sunday grace: where i'm from

i am from strong women
who are not afraid of dirt
or silence

i am from neon purple sea anemones
whose tentacles sway ethereally in the tide pool
and softly embrace the finger of a curious girl

i am from the dust bowl
and the apaches
and the journey west

i am from scorching sidewalks
and mexican paletas
and bare feet cooled in sprinkler runoff

i am from swimming lessons
and tennis lessons
and piano lessons and ballet

i am from the turkey king of oklahoma
and the twist king of california
(no prom queens though)

i am from hee-haw
the bradys, mr. french
and wild kingdom

i am from the fury of the misnamed pacific
the hot santa anas
nights that smell like jasmine and alfalfa

i am from backbends
and banana seats
and clover flower necklaces

i am from afternoon naps
the doves cooing and the gardenia scenting
outside my window

i am from sam and daisy
nikki and patches
and all the lost dogs who found their way to the house on castro lane

i am from teachers
and drill sargents
and photographers and poets

i am from women's lib
and kitchen dancing
and grilled abalone for dinner

i am from skateland
and disneyland
earthquakes and earth shoes

i am from a thousand books
a few broken hearts
summer skin that smells of chlorine and coconut

i am from the tule fog
always there for the girl
who wants to be invisible

i am from mrs. agan
and my fifth grade summer camp counselor
whose name i have forgotten
who saw me
and painted my portrait on a slice of california redwood

{a spontaneous version of where i'm from}

tiny memoir: the littlest birds

i was a girl who believed that hundreds of little birds flocked to the mission on the same day each year.   by magic.

it was a miracle i saw with my own eyes.

the mission bells heralded their arrival with deafening discordant clangs.  i stood there holding on to my dad's belt loop with one hand, covering one ear with the other. i wished for a third to shield my eyes from the blinding white california sun as we watched the birds swarm in. one after another, they floated through the arches and settled in tiny mud nests under the eaves.  the friar said a blessing.  we bought tacos from the little mexican push-cart whose tiny brass bells were kinder with their song.

sunday grace

collective despair.

we are swimming in it.

sometimes it feels like too much.  we bear witness to so much pain and grief; we touch it intimately and universally.  we are pulled into the opposite of hope.

as a child, when there were weeks like the last few our world has endured, i experienced the additional fear and confusion of living in a home where the term "the end times" was bounced around like a sad balloon my parents were dedicated to keep inflated and afloat.  it tasted a lot like giving up.  on my own, with only my imagination and tenderstrong heart, i had to develop the antidote to this doomsy view of life in order to survive.

i asked, what if these are the beginning times?  what can i do, how can i be, who can i love so that light remains stronger than darkness?

grace was, and is, my imaginary friend.

here is some practical advice she's whispered to me over the years:

• stay curious about individuals.  especially those you disagree with.
• create on an hourly basis.  better yet, stay in creation mode all the time.  creativity is the opposite of destruction.
• experience silence.  it's the only way to truly rest and make sense of the rest of it.  for me, this means news sobriety.  modern "news" is the loud, incessant and distorted cheap boombox back beat for collective despair.  if you feel you must maintain some connection to the overwhelming happenings, find a quality source of information you trust and take little sips, no more than once a day.  i haven't listened to the news for months.  it took several years to wean myself from this destructive addiction.
• love.  especially children and other tender souls.
• each moment, make conscious decisions and take action to create the world you want to live in. in a million tiny ways, we can be the world we want our children to flourish in.
• listen to good music that touches and inspires you.
• laugh. a lot.  play. without shame.

let's live in the beginning of times.

sunday grace

{the backyard at gypsy hill}

where i'm from
by george ella lyon

i am from clothespins,

from clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.

i am from the dirt under the back porch.

(black, glistening,

it tasted like beets.)

i am from the forsythia bush

the dutch elm

whose long-gone limbs i remember

as if they were my own.

i'm from fudge and eyeglasses,

          from imogene and alafair.

i'm from the know-it-alls

          and the pass-it-ons,

from perk up! and pipe down!

i'm from he restoreth my soul

          with a cottonball lamb

          and ten verses I can say myself.

i'm from artemus and billie's branch,

fried corn and strong coffee.

from the finger my grandfather lost

          to the auger,

the eye my father shut to keep his sight.

under my bed was a dress box

spilling old pictures,

a sift of lost faces

to drift beneath my dreams.

i am from those moments--

snapped before i budded --

leaf-fall from the family tree.

___

last year at the creative joy retreat, jen louden read this poem to us and then instructed us to write our own "where i'm from".  this was such an amazing exercise.  even as the memories of those october retreat days grow hazy, the voices of women reading the words they strung together around this theme echo clearly in my mind and heart.  as each sixty second poem was read, i learned more about each of them than if we had spent hours or days or weeks becoming acquainted the regular old ways.

my own, which includes a daughter of apache warriors, pacific tidepools, backyard dinners (a tradition that continues), a roller-skating grandpa, avocado groves, flying dumbos and the smell of my eight-year-old summer skin (chlorine, heat, dove soap and watermelon paleta drips), is treated as a work in progress, a place i go when i need clarity.  and respite.

click here to read some other ideas on how to explore this personal history writing exercise on your own.

when we can gather up and dust off our childhoods and family histories and gaze upon them with the relative objectivity of distance, time and adult perspective; when we can hold them with curiosity, gratitude and possibly forgiveness; when we can claim, write about and share those things that made us and sit with who we are and where we come from, that is grace.

tiny memoir: summer reading

the summer of 1973 was the first summer both my parents worked and i was able to stay home alone.

each morning i would wake to the scent of the gardenia blooming outside my open window, the sound of a dove softly humming in the distance and the click-click-click of the neighbor's sprinkler.  summers in central california meant it's already warm (if not hot) by 8am.  i would lie awake and listen for the front door to close and lock and the cars to start up in the driveway before crawling out of bed.

there was a list of daily chores and i would complete half before i pulled on some shorts and a halter top, drank a glass of grapefruit juice and ate a bowl of life.

i was signed up for the library's summer reading program just like every summer; a quiet and safe activity that i'm certain made my parents feel somewhat comforted as they imagined how my day would go without their supervision.  the library supplied a mimeographed chart on which i meticulously recorded the author and title of each book i finished with a no.2 pencil.  the usefulness of the list was greatly enhanced by my own star rating system added to each line.

each tuesday and friday, i would pile my borrowed books into the wire basket on my red huffy and pedal the quiet streets to the wilson road branch of the beale memorial library.  i parked my bike in the rack, grabbed my books and my little wallet from mexico with the tooled leather image of a senorita on one side and a giant flower on the other.  inside the wallet were a few quarters and my only piece of official identification:  my library card.  my signature on the back was neat and precise, signed with great ceremony two summers before with my dad's fountain pen.

the walkway to the huge glass library doors was made of aggregated pebbles and it felt smooth and warm on my bare feet.  inside, the librarian gave my chart the once-over before applying a tiny star to each newly completed line and accepting my books for return.  we chatted briefly about each one and i felt very important because she really seemed interested in my opinion about the story and characters.  i then retreated to the children's room for an hour of browsing and the careful selection of my next round of books.

once my business at the library was complete, i walked my bike around the corner to the thrify drug store and purchased a single-scoop cone of rainbow sherbet for 5¢.  i sat on the bench outside the store and ate my ice cream as i watched people come and go, slightly intoxicated on my own independence.

back at home, i completed my afternoon chores of watering the garden and lawn.  then i pulled out a book and curled up with my dogs in the window nook in the den to begin reading.

and there i would stay; sometimes until i heard my mom's car pulling up in the drive.  i read over thirty books that summer.  the form only had room for ten so i had to have multiple copies, each carrying the soft scent of mimeograph ink and meticulously completed in no.2 pencil.

i've not traveled so far or so well since.

a different drummer

today i am 48.  a happy 48.  i am loved, safe, healthy.  and (maybe, finally) understood.

i received a birthday card from my mom and dad yesterday.  it was the first sentiment i've received from my parents that felt like true understanding.  it refers to (and celebrates) me as a "true original" and "someone who dances to her own beat".  this may seem trivial to some, but this 5x8 hallmark card represents forty-eight years of struggle on all our parts:  me, a quirky girl with a imaginative mind, daring ideas and endless curiosity, fighting (sometimes literally) to be who she is and them, concerned parents desperately wishing for a more grounded, agreeable and traditional child.

it's the best gift ever:  being loved and accepted for who you are.

speaking of birthdays, i am on the faith squared advent calendar with a little nod to another december baby.  (it may be later today when it goes live.)

the image above is a shot of rusty belle performing on the charlotteville walking mall on saturday.  how much do you love his drum built from scraps, a pan and a baby shoe?  and his swanky sunshine shoes?  pure joy.  i wish you could have heard the music.

i ♥ moms

who are brave.

(i've posted this photo of my mum before, but i just love it so, so here it is again!)

sunshine day

my apologies in advance for the song-stuck-in-your-headedness that will occur when you click on this link.  this just fits my mood today.  i smile when i recall my ten-year-old self and her friends working tirelessly in the backyard to perfectly replicate the moves and lyrics (from memory; in the pre-videorecorder era).  sappy for sure, but that's how i do these days.

i hope you have brilliant sun today.

ponder this

I love it that one of my favorite lunchtime spots has a stack of question cards on each table. they feed my mind and soul with topics to savour during after-lunch daydreaming. this one came up last week and I've thought about it daily since then.

our childhoods can be memory minefields. even though this question focuses on remembering something positive, we can't help but think of what we miss in context of the entire experience and some may feel the need to tread lightly. I know that I am blessed to have several immediate good memories come to mind when prompted, but I too venture off into unresolved hurts and magical thinking about how I wish it could have been. but in the spirit of focusing on the good, here's my answer:

• living in a little girl bikini and bare feet for days on end, in my mind nothing beats a california summer.
• exploring tidepools with my dad and poking my finger into purple sea urchins as they curl their sticky paw around it like a newborn clutching a parent's finger.
• resting my head on the sturdiness and loyalty and certainty of the rascally mixed-terrier sam.
• holding "who can make their belly stick out more" contests with my friends...before the time when we felt pressured to pull in, be small.
• lying in my bed during a nap, the scent of the gardenia bush right outside the open window and the soft chirp of lazy birds on a hot central valley afternoon. this is my "happy place" to this day.

what about you?

{speaking of beautiful girlhoods, look at this.}

tiny memoir: odd duck

when I was seven, I went to disneyland with my girl scout troop. everyone wanted matching mickey ears. at the last minute, I got the donald duck hat with the giant squeaky orange duckbill. and I had them embroider a fake name on the back.  god i wish i had a copy of the group photo.

nostalgia rocks

after a meeting in roanoke yesterday, I wandered off and discovered my new favorite place (more on this soon). as I meandered through the leftovers of lives and history, I was struck at how powerful an emotion nostalgia is. an object, a scent, a feeling triggers our memory and we momentarily travel through time to be there. there. whether it be with a loved one or friend who is gone from our lives or a grand or small experience that fell in an earlier chapter of our book, nostalgia puts us there. it has to be the most lovely of emotions and a huge plus of growing older.

when I turned 11, I had a strawberry birthday: strawberry cake, strawberry ice cream, strawberry soda pop. the soda came from the pop shoppe, a bright little memory from my childhood. there were just a few close friends at my slumber party, all dressed in pink or red. we talked and giggled and laughed belly laughs 'til we cried. the glass bottles of soda kept coming and we sipped it through pink straws with wild abandon.

when I saw these bottles yesterday, I heard faint giggles tinged with a mix of uncertainty and courage. I felt on the edge of something transformative, just as when I was 11 and moving from childhood to adolescence.

and I smelled strawberry.

saturday morning memories

tanked up on sugar and mesmerized by this. {freaky!}

it's a wonder I made it to adolescence.

happy weekend sugarpuffs!

what

do you want to be when you grow up? I want to know. I'm fascinated by others' aspirations.

(I'm sacked with a bad cold today, so not a lot of words. the photo of the bionic woman is here because it was my answer to this question one year at school. and it was written down. yes, that's right, at the age of 11...when I should have known better...I wrote why I wanted to be jamie sommers for a school assignment.)

vintage christmas

not sure what happened to that sweet strawberry blonde hair, but that is me, looking curious about why we stood in line all that time for this um...interesting...experience.

today the grown-up version of me does most of my christmas shopping online. way back when we actually piled in the car and drove downtown to brock's department store to shop. our little downtown still had diagonal street parking then. brock's had an elevator with an attendant. I remember the cafe on the mezzanine where you could peek over the edge at the first floor shoppers. I think we only shopped at brock's at christmas and for back-to-school outfits.

I have a vivid memory of walking with my dad on the downtown sidewalks at night, bundled up in my little coat and searching for the perfect gift for my mom. he stopping at the jewelry store, me anticipating a visit to uncle woody's toy circus or see's candy. it's one of those memories that is only about three seconds long, but those three seconds are filled with incredible time-travel-esque sights, sounds, scents, spacial sensation and an incredible feeling of safety and contentment. I love those memories.

happy shopping everyone. make one of those memories for your kids this weekend.

weird childhood

this is my mom being kissed by shamu at sea world circa 1972.

she was chosen from an audience of about 200 to have the pleasure of a two ton giant get intimate with her.

everyone was laughing and clapping as the trainers led her up to the platform. I was petrified and could barely move or speak. shamu cranked up the entertainment quotient by circling his tank several times, building anticipation, before pulling his massive self up out of the water and planting one on my mom.

it was over in an instant. my mom was led back to her seat to wild applause. my dad was practically falling over himself in the hilarity of the moment. I was just relieved that she was safe, would still be my mom, and I wouldn't have go through my life explaining to people that my mom's head was eaten by a killer whale. I finally cracked a tiny smile that eventually exploded into uncontrollable laughter. and I thought, "she is so brave."