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Sierra Gold Rose

September 30th, 2014

sunset goldHome smells like a Sutter’s Gold rose in Mom’s backyard.  Even though Mom didn’t water it;  the gold glory crimson, orange, yellow grew over eight-feet tall outside of her kitchen window, loaded with full body brilliant perfumed blossoms in Tiburon during spring and summer.

Mom said the rose thrived on neglect, but maybe it was the Miwok Native American earth where Mom’s house was built that nurtured it.  We found evidence of beads, mortars and pestles in the yard.  Our subdivision house was built post WWII, on Richardson Bay, nestled in a cove at the base of a rock sprinkled mountain with a 360-degree view of seven Bay Area counties.  People planted roses in their yards, but our Sierra Gold was perfectly number one. Continue reading “Sierra Gold Rose” »

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passionate immortality

September 23rd, 2014
ancient Celtic Gospel pages

Book of Kells  pages

I cannot expect my children to transcribe 35 personal journals I’ve written on this earth.  Like a hoarder, I’ve held onto my journals as valuable to others, but understand it is not truly the case.

My friend’s mother passed away years ago, leaving over 1000 journal/scrapbooks organized like  resources for a human Google search engine.  She organized a lifetime of topics, magazine articles cut out, photographs from botany to zoology, shelves filled her entire home, bedrooms, livingroom, diningroom and her garage.

My friend kept only one index of her mother’s, because it was her handwriting, reminding her of mother’s passion.  Many scrapbooks were donated to a small logging camp’s ‘library,’ which may not be accessible to other people who want a look at those books.  I want to see the volumes all together.  I went to look at her collection, and the place was closed indefinitely, no sign of ever being open again. Continue reading “passionate immortality” »

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Consider the words

September 2nd, 2014
We must take care

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” »

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I am familiar with suicide

August 12th, 2014
gorilla

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” »

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Shaking Off Shame

July 22nd, 2014

shame pointing-fingerI 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” »

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Letting go when I want to keep things the same

July 15th, 2014
giving up a friendship is rough

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” »

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Listening is the main thing

July 1st, 2014
listening

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.

Continue reading “Listening is the main thing” »

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Cat Connection

June 17th, 2014

cookie-1I 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” »

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Fathers

June 10th, 2014

father and daughterOur country does not celebrate the real men who do their duty for the world. I want this father’s day to honor the men who do the right things, who love and keep their word. I want the men who are real fathers to know how much their integrity matters in this world. It goes beyond a single day of recognition, but changes people’s lives for the good.

Hallmark holidays have never meant much to me, even when my father was alive.  In fourth grade I gave my father a box of chocolate and he wrote me a thank you card from the sanitarium, where he was trying to detox from alcohol. I made him colorful little mosaic pieces that he had on his desk for years. When I felt like giving, I knew how to give respect to my father. He had a disease that killed him, and he also had a spirit- light that few others have on this planet. I loved him even though he was unpredictable. Continue reading “Fathers” »

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Easing My Sense Of Absence

June 3rd, 2014
my friend

my best friend as a child

My hairdresser recently asked me why I made a website. I told her I started it to promote my first manuscript. The blog thing sort of happened as an offshoot. But the story began when my brain caught fire. I wrote a book to explain what went down as I grew up.

In 1968,  my family suffered loss, with death and alcoholism. I was a lost girl, pretending to be ‘normal’ in the world.  That same year, my best girlfriend attacked her mom with scissors. Her family placed her in a crisis unit, and she never got out. She has been institutionalized her entire life.  No one really understood what happened, but people thought I ought to know, since I was her best friend around the time of her violent outburst.  I felt like I should know why she became a ‘paranoid schizophrenic.’ I didn’t know why illnesses get people like they do.  Continue reading “Easing My Sense Of Absence” »

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