BAD MOON RISING ON THE RIGHT

Tomorrow there will be a lunar eclipse. In a fortnight, there follows a solar eclipse. In addition, planets are lining up in some configuration that is too complicated for me to totally understand. The astrologers I know are explaining it in great detail, on and off the web.

In ancient times, eclipses were portents of doom. In more recent ages,they are viewed as moments when changes in our lives occur--patterns of balance and enlightenment--if we choose. They most often appear in times of historical significance; at least such momentus double eclipses and alignments that are about to dance over our heads in the coming weeks, do.

I am not into astrology in a huge way. I respect patterns drawn from observations over thousands of years, though. That's just good scientific practice. Observe. Report. Theorize. Most thumbnail descriptions of personality traits of the Zodiac houses have come extremely close to actual people I've known (and dated...sigh). Enough so, to make me a fan--if not a practitioner; I am paying attention to this double eclipse event.

Evidently the solar eclipse is the rarer dance--especially followed by the other constellation alignments and some kind of cross in the sky. Astrologers are pointing out that it marks enormous changes in all our situations. (Given the severity of the Congressional vote over the last week, I would say this is right-on , for hundreds of thousands of us still unemployed, those without health insurance, with lost pensions, homes and nest eggs...as well as families dealing with loved ones far away, still at war.)

I am going to choose to use this time for self-evaluation and radical re-vamping. Perhaps it is time to leave this city, this coast, the life I've made for over thirty years. Not to run away but to actively pursue Destiny in another spot. I believe we are all born to glorious ends, we just have to find them. I'm going to choose this time to change my life in a powerful way that will maximize cleaning up loose karmic ends. It may not be the method I would have preferred, but in dealing with Heaven, one rarely has a choice; I'll take what is being offered.

Over the last five years, I've had to re-invent my professional self three times. This will be the fourth. That's significant. (Like the seasons. Like the edges of the cross in the sky coming into alignment on July 11th.) Four times I've been asked to give away, sell or just walk from accumulated possessions that offered "identity" and comfort and familiarity. (That were associated with the history of myself, over thirty years.) Each time was difficult and each beginning begun from scratch. This time, it will be to strip my life down into a few boxes mailed to the new life; two pieces of luggage-- a giant dufflebag for the clothes I'm "allowed" to take with me--(How to decide? What will I need? What will I be dressing FOR?) and a single carry-on for lap-top, phone, wallet and meds. (I figure I'm going to need a lot of aspirin in the coming days...) Thanks to the airlines, that's it. Can't believe my life has come to this...

I feel like all the refugees I've ever met-- as they have described feeling. I feel as if I am evacuating a war zone, minus the bombs. I feel like the animals I've seen fleeing from wildfires--fear of unknown blazing in the whites of their eyes--their pupils filled with panic. (I wonder what people see in my eyes?) No time, yet, for regret. Just action. Movement. Re-alignment of one's life.

When I disclosed to a close friend, my stomach-ache panic attack the other night, she told me that stress, does, indeed cause stomach-aches--but to use "Tums of the mind" to quell it. I like that. "Tums of the mind". I took the advice. (Guess I'd prefer Pepcid of the mind, though.)

I guess, too, emotionally, I feel like the shadowpeople I have observed in the city streets. Everything they own packed into a single cart. Knowing they know the alleys and corners of the buildings better than anyone living inside, yet, they have no access. (At least I imagine some of them feel this dislocation.) Unlike them, I still have a few choices.

If I ask what Jesus would do, what Buddha would do, what Kali or Shiva or The Prophet would do, my only answer is "look up". What else can we do? (Really.) So may whatever the eclipses bring, bring some sort of positive power. May the stars above our heads align in joy. May this horrible, heavy, miasma we have been swimming through, dissipate and allow us to be free. May we find safe harbor, finally. And peace.

SHOUT OUT TO THE PEEPS

So we are all concerned about oil spills, BP payments, vacations ruined, marinelife dying and long term effects on the planet. Me too. But I am more concerned, at this precise moment, about Congressional paper-shuffling and behind-the-scenes huffing and chest-puffing. I am concerned about this unemployment refusal, because there are far more of us hitting the pavement and sitting in doorways, clutching resumes, loosening ties and trying not to cry. (I know, I passed two such business people exiting on Wilshire, less than an hour ago.)

Look, I rarely do this. I know that my political agenda is usually left of center of most of the people I know...but this is nuts and bolts time, folks. After cutting my phone plan to the absolute cheapest I could get, today, I was speaking with rep. Heather (from East Texas), where she was handling my call. While waiting for the computers to find me, she chatted. She cannot watch t.v. right now because of the coverage of the oil spill. (She is not only an animal lover but also a Mom.) She is watching the results of that debacle, as it affects the people all around her. In addition, she is dealing with people having to close accounts, at a time when they need their phones the most. Her voice cracked as we spoke.

I shared that I am also unemployed and downsizing, yet again. With Congress on the edge of edging us all into the streets, this is stomach- ache time. Heather agreed. We shared a rare human connection on a hot summer day, one of us outside an oil spill and the other, outside homeless-filled streets, in different parts of the U.S. Heather knows what is happening.

Congress! Please! I've written to all the senators I can. I've sent all the e-mails and calls.(I even wrote to Barrack and Mrs. President!) Whatever you have to do in D.C., do it! Please extend the unemployment benefits! We are still looking for work. We haven't caved--why are you?

So many have just been hit with this news--almost immediately losing their benefits. Some within days! No planning. No "heads up alert". Just no funds...even as we had voted and believed our government would rally and lose its bi-partisan politiking long enough to offer us a little breathing room to re-group. Even as we are called upon, daily, to "be tough"--what about you?

What do they think is going to happen when everyone is pushed into the streets? It isn't just the President who will be the target of upset, it is everyone holding office and holding out. If our only power is our vote, then, do you think you are gaining fans? It isn't the lollagags and slackers that are committing suicide in fast food joints, taking innocent people with them, putting bullets into their sleeping families because they don't know what else to do. No one is living high on the hog during unemployment--I can personally vouch for that. But, at least,it was a bit of hope in a desperate time. Now, Congress is refusing even that crumb.

So, what I don't usually do: anyone out there who is a friend or knows a friend, or even an acquaintance who is unemployed, take a minute and shoot an e-mail to your Senators. PLEASE! Go to their official websites. There is a short form where you fill in your name, your e-mail address, etc. and then a box where you can type in the message for them to vote to extend unemployment relief to those of us barely holding on. It takes only about five minutes of your time. You don't have to be eloquent. (Or, if you want to be eloquent, have at it.) But send a message, today, right now, please. If you don't know who your senators are, you can ask google to find them, state by state. No excuses! You can even send them an e-mail if you aren't of voting age or not registered. Please take this action.

It is a human thing we can all do for each other. Person to person. No money. No licking of stamps or using up cell minutes. Just an e-mail to your senators to let them know that we have to do this. We can't end the wars we are waging. We can't give back the lost homes or the stolen pensions.We can't re-wind the oil spill. We can't even clean all the beaches. But we CAN make Washington pay attention; we can take a minute to alleviate one human misery that is affecting so many across the nation--it isn't simple but it is just.

If you don't believe me, call ATand T and ask to speak to Heather. She'll tell you.
Gracias. Vaya con Dios.

NIGHT SWEATS

The Summer Solstice has finally ended. A great day goes down, flaming. The new night has begun. But it's a cold slap in the face; not the gentle arms needed to rock myself to sleep. Congress has seemingly decided NOT to continue to support we workers on the streets, still seeking gainful employment. Some kind of behind the scenes bartering with our lives is going on while we bleed.

I'm not waxing hyperbolic. This is real. Not some made for t.v. movie. Knowing I'm only one of hundreds of thousands doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies. I remember the Titanic. I remember WWII camps and Depression Soup Kitchen lines. This isn't pretend. I've been out of work a year and a half. The longest stint in my workaholic lifetime. Begun when I was thirteen, I've always had at least one job--often several--balancing it out with school. For a year and a half I've sent out resumes and got no responses. I've networked with friends, hundreds of friends, relatives, colleagues, people randomly met in grocery lines or coffee shops. (Yeah, even the unemployed have to buy t.p. and the occasional cup of French Roast.) I've wired home--a place I've run from for thirty-plus years--to let them know, I don't know what to do now that my savings are used up. I may have to crash. Do you know what it is like to tell your eighty year old parental units that you have to, after three decades of self-sufficiency on the farther coast, "come home to crash"? They aren't pleased. It doesn't easily fit into their lifestyle, nor what they hoped and dreamed for their "gifted" eldest child. But, there it is.

Without health care for the last two years, I've tried to keep myself together. Eating right, excercising. Meditating. Doing what fulfills me. Seeing positive friends. Letting folks know what my true state of mind is and not faking it. But the blood pressure, even under prescribed meds, is so stressed out at the news that Congress is not extending our benefits...what can I do? What am I supposed to do?

As an action-oriented sort of "gal", I've written to my Senators and I've ever written to the White House--both Mr. and Ms. I've pleaded on behalf of not only myself, the educated, published, 54 year old single female who has worked her whole life at non-profits and has profitted, not, by doing so. (I know, wah wah for me...maybe I shoulda known better...maybe I shoulda prepared for this day by doing something like being a real estate broker...oh wait, that industry is crashing around us, too...hmmm...or a journalist...but wait...all the writers I know are pretty much out on unemployment too, fired or laid off or their publications in full on bankruptcy, too...maybe I should have been a doctor like in my one-time childhood fantasy...but I hear these days doctors are turning from their professions because of sky rocketing insurance rates and no safety nets for high-risk patients without incomes...so what was I supposed to do, given my skills, talents, interests and all the "follow your dreams" information of the seventies when I was in college and still believing I could make a difference in the World...or that I owed the world a life...my life...hmmm...)

So aside from sending resumes, pounding pavement, networking, being open minded and willing to take a position far far far below what I've held in the past, being willing to retrain, retry, even, if forced to retire (if there was some sort of income), what else can I do? Right now? Where am I supposed to go--and thousands like me. Hundreds of thousands, if we follow the news. Let's just multiply that a bit...one news report states that the jobless rate is down! Another states that another hundred thousand are out of work in California from the laid off infrastructure...another states that insurance companies and pension plans continue to show some profits...while another web report says that there will be no more pensions and social security and we are all screwed...Where are we supposed to go?

I can't sleep after such a beautiful day. I can't see what I'm gonna do. I can barely breathe.
This roller coaster has to come into the station at some point and allow us off. While the Senators and Congresspeople go to their lunches and their clean offices and their cleaner homes and figure out strategy to hold their jobs, their benefits, their lives together for a few more years, what are the rest of us to do? Anybody out there listening? This isn't an abstraction: this is a human being running scared in the middle of the night.

Our numbers are growing.

SUMMER SOLSTICE

What began as a way to include all of my scattered family and friends into one holiday, I began celebrating the Winter Solstice. That was decades ago. Most everyone shook their collective heads and smiled at each other, but went along with it. They knew I was serious and seriously drawn to the darker days of the season. What many didn't get was that the dark has its own light. (And, to see ANY light,or sparkle, or brilliant star, one needs the dark.) For me, Winter Solstice is as close to being a perfect holiday (or holy day) as a human can get. The only religious connection is Spirituality. And the only Spirituality connects Mother Earth to Father Heaven in the most wondrous ways.

Summer Solstice had a lesser pull on me. For one who loves the night, or has trouble even falling asleep, the prospect of the longest day of the year isn't a natural fit. However, it, too, tugs at me like the High Holy Days must to others. I just don't feel right if I don't mark its passing in some way. Sometimes it's been a freezing dunk headlong into the ocean; other times it's been a long backpack into the desert or the forest; listening to birds instead of traffic. Sniffing pine tree sap instead of bus fumes. A few times I've simply lit a smudge-pot filled with ceder shavings and sweetgrass and watched the clean smoke rise. (Reminding me of Sacred Heart School prayer intentions--written on tiny scraps of paper, in class, under the scrutiny of a nun, then burned in an iron container, while the whole school looked on. We'd been taught that whatever intentions were on those scraps were going directly to God, in the guise of smoke signals. I always prayed to be able to fly--without a plane. It never happened. At least not yet.)

One summer, there was an eclipse, and I took out every crystal I owned and let the sun pass over them, infusing them with an energy that sent them off, as gifts, to whomever seemed to need them over the years. This Solstice, I decided to light a daytime candle. It's also the one I burned on my birthday.(Connection in a positive "light" to the rest of the natal year, I hope.) It's flame flickers in the summer breeze, next to the window facing Detroit Street, even as I write.

This is a peaceful holy day. Less rambunctious than fourth of July, or Memorial Day. It opens summer up, like a ripe watermelon, if you will allow it to. It makes one take stock of the idea of "the longest day". What might that hold? How will you spend it? (What will I choose to do?)

I think I will do what always fills me: write, paint, play music, think of family and friends and pray for the World. Besides lighting the daytime candle, I will also eat some watermelon and corn on the cob. Maybe beans. I'll drink sweet iced tea and daydream of lilacs. I'll try not to sweat the small stuff. Just breathe. Just breathe.

Here's wishing everyone everywhere a Happy Summer Solstice--and beyond.

CELEBRATIONS

I watched only bits and pieces of the NBA playoffs. (I confess.) Since I was a little kid in Massachusetts, my family was way too agro about their sports--and sports loyalties. Dad was a football player in the "leatherhead" days--a semi-pro quarterback who got hit so hard and so often he has had back operations that criss-cross his body with Frankenstein scars, and resultant arthritis. At 84, he's spent most of his adult life in chronic pain. Today's advanced technology lets him keep moving on his feet, but, it's no wonder neither of my brothers ever were into becoming star players for the football team. But Dad knows all the high school players in town. He still screams as he watches pro football, on t.v. When he dies, it will probably be from a stroke during Super Bowl, or a poorly swallowed peanut.

When I wanted to play softball, in the Jackson Playground League, I tried out and was made a nine year old outfielder. (Everybody made the team. Most of us played outfield...) I had no glove. It was required. Mom took me to a department store--the sports section. She got me a half rubber, half plastic glove. It was so stiff I couldn't bend my hand in it--even after it heated up in the afternoon sun . It didn't have a pocket. It had "cracks". I tried the way my Dad had told me it was done--oil, rubber bands, working it--all that accomplished was to grease it up and make it stink. No way to "break it in". (If I turned it on its side, maybe I could have caught an errant grasshopper.) My younger brothers had leather, official gloves before they were out of diapers. Such were the days I grew up in. I lasted for three weeks, and then quit. I liked swimming and climbing on rocks better, anyway.

In junior high, even though I was short, I was a guard on the basketball team...sort of. I made up, in passion, what I didn't have in skills or size. My Mom came to one game and was so embarrassed, she came up with legit excuses to keep her from attending the others. No one had ever explained the intricate rules of girls' basketball (different in those days). They assumed anyone trying out just knew. (I didn't. Mine wasn't a basketball family.) All I ever did, even in pick up games in the neighborhood, was shoot. Period. So even though, at my worst moment, I travelled about twenty yards with the ball held against my chest (after wrestling it from a stick-thin, six foot, opposing team member) and didn't realize that you didn't get to take all those steps before shooting , (I just thought I was free and had made a cool move), I did have fun. Mom never let me forget "You weren't very good", when I started fighting for women's rights to athletic scholarship funding... My ability,or lack, wasn't quite the point... (Seems I never have been able to pass up a fight.)

I tried out for the fencing team, in college. Again, I had to learn all the rules of scoring, as well as the intricate dance of basic fencing. I was paired with people who had gone to "fencing camps" for summer breaks...My first contest was with a guy who was mostly in the class to learn about "different weapons". He was used to Medieval Times sword and sorcery play. He had taken martial arts weapons classes for his high school years. No one else in the class wanted to fence with him. The coach paired us up--probably figuring that if anyone was to take a bruising, I was the sturdiest looking girl in the group. (Oh yeah,he was the sole male member...) He proved himself by "attacking" and literally "fighting" me across the gym and backing me into the farthest wall, while everyone in the place looked on in surprise and horror. The coach didn't even try to stop it. (When I watch "GLEE", I am reminded of her.) That was the final fencing session I attended.

I am into solo sports, like kayaking or back-packing. I enjoy one or two other people with me, but basically, when I'm outside, I want to hear the birds, smell the air (not other folks' sweat), and be free of things like uniforms and screaming crowds. I want to challenge myself, not another team. And while I want to improve at anything I do, winning a trophy for that improvement isn't the point. There's enough bloodsport in my life.

So, this week, when the Lakers beat the Celtics, I expected the sportsbar down the block to erupt into a frenzy and the streets to be filled with firecrackers, drunk fans and lots of noise. Instead, two fog horns blew outside in the parking lot. Then, a lot of screaming cars peeled out and it was relatively quiet. It seems that everyone drove, in drunken hilarity (or rage) to Staples Center, where they wanted to "celebrate with the Team"!

The celebration, of course, erupted into a full out riot, with burning taxis and LAPD in tactical gear cracking heads. (Even as people knew the "official celebration", costing over a million dollars in a city that is totally broke, will be on Monday, including a two mile parade. ) This part of fan idolatry, I don't get. At all. If sport is about building one's character, setting tons of fires in the city seems a bit at odds with that. Smashing heads against other people who also support your
team is an action I can't say I support. But what do I know? I'm from outside Boston...(Dad only grunted about the Celtics losing, when I called him for Fathers' Day.)

Meanwhile, World Cup battles on and somewhere, the Gay Pride Festival rages. Oh, what a town!

FOOD, FAT and FINE BONES

Two hundred and twenty-three dollars at the cash register?!
(Of course it is Whole Foods Store...)
I nearly faint in front of the twenty-something handsome young bag "man" and the even handsomer check-out woman. What did I buy that took up three grocery bags (okay, their bags are slightly taller and wider than Ralphs...) and was supposed to be the entire week's food budget?

Then I realize: I bought a new tea kettle. I bought organic toothpaste. I bought natural tint for my hair. I bought a Father's Day Card...just these items total up to fifty bucks. (But, they ARE weekly essentials in my current lifestyle: how many more Father's Day cards am I going to be purchasing? Hmmmm....) As for the most expensive non-food item, (the kettle) well, over the weekend, on the edge of another panic attack about where my life has landed, I realized, I have to get some control.

The only thing I have control over is what goes into my body, what my body engages in, every day. (Or what my body does NOT engage in, willfully. Mindfully. Wholly.) Writing and painting are two "willful" and fulfilling activities. They are my core survival. The only thing that they take is energy-and supplies. Mind energy, muscle energy, electricity (lights, computer) and perhaps Spirit. What they "give back" is my quality and reason for life. A fair trade, indeed. So all those exchanges stay.

Now, the chemicals I take into my body, in this city, in this building, in this time of our country's history, I am not entirely in control of. But things like toothpaste and hair color have alternatives that are far healthier for me than the on-sale generic brands that contain stuff I know is bad. The gas I use to purchase said items is the same amount I would to buy their uglier counterparts. So, as long as my meager monies hold out, if something goes in or on the body, I have to choose consciously, organic and natural as can be. (I used to think Clairol Herbal Essence Shampoo was the most natural statement I could ever make in the world...oh how far we've come and how far we still have to go!)

I am mindful about not choosing VERY EXPENSIVE organic items, like green toilet paper and wash ups...I just don't have the bucks and am not convinced they really do save a lot of the environment, since, with the t.p., I find that other generic one- ply brands last a helluva lot longer. I use less. (And that has to count in the equation.) Also, by using the wipes, for general cleaning purposes, it is a toss-up in terms of cleaning with effficiency and less waste. (Sometimes, too, the "organic" cleaning products just smell bad.) I tried the salt and vinegar solution and I do use baking soda for a lot of things, but, frankly, I am still in a debate with myself about this level of natural.

Where the biggest answer came from, this weekend, was what was most closely connected to my inner self. (I'm not talking prayer beads and incense, either. ) I'm talking "fats". I'm talking cheap and filling and warm and tasty junk food delights up and down my neighborhood. I'm talking about feeling like a teen just out of college who can't find that first job, who is in a city that is cold, strange and devoid of friends; a teen with no self esteem, no role model close at hand and just at the bottom rung of adult life. A teen in the mood for junk FOOD. (But I'm not a teen...)

This is middle-age. I was getting to the top of the ladder; have just been knocked off. (Yup, not fallen off from my own stupidity or daring, but knocked off by someone bumping the whole ladder! ) So, while it feels EXACTLY like it did, thirty years ago, when I knew nothing (but believed I knew it all--the old cliche), it ISN'T that time. I have to reflect the lessons learned, even if the current landing spot feels similar.

So, first lesson and most personal: what I put into my mouth makes a difference in my life.
(You can take that to whatever extreme you desire.) These days, it mostly means toothpaste, medicine, food and drink. Period. No recreational or mood altering substances. No bodily fluid exchanging, nada but sustenance and indulgence (of a taste-budded kind).

If the only reward one can look forward to, (while one waits on possible employers giving a call-back, or publishers giving a call-forward, or friends and family just giving a call ), is food, then, dammit, guess what happens? (At least, to moi.) Suddenly, mango ice cream and chili dogs are "crack". Coke really is. (Thai food enters the room of my mind, every evening, around midnight.)

The results are devastating. Loss of self-esteem, an ass the size of Kansas, depression, indigestion and lack of sleep, anxiety- attacks, heart-burn, dental worries I can't afford, and continued health-care concerns. It would seem that the most simple answers are the most difficult. Anyone in AA (or NA or any "A" program) gets it...these comforting flavors and activities are not about hunger; they are about filling gaping holes; about trying to control the desperation and the fear that riddles our lives.

Americans are fat because America is in deep doodoo.

In my case, having "fine bones" was a curse. Having genes that were better suited to Norsemen and followers of Braveheart doesn't help. Mixing the two has resulted in this football shaped (in my mind) human being who, while being able to "bounce", hasn't been able to "bounce back" so easily. Food fills time. Food pushes down negativity (for a while). Food conquers that panic of "not enough". Food becomes comforter, kin and finally, conquerer. (Hey, even Oprah "gave up".)

However, as with all addictions, what feels so good can do us in. (And usually in ugly ways.) I have learned this much.

If I want to feel better, look better, fight harder, last longer (get to that next book, that next finished canvas, that new job) then fat has to go. I have to move, every day, out of this loft, into the streets, and keep moving. No excuses. (Replay the Nike commercials as I push.) I have to follow Dr. Ornish into the neighborhood, passing all fast food (and legitimate food stands, too). Too many choices is a definite problem. (Like being a pot head in Amsterdam...every corner offers its own demon delight.) I have to take control in the only place I still have some power--over what gets put into my body--by me.

Foodies be damned--in the most respectable way. (O some of my best buddies are chefs, owners of foodie industries and just good cooks!) I have to focus on reversing fifty-four fat years and take my fine bones back. Fruits and veggies and whole grains. Easy on the nuts and oils--even my beloved avocadoes! (Ugh.) Gone the meats and cheeses--my Soddom and Gomorrah. (Gone the diet sodas and fresh roast coffees, too.) I can reclaim reasonable amounts of pasta--and there is still non-fat yogurt allowed--but those gourmet cupcakes are banished. Maybe, forever.

This is where the Whole Foods budget was really invested: Non-fat soups, legumes, fresher than fresh produce, organic blueberries, strawberries, peaches, fat-free, sugar-free, gluten- free, non-oil dressings, organic spaghetti and house marinara. Oatmeal, soymilk, green tea in every damned flavor on the shelf--and the pricey new kettle.

If I can't take over BP's handling of the oil spill, maybe I can at least take back my life.

OLD NUNS

Okay, I'm admitting it: I've been working on a new novel that features childhood characters I haven't thought about in decades. Not the traditional bullies and dead dogs, but real boogie-men and complicated adults who peopled those years. Since I spent my childhood roughly along two parallel streets in a very small town, those adults were stamped into my subconcious as surely as the railroad car imprints on the pennies we left on the tracks. Chief among these individuals were the Sisters of St. Joseph.

My Irish Catholic upbringing (even though I am also a quarter French and a quarter Norwegian) centered around the "Irish" Church, at one end of the street, and the affiliated Catholic School, at the other. The priests anchored the church, in their comfy "rectory" (complete with garage), while the nuns lived in a convent donated to them by the richest founding family in the town. The convent was a Victorian mansion. Tales of a secret wine cellar and sub-sub-cellar, where God-knew-what was stored, abounded. (I never saw either.) However, there was no garage. And unlike the priests, the nuns didn't have a housecleaner or a cook or anyone but themselves to do the laundry. Our house was smack dab in the middle of these two communes. (They became the epi-center of my life.)

Also on the street were other families: some frequented the "French" Catholic Church, across town, which had way more money and was considered "a cathedral". They also had an affiliated private school. My best neighborhood buddy attended both, even as her family lived directly behind mine. Other neighborhood kids went to the"Polish" Catholic Church, in the southern suburb of our own suburban town. The Polish clans attended "my" school, by default. So it was a mixed group of ragtag runts who biked, roller skated (before blades), and blasted our way up and down the streets, terrorizing older residents on a regular basis. Some of those older residents just happened to be nuns.

The nuns had their own daily services, at the convent. However, once a week, they attended the Sunday mass at the end of the street. We kids were supposed to attend that same mass. It was dubbed "The Children's Mass". I remember the nuns walking in a serious two-by-two file, down Lincoln Street, like a military operation,(or a march of giant ants), towards church. I could see them from my second story bedroom. We would leave the house,always, after the nuns. When my family entered the church, the parents would peel off and sit on the side pews,with the other adults. But my siblings and I were shunted towards the pews headed by each nun. There was a definition in not only hierarchy, but also in color. As if each pew had a punctuation mark with it's nun sitting on the end. We didn't mess around when we were at "The Children's Mass".

After mass, the nuns would march back up the hill, through the neighborhood, towards their Sunday dinner. We wouldn't see them again till Monday morning, first period class. After our own Sunday dinners,we kids would vanish into the yards of our friends.

Some would ride skateboards over the lumps and bumps of the schoolyard, up the street, right outside the convent walls. We'd keep one eye open for nuns, but rarely heard so much as a peep. (What did they do, once inside those high walls? Some kids believed they hung in their closets, like bats, so as not to wrinkle their clothes or knock any of the holiness off..we were an unenlightened bunch....) Sometimes we'd shoot baskets in the yard, but those games tended to be fast and subdued. (There was always a sense of being watched...)

A few older kids would hit tennis balls against the pale brick wall of the front of the new building of the school--until they knocked the tin letters off the wall and into the street. Usually they'd place the fallen letter against the glass doors and run away, fast as Hell, denying anything. Always, the next day, the letters would be gone, replaced on the front of the building, (though we never saw who took them inside or who rehung them...)

Rarely would we play down in the priests' neck of the woods. Perhaps because we'd gone to mass, there, only hours earlier? Perhaps because it was a "holier" destination? I remember that
there were no good rides in the church yard...only a tarred path that led to the basement doors. And if the priests, (who were always coming and going from the rectory), saw you out there, they'd join you. The whole feeling of mystery was missing. (Real thrills lived uphill, behind convent walls and eerie silence.)

I'd like to tell some of the nuns (who must still be alive--in the convent-- or escaped) that I've written this book. Some of them appear, disguised, in its pages. Most don't, but all influenced the writing. For the few who share the adventures I remember, I'd like them to know I salute them--in my own weird way. They populate my imagination, still, as surely as they used to populate my neighborhood. Though they often terrified us, they also enriched our young lives, spicing up a very vanilla existence. Their biggest "scandals" were hanging their laundry behind a high wooden fence, letting it out to dry...

WHERE HAVE ALL THE WOMEN GONE ?

Today is an election day. I'm very aware. As I think about it, I can't help but reflect that I have a lot of female friends and relatives "of a certain age". We have always had the right to vote; most of us have lived our lives mindfully and sensitively. Most have marched for multiple causes and donated hours, money and thought to creating a better country; a better world. Most have children. (Not all, but most.) Most lived through the sixties and the seventies fighting ignorance, male domination (in varied institutionalized and personal forms), and all sorts of phobias. Even the phobia to succeed. The phobia of ourselves.

We learned history that was from the perspective of disenfranchised peoples. We listened and studied the quieter voices. We radicalized themselves--even as what passed for mainstream. Western Culture tried to convince us that we should shut up and contribute to the status quo--that would be the more prudent path. Few of us gave up independent thought--even if our lives--on the outside--seemed we had.

While on the outside some adopted what at first was deemed "a traditional role"--taking care of a husband, a home and children--in fact, we radicalized education, childcare, healthcare, and life opportunities for daughters in fields that had been closed to ourselves. In fact, we began to change entire constellations of what families meant--opening doors to configurations that were not mentioned (let alone validated), in our own "growing up" times.

We took back their bodies; our hearts and our minds. We demanded to see ourselves portrayed in the way "new history" was revealing our pasts to have actually been. We were not satisfied to be the majority minority, as women. We wanted to be counted. To be seen. Our stories told and passed on as legitimate. Important. Our dreams, accomplishments, contributions all validated as the truth they are.

So many of my peers took steps to change the history of the known world; to uncover what the world had hidden--or simply forgot. But then, maybe we over-compensated? Out of residual guilt or internalized pain, we allowed our grandaughters, grandsons, nieces and nephews--if not our own children--to begin to slip into a culture of privilege. To take for granted the work that must continue, unceasingly, if enlightenment is to prevail.

At one point, Womens Studies seemed to be the most important step in the West, at least as far as education was concerned. To retrieve the contributions of half the world is no minor feat! Yet, after two generations, Womens Studies is now too often a "quaint reminder of the 70's"--and only taken seriously by esoteric high level academics who don't wear make-up or change their hair-styles; or who only publish in places that no one reads. A Saturday Night Live out-dated sketch...something for time capsules.

When I taught grammar school aged kids and high schoolers, I was most struck at how "The Womens Movement" was compartmentalized. O, maybe a few HBO movies or Lifetime Network specials would remind them of what we'd accomplished or where we came from, but by and large, their futures, seemed to be already won--not by them, but for them. (No worries.) I was one of the "quaint reminders", tolerated out of respect and affection, but not truly relevent. Neither sexy, nor fresh, nor even cutting-edge. (Not anymore.)

The new heroes are "Desperate Housewives" and "Real Housewives"-- who have mansions, husbands, the bodies of top models (and enough false eyelashes to rival Katrina's wrath). Girls-kissing-girls have more to do with tantalizing guys, than LGBT issues. Hey, even role-model American Sweetheart Sandra Bullock lip-locked a woman on national t.v., right after adopting an African-American infant boy and being cheated upon, publically, by a Nazi-loving reality star partner. (Oh how far we've come. )

Oh how much we've forgotten.

On an election day, as reminders of Suffragette suffering, images of past civil rights battles abound, I wonder: where are the forgotten ones? The women I grew up with who were my real role models? The nuns who dropped their habits and tried to reconstruct a failing religion; the academics who made mainstream the hidden histories of so many minorities--including their own; the radical lesbians who were not fashionistas with perfect teeth and make-up--who demanded that even Gay brothers take them seriously; the single Moms fighting to go back to school while raising kids off welfare; the blazing artists who still aren't allowed into the elitist ranks, but who continue to create beauty in ugly times, for a callous world...my friends and lost teachers...where are all of you, now?

WILSHIRE WALKING

Even on holidays, street traffic is in full swing. Birds are screaming at each other for their own parking spots. Homeless are continuing their routine of recycling private garbage cans and pushing squeaky market baskets. Dogs don't take holidays. So, everyone, outside, is moving. (Or passed out from the riotous doings the night before.)

This week, Memorial Day, because of the Lakers vs. Celtics War, was a bit louder (at night) than usual. The sports bar, right on the next street, was packed all the way back to our block. Late night wakefulness was a bit more forced, even than usual. It wasn't fireworks and kids with water balloons that kept me up. The entire week has been one of ebb and flow of noise. (Part of me wonders if the missing among us came down to celebrate, too...at least in L.A.)

Today is almost the end of the week, again. Checking my money situation, I realize I better deposit latest unemployment check AND a birthday present from Mom. The bank is only three blocks down Wilshire Blvd--the epi-center of "The Miracle Mile". Today broke cloudy and fairly cool. Seemed like a good time to get out of the mini-loft and enter the "river" flowing just below.

First thing that greeted me: the rising odor of fresh tar. (Sometimes, especially as a child, summer meant oozing tar along back roads. It was comforting and acrid and we got to squeal over the delicious "ickiness" of it.) But I can't locate where the tar is being poured. That's a bit disconcerting.

Here, even as the population suffers the worst unemployment in decades, and countless "for lease" signs fill every other business along the boulevard, there seems to be an odd abundance of "building" sites. Hi-rise structures are popping up and down, and I mean New York City-sized hi-rise buildings! (I'm sure they are earth-quake fitted and up to code; they make my two story apartment building seem like a safe cave, in comparison.) I also wonder, if there is any emergency whatsoever, where all these people in these suddenly springing up places, are supposed to go? If they even stream into the streets, those streets are already clogged with parked cars and recycling containers...homeless, taco trucks, fruit vendors, people peddling incense, tube sox, stuffed animals and balloons.

I don't get how "for rent" signs dot almost every apartment building up and down side streets off Wilshire Blvd., in the residential "sections", like my own, while new "skyscraper" buildings pop up like giant mushrooms. (How can they possibly be filled? They will have higher rents, share the same problems, and pack more folks in like peeps in a candybox...) Meanwhile, small residential "neighborhoods", like my block, get graffitied, and treated like parking lots for the bars.

The new "logic" about these structures is that they will have "commercial and parking spaces under the buildings and along street level"--offering shopping amenities and easy access, to the packed residents in the floors, above. But, if the shops along Wilshire are closing, right and left (only massage parlors, office supplies and beauty shops seem to survive-- even these are cutting back hours of operation), how are these other stores going to fare? Advertising shouts "Coming Soon--Burrito Bonanzas!" or "Froggie Yogurt In The Fall!" It isn't like high-end luxury products or services are going to revitalize the place. The same old/same old is just recycling.

Or maybe L.A. will get a huge wave of Preppie High Rollers to move into the sky-filling new buildings and demand for frozen yogurt and semi-healthy-sounding-fast-food will thrive? We do have a Quiznos and a Subway which are always packed. But we also have a neighborhood coffee house with Wi-Fi and a big Starbucks with Wi-Fi and the Sports Bar has a taco restaurant during the daytime (attached) that has Wi-Fi and that's just on one block. So, how many more spots offering the same stuff can exist?

Traffic, already problematic, will be ridiculous when these places open. It isn't like the folks likely to inhabit them will be taking the bus any more than I do. L.A. is not a "bus" town...unless you don't have a car that moves. It isn't a bike town, either. (In a recent altercation when cyclists tried to do a ride-a-thon, cops started throwing fists and knocking people off their bikes. Video footage--of course--showed only one side of the demonstration--but all the media carried the scenes--not encouraging "riding without motors" in L.A.) But the building continues. And the tar keeps getting mixed and poured--somewhere. (I should be Zen Happy that somebody has a job, doing something, somewhere.)

Meanwhile, I lace up my Hi-Tops and stroll to the bank--itself tucked handily inside the grocery store. I pass Subway and Quiznos with a Ralph's turkey sandwich, and try not to inhale the bus fumes.

WAR and PEACE

I come from a warrior-clan. Still.
On the Irish side, there have been warriors going back to the real BRAVEHEART. (Scots that put the Scots in my Scots-Irish.) Even the older relatives I grew up around had fought in every war that I can remember--and the two big ones,before I was born. Pictures abound of all the uncles and grandfathers in uniform among other scrubbed faced and shining guys about to enter Hell for the first time.

A few of the relatives were heroes, though they never spoke about it.
Family history passed the stories on: Uncle Charlie with his multiple purple-hearts during WII; one for jumping in a roaring river to save a man, even though Uncle Charlie had never learned to swim...(Made me take swimming lessons at the city pool, very,very seriously.) Or the two grandfathers who were so upset with Hitler for pulling them back into another World War after they'd just gotten back, barely, from the first, that, as "old men", they up and enlisted, again. (Trouble was, they didn't see a single German. They were sent to the Pacific.) Both were gassed, in WWI, in the trenches. The Norwegian grandfather almost died. WWII was personal.

I don't know much about these men.
They were long gone by the time I made my entrance. I don't know if my parents (both youngest in their families) really knew them, either. Both drank. But everyone in my family, among the men, was expected to drink--and not a few of the women. There were military photos in ornate frames. Black and white or sepia-tinted. In my mind, it was hard to imagine them as grandfathers; they were in their twenties and thirties in these iconic pictures. My Norwegian grandfather was always in a sailor's suit--mostly the navy blue trimmed with white kind--his sailor cap jauntily off to one side. (When we'd rummage through the old sea-chests in the attic--where they remain, still--we'd pull out his scratchy woolen sailors' shirt and hat. He was very skinny. Even his head. Another reason I couldn't visualize him as a robust Santa Claus type grandfather.)

His son, my godfather, carried one of the atomic bombs, though not the ones that rained on Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Years later, he died of cancer. (When Bill Clinton's expose of the atomic and nuclear testing experiments were published, there was a lot of evidence for my uncle's case. His daughter is a corporate lawyer, but, his family never received any benefits.)

On the Norwegian side of the family, there was also much wrath against Nazis because they completely wiped out the village most of the relatives lived in, in Norway. The town had been hiding Jews and aiding the resistance. Nazis machine-gunned everyone and raized the village to the snow. (So my sailor grandfather had a personal grudge on the blood-feud side.)


Other cousins have gone to Korea--never coming back the same.
Still handsome in their uniforms and return-home smiles, they slowly grew silent. Then, there was Vietnam, the Falklands (which no one took seriously), The Gulf Wars, and Iraq.

My brothers missed the wars by inches and only a few years.
One brother is an engineer now working for FEMA, still trying to help people in horrific conditions. The other is a cop, in our hometown. (I don't know, really, whose job is more dangerous. Drugs make even traffic tickets sort of like combat duty, these days.) The cop brother enlisted, like so many of his male relatives, and did special training in some branch--I think it was Air Force--like my godfather. But for Kev, he squeaked by all the new Big Wars. (So, he's always looking for his chance, I guess.) And even though the engineer brother was more like me and more of a pacifist, he, too, searches out "comrades". (I'm hoping FEMA fulfills those fantasies for him.) Both brothers know how to drink like the warrior-males in our family have always drunk: to bond with others and be emotional; to hide their confusion and pain.

Meanwhile, the women cluck and have conversations behind the scenes and carry and nurture the children and hide their own battle scars. (These run as deep, but must be borne.) There are no drinking clubs or fist-fights at family events for the women. Only gossip behind the lines. Sometimes just as hard-hitting and dangerous.

Now, the newest generation rises. The nieces are tall and thin and lovely and smart. Like the step-nephew, for now, they are cocooned in a world that connects with them electronically. They still take on causes--but those switch from environmental to American Idol to history-making politicians of all kinds. They have aunties who are in the world and fighting for others, up front and personal. Whether in ER big city hospitals or dealing with sexual harrassment issues in the corporate workspace--my sisters also contain fierce fighting bloodlines. What this new generation will choose or what will choose them is still up for grabs. They have different conditions to take on; alternate battlegrounds. Still, I know they will fight.

I come from a clan of warriors. Still.