AN ENCOUNTER WITH OUR NEIGHBOR

          In September 2010, when we moved to Kerrville from California, we rented a little "patio" house in River Hill, from a sharp-as-a-tack octogenarian who owns many Kerrville properties, and even has a road named after him.

          Last month we moved to a larger house with a yard. We miss many of our neighbors – our walks, dinners, John sharing his home-grown tomatoes –but we're glad to have more space and privacy.

          A few months ago, during the primary election, I saw that a sign had been stuck in our next-door neighbor's lawn. I knew Dottie was in Colorado so I decided to call her and ask if she'd given permission for someone to put the sign there. I told my husband, John, what I was doing.

          When I spoke to Dottie she said that her neighbor on the other side of her, Sue, had probably put it there and it was no big deal.

          I went outside and found John talking to Hilton, our neighbor across the street. John had the election sign in his hand.

          "It's okay," I said, "I called Dottie."

          "Did she tell you she doesn't like your dog peeing on her bushes?" Hilton snapped.   

          "No," I said, surprised.

          "And he pees on mine too!" he said.

          John retreated.

          "And Parks (he used the last name of the widower at the end of the street) lets his dogs pee all over my plants, too," he said, showing me his manicured little shrubs.  I couldn't see what he was talking about.

          "I’m sorry," I said. "I'll try to keep Walter off your plants. The only time he might do this is when we're waiting to cross the street and there's traffic coming and he can't wait."

          "And you're not supposed to run a business out of your garage!" he fired. "I don't think they should allow rentals in this neighborhood!"  

          His fury shocked me. He knew when we moved in that John has a home office and that I too work mainly from home. As a hobby, John designs stereo speakers and likes to have the garage door open, weather permitting, because the garage has no windows.  No one ever complained. In fact the elderly widow on the other side of us once told him how much she enjoyed seeing him work with wood, because it reminded her of her departed husband.       

          Plus, I'd had lunch several times with Hilton's wife, and two other neighbors. We'd all attended a party down the street. We exchanged Christmas cards. I'd collected his mail and newspapers when he and his wife were out of town. Once, hearing John hadn't been feeling well, he'd even brought over some delicious leftover soup he'd made.

          Feeling attacked, I countered, "Well, you know what bothers me?" I asked feeling my temper rise.

          "What?" he said.

          "That cowbell," I said, pointing up at a giant wind chime hanging from one of his beautiful trees. "When I want to sit outside and enjoy the afternoon it clangs, clangs, clangs!"

          "My wife put it there," he said sheepishly. "Maybe I can move it around to the back," he suggested.

          "That would be a good compromise," I said, and went home.

          What I didn't tell him was that the floodlight he has over his garage (in spite of there being a street lamp right across the street from him) shined directly in our windows.  I hung heavy curtains in the bedroom and put a Japanese screen inside our front door so the light would not shine in our eyes when we watched TV.

          I called Dottie again and told her I was sorry my dog had peed on her bushes and would try to prevent it in the future.

          "Oh, is he peeing on my bushes?" she asked.

          "That's what Hilton said," I told her. 

          A few days after our encounter, when I went outside one evening, I was startled by a blaring radio.  Hilton had installed a motion detector that lit up and blasted loud radio when it was activated. But I was nowhere near his house.  This contraption stayed up for several weeks until eventually he removed it.

          But he never did move that wind chime.

          Now he's called a meeting with the board of the homeowners' association and our ex-landlord. He intends to accuse our ex-landlord of renting to "bad tenants." John will go to the meeting. 

          The day we moved in to that little house in River Hill, I remember the first thing Hilton told us: that the previous tenants were terrible. "They parked their cars all over the street!" he said.

          How glad we are to get away from this busy-body who, when he leaves his corner house, drives slowly down the cul-du-sac to see what's going on. A retired superintendent, I can imagine him lording over school boards. I just wish he'd find some other way to express his need to bully.  

          By the way, in n addition to trying to get the homeowner's board to not allow our ex-landlord to rent his house, that miserable little man is trying to get speed bumps installed on Riverhill Boulevard, even though there are already stop signs on almost every corner.

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

          Sunday was a great day – church, lunch, poetry, music, food, friends, great discussions, a beautiful sunset, and football on TV. Then why did I feel so lousy Monday?

          The day started out okay. I woke up as always before dawn and luxuriated in bed until light seeped through the blinds.  It was cool enough to wear the long green sweater Jane gave me, when I took the dog out. I greeted the herd of deer that are now getting used to us and enjoyed our twenty-minute walk around the neighborhood.

          But after breakfast something happened. All my energy left me. My brain felt dull as putty. So I drank coffee. But this just gave me a headache. So I took an Aleve. I forced myself to strip the bed and used all my strength to pull the clean lower sheet over the mattress.

          If John didn't work at home I might have crawled back into bed but I could hear him on the phone, then going in and out of the house so I slouched into my office and plopped into my chair. The hours ticked away.

          At four I drank another cup of coffee hoping it would clear my head for a 5:30 meeting at the Nature Center. I grabbed my folder and headed out. With ten minutes to spare I decided to run into CVS for milk. I could leave it in their fridge during our meeting and not have to stop on the way home.

          When I got to the check out I could not find my debit card. I had some change but no cash.  I took everything out of my purse. No card. I moved aside so the checker could help the customer behind me. Not finding my card I apologized and went to my meeting.

          I sat down at the table, took off my sunglasses and reached into my purse. My eyeglass case was gone. Did I leave it at home? 

          I tried to concentrate on what the chairman was saying but my mind kept going back to the missing debit card. Where had I had it last? Oh, it must be in the pocket of my jeans.  I'd checked the bank balance earlier in the day and found no suspicious debits. Yes, it must be at home, with my glasses.

          When I got home I checked my closet. I went through the pockets of the jeans I wore on Saturday when I went to HEB.

          "I bet it's in the car," John said.  This just made me mad.

          "I always put it in the same place. I would not have left it in the car!" I snapped.  I poured a glass of wine.  I drank half in one gulp.

          John went out and started searching the car. I looked on the shelf where I leave my glasses. The case wasn't there. I went into the bedroom, which was dark because I had on my sunglasses.  I turned on all the lights. No glasses.

          Then it dawned on me, I probably left them at CVS when I took everything out of my purse.  I called and yes, my glasses were there. 

          The sun was setting. Too dark to drive in sunglasses, plus I'd just drunk half a glass of wine.  I went outside and found John vacuuming the car with a disapproving look on his face. I wanted to rip the plug out of the socket and silence his favorite monster tool but instead I yelled over it, "My glasses are at CVS!"

          But where was the debit card? Think, Mary Lee. You went to HEB on Saturday to pick up John's prescription and got tangled in the sea of families clogging the aisles. It took forty-five minutes to do what would usually take fifteen.  I remember saying to the checker as I left, "Remind me never to shop on Saturday afternoon again!"  She just smiled and nodded.

          I called HEB.  My debit card was in the lost-and-found.  I went outside to tell John.  He waved from the car and backed out of the driveway.

          I went inside and swallowed the rest of the wine.  I sat on the couch and turned on the TV.  What was pink looked orange and faces looked sunburned.

My mind was clearing. Did this mean I'm an alcoholic?  Or was my body finally finished processing the MSG from my Sunday Chinese lunch?  Or did I contact West Nile Virus from the mosquito bites I recently got when I naively thought I could enjoy early evening on our deck?

          John returned with my glasses and a half-gallon of milk. I thanked him, glad I have someone to come to my aid when my brain or my body fails me.

          

ALL MOVED IN

          Finally we're almost settled in: family portraits and beloved works of art cover the walls, The Joy of Cooking,  which I took from my mother's kitchen when I left home forty-four years ago, is crammed on a shelf with other cookbooks I never read. The dog and cats adjusted immediately, didn't skip a meal or lose any sleep. But I don't feel like I'm home.

          There's a melancholic feeling in this low-ceilinged house. Each room has a single window. In my office the fierce, late-summer sun is amplified by the front yard's white rocks. White light, like a slab of ice, intrudes into one side of the room but does not make it into the dark corner where I sit.

          The weight of what I left behind is heavier than my beaded Indian tapestry which I probably should have hung on the other wall where light would have bounced off its tiny mirrors.  Where it is the deep colors blend into a muddy dullness and nothing sparkles.

          The weight of what I left behind calls for burial, mourning, remembrance. My teaching, which sprang to life eighteen months ago, has trickled out and died. Oh how I loved those Thursday mornings when I packed my satchel with a new lesson and headed out to hear what the students had written that week. Sitting at the front of the class I felt like I was on a ship, sailing into each writer's story, carried along on their memories and emotions.  Afterwards I felt  full of gratitude that an idea I presented created stories and poems that brought tears to our eyes, made us sigh, made us wonder.

          In that tiny office on Rogers Circle I completed my memoir. I relived the first twenty years of my life, revisited photographs, did research on the internet, re-read my calendars, called and questioned friends.  I brought back to life my father, family friends, my first husband, my first true love, my first psychedelic friend.

          In the Rogers Circle house I wrote the monthly profile for the Kerrville Business Magazine.  In the ninety-minute interviews, each person opened up   about their heartaches and triumphs. I remember when the octogenarian jeweler described how the army recruitment office was packed, a line around the block, the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. He and his college friends were told to go home, the army could not process so many men. I had to ask the old man for a Kleenex, I was so moved visualizing the passion of those young men.

          In the time I lived at Rogers Circle I found Unity Church.  During that first meditation tears streamed down my cheeks because I knew I had found my spiritual home.  

          In our two years at that house my recently widowed mother went through a series of "helpers", doctors, psychiatrists. She had hallucinations, gave thousands of dollars away. Eleven months ago she broke her hip, spent a month in rehab, moved into a posh assisted living facility, and suffered a series of strokes, bladder infections, cuts and bruises. She spent a month crying every day until hospice took over and put her on Zoloft.

          At Rogers Circle I knew who I was, a writer and teacher with an elderly mother; new to Texas, every day seemed full of possibility. Now I feel like I don't know who I am. Of course I know I'm a wife and daughter, sister and aunt, mother to my pets, friend to good friends far away. But who am I to myself?

          I squint out the window at the enormous prickly pear, magnificently malevolent in the blazing sun. Proud, invincible, it seems to know who it is.  Here inside I look at cherished objects from my past and wonder what heartache, what happiness, will fill this house and make it become home.

Apropos

My hands hurt from packing. Next Monday movers will take another "small" load to the new house. This week they took eight bookcases and boxed books which I've started to unpack at the new place.

A week from tomorrow will be the "big move." After that we have a week to come back and clean, and take whatever else is left.

Sometimes I wish I was more like my friend Pat who recently sold almost everything she owns before she moves to Florida. Or like my friend Karen whose immaculate, uncluttered house makes me feel calm.

Today, packing my oak filing cabinet I found a folder whose label had fallen off. Inside: "Poems 1990," a neat, three-page, hand-written list and the originals. I got a kick out of the first one which speaks to me almost twenty-three years later.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

The first day of the year

the first day of the new decade

the first time I feel good

since I got back from Reno.

I dream about Liza

who looks like Divyananda

ruddy and spiritual like

a wild northern animal

genuinely heartened

by snow.

Today in Venice, with everything

the color of sand

including a dubious vagrant

in worn-out clothes

everything is ornamental

with the look of something

soon to be thrown away.

I want permanence.

I'd like to stir my tea

with this same spoon

fifty years from now.

I want something that lasts.

And since it isn't you

I'll find it in possessions

small enough to be carried

wherever I go.

I still have that spoon, and possessions too heavy to carry alone. Plus a dog, two cats and a husband. The life I always wanted. I know of course nothing is permanent.  Which makes me love them all the more.

HOUSE HUNTING

          Yesterday I looked at a house for rent. The ad said "4/2, secluded with gorgeous hilltop views." The owner warned me about a steep driveway. He did not tell me the drive was unpaved, full of white rocks and deep ruts, or that it went up and down, then up again, to a hilltop of dry scrub, caliche and a dismal pre-fab house.  True, the view was unobstructed, and looked out over miles and miles of same-size rolling hills. 

          I greeted the owner in the driveway, as a workmen carried a door out through the narrow laundry room entrance. A woman appeared in an orange tank top, her orangey hair pulled back in a messy pony tail.

          "I'm so embarrassed," she said folding her arms tightly across her chest. "I'm not wearing a bra. I have shingles." She indicated a patch of angry skin below her collarbone.

          "I'm so sorry," I said nearly gagging on the smell of stale cigarettes.

          "The previous tenants left their dog in the pool," the man said. "My ten-year-old daughter cleaned it out."  I saw what he was talking about: an above ground cement pool with a deck on one end, set back from the house with no yard in between, just rocks.  "They trashed the latticework, too."  Shreds of thin wood strips dangled in the air.

          "That's a shame," I replied.  I took a tour: little dark rooms that appeared unfinished.  Purple paint on one of the small bedroom's walls looked like tempera, with no sheen at all.

          "You can paint over this if you want," the woman said gesturing toward a pink and yellow peace sign and several 1960 style flowers stenciled into the wall.  I nodded.

          I followed her husband up steep brown-painted wooden stairs with no balustrade. "I took it out," he said, "I didn't like the way it looked.  I held on to a sticky, wooden, wall-mounted rail. 

          The upstairs rooms were cramped with muddy looking carpets and unfinished wood-plank balconies, too narrow to hold even one chair. Screens on the doors were loose in their flimsy frames.  The "Master" bath had fixtures from the seventies, a sad little sink and dirty shower.

          I reluctantly held on to the grubby railing as I walked back down into the dark kitchen. I said having no garage would be a problem because my husband needs a place for his workshop.  I bid the couple goodbye and bumped down the driveway. When I got to a place where I could pullover, I called John and told him simply, "P.O.S."

          Today I ventured out again to look at another house, $175 a month more than yesterday's. I met the owner in the back yard where he and two workmen are installing a privacy fence.  He's a cute guy, mid forties, in shape, with clear blue eyes; but my own eyes went directly to a magnificent tree.

          "Is this a sycamore?" I asked, for the multi-pointed leaves reminded me of my favorite tree.  The owner didn't know. He yelled to one of the workmen who said it's a cotton-less cottonwood.  I then noted that the rough bark was uniformly grey, not smooth and mottled like a sycamore. I stroked it anyway.

          "I miss trees," I explained. "Where we're living now, in Riverhill, we have no trees."

          "There's a big oak on the property line," the owner said and I saw it, nicely trimmed at the fence line.  Another big tree complimented my "new friend" as I already felt this tree to be. 

          I pulled myself together and followed him to the front yard, so we could enter the house from the front door which opens into a living room that looks out onto a deck, then the yard. To the right is a dining room and kitchen.  A small passageway with space for washer on the right, dryer on the left, leads to a huge tiled room which I imagined could be John's workshop.  Two windows face the street. A door leads out to the carport.  This room used to be the garage.

          A sunny tiled room faces the back yard, perfect for John's office. Back at the front door a narrow hallway leads to the left: master bedroom and bath, two more bedrooms and another bath.  I called John to tell him I like it. He said, "Take it," but I told him we had to fill out paperwork and he should see if the tiled room would really work to build and listen to his speakers. It has a huge echo. "I can put down a rug," he said.

          When I told the owner I was from California he told me he was from Woodland Hills.  He was born the year I graduated high school and is married to a woman only three years younger than I am.  He retired at thirty-five and spends his time maintaining his rental properties and playing golf.  

          When mentioned that he has a friend in L.A. who is a photographer, I told him maybe his friend can help me figure out how to sell my dad's darkroom equipment. He said his friend has a darkroom where his students actually print pictures. I told him my dad's name and he texted it to his friend, to see if he recognizes it.

          The previous tenant bolted in the middle of the night, breaking her lease, but he doesn't feel it's worth pursuing her.  I told him both my husband and I have been landlords and will never do it again. He said sometimes a person who seems perfect turns out to be a terrible tenant, and vice versa. I told him landlords should look at prospective renter's current residencies to see how they live. He said he didn't think that was legal. I said, yeah, but it's like when you date someone divorced, you should talk to the ex.

          Now John is over there having a look. When I left the house this morning I thought I don't want to move, I know this neighborhood and I don't want to stress the animals. But now I'm visualizing Walter sitting on the deck and Audrey climbing one of the beautiful old trees in the yard. I can see John's containers of vegetables and flowers spread around the yard, adding color to an already private, peaceful setting. 

          I see myself out there too, reclining on a chaise, which I'll have to buy. Maybe for the first time in my life I'll be able to nap outside.

          P.S.  John's back. "Start packing," he said. "We're out of here September first." 

HOUSEPLANTS

          I wonder how many of my friends have house plants. I lie in the tub looking at a small Elephant Ear in a plastic milk jug that John got free when he placed his annual Burpee Seed order.  (They also sent him a blueberry bush and a potted palm that are part of his container garden, outside.)

          I grew up in what is now called a Midcentury Modern house, with planters built into the terrazzo floors.  I didn't know until recently that the twining fig that still thrives there had been a houseplant of my grandmother's before the house was built in 1955. That amazing plant twines up around windows and spreads across the ceiling, held up by hooks my dad screwed into the ceiling many years ago.

          In an adjacent planter huge peace plants reach up toward skylights making for a tight squeeze when you come in the front door. The third planter is fallow, but for tiny creepers of split-leaf elephant ears sneaking in from a planter outside.

          The first houseplants I remember, after I moved away from home, are the coleuses Roger and I had in Berkeley in the early 1970s, tropical plants that come in various shades of red, yellow and purple.  I remember a photo of me with long hair, holding Junior, Roger's and my black and white Manx. The hanging coleus takes up most of the frame. The cat "ran away" after we had him neutered. Roger thought UC medical students nabbed him.  I don't know what became of the plant, or the wandering Jew that flourished in a sunny window, or the African violet that used to grow on Roger's horse-trough desk.

          One of my favorite houseplants was a Boston fern. It perched on a white octagonal column.  I used to pretend I was the wind, and ruffle it, then vacuum up the little brown leaves that fell from its fronds.  When I moved from Los Angeles to Oakhurst I gave it to my parents who planted it up in their shady canyon. I always forget, when I visit, to see if it's still there. I got another one when we built our house in 2000. It lived for ten years in my sunny bathroom. My darling Abyssinian Amber, who was strictly an indoor cat, used to lie under its feathery fronds. I think this somehow satisfied her primal instincts.

          When I met John, in 1992, he had a small corn plant that had belonged to his mom in Iowa. He took it to Texas where it lived many years, then to California. It lived with us in YLP, then Kirk's house, and our house on Quartz Mountain, where it sprouted new growth.  Now it occupies a window in the dining room.  I love stroking the sleek long leaves, when I give it a drink, every week.

          We had over forty houseplants when we moved from California. Most of them found homes with friends. John managed to bring six with him in the U-Haul. The vegetable garden was left behind, as were the natural plants – wildflowers, trees, shrubs, and vines that I miss daily.

          I'm learning to love the trees of Texas, the flowering crepe myrtles, and the gnarly old oaks.  Outside the post office a sycamore struggles to survive. The top is dying but new sprouts push out from lower limbs. I wish I could be in charge of this tree. I would get someone to trim it and fertilize it. I would ask that the grass around its base be weeded and watered.  I would like to sit under that tree and gaze up at the sky. But judging from the window that's been boarded up for six-months and weeds sprouting in the planters I know my wish to see the sycamore thrive is just a dream. 

Early Fourth

          So much of my time is spent sitting: reading, writing, re-writing, researching.  I'm learning that I need to get up every hour and move. Otherwise I'm just a bundle of aches and pains.

          I was thrilled to find the yoga teacher I like has returned from maternity leave. I went to her class Tuesday and Thursday. She sits facing us. Behind her a big window looks out onto Kroc Center's three swimming pools. A sheer blind dims some of the light coming in, but through it I can make out little wet children, fat people in wet tee shirts, and fat women in bathing suits enjoying themselves in the hot Texas sun. Every so often a gigantic bucket spills a waterfall into the kiddy pool, and happy shrieks punctuate the air.

          On Saturday night John and I had dinner at the Guadalupe River Club for the first time.  I always thought it was a "dive" but John went there recently to listen to live music and said it was okay, so we thought we'd give it a try. I liked it. We sat on the large wooden deck, high over a grassy bank on the river.  Silvery clouds obscured the setting sun.

          "This feel's like Hawaii," John said."I know you've never been there. . . as an adult."

          I'm glad he amended his statement because I very well remember bailing water from a catamaran when I was eight.

          I enjoyed my gumbo and salad and shared John's Guinness.  On the way out I thanked the owner, who was watching baseball at the bar. It might be fun to come here in winter to watch a football game . . .

          We left at about 8:15.  A firework display was planned for dusk. John decided to find us a good place to watch, which turned out to be the post office parking lot.

          He backed into a parking space and opened all the windows, including the tailgate. While we waited for the sun to set we saw more and more families arrive. Many set up chairs on the grass. Little children played with red, white and blue light sabers. Someone had their radio tuned to an oldies station. "Little Latin Loopy Loop" filled the air.

          John reclined his seat all the way back, leaned back, pulled up his shirt and put his stocking feet on the dash board. I decided to see if Penney's across the street was still open. Maybe I could pee.

          Being out of the car I got to see the whole, magnificent sky, blazing yellow and pink. As I headed toward Penny's the first firework went off: BOOM!  I felt like I was shot in the chest.  Instinctively I put my hands over my ears. BOOM! I turned and headed back to the car.

          I passed a Latino family with a lot of children. I looked at the youngest one, about two, a tiny, frail little girl.  I wanted to grab her and run for cover. I kept walking, holding my hands over my ears. Finally I reached our car.

          "Can we close the windows?" I asked John through the open window.

          "No!" he said emphatically. So I kept walking.  I walked to the side of the post office and sat on a curb. I put my hands over my ears. BOOM!  My chest hurt. I thought I might throw up.

          Stop it, I told myself. Get a grip. I looked up just as the dark night sky was filled with blinding light that pierced my irises, searing my retina.

          I tried to take deep breaths. Every explosion felt like I was being shot. A thought dawned on me: in my last life I must have been killed in battle. Probably World War I, from the way I was feeling. Where was my foxhole?

          Then the wonderful realization struck me: the post office is always open! I opened the door and entered the cool, impersonal, institutional, fluorescently lighted building.  Ahhhh. Safe!

          I spent the next half hour sitting on a table in the lobby of the Kerrville Post office listening to muffled pops of the patriotic display outside.  My feet dangled as I took deep breaths and reminded myself it would be over soon. I thought about my dog and cats at home, glad they were far enough away from this madness.

          I've always hated the Fourth of July. At the age of three my nine-year-old sister tried to get me to see the beauty of sparklers but I just threatened to call the police if she lit one in our back yard. When we moved to Rustic Canyon I hated having to go down to State Beach and sit in damp sand for the fireworks display on the Santa Monica Pier. In my thirties, working at a beach club, I dreaded the drunken crowds and burning bluffs that filled the foggy air with smoke. 

          I continually try to like this holiday.  One year John and I went to Bass Lake with a friend who owned a boat.  I remember floating in the murky water, with the stink of smoke and how it settled over the lake. When we finally got to head back to our cars, I felt like a refuge.

          When we lived on Quartz Mountain, John and I would stand on our deck and watch tiny red, blue and green pin pricks appear, then disappear, thirty-five-miles away in the San Joaquin Valley.  Above us the sky was clear and still, punctuated only by a bat flittering past - the way night is supposed to be.