We must take care
My son Brian went to Children’s Circle Center in Tiburon for daycare as a toddler when I went to work, and the teachers loved to sing. I remember many songs they sang to him as a little guy, because he sang the songs to me many, many times. Clearly those songs made an impact.
“The earth is our mother
We must take care of her
The earth is our mother
We must take care of her” Continue reading “Consider the words” »
Mt.Shasta Lavender labryinth
I found a friend named Patience, and she comes from Texas. I stopped by the Shasta Lavender Farm and Patience was cutting lavender, wearing a purple shirt in early summer. There is a growing lavender industry in the Northwest, and I journeyed in Southern Oregon to see what some of the farms were doing. The Siskiyou mountain region has similar elevation and looks much like ours in the Central Sierras. My husband and I have considered several different business options to make the ranch viable. One of our ideas was to grow lavender as a crop. I introduced myself, and Patience told me her name. Virtue to virtue, Patience and Prudence, I trusted her, and invited Patience to visit our ranch as a consultant, check out our land, to see if lavender would make a good crop for us. She came up this weekend.
I want to build a lavender labyrinth out of lavender bushes, bring purple beauty spirit onto our property. Patience came to our house, and gave us practical information about lavender, explaining much of the business to us. She is also familiar with labyrinths, and added several excellent ideas about what and where we might build one here. As a practical and successful business person, Patience offered ideas for how I can trust my intuition to make something beautiful for my family and for our upcountry community, and my husband is willing to lend a helping hand with my project. Continue reading “Patience came to my house” »
my tubes in snow
My childhood friend’s very short mother stood eye to eye in front of me, a seven-year old, and shook her finger at me, “YOU are so BIG!” I remember thinking, “big was bad.” I wondered why I was not seen for who I was. When I grew to over 5’10” and over two hundred pounds at certain points of my life, men and women have called me ‘a force.’ Something is dreadfully wrong. I scare people who think they know me, but they don’t know my insides.
I do not think of myself as big, or a force. I am strong enough to move a roll top desk by myself, shovel a ditch and spread forty five-gallon buckets of pea gravel into a zen garden. I have always felt like an athlete, not a fast one, but capable of swimming over a mile at a time without struggle. I rely on my strength to feel accomplished. I have felt shame and confusion from being judged because of it.
My pinball approach to life, acting and then feeling weird about what I did, is part of my character. I’m trying to articulate what is going on inside of me. Continue reading “Where does the inside meet the outside?” »
Koko the firecracker
Suicide runs in families, and my family’s first suicide was when my grandfather gassed himself in his office. His two surviving sons were kids, and when they grew up, they both killed themselves, bullet and gas. Robin Williams lived in my town. He was on the same track team as my high school boyfriend. We were in the same high school drama department. Although I didn’t know him as a famous man, I know what depression and a substance problem do to people. He described the issues clearly during many personal interviews. Continue reading “I am familiar with suicide” »
Sergio Lennon contemplates life
My high school friend recently witnessed the birth of her grandson. I can only imagine watching such a miracle, to watch life enter this world. She felt miraculous inspiration, to see an extension of herself, brand new, come through her daughter.
My oldest son turns thirty in a few days, which seems like a landmark age, for him and for me. I was thirty-two when he was born, but it seems like yesterday. I wanted him to live, and when they cut his cord, I said something like, “He’s his own man now.” Corny, but true. My son is his own man now, turning thirty in one week. The twenties are done for him, here comes his next decade. Of course, the same goes for me in the decades I’ve been around, but witnessing other people growing up and old seems more miraculous. Hopefully, we both stack up memories through the development of our lives. Continue reading “Miracles large and small” »
Yipee! My first blueberry picking invitation! Carol and Sandy invited me, and picked me up early in the next morning. We drove up Lily Gap road ten miles to Mills You-Pick Blueberry Farm outside of West Point, California, acres of blueberries, with hundreds of bushes, all types and sizes. Three dollars per pound for you-pick, about half the cost in a store these days. The area is netted over the hundreds of bushes, so birds don’t win the picking game. The sun wasn’t up yet, so it was still cool.
Sandy pulled her car up to a nearby little trailer used for headquarters, and I watched a skunk scurry out from the bushes, and run under the fence into the woods. Mr.Mills came over on his all terrain vehicle to greet us and get us going. One gallon milk jugs cut open at the top hung from a tree, for use as collecting buckets. My friends had brought their own containers, but I only brought plastic bags, so I tried his milk jug method, very easy. Continue reading “Blueberries for Carol, Sandy and Pru” »
I spoke in public to about fifty people the other day. I shared my experience, talked about changes in my life, and how beautiful today feels because I decided to try and openly tell my truth, accept mistakes I have made and what I learned from them. I gave a testimonial impromptu type of speech, standing at a lectern.
I opened my heart to people who listened to me, they did not sleep. I talked about mistakes I made growing up, and what I learned from making those mistakes. When I finished talking, I ended with a message of hope about the healing power of telling the truth. I focused on what other people can learn from my truth. I faced pain from alcohol and survived my father’s mental illness. My past traumatic experiences diminish when I bring them to light and learn to understand what I experienced. I have a sense of personal integrity when I understand what happened to me. I can’t change the past, but I’m no longer fearful of remembering the pain it caused me growing up. I learned something.
Guess what??? As I drove back home after giving the speech, I fell into my old thinking. The old attack: shame rears its ugly head inside my brain to haunt me. Shame on me. I am a bad girl for being alive. I embarrassed myself in front of strangers and they hated me. It feels like an attack, and episode of insanity. Continue reading “Shaking Off Shame” »
letting go of a friendship is rough
I am struggling to kiss off a forty-year friendship I thought would last my lifetime. Its decline doesn’t need to be outlined here, but someone I used to love dumped me and didn’t say why. It happens, but it’s not fun to let go.
I’m tired of self-examining my character, explaining to myself why she cut me off, looking for personality flaws. My problem is not having closure. If I knew what I did wrong and she gave me the courtesy of a goodbye to my face which a true friend would do, I might feel better, so I’m forced to let go without a confrontation. Much as I try to figure things out, only change is real.
I’m thinking of loss as change, which brings me some comfort. People really do change, and clearly, my old friend is not the one I started out with so long ago, and it seems I’m not the one she started out with, either. I don’t understand why she kicked me to the curb, and I’m not going to know. I have to accept her dismissal. My considerations went deep enough to have been delivered to me in last night’s dream.
Continue reading “Letting go when I want to keep things the same” »
listening is a miracle
I returned tonight from an Oregon trip and a visit with my blood-sister, who lives south of Portland and doesn’t get to California. She’s been my friend since 1960, and I wrote about our blood ritual in my memoir. We go so far back, she remembers my relations who used to be on the planet; my mother, father, brother, cats and the dog. I remember her deceased mother, brother, her dog, and her sister who still breathes, but I haven’t seen in over fifty years! Each of us have raised children, but her tragedy is so new.
I drove up to listen. She’s returning from hell. Her adult son recently drowned in a waterfall, and it’s so unspeakable to talk grief over the phone. We needed to look into each other’s eyes. We are not dead, yet. She’s returning from that slow, long, long trip, and all I can do is love her.
I realize that not everyone is into a cat like I am. Some people don’t like them at all. I am not going to convince someone who has no cat connection to make one, either. Throughout my life, my cats have been my companions and have saved my sanity, no joke. I am writing a tribute to my last grey cat.
Right now, my last grey cat sits on my lap and he has been here for over an hour, occasionally waking up to offer a little purr when I move my leg. He’s got the longest claws I’ve ever known a cat to have, and they catch on whatever clothes I’m wearing, which means many of my clothes have claw ravels in them from his sharp spears. It’s not the claws I love about him, but I do love that he has major claws, for his own protection. He’s used them a few times on my skin and that hurts. I stay away from the claws, if possible.
I love the ways most cats I know get named. They usually have nicknames, or layers of names. My cat is no exception. When he was a kitten, his name started off as B.T., standing for bent tail, but we immediately changed that when we took him home. Although his tail still takes a sharp right angle at the tip, it matters naught to us. His basic name has always been Cookie, because he is so sweet looking. But he is not a sweet little guy at all. He is strong like a Rock, which naturally became his middle name. His final characteristic is the lionlike strength of his presence, like “I am HERE.” So we went for the Spanish word, ‘Son,’ plural of Soy, To be, and for us it means, “so they are.” We interpret it this way because he is as Bad Ass as two cats, which he truly is. Therefore, I have a Bad Ass cat named Cookie Rockerson. Continue reading “Cat Connection” »