FALLING IN LOVE WITH TEXAS

          I, who hate road trips, didn't want this one to end, it was so beautiful. I've missed the California landscape something fierce these nineteen months living in Texas.  Sure, I get to see the ocean on my trips to Santa Monica, but there's nothing I love more than a really broad open landscape with far away mountains containing the vast space in between, such as the Salinas Valley or the San Joaquin Valley when the mountains are capped with snow.

          No snow here, but lovely vistas of rolling cedar covered hills and plenty of yellow and orange wildflowers.  The landscape changed dramatically when I got "way out west" and poor Fort Davis is barren and dry. Two huge wildfires are raging and the air in the evenings smelled of smoke and created eerie sunsets.  I was amazed by the variety of types of mountains – one looks like a loaf of brown bread, then a few rolling hills, then steep bluffs like a thousand Buddhas standing side by side. Then out of nowhere a cone shaped mountain looks like fine black coal poured into a perfect point.  John says it's because the land "makes a transition" there, whatever that means.

          Aside from the beauty of the views I enjoyed the well maintained highway (Interstate 10 most of the way, then south on 17/118). Not one pothole or any cracked pavement the entire way. Every white and yellow line looks as if it were painted yesterday. The speed limit is 80 most of the way (I went 75) and the left lane is for passing only. I bet this results in less wear and tear on the passing lane and saves money on repairs.

          My favorite sign is triangular shaped and says, "Drive Friendly."  Instead of "$500 fines for littering" (or more) which I saw all over California, here a simple "Don’t Mess With Texas" or "Littering is unlAWFUL" seem to get the message across because I saw no litter the entire way there and back again – 770 miles round trip.  

          I liked everyone I met at the conference. Thirty-six attended.  I'm thrilled that a dynamic woman, originally from Minnesota turns out to live two blocks from me! We're going to proof read each others' manuscripts.

          I had many deep conversations on topics of religion, philosophy, the state of our schools, books, writing and personal tales.  Writers love to share ideas so there was never a lack of topics to discuss.

          Of the three presenters my favorite was Mike Blakely, singer, songwriter and historical novelist. He's married to a beautiful, graceful young woman (horse-woman, hunter, yoga teacher) who sings with him. They're an adorable couple. I fell in love with both of them and danced to Mike's music, the last night, under the stars, after our dinner and reading.

          The emphasis on sell, sell, sell by one of the presenters I found a bit off putting, especially since her genre is true crime.  The third presenter writes mysteries so there was way too much death for me.  I found our "Haiku Hike" Sunday morning to a local Catholic cemetery enlightening. I've never walked around a cemetery before. Turns out many writers get inspiration there.  The contrast between a well maintained grave with elaborate, shiny marble headstone, festooned with artificial flowers and messages like "we love you grandma" contrasted with plots that were completely neglected.  One couple, born in the mid 1930s both died on 1-1-70. Car crash on New Year's Eve?   It's always sad when a child dies before their parents.  One big family plot had grandparents, parents, sons and then "Baby Grace now an angel." The cool desert air seemed full of grief from all the tears shed in that dusty graveyard.   

          The grave I liked best consisted of a mound of real purple flowers book-ended by two small trees. In the middle, a small white statue of Mary and a simple marble slab with the woman's name.  Except for a few lone wild flowers poking out of the dirt, these were the only live flowers there.       

          Most of the people at the conference live in Alpine, a small town about 25 miles south of Fort Davis.  Fort Davis, Alpine and Marfa (which I did not visit) are "artsy" and are served by a great public radio station that I got to listen to for two full hours on my drive home.  If it weren't so damn far from everything I'd like to live there, but the closest airports are seven hours away and the same goes for big hospitals.

          Now, writing this close to Midnight on Sunday, with my dog dozing at my feet, Audrey snoring under the dining room table, and John fast asleep, I feel like Coleridge who wrote, "the inmates of my cottage, all at rest, have left me to that solitude that suits abstruser musings. . ."         

          Perhaps a crossword will slow down my brain. Or maybe I'll just go to bed and lie still, letting the images of the vast Southwest play behind my eyelids. In my imagination I'll stretch my arms all the way from horizon to horizon touch those bizarre, beloved mountains.

READING POETRY AT RIVER POINT

        I volunteered to read poems to the residents of River Point, a new assisted living facility just a mile from our home. At one time I'd thought about bringing my mom from Santa Monica and situating her there, so I could visit her every day, not just talk to her on the phone. But that's not going to happen. My mom is living at Ocean House in Santa Monica, across the street from the beach, where she can feed the seagulls every day.

        So today when I arrived at River Point I went into a small activity room, with a lovely view of acres of wild green grass bordering the Guadalupe River, and spent time with two new residents: Louis, 96 years old, the same age my dad would be if he hadn't died two years ago, and a woman in wheel chair whose name I forget.

        Both had just moved in three weeks ago. They participate in any activities that get them out of their rooms. Louis was dressed all in blue. Until a few months ago he was still golfing, then suddenly his left leg got weak and he couldn't walk. He uses a wheel chair now and asked for a pillow, to sit on a regular chair. "Because you're bony, like me," I said which made him laugh.

        The heavy lady was on the phone, so I waited until she was done, and leafed through a magazine. I have trouble focusing my ears when there are other sounds going on around me.  Louis waited patiently. When the lady hung up she apologized, saying there had been "another death in the family."

        I told them I was a poet and read several of my students' poems. Then I read them "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, the poem commissioned for the base of the Statue of Liberty.  After I read it Olivia, the activity coordinator joined us and we had a discussion about ancestors.

        Louis' great grandparents came from Germany and settled in Texas several generations ago. He had many interesting stories to recount. Olivia added her own story – her father's family included a freed slave and a slew of red-haired Irish; her mother's family is Mexican and part Native American.

        Olivia had to run off to do something and so I told Louis and the lady in the wheel chair about how my parents met and married in 1941. Louis and his wife were married 70 years until her passing last year. 

        Olivia returned and took me into the "Memory Care" wing which is for patients with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. There was no small meeting room just a big open space with horrible acoustics.  She situated me in a chair and the residents gathered around me. One woman said she was a retired English teacher, so I said, "Sit by me!"

        One of the women had a caregiver. The rest seemed to be on their own. Some were in their own worlds, but others were able to focus on me. A man in a red sweater rolled his wheel chair up close, as he had a hard time hearing me. I had a hard time too. The workers were talking so loud, I had to practically shout to drown them out.

        I decided to read "The Spider and the Fly" because it's dramatic and I enjoy playing the parts of the spider and the fly. The retired English teacher knew many of the lines.

        Then I read my "Ode to My Stapler" and the fellow in the red sweater said, "I don't understand why you're here and what I'm supposed to do."

        I said, "I'm the entertainment! I'm supposed to entertain you!" and a woman across from me who had been staring vacantly looked me in the eye and chuckled.

        The retired teacher liked my poem but the man in the red sweater asked again what he was supposed to do.  I chose a few poems by students from a CPITS anthology. These were more "poetic," meaning less linear and didn't follow a logical progression. I think the residents liked them.

        But the workers on the phone and talking to each other were just too loud. I got up and told them, "This isn't working out, I can't yell over you."

        I was disappointed that they didn't say they'd try to be quiet. I told the residents I'm going to a writers' retreat in West Texas next week and I'll tell them about it the next time I come back.

        The retired teacher said, "That's lovely." I squeezed her arm and bid adieu to my audience.  Outside the wind was whipping. The last of today's rainclouds were vanishing, leaving the sky a bright, shocking blue. 

Too long since I wrote a poem, days flap by like pages of a book

one night two young men show up and go to work on my computer

like veterinarians about to put my beloved pet to sleep

my presence not welcome as they talk to each other in

words I don't understand, like they've swooped down from another planet

to perform surgery and I'm as embarrassed as if they'd seen me naked

and were repelled, not that they haven't seen this all before

another silly woman wanting to save her emails

documents that should have been deleted ages ago.

I pace the house, try to eat and watch TV but I keep trying to hear

what they're saying to each other. I want to rush in and tell them

to go home, leave everything as it was, and eventually I do, I tell them

I'll figure out the rest on my own.  Exhausted, I go to sleep dreading morning

and sure enough everything's different, I'm lost, disoriented, bravely

sniffling my tears as I navigate the maze of my life in words and numbers.

Unfortunately there is no more Microsoft Money, which for ten years

tracked every cent we've earned and spent. It's gone. Bye bye.

I go to Office Max and purchase Quicken, remembering that I used it

before, figuring it will do, but now I see it connects directly to my bank

sucks up the transactions and categorizes each purchase so

it appears we've spent our entire month's budget on beer.

Perhaps in John's perfect world. I spend several hours

good naturedly correcting the silly mistakes.

I press "save" and yet when I return three days later we're back to

the end of last month, why did all my work disappear?

I want to yell at someone so I yell at my husband who says,

"Welcome to my world" and the napping cat opens one eye, annoyed.

The world is full of danger and disorder. All I want is

for what's in my own, private, personal house to make sense.

Is that so much to ask?

Addicted to Words

THE WOMAN WHO LOVES WORDS

         

can’t get enough, she pores over the Sunday paper  

inhaling book reviews, travel essays, recipes, scientific

articles, the latest news. She leans in when the radio’s

disembodied voice talks about a memoir by a woman

whose mother was a cook. The author is not a cook, but a writer

who creates words for others to devour. In her dining room

books jostle on crowded shelves. By her bedside, magazines

folded open to the latest story by Alice Munro or Thomas McGuane wait.

She’s impatient to read them but wants to hold off, wants the comfort

of knowing they’re there, waiting for her eyes, her mind, her heart

to suck them up, the way she remembers sucking a frothy sweet

root beer float through a fat straw. She loves the way words can

smack her like a cold Santa Monica wave. Quite often she has to

put down a book and catch her breath.

Lately she’s fallen in love with her Kindle, a contraption

nondescript as a nun. She can’t believe it contains

such drama, intrigue, pain and loss.

Before going to sleep she has to will herself

not to kiss it. A few weeks ago, she got the Daedalus Catalog

and spent an afternoon reading reviews,

drawing big yellow circles with her highlighter, happy that

somewhere in a warehouse all these books actually exist,

they are real, not just her imagination. Perhaps it is because

her own imagination only comes alive when she’s asleep.

It brings friends from far away, it brings the Pacific Ocean

which is 1500 miles away.

During the day she treats her imagination like a dog,

tells it to sit, stay. It is not allowed to intrude into reality

and annoy her husband. Luckily she has friends.

She can go out to lunch and yak her head off and

listen to their stories about their most frightening trips

or the most beautiful kitchen they ever cooked in. 

And lucky for her she teaches writing where obedient students

give birth to stories that make her cry.

Only when she nestles her face into the briny scent

of her husband’s neck or the sugar-cookie smell

of her cat behind its ears, do words curtsey and depart.

Then she hears the beat of her own heart and theirs.

ACCEPTANCE

          I’m reading a fascinating memoir, Unorthodox,  by Deborah Feldman. I’ve always had an interest in people from other cultures - in this case she was raised as a Hassidic Jew – because I like to see what we have in common and how we differ. Today, doing laundry I thought about how women (and some men, or course) all over the world wash clothes and that it isn’t so much what we do that makes us different from each other, but what we think.  And even then, what we think is pretty similar. We want to live up to our own expectations, and we want to please those we respect (or fear), we want to be acknowledged, accepted, praised, loved. 

          In Feldman’s case she had to act according to a strict code of behavior that discouraged her from reading, something she loved. Circumstances beyond her control meant she was raised by her grandparents out of sense of duty, so she never felt truly loved or wanted.  And yet a fire burned within her which ultimately produced her wonderful book.

          I know that growing up I was always seeking my father’s approval and most of the time I thought I fell short.  He was a stickler for perfection, from the way he wanted me to make my bed, in the military style, to remembering to turn off lights when I left the room.   He had certain standards of what he considered beautiful and explained that beauty meant a symmetrical face, wide cheekbones, a long neck.  I fell short in the cheekbone department but fortunately I had big eyes and after years of orthodontic torture, straight teeth.

          As I got older my mother let me know how proud she and my father were that I had become a poet, a noble calling that I had in common with my father’s petite English mother.  And they were proud of me when they saw me working at the Sand & Sea Club, organizing and coordinating events.  I’m glad I made my parents proud.  And yet, I still remember the dozens of times my father asked incredulously why I would ever want to leave Santa Monica, where the weather was rarely too hot or too cold. Did he really not understand that weather wasn’t that important to me?

          I’ve always wanted to please the people in my life – family members, teachers, boyfriends, girlfriends, co-workers. I want to be liked. I want to feel needed. I like being part of a group, a team. I liked being in Brownies when I was little, and in the Duprees in high school. Tomorrow I get to emcee at our church talent show, and read two poems. I’m happy to feel that I’m “one of them.”

          I’m not a risk taker. I’m not a rebel.  My mother had to “kick me out” of the house when I was nineteen, saying, “Little bird, fly out of the nest!”  She was dealing with my father and his affair, she didn’t want to be wondering where I was at two in the morning.

          I didn’t voluntarily leave my first house in Topanga either. When I returned from having my wisdom teeth out my roommate’s dogs had trashed the house – my bed was a muddy mess.  In her defense she was stranded in Santa Monica and PCH was closed due to landslides, but the point is, I might have stayed there forever if I hadn’t been forced to get away from her and her druggie friends.

          Most big changes in my life came involuntarily – having to leave Ten Speed Press when I got hepatitis from Roger; divorcing Roger because he chose to go to Israel and live on a kibbutz; staying until the very last day when the Sand & Sea Club closed; leaving our home on Quartz Mountain to move to Texas because we couldn’t afford it anymore.

          And yet, with each change came new people, new experiences and new things and people to love. Oh, I suppose if I really scrutinized the choices in my life I might see that in some instances I was the one to initiate change. But not often.  This is why it’s so hard for me to be an independent writer and teacher, sending out proposals and crossing my fingers that someone will want me and my skills.

          I think of my friends, who of course are all intelligent, kind, enlightened individuals I admire – otherwise they would not be my friends. I want them to get the praise and recognition they deserve for their humor, determination and myriad talents.     I really do have the best, most interesting friends. I include in this group my husband who sees the world through such different eyes, it’s amazing we can communicate at all.

          The Unity church is big on stressing that we’re all one in this world together, bound by our humanity.  To emphasize this, we were divided into two groups and sang two different songs simultaneously. But as we did, I kept thinking that being part of a group automatically separates you from the other groups.

          So is my need to be accepted by my group really a desire to separate myself from the big, ugly, scary world of nasty mean, narrow-minded people who think differently than I do? 

          I hope not. If you put me in a room with any person on the planet I’ll sure I can find something in common with her (him?) because after all, we’re only human.

LOVE POEMS

I was sick for two weeks, then spent a lot of time working on my memoir.  This week I started teaching a new Creative Nonfiction class through Club Ed. Part of this week's assignment is to write a love letter to yourself from either an historical person, fictional character, animal or inanimate object. So here's mine, in the form of a poem:

A LOVE POEM FROM MY STAPLER

For Valentine’s Day 2012

I never liked being brown.

I wanted to be black

like the other Swingline Staplers

on the shelf at Palisades Stationers. 

How happy you made me

when you picked me up

and stroked me and said softly,

“I think this one’s cute.”

I remember you taking me out of the bag,

placing me on your mission style desk

beside the lovely Japanese cream and sugars jars,

with their geishas and swirling clouds.

It made me feel so glamorous.

Our first years together on

Pacific Coast Highway

I was happy to staple the timecards

from Marina Nautilus,  every two weeks

when you cut the pay checks.

The years in your condo

I liked looking out over the living room

to your kitchen wall where the big mirror

reflected my image back to me,

it made me feel less lonely.

Then, twenty years in the mountains.

It took a while to get used to the elevation

and the cold. I remember that first winter

when you were reluctant to turn on the heat.

In 1994 you wrote an ode to me

and I knew then that we were a perfect match.

You forgave me for growing old, you even liked

that I wasn’t perfect anymore.

And now, in Texas, I wait on the shelf

beneath your keyboard, looking at your shins,

watching as the dog plops down on the carpet,

and the cat pads past on her way to the couch.

I love you Mary Lee. I am yours

always. You are my owner and I am

your stapler, ready to bite into

whatever papers you decide

should be joined, like man and wife,

like brother and sister, bound together

always or until trash day comes

and you decide otherwise.

RED

          There’s a triangle of red on the J key of my ergonomic keyboard.

It isn’t blood, it’s nail polish but it looks like blood that has had a chance to dry - burgundy, maroon. The rare times I decide to paint my nails I can’t sit still long enough to let them dry completely.

          This red reminds me of the perfectly round drops of blood on worn wood floors of my apartment on

Pacific Coast Highway

. No matter how hard I tried squeeze my innards as I made my way, half-asleep, from bed to bathroom, the drops escaped. I remember the “th-wump” as the tampon fell out of me, completely saturated. I’d have to grab hold of the slippery string to keep it from falling into the toilet and plugging up the pipes. 

          How much blood did I lose, in my thirties, the prime of my life, my sexual peak?  I remember the day I was in Fireside Market, leaning on the shopping cart with cramps so bad I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stand upright in the checkout line. I’d bought a paperback of The World According to Garp. This was before the movie with Robin Williams which I believe is one of the rare occasions when a movie does justice to the book.

          I came home from the market, retreated to Earl’s enormous king-sized bed which nearly filled the bedroom in that little noisy apartment where cars whizzed past twenty hours a day. In the few quiet hours, between 2:00 and 5:00 AM, if I happened to get up to pee, or change a tampon, I could actually hear the ocean, I could hear waves breaking on the sand. 

          The only other time I remember quiet was that winter it rained so much the highway flooded, whole portions of bluffs simply melted onto the highway, like chocolate cake batter. Jane and I had to work, one Monday, to get the payroll done.  She parked in Santa Monica Canyon and walked to the Club and I simply walked from my apartment past the Nugent’s house, through Tee’s parking lot. We spent a couple hours adding up time cards, filling out the ADP sheets. Then we literally went out and stood right in the middle of the closed highway. The sun was out by now and maintenance crews hadn’t yet arrived to clean up the mess.     We stood in the silence of that sparkling January day, taking in the beauty of the Malibu mountains, the wide white sand, and an ocean that was slowly calming, like a baby recovering from a crying fit.  The beach was littered with all sorts of driftwood and debris and we, two young blondes, strolled down the highway feeling as if we were the first white people to ever set eyes on that magnificent bay.