I like my coffee dark. Hip baristas have tried to school me over the years about the inverse ratio of caffeine level (lighter more, darker less), but I just smile and stick to the dark. In a seasonally affective sense, dark is distressing, though I am realizing this may be a line I have bought from my own mind about the way things are. Rape is less of a concern than it was, a perk of aging I suppose, though the younger woman inside still runs the show, so we never find ourselves between parked cars and bushes on a dark sidewalk. My mother -in-law once asked me why runners run in the street in the dark and I answered, its the rapists.
Dark O'Clock is the best time to rise out of bed, once having completed the screaming argument in your mind with the more sensible half of your being. Early morning hours are less busy on call, for some reason, than late night hours, and the dark makes being up, the only one up, not even the dog is up (!), a clandestine act. Woods in the dark can be navigated by head lamp and dog with a flashing light on collar. If the dark is also foggy, headlamps are less helpful but the effect is like falling into a Sherlock Holmes novel, if he wrote about the dark, misty redwood forest instead of the Baskerville moors.
What scares me most in the dark is the automobiles, and when I ride my bike home from work with lights blooming out of every part of my bodily person, even then the cars act like I am the devil itself. How dare I ride my bike in the bike lane fully lighted in reflective clothing while signaling every turn after a hard day at work when it is dark and they just want to get home while playing that game of "how many points do you get for scaring the shit out of a tired doctor on a bicycle." Or how many points for a runner who is in the middle of the cross walk and fully lit, in the luminary sense people, because in the dark a zooming right hook turn into a crosswalk is fully acceptable maybe because no one can see you, sort of like when a toddler closes their eyes and the world that baffles them so disappears conveniently and truly.
When it is dark it is hard to maintain a fast pace for fear of tripping on some small crack in the sidewalk, some stone in the trail, and it forces you to slow down which is at once frustrating and pleasant. Training headlamp at sidewalk or trail, darkness is somewhat defeated but it will always prevail against the non-nocturnal human eyeball. I wonder if being blind is like running in the dark or if being blind is not so much darkness as much as a whole new way to see the world.
Any dog in the dark looks like the cast of a Stephen King novel. Seen in the distance, they are only eyes, two embers bouncing up and down, and dark calculations of the mind take place, to determine if the unknown factor ahead is a raccoon or a lion or a labrador retriever. The time I surprised a raccoon and it surprised me on Old Arcata Road we both jumped in tandem and that was the one and only time I danced in the dark with a member of genus Procyon.
In the power outages, at least five of my patients fell in the dark. Pacific Gas & Electric thought they were saving people but we forget our vulnerability as creatures of the light, quite at mercy to the unflouresced night trip to the commode or refrigerator, stray shoes or cords on the floor melting into the darkness so they can grab our feet and fling us onto our face, forcing us to kiss the very earth while we fumble for the lifeline which we probably left hanging on the kitchen chair instead of wearing because who wants to wear a lifeline to bed.
And as we approach the shortest day of the year, which always confused me as a child because are not all days 24 hours?, we hunger for the day after that when the bookends of darkness start to slowly inch apart thus leaving more room to add our daytime stories to the collection. My child in prison sits in a dark cell day and night because society has decided prisoners do not deserve windows or vitamin D. Vitamin D requires the sun to make its chemical appearance, like a magic trick of science,it is and the supplement makers of the world are so grateful for the dark so they can charge us all millions of dollars to buy our sunshine vitamin in a plastic bottle which will later clog the ocean and lead us all into the darkness of an inhabitable planet, though first it will choke a sea turtle or dolphin, and at least we have stronger bones and happier affects in the process.
I do not like it when I am running the bay trail in the dark, the one by the highway, and some guy on a bike with an unleashed dog comes slowly toward me and I have three options: keep my cool and put those keys between my 2nd and 3rd finger to jab him if needed, dive into the icy bay, or dive onto highway 101 into the traffic parade of cranky drivers. Thus far, the dark trail riders and their dogs have posed no real threat, so maybe the real problem is the dark recesses of my mind where all the lore about a woman alone at night sits to remind me of my lack of power. Why should the spin of the planet so spin our psyches, why should dark and light be the binary of boogey men and beauty, why should we not rejoice in the stars and the quiet that night brings? It is this or that, them and us, good and bad, dark and light, he and she thinking that makes us all feel we have a grip on reality. Not all light in the electromagnetic spectrum is visible to the human eye, so maybe the darkness is light. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second and the bulk of the light in our universe is invisible to us, so we call it dark.
Like dark coffee, it holds secrets that we cannot fathom, pearls that were our father's eyes, rich and strange, and it is a place where we can plagiarize tales and poetry to the glow of our own souls, scared and thrilled and serene and often asleep where we dream of the next voyage and the voyages of the day before.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Monday, November 4, 2019
Because I Am Alive and Filled with Longing
Western Wisconsin, October 2019
Marathon records have been smashed. Fast shoes, bodies less than 7 stones in weight. Flying through cities at a rate beyond what most achieve on one lap around a track during interval workouts.
Meanwhile, running through the trees, I begin to see the forest. It also smells of fall and the sound of deer dashing through the brush draws my eye for a moment away from monitoring the floor for rocks and roots. Turns out trail runners can trouble wildlife. Nature is good for humans but we are not so good for nature. Though I argue we are animals too, and have found ourselves out of our natural habitat and boxed away, butt cheeks spread on office chairs, having to protect our garbage from neighborhood bears. Telling someone you ran 31 miles in the woods draws concerned stares.
Music conducts through my skull, bypassing my ear drums, thus allowing me to tend to my surroundings. Bone conduction headphones threaten the purity of my soul, or so says the man who stopped me recently on a run on a Wisconsin trail. "Snark, snark!" said he. Then proceeded to sermonize on the righteousness of His Way of Running Trails. "Thanks for the advice, mansplainer" said I, then with middle finger aloft left his pasty midwest ass in my dust.
I did not actually employ the middle finger except in my mind. I did run on this astounding trail in southern Washington, and as I climbed into more remote territory, the little hairs on back of neck rose to remind me of bears not appreciating sudden appearances by interloper nature crashers. So I turned off my headphones and blasted my music outright into the air, serenading bear with The Clash and Lizzo and some Bach as well. I turned my head left and beheld Mount Saint Helens, nearly falling over the cliff so surprised by the perfection of the moment, and with a sound track to boot.
Southern Washington, October 2019
No bears were hurt in this process but when I descended back to humanity I got a sour look from a hiker about my music, from the pocket of my tights "should I stay or should I go", and is not this the multimillion dollar question? Adjusting my music back to the private world of bone conduction, I smiled at her and continued on my way.
First ultra done, grand master champion for women, I now see myself in Chamonix, doing the UMTB, for the bluffs of Wisconsin are surely proof I am destined to be...
Truth is I loved that 50 kilometer trail run, despite the three near launches into the air, toe catching on a rock or root, surely disturbing deer and foxes with my desperate yelp and flailing arms, but no harm done and I loved that 50 kilometer trail run, despite the prolonged bout of diarrhea at mile 20, pulling over Shalane Flanagan style, though as with her running she is an elite bathroom user as well, and her time of 13.86 seconds was a fraction of my time gazing at the blue walled porta-potty which was mercifully sitting there right when I needed it most.
Truth is I loved how after I had to walk and recover from my nausea and gut twisting existential crisis, the amazing volunteers sitting there trailside with a table of snacks pointed out the flat ginger ale and that was exactly what I needed most in life and it gave me my second wind and I came across that finish line and got a special mug for being a champion.
Truth is I came back to Wisconsin to run but what was most precious was the multiple connections I made with friends from childhood who gave me the gift of their presence and did not even roll their eyes once at how I chose to celebrate turning 50, in my home town, with a long run, with old friends, with two separate servings of deep-fried cheese curds, with a drive through the old neighborhood, with family time, with deep gratitude.
Home is back here in California. I brought back a turkey feather I found in the arboretum in Madison. I brought back the views of the Mississippi from atop Grandad's bluff. I brought back the smell of autumn and the multicolored trees which I believe is God's tip of Her hat to gay pride. I brought back the question of what is next.
I think it will be this 50 miler. Because I am alive and filled with longing.
Meanwhile, running through the trees, I begin to see the forest. It also smells of fall and the sound of deer dashing through the brush draws my eye for a moment away from monitoring the floor for rocks and roots. Turns out trail runners can trouble wildlife. Nature is good for humans but we are not so good for nature. Though I argue we are animals too, and have found ourselves out of our natural habitat and boxed away, butt cheeks spread on office chairs, having to protect our garbage from neighborhood bears. Telling someone you ran 31 miles in the woods draws concerned stares.
Music conducts through my skull, bypassing my ear drums, thus allowing me to tend to my surroundings. Bone conduction headphones threaten the purity of my soul, or so says the man who stopped me recently on a run on a Wisconsin trail. "Snark, snark!" said he. Then proceeded to sermonize on the righteousness of His Way of Running Trails. "Thanks for the advice, mansplainer" said I, then with middle finger aloft left his pasty midwest ass in my dust.
I did not actually employ the middle finger except in my mind. I did run on this astounding trail in southern Washington, and as I climbed into more remote territory, the little hairs on back of neck rose to remind me of bears not appreciating sudden appearances by interloper nature crashers. So I turned off my headphones and blasted my music outright into the air, serenading bear with The Clash and Lizzo and some Bach as well. I turned my head left and beheld Mount Saint Helens, nearly falling over the cliff so surprised by the perfection of the moment, and with a sound track to boot.
No bears were hurt in this process but when I descended back to humanity I got a sour look from a hiker about my music, from the pocket of my tights "should I stay or should I go", and is not this the multimillion dollar question? Adjusting my music back to the private world of bone conduction, I smiled at her and continued on my way.
First ultra done, grand master champion for women, I now see myself in Chamonix, doing the UMTB, for the bluffs of Wisconsin are surely proof I am destined to be...
Truth is I loved that 50 kilometer trail run, despite the three near launches into the air, toe catching on a rock or root, surely disturbing deer and foxes with my desperate yelp and flailing arms, but no harm done and I loved that 50 kilometer trail run, despite the prolonged bout of diarrhea at mile 20, pulling over Shalane Flanagan style, though as with her running she is an elite bathroom user as well, and her time of 13.86 seconds was a fraction of my time gazing at the blue walled porta-potty which was mercifully sitting there right when I needed it most.
Truth is I loved how after I had to walk and recover from my nausea and gut twisting existential crisis, the amazing volunteers sitting there trailside with a table of snacks pointed out the flat ginger ale and that was exactly what I needed most in life and it gave me my second wind and I came across that finish line and got a special mug for being a champion.
Truth is I came back to Wisconsin to run but what was most precious was the multiple connections I made with friends from childhood who gave me the gift of their presence and did not even roll their eyes once at how I chose to celebrate turning 50, in my home town, with a long run, with old friends, with two separate servings of deep-fried cheese curds, with a drive through the old neighborhood, with family time, with deep gratitude.
Home is back here in California. I brought back a turkey feather I found in the arboretum in Madison. I brought back the views of the Mississippi from atop Grandad's bluff. I brought back the smell of autumn and the multicolored trees which I believe is God's tip of Her hat to gay pride. I brought back the question of what is next.
I think it will be this 50 miler. Because I am alive and filled with longing.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Obituary of a Trail Runner
She ran a lot. Once an Eastern European cardiologist pulled her aside in the hospital corridor and asked in a low, Slavic tone “what are you running from?” It was on a run that she died when a mountain lion made a stealth attack. She stopped him with a whack to the nose but it was too late.
A big gash in her side bled rivers on the trail, further reddening the redwood fronds.
She was always on call so had her phone tucked in the thigh pocket of her glow-in-the dark Oiselle tights. Laying there alone, she grasped the phone and gasped “hey Siri, call 911”. To which Siri replied she could but didn’t think it worthwhile at this point but would she like to know which local funeral parlors ranked most highly on Yelp?
Her dog wanted to help but being a poodle only knew how to look good and burp in French. He curled up next to his bleeding running companion and laid his heavy head on her side that was still intact.
The guy with the yak walked by, averting his gaze, suspecting a trap. Despite her pleas he went on, leaving only a Patchouli dust cloud, not unlike Pigpen of Peanuts fame.
Her dog normally would’ve wanted to eat the yak but sensed his place was at her side. Her dog never lied about anything and preferred the beach or watching television to food. He would stay there forever, with her in the woods.
She never understood math as well as she would’ve liked. She enjoyed long bike rides but feared having a flat in the middle of nowhere and being too inept to fix it. She often joked around with her patients. She thrived on diagnostic puzzles. She did the New York Times Crossword each and every day.
As she breathed her last, the past flashed in the manner of a View Master from her 1970’s childhood, a frame with each pull of the lever. The time she first said goodbye to her Dad at age 5 in the cardiac care unit. Click. Her mother’s fingernails caressing her scalp. Click. First kiss under the viaduct. Click. Learning the names of the notes on the spinet piano in the church basement. Click. Making love, having children. Click. Pronouncing someone dead for the first time.
Who would pronounce her dead? Would yak guy come around again and shake his dreadlocked head then break his creepy silence to declare her demise to the world at large? She closed her eyes and hoped that would not be the case. She imagined being left to slowly decompose and some sunny afternoon a hiker finding her and dog in skeletal repose.
When she expired, her Apple Music Family Membership persisted. She had two unused credits on Audible.com. Her paycheck would be automatically deposited, with the unworked days paid as “other”, no category on the drop-down list on her Excel time card to precisely explain being bitten to death by a catamount.
She was married to her best friend. Her only regret as the air grew thin being never seeing him again.
She liked to practice piano in the dark pre-dawn hours. Her running preference in order:
1) Mad River Beach
2) The Community Forest
3) The Marsh.
She wanted to run ultramarathons, work less, and spend more time with her children. She never really liked talking on the phone.
Her death was not tragic and her life was complete. In lieu of flowers, show kindness to everyone, even the assholes. Send donations to Planned Parenthood in honor of the NRA. In lieu of a memorial, run on a trail you’ve never set foot on before and notice everything. If you must have a memorial, remember-no harps.
She died doing exactly what she loved. Her final request: don’t shoot the puma, who only wanted a taste of her trail-running bliss.
A big gash in her side bled rivers on the trail, further reddening the redwood fronds.
She was always on call so had her phone tucked in the thigh pocket of her glow-in-the dark Oiselle tights. Laying there alone, she grasped the phone and gasped “hey Siri, call 911”. To which Siri replied she could but didn’t think it worthwhile at this point but would she like to know which local funeral parlors ranked most highly on Yelp?
Her dog wanted to help but being a poodle only knew how to look good and burp in French. He curled up next to his bleeding running companion and laid his heavy head on her side that was still intact.
The guy with the yak walked by, averting his gaze, suspecting a trap. Despite her pleas he went on, leaving only a Patchouli dust cloud, not unlike Pigpen of Peanuts fame.
Her dog normally would’ve wanted to eat the yak but sensed his place was at her side. Her dog never lied about anything and preferred the beach or watching television to food. He would stay there forever, with her in the woods.
She never understood math as well as she would’ve liked. She enjoyed long bike rides but feared having a flat in the middle of nowhere and being too inept to fix it. She often joked around with her patients. She thrived on diagnostic puzzles. She did the New York Times Crossword each and every day.
As she breathed her last, the past flashed in the manner of a View Master from her 1970’s childhood, a frame with each pull of the lever. The time she first said goodbye to her Dad at age 5 in the cardiac care unit. Click. Her mother’s fingernails caressing her scalp. Click. First kiss under the viaduct. Click. Learning the names of the notes on the spinet piano in the church basement. Click. Making love, having children. Click. Pronouncing someone dead for the first time.
Who would pronounce her dead? Would yak guy come around again and shake his dreadlocked head then break his creepy silence to declare her demise to the world at large? She closed her eyes and hoped that would not be the case. She imagined being left to slowly decompose and some sunny afternoon a hiker finding her and dog in skeletal repose.
When she expired, her Apple Music Family Membership persisted. She had two unused credits on Audible.com. Her paycheck would be automatically deposited, with the unworked days paid as “other”, no category on the drop-down list on her Excel time card to precisely explain being bitten to death by a catamount.
She was married to her best friend. Her only regret as the air grew thin being never seeing him again.
She liked to practice piano in the dark pre-dawn hours. Her running preference in order:
1) Mad River Beach
2) The Community Forest
3) The Marsh.
She wanted to run ultramarathons, work less, and spend more time with her children. She never really liked talking on the phone.
Her death was not tragic and her life was complete. In lieu of flowers, show kindness to everyone, even the assholes. Send donations to Planned Parenthood in honor of the NRA. In lieu of a memorial, run on a trail you’ve never set foot on before and notice everything. If you must have a memorial, remember-no harps.
She died doing exactly what she loved. Her final request: don’t shoot the puma, who only wanted a taste of her trail-running bliss.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Oz
I ran at the beach yesterday morning, after waking up to being newly fifty years old, then sending my youngest child off to college. Dog in back seat of beach-mobile fully agreed with beach running plan and added layers of poodle snot to the windows. The fog was so thick when we arrived, we could just barely make out the waves. Well I could just barely make out the waves. Dog was so happy I think he tried to make out with the waves.
We ran north and about a mile in crossed a line in the sand and we were transported from Kansas to Oz. Stage left, a fog bow spanning the grey to the blue and touching the water in each world. Center stage along the shell-strewn road, a clarity that can only be had when one leaves the fog behind.
The sand was that perfect mix of soft and packed, making my Hokas feel like flubber and my dog spring around like a bunny rabbit out of hell. One great blue heron we see there sometimes (I assume it is the same one but we've never actually formally met, so...) gave us side-eye disdain. "That effin' poodle again" he/she said. Not knowing that Dog really just wants to cuddle. Or make heron soup. One of those.
Sir Strava was not invited to this party, nor has he been for awhile. Not that he did anything wrong. Though he is a pretty bossy jerk. We just needed some time apart, some space to sort out our relationship.
I might need that guy again right now. For one thing, I miss my Strava peeps. For another thing, I signed up for a 50 Kilometer trail race in October and I do sometimes wonder if I am REALLY putting in enough miles. Sure 3-4 hours running in the woods SEEMS like plenty. But what if I am actually running 1 mile per hour? Tomorrow is my 5 hour run day, and I am going to sweet talk Strava, the asshole, and ask him if he will go along.
After sending my youngest child off to college yesterday, and before climbing into beach-mobile with my maniac Dog, I sat in my very quiet house. It echoed with kid laughter and teenage snark. Before child left, I received two unsolicited, sincere hugs and my heart liquified into a sloppy mess on the kitchen floor and I keeled over and died happy. I then reincarnated as a fifty year old with an empty nest.
Later, I sat on a piano bench next to a world class pianist and played music in front of people. I mused as we musicked that at age 25 I never would've pictured myself here at age 50, sitting next to Daniela Mineva playing dances by Barber and Piazzolla. Come to think of it, I do not suppose at age 25 I could picture myself as 50, doing anything, anywhere.
Question: why does AARP kick in at age 50?
The other band (I like to think of myself as a "band") that played the concert last night ended up with a sing-along of "This Little Light of Mine". It was weird and goofy and I about cried as this is one of the songs I sang all three of my children at bedtime. No matter what else one does in this life, it always comes back to being tucked in at night or tucking in those you love. Herein lies the foundation on which love is built. Also, chocolate chip cookies, family car trips and all the extra call taken by a certain mother in order to pay for college for certain children.
Dog and I did eventually return to Kansas but I could not shake the Oz off my birth day. It was like I took a trip somewhere brilliant and came back changed. It would have seemed like a dream but there was all this magic sand packed into the tight curls of Dog, a gift of fairy dust from the Good Witch of the West Coast. Fog is temporary but magic beach sand will be found in one's bed for weeks to come.
I also put some of the bright light in my pocket and it is right there for me, illuminating whatever might come next.
We ran north and about a mile in crossed a line in the sand and we were transported from Kansas to Oz. Stage left, a fog bow spanning the grey to the blue and touching the water in each world. Center stage along the shell-strewn road, a clarity that can only be had when one leaves the fog behind.
The sand was that perfect mix of soft and packed, making my Hokas feel like flubber and my dog spring around like a bunny rabbit out of hell. One great blue heron we see there sometimes (I assume it is the same one but we've never actually formally met, so...) gave us side-eye disdain. "That effin' poodle again" he/she said. Not knowing that Dog really just wants to cuddle. Or make heron soup. One of those.
Sir Strava was not invited to this party, nor has he been for awhile. Not that he did anything wrong. Though he is a pretty bossy jerk. We just needed some time apart, some space to sort out our relationship.
I might need that guy again right now. For one thing, I miss my Strava peeps. For another thing, I signed up for a 50 Kilometer trail race in October and I do sometimes wonder if I am REALLY putting in enough miles. Sure 3-4 hours running in the woods SEEMS like plenty. But what if I am actually running 1 mile per hour? Tomorrow is my 5 hour run day, and I am going to sweet talk Strava, the asshole, and ask him if he will go along.
After sending my youngest child off to college yesterday, and before climbing into beach-mobile with my maniac Dog, I sat in my very quiet house. It echoed with kid laughter and teenage snark. Before child left, I received two unsolicited, sincere hugs and my heart liquified into a sloppy mess on the kitchen floor and I keeled over and died happy. I then reincarnated as a fifty year old with an empty nest.
Later, I sat on a piano bench next to a world class pianist and played music in front of people. I mused as we musicked that at age 25 I never would've pictured myself here at age 50, sitting next to Daniela Mineva playing dances by Barber and Piazzolla. Come to think of it, I do not suppose at age 25 I could picture myself as 50, doing anything, anywhere.
Question: why does AARP kick in at age 50?
The other band (I like to think of myself as a "band") that played the concert last night ended up with a sing-along of "This Little Light of Mine". It was weird and goofy and I about cried as this is one of the songs I sang all three of my children at bedtime. No matter what else one does in this life, it always comes back to being tucked in at night or tucking in those you love. Herein lies the foundation on which love is built. Also, chocolate chip cookies, family car trips and all the extra call taken by a certain mother in order to pay for college for certain children.
Dog and I did eventually return to Kansas but I could not shake the Oz off my birth day. It was like I took a trip somewhere brilliant and came back changed. It would have seemed like a dream but there was all this magic sand packed into the tight curls of Dog, a gift of fairy dust from the Good Witch of the West Coast. Fog is temporary but magic beach sand will be found in one's bed for weeks to come.
I also put some of the bright light in my pocket and it is right there for me, illuminating whatever might come next.
Monday, August 12, 2019
Mother Ode
The 17th generation of hummingbirds that nested in the redwood trees outside our sunroom window moved away. More accurately, they were forcibly relocated, by the felling of redwood trees blocking the neighbor's sun. The ache I feel when standing at the window with my coffee in hand is not unlike the ache I feel with every other loss. Though reliable in its lack of mercy, impermanence still baffles me. Each breath we draw from birth on forward teaches us that nothing lasts but not how to cope with that hard piece of fact. The bewildered hummer moms hung around for a day or two, then most likely rebuilt their nest elsewhere. The sugar water altar they prayed at for seventeen years now stands abandoned, like a chapel in a war-ravaged town. When I cleaned up the tree debris, a salamander scuttled away. I planted a rhododendron and went on with my life.
23 years ago this week my mother died. I have been telling her some things in my mind that I should have thought to say before she was ashes scattered, earless and presumably in a Better Place. Gratitude for being there for me, and for letting me spread my wings. Apologies for my lack of interest in her as a fully formed human in her own right. I am now in that position of being less than visible, as all Moms are throughout time and will be. When my nest empties, I wonder if I will disappear altogether.
"If I could do it over" is a recurring phrase that makes that ache, like how I feel when I look out where the hummingbirds always were. I can no more do parenting over than I can reverse the redwood stumps back into towering giants. It is true there is more sun now that those trees are gone. Loss brings a certain clarity, a light trained on imperfections and sins. Loss is like an interrogator who has you tied to a chair, terrified and trying to decide what you can admit to and what you must keep locked inside no matter what blows fall.
When I sit next to people with dementia, they often talk about their mothers as if they were still around, and coming by in a bit to "take them home". This limbic link to the woman who was once dispensable and considered an irritant is neuro-ironic. Even the damaged brain has saved some space for her, in the back closet, behind the dust pan and broom. Its possible I too will receive limbic visits to my Broom Closet Better Place someday from some grown child who just wants to tell me this or that. Or who has forgotten everything else but me and is waiting for me to come pick them up and take them home.
A story about a mother frustrated:
One day our hen seemed sick. She sat so motionless I thought she had died. Then she stirred and moaned and did that world-weary cry that only hens can do. We thought perhaps her egg was bound. We brought her in, fascinating the dogs. We placed her on an oven rack over gently steamed water, a towel wrapped around her. She clucked and looked at us like we were idiot farmers. Smart hen. Then I tried a lubricated finger in the cloaca to turn or dislodge the egg, my dusty obstetric skills asserting themselves. Her cluck became more of a what the f:#%? No egg. Back to the coop. We finally called a wiser hen-keeper who said, why she is just brooding! She wants her egg to become a chick. She does this regularly now, the only one in the brood to be such a broody brooder. Maybe someday I will slide a chick under her, all warm and real and fuzzy feathered.
When my nest empties, perhaps instead of disappearing altogether, I will become solid once again. My brooding might turn to staring at the back of my hand which now looks exactly like my mother's hands which used to freak me out with their veins and age spots. They will try to tell me the story of me, little hands that once climbed trees and were enamored with the piano at the age of three. Bigger hands that practiced piano for hours then decided to hold a scalpel in gross anatomy instead. Hands that felt the swell of my pregnancy. That held the hand of my husband. That rested on the top of the heads of my three children in turn. That extracted splinters expertly. That played catch and held every Harry Potter book, each heavier than the last, for night time reading-out-loud sessions. That flew to my mouth when I heard terrible news. That gripped the dashboard while teaching the mysteries of driving a stick in the parking lot of St Mary's School. That touches the back of my teenager just to have some contact before they roll their eyes and walk away. That write things down and paint a house and palpate joints and abdomens to diagnose. That make me feel I have everything in hand.
A mother in the hand is worth two in the bush.
I do miss my mother's hands.
23 years ago this week my mother died. I have been telling her some things in my mind that I should have thought to say before she was ashes scattered, earless and presumably in a Better Place. Gratitude for being there for me, and for letting me spread my wings. Apologies for my lack of interest in her as a fully formed human in her own right. I am now in that position of being less than visible, as all Moms are throughout time and will be. When my nest empties, I wonder if I will disappear altogether.
"If I could do it over" is a recurring phrase that makes that ache, like how I feel when I look out where the hummingbirds always were. I can no more do parenting over than I can reverse the redwood stumps back into towering giants. It is true there is more sun now that those trees are gone. Loss brings a certain clarity, a light trained on imperfections and sins. Loss is like an interrogator who has you tied to a chair, terrified and trying to decide what you can admit to and what you must keep locked inside no matter what blows fall.
When I sit next to people with dementia, they often talk about their mothers as if they were still around, and coming by in a bit to "take them home". This limbic link to the woman who was once dispensable and considered an irritant is neuro-ironic. Even the damaged brain has saved some space for her, in the back closet, behind the dust pan and broom. Its possible I too will receive limbic visits to my Broom Closet Better Place someday from some grown child who just wants to tell me this or that. Or who has forgotten everything else but me and is waiting for me to come pick them up and take them home.
A story about a mother frustrated:
One day our hen seemed sick. She sat so motionless I thought she had died. Then she stirred and moaned and did that world-weary cry that only hens can do. We thought perhaps her egg was bound. We brought her in, fascinating the dogs. We placed her on an oven rack over gently steamed water, a towel wrapped around her. She clucked and looked at us like we were idiot farmers. Smart hen. Then I tried a lubricated finger in the cloaca to turn or dislodge the egg, my dusty obstetric skills asserting themselves. Her cluck became more of a what the f:#%? No egg. Back to the coop. We finally called a wiser hen-keeper who said, why she is just brooding! She wants her egg to become a chick. She does this regularly now, the only one in the brood to be such a broody brooder. Maybe someday I will slide a chick under her, all warm and real and fuzzy feathered.
When my nest empties, perhaps instead of disappearing altogether, I will become solid once again. My brooding might turn to staring at the back of my hand which now looks exactly like my mother's hands which used to freak me out with their veins and age spots. They will try to tell me the story of me, little hands that once climbed trees and were enamored with the piano at the age of three. Bigger hands that practiced piano for hours then decided to hold a scalpel in gross anatomy instead. Hands that felt the swell of my pregnancy. That held the hand of my husband. That rested on the top of the heads of my three children in turn. That extracted splinters expertly. That played catch and held every Harry Potter book, each heavier than the last, for night time reading-out-loud sessions. That flew to my mouth when I heard terrible news. That gripped the dashboard while teaching the mysteries of driving a stick in the parking lot of St Mary's School. That touches the back of my teenager just to have some contact before they roll their eyes and walk away. That write things down and paint a house and palpate joints and abdomens to diagnose. That make me feel I have everything in hand.
A mother in the hand is worth two in the bush.
I do miss my mother's hands.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Summer Communion
I was thinking of being six years old and a member of a two person club, the California Condors. The name was everything we needed, based on a semi-mythical and nearly extinct bird with a wingspan longer by three feet than that of the best NBA players. And California conjured exotic landscapes, far from the rolling hills of Western Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota, rising up and watching over each side of the Mississippi River.
I swam in the Mississippi and would dare myself to open eyes under water, though mostly finding a silty darkness looking back at me. Once, briefly, I shared my inner tube on a tributary, the Black River, with a long water snake. I caught it on my shin, legs bent over the tube, butt hanging in the holy center, and kicked it in the air, watching it arc and splash down river while I screamed and it did whatever the equivalent snake sound of horror might be.
Hot summer evenings, at dusk, in those, the days of laCrosse Encephalitis, brought the mosquito spraying truck through our neighborhood, first spraying one side of the street, then the other. It made a particular deep, sonorous hum that attracted groups of children, not unlike an ice cream truck with its creepy tunes. We would chase it and feel the poison mist falling gently on our faces and scrawny, bare arms and legs. Probably our parents were never aware of this pastime. My mother, who was up every day at 5 o'clock AM to braid my hair, make breakfast, make lunches, then work all day and come home to make dinner and clean the house was likely at this point in the evening curled into a corner of the couch watching Hawaii Five-0, as well she should have been.
My tree house had a ladder and a trap door. Inside was a musty carpet and homemade curtains on each of the four square windows. Daddy Long-Legs considered it their vacation home of choice. One of the neighbor boys used to catch Daddy Long-Legs and chase me and my friends then pull their legs out. I suspect large, angry Daddy Long-Legs will be a prominent part of the Karmic payback for many a neighborhood boy, come judgement day.
My father would stand outside on summer days after work, shaking his fist and swearing in German at the deer eating his tomato plants and flowers. They would stare back at him like a pack of teenagers, unconcernedly chewing. My job was to lug the watering can up and down our steep hill to water the plants. I also mowed the lawn and at least once during every four hour mowing session, the mower would take off on some hillside and threaten to slice off a body part and I would run in the other direction until I was sure I could turn back and catch the thing on my own terms and keeping all of my toes. I hated accidentally running over toads, and was constantly stopping to move those guys out of the way.
On hot summer days growing up, I ran all the time. Walking was inefficient and a waste of my little muscled, mosquito-bitten stick legs. I ran to kick the can. I ran for Allie-Allie-in-come-free. I ran through the sprinkler. I ran and dove upon the three Slip-n-Slides laid in an epic, yellow Slip-n-Slide row, inevitably drawing blood on the jagged sharp edges where the water sprayed out.
My Mom played catch with me, her arm informed by her days as the only girl playing for New York City's Little League. She played shortstop. I played softball, and was the pitcher. My mother once convinced me to eat a plate of disgusting canned spinach because it would do for my arms what it did for Popeye's.
Not to brag but we rode our bikes all day long and without helmets. We skated and skate-boarded without pads. We had exactly two choices on a hot summer day:
1) Go outside and play
2) Or I will find something* for you to do
*involving miserable house cleaning chores
* we did NOT have play-dates**
**I wonder... were play-dates the beginning of the end of Homo sapiens ability to survive in the wild?
I was thinking about my friend and I being California Condors. Soon after, she moved to Idaho and the day she left I watched her climb up into her family's truck and I cried.
I do not recall the California Condors having any specific mission. We just flew free, in Zips sneakers, for hours, by ourselves outside. Likely we were watched more than we realized by our parents and neighbors, but it felt like we were soaring independently, with endless wing spans, coming in for a landing only when we felt the animal urge for Red Kool-Aid and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. My Mom even had one of those glass pitchers, as in the advertisements, with large ice cubes clinking as she poured the summer's wine, like communion, into our dixie-cup chalices.
I swam in the Mississippi and would dare myself to open eyes under water, though mostly finding a silty darkness looking back at me. Once, briefly, I shared my inner tube on a tributary, the Black River, with a long water snake. I caught it on my shin, legs bent over the tube, butt hanging in the holy center, and kicked it in the air, watching it arc and splash down river while I screamed and it did whatever the equivalent snake sound of horror might be.
Hot summer evenings, at dusk, in those, the days of laCrosse Encephalitis, brought the mosquito spraying truck through our neighborhood, first spraying one side of the street, then the other. It made a particular deep, sonorous hum that attracted groups of children, not unlike an ice cream truck with its creepy tunes. We would chase it and feel the poison mist falling gently on our faces and scrawny, bare arms and legs. Probably our parents were never aware of this pastime. My mother, who was up every day at 5 o'clock AM to braid my hair, make breakfast, make lunches, then work all day and come home to make dinner and clean the house was likely at this point in the evening curled into a corner of the couch watching Hawaii Five-0, as well she should have been.
My tree house had a ladder and a trap door. Inside was a musty carpet and homemade curtains on each of the four square windows. Daddy Long-Legs considered it their vacation home of choice. One of the neighbor boys used to catch Daddy Long-Legs and chase me and my friends then pull their legs out. I suspect large, angry Daddy Long-Legs will be a prominent part of the Karmic payback for many a neighborhood boy, come judgement day.
My father would stand outside on summer days after work, shaking his fist and swearing in German at the deer eating his tomato plants and flowers. They would stare back at him like a pack of teenagers, unconcernedly chewing. My job was to lug the watering can up and down our steep hill to water the plants. I also mowed the lawn and at least once during every four hour mowing session, the mower would take off on some hillside and threaten to slice off a body part and I would run in the other direction until I was sure I could turn back and catch the thing on my own terms and keeping all of my toes. I hated accidentally running over toads, and was constantly stopping to move those guys out of the way.
On hot summer days growing up, I ran all the time. Walking was inefficient and a waste of my little muscled, mosquito-bitten stick legs. I ran to kick the can. I ran for Allie-Allie-in-come-free. I ran through the sprinkler. I ran and dove upon the three Slip-n-Slides laid in an epic, yellow Slip-n-Slide row, inevitably drawing blood on the jagged sharp edges where the water sprayed out.
My Mom played catch with me, her arm informed by her days as the only girl playing for New York City's Little League. She played shortstop. I played softball, and was the pitcher. My mother once convinced me to eat a plate of disgusting canned spinach because it would do for my arms what it did for Popeye's.
Not to brag but we rode our bikes all day long and without helmets. We skated and skate-boarded without pads. We had exactly two choices on a hot summer day:
1) Go outside and play
2) Or I will find something* for you to do
*involving miserable house cleaning chores
* we did NOT have play-dates**
**I wonder... were play-dates the beginning of the end of Homo sapiens ability to survive in the wild?
I was thinking about my friend and I being California Condors. Soon after, she moved to Idaho and the day she left I watched her climb up into her family's truck and I cried.
I do not recall the California Condors having any specific mission. We just flew free, in Zips sneakers, for hours, by ourselves outside. Likely we were watched more than we realized by our parents and neighbors, but it felt like we were soaring independently, with endless wing spans, coming in for a landing only when we felt the animal urge for Red Kool-Aid and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. My Mom even had one of those glass pitchers, as in the advertisements, with large ice cubes clinking as she poured the summer's wine, like communion, into our dixie-cup chalices.
Saturday, July 6, 2019
This One is About Running
Crush despair
Impulse by impulse
Launched, landed, launched
Redwoods fronds like the high dive
Some kid behind you yelling hurry up
Brooks slapping path, bouncing, committing
Six times up the hill they call the beast or is it
The bitch. Pit bulls on leashes strain to nose sweaty
Practically fifty year old runner and the phone rings, the work phone,
Pulling up to a burnt out 300 year old stump, tending suffering, catching breath
With calm words in the redwood cathedral, itself a healer of brokenness.
Confessed sins scamper under ferns and swaths of three leaf clovers
Attaching like ticks to the next ankle or dog passing through.
No matter created or destroyed just redeployed
Under canopies, salamander playgrounds,
Neon slugs consume shit,
Dopamine rush, I care.
Crush despair
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Power
I would like to consider power, which I can do only from my own perspective, which is both steeped in power and roasted in powerlessness, giving off the aroma of fragility with an after-burn of ferocity.
I would like to consider the potential power of unpopular opinions, the power trapped inside the magazine gorgeous body of my eighteen year old daughter who is unafraid to speak her mind. The power she showed looking her school administrator straight in the eyes and declaring she did not need him to tell her she is intelligent. Nor does his opinion much matter.
I would like to consider the power of being in power. I have watched hospital administrators crush the souls of physicians and nurses. I have watched my childrens' school allow racism and bullying to run freely while pretending to be representative of our self-proclaimed liberal town. I am watching and not doing a thing about children being imprisoned by my government, kidnapped from their parents, and placed in facilities not fit for any living thing. The power of those in power is they make the rest of us feel paralyzed with uncertainty. How can it be true that homeless people are disparaged by a Catholic hospital? How can it be true that a school protects itself on the back of a child who just happens not to be white and who happens not be able to remain silent? How can it be true that the country that once elected Obama is letting babies die in captivity? It is all so unfathomable, I feel like I spend half my life just trying to pick my jaw up from off the ground.
It can be hard to consider power when you come from feeling less than. Not pretty enough, not talented enough, not a good enough mother, not a competitive enough medical student, not a well-dressed enough physician, not fast enough, not thin enough, too thin. Staring in the mirror at boobs too small, unless wearing a cross country uniform, in which case I should have no boobs at all.
Power without wealth is rare. A favorite quote of administrators, and one I have even spouted once or twice myself is "no mission without money". Healthcare without resources is only cool if you are in the wilderness, on purpose, and remember the tricks you learned at your wilderness medicine conferences. In my rural area, where poverty reigns, we are lucky to have specialists and some technology. But don't ask for a hysterectomy at our hospital, nor a tubal ligation, nor anything that might have to do with transgender healthcare. Jesus was very clear about these things, in his sermon on the Mount of Majesty, where declared blessed were those who did not act weird, smell funny, request birth control, or kiss people of the same anatomical sex.
I was thinking the other day that one of the most dangerous types of people is a wealthy, white liberal. I am white and liberal and compared to most people on this planet my wealth is grand. I know what is right, but spend my free time going on trail runs and reading fiction and playing piano. Meanwhile, a young black college student was murdered in my town and no one ever figured out who did it or why, my daughter was treated like shit at her high school and no one ever apologized, and little children are sitting in their own excrement in cement cages on our border to make a political point. I am mad as hell, and not doing anything about it. Dangerous in my complacency. Dangerous in my desire to just keep my children safe in this scary and unjust world, even if other people's children are having a hard time.
Having a son in prison reframes things, with the perfect family portrait tinged with a backdrop of the noir, the family theme song slightly ominous, and the proverbial neighbors looking knowingly at our particular failure to thrive. I used to dread lunches in the doctor's lounge, with everyone's children winning the state science fair. I often quipped about being glad my son was not in jail. Definitely a conversation stopper. Let me eat my gorram peanut butter and jelly sandwich in peace. Course he did end up in jail, then prison, and let's consider the power dynamics he faces every day. Young, baby-faced, not terribly tall, a goof ball, and irritatingly smart. A target for those who find power in physical prowess. The guards steal things from the letters I send him (like stamps and envelopes so he can write back). If he does well at work (which he has been), the guys there longer and much older give him grief. If he has one impulsive reaction to someone making him feel small and insignificant, it could lead to more time in prison, and the endless cycle of taking young men with addiction and short fuses and making them even more angry and scared and so powerless that they finally just give up. Blessed be the Prison Industrial Complex.
I would like to consider the power of women. At a recent writing and running retreat, led by and attended by women, there was so much power in the room that it felt like I could breathe for the first time in a long while. Because the power was not toxic. It was steady and fierce. Like one of those redwoods that it would take ten people to wrap their arms around. Like the way the ocean rolls in and in and in with a roar of serenity. The food was also good and I don't think we talk enough about the power of good food, good water, and a decent bed to sleep in at night.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has that kind of power. Nourishing and honest. Can you see how she makes the very house of representatives quake in its boots and powdered wigs? Can you bear her truth telling? Can you believe she started her campaign with $2 and a job as a waitress? The scariest thing to those in inherited and bought power is a pissed off, highly educated, brown-skinned waitress from the Bronx.
AOC reminds me of my daughter, the one who has been standing up for her rights despite the perturbed discomfort of angry administrators and challenged teachers. I worry and worry that they will try to hurt her further. Let's consider the misuse of power and its penchant for destruction. Abuse of power will, in the not too distant future, be the end of homo sapiens. Unless...
...power is considered less important than courage. And compassion. And speaking up for those that may not be able to on that given day, and when they are able to, stepping aside so they can speak for themselves.
A bunch of small, insignificant people could theoretically decide as a group that they have had enough and it could change everything. And can we please elect a woman to the presidency of the United States of America?
It is time someone magically awakens the inner vampire slayer so many seemingly timid beings possess. Blessed are the slayers, for they will inherit the earth.
I would like to consider the potential power of unpopular opinions, the power trapped inside the magazine gorgeous body of my eighteen year old daughter who is unafraid to speak her mind. The power she showed looking her school administrator straight in the eyes and declaring she did not need him to tell her she is intelligent. Nor does his opinion much matter.
I would like to consider the power of being in power. I have watched hospital administrators crush the souls of physicians and nurses. I have watched my childrens' school allow racism and bullying to run freely while pretending to be representative of our self-proclaimed liberal town. I am watching and not doing a thing about children being imprisoned by my government, kidnapped from their parents, and placed in facilities not fit for any living thing. The power of those in power is they make the rest of us feel paralyzed with uncertainty. How can it be true that homeless people are disparaged by a Catholic hospital? How can it be true that a school protects itself on the back of a child who just happens not to be white and who happens not be able to remain silent? How can it be true that the country that once elected Obama is letting babies die in captivity? It is all so unfathomable, I feel like I spend half my life just trying to pick my jaw up from off the ground.
It can be hard to consider power when you come from feeling less than. Not pretty enough, not talented enough, not a good enough mother, not a competitive enough medical student, not a well-dressed enough physician, not fast enough, not thin enough, too thin. Staring in the mirror at boobs too small, unless wearing a cross country uniform, in which case I should have no boobs at all.
Power without wealth is rare. A favorite quote of administrators, and one I have even spouted once or twice myself is "no mission without money". Healthcare without resources is only cool if you are in the wilderness, on purpose, and remember the tricks you learned at your wilderness medicine conferences. In my rural area, where poverty reigns, we are lucky to have specialists and some technology. But don't ask for a hysterectomy at our hospital, nor a tubal ligation, nor anything that might have to do with transgender healthcare. Jesus was very clear about these things, in his sermon on the Mount of Majesty, where declared blessed were those who did not act weird, smell funny, request birth control, or kiss people of the same anatomical sex.
I was thinking the other day that one of the most dangerous types of people is a wealthy, white liberal. I am white and liberal and compared to most people on this planet my wealth is grand. I know what is right, but spend my free time going on trail runs and reading fiction and playing piano. Meanwhile, a young black college student was murdered in my town and no one ever figured out who did it or why, my daughter was treated like shit at her high school and no one ever apologized, and little children are sitting in their own excrement in cement cages on our border to make a political point. I am mad as hell, and not doing anything about it. Dangerous in my complacency. Dangerous in my desire to just keep my children safe in this scary and unjust world, even if other people's children are having a hard time.
Having a son in prison reframes things, with the perfect family portrait tinged with a backdrop of the noir, the family theme song slightly ominous, and the proverbial neighbors looking knowingly at our particular failure to thrive. I used to dread lunches in the doctor's lounge, with everyone's children winning the state science fair. I often quipped about being glad my son was not in jail. Definitely a conversation stopper. Let me eat my gorram peanut butter and jelly sandwich in peace. Course he did end up in jail, then prison, and let's consider the power dynamics he faces every day. Young, baby-faced, not terribly tall, a goof ball, and irritatingly smart. A target for those who find power in physical prowess. The guards steal things from the letters I send him (like stamps and envelopes so he can write back). If he does well at work (which he has been), the guys there longer and much older give him grief. If he has one impulsive reaction to someone making him feel small and insignificant, it could lead to more time in prison, and the endless cycle of taking young men with addiction and short fuses and making them even more angry and scared and so powerless that they finally just give up. Blessed be the Prison Industrial Complex.
I would like to consider the power of women. At a recent writing and running retreat, led by and attended by women, there was so much power in the room that it felt like I could breathe for the first time in a long while. Because the power was not toxic. It was steady and fierce. Like one of those redwoods that it would take ten people to wrap their arms around. Like the way the ocean rolls in and in and in with a roar of serenity. The food was also good and I don't think we talk enough about the power of good food, good water, and a decent bed to sleep in at night.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has that kind of power. Nourishing and honest. Can you see how she makes the very house of representatives quake in its boots and powdered wigs? Can you bear her truth telling? Can you believe she started her campaign with $2 and a job as a waitress? The scariest thing to those in inherited and bought power is a pissed off, highly educated, brown-skinned waitress from the Bronx.
AOC reminds me of my daughter, the one who has been standing up for her rights despite the perturbed discomfort of angry administrators and challenged teachers. I worry and worry that they will try to hurt her further. Let's consider the misuse of power and its penchant for destruction. Abuse of power will, in the not too distant future, be the end of homo sapiens. Unless...
...power is considered less important than courage. And compassion. And speaking up for those that may not be able to on that given day, and when they are able to, stepping aside so they can speak for themselves.
A bunch of small, insignificant people could theoretically decide as a group that they have had enough and it could change everything. And can we please elect a woman to the presidency of the United States of America?
It is time someone magically awakens the inner vampire slayer so many seemingly timid beings possess. Blessed are the slayers, for they will inherit the earth.
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Questions Pertaining to Freedom Molecules
Are we still calling French Fries "Freedom Fries?"
Is everyone comfortable with a President that lies?
Is a black man composed of molecules of freedom?
Does a homonuclear molecule, like ozone, fear?
Does God hate that part of the stratosphere?
Are only heteronuclear molecules allowed the status of freedom?
If a child is told she is a monster is it true?
Should we cage her in the name of red, white and blue?
Does an immigrant fleeing deserve their freedom?
In my liberal town should I expect more?
Should my Chinese child quietly absorb every racial slur?
Does the spit spraying from a bully's mouth count as molecules of freedom?
Can a uterus be an optional childcare zone?
Are clothes hangers of wire sold on Amazon?
Do spermatazoa have all the power and freedom?
When I write and fight do I scare you away?
Does anyone face off chest to chest these days?
Or are automatically rifled bullets and social media how we celebrate freedom?
When I care for the vulnerable does it make me a pussy?
Does hate for the other make Jesus weepy?
Philosophically, can you define freedom?
In fifty years will earth be dead and what will happen to all those hats of red?
Is greatness white?
Is freedom free?
Molecules unite!
Go not softly.
Can you taste the freedom of delight?
Is it bittersweet with hints of a floral citrus bouquet, like compassion?
Is everyone comfortable with a President that lies?
Is a black man composed of molecules of freedom?
Does a homonuclear molecule, like ozone, fear?
Does God hate that part of the stratosphere?
Are only heteronuclear molecules allowed the status of freedom?
If a child is told she is a monster is it true?
Should we cage her in the name of red, white and blue?
Does an immigrant fleeing deserve their freedom?
In my liberal town should I expect more?
Should my Chinese child quietly absorb every racial slur?
Does the spit spraying from a bully's mouth count as molecules of freedom?
Can a uterus be an optional childcare zone?
Are clothes hangers of wire sold on Amazon?
Do spermatazoa have all the power and freedom?
When I write and fight do I scare you away?
Does anyone face off chest to chest these days?
Or are automatically rifled bullets and social media how we celebrate freedom?
When I care for the vulnerable does it make me a pussy?
Does hate for the other make Jesus weepy?
Philosophically, can you define freedom?
In fifty years will earth be dead and what will happen to all those hats of red?
Is greatness white?
Is freedom free?
Molecules unite!
Go not softly.
Can you taste the freedom of delight?
Is it bittersweet with hints of a floral citrus bouquet, like compassion?
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Mother's Day, Shmother's Day
When I was pregnant, I was in the weekly class for pregnant people the hospital put on. I was large, my legs were swollen and I was exhausted. Also scared. As we were all nearing our due date, the teacher asked how we were feeling. One woman said, through tears, "I just love being pregnant SO much. I am really going to miss this." And I thought to myself, what the hell is wrong with me?
Myth: Being pregnant is the most wonderful thing that could happen to any woman in her life.
When my Mom was in her early 40's, I was in grade school. We lived in a neighborhood that let me walk to school. After school, she would often still be at work as a nurse and teacher. Oh my father was also at work but always till dinnertime and no one actually would've even asked where he was because of course he is at work, as he is the man. So I would come home and let myself in, and go out and play, and when I came back an hour later the house would smell of the dinner my Mom made immediately upon coming home from work. One day I came back from my afternoon of play and the house was empty. I sat and waited for another 30 minutes? 5 minutes? 2 hours? Who knows. Mom and Dad came home, and I yelled at her (not him). I was so mad. Turns out she had been at the doctor being told she had breast cancer. I was still mad, because Moms are supposed to be there exactly when you need them, every single time, no matter what.
Myth: A little cancer shouldn't stop a Mom from being home on time to make dinner.
When I was in residency, my husband dropped me off one morning on the top of Parnassus, where the fog was swirling around the Hospital on the Hill. My son, all of two, was in the back seat. He gazed up at the Mecca of Medicine, pointed and said, "Look! there's Mommy's house." He is in prison now.
Myth: Working mothers hurt their children.
When I was at a show at our kids' elementary school, I was chatting with another Mom. She did not recognize me, though knew my husband, the usual dropper-offer to the classroom. She looked me in the face, and with a very sad tone says "I don't know how you can work the way you do. I could NEVER leave my children like that." In my mind I was thinking "well, I think helicopter mothers who never leave their child's side for one minute are pretty creepy."
Myth: Women should stay at home with their children.
Myth: Women should work and model being strong for their children.
Myth: Women can have it all.
When I was offered a job at a major university medical center, my children cried but we thought it would actually be a good move for the family. When the principal of the school where my troubled son heard, she came up to me and said "I can't believe you would think about moving. Doesn't he have enough troubles already? He is JUST starting to make more friends." We did not move. Later, an occasional remark was made to me about things would've been better if we had. I actually did not make the move because I wanted to stay here and work, but WOW, people really do say the meanest and most thoughtless things.
Myth: Women want you to give them advice on how to be better mothers.
I have never been a big fan of Mother's Day. It is nice, I suppose, that people take the time to acknowledge the mother figures in their life, but let's think about what Mother's Day really tells us:
1. You should be getting cards and gifts from your kids on mother's day. If you are not, what is wrong with you?
2. You should have a relationship with your mother that is as precious as the treacle of a Hallmark greeting card.
3. You haven't had kids yet? What is wrong with you?
4. Your Mom is dead? Oh how sad, now move over while I order another mimosa at brunch.
5. Moms are super heroes. They can raise kids, go to work, clean the house, do the laundry, go to every PTA meeting, bake cookies, and get their kids into elite colleges.
6. It is a sacred thing to be a Mom, and a sacred thing to have one.
All that said, there is nuance in motherhood. Is it beautiful? Oh my gosh, yes, yes yes! Except when it is not. Is it rewarding? If you are looking for a reward, perhaps motherhood is not for you. But the process is rewarding in the same way anything else challenging and real in life is rewarding. For instance, I just spent several months training for a marathon, only to get injured at mile 15 in the race. So though I failed in one way, I still can look at the months of work I put in and the moments of joy I had along the way, and feel like I can go on to the next marathon or maybe a half marathon because marathons are just plain crazy.
I love my children. I wouldn't trade being a Mom. But that's just me and we seriously need to stop making women (and children) feel like Motherhood with a capital M is some kind of magical fantasy of bliss. A mom just has to keep showing up every day, no matter what the universe throws her.
My proposal for Mother's Day:
Screw Hallmark, and see a Mom doing her thing; her hard, every day, non-glamorous thing, and ask her what you can do to help.
Myth: Being pregnant is the most wonderful thing that could happen to any woman in her life.
When my Mom was in her early 40's, I was in grade school. We lived in a neighborhood that let me walk to school. After school, she would often still be at work as a nurse and teacher. Oh my father was also at work but always till dinnertime and no one actually would've even asked where he was because of course he is at work, as he is the man. So I would come home and let myself in, and go out and play, and when I came back an hour later the house would smell of the dinner my Mom made immediately upon coming home from work. One day I came back from my afternoon of play and the house was empty. I sat and waited for another 30 minutes? 5 minutes? 2 hours? Who knows. Mom and Dad came home, and I yelled at her (not him). I was so mad. Turns out she had been at the doctor being told she had breast cancer. I was still mad, because Moms are supposed to be there exactly when you need them, every single time, no matter what.
Myth: A little cancer shouldn't stop a Mom from being home on time to make dinner.
When I was in residency, my husband dropped me off one morning on the top of Parnassus, where the fog was swirling around the Hospital on the Hill. My son, all of two, was in the back seat. He gazed up at the Mecca of Medicine, pointed and said, "Look! there's Mommy's house." He is in prison now.
Myth: Working mothers hurt their children.
When I was at a show at our kids' elementary school, I was chatting with another Mom. She did not recognize me, though knew my husband, the usual dropper-offer to the classroom. She looked me in the face, and with a very sad tone says "I don't know how you can work the way you do. I could NEVER leave my children like that." In my mind I was thinking "well, I think helicopter mothers who never leave their child's side for one minute are pretty creepy."
Myth: Women should stay at home with their children.
Myth: Women should work and model being strong for their children.
Myth: Women can have it all.
When I was offered a job at a major university medical center, my children cried but we thought it would actually be a good move for the family. When the principal of the school where my troubled son heard, she came up to me and said "I can't believe you would think about moving. Doesn't he have enough troubles already? He is JUST starting to make more friends." We did not move. Later, an occasional remark was made to me about things would've been better if we had. I actually did not make the move because I wanted to stay here and work, but WOW, people really do say the meanest and most thoughtless things.
Myth: Women want you to give them advice on how to be better mothers.
I have never been a big fan of Mother's Day. It is nice, I suppose, that people take the time to acknowledge the mother figures in their life, but let's think about what Mother's Day really tells us:
1. You should be getting cards and gifts from your kids on mother's day. If you are not, what is wrong with you?
2. You should have a relationship with your mother that is as precious as the treacle of a Hallmark greeting card.
3. You haven't had kids yet? What is wrong with you?
4. Your Mom is dead? Oh how sad, now move over while I order another mimosa at brunch.
5. Moms are super heroes. They can raise kids, go to work, clean the house, do the laundry, go to every PTA meeting, bake cookies, and get their kids into elite colleges.
6. It is a sacred thing to be a Mom, and a sacred thing to have one.
All that said, there is nuance in motherhood. Is it beautiful? Oh my gosh, yes, yes yes! Except when it is not. Is it rewarding? If you are looking for a reward, perhaps motherhood is not for you. But the process is rewarding in the same way anything else challenging and real in life is rewarding. For instance, I just spent several months training for a marathon, only to get injured at mile 15 in the race. So though I failed in one way, I still can look at the months of work I put in and the moments of joy I had along the way, and feel like I can go on to the next marathon or maybe a half marathon because marathons are just plain crazy.
I love my children. I wouldn't trade being a Mom. But that's just me and we seriously need to stop making women (and children) feel like Motherhood with a capital M is some kind of magical fantasy of bliss. A mom just has to keep showing up every day, no matter what the universe throws her.
My proposal for Mother's Day:
Screw Hallmark, and see a Mom doing her thing; her hard, every day, non-glamorous thing, and ask her what you can do to help.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Confections
-for Vera
When the banana slug on the porch step
just above where I sat
had the audacity to reach down
for my donut, a chocolate-glazed old fashioned
starting to melt a little in the sun,
my life as the mother of Vera flashed before my surprised eyes.
The weight of my baby's head in the palm of my hand.
Her fat fingers grasping sand
in a San Francisco park.
Hair flying, running, smiling
at an inside joke like a Zen Master.
Crafting words,
describing the absurd world,
running faster with egg-beater gait
like Seabiscuit.
Quick wit with pointy
knees and elbows
shoving Dad out of bed on stormy nights.
Big sister
with brown eyes that
remind me to notice
every moment.
The quickening, like insistent kicking,
not gas,
while I sat in my wooden front row medical school seat
looking at histology slides,
the cells of the liver,
where pregnancy met hepatology.
Not knowing then how I'd grieve when she
no longer could be lifted
to rest on my hips while we walked,
skinny, tan arms wrapped around my neck.
Redwoods, runs, books,
slugs in sun attempting donut thievery.
Mundane, underrated, interrelated
miracles of confection and conception.
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
The Eighth Amen
Messiaen wrote this piece called Visions de l'Amen after being released from a prisoner of war camp in 1943. Seven movements, each an Amen. Hearing it played live just last week by Daniela Mineva and Ryan McEvoy McCullough ,I felt displaced from the mundane, emotionally and physically moved beyond the little box I call my life. I got bigger and I contracted. Messiaen was a synesthete. He saw music in color. I see letters in color. Like so much else in my life, I can almost taste the brilliance the world can offer but it is like a small tongue touch of the tip of a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone. A is red, but I cannot hear the color of A in blue (sky, eternity) as did Messiaen.
Prisoner of war camp Stalag VIII-A was probably a cold place. While there, with cold fingers, he wrote Quartet for the End of Time. When released, he wrote Visions and played it with his student and later his wife Yvonne Loriod.
When I heard Visions I was not quite sure what could possibly come next and knew, sitting in my audience seat as the piece neared completion, that I needed a plan of action. Thus I declared that we would have a bowl of ice cream when we got home and it would be "The Eighth Amen".
Eight is my favorite number. It does not perhaps carry the spiritual significance of seven, and three, but if you turn it on its side it is infinity so something mystical therein lies. If an eight was turned on its side it would likely bounce right back up again, much like a Weeble Wobble. By age 8 I knew I would be a concert pianist. By age 18 I knew I would not be a concert pianist. By Age 48 I didn't care and just played piano anyway. 8 is a great age when you have kids. Benjamin has at least 8 years more in prison.
Eight by eight is sixty-four
Someone's knocking at my door
I think it might be Messiaen
More likely him than Benjamin.
To hold my son at home again,
That would be the Eighth Amen.
Speaking of empty nests, my last dragon flies away soon. Six and change years old when I met her, she has added infinite richness to my life, and eight new gray hairs for each day I have known her. Imagine being dropped on planet Arcata from planet Hunan. Our town, though professing to be progressive, can be racist, I have learned. It has lovely trees and mostly very lovely people. It rains a lot and when I look at the ocean I get bigger and I contract. When I run for hours I listen to books and music and the waves and the rain and the rednecks shouting at me and I think about my children and how I used to think it was just about love and a good nest but now I know only each person can find their own happiness and path, no matter how precise a map you draw for them
Home from China at half-past six
Pale new parents just perplex,
Yet their only aim:
Her words like fire saying
"I know exactly who I am"
That would be the Eighth Amen.
When I run for hours I get excited about chocolate milk. At about mile 18, I start to text my husband with a place we might meet when I am done, and can he bring chocolate milk in a glass bottle, the local brand that can then be used later to hold the flowers that one patient always brings me from her garden. These look nice on the window sill in the kitchen, as you stand rinsing your coffee cup in the morning and watching the birds at the feeder. Next to that window is a crayon drawing, framed, done by eldest daughter around age 8. It is a portrait of the mother with a large cup of coffee, larger, in fact, than the mother herself, and she is declaring "I can drink this." I lead by example in all important matters.
April makes her twenty three
Which makes me
Older than I was when I could run
Sub one thirty for a half marathon
If only I could do that once again
That would be the Eighth Amen.
Since I was a twenty six year old new mother I have learned eight things. Seven of them are irrelevant and the eighth is that I know nothing. Speaking to my wise Godparents on a recent visit we discussed, in reference to the Messiaen piece, whether truth and beauty must always be paired in Art with a capital A. It is a worthy question, but the only answer I can honestly give is I don't know what truth or beauty is. I mean I don't know for sure. I have some speculations and opinions. The Messiaen seemed to have both but it wasn't pretty in the way things can be pretty. The trillium are out and certainly pretty. The outfits Beyonce wore at her concert were gorgeous. The smell of my husband's fresh baked bread hitting me upside the head when I walk in after a day at work is divine. The Messiaen Vision de L'Amen was excruciatingly beautiful and maybe even true. He wrote it in the color blue and played it with his wife to be. After leaving Stalag VIII-A.
This year makes it twenty seven
Married-years and today, my significant
other, I proposed again
And you said yes, even knowing
How I act on call. Married my best friend.
Also known as the Eighth Amen.
Spiritually speaking, I feel best when I run in the redwood forest. Spring mist is inhaled by the trees and they stand in attentive disinterest. I am so small and they make me contract further but my heart expands and my standard poodle pants and I dodge mud and slugs and it is better. Better to be in the rain and to have to clean the dog in the bathtub later than to miss it all.
The Eighth Amen only needs to be invoked. The Eighth Amen is a prayer, a song, a declaration. Something blue and eternal. A dragon's breath, a warm place to reflect on everything that just happened or that is happening now or will happen next. True and excruciatingly beautiful. Like an ice cream headache.
Prisoner of war camp Stalag VIII-A was probably a cold place. While there, with cold fingers, he wrote Quartet for the End of Time. When released, he wrote Visions and played it with his student and later his wife Yvonne Loriod.
When I heard Visions I was not quite sure what could possibly come next and knew, sitting in my audience seat as the piece neared completion, that I needed a plan of action. Thus I declared that we would have a bowl of ice cream when we got home and it would be "The Eighth Amen".
Eight is my favorite number. It does not perhaps carry the spiritual significance of seven, and three, but if you turn it on its side it is infinity so something mystical therein lies. If an eight was turned on its side it would likely bounce right back up again, much like a Weeble Wobble. By age 8 I knew I would be a concert pianist. By age 18 I knew I would not be a concert pianist. By Age 48 I didn't care and just played piano anyway. 8 is a great age when you have kids. Benjamin has at least 8 years more in prison.
Eight by eight is sixty-four
Someone's knocking at my door
I think it might be Messiaen
More likely him than Benjamin.
To hold my son at home again,
That would be the Eighth Amen.
Speaking of empty nests, my last dragon flies away soon. Six and change years old when I met her, she has added infinite richness to my life, and eight new gray hairs for each day I have known her. Imagine being dropped on planet Arcata from planet Hunan. Our town, though professing to be progressive, can be racist, I have learned. It has lovely trees and mostly very lovely people. It rains a lot and when I look at the ocean I get bigger and I contract. When I run for hours I listen to books and music and the waves and the rain and the rednecks shouting at me and I think about my children and how I used to think it was just about love and a good nest but now I know only each person can find their own happiness and path, no matter how precise a map you draw for them
Home from China at half-past six
Pale new parents just perplex,
Yet their only aim:
Her words like fire saying
"I know exactly who I am"
That would be the Eighth Amen.
When I run for hours I get excited about chocolate milk. At about mile 18, I start to text my husband with a place we might meet when I am done, and can he bring chocolate milk in a glass bottle, the local brand that can then be used later to hold the flowers that one patient always brings me from her garden. These look nice on the window sill in the kitchen, as you stand rinsing your coffee cup in the morning and watching the birds at the feeder. Next to that window is a crayon drawing, framed, done by eldest daughter around age 8. It is a portrait of the mother with a large cup of coffee, larger, in fact, than the mother herself, and she is declaring "I can drink this." I lead by example in all important matters.
April makes her twenty three
Which makes me
Older than I was when I could run
Sub one thirty for a half marathon
If only I could do that once again
That would be the Eighth Amen.
Since I was a twenty six year old new mother I have learned eight things. Seven of them are irrelevant and the eighth is that I know nothing. Speaking to my wise Godparents on a recent visit we discussed, in reference to the Messiaen piece, whether truth and beauty must always be paired in Art with a capital A. It is a worthy question, but the only answer I can honestly give is I don't know what truth or beauty is. I mean I don't know for sure. I have some speculations and opinions. The Messiaen seemed to have both but it wasn't pretty in the way things can be pretty. The trillium are out and certainly pretty. The outfits Beyonce wore at her concert were gorgeous. The smell of my husband's fresh baked bread hitting me upside the head when I walk in after a day at work is divine. The Messiaen Vision de L'Amen was excruciatingly beautiful and maybe even true. He wrote it in the color blue and played it with his wife to be. After leaving Stalag VIII-A.
This year makes it twenty seven
Married-years and today, my significant
other, I proposed again
And you said yes, even knowing
How I act on call. Married my best friend.
Also known as the Eighth Amen.
Spiritually speaking, I feel best when I run in the redwood forest. Spring mist is inhaled by the trees and they stand in attentive disinterest. I am so small and they make me contract further but my heart expands and my standard poodle pants and I dodge mud and slugs and it is better. Better to be in the rain and to have to clean the dog in the bathtub later than to miss it all.
The Eighth Amen only needs to be invoked. The Eighth Amen is a prayer, a song, a declaration. Something blue and eternal. A dragon's breath, a warm place to reflect on everything that just happened or that is happening now or will happen next. True and excruciatingly beautiful. Like an ice cream headache.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Irish Blessing, Christchurch
Be in heaven a half hour
Before the devil knows you are dead
There your terror has no power
Welcome brother
Path rise up to aching feet
Sun on back
Beckons us to turn our cheek, so we
Welcome brother
God hold you in the palm of His hand
Not like in Christchurch
Or a basement in Birmingham
Welcome brother
Respect from neighbors
Joy surrounds, peace abounds
Semiautomatic rounds
Welcome brother
Healthy children grow your family tree
Innocents
Like Mucad Ibrahim, age three
Welcome brother
Tea by the fire
Roof deflecting rain
A cozy funeral pyre
Welcome brother
Wind blowing at your back
A gentle moving forward
A state of grace, you lack
Welcome brother
Old man at door
Brown eyes smiling
A grandfather! Open-hearted, you were
Welcome brother
Wisdom despises
Lies of "good people on both sides"
So may the Lord's fist close tight around you until your hate explodes into nothingness
Leaving your soul such as it is in agonizing flames for eternity
No brother of mine
3/16/19
Before the devil knows you are dead
There your terror has no power
Welcome brother
Path rise up to aching feet
Sun on back
Beckons us to turn our cheek, so we
Welcome brother
God hold you in the palm of His hand
Not like in Christchurch
Or a basement in Birmingham
Welcome brother
Respect from neighbors
Joy surrounds, peace abounds
Semiautomatic rounds
Welcome brother
Healthy children grow your family tree
Innocents
Like Mucad Ibrahim, age three
Welcome brother
Tea by the fire
Roof deflecting rain
A cozy funeral pyre
Welcome brother
Wind blowing at your back
A gentle moving forward
A state of grace, you lack
Welcome brother
Old man at door
Brown eyes smiling
A grandfather! Open-hearted, you were
Welcome brother
Wisdom despises
Lies of "good people on both sides"
So may the Lord's fist close tight around you until your hate explodes into nothingness
Leaving your soul such as it is in agonizing flames for eternity
No brother of mine
3/16/19
Saturday, January 26, 2019
When An Elder Dies
I took this the day he died. (Jan 2019)
My Uncle died recently, aged 89, a retired Lutheran minister.
His Dad, five brothers and brother-in-law (his sister's husband) were all ministers as well.
My Dad and uncle were very close. I remember listening to their late Saturday night phone calls as a kid. Late, because the long distance rates were cheaper. Saturday because they were polishing up their sermons for Sunday.
They both preached about and more importantly lived their lives in support of peace and social justice. I recall being so confused when I realized how much of the vocal Christian world spews hate. This was not the tradition of Christ I saw, which involved helping other people, all people, no matter who they are. I suppose my first lesson was round age 8 when I picked up the phone at home and some angry man delivered a death threat aimed at my "daddy". Not cool.
I was very close with my Dad, but he died when I was in my 20's, about 6 years after a heart transplant. My uncle came and stayed with Dad for the 3 months he had to stay at the transplant house after the surgery, as my Mom had to go back to work. My uncle and aunt were also there with us at my Dad's bedside when he took his last breath. Both my father and his brother were reverends and I don't mean to be irreverent, but some of my Dad's last words were a fart joke. Which I shall cherish to the end of my days.
Mu uncle became like a second Dad to me, and my aunt a second Mom, and my cousins like siblings. How fortunate I feel to have this bonus family! That puts up with me! I am pretty sure my uncle was teed off at me our last day together, as I was being a bossy doctor type in the hospital. There is actually a picture of us flipping off the camera (sorry--I know this is irreverent), but my son, with whom I shared this picture, and who happens to be in prison, pointed out that while I was flipping off the camera, my uncle was technically flipping off me.
I have a son in prison and I gave the finger with my beloved uncle on my last day with him. Do you guys think I am ready for sainthood yet?
The other thing that happened that day is he almost said he loved me. My uncle (unlike my Dad, who told me pretty much every day of my life that he loved me, usually several times, and I do this to my kids and they find it so annoying, one of them actually threatened to block me on texting) NEVER responded in kind to the phrase "I love you." It just was not in his vocabulary. So after the middle finger incident, I was saying goodbye to him, and I leaned in for a long hug, him in his hospital bed and now both of us crying. I said "I love you" and I'll be damned if he didn't say "me too". Which I shall cherish to the end of my days.
I keep trying to figure out what I have such strong connections to people I love but have not been able to be the world's best parent. Maybe this skips a generation? So my kids will be stellar parents. When they are ready. And out of prison. And stuff. Family is complicated and life is short and biology thinks it is key but I actually don't buy it.
What I learned from my parents, and people like my Aunt and Uncle is this:
Do kindness to others. Fight the good fight. Risk yourself to stand up for justice. Have a sense of humor. Know some good swear words in German. Love like it is your last day on earth, even if the word "love" is a confusing one to you.
When life happens to me, I write about it. So here are two poems. Dedicated to Rex, my Dad, my Aunt, my cousins, my children, and everyone else who might feel inclined to find solace and inanity in the strange beauty of words.
Pantoum on Exchanging Sermons
Brothers exchange sermons
over lemon yellow phone, cord
taut from wall to couch where little brother lies in socks,
cradling the words between shoulder and ear.
Over lemon yellow phone cord
God's Gadflies gather biblical gems,
cradling the words between shoulder and ear,
scrawling ideas in the moonlight.
God's Gadflies gather biblical gems
late Saturday nights.
Scrawling ideas in the moonlight,
while I quietly curl in a chair and spy.
Late Saturday nights,
cost of long distance calls less dear,
while I quietly curl in a chair and spy,
they preach justice, peace, human rights.
Cost of long distance calls less dear,
my pajama arms clutch teddy bear,
they talk justice, peace, human rights,
sometimes in German.
My pajama arms clutch teddy bear.
Only rarely do they swear,
usually in German,
For my sake perhaps.
Only rarely do they swear,
about cancer and war,
for my sake perhaps,
or about that terrible used car purchased on a dark rainy night.
About cancer and war,
so far as I knew,
or about that terrible used car purchased on a dark rainy night,
these men deal in mysteries.
So far as I knew,
they would always be here,
singing "O Canada" in German.
Brothers exchanging sermons.
Old Soul Flying
When an elder dies
Maybe his soul flies
In search of familiar
Smells of waxed wood on pulpit,
Of Mother's bread baking.
Hearing wolves howl
On an icy Canadian road.
Old soul feels sun through the parsonage window
And the heartbeat of a soft baby rabbit
Thudding on hands which brush
Briefly against his sweetheart's when he hands her the gift.
Hands that will brush often over 63 married years,
Wet with grief's and laughter's tears.
Old soul swoons with the top of each
Child, Grandchild, Great-grandchild's head inhaled,
With the hypoxia of mountains scaled.
A piece of old soul resides in India's soil,
And along American highways, convertible top down,
Pulling into a Wisconsin town.
32,485 meals filled old soul
Plus black coffee from favorite waitress
Cup warming hand,
Fueling courage to stand up for peace.
Cracking jokes with youngest niece,
Who feels old soul brush away tears,
A model of life well spent.
When an elder dies,
I hope the coffee is eternally excellent.
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