Monthly Archives: April 2014

Thread Bare

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Sunday my car was rear-ended by someone in a hurry to get to church.  And the hurry he was in was enough – about 20 mph worth – to mangle my bumper and misalign my trunk.  Yesterday I bit my fork and chipped a tooth.  My lungs are ever so much better, but the repercussions from the loss of work will linger in whatever surprises come with the insurance bills.

I’m feeling pretty vulnerable.  The ladders between the threads, the way they reveal a part of the structure of my world that I couldn’t see before, have their own beauty, though.  I can’t reweave these deconstructed areas, and expect them to hold together for long.   They offer only one option – a gentle and honest approach.  I don’t know when this experience will fade, or what will be different when it does.  But I think I will be glad to have held this fragile place with tenderness, and let it unfold into enough light to be clearly seen.

 

Many Happy Returns

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Eighty eight years ago, Grace and Lamar spent the first night with their new little girl – Barbara Anne Downtain.  She lived in a caretaker’s house with her 2 brother and 2 sisters, squabbling and playing, and hiding from the adult forces beyond her understanding.  She saw this pitcher on the dining room table, watched her mother fill with flowers countless times.  Sometimes, she was the lucky girl who snuggled under this quilt, recovered enough from a summer cold to sit in the living room with the family, and listen to the opera from New York.  At some point, she made a firm decision that life, for her, required art and flowers.

And she grew up to be my mother.

Happy Birthday, Mom.  I miss you so much.

Window Seat

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I made a deal with the camera.  I said, I have to take pictures today sitting down, because I am sick.
Ok.

The books made a deal with me.  They said, give us those buttons and we’ll sit here in the window for you.
Ok.

Now you make a deal with the picture.  Say, I will grant you three wishes – simply tell me what they are and they will come true.

And then wish for everything to be just like this.
Ok.

Sibling Violets

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I tend to think in terms of “we” – in terms of “one for each.”  And yet in the murk of sibling rivalry, I first size up the bigger half, and decide if I want it.  Oh, yes, there is such a thing – a bigger half.  Split a sandwich between any non-identical twins under the age of 8, and ask them.  It’s always obvious which is the bigger half; and the curse of getting the smaller half is in no way cured by the triumph of the receiving the larger half.

“She got more than me.”  It doesn’t matter who says it.
“Give your sister a bite of your sandwich,”  Mother says, reaching toward your plate to even the score.  Or worse:
“You can have an extra cookie.  Now eat your lunch.”

At this point, feelings may simmer, or explode.  There is no justice in this world, as your permanent, undetachable other self (who is always stealing what you want the most) continues munching what should be YOUR sandwich – or tries to grab YOUR extra cookie for herself.  Or, most cruelly of all, eludes the conflict altogether, shrugging off her tinier portion with an escape artists’ precision, spoiling the taste of all that extra peanut butter and jelly with her indifference.

What Tulips Had in Mind

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Everything here is ordinary.  No special housekeeping pains were taken- the sunlight entered as usual, finding clusters of flowers, and books skidding across the floor in normal distribution.  The floral department at Miller’s Market – a cooler and some buckets – is no special hub of blooming perfection, still it supplies sufficient pinkness for my home.  I am not feeling especially good, so as I observed the tray of flowers from behind my camera, I didn’t expect much creative transcendence.  And yet…

This picture is what I came for, what I intend to say each and every time, the only thing I feel completely certain of.  The beauty I need is in the life I have right now, and it is filling your life, too.  There isn’t anything you can do to stop it, and if you will glance toward that faintly pulsing beacon with patient eyes, and ask with a curious heart what it has show you, you will be amazed at what you find.

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Tulips Second Helping

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Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letter: Crud.  As in, I have the crud, so whatever is lying around the house today will have to suffice for creative material.  Buying tulips when I went to the grocery store last weekend turns out to have been a wise decision.  Even slightly bedraggled flowers make the house a better place to be.  I think I will get up and give them a fresh cut – their waterglasses are looking a little cloudy.

I don’t seem to be that interested in focussing on words, what with my elevated temperature and all.  Tomorrow, you will have to put up with some more pictures of tulips, though.  Forgive me.  They just seem so pretty in the window.

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Bay Light Good Fortune

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People like to say that you make your own luck, but tulips and peonies and the particular cast of sunlight bouncing around between the Pacific Ocean and the stucco walls of Berkeley tell a different story. Such luck can be hatched or seized, but never made. Maybe I spend too much effort trying to keep that distinction in mind, and I lose out on the hopeful side of hunger.

On the other hand, I did follow the directions I found in my fortune cookie: You will attend an unusual party and meet someone important. So when an invitation presented itself to follow a friend to a gathering of Kung Fu meets Mathemeticians, I went – hoping, like any Cinderella, to meet Someone Important.

And I will tell you what was so unusual about that party. Perhaps because I wanted to find out if my Dessert Oracle was accurate, I carefully listened to new jokes and stories, following along until there was a moment when I felt a “connect.” And of course the more I listened, the more obvious it became: Everyone there was important. Even, maybe, me.

Isn’t that lucky?

In the Beginning

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There were only a very few minutes when you were in this world without me –  April 4th, just about 9 a.m., Chicago, Ill. You braved the newness alone – the exhilarating coldness of air meeting lungs, the whiteness of light engulfing vision all at once. But then I caught up to you.  And when I did, I know I felt that I was the one who was no longer alone.  That was fifty years ago, today.

Thanks for waiting for me, honey.  I owe you one.