"Sweet Darkness"

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

David Whyte


In all my years of traveling, I've been in love with many people, all for different reasons and illogical non-reasons.  In the realm of disembodied love affairs, David Whyte is my main guy.  I love his voice, his expansive mind, and the way he uses language.  I love his accent, the way he recites poetry, and his laughter.

When Nellie introduced us, it was love at first listen.  Then Kara gave me a little cassette tape which I've long since lost or lent.

When I first heard,these two lines from "Sweet Darkness," I took them in as forever mantra:

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

I've listened to David's DVDs over and over, so often that I could recite big chunks.  I love the precision and nuance with which he uses language.  I love the way my mind stretches to keep pace, the ways they both take me down roads that are a perfect fit for the ways I like to travel.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you

This morning,  rain pounding against my house, I listened to a Krista Tippett interview (of On Being, one of the best podcasts out there) of David Whyte.

http://www.onbeing.org/program/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/8560/audio?embed=1

I've just ordered Krista's newest book--On Becoming Wise--and discovered yet another DVD/audio book by David Whyte.

Saturday in Texas

Another really special movie from India: Amal.

Before moving now to Italy in a show about cooking--that reminds me of beautiful afternoons in Tuscan trattorias with Nellie--I went back to Peace, Love and Misunderstanding to re-view one scene.

In the scene, Grace is telling her granddaughter about a piece of sculpture she's making.  "Sometimes in art, as in life, things aren't going the way you want them to go.  That's when transformation happens."

Grace then looks at her granddaughter in the wise woman way and says, "I heard what you said to your mother last night...."

"I was upset," the girl replies.

"Yes, but you were also cruel....But you can transform that, too."

Today has been a good day, starting with a session of Gabi magic, then going to Helotes to meet Conway Twitty with Kate.  We shopped for kombucha bottles and I came home and filled my bottles with my first batch.  I hope it's as good as Kate's.

Then I went to Pam's for a few hands of Spite and Malice and a delicious panini and a glass of her son-in-law's kombucha--ginger and jalapeño.

The raccoon visited again last night, but he's absent tonight--probably because of the rumbling of thunder.

5th Wedding Anniversary and Two #38 Birthdays

In 1972, I happen to remember that we splurged on a 5th anniversary dinner--at Fujiya Gardens, back when it was on Fredericksburg Road. That same year, a "Lover's Special" was created when Ali McGraw and Steve McQueen were in San Antonio filming.   It's actually the only wedding anniversary I recall celebrating.

Tonight, we celebrated Will and Veronica's 5th wedding anniversary and their May birthdays at Fujiya Gardens, now at the Wurzbach location.  It's their favorite restaurant, just as it was mine.  Funny how what goes around comes around in the circle of life.

Dressmaking Party

Today was the kind of party I love to have!  Unplanned, spontaneous, messy house and all.

My sewing assistant wandered off from time to time to watch cartoons, but we got the dress made--and had good company throughout the process, Joy and Charlotte and Kate.

No food was served, but the kombucha was rescued by Kate who informed me that my batch should have been covered with a tea towel instead of the plastic top of the container.  "It needs to breathe."

"Do I need to start all over?" I asked, expecting to have to dump the four gallons in the sink.

"No," she said.  "Just consider this Day One."  Whew!

At 1:00, Elena and I left for my hair cut appointment with Tomas, and I snapped these pictures of Elena in her new dress outside the salon.  Her horse--wild but being tamed--was decked out in left-over rick rack.

"What's his name?" Tomas asked her.

"He doesn't have one yet," she said.

"How about Bernie?" I said--a nod to the party of the donkey.  "He's not a donkey!" she said indignantly.  "He's a horse!"

Oh yeah.  Different animals.  Right.

After my haircut, Pam and I met for late lunch at Cracker Barrel--where she had cobbler and I had a platter of catfish and sides.  We hadn't planned ahead of time; we both just happened to be near the same place at the same time.

Days like these can't be planned, they just bloom all on their own!  While Elena may or may not remember her first home-made dress, our party guests promised they would.

A good day all around, ending with watching online the three ending series on Masterpiece.

Sewing Monsters

Sewing is in my DNA.  I grew up to the humming of Carlene's machine and watching her trim patterns--for every garment but two I ever wore. I watched her thread the machine and bobbin, then push the pinned-together pieces under the presser foot.  I watched her mark darts and take the pins out as she sewed and put them in her mouth.

Ready-made clothes were almost unheard of--unless you ordered underwear from the Sears Catalog.  Instead, we went to the dime store, flipped through Butterick and Simplicity pattern catalogues, then meandered around the store choosing fabric to go with the patterns.  Then zippers and elastic and thread to match.

I learned to sew by watching, but I was never as good a seamstress as Carlene.  I could show her a picture of a dress in Seventeen magazine and she would duplicate it exactly.  I particularly remember a white wool dress with brown wooden buttons for the University of Georgia homecoming, date dresses in kettle cloth, mu-mus for my California trip in 8th grade, and even little fabric stuffed animals she made for me and my friends.

I can only follow patterns, and I prefer patterns without zippers and buttonholes.

So tomorrow Elena wants to make a dress--and I'm trimming pattern pieces tonight, recalling the days when Carlene did that as we watched TV or talked.  I went to Jo Ann's and bought two pieces of fabric--one with ladybugs and one with happy little monsters.  The pattern is easy enough for our combined attention span for sewing and the yellow rick-rack should set it off nicely.

Making clothes at home is no longer less expensive than buying ready-made, but I'm hoping that the memory of making her first dress  will outlast the size 4 dress.

"Today's Special" brought to you by Netflix

If you loved "Finding Fanny" and if you got a little crush on the adorable white-haired man in it, and if you love Indian food, your next viewing treat is called "Today's Special."

Naseeruddin Shah, taxi driver and chef in "Today's Special ," is a sixty-five-year-old Indian actor who was charming in both roles.  A couple of must-see movies for anybody's Sunday afternoon, both light and funny and romantic and delicious!

Warning: "Today's Special" will whet your taste buds for Indian food, so be ready to hop in the car after you see it and head for your favorite Indian restaurant.

CREST

In all my weeks of medical appointments, x-rays, blood work, and two surgeries, I've been lucky enough to have most every test come back, in the end, normal.  The one exception at this point is CREST syndrome, an auto-immune situation that combines some markers of several other auto-immune diseases but not enough to have any one of them: not fibromyalgia, not lupus, not scleroderma, but with markers common to those.  CREST is an acronym for the five markers that seem to have landed in my body. The "C" has to do with the body's processing of calcium, the "R" has to do with tiny red spots on my hands, etc.

When I ache all over, I say, "My fibromyalgia is acting up," but that's just shorthand for: "The marker that is pain all over is common to fibromyalgia, but I don't actually have the true disease, just that one marker of it."

It crept up on me Friday and again today; Saturday I felt perfectly normal and had lots of energy.

My friend Becky treated me to a congratulations brunch at Cappy's this morning--to celebrate the fact that I don't have to do radiation.  (Ten years ago, treatment for DCIS--ductal carcinoma in situ--was much more severe than it is today.) We hadn't seen each other in months and it was so good to see her!  After brunch, I had to come home and sleep for a few hours with ibuprofen to help with the inflammation.

It's a pretty limiting thing--when it happens.  It hurts to get up and down, it hurts to sit for too long, and while it's lingering, I'm mostly tired and sleepy.  So I've decided that, until I figure out how to banish it, I should only do one thing a day.  The one thing tomorrow is to call the rheumatologist and find out if there are dietary changes I need to consider.

I'm reducing sugar and gluten intake, drinking kombucha, taking additional minerals and probiotics, drinking more water, getting work done by Gabi every other week or so, and doing yoga three times a week.  I hope I can figure out this puzzle and return to normal soon!

Until then, if I decline an invitation, it's only because my body is not cooperating fully just yet--but I trust that soon it will be up and spinning like the proverbial top.

Finding Fanny

From the opening of this film to the rolling of the closing credits (with the dollhouse), this is one of the most delightful movies I've seen on Netflix-- a veritable trip in the middle of anybody's night!

It's Marigold Hotel meets My Big Fat Wedding--pure joy to watch!

Saturday

Tonight--as my Central Gwinnett High School Class of '66 is partying and reuniting, and I'm seeing Nellie's pictures on Facebook--I just realized that I left out half the tea in my first batch of kombucha!

I had taken notes on a yellow pad, but when I typed the notes after the lab was already up and running, I realized my mistake.  Now I am awaiting word from my teacher-of-kombucha Kate as to what to do to remedy the situation before I just throw the first batch out and start over.

It's been a productive Saturday in the kitchen and in the grocery store re-stocking the long-neglected kitchen.  On Tuesday,  Elena and I will be making a birthday cake for her daddy's 38th birthday on Thursday. Joy will join us--though since she will be on her way to book group, she will be unable to slather herself in glue, should Elena want to reprise the Glue Party theme of last week.

I drove to Kate's after yoga (wonderful class!) and got my SCOBY for the brewing, boiled the tea (4 family sized bags instead of 8), put in the sugar to be fermented by the SCOBY, and slid the whole affair into a slider drawer in the pantry where it will ferment in the dark.

Special touch of the day: Nellie called me just as she was going into the reunion party: "Just wanted to see who you'd like me to say hey to!  I miss you!"

Sunday: Rescue at three in the morning via Kate-email: "You still have time to add the tea!"

Hugo and Jahaziel

All day I've been thinking about Hugo's son, Jahaziel. (pronounced Ha-Zeal.)

This handsome kid, maybe 20, still lives in a 7' x 9' room at his parents' house.  He exudes confidence, personality, and enthusiasm.  His hobby is bodybuilding and he's planning to build his own gym one day--"after working with my dad to make enough money." He was an electrician for a year, but decided he didn't like staying in one place all day long--some kind of industrial building--so he joined Hugo in the appliance repair business. "I love cooking! Every morning I make myself tilapia and basmati rice for breakfast." 

Both of them have twinkly, happy eyes.  Both of them are wonderful conversationalists. 

Jahaziel's English is perfect and Hugo's is a mix of Spanish and English.  Both talk and listen with intense attention, and they scrutinized every single detail in each room, the porch, and even the bathrooms.  Both loved the casita and Jahaziel took pictures to show his girlfriend "because this is exactly the look I want in my house."  I showed them how the Murphy bed works and Jahaziel said he'd already designed a Murphy bed for the Tiny House he's going to build. 

Both wanted a tour of my house, too.  They stroked every piece of furniture!  When I showed Hugo the David Marsh dining table of many colors--with two turquoise chairs and two red chairs--he said, "All these colors make you want to eat something delicious because color gives you energy and makes you want to be so alive."

I showed the house to them separately.  Jahaziel was working on the refrigerator in the casita and Hugo came in to take a look at my stove.  "I wouldn't spend the money on a 15-year-old stove," he said.  "They only make appliances these days to last about 8 years.  The old stuff?  They are dinosaurs, like your little Kenmore refrigerator in the apartment.  They will last for many decades, but not these new things.  They are all plastic and computer chips and things start breaking on them right away."

"Jahaziel's going to love these!" he said, stroking an old pie case, then a pine cabinet, then the old weathered boards on the Happy Deck.  "These are just the kind of things my son loves."

Sure enough, when Jahaziel came in, his hands and eyes landed on exactly the things his dad had predicted he'd love.  I was delighted at how they showed affection for each other and how the father knew his son so well. 

We talked about how a house grows and changes like a living thing.  "Some things stick around for many years, and when their time is up, they move to someone else's house," I said. 

"In fact, I have this little chest here I need to find a home for," I said--pointing to a little cabinet I'd just put outside the back door for give-away.  "Would you like it?" It was a simple little piece, I'd had it for ten years or more.  His eyes lit up.  "It's perfect!" he said. A tube of itch cream and a bottle of nail polish fell out on the driveway.  "I used it to keep my medicines in," I said. 

"Where did you get all these things?" Jahaziel asked as he was looking at the old peeling doors and walls on the deck.  "These are the things that give a house its soul. I feel like I'm at home here, and I don't even live here!"  I told him about YeYa's and Pickers Paradise and other of Mike's favorite treasure-hunting places.  

He admired a rhinestone guitar on the kitchen wall that Day made for me one Christmas and a table Will made twenty years ago. He noticed the stained glass pieces Carlene made, the Tiffany lamp Mike hung on the porch.  In fact, most of the pieces he photographed were handmade gifts from Day, Will, Carlene and Mike. When he left, he texted me this:

"This is Jahaziel.  When you have a chance let me know the places you went for the old wood, salvaged junk and all those other wonderful places you mentioned that I can't seem to remember! Again....Beautiful home.  Keep remodeling keep changing it and maybe in the next month or so if it's alright with you I'll bring my girlfriend along so she can see it as well.  Your home has inspired me!"

What inspired me was Jahaziel! I may have met people as happy as he is, but never anyone more so! And observant!  Sometimes it seems that people my age (and our projects)  are invisible to young people.  (See the grocery store scene in Grace and Frankie) But his love of our projects and his sharing of his own dreams put us on common ground. 

Sometimes it seems that we inhabit different planets than the planets of people in their twenties.  But tonight I am feeling connected to the future, with my little blue medicine cabinet moving on to Jahaziel's Tiny House! 

House Care

Before starting the first batch of kombucha, I had to re-organize my entire kitchen.  The only dark enough place for the fermenting business is inside the pantry, so I had to pour out stale crackers and cereals and make room for the keg. The birds are having a party.

The utensil drawer was overflowing with utensils I haven't used in years, so I prioritized and stored the things I rarely use.  The pots were crammed on top of each other. I have way too many dishes.  Let's face it, I said to myself:  I'm never going to have a dinner party for eight people.

Now the tea pots and cups are in the tea pot and cup department, the pans are sorted with lids, and the napkins and paper products all in the same drawer.  Novel idea, I know--but I'm challenging myself to  return to cooking with less trepidation.

I've tried for months to find a good appliance repair man to fix the plugged drain in the casita refrigerator.  For those of you living in San Antonio, be sure to write down this name for future reference: Top Priority Appliances, Hugo Ortega, 210 577 2015. While the father, Hugo, fixed the broken agitator in the washing machine, his son, Jahaziel, fixed the fridge.

The best part of the whole deal was meeting these two men--both such cheerful and enthusiastic people.  "I try to smile at least 200 times a day," Hugo said, "It's good for my heart and everybody else's."

I commented on how I liked Jahaziel, and Hugo said, "What is the most valued possession in your life?  Mine is my son, my only son."  He had tears in his eyes--and so did I.

I gave Jahaziel a small piece of furniture for his Tiny House project.  "You always have to have open hands," Hugo said.  "If you give, you receive."

Sticky Thursday....

Here we have a girl after Aunt Day's heart--
a quilter in the making

Deciding to glue buttons and beads
on the fabric

Realizing the Glory of Glue

Launching the First Glue Party Ever
On Ogden Lane

Then washing gluey hands in the bird bath
with Makkin

A GLUE PARTY

Today Elena wanted to sew, after she put together the car I got her.  But she then decided instead to glue buttons and beads on her fabric to make a blanket for her stuffed animals.

She was being fastidious about getting the glue off her little hands, so I showed her what I like to do: smear the Elmer's all over my palms and fingers, dance outside while it dries, then peel it off in big strips.

I wish you could have seen her delighted and surprised face when she got the hang of it!  "We are really doing this?" she asked.  "This is the coolest thing ever!  Let's invite all your friends over and let's have a Glue Party!"

So here we are, two grandmothers and three little kids having a glue party after the rain stopped.  Jan and I did the Hokey Pokey--both of us feeling remarkably better than we've felt these last few months.

You're all invited next time we throw a Glue and Giggle Party!

Makkin and Elena, two weeks apart in age
"When is your birthday?" I asked.
"I don't know," they both said.  "We already had them."

A face in the night window

I've always made a big deal about being scared of sneaky night creatures, like opossums, mostly, but also raccoons--the animals Sebastien and Makkin think are the cutest creatures in the world. Anything that looks remotely ratlike or mouselike can send me running for a powder, as the Southern women of old times used to say.  (What's a powder anyway? Smelling salts to prevent fainting?)

Mike told me yesterday that he found a field mouse in his silverware drawer, cute little thing, he said, all furry, and I got an unpleasant shiver at the vicarious sight of said mouse.  I remembered how back when we lived on Huisache, 1968, I went downstairs for a drink of tea in the middle of the night and saw a couple of mice scampering across the floor.  I was so freaked out I  never went to the kitchen at night again in that house.

Except in the case of actual rodents and opossums, a fear I will hold to for eternity because perhaps of some barely-remembered childhood traumatic experience, I am starting to reconsider releasing my fear of raccoons.

Just now I got up to have some French lemonade--a yummy drink I bought at World Market because it has exactly the right bottles for kombucha-making--I turned on the light to see a curious little fellow looking inside.  His paws were on my windowsill and we held eye contact for a few minutes.  I kept looking and he kept looking, taking advantage of the glass between us for safety, scrutinizing each other.  (So he's the guy I hear scratching about on the Happy Deck every night!)

He was--I have to admit--pretty cute.  With his black-rimmed and innocent-looking eyes, he reminded me more of a baby panda than a rat. His fur was fluffy, and he meant me no harm.  I'm not quite ready to pet one or invite one inside, but I found this particular raccoon, in spite of myself,  a little bit adorable.

Call The Midwife

I've enjoyed bingeing on both seasons of "Grace and Frankie"--a contemporary romance/family comic drama, no holds barred.  Then I moved back to the early Sixties in England.

This week's "Call The Midwife" included the introduction of the contraceptive pill and the variety of different moral opinions about it.  As always, this series is not heavy-handed, and differences of opinion are voiced in thoughtful and caring ways.

In the end, with Jackie Wilson singing, "My heart belongs to only you," we hear Jenny's mature voice saying,

"Sometimes there's a brightness and a richness in the moment, a richness that simply says, 'Taste this' and calls us to partake without fear or any thought of punishment.  It is the fruit of our experience, and in its heart, it bears the seed of all our hopes.  Take the joy.  Take all it gives.  Life is sweet, and it is ours, as is our right to love and relish every moment."

Though she is persuaded to live a more normal life, one woman chooses to live on a barge with her husband and five children, and she is happy there.  Another "had to get married" and it takes a while for her young husband to get on board with marriage and fatherhood.  And our Nurse Gilbert?  She and the vicar, looks like, are on the verge of a decision that could possibly put them in the new world of choosing birth control.

Fifty--what?

People go to high school and college reunions for  lots of good reasons: To compare how much everyone has aged?  To re-live for one night the Happy Days?  To listen to oldies and dance with ex boyfriends or girlfriends?  To see how the original hopes and dreams and senior superlatives (like Most Likely to Succeed and Most Talented) have come true?

I've gotten two invitations to high school reunions--one from the Cochran High School class of '66 (my class from kindergarten on), the other from Central Gwinnett class of '66, the class I joined junior year.

We all remember the year we graduated from high school.  I just hadn't added it up--fifty years???  Are you kidding me?

For the most part, my classmates and I would probably not recognize each other if we met on the street, and based on many of their posts on Facebook, we wouldn't have a whole lot in common--except that we shared two or eleven years of our young lives.

Notable exceptions are two of my dearest friends, Nellie and Betty--whom I love seeing and with whom we share more in common now than we did back when we were cheerleader, baton twirler, or homecoming queen. None of us cheers or twirls or wears a crown these days.

Loving

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

OSCAR WILDE

My friend Barbel sent me this line (from "The Land of Enchantment" New Mexico) in response to a line I shared with her from my youngest teacher, Elena Pritchett.

Last week she was painting that mini furniture on the floor, every piece a different color, more or less as I would paint it myself, and she spread her arms wide in joyous over-the-top appreciation of her own talent:  "I just love myself!" she said.

Maybe that's the key to everything.

Great news today!

No radiation needed.  I could take Tamoxifen for five years, or not.  My risk is low--9 percent--for recurrence, but Ellie is gone!

The drug has some side effects, and taking it is recommended but optional.

I have writing group tonight, and my phone battery is dead--but it's been, overall, a very good day!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Version 2

All month I've been waiting with trepidation for tomorrow--
Just saying the word, oncologist, stirs up dread.

She could either say, "It's all okay, go home and get on with your summer," or she could say, "You should do radiation or take these pills" or something.  My walls are singing "Tomorrow" with a decidedly different tempo than last week's.

So I've made today a good day--a porch visit with Freda before she heads to Washington for opera, a delicious gift of brunch at TriBeCa with Pam, phone calls from Kate and Mike, and watching nine episodes of season 1 of Grace and Frankie.

What a poignant and funny story it is!  Just right to pass the hours of a Sunday in waiting.  To get my mind off tomorrow.   To laugh several times out loud.  And to enjoy the wardrobe of Frankie and the decor of the beach house where Frankie and Grace live together after their husbands reveal that they have fallen in love with each other.  It's a sweet story of family and friendship.

To top off this day, we've had rain all day--and I so love the sound of rain on the Happy Deck outside my bedroom.  Will and Veronica gave me a finch feeder and finch food for Mother's Day, but the doves are helping themselves to the goodies.  Can't the doves read the label on the Finch Food bag?

I hope you've all had a good Sunday, too, and I'll write an update tomorrow on tomorrow's news.

Some Thoughts about Truth

"The truth will set you free." (the Bible)

"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man." (Shakespeare.)

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies...." (Emily Dickinson)

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth." Buddha

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." (Marcus Aurelius.)

I like to think I'm a stickler for the truth, but being disingenuous comes naturally, too. I can lie to myself, first of all. I can spin or finesse the facts or withhold a detail that changes everything.   In "The Ways We Lie," Stephanie Ericsson categories a few type of lies:

http://campuses.fortbendisd.com/campuses/documents/Teacher/2012%5Cteacher_20120124_1612.pdf

When we were girls, my friends and I had "truth sessions."  We all wanted to hear and tell the truths people don't ordinarily tell, but the way we did it usually devolved into unhelpful criticism of each other.  But the impulse was the same impulse I've had all my life--to tell the truth as best I can and to be able to hear other people's, even if I don't agree with them.

I prefer "truth" without "the" in front of it. Few truths are singular, rock-solid, and static; truth is more like a river, always moving and changing.  As I mature, reality becomes more slippery, nuanced and complex.

This morning, I've had three illuminating conversations about truth--with Freda, Pam, and Mike. What does it mean to live an honest life without hurting other people?  And what do we do with their truths that hurt us?  How do we decide when to tell the unvarnished truth, and to whom?

Mike said, "A person has to create an environment for another person to tell the truth." To create such a space means throwing out outdated stuff in the mind and getting some new mental furniture and lamps.

Evergreen 1960

When my parents were younger than my children are now,
and I was eight years older than Elena is now,
I met my future-husband at a summer revival at Evergreen,
where my daddy was the visiting song leader, and my parents the special music.

I was twelve, he was nineteen.  We bumped into each other over a bowl
of potato salad at the back door of his house.  He looked
at me and I looked away, but my fate took a turn that night.

Evergreen was a white, wooden church that
stood in a thick grove of trees down a long driveway off Macon Highway,
the quintessential little "church in the wildwood."
The same people came every night--farmers and shirt factory people
and often they invited us to dinners at their houses.

Evergreen--now with fewer trees

Those women cooked the best food you ever tasted--
Pies and cakes, fried chicken, butterbeans, relishes, iced tea and biscuits.
One night, I overheard my future-husband's mother
say to mine, "My son thinks your daughter looks like an angel."

That's when we all should have said "Ugh oh!"
But no.  We fell in love.  Six years later we had the wedding, the whole nine yards,
then we moved to Texas.

Some nights, Grace, the regular piano player, couldn't play,
so I played the old beat up, out-of-tune piano with the cracked yellowed keys.

The people sang wholeheartedly,
way louder than we sang downtown at our stained-glass-windowed,
air-conditioned, carpeted church.

From the piano bench, I watched cardboard
fans--with Jesus knocking on one side and ads for Fisher Funeral Home on the other--
fanning hard to the rhythm of the music, stirring the humid soup of air.

The visiting preacher was fired up to save souls and
you couldn't doze off if you tried.
Sweat dripping all over his face and through his shirt,
he moved around and waved his arms and told one scary story after the other.
(Hell wasn't mentioned all that much in our regular church, and I was captivated.)

Turns out everybody was already saved, but by the end of the sermon,
even the saved ones wanted to up the ante.  One by one, people walked the aisle
and whispered words in the preacher's ear, and he patted their shoulders, gratified.

Some cried.  One woman in a brown dress--with a whole row of children--wept every night.
All these decades later, I wonder--what must have been going on in her house?

I played "Just As I Am"over and over,
eleven verses, twelve, seventeen, as many as it took.

"Somebody's a-dyin!  Somebody's a-dyin!" the preacher shouted,
"Somebody's a-goin-to Heaven, somebody's a-goin-to Hell!"
hoping to get the last few reluctant souls to move on up front
and accept the invitation to eternal life.

I used to think time was running out faster at Evergreen than any other place I knew.
There we all were, sitting right on the brink of E-ternity, Brethren,
and death could snatch us at any minute.

An email from the Universe

Every day Pam gets a personalized message from the Universe.  Here's one she forwarded me this week:


I do wonder, Pam, how it is that you don't ALL just fall crazy in love with each other and get it over with...

Falling in love, I mean.

I have,
    The Universe

The AFTER pictures

My sweet mama gave me a wonderful gift of a yard remodel!  It's been so much fun watching Evan and Josh peel up grass and combine two small beds into one, using all the rocks Mike and I put in last summer.

I can hardly wait for these babies to grow tall enough to provide a screen to obscure the view of the new house across the street.

To each his own and all, but the ultra modern house still looks--as Carlene said--like Bojangles.  That or a branch of Chase Bank.

A Thursday with four-year-olds

 Elena and I started our day at H.E.B.  It takes an hour with a four-year-old because everything is noteworthy.  Nail polish colors, water toys, fruits and vegetables, pastries and fish, and other people.  "Look at that lady with purple hair!" she said--in  hearing range of the woman with purple hair.

She saw a policeman and said, "Look he has handkerchiefs."

Hmmmm....

"See Yenna!  Handkerchiefs!  Like you put on the hands of somebody who did something bad.  Like burglars."

Ah, so!  Handcuffs!

"But don't worry.  We didn't do something wrong."

Coloring on the porch

"Makkin's mommy is named Kate, too?
Like our other friend with  long hair?" 

Painting miniature wooden furniture on the floor
and making a house for her cheetah

With a little help from her friend

Here Comes the Sun....

I was driving down Austin Highway a little before seven this morning.  It’s a curvy road, and I see it every day at different hours. I pass the white former-Shell station at the intersection of Austin Highway and Broadway,  the original red neon pegasus on top. It's now a shop. A couple of days ago, I was driving past it with Evan, who’s doing amazing things with my yard, and we were both recalling the Sixties when the Shell Station was a  hopping place.  Wedged in near it were El Tipico, the Mexican restaurant where you could get a big plate for $1.25, and the Bean Pot, a popular barbecue place, both now gone.

Then I pass the Bun N Barrel, a burger joint that’s been there for decades.  Neon signs and classic cars, hamburgers, Fifties music—just the kind of place Mike loves.  Further down there used to be a string of old hotels from the Forties and lots of run-down buildings, but now that stretch is all cleaned up and modernized with Target and gyms and car washes, homogenized just like every major shopping road anywhere.

Before seven, the red sun was just the right size to fill in the  circle of a round empty frame where something neon used to be.   In the haze, I could have taken a great timed-just-right photograph, centering the soft sun in the circle--but alas, I had forgotten to take my iPhone.  I did a quick U-Turn, ran home to get the camera, but in those few minutes, the sun had risen and turned gold.  I'll just store that moment in my memory bank and here, not my digital image savers as I'd have liked to do.

I’ve lived in this beautiful city so long that there are countless emotional pockets in it for me, some good, some not so much.  One place reminds me of a drive in a convertible, top down, with a former boyfriend named Sonny, another jolts me all the way back to the late Sixties when I was new to the city at 18,  another reminds me of the night in the late Nineties when I left that marriage and sat with two friends for hours crying and afraid.  It’s like that all over town—places are saturated with memories and driving can trigger a flood of them.

My favorite memories of Austin Highway involve Mike.  He loves Shipley Donuts and burgers and barbecue on Austin Highway.  My scale reflects the recent partaking of these pleasures with him.

My life of late has been rather strange, sometimes sad, sometimes scary, but today I'm watching Evan and Josh transforming my yard in beautiful ways, and it's good.  The sun comes up again every day, no matter what's going on in our houses and bodies.  Like all things, if you want to reach out and capture the sun, you have to do it in the moment.  It doesn't hang out and wait for another right moment.

Friends and Family

I happened to mention in a text to Day that I'd be going over to Kate's tonight for my first kombucha lesson.

"Um....What in the world is a kombucha?

"A fermented tea drink.  Good for your body."

"Oh, I thought there might be music, a limbo pole, and a beverage in a pineapple involved," she said.

What would we do without our friends?  When times are good and times are not-so-good, our friends (including related by blood friends) are there: to go with you to the doctor, to stop by for a porch sit, to text and call and email and wish you well.

The porch sit was wonderful, Pam, as was the lesson in how to make kombucha, Kate.  After Monday, I'll buy my bottles and other supplies and be ready to start the fermented adventure at home instead of (or in addition to) drinking yours all the time.

Even my yard man--who lusts after my barber pony (break up present from Mike seven years ago)--took me to the nursery and taught me some great tips on planting and keeping growing things alive.

All in all, I'm feeling fine.  Just took some pain pills to help me sleep.  But it's hard to sleep with the walls singing!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow....

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow, it's only a day away!"

When I sing the Annie song, Elena says, "You sound just like her on the movie with your squeaky voice, Yenna!"

(That was a compliment.  I think)

I had told her that the walls of my house sing that song the night before she's coming over.  And I believe she took that literally.

I just got this text from Will:

I said, "Tomorrow you get to see  Yenna if she is feeling good."

Elena said, "She always feels good enough for me," then "You know what her walls are saying right now?  Tomorrow, tomorrow....."

Update

Before I fall asleep for the day, I wanted to let you all know that the surgery went well..  Thanks to Kate, the good doctor, and the medical assistant, it was right next to painless.

Kate suggested French music on Pandora, so we four listened to happy music during the hour long procedure and I'm fine, just a bit loopy and about to settle in for a nap.  The incision is a couple of inches long.  Duo-Selfie in the bathroom.

The rain has stopped and it's a beautiful day and birds are chirping outside my window.

Wednesday morning

I woke just now  to a pouring rain and lightning this morning and news of accidents all over town.

I'm off to have a little procedure done on my arm for a pre-melanoma.  Kate is driving me, though I'm sure she's as reluctant to get out of her bed as I am this morning.  But here goes! It's likely to last about an hour and I was advised not to drive afterwards.  We should all be safely snug in our beds around nine.

Past perfection

Oh dear!  I've just gotten two requests to keep blogging!  What shall I do?  THANK YOU, Nellie and Betty!

Okay, I will....THAT was a short sabbatical!

I wanted, anyway, to share this opening from the most recent episode of Call the Midwife, Season 5.  Each story always opens with a voiceover from the mature Jenny, the original midwife in earlier seasons.

A sense of community is the Holy Grail of modern living.  When we cannot find it in the present day, we reach back through the years and say, "That was when we knew each other.  That's when we had all things in common.."  It is a thought so tender and consoling that it scarcely matters if it is not true. Past perfection is a wondrous thing.

Arrival

Traveling Solo--to what destination?

This blog started out as a 65th birthday travelogue for my West Coast trip.  When I returned home, I just kept writing!  I thank those of you who have followed, sporadically or regularly!  I feel like writing it has gotten me to my destination, though I can't quite put a name on it yet.

I'm not exactly pulling the plug.  This space is my scaffolding for pinning up photographs in chronological order.  I'm hoping one day, when Elena grows up, she'll like reading about her childhood here, the parts we've shared.

Today, Day called to tell me she was the unanimous choice for chair of her English department!   She's a natural leader--from sorority president, to being one of two Texas women chosen for Women as Leaders, to now--and she is abuzz with ideas to shape her department's philosophy for the upcoming years. I'm so excited for her!

Thursday at the Botanical Gardens

What a beautiful day today was--starting with breakfast at Twin Sisters

with Will and Elena, then taking Elena to the Botanical Gardens

while her daddy did Mother's Day shopping.

"What should I get Mommy?" Will asked.

"A teddy bear or stuffed animal for sure because she doesn't

have any animals." 

She loved shopping in the gift shop.
We bought yellow birdie and a beaded coin purse to hold him in.
"I don't think he'll fit," I said--
but he did!
"I was just being pessimistic!" I sad.
"Well, you should be more otomistic," she replied.

Birdie in Tree--by Elena

Yenna and Birdie by Elena

On Sleeping Beauty's Bed

Back in the car, I asked her, because the name was on NPR, "Do you know who Donald Trump is?"

"Yes, he's the President."

"No, he's not the President but he's running for that office," I said.

"But on my TV, it said he was already the President," she said.

I explained how he'd won the contest last night, but wasn't the President, to which she said, "Well.  If he's the President, I'm going to....DO....(pause for thinking).....A FIT!"

"So am I," I said.  "I'm going to do a fit, too."

This beautiful day ended with dinner and art-making at Pam's with Pam and Cindy.  Art may be too elevated a term, but we made stuff and it was fun.  I took pictures but Pam nixed the idea of posting those particular photos.

Gabi did her magic yesterday and I felt so good all day that I wanted to sing the Robert Earle Keene song, "Feels so good feeling good again!"

Vacation in my own back yard

Only three or four times in my life have I paid someone to clean my house, and today is one of them.
While a Spanish-speaking woman named Linda cleans my blinds and polishes my floors, this Linda is enjoying a quiet day in La Casita, right in my own back yard.  I'm thinking I may move out here for a while, sleep here, everything--in order to keep it clean.

I could love the life of a woman of leisure! I took a nap on the Murphy bed, read a few chapters of a book, and went to yoga.  The best part was returning home to find every floor in the house clean at the same time, the kitchen spotless, the blinds and porch sparkling!  

I'd hate to tally up all the hours I've spent cleaning--and I'm not even a persnickety cleaner!  But the last three months, I've sort of let everything go and the cobwebs were starting to creep me out.  Now they are banished and I can see myself in the unsmudged mirrors--oh no!  I now see that I need to hire a trainer,  hair stylist and wardrobe consultant.  But I'd rather BE a mess than live in a mess, and that's the truth today.

I don't think I can watch anymore!

And yet--as I write this--I'm watching election coverage, at least this particular moment in an interminable political cycle.

Politics is like a football game, red team, blue team, rah, rah, rah.  If the money spent on this sport could be channeled directly into helping the people who need it, especially in providing work, education and inspiration, it would be a very good thing.  I have my pom-poms just like everybody else, but let's don't talk about that.  Let's talk about language.

A linguist on NPR recently said that if people preface their statements with phrases like "to tell the truth," we should question the veracity of what they are about to say. People who tell the truth generally just tell it without announcing what they are about to say as the truth, seeming to distinguish it from all the other things they've been saying, don't they?

I wish I had counted the times Trump used the words "incredible" and "unbelievable" in his Indiana victory speech.  Or "amazing."  (I'm sure the linguists did!) Suddenly, in the glow of his win,  everyone is amazing--and "we're all going to love each other and take care of each other and say Merry Christmas."

Then, I watched a clip in which Colbert pretended to be the moderator of a debate between--Donald and Mr. Trump.  On every topic, he showed a video in which Mr. Trump said exactly the opposite of what Donald said elsewhere.

The man may have lots of money and towers and walls, but his language lacks richness and nuance, to say the least. His language reflects, I think, a wall-less, windowless mind, a mind that wanders all over the place, always returning to his favorite subject, himself. His logical fallacies would embarrass a high school debater.  His language is simplistic and mean-spirited. No one is exempt from his insults.

More on the The Little Locksmith

Some have called The Little Locksmith  a “masterpiece."  I always wonder, when I see that word, why we haven't come up with a gender-neutral equivalent to praise a book or work of art by a woman.  "Mistresspiece" would be weighted with other connotations!

Few books achieve perfection and maybe every author decides at some point to just stop and move on to the next one.  This book, in my humble opinion, is not perfect--but it's oh so good where it's good!

Books are like our imperfect selves and our imperfect friends.  You can see their flaws and love them anyway.

At times, Kitty--who I came to know very well on the page--reminded me of the sort of friend who goes on and on and on and could use a few pauses along the way.  At times she reminded me of the sort of friend who tells stories in confusing order or tacks on an ending to a story that doesn't fit the story she's telling.  But often she says things that blow me away, off the bed where I'm reading, off the chair, in search of a pen.  In the end, I wished for the sequel she planned to write, and would have, had she lived longer.

This little book is worth its friendship for its stunning insights and candor--and for the many lines that are keepers.  It's worth the friendship because in its best places it's luminous and wise and disarmingly honest.  Lee Smith called it "the best book on writing" ever written.

Remodeling her large house:

It would have relieved me a little if I could have seen something that disappointed me; that even when I discovered, too late to change it, that one side of the new fireplace was not quite straight I couldn't really mind.  Imperfection and perfection were both included in the universe and I had good reason to make friends with imperfection....

But I didn't want a cute name for my sober, grand, romantic house, the house which I thought of as an expression of my rebellion against cuteness....

And so a kind of mystic marriage, an impregnation, took place between me and that piece of land and the buildings that stood on it.  And it was a happy marriage....

Certain places are fond of certain people, and I am sure that place was fond of me....

On writing:

I believed passionately that every human being could be happy.  I believed that everybody should pursue his own kind of happiness boldly and positively....My particular kind of joy happened to come through the medium of writing.

Cloisters and monasteries were invented in order to protect the life of the spirit from the life of the world....Any young person who in modern times tries to live the life of the spirit without protection is almost sure to come to grief.  When...the life of the spirit was injured or thwarted or even threatened I suffered, in seemed, out of all reason.  I felt as if a storm or an earthquake had struck my psyche.


Beginning gradually and imperceptibly the way sleep comes, something would begin to happen on the paper in front of me.  The people in my story would begin to move.  The place they were in, the rooms, the house, would come alive before me, opening like a flower, mysterious, ravishing....

...When anger is not allowed to explode it flooded my interior in a heavy, unhappy, sullen silence....

Day

I'm a teacher.  What's  your super power? 

On May 6th, my precious daughter is interviewing for the position of department chair at her high school in Falls Church.  I sent her this T-shirt as a good-luck charm....

Pam's mom

I was so excited to get this in my inbox just now....

1. Because I asked for stories and this was the first, (it worked!)
2. Because I never got to meet Pam's mother in person, and
3. Because I love snapshots of my friends' mothers.


My mother taught English at Edison High School in the early 60's. It so happened that the art and music teacher were in a relationship. Both parties being male presented a bit of a problem for the school district. My mother valued both men and considered them her good and dear friends. 

I was ridiculously naive and had no clue there was a problem. However, I remember her saying,"it's not who you love that matters-only that you love." 

Good one mom.

Pam Bryant

The Little Locksmith

Katharine Butler Hathaway lived and died before I was born.  Born in 1890 in Salem, Massachusetts, she was ten years older than my grandparents.

Katherine, whose parents were wealthy enough to afford the best doctors of the period, spent years of her childhood  strapped to a bed due to a childhood illness that could leave her dwarfed and hunchbacked.  Even after such a severe and extended treatment, she never grew larger than a ten-year-old.

When she emerged from her horizontal position, she suddenly had to find her place in the world and seek ways to transform her life.  Treated with cruelty by some, pity by others,  she had a strong, resilient, and even humorous way of being in the world.

As I slowly read these pages, underlining hundreds of lines and making notes in the margins, I relate to her inner life in spite of the gulf between her outer life and my own.

After a few years at Radcliffe, she chooses to buy herself a house--nothing like the diminutive house she'd planned to buy.  Her fantasies and dreams for her house parallel her dreams for who she wants to be.

Houses are often metaphors for the self--owning one, finding one that fits, and transforming a plot of land, trees and walls into  home (The writer of the Afterword, Nancy Mairs, wrote Remembering The Bone House, a book that I still remember reading one Sunday afternoon twenty or more years ago.)

All stories matter, but they don't always matter to the people we think they will matter to.  Sometimes we question the value of what we have to say and whether or not it is worth the time we devote to it.

I'm so glad that Kitty Hathaway wrote this book.  It matters enormously to me--a woman whose life is, on the surface, nothing like hers but who can't read it without a pen in my hand to underline all the places where her words capture exactly what's true for me.

If she were still living--in Paris or Maine or New York--I would write her a letter right now and thank her for this book, just as I once wrote such a letter to Nancy Mairs.