THE GRIM REAPER

          When I first saw the house, last year, decorated for Halloween, with ghosts, skeletons and wispy webbing, I thought the inhabitants must have children.  But this is not the case. A single, middle aged, woman lives there. A few days ago,   walking Walter, a red Explorer pulled into the driveway.  The resident came out the front door and greeted a young woman who reached into the back seat and extracted a baby.  I could not hear them but it seemed this was Grandma watching Baby for the day.

          I found the image fascinating: the baby in a pink sweater, the pink-cheeked young mother, the trim grandma, and all those images of death.  

          In the nine days since I wrote my last blog, my mother fell, broke her hip, had to wait fifteen hours to be admitted to the hospital, waited four days to have surgery because she takes blood thinners, had the operation, and has been transferred to rehab.  During this time I received word that a very dear friend, my boss of fourteen years, passed away. He and his family live at the top of my mother’s dead-end street.

          A few houses down from my ex-boss, a seventy-year-old friend moves her ninety-two and ninety-four year old parents into a convalescent home on

Ocean Avenue

.  She writes to me that the poolman has been “let go” since the house will now sit empty.  I met this man last summer. He is my mother’s pool man. Elderly, Asian, smiling, in a straw hat, he pointed to me, then my mother and nodded his head at the resemblance.

          He’s never been able to keep the pool leaf-free. A massive four-hundred-year-old oak hangs over the pool dropping leaves and pollen.  Orange trees shed their leaves which drift into the cold turquoise water.

          My mother’s house is empty while she’s in rehab, having nightmares and hallucinations, waiting for her doctors to try to alleviate her misery. The elderly couple settles into their small apartment. The husband turns on Fox TV. I don’t know what the wife is doing. I believe she has lost her short term memory. So perhaps she’s wondering where she is.

Did You Ever Covet?

          Do you remember how grocery stores used to give away a free book or volume of an encyclopedia, with a minimum purchase?  Well, there’s a touching piece in the current New Yorker called “Off the Shelf” by Patti Smith in which she eventually shoplifts Volume I.  I started thinking this would be a good assignment to give to my adult writing class – was there anything you coveted, that you just had to have? 

          I never stole anything, but I do remember falling in love with an orange mohair sweater when I was twelve or thirteen and having to wait for Christmas for it, which made it that much more wonderful when it was finally mine.

THE ORANGE SWEATER

When I was thirteen

what I wanted

more than anything 

was a mohair sweater

bright as a blood orange

a huge cocoon

to cover my skinny frame

protect me

make me appear

bigger than

I was.

I remember the feel

plush like nothing in

our house of

glass and terrazzo

every surface sleek

Danish Modern

white and beige.

The sweater was magnificent.

The fibers retained

a wild animal vibration

split hooves

eerie green eyes

curved horns like

a cornucopia.

I knew goats

loved to climb

the way I loved to climb

into the canyon

by myself

and hear nothing

but my heart

and the trickle of springs.

The enormous orange sweater

blanketed my skinny arms

my small sore breasts.

The cable-knit pattern

would bind me until

I was old enough

to emerge into womanhood

and no longer need

to hide.                                               

BIRDS

                                                                    

            Last Saturday I went to the Riverside Nature Center for the first time, which is pretty shameful because I drive by it several times a week. I went to hear a lecture called “Raptors, Those Awesome, Intriguing Birds of Prey” presented by John Karger, a master falconer and wildlife educator from Last Chance Forever, a sanctuary in San Antonio.  In thirty-five years he has helped rehabilitate and return to the wild more than 3,000 birds. 

            Many families with young children, as well as plenty of old folks like me, packed the room.  Karger, a scruffy Santa Claus in denim shirt with white hair curling out from his brown cap, talked about the importance of protecting wildlife, not just because it’s a nice thing to do, but because birds in particular are “indicator species.”  They indicate problems in the balance of nature, such as when birds started dying off after DDT became so popular as a pesticide in the 1950s.

            “And so children,” he intoned, casting his clear blue eyes over the upturned faces of seven to nine year olds, who indeed looked like chicks waiting for morsels from their mothers,  “because these birds died, we understood what was going on and protected you!”   

            Oh no, I thought, this is going to be all about how horrible human beings are, an opinion I assumed the khaki-clad crowd shared.  But his lecture was merely an overview that let us appreciate how all creatures – even the dreaded skunk who eats bugs that destroy the roots of trees – have their roll to play in keeping our world healthy, so we all may thrive. 

            “Don’t let the Humane Society tell you hunters are evil,” he said. “Hunters are not wasters. They eat what they kill and the animals do not suffer.”  He told how he hunts with his falcon who sat on a little perch behind him, wearing a hood to keep it calm. Falcons, he reminded us, have been used to hunt food for humans for thousands of years. Kublai Khan fed his hordes with the help of thousands of falcons who retrieved rabbits and small creatures for their nightly stews.

            Karger explained how he hunts with his falcon and his dog, a pointer. He releases the falcon who flies overhead as the dog sniffs out a rabbit and when she finds one, stops dead in her tracks and points.  The dog glances up at the falcon but waits until Karger gives the signal “flush!” The dog moves, the rabbit runs and the falcon dives at 200 miles per hour and plucks the rabbit up in its claws, quickly breaking the neck with a pinch of its talons, between two vertebrae.  The falcon drops the bird at Karger’s feet and he  rewards it with a nice bite-size morsel of raw meat.

            The second bird we got to see was a gorgeous black hawk. Hawks can’t move their eyes, so they have to turn their heads to see in different directions. Hawks and eagles eyes are small but incredibly strong: if they could read, they could read a newspaper from a mile away. Falcons have much larger eyes. They dive quicker, too, because they often catch birds in flight, whereas hawks and eagles catch animals on the ground.

            The third bird was a great horned owl.  All three of the birds, by the way, were once wild, but came to the sanctuary after being injured. Most birds are kept in captivity until they heal and then are released, but because these birds became too tame, they are  used in lectures and demonstrations such as this one.     

            Owls have huge eyes so they can fly at night and not bump into things. They are silent because they have so many feathers that act as baffles to diminish sound.  Before a helper took the owl out of its carrier, Karger demonstrated some owl sounds, to which the owl responded.  Karger said, “Who is the most beautiful owl in the world?” and the owl said, “I am!” At least that’s what he told us it said.  He made varying sounds of different types of owls and we learned the difference between a happy sound and a sound of distress.

            What should we do if we seen an injured bird?   Deprive vultures and ants of an easy meal or call a sanctuary?   Because there is no waste in nature, sometimes it’s a difficult call.

            Before the ninety-minute talk/demonstration ended we were told we would get to see one of these critters fly. A communal nervousness ran though the room. We all imagined one of these hook-beaked, sharp-taloned birds of prey deciding to shake things up a bit by diving at one of us.  But Karger assured us we were perfectly safe.

            One of the helpers took the black eagle to the back of the room. Karger took from his pocket what I feared was a dead – or worse, live – bird. But it was merely a bird he had made out of leather, on a string, kind of like a cat toy. He affixed a little piece of meat to it. Then, on a signal, he asked the helper to release the bird as he flipped the fake bird up into the air.  The eagle swooped over us and grabbed the morsel. After it landed we felt a whoosh of air pass over us.  The eagle “mantled” over his prey – spreading his wings to create a tent to hide it, as he ate the meat.

            I’ve always loved watching birds fly. Last week before the rain, with the sky churning and the wind blowing, I took Walter out for his walk. Several turkey vultures were riding the thermals overhead.  One of the birds toyed with us, swooping low.  I tilted my head back and shouted, “Hello bird!”  as Walter pulled at the leash and barked.  I remember how, in Coarsegold, every spring and fall, John and I would watch the migration of the raptors. We’d stand in awe as dozens of the magnificent birds circled in huge loops overhead, moving gradually further north – or south – on their way to or from Mexico.

            The demonstration in the Nature Center is the closest I’ve come to that transporting experience, being part of nature, not an impersonal observer reading a book or watching TV. My eyes, ears, skin, pores were engaged in a way that reached deep into me and soothed my soul.

             

Thoughts and Thinking

What a relief, that three friends survived their operations and are recuperating at home, in their own beds.  I remember when I had my hysterectomy in 1994. I scheduled it for the first week in November when daylight savings time ended, because I dreaded that first shock of dark afternoons and figured it would be easier to get through it if I was drugged. I saved mail-order catalogs for weeks and planned to do my Christmas shopping lounging in bed during my recovery.

            The best part of my recuperation was Robbie helping out. I remember sitting at the kitchen table talking about our lives. For me, and most women I suspect, the exchange of stories is like an exchange of gifts, particularly when the stories are about experiences that resulted in spiritual and emotional growth.  I love my women friends so much, they have been there at every turn: as a little girl, worrying that my parents would split up, as a heartbroken teen, as a hormone-driven young woman not knowing who I was or what I wanted to do with my life. My girlfriends have always been there, not to tell me what to do, just to listen.  Likewise I feel an immense satisfaction when I can be there for them. 

            My relationship with men has been more about gaining knowledge from them and/or physical pleasure. I suppose it goes back to the father, how I loved to watch him work when I was small, building furniture or taking pictures and especially making prints in the darkroom, something I’ve written about before – how he was like a wizard performing magic in his dark cave.

            The first man, other than my father, who I fell in love with because of his mind, was Mr. Harlan, my junior high science teacher. He was a little like Mr. Peepers, with black rimmed glasses, mild mannered but with soft lips that I would not have minded kissing. I wonder what it was like for him – he was only in his twenties – to have a fourteen-year-old girl breathlessly rush in, between classes, just to say hi. My day was not complete without a visit to his room filled with charts and graphs and the mysteries of science.

            When I was a confused teenager, Joe Gray, Hollywood stunt man and friend of my family, gave me a paperback copy of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.  That same year I read Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams.  My world went from revolving around deciding what to wear to school to the brain-tingling wonderment of pondering reality.   

            The best part about knowledge is that it becomes part of you in a concrete way that you can build on as you learn more and more. When Tom introduced me to classical music, he taught me to really listen.  This multiplied my enjoyment of all music, so that twenty-five years later when I married John, and he sat me down to listen to his speakers, I could talk about what I heard and how I heard it, in a way that let him know I really got it.

            Roger introduced me to Russian novelists, and later Chinese literature which led to me studying Mandarin for three years, then going to China.  Why did I choose Chinese over Russian? Because of a dream of a Chinese woman’s white-painted face – a past life memory? A message from beyond?  I remember living with Roger in Berkeley, a night Jerry Hopkins came to dinner. We sat at our small round oak table and talked in a way that made me feel I was their intellectual equal, an adult.

            This week I paid a visit to the Argument Club, ostensibly to participate in discussions and give the Libertarian point of view. But at the first question I admitted they probably knew more about the topic than I did. I listened to Democrats, Republicans and Independents exchanging ideas in a friendly, civilized manner.  Talking to a Democrat from Chicago, who came to Texas as a geographer, I was fascinated by his ideas of what was “just wrong”, and even though I didn’t agree with him I had no desire to try to convert him to my philosophy. I could see his mind was set in stone.   

            I learn a lot from children too. Tuesday when I gave the “

Favorite Place

” assignment, I got to hear all about the Texas coast, and the kids experiences with crabs and jelly fish, good places to eat and the thrill of riding a Boogie board.

            They say we only use a tenth of our brains. And I know that I’m guilty of thinking the same thoughts, over and over, which is such a bore. But the worst hindrance to letting new, more interesting thoughts into my brain, is worry. It’s like saggy old mattresses and dog-damaged couches blocking the entrance to my mind.  But since my friends are on the mend, the pile has shrunk to a manageable heap, that new ideas can sidle around – “Come in, come in, tell me your story!” 

My Brain is Full

         This is how my brain feels:  when I pour dry dog food into a Tupper Ware container, it fills up and almost spills over, but I tap the container on the counter and there’s just enough room for everything to fit.

          My brain is full of new names, new faces, new stories.  On Sunday, after church, I went out to lunch with “the usual group.”  I know their names but am just now finding out details about their lives, their pasts, their opinions and ideas.  I’m noticing more details -their eyes, their hair, the way they move their hands when the talk, what they like to eat, how they eat it.  I was impressed that Leahanna’s napkin was neatly folded on her lap, in one piece, where mine was completely shredded by the time I’d finished by turkey-pastrami Ruben sandwich.

          After lunch I picked up Joan, the octogenarian poet who has been – oh, I shouldn’t say hounding me – telling me about the two poetry groups she belonged to in Houston. I told her when fall came I’d start up a group.  I submitted an article to the Kerrville Daily Times and got one call, from a fellow who said he was a retired cowboy. So I knew there would at least be three of us.

          When we pulled up there were people standing around. I said to Joan, “Who are these people?” then realized they were poets!

          I had set chairs up in a circle and made a sort of agenda: information on the Poetry Society of Texas, American Life in Poetry, etc. Plus, I had books and journals to give away, or share.

          It was an eclectic group -which is one of the things I love about poets and poetry, the variety:  a white haired couple, the man read a rhyming poem, the woman a serious, religious poem; wonderful Ellen who took my creative writing class read a short poem and one by Kay Ryan, US Poet Laureate; a fellow read from a small spiral-bound notebook, poems he’d written in 1978 and 1981 – I hope this group will inspire him to write again; funny Arzie from the Tuesday class we both take at the Dietert Center read a serious poem about a Marine dying in combat; George, the man who had called, moved to Arizona in 1949 to become a cowboy and also was a race horse jockey. I said, “You don’t sound like you’re from Arizona.”  He said, “I’m not I’m from Brooklyn!”; a fellow with an oxygen tank had a little booklet he’d compiled of the poems he writes every Christmas, humorous, rhyming and very entertaining.  Both Arzie and George had been Marines. Leahanna is a pacifist, her poem was about peace.  Lorraine didn’t share this time.

          I felt my body relax as I heard each poem and realize that I’m a poetry junkie, I need my fix of fresh, read-out-loud poems!  I love the intimacy of being in a small group and have faith that this group will grow, change, evolve.  We’ll meet the Second Sundays of each month.

          Monday I taught my first session of my ten-week class, “Writing Your Life.”  As always, before I let anyone talk about themselves we did a quick writing exercise. I wanted to see how comfortable everyone was with taking orders and reading aloud. They all did great.

          What I particularly enjoy is finding commonality between the students, who otherwise may seem so different. This time we have two men and eight women.  Frank and Fern are back, from my creative writing class. I warned both of them I may repeat “assignments” (which I should start calling “prompts” I suppose), but they didn’t mind.  Most of the people are retired but one is a dog trainer who has trained another participants dog.

          After everyone read what they’d written, based on five random words, they told why they were in the class.  There are all levels of writers, some new, some experienced. I handed out a list of twelve opening lines from memoirs I own and asked them to choose one that inspires them and just write a couple of pages.  I emailed the assignment to two who couldn’t make it.

          That evening I had a conference call with Libertarians from all over the state. As is my way, I took notes throughout the meeting and before I knew it, the next day I was agreeing to help manage a Yahoo group. I posted a photo and Laura the county chair of Bexar County (a Spanish word pronounced bear, which includes San Antonio) posted many helpful documents and data bases for us to access.  There were ten counties (out of Texas’ 250) on the call and I felt pretty good about what I’m doing here in Kerr County, which includes going to the Argument Group on Wednesday morning to hand out information. The three guys there asked me to come back next week – the Libertarian who had responded to my letter to the paper was not there. 

          Tuesday I interviewed the President of Wells Fargo Bank for the cover article of the Kerrville Business Magazine. I had no idea what to ask a banker but was impressed that his reason for wanting to go into banking was watching It’s a Wonderful Life, when he was young. I found out that Wells Fargo gives millions of dollars to charities, and recently gave $100,000 to the Red Cross of Bastrop County to help fire victims. Over 1,500 homes have burned there.

          The same afternoon I taught at Art 2 Heart – only three kids, but we had fun talking and writing about food.

          Wednesday I thought I’d catch up on my writing but after the gym and lunch I had long conversations with friends and family and was too tired to generate any new thoughts. 

          I have three close friends undergoing surgery in the next ten days. I know they’ll be fine, they’ll each get through it and be better afterwards, but I know from my own experience that surgery, and the drugs they give you, take a toll, not to mention waking up thirsty and only getting to suck on ice chips.

          I finished a nice Kindle Single called Animalish by Susan Orlean and have started Little Bride, about a poor, orphaned Russian Jewish girl, who becomes a mail-order bride, sent to America. The language is poetic and lush and has swept me back in time so that when I’m at the gym, reading while I ride the recumbent bike, when I stop peddling and look up it takes me a minute to remember I’m in Kerrville Texas not Odessa and it’s 2011 and time to hit the arm machines.

          And now, on Friday, it’s time for lunch. But I promise myself that after I’ve eaten I will get back to writing my memoir. Unless I’m sleepy, then I may take a nap.

TEA PARTY

I walk across dead grass toward the courthouse,

the only woman in pink, my tropical OP tee shirt tucked

into low-riding white Bermuda shorts. I feel thirty-five,

not sixty-two, but I’m not much younger than these

docile retirees who cluster on lawn chairs

beneath the big sweeping tree.

I find a small, compact man in a white shirt and jeans.

He has a tight, weathered face and intense blue eyes,

who says I’m poisoned by the mainstream news.

Sun shines on the white gazebo and our host, who stands

at the microphone in a white shirt, black tie, silver-rimmed glasses.

We cast our eyes up to the flag, which I see through the screen of trees, way up high, lying limp beside the Flag of the Republic.

No wind today.

Day jillion of the drought.

Our voices float in the late summer air, pledging allegiance

like we did in school, proclaiming our love for our country,

wishing we could yank it back to a better time, like

a mother rescuing her drowning child.

For we all remember “when” – when we were young,

when we had hope, before wars, before debt, before

young girls kept their babies and got tattoos and

got their tongues pierced, before young men laid on the couch

playing video games, take-out wrappers littering the floor.

We remember sitting down to dinner with

a mother and father, siblings who grumbled about

school and chores but went to school and did their

chores and enlisted in the army because

it was the right thing to do, to serve our country.

But I marched against the war, I took acid

I felt we were changing the world.

We did change the world. 

Now I stand, one foot saluting the flag, the other

running naked through hot summer sand

into a bracing cold ocean . . .

I don’t feel I belong here.  

I’m not one of them.

A line of children – a fife and drum corps – emerges,

boys and girls, seven to fifteen, on time, in tune,

in white leggings and bright white shirts

and bright blue knickers and vests. Black tri-cornered

caps point the way as they weave around the gazebo.

When I realize I’m the only one bopping to the music, 

I hope the colonel next to me doesn’t think I’m

unpatriotic, I move in church too – joy can’t sit still.

A woman nearby, with a fresh crisp hairdo, videotapes

with her cell phone.  I study her earrings, her painted nails.

She smells good.

One of the children drummers, fifteen years old, comes

to the microphone.  He’s going to talk about the Constitution,

he read this summer, down by the river.

Suddenly he’s talking about praying in school, that

this country was founded by Religious Men, in the name

of God, and my feet start carrying me away.  I circumvent

quiet clusters of gray haired men and women, in red, white and blue.

They seem quite comfortable in their lawn chairs.

One more hot, dry summer day.

LABOR DAY OUTING

          I’ve been complaining that we never go anywhere so John decided to take us on a little road trip today, to see Buchanan Lake, about two hours away. It had been years since he’d been there, but he remembered a cute little restaurant where we could eat, overlooking the lake and rolling hills.

          He didn’t mind that I wanted to sit in the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car because he knows the front seat makes my hip hurt. The back seat is narrower and, to me, more comfortable.  I sat behind him so the sun would not be on me as we headed out toward Fredericksburg.

          I lasted about twenty five minutes before I had to pull out my Kindle and read. I can only take so much of looking out the side window at the same landscape over and over – dry grass, oak trees, dry meadow, dry creek.  At one point he asked if I was okay – I was sniffling at a moving scene in The Patron Saint of Liars.

          We passed through Fredericksburg, where we’d had a noisy dinner at the Brewery Friday night, and headed north.  When I told him I had to pee pretty soon, he said it was about twenty or thirty minutes till the lake.  So I read some more.  We passed a place that said, “Lake landing” but that was on the wrong side of the road, a different lake. The lake we wanted was on the right.  We passed a place that said Hydro-something, but that couldn’t be it.   So on we drove.  We could see the lake, but how to get to it?

          We got off the main highway and took a smaller, though well paved, country road. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and asked him to pull over.  I went around to the passenger side, opened the back door and squatted. I didn’t really care if anyone saw me but it gave a little privacy.  Suddenly I felt my pee splashing onto my foot. I looked down and saw that where I thought I was peeing in the dirt, there was an old newspaper and the pee was bouncing off of it. Luckily I was wearing rubber zories. I dried my foot and rinsed the shoe off with some bottled water. I had brought walking sandals, so I got back in the car and put them on.

          We drove around some more until finally we returned to the sad little Chamber of Commerce building. When we’d passed it on the way in I saw one red Explorer out front and said, “Let’s stop. There’s probably a lonely little old lady just waiting to talk to us.”

          This time there was one other car there. We stopped and went in. A middle-aged woman in shorts, who would have been pretty if she didn’t have such crooked teeth, greeted us.  She explained that the Department of Homeland Security “drove us out of there,” after 9/11.  No one could go near the dam!  No wonder the town of Llano, which we’d just passed through, was half boarded up.  Why would anyone come here, if they couldn’t go to the lake? 

          The woman took us out back and showed us the pretty view of the dam. They were hoping to make a nice place for people to picnic, maybe even have some walking trails.  I said that would be nice but privately felt that there was no way this would ever happen.

          We drove to a restaurant she recommended on the outskirts of Burnet (pronounced BUR-net).  They had no beer. John drank water. I drank iced tea. I ordered a half-pound hamburger (the only size they had) and ate half.  John ate a BLT.  I asked the waitress for aluminum foil, instead of Styrofoam to take the rest of the food home, and she obliged.

          I decided to sit in the front seat for a while but within fifteen minutes my right hip was aching. John pulled over to let me get in the back seat, but by now the pain was throbbing. I read some; stared out the window some, liked the town of Marble Falls – it was clean and looked prosperous and the Perdenales River was gorgeous, but once we passed through, every creek we passed over was bone-dry.

          In the distance the sky was shrouded with smoke from one of the many fires burning throughout the state.  We passed Lyndon B. Johnson State Park, and Lady Bird Johnson park, but didn’t stop. By now, being in the car nearly six hours, I just wanted to get home.

          John said, “Next Saturday we can go to. . .” and I had to tell him the truth: I’m no good in a car for more than a few hours, unless we have a destination where we can stop and spend the night – maybe a hotel with a pool. I know I’m a disappointment to him, who loves to hit the open road. For him, all his tension fades away when he leans back and puts his foot on the gas.  But for me I become nine-years old again, sitting in the back seat of our 1959 Mercedes, driving through Europe, bored and homesick.

          Once home I let the dog and cats sniff me. Then I laid on the couch and Audrey laid on my chest/stomach/legs. We dozed. I was in heaven i.e., home.