McKenzie River
I woke up around dawn to the sound of a brilliant yellow bird with a red head banging into our windows. It might be the bird thinks its reflection is really a mate or an enemy.
I wanted to stop the bird from smashing into his own reflection, so I closed the curtains, maybe that would help. He continues out there chirping and focused on his own destruction. Continue reading “stubborn” »
I felt like was Miwok too
My neighbor Tracy and I wanted to commit to each other in blood. We climbed through a tiny passageway that looked enchanted and green under the railroad tracks, perfect for a blood ritual. Continue reading “blood sister” »
I felt like was Miwok too
When my parents weren’t tanked, we had plenty of fun family times. We drove up to the Russian River and canoed around, carried kites and hiked up into Tiburon hills, straight up from our house, crossing rusty barbwire fences through pastures on the way. My father loved hiking, and we made up funny songs while we walked, poems and skits for each other, gut busting laughs. It almost seemed to make up for unpredictable drunk ugly. Continue reading “past changes” »
I hope she climbed onto the rainbow
Aunt Pru was my namesake, my mother’s sister, and she died of lung cancer fifteen years ago this month. I’m remembering her. Our powerful relationship through the years was mostly good, but we had serious confrontations, too. This story is about the mystery unfolding for me at end of her life.
Aunt Pru was a master gardener, and her yard showed her loving efforts with loads of colorful flowers.
The day she left on a rainy Saturday, my seven year-old son, Joey and I drove over to her house that afternoon to say goodbye. I shared a memory about how my cousin and I sang the folk song, “500 hundred miles’ as a duet when we were young, and how Aunt Pru loved to hear us sing it. I wondered whether or not my cousin and I would sing it for her one last time, at her deathbed.
“How many miles to Heaven?” Joey asked me. I still don’t know an answer.
Heading down the hill toward San Rafael, we felt enchanted to witness a massive complete rainbow that extended across the sky, and it seemed to end above my aunt’s house.
She was unconscious when we arrived, and I sort of remember singing with my cousin. I do remember taking my aunt’s hand, saying, “There’s a rainbow over your house right this moment. I want you to get on it.” She passed away later that day, and we still feel her loss.
As I drove to my teaching job the following Monday morning, I was thinking of Aunt Pru, missing her. I also remembered about how much I love lacey old-fashioned white iris and their delicate beauty. I earnestly wished to see some of those beautiful iris on my commute, but didn’t see any, so I thought no more about it.
Five hours later after teaching my last class, I stood at the art room sink, cleaning up after students. One of my students burst into the room, holding an entire blue iris, complete with roots, that he plucked out of someone’s yard on the way to school. He walked over to me and handed it over without any explanation.
In church the following Sunday, my rector gave a sermon. He started it by saying,
“The goddess of the rainbow is the iris.”
Everything lined up for me when he said that. The warm presence of life, the flow of cosmic energy I do not understand. I don’t have to understand.
Truth does pass all understanding.
Hastings cutoff was a tragedy
Every Californian knows the Donner Party’s unsuccessful struggle to get over the winter Sierra mountains of 1846 and 1847. The party believed that taking the Hastings Cutoff would save them three hundred travel miles, but that was not the case. Hastings deceived pioneers. Hastings had never traveled the route, but he made bogus maps that many pioneers tried to follow, and he made money writing his map. It was not a short cut. Cannibalism and horror are the Donner party’s story because they believed Hastings. Continue reading “The ultimate deception” »
West Point made it
We lost power and experienced mandatory evacuation for a week. Now survivors stand around our town feeling stunned that the place wasn’t demolished by the flames.
The Butte fire ferociously erupted three weeks ago, and over 500 Calaveras county homes were burned to the ground not far from West Point. Some of us can’t believe we’re so lucky. Continue reading “surviving Butte fire” »
site of magic
Sometimes the unexpected makes this life worth living. Butte fire evacuation was lifted in our area yesterday, so I returned with three dogs and stuff I think I need. Our house still stands. Continue reading “blessed life” »
me in Mexico
I don’t remember the moment my heart started beating, but I’m paying attention now. My heart continues to beat and I’ll breathe while I tell you what is true. When I started writing, I did not expect to board what feels like a skyrocket. Continue reading “would you want to read this?” »
rocket to Pluto
My husband and I had a conversation this morning, and he told me that he watched a NASA station program discussing the ongoing success of the flyby of Pluto, the 9th dwarf planet we set out to examine nine years ago. It is a voyage to the outskirts of Pluto. We both wondered why this amazing human endeavor receives so little attention in the media. I want to express my appreciation to those who worked so hard. Continue reading “making dreams come true” »
