Often as people age, their faith becomes stronger. I, however, find that I keep undergoing what I term “the dilemma of belief.” I question the reality of a spiritual realm; I toy with my practical doubts that there can be anything beyond this earth-based existence. Yet...and this is a huge yet...my heart is drawn to nature's magic and sings loudly when encountering unexplainable phenomenon, craving the intangible. Thus, I am caught between two worlds. My feet walk the literal, wet, mulched pathways, while my vision soars above, scanning for unseen miracles.
It is not easy to have faith in a world so enmeshed with the material. I understand my desire to feel soft fabrics next to my vulnerable skin, to wrap my tired feet in plush slippers, to dig and plant something in the soil in order to witness new life. I understand wanting warmth and comfort in winter, blue skies and cool breezes in summer. I understand wanting speed and fast communications between one destination and another. But when I start to get lost in what I or my house is to wear or how overfull my life can become with comings and goings, I have to stop and question. I hope there is more than this.
I have found the “more,” the “richness,” cannot be sought. It comes on tiny, silent paws and catches the seeker unawares. Then it is as if an explosion of belief, an “ah ha moment” occurs. I was sitting in the audience at Tsunami Bookstore, listening to a Celtic Winter Concert. There were only two performers: a female violinist/guitarist and a male flutist, both with deep, resonant, pure voices. The concert was ending and they chose to sing an original, ancient Scottish version of “Auld Lang Syne.” Their blended voices were beyond lovely. It was as if they reached inside, cradling and caressing my heart gently in their hands. As I sat there, a visionary, ethereal scene, fanned itself out before me. There was my Scottish, Campbell-plaid-dressed grandmother liltingly dancing the highland fling. Next to her were my mother in a flowing skirt and her handsome brother twirling and waltzing. My Irish great grandmother smiled broadly and beckoned from the side. Tears formed at the corner of my seeing. Was I caught up in my own imaginings? Perhaps. But music is not always of this plane, and why should I not be lifted up there too?
Watching my ancestors' joy brought back my amazement at suddenly seeing an unexpected enormous flock of gulls rise straight up off a white sandy water's edge. Through the foggy twilight mist these birds and their miracle of being had been completely hidden as I walked along a wooden railing overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Although this moment was over half a lifetime ago, I have never forgotten the spiritual infusion this scene provided.
Whenever I start to poke holes in my faith, I return to the evening of my daughter's birth. My two-day labor had been intense. I was nearing ten centimeters and the doctor was nervous about the rhythm of my daughter's heart. I just couldn't seem to open sufficiently to have the natural birth I wanted. But before my imminent C-section, I looked down and saw a bright, flowing light. I knew this was my daughter's spirit and it only mattered that she be brought into this world without further delay.
The spirit world is never as mysterious or faraway as I believe it to be. It is with me, physically and emotionally, if my ears, eyes and mind are open to everyday occurrences. I remember waking in the middle of the night, hearing the notes of my teenage daughter's cello drifting down from her attic bedroom. As I listened more intently, I felt a wetness streaking my cheeks. The lush bass, reverberating chords hit a place within I had forgotten existed: a place which realized how fleeting our life spans, how precious our love and earth bound connections, how wondrous the given glimpses beyond questions of doubt and belief. Where the heart is led is where is heart is home.
© 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Follow the String
It is a sunny, cold December morning in California. Dad is finally home. I am a curious seven year old full of unanswered questions. Where has Dad been? Why don't Mom explain? When I grow up I discover that 1954 is the year of my veteran father's break down and involuntary stay in a psychiatric hospital. At seven, all I know is that he is out of a job, mom is looking for work, and we are “poor.” We are told not to expect Christmas this year. Is Santa also poor? As the oldest, I hold the responsibility of creating a joyous holiday for my siblings tight to my heart.
We bake cookies; we cut out and make paper chains for the tree we found on BLM land up the mountain from our house. This tree looks scrawny in our living room, just as I think our Christmas will be. My grandparents are babysitting my toddler brother while my mom goes to job interviews. I am in charge of my younger sister; Dad, well, Dad is in his own world. I walk down our narrow hallway and hear Dad talking to someone in the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of Dad's twisted face as he stands before the mirror. I love my father fiercely, and know something is wrong.
It is the Fifties, and our small neighborhood is full of children. We all walk the fifteen blocks to our elementary school and we all learn to ride a two wheeler by sharing the same small, training-wheeled bike. My sister and I skip down the street to play with sisters Dawn and Denise. All the adults in the neighborhood treat us well. We don't understand Dad's recent comments about trusting no one. Though kids come to our backyard to climb and swing on our swings or to play dress up, families rarely visit. I am a sensitive, gregarious child who loves school, loves having friends and desperately wants our family to be close and loving.
Mom's usual childlike joy is heavy with quiet despair. Dad isn't himself; he needs a rest. The merriest of holidays are upon us and I have never felt so sad. No ones knows what we're going through, I think. Even Nanny and Grampy, my mother's parents, send disapproving glances Dad's way, which does nothing to add to the mood. But we have a tree and we have cookies and on Christmas Eve we children sit by the huge living room window, wishing for snow and reindeer.
Christmas morning dawns with us slowly sliding out of bed. We hear sounds in the kitchen and smell eggs and bacon frying. Mom's smile greets us as we tip-toe and stand at the entryway. “Nanny and Grampy brought over a bag of groceries last night,” she announces, “and there are some surprises from them under the tree.” We race to the tree to grab the gifts our grandparents brought us. Dad is still in his pajamas, sitting in his favorite brown leather chair, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. He gives us a half-hearted smile and a half-hearted Merry Christmas as we reach for our packages. “I feel so awful Santa Claus couldn't make it this year,” he moans. Then suddenly we hear a loud knock on our front door. Dad jumps and Mom wipes her hands on her apron as she unlocks the door and pulls it open. I run to her side. We step out onto our porch and look up and down the street...no one. Then we turn around and notice a sign on our screen door and this string tied to the handle: “Follow the string,” it states.
It's a chilly morning for the San Fernando Valley, and I stand, staring at the sign and at the string. The excitement pours into my body and warms me up. We gather together; even my dad looks amazed. We kids are at the head of our family line and hold onto this thin string: we follow it to our front yard, along the edge of our bushes, around the side bed of roses, across our driveway, up to our garage door. There the string is tied to the handle, which is decorated with a huge red bow. Mom and dad glance at each other, as mystified as we children are. “Well, let's open the garage,” says Dad. Together we all lift on the handle and the garage door swings open. We stand there stunned. Every inch is filled with boxes. We move closer. There are boxes of clothes for each of us and boxes of toys and boxes of canned goods and boxes of children's books. Even at seven, I remember staring at the amazement and happiness on my family's faces and I notice my heart isn't tight anymore, but wide open.
Santa made it after all! We become exhilarated and slightly intoxicated after opening our presents. My parents have a look of pure, unexpected joy on their haggard faces. I catch a glimpse of a tear on my Dad's cheek. We troop back and forth into the house carrying armfuls of clothes and toys. I would never forget this particular Christmas. It is the beginning of a difficult childhood with a depressed and sometimes violent father. But this Christmas, when Santa truly does not forget us, gives me a hope and a belief in human kindness that cuts through my father's cynicism.
It isn't until I am a teenager that I discover what really happened; I am sitting in the kitchen as my mother prepare dinner. Somehow our conversation veers back through Christmases of long ago. Mom reveals what she eventually found out after that wondrous extravaganza. Our family's name was submitted by a neighbor to a local church and the members gathered all the boxes for us. I am dumbfounded by this generosity from total strangers. Throughout my growing-up years, my father constantly tied to make strangers our enemies. A knowing smile crosses my face. My father is not as wise as I think. I can feel the pull of that simple string on my fingers and the memory of how this thin piece of twine gave our family the greatest joy in a dark time. I will always be eternally grateful.
© 2011
We bake cookies; we cut out and make paper chains for the tree we found on BLM land up the mountain from our house. This tree looks scrawny in our living room, just as I think our Christmas will be. My grandparents are babysitting my toddler brother while my mom goes to job interviews. I am in charge of my younger sister; Dad, well, Dad is in his own world. I walk down our narrow hallway and hear Dad talking to someone in the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of Dad's twisted face as he stands before the mirror. I love my father fiercely, and know something is wrong.
It is the Fifties, and our small neighborhood is full of children. We all walk the fifteen blocks to our elementary school and we all learn to ride a two wheeler by sharing the same small, training-wheeled bike. My sister and I skip down the street to play with sisters Dawn and Denise. All the adults in the neighborhood treat us well. We don't understand Dad's recent comments about trusting no one. Though kids come to our backyard to climb and swing on our swings or to play dress up, families rarely visit. I am a sensitive, gregarious child who loves school, loves having friends and desperately wants our family to be close and loving.
Mom's usual childlike joy is heavy with quiet despair. Dad isn't himself; he needs a rest. The merriest of holidays are upon us and I have never felt so sad. No ones knows what we're going through, I think. Even Nanny and Grampy, my mother's parents, send disapproving glances Dad's way, which does nothing to add to the mood. But we have a tree and we have cookies and on Christmas Eve we children sit by the huge living room window, wishing for snow and reindeer.
Christmas morning dawns with us slowly sliding out of bed. We hear sounds in the kitchen and smell eggs and bacon frying. Mom's smile greets us as we tip-toe and stand at the entryway. “Nanny and Grampy brought over a bag of groceries last night,” she announces, “and there are some surprises from them under the tree.” We race to the tree to grab the gifts our grandparents brought us. Dad is still in his pajamas, sitting in his favorite brown leather chair, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. He gives us a half-hearted smile and a half-hearted Merry Christmas as we reach for our packages. “I feel so awful Santa Claus couldn't make it this year,” he moans. Then suddenly we hear a loud knock on our front door. Dad jumps and Mom wipes her hands on her apron as she unlocks the door and pulls it open. I run to her side. We step out onto our porch and look up and down the street...no one. Then we turn around and notice a sign on our screen door and this string tied to the handle: “Follow the string,” it states.
It's a chilly morning for the San Fernando Valley, and I stand, staring at the sign and at the string. The excitement pours into my body and warms me up. We gather together; even my dad looks amazed. We kids are at the head of our family line and hold onto this thin string: we follow it to our front yard, along the edge of our bushes, around the side bed of roses, across our driveway, up to our garage door. There the string is tied to the handle, which is decorated with a huge red bow. Mom and dad glance at each other, as mystified as we children are. “Well, let's open the garage,” says Dad. Together we all lift on the handle and the garage door swings open. We stand there stunned. Every inch is filled with boxes. We move closer. There are boxes of clothes for each of us and boxes of toys and boxes of canned goods and boxes of children's books. Even at seven, I remember staring at the amazement and happiness on my family's faces and I notice my heart isn't tight anymore, but wide open.
Santa made it after all! We become exhilarated and slightly intoxicated after opening our presents. My parents have a look of pure, unexpected joy on their haggard faces. I catch a glimpse of a tear on my Dad's cheek. We troop back and forth into the house carrying armfuls of clothes and toys. I would never forget this particular Christmas. It is the beginning of a difficult childhood with a depressed and sometimes violent father. But this Christmas, when Santa truly does not forget us, gives me a hope and a belief in human kindness that cuts through my father's cynicism.
It isn't until I am a teenager that I discover what really happened; I am sitting in the kitchen as my mother prepare dinner. Somehow our conversation veers back through Christmases of long ago. Mom reveals what she eventually found out after that wondrous extravaganza. Our family's name was submitted by a neighbor to a local church and the members gathered all the boxes for us. I am dumbfounded by this generosity from total strangers. Throughout my growing-up years, my father constantly tied to make strangers our enemies. A knowing smile crosses my face. My father is not as wise as I think. I can feel the pull of that simple string on my fingers and the memory of how this thin piece of twine gave our family the greatest joy in a dark time. I will always be eternally grateful.
© 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Giving Birth: An Oregon Story (continued)
Gestation
When Dan and I returned to California, the sweet taste in our mouths of the Pacific Northwest made us come to an easy decision. We were heading back to Oregon. Dan packed his family inherited dresser, his guitars and clothes into his Chevy van. I packed my family inherited maple rocking chair, my journals, books and clothes into my Fiat station wagon and, like modern pioneers, we carvaned up the coast. This time as we drove over the border into Ashland and then on to Eugene, we knew we were coming home.
Our first autumn with its brilliant reds, oranges, golds and yellows is remembered like an artist's dream. We camped inside the van on the doorstep of a friend's house. Dan and I started looking simultaneously for an apartment and for work. The crisp sunlit days turned into cool nights. These cool nights turned into freezing winter ones. During the first pre-Thanksgiving snow fall, we had been visiting another friend teaching near Dayton. We appreciated the warmth of her living room. I now fondly remember the thirteen comforters and blankets piled on top of the sleeping bags we used in our van bedroom. I never appreciated having a home so much as the first day we walked into our duplex.
Labor
Our seventh anniversary brought a searing transformation. I had been attending graduate school, working on the father/daughter relationship in literature and in psychotherapy when my father died from an accidental house-roof fall while gutter cleaning. His death came one week after his birthday and four days after Christmas. In the middle of counseling, working to heal the tempestuous relationship I had with my father, I was devastated. I grieved passionately. I wrote in my journal. In California I visited my dad's favorite haunts. In Oregon I meditated on a McKenzie River boulder where I had once brought my nature loving dad. Over a nine month mourning period I sobbed my way to my own rebirth.
Dan was supportive during this difficult time, but he was also set adrift by my emotional volcano. He listened intently as I bubbled over from my counseling sessions. I was growing in such leaps and bounds he couldn't keep up with me while his intimacy needs were not being met. We were each becoming more involved in parallel lives. We loved each other but change was in the air.
My need for a home, a commitment and a child were coming to the fore. Dan emotionally backed away from my needs without expressing his own. We began searching for a house to buy. During this house seeking process, however, I unexpectedly discovered that Dan had been having a romantic connection with another woman on his softball team. I asked for a three month moratorium on this other relationship and we started counseling with a family therapist we knew.
We bought our home; I took over ownership when Dan moved out. What followed was a turbulent year. We lived apart and drifted into our separate lives. Dan's other relationship ended and he continued the counseling he had started earlier. I got a roommate and worked and cried full time. In my late thirties I began to mourn the loss of a daughter I might never have. The name Aspen was etched into poetry and there I thought it would remain.
Near the end of our year apart I began seeing the whole of me rather than the loss of an “us.” I was doing house repairs with my roommate, plowing up the front lawn for a vegetable/flower garden, writing, hiking and learning to thrive on my own. I thought I could now finally be friends with this man I loved. One evening we set up a meeting at the house to discuss finances and our co-parented cat, Lupe.
As we talked we began to fuse in a way we had never been able to do before. He spent the night. I panicked and felt I had committed the gravest of sins. Wasn't I over this man? Hadn't I already been hurt? Was I asking for more pain? Gradually my tears begin spinning into gold. For Dan and I, remaining in our separate living spaces, began to “date” again. And we began weekly couple-counseling sessions which over a two and a half year period brought us to the intimacy needed for a life long commitment of marriage and the promise of trying to give birth to a child.
Birth
We planned our own wedding ceremony for the third Saturday in May, 1988. It was to be a small friends and family affair in a lovely, grand backyard. We ended up inviting over a hundred guests including twenty children. Four friends called the four directions of earth, air, fire and water and we ended with the community we had created around us, speaking out their tributes and strange/humorous remembrances. We had each written our vows separately and revealed them to each other on that day. We held hands and instead of crying, laughed our way through our spoken words. But what unexpectedly touched my heart was the vow Dan made to have a raise a child with me.
It was November and we had been trying for a baby for nearly eight months. In December we left for our planned trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. One late afternoon as I was sitting at Casa Arnel's communal table, a woman I had never met who was sitting across from me said, “You're pregnant.” On some deep, unconscious level I intuited she was right.
A youthful forty-one, I was joyfully and deliciously exuberant throughout my pregnancy. The summer months brought warmth and the nesting syndrome. It also brought a visit to a Native American Sun Dance near Salem. My friend Wren and I set up a tent on the outskirts of the ceremonial fire. I breathed in the peace of the forest and meadow surroundings. That evening there was a gathering of the elders. The fire blazed gently in the middle of the circle. After introductions and shared wisdom, we were each invited to step to the fire and ask for a wished blessing. As I approached the flames, I caressed my blossoming belly and asked that this child I was carrying be a child and caretaker of the earth.
Aspen Louise was born on a September 1st Friday near midnight. My midwife, Dan, the soon-to-be Godparents were all in the hospital room with me, as I chanted my way to her birth. “It's a girl, I think,” exclaimed my husband as our precious one was lifted from my body.
When Aspen first latched onto my breast, all the years of waiting and wondering, sadness, disappointment and hurt disappeared. Only the present moment of cradling this small being remained. And it seems that moment led to the next moment and to the next and within the blink of a fairy's eye, twenty-two years passed. This daughter is now five inches taller than I am, and I sometimes wonder if she was ever really inside of me. Three days after her birth, her tiny perfect physical presence still invisibly attached to my umbilical cord, we brought her home to our cats, home to our small house, home to our garden, home to our community of loving friends, home to the life Dan and I shared, home to Eugene, Oregon, where we have now spent thirty-four blessed years.
© 2011
When Dan and I returned to California, the sweet taste in our mouths of the Pacific Northwest made us come to an easy decision. We were heading back to Oregon. Dan packed his family inherited dresser, his guitars and clothes into his Chevy van. I packed my family inherited maple rocking chair, my journals, books and clothes into my Fiat station wagon and, like modern pioneers, we carvaned up the coast. This time as we drove over the border into Ashland and then on to Eugene, we knew we were coming home.
Our first autumn with its brilliant reds, oranges, golds and yellows is remembered like an artist's dream. We camped inside the van on the doorstep of a friend's house. Dan and I started looking simultaneously for an apartment and for work. The crisp sunlit days turned into cool nights. These cool nights turned into freezing winter ones. During the first pre-Thanksgiving snow fall, we had been visiting another friend teaching near Dayton. We appreciated the warmth of her living room. I now fondly remember the thirteen comforters and blankets piled on top of the sleeping bags we used in our van bedroom. I never appreciated having a home so much as the first day we walked into our duplex.
Labor
Our seventh anniversary brought a searing transformation. I had been attending graduate school, working on the father/daughter relationship in literature and in psychotherapy when my father died from an accidental house-roof fall while gutter cleaning. His death came one week after his birthday and four days after Christmas. In the middle of counseling, working to heal the tempestuous relationship I had with my father, I was devastated. I grieved passionately. I wrote in my journal. In California I visited my dad's favorite haunts. In Oregon I meditated on a McKenzie River boulder where I had once brought my nature loving dad. Over a nine month mourning period I sobbed my way to my own rebirth.
Dan was supportive during this difficult time, but he was also set adrift by my emotional volcano. He listened intently as I bubbled over from my counseling sessions. I was growing in such leaps and bounds he couldn't keep up with me while his intimacy needs were not being met. We were each becoming more involved in parallel lives. We loved each other but change was in the air.
My need for a home, a commitment and a child were coming to the fore. Dan emotionally backed away from my needs without expressing his own. We began searching for a house to buy. During this house seeking process, however, I unexpectedly discovered that Dan had been having a romantic connection with another woman on his softball team. I asked for a three month moratorium on this other relationship and we started counseling with a family therapist we knew.
We bought our home; I took over ownership when Dan moved out. What followed was a turbulent year. We lived apart and drifted into our separate lives. Dan's other relationship ended and he continued the counseling he had started earlier. I got a roommate and worked and cried full time. In my late thirties I began to mourn the loss of a daughter I might never have. The name Aspen was etched into poetry and there I thought it would remain.
Near the end of our year apart I began seeing the whole of me rather than the loss of an “us.” I was doing house repairs with my roommate, plowing up the front lawn for a vegetable/flower garden, writing, hiking and learning to thrive on my own. I thought I could now finally be friends with this man I loved. One evening we set up a meeting at the house to discuss finances and our co-parented cat, Lupe.
As we talked we began to fuse in a way we had never been able to do before. He spent the night. I panicked and felt I had committed the gravest of sins. Wasn't I over this man? Hadn't I already been hurt? Was I asking for more pain? Gradually my tears begin spinning into gold. For Dan and I, remaining in our separate living spaces, began to “date” again. And we began weekly couple-counseling sessions which over a two and a half year period brought us to the intimacy needed for a life long commitment of marriage and the promise of trying to give birth to a child.
Birth
We planned our own wedding ceremony for the third Saturday in May, 1988. It was to be a small friends and family affair in a lovely, grand backyard. We ended up inviting over a hundred guests including twenty children. Four friends called the four directions of earth, air, fire and water and we ended with the community we had created around us, speaking out their tributes and strange/humorous remembrances. We had each written our vows separately and revealed them to each other on that day. We held hands and instead of crying, laughed our way through our spoken words. But what unexpectedly touched my heart was the vow Dan made to have a raise a child with me.
It was November and we had been trying for a baby for nearly eight months. In December we left for our planned trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. One late afternoon as I was sitting at Casa Arnel's communal table, a woman I had never met who was sitting across from me said, “You're pregnant.” On some deep, unconscious level I intuited she was right.
A youthful forty-one, I was joyfully and deliciously exuberant throughout my pregnancy. The summer months brought warmth and the nesting syndrome. It also brought a visit to a Native American Sun Dance near Salem. My friend Wren and I set up a tent on the outskirts of the ceremonial fire. I breathed in the peace of the forest and meadow surroundings. That evening there was a gathering of the elders. The fire blazed gently in the middle of the circle. After introductions and shared wisdom, we were each invited to step to the fire and ask for a wished blessing. As I approached the flames, I caressed my blossoming belly and asked that this child I was carrying be a child and caretaker of the earth.
Aspen Louise was born on a September 1st Friday near midnight. My midwife, Dan, the soon-to-be Godparents were all in the hospital room with me, as I chanted my way to her birth. “It's a girl, I think,” exclaimed my husband as our precious one was lifted from my body.
When Aspen first latched onto my breast, all the years of waiting and wondering, sadness, disappointment and hurt disappeared. Only the present moment of cradling this small being remained. And it seems that moment led to the next moment and to the next and within the blink of a fairy's eye, twenty-two years passed. This daughter is now five inches taller than I am, and I sometimes wonder if she was ever really inside of me. Three days after her birth, her tiny perfect physical presence still invisibly attached to my umbilical cord, we brought her home to our cats, home to our small house, home to our garden, home to our community of loving friends, home to the life Dan and I shared, home to Eugene, Oregon, where we have now spent thirty-four blessed years.
© 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Giving Birth: An Oregon Story
Conception
My husband Dan affectionately laughs at the notion that everything in life happens for a reason. Having been cradled in the arms of sadness while watching my railroaded dreams disappear, I have come to understand that my life has kept to its own mysterious schedule. At twenty-nine I remember sorrowing about a loveless existence, and a decade later I rode my bike, sobbing, down the streets of Eugene because I thought I would never have a child. But all the time, I was, often unwittingly, unfolding my own Oregon story.
In the spring of 1977, I was teaching at a private school in Ojai, California. The students were difficult, and I was at odds with another teacher. Then one day, a six foot three, strawberry blond, bearded fellow came striding down the hallway wearing a red plaid flannel shirt, jeans and work style boots. After one look at his kind blue eyes, I was smitten. We introduced ourselves and shook hands. The next thing I knew Dan and I were in a small room with a piano and he was playing his song about the meaningful people he had met on his life's crooked mile.
For a week we taught together and celebrated at the end with a dinner up in the Ojai hills. Our common love of literature, nature and earth based spirituality ignited a romance. Like a ready cake mix, we found our missing ingredients and became a couple. Biweekly, we ran side by side through the neighborhood California orange groves, sucking the succulent oranges while watching the sun set behind the paper thin hills. By June, it was love.
Dan had made plans for a summer job with a friend who lived in Chiloquin, Oregon. We packed simply and rode up North in his orange Chevy van. As we crossed the border into Ashland, the magic of previous visits there returned. We wandered through Lithia Park and watched Shakespeare's Tempest in the outdoor theater on a thunderous summer night. Then we made our way to Chiloquin and up a seven mile dirt road to Randy and Susan's hand-built house which bordered a national forest and an aspen grove.
Susan was pregnant with her first child and maintained the chickens, goats and garden. Randy was working in the building trades. Their homestead had an outhouse, a well, and no electricity. To take a bath, hot water was heated on the wood stove and poured into the bathtub sitting in the living room. Guitar strumming became our entertainment. We also had horseshoe playing, story and musical potlucks. That first Oregon summer in 1977, I felt like I had been reborn in the 1800s.
Chiloquin was a cowboy and Indian town. I would walk down one side-street to the co-op grocery store and then walk down the main boulevard which had a bar, a hardware store and a cafe. What enthralled me, however, was the Klamath Indian Reservation. Susan and Randy were both part Lakota, reclaiming their Native spiritual rituals. They took us for a visit to the small reservation and introduced us to Chief Edison Chiloquin and his wife Leatha.
I was honored to have Chief Chiloquin shaking my hand against a backdrop of rawhide teepees, a wooden trellised outdoor dining room bordered by a rushing creek. We feasted on salmon and fry bread. Sitting around the fire, we listened to tribal history. When the federal government came to buy up the Klamath land, Edison refused to sell. He wanted a traditional village site as a legacy for the youngsters of the tribe. Camping on this piece of land we now sat upon, Chief Chiloquin lit a daily fire. He refused to move. Finally through years of prayer, an act of Congress gave Edison and the tribe these 200 acres. Hearing the evening echo of the steady drum beat amongst the trees, we entered their sweat lodge full of admiration and reverence for this tribe who was trying so desperately and deliberately to maintain their forgotten way of life.
Known as the “teachers,” Dan and I spent the majority of our summer in and around Chiloquin. Though I loved the herb and mushroom searches and the first stirrings of wanting my own child while meditating under a grove of aspen trees, my heart wasn't sure if back-to-the-land living was what I wanted. Dan had a friend in Eugene, so we made a journey north.
Eugene's collegiate, cultural atmosphere breathed energy into my literature-loving brain. We walked the quaint neighborhoods finding wood-shingled houses built in the 40s and lush vegetable/flower gardens. The wide bike paths along the Willamette River and the abundance of juicy blackberries overwhelmed me. I felt a community connection I hadn't found down in southern Oregon. On our return to Chiloquin, we detoured to the coast highway and drove towards Port Orford. I had grown up loving the warmth and spaciousness of California beaches, but the Oregon coast's natural ruggedness spoke to my soul, seeping into my home seeking consciousness.
Dan drove us by the farmhouse he had spent a winter in. With his German Shepard Louise, he had taken up an offer to rent it for that season. He fondly remembered his days of meditation, yoga, pure vegetarian cooking and the Faulknerian characters he met in that stretch of country. Parking on the ocean's edge with a view of these giant towered rock formations in the ocean, I felt the sunlight kiss my face and watched the birds fly quietly overhead. I was in paradise. As we walked up the sandy cliff to the van, a strange visionary scene appeared. I opened the driver's side van door and before I could scoot inside, a slender, girl with reddish blond hair and a mid-calf length dress, got into the van ahead of me. My heart told me this was my future daughter and her name would be Aspen. Little did I know then that Aspen Louise would indeed be born, but it would take fourteen more years.
Our Chiloquin summer ended with a clogged well, too little work, frazzled nerves and strained relations. Surprisingly, our friendship endured with Randy and Susan. Susan would later remarry, to a man named Mark, and they would become our daughter's Godparents. But this Oregon story is slowly rolling along.
To Be Continued...
(c)2011
My husband Dan affectionately laughs at the notion that everything in life happens for a reason. Having been cradled in the arms of sadness while watching my railroaded dreams disappear, I have come to understand that my life has kept to its own mysterious schedule. At twenty-nine I remember sorrowing about a loveless existence, and a decade later I rode my bike, sobbing, down the streets of Eugene because I thought I would never have a child. But all the time, I was, often unwittingly, unfolding my own Oregon story.
In the spring of 1977, I was teaching at a private school in Ojai, California. The students were difficult, and I was at odds with another teacher. Then one day, a six foot three, strawberry blond, bearded fellow came striding down the hallway wearing a red plaid flannel shirt, jeans and work style boots. After one look at his kind blue eyes, I was smitten. We introduced ourselves and shook hands. The next thing I knew Dan and I were in a small room with a piano and he was playing his song about the meaningful people he had met on his life's crooked mile.
For a week we taught together and celebrated at the end with a dinner up in the Ojai hills. Our common love of literature, nature and earth based spirituality ignited a romance. Like a ready cake mix, we found our missing ingredients and became a couple. Biweekly, we ran side by side through the neighborhood California orange groves, sucking the succulent oranges while watching the sun set behind the paper thin hills. By June, it was love.
Dan had made plans for a summer job with a friend who lived in Chiloquin, Oregon. We packed simply and rode up North in his orange Chevy van. As we crossed the border into Ashland, the magic of previous visits there returned. We wandered through Lithia Park and watched Shakespeare's Tempest in the outdoor theater on a thunderous summer night. Then we made our way to Chiloquin and up a seven mile dirt road to Randy and Susan's hand-built house which bordered a national forest and an aspen grove.
Susan was pregnant with her first child and maintained the chickens, goats and garden. Randy was working in the building trades. Their homestead had an outhouse, a well, and no electricity. To take a bath, hot water was heated on the wood stove and poured into the bathtub sitting in the living room. Guitar strumming became our entertainment. We also had horseshoe playing, story and musical potlucks. That first Oregon summer in 1977, I felt like I had been reborn in the 1800s.
Chiloquin was a cowboy and Indian town. I would walk down one side-street to the co-op grocery store and then walk down the main boulevard which had a bar, a hardware store and a cafe. What enthralled me, however, was the Klamath Indian Reservation. Susan and Randy were both part Lakota, reclaiming their Native spiritual rituals. They took us for a visit to the small reservation and introduced us to Chief Edison Chiloquin and his wife Leatha.
I was honored to have Chief Chiloquin shaking my hand against a backdrop of rawhide teepees, a wooden trellised outdoor dining room bordered by a rushing creek. We feasted on salmon and fry bread. Sitting around the fire, we listened to tribal history. When the federal government came to buy up the Klamath land, Edison refused to sell. He wanted a traditional village site as a legacy for the youngsters of the tribe. Camping on this piece of land we now sat upon, Chief Chiloquin lit a daily fire. He refused to move. Finally through years of prayer, an act of Congress gave Edison and the tribe these 200 acres. Hearing the evening echo of the steady drum beat amongst the trees, we entered their sweat lodge full of admiration and reverence for this tribe who was trying so desperately and deliberately to maintain their forgotten way of life.
Known as the “teachers,” Dan and I spent the majority of our summer in and around Chiloquin. Though I loved the herb and mushroom searches and the first stirrings of wanting my own child while meditating under a grove of aspen trees, my heart wasn't sure if back-to-the-land living was what I wanted. Dan had a friend in Eugene, so we made a journey north.
Eugene's collegiate, cultural atmosphere breathed energy into my literature-loving brain. We walked the quaint neighborhoods finding wood-shingled houses built in the 40s and lush vegetable/flower gardens. The wide bike paths along the Willamette River and the abundance of juicy blackberries overwhelmed me. I felt a community connection I hadn't found down in southern Oregon. On our return to Chiloquin, we detoured to the coast highway and drove towards Port Orford. I had grown up loving the warmth and spaciousness of California beaches, but the Oregon coast's natural ruggedness spoke to my soul, seeping into my home seeking consciousness.
Dan drove us by the farmhouse he had spent a winter in. With his German Shepard Louise, he had taken up an offer to rent it for that season. He fondly remembered his days of meditation, yoga, pure vegetarian cooking and the Faulknerian characters he met in that stretch of country. Parking on the ocean's edge with a view of these giant towered rock formations in the ocean, I felt the sunlight kiss my face and watched the birds fly quietly overhead. I was in paradise. As we walked up the sandy cliff to the van, a strange visionary scene appeared. I opened the driver's side van door and before I could scoot inside, a slender, girl with reddish blond hair and a mid-calf length dress, got into the van ahead of me. My heart told me this was my future daughter and her name would be Aspen. Little did I know then that Aspen Louise would indeed be born, but it would take fourteen more years.
Our Chiloquin summer ended with a clogged well, too little work, frazzled nerves and strained relations. Surprisingly, our friendship endured with Randy and Susan. Susan would later remarry, to a man named Mark, and they would become our daughter's Godparents. But this Oregon story is slowly rolling along.
To Be Continued...
(c)2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Contradictions 101
My husband and I are sitting at a small table, one among many, in a packed pizza restaurant. We are listening to a panel discussion concerning the Occupy Movement. Most in the room are supportive of the issues being raised by this devoted and diverse sampling of America. The media has, of course, painted these pre-revolutionaries as on the outer societal edge, hippies, having-nothing-better-to-do vagrants, lower-class homeless. But on the stage in front of me are a young female civil rights lawyer, a university graduate student, a non-profit program coordinator and another university student. These Occupy Eugene representatives are articulate, worldly, both practical and idealistic, and dedicated to the cause. I am overwhelmed, in a good way, by their youthful zeal and their hope for a more egalitarian, “for the people” non-corporate government.
I feel terribly proud to be living in Oregon and to be in Eugene...the home of the Oregon Country Fair, the home to a number of anarchists, the home to a large older yet still idealistic group of 60's rebels. In my predominantly white, striving-to-attract-more-minorities town, we think, we question, we diversify our opinions, rather than accept the norm. The norm resides here in spades, but the striving for justice element in this room resides here too. The Eugene Occupy Site has become a beacon of safety for the homeless in our community. This is a main issue that the movement has brought to the foreground. Several hundred are being fed daily at the Eugene Occupy Protest Site and this evening, up on the restaurant stage, many individual stories of help and healing are being shared. Here in Eugene homeless are cited and issued tickets with expensive fines for living in their trucks or trying to camp on city property. The movement is giving voice to these voiceless.
While I empathically and intently listen, lately I have become a walking contradiction. Dan and I have always lived simply: one car for the whole family, a small by “normal” American standards one bath, one and a half bedroom house with no microwave, dishwasher, or big screen television. But I realize to many here in the United States and abroad, we live in abundant luxury. At times I feel completely selfish. Though I live in deepest gratitude and give to the causes I believe in, my aging has also given me a live-now splurge surge. For most of my existence, I have watched my money like a hawk scanning dinner. I'd forgo luxuries to save; I'd have an arrogant judgmental attitude about my sister's designer clothes and upscale lifestyle. Instead, I would buy at used clothing stores and only occasionally buy a house or garden item. The frugal me is there but a you are worth it, buy what you want before you die me has surfaced.
So I'm hearing stories of hardship while sitting on a pile of guilty purchases: since the daughter's flying of the coop, we have partially refurnished our cozy abode, but still no huge screened t.v., still no dishwasher or microwave, still no iPhone! And my taste in clothes has graduated. My mind tells me how superficial I am, but my heart leaps forward towards a wool jacket or tall leather boots or a warm sweater. These items are not found in used clothing stores. They are mostly practical, but more expensive than in my past. I could give that money to the homeless, I reflect, as I sit eating my pizza and salad and sipping Dan's beer. And with each bite and sip, another contradiction pops in my brain. Dan and I can eat out and if we so choose we can occasionally go to a fancy restaurant. Our house is nearly paid for and we do have the means to fix it up as we wish. We have a car (going for 150,000 miles) and we can buy gas. We have the means to travel.
Also a result of both aging and the empty nest, I buy symphony and opera tickets, while Dan buys rock, folk and first-run movie tickets. Our lower income says we are among the 99 percent, but since the recession began, I feel as though I am living in the lap of luxury. In the winter I am warm, dry and comfortable. The camping in the mud and freezing weather Occupy Movement is in stark contrast to how we survive. We may not be typical American consumers (no Black Friday, no present giving for the holidays) but we are consumers. This is my conundrum: how to follow the creed of living with less, while allowing for that once in awhile giving and splash of luxury. I want to be a returning to the land, communal purist. I want to cut my shopping, beyond food and necessities , to zero. The contradictions arise when I realize that shopping and the malls, eating out and attending movies, are the American answers to the town square and the sometimes human need of seeking people contact in a crowd.
The media portrays the Occupy Movement as one without purpose or goals. But I am here to attest that, if one listens, their goals are clearly defined: They are encouraging Americans to think, to reflect on how we live and why we live the lives we do. As I sit eating my pizza and listening to the discussion, I wonder how I can wrestle out a solution in my own life between the superficial and the profound, the crass commercial and the intangible higher moral values I want to live by. Shopping is my addiction: a getting out of the house socializing and a temporary fix for my being lonely, insecure, in the middle of a life transition. Like all addictions, I must first acknowledge my weakness aloud: I too am an American consumer. The Occupy Movement has given me, a member of the 99 percent, the gift of seeing my abundance and telling myself, I have enough, we have enough!
© 2011
I feel terribly proud to be living in Oregon and to be in Eugene...the home of the Oregon Country Fair, the home to a number of anarchists, the home to a large older yet still idealistic group of 60's rebels. In my predominantly white, striving-to-attract-more-minorities town, we think, we question, we diversify our opinions, rather than accept the norm. The norm resides here in spades, but the striving for justice element in this room resides here too. The Eugene Occupy Site has become a beacon of safety for the homeless in our community. This is a main issue that the movement has brought to the foreground. Several hundred are being fed daily at the Eugene Occupy Protest Site and this evening, up on the restaurant stage, many individual stories of help and healing are being shared. Here in Eugene homeless are cited and issued tickets with expensive fines for living in their trucks or trying to camp on city property. The movement is giving voice to these voiceless.
While I empathically and intently listen, lately I have become a walking contradiction. Dan and I have always lived simply: one car for the whole family, a small by “normal” American standards one bath, one and a half bedroom house with no microwave, dishwasher, or big screen television. But I realize to many here in the United States and abroad, we live in abundant luxury. At times I feel completely selfish. Though I live in deepest gratitude and give to the causes I believe in, my aging has also given me a live-now splurge surge. For most of my existence, I have watched my money like a hawk scanning dinner. I'd forgo luxuries to save; I'd have an arrogant judgmental attitude about my sister's designer clothes and upscale lifestyle. Instead, I would buy at used clothing stores and only occasionally buy a house or garden item. The frugal me is there but a you are worth it, buy what you want before you die me has surfaced.
So I'm hearing stories of hardship while sitting on a pile of guilty purchases: since the daughter's flying of the coop, we have partially refurnished our cozy abode, but still no huge screened t.v., still no dishwasher or microwave, still no iPhone! And my taste in clothes has graduated. My mind tells me how superficial I am, but my heart leaps forward towards a wool jacket or tall leather boots or a warm sweater. These items are not found in used clothing stores. They are mostly practical, but more expensive than in my past. I could give that money to the homeless, I reflect, as I sit eating my pizza and salad and sipping Dan's beer. And with each bite and sip, another contradiction pops in my brain. Dan and I can eat out and if we so choose we can occasionally go to a fancy restaurant. Our house is nearly paid for and we do have the means to fix it up as we wish. We have a car (going for 150,000 miles) and we can buy gas. We have the means to travel.
Also a result of both aging and the empty nest, I buy symphony and opera tickets, while Dan buys rock, folk and first-run movie tickets. Our lower income says we are among the 99 percent, but since the recession began, I feel as though I am living in the lap of luxury. In the winter I am warm, dry and comfortable. The camping in the mud and freezing weather Occupy Movement is in stark contrast to how we survive. We may not be typical American consumers (no Black Friday, no present giving for the holidays) but we are consumers. This is my conundrum: how to follow the creed of living with less, while allowing for that once in awhile giving and splash of luxury. I want to be a returning to the land, communal purist. I want to cut my shopping, beyond food and necessities , to zero. The contradictions arise when I realize that shopping and the malls, eating out and attending movies, are the American answers to the town square and the sometimes human need of seeking people contact in a crowd.
The media portrays the Occupy Movement as one without purpose or goals. But I am here to attest that, if one listens, their goals are clearly defined: They are encouraging Americans to think, to reflect on how we live and why we live the lives we do. As I sit eating my pizza and listening to the discussion, I wonder how I can wrestle out a solution in my own life between the superficial and the profound, the crass commercial and the intangible higher moral values I want to live by. Shopping is my addiction: a getting out of the house socializing and a temporary fix for my being lonely, insecure, in the middle of a life transition. Like all addictions, I must first acknowledge my weakness aloud: I too am an American consumer. The Occupy Movement has given me, a member of the 99 percent, the gift of seeing my abundance and telling myself, I have enough, we have enough!
© 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
1 of the 99 Percent
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man [or woman] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, s/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
~~Robert Kennedy, 1965
My dad would be fascinated with the Occupy Movement. During his short sixty-six year life span, he evolved from Nixon patriot to Kennedy supporter, from a World War II Veteran devotee of war films to a pontificator of war's carnage and psychological damage, from a critic of his daughter's liberal politics to a man who simply loved his oldest offspring. I am grateful he missed the absurdity of the Afghanistan and Iraqi Wars, but I know he would want to get those “bastard terrorists,” especially that “Goddamned Gadhafi.”
As a college student, I evolved from a 50's kid raised in a white-only neighborhood to an embracer of diversity and fairness. As a teenager, I never argued with my father; I made up for this in my twenties. I remember at the end of one of our knockdown, dragout verbal battles, my dad called me a hippie and a communist. My dad's misunderstanding of who I was hurt me deeply, at the time. Now I can laugh, for as a young woman I was as straight and naïve as they come, never delving into pot, way too organized and nerdy, a virgin until I was twenty-three. Ironically, I married a true hippie of the sixties: a then yoga practicing, vegetarian, war pacifist, politically concerned pot smoker.
But I digress. Coming from upper class, German immigrant stock, my father lived a comfortable childhood in Seattle and the Bay Area. Then his father lost everything through bad business decisions and the Thirties'Depression. Thus my father understood early in his life the differences between the rich and the poor. With the help of the G.I. Bill, my dad, newly married and a father himself, was able to buy our small home up in the California foothills of the San Fernando Valley. As can be imagined home and family were the top priorities of the creators of this generation. We were on our way to being a traditional middle class family, with a stay-at-home mom, when Dad lost his job. This sent us into a tailspin, ending in a spell of church-food-box-poverty until Mom found full-time employment at a savings and loan. And this became my childhood: my mother staying over thirty years at the savings and loan while simultaneously being a mother and housewife, and my dad being made over into a working class, self-employed, curmudgeon gardener.
My father took to the working class like a fish takes to water. Growing up, I would have never guessed my father came from wealth. Though racist in conversations, my dad hung out with Hispanic gardeners and befriended Black custodians. A preacher of philosophical sermons by inclination, my father held tirades concerning the inequities of the rich and the downtrodden. His eyes would be riveted to the t.v. from the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Oh, he'd bring out his epitaphs concerning hippies and near-do-wells and we'd be having lively conversations about what the goals of the Occupy Movement seem to be, but down deep in his hidden, huge heart, he'd understand, he'd admire and he'd agree: many of the hardworking 99 percent do not find America the land of milk and honey.
And here would be the key for my dad. Most of the working class are just that: people who put in a hell of a lot of working hours with a smaller-than-deserved amount of compensation, to simply feed their families. As he would say, we in the working class don't want to shirk our share of taxes and most of the time circumstances, luck, including backgrounds, culture and education, have not made it easy for us to become wealthy. We admire those who have found the honey. But goddamn it, people need to share and support each other in this great nation of ours, and tax fairness and better financial regulation would be a good start.
I am beginning to sound like my dad, especially when I know that he, too, would see simple solutions to our overwhelming debt crisis: get out of the wars we are in, bring the soldiers home, create jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure and emphasizing alternative sources of energy, increase rather than reduce our funds to education. My father would be appalled at the dumbing down of the American culture. He might be lured by the biased tirades of Fox News and the conservative talk show hosts, but he'd soon find his working class voice. He would not be fooled into thinking the Republican Party and these right-wingers were going have his welfare in mind.
As a young, impressionable, trying-to-find-herself, twenty year old, I was brought tears and frustration by the many social political arguments with my dad. I never thought that he understood where I was coming from. And maybe I was the one who didn't understand him. I saw his blowhard, bigoted inheritance and thought I would never be able to teach an old dog new tricks. But I forgot about my father's huge compassion for what he might label “the common man.” He would see immediately the increased inequities our society has been living with. He would remember the tent cities of the thirties' unemployed and he'd come to praise the Occupiers for their courage and their determination. “They're camping in the mud and the freezing cold for god's sake...they're putting themselves and their beliefs/our beliefs for a more humane America on the line...” Then my dad might be off running on about his muddy and cold trench living experiences during The War.
I miss my dad. I miss the arguments between an elder man who might have mellowed, but still been a fighter, and an aging daughter who is finding her philosophical footing beyond the black and the white, the right and the left, the rich and the poor. There were harsh words and walls built between us. There was the push and pull of a young woman refusing to be told what to do. But I knew all along there was love, and I knew all along I had been and would always be my father's devoted daughter! I have absorbed his truer values and made them my own: Have respect for all humans and creatures of the earth; Be kind and civil; Own a simple home filled with books and music and a garden; Be happy.
Early in our lives, my father, who was not a traditionally religious man and never attended church, gave each of his children a Bible with our individual names lettered in gold on the front. Inside he inscribed a personal message: Dear Girl – Remain securely happy, growing in love – interest – peacefully alert, respect forever greater mental satisfactions up ahead in life – regardless what others choose to do – you can find them (right at home) – Dad
Is this not basically what the Occupiers are trying to say?
© 2011
~~Robert Kennedy, 1965
My dad would be fascinated with the Occupy Movement. During his short sixty-six year life span, he evolved from Nixon patriot to Kennedy supporter, from a World War II Veteran devotee of war films to a pontificator of war's carnage and psychological damage, from a critic of his daughter's liberal politics to a man who simply loved his oldest offspring. I am grateful he missed the absurdity of the Afghanistan and Iraqi Wars, but I know he would want to get those “bastard terrorists,” especially that “Goddamned Gadhafi.”
As a college student, I evolved from a 50's kid raised in a white-only neighborhood to an embracer of diversity and fairness. As a teenager, I never argued with my father; I made up for this in my twenties. I remember at the end of one of our knockdown, dragout verbal battles, my dad called me a hippie and a communist. My dad's misunderstanding of who I was hurt me deeply, at the time. Now I can laugh, for as a young woman I was as straight and naïve as they come, never delving into pot, way too organized and nerdy, a virgin until I was twenty-three. Ironically, I married a true hippie of the sixties: a then yoga practicing, vegetarian, war pacifist, politically concerned pot smoker.
But I digress. Coming from upper class, German immigrant stock, my father lived a comfortable childhood in Seattle and the Bay Area. Then his father lost everything through bad business decisions and the Thirties'Depression. Thus my father understood early in his life the differences between the rich and the poor. With the help of the G.I. Bill, my dad, newly married and a father himself, was able to buy our small home up in the California foothills of the San Fernando Valley. As can be imagined home and family were the top priorities of the creators of this generation. We were on our way to being a traditional middle class family, with a stay-at-home mom, when Dad lost his job. This sent us into a tailspin, ending in a spell of church-food-box-poverty until Mom found full-time employment at a savings and loan. And this became my childhood: my mother staying over thirty years at the savings and loan while simultaneously being a mother and housewife, and my dad being made over into a working class, self-employed, curmudgeon gardener.
My father took to the working class like a fish takes to water. Growing up, I would have never guessed my father came from wealth. Though racist in conversations, my dad hung out with Hispanic gardeners and befriended Black custodians. A preacher of philosophical sermons by inclination, my father held tirades concerning the inequities of the rich and the downtrodden. His eyes would be riveted to the t.v. from the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Oh, he'd bring out his epitaphs concerning hippies and near-do-wells and we'd be having lively conversations about what the goals of the Occupy Movement seem to be, but down deep in his hidden, huge heart, he'd understand, he'd admire and he'd agree: many of the hardworking 99 percent do not find America the land of milk and honey.
And here would be the key for my dad. Most of the working class are just that: people who put in a hell of a lot of working hours with a smaller-than-deserved amount of compensation, to simply feed their families. As he would say, we in the working class don't want to shirk our share of taxes and most of the time circumstances, luck, including backgrounds, culture and education, have not made it easy for us to become wealthy. We admire those who have found the honey. But goddamn it, people need to share and support each other in this great nation of ours, and tax fairness and better financial regulation would be a good start.
I am beginning to sound like my dad, especially when I know that he, too, would see simple solutions to our overwhelming debt crisis: get out of the wars we are in, bring the soldiers home, create jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure and emphasizing alternative sources of energy, increase rather than reduce our funds to education. My father would be appalled at the dumbing down of the American culture. He might be lured by the biased tirades of Fox News and the conservative talk show hosts, but he'd soon find his working class voice. He would not be fooled into thinking the Republican Party and these right-wingers were going have his welfare in mind.
As a young, impressionable, trying-to-find-herself, twenty year old, I was brought tears and frustration by the many social political arguments with my dad. I never thought that he understood where I was coming from. And maybe I was the one who didn't understand him. I saw his blowhard, bigoted inheritance and thought I would never be able to teach an old dog new tricks. But I forgot about my father's huge compassion for what he might label “the common man.” He would see immediately the increased inequities our society has been living with. He would remember the tent cities of the thirties' unemployed and he'd come to praise the Occupiers for their courage and their determination. “They're camping in the mud and the freezing cold for god's sake...they're putting themselves and their beliefs/our beliefs for a more humane America on the line...” Then my dad might be off running on about his muddy and cold trench living experiences during The War.
I miss my dad. I miss the arguments between an elder man who might have mellowed, but still been a fighter, and an aging daughter who is finding her philosophical footing beyond the black and the white, the right and the left, the rich and the poor. There were harsh words and walls built between us. There was the push and pull of a young woman refusing to be told what to do. But I knew all along there was love, and I knew all along I had been and would always be my father's devoted daughter! I have absorbed his truer values and made them my own: Have respect for all humans and creatures of the earth; Be kind and civil; Own a simple home filled with books and music and a garden; Be happy.
Early in our lives, my father, who was not a traditionally religious man and never attended church, gave each of his children a Bible with our individual names lettered in gold on the front. Inside he inscribed a personal message: Dear Girl – Remain securely happy, growing in love – interest – peacefully alert, respect forever greater mental satisfactions up ahead in life – regardless what others choose to do – you can find them (right at home) – Dad
Is this not basically what the Occupiers are trying to say?
© 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Ecstasy
Had I not seen the Sun
I could have borne the shade
But Light a newer Wilderness
My Wilderness has made -
#1249 Emily Dickinson
I tend to wake up on Mondays feeling like I have to climb up and over the mountain of despair. I know I've been reading entirely too much Dickinson. My Emily Dickinson/Walt Whitman poetry class ended this last Saturday to a mixture of sadness (for the incredible gifts of insights from the mature participants and the scholarly and skilled teaching of the devoted poetry professor) and relief. Both poets eulogized aging and death. These are subjects I'm deeply interested in, but also subjects I now want to spend less of my precious time digesting. Dickinson had reasons for despair: being a 19th century woman, under the thumb of her patriarchal father and the century's predominantly male Christian philosophy, she decided to seek seclusion from this outer domination by pouring her soul into her poems. Emily was an amazingly sensitive, brave woman who faced her demons by attempting to carve out an opposing feminine, dare I say pagan, paradigm through the writing of her nearly 1800 poetic statements.
But I want to move beyond my Monday morning blues. Beginnings need to be celebrated, and not cursed. If I erase the labels and see only this day, I have deep gratitude for my blessings and feel wealthy beyond measure. The sun is shining away my dark mood by lighting up the last of autumn's brilliance. Earlier I stepped out on our garden deck and reeled at the beauty of the surrounding, colorful trees. According to my poetry professor, Autumn's October was Dickinson's favorite season, and I can understand why. It is the perfect antidote to winter's impending cold gloom. Take one dose of autumn color every day for at least thirty days. As Dickinson pointed out to her visiting niece as she entered Dickinson's window-surrounded, cozy, upstairs bedroom and study, “Here lies all the wealth in the world.” Even though creative solitude can conjure up desperate emotions, Emily knew it could also conjure up the highest bliss.
It is this bliss I am after when I write and more often than not it is this bliss I find. Even winter's dreary weather can be eased by intertwining spring remembrances with the verbalization of my fears and anxieties; by using words to describe those moments of existential anguish, a hidden, healing beauty surfaces. Being a slow learner in my sixties, I am only beginning to comprehend the complexity of human emotions and the human spirit. To truly understand joy and ecstasy, I find I have to also experience the sadness and the dark. Writing these words makes it all sound so simple. Write about the negative and the opposite will appear. Unfortunately, it's all caught in a tangle. This is what Dickinson and every other daring to be creative soul knows and this is what Dickinson labeled wealth: Going below the surface of our given times, our given human vulnerabilities, our human mortality.
Sometimes, as I look out on this miraculous, golden-red-leaf morning, I consider what I'm trying to say as total bullshit. Can words, art, or dance give us more joy than rushing outside and feeling the crunch of broken twigs under our feet, smelling the last faint whiff of rose perfume, feasting on the vision of dew glistening colors before the grays and naked trees are born? I'm always struggling between sitting here at my kitchen table with my overflowing, introspective brain and my itchy, trembling feet that want to explore the world beyond. Try as I might, for I have sporadically given up on my writing, I am unhappy unless I have both my inner and outer worlds. They feed each other and the two feed me and keep me alive.
What nourishes me even more is being able to discover, through my introspection, through my writing, a universal connection to other humans. During the last poetry class, I realized that Dickinson spoke beyond inner despair and found both hope and ecstasy in her outer, natural surroundings. My heart started beating faster as Dickinson's experiences with ecstasy led me to Virginia Woolf's “Moments of Being” - a time she described when the thick wool veil of life's dour reality is briefly removed to reveal an underlying, uplifting, universal, artistic beauty. Somehow, according to Woolf, no matter who or where we are, whether an unknown, down to earth farmer or a known, elegant composer, we each have the seeds of all other humans' potentials inside us.
Walking home from campus that afternoon, the vision of two of my own unforgotten, unveiled moments of being appeared: I am a serious and overly sensitive-to-my-surroundings college student living in Santa Barbara, California. One evening I am taking a solitary walk along a creaky harbor structure overlooking the ocean. The waves are breaking up against the wooden pilings and the fog is thickening. There is a glow to the hidden, evening sky and I am a twenty-something young woman trying to figure out her place in this soupy mystery. Just as I step down off the elevated, man-made path and my feet hit the smooth, white sands, a huge flock of seagulls rise from their standing positions and fill the sky above me. Standing in the midst of this wing fluttering whirlwind, I feel captivated by an ever-expanding magical experience. It is my answer to the mystery: right here, right now, I am being told I am simply another part of this miraculous cosmos. I am the sole person seeing the gulls soar and I am the sole person the seagulls see below.
At the same college, my residential dorm is located within a short distance of an enchanting lagoon. On another evening stroll, climbing over crumbling crags, hearing the roar of the ocean's waves behind my back, sensing a pre-storm stillness, I see a vivid, rainbow coming out of the night sky. An elderly gentleman, who is also walking the lagoon, whispers barely loud enough for me to hear: “We two are the only people here, witnessing this unusual natural phenomenon. What a gift we have been given.”
My Monday morning, which began with the blues, laced with thoughts of despair, took an ecstatic flight with remembrances of nature's wonders. How complex, blessed and rich a day of living can be! And for being there as observer and participant, for however long, I will be ever grateful.
© 2011
I could have borne the shade
But Light a newer Wilderness
My Wilderness has made -
#1249 Emily Dickinson
I tend to wake up on Mondays feeling like I have to climb up and over the mountain of despair. I know I've been reading entirely too much Dickinson. My Emily Dickinson/Walt Whitman poetry class ended this last Saturday to a mixture of sadness (for the incredible gifts of insights from the mature participants and the scholarly and skilled teaching of the devoted poetry professor) and relief. Both poets eulogized aging and death. These are subjects I'm deeply interested in, but also subjects I now want to spend less of my precious time digesting. Dickinson had reasons for despair: being a 19th century woman, under the thumb of her patriarchal father and the century's predominantly male Christian philosophy, she decided to seek seclusion from this outer domination by pouring her soul into her poems. Emily was an amazingly sensitive, brave woman who faced her demons by attempting to carve out an opposing feminine, dare I say pagan, paradigm through the writing of her nearly 1800 poetic statements.
But I want to move beyond my Monday morning blues. Beginnings need to be celebrated, and not cursed. If I erase the labels and see only this day, I have deep gratitude for my blessings and feel wealthy beyond measure. The sun is shining away my dark mood by lighting up the last of autumn's brilliance. Earlier I stepped out on our garden deck and reeled at the beauty of the surrounding, colorful trees. According to my poetry professor, Autumn's October was Dickinson's favorite season, and I can understand why. It is the perfect antidote to winter's impending cold gloom. Take one dose of autumn color every day for at least thirty days. As Dickinson pointed out to her visiting niece as she entered Dickinson's window-surrounded, cozy, upstairs bedroom and study, “Here lies all the wealth in the world.” Even though creative solitude can conjure up desperate emotions, Emily knew it could also conjure up the highest bliss.
It is this bliss I am after when I write and more often than not it is this bliss I find. Even winter's dreary weather can be eased by intertwining spring remembrances with the verbalization of my fears and anxieties; by using words to describe those moments of existential anguish, a hidden, healing beauty surfaces. Being a slow learner in my sixties, I am only beginning to comprehend the complexity of human emotions and the human spirit. To truly understand joy and ecstasy, I find I have to also experience the sadness and the dark. Writing these words makes it all sound so simple. Write about the negative and the opposite will appear. Unfortunately, it's all caught in a tangle. This is what Dickinson and every other daring to be creative soul knows and this is what Dickinson labeled wealth: Going below the surface of our given times, our given human vulnerabilities, our human mortality.
Sometimes, as I look out on this miraculous, golden-red-leaf morning, I consider what I'm trying to say as total bullshit. Can words, art, or dance give us more joy than rushing outside and feeling the crunch of broken twigs under our feet, smelling the last faint whiff of rose perfume, feasting on the vision of dew glistening colors before the grays and naked trees are born? I'm always struggling between sitting here at my kitchen table with my overflowing, introspective brain and my itchy, trembling feet that want to explore the world beyond. Try as I might, for I have sporadically given up on my writing, I am unhappy unless I have both my inner and outer worlds. They feed each other and the two feed me and keep me alive.
What nourishes me even more is being able to discover, through my introspection, through my writing, a universal connection to other humans. During the last poetry class, I realized that Dickinson spoke beyond inner despair and found both hope and ecstasy in her outer, natural surroundings. My heart started beating faster as Dickinson's experiences with ecstasy led me to Virginia Woolf's “Moments of Being” - a time she described when the thick wool veil of life's dour reality is briefly removed to reveal an underlying, uplifting, universal, artistic beauty. Somehow, according to Woolf, no matter who or where we are, whether an unknown, down to earth farmer or a known, elegant composer, we each have the seeds of all other humans' potentials inside us.
Walking home from campus that afternoon, the vision of two of my own unforgotten, unveiled moments of being appeared: I am a serious and overly sensitive-to-my-surroundings college student living in Santa Barbara, California. One evening I am taking a solitary walk along a creaky harbor structure overlooking the ocean. The waves are breaking up against the wooden pilings and the fog is thickening. There is a glow to the hidden, evening sky and I am a twenty-something young woman trying to figure out her place in this soupy mystery. Just as I step down off the elevated, man-made path and my feet hit the smooth, white sands, a huge flock of seagulls rise from their standing positions and fill the sky above me. Standing in the midst of this wing fluttering whirlwind, I feel captivated by an ever-expanding magical experience. It is my answer to the mystery: right here, right now, I am being told I am simply another part of this miraculous cosmos. I am the sole person seeing the gulls soar and I am the sole person the seagulls see below.
At the same college, my residential dorm is located within a short distance of an enchanting lagoon. On another evening stroll, climbing over crumbling crags, hearing the roar of the ocean's waves behind my back, sensing a pre-storm stillness, I see a vivid, rainbow coming out of the night sky. An elderly gentleman, who is also walking the lagoon, whispers barely loud enough for me to hear: “We two are the only people here, witnessing this unusual natural phenomenon. What a gift we have been given.”
My Monday morning, which began with the blues, laced with thoughts of despair, took an ecstatic flight with remembrances of nature's wonders. How complex, blessed and rich a day of living can be! And for being there as observer and participant, for however long, I will be ever grateful.
© 2011
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