The Purse

My mother is a tiny woman, fragile and small. She loves fashion and style. She loves fishing but never without lipstick, jewelry and attractive attire. My mother is an expression of opposites.

This small woman who weighs less than 100 pounds, still carries a purse that weighs 62. She has always carried this albatross like an anchor, holding her little body firmly fixed in time.

Grown men, large strong men, longshoremen-kind of men have complained about the weight of her purse, but she will not be without it; she won’t trim it down.

Her purses are custom made of imported leathers and have several zipper compartments in which you might find nail clippers, a screw driver, address book, make-up, wallet, checkbooks, hair combs, hand lotion, dental floss, car keys, extra car keys, silver hair clips, fishing line, department store receipts, pens, pencils, cell phone, stamps, calculator, paperclips, needles with thread, toothbrush and perfumes. If she is headed out for the evening, you can add white gloves and jewelry. This is only the surface, the part I might recognize from a glance.

I have offered to carry her albatross over the years, especially during periods of frail health, but tire after a few short blocks.

Mom, you can’t continue doing this. You have to carry less. Surely, you don’t need all this stuff!

She smiles and takes the bag from my arms. It’s okay honey, I’ll carry it now, I’m used to it.  She shoulders her leather anchor, moving forward with ease.

At the end of her medical appointment, the doctor picks up her purse, loses his balance and stumbles from the weight. Verse, what have you got in this thing? For heaven sake!  She pays him no mind, slips it over her shoulder and walks out.

I suppose we will bury her with that purse. I can’t imagine her doing without it.

 written 10-16-08

The Clothesline

Most people don’t care much for a clothesline. They are too busy running, scheduling and arriving, but something in me loves a clothesline. I love it the way I love my mother. I love it the way I love the first sunny day after a dark winter and I love it the way I love the feel of rich garden soil falling between my fingers.

A clothesline brings me home to myself more fully than my birth certificate, the key to my front door or the address printed on my letters.

What is it about a clothesline that opens this felt place?

Is it the knowing that women have stood before this same simple line doing the same task for as long as there have been clothes to wash? Is it the timeless connection with generations of women who have stood in the open air with the scent of hard work on their hands?

I don’t know what it is. I only know that it feels real to me, the same way that floating down a river feels real. The majesty of the trees, the massive power of rocks and the steady flow of water endure, while civilizations rise and fall, crumbling beneath their own ambitions.

It is so important to have things that are real to hang on to in ones life. That stability allows us to remember the essence of our soul and the fabric from which we’ve come.

I’ve been told there is an African tribe that gives each child a song to sing. A song that is only theirs, so when they find themselves dissipating in the larger world they can retreat, sing their song and come home to the truth of who they are. It is the medicine that returns them to the spirit within that remains constant.

I guess the clothesline is part of my soul song – And how lovely that a man with kind eyes and gentle hands help me sing it into place. Because of him the clothesline is stronger than it has ever been and farther away from the sloping ground that spills into the dense woods below.

The rope is strung between two cedar trees which are middle aged, but by no means old. They are strong, proud and happy to be of service. Before they stood idle, having nothing better to do than shelter a discarded hose and watch over a pile of rotting branches.

The wind spirits are dancing with the fabric of my rayon dresses as I write. They are doing a little two step with my lace edged slips. It makes me smile to watch them. It makes my heart sing. The sun is there too, witnessing and adding its warmth to this sensual outdoor dance. What a lovely thing to watch!

How amazing and magical it is that some part of my essence is involved in this alchemy, while another part, the physical part is too worn out from the demands of a full life, to venture far from my pillow.

 

A love letter to myself

 

She’s right. It is risky to write a love letter to oneself. I could write about the love that did not blossom. That one is fresh in my hands, a little bloody and raw. But no. I am tired of the wringing, wailing and weeping that goes with all of that. I’ll pass the need to mourn to the Greek women who wear black as their personal fabric.

How about someone you miss? I always think of my earthy Aunt Eythel standing in deep noisy mud herding cows in her bright red coat, a giant safety pin holding it closed. Her memory is welcome, her unique eccentricities fill easy volumes in my mind. 

Success? Yes, I could write about success. So many clients come to mind who walked into my office full of pain and apprehension. So many stories shared, light recovered and new directions found.

Those are topics easily available and ready. Oh, but a love letter to myself?

The listener in me would have to give up her hiding place.

The coat would need to be unbuttoned, the heart exposed and revealed. 

What if…what if…what if you dared walk the road of speaking, revealing, allowing, and exposing?  You, who believe you were mis-wired with your nerve endings on the outside instead of fortified beneath muscle and bone. 

I can say that I love the woman I am becoming. My young girl is hidden still beneath white hair and arthritic fingers. It’s not too late to become. Not ever.

I feel myself opening like the seed that sprouts life against the face of the sun, only this time, I am not pushing up between the crack in the sidewalk, where every step made by another is perilous. No, this time I am in just the right place. Protective borders enclose expansion, the soil is rich, warm and waiting. My years are the fertilizer that pull roots below and anchor a climb that is tall, hungry and full. 

Why not love yourself into being? There is nothing to hold you back.

written on Valentine’s day 2008

Death Visits

Death is around my mother now like an energetic cocoon waiting to merge with her physical body and dissolve its solidity into an expansive freedom.

It doesn’t stand by the door the way it does during childbirth. It is more a curious observer there, wondering if mother or child will pass beyond the edge of reality and need a companion to guide their spirit home. No, it is not that kind of death that awaits my mother. That kind of death comes for an otherwise healthy body. Its occasion is sudden, accidental or unexpected.

The death that waits for my mother is slow and subtle. Each day it sucks away minuscule amounts of desire, until her once-active body can no longer will itself to turn the pages of the latest mystery novel arriving in the mail.

The slender hands that once fashioned silky strands of childrens hair into intricate french braids, now struggles to hold a comb or press the spring that fastens her silver hair clip.

The morning reunions she enjoyed with friends at her favorite breakfast café, have been replaced with bottles of painkiller and a glimpse at the newspaper before returning to bed.

This was the woman who danced, sang heart-felt blues at the upright piano and raced around the globe in search of adventure and inspiration. She has no desire to die. Her grasp on life has always been full and present, holding as much of it in each hand as she could manage.

But now she swallows anti-depressants so she can stomach her reality, the reality  of having life’s brilliant dance move farther and farther from her feet. I am not living. I am only existing, she admitted with sadness and resignation. My mother does not believe in complaining, finding fault or dwelling on the negative. She has never referred to herself as old, and continued wearing prom dresses into her eighties.

Death has not claimed her yet, but has moved close enough to examine her breath, weaken her heart and shrivel her body. Her mouth is flung wide in sleep, her breathing open and labored. I know she is fighting. She is thumbing her nose at death and saying, You will not close my mouth or steal my connection to life. Witness the strength of my breathing. Witness the power of my will.

But death does not come at her like a warrior or an avalanche. Death is patient and quiet. Death has time and the confidence that comes from assured victory. It moves slowly, taking back a tablespoon of vitality here, a cup of life force there. It has already stolen the radiance from her smile and precious memories from her heart.

Can she hear death whispering? It is coming closer every day. It’s okay to sleep, death assures her. Let your bed comfort you now. The world is too fast and too noisy. Enjoy the softness of your sheets, the twilight haven of your room. Feel your chest move up and down. There is nothing else that’s important. Just watch your breath move in and out. Begin to surrender. Begin to think about letting go. I have you. As soon as you’re ready, I have you. There is nothing to fear.

One day soon my mother will free herself, like a ship coming untethered from the shore, and we will have her no more.

written 9.25.2008

Neville – my view

I used to work in a small studio space near 20^th and Hawthorne owned by my eccentric friend, Neville. His ancestral home was next door, taking up most of the city block. When Neville retired from teaching, he decided it was time to experiment with the illegal substances he’d read so much about. He talked freely about his discoveries, taking his professors mind into each expanded reality. 

Roses bloomed full, red and fragrant outside my studio window. As my evening client wrote my check and carefully tore it from her vinyl checkbook, I gazed out the window at Neville. His hands were gloved as he pruned blossoms from the bushes that climbed the wire fence. He’d left shirt and tie behind long ago in favor of loose fitting cottons. His eyes were full of light, an ear-ring dangled from his right lobe and the smile on his face rested satisfied and deep.

I walked my client out the door, down the cobbled path and through the gate. We parted with a hug and words of appreciation.  Then I turned to 70 year old Neville who continued trimming and grinning in his own blissful realm.

What are you doing today, Neville, I asked, enjoying his approach to discovery. Today I’m trying mushrooms, he said, and I’m pleased with the result, very satisfying. I should have done this long ago. Neville’s face shone with round contentment. He was fully present and in the moment without fears, baggage from the past or sorrows.

In that moment, he defined everything I hoped to accomplish with my clients. I found myself envying him. I wanted to trim the roses, I thought. I want to go where he has gone.

Neville performed my wedding ceremony when I lived in The Columbia River Gorge. White flowing robes matched his white flowing hair as he readied himself for our service. Do you need a changing room, I’d asked earlier. No, he replied, I have nothing on under my robe. I prefer it that way, the wind feels so good.

Dear Neville, coming to see me session after session, but always content spiraling in his own unique orbit. His experiments doing more for him than I ever could.

 written 7-9-08

Neville – his view

Neville studies the old school clock above his desk, measuring time in his familiar practiced way.

Ah, another clear, crisp afternoon, he thinks. Martha is off to the accountants office, then to her women’s meeting, the kids and grand-kids aren’t bothering me. I have quiet. If I get my article written for the British Journal before 5, I can continue my experiment, then cross the street to Lena’s café and listen to poetry.

Neville lifts the latch on his desk, pulls out the worn composition books stored inside and runs his fingers down the dappled black and white covers. The books have preprinted labels that read Name, School and Grade. They are left-overs from another life.

On the first book, under Name, it reads Marijuana, under School, he has inked the year his experiments began, 1990, and under Grade the word, Private. The second book is called LSD, the third, Mushrooms and the fourth Peyote. He is opening the mushroom book today, placing the date inside and book marking it for later documentation.

He looks at his Underwood typewriter, the keys round and predictable, just like his life. Maybe, he thinks, he will wait to write the article for the Society. Karen is working in the studio today, it would be nice to talk with Karen.

Thinking of her, he walks to the window and pushes back maroon drapes that have hung there for the last 30 years. Yes, she is there on time, greeting her client, the tall woman in the BMW, who wears tight clothes and has trained her hair in long blond dreadlocks. Oh well, maybe I’ll talk with her when she’s finished. Maybe not.

Neville goes downstairs to the kitchen, pulls a stool from the corner and reaches high, into the top shelf of the cupboard. His fingers touch the cool porcelain surface of a cookie jar, the one shaped like a pig, the one that belonged to his mother in 1940. He removes its round pink head and dipped inside, where carefully weighed mushrooms are stored in small plastic bags. Neville is proud of his perfect divisions, a necessary element in understanding how much was taken and the result produced. He counts the remaining packages, each labeled and dated.  Satisfied, he puts the top back on the pig, climbs down, and replaces the stool in it’s corner by the Frigidaire, unconsciously making sure each leg is perfectly aligned to the patterns of the squared linoleum.

He pulls an oak chair from the table, remembering the way the designs on the back had come alive when he used LSD. He’d written pages that night. The carved designs seemed to deepen and reveal the woodcarvers life. The chair became the tree; the tree traveled to the woodcarvers shop and the woodcarver chipped away for hours making perfect designs. He imagined his father meeting the carver and buying his chairs, sitting in them, testing them, admiring the craftsmanship in his work. It all lay out before him as if he were there, as if he could know, as if his father had told him before he died.  Neville sat down, unrolled the plastic and slipped a piece of dried mushroom in his mouth.

He liked these discoveries. They were transcendent somehow and infinitely more interesting than his work as a professor. He used to be excited and intrigued by his students and research, but what was safe and predictable had become dry and dull. He bore his discontent quietly year after year until he could retire.  These new experiments were different, they were never the same.

Neville wanted to know God. He wanted to know God’s mind. The Gnostic Church had educated his intellect but left his body and spirit behind. Now he’d found the drug ticket just like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. These journeys were freeing him and he craved them.

As Neville’s vision began to soften and expand, he noticed the luminous, lavishly petaled blossoms in the studio rose gardens, his gaze out the window transfixed. The roses were alive and vibrant, swimming in afternoon light. They swirled in large blooms of blush and sweet generous scent. Were they calling him? Suddenly, the darkened kitchen seemed repressive and impossible. He had to get out of there, he had to be with the roses. He wanted to know them, smell them, put them in his bed. Martha would like that, he thought, coming home to a bed of freshly cut roses ~ but maybe not. He didn’t care, he would gather them anyway. 

He got up from the wooden chair, leaving his shoes beneath the table. Remnants of his professors intellect telling him to be objective, all the time feeling in a deeper part of himself that the professor should be left behind; that the professor was the one who was trapped, outmoded and in the way. Neville moved through the darkened hallway to the front door. He reached below the church pew he had placed in the entryway and found his gardening box. The red handled rose clippers were on top, neatly closed and oiled.

Neville tucked them in the pocket of his pants and moved down the wide cement stairs into the light. It was a short walk to the studio. He noticed a candy wrapper and fast food cup near the tire of his Hillman. He must pick those up, he told himself, but not now.  Getting to the roses felt urgent, like his life depended on it.

He climbed the two short steps to the garden gate and felt immediate relief. There they were, waiting and inviting him in. Neville cradled one full head of fragrance at a time, disappearing into its irresistibly fresh scent, then he continued clipping, making a little mountain of discarded roses below him on the ground. They fell in heaps of pink, pale yellow, purple, and garnet. Each ruffled petal a unique shade and scent. He lingered over the next and the next, willing to join and dissolve, willing to become the world of roses.

The door opened to Karen’s office, his lovely friend, Karen. He must talk with her. He must share this moment, later, when she was free. Now she seemed worlds away, now she was talking with that tall woman again whose shoes made too much noise when she walked the cobbled path.

I’m glad that session is over, Neville thinks. I’m glad that woman is going. She doesn’t seem to belong here with the roses.  She seems busy and in a hurry. Oh, there is Karen, coming over. Smiling. She looks at me and knows. She understands what I must do. I’d like to talk with her but the roses are really important right now. They are everything. I can smile at her. I want to talk with Karen, but not now. Really, I can not do it now.

written 7-12-08

Almost selling the truck

Saturday morning my husband Gib listed his truck on Craig’s List. He put it in for $1,300 because it needs work. The truck was full of Gib’s stuff, because he is basically a trasher, so it was a real mess. I told him last week-end that we should clean it out, but he was not up for it.  Gib gets a call as soon as the ad hits the net from a guy that lives basically as far away from us as he can live and still claim he lives in Portland. They talk and he makes him an offer of $1,000, which is fine with Gib. Gib offers to bring the truck to the guys house in two hours. “Bring the truck over and I’ll go get the cash!” This is Saturday morning and we are sitting around in our pj’s.

The truck is over by the pole barn, so we walk over and start to unload it. It is full, full, full of his crap. Gib: Gee, I guess we should have done this earlier. Me: No comment.  There are locked boxes in the back where he stores his camping equipment: sleeping bags, chairs and tents. Of course, this is mixed with tennis balls, old socks, tools, and tavern receipts. When he opens the box the worst smell comes out. A mouse or mouse family have lived in there, been pooping and dying and have eaten ALL of his camping equipment. The smell is overwhelming, an odor mixed with mold from sitting too long in the shade of an Oregon winter.

So we start pulling stuff out and tossing it to the ground. Gib is throwing wood screws out the back of the truck into the gravel where we’ll have to hunt down each one, so the gardeners don’t get flat tires.  More work.

 We drive the truck to the house and get soap and the vacuum, both of us gagging on the smell. The front cab is also covered in mold, and more of Gib’s twelve year old way of storing crap. Meanwhile, it’s nearly two, and I’m saying, “This guy is waiting, give him a call!”  Gib is SO attention deficit disorder he can only focus on what’s right in front of him, everything else gets lost. We are hours away from done, so I keep saying, “time to call him, time to call him!” He calls at two, and tells him three thirty, which I think is terribly optimistic. 

 Gib tells me he still wants to get the oil changed and go through the car wash. I tell him to let the new owner do that, but he is determined; plus the clock is ticking, we are going out that evening and need to be dressed and ready. I load the crap we took from the truck into my trunk to dump it in a dumpster, but Gib doesn’t like that idea, because he’s not ready to deal with that part yet, so I haul it out again. Finally, after mopping the ceiling, sides and floor of the truck it looks okay. I spray air fresher in there, but it has the same effect it has in the bathroom. You still smell the shit, it just has an artificial smell laid on top, even worse. We use Windex on the windows and that helps.

Time to get our evening clothes and run. No, Gib needs a shower first, and advice on what to wear to the concert, and he can’t find his belt….anywhere. Finally, we are on the road with me following him in my car, but guess what?  The truck needs gas, so we pull into a station. I’m thinking, knowing Gib, that he is probably filling it up instead of putting in ten bucks. I want to yell at him, but am all yelled out.  That’s done. We make it to the oil change place, but they have long lines and an hour wait. It’s an oil change and car wash. Gib says he will take the wash only, but they say they only wash cars that have had an oil change, but he has already pulled in and there is no road around, so they have to let him go through the wash, because the truck has no reverse, except in the morning when the weather is cold, which is why we are selling it in the first place! The guys at the car wash are not happy. They don’t know how to handle it, so they talk about it for a loooooong time.

I wait for him to go through the wash. We are on the road again. Oh, nope. We are not. Gib pulls into a Shell Station to buy oil. He parks the truck so it blocks all the gas pumps and slowly walks inside to buy six dollars worth of oil. Cars are waiting to get gas as he leisurely pulls the dip stick out, wipes it clean and makes his assessment. Okay, oil in now. Old man blocking gas pumps has been politely tolerated by everyone in the long line that reaches out to the street.

Now we are ready to make the long drive to this guys house. I honk my horn really loud because Gib is pulling the truck into the side of a bus…..~!  “Didn’t notice that Karen, wonder where it came from.”

Nerves on edge now.

We get to the guys house and he lives in scumville, because he is a scum. He hops in the truck with Gib to test drive and doesn’t come back for a really long time. He offers Gib $500 and keeps Gib in his clutches, while he does his slimy salesman routine.  They walk to my car and Gib tells me what’s up. I hit the ceiling!

 “What, we drove this truck all the way over here so he could break his word?”  The guy is still talking to Gib. “We had a deal!” I say, “The deal was for $1,000.”  The guy has Gib’s keys and doesn’t want to give them back. I said, “NO DEAL!!!” Gib smiles, and says, “We all have wives. You know how that goes.” He is leaning on me, because he doesn’t know how to get free of him. He finally gets his keys back and we pull out, both of us shaken by his Mafia manner.

Stressful… Now we have two vehicles, so we take the truck to my daughters house and park it. We’ll put a For Sale sign on next week. It’s time to meet our friends at the fancy restaurant for dinner. I don’t even bother to change, just go as I am, because I’ve had it. I order a coffee drink and good food, the day is looking better.

The show afterwards is fabulous. Flamenco dancers from Spain. Unbelievably beautiful, but I’m having trouble staying awake. We get home at midnight and suddenly I am wide awake and so is Gib, so I begin doing a sketch in my art pad, and he does some computer work. It’s two o’clock in the morning and we HAVE to go to bed, but somehow we are not tired. At four, I am still laying in bed going, I must sleep!, but can’t. Finally, we sleep.

My daughter calls at eight the next morning to see if we’ll help her paint a bedroom. Sure, why not? Half awake we drive into Portland again, stopping to dump all the crap from the truck in a big dumpster outside a manufacturing plant. Illegal dumping. Gib is fumbling around with the lid, being nervous and looking over his shoulder. He makes a horrible criminal. He has no skill at it at all.   

written 11-06-07

I imagined you

I imagined you walking down the driveway this morning. As I looked out the big circular window in the bathroom, there you were. Just for a moment. You were wearing black shorts and sandals. Morning light danced in the silver of your hair; your head was bent and your arms overfull with all that you carry from truck to house. Your walk was distinctive and measured. You didn’t look up or notice me. Your gaze was on the driveway and the cases in your hand. I imagined also, before loading your arms that you had eaten yellow plums plucked fresh from the branch, a little soft and overripe. 

How grand and welcome you looked against that long gaze of forest drive, too preoccupied to notice the fields of clover, ferns and draped ivy that witnessed your return. The wooden piles that divide pavement from foliage quietly and firmly directing your path to our shelter and into my hungry arms. 

In that moment, seeing you there, a smile drifted across my face, my body lit with recognition. He has come back to me, I told myself, he is home. But you are not here yet. You will not come tomorrow or the day after or the next. I must wait for your return. But the plums will not be able to hang on much longer. They are already losing their grasp. It is hard for me to wait as well, but I can pass the time. I have fasting to do, clients to see, friends who visit, clothes to sew, dreams to dream, pictures to draw and words to write. I’ll spend a day of silence going in and in and in. 

I am a new person now that you are with me. I am a woman with a veracious longing. I am the desert and you are the water. When you are away, I return to my essence and know myself. It’s familiar, comfortable and rich. But when you are with me, I abandon the beauty of that place and reach for you. I can do nothing else, nothing. My longing has a life of it’s own and there is no stopping it. It’s a force running through me and its only path, surrender.

From nowhere you appeared in my life, changing it deeply and forever. Is it any wonder I have visions of you? My spirit lies open and waiting.

written 8-10-05

The Writing Group

I am liking myself more these days.

I am buying new clothes and wearing brighter colors.

My eyes are softer and hold more tenderness when I look in the mirror. I believe it is because I’ve been stripped down like the walls in Gail’s kitchen, taken back to lath, beam and purpose.

I know this birth is a result of being in this group. This is the only place in memory where I have felt free to express all of me. I am held here. I have a blanket to wrap around me in your warmth, acceptance, love and language.

I did not expect a birth. I never came expecting such holding, but it was given none the less; the perfect place at the perfect time. I bow humbly and thank you from the remodeled walls of my heart.

written April 16, 2008

The Note

He lay in a hospital bed, unable to speak. A preacher came to see him everyday, holding his hand, offering words of encouragement and turning inward to ask God for help. Bless this soul, the preacher repeated, and return him to health.

My father’s eyes were open, but he was too weak to speak or move his body.

The preacher read scriptures aloud, always smiling, praying and talking with my father about salvation, heaven and hell.

At the end of two weeks my father gestured for pen and paper. The preacher slid them within his grasp, smiling and encouraged.

Father found the strength to write three words, then pushed the paper in his direction. The preacher stood up and read the note. It said, in shaky exhausted script, Hit the road.

written April 30, 2007