Monday, July 23, 2012

for YODA

One of my favorite dog friends passed last week. His name was Yoda. He was ten.

We met a decade ago, on Thanksgiving. He was hidden in the fist of one of my California pals--his "adopted mother".
"Hey Minnsie, look what I've got!" Wendy held out a tiny furred creature for my inspection.
(As she and her room-mates had always had assorted caged animals, I assumed it was another rat baby or a hamster.)
She put the wee thing into my palm.
"It's a dog! A mini Mexican hairless!" Wendy chuckled at my disbelief.
"Look, no way is this a real dog..." I held the trembly dustball under the porchlight.
"His name is Yoda, for obvious reasons!" Wendy opened the screendoor to the party.
Inside, her other two tiny pooches scampered about the guests, tugging on people's pant hems or rough housing with each other. I passed Yoda back to Wendy, afraid he would break in my fingers. She laughed, placing him on the floor with Morgana and Isis. Immediately, he bolted to the nearest human's foot and clung for dear life.
Isis made a lunge, rolling the tinier pup under the couch. Gamely he emerged, but made another dash for the nearest human sneaker.
"Wendy, they are going to kill him!" I picked Yoda up, terrified.
"No way. He's a scrapper. Besides, we want him to grow up and hold his own in this household of women!" Wendy toasted the puppy with warm cider.

Unsure of the wisdom of this approach, I cuddled the little guy off and on the entire evening.
We bonded that night.
Later, before walking me to my truck, Wendy stopped in her bedroom.
"I have to get Yoda's sweater--it's freezing out there!"

It was. Yoda had no fur--just this almost invisible fuzz--like a cheap Bobble-head. (It gets cold by the Pacific Ocean at night, especially in late November.) I waited patiently, trying not to yawn, as several party guests filed past me, into the cool street.

Wendy finally emerged carrying an infant's sock. (About an inch and half, trimmed in blue.) She proceeded to cut little holes the size of dimes on either side of the "foot" area and then took off the entire toe. This ragged "hoody" she pulled over Yoda's strawberry-sized head.
"Okay, he's ready to walk you to your truck!"

Over the years, I would spend many more holiday parties with Wendy and the gang. Always, Yoda ruled. Not only did he enjoy entertaining, he had indeed toughened up, taking no guff from the other dogs--or the newest family members--cats! The only beings he seemed to have a problem with were strange guys who came by and were "unknowns". (Friends dropping in for the first time, whom he did not recognize.) Unfortunately for these guys--and it was always guys--their first instinct was to pick Yoda up off his throne position on the couch (a big mistake) and begin to scream at him as if he were hard of hearing. (Yoda had fine hearing. Yoda didn't like being picked up off his regular position of authority). Before Wendy could warn the men, inevitably, someone would have their nose almost shoved against Yoda's nose--while talking loudly enough to be heard outside on the patio.

Yoda would do what I would have done: he took a bite.

Of course there would be hollaring and jumping around and male screams. Rarely was blood drawn...well, maybe twice...but whomever got the warning never forgot. Yoda,even if he were dropped roughly, would shake himself free of bad karma and return to his post on the couch.

He was indeed, a wise old soul. (For some: a crabby one.)

Whenever I would drop by, whether babysitting the gang of little dogs or simply stopping to hang with friends, Yoda would leap into my lap before the other dogs, demanding I pay absolute attention to him. He would snarl, snap, yelp and howl if any of the "girls" tried to beat him to that spot. All I could do was pat him and laugh.

Still almost bald, with a kind of wee-dog "limp" of the Mexican hairless kind, his skull bulging with brains and machismo, Yoda was--Yoda.
I was so sad when his "mother" called to inform me of his passing.
He had not aged well in these last years, though his care was first rate. His back finally gave out. His bones were full of doggie arthritis. His eyes and ears were the eyes and ears of an old, old man. He was asking to go with dignity.

Wendy, the ever loving caretaker, made the heart-breaking decision and was with him, in the end. But not before she threw a going- away- party for him, the day before, so all his California pals, both doggie and human, might say good-bye and pay their respects.
 I'm told Yoda loved it, but was ready.
He knew.
He always knew.
People who follow metaphysics in every form,(at least some of them) say that dogs are meant to break our hearts from the start. We know they will be with us only a short time, and yet, they command our total love. Ask for our commitment. If one passes, they go on to a big cauldron of doggie spirits and then come back...they don't become human...they are dogs...Sometimes they get a long rest between assignments...sometimes it is shorter. The metaphysicians who speak of such things say that if one wants their doggie back, and their dog chooses to come back right away, to look into the eyes of puppies within sixty days of the dog's death--and you will possibly find the dog.
Or, you can release them and thank them for the time you did spend together.

I wonder, and sort of hope, that it is up to the canine...
Vaya con Dios, Yoda.
I would have gone to your party.        

Friday, July 20, 2012

POST MORTEM

As we arise this morning, we are met full-on with the kind of tragedy that fuels graphic novels. In fact, it was so unreal, many patrons in the Aurora, Colorado movie complex thought it was part of the midnight show: a masked man with weapons and a flak vest, tossing tear gas cannisters and raising his weapon at the audience--all to the background sounds of "Batman"...was this another Dark Knight, rising to perform, or a mortal enemy, co-opting the show? Even the gunfire sounded like a party cracker. Not until real people bled outright or felt bullets enter their own flesh did the violence take on real meaning. By then, it was too late. We got the final body count; the wounded; the dead; the lost children among the dead; all before our first cup o' joe. Summertime blockbuster season in America, circa: 2012.

The tweets came even as the bullets rained. Youtube already had footage taken on an Android phone by someone in the movieplex even as people ran screaming by...the blogs sprang up along with the talking t.v. heads: the journalists. Then, the print media and its postings online. Finally, before my scone and second cup, President Obama, on the podium, telling the crowd what one always says when such things occur: fragility of life; hug your children; be prayerful and quiet for a few moments; go on with your lives.

What the???!!!!!!!

Perhaps I have been around too long and seen too much real-life violence...but if one more person tells me to pause for a moment of silence--or hug some children--and consider the fragility of life--I may  puke. I'm just done. These platitudes are too easily expressed. It doesn't matterif they are coming from Barrack or Mitt--they have come too often and too readily in the past. I want to see a president or a candidate express what we are all feeling: real horror. To take a moment, not for silence, but for tears. For outrage. For a call not to arms but to answers.

Pundits are saying it wasn't the fault of an excessively violent movie that promotes evil as much as good--sees villains as sexy and powerful as heroes--blurring the edges of right and wrong, rich and poor lusting for material goods, moral decay as something to play with. No, it wasn't the influence of the mega-million movie or its call to viewing as some sort of tribal rite of passage and extra Fourth of July/Mardi Gras/ Halloweenie celebration for the masses.

Pundits pin the blame on a mentally disturbed, ostracized white boy with issues that should have been held in check by his far-away family.Yup. No one is looking at how many of these individuals exist and more importantly: why do they exist? Why does this profile keep popping up? There are cries for help. Cracks in the surface that many will look back upon and say they noticed but didn't know what to do...A mental health system in tatters...a public school system leaking children and families...a private school system which only perpetuates the schism between the haves and have nots, and allows the haves to dangle what they have over the cages of the starving have nots and laugh, while doing it...an economic system that has already assured us, mostly through the media--social and otherwise--that the new generation will never have their own homes; will mostly not succeed even half as much as their parents; will probably get cancer or die in a global war or be burned up from an environment pissed off at its human sychophants--and that the no-longer respected nor revered "elders" will be left alone to wither, without social security or health care or families willing to deal with multi-generational conflicts and aging.

We are left with a system that prolongs the lives of many without adding one iota to the quality of those lives...in fact, detracts and then bills them for the longevity! There should be no moment of silence for the dead; nor for the living. Instead, there should be a roar of upset; of protest; of crying that expunges the horror. Be loud. Demand answers. Demand QUESTIONS...only when we begin the dialogue will real healing and real solutions reveal themselves.

It is the system that is broken. On all sides. Including the spiritual. If we don't begin to examine and to accept this--as well as the necessity of solving these critical issues--more and more of these blood-soaked mornings will fill our days.

It is NOT about hugging your kids tighter. It's about what kind of world, on every level, are we willing to rebuild?     

Monday, July 16, 2012

ON PASSING

When I was in college in the late seventies, my first and only room-mate was from Liberia, Africa. I had requested "a room-mate of color--from another country"--because it was the 70's--and I was from a New England small town that had only one African-American family in residence...

My roomie and I were friends all through college. She did come back to my town to visit for a couple of holidays and stay with my family. Her experience was as entertaining and problematic for her as it was for my multi-generational, highly Caucasian familia. At the finish, we shared jokes about my being "quadroon"--and that my grandmother was actually "Mammy Nana".

Today, as well as for decades now, I cringe at my ignorance and stupidity. While I was out to prove that I wasn't a racist; had worked on New England small town "issues" and relieved myself of prejudices born from that place; was "cool" and "open-minded"--I thought that my requesting a roomie of color and hanging with lots of people who were not White and not American--I was doing "them" a favor--all of this makes me physically sick, today.

I have to let it go, however. Have to forgive my stupid, bigoted self and see the questing teen who did afford herself of every opportunity offered to work on "her institutionalized" racism. Working with Native people also helped open my eyes. Taking the steps farther to the West Coast and to a cosmopolitan setting beat the prejudice out of me; educating me through shoulder to shoulder hard labor and through misplaced and broken romances. I finally entered cultures vastly different and interestingly similar to my own roots. This time, however, I entered them as a participant and not as a self-righteous tourist.

Poverty; civil disobedience; violence; spirituality; love in its myriad splendors; children; survival; quest for self-hood--these are the great equilizers. These are the markers of humanity we all share. Culture and genetics add to the mix, for sure, but the politics of what makes us different from the animals is what makes us alike as human beings.

This weekend, my sister Ann gave me a book she'd just purchased. "I think you'll find this interesting," she said, dropping it on my bed.
"You've read it?" I stop typing long enough to inquire.
"Not yet--I'm in the middle of three other books. You can read it, first," Ann generously offers.
So, I do.

ONE DROP is the 2007 account of Bliss Broyard's two-century historical tracing of her family roots. What makes it compelling isn't just the significant historical details she brings to life but the fact that her father, the writer Anatole Broyard (NY Times book critic), spent an entire lifetime "passing" and raising his children in ignorance of their African-American heritage. Broyard was able to do this, as so many other members of his community (Creole) were able to, because of the simple fact that he did not "look Black". Nor did he accept the standards and expectations society held for African-Americans who did, indeed, "look Black". The cost of this choice was paid in losing contact with his siblings and parents and much of his extended support system in the South. It also meant that his own children lost that support. His small "blood family" --wife and children--were the people he wrapped around himself--and the very people he kept at bay--because of this secret.

Bliss Broyard grew up in Connecticut. She went to ivy league schools. Her family owned several huge houses. She was allowed into all the "right" clubs and societies, as she grew up. However, just before her father's death, he revealed to her and to her brother the "truth" of their heritage--while being unable to fully explain the reasoning behind his subterfuge.

An educated woman, a researcher and writer herself, Bliss begins a journey that took over seventeen  years--uncovering not only her own family tree--but the "family tree" of America. The history might seem to be already known to most of us (I thought I knew it!), however, the fascinating and excruciating conscious choices made by those individuals who moved back and forth across color lines were forced upon them by the mostly untold history of American social mores.

Issues such as what one decides when one begins to raise a family: how to best support them; to best provide for them; to best protect them? How to insure your children will receive all the perks and promises that America can offer? How to insure their safety, even as they move through a society that abhors them? These are questions one might assume when one thinks of the Nazis in Europe and the Jews--but how often do we consider them when looking at America in the twentieth century? Passing raises these questions. It also raises issues that aren't pretty--or easy. Questions that anyone with friends from other races must ultimately ask and have answered--if those friendships are to last. (Questions I glanced over and thought I had the answers to in my ignorance over the decades.)

Bliss Broyard also does a decent job in keeping the issues close to her own heart--not wincing nor side-stepping the familial pain which still exists between those family members who did not choose to pass--and those who did. She explores the multi-faceted parts of her father's psyche--making sure he doesn't become a poster child for this part of our national identity--but is fully sketched and made three dimensional. (Does an artist have the moral imperative to create himself/herself--regardless of what genetics have dealt him/her? Does a HUMAN have this same imperative?)

In the final pages of the book, Broyard makes use of technology that was increasingly available to the public: DNA testing. What she finds out about herself and her family is surprising--raising further questions. It is an interesting ending to an open-ended exploration of race relations in America--especially given our election of a mixed President currently inhabiting the White House.

What would YOU do, given the option of "passing"? Why? How? When?

For folks looking for a lengthy, thought provoking, historical summer read, check out ONE DROP, by Bliss Broyard.

You won't be disappointed.  

Monday, July 9, 2012

GHOSTBUSTERS

Since I was a wee child, I have prayed NOT to have visions. No demons. No angels. No saints. No dead relatives. No dead ANYTHING (except, maybe past dogs...)--surely not the myriad caged and bowled animals of my past. (Brrrrrrr.)

For most of my life, all the Invisibles honored my requests.
However, they did visit my dreamscapes.
Mostly, I was okay with this. Occasionally, however, it became just a bit too real and I had to again, negotiate. Pull out the St. Benedict exorcism crucifix, the fluorescent childrens' rosary, the singed sage and salt-in-the-corners, all the negative energy crystals aligned on the nightstand or attached to the bed. Holy water from Lourdes was kept in a separate, but easily accessed, drawer.

Once again, I was left in peace for the few hours of sleep I usually manage.

Then, the ghost chasers entered the Public Eye.
Suddenly, from cable networks to mainstream stations, on radio and satellite t.v., people, mostly in their twenties and thirties, equipped with thousands of dollars of electronic equipment ( night vision goggles; infrared cameras; laser trip lights; magnetic counters; video headgear, etc.) and t.v. sponsorship would enter private buildings, in the dead of night, turn out the overhead lights and begin filming.

Even with all the electronic gadgets and multi-lensed cameras, rarely did anything show itself. Computer enhancement did little to clarify the white smudges and fuzzy shadows that made the Ghost Hunters squeal. (In fact, the ghost busting gangs that went off on these adventures squealed quite a bit. In fact, most of the "thrill" of these unscripted shows came from their screams, shivers shared on those cameras, and running out of sight when a sudden "unexplained bump" or a whoosh of wind crossed their paths.)

Besides the constant video feed enabling the audience to "come along", the go-to piece of equipment seemed to be the hand-held audio recording device. Sometimes it was as simple as a cell phone. Sometimes it was a recorder--usually digital--left on and running while the team sat in silence after asking "the spirits" a particular question.

I have to admit, the recordings have gotten to me. Though all demand a computer translation and "clean up"--and granted, many are subject to interpretation ("It said 'I am the killer'! Did you hear that? Did you hear that?!!!")--I often interpret something else, but hey, I'm not on the location and I'm listening from a t.v. monitor, what do I know?--these electronic voice recordings are just plain creepy. They do sound like actual words. People-spoken. Some with accents. Some with age-related differences. But people. (I do question the obvious factor that every one that is played is in English...even when the ghost hunters go to other countries...do the ghosts translate themselves? Hmmm...perhaps we become poly-lingual when we leave this plane...Or maybe the editors only use what they can understand. We are Americans, after all...)

Most of these shows, I am rooting for the Invisibles. I would like them to take a quick bite out of the butt of some of these cocky-yet-easily-terrified-twenty-somethings. I would like a sudden apparition of Count Chocula or the Wolfman (circa Lon Chaney) or even Frankenstein's monster to come from behind a closed door in whatever asylum they are visiting that week. More than a passing cold breeze which raises goosebumps on the elbows of the camera people; more than dust mites massing into a swirl along the edges of abandoned staircases; more than creaking beams and moaning cracked windows. However, so far, that has not occurred.

When these teams enter shut down prisons, the guys always come in like Gang Busters; they shout, they threaten, they preach, they challenge, they pose and roar into the dark quiet. (Usually it is guys. Only in the past year have they used more than a single, lovely female, in their investigations. The women never seem to challenge or poke or even badger the Invisibles; only the men...) There is little respect for what could be going on, legitimately.

No matter what spiritual practice or study one engages in, there are views about the dead...yelling and challenging and bringing up bad karmas is never a suggested method. Why these guys do it seems to me the same motivation of why adolescents break windows in abandoned buildings...especially in places where they think they won't be caught. In the same way that I don't want to see the dead, I also respect the dead. If they have earned anything, they have earned some peace.

There is one show, however, where I feel that the people doing the investigations are truly trying to help--both those on the other side--if there is another side--as well as those on this side who may be engaging in some sketchy dead-associated dabbling. This show is called "Dead Zone".

The premise is that a working psychic takes a single camera-man to a site where someone has contacted them and requested they investigate. She knows nothing about the site and little about the actual "haunting"--except that they have been called in because of issues. She and the camera-guy walk along the property and inside the afflicted building. Before they get there for the walk-through, he has come and removed any personal photos or images of anyone who lives in the place that might mislead the psychic or give her unfair "clues" to who inhabits the space. It is a cold walk-through, when she arrives.

In conjunction with the psychic investigator, a retired cop begins his own investigation. He does what detectives do: meets with the family involved; goes through property records; town histories; talks to people in the area who might know of incidents that occurred or know some history of the occupation of the property etc. The show splits between his investigation and her walk-through. Her walk-through is filmed, of course. In the end of the search, they come together and discuss their findings and evidence, in front of the family associated with the haunting. They even have a mug-drawing, done by the psychic and a police artist--of what she encountered.

I truly don't know what is staged. I honestly don't know if it is a set up or if it is for reals. I do know that the woman is average looking--average size, not a teen-ager, and when she does her walk-throughs, her psychic readings are not pretty to watch. She is not a trained actress. No actress would manipulate her face in such bizarre ways for t.v. Her body moves are also not of someone taught to walk onstage or camera--they are exactly how any one of us would move through an unknown space for the first time--in the dark. She doesn't shriek. She doesn't jump at shadows and knock over cameras in her flight. She doesn't scream at cold breezes or when things "touch" her. (Just for this refreshing take, I'd watch the show...) She reacts in a way that seems scary because of its sense of truth. And the camera-guy gets it down--without special lenses or monitors or electromagnets or flattering lighting.

The cop part is genius. It is like a good mystery show--he building a "case" about what happened in the past--or is presently happening--to cause psychic disturbances. He is like a t.v. cop. Grizzled. Hard-line questioner. No nonsense approach--until the end. Even then, he usually winces once or twice, when the psychic reveals what she experienced and shows the "portrait" of the main Invisible she "saw". But it is a good wince. The stories are pretty intense--especially for these ghost chasing shows filled with old prison shadows and broken-windowed asylums.

I also love the fact that the psychic always has advice for the people who first initiated the call for help. She has business cards of other spiritual people --from priests to shamans to psychotherapists--for the families to contact for help in "releasing" whatever is in their midst. She also gives it to the people who are "playing" with psychic realms...Recently she busted a seventeen year old teen-ager who was having his friends do seances at this abandoned building behind his home. The building had been a quack clinic, run by what amounted to a serial killer/doctor--a woman--who, in the name of "curing people"--mostly rich people with bad illnesses--in reality tortured them and starved them. Many, many, many deaths were recorded at the clinic. However, since she was allowed to do her own autopsies--this was in the 1800s--and word didn't really travel about what was going on--this continued for years. Finally, she took her own life--evidently starving herself. A true psychopath and a serial sadist.

The family currently owning the property didn't know the horrible history--only the part that a woman doctor ran a clinic on the place--and that one of the buildings was still standing. The father didn't realize the son and his friends were doing seances for months back there--his son only admitting to doing one seance and getting scared. However, "things began to happen" in the home...The cop uncovered the history. The psychic encountered "all the confused and suffering dead". She felt the doctor was also still "stuck"--but the doctor's ghost was willingly staying. Whether to avoid "retribution" or simply to "feed on the pain"--she was still around.
The boy's seances had enlarged the door to allow more and more confused ghosts to assemble and to be used as feed for the doctor.

The sketch by the police artist, based on the description of the psychic, matched the late photo of the doctor, which the retired cop had come across in his historical investigation. It was uncanny. Even if it was a set-up, the sincerity of the people involved--including the psychic and the detective--as well as the squirmy guilt of the teen and the astonished father--were brilliant. I loved it when the psychic lit into the boy. She let him have it about "bothering the dead"! She told him that the dead have many phases to go through to get free from this plane--it isn't just stepping up to Heaven--or Hell--and often those who have died in bad ways are confused about their situation--they repeat the death throes they went through and can't escape right away. In a place where so much physical and mental torture was passed on as "therapy"--confusion was built in. So, when one died it didn't seem much different and the ghosts were further being trapped by the seances and the living trying to communicate with them--as well as the more powerful spirt of the sadist.

The psychic suggested people to contact to help "clear the dead" and to remove the negative presence. Also, suggested help for the teen--and warned him--and the father--to stop playing with this--it is real and it is complicated and it is powerful. One must take serious study in these areas to know what to do; to be protected; to do no harm. Obviously, this kid had taken no such steps.
She also suggested the building be brought down, to further cleanse the property and release residual spirits.

I love it! Leave the dead alone! At one point, on her initial walk-through, the psychic grimaces. The camera-guy asks her what is going on. She answers: "I get a lot of spirits in confusion, coming up to me--they are really angry--they are saying 'stop poking us; stop telling us to talk to you!"
(They meant the boy and his friends and the seances--not the psychic.)

Right on.

I think I will stop watching these shows, too.

(Except, maybe, The Dead Zone. They might be the real-deal...)           

Sunday, July 8, 2012

GET A LIFESTYLE

"I can't believe you have not heard the dog barking for the last twenty minutes!" Ann yells outside my bedroom door.
(I barely can hear HER--it is going on ninety-five outside and the air conditioner in this room is two feet from my head.)
She opens the door.
"I've been up since four a.m.! I've taken Maeve out, twice, cooked bacon for breakfast, made a huge macaroni salad for supper, read the Sunday paper and been online already--you're still in bed!" Ann glares at me, hair dripping on the carpet, smelling of shampoo.
"Well, that's your lifestyle--" I turn over, not adding that I didn't close my eyes until five a.m.
"Yeah, well, you don't HAVE a lifestyle!" Ann closes the door and goes back to the dog.

(Hmmm...any thoughts of resuming my dreams are over now.
My worst fear has been activated: I don't have a lifestyle...
Is this true?)
How do my days go, now that school is over?

Get up in the late morning: because then I am out of Dad's way as he makes breakfast for himself and the dog; get out of Mom's way as she meanders in and out of the bathroom, then downstairs to drink juice and read the morning paper and watch the morning news with Dad and then makes her own breakfast and then comes back upstairs to finish her morning toilet...

(I sneak into the shower somewhere while they are engaged downstairs.)

When the kitchen is clear, I snag the morning paper and finish what is left of the coffee. Depending on the hour and my stomach, sometimes a bowl of Cheerios and a piece of fruit, sometimes a bagel and blueberries, sometimes a hot Mexican scramble, with avocado on the side. I finish up and wash the coffee pot and put dishes in the dishwasher.

If Mom isn't doing laundry, I do laundry. If she is, I go back upstairs and begin my day of writing.

(Summer should mean kayaking, but since baby possums inhabit my kayak right now, that isn't an option...)

Check e-mail. Check Facebook. Check L.A. Times. Check NY Times. Answer e-mail.

Twice a week (sometimes three times) I write a new blog entry. Check stats to see if anyone is reading them. Post them.

If it is not a blogger day, I go immediately to the manuscript I am working on. Try to knock out at least what amounts to "a chapter". I don't re-write. Just get the story down. (Rewrites are for when the first version is finished...that's when the writing is "fun"...otherwise, it is like sweating blood...seriously.)

I am usually interrupted several times--for parental postings: we are going to the store now we are taking the dog we are going to the post office now we are not taking the dog we are going to the restaurant now we are not taking the dog if you hear the phone please pick it up if you hear the doorbell please answer it if you hear someone downstairs it may be Ann or Bren or Kev or Emily or Mer if you hear someone downstairs check it might be Uncle Bob or the cleaner or the garage door fixer or the refrigerator repair guy if you hear someone downstairs it may be someone trying to break in...check it!

The phone may ring several times. Sometimes I hear it and answer. It is rarely for moi...Sometimes I honestly do NOT hear it--the air conditioner is even closer when I am typing (perched on top of my Mom's old sewing machine which is the only "desk" I have in this room...my laptop is one foot from the window...)--in which case, if Ann is home, she will pick up the phone, upset and yelling at me that I did not--she is trying to sleep--she has the nightshift--I should be on top of this! (I know I know but if one is trapped in a five foot long by three feet wide "corridor" between the window and the bed, seated on a straight back Early American chair that one's feet do not touch the floor from--with the air conditioner screaming a high pitched whine in one's good ear, and one is trying to write a new novel, well, one isn't simply waiting for the phone to ring so one can lean over and answer it!)

My friends know enough to text or leave a message on my cell--which I will eventually get to. But I never just pick up a phone call--usually I am far from the phone. Seriously--and metaphorically.

Around noon, anyone in the house who eats lunch is congregated in the kitchen doing various "lunch things"--if Ann is home, Maeve usually gets a cooked lunch, too. I come in for something to drink or to clean up breakfast remains, but I don't usually eat lunch at noon. My brain is keyed up and percolating with whatever I've been working on...My uptake is slow in conversations and my patience is thin about the neighbors and the Church and the African scammers on the phone. This elicits sharp remarks and the usual "you are such a Toon"! It's okay. My mind is focused on conversations in the paragraphs upstairs--or dream images that may hold a plot key.

Around two p.m., Dad comes in from the yard and the garden and the work space in the garage. He settles in for an Ensure, some peanut butter and crackers, and the Red Sox game on cable. I come down for a gnosh; to stretch; to give Maeve a treat and pick up piddle papers or let her out if she asks. My brain is still spinning between plot lines and characters. I am moving outside my body...Spaced out and spaced "in". I react in a way that gets chalked up to "California weird"...Doesn't matter because I'm not there...I'm in "the book".

Unlike many writers, I don't drink or eat where I type. The sewing machine surface doesn't accomodate anything but my laptop and glasses--sometimes a small pad of paper. Drinking is out of the question.(In fact, once I switched to computer use, I stopped drinking at my desk--too many coffee-stained manuscripts when I typed.) Now, it is work first.

I go back and check e-mails. I also check various writers' sites for news, calls for manuscripts, contacts, etc. I might work on some poetry or on another manuscript I'm currently involved with...I might compose a letter or two and answer any queries that have come in.(My brain is in "writing mode" and time slips by very quickly.) My aching back and butt and legs tell me I should get up and move...ridiculous...I need a desk. I need a desk chair. I need to get outside and run...I continue typing.

I take a break around four p.m.
Maeve wants her "doggie soup"--my particular recipe for her supper. If I'm late, she'll remind me, politely outside my bedroom. At the top of the stairs--waiting. Or, if Mom is making spaghetti for supper, Maeve will meander downstairs and stare. (But I usually am down there by four.) I make the "soup"--no matter who is home--I wait for Maeve to eat it. (She demands an audience--or at least "company".) Then I must give her "dessert"--a doggie biscuit or a bone to "brush her teeth". This she takes into the parlor and joins Dad and the early newscast.
I take this time to exit, back up to my room.

Now is the time to read: I am getting books to review for a small agency in L.A. (I also make heavy use of the local library.) I am omnivorous when it comes to reading, though I prefer texts that are metaphysical and mysterious.(Curiouser and curiouser...as someone once wrote...)

At five p.m., Mom calls us all to dinner. (I told her when I arrived back home, not to worry about me for dinner.) She worries. I come down at five. I eat a truncated meal with her and Dad. She insists on cooking--though I have offered. It is laughed at and shot down--I can't even peel a parsnip and they all know it--a family lamentation. (I can. I have. I would. It just isn't happening.)She is the Queen of her kitchen domain--I am the family Jester. On a "Seinfeld" episode, it would be funny. At 88 Maple, it is less so...

After dinner--Dad and Mom clear the table in two seconds--Dad rinsing stuff for the dishwasher and  allowing no help. Mom is off to get her meds for the night. The dog scrounging for "leftovers"--which both Mom and Dad slip her-- yelling at me if I suggest this same action.I shrug and apologize to Maeve.
I put away the condiments.

I slip back upstairs to write.

Sometimes, Helayne will call or bike or drive by.
We hang out for a while.She wants me to visit this guy she met via E-bay, who clears people's estates and gets bikes for re-sale. (No questions asked.) She wants me to "come up with like twenty bucks--maybe forty, tops.." and promises a functional bike. She wants me to go with her into the wooded areas on the trails that scare her--but also call her. I tell her, sadly, "I don't have forty bucks to drop on a bike..." She assures me that "sometime this summer" we will work this out.(I keep thinking of the possum babies...)

Sometimes Judy will call. Sometimes older friends from older times phone.

Occasionally, now that school is out and there are no subbing jobs, I'll go with someone for a cup of coffee. These connections are dear to me. I don't want to go anyplace that is loud--I want to hear them and see them and enjoy their company. Far cry from the old days in CA, when we had to have an activity in order to hang out...a destination to frolic...trouble to get in and out of, with abandon!
Now, if I have company, I want it to be companionable and connected. Otherwise, my mind wanders back to the manuscripts...the blogs...the words boiling inside...and I can't spare the time...don't want to just amble around causing commotion. It isn't about aging--it's about time--and writing.

If no one drops by my essential/extensive social network on-line beckons. But I watch the clock and don't get lost ...there's more to accomplish on-line:

I check out recent job posting sites. I am registered from Worcester to the Western part of Central MA...licensed HS English teacher with thirty years experience...etc. I do the required site shifting and apps and keep up hope and keep networking...so many resumes...so many cover letters...so far: nada. (Except for the bogus Catholic School situation--which I hope and pray will never be repeated in my lifetime...sigh...)It is so hard to take myself seriously as a teacher, as I confront these mountains.
I know I've been successful, before. I know I can handle most kids--including the lost ones, the confused ones, the cocky ones, the feisty ones; the gifted ones; the challenging ones. I've proven it over and again. But nobody is watching. Nobody is listening.

Forget the commercials you see or the adds you read: America isn't really looking for committed teachers...not really. If she were really looking, I'd be found. I'd be utilized. I'd be made to prove my stuff and there would be a committee to see if I was the real deal.

I am. (I keep reminding myself of this fact...)

After my heart and ego get pummeled for a couple hours, I get a break. Mind-numbing-pop- culture: reality t.v.  Seinfeld. Fearnet.channel. Animal Planet. Junk food for my entertainment genes.

At eight p.m., Maeve gets her shot (for diabetes). She takes the whole family's coaxing to get her downstairs to get the injection. She's good for the needle, but it is getting her downstairs to face the needle that is the challenge. Mostly, if I turn on the stairwell lights and promise treats and joyful abandon, she comes. (Mostly.) Otherwise it takes Ann's yelling at her to go down--always on her own time, while Mom and Dad and I wait at the bottom of the stairs.
After her shot I can re-enter the room, to write.

Late night: time to edit. Mostly poetry; or editing the day's work on the manuscripts. Perhaps a late blog. Even when I am not typing, I am "writing".

This is a reality that any honest wordsmith will tell you if you ask: we are ALWAYS writing. Our minds don't stop. Our brains don't rest. If a situation in the world touches us, we don't simply react. We don't simply verbalize the angst. Our imaginations kick in and we analyze; we replay; we examine; we research and add to the facts; we formulate an argument; we support our beliefs and insights; we write it out.We write it down. We shift and sift and share what we've written.

Night, for me, when the rest of the household is snoring--or gone to another city-- is the time when my brain aligns itself with the sensations of the day. This is the time when I sort and shake it into a pattern. If the t.v. offers "whitenoise", well, all the better. It screens out the sleeping sounds that rain-down around me. It doesn't stop the thoughts from organizing themselves into the verbiage that will eventually flow out on to some kind of platform or page.

Around four or five a.m. is when sleep shuts me down. Before real light filters into the Eastern windows. Before traffic and people gear up for their day. If I am lucky, I will settle in. I might even dream--sometimes I dream a book. Or a poem. (If I'm really lucky.)

The parents let me sleep in. They understand I am better upstairs as they crank their morning routines. Maeve is attended to. There is no awkward scramble for the coffee or the paper.

If someone else is home, I will probably be nudged awake.Or shaken awake. Or badgered awake...

(If I have an interview or sub job, I am already up and running, even before the parental units.) But now it is summer. I am "just a writer"...again. (Not really something of value, here. Not really a contributor nor a meaningful member of society. Not in a mean way: just in a practical "we told you so if you pursued this life" kind of way...Now we have to take care of you...)

It begins again: I have no job; no family responsibility; no connections; no romantical interest; no house; no gym membership; no hobbies; no lifestyle.

I am just a writer.

My entire life is experienced through this truth: this filter. I cannot defend it nor can I fully explain it. It simply exists ...Not a choice nor a plan of action nor even a belief system; it IS my life.

I am, therefore I write.

It becomes exhausting justifying this. I can't support myself doing it. (Something like three percent of the writers in America can support themselves through their writing--and that was before the New Depression--when magazines and newspapers were at their height...)I am not famous, doing this. I am not even really respected--at least not where people can easily see. I have not found love doing it. (In fact, it has cost me relationships. Something about constantly being in your head or behind a closed door a good deal of the time...) I have found neither enlightenment nor peace. Yet, I continue on...

It is not an addiction, though it shares some similarities. It is not a vocation, though one must have the same committment and stamina and faith. It is not really celebrated (not in the 2000s...) nor seen as sexy--except if one is a successful screenwriter--even then, how many screenwriters can you name?

(Who WROTE your favorite film? Hmmm....)

To be a writer, one simply writes. (Author Diane Vreuls told me that, three decades ago, surrounded by a hundred pages of my short stories...I took her seriously. I've lived this.)

A writer doesn't stop. No matter what. No matter where. Published or put down. Perishing or pushed to heights of success. Doesn't matter. The "next thing" is always the one one pursues.

I thank God/Great Spirt/Great Mystery for all who have put up with this obsession. For all who have contributed to my physical constancy and made a safe space for me to hole up when things have gotten tough. I know they are part of this dance. There is a reason for all of this --somewhere. (I write to make note of all of them; I write to keep a record of these facts. I write so others who come later will know they are not alone. This is a real Path. All of this.)

I am a writer.
This is not a lifestyle.
THIS is my life.            

Sunday, July 1, 2012

THE UNIVERSE SPEAKS AT OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE

Last night Helayne took me out to dinner. For "old time's sake", we went back to where we had shared many late-night meals, after our classes at Worcester State U., last year.
"This is a celebration--of your birthday, Minns--and my landing a teaching position!" Helayne looked marvelous in her black chiffon blouse and slacks.

Looking decidely less chic, I raised my iced-tea, to toast. Helayne deserved it. She has turned her two decades of nursing expertise AND her new teaching credential (as well as her MAs in nursing and history) into a full-time teaching job at the cool STEM school, Worcester Voc Tech. Someone dropped out of the slot and Helayne, ever on her game, applied at the correct moment.) They put her through a zillion more hoops--a vocational technical school has different standards than a regular high school--and they didn't want her as a history teacher. However, her years of nursing--which had burned her out--turned around and gave her the thrust and the shine to fit the slot as a teacher of nursing students--high school vocs--kids who knew what they wanted and needed help preparing. She aced the additional exams. She provided the additional licensing. She nailed the position. I am ecstatic for my buddy--though I will miss her shot-gun position in my life.

I flashed back on the first day that she took me to the library to apply for the first set of exams that would enable us to apply for the licensing credential at Worcester State. My house was too "public". We were doing this "secretly"--to see if we, both 55, could even pull it off. Most people, taking the education MTEL tests first time around, take only one or two of the required three exams. Even at that rate, half the people testing fail and have to re-take the tests.

We didn't know this until after the fact.

We both took three tests on the same day. Middle of an ice-storm. People were hurling in the classroom, even as we tried not to inhale the stench of panic and keep our focus on the tests. Somehow, we passed all three tests and were admitted into the credential program at Worcester. (Though even the Dean was leery--demanding that we both take over a basic psych course--mine because I'd taken it in New York,not in MA--and Helayne because she had taken hers out of state, too. It didn't matter that both of us had been working in human services, offering counseling, classes and directing programs for troubled humans for over two decades--in my case--three! Oh no. We had to CLEP our psych 101 class... More savings down the drain. More head-achey studying and running around trying to score textbooks...but we made the appointments and took the test and passed.)

They couldn't stop allowing us to enroll for the license!

In all of our classes, we were at least the age of the professors, and always the oldest students. There were raised eyebrows in beginning: why did these two old ladies want to become high school teachers at this late date? Could these two old ladies keep up with the technology? Could they keep up with all the research and writing? Could they make it up three flights and across campus through the snow, the ice, the tornado-induced thunderstorms in summer?

When we pulled firm 4.0s and were (often) told that we could TEACH the class, by the professors; or found ourselves helping others in the class (whether it be a roaring drunk classmate with home life issues or a single Mom newly in from the South and stunned at what was required to teach in MA or in - the- closet gayboys afraid to reveal the homophobia they were encountering as they worked through their professional lives...); becoming pals with the twenty-somethings surrounding us, even the Dean stopped raising her eyebrows.

All through this process, Helayne had a clear conviction that this was "The Right Path". She was a burning light that gave me pep talks every time we made the drive to Worcester. (Only once, when we had left the basement of WSU during a tornado warning which cleared the campus, and suddenly found ourselves trailing the storm--the radio warning us to "get off the roads immediately and seek shelter"--the sky black as shoe polish on one side of the car--my little Subaru--the other side a sickly yellow--in front of us the whirling storm itself--and us just fearful of stopping and being unable to start again--driving right through--the lightning and wind bending trees across the road and over us--Helayne praying to all my Catholic saints and crossing herself in ways I'd never noticed before--she finally admitting she thought we were going to die.
It was the only time she showed any signs of doubt.
When we arrived in Gardner, safe, wet, unstruck by lightning, and still friends, I began to believe.

Of course, during my travels in the West, I had come across people with the same kind of burning conviction in their eyes. Always, when present, those people accomplished what they set out to do--predicting the future--populating it with their dreams. I've learned to respect that look.
Helayne held it as she started on the adventure.

It has proven accurate--at least for her.
(Unmistakably accurate.)
To this "other sense of Belief", I toasted.
"It's coming for you, too, Minnsie...maybe in the fall...I know it," Helayne sipped her red wine. (However, she wasn't smiling.)

Just in the past month her own "weird time" had retreated. During that time, my parallel experience gave her hope ...as hers did me. (Now, this too, was shifting.) Her priorities had to change, even if her loyalties did not. (My heart is sad and upset with my own selfish concern even as my friend succeeds...but I am worried.)

Suddenly, a chubby, red-headed, soul-patched waiter in black is standing by the table. He introduces himself as "Don".

Helayne engages in some serious banter, while I scope the "new" menu.
(Same old same old--which comforts--with the additon of "summer seafood festival"...hmmm...)
"We don't like fish," Helayne innocently tells the man.
He reddens,admits that he writes comedy and that's a good line...

I look up.
"You write comedy?" He has my attention.
 One of our "pals from WSU", James, is also a comedien/teacher.

"Yeah--used to work for some big names--" he continues, bouncing from foot to foot.

"Like who?"

"Oh, maybe you wouldn't recognize them--I was in California--Los Angeles--"

"OMG--that's where Karen just came from! Where in California? I used to live there for a while, too, many years ago!" Helayne is excited.

I am a bit surprised...

"Well, actually, the Valley--North Hollywood--" the waiter grins.

"I lived in downtown L.A; in Hollywood; Laguna ..." I squint at him, trying to see if he is for real.

"How long you out there?" he asks.

"Thirty plus years," I answer, suddenly "homesick".

"Wow--I just got here, too. I was out there for like fifteen years--now I'm living at home--with my parents--" the waiter confesses.

"How old are you?" Helayne asks, innocently.

"I know--I look younger than I am--guess!"

"You are in your thirties."

"Actually, I'm forty-five. It's weird being back here, but when the whole California economy crashed in '07, well, my jobs got smaller and smaller and I couldn't find work anywhere...went through all my savings...had to move back... not that it's any better here...at least now I'm going back to school--Fitchburg State--"

"You are kidding!" Helayne claps her hands, looking at me. "That's almost what happened to her!"

The waiter blanches. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." I take a swig of my iced-tea.
(Did Helayen set this up?)

I tell him about the non-profit situation; the publishing situation; going through MY savings; my Mom's illness; coming back to a small town where one doesn't exactly "fit" anymore.
(What the Hell; I'll never see this guy again...we aren't using last names...)

"Don" shakes his head in assent.
Don knows about Gardner...

Helayne launches into her story, too--the truncated version. She is elated and excited and wound up.

"I was just lucky I landed this waiting job...it's rough...but hang in there...I'm here Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays...if you ladies are ever around...just drop by..." Don takes our orders.

"Wow..." Helayne finishes her wine."That's the white-boy version of your story!"

"What are the odds..." I just shake my head...(What ARE the odds...)

"It is going to get better, Minns...I know it...I feel it in my gut...Happy Belated Birthday!" Helayne smiles, glancing back at the kitchen doors.
(From her lips to God's ears.)
I take a bite of chopped salad.