply.
Fight, flight or freeze. I immediately feel depressed. Frozen in my fear and despair. I could feel the shadow of the Dark Mountain sweeping me into its belly. Oh, tender times, beware! For Darkness has the ability to consume all Light, or, it can be the vehicle for contrasting the brilliance.
Either way, the path leads to it. The choice is whether to walk through. And it won't be pleasant. You may have to withstand the heat of stones. You may have to lose all your bones and lie naked in a puddle of mud and grit fashioned from your own sweat. You may have to expel the imbalance, retching until the disease lies enervated before you in putrid chunks and acidic liquid. Your body immobile, except for the eyes as they witness the generous earth swallowing it up. Transforming it in her belly.
When you reassemble your bones, you will walk in an upright manner. A ratio in your stride as you meet the outstretched road. Each track leaving a collective footprint, each footstep bringing you closer to the life pulsing in your chest...to your wholehearted heart breaking open.
Magic: 10.14.2013
I was having a bad day. I mean a really bad day. It started by waking up at 3am from a nightmare. In the dream there was an evil government takeover. It was up to me to save the world. All by my lonesome. I was scared, but there was no one else to do the job. So I summoned up my strength and gave it my best shot. But I got caught. The new regime didn't take kindly to those who believed in things like peace, love, a healthy planet and a colorful world. The dream was all shades of gray and sanitized stainless steel. I was put in a torture chamber where they hooked up wires to both of my temples. They were targeting my brain. They kept turning up the electricity. The pressure and pain was mounting between my ears. I couldn't take it anymore. My skull was going to explode! I started to scream...one long scream originating deep in my belly and gathering momentum as it rose up and then out my vocal chords. This is how I woke up. I had only been asleep for 2 hours. I still had the whole night ahead and I was afraid to shut my eyes again. Finally, I did. Tossing and turning, I fell back to sleep. But when morning came, I was exhausted. I awoke with a metallic taste in my mouth and a heaviness in my chest.
I made my usual coffee in the stovetop espresso. But before it made it to my cup, it landed all over the stove. Sometimes it is difficult to make coffee before having coffee. Especially when the weight of saving the world is on your already tight shoulders.
Yoga. That will help. But because I had to make a second stovetop espresso I was behind schedule. I hate being late for yoga. It conjures up a time in California when I arrived after a class had started. I felt terrible and terribly self-conscious as the instructor stopped class and waited for me to get situated. She then said in a sickly sweet voice, "Rushing is a form of violence." And then it was back to inhale....exhale....downward (in the)dog(house). Here, my yoga teacher just greets me in his normal voice and makes sure there is space to put my mat down. But I still feel badly about coming in late. This day I was already out of sorts in mind and body and it was one of the rare times I left feeling more sore and crickety than when I came in. Sigh.
I stopped at my PO Box to get my mail. Bills and a disturbing, worrisome letter. One where I couldn't help but wonder if I am a good enough human being. Ugh. I think I'll move to Australia. That last sentence is actually a reference to a book. A very important one in my lexicon. Anyone out there in 'blogland' know what it is? Maybe I'll tell you at the end of this piece, but it will be written backwards or upsidedown or in code. Maybe I will offer a prize if you answer correctly in the blog comments. Or maybe I will let it remain a mystery. But I digress. Back to my bad day. I mean my really bad day.
Well, actually, it was looking up. If there is one thing that can lift my spirits it's German wheel. I was going to meet my training partner at the high school gym in Wilmington. Since she works there, we are able to train on off hours. I had just enough time to stop at home and grab a very quick something to eat. But somehow my quick something turned into a longer-than-expected something. Scheiße! I had to leave NOW!
Wilmington is twenty miles west of Brattleboro, up and over Hogback mountain. It's a beautiful drive but I was too worried about being late, worried if I was a compassionate enough human being, worried about the drought of paid work and my upcoming bills, worried about my aging parents on the other side of the country, worried if I have been a good enough daughter, worried I was chasing an illusory dream that would never come to fruition, worried about the consequences and that no one ever thinks about Fukashima or the BP oil disaster, worried I'll never find love again, worried that my nightmare was really a premonition of things to come, worried about getting old and ending up alone, worried that I am worrying too much and not living life, worried at my contribution to global climate change as I chugged up and over the mountain--all that beauty rushing past me and my monkey mind. And then I was worried about something more immediate. The flashing lights behind me.
That was it. I was defeated. But in a last ditch effort I said a prayer. Please, please please...for once give me a break. I can not afford a ticket right now. I mean I really can't. Not too long ago a friend on Facebook posted (boasted?) how she always is able to talk her way out of tickets. She's never been written up despite all the times she's been pulled over. I can do that, right? And I did say a prayer?
The officer was young. It was the same rigmarole. Despite my feeling of doom I tried to be positive, cooperative and friendly. I was beaming subliminal messages to him. Have pity on me!!! But of course it didn't work. He wrote me up. When he handed me the ticket and I saw how much it was for, I just started crying. Uncontrollably. He hovered outside my window.
"Ma'am, are you Ok?"
I bristled at Ma'am. I know it's irrational, but it just makes me feel a thousand years old.
"I'm...just...having a......bad day."
I'm trying to talk but it's coming out in gulps of tearful breaths.
"A really baaaaaaaad daaaay...." (Sobbing ensues).
Pause. Silence. Except for my crying, shaking body.
"Well I don't mean to add to it."
I can't believe he is saying that. For a micro-second there is hope. He'll take the ticket back and rip it up in front of my eyes. My prayer answered. A break! I will drive the speed limit from now on. I will appreciate the beauty passing by my car window.
But instead he gets stern and tells me to pull myself together before driving and then leaves.
I am really late now. But all I can do is sit in the car and cry. I finally do pull myself together and finish the last leg to the high school. When I walk in I am a wreck. I'm sobbing and apologizing and crying and explaining. And I really do feel defeated. No fight left inside. It's as if all the doubts and fears and failures I've been trying to keep at bay have burst the dam. My training partner, Jobi, just hugs me. I finally quiet down. She puts my wheel together while I sit in the corner and play my ukelele. It's the only thing that seems to comfort me in the moment. I feel too fragile to get on the wheel. I don't want to get injured.
Finally I feel ready to practice. I'm extra careful. And just do what I can. I start to feel better. My 'rock to standing up on top of the wheel' goes well. With German wheel it is all about timing, technique and feeling the movement, being in concert with the apparatus. Jobi is there to spot me. Each time I repeat the move and lift myself to the top, I feel my spirits rise.
I am not a wreck when we are done. I dismantle the wheel and put it in my car. We are ready to go but decide to use the bathroom before leaving. I go into the stall. It's my habit to check the toilet seat as I really prefer to sit on a dry surface. I take some TP and wipe it down. I sit. I pee. I think about the turn of events. I think about how grateful I am to have a supportive friend. That although I have felt miserably alone at times and far away from friends and family on the West coast, I do have people around me, here, who care about me. I don't have to shoulder everything alone. I'm strong, but there is another strength. A strength in being able to receive. I don't have to torture myself.
I turn around to flush the toilet and do a double-take. On the toilet seat is a bright, shiny penny. I just blink my eyes and stare at it. Whaaat? How did that get there? I know it wasn't there before. Jobi is in the next stall.
"Ummm, Jobi? Something weird just happened."
I tell her. She doesn't seem too fazed by it. I am though. That penny was definitely not there before!!!!! She just says matter-of-factly, "Well, maybe it means your luck is changing."
As I wash my hands I am still perplexed.
Outside we hug goodbye and she leaves. It's a warm day and my window is down. When I open the door there is a piece of paper on my seat. What is it with things appearing on seats today? I pick it up and it is a check. A check for half the amount of my speeding ticket. I just stare at it as tears well up in my eyes. I can't believe it. I am completely overcome by this act of kindness and generosity. This feeling that I am not alone in my struggles. This gesture is priceless. But I can't take her money. I call Jobi on her cell. I try to give it back. But she won't allow it. "Well," I tell her, "at least you should keep this lucky penny. I'll save it for you." I offer it before I realize she may not want a shiny penny that my heinie sat on.
The whole way home I drive the speed limit. Cars are passing me like crazy but I don't care. I take in the natural beauty. I even stop at the overlook...the Green Mountains stretching for miles and miles. I breathe in. I breathe out. Nothing has changed and everything has changed. My heart is cracked open. One person can make a difference. Today the world saved me.
***yaddabyrevdoogonelbirrohelbirretehtdnarednaxela
Heart: 09.30.2013
"Lower your arms, they're up too high. See the line they are drawing? It goes to your belly button. But if you lower your arms, yes...you see that? It goes directly to your heart."
I look in the mirror and make the adjustments. He's right of course. There's a completely different feeling emanating out of my body and into the room. And if I really do the work, the feeling extends beyond the brick building and into the neighboring hillside. It slices beneath the second floor, past the first floor, down through the foundation and pierces the earth's crust and sinks into the fiery molten center. Well, maybe not quite that far, but definitely into the cool, squishy earth.
I am learning to take space and not shrink in my magnitude.
I didn't grow up taking dance classes. I have a vague memory of starting ballet at a young age, but only a class or two. For some reason, I didn't want to go back. I can't recall why, there is only the remnant of uncomfortable stifling. A sensitive kid who didn't bode well with the rigidity. I know many people who had good ballet childhoods, and now, so many years later, I yearn for that infrastructure.
In the past, I've tried a few different classes with varying degrees of success and anxiety. But a couple years ago, after leaving one too many times feeling like a complete dance dunce with movement Alzheimer's, I decided to stop. The dance demons got the best of me and I kept tripping on my own feet.
So I stopped taking classes and focused more on Clown. (Did I really think that would be any easier?) Yet, I longed for ease of movement. For my self-expression. To bring my body gracefully into what I create. Or at least have a range of movement choice. It was that longing that prompted me to sign up for a 2-hour workshop led by a man who was a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Company for over twenty years.
The workshop was crowded. And although I was nervous, I took some comfort in the hope that I could just hide unnoticed in the masses. We did do sequences and I didn't disappear. He didn't allow it. And there were moments when I was led to tears. But not because of embarrassment or wrong steps, rather because of his approach to it all.
We go through a phrase where there is a gesture, arms forward as if holding a big beach ball. He stops us. "See this place?" He puts his hand in the vicinity of his heart, just below his clavicle. He talks softly, just a hint of Southern upbringing detected in his voice. "When you do that motion, it is a holding, an embrace. This part of our body, this concave place is designed perfectly. It is the place where a mother holds her child. Or a lover rests his head." And to illustrate it, he has me place mine in that perfect nook--the universal, cross-cultural, non-gender specific, international free zone of a humanity that connects us all.
After that workshop, a couple of friends and I decide to share private lessons with him. He would say we aren't 'doing dance.' We are doing something else. It's the something else that draws me in. The intangible mystery that speaks to me and makes sense in its non-sense. That and the fact that as I start out and fumble along, he doesn't care if I get all the steps precisely. He cares about what I am communicating with my body. If there is feeling emanating from my joints, if there are roots sprouting from my feet, if the tension of holding on and letting go is felt in my limbs, if my eyes are free from masks.
There are three of us in the room. He shows us a sequence. And then we each have to do it solo. I start.
"No, stop. Do it again."
I do it again.
"Nope. Again."
I start once more.
He makes a sound like a buzzer going off. "Wrong. Again."
Now I am frustrated and a little bit angry. And pained. I try again.
"That's it! Next."
What did I do differently? This ineffable (and perplexing) place that is recognizable to the audience, yet feels untraceable. It is in the technique, but technique alone isn't enough. It has something to do with the open and vulnerable heart. Something there and beyond.
I feel he is a wise and mischievous Master. He always seems to have a trickster twinkle in his eye. Every so often, in the middle of things, he will stop, and looking towards the back of the room, start talking to the 'Maestro.' He always gets me. I turn around to see with whom he is having this conversation, and of course the room is empty. I think he does it to keep us on our toes. Keep us present in the moment. But I have another secret thought when this happens. I imagine the room is filled with his own dance mentors. Martha's there. As well as his entire dance lineage. Watching, listening, commenting and perhaps moving alongside.
They are all there with him...and with us.
I look in the mirror and make the adjustments. He's right of course. There's a completely different feeling emanating out of my body and into the room. And if I really do the work, the feeling extends beyond the brick building and into the neighboring hillside. It slices beneath the second floor, past the first floor, down through the foundation and pierces the earth's crust and sinks into the fiery molten center. Well, maybe not quite that far, but definitely into the cool, squishy earth.
I am learning to take space and not shrink in my magnitude.
I didn't grow up taking dance classes. I have a vague memory of starting ballet at a young age, but only a class or two. For some reason, I didn't want to go back. I can't recall why, there is only the remnant of uncomfortable stifling. A sensitive kid who didn't bode well with the rigidity. I know many people who had good ballet childhoods, and now, so many years later, I yearn for that infrastructure.
In the past, I've tried a few different classes with varying degrees of success and anxiety. But a couple years ago, after leaving one too many times feeling like a complete dance dunce with movement Alzheimer's, I decided to stop. The dance demons got the best of me and I kept tripping on my own feet.
So I stopped taking classes and focused more on Clown. (Did I really think that would be any easier?) Yet, I longed for ease of movement. For my self-expression. To bring my body gracefully into what I create. Or at least have a range of movement choice. It was that longing that prompted me to sign up for a 2-hour workshop led by a man who was a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Company for over twenty years.
The workshop was crowded. And although I was nervous, I took some comfort in the hope that I could just hide unnoticed in the masses. We did do sequences and I didn't disappear. He didn't allow it. And there were moments when I was led to tears. But not because of embarrassment or wrong steps, rather because of his approach to it all.
We go through a phrase where there is a gesture, arms forward as if holding a big beach ball. He stops us. "See this place?" He puts his hand in the vicinity of his heart, just below his clavicle. He talks softly, just a hint of Southern upbringing detected in his voice. "When you do that motion, it is a holding, an embrace. This part of our body, this concave place is designed perfectly. It is the place where a mother holds her child. Or a lover rests his head." And to illustrate it, he has me place mine in that perfect nook--the universal, cross-cultural, non-gender specific, international free zone of a humanity that connects us all.
After that workshop, a couple of friends and I decide to share private lessons with him. He would say we aren't 'doing dance.' We are doing something else. It's the something else that draws me in. The intangible mystery that speaks to me and makes sense in its non-sense. That and the fact that as I start out and fumble along, he doesn't care if I get all the steps precisely. He cares about what I am communicating with my body. If there is feeling emanating from my joints, if there are roots sprouting from my feet, if the tension of holding on and letting go is felt in my limbs, if my eyes are free from masks.
There are three of us in the room. He shows us a sequence. And then we each have to do it solo. I start.
"No, stop. Do it again."
I do it again.
"Nope. Again."
I start once more.
He makes a sound like a buzzer going off. "Wrong. Again."
Now I am frustrated and a little bit angry. And pained. I try again.
"That's it! Next."
What did I do differently? This ineffable (and perplexing) place that is recognizable to the audience, yet feels untraceable. It is in the technique, but technique alone isn't enough. It has something to do with the open and vulnerable heart. Something there and beyond.
I feel he is a wise and mischievous Master. He always seems to have a trickster twinkle in his eye. Every so often, in the middle of things, he will stop, and looking towards the back of the room, start talking to the 'Maestro.' He always gets me. I turn around to see with whom he is having this conversation, and of course the room is empty. I think he does it to keep us on our toes. Keep us present in the moment. But I have another secret thought when this happens. I imagine the room is filled with his own dance mentors. Martha's there. As well as his entire dance lineage. Watching, listening, commenting and perhaps moving alongside.
They are all there with him...and with us.
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy,
a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium
and it will be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is
nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open...
~~~Martha Graham~~~
Letting Go: 09.16.2013
"What is it about us human beings that we can't let go of lost things?"
Leslie Marmon Silko from The Turquoise Ledge
Tony, Tony look around
The (name lost object) must be found
By (make a deadline: Friday, 2pm, one hour, immediately)
And I thank you in advance, Amen.
He never fails me. Before I adjusted the prayer with a time frame, I thought his powers were waning. But then I realized he was on Saint's Time, which is very different than Human Time. So it helps to be clear in the request. It is also imperative that you make an effort and still look for whatever is lost. You can't just pray and then kick back with a cuppa. It just doesn't work that way. I have friends who call me up when they lose something to say the prayer. I'm sure it would work fine if they said it, but perhaps they feel I have an 'in' because of the family connection.
I will be honest, I don't know how well it works for lost dreams, childhoods or loves. Finding the place where love soured, the gathering of instants that led to misunderstanding, the uncomfortable pile upon pile smothering the raw and real of the matter because it was just too intimately painful to look at...until the heat from this emotional compost pile erupts into flame, these things I do not have a Saint for. Finding keys, a parking spot, an apartment or job are better bets.
I remember the moment we said the final "D" word. We were in couples counseling and things had come to a head. It looked like there was no way out of the pile upon piles. We lost our way and took two different roads home. I had been holding on for so long, holding on to assuage my biggest fear, trying to keep the container from leaking, but just couldn't anymore. And when I loosened my grip, I watched in horror as it all slipped through the cracks.
We married in a redwood grove and part of the ceremony was a handfasting. Our hands together, as if in prayer, and a cord was tied around them. A simple knot, as if one were tying a shoelace.
Now as I tie this True Lover's Knot
You two are joined as one
Gentle are the bonds of this union
Pull one way and the bonds are strengthened
Pull the other and they are loosened
The cord was lifted off of our hands and we kept it in a safe and special place at home. Even when we separated, I never lost track of it.
After we filed our papers for divorce, we chose a day to go back to the redwood grove with our dear friend who officiated the ceremony. There, we put our hands together once again. The cord was placed over them. Words were said and then the cord was untied and cut. Our spiritual bond severed, we buried each half in the grove.
That hot summer day in the shade of the redwoods was devastating. The kind where you can't breathe anymore, where you buckle to your knees and wonder if there is anything out there resembling a God, where you look around and what you thought was a trajectory of your life lays in a muddy puddle. All the hopes, ideas, dreams of what love is buried in the earth.
But time has a way of offering soft perspective on the hard edges of life. I didn't stop breathing. I do believe in something bigger than myself, call it God if you like, and the muddy puddle was one of my best teachers.
The truth of the matter is I never let go of the man I loved and married. I let go of the marriage, of that rendition of our relationship. But never the love and affection. We are still friends today.
Evenings: 09.02.2013
dedicated in gratitude to the fleeting and indefectible beauty of Maples
Things I noticed:
A young boy, maybe 9 or 10, with brown tousled hair falling into his eyes, making sure his mom was watching his skateboard trick. He did it on the rumble of the bricks and upon completion whipped his locks around immediately, like a rubberband releasing tension, to see if she was looking. She was. His shoulders relaxed for the slightest moment and then it started all over again.
In the same square, a man and woman. Were they homeless? Rough and ragged. Hewn from heaviness. I could only clearly see him from my bench. His hair was tousled, too. The color of worn life in his locks. Not that it was gray necessarily. It was indeed sunkissed by the elements with veins of gold, but lackluster. It rested madly, just above his shoulders. I noticed I didn't want to make any contact--that some people put off tinder. But then he put earphones on. And I witnessed the most glorious, un-selfconscious, head-bobbin', hands air-drummin' display of joyous rocking out. The heaviness in some alchemical mystery transformed.
The Whetstone creek kept a steady and comforting drone. I was so drawn I twisted my body so I could look at the disappearing water. There were two small brown birds scantering in the bushes. I found it sad I didn't know my winged neighbors on a first name basis. I noted that and my disturbance. One bird approached with the usual staccato movements. Closer and closer. There was just enough pause in between to see the soft face. Even the beak looked soft. And gentle, gentle eyes. I could have looked into this innocence for hours, it was so consoling.
I smelled the young guy at the market. The one with psoriasis and awkward social manners. The one that has the straight, stringy hair, who cut it short recently and didn't quite know how to respond to my compliment. He smelled of body odor. Unpleasant. I wondered if anyone has ever mentioned it to him. Or how they would, considering he seems so guarded and sensitive. And I thought about fragility and the delicacy of communication.
I heard the voice of a child. I never saw her. I heard her say with such conviction, "But I don't just like it, I LOVE it."
The woman from France tasted the Vermont raclette and was transported across the sea back home. The nuances of flavor, texture, aroma, all resurrected a remembrance of things past. Like Proust's 'petite madeleine' cake, she left with a half pound of her involuntary memory.
If my phone hadn't been stolen at the Burbank airport, if it wasn't time to renew my contract, if I wasn't so ignorant (and perhaps non-caring) about these technological devices, if I wasn't so ready to trust the salesman's opinion partly out of impatience (just give me a phone already so I can leave thank you very much!), I wouldn't have had the type of device that allowed me to check my email on my break. And I wouldn't have had to endure the rest of my shift with a stone on my chest. I wasn't a good clown that day, but I was an amazing actor. Customers left with bouncy steps and packages of mold.
One evening, with the encouragement of a friend, I forced my frail heart to go hear the swing band. I even danced. Getting lost in the steps, fumbling, laughing, apologizing and smiling the whole way through. It felt good to move. I drank Frangelico. It was a warm and buttery comfort drink, like liquid macaroni and cheese. I watched friends of the clarinet player, a family, sit in front of us. And when the red-haired freckled boy floating towards teenage years got up to sit in his Father's lap, I wondered if this would be the last year of his nonchalance.
If I remove the stone and breathe into the chambers, I can unearth the place of gratitude and gilded grace. A place beyond desire or attachment. It flits in and out but it is there. When the sun sets there are many colors in between before succumbing to the Night.
"Living awake is the dying and living awake."
The piano tuner came back to finish the job. When he was done, I asked him to play. I was so tired. My chest heavy. I gathered some pillows and a throw blanket and lay upon the wooden floor to listen. He sat facing the piano. Slumped. He unconsciously took his right middle and index finger, cocked his head and scratched vigorously for 3 seconds. What compelled him, I do not know. He sat slumped again. I thought to myself, and then actually told him out loud, that if I were teaching Clown, I would take that gesture and amplify it. It is a beautiful action that speaks to and for him. From his own body and being. I watched him do that very same gesture before playing piano the previous night. Perhaps it re-calibrates something, because what transpired next could only be described as sublime.
He listens to his heart, his soul, and it comes out his fingers as an exertion upon the keys. Soft, heavy, lighter, louder. A caress, a slide, an aerial drop--his fingers dance across. I marvel. I want to do that. To be the medium for that kind of birth. No book or sheet music. Unadulterated. Pure. I want to cry. Eyes closed, I feel the wooden floor beneath me and let the resonance envelope me. Medicine. I notice it is in the pauses, the inhalations, that the notes sink into my skin. They shower me with beauty and remind me of my pain, my desires, my dreams, my failures, my joys. They wash over me and I don't want him to stop. I want the piano tuner to keep scratching his head and playing. A prayer in the moment. A Tibetan sand mandala. And then the sounds are whisked away by silence.
We don't move and let the stillness descend. After a bit, I break it by asking what he was thinking about while playing. A brief pause. And then he answers, "where to go next."
Quench: 08.19.2013
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Photo by Richard Lui
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My Lover comes to me,
soft and fierce in rough and tumble gentle,
with liquid eyes
soft and fierce in rough and tumble gentle,
with liquid eyes
eyes that melt
melt pools in the divots of my belly.
melt pools in the divots of my belly.
I am the high desert mesa
drenched in summer storm
where water finds the path of least resistance.
My Lover is modest in all the true ways.
No need for disguises of convoluted extravagance.
Only unadorned, naked simplicity.
Only unadorned, naked simplicity.
For are not the red rocks exposed each day without SPF 30?
The ocotillo, like upright seaweed, erect in a splendor all its own?
The velvet mesquite accepts its thorns and still offers its sweet pods
to coyote and human alike.
to coyote and human alike.
(savoring shy tension
delicious anticipation
patient affection)
The night is warm,
the sky bejeweled in open expanse.
Here, there is only space--
a limit of forever.
This is the land we travel
resting in between
never reaching a destination
arriving Home in motion.
In this place,
in the secret sweetness of dark hours,
the streaks of ancient light
fling themselves off the edge of their last dance.
We marvel at this display of Time
and then enter and lose our way.
I believe in this happily ever aftermath...
WONDER: 06.24.2013
When I ask my co-worker what's the first thing she thinks about when I say the word 'wonder,' she pauses ever so briefly before replying, "bread." Not the response I was expecting!For me, wonder is the supermoon tonight. Her belly full, pregnant light...oblivious to Facebook posts bellowing her beauty or articles announcing the arrival and departure (She will not be seen again until August 2014). How many of us have clicked pause on our computertvvideo screens to pause, and wonder at the shadows cast? Houses, porches, verandas shrouded in the night, while upturned faces are musing the sky.
I remember one August in California. I was living in Sonoma County and wanted to see the Perseid meteor shower. Where could I drive above the city lights to view this yearly phenomena? Ahh...secluded Lichau Road. So up and up I drove and then was shocked at the snake of cars park along the road. Seems I wasn't the only one with this brilliant idea. At first I was annoyed. It was crowded and I couldn't find a place to park. Some people had music blasting, a full-on meteor party. A far cry from the quiet evening I had anticipated. But then I thought somehow, whether it was conscious or not, everyone on that hill was responding to the ancient pull of celestial wonder. Much like our ancestors did so long ago, we stand outside and gaze up, up, up at the stars with our questions and insignificance.
Wonder is imagination unleashed. Last summer I've never been happier to work with a wonderful company called Zany Umbrella Circus. It was dress rehearsal. We had spent two weeks as Artists-in-Residence creating a show called HOME and were about to have our first audience--the kids from the local day care center. We were curious to see how they would react for we had been working in seclusion. We were told this would be the first time any of the children had seen a performance in a theater. And so, with no realm of theater etiquette to draw upon, they didn't shy away from vocalizing EVERYTHING they were seeing and feeling. They narrated and commented throughout the entire show. It was great! Instant--pure and honest--feedback. It was exactly what we needed! Afterwards, we did a Q & A. One boy raised his hand and asked, "Was that...umm...was that," (we could see him trying to formulate his young thoughts), "was that 'magi...'magination?" He couldn't pronounce it, but he recognized it. Yes! Bingo! That was imagination.
Wonder is Nelson Mandela now fighting for breath robbed of him on Robben Island.* For 27 years, twenty-seven years, you gazed through gray confinement and then walked out to embrace the Rainbow Nation you helped to create behind those bars.
"As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison."
A monumental event for the entire world, for those who believed in justice, peace and reconciliation, I cried that February day in 1990. And marveled at your resilience, courage and strength. But mostly at your ability to love and forgive.
"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
I wonder, how did you withstand your own extraordinary life? How did you draw upon the well of faith when despair threatened to pull you under? How did you fortify your reserves? It is a burden to be a beacon of light for humanity. It comes with much personal sacrifice. And yet, you have generously given to the world. Your 95th birthday less than a month away, you have given us the breath of your life. We breathe for you now.
*While incarcerated, Nelson Mandela contacted tuberculosis. Needless to say, medical treatment was sub-par for prisoners.
EVENINGS: 06.15.2013
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| Photo by HeatherandKyle |
I was working out of state and didn't hear the news until Thursday afternoon. I wouldn't be home until Friday evening. By the time I unloaded the car, ate some dinner, made tea to bring to the vigil, it was after 11pm. I was exhausted from my week, but it was the only chance I had to pay my respects as I was working another job the next afternoon.
So, I arrived in the night through the drizzled fog and walked the path up to the house, slipping a bit on the ice. I could see the fire in the distance. I would eventually get there, but I wanted to see Hank first. Through the kitchen and down a short hallway, I found the door with the picture of the Great Blue Heron. I felt a twinge of nervousness and fear. I can't say I've been around many dead bodies. I took a breath, opened the door and walked in.
The room was a necessary cold. Candles were lit. There was a table with photographs and special objects. Flowers and greenery everywhere. And in the middle, just as I remembered him, was Hank. He looked like he was sleeping. Is this what 'dead' looks like? He didn't look lifeless. He was gone, but also there. It was uncanny. The room felt vibratory.
I drew near. His eyes were closed and just slightly sunken. The 'windows' shut. When you can't peer into someone's eyes, other things become noticeable. I gazed and took it all in. He was adorned, dressed in his regalia. He looked peaceful. It felt peaceful. Any anxiety and tension I felt beforehand dissipated, as if it were a garment that fell to the ground and all I was left with was the naked moment. And then the grief welled up through my eyes. My breathing erratic through a shuddered chest. I found myself still peering into what was beyond the closed lids. Reaching for...seeking that place of connection.
The last time I saw Hank I was working at the cheese counter. Usually when he'd show up at the Coop, I'd walk around and give him a big hug and spend time chatting with him. He would light up and so would I. But this day I was busy. [What is busy anyway? Even as I write the word now, it looks like a foreigner. As if I am looking at it for the very first time and don't recognize the sequence of letters. Have I always written it that way? So unconsciously that I barely recognize it? Sometimes that happens with words. All of a sudden they are in disguise]. I have used busy in the past as a protection. As a way of keeping distance. That day, I did have a lot to do. My boss, a kind-hearted man but stressed when at work, was there. I was feeling the tension. And along with that I was in a shitty mood. A depleted shitty mood with not much to give. So I stayed behind the counter and so did my tenderness. After a short exchange, I said I had better get back to work. And then I noticed my actions affecting him. I wasn't my usual self and he looked perplexed and hurt as he walked away. I received instant emotional feedback. I felt it in my body and it didn't feel good. Busy should never trump connection. Why didn't I go after him? It was the last time I saw him alive.
Later, when I heard he wasn't doing well, I did send him an email. An email about how too often we don't express to the ones we care about how much they mean to us. How we go along, caught up in the whirlpool of life, thinking about people, having a moment with them in our minds, and then are whisked off to another moment. Never really taking the time out of our minds and into the eyes and flesh of another.We go through this life loving, hurting, forgiving, falling short, rising to the occasion. Sometimes we have no idea how much we impact one another. There is a conjunction of space, time and perfect moment that collide...and in that beautiful explosion there emanates an unseen force which can truly, deeply touch and even change a person's life.
When I put my left hand on his folded hands (they were very cold) and my right hand on his heart, I thought of the day at the cheese counter. And I felt remorse. I stood there peering into his closed eyes, eyes that would never open again, and cried. And then a strange feeling came over me, as if my burden had been swept away. I felt Hank gently chiding me with the customary twinkle in his eye. And then I knew I had to forgive myself. Because he already had.
I left the room and went to the Sacred Fire. There were only a few of us up at that time of night, taking comfort in each other and the flames. By the time I drove home and went to bed, I could hear the dawn chorus.
FAUNA 06.01.2013
It's the second largest living animal on earth. The fastest swimming of all the large whales, they can reach 25-30 mph for short distances. But they normally like to cruise around at 18-20 mph. That's still a pretty good clip considering they weigh between 40-80 tons...that's 80,000 to 160,000 pounds! Coming in right behind the Blue, the Fin is the second largest whale.
The gestation period for a Fin whale is about 11 months. Can you imagine giving birth to a baby 21 feet long and weighing almost 4,000 pounds! Newborns may feed on their mother's milk for up to 7 months. Females will wait 2-3 years before having another. Meanwhile, the little calf is growing up. They can start reproducing after reaching 6-12 years of age. But it can take them 25 to 30 years before they reach full physical maturity. They live to be 90-100 years old with some species surviving to the ripe old age of 135. I'm not sure how that was documented, but I find a real sense of comfort in that fact. I bet you are wondering right now just how long the second largest living animal on earth is...and hoping I'll relay that juicy morsel in this post. Well, you are in luck! I just happen to have that information right here. Get this, they can reach up to 88 feet in length! I know it's a lot of numbers and facts, but if you take the time to chew and digest them, it is truly amazing stuff. Astonishing, really.
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| The Fin Whale Photo by Mary Ann Melton |
I didn't know much about Fin whales before February 2007, except they were an endangered species. I was living on the Northern coast of California working my Saturday night shift at a fancy-schmancy-downhome-scrumptious restaurant in Mendocino. Maybe it was one of the customers, maybe it was one of my co-workers, but somehow I heard a whale had washed up on a beach north of Fort Bragg. I had no plans for Sunday, so late in the afternoon I decided to find this beach. It wasn't hard. The line of cars parked along Hwy 1 was a dead giveaway. I followed suit and started to walk north along the beach. It was a beautiful sunny, but chilly, day. I saw in the distance groups of people, all ages, gathered around the whale.
As I approached I was awestruck and humbled. Small by Fin whale standards, this female was only 60 feet long. But to me, she was immense. I felt small and insignificant in the very best of ways.This feeling I had inside was the same feeling I got when walking through Montgomery Woods, a grove of ancient redwood trees. There's a hush, a feeling like I'm in a vast cathedral, and the need for noise simmers down until all that is heard is the steady inhale and exhale of breath. Respiration. Re-spiration. Re-going back to the original place once again, Spiration-derived from the Latin 'spiritus,' breathing vigor into the soul. It may seem strange to have this reaction to something dead, something that had been dead for almost two weeks, something that smelled like it had been dead for almost two weeks, but I did.
I couldn't believe I was so close to such a mysterious creature, this one who prefers to travel alone or only in small pods. A lady after my own heart. I suppose she wouldn't have liked the mini-zoo of people hovering around her. I'll be honest, I didn't really like it either. I found myself wanting the hordes of folks to just stop talking...to be quiet. To feel. There was a lot to feel, but it was all cluttered up with nervous clatter. I saw the gamut. I saw fear and the creation of more distance. I saw curiosity and the magnetic pull towards. I saw adult anthropocentric bravado masking an insecure little 'look-at-me-child.' I saw unassuming soft reverence integrating our connection into the place of all things. It was as if the whale were a mirror to the sweeping vista of humanity. What happens when Homo sapiens come face to face with something they don't understand, with enormity that is hard to conceive, with the magnitude of wild nature? It plays out in a myriad of mirrored ways.
The Lakota have a phrase, Mitakuye Oyasin, literally translating to "All My Relations." ALL my relations expands beyond blood and species. The prayer encompasses the entirety of a living breathing universe: mountains, elements, stones, minerals, thunder, the seas, humans, whales...all part of the intricate connected pulse of life. All in relationship to one another, where each and every action affects us all. Nothing exists in isolation. There is no English word equivalent. The thought came into my head that I should return the following morning. That I should bring and offer tobacco as a way of honoring this being. I felt in my heart it was the right thing to do. So I left the crowds and headed south along the beach. As I was walking back, a red Toyota truck passed me on the wet sand. It was disconcerting to see a vehicle driving on the beach. It didn't belong there. I remember seeing something similar when travelling in Australia. I found it strange then, too.
The next morning the coast was enveloped in a soupy, thick fog. I was the only person on the beach. There was a stillness and suspension despite the constant rhythm of the waves. As I walked north I noticed something red in the distance. I continued my trajectory and then the red revealed itself--the Toyota truck. As I walked closer, I could see it was deeply stuck in the sand. And then I saw something horrifying. I stopped dead in my tracks. The truck was "parked" on part of the whale, and half of the fluke had been cut off with a chain-saw and taken. Upon witnessing this mutilation, I burst into tears.
And then, I experienced a rage that surprised and scared me. I couldn't contain it. How dare you desecrate this sacred animal! I looked around and found some hefty rocks, the weight solid in my hands. I raised the first one. I wanted to smash that windshield, to destroy that truck. I was screaming, "Why? You fucking assholes!!!!!" I stood there with my rock and vehemence...but in the end...I couldn't. It took every ounce of self-discipline I had not to vandalize that vehicle. I knew that violence in me came from the same source as those who committed this sacrilege. The rocks fell to the sand, and I crumpled to my knees and I wept. "Why, why, why...how could you do this?" My body shuddered with my lament. And after exhausting my tears, I did what I came to do in the first place. I circled her with tobacco, honored her, and prayed for understanding. I was heartbroken.
I met the Ranger on the way back to my car. I told him about the Toyota. But of course, he already knew about it. He was waiting for the tow truck. "It was a bunch of young guys messing around," he said. He hadn't known the fluke had been cut off.
I was disturbed and depressed about this for weeks. How can we be so disconnected, that we would defile such a beautiful being? We destroy what we fear, what is unknown, but why are we so fearful? Why must we dominate and annihilate? This was just the beginning of the innumerable questions that swirled around my brain. I wanted to understand why these guys did what they did. I wanted to reach into their barnacled hearts and, after throttling them, try to find their humanity. Try to help them find their way back to Mitakuye Oyasin. I wanted this with every fiber of my being. I needed it desperately.
I came back several more times to see the whale. It felt important to witness despite my helpless and hopeless feeling. And, I am very sad to say the mutilations continued. People carved their names into the whale and the other fluke was chainsawed and taken.
There was talk that the small town of Westport would save the carcass and reconstruct the skeleton for educational purposes. They were in the process of filling out the necessary permits. But then one day, when I went to visit the whale again, she was gone. The sea took her back. And I was glad.
As I approached I was awestruck and humbled. Small by Fin whale standards, this female was only 60 feet long. But to me, she was immense. I felt small and insignificant in the very best of ways.This feeling I had inside was the same feeling I got when walking through Montgomery Woods, a grove of ancient redwood trees. There's a hush, a feeling like I'm in a vast cathedral, and the need for noise simmers down until all that is heard is the steady inhale and exhale of breath. Respiration. Re-spiration. Re-going back to the original place once again, Spiration-derived from the Latin 'spiritus,' breathing vigor into the soul. It may seem strange to have this reaction to something dead, something that had been dead for almost two weeks, something that smelled like it had been dead for almost two weeks, but I did.
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| Here she is...the Fin whale of February, 2007 Photo by Garth Hagerman |
The Lakota have a phrase, Mitakuye Oyasin, literally translating to "All My Relations." ALL my relations expands beyond blood and species. The prayer encompasses the entirety of a living breathing universe: mountains, elements, stones, minerals, thunder, the seas, humans, whales...all part of the intricate connected pulse of life. All in relationship to one another, where each and every action affects us all. Nothing exists in isolation. There is no English word equivalent. The thought came into my head that I should return the following morning. That I should bring and offer tobacco as a way of honoring this being. I felt in my heart it was the right thing to do. So I left the crowds and headed south along the beach. As I was walking back, a red Toyota truck passed me on the wet sand. It was disconcerting to see a vehicle driving on the beach. It didn't belong there. I remember seeing something similar when travelling in Australia. I found it strange then, too.
The next morning the coast was enveloped in a soupy, thick fog. I was the only person on the beach. There was a stillness and suspension despite the constant rhythm of the waves. As I walked north I noticed something red in the distance. I continued my trajectory and then the red revealed itself--the Toyota truck. As I walked closer, I could see it was deeply stuck in the sand. And then I saw something horrifying. I stopped dead in my tracks. The truck was "parked" on part of the whale, and half of the fluke had been cut off with a chain-saw and taken. Upon witnessing this mutilation, I burst into tears.
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| The beautiful Fin whale desecrated by humans. Photo by Feather3 |
I met the Ranger on the way back to my car. I told him about the Toyota. But of course, he already knew about it. He was waiting for the tow truck. "It was a bunch of young guys messing around," he said. He hadn't known the fluke had been cut off.
I was disturbed and depressed about this for weeks. How can we be so disconnected, that we would defile such a beautiful being? We destroy what we fear, what is unknown, but why are we so fearful? Why must we dominate and annihilate? This was just the beginning of the innumerable questions that swirled around my brain. I wanted to understand why these guys did what they did. I wanted to reach into their barnacled hearts and, after throttling them, try to find their humanity. Try to help them find their way back to Mitakuye Oyasin. I wanted this with every fiber of my being. I needed it desperately.
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| Photographer Mary Ann Melton captured the red Toyota pickup on the whale that Sunday night. The other car is trying to tow it out of the sand. They were unsuccessful. I arrived the next morning. |
There was talk that the small town of Westport would save the carcass and reconstruct the skeleton for educational purposes. They were in the process of filling out the necessary permits. But then one day, when I went to visit the whale again, she was gone. The sea took her back. And I was glad.
GROWING 05.18.2013
There is a growing unease inside as I try to write this post. I sit in front of my computer screen
and wait...
It's not that Church was so bad. As a kid I loved praying to God and feeding my spiritual self. It's just that there were all sorts of other things to do that were outside--not in a building. Like climbing my favorite tree in the backyard. I loved that tree. It was a safe perch from which to view the world.
So, it was the natural place I ran to when early one morning my Mom and Dad called the three of us to the dining room table and told us the news. My Mom started, but couldn't finish. She erupted into tears. My Dad told us that our Grandma Josephine had passed away the night before.
At first I didn't feel anything. I was more concerned with seeing my Mom so grief-stricken. But then it slowly sank in. That I would never see my Grandma again.
Never again.
And there was always Babka, the most typical Polish Easter cake, often in a 'bundt' shape, reminiscent of womens' skirts. The name translates to 'Grandmother's Cake.' Our chocolate Easter bunnies were also put in the baskets. This was a cruel tactic as we weren't allowed to eat the food until the next day, after Jesus rose from the dead. When morning finally dawned however, before eating chocolate bunnies, my Ma would peel an egg (we couldn't throw the egg shells in the garbage because they had been blessed, so we saved them for burning later) and cut it into as many pieces as people present. Symbolizing new life, it was the first thing we ate together.
And nothing happened. I finally was too cold to stay in the tree. Reluctantly, with the ominous feeling that things would never be the same again, I climbed back down to earth.
and wait...
and wait...
and wait...
And nothing is coming. Or there is too much coming--thin, billowy strands but nothing lands. There is no anchor to the thought. Writers block? When I tell my neighbor Annie about it, she suggests lying in the hammock under the trees with a gin and tonic. Not a bad solution. I wish I would have tried it. Now it is too chilly and too late to be outside.
Late.
Growing up I remember the struggle with being on time. Whereas my Dad was always punctual and early even, my Mom was rushing around despite the precaution of setting all the clocks 15 minutes ahead. (Granted, there were three kids, all within one-and-a-half to two years apart, to gather and then herd into the car). My Father is a scientist and doesn't practice any organized religion. So I was raised Catholic by my Ma. I remember many a Sunday racing to get to Church before the consecration. Otherwise, it didn't "count" and we'd have to go to mass again. There were times we'd file in--just in the nick of time--as the priest was raising the Eucharist and saying, "Do this in memory of me." Phew, we made it! By the grace of God and my Mom's fancy driving, double Church time was avoided once again!
It's not that Church was so bad. As a kid I loved praying to God and feeding my spiritual self. It's just that there were all sorts of other things to do that were outside--not in a building. Like climbing my favorite tree in the backyard. I loved that tree. It was a safe perch from which to view the world.
So, it was the natural place I ran to when early one morning my Mom and Dad called the three of us to the dining room table and told us the news. My Mom started, but couldn't finish. She erupted into tears. My Dad told us that our Grandma Josephine had passed away the night before.
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| Grandma Josephine with her Easter Basket |
Never again.
I was 9 years old at the time.
My grandparents on my mother's side had emigrated from Poland. English was not my Grandma's first language. Love was. Growing up I remember a plump and jolly woman who would make me feel all grown up by letting me have coffee with the adults. 'Coffee' was warm milk with one scoop too many of white sugar and just enough coffee to turn the concoction the slightest tan color. I'd sit at Grandma's kitchen table, trying to sneak another scoop of sugar, listening to the adults. Except I didn't understand anything they were saying since most of the conversation was in Polish. But I didn't care. I was having coffee! Not water, not Tang, not milk (well, I really was having milk) but COFFEE!
My grandparents on my mother's side had emigrated from Poland. English was not my Grandma's first language. Love was. Growing up I remember a plump and jolly woman who would make me feel all grown up by letting me have coffee with the adults. 'Coffee' was warm milk with one scoop too many of white sugar and just enough coffee to turn the concoction the slightest tan color. I'd sit at Grandma's kitchen table, trying to sneak another scoop of sugar, listening to the adults. Except I didn't understand anything they were saying since most of the conversation was in Polish. But I didn't care. I was having coffee! Not water, not Tang, not milk (well, I really was having milk) but COFFEE!
I remember all of us sitting on the couch for the weekly ritual of watching the Lawrence Welk show. To be honest, I was bored except for the dancing of Bobby and Cissy. But it was a clean, wholesome show that the entire family could watch together. A show where there was music and dancing, universal languages that we all could understand.
The Saturday before Easter, my sister and I would dress in our Polish costumes as it was our custom to go to Our Lady of Bright Mount, the Polish church in Los Angeles. Here, in keeping with tradition, Easter baskets would be placed on outside tables. Rows and rows of them. Big, small, elaborate and simple. My Grandmother's baskets were always beautiful. They were filled with staples such as kielbasa and sauerkraut. There were hard-boiled eggs that we would dye the night before. Sometimes using a Paas kit, but more often than not, my Ma would boil onion skins and use beet juice and we'd dye our white eggs a soft pink and golden brown.
My job as a child was to carve a lamb out of a stick of butter. This symbolized the Lamb of God. I'd cut a little swath of red fabric and put it around the greasy lamb's neck for a collar. I'd use peppercorns for eyes. And always in it's butt a toothpick with the Polish flag. My rendition looked more like a dog blob than a lamb. I remember walking along the tables mesmerized by some of the butter sculptures. They were true works of art.
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| My big sister and I in our traditional Polish Dress |
But it was a long wait until then. Sometimes it would be quite hot as we all stood around the tables waiting for the priest to come with a scepter and vessel of holy water. The lamb artists would glance nervously at their diminishing sculptures. Finally the priest would arrive, praying in a language I didn't understand, sprinkling holy water, a baptism for our food. I always relished the errant sprinkle on my face that would give momentary relief from the heat.
I also remember the piano at my grandparent's house where instead of sheet music there was a picture of Jesus Christ. But it wasn't just any picture. It was Jesus' face with his eyes closed and a crown of thorns on his head. The mystifying part though, was if you stared at it long enough, all of a sudden the eyes would open! It creeped me out but I would return again and again. Jesus looked so sad and uncomfortable, the crown of thorns digging into his skull. Why have you forsaken me?
But as uneasy as I felt, I could always return to the safety of my Grandma's fleshy harbor. She'd hold me, stroke my long hair, sing to me Polish. She was jolly. A twinkle in her eye and a contagious smile.
But as uneasy as I felt, I could always return to the safety of my Grandma's fleshy harbor. She'd hold me, stroke my long hair, sing to me Polish. She was jolly. A twinkle in her eye and a contagious smile.
By the time my Grandma passed away, she had withered down to skin and bones, refusing to eat. She stayed in our house for a while. I remember one evening my Ma asked me to bring food to her. She thought Grandma might eat if I brought it. So I did. Grandma was in bed and I spoke to her softly and gently. She looked at me. Can I even say with recognition? I don't know. Her eyes looked so different. I tried to offer her food. Tried to put a spoon to her lips. But she said, "Nie" with such force I soon left, feeling like a failure.
The morning of the news, we didn't have to go to school. I don't know what my sister and brother did, but I ran to my tree. I climbed up...and up...and up. Higher than I had before. It was my first experience with death and I didn't believe it. I sat in those branches for hours. I don't know how long it actually was, but it was long enough that the air became cool. I was waiting and praying. In my child's mind, I thought if I could climb high enough, I would be closer to heaven and my Grandma would see me, talk to me, come back to me. I waited and waited for her. I remember my Dad going into the backyard and calling my name. I was so conflicted. I wanted to be a good daughter and answer back, but if I did, he'd make me come down and I would lose my Grandma forever. I knew I should answer, but I didn't say a word. I was as still as a branch. I even felt a guilty pleasure at this trickery. But I had no choice. I had to wait for my Grandma. I knew she would come.
So I waited...
So I waited...
and waited.....
and waited...
And nothing happened. I finally was too cold to stay in the tree. Reluctantly, with the ominous feeling that things would never be the same again, I climbed back down to earth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On My Plate 05.04.2013
written by nettie lane
On my plate is a tiny island where ripples of seawater gulp methodically and spruce stand stoically somehow finding anchorage through the granite. I can hear the fog horn amidst cries of prodigal sea birds. Buoys bob and dot the distance marking territory, each a lobsterman’s signature. Here, 'lobsterman' is a generic term referring to man or woman, although it is mostly men who are hauling the catch. Women, I am told, manage the money and do the taxes. A tutor at the local high school related this story: a sophomore, when having trouble in math, said he didn't have a reason to learn because when he married, his wife would do all of the accounting. That's just the way it goes. Here, an eighth grader can work the summer season and in that short time equal their teacher's salary. They work hard though. Up at 4am and done by 4pm, only to repeat it the next day...and the next. The work ethic is strong.
It is also a place of artists and artisans. My first hand experience has to do with chocolate and coffee. (You can tell where my priorities lie). How can one resist chocolates with names like strawberry balsamic, blueberry black pepper, downeast sea breeze (Maine bog cranberries, cranberry potato vodka, milk chocolate, topped with a dried cranberry), or tree-to-sea caramel (Maine maple caramel, bittersweet chocolate, apple smoked Maine sea salt). All handmade with integrity and ethics.
I found a small coffee roasting company that specializes in small batch, responsibly sourced, organic, fair-trade coffee. They hand silk screen their coffee bags. I had to buy their "Royal Tar" blend because it is named and dedicated to the 'Circus ship' that sank off the island in 1836. It's a tragic, sad story. The ship caught fire, burning for 2 days. Sixty of the ninety passengers were saved. But the ship was also carrying a menagerie of circus animals: lions, a Bengal tiger, snakes, camels, horses and a beloved elephant named Mogul. They all perished. Legend has it that some managed to escape to nearby islands where they say some of their descendants live today. What kind of descendants? I would love to believe some of those glorious animals made it to a safe harbor. In that brief moment before the owner answers, I imagine a neighboring island that has indeed become a wildlife refuge. That somehow the lions and camels, along with Mogul, made it to safety. Where humans finally left them alone. Their very own retirement village. Sort of a cross between Animal Farm and Noah's Ark without Noah. But she answers with snakes. Reports of very large snakes seen slithering around some nearby isles. I've also read that two horses managed to swim to safety.
This is the second time in two months that I am back in this small corner of the world, working in the schools as an artist-in-residence teaching circus skills. The first, I found myself on an even smaller Isle, six miles by two miles, with only four boys in the entire (one-room) school house. We made a deal the first day. I would teach them circus skills and they would teach me all about lobsters, which I honestly knew nothing about. I have never eaten a 'fully clothed' crustacean. I may have had some lobster pieces in a pasta once, I think...maybe?
I didn't grow up eating a lot of fish as my Dad was highly allergic--anaphylactic shock allergic, puffing up and not able to breathe allergic. So we rarely ate the stuff save for a tin of 'chicken of the sea' tuna or frozen fish sticks, which was normally consumed on Fridays during Lent. I feel a little ashamed admitting this, but until the boys educated me, I didn't realize lobsters weren't red! I know...it is embarrassing! Apparently, the major pigment in the shell, astaxanthin, is bonded with other proteins, thus giving the shell all those other colors. When a lobster is cooked, the heat breaks those bonds and the natural red color of the astaxanthin is revealed...free at last. Well, the color, not the lobster. The boys didn't know about astaxanthin, I decided to research a bit to make amends for my ignorance.
Guess what else I unearthed? Did you know the bladders of American lobsters are in their head and they urinate out of their faces? Perhaps this is where we get the expression "pee-brain." And upon further research, I discovered urine figures prominently in their mating rituals. Females scope out the neighborhood to find the alpha male. It's not that hard to do since he is out and about beating up all the other lobsters, asserting his dominance. They'll follow him home after his night of roughhousing, stand at the entrance to his lair and squirt their pheromone-laced urine inside. Over time, this aggressive male responds to the sweet perfume, even using the little fins under his tail to swish it around his bachelor pad. Eventually, it's safe for the female to move in without the fear of being killed. (Lobsters are into cannibalism). And then this is the really cool thing...the sweet and tender part to this story. In order to mate, the female has to undress or shed her shell. She molts. This puts her in an extremely vulnerable situation. Her guy could easily kill her with his sharp claws, for now she is all soft and exposed. The bully on the block, intoxicated by love (or at least a very arousing aphrodisiac) responds by gently, so very gently, caressing her all over with his long antennae. And their elaborate and delicate ritual begins. I don't know the specifics, but it has been mentioned that the details are quite racy. When they are done, they both take a bite out of her discarded shell, the lobster equivalent to having a ciggy after the 'deed.' She lives with him until her shell grows back (about 10 days) and it is safe to go outside. And when she does, there's another one of her sisterhood, waiting at the door and it starts all over again. Serial monogomy.
I don't know how I have wandered from On My Plate to lobster sex! Because what I really wanted to write about was simply my plate. I have 3 of them now, recently acquiring a small one as a gift from my sister, a gesture of support for my writing. And about my bowls. And my cups. And even my spoon. About how I am trying to simplify. How I want to have a relationship with not only the food on my table, but my place setting, too.
My two other plates have solid weight and strength to them. They remind me of the ceramic artist who made them, my friend Nick in California. He used to be the Strongman in the small circus I was involved in before moving East. I have other beauties from his wood fired Anagama (Japanese style) kiln--a bowl, a mug, a cup his wife Jess made. On my 40th birthday my trapeze teacher gifted me a beautiful vessel that I keep on my altar. It holds charred matchsticks, each representing a night of prayer. That also was fired on the same property. When these objects alight my table, I am reminded of firings that take an entire week and a schedule of round-the-clock firetenders. I am whisked away to the Redwoods and Mendocino coast--to shared experiences of love, beauty and those special kiln pizzas.
I have a small cup made by Sara, a local artist here in Brattleboro. It was specifically made and sanctioned in the colors of a cabaret show I co-produced and performed in 3 years ago. And a bowl from Eric, a ceramic artist turned circus-burlesque performer, and my cohort in that particular adventure.
My most recent treasured additions come from a husband and wife team in Middletown Springs, Vermont (population 745). I stayed with them while working at the local school. I will generalize now, much like I did at the beginning of this post, and say that the few ceramic artists I have known seem to lead holistic, creative lives. Meaning their way of life, their artfulness, permeates everything. Perhaps it has something to do with shaping earth with their hands and using water, air and fire in their craft. When leaving, I was gifted with a beautiful cup made by Diane and a gorgeous bowl made by Nick. Are all male ceramic artists named Nick? In my world they are. He specializes in making local, indigenous glazes, taking the waste product from a nearby slate quarry (as well as using a granite, soapstone and marble mix from another local business which makes headstones for graves) and transforming it into the colors I see on my bowl.
And then there is my spoon. A Christmas gift a few years ago from my housemate at the time. Erik is like a brother to me. A metalsmith by trade, a jokester at heart, and at those brilliant lovely times, the engineer who makes manifest the crazy ideas and pictures in my head. He saw my place setting. He noticed what I was trying to do. He realized I lacked utensils in my venture. So, he made me a spoon. Like Nick's plates, it has a beautiful weight, feel and look.
These are the stories and people that gather round and grace my table. The Roaster, the Chocolatier, Ceramic Artists, Family and Friends. In Vermont it is easy to have the Farmer and the Sugarer, too. (Last year I walked my large Mason jar down to my neighbor who does his maple syruping with draft horses in the woods). I do spend many meals with a table setting for one, but I am not alone. One day, I may even have the company of a Maine lobster on my plate.
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| The plate my sister sent me by artist Sharon McAuley |
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| Black Dinah Chocolates |
I found a small coffee roasting company that specializes in small batch, responsibly sourced, organic, fair-trade coffee. They hand silk screen their coffee bags. I had to buy their "Royal Tar" blend because it is named and dedicated to the 'Circus ship' that sank off the island in 1836. It's a tragic, sad story. The ship caught fire, burning for 2 days. Sixty of the ninety passengers were saved. But the ship was also carrying a menagerie of circus animals: lions, a Bengal tiger, snakes, camels, horses and a beloved elephant named Mogul. They all perished. Legend has it that some managed to escape to nearby islands where they say some of their descendants live today. What kind of descendants? I would love to believe some of those glorious animals made it to a safe harbor. In that brief moment before the owner answers, I imagine a neighboring island that has indeed become a wildlife refuge. That somehow the lions and camels, along with Mogul, made it to safety. Where humans finally left them alone. Their very own retirement village. Sort of a cross between Animal Farm and Noah's Ark without Noah. But she answers with snakes. Reports of very large snakes seen slithering around some nearby isles. I've also read that two horses managed to swim to safety.
This is the second time in two months that I am back in this small corner of the world, working in the schools as an artist-in-residence teaching circus skills. The first, I found myself on an even smaller Isle, six miles by two miles, with only four boys in the entire (one-room) school house. We made a deal the first day. I would teach them circus skills and they would teach me all about lobsters, which I honestly knew nothing about. I have never eaten a 'fully clothed' crustacean. I may have had some lobster pieces in a pasta once, I think...maybe?
I didn't grow up eating a lot of fish as my Dad was highly allergic--anaphylactic shock allergic, puffing up and not able to breathe allergic. So we rarely ate the stuff save for a tin of 'chicken of the sea' tuna or frozen fish sticks, which was normally consumed on Fridays during Lent. I feel a little ashamed admitting this, but until the boys educated me, I didn't realize lobsters weren't red! I know...it is embarrassing! Apparently, the major pigment in the shell, astaxanthin, is bonded with other proteins, thus giving the shell all those other colors. When a lobster is cooked, the heat breaks those bonds and the natural red color of the astaxanthin is revealed...free at last. Well, the color, not the lobster. The boys didn't know about astaxanthin, I decided to research a bit to make amends for my ignorance.
Guess what else I unearthed? Did you know the bladders of American lobsters are in their head and they urinate out of their faces? Perhaps this is where we get the expression "pee-brain." And upon further research, I discovered urine figures prominently in their mating rituals. Females scope out the neighborhood to find the alpha male. It's not that hard to do since he is out and about beating up all the other lobsters, asserting his dominance. They'll follow him home after his night of roughhousing, stand at the entrance to his lair and squirt their pheromone-laced urine inside. Over time, this aggressive male responds to the sweet perfume, even using the little fins under his tail to swish it around his bachelor pad. Eventually, it's safe for the female to move in without the fear of being killed. (Lobsters are into cannibalism). And then this is the really cool thing...the sweet and tender part to this story. In order to mate, the female has to undress or shed her shell. She molts. This puts her in an extremely vulnerable situation. Her guy could easily kill her with his sharp claws, for now she is all soft and exposed. The bully on the block, intoxicated by love (or at least a very arousing aphrodisiac) responds by gently, so very gently, caressing her all over with his long antennae. And their elaborate and delicate ritual begins. I don't know the specifics, but it has been mentioned that the details are quite racy. When they are done, they both take a bite out of her discarded shell, the lobster equivalent to having a ciggy after the 'deed.' She lives with him until her shell grows back (about 10 days) and it is safe to go outside. And when she does, there's another one of her sisterhood, waiting at the door and it starts all over again. Serial monogomy.
I don't know how I have wandered from On My Plate to lobster sex! Because what I really wanted to write about was simply my plate. I have 3 of them now, recently acquiring a small one as a gift from my sister, a gesture of support for my writing. And about my bowls. And my cups. And even my spoon. About how I am trying to simplify. How I want to have a relationship with not only the food on my table, but my place setting, too.
 |
| Ceramic Vessel by Blaze Birge |
I have a small cup made by Sara, a local artist here in Brattleboro. It was specifically made and sanctioned in the colors of a cabaret show I co-produced and performed in 3 years ago. And a bowl from Eric, a ceramic artist turned circus-burlesque performer, and my cohort in that particular adventure.
 |
| Cups by Rising Meadow Pottery and Sara Meehan |
My most recent treasured additions come from a husband and wife team in Middletown Springs, Vermont (population 745). I stayed with them while working at the local school. I will generalize now, much like I did at the beginning of this post, and say that the few ceramic artists I have known seem to lead holistic, creative lives. Meaning their way of life, their artfulness, permeates everything. Perhaps it has something to do with shaping earth with their hands and using water, air and fire in their craft. When leaving, I was gifted with a beautiful cup made by Diane and a gorgeous bowl made by Nick. Are all male ceramic artists named Nick? In my world they are. He specializes in making local, indigenous glazes, taking the waste product from a nearby slate quarry (as well as using a granite, soapstone and marble mix from another local business which makes headstones for graves) and transforming it into the colors I see on my bowl.
And then there is my spoon. A Christmas gift a few years ago from my housemate at the time. Erik is like a brother to me. A metalsmith by trade, a jokester at heart, and at those brilliant lovely times, the engineer who makes manifest the crazy ideas and pictures in my head. He saw my place setting. He noticed what I was trying to do. He realized I lacked utensils in my venture. So, he made me a spoon. Like Nick's plates, it has a beautiful weight, feel and look.
 |
| Plate by Flynn Creek Pottery Bowl by Rising Meadow Pottery Spoon by Newquist Metalsmithing |
BUILDING: 04/20/2013
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| the two Quercus lobata leaves |
posted by nettie lane
(in the wake of manhunts and violence)
(in the wake of manhunts and violence)
Tonight, during the downpour, I will not write with blood or sing a victory song. I have no tune to expel. No 'eye for an eye' melody. I am almost too weary for understanding. No...I am too weary for understanding.
I know this moment will pass, this place where there is no room left in my cells to breathe in the history and the ‘now’ of humanity. Where the half-empty cup overflows with all the pain and violence, a deluge of disconnection, a torrent of ‘senseless.’ Not just for this land that receives and responds to the weight of my footprints, but for all the lands and all the footprints.
Tonight, I will listen to the relentless and determined rain and think of the earth accepting the infiltration of these miraculous waters. Freshwater. Percolating downward and giving us life, animating our soil.
Last week my housemate showed me a handful of beautiful, rich, dark earth. “Wedding compost,” he said. My puzzled expression rewarded me with explanation. Two and a half years ago when he and his wife committed to building a life together, all the food scraps, paper plates, cups, flowers, etc. from their wedding were composted. I look at the reincarnation before me. It is gorgeous fertile gold. This soil will continue to live inside them as it nurtures the summer garden. They will feast on wedding tomatoes, wedding peas, wedding arugula and wedding salad greens. In Fall they will harvest wedding potatoes and store wedding winter squash. They will continue to compost. And through destruction and patience, will birth another cycle of fecundity. They will continue their cultivation. Building up, breaking down, building up.
This all takes time, precious time. And persistence.
In 1995, I planted my favorite oak, a Quercus lobata or Valley oak, as part of my wedding ceremony. It was barely an inch and a half tall, but with a long and eager taproot. I remember telling it, "one day I will sit beneath your shade and marvel at your canopy."
For our wedding day, in lieu of presents, we asked people to contribute to the altar. The ceremony began with a walking procession from the gathering house past the pond (where my brother and friend were playing guitar and fiddle in a rowboat) and into a redwood grove. We each carried an oak seedling--our contribution. Later, after the salve of time, we would joke that perhaps our downfall was bringing two trees to the altar instead of one.
A few days after the ceremony, with permission of the owner, we planted the trees on the property. It was meaningful to have them at the place where we were wed, but also, we were moving around a lot and wanted our trees to have a more stable upbringing. We carefully chose a location, taking into account the view they would be looking at for hundreds of years. We planted the trees, giving them the space needed. I remember how far away they seemed from each other. They were so small! We used a stake-pounder and made a square enclosure with sturdy metal wire for deer protection.
We married in June and for the rest of that California summer, and until the rains came in November, we would drive out and lug 5 gallon buckets filled with water up the hill to give our trees a drink. We did this again the following summer. We knew the importance of early childhood development! We wanted our trees to have a solid foundation and be as free from stress as possible.
I seem to remember going on my own for a third year, but sporadically. For you see, by the third year, we were separated. Ours is a backwards story. We were together nine and a half years before getting married. Altogether, we shared twelve years. The relationship didn't last, but the trees just kept sending their roots deeper and spreading their branches wide.
And so things changed. The elderly owner of the property died and a younger man from San Francisco bought it. I would still trespass to visit the trees. Then one day, I was invited to a potluck that brought me right past the property. So I stopped in for a visit. And to my shock and horror, one of our trees was gone! And in it's place, a big charred circle of black. It was like someone tore my leg off! I was pissed. Furious. What the hell happened???
I went to the gathering and when my friends greeted me I unleashed my ‘upsetness.’ Imagine my shock when they said the owner of the property was at the party. What? I just stood there with my mouth open (this time silent) in shock. Gulp, Ok, let's meet the bastard. I drew up all my non-violent communication skills and had a conversation with him. Long story short, the tree was "in the way" of his burn pile. I remember thinking, how can I come to some place of connection and understanding when his viewpoint was exactly opposite of mine? Nature was to be dominated and used solely for human purposes. No intrinsic value. No thought of moving his burn pile (the hose reached there so it was more convenient). I was on a mission though to make sure my one remaining tree would be safe. So we talked. I told him the story of the wedding, the planting and taking care of the trees. This doesn't have a happily-ever-after ending where he saw his reckless ways and repented by doing good environmental works around Sonoma County. From what I gathered, he was a city guy who bought a beautiful place in the country with acreage but had no clue to the real work involved. So Nature had become a hassle. He did say the other tree was in a better location but he refused to promise the longevity of its life.
I'm happy to report that it is still standing.
My ex-husband and I retain a loving friendship. He has since remarried and has two beautiful children. We have kept in touch by phone and email. He is always the first one to call on my birthday. A few years ago, I happened to be traveling through Cleveland where he and his family were living at the time. I stayed for two days and we had a great visit. To be with someone with whom you can feel comfortable even when many years have passed, who has known you through mud and sparkle, with whom you have shared a beautiful, painful, wonderful, loving history and have carved a deep friendship which has weathered and aged to a soft patina...truly...that is one of the most satisfying treasures in life.
The last time I was in California I went to visit our tree. It was like seeing an old friend. I actually felt giddy and elated. I really did. It was a hot day and I refreshed myself in the shade. I leaned against the trunk. I noticed the lichen, the shapes of the leaves. Some were larger than others due to their location. I talked to my tree. Gave it an update on my life. Sat in different positions to see how the tree saw the world. I found last year’s leaves on the ground, brown and intact, and took two. I wanted to send one to my ex-husband.
Now it is late and the rain has lessened. I fill my cup with these stories and they quench my tired soul. They are like tree rings, recording and building majesty one year at a time. Trees offer a wonderful perspective on life. I highly recommend befriending one. Or better yet, planting one.
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| Isn't this the most beautiful tree you've ever laid eyes on? |
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